Mega Maid

When my ex & I moved in together back in 1996, our first joint purchase was a vacuum cleaner from Target. If I remember right, Jason came w/ us & then we went to the movies. It was our 1st of many trips to the Ann Arbor Target on Ann Arbor Saline Rd. We even had to call for directions... funny considering how often I go there & support the child labor that goes into so many of their products. Not funny that I'm so willing to buy cheap products from South East Asia, but funny that I didn't know where it was. That vacuum has been on the fritz for a while now, but I've been using it none-the-less because I wasn't up on the idea of shelling out the $$$$ for a new one. Not that we paid much for the first one, I think it was only $39.99, but I could always think of better things to spend it on... beer, books, whiskey, strippers, etc. Well, I went to Target yesterday & bought a new one, a Dirt Devil Jaguar Feather Weight Bagless Upright. It's fucking sweet! (And it was only $59.99. I remember when our first vacuum was going through rubber belts pretty quickly & the guy at the vacuum store told me that I should get a really good one that will last, you know, spend $600.00 on a vacuum. Hell no, mother fucker! 40 bucks for 10 years; if I can get 10 years out of this one too, I think I'll be doing pretty well. After I put it together, I cleaned the purple room and my bedroom and filled the bagless filth receptacle. I didn't even do behind the chairs, TV, or dresser yet: just the main open part of the floor. I couldn't believe what a difference it makes. It even feels different when you walk on the carpet now. I'm off to vacuum upstairs and to get behind all the furniture. I'm so excited.

Weird Friday Night

I was watching Fight Club for the first time ever on Friday night when the phone rang. Rang might not really be the right word anymore though, but the ring tone went off none-the-less. My friend Amy (whom you will all remember from my afternoon at Sidetrack during Oberon Day) called and wanted to me to meet her and a few of her old friends for a beer at Pub 13 after the Deja Vu Music Extravaganza in Ypsi. I wasn't really enjoying Fight Club, which I was surprised by since so many people shit their pants over that film, so I turned it off and went for a pint. I couldn't find at first until I realized that by old friends she didn't mean people she'd known a long time, but rather people who were really old, like in their 70s. We sat for a few minutes & then one of the couples invited us back to their house for more drinks. To quote the Mad Hatter, I couldn't very well have less since I hadn't had any yet, so we went down the street to their sweet sweet old historic home. You may think old and historic are redundant, but many home are old w/o the historic cultural capital & many are restored historic home which aren't really that old. This one is pre-Civil War & was awesome. The other thing that was awesome was their desire to let me drink whatever I wanted. I found a bottle of The Glenlivet & was told to drink as much as pleased me. They didn't have to tell me twice... I finished it & moved on to a decanter of something else. Glenlivet is far from my favorite, but it isn't often that someone offers up 2/3 of a bottle. We were all sitting around talking when Betsie Four (that's not actually her name, but it's close, and it does have a number in it: WTF?), one of the owners of the house, the one responsible for all of the restorations, decides it would be a good idea to smoke a little contraband. (I changed her name since it's so rare & I decided to out her illicit activities.) She gets out this old wooden box containing an old pipe, a roach clip, a broken scale and a baggie that had next to no pot in it. In her drunken state, she proceeded to throw it in the garbage can and then spend the next 20 minutes looking for it. This was still pretty early on in the evening so I could tell we were in for an interesting night. I fixed her scale while they elder-folk smoked their dope, but I'm still not certain why she needed a scale in the 1st place. There is no way in hell this woman is dealing or even buying large enough quantities for it to matter, but whatever, it gave me something to do while they got high. She then asked me how old I am & when I told her I'd be 33 on Tuesday (yes, for those of you not keeping score, it's my b-day today & I'm spending it writing this ridiculous little story), she proceeds to tell me that she has lingerie older than me. I didn't know what to say to that so I just claimed I didn't believe it because it doesn't last that long. She then leaned over & whispered in my ear, "It's true, I save it all & if you saw it, it would give you a huge hard on." Again, I didn't know what to say, so I grabbed Amy & told her & we had a good laugh. Betsie Four's friend had already told me she used to be a dominatrix, like 40 years ago, & that she loved tying people up & whipping them. The lingerie comment takes the cake though. It was one of the most disturbing things I'd ever heard. After that we listened to the Allmans for a bit & took the hell off. Those old dudes certainly know how to party, but holy shit, they certainly know how to creep me out too.

Happy Birthday to me, eh?

The Gold Cup Final

We left Ypsi about 9:45 (Eastern Time) heading for the 2:00 (Central Time) game in Chicago. I'd never been to Soldier Field before, & all I really knew about it was from pictures of The Grateful Dead playing there. It was renovated a couple years ago & it's really cool, but doesn't resemble the old pictures at all. I was driving & making sweet sweet time; we got to Gary in 3 hours at which point Dan & I both noticed the smell of sausage in the air. When Elizabeth asked what the stench was, we both answered at the same time. I said kielbasa & he claimed hot dogs, but either way, it was clear we were getting close. After navigating our way through the South Side to avoid construction on I 90, we pulled into the lot about 1:15 (Central Time). For those of you not up on the conversions, that's 3 hours to Gary & then an hour & a half to the parking lot. The drive was nice though... we stopped at an A&W to use the rest room & my sister claimed there was a woman shooting up in the can. That's classy. The walk from the parking lot to the gate was long as hell too, though & my father wa having a rough time of it. I would have dropped him off at the gate, but we didn't realize how far away we were. I asked a security dude if he could get a ride to the gate... no dice. I asked a second guy who was actually in a golf cart... no dice... "I'm working here. I can't cart people around. I'll get in trouble." I asked him how much trouble there will be when my father collapses on the asphalt. He then decided to acquiesce to my request. We then met him at the gate and proceeded to look for a handicapped entrance so he could take an elevator up to our level. 1st guy: " Nope, there aren't any elevators in there, but if you go that way, it's all ramps." Once we found that there were stairs in place of the ramps we stopped and asked another guy. 2nd guy: "I can take you up this VIP elevator, but there aren't any wheel chairs available." We were making progress, & guy #1 was obviously a douche bag. We ended up going up a freight elevator where we found a woman who got a wheel chair & ensured the dude who brought it would be there at the end to help my father back out. It was obvious that guy #2 wasn't as douche baggy as guy #1, but not as in the know as woman #1. Once we got beer & I scored some Phantom Menace nachos, we proceeded to our seats about 20 minutes into the 1st half.

The game was pretty evenly matched, but Mexico scored w/ about 10 minutes to go in the 1st half. I think there were 2 people offsides during the play, but neither was called& in the replays on TV, they don't show the play from that early. The dude who passed the ball over the mid-field line passed it to someone who was offsides & then he in turn passed it to someone who was off sides. From there, it progressed up the field & no one else was off sides. The US defense looked like shit though as the ball got slotted between a bunch of people to a wide open striker. The crowd in Chicago was about 80% Mexican fans & the place went fucking nuts. I snapped a couple pictures of the celebration, but was feeling as though the drive + the long walk were going to equal a shitty Father's Day present for my dad.

It turns out that the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. In the 62nd minute a questionable penalty kick was called when Brian Ching went down in the box & Landon Donovan took a great shot to tie the all time US international scoring record. He has 34 international goals & he's only 25 years old. It would have been nice to see him break the record, but watching him tie it was pretty cool too. This by no means makes me a fan of either Donovan or Ching, but I have to give Donovan credit... he's a scoring machine. When Beckham lands in LA next month, the 2 of them will be unstoppable. A draw & extra time looked like a suitable end since the teams were so evenly matched, but then off of a corner kick a Mexican defender cleared the ball and Filhaber nailed it into the far corner from about 25 yards. The majority of the crowd fell silent, but Dan & I lit it up. I turned to the sea of Mexican fans and said, "Come on Mexico, make some noise... 2nd place is still pretty good. You're better than most of the teams in the tournament." This made no one happy (other than Dan & my dad... even Elizabeth was pissed). Someone was wearing a Marquez shirt (Marquez is the Mexican central defender & he plays for Barcelona who just finished 2nd in the Spanish league), & I told him Marquez must really enjoy finishing 2nd to do it on 2 different teams this month. Looks of murder formed in his eyes & I could totally see myself falling into the "football hooligan lifestyle." Someone then threw a roll of toilet paper onto the field & the Mexican goalie, Sanchez, proceeded to remove it. The shouts from others about Mexicans cleaning up the grass didn't surprise me, but they seemed a bit the racist claims were obviously uncalled for. Dan, however, yelled, "That's right, Dirty Sanchez, clean yourself up w/ that toilet paper!" That was totally called for & fucking hilarious. At this point, a couple of angry, drunken Mexican fans started throwing beer on us, but it wasn't the 1st time that happened to me & I doubt it will be the last. When the beer chucker was leaving before the medal ceremony, I asked him why he didn't want to stay & support his 2nd place team. Elizabeth pushed me away before he had the chance to hit me like he so wanted.
My father & Dan waited for us to pick them up by the gate & apparently met John Harks, a US star from the early 1990s. Elizabeth & I got the car, but it took forever to get to the gate because all the roads were blocked off. I finally asked a cop w/ a Ditka-Stache how to get there & he asked, "Why would you even want to go there?" Nice, "Um, to pick up a handicapped person at the gate" dumb ass. Soldier field: Douche bags, Ditka-Staches and the stench of sausage.
The drive home was pretty uneventful aside from the fact that we nearly ran out of gas trying to get to I 94 before we pulled off. We then stopped for dinner in Chesterton, IN at Gelsosomo's Pizzeria. The food was fantastic & they had Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure! I fucking rocked! At 8:00 central, we were back on the road & killed the next hour & a half alphabetically listing breweries: Arbor Brewing Company, Blue Moon, Coors, Duvel, E & B, Fat Tire, etc, etc. We then switched to names of countries, but that didn't last long. By the time we got to Zimbabwe, we were on the home stretch & a good day was had by all... except the plethora Mexican fans.

Running Errands

I had to go to the Secretary of State's office yesterday to get my fancy new white licence plate & renew my driver's licence. My kids were pissed off that we had to wait for so long, but it was a good lesson in patience. It was also a good lesson in human body odor. I swear, every time I go there I feel I should have wallowed in pig shit first so I won't stand out as the only non-ass smelling person there. It's as though every mother fucker in there has run 5 miles after taking a shit & refusing to wipe. I understand that there is a broad cross-section of the population there because it's an obligation everyone who owns a car has to endure, but why is the cross-section of the population so fucking stinky? It's not the first time I've noticed this either; in fact, it's gotten to the point where I feel I need to take a deep breath & hold it when I walk in there to avoid the reeking filth as long as I can. At some point, I start to turn blue though, & the 45 minute wait is 43 minutes longer than I can hold my breath. Even Yorgos Haggi Statti would suffer in this place. I started to wonder if it wasn't the people but rather the actual office that stinks, kinda like Seinfeld's car in that episode about BO, but that just doesn't seem logical. If it's the office itself, one would think those poor state employees would do something about it like a deep steam cleaning. Once the old odor adaptation occurred it was finally my turn at the counter. I had to take the quick eye test before renewing the licence & for the first time, I had to do it w/ my glasses on. I'd never been unable to read the first line w/o them before. I guess that's something that just comes w/ age though, & as I'm starting to get up there I should start expecting these things more often. Maybe next time I need a new licence I'll have to remove my toupee for the photo or shine up my glass eye & polish my prosthetics.

Today, I had to go to Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts to get a needle & thread in order to mend some buttons. I'd never bought a needle or thread before, but those of you who have been paying attention over the last couple years will remember that I'm no stranger to Jo-Ann's. I worked @ the one in Canton my 1st couple years of college. In fact, it was a scheduling conflict there that lead to my 1st ever firing when the good people at Little Ceasar's suddenly refused to honor my schedule & demand that I work while I was also supposed to be working @ the fabric store. Of course, this was by no means my last firing as I was later "let go" from a steel plant in South Lyon after complaining to the owner about my boss who had called me a "Nigger lover." Why I was the one punished in that situation, I have no idea, but I suppose racism may be par-for-the-course in South Lyon and my complaint may have been expressing the minority view out there. While we're on the topic of this odd digression, check out this little number featuring Richard Pryor & Chevy Chase. Anyway, back to the Jo-Ann Fabrics story. I walk in there this afternoon and people stare d at me as though I had lobsters crawling out of my ears. "A man in this store? And he's actually buying something???" Now I know how women feel when people are surprised that they know how to read & vote. As if I'm the first single guy to have lost a button. Admittedly, my 1st thought was just to buy new shorts, but I decided against that option. I even bought a pin cushion so I won't need to get new needles every time this issue comes up.

As seen on The Colbert Report

I just saw this shit on Colbert; it's insane. Everyone knows diet pills are sketchy, but you need to read about the "treatment effects" of Alli. This is some crazy stuff... so much so that you may need to wear dark pants.

This Past Weekend

On Father's Day, we had a nice brunch and then proceeded to my game. Although the season ends next week, this was my last game because I'm taking my dad to the Gold Cup Final at Soldier Field in Chicago next Sunday. Being my last game, I decided to make the most of it and score a SWEET SWEET goal while my kids cheered from the sideline. It was awesome. My brother then proceeded to get a shutout in goal and we won 1-0. I know you all love the soccer updates on here, so while this one is basically done, you can rest assured an Arsenal post will follow shortly as the schedule was just released as were Arsenal's new jerseys... not to mention the major transfer news that is supposed to be released soon.

Yesterday, I had to take my kids to Brighton to meet up w/ their mom and we drove through Taco Bell on the way. My daughter wanted a soft taco w/ beans instead of meat, but believe it or not, the Taco Bell taco engineers weren't on their game and gave her a beef taco. I'd gone over the order 3 or 4 times w/ the drive through guy so the fact that I then had to go inside pissed me off. It pissed my daughter off too; she even asked the dude at the register how hard it really is to make a bean taco. After she and I over reacted for a few minutes and were feeling absolutely like the bad mother fuckers we are, the "Theme to Shaft" came on their in-store radio. It was perfect. She didn't quite understand, but it was almost as sweet as my goal. We were both the cats that wouldn't cop out, in fact, we made Shaft look like Shaft in Africa!

On my way home from Brighton, I had to take back-roads due to the construction, and as I passed the Argo Livery in Ann Arbor, I decided, on a whim, to go kayaking. I hadn't been canoeing in years, & I'd never gone kayaking before, but the day was so beautiful and I just happened to have a little cash on me so I threw down the 24 bucks & had a great time. The fact that I'd never been in a kayak was made abundantly clear when I tried to pull over to the side but made a 90 degree turn & got caught in the current & subsequently flipped over & sank. The sat the kayak on the bottom of the Huron River while my flip-flops, my hat, my shirt & my life preserver were floating away. I saved all but the hat & finally pulled the kayak to shore and emptied it out. Not before a few people saw though. Maybe I'm not quite the bad mother fucker I'd been lead to believe I was.

No, I am, as evidenced by happy hour at Haabs. I met Greg for a drink at Sidetrack and then went to Haabs to meet up w/ Stacey. People had been telling me to go there for quite a while, but for some reason I never did. Holy Shit!!! It's awesome. Drinks & appetizers are all 2 bucks each. I had 2 Manhattans, an Old Fashioned, & shrimp cocktail while Stacey had a gin and tonic, an old fashioned & a rusty nail. We both slapped down 10 bucks & were out of there drunk as skunks. I proceeded to my brother's softball game & then to the Tap Room for a couple more beers.

Kids, Kids, Kids

Part 1
I took the kids to the beach yesterday. My sister had been telling me about this little lake off of Ann Arbor Rd in Superior Township for years. Apparently, she used to sneak in as a trunk monkey when she was in high school. I'd heard these stories for years, but you can't see the lake from the road, so it would slip my mind whenever I was thinking about going swimming. Well, she mentioned it to Stacey at the kids' last soccer game (more on that in a moment), and Stacey bought a membership. It's kind of pricey, but she took us as her guest yesterday and the place is great. There are two lakes, Murray lake is the bigger one and then if you drive through the woods, there is a smaller, more kid friendly lake w/ a cool little island in the middle. They also have camping in the woods and a soccer field.
Part 2
Speaking of soccer fields, the kids had their last games of the season last weekend. My daughter's team never won a game, but watching them get better every week was awesome. She didn't really seem to enjoy it at first, but by the end she was having a blast. She even got a great assist. My son, on the other hand, never lost a game. In fact, they won by about 10 goals every time. I did everything I could to try to hold down the score, but it never seemed to work. My biggest mistake was explaining to him what a hat-trick is because he then just tried to score all the time. He knocked in 4 in the last game including one that was going in anyway when he tapped it over the line and stole the goal from another kid on his team. All in all, we all had great times and I can't wait to do it again in the fall.
Part 3
We watched a couple films last night after we got back from swimming, The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl & The Fantastic Four, neither of which was very good. SB and LG was complete shit, in fact. I was disappointed because Robert Rodriguez did such a good job w/ the Spy Kids movies. My daughter picked it because her first choice, The Love Bug, was out. We watched Herbie, Fully Loaded last week & she freakin' loved it. I'd never seen a Lindsay Lohan film before... I wasn't very impressed w/ her, but the movie was alright. The Fantastic Four, on the other hand, was better than I expected. The main problem is similar to my main issue w/ X-Men. It's too short so there is no time to develop the characters or give a damn about the bad guy. Obviously, they've been developed for decades in the comics, but the films should still take time to introduce people w/in the context of the story line & for the people who aren't comic book nerds.

A Double at Wendy's

Friday, before I went to the Tigers' game, I had to drop my kids off @ their mom's house which, for those of you under rocks or w/ heads in your asses, is over an hour away. Afterwards, I was planning on a nice drive to Dan and Elizabeth's house which means I had to take a different way home from my ex's. All was fine & good until about 15 minutes before I got to her house when I got that feeling in my gut... the one that says, "Get your ass to a toilet and quick!" Well, I couldn't stomach the idea of defaming her John like that, so I quickly dropped off the kids and hit the road looking for a public restroom. When deciding on a public lu, a 2 things have to be considered, not the least of which is its location, meaning, "How close is it to where I am?" I knew that if I took the main road out of her little town, I would pass some gas stations and such, but they were all pretty nasty looking which is the second issue when chosing which head in which to unload: cleanliness. I then saw the Golden Arches, & every traveler knows their cans are usually pretty clean. The problem came when I got closer & realized it was on the other side of the road. This wouldn't usually be a problem, but there was a lot of traffic & I would have to wait a while to turn left. At this point, waiting didn't appear to be a good option, but I consulted the old Magic 8 Ball just in case. "Is waiting 90 seconds to turn left a safe bet for the interior of my car (not to mention the interior of my shorts)? "Not likely." Why the Wendy's on the right didn't jump out at me from the start, I don't know, but I pulled in there & ran to the Men's room as fast as I could. As it turns out, Wendy's, not being a very popular resturant, is able to maintain a rather clean bathroom. Now, considering I've been vegitarian since 1993, you may be wondering what this has to do with a the old Wendy's Double. That's a good question, and I'd have to say absolutely nothing. What it does have to do w/ is the burger I gave them; the old double flush I unloaded in the captain's quarters. I've never nearly destroyed a toilet before, but this was something to behold. Truly awesome in the Biblical sense. In closing, all was fine & as explained in the post about the game, we had a good time. In closing, I want to remind you, dear reader, not to be offended or simply "grossed out" by this story. Those of you who know me, know it was only a matter of time before this became a bloggable topic. Now go enjoy your burger.

Fucking Hippies & Fucking Mets Fans

Hair was fantastic! While I was excited to see Brook, I didn't know what to expect in terms of the production itself. Bearing in mind that community theater can often run the gambit from great to shit, one never knows. Not to mention the fact that it's about a bunch of singing hippies (in general, I liked that more when it was called The Grateful Dead). Community theater + singing hippies could really suck, but they pulled it off well. I didn't remember the characters very well, so I was surprised when I realized what a big role Brook had. Her character, Jeanie, is preggers from some one night stand w/ (from what I could gather) some speed freak, but she was in love w/ Claude, the main character who ends up unable to avoid the draft & dieing in Viet Nam. Although she did a great job, I was a bit confused by a few of her lines. At one point, she was talking about how it didn't matter what drugs she did while knocked up & then took a hit off of a joint. It seemed sarcastic and as if the writers were making some tougne-in-cheek anti-drug statement @ that point. This is obviously not a problem w/ Brook's performance, but rather just w/ the writing. Anther probelm I had w/ the writing came in the form of a cheesy little joke. While they're all sitting around getting stoned, some super-cute hippie chick says, "As Mary Magdalene said, 'Jesus, I'm getting stoned.'" A cute little joke, except from what I remember, she never got stoned. Why they used her name and not the name of a saint who was actually stoned to death, I don't know. From what I can remember, there is no Biblical story about her death. Then again, I'm basing this on info from high school, so I could be wrong. Even if I am wrong about Mary Magdalene, I'm certainly right about Brook's performance. Kudos to you Brook... very well done.
Not quite so well done was the Tigers' hitting last night. My brother & my brother-in-law bought tickets to a World Series game that didn't end up happening & rather than just getting a refund, they got some huge ticket package for this season... every Friday night game & a bunch of games earlier in the week. Well, my brother couldn't go yesterday so I took his ticket and went down there w/ Dan. Their seats are right behind the bull pen so we got to yell at Guillermo Mota the whole time about the fact that he just returned from a 50 game suspension due to Steroid use. "With all that juice in your veins, you should be throwing it faster than that you fucking cheater!" Dan also gave Billy Wagner some shit over the fact that he goes by Billy which was ironic because Dan's father always calls him Danny. We also got to have a little fun @ the expense of some kid in front of us in a David Wright t-shirt, but he had the last laugh as Dan was giving him shit while Wright stepped to the plate and proceeded to hit a home run. The kid, Rocco, claimed to have just graduated from Boston College & was spending his summer following the Mets around. I told him that it'd be a really sweet vacation if only he was following a cooler team. In the end, the Mets won 3-0, I drank 2 beers @ a bar before we left, one @ the Elwood across the street, 2 during the game, & 3 more @ the Elwood after the game. The beer at the Elwood before the game was warm & skunked though and the first beer we ordered inside was a Bud but the guy gave us Bud lights, which I learned if you really suck on it and let it evaporate a bit, almost have flavor. Aside from the loss, the only downside to the game was the fact that my Tiger didn't play.

Let the Sunshine In

A bunch of fucking hippies will be invading the Lydia Mendolssohn Theater this week end as Brook (at about 2:00 in the photo) is in a production of Hair that opens tonight. She's playing the preggers chick, and I think she gets a song. If you're in the area, be sure to check it out this weekend. I'll be seeing it tonight so check back tomorrow for the full review. While there will be a full review, the rumor is that the full frontal nudity has been expunged in an attempt to make it more family friendly. Apparently, the pot-smoking has also been altered a bit. That's understandable though, because we don't need to be corrupting minds like that. I've seen the shitty film version a couple times, but I've never seen it live. I've also seen the sweet sweet episode of Head of the Class where they produced it and had a big fight over the nude scenes. If you don't recall the show, Johnny Fever played a high school teacher who mentored a group of gifted students as they struggled through life. One of the students was played by Robin Givens in her pre-Mike Tyson life and another was a super hot red-head whose name matters not. As far as the soundtrack goes, I've got a couple favorite songs that I suppose need to be shared right now. I don't know why I like "Manchester, England," but I always have. My interest in the first song is the same as everyone's interest in it. I remember hearing it for the first time when I was in middle school and thought, "WOW... I didn't know people were allowed to write songs like that. Of course, I soon heard 2 Live Crew, LL Cool J, and the Violent Femmes. As a little side note, the Grateful Dead's album, Grateful Dead (AKA Skull Fuck) was the first major label album to include the word "fuck" which was found in the song "Wharf Rat." And now, w/o further ado, here are my faves from Hair:

"Sodomy"
Sodomy
Fellatio
Cunnilingus
Pederasty
Father, why do these words sound so nasty?
Masturbation
Can be fun
Join the holy orgy
Kama Sutra
Everyone!

"Manchester, England"
Manchester England England
Across the Atlantic Sea
And I'm a genius genius
I believe in God
And I believe that God
Believes in Claude
That's me that's me

Claude Hooper Bukowski
Finds that it's groovy
To hide in a movie
Pretends he's Fellini
And Antonioni
And also his countryman Roman Polanski
All rolled into one
One Claude Hooper Bukowski

Now that I've dropped out
Why is life dreary dreary
Answer my weary query
Timothy Leary dearie

Oh Manchester England England
Across the Atlantic Sea
And I'm a genius genius
I believe in God
And I believe that God
Believes in Claude
That's me (that's he)
That's me (that's he)
That's me (that's he)
That's me

Pirate Week Post #5: Arrr, The Big Wrap Up

I went to the Magic Bag last night w/ Stacey and we saw Gaelic Storm. I'd been wanting to check them out for quite a while and finally got the chance. They're a cool, up-tempo Irish group who play a bunch of fun drinking songs w/ absolutely amazing musicianship. A great Violinist, an accordionist who also played harmonica w/ some amazing Popperesque licks, a hand-drummer who had a really cool set of world drums, a great rhythm guitarist and a piper who, along w/ his traditional pipes, had an electronic bagpipe. I'd read about such things, but I didn't realize what they actually look like. While the chanter is basically the same as an acoustic bagpipe, the drone is produced in some sort of MIDI thing that also does away w/ the bag, leaving an extremely phallic instrument extending from the piper's waist. If you ever get the chance to see these guys, I would definitely recommend it. The only down side was that the inter song shtick was a bit canned. I was alright w/ it though since they are so fucking talented musically.

What does this have to do w/ pirates, you ask? Well, one song as about pirates and the singer even threw in a gratuitous "ARRR!" I assumed he'd benn reading this very blog, but I'm not certain. Anyway, I promised my little story about my Disney World experience, so here it goes. When I was about 4 1/2, we left my 6 month old sister w/ my grandparents at their house in FLA and headed to Orlando. Of course, this was before Mabel lost her leg, in fact it was way back when she could actually use her legs so watching my sister wasn't the problem it would have been later in our lives. At Disney Wold, I went on The Pirates of the Caribbean attraction and was hooked. I absolutely loved it. I even got a Disney pirate hat. A couple days later at my grandparents, I learned that my grandfather was in some sort of pirate re-enactment group. To fully understand this, you must know that the FLA Gulf coast it mad about buccaneers. Everywhere you go, there's some sort of pirate crap and I always loved every little bit of it. Well, my grandpa and his buddies were dressing up (even w/ stage make-up scars and stuff) and riding in a parade. He let me get dressed up and I went along. We were riding in the back of a pick-up truck, when my sweet new pirate ha blew off and I cried like the little boy I was. At this point, some crotchety old drunk dude in full pirate garb said, "Arrr... pirates don't cry about lost hats." here I was thinking they'd stop so I could get my hat, and he totally put me in my place. And he was right, pirates wouldn't cry about a lost hat. Lesson learned, and I was hooked for life, as is evidenced by the fact that Wendy wanted me to asterisk the films on the list below that I own. I went back and did that, and holy shit, I own a lot of this shit.