The Ultimate Carlton Dance-Off

We went to BW3 last night for dinner and Ball downed 4 big dogs. That's key to the events that unfolded. Incidentally, when BW3 classifies their wings as hot, they actually mean hot. My whole system of classification has been thrown off by Hooters, which is apparently run by a bunch of pansies.

We headed out to Corby's afterward, and a few pitchers in, the subject of The Carlton came up. This is not as rare as you may think. "Do you know The Carlton?" Ball asked Sarah the Bartender. "Oh I KNOW The Carlton!" Sarah the Bartender replied. "CARLTON DANCE-OFF!!" Ball challenged Sarah the Bartender. Foolishly, she accepted.

I'm not gonna lie, Ball does a mean Carlton. Ball does The Carlton better than Alfonso Ribeiro. Ball's Carlton looks like this:

Have you ever seen a grown man do The Carlton in the middle of a crowded bar where no one else is dancing? It was something special. I thought surely the night had reached its peak, but I, too, was a fool, because Sarah the Bartender's turn was like nothing I had ever seen. More like:

No, having just watched that I take it back. That wasn't half bad. Sarah the Bartender's was like some sort of horrible seizure. Not only did she clearly have no idea what The Carlton is, she did not in fact appear to have any control over her arms or legs at all. I could do the Carlton better than this woman--I hope you realize what a powerful statement that is. And at least we knew what was going on! I just sat there wondering, what the hell could the other patrons be thinking right now? Then I thought, oh yeah. Bouncy bouncy bouncy.

In about 45 minutes I'm heading out of here and driving back to Columbus. Jan got me a ticket to the OSU-Minnesota game, and despite growing up in Columbus somehow I've never been to one, so that'll be cool. It's going to be the game of the year, baby! God knows the students will probably still riot. Scolson, you're on official notice, through the infallible notification method of posting on my blog: I will be in Columbus this weekend. And I will be ready to party. Actually that is the exact opposite of true, as I will be opting out of some Halloween goodness tonight to hang out with mommy, who is leaving town early tomorrow. How cool am I!?

Jan also snagged me a ticket for Jon Stewart Saturday night, who is apparently doing a show or at least some sort of performance in the Schott Saturday night. Yeah, I call it the Schott. I saw Eminem there once so I feel very "down" with the latest "lingo." Anyway, Jon Stewart is one funny son of a bitch so I'm definitely looking forward to that. Hey, you think he'll make fun of Bush? Because that would be fantastic.

Holy Guano

Nothing zany happened on the flights to Austin. I was actually at a loss on the drive back from the airport because usually I have wacky airline stories to share, like the kid who peed his pants, the snow machine, the insane coconut wielding pilot, or whatever--nope. Smooth flights, on time, slept through most of both of them. True story.

I'd told Lizett, put on your whore clothes, we're going out Friday night! She did, such as they are, but we didn't. God, I'm such an awesome, lazy sack. Instead we opted to stay in sipping Coors Light and watching Scrubs per our Standard Friday Night Arrival Agreement. Then she said she'd read this article on Slate about how Zach Braff isn't as awesome as everyone thinks he is--everything went grey, and the next I remember Lizett was a quivering mass on the ground, the apparent victim of a particularly savage tickle attack. I know, we're too cute, right? Also, that didn't really happen.

Saturday was the big visit to Houston to meet Lizett's parents. It was...something. I will say this, my kneecaps were not actually crushed in pneumatic presses, nor was I punched in the throat and lit on fire, so that's something. Also we stopped at What-A-Burger on the way down and it was pretty delicious. No, it was actually a very lovely trip, and her parents are probably the most adorable people I have ever met--her dad still calls her mom his girlfriend, does that not make you want to go hug a rainbow? So we did normal family stuff, ate, sat around, went out that night with her brother, it was a good time. They speak-a Spanish--I trlrlrlrlust them.

Sunday we ate donuts and finagled our way out of Mass in favor of heading off early afternoon to get back to Austin. Lizett had won tickets to a river cruise, you see, and it was AWESOME. Not the fake kind of awesome where I say something was awesome and I really mean it wasn't awesome at all, it was actually awesome. It turns out there is a colony of approximately 1.5 million bats (really) living under the Congress Ave. Bridge in downtown Austin, and every night at sunset they take flight en masse to go hunt 30 or 40 tons of delicious insects.

So they have this little boat (Austin, not the bats) and they take you out on the river and position you so you can directly view the bridge against the sunset and then suddenly--WHOOSH--a million bats are flying out of the bridge simultaneously, zooming off in these frantic plumes so thick they look almost like smoke, and they all join together in one massive wavy line that just keeps extending out to the horizon, and you watch it all close up as a glorious rain of bat guano descends upon you--I say glorious because while I managed to stay quite clean, Lizett took a shot right to the face. It was really, really cool, like one of the coolest things I've ever seen. If you're ever in Austin, you must go see the bats. I insist you see the bats. SEE THE BATS, SEE THE BATS, SEE THE BATS!!

Our boat was pretty fantastic too. The tour guide told this fabulous ghost story about how several years ago, on a night very much like tonight, and in almost this very spot on the river, she bumped a log and tried to push it aside, only to discover it wasn't a log at all but a HUMAN CORPSE! AHHHH! Then she ended the story with "no seriously, that happened. Turned out to be like this transient drug addict or something, they don't know if it was foul play or what." So, that was highly disturbing. On the plus side, there was also this other guy on there who was for some reason wearing a short sleeved jumpsuit, and who's only apparent purpose was to talk in outrageously exaggerated accents and state that since we were on international waters he could murder us all and there would be nothing the authorities could do. Very nice. He also, at Lizett's suggestion, nearly did murder us all by flashing a spotlight into a flock of heron roosting in a grove of nearby trees. Have you ever seen a flock of agitated heron up close and personal? Brother, it is no picnic, especially after you just watched them ravenously go to town on a whole assload of otherwise impressive bats. SEE THE BATS! You must...see...the bats.

After the cruise we headed to Hooters where--and I'm not making any implications here, I'm just saying what happened and you can draw your own conclusions--I totally caught Lizett checking out one of the Hooter Girls. And then pointed it out. And then she kicked me. Also she gave me a perfectly reasonable explanation, but I think I'll just go ahead and omit it. In conclusion, I will pay you $10,000 to go see the bats.

Worst Day Of My Life

It finally happened. I've been living in fear of it for over two years now. I've got two pairs of doc's sitting by the front door, black or brown to match my outfit of the day. It's too dark when I leave for work to distinguish colors and damn you to hell if you think I'm going to flip on a light switch, so I make my selection based on a slight variation in shape--the blackies are a bit more squared off at the toe. I don't know if I was just tired this morning? Maybe on some sick level I wanted this to happen. Yellow shirt, brown belt, tan khakis...black shoes. OH GOD! I didn't notice until I was sitting down at my desk. Needless to say I immediately drove home and corrected my error. No, really. There's no way I could work under those conditions.

I'm heading out right after work tonight to catch a flight to Austin, then driving to Houston Saturday, back to Austin Sunday, and flying back home Monday. It will be a glorious weekend of travel. It looks like I will once again be missing my old roommate dcrowley, in this weekend from Atlanta, which fills me with rage of utmost intensity and murderous potential. I missed him last time he was in town for the same reason. I lived with him a year after graduation, and I am here to tell you the man could teach lessons in being awesome. For one thing, he's quirky as hell:

Me: Hey Dan, what are you up to?
Dan: Whittling a stake.
Me: Cool.

Secondly, and this one is the key, the man is always up for anything. You could wake him up at 3am and ask if he wants to hit up an aquarium and he'd already be putting on his shoes.

Thirdly, he may or may not have once fallen asleep on the john with two 40s in hand, thus immediately securing his spot as my hero for all eternity.

Why the sudden Crowley worship? Well, I ran into his dad last night at Corby's and it's freaking uncanny how much they look alike. This is no ordinary father-son similarity; if you chopped Dan's legs off at the knees--not that I'm suggesting you should--the two would be virtually indistinguishable. At least if you'd been drinking for a while.

I Am Not Making This Up

Last Saturday morning when Lizett finished getting ready for the game, I held out my arms for a hug as she was coming down the stairs and she punched me full on in the gut. True story.

Battlestar Galactica Rocks Me From My Booty To My Fro

I'm sorry to deliver the news so impersonally, Lizett, but I have found a new love and her name is Galactica. I'm mildly obsessed with it, and by mildly I mean I am wearing a Galactica uniform at work right now. I stayed up all night sewing it Gordon Gartrelle style. I don't get SciFi so I never had a chance to watch the show, but now I'm all caught up via Netflix DVDs and I'm pretty convinced it is the greatest thing ever--despite moving from none-too-subtle allusions to questionable military ethics in prior seasons to pretty explicitly setting season 3 in Iraq and making us the bad guys. Who am I kidding, that just makes me love it more. Is it better than Lost? I don't know. All I'm saying is I don't want to take Lost to a secluded beach and make love to it right there on the sand and propose and get married and have a million of its babies. In fact, the only bad thing I can see about BSG is Edward James Olmos's 'stache. Dude, just shave it off.

This post dedicated to the wreckage of Lizett. Too cool to download BSG to lappy, hmmm? Nerdery by association, BONG.

Speaking of Lizett and wreckage, this is the big Meet the Parents weekend in Houston! I am very much looking forward to it, particularly the If You Hurt My Sister I'm Going To Kill You speech from her brother, the If You Touch My Daughter I'm Going To Kill You speech from her dad, and the I'm Just Plain Going To Kill You speech from her mom. I am of course kidding, I'm sure they will love me. Right? RIGHT??

Hits Combo

I've got a Hits Combo sticker in my wallet. It says "HITS COMBO!" in this rad lightning font and it has a picture of me and Nut fixin' for a brawl. I think we got it on our Santa outing. I don't remember why we went anymore, but I'm sure there's some convoluted reasoning behind it. I just remember every day he'd IM me saying "SANTA! SAAAAAANTA!" until I took him to the mall. I've already told this story a thousand times but let me reiterate, whatever happens in your life, no matter how bad things get, you can always find solace in the knowledge that you're not a grown-ass man sitting on Santa's lap, listening to racist propaganda and trying not to choke on stale cigarette breath. I'm sure odor sticks to that beard like nobody's business, but did you seriously need to light up on break? You're SANTA. Jesus has a golden boot He saves for crotches like yours.

Hits Combo! We were on a weird father-son man-date so I guess we figured we'd better hit up the photo booth, and when I saw the Hits Combo background I knew it must be mine. What does it mean? Who put it there? I don't know. I only know that for the next several months, all my conversations with Nut went:

Nut: Hits combo?
Me: Hits combo!
Nut: Hits combo, baby! Hits COMBO!

Then I'd say like glorious, erogenous, awesome to the max, oh billy, shiznittery, I'm not gonna lie, let's drink some beers, huzzah, I love you son, oose oose oose, etc. and he'd say he had to go. Le end.

The Mother Of All Backfires -- Or -- Don't Read This One Mom

A couple weeks back New Jan came to Corby's with us, and I told her I'd lost both of my testicles in a gardening accident. I don't recall why. Also, speaking of Jan, here's a tailgate picture she just sent of her, me, and Lizett:

Adorable, hmmmm? Except that hat makes me look bald. I look like freaking Lex Luthor.

Anyway, this somehow evolved into a long and glorious yarn of the loss itself, the hilarious sitcom-style recovery, the inspiring Notre Dame community outreach after Ball leaked it to The Observer, the eventual purchase and installation of neuticles, and the subsequent reattainment of my Groove. I know, it sounds horrible and unfunny. Right you are.

The point of this totally awesome story is, I guess we were too convincing...and too loud. We hadn't realized Mary was even listening, or that she apparently believed our rather insane hypothetical, and certainly not that she would go around for the next couple weeks telling all her friends and coworkers about her BFF Steve who tragically lost his boys to a garden hoe. Which she did.

Eventually I'm going to run into some of these people. So what do I do? I can't just introduce myself like "Hey I'm Steve, and I totally have all my man parts." My options are to live with the pity in their eyes, or stop going to bars. Seems like a good new TV season.

It Begins...

October 12: first snow in the Bend. Wind chill: 19 degrees.

I did not expect to have to scrape my car this morning. It's October, the leaves haven't even fallen off the trees yet. I'm so angry at Mother Nature I could go punch a hippie. Where's Meatball? Ha, man, Meat dwopped us all an email about a week back in which evewy single "r" was weplaced by a "w"--it was like 4 pawagwaphs! That is dedication to a bit, and you have to respect self-mockery. I guess I won't punch a hippie after all. I'm not sure some hippie kicking the shit out of me was the ideal solution anyway.

Long and Boring, Enjoy Losers!

Band Reunion Weekend is kind of a blur. Some stuff happened and then some other stuff happened, Corby's Corby's Corby's, crotch bling. Let's see if I can sort it out.

Thursday after work was JISM Church meeting numero uno with Ball, LB, Jism, and Megs, who I hadn't seen in quite some time, so that was nice. It was kind of embarrassing because I took the whole church theme too far and showed up in a hooded robe expecting a Big Laugh, but instead they all just stripped me naked and smeared salty popcorn in my eyes. The burgers were fantastic though, the beer was cold, and I made it a point to engage heartily in the consumption of onion rings in anticipation of another Big Laugh after the hello kiss at the airport. Classic me! Lizett loved it, and did not strike me or anything.

After I picked her up we headed back to Corby's where Lizett established an unbreakable lifelong friendship with my former BFF whatshername. Fortunately the Box was there, so we reminisced about all the horrible, horrible things I used to do to him. It brought a tear to my eye--that or the leftover salt. It was standard Corby's, ton of pitchers, inappropriate touching, Rocky humped my back, Lizett verbally assaulted him, I was forever emasculated, and, of course, Ball got wasted. I don't think we stayed out too too late, although God knows. I do know that whenever we got home, we proceeded directly upstairs to jump up and down on the bed until Ball started crying. I know you think that is some sort of ultra-clever and unbreakable code, but no, we really did jump on and down on the bed. We hit each other with pillows. I borrowed a bra.

Friday...some stuff happened. Breakfast, maybe? I don't know. Eventually we headed over to Legends to meet up with a whole mess of folk. These things are good, because you see all the people you knew and liked but don't really keep up with, but then there's so many other people that you don't have to keep talking to them...as soon as there's a lull--whoops! There's so-and-so! See you in three years. Don't call me. I did get to see Mama Tone, which was pretty fantastic. She's good, loving life, doing right, earning every breath she takes. I was listening to Bubba Sparxxx on the way home, so what? So we did that, and practice, and headed back to Legends for lots more random people. We headed out for the alleged purpose of going to meet a bunch of the old 'tones for dinner, but instead--and pay attention because this is awesome--we went home and ordered Papa John's. Suck it everyone! It was delicious and satisfying. I hope you enjoyed your dirt-wieners.

Afterward said old 'tones did end up coming to our place for a little 'tone shot--which was enormously lame, sorry Younger Generation--and the Elders headed back out to Corby's for drinks and supreme awkwardness. Dare I write about it? Nah, I shouldn't. Still, it resulted in the stratification of our entire group, forcing everyone to migrate from one side of the bar to the other in shifts, which was pretty glorious. I saw Silio there, and he beat the shit out of me and 97 others for no apparent reason. Classic Silio! I think we again left relatively early, opting out of the Backer or the Falto Gathering on the theory that by retiring early we'd be out bright and early, as promised, for the Mothball tailgate.

I assume you can see where this is going. We got there around 11. I don't know what happened. We were up at 8:15. But then we just kept watching Tivo'd NewsRadios. Andy Dick is so...freaking...funny. I love it when he falls down! So we got out there late and it was in full swing. Trying to chronicle it all would unravel my very soul, but definitely the highlight was Brian Vnak asking if I'd seen his bling...and then reaching for his crotch. Those few moments were a horrifying cacophony of simultaneous thoughts--"No...Prince Albert?"--"The goggles do nothing!"--"You magnificent bastard!"--and, bizarrely--"I always knew this day would come."--but what actually followed was easily the greatest thing I've seen since that guy was walking around in an orange "Taco Bell? Fine by me" T-Shirt.

Rhinstone. "Vnak." Belt Buckle. Son of a bitch had it custom made! I've never been so jealous of another man's crotchal area. So shiny.

The second awesomest moment was also a Vnak special, when in attempt to shotgun a Coors Light he somehow pinholed a shaken can and showered Lizett and I in a glorious rain of delicious, glistening nectar. It's always been my dream to make love in a shower of beer, so what else could I do? Unfortunately Vnak was also standing over all of the instruments at the time, so I hope all you marching chumps enjoyed your sticky yet delicious horns.

The game was excellent. Again, too long to chronicle. Lizett said "Dag, yo!" and "Samardzija, Samardzija!" perhaps 29 times, which is good because I surely would have climaxed on the 30th. There was a post-tailgate, a little dinner with the old alums at Damon's, and then an early night. For some of us, it had been a long day. Not me, but, you know...Mothball.

Sunday--hmmmm, Hooters, shopping, Steak and Ale, Cheesy Biscuits--pretty standard. It was good. Good wind down. And I'm out.

GAMETIME! HUH!!

Let the oosery begin. Jism and LB get in a little after I get off work for some CJ's pregaming at Corby's, then it's inaugural JISM service smooth-belly-rubbing time, and finally Lizett gets in around 9 and By God it's back to Corby's where we'll crush a few beers and make everyone around us enormously uncomfortable with inappropriate touching. I'm pumped.

Who knows what's going on the rest of the weekend, but in honor of a temporary Return to Glory--OHHHHHHHHHHHHHH BILLY...

...LET'S DRINK SOME BEERS!

Alumni Reunion Pick:

ND: 7am Mothball Tailgate
Stanford: 7am Band Practice

Weekend Wrap-up

Friday night I think I proved how cool I was to the world by staying in and watching Celebrity Duets with Lizett via IM. Oh yes. You read right. Celebrity Freaking Duets, baby. I don't even feel bad about it, because Lucy Lawless is ridiculously hot now and Alfonso Ribeiro sets my soul alight.

Saturday I slept in pretty late even for me. Every weekend Mothball goes out to get his tailgating spot at around 6am, and every weekend I finally roll in around 10:30--I don’t think I made it this week until almost noon. You would think a good roommate would suck it up and go help, and you would be totally right. BONG. I don't know when other people arrive, but I'm guessing it's not much before me, which begs the question:

What In God's Name Does Mothball Do All Morning?

Maintains pop, works on lock
Systematically consumes 16 packages of raw bratwurst
Tour de Port-a-John
Weeps quietly to 4 straight hours of 80s love songs
Beer

Cast your vote now! Although I should warn you pressing "Vote" just sets my soul alight. I believe we all know the correct answer anyway.

Anyway, so I rolled in there around noonish, still half asleep, which was disastrous because I proceeded straight to the beer, skipping right over my morning caffeine. I went to the game with Ball's lady-friend, which should have been an ideal opportunity to get to know her, but instead by the time we were in our seats my caffeine headache was approaching someone-please-murder-me status and it was all I could do to pay attention to the game, let alone attempt to carry on a conversation. I think she thought I didn't like her. Awesome. Anyway, I tried to down some coke, but it was too late. Around 3rd quarter they announced severe weather to the west and my head was about to explode, so we headed back to catch the rest on the big screen. Or at least she did. I am embarrassed to say I took two excederin, chugged a cherry coke, and fell asleep about 2 minutes into the fourth quarter. Consciousness, even during an ND game, was no longer a viable option. Then while I was asleep Erica slipped out and promptly got lost on the way to the post-tailgate. Haha! Classic.

Then some other stuff happened. Hooters, cheesy biscuits, delicious delicacies for all! Except for Baker's Square. That place sucks all kinds of man-parts.

Retroactive Pick:

ND: Xena, Warrior Princess
Purdue: Tights under skirts