In my last post, I mentioned I'm not much of a gambler. I guess I should amend that statement. I'd say I don't enjoy the table games (or the slots) but even that's a little disingenuous. I really like blackjack and roulette is okay, and I'm sure I'd like craps, too, if I ever bothered to learn what's going on. The thing is, I just don't have the fortitude it takes for that enjoyment to pay off. In order to win big, one has to be willing to lose big. I just don't have that instinct. Fortunately for me, though, this past weekend I learned the joy of parlay betting. Now, I'm not naive enough to believe that these odds aren't stacked against me too. I know the house always wins. It's just that betting on football is within my comfort zone.
I was an overall winner (monetarily speaking) for the first time ever at the end of this trip. I placed before the early games a $50 bet on a three-game parlay (Giants, Saints, Colts) that paid off at six-to-one. As those games drew to a close and Dabysan realized he was out of the money on all his early bets he decided to play a five-game parlay on the late games. We both played the same teams: Chargers, Broncos, Saints, Bears, and Colts. I bet $20. It paid off at forty-to-one. Those two bets, combined with the $25 I put on the Lions to win, brought my total winnings to $750. Not too shabby.
So I've got to go to this bullshit bachelor party this weekend. I'm not thrilled about it. It's enough of an imposition on my valuable free time just to go to the wedding, now I've got to give up an entire weekend for the goddamn bachelor party? (Yeah, it's in Las Vegas. Like that's not a huge cliché....) And what's more, the bulk of the festivities are planned for Sunday, which means I have to use a vacation day to take time off work. Swell. Strip clubs kind of skeeve me out. Firearms - machine guns, especially - really skeeve me out. I don't gamble. This should be a fun time. But at least it's going really expensive, so I've got that going for me. I pretty much only agreed to go because I thought it would be fun to hang out with Ydnar, who I almost never get to see any more, for the weekend. Well, he bailed at the last minute. He's no fool; that's what I should have done. Ugh. What a drag. At least there will be booze. I think I'm going to have to turn this trip into a proper bender just to make it tolerable. I'm a prickly pear! Anyway, see yinz all again on Tuesday. Try to have a better weekend than me. Shouldn't be tough....
As a lifelong Steeler fan, I've had much to enjoy over the past ten or sixteen football seasons. Some of my favorite memories are obvious. Watching the Steelers win the Super Bowl in Tampa and Pittsburgh are first and second, in that order. Some of my favorite memories are less obvious.
The 2005 Cincinnati Bengals had awful big mouths for a team that hadn't done anything since the first George Bush was President. They got real cocky, real fast. And when you get real cocky, real fast, the karma police are going to knock on your door and ask you to take a ride with them downtown. (I thought I'd use a metaphor that Bengals fans would understand. Because every member of the Bengals has been arrested, you see.) That's why the Bengals not only lost to the Steelers in the playoffs, but lost the better part of their next three seasons as their star quarterback recovered from a debilitating and hilarious knee injury on a completely legit play.
Has it really been two weeks since we returned from our all-too-brief beach vacation? It has? Shit. Where does the time go? We better get busy and hand out some Beachies. The envelopes, please.
The John Oates Award for Digital Repugnance: And the Beachie goes to.... Dabysan. Dabysan has a knack for creating video game avatars that make you wish they were real so you could beat them senseless for being so douchey. He was on top of his game two weeks ago. He set the bar high with "Fish Styx." But after we ventured out to purchase Guitar Hero 5, he surpassed it easily with "WEE WILLY." It's tough to decide which is more annoying: the top hat or the all-caps.
The Giada de Laurentiis Award for Culinary Snobbery: And the Beachie goes to.... Emma Peel. Words cannot describe the look on Emma's face when she found the head of iceberg lettuce in the refrigerator that was presumably for her salad. Words can describe, however, how she felt about said iceberg lettuce. And she used them. Extensively. Her tirade lasted a good twenty minutes or so until it was pointed out that the iceberg was for the tacos the next evening and that she'd overlooked the mixed greens hidden under that carton of CarrieNation's Muscle Milk.
The Robert MacMillan Award for Excessive Persnicketiness: And the Beachie goes to.... Potsy. Potsy ran the dishwasher five times a day, and nothing that was dropped on the floor stayed there for more than ten seconds. He also took it upon himself to ensure that nearly everything in the house was at right angles, the notable exception being the stuffed bee which - as he pointed out - didn't belong to him. There is also strong circumstantial evidence that he disappeared at one point to the downstairs bathroom to take a dump, which is totally something Rob would do.
The Wil Wheaton Award for Projectile Vomiting: And the Beachie goes to.... Carrie Nation. Carrie claims she ran the half-marathon, but the non-running contingent stationed at the finish line never saw her. (This isn't, by the way, the first time her race participation has been in doubt.) What is certain is that she puked more than anyone that Sunday. Five times, all told. That's a pretty strong committment to perpetuating a fraud.
The Cosmo Kramer Award for Random Screwball Awesomeness: And the Beachie goes to.... Liz Judge. As everyone else sweated the details the night before the race - pinning numbers on t-shirts, coordinating the rendezvous, mildly panicking - Liz seemed blissfully unaware that the next day was anything of significance. She filled her iPod shuffle with songs by the Go! Team and wondered idly who else might be showering early the next morning. Her post-race account was the most spirited of anyone's. Probably because there is strong evidence that she actually, you know, ran the race.
The Chris Martin Award for Drizzly Beachcombing: And the Beachie goes to.... Megan and Jason. The weather at the beach after the weekend was less than ideal, but Megan and Jason didn't let it deter them. Thought to be last minute scratches after a tragic family emergency, they showed up late and were determined to make the most of it. While lesser mortals stayed dry and watched Arrested Development DVD's, they refused to allow the inclement weather to curtail their beach time, even if they did have to dig out the hoodies.
The Alton Brown Award for Epicureal Excellence: And the Beachie goes to.... Hotrod. There ultimately was no beach fondue (whatever that means), but the homemade macaroni and cheese seemed to be a hit, the asparagus wasn't mushy, and the double-batch Steeler Pie disappeared faster than is healthy. That's practically a hat trick.
The Cujo Award for Pain-in-the-Ass Canine Proclivities: And the Beachie goes to.... Daisy. She knows what she did.
The Towel d'Or Grand Jury Prize: The bylaws of the Academy of Seashore Recreation Arts and Sciences stipulate that the dispensation of the coveted Towel d'Or is purely at the voters' discretion. There is no requirement that it be awarded if a clear winner does not emerge from the year's crop of beachcombers. Sadly, this year, no Towel d'Or will be awarded. A combination of the short week and unfortunate precipitation prohibited any one contender from displaying the unwavering dedication to beachgoing activities that the jury likes to see. We sincerely hope that the field will rebound next year. We have the utmost faith that it will, and that the 2010 Beachies will be the best yet.
I can't believe she actually went through with it. Today is the worst day ever.
Last night I headed to the Black Cat for a second consecutive evening. I needed to exorcise the demons of Wednesday night's debacle, and fortunately the Thursday night headliner was both energetic and talented.
Rhett Miller called his backing band the Serial Lady Killers. The last time I saw them, they were the Believers, but it was the same band. And I had the same mixed feelings both times. I've got no qualms about a solo acoustic Rhett show, but it's strange seeing a band that's not the Old 97's performing Old 97's songs. It's kind of like going out and running into a friend who's cheating on their significant other. (I guess. That's never actually happened to me.) On the other hand, it's always preferable to be at the Black Cat instead of the 9:30 Club, and it's never as crowded as an Old 97's show. And Rhett is not so deluded to think that we're there to hear only the solo material.
And, as I learned last night, he plays songs that the rest of the band doesn't want to play. It hadn't occurred to me that I hadn't seen the Old 97's play "Nineteen" in a while, but I guess that's one they don't want to do. My favorite Rhett Miller solo song is an Old 97's outtake that he rerecorded for his second record. I always wondered why it never made it onto an Old 97's release. But I guess if the band isn't interested in performing "Nineteen" any more, they probably also aren't interested in performing the song written as a response. I knew going into the show he wouldn't be playing this. It's a duet, and Rachael Yamagata isn't a Serial Lady Killer.
Remember my post this past weekend about the Tea Party rally on the National Mall? Well, it seems it didn't go as smoothly as Fox "News" would lead you to believe. Texas Republican Kevin Brady was disappointed with the level of service of the public transportation system here in our nation's capital. Here's the money quote:
I'd like to go on record stating that I agree with Texas Republican Kevin Brady. We aren't doing enough in the DC to provide a basic level of public transit for everyone. We could start by dedicating a revenue source for the Metro.“These individuals came all the way from Southeast Texas to protest the excessive spending and growing government intrusion by the 111th Congress and the new Obama administration. These participants, whose tax dollars were used to create and maintain this public transit system, were frustrated and disappointed that our nation’s capital did not make a great effort to simply provide a basic level of transit for them."
I don't know what I was thinking. I let Dabysan talk me into going to see this band Matt and Kim at the Black Cat tonight. Matt and Kim, to refresh your memory, are the band that Daby discovered from a Bacardi commercial. And while I don't necessarily object on principle to bands selling their songs, I probably should have been a little more wary in this case. This was one of the worst shows I've ever seen. Matt and Kim were bad - Kings of Leon bad, Counting Crows bad, New Pornographers bad. In fact, the New Pornographers are a pretty good point of reference because Matt and Kim sucked in the exact opposite way.
The problem with the New Pornographers' show was that every member of the band was an accomplished musician who couldn't be bothered to care about playing their music in the live performance. I will say this for Matt and Kim: at no time did it occur to me that they were phoning it in. It just would have been nice if they had bothered to learn how to play their instruments. They're literally the least talented band I have ever seen headlining a show. Here's how every single Matt and Kim song goes. Kim bangs out a rudimentary 4/4 time beat (only on the quarter note, natch) while Matt noodles Hot Cross Buns melodies on a Casio. Sometimes, he barks out profound lyrics like "Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" The rest of the time he doesn't sing anything at all. They don't play anything that you couldn't train a chimp to play, but at least the songs are short.
I'll admit I initially cracked a smile when they launched into a "cover" of Europe's "The Final Countdown," but ultimately this song pissed me off more than any other. It was post-ironic hipsterism at its worst. They played only the intro riff (over and over) and sang no lyrics. It lasted sixty seconds, at best. It was a song fragment and I'm supposed to nod and wink knowingly because the original is so hopelessly uncool. Or maybe because I, too, have watched Arrested Development. I'm not entirely sure. What I am sure of, however, is that their failure to even attempt to play the song is more than just lazy, it's insulting. Matt and Kim stood on the stage of the Black Cat for about an hour and told me with every pedestrian note that developing some level of competence with their instruments beyond that required to win the third-grade talent show was something with which they couldn't be bothered. I've never seen a band with more contempt for its audience. Actually, now that I think more about it, they're not the opposite of the New Pornographers at all.
