Moved

I've moved here. Gory details there.

The Old Switcheroo

"I don't know, please let to me ask the hostess," she tells me in her broken English as she scurries off on her fact finding mission. I survey the restaurant, the location of another wedding reception, this one a Chinese buffet. I wander over to AV area, where my ex-manager is setting up the slideshow to play shadow puppets, and watch as the silly telephone game I instigated plays it's way down the line. The waitress whispers to the hostess, the hostess whispers to my ex-manager, the ex-boss whips out the cell phone and calls the groom. After a significant consultation, my ex-manager relates the news back to the hostess. She starts whipping her head scanning the room for the waitress and wanders off.

I short circuit the whole thing and walk over to my ex-manager.

"What's the deal with the drinks?" I ask him.
"Yeah, I just talked to J____, he says there should be enough wine around..." I snort derisively, "but the rest of the bar is cash only." he continues.

Now, it's still a bit too early in the night to start in on my wino impression, walking around drinking straight out of the bottle, so I actually act like a regular human and grab a wine glass.

I'm chatting up the cake decorating committee, when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I glance back, and the hostess informs me that the wine is free, but I'd have to pay for the beer. I ask her about the liquor and find out they don't have any. The bride and groom arrive, and people start to filter to their tables.

"Fuck it, I need some scotch." I confide to my tablemate.
"Me too."
"Let's go."

We take off to the grocery store and pick up a bottle of Glenlivet. Make it back to the wedding just in time for the toasts. After a couple courses, and a large dent was made in the bottle, and the bride and groom start making their way around for toasts. I grab a glass and pour him a mighty portion. I hand to the groom and tell him to toast with that.

"Is this cider?"
"Umm, sure."

We toast and he just slams the whole thing down. He looks at me suspiciously and says, "That wasn't cider.'

Rouseguests

This weekend I had the pleasure of quatering my parents and my buddy, FY. My place is a loft, meaning that basically one big room. My parents stayed on my futon, FY on the couch and I'm up in the loft. (My parents had a major delay at the airport the previous night, so I'm only working on about 3 hours of sleep, the previous night.)

My parents, being on east coast time, go to bed around 11pm. FY is still at the rehersal dinner, so I stay up and read some comics, waiting for him to arrive. He gets in around midnight thirty. I point him at couch and go upstairs myself. As soon as I get to sleep, his phone rings, loudly. He doesn't answer it because he's in the bathroom. It goes to voicemail. I go back to sleep. Damn phone rings again, goes to voicemail, I go to sleep.

I wake up to the nasal trumpeting of my father. It's about 2am. It keeps me up for 15 minutes or so, then I get back to sleep. It wakes me up again at 3am, and 4am.

At around 5:30 am, my Dad start to get ready. He needs to make it down to San Jose, by 7:30. So I have to listen to his bathroom prep, and my Mom re-explaining how to get there. I finally get back to sleep around 6am.

The door slams behind FY at about 7am. He's going to move the car, since the meters start at 7am. Back to sleep.

'Hey! We gotta go!' FY yells up at me. The LED reads 8:03.
'Why the fuck I gotta go?'
'You have to drop me off in my car, and get the new car.'

So no REM, no dreams, no dream log.

Growl

Well at least I still beat him on google: idiotvox.com.

Waterloo

So I failed again in my quest for a free screening to Napoleon Dynamite. The screening is at 7:30pm, so at around 6:30 we head out from the office. The line for the movie makes a torturous route around the theater, up the stairs, around the room and meeting it's head in some sort of ouroboros queue hell. A quick huddle decides our fate: we probably won't get in, and if we did, it would be horrible seats. Back down to the ticket office, and Shrek 2 is quickly decided on. Splash down a couple martini's and crunch down the wedge salad at the bar. (San Francisco is great at having bars everywhere that you would need them, in fact right next door to the movie martini bar is the children's arcade, and at it's heart, (with a great view of the DDR-dancing jail-bait teeny boopers) is another bar.)

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to wait for the regular release on Friday to grok the chicken talons.

Coffee and Belmont

"Coffee."
"That'll be $2.50"
I hand him a five. I peruse the menu.
"Hmm, lets put a shot of espresso in there, too."
"Sure."
He hands me back a couple bucks and we march down to the end of the counter where the thermos of coffee and behind the espresso machine. He prepares the espresso, hands it to me, and I start filling the rest of the cup with coffee.

"THE 80's! WHO LIVED IN THE 80's? WHAT IS THE 80'S?"

I look back toward the registers where the ruckus is occurring and saw a middle aged hippie. He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt with the sleeve's tastefully cut off. Basically a nice Hawaiian tank top. Seeing that now my coffee is full, I head back to the movie theatre.

I sit back next to the new girl, and continue to exchange pleasantries, and small talk about horse racing. Right behind me, Hawaiian Hippie sits down. I immediately feel a sinking feeling in my gut.

The movie starts.

"Oh that's a good one." Followed by a loud guffaw. I strain to hear the dialogue above this nuisance.
"ROBERT BENGINI!" Christ, yes I recognize him, thanks.
"That's a good one." Shut up! Shut up!
"That's a good one." Yeah, we all got the joke too.
"They are wearing the same shoes!" No, they aren't.
"That's a good one." Christ, say something else.
"IGGY POP!" FUCK THE FUCK OFF. PLEASE, I CAN'T DEAL WITH YOU ANYMORE!
"That's a good one."
"Man, there's a pot of coffee on the table. That's a good one."
"All this smoking makes me want to cough. Why do they all have to smoke?" Did you not see the title of the fucking movie?

At some point Hawaii wanders off. I guess all the smoke got to him. Or maybe his fine sense of comedy realized that we just finished the second plot point, and have 15 minutes of filler. In any case I'm lulled into sense of complacency. I sit through Renee, I tolerate Cate Blanchett, I grimace over The White Stripes, I enjoy Coogan.

I see the RZA. I settle in, I know this is a good one. How can RZA, GZA and Bill Murphy go wrong? They can't! I smell him. I smell him before I hear him. But I hear him:

"THIS IS THE BEST ONE YET!, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, HE'S DRINKING RIGHT FROM THE POT!"
"That's a good one."
"What?"

At least he's quiet through Bill and Taylor. Maybe he doesn't get that one. The movie breaks. We walk out with the handful of other patrons.

"I mean, sure it's one thing when you are in your own home, but that behavior in public is deplorable."
"... and the way he smelled."
was overheard on the way out.

After the matinee, we wander over to the Hyatt bar. I spend the time telling the new girl about the significance of Smarty, how he represents the Heart of the Nation right now. How he will pull Philadelphia from it's perennial also-ran status, into the strata of champions.

We reach the bar and its reassuring bank of TV's all tuned on the Belmont. We sit down and order. "Irish Coffee, no cream, no sugar, no whip cream." "Hefeweizen, lemon."

She's chattering on. Something about her sister, something about her parents. Yada-yada, 'no right angles in the school.' I'm watching the horses load into the gates.

A hush comes over the entire bar as the gates open. We watch in silence through the first half. Smarty is leading. I hesitantly clap my hands. People join me sporadically. Smarty hits the final straight-away. Someone whoops, 'GO SMARTY!'. I immediately join in the call and start applauding. The entire bar rips into cheers. We all see 4 come up. We all think, '4? Who the fuck is 4?' I yell, "Go SMARTY!", for some reason adopting a Boston accent. My glee belies my sinking heart. 'Goddamnit, why can't Philly ever produce a fucking winner for once?' I think to myself. Inevitably, Birdstone catches up and overtakes Smarty.

Brokenheartedly, the entire bar clears out within minutes.