"That's some good a** pizza"

Gotta catch my breath.  What a weekend, 2 trips to Chicago down, 1 to go.  Uzi and Ike came out for the first weekend of Mich's SB.  They got lost on the way into Wheaton and didn't get to my house until 10.  We drove to the city, in some pretty bad snow, and got to my sister's apartment at 11:30.  Of course AT&T sucked and I couldn't get a hold of her so we were standing in the little entry room trying to get in.  For some reason I brought a pillow, so I felt foolish just standing there with my little overnight bag and pillow. I never bring a pillow, weird.

Finally we got in and headed out to the bars around midnight.  We wanted to get some drinks before we went to the planned final destination, John Barleycorn, but we had nowhere to pregame.  So we did a mini barcrawl on Broadway, heading south, so away from boys town, great choice!  The first bar was this little irish dive.  It was like the beginning of a joke.  "An Asian and two Africans walk into an irish bar..."  I think I got the first round of shots, SoCo and lime, then a PBR to clean it off.  We got some strange looks in that bar.  Onto the next one.  Friar Tuck's, my dad's old favorite bar downtown, was second.  Ike got us a round of these weird jagerbomb kind of shots, they tasted like root beer tho.  Then 3 IPA beers, of course Uz and Ike hated theirs'...they like those fruity drinks I guess.  It was someone's birthday there and they had to take a shot from the anus of this blow of sheep, then kiss the sheep so it didn't feel used...Last bar before Barleycorn was this MSU bar, Uzi tried to get a discount saying that he went there, didn't work.  He then ordered us a pitcher of margarita.  So we were pretty good after that, so we hailed a cab and headed North.  We got to Barleycorn and they were closing so we didn't get to go in.  We ran into one of Uzi's friends, Jennifer, in line though and she suggested this new bar called Crossing.  Ok.  The four of us piled into a cab.  I was surprised that she just ditched her other friends to come with us because she barely knows Uzi, they had only hung out once or twice before that.  Crossing was also closing, demn!  Got another cab (Cassie you'd have been in heaven with all these cab rides) and went to The City Tap, dubbed the shi**y crap because I guess its pretty dirty or whatever.

We got some drinks and just kind of posted up.  Ike was hilarious, doing all these weird dances, making fun of people.  There was this one guy checking out Uzi from behind.  I guess I was supposed to tell Uzi because eventually the guy approached Uz and they talked a little.  It was funny to watch.  The best part of that bar was when this really drunk nerdy looking kind of guy started aggressively groping his girlfriend while dancing, then they fell over.  So the dance floor cleared a little and Ike jumped in the middle of the floor and did this weird dance that involved this clawing motion.  He looked retarded, literally.  People were coming up to him and telling him he was doing a great job.  Oh, then there were these Asian chicks, they were looking in our general direction for awhile.  Ike went over there and talked to them and then came back.  He comes up to us and he's like, "Yo, so they're Filipino"  We looked at him and were like, "We don't care, we didn't want to know that".  This one guy called Ike Kanye West, Ike was pissed haha.  We left City Tap around 3:30.  Got some subway, went to my sister's apt, ate then went to bed.  Uzi and I had to share a blow up matress, we were packed like sardines.

Well, I want to write more but I have to start getting ready to go downtown for the 3rd time for a David Gray concert with Squires.  We're taking the train, Squires "assumed" that I wanted to drink on the train, bad reputation I suppose haha.

I'll finish the rest of the weekend post soon hopefully, which will include an explanation for the title of this blog post.

Here's to Filipino's with fake bosoms,

Chin

Without Bias

Dre and I checked out a new bar in downtown Wheaton last night.  It's across the train tracks, so it's farther away from the other bars.  Its a different kind of place, they play the music really loud and it seems like the kind of place people would dance at, but theres no dance floor really so I don't know what they're going for.  After one drink there we left for Muldoon's.

Tonight we hung out with a couple of old HS friends.  To me, they were more just classmates in high school, but Drabik grew up with.  We went out to dinner, a bunch of places were packed so we ended up going to b dubs.  Shay, from last summer, was working there so we got to talk for awhile.  After, Mike and I came back to my place and watched another 30 for 30.  This one was called "Without Bias", Stev, there's a chance you might know what this one was going to be about.

As for the notes left on my phone.

"The end of the world would be fun, aside from the actual ending"

I think it wouldn't be the end of the world scenario, more just a situation where you had to evacuate a city at all costs.  I think about the movie "I am Legend" for the set-up I guess.  Imagine just driving to get out of your town, only to find yourself stuck in bumper to bumper traffic, moving nowhere.  At that point, you would get out of your car and just start running.  That's where I think it would be fun.  Think about running through traffic, leaving all possessions behind, no matter how valuable.  You just have to run, dodging other people opening their car doors to do the same.  On what is usually a 70 mph highway, everything would be just so out of place like "Why am I running on this highway, what are all these cars, where am I running to?  I guess the chaos and everything would just be overwhelming, I think I would be in this surreal state, immune to feeling, emotional or physical.  The only concern would be "Run".

I found myself writing that in my phone when I was stuck in traffic going to my mom's last night.  I thought that it would be so much faster to get out of my car and walk/run there.  Rarely would we find ourselves in a situation where it would be appropriate to leave our cars behind.  In fact, the only situation I think I would leave my car is if I was running from something life threatening, even then I think I would find it hard to get out.  Look at all the people who get run over by trains or drown, all because they refused to give up their cars.  Just a though, albeit a morbid one, but the thrill of leaving your possessions would be so nuts.

"Without Bias"

The 30 for 30 we watched tonight was about the death of Len Bias.  This parts for Cassie:

Len Bias was a really good basketball player at U of Maryland in the mid 80's.  He got drafted in '86 by the Celtics.  Within a week after he was drafted he was back at the Maryland campus getting ready to party with some buddies.  Long story short, they did some coke which led to Len having seizures, going into cardiac arrest, and ultimately dieing.  Messed up.  One of the people they interviewed put it perfectly, he said something along the lines of "Len was the perfect example of how high we can fly and how quickly we can fall".  I mean, he just got drafted, that's like walking into 1502 after your last day of exams senior year.  Then he just died.

As I write this blog, I'm wondering why its so depressing sounding.  I don't think its some metaphor for why I want to move out of my house and all, I think it's just coincidence that both these thoughts were about the end of the world and death.

On a separate note, Nicole was in town this weekend.  We didn't hang out at all, she suggested getting Jamba tonight but I declined, deciding it best not to...not to hang out(?).  She's dating this Colorado boy, they seem very serious, she indicated they are planning on taking the next step after she graduates.  I keep thinking about this conversation we had at Shane's before.  It was that whole platonic talk, about how guys can never think of girls on a platonic level.  I have changed my opinion on thats though.  Anyways, Nicole said that she almost agreed, but she thinks that on rare occasions it can happen.  I now agree with that, but it was something else she said to me that stuck out.  she said that she believes that when a couple get married, that both individuals should be willing and should stop socializing with the opposite sex.  So I know that it may sound like I'm twisting this, but I know that she said that.  So basically, she thought that when she gets married, she should cut out or at least be willing to cut out friendships with all other guys besides her husband, citing that we should do anything for love.

I didn't mull it over that much until now, but I am realizing that to have accepted her invite to Jamba would have given her the impression that I was cool with being friends.  Once she gets married, there is no way, if she is true to her opinions, that we can ever be friends again.  No way.  Nicole and I are not that "rare" case of completely platonic.  I'm interested to see if she really gets engaged even if they've only been going out for a few months.  Them Taylor girls...

I have to mention that Dre and I have been playing a lot of basketball.  I've developed a decent shot.  I had a great stretch of time starting on Thursday night when Mike and I played at the Sports Center.  I played really well, even made a game winning 3.  Then, on Friday I got all greens on the way to work.  At work, I talked with my boss about my performance this first month.  She said that she thinks the things I have done are great and that this report I wrote was very well composed.  It was a good stretch of about 24 hours.  Actually, this whole weekend has been pretty good.  I hope the good fortune just keeps rolling.  Ideally, I would win some sort of sweepstakes that gets me 2 tickets to NYC next weekend but that probably won't happen.  I'll take no world endings or deaths, I'll consider that good enough.

Here's to Livin' on a Prayer (just texted to me by Stev),

Chin

Run Ricky Run

This was bound to happen...The note I left on my phone this time was...

"A buzzword kinda guy"

I wrote this last Saturday while I was out at the bars.  I have no clue where I was going to go with it.  Suffice to say, it won't contribute too much to my thoughts...Maybe I was getting excited when people said words I liked.

Recently, I've been contemplating moving out of my house.  Actually, I should say I've been contemplating when to move out of my house.  I really want to move out now, but who knows if I will be sticking with this job past the 6 month "trial period" they've got me on.  Also, looking around, it's pretty expensive to have an apartment by yourself, I want to look for a roommate it makes things a lot cheaper.

I talked with Wheeler on Skype the other day, we spent half the conversation setting him up with his blog.  I didn't realize it was his New Year's resolution to stay in better touch with his AA and HS friends.  That's how I got him to start his blog.  We'll see if he keeps up with it, right now its looking grim.  I think I need to tone down the whole imposing things that I like onto other people.  I've realized I do it a lot.  Like, I pretty much made Wheeler make his blog, I made him play Smash when he hated the game, I made everyone in the house watch Conan.  I'm going to stop being so assertive with such subjective things from now on.

Lastly, I want to come out to AA within the next month, I was thinking last weekend of Feb, but Sweeney and Cassie I know you're doing the sober month, so let me know when a good time would be.

Here's to buzzwords,

Chin

Reggie Miller vs. the New York Knicks

I forgot to mention that I'm titling each of my blogs after a 30 for 30 that I have watched because my sister gave me the first 15 episodes for Christmas.  So the King's Ransom was about when Wayne Gretzky got traded from the Edmonton Oilers to the LA Kings.  Last blog really didn't have anything I could relate to that so I forgot to mention that.  I've made 2 new notes on my phone:

1. "Becoming our parents (the coughsneeze)

All my Wheaton friends know how badly I want to move out and find my own place.  People always tell me stuff  about how I sometimes act like Ron or something.  While I can't bring myself to say that I don't want to be like him, I can say that having lived at home, there are certain things that I want to omit from my personal habits.  Examples:  Every morning, without fail, if I don't wake up to my alarm, I wake up to Ron clearing his throat downstairs at the kitchen table.  He does it a lot in the mornings and its loud and he does about 3 or 4 throat clearings each time.  I just can't stand it.  I know its not fair, obviously its something he can't control, but just hearing it literally every morning is the worst. Also, I'm not a morning person and when I go downstairs hes always at the kitchen table read the paper.  As he's reading he always goes "Hmm, hm, HMMM", as if he's reading an interesting article.  I know he does it because he wants me to ask, "What's so interesting Ron?", these days I don't though so he usually pauses for 10 seconds or so after then just tells me anyway.  Sometimes he tells me about something I already know, which is the worst. A couple days ago, "Wow! Jerry Sloan resigned".  I knew that already though, usually I'm just too tired to tell him I already knew that so I just respond in kind, "Hm".

Anyways, the coughsneeze is Ron's version of sneezing.  It's a very abbreviated sneeze so it sounds like a cough.  At work the other day, I sneezed and my officemate goes, "Sorry, but are you sneezing or coughing because every time I sneeze you say 'God bless you' to me, and I would also say it to you but I just don't know if you're coughing or sneezing." I explained to him that I was sneezing and realized I'm going to be exactly like Ron in that sense. Ugh...Sneezes are not something we can control, let alone how we sound when we actually sneeze.  I guess I'll just have to accept that I will become more and more like Ron everyday and just hope for the best.

2. "The couple years Jordan wasnt around"

This idea stemmed from the 30 for 30 that chronicled the 2 years that Jordan was playing minor league baseball.  Since I was a Bulls fan, I really don;t remember paying any attention to those years.  Watching this 30 for 30 though, I realized that those were two awesome years of basketball.  I highly suggest that you check out that show.  I wanted to compare Jordan not being around to us not being around AA.  Not to say we are like the MJs U of M, but to say that I want to keep an eye on what's going on there even when I'm not around.

I have to go pick up Fulton and return a shirt, I wanted to talk about this more.  I welcome you all to think about it and leave your comments.  Stev, I know you helped them with the Avatar Mock Rock haha.  Cassie, I guess you're kind of like the Pippen because you're still in AA but we're not all together.

Here's to the becoming Ron version 2.0,

Chin

King's Ransom

Stev...yes, I am enjoying the new lupe song, but you know how I am, I usually REALLY listen to a song when the whole album is out.  As far as the next reunion, I will be in AA for sure the first weekend of April, but I am open to going out there anytime before then for a weekend.  Or we could always try to meet somewhere else, I know Drabik has been meaning to get out to NYC for a while now.  Then Cassie will be back in Illinois for that vball thing she was here for last year.  Problem with that is that I'll be in Michigan at that time (May 26) for Austin and Brittany's wedding.  But yea, I'm open to a weekend anywhere between myself and everyone else, maybe not Wheeler tho.

And Cassie, I also miss the daily updates, but I think we're all busier now then, plus blogging isn't as novel anymore.  I do check to see if both your blogs are updated every night tho, haha.  Nevertheless, I have been trying to right thoughts onto my phone so I could talk about them in my blog, because I never have any ideas of what to write about.  So here's the two ideas I have written down on my phone.

1. "Are humans instinctively monogamous?"

I actually posed this question to Sweeney.  I was thinking about it just because of how frequent divorce is and how we've all definitely been attracted to multiple people, sometimes at the same time.  Sweeney's answer was no, but he thinks that our ancient ancestor's were, so from time to time there are humans who are monogamous.  He proposes that goes back to our ancestors because back then, humans were more concerned about things like surviving themselves, not trying to expand their lineage.  Now that we have such easy access to food and shelter, humans now focus on spreading their seeds or whatever.  That definitely makes sense.  Then when you think of the monogamous animals like those ducks that look like they can run on water, I think they're going extinct. Penguins also, and they're monogamous because of how hard it is to live in Antarctica, I'm really only thinking about March of the Penguins haha.  Obviously, Sweeney persuaded me to agree with him, so I'm sticking to it.  I just hope that if/when I do get married it's someone that I can get along with and stay with for until we're too old to worry about getting a divorce, like 60-70, just because it would just be a hassle at that point.  Even so, once I retire I just plan to focus a lot on travel, since that's all there will be to do.

2. "Ode to coffee"

I wrote this note down last night while Anderson and I were at Front St. getting some beers.  We talked all about the regular things, him about Jackie, myself about the girlfriend that I don't have, him about flight classes, myself about my new job.  We were thinking of finding a place together when my job moves to Elgin, but its looking grim right now, I still do want to move out by the end of March regardless.  Living at home is just getting so aggravating with all the little things that me parents do, but thats for another time.  Anderson and I got on the subject of coffee and how awesome it is.  He buys his from Dunkin donuts a lot, I hardly buy coffee already made, except for when I go out to bfast.  I guess I wrote "Ode to coffee" thinking I was going to have some well structured verses or something, but its really just that I like it a lot, I realize that I can't abuse it (only 1 travelers mug from mon-fri), and that it makes me feel like I can do way more crap than if I didn't have it.  It usually gets me through until lunchtime.  Then at work, after lunch I get a huge crash.  Its been rough sometimes, I just try to stay moving.  Oh coffee, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...naw...

I am going to try to blog more often, hopefully this new method of writing ideas will give me more content to work with.  And Cassie, I had a dream last night, could you check the book for what it means?  The dream was that I played some catch with Conan O'Brien in the Wheaton City Hall parking lot.  Check for words like "parking lot" or "O'brien".

Here's to the trinity of blogs, may they live forever!

Chin

Snowed out (almost)

A blizzard of "biblical proportions" is what they're calling this.  It sounds like a good slogan for Dairy Queen.

So aside from the huge amount of snow that has started, it's been pretty windy for a few days now.  It's blowing against the windows in my bedroom, so it's been around 52 degrees when I go in there at night.  Now I know how Cassie feels from 1502 (I still turn my space heater off when I'm at work, haha...jk killer).  Another effect of this storm is that I get my first snow day since high school tomorrow.  They let us off work today at 3, it took me 4 times longer to get home though.  The worst part was when I finally got into Wheaton.  Most of the roads weren't plowed, it was getting dark and my wipers had iced over, demn!  Luckily, I'm home now.  Since I don't work tomorrow, I kind of want to go out and do something, I wonder if DT Wheaton will be open.

Todd was in town over the weekend but I only got to see him on Friday night.  We went and saw the Mechanic, which was pretty good actually.  The other days he spent with Sarah, I'm pretty sure they're going to get married.  On Saturday Todd and I were going to hang but he kept doing things with Sarah, I didn't really care though because I think I was playing Zombies all day.  Brandon and I got to level 34, new record, nice!  Ricky was in the game but left after around level 29 or so to meet up with some other friends.  It was about a 3.5 hour game.

I wonder how Wheeler's doing out in CO, I heard he ended up going to AA after all.  Typical Wheeler, he couldn't plan it, but he ended up making it happen anyway.  I'm just saying, I think he could have made it happen that weekend when you were all up there.


This image taken from Drabik's Tumblr, taken from

Here's to DQ's new marketing campaign,

Chin

PS...I think Stev is the front runner now for first wedding reunion.