The All American Birthday

Now turning 28 isn't the sexiest of birthdays. In fact, it's probably one of the more humdrum or troublesome ones, as you realize your twenties are quickly fleeting and soon you'll be thirty, are still in school, have no job and in no position for marriage or any of that family stuff that your friends are starting to do.

Still with all of that working against me, I was determined to have a good one. Unfortunately, it was a Tuesday, so I still had to go to work. So I put on my new (bad ass) Rolling Stones t-shirt and headed towards the tube.

After I made my usual commute to the office my friends surprised me with breakfast - a handful of mini chocolate muffins and a pair of (delicious) donuts, all with candles. They sang and it was nice, and as previously mentioned, delicious.

Then it was back to work - the perfect remedy for a birthday when you're too old to just get drunk and pass out and too young to hate the thought of getting older and just want to sleep. So we got cracking on our assignments.

At lunch time I made a quick run to Subway for the sub of the day (Tuesday is meatball marinara - and there is no $5 footlong in England. Not even a £5 footlong) and paired it with my birthday present to myself - a can of Mountain Dew, bottled back in the good 'ol US of A with the familiar list of ingredients. Yay America!

After doing a few more hours of work, the group informed me that we had to get going. They had planned my birthday for me and swore to keep it a surprise. Of course after the mega surprise party that Jenn had thrown for me years ago, I've learned to be a little more aware of my surroundings and at least had an idea of what dinner would be like.

It was what I hoped - we went to a place called 'The Big Easy' which is an American themed crabshack and steakhouse. Fantastic. On Tuesdays they also have a great deal, called their deluxe lobster bake. It looks something like this:





That would be a whole Maine lobster, atlantic crab claw, tiger prawns and mussels served with small potatoes and a complimentary Becks. (Not pictured is the incredible belgian waffle ice cream sundae for dessert.) And to make it even more American - when we sat down we noticed an autographed picture of Stevie Wonder, who has eaten there and then they started playing "Kiss" by Prince. It was my own little slice of Americana.

After dinner and dessert I was informed that the party would continue. We hopped on a double decker (and got the front row on the top) and headed towards Picaddilly Circus. There, I was taken to 'Funland' or as I shall refer to it - British Dave and Busters, just without the restaurant. We headed upstairs to the bowling alley and got our bowling on with a few drinks. I was fairly embarrassing, threatening to not break 100 until, when in the 10th frame I finally hit my groove and rolled back to back strikes (the strike dance followed). In the end I had a 106, allowing me to save face.

From there most people headed back home leaving me and Deanna to explore the arcade and play some games. Basically the equivalent of mom and dad going home and leaving the kids alone in a candy store. After waving goodbye to our friends our eyes beemed as we went exploring. The plan was to look around for a while before playing anything, so that we wouldn't waste our time or money on not-worthwhile games.

Of course, within 2 minutes of making this plan we had already started pumping 1 pound coins into Time Crisis 4 to play co-op. It was a lot of fun, and D is a pretty good shot. We finally broke away from the machine and continued looking around. We found bumper cars, but without the rest of the group we took a rain check. More games were played - including the obligatory Sure Shot basketball, some skee-ball, and... a knock-off version of DDR which ended with exhaustion and laughs, mixed with some crushed spirits. Fortunately, digital dancing isn't real dancing just like Guitar Hero isn't playing the guitar.

In the end we cashed in our tickets for 3 bird shaped whistles (one each for D, myself and Julie).
It was the greatest international birthday I ever had, thanks to a great group of Americans.

Turning 28

So for my birthday I created a new playlist. These are the songs I think best describe me:


Name Artist
Big Balls AC/DC
Gives You Hell The All-American Rejects
Be Yourself Audioslave
All You Need Is Love The Beatles
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da The Beatles
Only the Good Die Young Billy Joel
Iron Man Black Sabbath
Don't Rain on my Parade Bobby Darin
Fortunate Son Creedance Clearwater Revival
I Believe in a Thing Called Love The Darkness
Let's Hear It For The Boy Deniece Williams
Ruff Riders' Anthem Dmx
The Way I Am Eminem
Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life Ensemble, Michael McGrath & Tim Curry
Everything To Everyone Everclear
I did it my way Frank Sinatra
Walking Contradiction Green Day
Live And Let Die Guns N' Roses
December 4th Jay-Z
Public Service Announcement (Interlude) Jay-Z
Hard Knock Life(Ghetto Anthem) Jay-Z
Voodoo Child (Slight Return) Jimi Hendrix
I Love Rock and Roll Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
With a Little Help From My Friends (Wonder Years Theme) Joe Cocker
Don't Stop Believin' Journey
God Gave Rock & Roll To You KISS
Good Times Bad Times Led Zeppelin
Mama Said Knock You Out LL Cool J
Smooth Criminal Michael Jackson
Po' Folks Nappy Roots
Hey Hey, My My Neil Young
King of New York Newsies
Juicy Notorious B.i.g.
Ghetto Superstar Pras, O.D.B and Mya
Pretty Girls Prozzak [Simon and Milo]
I Want It All Queen
Headlong Queen
Princes Of The Universe Queen
Dont Stop Me Now Queen
You Can't Always Get What You Want The Rolling Stones
Sympathy For The Devil The Rolling Stones
Get Off My Cloud The Rolling Stones
It's Tricky Run DMC
Revolution Stone Temple Pilots
I Won't Back Down Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Runnin' Down A Dream Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Dancing In The Moonlight Toploader
Runnin' With The Devil Van Halen
Dance the Night Away Van Halen
Keep Fishing Weezer
Baba O'Riley The Who
My Generation The Who
Behind Blue Eyes The Who
If I can't do it 50 Cent
God Gave Me Style 50 Cent
Hate It Or Love It (G-Unit Remix) 50 Cent

Just your typical NYC Night

Last night I headed down to the Lower East Side to take in a show - a burlesque show - at the Slipper Room for my friend Lauren's birthday.

Accompanying me on the trip, a.k.a. giving me a ride to the train station and back home, was my friend Jenn and her boyfriend Dave. After arriving at Grand Central, which still instills me with awe every time I pass through it, we headed out to the streets towards Bryant Park where we would pick up the F downtown. At the corner of 42nd and Avenue of the Americas I sent Jenn and Dave on their way as I stepped up for my favorite of NY delicacies - the dirty water dog. A $9 "Makes Bob Happy" Meal later (for those not from around here, that's 2 dogs and a pretzel) I headed across the street, met them at the entrance to the subway, polished off the 2 dogs so I could have a hand to hold my pretzel and we were on our way. Now I had offered to share a meal with my accomplices, but Jenn mentioned that Dave doesn't eat hot dogs and if he weren't the size of a small mountain I probably would have given him shit for it. But he is, so I didn't.

We took the subway down, Jenn briefly called my sister to give her directions to the Slipper Room and we made our way to the venue. We still had time to kill before meeting everyone else and the show starting, and with Jenn and Dave both hungry, we made our way to a local pub so they could eat and I could catch up on my rapidly imploding NCAA bracket. We visited the 6th Ward. I finished off the 20oz Mountain Dew I had picked up earlier while gleefully learning that Kansas had been upset by Northern Iowa. I was also shockingly surprised to hear the Buzzcocks "Ever Fall in Love (with someone you shouldn't)" played in the bar. Fantastic saw and such a great bit of pop-culture. It's the song playing during the montage of J.D. and Elliot's first time in a relationship together on Scrubs. Season 1, episode 15, "My Bed Banter and Beyond". What can I say, I love that episode and Sarah Chalke/Dr. Elliot Reid was a major crush. She's married now, well Sarah Chalke is, but I guess Dr. Reid can still be a crush. (Note: I'll have to explain my personal rules on crushing sometime so that this makes a bit more sense).

Anyway, to the Slipper Room!

$5 cover to get in, we knew this in advance, and it's fairly nice sized space. It get's a little cramped up by the stage but there are some comfortable booths lining the outside and then there's the bar on the opposite wall. Not a huge place, but still bigger than your average bar in San Francisco. Saw some people I hadn't in a long time and caught up with them, saw some of the gang I hadn't seen since coming into town, and well you know, the usual stuff you do and conversations you have when you're with friends. Of course wished the birthday girl a happy birthday and gave her the great news that a team decked out in purple had been the ones to take down the might Kansas Jayhawks. Night continued, drank, posed for pictures, told jokes, stories and the what not.

Time to leave, back on the subway and to Grand Central. Slight mix up (in my head) with what time the train leaves - it leaves at 1:50 I thought 1:53 - so while standing on line at the hot dog cart at 1:49 I casually said to myself "I've got this" as I ordered another "Makes Bob Happy" Meal, this time with a Mountain Dew since there was no other place I could get one. Grabbed my bag and sprinted to catch the train. Made it to track 33 to see no train there. Immediately called Jenn and asked "where's the train?" she said, "it's moving." I began to protest that at 1:52 (the then current time) a 1:53 train should have already left. She set me straight on the train times and I quickly ran back to the main hall and then down another corridor to the 1:53 Harlem line train where if I could catch it and get off at the Croton Falls stop, Jenn would come get me. Fortunately, I made that train after finding a seat amongst the typical Saturday night last train back to the 'burbs drunken masses, settled in to enjoy my meal. It was good, however, not even the delicious ambrosia that is Mountain Dew could wash out the taste of guilt I had for mixing up the train times and requiring special attention like a drunk girl. Luckily Jenn is a great friend and well, I've had to take care of her on a plethora of drunken nights so I while, I'm sure an annoying way to end the evening, there were no hostilities or anything. Although I did feel like an idiot for screwing up when not even drunk.

Ah well. You've always got to come away from the night with a story.

Right eye funny, left eye deadly

Tonight I went to an archery range in Palo Alto with some friends for Sarah's birthday. Well, it was Sarah's birthday, but whether we went to the archery range because it was Sarah's birthday is unkown to me. Correlation does not imply cuasation.

Anyway, I was excited to learn how to shoot a bow and arrow because I still harbor some secret dreams that deep in my subconscious lies a natural, highly efficient killing machine that will show itself when given the chance. Part of that dream is that after demonstrating my natural ability I'm abducted by the government and put into some super secret military program (similar to Weapon X, or Super Soldier) where they inject me with medication that not only cures my Crohn's disease but also has all the benefits of steroids without any of the side effects. But I'd never admit that dream/fantasy to anyone because they'd think I'm crazy. So just pretend I didn't write that.

The instructor was a really nice guy, very down to Earth and obviously and avid archer, he was really glad to talk about it with us. So before we started we were introduced to the equipment, everyone who's left handed raise your hand so you can be ostracized (it's like that in every sport/activity). However, this question presented an unusual challenge for me. I was born right handed, write with my right, throw a baseball with my right, shoot a basketball with my right, but learned to be quasi-ambidextrous playing lacrosse and shoot a gun (air rifle) left handed. So I nervously asked for assistance in determining which hand I should be when shooting a bow and arrow.

The instructor had an interesting solution. He had my form a small triangle by overlapping my hands and then asked me to look through it and focus on his hand. Then he asked me to slowly pull my hands back closer to my face. While I was pulling my hands back he announced that I was left eye dominant and therefore, for the purposes of shooting a bow and arrow, left handed. Mom would be so proud. I still don't actually know what he was looking for that told him that but was fine with his diagnosis. So I loaded up the wrist guard on my right arm and took hold of the left handed bow as we walked up to the first firing line, 5 yards from the wall of targets.

It was at this point that he instructed us on the proper foot placement, how to load the arrow onto the bow, grip the firing string and in the end, fire. At first it was a bit uncomfortable using my left hand to pull back and fire, but after firing a few off my body adjusted. The first couple of rounds my arrows were clumping fairly well, however usually in the blue ring (yellow center, red just outside of that, blue outside of that, black outside of that, white outside of that) of the target. After we got comfortable our instructor asked us to fire at the lower targets on the wall, so that he could guide us on where we should be aiming in order to the targets dead on. From my shots he suggested that I concentrate on keeping my back elbow raised (a constant problem which has plauged me throughout baseball/softball seasons) and aim for the bottom of the black section of my target.

I stepped back to the line and implemented the instructor's suggestions. Whish, whish, whish, whish - 3 reds and a yellow. Sweet. Another round from this distance - 2 reds and 2 yellows, and the 2 yellows were parallel to each other, which was a goal I set for myself for the simple fact that it seemed cool.

After that we were ready to move back to the 10 yard line. My first round wasn't as successful as the new distance requires some aiming calibration. Midway through my second round I figured where I needed to aim and it was back to Robin Hood like accuracy. After a few more rounds, we moved back to 15 yards. Again, after a little calibration I was back to hitting yellow like uhm, something that hits yellow frequently.

I was feeling pretty good until we moved back to 20 yards. I kept trying to make my adjustment but couldn't get closer than the blue circle. Of course by this point though the whole yellow section looks like the size of a dime. I also felt my form wasn't as correct as it had been previously, either due to the amount of shots I had fired and an inability to repeat the same motion consistently (see my bowling game) or a combination of the distance and the size of my arrows (I was using longer and heavier ones that the rest of my friends).

In the end I had a great time, and feel really good about my bow sniping ability from inside of 20 yards. While I'm not going to go rushing headlong (Queen reference) into this as a new hobby, I definitely think it's an activity I'll do again. Although, I still would like to go to a firing range and squeeze off a few rounds.

Hey, if you're going to be the military's new super soldier you've got to be well versed in all types of weaponry.

Grand Theft Auto: Port Chester

(Originally written June 2006)

Warning - This post is rated A for Adult. No persons under 21 authorized to read it without parental approval.

The night started off the same as pretty much all others - Everybody's Favorite DD rolls up to one of the hottest spots in town with a pair of beautiful girls in toe - except there was something off this time, a slight change in the usual pattern (and I'm not talking about the fact that I finally looked as good as the girls I walked in with) We arrived at the same time as a member of the Port Chester Police Department and I walked in with a cop at my back. There were no problems, no issues requiring police assistance at the time, his presence, simply foreshadowing. Had we known we would have asked him to stick around.

And so the night progressed without any thoughts of the Po-Po, or discussions on how municipal tax revenue should be spent to ensure a stronger police presence. After all, it was a birthday celebration and celebrate we must, and we did. I even indulged in my first beer since January, remarking after tasting the first bit of malted hops, "Once it hits your lips.... it's soo good". Clearly I had made the right decision in ordering a Samuel Adams (Samuel Jackson was not available) The beer was drank with all of the enthusiasm of a 17 year old, and it filled me with sadness when the bottle run empty. So I had another round... because no one should be sad at a birthday party.

As the night progressed the party thinned out, as would be expected. Eventually I was left solely in the company of quite possibly the two singularly most attractive women in a 20 mile radius. 1 with light brown hair, 1 darker brown, 1 with short hair, 1 with long; well you get the point, if you are a guy you wish you were me at this point. (But you're not so nah )

So we made our exit amidst the light rain which had begun to fall during our festivities. When we reached our intended destination, a covered parking garage where the black chariot awaited to transport us home we came upon a grocery store shopping cart. Now it being late/early depending on your preferred way of looking at the clock an abandoned shopping cart is like a veritable gold mine to a drunk person, much the same that an oversized cardboard box can provide endless hours of amusement to a small child.

We stopped and played around, taking silly pictures, pushing the shopping cart, harmless activities that would amuse those who are slightly intoxicated. It should be mentioned that the writer of this story was at no point during the night inebriated or above the legal limit for alcohol consumption by a midget and therefore can verify that all of events hence forth are indeed true regardless of their almost outlandish-ness.

It was after a good deal of innocent goofing off (about 20 minutes or so worth) that we encountered the two yutes.

Uh, Mr. Gambini - did you say "yutes" (My Cousin Vinny)

Sorry, the two YOUTHS who were no more than 15 years in age, entered the parking garage. Now parking garages are no place for 15 year olds to be hanging out, let alone after 2 in the morning but then again it's no place of mine to approach them and ask just what in the hell they're doing up so late. Anyway, the two seperate parties (us and them) remained happily segregated with no interaction save for the ability to overhear each other's conversations. Obviously they got the better end of the deal getting to listen in a 3-way discussion with 2 drunk girls while I had to settle for some pre-pubescent angst about how some guy was going to shoot them. Yeah, whatever kids get lost, can't you see I've got 2 hotties here with me on the curb? Shoo, shoo!

Unfortunately they seemed very comfortable in their surroundings and showed no signs of leaving and by now it was getting late (er) and so we decided that perhaps we should complete our 20 foot odyssey to the car. We opened the doors and got in, strapped in and began to turn the key when we heard something - something like a pop or a bang. The natural reaction, look in the direction of the sound.

Ok, located it. On the far side of the parking garage (about 250 feet in front on about a 45 degree angle from my driver's seat) I saw a man walking in to the parking garage. Well that doesn't make sense, I heard a sound like a pop and there's this man just standing there, walking, and carrying something.

Pop

A small star shaped burst of light from where the man's outstretched arm was.

Me thinking: Wait a second... is that what I ....(this thought was never actually finished because my brain quickly replaced it with the following) GET THE F' OUT OF THERE!!

"Put the keys to ignition

Step on the gas and be shiftin

Get the f*ck out of there,

or your ass will be wishin

Peeling out towards Route 1,

I'm so glad I'm not drunk

it's the freakin weekend baby

this ain't what I would call fun"

The first red light presented a conundrum - do I run it and risk having a cop pull me over, where I can explain to him what just happened, or do I abide by the rules and risk the situation that the guy with the gun (or any of the no less than 3 others we saw in the area at the time of the shooting) followed the only "witnesses". So i stopped at the red light and checked the rear view for the first time since we left the parking garage. 1 car coming up behind us, moving over to the left side Light changes green, no guns pulled, floor it - I'm not taking any chances

Make it to the Taconic parkway, ok i suppose that means we're safe. Unfortunately the whole ordeal definitely affected my driving, I had a temporary case of what I believe psychologist call a "Tupac Complex" where a driver fears other cars pulling up along side of them. At present the condition seems to have disappeared.

While driving the three of us made sure to cover all of the bases: 1) We reported "shots fired" to the local authorities, 2) we called or text messaged everyone in our phone books (sometimes twice) to let them know what happened and that we were alright 3) re-told the story to ourselves as if we hadn't just been there, at least half a dozen times 4) acknowledged that we all now have legitimate street cred as a result of this situation 5) created a series of 3-4 events that could be used against us in a game of "Never Have I Ever" including, but not limited to: "Never Have I Ever Been Shot at"6) added the additional title of "Everyone's Favorite Getaway Driver" to my list of titles/accomplishments and finally 7) decided that this type of traumatic event called for the dinner.

Once at the dinner we began to calm down and regain our composure, joking about the incident in a way that superficially covered the sheer uncomfortableness of the fact that we three now have a "hey, remember the time we were shot at?" story to tell. From there began the painstaking process of trying to explain to our waiter that yes, although it was around 4 in the morning at the diner our stories were much more legitimate than those drunken tales he had heard before.

"No really, I'm not kidding you. We were shot at!"

"You want the eggs scrambled?"

"Yes"

And from there the rest of the night played out the way you would expect. Everyone's Favorite DD/Getaway Driver successfully returned the hotties to their homes, sans gun shot wounds, and returned to his home,

Well, we all have our stories. (Swingers)

Current Music: "Crossfire" Stevie Ray Vaughn - not really