Secretssssss

I re-updated the blogroll (on the right sidebar).  Wwhazz alerted me to the fact that he found it helpful to have prominent links to The People’s Champ, Arlo’s Bloggity Bloggity BlogBlog, and others.

Additionally, our old pal Big Al opened a new web site at http://blog.mlbsecrets.com that has up-to-date info on all the latest baseball rumors.  Example: yesterday I looked and found out that Ben “Fucking” Sheets worked out for ten (10!) interested teams the other day.  I assume that he will sign for a hojillion dollars somewhere and then NOT get injured, thereby completing his unusefulness to the Milwaukee Brewers.  It seems like it’s a good time to leave a Wisconsin professional sports team and then get fantastically good again.

Wwhazz’s birthday was this week, as was madddddddd’s, as was manders’.  As is alandovos.  Basically everyone I know: Happy Birthday.  Wwhazz and bellygirl went out to dinner and snapped a picture of the all-time best bar special ever. Ever.  I hope they don’t mind me reproducing it here:

The Best Bar Special Ever

Favre: Meteorite Target

Sadness

Last night pretty much sucked for any Packers fan. Blarrgle, blurgh, o-line. ^%$&%(&)(^&SACKS$%@!# This nightmare seems as if it will never end.

I drowned my sorrows in scotch: dry, tasty scotch, and then I played Borderlands until I was almost certain to be tormented by dreams of millions of white, green, blue, purple, and orange guns, shotguns, sniper rifles, and rocket launchers.  I’ve been loving the shit out of Borderlands lately, so if anyone out there has it for Sexbox 360 I want to play co-op with you.

I need to finish the shit out of Borderlands soon, though, because Dragon Age comes out tomorrow.  I preordered it on Steam (more on that in a second) so I should be able to play it immediately.  It’s your standard go-out-and-kill-the-marauding-hordes-with-a-sword type of thing.  Kind of excited; I really liked Neverwinter Nights back in the day and this is by the same dudes.  GRIMGAW, TO ME!

Anyways, Steam is pretty nice.  I gotta preface by saying that I’m a fan of online stores.  The iTunes Store, XBOX Live, these are things that allow me to near instantly acquire things I want without bullshit (also good since I don’t have a car to get to places like Best Buy).  Steam is a client you install on your PC that allows you to purchase new and old games, and to pre-order games that will be released in the future.  The games are delivered by download, and it’s kinda cool since it acts as a dashboard where you can launch all the games on your computer.  For old times’ sake, I bought Zuma Adventures and Bookworm Adventures.  Goddammit I love Bookworm, where you defeat your enemies with the power of words (the longer, the better).  One time I one-shotted an enemy by spelling the word “prosthetic” from a pool of 16 jumbled letters and felt like a god.  Wwhazz, it may be up your alley in a Bananagrams-ish way.

Packers vee The Chicago Pisswizards

Spacebee and I are heading up to Lambeau in a few hours to take in a lovely evening of storied rivalry between the Green Bay Packers and those other guys.  We’ll be staying overnight in some guy’s RV that will be parked in my brother’s wife’s family’s driveway.  Should be a blast– I’ll update twitter with witty tweets LIVE from the game.

I got home safely from the California yesterday.  In a surprising twist, and for the first time in recorded history, my flight went form being delayed 1.5 hours to being scheduled for an on-time departure.  When I saw that I had to throw back the Jameson I’d ordered and hustle to the gate to make it in time for boarding.  I sat next to a helluva guy who was returning from Vegas with friends (if you’re ever in the Arlington Inn, give them all a holllarit and tell them ‘that guy from the plane’ sent you.)

I do apologize to everyone I didn’t see when I was out in the Yay Area (especially GMC), but I’ll be returning to dem parts roundabouts December 6th.  In the meantime, how about y’all try your hand at beating me in the 2009 Whazzmaster Survival Football Extravadanza.  You may win (note: you won’t win.)

O Packers, My Packers

The disappointment was palpable at The 4th Base, where wwhazz, bellygirl, spacebee, timmer, and I watched the Packers fumble away Brett Favre’s chances for glory on a cold and snowy evening in Green Bay. The day wasn’t for naught, we still had a goddamned helluva time celebrating the Old Man’s new career high in “Years Lived,” but a Packers Super Bowl would have been the cherry on top of a whipped cream-covered tit.

The game itself was sad, but we had a ball at The $th Base (dollar sign intended). Free jello shots when the Packers scored, fucking delicious food, lots of booze, and did I mention the goddamned delicious tilapia (twas good, not Bad)? Chocolate cake at the hotel room, and then off to the Magical Wonderland of The Landmark, where we played pinball, air hockey, some alien shooting game, and DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION. We Rascal’d it up for awhile, and then finished off at Vitucci’s (site of my sister’s birthday festivities as well.) We had a Pizza Shuttle Party. Timmer chugged like five $1 Mike’s Hard Iced Teas before we left Vitucci’s and I found him out back of JoCats pukin’ em up seven minutes later. Haha.

So next weekend is the Royal Rumble; who’s in? The week after is the UFC with Brock Lesnar, followed by the Super Bowl. Lot’s of Weekend Cheddah coming your way, whazzmaster.com. Hope you’re ready, guys.

Halloween 2007

California was pretty great last week, if hectic. Between work meetings, social get-togethers, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium spacebee and I went from hither to yon and back from Thursday to Sunday. Saturday night our very own madd scientits came up to have dinner with fuddruckus, manders, spacebee, and I at the Fahrenheit Ultra Lounge. The dinner was great, and we stayed afterward to dance to odd 80s-dance-pop-fusion and slurp down $9 crown ‘n’ cokes. We followed that up on Sunday by going to meet some of my old work friends at the Oktoberfest festivities in Campbell (near scientist’s old homestead: pRUNEYARD!)

That brings us to Halloween 2007. For all the pictures, see my Flickr set.

Blammo!

We had some friends over for an evening of Ultimate Fighter marathon, Guitar Hero II, and some beers at the Main Depot. We didn’t end up heading down to State St., in part because we didn’t want to wait in line and pay $7 each in order to walk up and down a street, but mostly because my costume involved going shirtless and it was goddamned cold outside Saturday night. At the Depot, an incredibly drunk man insinuated that I was not man enough (or perhaps, too much man [i'm fat]) to be the boyfriend of a classy dame like spacebee. I whispered in his ear, “Psst, I’m not really a wrestler.” His response, “You think?” Later on he attempted to paw at bellygirl from the bathroom doorway as we left and ended up falling down. He also knocked down a dancing machine while being drunk and almost got his ass whomped. All in all, there was no need for me to do or say anything to this dude: he was gonna get the holy shit beat out of him before the night was over anyways. I hear tell later on of wwhazz and bellygirl at bartime seeing an incredibly drunk man on stilts take 3 giant wobbly steps and then eat concrete. Oh Halloween!

Black Cat Fever

Pretty good Packer game last night, too. Spacebee and I watched it at scubby’s new house out in Middleton, on the Ultra High Def TV. Man, watching Favre throw million-yard touchdowns in high def was sweeter than watching it on my dumb ol’ cable. So what if I’m out of the suicide pool, I hedged against a Packer loss so that I’d be happy either way. Say lah vee, there’s always next year, and all that rigamarole.

Man of Mysterio

Lose Pack Lose

So, Spacebee got a hold of some kick-ass Packers tickets to last night’s game against the Bears at Lambeau. The night was Super Fun, in that my brother’s fiance grandly provided us with a free place to park across the street from the stadium and that our tickets were in the end zone and on the aisle. We also got there about an hour and a half early, so we had time to wander the stadium for awhile. Spacebee’s coworker and husband were also there, and my brother and his fiance had tickets as well, so the six of us drank the good drink and kicked it in the Lambeau atrium before game time.

Of course, Green Bay ended up losing the game, and I had to hear a shitstorm from Bears fans all the way out of the stadium, but whatever. Just like the Badgers did the day before, the Packers lack of 2nd half offense and defensive coverage ensured the loss. *shrug* whaddya gonna do? It was the first regular season game I’d been to at Lambeau, and I got to see a touchdown in the end zone we were sitting in, so I got my thrill. The win would have been icing on the cake; I just had a good ol’ time.

Afterwards kinda sucked, though. Late in the evening spacebee brokered a deal at work so that she didn’t have to come in at 7am Monday. We planned on ditching the car at a motel, and partying with the spacebee’s coworker up in Green Bay or Appleton. However, once we tried to get a room we found out that pretty much all of Wisconsin was sold out. We drove out of Green Bay, and stopped at 3 hotels in Appleton (“Sold out, but try Oshkosh!”) and then moved on to Oshkosh (“Sold out, but try Fon Du Lac!”) before deciding to just drive the rest of the goddamned way home. We got in at 4am this morning: ugh. I know that it was kinda stupid to assume we could get a room in Green Bay, but come the fuck on. It was late on a Sunday night; I didn’t expect every single person to stay behind after the game. Plus, R U JOKIN ME that there wasn’t a hotel room as far south as Oshkosh? Whatever, I learned a valuable lesson.

Finally, not to be a dick, but how do you and your wife calculate approximate driving times, wwhazz? You said it would take 3+ hours, but we were going the speed limit the whole way and we got to the Hortonville exit off 41 in about 2 hours, and then at Lambeau in two and a half. Do you guys drive real slow? Do you always hit a ton of traffic?

The Bakersfield Wastelands

AND lo, unto the hellscape of Bakersfield there was delivered a couple. AND that couple didst live in squalor amongst roaches, big-ass bugs, and team players. THE men and women of the hovel did not yet know their betters were upon them…

And so on and so forth. Hey everyone, it’s nice to be back. I was in Racine on Sunday for a trio of birthdays: my niece, my soon-to-be sister-in-law, and my grandmother. We had a gay old time eating delicious risotto and marinaded beef tenderloin. Then we had a Speed Party: eat cake, pinata crash, open presents in 30 or less minutes. Spacebee and I rode dirty down to Racine, spent about 3 hours there, and then headed back up. Our driving time equaled the time we were there, but it was worth it to see so many family members’ birthdays in one shot!

There’s also crazy news on the Racine front: my parents are moving to… Door County. My father accepted a position as the president and CEO of the visitor’s bureau up yonder, and so by the end of the year they will have (hopefully, in this housing market) sold their house and moved up there. My brosef and seestor are moving out soon or have moved out already, and so they won’t be going with. I know I’m still digesting the news… but I am looking forward to going up there to visit.

Now, as anyone in Madison can attest to, I’ve been going buck fucking crazy on a cookbook I received from my dad recently.

[Backstory] As some of you may know, my dad used to work for Visit Milwaukee, the convention and visitor’s bureau for the area. As the VP of Sales, it was his job to sell the city to various large conventions so they would come and buy up a bunch of hotel rooms and spend tourist money like ‘whoa.’ So they have these conventions where people representing large conventions come and get wined and dined and look at booths by various cities in order to hold their convention there. My dad worked hard to set up a dinner for under a hundred people at the home of Art Smith, Oprah’s personal chef. So a bunch of people went to his house in Chicago and had some great food and (I hear) raved about it to others at the convention the next day. As the guests left, Art Smith signed copies of his newest cookbook for the them, and my dad snagged a copy for me as well. [/Backstory]

Now, I had paged through the cookbook and found a few good recipes, but I hadn’t actually taken a step to cook anything until last week. I went to Whole Foods and bought all the ingredients to make 4 dinners from the book on consecutive nights. Many of them involved brining and long-lead prep work, so I set up a schedule where I would be cooking one night’s dinner while prepping for the next night’s dinner. Long story short: these things went four-for-four. Each one was goddamned tasty (which can be attested to by those on whazzmaster who tried them, I believe).

All this to mention that the fourth night of Back to the Family-inspired dinners happened to fall on Saturday: college football during the day, Badger football at night, free UFC ‘pay-per-view’ (I’ll let wwhazz expound on that one), and Brewers and Cubs baseball. Mississippi Chicken and Rice with homemade cornbread turned out to be the perfect compliment to 6+ hours of various sports. By the way, GMX, the cornbread we made was straight outta Good Ol’ J.R.’s Country Homemade Cookbook you got me. So now I have two signed cookbooks: one from Oprah’s personal chef, and one from the WWE’s lead announcer. The cornbread was made in a cast-iron skillet, which got ultra-high marks from me. Anything made in a cast-iron pan is going to taste twenty to thirty times better.

Finally, Wisconsin sports are looking good, if shaky. Badgers are 2-0. Packers are 1-0. Brewers are back atop the division (for the moment). And wwhazz is winning Peterstiffly’s Whazzmaster NFL Pool. Incredibly.

HOLLLARIT Bakersfield.

Wisconsin Sports Extravaganza and… Snoopy

Friday night maddddddddd and rach-o arrived with Quince in tow. Sadly, Quince couldn’t stay at my place by hisself, but lawman and rumthumb stepped into the breach and offered a dog hotel at their place. After a ‘getting-to-know-you’ session between Quince and Phineas, we all went up to Old Fashioned (for the first time of the weekend) and had some drinks and tasty treats. We got the incredibly good idea to head down to the Karaoke Kid and croon away, but upon arrival we found a line (!) and an hour-long wait to get a song in. Funny travel diary entry: we walked through Conklin Place to get to the Karoke Kid, and lawman told an interesting story about the summer that three weed plants showed up in the next door neighbor’s yard. And how they were gone immediately after that. We decided to finish out our sentence at The Gentlemen’s Playground, where we played some pool before retiring early.

Saturday morn my sister and her friend came up, and we hit Scubby’s tailgate at around 10am. A quick brat cook-up and several High Life’s later we were on our way to the Wisconsin/Buffalo game. Afterwards we hit the Stadium, which I hate, and looked for an hour for madddddddddddddd. After freezing my ass off for a while we retreated to the 72° comfort of my place and ordered Jade Garden for din-din.

Everyone fell asleep.

Upon waking up, madddddddd went and picked up Quince, we ate, and then sister and friend headed out to the bars. We spent the rest of the evening drinking and watching Will Ferrell. That Will Ferrell, he’s Teh Funny.

Sunday morning was a feast of epic proportions: scrambled eggs, hash browns with peppers and onions, bacon, sausage, bagels, toast, blueberry kringle, coffee, bloody mary’s, apple cider, apple juice, and orange juice. Holy shit I was full. Everyone left for home and I hooked up with Scubby to head down to peterstiffly’s place to watch the Packers game. Holy shit the Packers dropped a load in that game. The plus was that the day was filled with nostalgia. Scubby had to go work for awhile so peterstiffly and I headed down to the Kohl Center to watch the Badgers beat the holy hell out of Southern. They beat them by about 50 points. Then we met with Scubby again and all three went to the Old Fashioned for dinner (second time this weekend). Finally, we rounded out the night by watching Best of RAW Vol. 1 & 2 on DVD. Holy shit, when Austin assaulted Vince in the hospital and shocked him with the paddles we almost lost it. Hopefully we can get together regularly and do a Classic Wrestling DVD Nite. I’m excited.

Lucha Scubby

Memoranda One: Apparently Michael “Kramer” Richards went buck-wild nuts and just started screaming ‘nigger’ at a comedy club in LA on Friday night. Jesus. What the hell brought that on? I’m reading conflicting accounts that suggest it was some Andy Kaufman-type shit. Uh, yeah dude, not funny. And I know it’s not supposed to be funny if that’s what it was, but even so: uh, not funny.
Memoranda Two: I’m watching He’s a Bully, Charlie Brown right now and oh man it’s bad. Top to bottom: the music, the voices, the plot. Charlie Brown specials were never the greatest entertainment in the world; believe me, I ain’t gonna go down that road. But this sucks at a remarkable level. Hence, my remarks: “it sucks.”
Finally: I’ll probably go see some movies this week. I’ll be in Racilla W/Skrilla Thursday through Sunday, and I think I’ll take in some picture shows. I kinda want to see the new Bond and the Tenacious D movie. Not sure about Borat, I think I’ll just wait for it.

A Weekend In Wisconsin

Hey everyone, it’s been an interesting week in Wisconsin and I’m glad whazzmaster.com had such fine stewards to keep things humming along while I’ve been indisposed. Spacebee does not have what you’d call a Technological Infrastructure in her apartment, so I’ve only been able to check in every few days or so.

It’s just about halftime in the Packer game and what started out as a Hot Start by the Pack has now turned into Shitty Middle. Man, Young Grand Dad is going down in the first week. Weee.

Thursday we Dry Bean’d it and I karaokeed Bust A MOve to a so-so, meh, kinda enthusiastric crowd. Friday was Wedding Day as Spacebee and I attended one of her nurse friend’s wedding and reception. I partied with free Miller Lite and sundry husbands and boyfriends of nurses as Spacebee danced and did shots of Maker’s Mark at the bar. Holy man I think her eyes glazed over when she did that.

We had to wake up early on Saturday to get ready to The EndTimes Tailgate with her entire family and I was feeling like muck so I proposed a Bloody Mary bar. A quick trip to Copps (Copps?!) and we had such mundane items as pickles, olives, and celery along with more exotic prizes like summer sausage and cheddar cheese. I had a delicious (DELICIOUS!) bloody and then we set about cooking 24 brats, 10 burgers, and 6 brat patties. I don’t know where these people grew up, but everyone made fun of me cuz of the brat patties. They’d never heard of them and mocked me. Pfffft. Do I care? No, I just ate three of them with my new pal: CAL. Yes, his name is CAL. For real, not because of video golf.

After the tailgate we headed down to the stadium and it was great to see a Wisconsin game again. I hadn’t seen the new stadium yet and it was pretty good. Our seats were on the 20 yard line across from the new tower of suites (facing The Shell) and it was a good game after a rough first half. We stayed for the Fifth Quarter and Spacebee and I danced in the stands. POLKA! Afterwards we headed over to the ~JORDAN’S~ Big Ten Pub, then Regent Street Retreat, then a side trip to BUCK’S~! before heading back to the Big Ten again. Result: drunkeness.

SO that brings us to today: Spacebee sleeps on the sofa as I watch the halftime show and type this up. Now on to pending business:

1. I’m tentatively signing the lease on the Tobacco Row apartment on Monday. We went to see it on Friday and it’s pretty swanky; it’s a corner unit with a balconey. There will be plenty of room for whoever wants to crash there.
2. I need to get a hold of rumsey and o’neil for a meeting of the minds. Preferably there will be dinner and/or booze involved.
3. KURT VAN RYZIN IS COMING TO TOWN! I’m so excited! I’m so excited! I’m. So. Scared!
4. Madddddddddddddd, sorry I didn’t call you. If you want to come down here one day it could be Wednesday night cuz I don’t have anything to do on Thursday. Spacebee said you could sleep at her place since you’ve let her crash in your house so many times. KINDNESS REPAID!
5. I think it’s funny that LuchaLumps has been put in Team Girlfriends. That’s a dude I work with at Intuit.
6. Recruiting starts Tuesday and then interviews are on Wednesday. I’m absolutely getting a good night’s sleep on Tuesday night.
7. If Tim Hobson is reading this, I talked to a Mountain View-to-Madison transplant at the tailgate yesterday and got the hot tip on some good coffee in this burg. It’s called EVP and they supposedly have some Peet’s-level stuff. I’m gonna go try it out later today.

HOLLLLARIT Quince! Second half is starting.

Brewers Win! Packers, Not So Much

In honor of my return to Wisconsin my mom got some SWANK~! tickets to the Brewers game versus the Astros today. Section 119 behind home plate, 8 rows up. So my parents, sister, and I attended the Dave Bush’s four hit shutout win 4-0 today. While we were shopping in the FanZone today, however, the Packer/Bear game got underway and things are not looking pretty.

I played the numbers today and picked the Italian Sausage in the Race. I was a bit dismayed when I found out it was a relay race and I’d be counting on a midget italian to finish it for my dough, but my fears were not realized as the Tiny Italian was the only sausage NOT to bungle the handoff and I got an easy $15 from my family. I was happy to get that so when the Attendance came up I blithely shouted out “THREE! THREE!” To my delight, it was THREE! and I won another $15. Oh happy day. And I finally got the shirt I’d been lusting after for years along with two new hats. I had to pick lightly coz I wasn’t sure what Spacebee had bought me last weekend.

Last night I went out in Racine with a cast of thousands anchored around my brother and sister. We were celebrating my brother’s fiance’s birthday and it turned out it was Luau Night at All-Sports Pub. Holy crap, $60 goes a loooooooooong way in Wisconsin bars. I’d forgotten how long. The answer is: looooooooooooong.

I’ll be kickin’ it in Racine for a few more days before the grand reveal of Spacebee to my family on Wednesday, then I’m heading up to Madison until the next Friday (though most of next week I’ll be participating in recruiting activities at the university).

HOLLLARIT whazzmaster, and go Packers.