Out And Stuff

I'm not nitpicking, because really, going out is going out. But seriously. C'mon Tampa Bay.

Allowing for a review:

Stop 1: Washington, DC. It's Saturday night. You could pick Alexandria if you wanted to hang with the moderately hip kids who were mostly cool in college but now just want to chill and throw back a cold one or two in a microbrewery before calling it a night at 11.30 or so. Or, you could hit up Clarendon; while not the hottest of spots, it was always lively, and you could always walk around with the knowledge that you'd run into people even less cool than yourself, likely walking a dog or two. Georgetown hardly needs mentioning; if you require your Stereotypical College Girl fix (pleated skirts, slighty-longer-than-shoulder-length hair, snobby) or want to run into people who think that by being on M Street makes them sweet, then head across the Key Bridge and prepare to navigate the city's most trafficked sidewalks. Since you're in DC proper, you could go downtown and get behind a velvet rope for one of the many swank clubs, just have fun at one of the more fun places (I love you PollyEsther's), or have an anonymously good time at the ESPN/Hard Rock corridor. And if you're feeling mightily brave, and you're looking to brag about where you went Monday at work, Adams Morgan's a good choice. It's the closest you'll get to New York, with a lot of people living densely and eating bad pizza at 2am after the bars close.

Okay, Stop 2: Raleigh, North Carolina. For being a HUGE college town, this place is insanely disappointing. There are 5 institutions of higher learning in and around NC's capital, yet the city provides little-to-nothing in the way of nightlife. No wonder everyone goes to Chapel Hill.

Finally: Tampa Bay. You might think you're getting the best of two worlds here: Downtown St. Pete and Downtown Tampa. Two downtowns! Double the possibilities for pleasure! The former, in fact, has BayWalk. And that's pretty much it. Downtown Tampa doesn't really exist so much as be; as an entity, it has no life of its own. It's too spread out. Consequently, everyone congregates in ChannelSide, which is kinda hip. But it's built as a place to come and be hip, so it ends up failing to be hip. Amazingly. I shall not bring up Ybor City, which is a sad, sad attempt to be Bourbon Street. It is not. It is downtown Mt. Clemens. But worse.

Seriously, all I'm asking for is a PollyEsthers. Or I'll have to build one myself.

Just what I need to be doing: Spending more time in front of a screen. But the blogging must commence!

If facebook stopped working forever, would all go on as normal? I'm guessing so.

Chuck Norris. The retrohot of the moment. Why? The List Of Why Chuck Norris Is Sweet is funny, as is the Young Chuck Norris video. And wow: Chuck responds. This is all insanely fantastic. My favorite is probably "The Great Wall of China was originally created to keep Chuck Norris out. It failed miserably."

A link to Lazy Sunday, just because.

Off to do something that doesn't involve a computer. Such things are rare. Out for now.

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

GEORGETOWN JUST BEAT DUKE.

The Hoyas just knocked the Blue Devils off their #1 ranking. They are now my sleeper to win the tournament.

What a Saturday.

Oasis Is Keeping the Dream Alive

So you're Jack Bauer. And you do sweet things. Like close your left eye and shoot a terrorist in the wrist, forcing him to drop his gun. And all of this is on television. It makes the ladies swoon and the men wish they could be Kiefer Sutherland. Sadly, there is no one on planet earth who even resembles Kiefer Sutherland. He's Bond without all that swooning and swilling. Slate's got a decent interview with a writer of 24.

So you're Young Brandon Walsh, wondering, hmm, should I go to ChiTown, or DC, or stay in lovely Tampa Bay? The goods: The El, PollyEsther's, and warmth. The bads: cold, expensive, and not overly exciting. It depends: Sox, Nats, or Rays; I'm picking the Sox, because they seem to have it going on. A World Series is kinda neat. The best part, however, is that they're all good choices.

So you're Future Madam President Karbowski, continually charting your course for world domination. Do you go to Stanford, or hang on to see if Harvard and Yale come through? Again: A flurry of difficult choices. You really have to pick California. California girls, the best in the world. Even though the song says Carolina. (On this matter, I have no vote: There are both sides of the coin in every state, although I don't have much of a positive nature to say about Ohio. Except for Darlene, but she's actually a Michigan Girl.)

The last two weeks have involved grizzly bears, an altercation with a blond wrestler driving a Volvo, some guy in Publix trying to steal Oreos, and Holly meeting Marc from O.A.R. and making him promise he'll do a concert at the Trop sometime this year. Actually, none of this happened. Seriously, I can't hold a conversation anymore. About anything. I rarely find conversations fun. So I just make up things. People who ask about my weekend get answers about me dressing up as Batman and fighting crime. Because honestly: Just about everyone who asks doesn't care; they're just inquiring to be nice. So I make up things. This creates a fairly convenient situation: People who can't stand my complete inability to give a real answer don't even attempt conversations, and those who like to have fun with this banter (El Nino comes to mind) are a great outlet for whatever nonsense is brewing in the neurons. KO does this well online, Chris does it well all the time, and my bro's okay at it. Holly for some reason puts up with it.

Holly is in Michigan, if anyone's wondering. 'Til early March. Then she's going to live in sin with me for awhile 'til we're married in October. We will do little more than cook tater tots and attempt to memorize the capitals of all of the countries of Eastern Europe and Northern Africa.

mmm, tater tots. Jason/Becky/Myself did up the Dairy Inn on 9th for lunch today; I'd like to thank the blond girl in the embarassingly revealing lime green shirt for providing some comedy. I haven't run into someone drunk at 1.00pm since college. I'd also like to thank said Dairy Inn for selling tater tots, although they're not nearly as tasty as Sonic's.

I swear, this can't be interesting. Huge props to you for reading this far. My new facebook profile's kinda fun, if you want more stimmreck content.

Stage Left, Pursued By Bear

I seem to be the only person who didn't get an iPod for Christmas. Actually, my brother didn't, but I was quite sure he did after finding some sort of Apple warranty mixed in with the wrapping paper on the Table of Christmas Work. I am still suspicious of the whole thing and believe it will be given to him as a Congratulations You Got A Job Present.

Not having an iPod's okay when you have the Archos 20GB thingee with a headphone jack. It's a dinosaur, technologically speaking; two or so years old with giant black rubber grips that kinda look like bumblebees. I dropped it on a treadmill once, and it still works, so there're points there.

Christmas Break (when you work for a baseball team apparently you get these things; it's like being in college) was mostly splendid, when you get past the PermaGray that is Michigan in the winter. Some highlights included Andrew talking down the cover charge at Bleu to $5 a person, which wasn't worth it since it was the lamest club in Detroit and they made you do coat check for $3 a person anyway. DeLuxe was where it was at, if for no other reason than KO liked hearing "DEEEEEEEEEELUXE BASKETBALL" a few more times than it probably needed to be uttered. Mariah also came up with the idea of a wet t-shirt conference, which was supposed to happen at New Year's but was nixed in subcommittee hearings, which I find disgraceful after the forced butt contests of the past few years. On the flipside, New Year's did feature the Animal Terrorist Formerly Known As Sasha eating a stray deer foot in the driveway of Castle Grant. We can all thank Heard for that. We can also thank Heard for her hot shuffleboard skills, which, if I recall correctly, combined with Holly's to take down the lame-os who fancy themselves, when they play foosball, as the 1993 Detroit Red Wings. I was glad I had Lindsay Lohan and Jon Barry on my team to neutralize Gerard Gallant and Dino Ciccarelli.

I'd also like to thank Chris for the t-shirt that says "I French Kissed Kelly Capowski," which I cannot possibly wear in public without trying really hard to be ironic. On the same note, Chris and Andrew can't really wear their stocking stuffers in public either, so I'll be really interested to find out said stuffers' fates at this time next year. Lo-rise.

Happy '06.