drunk go-karting

i'm always a fan of long weekends, and with this past weekend having a memorial day attached, i ended up with almost two weeks off of work having taken vacation the week previous. i live in dallas, which as a city, offers a million things to do at any given time. my problem is that when it comes time to pick something to do, i often draw a blank. it's like when i was a kid during mid-summer and my friends happened to be busy doing other things, i'd be like "mooooooooom!! i'm bored!! theres nothing to do!" and mom would list 20 things off the top of her head and it was like i was hit with lightning. "mom!! those are great ideas!! why didn't i think of those?!?!"

this weekend however, was different. even though it rained two out of the three days. it was pure fun and enjoyment for three days straight.

a list: (the A-List?)

beer
party's
wet cookouts
hot tubs
beer
bowling
fun trivia drinking games
go-karting
beer
winning bets over more bowling games ( i now own a personal slave.... =] )

though i was relatively sober for the go-karting, i realized that they sold beer at the go-karting place. granted these things only get up to about 40 mph, but i seem to remember always being told that alcohol and driving don't mix too well. "look mom dad's racing fast!!...... MOM! dad just ran into the wall and flipped the kart!!!" "mom? is dad suposed to be out of bounds like that?"

my first lap in the grand prix race would have had a better time if the gas cap didn't fall off the car and the tank didn't keep spilling gas all over me as i went around the turns.

i slow down for nothing.

even soaked in gasoline and highly flammable, i drove that f-ing kart like i was danica patrick in the indy 500. rubbin's racing pal.

"that phylum is known to be boozers"

"that phylum is known to be boozers"
- spoken by Ian in Nawlins last weekend about the crazy pigeons wadling around.

so last friday (may 20th) i decide to buy a flight down to new orleans for two reasons....

a. my buddy jim and his friends in flight school will be there for the weekend

2. 4 of my fraternity brothers, that i haven't seen in 3 years, are on a cross country road trip and will be rolling through new orleans the following week

the only way to describe the past 7 days is "pure chaos". i am getting too old for this type of week-long alcoholic binge. daddy hurts. the thousands of stories are too long and vast for this blog. suffice it to say good times, great oldies.

anyway, i get this flight friday morning while in the office. i leave work at 3 (an hour early) to get my flight. i get on my flight and we take off. this pilot must of thought the 727 was an F-16. i swear we went vertical after getting off the ground. luckily i was sitting near the wings so the constant back and forth yaw motion didn't affect me as much as the front and back of the plane. 5 people threw up that i am aware of. it rocked! apparently this pilot had a hot date in new orleans cuz we had to of been at full throttle the entire time. we flew a flight that should take 1 hour and 25 mins in just under an hour.

the flight home can only be described as time travel. feeling way less than top shelf, i passed out while taxiing and woke up when the wheels hit the ground in dallas.

after having been to new orleans 8 times, i have seen many things that would boggle the mind. this is why i am scared. my eldest sister is having her bachellorette party there this weekend. after 8 episodes of watching girls do some crazy crazy shit, and watching guys do some crazy crazy shit in response, i refuse to even think about my sister being there. ignorance is most definitely bliss.

some reasons why dimes suck:

came upon this site through another site.... Dimes Must Die

here are a few reasons why this guy hates dimes:

- Dollars are made up of Quarters. Quarters are made up of Nickels. Nickels are made up of Pennies. There is no place for Dimes in this system. A Quarter can not be divided up into Dimes unless you go through the trouble of cutting a Dime perfectly in half. Most establishments lack the resources to accomplish this for you when giving you your change.

- Dimes have no purpose in the division of money. A hard-working Nickel carries the value of 5 Pennies, but the lazy Dime gets away with doing only twice the work of the Nickel - All while the Quarter effortlessly pulls the weight of 5 Nickels that the Dime should be pulling.

- Because they are so lazy, Dimes have become scrawny and weak. The Dime is the smallest coin, smaller even than the nobel Penny. Compared to the burly Quarter and the hard-working Nickel, Dimes are the bottom of the monetary food chain. So lazy is the Dime that often they will be hiding amongst Pennies to avoid the work of being spent. The Penny's size behooves it, as it makes it easier to save them in bulk to amass their collected value, but the Dime's reduced size simply makes it harder to find among all the other useful change.

oh yeah, and "Dimes Eat Babies!"

dallas drivers suck

i wake up at 6, shower, get dressed, and drive the 30 mins it takes to get to work. i get out of my truck, open the back door and find that my laptop is missing..... F!!!! i figure it is safe to assume that there aren't any computer stealing gremlins in the trunk of my truck, and therefore i slowly realize that i had forgotten my computer. the purpose of me getting up and leaving so early is to miss the rush-hour traffic. this drive takes 30 minutes without much traffic. and it is slowly dawning on me that i have to drive back, get the computer and drive back, only now it is going to be rush hour traffic..... F!!!!!!!! [jumping up and down i'm so furious] .

7:05 - i start the journey back.

7:24 - i get stuck behind a garbage truck that is covered in yellow grease looking stuff and smells so bad i start gagging.

7:28 - arrive and get my computer, head back

7:34 - hit deadlocked traffic at the highway

7:47 - have moved approximately 100 yrds and i wonder if this traffic is only caused by the over-abundance of cars

7:54 - another 20 yards, i see a cop at the scene of a small fender-bender about 30 yrds up

7:57 - passing by the accident, i am driving straight, minding my own business, obeying the rules of the road, watching the rest of the traffic

7:58 - SMACK!! the guy next to me hits the guy in front of him because they were both looking at the accident

8:07 - SMACK!! a frustrated guy behind me pulls a lousy attempt at a Cole Trickle and guns it, cutting into the left lane, the person driving in the left lane (again looking at the original accident) runs into the side of Cole Trickle.

so let me get this straight. it is bumper to bumper traffic, two people run into eachother, causing more gridlock, and less motion. then two more people crash, causing more gridlock and even less motion, and then two more collide?? now the entire highway is blocked, thankfully it was behind me. and of course, 50 yrds after the original accident, traffic opens completely up and flows as if nothing happened. i arrive at work at 8:32, an hour and a half late. the good thing about this is that it makes the morning go by quicker since i only have 3 hours till lunchtime, not 4, and still only 4 hours in the afternoon as i leave at 4 no matter what my boss says...... F dallas traffic!!!!

friggin awesome....

"Her and Tom start walking out to the parking lot, I walk back to my room, following behind them like 50 yards. Tom turns around and sees me (his mom is still facing forward) and I stick my tongue out at him. (I know, very immature, but geez I am 24, ok?) He belts out the loudest fucking screech, and his mom whacked his ass so fucking hard, picks him up, and carries him, kicking and screaming, to the car. She also is screaming at him that we do not yell at our teachers." - tard-blog.com

if you've been to, and like The Best Page In The Universe then you can appreciate good humor. additionally, you know how fun it is to make fun of kids.

Tard-Blog is much the same. the humor factor is not quite as intense, but man is it hilarious. this woman used to be a special-ed teacher and this site has an archive of her entries when she was teaching. she bitches about the children, what they do, what they smell like, their f-ed up parents..... great place to waste some time.

i am going to hell, and i have a few extra handbaskets in case you need to borrow one.

great jamz

i sit here in the office killing the remainder of my friday by writing this. The Stone Temple Pilots song "Dead and Bloated" from their album Core (arguably their best work) came on the old computer and i had a random instant flashback to 9th grade. I was walking across the courtyard of my alma mater Saratoga Springs High School right next to the bike rack. mountain bikes were just getting mainstream and everyone was riding theirs to school. an older student drove by at this instant blaring STP so loud that his stock speakers were cracking and he was loving every second of it, air-drumming the entire way, driving with no hands on the wheel as only stupid teenagers can.

having this song bring back such a vivid memory got me thinking that this happens to me a lot. it's sorta like musical deja vu. most people remember something from a smell, or something they see. for me, a certain song will come on and i can tell you when, where, and how i was at the time of my hearing the song previously. examples:

weezer - say it aint so:

- extatic because i was actually driving for the first time to a friday night football game and it came on the radio
- jamming this song with friends at a band practice in high school
- drunk group karaoke at moose's bachelor party and wedding

tears for fears - sowing the seeds of love:

- on continental airlines flight from philly to lafayette, louisiana for a second round interview that led to my current career

alice in chains - dirt:

- hungover, exhausted, thirsty, dirty, and tired, i was packing up my tent after a large get together. doors and trunk of my buick century open, speakers blaring.

- getting my 8th speeding ticket in new jersey and as the cop is waiting for me to get my paperwork, he starts tapping his pen to the music.

pantera - 5 minutes alone:

- senior year volleyball warm-ups, the other teams thought we were the devil

- 12th grade, sitting in my buick in the pouring rain in a skidmore college parking lot, having just broken up with my girlfriend 30 mins previously, i meet and get drunk with a complete stranger.... great night

firehouse - love of a lifetime:

- a roller coaster of emotions. on the radio as i am rollerblading in my driveway during 5th grade, contemplating what i should do about my first true crush. i hit a ball with a hockey stick and somehow break two windows. the second most angry i have ever seen my father. possibly the second most scared i have ever been, for both situations.


the list goes on, but the music-based memories never cease to amaze me.





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I STILL STANDING!!!!

i did not happen to die this past weekend / week. it was a close call, but i prevailed. after a fun weekend in new orleans, i drive 8 hours back to dallas, get home at 2am, pass out, get up at 8am to catch a flight to houston. if you ever fly, do not, i repeat.... DO NOT fly through or out of DFW airport. it is litterally hell on earth. if flying out of, parking is a not so pleasent 9 mile walk away from the terminal. if flying through, it honestly takes an hour to jog from one end of the airport to the other to get your connection due to the asinine triple-curve layout of the airport, not to mention the roadways on their 5000 acre complex are a maze of one-way roads and signs that lie to you. Have these idiots not heard of the fact that the quickest way from point A to point B is a straight line??

i am also bitter because having returned from houston, i trekked to the parking garage to find that someone hit my truck, Charlotte, while i was gone. I don't know how it is possible to cause so much damage in a friggin parking lot, but the front bumper was all out of shape. of course there are no cameras so there is no knowing who hit me, and therefore i am stuck with the bill. Charlotte has been in the shop now for 4 days getting a nose job. apparently there is a bunch of crap behind the bumper in these new-fangled vehicles today. a list of crap needing replacing:

front bumper
+ front plastic cover for bumper
+ front fog lights
+ front air bag sensors
+ drivers-side wheel well liner
+ two bumper extension brackets which require cutting and re-welding of the frame.

= $1350 that i don't want to claim on insurance (because i am out of state and it will raise my premiums too much), and that i can no longer spend on beer...... F!

speaking of beer, my first batch of lager is now finished, and it tastes good. the recipe i used however, asked for too much priming sugar during the bottling phase, and therefore the beer is way too carbonated. it's more like beer-soda, but it still is quite good. the second go around with a slightly different recipe should be better, and will get me closer to my goal of re-creating Yuengling Lager which is, in my opinion, the nectar of the gods.