I can't be held responsible for the things I say or write...
5.21.2008
A Valuable Lesson
I learned one tonight. I fell victim to what many people my age fall victim to. Drinking and driving and the resulting effects.
It was just awful. The sense of shame, embarrassment even that accompanied it. No matter what I did, there was no erasing or avoiding what was to come.
After two days of relative success, I just couldn't keep my kart on the road and just wasn't at my top ability in Mario Kart.
Drinking and driving results in poor Mario Kart Wii performance. Just don't do it. It's Maaaaad to try.
Wow. I have so many people to thank. First, Jesus. Second, God for having Jesus. Third, Alex Liss for teaching us about Baby Jesus.
A couple of things happened to me yesterday. First off, you might notice the nice new font that this blog is coming to you in. To celebrate the 200th Spectacular, a new computer was purchased. So I now sit, unemployed thank you very much, with a new, fancy computer staring right back at me. It comes with such rad features as a qwerty keyboard, a webcam built in and a return button. All this and more...I'm sure there's a lot more, but it didn't really come with an instruction booklet, so I don't know what all those rad features are or how to use them...I guess I get to learn by trying.
A second thing that happened to me was a med school graduation gala. Dr. Live accompanied me to a few of these back when I was employed...well, not of the med school variety, but the annual holiday galas thrown at fancy hotels through out DC by my former office and the occasional summer party or whatever. So it was my turn to show up all dressed up and behave.
It was also $9.50 drink night where we were, which was sweet. That's right, cash bar. Not exactly what I was hoping for, but it gave me an opportunity to do something I'd never done before...drink Tanqueray on the rocks. You may be asking yourself why? Well:
-Bang for the buck. I'm not messing around with these mixers the kids are drinking today and drinking wine at this event would make me want to strangle myself with my penis. I don't know why, but that's what we're going with today.
-It's gross. I've drank gin straight twice in my life previous. Once was when I was a senior in high school and my friend told me it was good. It wasn't. The other was my 21st birthday and the kid who was drunker than me at my birthday party poured it for me and made me take it...that wasn't fun. So drinking this drink would mean it would take a while to finish...and it did. It was worth it.
But all of this leads me to why last night was a pretty good time: I realized that I really like white people...a lot. You might think to yourself that this is a really strange thing to realize 27 years into my life, but hey, we all have awakenings. Why do I really like white people:
-White people are ridiculous people in a restaurant setting. We're sitting at assigned tables last night, 10 to a table. There were two all stars sitting next to us, a couple whose daughter is graduating this weekend. Keep in mind there are over 600 people at this event and about 60 tables...doing math is fun. Anyway, as we sit down and start to eat bread, this guy asks one of the waiters to bring him some olive oil. Before she gets back with this, he informs another waiter, "we're ready for more bread." When more bread comes back, he again declares he would like olive oil for his bread. Once it arrives, he simply places it on the table and never uses it.
Now, you might think this is totally normal behavior for a restaurant, and it might be, but this is not a restaurant. This is a hotel (granted, it was the Ritz, but still) and these are not waiters who truly give a flying fuck what this dick in a tux wants...especially when it's olive oil. douche.
Seeing this happen all in front me of I enjoyed plenty. It was great to see awful people at their finest. Granted, this isn't that extreme of a situation, but I'm definitely forgetting stuff because I had like 4 of those tanqueray's last night.
-White people are amazing dancers. We're using Johnnie Douches from my table as another example. Not so much as amazing dancers, as amazing when they dance. Mostly because it doesn't matter who they are or how many there are, all white people dance the same. I started laughing pretty hard when I looked upon the dance floor to see this guy doing the standard 50 year old dance...which is feet firmly planted, hips slightly moving, elbows out, arms up, bounce shoulders repeatedly. I love this dance. It makes me happy. Also, it makes me feel more comfortable because I realize that even though I am crazy self conscious about my own dancing, I know I'm only a funny dancer when I am doing the funny dances that I make up over the course of time...in fact, I'm adding elbows out to my repertoire.
-White people love songs that tell you how to dance to them. For example, the Cha Cha slide. I know white people love these, because I fucking love this with all my heart. The electric slide is not one of them and whoever convinced the DJ at my wedding to play this song is an asshole and comedic genius. Anyway, in addition to the Cha Cha Slide, there is a new song taking over: the Cupid Shuffle:
It's an amazing display in person. Why? Because white people think their way through songs like this...myself included. I wish I felt the courage to dance to this song, but I'm just going to watch a lot of youtube and learn how to do it until the next time it pops up and get my Cupid Shuffle on. There was this one white dude who was completely on fire for this song though...it was impressive. But damn it makes for more fun than pretty much every other activity on a dance floor this side of the "Have Nagila".
-Lastly, white people love Ice Sculptures. I've been to quite a few parties recently featuring ice bars, ice luges and ice sculptures. These are amazing. Last night there was a pretty impressive display. They had the Caduceus, the international sign of medicine...or at least I'm calling it the international sign of medicine. Fuck it, here's a picture of what I'm talking about. But it was rad. It was neon blue and lit up, enclosed in a block of ice, with the whole "GW Medicine" or something like that below it. Quite impressive literally.
But what was amazing was that from the moment that people were able to go up on stage and take a close look at it, there was never a line shorter than 10 people waiting to take pictures with the luge. A truly impressive display by my people, I'm proud to say. Seriously, people were constantly taking pictures in front of this thing for over 2 hours. I don't care that over 600 people were at this party; it doesn't take that long for all these people to take their photo in front of it. I saw people in front of that thing for close to 10 minutes and I saw people getting back in line for more photos.
So I had an overall good time at this party. I was constantly wishing I had the editor of Stuff White People Like on speed dial so I could put all these people on blast (always wanted to write or say that).
Lastly, concluding our 200th Spectacular, I'd like to leave you with this video:
Probably the most amazing Turk dance of all time...and how did that Bel Biv DeVoe song ever go out of style? We need to bring it back.
Well, it was awesome. I'm officially saying that Mario Kart Wii is pissing me the hell off. That fucking Wii wheel does not put me in a good mood.
I guess the game is actually kind of fun, well it's a lot of fun, but you get fun fucked all the time. You can be leading by half a lap and then a random green shell will get you, then this thing that puts ink all over the screen to obstruct your view comes up, then another shell hits and you and you end up in last place. This has happened to me multiple times. My favorite is going from 1st to 10th 10 feet from winning the circuit and unlocking new players and boards, only to be fun fucked into last and finishing the circuit with no trophy. And you need that trophy to feel good about yourself.
How do I feel? Fun fucked.
Tonight is kickball night in america. We play the team that we tied 0-0 in the championship game last fall. They don't have the same pitcher but they still have a decent one. We're going to fun fuck their shit up because this Mario Kart has got me all pissed off for no good reason. I think it's pretty funny actually.
No I don't. I hate being mad at Mario Kart.
So unemployment is pretty cool. I've been up since 6 am when I woke up for no reason, played some Wii, went laptop shopping for 2 hours (because when you don't have a job, you're supposed to buy things), came home and played more Wii, and now I'm sitting on the couch watching ESPN's "First Take", which is not good television.
Opening Ceremonies began last night...but maybe you could tell that from the last post that I didn't even know I wrote until I logged in just now. Sweet.
So instead of calling my last few weeks in DC Closing Ceremonies, I decided that in the spirit of the Olympics, we could make a little thing out of this time.
Opening Ceremonies took place at Nathan's in Georgetown on half price wine night. Post wine consumption, there was liquor and beer consumption at the bar for about an hour before Opening Ceremonies came to a close with the extinguishing of the paper filled with, well you know.
The results of all of this was an interesting conversation between myself and Dr. Live. She asked the question, "Is Tina Fey hot?" My response was something of the following: 30 Rock makes fun of Tina Fey for being older and not being married or even having a steady relationship going, other than with Dennis, the psycho ex boyfriend/pedophile. Anyway, I took this to mean Tina Fey is in her late 30s or early 40s and therefore, you're pushing the limit if you're dating her. Why? Because if you bone Tina Fey, you are officially a cougar hunter and you're pretty much swearing off 25 year olds for the rest of your life and settling for the older ladies.
Let's analyze why this makes no sense:
-Yes, we're using the dashes again
-notice that the original question was never answered.
-I assume that TV is the same as real life
-Who said anything about dating her? Or boning her for that matter?
-Why can you not bone a 25 year old after boning a late 30s or early 40s chick?
-Who uses 25 as an age of chicks you can no longer bone? That, in and of itself is depressing because who sets the bar that low? I should have said 21 or something shady like that.
So we're off to a damn good start to the Departing DC Olympics.
Tomorrow we have our next event taking place at Rocket Bar in Chinatown. It's my last day of work and that's where all of us are getting together, so feel free one and all to come on by. You should be aware that if you show up at 5:30 or 6, like when I will most likely arrive, you will be surrounded by numerous people that I work with. It might be safer to show up a little later but it will be quite a social event, so come on by whenever.
You should also be aware that Rocket Bar does not serve food but they do allow you to bring in outside food.
Another event to plan on is the happy hour on the mall. The refreshment stands near the monuments sell Kings for like $3.25. The plan is to show up there and pound said Kings pretty much until the stand closes or they run out of beer. If they run out, we go onto another stand and repeat. This is an obscure thing to do, but we have to do it. We're allowed to drink outside there and it would be hilarious to get plastered right outside the refreshment stand and confuse every single person around there. Plus, the price isn't that bad when you consider what we'd be paying at actual bars. So keep Monday or Tuesday open on your calendars next week if you want to take part in this game.
No, not of the marriage or any of that. Happy one month since we've last sat and shared with each other. Below is a list of the thing that have kept us from spending some quality time together:
-wedding finalization/consummation...BONG
-Honeymoon - BONG again
-Work blocking the ability to login to the blog page
-Sheer laziness. If it makes you feel better, I've blogged almost as many times as I've run in the last month too.
SO, not much has happened to me in the past month except for the following:
-Mr. and Dr. Live are officially married. There was a ceremony, there was some dancing and there was some debauchery. Frisbee players out there will be happy to know the wedding frisbees will make their way around the world wide frisbee universe this summer. Feel free to pour lighter fluid on them and ignite them...we have extras.
-There was a honeymoon in which we discovered some things about ourselves, the world, etc (I'm apparently into using dashes, so I will dash inside of dashes):
-The American dollar is not worth very much in Venenzuela. It's a good thing we stayed at an all inclusive resort because everything was crazy expensive. For example, you know how sunscreen isn't cheap at CVS? Like, $15 a bottle when you really thought it would only be $5? Well, an eight ounce bottle where we were was roughly $25. It led me to this conclusion: I don't care who wins the democratic nominee. I don't care who wins the presidency. I care who will make the American dollar worth something so that when I go on vacation, I can spend wildly like people in other countries expect us to. As we spent time on the beach on our tropical vacation, we were approached about every 20 seconds by someone trying to sell us bracelets, massages, sunglasses, watches, oysters, all sorts of stuff. We were very pale, so that made us very popular. Anyway, it would have been great to back up that American reputation and spend spend spend, but it just wasn't worth the cost. SO, SO, SO, it's up to whoever gets elected to make this little situation we had to deal with go away. Fix the economy please...so maybe admit it's fucked first. Thanks. Political talk over.
-The German word for swimming pool is "Schwimmbad". It's fun to say. Schwimmbad. Germans are fun to laugh at and also really, really scary people. Well, mainly just around the water. Why? Because they all wear speedos, regardless of size, age or body type. Not just Germans to be honest, because there was a chunky French dude who wore one too and it was a nightmare because his crack was out literally for 2 straight hours. Why 2 straight hours? Well, we went on a snorkeling trip one day. You take a 45 minute boat ride on a small boat with 12 other people to get to the spot. We had to walk out to the boat in the water that was knee high at best. Of course, everyone had to get into their suits, so for all the euros, that meant taking off the shorts that make it to mid-thigh and exposing the schwimmbad suits that are nothing but balls and shaft...so bad that if you stare, first you see pubs sticking out around what's not covered and then you go blind.
Here's the scenario. We're on this small boat with 12 other euro folk. As previously mentioned, their all in their meat hangers. Dr. Live is sitting to my left, so as I turn to look at her, I see this 6'4 German dude with one leg up on a bench on the boat with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other. All there for the eyes to take it. So I turn and try to look straight ahead only to find what can only be described as Billy Idol in his schwimmbad suit sitting directly across from me. I'm serious. This guy was as tan as a white man can get, thus making him orange, wore 1980s raybans, had blond hair in a not so jewfro and my head almost exploded. It was my own personal hell.
-Yours truly has only 3 days of work left, meaning this wednesday is my last. We're all very excited to have this happen as I will have almost exactly one month off before....
-I sort of have a new job. I was accepted to NYC Teaching Fellows to teach Special Education. Why is it sort of? Well, this program will train me for 2 months, resulting in me acquiring my transitional B certificate to teach in the NYC public school system with a masters. The program also puts me in a master's program, so I will also be working towards a master's degree. Pretty sweet...almost entirely paid for too. So here are the catches:
-First off, I need to pass two qualification tests to show I'm knowledgeable to teach these kids. This makes me a little nervous because I don't remember math all that well and it's on the test. I need some serious cram sessions before I take these at the end of the month, but I should be OK. I got a couple of study guides and a hot tutor who does me because it's in the law, so I should pass.
-Secondly, I will need to find my own teaching position. They guide me and train me and what not, but I need to find vacancies, interview, do teaching samples and all that other fun stuff. The way the program works is they assign me a borough to work in. Before I can look for a position, they need to tell me where to look. Once that happens, I'll likely be in training, but they tell you not to interview during training...sweet. So that leaves two month in August before the school year starts to get my job. Slightly nerve wrecking, but I should be OK...seems like I'm saying that a lot recently.
-Which leaves us to the final update: QP Live the kickball team is currently ranked #8 in the country. AWESOME. But we lost on Thursday night. NOT AWESOME. We can't be too upset about it because we lost to the #3 team in the country, so we got that going for us. I hadn't pitched since the end of last season and was pretty rusty. In traditional unclutchness that I am famous for, the inning after we tied up the game, I walked in what proved to be the winning run. Nicely done. What's really sweet is that it's 4 days later and I can almost use my arm again. But what's really sweet is that I can say, "Man, my lats are killing me" and it's actually true. Probably the best part of kickball.
So that's me. I'm sure I'll be on this piece updating with possible going away party information or any of that fun stuff. For now, all I know is that I am going our drinking with some work people on Wednesday night somewhere, so maybe I'll throw some information about that up here and maybe you can come and I will be there and together we can discuss all things schwimmbad.
And here's a picture of a lizard at our resort. You need to turn your head as it is sideways.
