itinerary:

t-minus 1 hour: be released from the icy robotic grip of the work week.

t-minus 1.5 hours: be dutiful son, call mom in advance of mother's day as i am leaving the country; find out if flowers made it there safely.

t-minus 3 hours: be seated on patio in sunshine for presumptive going-away party, in case we get to mexico and don't ever come back.

t-minus 8 or 9 hours: zzzzzzzzzzz

t-minus 16 hours: wake up, grumpily.

t-minus 18.5 hours: board plane that will take us to puerto vallarta. spend rest of week chillin' on beach, touring tequila factories, arguing in broken spanish about the merits of guadalajaran futbol teams, consuming own body weight in margaritas and tacos al pastor.

yep, it's gonna be awesome. see you dudes next week!

is it just me, or, in these nba playoffs, is it getting increasingly harder to hate the lakers?

kobe is starting to seem less like a cross between a robot and and asshole, and is turning into an actual human being who happens to be insanely good at basketball, and phil jackson's got the whole bunch of them playing fast, loose and aggressive in a way i, as a casual fan who tends to cheer for a team based on style more than anything, am really digging. and while their play's giving me flashbacks to showtime -- the only time i've ever really loved the lakers, and that had a lot to do with the fact that (a) magic was my favorite player and (b) the lakers wore the same colors as my high school's team -- it's actually less like that and more like i'm watching a really phenomenally good soccer team work the ball.

i've still got a lot of issues, as a fan, with the team and their culture and blah blah blah, but the way they're playing right now is absolutely compelling. and, damn, a lakers/hornets final in the west would be a hell of a series; here's hoping, for the aesthetes in the house, anyway, that utah and san antonio don't manage to plod their way back into their respective series, and instead we get seven games of dudes in yellow running roughshod over each other.

and that either of them beat the celtics.

***

speaking of l.a., here's a cause i can get behind, too: apparently, over recent months, there's been a citywide crackdown on both taco trucks and on the purveyors of the single greatest street food ever invented, the bacon-wrapped hot dog. this is a travesty, and shall not stand, even though there's not a great deal a dude in minneapolis can do about it.

but (cue patriotic music): it's the right of all americans to have the best possible taco at the most convenient location and price possible. and it is the right of all americans to harden their arteries to their hearts' (dis)content on bacon-wrapped hot dogs, the occasional grease fire or stray bacterium be damned. (cue louder patriotic music): at first, they came for the hot dog vendors, and i did not speak up, because i was not a hot dog vendor! THEN, THEY CAME FOR THE CARNE ASADA, AND I DID NOT SPEAK UP, BECAUSE I WAS NOT CARNE ASADA! AND THEN ... well, okay, you know the rest. anyway, if you're in the area, go have two tacos al pastor for me, in solidarity. carne asada is not, indeed, a crime.

***

anyhow, that's all the politics i'm going to get into, because taco politics affect us all. for now, though, i'm going to sit and salivate and try and shoot brain-waves at the irs so my promised stimulation comes through. have a good one, dudes and ladies.

i've determined i can tell exactly how busy i am at work by the amount and quality of time i spend perusing deadspin. it's the deadspin busy-ness index:

level 1: click over there three or four times in a day, read everything, watch all the videos, read a bunch of comments, check out pretty much every link in the blogdome sections.

level 2: check it once in the morning and once in the afternoon, read a few of the longer pieces, follow up on occasional interesting comment threads.

level 3: take a peek over lunch, skimming for soccer posts, big daddy drew, and videos of fan-created rap songs and/or nut shots.

level 4: skim before i leave work to see if i missed anything important.

level 5: /the fuck is a deadspin?

this week, thus far, i've been all sorts of level five/code orange/'you want what? when?' ... which has been more stressful than your average work week. fortunately, it's also been both productive and educational, and i'll admit it's pretty excellent to work your way into the bosses' good graces in the week before you depart to spend some time thinking about anything in the world that's not work whilst lounging on a mexican beach. (oh, and the rain you may see in that webcam broadcast? it's going to leave there and come to minnesota the entire time we're gone. you're welcome.)

last weekend, which i still maybe haven't typed about, was equally busy, in parts: there was a two-fer of awesome on saturday that involved seeing the twins beat the tigers and then having the dirtbombs rock our pants off at the entry (incidentally, ko melina was rocking a gary sheffield jersey, thereby making her performance the best of anyone in a tigers uniform in all of minneapolis). sunday involved struggling out of bed to fill up on brunch, then napping on and off until heading over to sit in the sunshine and watch our new-look minnesota thunder win their home opener against something called the rochester raging rhinos. (goalkeeper nick 'el disco' platter officially became the man, when he had an assist on the only goal, a foul, and a penalty-kick stop within five minutes.)

this week's been pretty chill, by comparison, as i'm stretching my dollars mexico way and hoping the irs goes ahead and stimulates me prior to leaving; the chillaxin' is also necessary 'cause, hey, a dude's gotta rest up to bring his a-game south of the border.

one thing i've learned, also, via chillin', and specifically the part involving vh1 classic's top 100 one-hit wonders? ten or so years on, and 'tubthumping' is still the best pop song ever written. TRUTH.

and now, dudes and ladies, back to my level-five working. or maybe level three. one can't be that motivated all the time.

i think it's a sign of being grown-up or some shit like that, but this is the first time in a while i've been to work with a hangover of any magnitude. this has a lot to do with the fact that we went to the pub at 6:30 last night to redeem some free drink coupons and achieve flawless victory at pub quiz (well, not entirely flawless; jenni and i finished outta the medals in the first round, but, when reinforcements came in the form of wendy and rick, we scored 23/25 to take the second-round trophy. also, there's a trophy now. who knew). and it has more to do with the fact that, given that it was a weeknight and we had an out-of-town guest, we then headed over to the otter; weeknights are the only time you can even hold out hope for singing karaoke and/or having more than a quarter-inch of space around you.

both of these things, as well as a number of drinks, were achieved, as were a whole bunch of naked-lady-photo-hunt high scores, because we are awesome. also, my girlfriend knows all the words to 'can't fight this feeling,' which rules.

and, so, today, i embark on the weekend already hung over and trying to fight through work, with the eventual rewards being: low-rider show at the st. paul cinco de mayo festival tonight, twins game and dirtbombs show tomorrow, and, barring a horrible thunderstorm, the ... well, the thunder game on sunday. this has all the makings.

***

unrelated, i downloaded this long blondes album from emusic like three months ago and finally listened to it, and it's kind of great in a glam-punk/new wave sort of way. their lead singer looks like this, and, while it's kind of weird, that's exactly how she *sounds*. i'd say, on the obscure tip, that they sound a lot like a louder version of metric; we'd also accept 'pulp, with a female singer,' 'bloc party, with more whispering,' 'st etienne, with less boring songs,' or 'tall british people who smoke slim cigarettes, listen to a lot of kinks records, and are much, much cooler than you and i will ever be.'

***

happy friday, dudes and ladies. whatcha got shakin' for your weekends?

last night, we went to dave and buster's eating and drinking and video-game emporium, in a suburb so far out of the city it has its own fake downtown, and the following things happened:

• jenni and i won enough tickets playing SUPERTRIVIA to come home with a miniature water whiskey cooler, a beach towel, a shot glass and two CRAZY STRAW mugs.

• we virtually raced virtual snowmobiles and my girlfriend virtually knocked me off a virtual cliff. virtually.

• a bartender charged me $2.40 for a drink, with a straight face, multiple times. (half-price happy hour is the best thing ever.)

• we found a lost dog, left a voicemail for the vet's office on his tags, and eventually left him with a friendly representative of the maple grove police department with the assurance that csi: maple grove would track down his owners.

all in all, the lesson learned is that we need to go to outer-ring 'burbs on weeknights much more often than we do.

i am, like most people, at work right now.

avoidanonymity is, by contrast, sitting in one of our mutually-owned seats at the twins game. a seat which happened to be, at today's contest, in the hormel row of fame. thus winning him not only an afternoon off at the ballpark, but a free hot dog.

SIGH.

fortunately, we went to the game last night and saw a victory, featuring maybe the best performance i've seen in two years from boof bonser, and, despite my lack of free hormel products, i am kicking ass at work without even bothering to take names.

even more fortunately, it's already 1:30, leaving us very few hours away from a trip to suburban bar/arcade funtimes this evening, where i intend to win enough tickets to actually buy dave & buster's.

and, in the most fortunate news yet, this is the best minute of film guy ritchie's done since snatch, and complex has not one, not two, but four videos from the new roots record. (and thanks to jenni for bringing both of those to my attention. me, i am a mere conduit of internet-awesome-dissemination.)

happy hump day, dudes and ladies.

internet! how's it going?

me, i've been alternately extremely lazy and deeply busy typing on the internet for work, hence what seems like an extended absence but was really a mere like three days. (fair warning, i've been reading david foster wallace again and so there's going to be a few more randomly-placed 'like's in my writing for the next few days. maybe a footnote or two, too, but i'll restrain myself.)

anyway, since last i typed, many things of much awesomeness have happened (though we also developed a lot to complain about). here are these awesome things in roughly chronological order:

• friday night after work, we decided a trip to the 'burbs was in order. and that we needed drinks before tackling that. thus, we headed to sneaky pete's, which, in addition to off-duty-stripper waitresses, had ample hockey-viewing opportunities and cheap-ass rail drinks. they also have an awesome patio, i discovered whilst on a smoke break, and i'm hesitant to spread the word because i want it to myself come outdoor-drinking season.
  
• post-hockey, we headed out to beginagain's in st louis park, our general 'burb bar of choice, because it's got 2-for-1s, rarely-used dartboards, a jukebox with rick astley and some great people-watching. while there, a dude named beaker may have proposed to cindi based solely on the quality of the cookies she'd baked earlier.
  
• 2-for-1s ran until midnight, which is the perfect duration of 2-for-1s if you want to leave by closing time and feel very good about yourself by the time you go to bed.
  
• saturday was spent almost entirely on the couch and/or cleaning the house, which was kind of glorious. not as glorious as the red wings' flawless victory over colorado, but still.
  
• after some ridiculously awesome homemade calzones, we headed out to hopkins, to celebrate pete's birthday and the glory of rockfist. i've seen a lot of classic rock cover bands in my day, and i think these guys win, if only for the volume of journey they played.
  
• rockfist shows draw an interesting crowd. there were at least a half-dozen midgets there, as well as about 50 women who, as cindi put it, were out with the girls for the first time since they had the twins. apt. also, we nearly got in a fight with a posse of these women, trying to protect cindi's chair during a smoke break. i didn't want to have to sock a mom of three in the face while a cover band played 'separate ways,' and i'm glad i didn't have to.
  
• sunday was basically saturday without all the work. it was glorious.
  
• monday, on the other hand, was basically sunday, but with going to work, remembering i had an oil-change appointment, being gleeful about leaving early, and then watching hockey and top gear and miss rap supreme and having a stomachache. that last, i'm not thrilled about, but it seems better. that, or the stress of the weekend was causing it, and being back at work is healthful. this is unlikely.
  

***

also! you may remember this post asking for top-five-list ideas. i shall now commence tackling them, one post a time or so. the first, from msmcknittington:

Top Five Pennies

• Penny Lane from Almost Famous. Not my favorite Cameron Crowe movie by a long shot, but, in retrospect, the best thing Kate Hudson would probably ever do on film.
  
• The Wheat Penny. Or, as I like to think of it, the penny from when a penny could buy something. And/or the currency with grain on it. Bold move, U.S. Mint.
  
• Penny from Inspector Gadget. Role model for nerds who were in elementary school in the early '80s everywhere.
  
• JCPenney in the Watertown (SD) Mall. Source of the one and only piece of Cross Colours apparel I ever owned. Source, too, of constant wonder at the fact that a Penney's in a mall in South Dakota ever sold Cross Colours apparel.
  
• The Pennyfarthing. Only way to haul around a Victorian mustache.
  

man, i miss two days of posting, then i'm back with a vengeance. two posts in ONE MORNING? look out, internet.

anyway, this is a very brief roundup of two things i forgot.

one: in 2002, grant potulny of the gophers scored the winning goal in overtime of the ncaa championship game, in what i like to call 'the greatest sports-fan moment of my life.' however, his little brother, and former gopher all-american, ryan potulny, just did something arguably just as awesome: scored the game-winner in the fifth overtime, against a goalie who'd made 98 saves, to win a first-round ahl playoff game. to that i say hell yes, and also fuck shootouts.

two: tracy mcgrady is awesome. to quote: "It's my fault. It's my fault we missed free throws. It's my fault we lost both games. Blame me. It's my fault we fouled to tie the game up. That's my fault. It's my fault they get easy layups. It's my fault we're not executing well on the offensive end. It's my fault a couple people in the stands ordered Heinekens and they got Budweiser. It's my fault. I'm sorry."

that's good stuff, right there.

my first smoke break of the day is always the best. this is not only because it's my first venture away from my desk for non-coffee-related reasons, but also because it's usually the only one that happens while the cafe in the lobby is still making breakfast.

which means that, when i step out of our office, i am walloped by the scent of bacon that suffuses our entire common area. i'm not going to lie, here: sometimes, i just hang out in the lobby for a minute or two being rebaconated. it allows me the strength to carry on.

this is especially welcome today, as i've discovered that the exact same things that make for a pretty awesome night -- saganaki, a bottle of retsina, a giant plate of mussels and a few whiskeys -- also make for an unusually painful morning. it's possible i'm still not actually awake, however much i might currently be typing on the internet like an awake person.

***

and, since i'm only awake in the academic sense, at least for the duration of another cup of coffee, here's a meme stolen from skafunkmelt:

Give me topics for a top five list! Anything at all: top five favorite socks, top five favorite smells or anything you want. I'll post the answers in an upcoming post.

***

last but not least, smut and rock.

this (NWS) photo was on nerve today, and it's both kind of innocent and really, really dirty. nice work, porn site that's article-filled enough that i can read it at work.

and i have updated taco tuesday at muxtape. this installment contains 100% more metal than the last one, even though, to my eternal regret, 'through the fire and the flames' was too large to upload. sigh. enjoy, and have an excellent weekend, dudes and ladies!

i didn't realize this, last night, until watching the finale of supergroup that we'd dvr'd earlier in the week, but, holy crap, did we make ted nugent proud earlier in the evening. while i didn't actually bowhunt the chicken that wound up on my grill*, we did: set up the coals, create the fire in a ferocious wind, and brave the oncoming storm to cook over a damn open flame, most of the chicken finishing about six seconds before lightning started crashing and rain started pouring.

we are, in fact, DEDICATED. and, jenni being a part of this, it was perhaps the first time a vegetarian participated in a fully nuge-approved activity.

the rest of the evening, in contrast to our outdoorsmanship, was spent in and around the couch, 'cause of the storm and the fact we had about six days of television to catch up on. or at least top gear and miss rap supreme** and the aforementioned supergroup. it was some highly necessary monday-night chillaxation, and now i'm prepared to go forth and kick ass. (which is good; yesterday, at work, was a perfect day because i had no meetings. the next three days, i have meetings. thus: not perfect. but i shall survive.)

and, before i go, a reminder to anyone who missed the post yesterday but still likes getting free money for doing basically nothing at all (i assure you, this will not become a blog solely about free money):

click this button, and get $25 free -- this is apparently a competitor to paypal, and now through may 15, if you sign up, they'll give you $25 for doing pretty much nothing except building their user base. (and then, when you sign up, you get this button, and $10 for everyone you refer.)

i've gone through the entire process and it's entirely catch-free, unless they, like, rickroll you when you try to transfer into your bank account. this seems unlikely.




--

footnotes.
* the chicken i did was made immensely better by the world's simplest marinade: about a half-inch of lemon juice in a baking pan, with salt, pepper, and crack, plus more of same sprinkled on the uncovered side of the chicken. turn it three or four times and marinate for like 20 minutes, and it gets a hell of a job done.

** this show is fantastic. it's like rock of love or some such in terms of interpersonal drama, but (a) it's got much more of a sense of humor about the process and (b) the ladies featured have talents like rapping, songwriting and singing, rather than giving sloppy hummers to an aging rock star. well, well worth it.

three things, good people of the internet:

ONE: i had every intention of making a real post today, with details of the weekend's awesomeness that involved lots of chillin', a lacrosse-in-person/hockey-on-a-giant-screen-on-the-roof doubleheader, and a glorious return to outdoor drinkin', but then i got busy with work and had 600 cups of coffee and just lost all possible focus, so that'll happen tomorrow instead.

TWO: free money.

forreals.

click this button, and get $25 free -- this is apparently a competitor to paypal, and now through may 15, if you sign up, they'll give you $25 for doing pretty much nothing except building their user base. (and then, when you sign up, you get this button, and $10 for everyone you refer.)

in other words, if you click this button, i get free money, you get free money, and everyone wins.

DO IT.

have you ever heard the 'super mario brothers' theme played on glass bottles by a remote control car?

no?

now you have.

the internet, it brings such joy into our lives. (don't even get me started on the new connect four application for facebook, which brings the total of useful facebook applications up to two.)

anyhow, i'm a little more awake today; the wild's corps of defensemen were kind enough, last night, to realize that they're depleted by injury, exhausted by too much ice time, and roughly the same median age as the cast of cocoon, and as such played so badly in the first period that the game was effectively over 20 minutes in. thus, we didn't actually have to stay awake through the entire third period, much less overtime, and got to bed at something resembling a reasonable hour, just as stephane veilleux was busy getting his second 10-minute misconduct penalty when he should have already been in the locker room due to his first 10-minute misconduct penalty.

all in all: spectacular game. almost as spectacular as the fact that we got to grill our dinner outdoors last night; combined with the fact that i'm going to a baseball game tonight, this means it's officially spring.

which: fuck yeah.

and now, since most of my office is gone at a meeting starting at 10, i can actually get some work done. l'chaim, dudes.

i'm sure this is all over the local sports blogs, but it's awesome anyway: the denver post actually employs a worse hack than woody paige.

the short version of that article, so as not to give them too much traffic: "WAAAAHHHHHHHHH! the avalanche are getting beaten up by those thugs on the wild! peter forsberg has never done anything wrong! aaron voros is a bully! WAAAHHHHHHHH!" and the best part: one of the commenters posted the text of an article written by the same columnist the last time the wild knocked colorado out of the playoffs, and it's the exact same piece. right down to making fun of the wild's uniforms.

i love sore losers.

anyhow, i'm still half-asleep today thanks to (a) the wild keeping me up late with yet another overtime game; (b) still recovering from heartpatient's birthday celebration over the weekend and (c) being once again saddened by the fact that it's tuesday and i keep thinking it's wednesday and then realizing that it's not.

on the plus side, it's the nicest day in a long time, and we're grilling on the patio tonight come hell or high winds, and then there shall be more hockey, and it will be glorious, as hockey is.

for now, back to work, where i shall be hoping to get everything done while the bigwigs are in meetings so's i have plenty of time to watch top ground gear force and laugh my ass off.

HAPPY FRIDAY, INTERNET.

i'm extraordinarily excited about this friday business, because i've actually thought three of the five workdays this week were wednesday. this one, i know is not, because i'm wearing sneakers at my desk.

also, i woke up thinking about ferrara pan's boston baked bean candies, and i only ever do that on fridays. i couldn't remember what the hell went into boston baked beans; fortunately, the virtual tour on the ferrara pan website told me everything i needed to know. what that site will not tell you, but what i have learned through extensive scientific research, is that a ferrara pan lemonhead, when put in your mouth at the same time as a peppermint mentos, will produce a flavor that is indistinguishable from the smell of lemon pledge. thus: don't spend all that time and money dusting your house! for $2.00 worth of candy, you can get the same sensation anytime.

possibly, my brain is a little scattershot today. this is what happens when you've spent 60% of the week not knowing what day it is, and then wake up thinking about boston baked beans.

anyhow, two unimportant but amusing things: maybe the least historically aware protester ever, and almost certainly the most hideous things worn on a baseball field, ever.

and, finally, one EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THING. i made this for your ears: tacotuesday.muxtape.com. enjoy, and i shall be updating it every one to nine weeks.

have a fantastic weekend, dudes and ladies.

so.

the wild lost game one of their playoff series in overtime. the timberwolves lost by roughly 750 points to new orleans in front of us and at least a dozen other fans. there's snow in the forecast. my co-workers don't know how to use the internet.

but, y'know, can't complain.

because: the twins beat the bejesus out of the white sox while all that was going on; and we had insanely good seats to watch chris paul -- who is a mindblowingly good point guard -- do his thing; and we got two-for-ones before the game and two-dollar drinks after while watching hockey with a bar full of fans; and i've kicked ass at work today; and tonight is a very good night to do laundry and drink scotch and catch up on television and spend some quality time with the couch and the girl and the poor, neglected wii.

by and large, in other words, things are pretty kickass.

in other sports news, i've spent way too much time the last few days reading cardboard gods, which is a terrifically well-written site that uses old baseball cards as a sort of jumpoff point for some really good essays. the swen nater piece, though about as tangentially related to its subject as my subject lines generally are, was maybe the one that hooked me. (that, and the fact that i firmly recognize these dudes as fellow members of the brotherhood of dudes that read this book as kids until the cover literally came off. the great american baseball card flipping, trading and bubble gum book is directly responsible for about 93 percent of my entire lifelong interests, forreals.)

in political news, i've finally determined definitively to vote obama, because i had a dream in which his health-care plan involved free ice cream sundaes. since, the previous night, i'd dreamed about winning a drag race in my dad's 1981 chevette, my subconscious is clearly sober, reality-based, and eminently trustworthy.

and, finally, in cheesecake news: this, not beckham in his skivvies, is how you sell underwear to straight guys. and this is the best stanley cup preview i've found so far.

and, with that, back to the asskickery.

you know what doesn't work?

if you have to edit the wording of the mission statement on your company's website, and need to refer to a copy of the correct mission statement ... checking the website will not help you.

the worst part is, after opening the site, i actually copy/pasted the incorrect text into the page i was editing.

i'm not cut out for this whole work thing today.

on the plus side, this shirt rules, and this commercial for fifa street 3 is goddamn amazing, even if the only thing it's advertising to me is my abject sadness that fifa street 3 is not available for wii.

anyway, happy hump day, everyone. it's kind of the most exciting day of the year, since the nhl playoffs get going; me, i'm celebrating this in traditional fashion: by going to an nba game. (scheduling will improve next year.)

apparently, the mets aren't that amused by their season being rickrolled.

any of you in new york: get out to shea for the next homestand, and sing your hearts out to mr. astley's work. WE CAN STILL DO THIS.

you guys didn't need to do anything today, right?

good.

because nerve has the 50 greatest comedy sketches of all time, and that's more worthwhile viewing than you can cram in a week.

and speaking of sketch comedy (not that you're reading anymore, what with the 50 greatest comedy sketches over there), here's a thing. we were flippin' channels on sunday night and happened across the whitest kids u know on ifc. which we watched half an episode of; at one point, i thought 'hey, one of those dudes looks exactly like this guy timmy williams that i used to play in a band with in high school.' and then i was too busy laughing (and marveling at the fact that, thanks to late-night cable, they were able to use the phrase 'fuckcunting around' on television) to look into it further.

cue last night, and i'm reading the new complex, which has a guide to great pranks from these very same whitest kids. and the dude i thought looked like my old friend timmy williams? totally my old friend timmy williams. i post this now because (a) it's awesome; (b) anytime a dude is out there reppin' for south dakota, i am excited and (c) it'll remind me to look him up on the facebooks and subtly beg for a writing job.

until then, i should probably go be good at my current job, and quit all this fuckcunting around on the internet. word, my homies and homettes.

so, as you may or may not know, i grew up in a small town in south dakota. (well, it's a large-ish town for south dakota, but, y'know.)

and since moving to minneapolis, i have been all about urban. i've never lived outside minneapolis proper, i love the city, and the change from chain-restaurant hell, and all that.

and, yet, sometimes, the perfect weekend involves going to two different bennigan's. in two different suburbs. i may lose my 612-cred card for that, but sometimes that's just how a dude's gotta roll, and thus it was with this weekend.

not that we lacked in urbanity, by any means -- i managed to split work on friday early, if not as early as i wanted, and headed down to herkimer for step one of three in the great happy-hour chase. as it turns out, if you're really trying, you can spend well over eight hours drinking two-for-ones in this grand glorious metro area of ours. the herk's lasted until 6, and, as we neared the end of that happy hour, we began brainstorming, and remembered that nba city, everyone's favorite family restaurant/baller bar inside an arena, had a happy hour. one phone call from bar to bar later, and we determined we had 'til 8 for twofers there. we made our way (and, i'm not proud of this, but i stopped to pee behind a dumpster along the way -- extra drinks have a way of doing that. actually, come to think of it, given that it was light out and we were downtown in a major metropolitan area, i am kind of proud), and, after some billing kerfuffles, had our second happy hour conquered.

post-nba-city, we determined one of our usuals, liquor lyle's, would be next. unfortunately, it was so packed with hipsters that sitting became impossible, and, thus, being intrepid souls, we hied our way out to the shelter of the inner-ring 'burbs: bennigan's. but not just any bennigan's. the one where pete once fell down the stairs. the one where we met a dude who called himself 'the governor' due to our shared interest in reggaeton. the one where, oddly enough, they've moved the jukebox downstairs and taken off half the good songs. and, now, the one that i rickrolled. (god bless 'em for still having 'never gonna give you up' on the jukebox. wendy was in the bathroom when i played it, and nearly died. and, speaking of nearly dying in the bennigan's bathroom, this also happened. fortunately, out of my sight.)

saturday, then, dawned bright and clear and hungover, and, after many glorious hours of sitting around doing nothing, jenni and company headed out for girls' night whilst i joined the crew for the fourth occasional competition for the ZOD CUP. this, as you may know, is our glorious bowling trophy, named for the intergalactic badass before whom all should kneel, if all know what's best for 'em. the competition, as ever, was spirited and drunken, coming down to one final ball. alas, when all the pins had fallen, we, the boys of pervert suicide, found ourselves a mere five pins short of our female competitors. (stupid handicaps.) the cup, it shall be ours. just not now.

and then: more bennigan's. because, really, when it's midnight and you've just had a fierce bowling competition, the best place to go is the bar directly across the street. that's finished with happy hour but still giving away 2-for-1s on green beer it has left over from st. patrick's day.

classy.

and speaking of days dawning in hungover fashion: sunday. though the 'bright and clear' was a bit lacking, so we did what anyone in our state would do: giant plates of brunch, followed by a movie (21, which had basically nothing in common with the excellent book it's based on, but was still decent and made me want to go to vegas a lot) and ample time on the couch.

which, all things considered, is a pretty damn good sunday no matter where you live.

***

p.s. are you a lady? do you like to blog things about sports? perhaps you'd like to blog things about sports for ladies.... i'd apply myself, but, y'know, got this wang.

here's a question: if "Web 2.0" is so damn futuristic and user-generated and 'cloud-computing' based, why is it that no one has yet developed the technology to play 'The Final Countdown' every time i walk into a room?

it's a simple request, internet, and i'm not buying your 'wave of the future' business until someone makes it happen.

(happy friday!)