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August 9, 2010

The House East

Two of my best friends from college got married this weekend. With a few exceptions--one of which was especially notable--pretty much everyone I knew in college was there. So were friends of the bride and groom that I've come to regard as my own friends. And chelsadilla came, too. I was obviously happy for my friends. It was obvious that they belong together to almost everyone for years and years. I remember seeing the very beginnings of their relationship, and I remember hearing about happy they both were. I know how happy they were yesterday, and I'm extremely happy for...

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October 26, 2009

Happy Birthday, Happy Housewarming

Here we are in late October, and, for some reason, that means that three of my friends just had birthdays. Yes, Mr. Vice, pH, and Night Cactus all added a year to their life tallies recently. Oh, and I moved in to a new place that needed to be warmed. So, it was with much fanfare and shit that I invited tons of people over for a combo birthday-birthday-birthday-housewarming party. Despite L-Dawg's contention that it would, in fact, be a house cooling, I think things turned out fairly well. The main theme to the party, if there was one other...

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August 25, 2009

Happy Birthday to Me

You know what Monday was? My twenty-eighth birthday. Yes, I've now been imposing my presence on the world for almost three decades. Damn, I'm old. So I didn't go out to a bar and get rip-roarin' drunk or anything. I'll do that later. Instead, my lovely girlfriend took me out to dinner and got me some very nice and very useful gifts. What did she get me? Well, this might sound lame, but she got me a letter opener. I've been sort of wanting one for the office for a while, but haven't bought one because I hadn't seen one...

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August 15, 2009

Overpeopled

Somewhere along the line, I became an extremely social person. I love being around people. I love doing things. I love hanging out. I love talking. Some people feel that it's a burden to be "on," to have to be funny or entertaining or whatever. I may not be funny or entertaining, but I rarely feel burdened by social interaction. In fact, most of the time, I feel undersocialized. I wonder sometimes why no one's doing anything on a Wednesday evening, for example. Then, when the weekend comes around, I'm always sad when people get tired and decide it's time...

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July 20, 2009

"Another Thing We All Survived."

Four of my best friends are getting married this year--Mr. Vice and pH in October, and L-Dawg and Xtina in just under two weeks. Somehow, they, along with chelsadilla, RPM, RPM's still un-nicknamed significant other (I'm going to suggest Hannelore, based on this), Mr. Utah, and L-Dawg's brother, all managed to take some time out of our calendars to head up to the Dells this weekend for a bachelor party for the men, a bachelorette party for the ladies, and a day at Mt. Olympus for all. Large portions of this thing were supposed to be a surprise. Certainly, the...

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July 16, 2009

Two Awesome Things

I've always said that the two things I really wanted in life (other than superpowers) were an awesome girlfriend and a badass band. Now, for the first time ever, I have both. Chelsadilla is fairly badass, and things are going great. I won't bore you--or embarrass her--by going on about that subject. Besides, it's the band I really care about. The band is called SuperKarateMonkeyDeathCar. It consists of me and RPM, each on guitars and vocals, and two as-yet-un-nicknamed people on bass and drums. We should get on nicknaming them, I suppose. Although we have our first gig scheduled (I...

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May 17, 2009

Chicago Again

Mr. Vice, pH, chelsadilla and I headed down to Chicago this weekend to celebrate EiC's birthday and just generally hang out. It was a fun weekend. I'm completely fucking exhausted, but it was worth it. Mr. Vice and pH headed down on Friday, and chelsadilla and I joined them on Saturday. Chelsadilla and I were staying at the same hotel everyone had stayed at during our last Chicago extravaganza, so it was convenient to get around. Our first stop: IKEA. God, I love that place. The Chicago IKEA is, according to one of the employees we talked to, the largest...

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February 23, 2009

A Weekend in Madison

This weekend was awesome. Let me tell you why. On Friday, a bunch of us met up at Brocach for drinks and food. Our original plan was to go to happy-hour Gomeroke, but that shit ended at like 7, which was lame. So we went to Brocach and had some drinks. I hung out on the fruity side of things, enjoying some brady old fashioneds and a midori sour. Then I had a vodka gimlet, which wasn't very good, frankly. Chelsadilla and I split a shepherd's pie and some fries. It was friggin' awesome. Around ten, RPM, L-Dawg, X-tina, chelsadilla,...

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February 12, 2009

"Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog"

So, Mr. Vice, RPM, chelsadilla, and I all went to the Majestic Theatre last night to see dane101's showing of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, Joss Whedon's NPH-starring musical bad guy thingy. As it turns out, the thing was awesome, and seeing it with a bunch of people who loved it only enhanced the experience. I should note that of all of Joss Whedon's offerings, I have loved only one: Firefly and the movie it spawned, Serenity. I don't care for Buffy or Angel. Still, I really, really love Firefly and I had heard innumerable good things about Dr. Horrible's. As...

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January 12, 2009

There Are Many Purposes to this Post, but the Most Important One Is to Make Lauren Feel Guilty

I'm writing this on my laptop because my desktop has been infected by approximately forty-eight distinct viruses simultaneously. Although I'm running various scans, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to have any recourse other than to wipe the hard drive and reinstall the OS. It's been years since I've had to do that, so it's sort of overdue. Things are getting really disorganized and there are way too many programs installed. Anyway, my friend Laurie-hole (given that entirely appropriate nickname by Co-SME) was here this weekend. We hadn't seen each other in a long time, but it was good to...

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December 7, 2008

Turkey Fixes Everything

Some people are very solitary and enjoy spending time alone when they're stressed or anxious or depressed or whatever. I've never been one of those people. Although there are times when I'd definitely rather sleep or read or just be alone than socialize, when I'm in a bad mood, I'd almost always rather be around my friends. By early Friday evening, I was in a pretty bad mood. Nothing specific or really terrible had happened. My week had just been long and I was tired and irritable. And stressed about some things that are completely out of my control. So,...

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November 24, 2008

Concerning Concert Dates and Beer

Before yesterday, I had seen The Smashing Pumpkins three times. Today, even though I went to Chicago to see them for a fourth time last night, I have still seen them only three times. Fuck you and your "illness," Billy Corgan. Still, the fact that you rescheduled means that I have a good reason to go back to Chicago in the not-too-distant future. So what did I do in Chicago if not see my favorite band? Drink, mostly. See, not only were the Pumpkins playing, but it was also the day of the OSU-Michigan game. And since RPM is a...

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November 2, 2008

Halloween, 2008

So, yes, Halloween happened. From what I can remember, it was a hell of a lot of fun. We played the newly created Pulp Fiction drinking game and then the traditional yearly game of asshole. I never rose above the rank of vice-asshole, so things went badly (or well, depending on your point of view) for me. Here's the costume rundown. (We had originally planned a Quentin Tarantino theme, but only some of us ended up going along with that): pH as Gogo Yubari from Kill Bill 1: Mr. Vice as Captain Coons from Pulp Fiction: Here's me and RPM...

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September 25, 2008

Huzzah!

You know, sometimes life seems like a constant stream of disappointments and letdowns. I know that my life has certainly felt like that in the past month or so. I can't really explain how much I hate getting excited about something and then having it fail. What sucks the absolute most is when you try to keep your excitement under control, when you spend all your time analyzing and rethinking the entire situation because you've been let down so much in the past that you don't even want to start getting excited unless you're pretty sure you've actually got good...

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September 1, 2008

Chunkin'

As you may recall, last Saturday was my birthday. I went out ot dinner with my friends and had a really good time. Oh, and Co-SME and The Reeg threw me a party at their place, which was also a house-warming party for the place, which is awesome. It was a lot of fun, and I would have been more than satisfied with those two awesome things. But Mr. Vice nonetheless told me that I shouldn't make any plans for this Saturday because we were going to go out to dinner with RPM and Mr. Utah, who had not been...

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May 25, 2008

Three-Day What Now?

Apparently this is a three-day weekend. I had no idea that was the case until I was in court Friday and saw a little sign saying the courthouse would be closed on Monday. That's cool. Anyway, because I had absolutely no idea that this was one of those weekends where we were supposed to do something fun and three-day long, I didn't have any real plans. But that hasn't seemed to stop me from having a great time, anyway. On Friday, Bluebunny and a man I'll refer to as Peterr came up from Chicago and, despite my dire warnings earlier...

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April 21, 2008

Maybe I Like Sunny Days, Afterall

Remember when I said I might attempt to make eggs benedict with real hollandaise sauce? Well, I did that today, and it was fucking awesome: In case you can't tell, those are some eggs benedict with hollandaise I made from scratch myself. Also, each one has both Canadian and real bacon and a poached eggs. And I used whole-wheat English muffins--because I'm all about being healthy. One might question why I needed four eggs. The fact is that I didn't, but I got really excited by the whole thing and went a little overboard. I was fucking stuffed when I...

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March 31, 2008

Sushi!

My friends and I have cooked many completely ridiculous meals. From deep-fried turkeys to your basic chocolate-chip cookies, we've made some pretty amazing meals. The best meal we'd ever created was, by far, the meal we cooked up for New Years which involved deep-fried everything. That meal's dominance was challenged last night, however, when we took on a whole new culinary challenge: sushi. Here's a sampling of our spread: Avocado, cucumber, smoked salmon, gyoza, and raw tuna. I had never rolled sushi before but, as it turns out, I'm a natural. Here I am making a tuna roll. Note, also,...

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January 21, 2008

But There Was No Joy in Mudville . . . .

I can honestly say that I was more excited for the Packers-Giants game today than any other professional sports game ever, mostly due to the fact that this is one of the few such games I've ever been excited about. This after a lifetime of hating all sports. That started changing this year, first with watching the Badgers every week at L-Dawg and X-tina's. And then, when that was all over, Mr. Vice and pH got me excited for the Packers. The three of us ended up in a bowling alley watching the Packers-Cowboys game, and I didn't mind standing...

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December 9, 2007

Of Keggers and Sex Parties

In college, a lot of my friends moved in to this six-bedroom house just off campus. I didn't live there, but I might as well have moved into their living room. I don't know if this happens everywhere else, but there was this trend in Flagstaff where houses would have names. For example, my friends lived in The Mothership for a while. And there was also the Pryor House. And a few others that I never went to or that I went to so few times that I can't remember their names. Still, there were a lot of discussions about...

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December 4, 2007

"Powerless" or "A Good End to A Subpar Story"

Tonight was the finale of Heroes's second volume, titled "Generations." Even after the completely underwhelming finale to the first volume, I was really pumped for the second one because the writers kept talking about how much we'd get to learn about all of the different characters' backgrounds and stuff. Can you say "backstory"? But, in the end, we didn't really get a lot of worthwhile information. We know who founded the Company, but they're all mostly dead. Except for Parkman's dad, who's disappeared, Angela Petrelli, who's a supercrazybitch, and Bob, who's just a bad father. And Adam, of course--let's hope...

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December 3, 2007

The Ultimate Cure for Depression: Food

As some of you may have noticed, I've been kind of depressed lately. Good thing, then, that my friends and I had our traditional Thanksgiving this weekend. Sure, Thanksgiving was over a week ago, but some people insisted on seeing their "families," so we all got together Saturday. Let me just say that, while I still wish I had seen my family for the holiday, and I don't have a job yet, and I'm pretty broke, there's no problem that turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and gravy won't take your mind off of. And, although the turkey wasn't deep fried as...

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November 30, 2007

Damned if You Do, Damned if You Don't

Due to a combination of insomnia, unemployment, and just generally being a night person, I've been going to bed at around 7am every day this week. I had also been getting roughly five hours of sleep a night because I feel extremely worthless if I wake up at 3, especially considering that it literally starts getting dark at around 3:30 now. Fuck Daylight Savings Time. Anyway, pH, Mr. Vice, and I went out to watch the the Packers game. Because of some ridiculous bullshit (discussed here), the game wasn't on Charter cable, which is bullshit. So we had to go...

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November 15, 2007

Pictures

I've been pretty bad about taking and sharing pictures lately, so here are some. These first few are from my recent trip to Chicago. Here's a nice one of RPM and Bluebunny: Next up is a few we took on our tour of haunted Chicago. See if you can spot any "orbs." If you can, you're seeing photographic evidence of a ghost. Not as convincing as the historical evidence for vampires, but still pretty compelling: Then, here are some from later that night when we were all hanging out at a bar. These are all examples of Bluebunny's "pictures taken...

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November 11, 2007

By the Power of Grayskull!

I have the power! As of Thursday, I am officially an attorney in Illinois. The ceremony itself was pretty lame, actually. There were about two thousand people getting sworn in at the same time, and there were some incredibly lame speakers, not to mention representatives from some bar associations that I, frankly, can't believe actually exist. Still, it was pretty cool to stand up with a bunch of other people and officially receive the power to represent a client in court. The rest of my weekend was also pretty cool. I fucking love Chicago. My interview--which was not at all...

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October 29, 2007

The Eleventh Thing to Love About Madison: Freakfest or Halloween Weekend

Another Halloween weekend has come and gone, and Madison still stands. That's not really a surprise, anymore, though. And that's not a bad thing. As it turns out, only about 40,000 showed up this year, which is a pretty large number, but not big at all when compared to the numbers from a few years ago. Still, as far as I've read, there weren't any riots and no tear gas. Not even any broken shop windows, it seems. You can read about the whole thing here. My friends and I started out the day by watching the Badgers trounce Indiana....

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September 16, 2007

The Tenth Thing to Love About Madison: The Farmer's Market

So, although I've lived in Madison for over three years now, I had never made it down to the famed farmer's market around the capital. This was partly due to the fact that I hate getting up early on weekends--or at all, really--and the fact that I don't really buy a lot of produce, anyway. But I finally went this weekend, and it was pretty good. First of all, there's not just produce, although there's certainly lots of that. But there's also a shitload of a really good baked goods (I had an awesome cheese danish), lots of meat products...

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September 10, 2007

Things that Made Me Angry Today

I went and watched Shoot 'Em Up with Mr. Vice, pH, and New Guy today. God, that movie sucked a whole fucking lot. I don't know if Mr. Vice is planning on posting a review, so I'll just say this: I thought about asking for my money back after the movie was over, but decided that getting my $5.75 back wouldn't be sufficient. In fact, if they had given me the fucking movie theatre itself, I still would have considered the day a loss. It was fucking terrible. But, strangely enough, the movie wasn't the thing that made me angriest...

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September 8, 2007

"I Saved Latin. What Did You Ever do?"

Rushmore is one of my all-time favorite movies. I hadn't seen it for a while, though, but we remedied that tonight. And I have to say that it just gets better every time I watch it. I don't really know why I like the movie so much. The humor can be pretty subtle--like when Mr. Blume lights up a second cigarette even though his last one is still in his mouth--but that's part of what makes the movie so good. You notice something new each time you watch it. And let's not forget the famous "Oh, are they?" line. But,...

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September 2, 2007

Of Sports and Upsets

As anyone who has met me at any time between elementary school and the present can attest, I hate sports. I'm not sure if my inability to succeed at sports lead to my disdain for watching sports or if the complete lack of interest in following sports lead to my total lack of motivation on any of a number of sports fields. I've tried, but it just doesn't stick. I played little league baseball when I was really young. Our team, if I remember correctly, actually won the championship for our league. But I could be making that up, I...

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August 30, 2007

New Poll!

It's finally time for a new poll. First, however, the results from the last poll. It turns out that the politician you'd most like to see hit by a sea bass is Hillary Clinton. That's not too much of a surprise. Strangely, however, Bill Richardson came in second. I didn't expect that at all. Why does everyone have to hate on the Mexican? Second, I have to give the new poll some context. After being gone for several weeks, L-dawg came back this weekend. Mr. Utah was also in town so, needless to say, we drank. At around five o'clock...

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August 29, 2007

Honor Shakespeare, Dishonor Nirvana

I went to see an outdoor performance of Much Ado About Nothing tonight. Although I have read several Shakespeare plays, this was the first time I actually got to see one performed. I thought it was pretty good, although I still think that Shakespeare is pretty ridiculous and the dialogue is sometimes impenetrable, especially when it's mumbled in an outdoor venue. Still, the outdoor stage made the whole thing much cooler, except for the part where it started raining really, really hard. But that only lasted for about ten mintues and, after a brief break, the play resumed. The second...

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August 11, 2007

Tequila Night

As it turns out, I like Mexican food. Who would have thought? In any event, I ate so much ridiculous Mexican food tonight that I was neraly out of commission for tequila night. I swear, after chips and salsa, fajitas, water, and about sixteen margaritas, I was about to explode. And not at all buzzed. After some meandering, we ended up at the Silver Dollar, one of Madison's best dive bars. Co-SME showed up with his girlfriend, adding to the crowd consisting of me, pH, Mr. Vice, Mr. Utah, Emily-in-Chief, and New SAE. One of the night's main attractions, apparently,...

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August 5, 2007

The Old Man Is Snoring . . .

It's raining like a motherfucker. No, I don't mean, as Mr. Utah might think, that people are throwing money around. Instead, I mean that water is falling form the sky--a lot. Last night was pretty fun--it was Bluebunny's going away party, which was, of course, bittersweet. But I think everyone had a good time. Except for L-Dawg, who was far too drunk to even be aware of where he was. His extreme level of intoxication was due, surprisingly enough, to a new drink he invented. It's tentatively called an "Australian Tea," and involves peach-flavored crystal light, lots of rum, and...

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July 2, 2007

The Ninth Thing to Love About Madison: Rhythm and Booms (Also, Sunday at Devil's Lake)

Yesterday was Rhythm and Booms, a day-long celebration of America and awesomeness. Mr. Vice, PH, Mr. Utah, RPM, Bluebunny and I spent the day watching the Madison Mallards get their collective asses handed to them by some team called the LaCrosse Loggers. First off--this is Wisconsin, and there's a brewery in LaCross. The team should be called the "LaCrosse Lagers." But, whatever. The point is that the Loggers embarrassed the Mallards. The final score was 16-7. It was pathetic. In fact, it was so terrible that if you took the Mallards' final score and the total number of errors they...

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June 30, 2007

"I Have So Many Ass-Blood Stories!"

For the first time in almost two months, we gathered at a table and played poker. It was awesome. The awesomeness culminated, I think, in Mr. Utah delivering the above line. I could give some context for the remark, I suppose, but I'm not going to. Another of my favorite moments was when L-dawg lost a significant amount of money to Eugene, who's known for playing in a completely ridiculous fashion. On this particular occassion, Eugene beat L-dawg with a Jack-five off-suit. And that's after there was a significant preflop raise. I love watching L-dawg lose. Bar/Bri sucks pretty hard....

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June 21, 2007

"They Look Like Big, Good, Strong Hands, Don't They?"

One of my favorite movies when I was a kid was The Neverending Story. Anyway, remember at the end, when Atreyu meets with the Rock-Biter, who tells him that the Nothing has taken all his friends and that it will soon consume all of Fantasia? And the Rock-Biter sits there and he's looking at his hands, and he's saying that, even though he's big and strong, he couldn't stop the Nothing? That scene always resonated with me. And it did so especially today, which ended up being one of the worst days I've had in a long time. For various...

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June 9, 2007

The Piano Sounds Like a Carnival

I've had a standing policy since sometime in college: no getting drunk when I'm in a bad mood. Some people enjoy being drunk for its own sake. I don't. If I'm drunk but I'm not with my friends and I can't focus on just having a great time, it generally turns out pretty shitty. Not for anyone else, usually. But definitely for me. I hate being drunk and in a bad mood at the same time--those are almost invariably my worst times. The past week has been awesome in some respects and shitty in others. Mostly, though, it's been awesome....

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June 3, 2007

The Eighth Thing to Love About Madison: Vilas Park Zoo (Also, Sometimes Saturdays Kick Ass)

A bunch of us went and watched Knocked Up today. I liked it, probably more than anyone else in the group, although I think the reactions were mostly positive, with the possible exception of RPM and Bluebunny. In any event, I would recommend it, but with the caveat that you should not expect to laugh as hard as at 40-Year-Old Virgin. Before the movie, Bluebunny, RPM, and I went to the Henry Vilas Zoo, which is the free zoo here in Madison. I thought it was pretty cool, especially considering that it's free. Of course, it's no where near as...

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May 17, 2007

My Plan for the Next Thirty-Six Hours

Today: Drive to Chicago, pick up mom, uncle, cousin, and godmother. [done] Drive back to Madison. [done] Drop family off at their hotel. [done] Go out. [not done--due to circumstances outside of my control, I didn't get back to Madison until about 1:40. I was pissed] Get drunk. [again, not done] Early tomorrow morning: Stumble through door. [done--I just got home, and it's 2:28am] Pass out. [about to be done] [done] Later tomorrow morning: Wake up. [done. ugh] Need more sleep. [done. ugh] Call cab, get to my car. [no need for cab] pick up family, go to awards brunch....

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April 28, 2007

"Things Are Gonna to Change . . . I Can Feel It"

I started playing poker towards the end of my college career. I never took it very seriously, really, and my friends and I played very low stakes--we considered losing $10 in a night a very big deal. When I came to Wisconsin, one of the main things I wanted to do was get a good group of people together to play poker every week. Mr. Utah was the first person I met in this state. I was in line at Union South, waiting to get my ID picture taken when he came up to me and asked me if I,...

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April 22, 2007

Law School Prom and the Power of Grayskull

Last night was the Barrister's Ball, also known as Law School Prom (not to be confused with the Malpractice Bash, also know as Law School Homecoming). Mr. Utah, Mr. Vice, Ms. Purple Hays, and I all attended. This being a formal event, I rocked the top hat. I also wore my newest, coolest accessory: a pocket watch engraved with my initials given to me by my illustrious co-Senior Managing Editor. The party itself was pretty decent. The beer (surprisingly) did not run out. Not that I cared--given Thursday night's goings ons, I wasn't really in the mood to drink. It...

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March 18, 2007

The State of Affairs in the Real World

The past few days have been pretty ridiculous. I feel like I've been on vacation, actually. But a very tiring, stressful, short vacation. That's not to say it's bad, just that the past few days have been a significant departure from the status quo. There's been so much going on, and there's so much on my mind, in fact, that I don't think I can weave it all in and out in one coherent narrative. So, I'm going to break this post up into sections. Law Revue The annual Stuart's Law Revue show was last night. I have to admit...

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March 17, 2007

Concerning My Thursday and My Hair

The past few days have been exhausting. Thursday started out normally enough; I had to help prepare and distribute the last round of cite-check packets for the Law Review 2Ls. Then I had to go to my Negotiations class and finish up a group negotiation. Then, I had rehearsal for Law Revue, which was to be followed up, so the plan went, with several more hours of work. I got to school at around 11am and started getting the packets ready. But the process took much longer than we had anticipated because of a large number of completely unforeseeable things...

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March 11, 2007

Drinking Is Bad, M'kay?

Seriously, I feel dead inside. I don't even think I was that drunk last night, but I feel like my soul has been taken from me. I'm running on no soul today. I've managed to accomplish exactly nothing in the six or so hours I've been awake. Every now and then, I get flashbacks to that shot of horrible, horrible tequila, and I throw up in my mouth a little....

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March 10, 2007

At Least Jessica Alba Is Hot

For some reason, I stayed up way later last night than I had originally intended; I didn't go to bed until abou 5am. Then I woke up at about ten so that I could get to school in time to do the Law Review stuff I had to do today. Once I got going, it was a pretty productive day, especially thanks to a few 2Ls that worked their asses off today. After leaving school and faced with the prospect of (gasp) free time, I decided to go deposit a few checks at the bank. While I was there, I...

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March 6, 2007

"Parasite" or "I Have to Wait How Long?!" (Updated)

Although I was slightly disappointed by this episode, it was still pretty good. I think my disappointment stems from the fact that, given last week's awesomeness, I had my expectations set pretty high. And I expected something more explosive to happen. Spoilers. Ok, so, obviously, Peter's going to survive Sylar's attack. The really cool thing is going to see them duke it out super-hero style. Remember: Peter's got all of Sylar's abilities and some Sylar doesn't have, such as flight, regeneration, and telepathy. On the other hand, Sylar has mastered all of his powers, especially telekinesis. While we've seen that...

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March 4, 2007

The Sixth Thing to Love About Madison: Fish Fries

Perhaps no Wisconsin tradition instantly struck me as being awesome as the Friday night fish fries. Let me explain for those of you who might not have had the pleasure of attending a fish fry in Wisconsin. Basically, every Friday, the vast majority of non-chain restaurants in Wisconsin offer a fried fish dinner. It started as a religious observance for Catholics during Lent, but has grown far beyond that. If it's Friday and you're in Wisconsin, you can bet that you'll smell the sweet fragrance of deep-fried cod or bluegill or something. There're so many to choose from, it's almost...

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February 16, 2007

Of Bars and Friends

The first one of my good friends to turn twenty-one was Frank. He loved the bars more than anything in the world. It didn't matter what was going on at The House, he wouldn't be hanging out there until after the bars closed. Frank loved the bars so much that he did something I would never even consider doing: he would go to the bars by himself. It's not that he wanted to drink by himself, or that he wanted to be by himself, it's just that he knew he could always find someone to hang out with at the...

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February 14, 2007

The Fifth Thing to Love About Madison: Sledding

One of the purposes of this series of posts is to get me to go out and do some things in Madison that I haven't done before, given that I probably won't be here much longer. Further, I have to admit that, while sledding is one of my favorite winter activities, I've done little to know sledding while in Madison. This is simply an unacceptable state of affairs. Therefore, I invite any interested party to come sledding with me sometime this weekend. Now, normal sledding (that is, where you walk to the top of a hill, get on your sled,...

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January 13, 2007

Shots

Sometimes in life you have to get together with some of your best friends and resolve to do nothing more than drink. That's just the way the world goes sometimes. That's the way the world went tonight. Starting with the always horrible Philips vodka, Mr. Utah and Mr. RPM and I worked our way through the liquor cabinet. Then, after we all realized that we were, in fact, drunk, we walked to a party consisting mostly of undergrads. Mr. Utah, in an amazing display of badassery, walked on a broken limb--without crutches. Upon our arrival at said undergrad party, we...

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November 11, 2006

Puttin' on the Ritz

I love to dress up. I don't know why, but I love wearing suits and stuff. It makes me feel like a real person or something. It makes me feel more powerful, more authoritative. And it's just plain cool. Still, I find something essentially boring about the normal business attire. For instance, white shirts are so fucking boring. I refuse to wear white dress shirts. I don't own a single one. All of my dress shirts are a much darker color, like maroon, royal purple, dark blue, grey, etc. I think this is much more unique and stylish. I also...

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November 6, 2006

Cause I'm a Punkrocker, Yes I Am!

I've got the song from this commercial stuck in my head: It's called "Punkrocker," and it's by a band called the Teddybears, featuring Iggy Pop. I really like the song, even though I recognize that it's not the best song. That brings me to something I've been thinking about for a long time. Why is it so hard for contemporary bands to combine excellent musicianship, melody, and loud guitars? Most current bands have, at most, two of those three. But it's not just doing it for me anymore. That brings me to something else that's been on my mind. I've...

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November 4, 2006

The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done

I got home from poker tonight and decided I wanted to watch some TV. So, I turned on the Discovery Channel, and this show called "Survivorman" was on. Basically, this guy's fucking crazy. He gets dropped off somewhere in the middle of nowhere -- the two episodes I saw were Ontario in the winter and Utah canyonlands in the winter -- and survives there for a week with nothing but a multitool and ingenuity. It's kinda cool. He walks around and collects firewood and stuff, but he also has to look for water and food. The food is the craziest...

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October 30, 2006

Halloween and its Aftermath

Well, that was an interesting and awesome weekend. In a last-ditch effort to get a good costume, Kristin and Emily and I headed to the West Side to some store out there and found that they had a huge wall full of costumes. Emily picked hers out, and I picked mine. I ended up going with a knight costume, completely with cape and chainmail head gear. Emily picked a camo army girl costume. Strangely, it came with sequins, almost definitely ensuring that its wearer would not be stealthy at all. After retreating to our respective homes to put on our...

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October 23, 2006

New Poll and Save the Cheerleader . . .

Just watched the three-hour Heroes marathon on NBC. It was pretty much awesome. Heroes is definitely my favorite new show - I like it even more than Studio 60, which has yet to gel. Spoiler warning (highlight to read): What the fuck is up with Sylar? My theory is that he's like Peter - he can take other people's abilities, although he retains them. Or maybe he just has them all naturally. Regardless of how he got the powers, he's displayed telekenesis (which we haven't seen anyone else display), instantaneous healing, and flight or teleportation. Pretty awesome. Peter is becoming...

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October 21, 2006

Concerning Birthdays and Friends

Today was Purple Hays' birthday. I woke up today feeling a hell of a lot better than I felt last night. I was glad to wake up and I looked forward to the day. I got ready and went to Contracts. Class was decent, I didn't pay attention. Then I had lunch with Ben. Why the fuck do they ever try to pretend that BW3's is a sit-down, get-waited-on table? It took for fucking ever and the waitress was incompetent. But it was her birthday, too. Because it took the waitress so long to get our food out, I had...

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October 16, 2006

Of Canes and Victories

Unlike other, more prestigious law schools, Wisconsin doesn't have very many traditions. We don't have any secret societies (at least not that I'm aware of) or anything. No, for the most part, our Law School is pretty lame. I mean, aside from the Dean's Cup and the Gargoyle, we don't really have many traditions. And the Gargoyle sucks. But, there's actually one other tradition we've got, and I now know it's the best. Yes, friends, I'm talking about the Cane Parade. Every year, just before the homecoming game, the 3Ls get to go out onto the field, wearing bowler hats...

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October 7, 2006

Fuck You, L-Dawg. No, Seriously.

I fucking hate you, L-Dawg. I mean - come on! There I was, playing poker with my friends like I do every Friday night. The only thing that made this Friday night different from other Friday nights was that I had a massive chip stack in front of me - huge. On the hand in question, I got dealt pocket kings. I felt pretty good. I put Zachar all in, and he immediately called. I kew he had aces. Laurence also called for some dumb ass reason. It got to the point where there were three spades on the board....

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July 30, 2006

Noah's Ark

So, yesterday was the second annual trip to Noah's Ark, America's largest water park. It turns out that I continued another tradition: getting massively drunk the night before the trip and then not getting enough sleep. Last year, my friend Laurie was in town, so me, Ryan and Laurie went out to Paul's Club. I got a little bit wasted and somehow managed to get only two hours of sleep before it was time to leave for Noah's Ark. At the park, I was horribly hung over and incredibly tired. But I still had a good time. This year, Zachar...

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July 4, 2006

We're Chained, We're Cha-ai-ined, We're Cha-ai-ai-ained, We're Cha-ained (or "We're Shoot to Aim," Depending on Who You Ask)

For as long as I've had good friends, Frank has been one of the best. Frank and I met when we were in middle school, but we didn't become friends until high school. When we graduated from high school, we went on to NAU together. Although many of my friends from Nogales went to NAU, Frank was one of the few that I kept consistently in touch with, and was one of only two that I got closer to (the other being Chris). Over the four years we spent at NAU together, Frank and I became part of a close-knit...

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June 30, 2006

Back on the East Coast

First night here in Albany. It’s hard to believe that this day started at 4:23am. Let me fill you in on it. I got into Ryan and Ben’s place in Chicago at about 10:20-ish. We hung out for a little bit and watched some MASH. Then, they went to bed because they had to get up for work. But not before they gave me directions for how to get to the appropriate subway/bus entrances, etc. We hit the sack around midnight, and I planned to get up at about 4:15am in order to get to O’Hare by 6am, one hour...

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April 3, 2006

Barrister's Ball, Law Review, and Law Revue

First, i feel that i have to comment on the recent happenings at Legal Badger and their consequences. For those of you who don't know, Legal Badger is a blog run by several University of Wisconsin law students. It is a blog devoted to poking fun at the law school, law students, the law, pretty much everything. One of the contributors to that blog posted a semi-serious piece asking for comments on the Wisconsin Law Review's diversity policy. This lead to several comments and then several replies. The converstation became quite heated, as is likely to happen when such an...

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March 30, 2006

Fucking Exhausted . . .

Went out with the MBEs last night. Had a good time, got drunk. Fucked up my thumb. Woke up and i was hung the fuck over. I almost decided not to go to evidence, but i forced myself to get to class. I went without a laptop, though, since my laptop was in my car and my car was in some random parking ramp downtown. So the cab dropped me off at school just in time for evidence. I sat through it and vaguely listened, but not more than i would have if i i had had my laptop. More...

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March 21, 2006

Spring Break: Day Nine: All Good Things . . .

10:39 am Final cleanup of the room has started. Zachar is massively hung over. I’m doin’ alright. Cole’s ready for first shift, I’m taking second. Man, it’s really over... 12:40 pm Just had lunch at the Denny’s across the street from the beautiful Monaco. Now we’re heading north on A1A, beginning our 24-hour trek to Wisconsin. We’re keeping the music low in order to avoid “noise-induced vomiting� on Zachar’s part. We walked down to the beach one last time before we left. Man, it’s beautiful down here. It’s hard to leave, especially considering all the work we have to do....

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Spring Break: Day Eight: South Beach

7:23 pm Today is our last full day in Florida. We woke up at about 1. I was only slightly hung over. After our final covertly prepared meal, we got ready to go down to South Beach. I wore pants, planning to change later. The reason for this is that I had to rinse my swim trunks and didn’t want to wear them for the half-hour drive while they were wet. Why did I have to rinse them, you ask? Well, you see, something very strange is happening. I don’t know what it is, but all of my swim trunks...

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Spring Break: Day Seven: Popozao and Pax Americana

DISCLAIMER: I was drunk when I wrote this. I've left all the spelling errors and stuff in for flavor. The first thing we did today was cooking burgers covertyly. The first thing Ryan saw was Russian douchebags in their thongs. Then, we decided that it was time to leave, so we went down to our parking lot. On our way down, we saw those fucking Russian douchebags in their ass-flossy-man-thongs. And the Lord said it was bad. We got down to the seXterra, and we realized that the stupid sluts from North Carolina also drove an Xterra. Ryan came up...

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Spring Break: Day Six: King Three Off-Suit and Telekinesis

Surprisingly, we woke up late today. Cole and Chris went down to the beach at about 1. Ryan and I continued to sleep. Ryan got up a while later and went for a walk. I stayed in bed until about 3 or so. Then we played some shuffleboard, Cole and I against Ryan and Chris. Cole and I got our asses kicked. Twice. After shuffleboard, we left the beautiful Monaco Resort heading for the most amazing place on Earth: the Crazy Buffet. That’s right, once again, we paid an unbelievably small amount of money (this time $18, because it’s a...

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Spring Break: Day Five: Twilight to Starlight and Dawn to Dusk

EDITED: This post now includes man-thongs, which i had neglected to enter in my original post. Apologies all around. Where to begin... I guess chronologically will suffice. We woke up early this morning. By “early,� I mean 9:30. That’s definitely way early by MZRM spring break standards. After (covertly) cooking an awesome breakfast of burgers and brats, we departed the lovely Monaco Resort. Destination: Cole’s grandparent’s house in Ft. Meyers. After driving for a while, we arrived. Cole’s grandpa served as the state Republican assemblyman from Osh Kosh for 20 years. Note, that he’s a staunch Republican. We sat and...

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March 20, 2006

Spring Break: Day Three: Us Against The Man

5:17 pm We woke up this morning at about 11. It was a good night’s sleep. Zachar apparently talked in his sleep last night. About greyhounds. Our first mission was to get food. We went to the Denny’s across the street and liked it. Next, we went to Wal-Mart and bought a massive amount of food, as well as an electric George Foreman-type grill. This is the only way we can make our own food, it turns out, because grills are not allowed in the hotel or on the beach. We also got a bunch of hamburgers and brats. We...

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Spring Break: Day Two: Florida is a Long Fucking Cock

Eventually, under the control and stewardship of Mr. McNamara, we penetrated Tennessee. At long last, the South and I had come face to face. Since that time, I have counted a mere 5 confederate flags. I now can see that my fear of being lynched was largely unfounded. Still, the South is a strange fucking place. Tennessee was an interesting place. There began to be landscape again, an interesting change from the vast expanse of wasteland that was southern Illinois. We saw a sign that said: “Beaver Carpets.� I don’t know if it was the slap-happiness, but that fucking sign...

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Spring Break: Day One: Skunks and Antiques

I had never been through southern Illinois, really. Maybe the time I went to Cuba, Il. I don’t really remember. In any event, we went through Southern Illinois today and let me tell you: it fucking sucks. First, a review of the events to this point: The pick ups were all smoothly executed. After a triumphant farewell meal at Burger King (after which a suitcase attacked Zachar) we departed. We drove through Rockford and then around Chicago. Eventually, we found ourselves driving through southern Illinois. We made the following observations: There is a city called “Dix, IL�There is a city...

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A Spring Break Primer: Know Your Spring Breakers

First, an introduction to the cast of characters: This is Chris "The Hammer" Zachar, the most hilarious partner in Tapia, Zachar, Ruby & McNamara. His killing power is off the charts. Next up: Mr. Ryan Patrick McNamara. Don't let the quiet demeanor fool you, Ryan's a crazy son of a bitch: Ryan can drink seven bottles of vodka and not so much as slur. Next, I present Cole "The Ocho-Wrangler" Ruby. He might not drink, but he sure knows his way around an oreo cookie. More importantly, he knows how to keep it together when man-thong wearing Russians take over...

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March 19, 2006

Total, Unmitigated Success

Alright, i'm back from spring break. Let me tell you, it was awesome. I had a great time, and i can't believe i have to be here in Madison. Even worse, i can't believe i'll have responsibilities again tomorrow. Ugh. Ok, i kept a running diary of the trip. I will post that here as soon as the pictures are uploaded. In the meantime, i expect to enjoy my last few hours of spring break by doing nothing related to the law....

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March 10, 2006

Spring Motherfuckin' Break!!!!!!!!!

Alright, i am all packed, i am ready to go. I'm leaving now and picking everyone up. I've got the camera, the iPod and enough clothes. I don't think i'm forgetting anything. But, if i am, i'm fucked. Oh well, man, i guess i've gotta live my life. I will have my laptop on the trip, and i will attempt to update the blog with pictures and stories of how awesome florida is. I will do this mostly for the benefit of PJ....

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February 26, 2006

FIRE! and Potluck

So, yesterday was the day of the big potluck which, for the record, was my idea. I had been hounding my mom all day for an idea for a good, easy, Mexican recipe. Finally, we settled on enchiladas. I went and bought all the necessary ingredients and went home with about two hours before the potluck and started getting ready to make these things. I turned on the stove, started heating up the oil and sauce, etc. Well, about five minutes after i turned on the stove, the fire alarm starts going off. And it's fucking loud. This had never...

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February 12, 2006

Of Raw Fish and Rice

So, the first time i tried sushi, i almost threw up. Somehow, though, i was convinced to try it again and it has since been my absolute favorite food, surpassing such favorites as pizza and french fries. It's always been my dream to be able to eat sushi at will and this semester has brought me closer to realizing that dream than i've ever been before. Through an odd confluence of invitations, i have had sushi no fewer than once a week for the past four weeks. One week, i ate it at least four times. Crazy. This is due,...

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January 29, 2006

Pictures and Assorted Destruction

So, as you've all most likely already heard, we went to the monster truck ralley on Friday night. This picture pretty much demonstrates the awesomeness. In case you're wondering, that's a 10,000 pound, 2,000 horse power monster truck flying over some pathetic normal cars. Should you require more evidence that monster truck rallies kick ass, i submit this: the world's only jet-powered jeep. That fucking thing had 1,500 horse power and it weighed - are you ready for this - only 800 pounds. For those of you playing along at home, that's a power-to-weight ratio of 1.875 hp/lb. Compare that...

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January 14, 2006

World Domination . .

Ok, second straight night of Risk at Ryan's place. Just yesterday, i talked to PJ, and we lamented that neither of our new group of friends was into Risk. Well, i bought Risk yesterday, took it to Ryan's, and Cole, Chris, Ryan and myself played two rounds of mission Risk. Chris won the first, i won the second. Turns out, everyone loved the game because today, when we were talking about what to do, Cole suggested Risk and everyone went along. i was excited. So, i took the board to Ryan's and we set it up. The first round was...

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