Whatta Weekend

Spacebee's Birthday Hat

It was quite a celebratory weekend here in Madison; we pretty much partied straight through from Friday at 5pm when we set out for a fondue dinner of epic proportions.  Three hours later I was filled with tiny bits of boiled meat, veggies, and chocolate-covered rice krispies.  We met a few pals and then dove into more celebrations, and long story short I woke up Saturday morning not feeling the greatest.

A Spacebee coworker was retiring and had a bash at the Hilldale Great Dane on Saturday.  Free beer from 4pm until 7pm started things off, and I hilariously fell asleep at wwhazz’s with a beer in hand around midnight.  Hey: two consecutive party nights don’t agree with my 31 year old bones.  So sue me.

Alas, I think the Iowa trip has been delayed.  Consolations to belly for her loss, and hope everything goes well next weekend.  Diamond Jo will always be there, and I’ll be ready to stick my finger in the small of his back and whisper “gimme everything you got.”

I’m super behind on TNG on my DVR… need to sit down and catch up. I saw that Time’ Arrow is on there and excitement can’t describe my feelings.  HELP A FORTY NINER! HE’S GOT A BAD COUGH! OH NOES, AN ALIEN STOLED HIS LIFE FORCE! GUINAN, HALP! TIME WARP! PICARD IS A DANDY FOP! DATA IS A FRENCHMAN! SAMUEL CLEMENS OF THE 24TH CENTURY!

Downhill From Here

Zach & Stacy at Big Powderhorn

Well, we got back safe and sound from Da Up North, Eh?  Had a ball in Bessemer with spacebee and the family.  As I mentioned earlier, we were afforded the unique opportunity to watch The Super Bowl at bucketheads in uptown Rhinelander.  They had $1.50 Miller Lites and free Hores Durves set out in back.  I drank three buckets of Jameson and then Stacy drove us ‘home’ to the Quality Inn.

I goddamned hate Super Bowl commercials.  “Here’s a talking (noun), buy our shit!”  “Here’s a wacky man-child (verbing) a (noun), buy our shit!”  “Here’s Tim Tebow, don’t get an abortion or prenatal care!”   Eat shit, Tim Tebow.

I skied for three days and fell down three times; that’s a shitload better than last year and I consider it a resounding success.  Let the mountains ring with God’s graciousness and ma-jest-fucking-ty!  We also returned to the infamous Pub N’ Grub for Thursday night karaoke.  All the old pals from last year were there and, again, by the end of the evening I was Marcus-n-Mcteague’n it with all of them.  Six dollar pitchers of Miller Lite and Jameson shots will do that, son. On the way back home I desperately wanted to go to (in order) the Watersmeet casino, the Lake of the Torches casino, and Ho-Chunk.  By the time we got south enough to consider Ho-Chunk, however, I just wanted to sleep on the couch the rest of the day. So… no Ho-Chunk.  I still owe wwhazz a night at the Canfield for his birthday, though, so anyone that wants in on that is welcome.

Wwhazz, thanks for doing our cat for a week.

There’s not a lot of upcoming events here at Whazzmaster Central– spacebee’s birthday is at the end of the month and at the same time (coincidentally) as my Yearly Start of Daily Wishing It Would Warm Up Already, Dammit.  I got her a birthday gift: The Big Minnie. Black. Clean. Tight Curl. Turquoise bead wrap.  Now that I look at the description that way I can’t decide whether I bought her a hat or a dildo. Say lah vee.

I really, really gotta get TNG on the Tivo.  We’ll make a space for it amid Spacebee’s ten thousand episodes of Criminal Minds.  There must be some room in all that serial killing for Data’s quest for humanity or Troi in a skin-tight leotard.  I assume that somewhere in history someone has already made a joke about a leotard being a retarded leopard, but the word still looks weird when I type it.

Pickles and grapes!

Thank You Jay

This is really good. You should watch it. Happy New Year. Also, I’m a-cookin’ a-somethin’ up. I’m just waiting on some tech support issues to be resolved.

The Door’s Almost Shut

We’re approaching zero hour on 2009 and I couldn’t shrug my shoulders harder if I goddamn tried.  Work is busy and I’m attempting to purchase trinkets for everyone I know by next week.  Me and spacebee and belly and wwhazz ate at Pedros-Pedros-may-keen-mayx-ee-can the other night after a night of shopping.  It was a grand ol’ time, especially that deep-fried Snickers bar for dessert.

Not much goings-on elsewhere so I’d like to frankly discuss the 1964 classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Thusly: it’s not entirely clear to me just what drugs the creators were using, but I salute them and their efforts.  In a story ostensibly about the titular reindeer the spotlight instead falls upon (a) an elf desperately seeking a career in dentistry and (b) a north woodsman with a revolver hanging from his belt that clearly has mental problems.  It seems to me that the writers wanted to craft a different story entirely but were forced by the General Electric corporation to adapt their lunacy into a framework descended primarily from a one minute Christmas tune.  I don’t know whether the coercion took the form of ducats or whippings– the result is the same.  Also: everyone really hated that fucking Rudolph.  They just shit on him and shit on him until he saved the goddamn day.  He should have pooped in Santa’s mouth.

For those not on the spacebook, my concise review of How the Grinch Stole Christmas:

Zachery Moneypenny feels that the grinch was right to hate those whos- did you see the lunatic instruments they endlessly played?! How bout this: I’ll buy your downstairs neighbor a musical abomination consisting of a bowling ball, a huge metal pipe, and CHIMES and we’ll see if a steampunk xray machine detects any heart shrinkage on YOU.

I have nothing else to say about that shit.  Let’s all get together some Thursday night and watch star trek dvds.  I have one season on dvd (five, I think?) and can provide whiskey.

Everyone else out there: HAVE A GODDAMNED MERRY XMAS!

SNOW!!!1!WATCHOUT

Yo ho hello there go to San Ho and do a show there.  I picked an excellent week to fly hither and yon around the country as Wisconsin is currently experiencing some heavy snowfall and all-around miserable weather.  I’m sitting high and mighty in the comforts of the Palo Alto Crowne Plaza, sipping Crown & Cokes and watching Sportscenter on the ridiculously lavish 25″ old-timey, non-flatscreen tee vee. I feel BAD for my betrothed; she’s shivering in the cold while I’m chillin’ out maxin’ relaxin’ all cool.

Madd:  Saturday? I haven’t heard from you yet.  We could galavant into San Francisco and take Cal hostage on the N-Judah.  Stick your finger in his back and whisper menacingly “I’ve got a knife” and then march him down to McTeague’s Steam Beer Saloon and fill him full of spirits.  Flossie can come too.

Union. Reunion.

Rain Check

Attended Spacebee’s 10 year high school reunion last night down in Illinois.  It was a pretty fun time; I met a lot of her old ‘pals’ and had some Jameson.  Mandy’s awesome pa bought us a round of drinks via the token system at a local bar afterwards.

To follow up on the previous post, I beat Borderlands last week and started the second playthrough to try to get to level 50.  I started Dragon Age: Origins on my Macbook but it crashed every time I shut it down so I decided to wait on really diving in until I get a new gaming rig that can handle the game in all its glory.

Finally, a heads-up to wwhazz that this looks like a good solution for the project we were talking about.  I checked on costs and depending on how long it ends up being, we’d be looking at no more than $300 to publish plus $15-$20 per copy to purchase.  That’s incredibly doable– let’s get it started.

P-Ville

Skeet skeet skeet skeet

First of all: thanks so much to the K’s in P-Ville for having me and my hobo friends up to their fine-ass country home for the weekend.  Same as before, I had a fantastic time and I always leave wishing I lived in that magical land.

The weekend was pretty chill-

• Friday Night: hard meats (including blood sausage), cheese, smoked fish, porto (ours won 500 medals; how many has yours won?), scotch, and camo high life.
• Saturday: The Menfolk went turkey hunting.  Us womenfolk stayed behind and did the shopping and cooking.  Cookie was on point as usual, creating a wonderful meal that included two (2) chickens in a stewpot, the best root mashers ever, sqwish, Katie’s Klever Kreen Keans (Kelicious!) and an Apple Crisp that tasted like it was cooked by a hyper-intelligent Bakery Squid from Universe X.  Alas! The Menfolk did not down a turkey, so the two (2) chickens had to suffice.  We also watched the Badgers poop all over themselves versus Iowa in the Homecoming Extravadanza.
• Sunday: Two activities consumed the day– Shooting Things in the Backyard and Watching The Packers Kick Ass.  Both were fun as all goddamned hell (see above photo) and I hope to do both the next time we travel North to P-Ville.  We shot the effigy, shot our juice-bottle-cum-pigeon, shot cans, and in the grand finale Brian shot a full can of expanding foam.  A good time was had by all.

I hope your weekend was as fun as mine, but it probably wasn’t!

The Canfield: Epilogue

Real looking, eh?

This weekend we’re heading up to Pittsville to an ol’ fashioned turkey hunt and (for those of us that don’t hunt or have guns) fun-time extraordinaire.  To tide the weary masses over until such a time as I have a picture of myself holding a dead turkey, I present you with a (stolen from Facebook) picture of the aforementioned Native American mannequins that reside in the lobby of The Canfield Hotel.  Their eternally unchanging countenance reflects the deathless quality of the establishment itself, or if you get off on antonyms, they illustrate the momentous changes of the region since the days the Sac people (led by Black Hawk) freely roamed the cliffs and valleys of now-northern Illinois/southwestern Wisconsin/northeastern Iowa.  Finally, if your proclivities run to the ‘hipster douchebag’ then you’ll be delighted to know that they are “fucking insane” and “not to be missed.”

Shouts to Kate for getting me this image via Spacebook.  See y’all this weekend.

The Can-do Hotel

Our stay at the Canfield Hotel

Last night we bombed down to the Tri-State area (or is it the Quad Cities?) to have a fine old time at the Canfield Hotel and Diamond Jo’s casino (formerly a riverboat, now a Bellagio-esque resort).

Bottom line: it was the most fun of my goddamned life and I want to go again.

I wrote a review on Google Maps for the Canfield Hotel:

Great place! Affordable rates and it’s real close to the downtown area and the Diamond Jo casino. The native american mannequins in the lobby create a verisimilitude that can’t be matched, and the room was great– clean, with interesting furnishings displaying a love of cats, big and small. After waking from a night of casino action, however, I found out that the weird coffee cups near the coffeemaker had no bottoms and any liquids poured in ended up on the floor. The Rainbow Lounge in the lobby had good folks singing karaoke, too. Long story short, I will definitely stay at the Canfield again.

I gave the place 4 stars; truthfully I wanted to go 4 1/2 stars but Google’s reviews do not afford the reviewer the luxury of half-stars.  Lawman got some pictures of the Native American mannequins so maybe I’ll get those up here at some point; they’re very realistic, inexplicable, and terrifying when you first walk in.

The night was extremely fun and exciting.  It involved roulette, a fun craps session where I had two pretty good rolls, a Blackjack Buttraping, a profitable two rounds of bowling at the Cherry Lanes (apparently the bowling location of choice for recording artist Jewel according the website), some teams of douchebags at the poker tables, and much much more.

The night ended with wwhazz running many blocks to get to an ATM and back before the Rainbow Lounge bar (located in the hotel) closed for the evening.  He almost made it, too!  He also used magic and made pizzas appear right before we passed out.  There was somewhat of a row in the lobby when several gentlemen tried to apparently sneak with us up to our room to get at our pizzas and beer?  I didn’t get it; they weren’t staying in the hotel and we sure as shit didn’t invite them to accompany us.  The last thing I remember is timmer picking up his whole mattress like the incredible hulk and throwing it at me.  Then: poof, I was out like a light.

Short story long: the Canfield Hotel, Diamond Jo’s, and Cherry Lanes get my highest recommendation!  Fun fun fun!

Happy Birthday, Whazzmaster

Can’t wait for the end of today– we’ll be Eye-oh-way bound and wwhazz told me about the hotel we’ll be staying in tonight.  I’ll titilate you with a patented TripAdvisor™ customer review:

Scary Place. Good location. My wife and I were here for our anniversary and the “Americas River” music festival. We were immediately taken back by the outside, old, like something out of “Taxi Driver”. The inside was the same way, not dirty, just Scary ? Like walking into 1972. Strange odor in the lobby like one of the older Vegas hotels…Baby Powder smell ? ? and these two native american manequins on the couch ? ? ? and a couple of “transient” residents hanging out in the small lobby area. Just very wierd. We checked in, and took the rickety elevator to our room. It was like walking into my grandmas house when I was a kid. The decor and furniture was very old, a carpeted bar ? The couch was like something I would have had as a hand me down in my 1st apartment (in 1981) it was really that old ! I really felt like I was in a scary movie Everything gave us an uneasy feeling. We never even disrupted the bed, we went downstairs to tell them we weren’t staying. The owner was in the lobby (also kinda strange) he told the clerk to refund the charge on our Visa. That never happened and we disputed the charge with the credit card co. The hotel is claiming a 48 hour cancellation policy. Don’t stay here unless you have no choice.

I repeat: I cannot wait to stay overnight in this establishment.  Here’s a rough draft of how I see the night proceeding:

1. Check-in
2. Inspect the “two native american manequins” for authenticity and traces of magic
3. Take off my hoodie, put on long-sleeve shirt.
4. Walk to the casino
5. <– edited –>
6. Dinner, preferably involving shrimp
7. <– edited –>
8. Return to the hotel dripping in bling (including one piece shaped inexplicably like the St. Louis Arch,) sporting a tattoo of Frank Norris and Annixter standing back-to-back buddy movie style and waving a .38 I got from a pawn shop.
9. Take “two native american manequins” hostage
10. Sleep
11. Check-out, tipping my hat to the owner and asking him to please refund the charge on our Visa.

We’ll make revisions as necessary (can Scientist still fly in to Dubuque International Airport in time?) but I see no reason why we won’t leave as millionaires, nay, skrillionaires.  Ball small?! That’s how you get a herpe on your foot.  BALL and you’ll be sportin’ a skrillion dollar grill in no time.