Hoooome Is Where You Diiiiiiiiiiie!

It would seem that it's Halloween, everyone! Maybe I'll make a spooky post tonight. Ooooooooo! Actually, what I have planned isn't very scary. It was pretty scary being there, though. But I don't want to get ahead of myself. I can't effectively tell you a story without getting you hungry first. Remember that delicious dinner I mentioned in last night's post? Well it definitely went down tonight. The family and I took a drive to Sherman to have dinner at the American Pie Company? You remember the entry where I talked about that, right? There was an ice storm and stuff? Of course you remember. Well this was the first time I've been here without getting a breakfast item on the menu. So this is what I ordered. I started off with this delicious vegetable minestrone soup. I dipped some bread in it. Exquisite. Then I had what the rest of the table had for an appetizer. That was potato pancakes. These were probably the best potato pancakes I've ever had. And the chopped apples/applesauce thing it came with was just as delicious on top of the potato pancake. Then came the main course. I had myself the Southern Fried Chicken meal. This came with a biscuit, cornbread, very lumpy mashed potatoes with a white pepper gravy, and four pieces of this perfectly fried chicken. Holy shit. It was phenomenal. I almost didn't leave enough room for dessert. But I was not so full that I didn't want a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie with their own whipped cream on top. It was a perfect way to end a perfect meal. I never ever eat that much, but I don't regret it even a little bit. Alright. Now that you're all hungry, I'll move on to my spooky story.

Tonight I went to a Halloween party. No, it wasn't one of those cool Halloween parties where you have friends that invite you. It was a lame party at a Gamestop. Now, normally, I wouldn't be caught dead going to any party at a store that caters to nerds, but my old boss and good friend wanted me to go. And I'm a great guy, so I went. I even made the 40 minute drive it takes to get there. I knew I was headed into nerd city, but I'm a devoted friend, so I made that sacrifice. I figured the Super Smash Bros. tournaments would keep them all busy and out of my hair. So I get there and greet my old boss who was dressed up as slutty Alice in Wonderland or something. I also greet my old district manager, and two old assistant managers. You see, when you leave Transworld Entertainment Corporation, you go to Gamestop. It's just natural progression, I guess. But after we were done with the pleasantries, she recruited me to be some sort of event photographer. Sure, I'm an amazing photographer, but I'm definitely not comfortable with people telling me how to make my art. Plebeians. But I took pictures, and as I was doing this, and immersing myself within the crowd of nerds, I began to realize just how embarrassing these kids are. They were all dressed up as some sort of anime character. They were all making internet jokes. They were all talking very loud, because of how used to being ignored they all are. It was a freak show. There was this one kid in particular who was the loudest of them all. I have no idea what he was dressed as, but he was wearing a shirt and tie and had his hair dyed blue. He kept on screaming profanity. And there were little kids around. I just wanted to tell him to get the hell out. Also, his profile name in the Smash Bros. tournament was "nigga." And I really just wanted to smack some reality into this kid. He is so god damn ignorant. But enough about him, there were a million nerds there to talk about. And they all made a point to bring up their "girlfriends" at any opportunity. Guys. I promise I don't care about your nerdy, anime girlfriends. Take your insecurities elsewhere. There was one little kid there with his dad, though. This kid was adorable, and polite, and dressed as Mario. It was very cute. My old boss gave him a gift card for not being insufferable. But then there was this other young kid who was absolutely obnoxious. He was at the candy bowl the whole time. He was literally diving into the bowl face first, and grabbing candy with his mouth. Safe to say, I did not partake in any candy tonight. He also wouldn't stop asking questions, and I just had to eventually ignore him. My old district manager also dressed up in a giant, inflatable Mario costume at one point. It even had a motor to keep it inflated. He looked positively ridiculous, and I made sure to let him know. He's not my DM anymore. I'll say what I damn well please. There was also this fat kid hitting on my old manager the whole night. He'd compliment her on her slutty Alice costume, and ask her if she needed any help with anything. It'd be cute, if it wasn't so repulsive. I felt like letting him know that she's married, and not looking for a fat kid to give her the good lovin'. But it was more fun to watch, anyway. Eventually, all of the excitement died down, though. Nerds were picked up by their parents, and I sat back and watched all of the employees clean up. It was nice seeing all of my old bosses that I liked again. It was too bad that it had to be in the dorkiest setting possible, but I guess I'll take what I can get.

Well damn. How was that for a scary story? Just feel lucky that none of you had to live it. Also, if any of my blaudience (blog audience) are nerds, well... it sucks to be you, I guess. Alright. Well I'm bordering on crazy tired right about now. So I guess I should wrap this up. I'm spending most of my Halloween just hanging out until around 10pm, when Anthony gets out of work and we do something Halloween-y, I guess. I figure I'll probably be out late, so I may not get an opportunity to post tomorrow night. We'll see, though. Happy Halloween, blockheads!

I Jerk Off Inside Books And Give Life To Words

Hey there, sports fans. How was everyone's day? I hope they were great. My day was pretty good. I didn't do much. I went to visit my grandmother, ate dinner, made a call or two (one), the Canucks won. It was a pretty good day. I definitely have no reason to complain. This entry may end up being a bit of a short one, though. First off, I have nothing to complain about. Second off, I either don't lead as interesting of a life as I thought I did, or I just don't remember all of the cool things I do. This blog puts a lot of pressure on me to remember all of my hilarious and heartwarming adventures. But I think I can come up with something half-assed for all of you tonight.

You know what I like to do with friends when we can't think of anything else to do? I like to get lost. I just like to get in the car with a friend or two, put on some groovin' tunes, and drive around seeing if we can get lost. So far, I have not been able to get myself really lost yet. My sense of direction is just too great. I remember one of the first times I just went out driving with a friend. It was Christian and me, and I'm not even sure why we decided to do it. I do remember we listened through the entirety of the album How It Goes by Big D and the Kids Table, though. Now most of this adventure was pretty unmemorable. I remember we joked around about how we were driving around looking for good spots to bring chicks to make out. We were pretty cool back then. But there is one vivid memory I have from this particular trip. We were driving around in Brookfield, and we took a turn onto this dark, dirt road. And once we were on it, I was instantly reminded of that scary road from Disney's Beauty and the Beast. You know... The road with all the wolves on it that old dude took on the way to wherever he was going. But this was a classic scary road. It was dark out. It was a dirt road. There were trees on either side, bending over the road. There was a blue mist, and all that scary stuff. There were probably wolves too. Who knows?! But we kept on going on the road. When we drove about half way down it, we saw a man walking on the road in the opposite direction. Now this was probably the creepiest looking dude we've ever seen. It may have just been the setting we were seeing him in, but he was creepy. He was very unkempt, with long messy hair and beard. He was wearing a dirty flannel shirt and a wool hat. And he was holding a bag. The bag also had a head in it. Now I may not have proof of that last claim, but I think it's pretty obvious that the bag had a head in it. And as we slowly passed him, he gave us a crazy stare. The man was obviously a psychopath and a murderer. So we figured it would be a good idea to keep on driving. The only problem with that was that the road ended up being a dead end. Uh oh! So we had to turn around and drive right past this crazed murderer again! We thought for sure he'd be waiting for us with an axe and two more bags for our heads. We were definitely going to become the victims of some cheesy horror flick deaths, and there was nothing we could do about it. So we spent a little time trying to come to terms with our fate, and then we headed back down the road awaiting our cinematic fate. But it never came. We got off the creepy road, drove around for a bit longer, and eventually headed home. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you leave an audience underwhelmed, and disappointed. No climaxes in my stories! Enjoy your blue balls.

Alright. That's all for tonight, folks. I have school in the early afternoon. So I should probably wake up at least by 11. I also need to give those Sports Authority jerks a call too. Then I have a whole day of fun planned for myself involving a delicious dinner in Sherman, and a nerdy Halloween party in Meriden. All of that should leave me with plenty of material for tomorrow's entry. Okay. Time to hit the bed. See you tomorrow, pals!

I Got A Rock

How was everyone's Wednesday? I know mine was just swell. Last night, before I went to bed I wrote down a couple lyrics I had going through my head. So I woke up this morning, and have been working on writing a song around them all day. I changed most of what I wrote down last night, but kept the general idea. The song is coming along pretty nicely, but I was stuck at one part, so I took a break to write this thing up. I've never been one to knock out a song real quick. I take my time, and that often leads to me overthinking what I'm writing, and scrapping a lot of my material. That's probably why I don't end up with too many completed songs. Things were easy back when I was in a ska band. I could just bang out some crappy lyrics about how emo kids are sad or any number of dick and fart jokes on the spot. It was easy. Of course, all those songs blew major gorilla dick. Now I try and write songs about my feelings, and express them through metaphors, imagery, and anthropomorphism. It's fucking difficult! But once I come up with something I'm happy with, it's all worth it. I really need to get on a song writing roll, and just keep the songs coming. This one song whenever I find the motivation to pick up a pen isn't cutting it. I need you guys to motivate me. Give me inspiration! Don't just sit behind your computers and enjoy my funny rants, and moving stories. Make me feel things! Damn! Alright. Well let's move on to today's moving story.

This story involves a dinner party at my friend Ryan's house. Ryan invited Kate, AJ, and myself to his house to make and eat dinner. But this wasn't going to be just any normal dinner. The four of us were going to make ourselves a raw vegan meal. Ryan had a raw cookbook, and he wanted to try it out on us. We were also intrigued by the part of the book that said maintaining a raw diet was supposed to make your eyes glow. Now I have some pretty gorgeous eyes as it is. In fact, the more I think about it, all four of us have some unforgettably beautiful eyes. So this added boost of having our eyes glow just sounded ideal. When we all got to Ryan's, we sat down and flipped through the cookbook to see what we would make. After much deliberation, we settled on Thai Mango Wraps and Chocolate Banana Shakes (using almond milk, instead of the not raw real stuff). And once we were all decided, we got to not cooking. The banana chocolate shake consisted of banana, chocolate, and the almond milk. We also made the almond milk ourselves from a recipe we found called 30 second nut milk (Don't laugh! It's not funny!). The wraps consisted of mango, various greens, some sort of sauce we made, and some sort of edible leaf used as the wrap. Now we had no idea if any of this was going to be any good. So it was decided that I should drive over to the pizza place and get a ziti pizza just in case our wraps and shakes weren't any good. While I went out to do this, all of the food was assembled. And when I came back with the pizza, we were all ready to eat. So we dug in. Everything ended up being great. Those shakes were amazing, even compared to a normal milkshake. Almond milk is delicious. And the wraps were great. Sure, they tasted a little nature-y, but that was pretty refreshing. So our raw vegan meal was a success. Except for the fact that we had a large ziti pizza laying around. So we broke our meal-long dedication to be raw and vegan, and ate a very delicious ziti pizza. Oh well. I guess we would have to survive without glowing eyes, but Ryan still has the cookbook. Our glowing eyes don't have to be a forgotten dream. Maybe one day our eyes will glow brighter than the stars in the sky. The glow of our eyes will only be matched by the warm glow of our hearts (And to think I can't even finish a lousy song). But either way, it was a great meal. And I may be mixing up stories, but I think we all went swimming in Ryan's pool, afterward. It is also very likely that we played pool basketball if we did, in fact, go swimming after our meal. And I'm going to go ahead and continue this story as if these events did occur. So the teams were split up AJ and Ryan versus Kate and me. It was a grueling game, for sure. Water was splashing everywhere. And with the waves our thrashing and flailing created, the hoop itself was floating around the pool. It made for a unique obstacle that we all had to overcome. But in the end, the team of AJ and Ryan came out on top... by a lot. But nobody had more heart than the team of Kate and me. We fought valiantly, and left the pool with our heads held high. I guess it's possible that more happened that day, as well. I'm not really sure. But all of the important details are there. It should also be noted that since that one loss, Kate and I have gone undefeated in every game of basketball we've played since. With my height and power, and Kate's swiftness and ability to manipulate the other team with her looks and personality, we are an (almost) unstoppable team... With glowing eyes.

Alright, well I think I'm going to see what I can do about writing more of this song. It would be pretty cool if I could finish it off tonight. My band Easy Chowder is really taking off, and there's a lot of demand for new material, so I need to be able to satisfy the fans. Hell, we may even need to play a show at some point. But I also don't want us to get ahead of ourselves. We need to strike at the exact right moment. But until then, I'll keep trying to write songs about feeling ways about things. But I'll see all of you guys tomorrow with a brand new story in the continuing adventures of Four One Five Choruses! Bye!

Don't worry. I had my rain jacket on.

So I lied about writing an entry for all of you during the day. I'm a liar, and I don't care. You guys don't want to get addicted to reading my stories, anyway. Sure, the lifestyle of reading my blog looks glamorous now. But just wait until you can't stop. It can turn ugly pretty fast. And I would never want that to happen to any of my readers. You all mean the world to me. I can't let the joy I bring you each day also become your misery. But I do have a story for you tonight. It's a pretty good one, I think. It didn't happen too long ago, either. Just over the summer, in fact. So I guess I'll quit talkin' about doing it, and actually do it! I'm pretty tired, anyway. I need to get down to business.

Alright, so this summer I was invited on a trip to New York City with Christian and his family. And being the big city guy that I am, I quickly accepted that invitation. So after stopping for some lovely pizza at a local Danbury pizzeria, we started driving south-west towards the Big Apple. It was a pretty nice drive, and we decided to park in a nice little parking garage close to where we were finishing off our day. Then we hopped on the subway to Midtown. All this time Christian's mother and I were walking at a brisk pace, weaving skillfully through the crowd. This was not so much the case with Christian and his father. They were sauntering along, falling prey to street vendors and crosswalks. It was a shameful display, but we couldn't just leave them behind. Eventually, we got to some hotel. I'm not sure if we were there for any other reason than to use the bathroom, but we didn't stay long. Then we made our way to the Intrepid museum. I don't know if you know this, but Christian is a huge plane/war/warplane nerd. Back in the old days, I was also that kind of nerd. Mostly through Christian's influence. Christian's dad is also a big nerd when it comes to planes. He builds model planes all the time. I kind of grew out of my war and plane phase, but by that, I really just mean I don't know all of the neat facts I used to. I'm still really into planes, but I don't know about them so much. It's not like I'm going to college to become an official oil changer for planes like Christian is. But anyway, we were all pretty stoked to be headed to the Intrepid museum. Now to clear things up, the Intrepid museum is an air, space, and sea museum inside of an old, decommissioned aircraft carrier. So the four of us go in the museum and are instantly hit with the familiar aroma of old naval vessel. We were quite used to it from our Boy Scouting Days camping out on the USS Massachusetts. So Christian, his dad, and I were like kids in a candy shop going from exhibit to exhibit and just generally nerding out. Christian's mom was being a trooper through it all. Then we got up to the top deck where they had the majority of the planes on display. The sun was beating right down on top of us, but we were still psyched to check out all of the planes. Christian's mother took this time to head back to Midtown to do hip, New York things with her daughter who was living in New York City at the time. She had had enough of us dorks. So we walked around the top deck, and checked out an old plane that some volunteers and employees were refurbishing for a display. Christian's dad took this time to really show off his plane knowledge, and him and one of the volunteers went on talking about planes for awhile. But eventually, the conversation broke down and we continued perusing the deck. After checking out pretty much everything, we went on two of the worst 3D simulators I've ever been on. Only one of them simulated being on a plane. The other was a "cosmic rollercoaster." They were both pretty bad. Then we saw some movie about the Intrepid, and finally made our way to the gift shop. Nothing in there was really all that interesting. I was hoping for some really over the top shirt with a plane on it, but they didn't have any of those, unfortunately. So we left with nothing but maps of the museum and pairs of 3D glasses. With the Intrepid done, we headed back to Midtown to meet up with Christian's mom. Now keep in mind, it was me and the two guys that didn't really know how to get around in New York City. But I eventually saved the day and got us to where we needed to be. And what were we greeted with once we got there? A six pack of Crumbs Cupcakes. Hell yeah! So many great flavors, too. Grasshopper, Cappuccino, Coconut... I was in heaven. So the four of us made short work of those. Then it was back to the subway. We were headed uptown for our dinner reservation. We were still early when we got uptown, so we walked around for a bit. We sat down in some park, and watched a woman change her child's diaper in the most awkward way I've seen. But hey. She was getting the job done. Who am I to judge? But all those crappy diapers really got us in the mood to eat. So we walked a couple blocks to where we were going for dinner. And this completely makes up for all the nerdy things we had done on the Intrepid. Because we were having dinner at Smoke. Smoke is a jazz club/fancy-ish restaurant. And we all know there is nothing cooler to do than hang out at jazz clubs in New York City. So we chilled out for a couple hours, I ate some delicious ravioli for dinner, and an amazing pear tart for dessert. We watched the house big band play. They were spot on. Great musicians, and some really great solos. We also picked up this four CD set the restaurant was selling. Then we headed back to the car, and made our way back to Connecticut. We listened to the CD set on the way back, and from what we heard, it was pretty great. Overall, it was a pretty great trip. There was planes, cupcakes, dirty diapers, jazz... The works, really. Definitely an A+ outing with the Eggers family.

Well I hope that story made up for the one I didn't give you last night. And if it didn't, then maybe you should stop being so difficult to please. My life has only been so interesting. And I can only bend the truth so much before my stories become unbelievable. I try my best to please all of you readers out there. Alright, well I'm bushed (I don't believe I've ever used that term for tired before) so I'm going to go downstairs and sleep in the basement where I belong. Halloween is coming up this Saturday, guys! Tell me what all of you guys are going to be for All Hallow's Eve. Maybe I'll make a humorous post about it! Alright, see you cats, tomorrow!

I'll Write You A Long One Tomorrow During The Day

Guys. The new Lawrence Arms EP leaked finally. Sure, it took them until the day before the release, but it was well worth the wait. It's an amazing EP, and I spent all day listening to it. Sure, I took some breaks for classes, but I can safely tell you that no other music was listened to in the course of this day. Yes, I listened to five songs over and over and over. But I guess that's just what it takes to be a super fan. Alright. Well, enough gushing. Today, I also watched World's Greatest Dad. It was a very twisted movie, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Check it out or not! Whatever! Okay. Well it's 3:30 in the morning, and I am not exactly prepared to write to you guys. I've got nothing better to do during the day, though. So I'll make sure to write to you guys then. Look forward to it, because right now I am going to bed. I need to wake up before noon and call Sports Authority. I need to talk to Edwin and see what's up with me being the new prized employee. Okay. Goodnight, dudes and dudettes.

I'm Coming Undone 35 Miles From Home On This Winter Campus Wasteland All Alone

Hey, my dudes! How about today? Am I right? Pretty great day, for sure. Today I was going on a nice grocery shopping trip with my mother, and before we could even get on the highway, I got a call from that special girl I talk about on here all the time. Yes, Kate called me to let me know she was going to be leaving for school in a little bit, and wanted to know if I wanted her to drop the things she got me at the show off at my house. So I said "Hell no! Let me come to you." Of course, I okay'd this with the driver before I made that offer. So we turned around and headed right to Kate's house. I was greeted by my pup, Elliott. He escorted me to the door. That's when I saw Kate's dad, and Elliott's girlfriend's dad doing some major work on the kitchen. So I shot the shit with them for a bit while I waited for Kate to show herself. Kate came out and gave me the stuff, then Elliott's girlfriend's dad showed me a huge spear that I says he feeds trees with. Today, he was using it to tear up a floor. The giant spear can do anything. I'm absolutely positive it could kill a man with the greatest of ease, but I was hoping to not find out. Then Kate told me all about the show, and how much she wishes I was there, and how great I am, and how I make every situation better. But mostly she wanted me there to be the one other sober person. Unfortunately, I'm an idiot who doesn't take advantage of awesome opportunities. Oh well! But we talked about the show for a little bit, and then I let her get ready to return back to school. The poor girl was exhausted. So we said our goodbyes, and I took my newly acquired hoodie and t-shirt, and went off to shop for groceries. I won't tell you about that, though. That would bore you.

But I will tell you all about my first time going to the American Pie Company in Sherman, CT. I may even tell you a little about my second time there, as well. I think I've only been twice. But anyway... My first time going to American Pie Company I believe occurred very early this year. We had this trip planned out well in advanced. Christian, Kathleen, Erica, and I were all set for delicious food and pie. The night before we were going to go there was a huge ice storm, though. So I looked out my window in the morning and saw everything covered in ice. So I gave Christian a call, and this did not even phase him. He was still rarin' to go. And that's all I needed to hear for me to get in the car and drive to Christian's house. Erica was also ready to go, and was on her way to Christian's, as well. Kathleen, on the other hand, totally bailed on us. Granted, she had a much longer drive than the rest of us, but that's still lame. So we couldn't go with just the three of us. That'd look ridiculous. So we called up Anthony, and he was all about going with us. He just had to shovel and de-ice his driveway. So we waited and waited, and eventually got fed up. So I called Anthony, and told him we'd pick him up, and that's exactly what we did. So we were off on our adventure to Sherman with Christian at the helm. We were, of course, taking our time. There had been an ice storm for crying out loud! But I was cool with that, because the scenery was amazing. All of the trees and bushes covered in a layer of ice just made everything look beautiful. Not to be a pussy or anything, but it was pretty breathtaking. Also, there was no reason to qualify that. It was breathtaking, and you're a pussy. When we got into Sherman, we saw a bunch of people walking around, and they were all being friendly. I believe there were a couple people who waved at us in the car as we passed by. With us all being from unfriendly Danbury, we didn't know what to do, so we just kept driving, hoping to never be waved at again. But eventually, after missing the place once or twice, we ended up at the American Pie Company. We grabbed a seat, and all began to peruse the menu. We were the only people in there, and we only knew the place would be open, because we called ahead of time to make sure. So we're going through the menu and everything looks so appetizing. So we all put in our orders and killed the time by asking each other Trivial Pursuit questions that they had at all of the tables. Not too long from then, we were served our meals. I had some three egg omelet with tomatoes, potatoes, and cheddar cheese. Now they say it was only three eggs, but it looked like it could have been six. This thing was huge. But holy crap was it delicious. And it came with some of the best home fries I've ever had. I knew I was in love with this place right then. I remember Christian got some sort of breakfast fajita which was also very large. Let's face it, everything you get there is large. I'm not sure what Erica got, but I do believe Anthony got the "big fat guy breakfast," as always. So we spent a nice long while trying to stuff all of that food inside of us. I think I succeeded, and I know Christian left with a doggie bag. I am not too sure about the other two, though. But we ate, then paid, and then Christian and I went to go look at pies. Christian and I each got two pies. I got a key lime pie and a peach raspberry pie. Christian got a peach raspberry and something else. Our trip was a success! Then we had to make the treacherous journey back to Danbury. Erica actually had a dinner that she needed to get to. She was entirely not hungry, but it was an important dinner, and she was going to tough it out. So we dropped off Anthony, got Erica back to her car, and then I just hung out with Christian after that. We were playing some video games and being cool dudes, but apparently we were being too cool because the power went out. But that didn't stop the fun. We busted out some flashlights, pulled out Risk, invited Christian's sister to join, and went to town. Nothing cooler than a Risk party in the dark. We had nothing better to do, so we played a world domination match, and I beat the crap out of Christian and his sister. I'm the best. And I did it with precision timing, as well. No sooner did I conquer the world than Christian's mom come through the door with Chinese food. So we had ourselves a Chinese feast in the dark followed up by a peach raspberry pie dessert. We weren't polite about it, either. We were pretty much just digging into the pie with forks. But this was acceptable, because the power was out, and it's the best pie I've ever tasted. It was phenomenal. If I never have a better pie than that, I will not be surprised. So anyway, after that things that I don't remember happened. The power may have come back on at Christian's. I'm not sure. I also may have stayed at Christian's that night. Again, I'm not sure. But it was a hell of a day from start to finish.

I was going to talk about the other time I went, but while it was just as great, I don't think it translates as well into a story. But I'll give highlights. This time it was Christian, Kate, and myself. The waitress we had was really into me. I think she thought I was dating Kate, though. Girls always go after me when they think I'm dating Kate. It's crazy, really. I think Kate had pancakes, I had French toast, and Christian had the "big fat guy breakfast." That may be wrong. I don't remember. Also, on the way home we passed what we believe to be the coolest house ever. Now we never actually saw the house, but here's the layout of what we did see: There was a small field in front with two stone columns on either side of the driveway. And the driveway goes into a really thick forest. The driveway was too long and dark for us to see what it led to, but it probably leads to the coolest fort ever.

Alright. I believe that's all there is for today. The Canucks won tonight. So I was pretty psyched about that. Well, I should probably at least flip through my marketing book and see what looks important for tomorrow's test. Get this. The test is open notebook. I haven't really taken any notes yet this year, but I could probably bang out some notes before I hit the hay tonight. I'm honestly not too worried about this test. Marketing is second nature to me, really. You can probably tell by the way I present myself here. I'm making lifelong readers out of all of you every day. So get psyched to be roped in some more tomorrow! Bye, pals!

I Drove My Heart To The Airport, And Sent It Off To Chicago, But I Forgot To Pack Myself

What a rainy day! I guess nature decided to make Danbury extra miserable for me today. That was so sweet of nature. And I did spend a lot of today bumming about missing the show, but today was far from all bad. In fact, I was surprised to find out that the Canucks game would be on TV tonight, so I got to watch that. And not only did I enjoy watching the Canucks, but I enjoyed watching the Canucks win against the Toronto Maple Leafs. So there were some bright points to the day. Also, I had some delicious chicken dinner tonight! I don't know the specifics of it, but it sure as hell tasted great. Yeah, most of today was actually pretty good. But once things died down, and I was left bored at the computer not doing much other than listening to the band I should have been seeing, I got pretty bummed. But hey, it's no biggie. Kate even called me to describe shirts to me, and find out what I wanted. She's a sweetheart. That call just ended up getting me pretty psyched for her to come back and shower me with gifts. I'm going to go ahead and say it. Today was an overall pretty good day. Take that, pessimism!

Alright. What do I have lined up for you folks today? How about the first real show a band I was in ever played? Yes, that should succeed in making me look pretty lame. So my first real band was a ska band called East Coast Skank. It was a terrible name. I didn't come up with it, but the idea for the name that I had was just as bad, I'm sure. So our first real show was going to be on February 14. Yes, Valentine's Day. It was a pretty good show as far as local music is concerned, and we just thought it was the coolest thing in the world. We didn't even care that we were playing at some shitty Pay to Play venue. We were rockstars. Also, being that we were an eight person ska band, we collectively had about a billion friends. So not only did we sell the tickets given, but we went and got more to sell from the venue. In the end, we sold about 150 tickets. We sold so many tickets that we didn't even have to play first. In fact, a band that were a lot better than us on tour from Montreal had to open. But I thought I was about the coolest person in the world. I was in the band for once. I was so cool that I had girls coming up trying to make out with me. This is a fact. This pretty average looking girl came up to me before my band went on, and asked if I would make out with her. This was not something I was at all comfortable with, so I told her that I would not make out with her. She's was pretty persistent, though. She kept on asking, and it got to be quite annoying. It got to the point where I figured if I wanted to get this girl to shut up, I'd have to plug her throat closed with my tongue. So I broke and made out with this chick that I didn't even know the name of. Back then (and probably now) I was pretty awkward with girls. I didn't know how to "get them to like me." So I had never kissed a girl before. So my first time ever kissing a girl was with some girl begging me to make out with her. What a way to ruin the first time, Greg. And on top of that, I was the loser at the show making out in front of everyone like I thought I was some sort of bad ass. Not that I take any stock in a first kiss, but it would have been nice if that hadn't been it. It would've been nice if that wasn't any of my kisses, in fact. So I chilled out with this girl I didn't know or enjoy being around until it was my band's turn to play. And get this... This chick did not even stay for my band. We were setting up, and she told me that she had to bounce. I had never felt more used in my life. Well that sure taught me to never put out again. But I had to put that behind me, because I had a ska show to put on! So we got all set up, and proceeded to play about 20 minutes of the worst music ever. And everyone in the crowd ate it up. They were dancing the whole time, and just having a ball. It was really embarrassing for them. In East Coast Skank's whole 6 show career, we only ever had three songs. One of which was about a minute and a half long. So we played those three songs, played some instrumental thing that we came up with the day of the show, and then we played our "hardcore" song. Back in those days, our understanding of hardcore was crappy breakup songs with a screamy chorus. I don't know where we got that from, but that's how it went down. And it was a bad song. No doubt about it. The only lyrics I remember from it were
"I made you a heart
Out of papier mache
And you tore it apart
And you threw it away"
Then someone would scream nonsense over the chorus. It was a little bit cool that for the first show, we had the singer of a popular local band do the screaming, though. That wasn't actually cool. I was just kidding. The worst part about this song was that, like most of our songs, it didn't really have an ending. So we'd jam on this crappy excuse for crappy music for like five minutes. It was a miserable experience for everyone. But we didn't know better. And luckily, neither did the audience. They ate it up. These guys loved our crappy ska band. Of course, almost everyone in the audience was our friend. But our friends have never been the type to miss an opportunity to shoot us down. So all of this encouraged us to play 5 more shows. Although, after the first two, we never had the same lineup. Whether we had kicked out our guitarist, the trombonist's parents wouldn't let him be in the band, I was on vacation, or any other number of lineup issues we had, we never had the same lineup for a show after those first two. Whatever. We sucked. It probably wasn't worth it to post all of this embarrassing information on the internet. Like I want to be reminded of my first make out sesh.

Alright. Now that all of that is all over the internet for the world to see, I'm going to wrap this up. I'll probably go downstairs and read for a bit. Then I'll get my 8 hours of sleep, and have a great Sunday. Or at least I assume it'll be pretty great. I may have to devote a little bit of time to studying for some Marketing exam on Monday, but I've never been a big studier, anyway. I like to get by on my looks. And it's been working so far. Am I right, or am I right? Alright. I'm going to go do all that reading and sleeping I was talking about. See you tomorrow, kids!

Giving Rides For Road Dome!

So it's been about a couple of hours since I last wrote, but I still have stuff to talk about. I haven't run dry! I lead a very interesting life, god dammit! I even woke up before noon today! And not only that, I was out and about doing things before noon! Once I give you guys a proper intro, I'm even going to tell you about my interesting life through the activities of today. But this is a pretty weak intro so far, so I'm going to continue intro-ing a bit. Although, I guess I should probably get to the story, because I'm beginning to realize just how tired I am. It's not even 2 yet, and I am about to fall asleep at the keyboard. So I guess I will start my story for tonight. Here I go!

So today I played the role of chauffeur (Oh wow! I spelled that right on the first try). Remember how I really wish I was going to be in Chicago this weekend to see the Lawrence Arms 10th anniversary show? I think I talked about that, right? Well, you see I really wish I was in Chicago this weekend for that thing I said. And my friend Kate is in Chicago this weekend doing that thing I said. But if it weren't for this guy, she would not be in Chicago right now living out my dreams. You see, Kate needed a ride for her and her friend Stacy, who is an acquaintance of mine, to JFK Airport in Queens, or wherever it is. So I was going to put aside my jealousy and help those two lovely ladies out. So this morning when I was leaving for Kate's, I got into my car and it smelled very much like shit. Apparently, the septic tank people were at my house this morning, and them parking their shit truck next to my car made my car smell like shit. But I got in the car, and held my breath all the way to Kate's house. It's a good thing she lives as close to me as she does. I still almost passed out a couple of times, though. But I got to Kate's house, and headed inside, but I was not greeted by my favorite dog in the world, and it was probably the worst thing that could have happened. You see, Elliott was at the neighbor's house, because they're looking after Elliott while Kate is gone, because Kate's dad is also on vacation. You don't need to know about any of that, but I was just bummed that Elliott was not there to greet me. So I hung out with Kate a little bit while she got ready, and then we left to get Stacy. Once everyone was packed into the car, we headed to Bagelman, because Kate was starving. While there, Kate kept asking me over and over if I wanted anything, and I told her that I wasn't hungry, but she was insistent. So I eventually allowed her to get me a piece of banana bread and a Some Pulp Tropicana Orange Juice. I do love that pulp. And then we were off on our big adventure. I guess it wasn't too exciting of an adventure. It's a pretty straightforward drive to get to JFK Airport. But the whole way there Kate and Stacy talked about awesome things they were going to do all weekend. And let's face it, I was talking about all the great things they were going to do all weekend, as well. I think I hid my intense jealousy pretty well. You know, except for the few times I would belittle Kate to make myself feel better. But I'd always apologize right after. This guy's in control of his feelings. Hell yeah! Plus, I couldn't be too hard on Kate, because that little angel is not only returning with a t-shirt for me, but she's going the whole nine yards and bringing me back Matthew Perry and Bruce Willis, as well! That's a bad joke. But Kate is getting me a t-shirt AND a hoodie from the show. She's pretty much the greatest. But that doesn't mean all of you readers out there shouldn't try and impress me, as well. You'll probably never be as great as Kate, but I'll gladly give you hope if you give me free things. But anyway, after a relatively harmless ride, I pulled into their gate to let Kate and Stacy out, and onto their weekend adventure. We said our goodbyes, and Kate made me promise to let her know that I got home safely. She's the greatest. So they left into the airport, and I turned on the Lawrence Arms and cried the whole way home. The ride home actually ended up being pretty eventful considering I was in the car alone. Before I even got out of the airport, a car tried to end my life by passing me on the left to make a quick right turn where I was making a left. So that idiot driver almost made my trip home end before it started. The best part was that he was part of the airport staff. I could do that guy's job a hundred times better than he could! But thankfully, I did not die, and you will still be receiving blog entries from me every day. Once I got out of the airport I almost instantly hit traffic. While stuck in traffic, I noticed a leopard print bra on the side of the road. How do people lose something like that?! I was very confused, to say the least. Some young tart is out there driving without a bra on right now. What is giving her support as she travels the endless labyrinth that is the American road system? Well it's safe to say that I'm glad that I'm not her right now. I never go out on the road without my driving bra. That would be absurd. But after those two instances on the way home, the rest of the trip was pretty much smooth sailing. I got home, let Kate know I was safe, and that I got a brand new-ish bra for her. Then I typed up that blog entry that I did before this one. You know... The one about pierogies and whatnot. After that I did go out to dinner with my family. We went to the Eveready diner, which has been featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives with Guy Fiery. I've been there plenty of times, but it really is great. I got some sort of Penne Marsala dish. The marsala sauce was spot on. And I think that's about all I did today.

Yes. I just thought about it, and that's all that is about everything of note that I've done today. So I am going to go get some of that sleep I was talking about before. Hopefully, I'll be able to sleep all the way through Saturday so I don't have to be bummed about how I'm not having the greatest time of my life all day. But I may wake up to see how my brother does on his driving test tomorrow. Here's to hoping that boy gets his license! And then let's also hope he develops some sort of desire to drive. Alright, well I'm off. I'll see you all tomorrow with some miserable "I'm not at the Lawrence Arms show. Woe is me!" entry. Look forward to it. I know I'm not. Bye!

These Are The Daves I Know, I Know. These Are The Daves I Know.

Hey, guys. Sorry I didn't post last night. I was working on school work, and then headed to bed early, because I had to be up early. I'm not going to tell you about what I had to get up early for, because I want to save something for when I write again tonight. But I have some pretty fancy news from yesterday! I decided to bust out the ol' button-down shirt and fancy shoes and head out on the town and follow up on all of these applications I've filled out. Most of the places I went to were big letdowns. Don't they realize that they're going to be advertising for the holidays soon?! You're going to need all the seasonal help you can get. But my last stop of the day was not so disappointing. I went to Sports Authority, asked to see a manager, and next thing I knew I was in the back room getting interviewed. But as caught off guard as I was, I nailed the interview. I made myself look like the best associate he'd ever seen. So I pretty much have this job in the bag. He told me he was going to give me a call on Monday, and that if he forgot, I should call him on Monday. So either way, I'm talking to this guy on Monday. So it seems like I'll be working at Sports Authority soon. The only issue was when he was going over the section of the application where I filled out how much I knew about all of these different sports. Apparently, I wrote down that I know a lot about fishing. Now I really don't know much about fishing, at all. I don't even like fishing. I haven't fished in several years. But this guy was pretty psyched about all of this supposed fishing knowledge I possess. He was telling me how nobody working in the store really knows anything about fishing, so it'll be great to have someone who does. Well I hope that doesn't come back to bite me in the ass. Fishing is pretty straightforward, anyway, right? Right? Oh well. Moving on.

So I said I was going to write about the best pierogies I've ever had last time I wrote, correct? I can do that. The memory is still vivid in my mind. Just thinking about it is causing me to drool. It's embarrassing, really. A young person of my age, and my health drooling all over himself. Disgraceful. But let's move on to the story. This happened a couple summers ago when I was on vacation with my family in Canada. This leg of the vacation was in Toronto, and we were sitting in our hotel thinking about where we wanted to go for dinner. We weren't too keen on eating in the hotel restaurant after a homeless man wandered into our hotel, and asked us if we could spare a toonie. He was quickly escorted out, but this hotel wasn't in the greatest neighborhood, and the homeless people in the area were pretty bold. But this isn't what the story's about. So we were looking for a restaurant, but all the searching seemed a little silly when I realized that going to Wayne Gretzky's restaurant was clearly the obvious choice. So we headed down to 99 Blue Jays Way where the restaurant was located. We walked in, and it was a pretty fancy place. Lots of modern decor. Also, when you first walk in, there's a quote inlaid in the floor. It was, of course, Wayne Gretzky's famous "Skate where the puck is going, not where it is" quote that I just paraphrased. I thought that was especially cheesy, but I was going to allow it. So we were quickly seated, and the first thing I noticed on the appetizers menu was Grandma Gretzky's Pierogies. Apparently, Wayne Gretzky is Polish. Who knew? And being the Polish family we are, we got two orders of them. And even after two plates, I was still wishing that I had more. There was nothing inherently special about the ingredients. It was potato and cheddar pierogies, pan fried with smoked bacon and sweet, caramelized onion. Pretty classic way to serve pierogies, but something about them was just so great. I have no idea if I was just caught up in all of the Wayne Gretzky hype or not, but the pierogies were phenomenal. I went on to have meat loaf for dinner, which was great, but I couldn't get over the pierogies. My brother had the "Great One" burger, which was pretty much a bacon cheeseburger, but it had a "99" branded into the bun. Classic. After dinner, my dad ordered a piece of chocolate cake. What they brought him was a 10 layer chocolate behemoth. It tasted amazing, but there was plenty cake leftover. I've never been too hot on most of the places I've eaten in Canada. There weren't many places that I just disliked, but nothing really stuck out. That all changed when I went to Wayne Gretzky's restaurant in Toronto. Sure, it's a little touristy, but the food was great. Also, keep in mind that when I say that I've never been too impressed with the food I've had in Canada outside of what Grandma Gretzky cooks up, I have never been to Montreal. So I have not had their fantastic crepes that I hear so much about. I really want to go to Montreal. Hell, I've never even been to Quebec. I haven't gotten the French-Canadian experience yet! I've been to every province in Eastern Canada except for Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador. What a dummy! But if Quebec is half as nice as Nova Scotia, I need to get there as soon as possible. Don't be surprised if I take a trip up to you, AJ. We'll go on a big crepe date. I guarantee you'll get lucky.

Alright. Well I'm going to wrap this up here. I need to save some good material for tonight. Look forward to that entry. It probably won't be as good as this one, but it sure won't be bad. I'm going to go read up on the finer points of fishing. I need to bone up on all that good stuff if I ever hope to make it at Sports Authority. I'll be running that company before you know it! Alright, I'm going to end this, because I need to get ready before I go out to dinner. Expect a full report on that tonight, as well! See you later, kids!

When All Hell's Breakin' Loose, You'll Be Riding The Eye Of The Storm

Hey, guys. Brendan Kelly fucked the world over again today, but luckily I did a little bit more preparation today, and will have a story for all of you. But first I have to do my funny intro thing. So my friend AJ told me that my blog color scheme is a little hard to read. I guess it is a little dark, but I always thought that gave my readers a cool, soothing feeling as they read my witty tales. So to say the least, I was horribly offended when AJ criticized my choice of coloring for the blog. Who is he to tell me that my color scheme is hard to read?! Maybe you just have stupid eyes, AJ! Ever think of that? In fact, you do have stupid eyes! Remember that time you were sparring with someone, and something happened, and then you burst a blood vessel in your eye, and then your eye looked really bloody? Yeah! Stupid eyes! My color scheme is like a cool mint blast, you asshole! Although, I guess I'm just having this little outburst to myself since nobody can read this, apparently! How dare you, AJ! How dare you! Moving on.

Over the summer, my friend Anthony had a birthday. And all Anthony ever wanted to do for his 23rd birthday was to record music for a fake hardcore band with songs based around Transformers: The Movie. Now, keep in mind this is not Michael Bay's Transformer movies, this is Transformers: The Movie. The 1986 animated deal. It's much, much better than Bay's two and a half hours of explosions, robot testicles, and racist stereotypes. So on Anthony's birthday, Anthony, Christian, AJ (that bastard), and I all sat down for a viewing of Transformers: The Movie and took notes. Mostly, we wrote down quotes that lend themselves well to hardcore songs. I'd tell you some of the quotes, but we don't have a finished product yet, and I don't want to spoil the surprise. Anyway, eventually the movie ended, we woke up AJ, and then headed downstairs to create music. Our recording tools are a bit limited. We used a free program for recording that we found online and a $10 computer mic. But we made it work. The only instruments we used were drums, and a bass that was tuned down to about an A (That's really low for those who don't know about boring things). So we compile our quotes, and start writing really short songs around them off the top of our heads. We also came to the conclusion that leaving the instruments to the musicians would be boring and predictable. So for each track, we switched everyone around. Anthony played drums and bass, AJ played drums and bass, Christian played drums and bass, I played drums and bass. Everyone played drums and bass. It definitely let our individual styles really shine through. And that's why all of the tracks mostly sound terrible. But it's that kind of terrible that gives it a really raw and angry sound. So it was exactly the kind of terrible we were going for. You know... For the most part. But after around 6 or 7 songs, we had to depart from our recording session, and head over to Anthony's for his little get together of other friends. And we haven't recorded since. So all of the songs are vocal-less, and we still have about a hundred more songs to record. But Anthony's get together ended up being pretty fun. I broke vegetarian at that party after a year meatless. I broke like a man, too. Kielbasa! Man, do I love the food of the Polish. Ooo! That gives me an idea. Someone who reads this should remind me to write about the best pierogies that I've ever had. It is not a story that will let anyone down. That's for sure. But anyway, I broke veg, and then the party continued. During this party, Kate and I watched Anthony's mother cook Kraft Mac & Cheese the absolute wrong way. And I think this is when we discovered that Anthony's mom can't cook. This is a fact that she will be the first to admit. I could probably write a whole entry on examples of her poor cooking. I'd have to go into Anthony's poor cooking and eating as well, but I could make it into a whole entry. I may do that. We'll see. But the rest of the party was pretty much just us hanging out. We ended up watching Kingdom of Heaven. What a terrible movie. I saw it in theatres with my friend who loves terrible movies. But yeah, I don't know why we watched it, but we did. And it still sucked. Then we watched some old sci-fi horror movie. It was called Queen of Blood or something. I don't remember. It was ridiculous and also bad. Boy, Anthony sure can throw a bad party. Like that time he had that shitty ska band play. What a bonehead. But I guess all of his parties haven't been bad. There was that one where we played kickball, and Anthony fell and scraped himself up real bad. That was fun! And that's how Anthony's birthday was spent over the summer. I'm sure we'll eventually get to finishing up all of those Transformers: The Movie tracks. Look forward to it!

Well that story was really only supposed to be about the Transformers band, but I ended up having to stretch it out into the rest of the day. My writing just isn't descriptive enough to make that afternoon into a full-fledged story. But that's fine. According to AJ, none of you can read this anyway. What a jerk! The next time I see him, I'm going to kick his dick open. Hmm... I could also probably write a whole entry on how I've seen the cocks of a whole lot of my friends. That one may have to wait until my audience is a bit more familiar with me, though. Alright, well it's late, and I'm heading to bed. I expect to find a Lawrence Arms leak waiting for me when I wake up tomorrow. Make it happen!

I'm Gonna Touch Her Neck

I'm going to be honest with you guys. I have not been thinking about what I'm going to write here at all today. You see, Brendan Kelly (bassist of The Lawrence Arms) made three posts in his blog that said that he did, did not, and then did again have a surprise for us. And with the release of The Lawrence Arms new 7" next Tuesday, it was pretty much implied that he was going to post a leak. Well, he never ended up posting the surprise. But that did not stop me from spending all day scouring the internet in search of a leak. All I ended up finding was a couple people on Last.fm with plays of the new EP, a bunch of people also searching for a leak, thirty second clips of the songs on Amazon, and a British radio show that played one of the songs from the EP. So I guess my searches did not end in a total failure, but I didn't even come close to finding what I wanted. All I can hope is that Brendan Kelly posts in his blog tomorrow letting me know what's up. Because I would really appreciate a leak right about now. It's simply barbaric having to wait until street date to hear a new album. Oh yeah! But in my searches, I did find a site streaming a song from the upcoming A Wilhelm Scream EP. It's great, just in case you weren't sure. But anyway, since I didn't take the time to think of a story for all of you, I'll ramble for a bit, and we'll see if that inspires anything.

Today ended up being a gorgeous fall day. But guess who didn't take one step outside? This guy right here. Yes, I was at the helm of the internet today searching for something that isn't there. But I did end up taking a 15 minute break from searching through all of these tubes to talk to Kate on the phone. This is when I found out that it was a gorgeous day. Not only did Kate let me know how gorgeous the day was, but I sat by the window while talking to her, and noticed how beautiful it was. But we talked about things like psychology, how big of a jerk Brendan Kelly is being, but how much we love him, anyway. How I'm jealous that Kate will be in Chicago this weekend seeing The Lawrence Arms was also discussed. We also went into detail about a substance abusing plant that Kate likes to sit next to in between classes. So far, she's found it with an empty beer container and a pack of cigarettes. So Kate's been trying to help the plant overcome its addiction. I'm not usually a big phone guy. You won't normally see me just shooting the shit over the phone, but it was definitely a nice change of pace from my normal all business approach to the phone. So if anyone reading this who has my phone number would ever just like to chat over the phone, feel free to call me. I'd love to hear from you.

Another thing we talked about was jokes. Not just any jokes, mind you. The kind of jokes that are only funny to those with a deep interest in the topic of the joke. You know, like band humor, science geek jokes, psychology jokes. These jokes are all dumb and not funny. Sure, the science geek loves pulling out the ol' "A neutron walks into a bar and asks the bartender, 'How much for a beer?' The bartender looks at him and says, 'For you, no charge.'" and while all his science geek friends laugh it up, everyone else in the room is hanging themselves. That's a miserable joke. And it has nothing to do with not "getting it." It's just not funny. Now believe me, I love bad jokes. Hell, most of my material comes from popsicle sticks, but I would never stoop so low as to tell someone a joke catered to science kids, and expect anyone to enjoy it. And I don't mean to pick on science kids. Kate was telling me how her and her psychology friends like to respond to each other with "And how does that make you feel?" all the time. Groan... There is no way that that joke could not get real old real fast. I don't care how into psychology you are. That's just plain obnoxious. But none of these jokes compare to band kid jokes. These are the jokes I've had to deal with since the beginning of high school. I wasn't even really a band kid, but I sure hung out with a lot of them. I was in ska bands! What do you expect?! But these band kids have the worst jokes known to man. The most common one I hear is "What do you call a _____ player with half a brain? Gifted" I couldn't fill in the blank with that joke, because all the band kids use it against all the other kids in band. So the joke is pretty much that all band kids are idiots. Well I'm sorry to say this, but that's not a joke. That's true. Anyone who would laugh at a dumb joke like that must be an idiot. But I could go on forever about dumb band jokes I've had to deal with, but I won't torture you all. The point of all this should be clear, though. Jokes specific to your major/job/concentration/whatever are not funny. If you're going to tell them, stick to telling them to other dorks that can relate. It still won't be funny, but I'm sure they'll all laugh, because they understand it.

Well I think that's all that I have for tonight. Sorry it's all over the place, but I had no time to prepare today. Hopefully, I will receive my surprise from Brendan Kelly tomorrow, so I can focus on remembering fun stories about things I've done. So I will see you all tomorrow. Bye bye!

Love in the Time of Nausea

Let me tell you about a food that I don't like. The food in question isn't at fault for me not liking it. In fact, the first time I tried it was great. But alas, we all know how love can fade away and die. It ended up taking all of five minutes for my love of this food to die, but don't tell me that love can't fade quickly. It's a real shame that this love had to die, though. But I guess it is better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all. This tale of lost love will be sure to bring a tear to your eye, and release thousands of butterflies into your stomach. But unfortunately, my stomach no longer houses butterflies. Not since the end of my short-lived affair with the delightful spread called hummus.

This story begins like many of my stories do... At Kate's house. Kate, AJ, Aaron, and I were all hanging out. We were looking for something fun to do. So being the genius that I am, I suggested a late night picnic at Meckauer Park in Bethel. This is always a fun thing to do on a warm summer night, because there are about a billion fireflies that just hang out in the park, and it's probably one of the most gorgeous things I've ever seen. So we agree on my great idea, pack up some disgusting animal crackers, pita bread, some roasted red pepper hummus, and raspberry lemonade, and head out on our adventure to Meckauer Park. Also, Meckauer Park closes at sundown, so we were earning major badass points by going at night. But we got there, and we chilled out on the playground set while Aaron performed some sort of play that he made up on the spot. I don't remember what it was about, but I think he was a tree. Not sure. But after Aaron finished, and received a standing ovation, we went to check out the fireflies. They weren't nearly as good as when I first saw them, but it was still pretty neat. Then we began the picnic. We all tried the animal crackers, but they were no good. They were "organic" or something. But really, they just sucked. So we all ended up huddling over the pita and hummus. Now this was my first time trying hummus, so I was a little skeptical. Nothing about hummus looks very appetizing, really. But I dove in, and I ended up loving it. The four of us ended up making very short work of that delicious, roasted red pepper hummus. Then we all washed it down with some raspberry lemonade. And being the youthful, energetic, young adults that we are, we took over the playground. Yes, we were swinging on swings, sliding down slides, monkeying on monkey bars. We were on top of the world. In fact, AJ and I did climb to the top of the tallest spire on the jungle gym where some very homoerotic pictures were taken. It was a sight to behold, for sure. Then I had the great idea of going on the tire swing and having AJ spin me around very fast. Oh, it was lots and lots of fun... for about a minute. Then I started feeling sick to my stomach. So I told AJ to stop, I got out of the tire, stumbled around for a bit, and... never ended up puking. I tell the most anticlimactic stories. I swear to jah. But I still felt like shit for awhile. I had to take it easy, and do all of the boring little kid things on the jungle gym for the rest of the night. If I had continued to live fast, the contents of my stomach would definitely have died young. AJ also ended up finding a neat truck that some kid must have left at the park. But eventually we all left for Kate's house and had rough sex until the sun came up (Not true... or is it?). Ever since that night I have not been able to enjoy hummus. I always associate it with Aaron's horrible tree play. That's not true, either. Aaron's play was a masterpiece. I do associate hummus with being sick to my stomach and wanting to blow chunks, though. What do we call this, my psychologist readers? That's right! Pavlovian Conditioning. So I can't eat hummus anymore all because this Pavlov guy was a jerk to some dogs. What a god damn shame. But I guess that's how these things go. I'll never eat hummus again, and those dogs will continue searching for food that will never come every time they hear a bell. All things considered, that was a pretty great night, though. If I had to judge whether or not it was worth it, I'd definitely say it was. There are other, better spreads out there. Well good. I feel much better now that this is all out in the open.

Did I bring any tears to any eyes with that story? Probably. What a great way to celebrate my 20th post. That's right, everyone. I made it to 20 entries. Aren't you all proud of me? I know I'm proud of me. I won't ask for gifts like I did with my 10th entry, but I certainly won't turn them down, either. I watched a movie about assisted suicide in French-speaking Switzerland in one of my classes today called Exit: The Right To Die. It was a pretty neat documentary. Europeans like to make jokes about dying. But it's good to see that they're comfortable with mortality. I wish most Americans didn't think they were going to live forever. But whatever. In the end of the documentary, they showed the assisted suicide of some woman that you met in the beginning. It was a pretty well-made documentary. I recommend it if you're interested at all in euthanasia. Alright. Well I think that's it from me for tonight. I'm going to go harass message board kids. See you all tomorrow!

Monday: Taco. Tuesday: Taco.

Hi there. Greg here. How's everyone doing today? Good, good. Oh, me? I'm fantastic. It was a pretty lazy day today. But it's Sunday. Our lord and savior Jah declared Sunday a day of rest. So I made sure to do just that. The highlight of my day was probably finding thirty second clips of the songs from the new Lawrence Arms EP on Amazon. Other than that, my day has been pretty eventless. But don't you guys worry. A boring day does not equate to a boring blog entry. Au contraire, it gives me plenty of time to dig up stories from how exciting my life used to be. Man, that sounds depressing. I hope my life hasn't peaked already. I'm only 22 years old! I still need to see the world, compose beautiful music that reaches the hearts of millions, write love songs for my one and only, punch a unicorn. You know, all of the usual life goals. But don't worry, readers. I haven't peaked yet. I can outdo running my car through a daycare. Alright. Well let me continue with my story for the night.

This all happened in the year 2006, I believe. I was going to an Aquabats show in New York City with my friends Christian, Aaron, Mike, and my brother Eric. The music at the show isn't important, though. If you want to know about the music, you should've gone to the show. This story is specifically about my buddy Mike. So let me set the stage for you. We were at B.B. King's in New York. The Aquabats were playing. The place was packed and everyone was having a great time. Mike was in the middle of the crowd doing whatever Mike does when he's at a concert. But suddenly he feels a hand on his leg. So he looks down and he sees this dorky, mohawk'd kid reaching right into his left, front pocket. This kid isn't even trying to be sneaky about his actions. So this kid grabs Mike's wallet from his pants. Mike wasn't about to be ripped off by some loser mohawk kid. So Mike turns around, punches this kid right in the gut, and the kid turns around to run away from this beating. But as this kid runs away, Mike reaches right into his back pocket and swipes the kid's wallet. He got him with the ol' switcheroo! Amazing! Now, none of us saw this happen. This was just the story Mike told us on the train. So I guess it's possible that Mike just robbed the kid for no good reason, but I like to think that it happened the way that he told it. This kid was packing a full wallet, though. I think he had about sixty bucks on him. So when we got back from New York City, all of us headed to the diner, had some other friends join us, and we all ate courtesy of this failed pick pocket. It was a fantastic end to a fantastic night. The only other thing that happened that's story worthy was when Whole Wheat Bread (ugh) finished their set, the drummer threw his sticks into the audience and they hit me square in the forehead. So I spent most of the show bleeding. Some kid offered me a plastic bag to wipe the blood off of my face, but that just moved the blood around. So after the show got out, I walked around New York City with blood all over my face. I did wash it off once we got to Grand Central Station, though. It may be alright to run around covered in blood in New York, but that shit doesn't fly in Connecticut.

Well tomorrow is my busy class day, so I should probably head to bed a little early. Granted, my busy class day consists of two classes. But they're both two and a half hours long! That takes up my whole day pretty much! I'm busy from 2 until 8! I only get that hour break in between classes. And in that hour break, I'm mostly driving from one campus to the other. My Marketing class tomorrow is being held in the 4th floor library in the dumb pyramid building. What a confusing building. I just hope I don't get lost looking for the library. Libraries are normally pretty big, though. So I figure as long as I can find my way to the 4th floor, it's cake from there. Let's hope so! And if not, I guess I'll never be the marketer (or explorer) I've always wanted to be. I guess playing guitar for tips is a pretty romantic lifestyle. I'm almost positive that there's no downside to it. Those tips are tax free, man! I'll be beating the system! Yes, I'll sure be living large. Alright, enough of this rambling. I already gave you your big story for the night. Now I'm going to wrap this up, see if there was anything that I was supposed to read for class since last week, and then head to bed. I'll catch all of you cool cats tomorrow. Look forward to it!

And the Worldwide Champion of Brownie Baking is...

Today was a pretty great day all around, I'd say. I went to go see Where The Wild Things Are. I had Mexican for dinner. I had Dippin' Dots for dessert. The Canucks won. Yes, I do believe those are the makings of a pretty great day. It was just full of those simple pleasures in life. And just so you all can go out and see it, Where The Wild Things Are was a fantastic movie. I didn't have much doubt, because my favorite author, Dave Eggers, was working on the screenplay with Spike Jonze. But what I wasn't expecting was for the movie to be so sad, throughout. They balanced it pretty well with some great humor, but damn! So sad! I also really loved the way that the dialogue between Max and the monsters really captured how a child thinks. But I'm going to stop the ol' reviewing right there, because I don't want to give anything away. But go see it! Especially with a significant other, or crush. Because when they start up the waterworks, you can be there to comfort them, and then you can take all sorts of advantage of that situation, and get your bone on. I went with my family, though. No boning going on there. But this is an open invitation to any girl who wants me to hit on you a lot. Come see Where The Wild Things Are with me.

After the movies, the family and I headed down to Panchos and Gringos (Bethel, not Brookfield) for dinner. You know I was psyched. They had all of these Halloween decorations up. Excuse me, Dia de los Muertos. But some of the decorations they had up were pretty morbid for a restaurant. I didn't mind, but I can see some people objecting to eating their chimichangas while staring at bloody handprints all over the wall. Or maybe I'm just being a party pooper. But the food there ended up being great. They sure know how to make some quality tamales. And Greg, my mother did confirm that they do in fact have some premium margaritas. I'm happy to see you did your homework. But next time, try to do your homework on things I'm interested in consuming. Thanks! Butwe finished up there, left, turned the corner and walked up the stairs to Dippin' Dots. Man, do I ever love Dippin' Dots. I got my usual Banana Split Dippin' Dots. They were as good as ever. Then we all went home, and I did my best to follow the Canucks game. The downside of liking a sports team on the other side of the continent is that you don't get to see their games on television. I used to make do with online radio, but now even that was taken from me. So now I just look at the NHL.com site until the game is over. It's pretty inconvenient, but my Canucks did win tonight, so you won't see me complaining.

Now there's this band I've never really liked. They're called Against Me! I tried for awhile to like them. I'd listen through their catalog and hoped that something would stick, but it never did. Plus, at the time of me trying to get into them, they were really popular with the group of people that I'm only friends with at shows. They were also very popular with most of the punk scene. This was all soon before they put out Searching for a Former Clarity. So they hadn't "sold out" or whatever yet. And these fans would jock them so hard that it ended up really turning me off to their music. They were all I heard about. So on top of not really liking the music, anyway. Now I was just bothered whenever I heard about them. So they were pretty much a lost cause as a band I'd ever like. But since then, all the hype has died away, they sold out to the man, and Tom Gabel put out a shitty solo album. But today, I was in the mood to be open-minded. So I played all of those albums of theirs that I had written off long ago. And I bet you're expecting for this to be where I have some sort of revelation, and suddenly love Against Me! Well that's just not the case. I listened through their stuff, and I still don't like it. BUT! But I do like some of it a lot more. I deduced that I enjoy most of their acoustic work, but still can't really get into most of their electric catalog. So that was a big step for me. Plus, I've always really liked the song Cavalier Eternal, but I never really listened to it much, because who wants to only like one song by a band? That would suck. But I came out of tonight enjoying Against Me! more than I used to. Good for them. Next time I'm in an open-minded mood I'll see what I can do about liking Jawbreaker. They are another band that I just cannot get into at all.

Well that was the story of my day. It doesn't nearly compare to hair pie super soakers, but it was a good enough day for me. That's just too bad if it makes for a lackluster blog entry. It's not like you won't come back tomorrow and read what I have to say then, just because I had an average day today. I've got all of you under my thumb. Well I'm going to sit around waiting for the Lawrence Arms EP to leak. It should never take this long for an album to leak? How can I be cool if I don't have the album before street date? Or if you don't leak the album, at least put up the preorder on the Fat site! Fuck! Give me some sort of break here! Oh well. I'll be on the internet waiting if you need me. See you tomorrow, champs!

I see pride! I see power! I see a badass motha' who don't take no crap off of nobody!

Today's entry is vaguely about my old ska band. Well, I guess it's a lot about what I'm going to write about, but the interesting part has nothing to do with my band, for sure. But it all started back in the summer of 2008. A friend of the band asked us if the ol' ska band would like to play a cover set at a bachelor party he was throwing for his friend. Well fuck yeah we did! The band built up this set list of covers that the bachelor wanted to hear, and songs we just wanted to play. It was quite a mix of music. We played songs by bands like Unsung Zeros, Motion City Soundtrack, Homegrown, Fall Out Boy, Big D, the Lawrence Arms, Punchline, and the list goes on and on. It was quite a mix of music to be sure. We couldn't get the whole band together for this show, either. So the only members of the band who were playing their normal instruments were Christian (drums) and me (bass). Aside from us, our keyboard player was playing guitar and singing, our trombonist was playing keyboard, and our sax player was also playing guitar, even though I'm pretty sure he doesn't really know how. We were a mess, but I think we practiced enough that the songs became recognizable. Well, cut to the bachelor party. We get there, and it looks like a pretty lame party. I'm looking around and I see a bunch of grown men sitting around playing poker and drinkin' brews. But whatever, it's not my party. I had a good enough time eating free food, and socializing. Other members spent their time making friends with the free booze. It was just a relatively calm get together at this point. It did not stay that way, though. My band's "opening act" made sure of that.

So it's a common occurrence to have strippers at a bachelor party. The groom needs to get in his jollies before he stops having fun forever, or whatever typical males think marriage is about. So these two strippers and the dude they're with come out, and get ready to do their thing. The two girls come out and start up their show. They're doing their lapdances for the dudes sitting in the circle of chairs around them. Okay, sure. No big deal. Well soon enough they're butt naked, and bringing the groom to be over to do stripper things with him. The groom to be is pretty gone by now, and the strippers are getting him on the floor, taking off his pants, and they rip his boxers. Haha, humiliating the groom. Bachelor party antics are hilarious. But then the girls start beating his ass with his own belt. Then they start riding him around like a horse! It's insanity in here, at this point. Naked chicks riding man-horses?! Well, I've never! But all of that pales in comparison to what comes next from these girls. Well, there was probably a bunch of stuff that happened in between the centaur pony rides and what I'm telling you next, but it doesn't compare. So the girls get out their table, and proceed to cover each other in whipped cream. Then they lie down, and tell all the guys to come and lick the whipped cream off their bodies. Soon enough they were surrounded by men licking whipped cream from their bodies. It was horrifying. I thought I was watching some sort of cannibal feast. By this point I was thinking to myself that "stripper" is a very general term, because if I had to classify these lovely (not so much) ladies, I'd probably go with live basement porn actresses. But they did not stop at the people sundaes. Oh no. Next they give the groom a vibrator, stick it in his mouth, fun end out, and one of the chicks gets in position for him. The groom is then instructed to go to town on this girl with the vibrator in his mouth. And of course, being as gone as he was, he did just that. The whole act just consisted of a lot of things that anyone from the third person perspective would consider humiliating to any of the men participating. But I guess the groom did not satisfy the girl enough, because that's when she pulled out the giant, two-headed, pink dildo and had a nice little scissor-fest with her stripper friend. Oh, they just looked like they were having a lovely old time. But after they were done scissor fucking, it was time for the grand finale! Oh boy! One of the strippers found a full bottle of water, twisted off that cap, and stuck the bottle inside herself. Oh yes. And it went all the way in too. She made sure of that. But then she quickly pulled it out, and the most magical spray of water came billowing from her hatchet wound (ew) like the water shooting from the blowhole of the majestic bottlenose dolphin. What. The. Fuck?! Is this commonplace at bachelor parties? I'm far from a bachelor party expert, but I feel like this does not occur all that often. Needless to say, I was cracking up after this occurred. It was just so absurd. Why would she do that?! But what a performance! Bravo, weird chicks!

Afterwards, I couldn't help asking myself "How the hell is my band supposed to follow up this act?" Well, we sure followed up the strippers, but it wasn't an impressive sight. At least 2/5ths of the band was drunk. Possibly, 3/5ths. This was over a year ago. How am I supposed to remember stupid details like that? But we went through our set, forgot lots of parts to lots of songs, ended up playing a Big D song for 10 minutes, because we forgot how it ends. It was a mess, but everyone was drunk, so we sounded great. But who cares about us? After us, an only slightly more experienced cover band performed. They put on a great set, though. Everyone was much more drunk by then, the band was getting much more into the crowd, and there were keg stands in between every song. It ended up being a great time. Then things started wrapping up. The keg stand champion was mostly passed out against a car outside turning his head to the side every 30 seconds to throw up. This was in between him mumbling for someone to take him to the hospital. Nobody took him to the hospital, but he's fine. Happy ending there! But that night, after everything was finished, my ska band decided to break up. Because honestly, how can we ever play a better show than that? Live porn and cover bands? That's when you know you've hit the top. So we broke up, and our last show was a bastardized version of our band playing covers at a bachelor party not open to the public. I know I wouldn't have had it any other way.

Well I am going to consider this a successful entry. And with all of the booze involved, I think it's very appropriate for National Edge Day. Oh yeah, I think a bunch of the party-goers also smoked some weed with the strippers, afterward. So it's even more appropriate for the straightedge holiday that's not real, but some people think is. Oh well, I'm going to go sit in my room alone waiting for love letters to come. I'll see you all tomorrow, even though I doubt that entry will live up to this one. Sweet dreams, honeybunches!

Light as a Feather. Stiff as a Board.

Alright. Well it hasn't even been 12 hours since my last post. But I usually have enough things going on in my head where I could bang out another one of these. No problem. I did come to the conclusion that I'll continue writing at night. But I also decided that if I'm out late, and am too tired to write up some hilarious stories or rants, I'll just write the entry after I wake up. Duh! Anyway, it would be silly to stay up trying to write this thing when I'm falling asleep at the keyboard. That shit's dangerous. And it would be even more silly to stop hanging out with friends just so I could go home and blog. In fact, that would probably be the dumbest thing ever. I haven't really done too much since my last entry. I was going to go out with my mother to visit my grandmother in the hospital. There's nothing wrong with her. She just recently had a knee replaced, and is recovering from that. But my mom took one step outside, realized how slippery the deck is, and said she didn't want to drive in that mess. So we stayed home. No biggie.

So you know how I was really hungry before, because of Kate's cupcake escapades? Well I stayed hungry and jealous all the way until dinner time. But then I had quite a great dinner. I had some chicken burritos covered in enchilada sauce and cheese, fajita rice, and refried beans. I was in heaven. Mexican is probably one of my favorite kinds of food to eat. And by probably, I mean definitely. Hell, I even love Taco Bell. That Volcano Burrito of theirs is the tops. Of course, that's only if you sub the beef for beans. The beef at Taco Bell just doesn't sit right with me. Not that I even eat beef anymore, but I've had some bad experiences with Taco Bell beef in the past. In fact, once I had the bright idea of getting loaded up on Taco Bell right before I had to play a set once. So the whole set I feel like shit, and right after, I left the show, raced to Christian's house, and made great use of his facilities. I would never have used the bathrooms at the Empress Ballroom. Hmm... Maybe not one of the best stories I've ever told. I remember the band before us on that show played a lot of Rancid covers. Ahh... To be young. But I'm getting off topic. I love Mexican food, including Taco Bell. But I'd never call Taco Bell my favorite Mexican place. Not by a long shot! I'm not even sure I would ever call Taco Bell a Mexican place. But Kate LOVES Taco Bell. It's her all time favorite place to get Mexican-style food. And that really weirds me out. I tried to put up an argument, and provide lots of examples of better Mexican places, but then it hit me. My list of Mexican restaurants I've been to is very limited. Hell, I've never even been to Panchos & Gringos, and everyone around the area has been there. I think the only Mexican restaurants I've ever been to were El Mariachi in New Milford/Brookfield and Tortilla Flats that used to be by my house. I don't even think I remember liking Tortilla Flats too much. So I couldn't put up a good argument. But even Desert Moon Cafe or Chipotle is better than Taco Bell! This isn't to say I haven't had great Mexican food before, though. The best burrito I've ever had was made by my Uncle Mike. It was a chicken burrito and I don't know how he made it, but I've never been that in love with something I put in my mouth before. (Make your jokes.) The second best burrito I've ever had was at Christian's house. These burritos were phenomenal. And the secret to those being so great was the fact that they were in homemade tortillas. It honestly makes all the difference in the world. All this talk of Mexican food is reminding me that I owe Kate a Taco Bell date. I hadn't gone with her to Taco Bell all summer, and she is heartbroken over it. So I'll definitely need to feed her some Taco Bell next time she comes home.

Wow! It's still kind of early. I might get to bed before four in the morning tonight. That'll be great! I've got one of my two days of school tomorrow. A nice little World Music action. We moved onto India recently, and these guys have some great percussionists. We were watching this video of a man banging his hands on a pot for 8 minutes, and I honestly could not think of anything I rather would have been doing with my time. It was insane, for sure. I'm almost positive you have to be somewhat of a music geek to want to watch a man bang a pot for 8 minutes, but I was totally into it. Also, looking back up at the beginning of this paragraph, "A nice little World Music Action." is not a sentence. It's probably the dumbest thing I've ever written, grammar-wise. Oh well. I could go back and just edit it, but I'd rather just call myself out on my blog for everyone to see. Who's the dummy? That'd be me. Laugh it up. Well if I keep going on like this, I definitely won't be getting to bed early, so I'm going to cut you all off here. But before bed, I'm going to get myself psyched up on Where the Wild Things Are trailers. I should definitely go out and see that this weekend. Look forward to my update on that. See you tomorrow, punks!

Informer! You Know Say Daddy Me Snow Me-a Gonna Blame

Hey, everyone. I didn't write last night. But I was thinking to myself last night as I was hanging out with Anthony, "What if I started writing these things during the day?" It seemed crazy enough to work. It would give a whole new feel to this blog. Sure, I probably won't write during the day, every day. That's when I do the most things! In fact, I'll probably be back tonight with another blog. But don't hold me to that. I may use up all of my thoughts for the day in this blog. Not too sure. We'll see. Anyway. Moving on.

So I woke up today, and like always, I check up on the internet on my phone while I work up the courage to get out of bed and face the cold, cold world. So while I'm going through this routine, people on the internet, or internet people, kept talking about snow. And sure enough, when I got up, it was snowing. Fuck. It hasn't stopped snowing since I got up. It has actually gotten worse as the day's progressed. I'm just thankful that it's not yet sticking. Now I have a lot of opinions on snow. I kind of like it for about the first big snow of the season, but after that I just can't consider myself a fan. Sure, it's nice to look at. In fact, snow is pretty gorgeous. But other than how pretty it is, snow is a pretty miserable thing. Nobody knows how to drive in it, it's cold, I have to shovel it. The list goes on and on. And I don't ski or snowboard, so you don't see me getting wicked stoked on carving up the piste with my posse. Fuck the gapers. Total yard sale. Whatever any of that means. Dammit. I spent so long looking up cool skier lingo that I lost my train of thought. Alright. So it's the fucking middle of October, and I am already dealing with snow. This is unacceptable. You jerks all better quit using hairspray, and driving SUVs. This is all your fault! You keep on making the climate change, and I have to deal with the consequences. Why do I have to deal with snow in October just because you want big hair and a big car to make up for your small dick/loose, smelly clam? Fuckin' global warming, man. It does some fucked up shit. It's too bad I became this jaded, cranky jerk. I remember when I'd be psyched for snow. It meant no school, snow forts, snow men, sledding, snowball fights. And I can still appreciate all of that stuff now, but I'd much rather stay inside and blog about how miserable snow is. Oh well. The magic of winter had to die some time, I guess. Wow! This just went from a hilarious rant to a serious bummer real quick. I guess it's about time I changed the topic.

So my friend Kate, who is a grad student at Rutgers, frequently complains to me about how she's starving at school. She's poor and doesn't have a meal plan, so most of her meals end up being peanut butter and jelly. And she's sick of peanut butter and jelly, which is a frightening thing. Peanut butter and jelly is one of the greatest foods of all time. But I sympathize with her. I wouldn't want to eat the same thing all the time, either. Even if it was pb&j. But today, actually while I was writing about snow, she texted me about how when she went to her job or internship today, there were a bunch of Crumbs cupcakes just hanging out waiting for Kate to come along and eat every last one of them. That crafty lass turned the tables around on me! Here I am, having eaten nothing all day, and she is face deep in some of the best cupcakes I've ever had. She even tells me they have every flavor! That's insanity! Oh man. What I wouldn't do for a Grasshopper Crumbs cupcake right now. Of course, the closest Crumbs to Danbury is all the way in Westport. And I'm not making a 40 minute drive in this blizzard of biblical proportions. Were there any blizzards in the bible? Probably not. But just imagine if that flood that happened to Noah was a blizzard. That's what's going on here right now. It's even starting to stick! So, unfortunately, it seems like Kate will be the only one enjoying cupcakes today. Damn. All this talk of cupcakes is getting me really hungry. I need to wrap this up. You win this round, Kate!

Alright. So blogging while it's still light outside is pretty interesting. It took a lot longer, because there were a lot more distractions, but I think I enjoyed it. Feel free to leave comments about how you feel about day blogging versus night blogging. I'll be sure to go over each and every comment I get, and do what I want to do, either way. I'm going to go see if I can get the rangers' station on my old CB radio, to get them to dig me out of my house before we run out of air. Wish me luck!

The Trash. The Trash. They Pick Up The Trash.

So I was at Target a couple weeks ago with my friend Kate and her dad. We had some purpose for being there, but what I remember most is being in the part of the store with all of the groceries, and there being some fancy mac and cheeses there. I guess this particular brand is only sold at Target stores, because I had never seen them before. But when looking through them, one flavor stood out more than the rest. This was the buffalo mac and cheese. You know some crazy mother fucker came up with that flavor. I had no idea if it sounded like the best idea or the worst idea ever. That's a lie. It was clearly the best idea ever, but whether or not the end product tastes any good was very unclear to me. I tried to convince Kate to buy it, because she only eats peanut butter & jelly at school, and she's sick of it. I never want to get to a point where I'm sick of a good pb&j. That'd probably be the saddest day of my life. But anyway, she didn't end up getting it even though she really wanted to. And I didn't end up getting it even though I really wanted to. Then we went on with our lives from there. Fast forward to tonight. I'm out with my family, and we head to Target, because my brother needed to get a yellow shirt for the gang he just joined. I took this opportunity to tell my mom about these fancy macs. She was intrigued, so I convinced her to purchase a couple of them, and of course, I got my buffalo mac and cheese. Hmmm... I feel kind of bad telling this story now, because I haven't eaten it yet. So I can't tell you guys how great or not great it is. I apologize for that. But rest assured that once I do eat it, you guys will be the first to know how it is. I also picked up the new 6th book in the Hitchhiker's Guide series. Now I don't know how I feel about there being a 6th book that's not written by Douglas Adams, but I'm definitely willing to give it a try. Of course, I probably won't read it until after I read the first five again for the 4th time. I'll let you know about that, as well. Just a lot longer from now than it'll take to eat some mac and cheese.

But in the meantime I'll tell you all how I feel about every roller coaster at Six Flags: Great Adventure in New Jersey. Christian, Kate, and I went there this past summer, because we had gone to Quassy Amusement Park earlier in the summer, and needed something to make up for that. So we headed down to Jersey to have a killer time at Six Flags. And it was a killer time. We hit every roller coaster in the park aside from Kingda Ka, because it was closed, and Skull Mountain, because it's probably boring. But I'm going to tell you all about my feelings on each of the rides we did go on. And I'm going to do it all in list form so it looks like this entry is longer than it is.

Superman: Ultimate Flight - This was the coaster we went on first. It was actually going to be my first time being inverted on a roller coaster. This was from a lack of really going to amusement parks, and having a stomach ache when I went to Lake Compounce years ago, and all my friends wanted to go on Zoomerang. So we waited in line for a little over an hour, and then we finally got on the ride. Now this ride's claim to fame is that you are sitting horizontally in your seat, hanging towards the ground. You know, how Superman flies. Well this turned out to be pretty dumb. The man who yelled down to the line while we were waiting saying "Stay in line! It's worth it!" was a fucking liar! And what did he know, anyway? He had just started moving on the ride! Well we waited in line as per that dumb man's instructions only to be sorely let down. Being horizontal is not enough of a gimmick to save that ride from being boring. And honestly, the inversion while hanging wasn't so much fun as it was painful. What a dumb introduction to inverted roller coasters.

Great American Scream Machine - This ride was up next. It had a much shorter line, and was a much better ride. It definitely was a lot more fun than Superman. But I guess I didn't really fit that well into it, because I end up banging my knee quite a bit on the ride. It also gave me some good inversions, that I wasn't getting from Superman. That's right! The Man of Steel is all talk! He doesn't live up to the hype! He can be outdone by some roller coaster with no line that isn't even associated with a brand! Great coaster. Would ride again.

Rolling Thunder - Now we're getting to my territory. I've always loved wooden roller coasters. They just end up leaving me more thrilled than any steel coaster ever has. I guess it's just the fear of being on something that looks, feels, and sounds like it will fall apart at any minute. Now Rolling Thunder wasn't nearly the best wooden coaster I've been on, but it definitely did not disappoint. A quality ride, for sure.

Runaway Mine Train - El Toro would have been next up, but it had a pretty wicked line going on, so we figured we'd come back later. So we made our way to the Runaway Mine Train. Now this coaster is definitely more for the younger park-goers, but nobody's as young at heart as Christian, Kate, and myself. So we gave it a shot, and it was a pretty good ride. Nothing too exciting, but it was fun. Plus, the girl running the ride would say "Toot! Toot!" or "Choo! Choo!" every time she sent the train off. It was pretty great. Good coaster.

Log Flume - The line for Bizarro was also ridiculous, so we thought we'd take this time to cool off. What a dumb idea. The line for the log flume ride was probably just as ridiculous as Bizarro, except more condensed, and underneath a low roof. So it was probably ten times as hot in line for this dumb flume as it was anywhere else in the park. We waited for probably over two hours, just so we could get wet. Granted, it did feel pretty good to get wet, but definitely not worth the torture beforehand. Plus, Kate wasn't psyched on getting wet at all. So there wasn't any payoff for her, at all.

El Toro - I believe this is when we went back to El Toro and decided to hang in the line. And I'm really glad we did. Here's the story, folks. El Toro is the best wooden roller coaster I've ever been on. Therefore, it is the best roller coaster I've ever been on. And it was so far ahead of any other coaster I've ever been on, that I firmly believe that it's just the best coaster ever. El Toro is fast. It has some of the most intense drops, and some real tight turns. It is just a quality ride all around, and I probably would have been happy just going on that ride over and over my whole time at Six Flags. Do yourself a favor, readers. Ride El Toro as much as possible. You'll thank me for it, without a doubt.

Nitro - This is about the time that we headed over to the other side of the park. And our first stop there was Nitro. Now Nitro has a pretty damn big drop. It feels like the car climbs up forever. But then you finally get to the top, and then you drop down a very long way. And I was pretty pumped up for this big drop, but honestly, as high as it was, I didn't get the same feeling of intensity as I did from much smaller, but faster drops like on El Toro. It was definitely enjoyable, but I really thought a bigger drop like that would impress me more. Oh well. It's hard to live up to El Toro. But overall, it was a good ride.

Batman the Ride - Batman was next. This ride was dumb. First of all, unless you're in the front, you don't see anything going on, because the seat in front of you is blocking everything. And second of all, this ride jerks you around too much. Every corkscrew just ended up hurting my legs. I was glad the ride only lasted about 20 seconds, because I was bored and hurting the whole time. Bad.

The Dark Knight Coaster - I guess we figured there couldn't be two bad Batman rides in one theme park, so we took a stab at the Dark Knight Coaster. Indoor coasters, man. Maybe there's a way to do them right, but it's definitely not that way. This was one of those coasters that likes to whip you around tight turns so that your neck breaks. Also, there were not many times where I didn't feel like I was going to get my head chopped off by some part of the track right in my face. You know those pictures they snap of you that you can buy at the end of the ride? I was not in the picture, because I was ducking for fear of losing my head. What a dumb fucking ride. Batman is stupid now, and it's all Six Flags' fault! I guess the ride was intended more for kids, but the Runaway Mine Train was for kids, and I had a great time on that! Toot! Toot!

Bizarro - It was getting close to closing time, so we figured we'd try and hit up Bizarro before they started kicking us out. We had to barrel through the glow in the dark parade that was going on, and I may have ruined Bugs Bunny for some young children, but we made it to Bizarro, and caught a real short line. And I'm glad we did, because Bizarro was a great coaster. It likes to toot it's own horn a bit. It calls itself an "extreme multi-sensory experience," which essentially means that Bizarro is yelling in your ear the whole time, you go through some mist, and then fire shoots at you. These are all pretty cool things, for sure. But really, Bizarro? You sure think highly of yourself, don't you? But either way, Bizarro has himself a great ride. It was the second best coaster in the park, hands down.

El Toro pt. 2 - We got off Bizarro and figured we'd try to sneak in another ride on the best coaster of all, El Toro. So we're waiting in line, and they start shooting off fireworks. Apparently, the day we decided to go is the same day the park decided to preview their fireworks display. And there was just something magical about going on my favorite coaster with my favorite people at night with fireworks going off in the sky. It's truly something straight out of a movie. We were also the third to last coaster sent around before they closed the rides down. So we were just in time to experience that wondrous event. We even ended up grabbing the picture the ride took of us from that. Christian pretended to sleep, I made a goofy face, and Kate looked as happy as she could possibly be. Christian and I are hilarious.

So now you all know the cool way to have fun at Six Flags: Great Adventure. It makes me feel good inside to know that I can bring such great joy to my readers. I just want you all to know that I love each and every one of you. Without each and every one of you, I'd just be talking to myself. Which I do. But I can't do that all the time! You know? Well I'm going to go discuss the musical merit of bands that write songs about hotdogs in the rain. Reindeer Nuts isn't an actual ice cream flavor. Bye!