We finished up at work early Tuesday, and I figured I'd knock out the blog and still have a good bit of the night left. But a call from Paul made me stall. He told me to haul my keester to Bruno's and promised we'd have a ball. After a minute of hesitation, I agreed.
I'm finishing my second beer when this girl randomly starts complaining to us about her guy friends. "Those assholes over there keep spilling their drinks all over me. They are fucking assholes." I ask her if they did it on purpose and if they apologized. "Yeah. They did it on purpose. They're assholes. They've done it before. They apologize after, but they keep doing it. Plus, they both keep grinding on me, and it's disgusting. I am so pissed off."
Me: How long have you known these assholes?
Girl: Two years.
Me: And you're not with any of them?
Girl: Oh, no. It's just a big group of friends. ... Want to take a shot with me?
Me: Oh..kay. But before we do this, what is your name?
Girl: Dani. What is yours?
(I thought about asking her how she felt about dying in that Chili Peppers song, but I held back. Should have just started singing, though. That would have been fun.)
Me: I'm Fred. What'll be? (Yeah, I fakenamed her. She seemed young and crazy.)
Dani: Don't know. (She leans over the bar to get the bartender's attention.) What's the strongest shot you got that goes under the $2 special?
Bartender: Tequilla or (something I couldn't understand).
Dani: OK. Three shots of tequilla. (She takes out $3. I give her $5 for Paul and me.)
We lick some salt and down the shot. Dani: "Thanks, guys. I needed that." She then returns to her group, and I yell: "Ya'll come back now." Paul: "Oh, she's coming back." Ten minutes later, he looked like a genius. Not in thirty minutes, though.
Dani comes back and grabs my shirt in the upper left corner. "So, you're a Loyola student?"
Me: Well, I used to be. I graduated.
Dani: I see. That's good.
Me: Are you currently a Loyola student?
Dani: No. I'm a sophomore at Tulane.
Me: Are you from here?
Dani: No. Washington, D.C. I came here because of Katrina.
Me: To help?
Dani: Yeah. I do a lot of Habitat for Humanity.
Me: Are you majoring in sociology?
Dani: Yes, I am.
Me: Looks like you got it all figured out. (One of her guy friends grabs her by the shoulders and keeps going.) Is that one of your asshole friends?
Dani: Yeah. They're still being assholes.
Me: You can just hang out here then. We probably won't be
assholes to you.
Dani: How nice. Let's do another shot.
Paul (whispering to me): Shouldn't have given her a fake name.
Me: What'll be this time?
Dani: Let's do SoCo and lime. That's my favorite.
Paul: Sounds like a girlie drink.
Dani: It is. But it's pretty strong.
Me: Then, let's do it. (Paul and I turn to the bar and order the shots.)
Paul: You are getting this number, right?
Me: I guess.
Paul: What?
Me: She's kind of young.
Paul: Yeah. But she's cute and a little firecracker. That's good. Plus, she's gravitating to you.
Me: Gravitating?
Paul. Yeah. Her body language is all pointing to you. Plus, I'm paying for these shots, and the drink special is over. You're getting her number.
Me: OK.
Paul: Just shouldn't have give her a fake name.
Me: Seemed fun at the time. I'll just say that's a nickname. (We get the shots and make a toast to the renewal of New Orleans. Definitely a girlie drink. But quite tasty.)
We talk about how good the shot tastes, and Dani says she told us so. A girlfriend and a guy friend both stop to say hello to her just when I was fixing to get the number. It was a slam dunk at that point. They start talking a few feet away. Not one minute later, I see them dart toward the door and exit the building. Paul: "They'll be right back. There is no way she is leaving without giving you her number." By this point, I can really feel the alcohol. I half-stumble to the door, but Dani and the gang are nowhere to be found.
As I'm sure you can guess, she never came back. Paul was stunned. I wasn't. That girl was crazy. But still. It seemed like a guarantee. I'm not sure what I was going to do with the number, but it would have been a nice victory to get one. She did mention somewhere in the part of the conversation I left out that she goes there every Tuesday because of the drink specials.
By then, it was 1:30 a.m., and I was ready to split. Except that I needed to sober up first. I could sure have used some Drunk Dial (Minkus' future pill to immediately sober someone up). The misting rain helped a little bit. So Paul and I sat in my car for thirty minutes talking about this and that. Apparently, I might meet this mysterious Michelle chick at his birthday party Saturday.
This is Paul in my car. No. He's not drunk. That's just the way he looks in pictures sometimes.
THE TINA CURSING CORNER
My mom switched All-State agents Wednesday. Why? "Fuck, I can walk to this one (office) up here. They (All-State) transferred me to an office in fucking New Orleans. I don't even know where it is. ... These agents are a husband and wife like the ones we had before they retired. They used to live here. They know everyone on the fucking street. I told them that the other office was bad. They said, 'Yeah, it's a major fuck-up.' "
I show mom some stations that she didn't know we had. "G4TV? What the fuck station is this? ... All these stations are bullshit."
I tell mom we'll eat lunch after I work on the blog for a few minutes. "You're still doing that fucking blog? Is that all your life is?"
Mom sees a informercial for a gardening tool. "Bullshit. That's such bullshit."
Mom is upset about a special Cox has now for new customers. "You sign up with Cox and you know what they give you? A fucking movie station for free for 12 months. Must be because we're getting close to the switchover. ... Twelve whole fucking months."
I'm typing up Wednesday's blog in the back room. I hear from the living room. "Bullshit. That's bullshit."
PLEASE DONATE TO THE CAUSE
I've been storing my current list of music on a computer since the Spring of 2006. I knew mom was buying me an iPod for graduation, but I didn't have any music to put on it. Since I basically lived at my station in the Maroon office (you know, eating, working, watching TV, studying, sleeping), I loaded all the music I could on there. I'd bring a stack of CDs from home every few days. I copied stuff from everyone else in the office.
When I bought a Macbook in the summer of 2006, Danny was so kind as to rig the laptop up to the Maroon network and transfer all my files onto my new computer (we're talking my articles, research papers, pictures, music, etc.). I've been collecting stuff since and kept track of all the milestones. Pretty sick, really. I hit item No. 4,500 the other day on my iTunes. That includes 81 movie quotes, 81 tv themes, comedy stuff and crappy music my mom has put on there.
The Milestones
No. 2,000: Vertigo by U2. (Put on April 2006.)
No. 3,000: Why Can't We Be Friends by Smash Mouth. (Put on August 2007.)
No. 4,000: Hole by Kelly Clarkson (Put on December 2007.)
No. 4,500: Who Fucks Wit Me by Nelly (Put on October 2008).
I'm telling you this because I can't contemplate how long it will take to reach No. 5,000. I pretty much have every song I could want. I'm not missing anything. Almost everything I add from here on out will be new. Say I add a few singles every now and again, it will probably take me about 40 new CDs to get to that next milestone. That's a ways away.
My iTunes stats
Items: 4,501.
Total time: 11 days, 8 hours, 40 minutes and 53 seconds.
Gigs: 15.98.
Most played song: Livin' on a Prayer. 50 times.
AIN'T NOTHING BUT A GRAMMAR THING, BABY
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the uselessness of the phrase, "It goes without saying." Since then, I've noticed we have been joking (except when Bake and I pissed off Yelly on Tuesday - don't worry, we made up) at work about other such phrases. These other sayings are as bad and maybe even worse than "it goes without saying." I hope to never read these words again. But I know I will.
The first two are cousins of "it goes without saying." 1) Not to mention and 2) Needless to say. I hate these phrases because if it didn't need to be mentioned or it's needless to say, then why are you still going to tell me anyway? It must important enough for you to tell me. If it's obvious information, then it should be left out entirely and not thrown after these phrases. If it's important information, then it should be mentioned but not after the words, needless to say. I tend not to read the rest of the sentence when I see these phrases. If you tell me it's needless, I'm going to take your word for it.
But Jelly read the king of these phrases a few days ago in a story (before deleting it, of course). "So and so declined to comment other than to say, ..." After that hideous phrase came six sentences of quotes from so and so. Though I'm glad it was put in there for us to read and make fun of because I needed a good laugh after ... you know what, I'm not talking about that anymore.
Needless to say, so and so didn't exactly decline to comment if he talked about the issue for a full paragraph. Not to mention, when someone declines to comment, that's the end of the sentence. Nothing should come after that. So and so said: "... ." would have sufficed. It goes without saying that I wanted to get all these cousin phrases into this paragraph.
PARTING SHOTS
I'm waiting in line to use the bathroom at Bruno's. The two dudes at the urinals start talking to each other.
First dude: I like the way you pee.
Second dude: I don't swing like that.
Retro quote: October 8, 2004
Bones Jackson is telling a group of us the story of his latest sexual conquest. He finishes the story with:
Bones: "I blew my load on her titties. Then, I passed out on the couch."
THE DAILY TOP LIST
My five favorite TV show couples who weren't together when the show started.
5) Tony and Michelle. 24.
Love too strong to be held hostage by even the most cunning of terrorists.
4) Corey and Tapanga. Boy Meets World.
You just knew they would be on the list, right Bob?
3) Jim and Pam. The Office.
Congratulations, kids.
2) Ross and Rachel. Friends.
When Ross turns around and Rachel is standing there on the finale, I can't help but start crying.
1) Zach and Kelly. Saved by the Bell.
When they broke up because of Jeff, I nearly lost my mind.
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