rocksteadybebop dot net

23 Feb 2008

Zach and I drove to Iowa City to visit Aaron and Sharon for the weekend. Iowa City is always about 10 degrees colder than Lawrence, and while that is awesome in the summer it is fucking awful here right now.

Within moments of our arrival we were leaving to pick Sharon up at the hospital. Aaron drove Sharon's car directly into the giant snow dune in front of him, and got the front axle (of the front-wheel-drive car) high-centered on some extremely dense snow and ice. It took us about three hours to liberate the car. Casualties included: a mop, a tennis racket, my right shoe, my coat, our pride, and a hanger. We ended up having to buy a shovel to get it free.

Once free, Sharon spent about five minutes hacking apart the icy mountain the car had been stuck upon. I asked her later whether this was a public service or vengeance. She assured me it was both.

Posted at: 08:53

[path: /travelog] permanent link

23 Oct 2006

A proper greeting, Fear Fest, and The Ol' Mexican Standoff

I meet Justin at the exit from customs at the Toronto airport around 4:50pm, roughly an hour later than anticipated. We exchange pleasantries and then make our way to his car. I throw my stuff in the trunk, and we're off! Oh, wait, we have to pay for parking before we leave, I guess. This sets Justin off, he starts ranting in his uniquely charming way about the absurdity of paying before you get to your car. To highlight how ridiculous this is, he points to a sign and says "Look, all these signs even tell you to leave your ticket in the car! Oh...wait, they say to NOT leave your ticket in the car. I guess that makes sense."

I've missed Justin.

-----

My love of Halloween is a matter of public record, so Justin had mentioned that Paramount's Canada's Wonderland has an event running called Fear Fest, a late-night haunted amusement park affair. I was cautiously optimistic about this, but it turned out to be pretty outstanding. The entrance area has a huge fountain that had been modified with red lighting for maximum creepiness, and there was morose organ music coming from unseen speakers. It was an overcast night, perfect weather really. There were fog machines placed strategically throughout the park, so everything was sufficiently foggy. The lights on all of the rides were turned off so I initally assumed that none of the rides were running, but screaming girls and clanking machinery soon dispelled that notion. We passed the partially lit "antique" merry-go-round and Justin and I both had Silent Hill flashbacks.

The park itself was impressive, there were at least ten rollercoasters of varying intensity. The Fear Fest proper seemed to be isolated to one end of the park that housed a few "haunted" areas. The first was made up like a decrepit mansion, with the standard people-opening-doors-to-spook-you bits. Unfortunately we hit this at just the wrong time so every scare happened to the people in front of us and kind of spoiled the experience. There was a corn maze next to the mansion which was more impressive, and the staff was attempting to control the flow of people in order to avoid what we experienced in the mansion.

The best of these, however, was something we just stumbled upon. We were walking away from a ride we'd just finished down a path and we saw some pretty dense fog and decided to investigate. As we got closer, we noticed a number of crumpled cars piled on top of each other, with zombified people shambling about. An impromptu haunted area! It was top shelf.

Unfortunately I kept spotting people right before they'd jump out at me, so they'd just slink back to their corner while I shrugged apologetically for being observant.

-----

Justin, Amy, their friend Anna, and I were sitting around idly chatting. Justin and I were describing the Stephenson Hall obscene art show to Anna while Amy was playing with some of the soldiers from the Zombies board game. It's important to note that while these two events are happening simultaneously, across a table from each other, neither party was paying attention to the other. Amy finishes placing one soldier holding a rifle in front of and facing an identical soldier, as Justin is explaining that our friend Caleb made some paintings inspired by double and treble penetration porn. Amy looks up, beaming, and proclaims:

"Ah! the ol' Mexican standoff!"

This is met by stunned silence, and about five solid minutes of breathless laughing fits. And constant repetition over the next few days.

Posted at: 22:15

[path: /travelog] permanent link

05 Jun 2005

Marriage

click on photo to enlarge

I didn't take this picture, obviously, so I refuse to take responsibility for the fact that everyone's wincing. I REFUSE!!!

...it was freaking hot out there.

Kelly sang a song. There was an old hippie playing the bongos down on the beach. I'm told these two events were unrelated, but made for an amusing combination. The officiant was nice and extremely homosexual. I gave Megan away. She called me "daddy" and I vomited three times. I was thus forced to tell Megan and Alex about the "special hug" they'd discover that night that is reserved specially for prospective mommies and daddies. I think they understood.

Not really sure what else to say about the ceremony itself. It was short. They seem to love each other. I welled up a bit. This says it all, for me anyway:

click on photo to enlarge

After a clothes change, we were off to Mangoes for dinner.

click on photo to enlarge

Notice the cake. It was tasty. Unfortunately, this pleasant dinner was interrupted by a tactical nuclear strike.

click on photo to enlarge

Thankfully, the entire wedding party was saved from destruction by the strength of Megan and Alex's love for each other. Everyone else in the restaurant died horrible, horrible deaths.

Posted at: 22:00

[path: /travelog] permanent link

04 Jun 2005

Last Night of Freedom

We went to the beach yesterday morning. The beach fucking reeks. Mucked up memories of our elementary school trip to the sewage treatment plant.

Alex didn't wear any sunscreen when we were at the beach this morning.

Before

After

Needless to say, he was starting to feel the pain.

Went and ate some really tasty Cuban food. Some of the best (and cheapest) food we've had so far on the trip. I'd estimate that, not including airfare and the hotel, I've spent roughly $240 in the past four days. Thank God rent and tuition were due BEFORE the trip.

Then the ladies and the gents parted ways for the evening, for the customary same-sex-last-night-before-wedding-parties. The fairer sex went on to some kind of ghost tour, which was by all reports completely lame and largely involved taking pictures of buildings to find "orbs" floating in frame. With digital cameras. Whatever.

We MEN, however, went bowling. At least, that was the plan...

Smallest bowling lanes EVER

The place was called Stick and Stein, kind of a bar/pool hall/minibowling/arcade combo. It was actually pretty cool, in that Brian-only-feels-comfortable-in-total-dives kind of way. We bowled thrice. As previously indicated, the lanes were WEE, with the ten pins connected to the alley by a kind of rope system, so when you hit them they basically all fell down. The balls were also tiny, fitting easily in the palm of your hand, and with no holes. Very conducive to chucking at high speeds to get very satasfying explosive strikes. I need one of these machines for my living room.

Then, some Area51 and some racing games, and then Alex started to feel worse, so we headed back to the hotel...

BACHELOR PARTY WOO!!!

and watched some shitty heavily censored cable movies. Though this sounds lame, fun was had. Alex didn't really want a bachelor party, so this was all thrown together last minute, but friends+quaintly small bowling=fun. At least that's what I remember from junior high math.

So, wedding's tonight, Alex was rocking back and forth last night with the chills from what might be heat exhaustion or food poisoning...anyones guess at this point.

Hoping for the best in Key West,
Hypenated-Brian

Posted at: 22:00

[path: /travelog] permanent link

03 Jun 2005

Prologue

Took me two days to get the internet working in my room reliably, so we've got a lot of ground to cover...

Before we delve in too deep, lets take a moment to meet our intrepid cast:

From R-L: Alex and Megan, Scott and Sandi,
Katie, Me, and Kelly

Ok, so the bottom row really got the short end here. I have a ton of pictures of random signs, roosters, and the ocean, but those are the best pictures of Katie and Kelly I have. The picture of me was taken moments ago when I realized that, for obvious reasons, I have no pictures of myself. I'll do my best to improve this deplorable situation in the days to come.

Anyway...

The flights down to the island were plagued by rain and crying, as I mentioned earlier. The man that was sitting in front of us on the plane had the tiniest ears that I've seen. This was especially accented because he had gigantic sausage fingers that were trying to manipulate the complex Delta headset in order to affix it to the limited ear-real-estate he had to work with. It will haunt me to my end days that I didn't man up and take a picture of tiny-ears.

We seem to have brought the rain with us, it's constantly drizzling and frequently raining in earnest. The parking lot outside our room has been a perpetual lake ever since.

Thus beach plans for the first morning were shattered. And so, we went downtown. Our first tourist-trap was The Pirate Soul Museum. This was the once private collection of pirate memorabilia of inspiritional-speakin' Pat Croce, now in museum form! It was small, expensive ($12.95 per!), but quaint and kitschy. And I'm a sucker for the kitsch. The relics were billed as authentic, but looked extremely fake. There was a Jolly Roger displayed in the end room, supposedly one of only two recovered Jolly Rogers from that era. A very convincing Jack Sparrow impersonator related all of this to us, and then mugged for pics. Expensive, touristy souvenir pics. Megan bought one. Go figure.

So, we hit a few stores, and then Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville.

Best thing about Margaritaville:

Tasty beer

Worst thing about Margaritaville: Jimmy Buffett background music. Yeesh.

As night fell, we were off to Mallory Square to celebrate the sunset and watch some pretty impressive street performers.

Fire!

And then, karaoke. Which was...karaoke. I didn't get to sing, which is fine because I picked a really lame song. Kelly rocked out the Evanescence and Aretha Franklin. Kelly sings good.

OH, I saved the best for last: This box was on the counter in a deli, next to some cookies, the register, and a tip jar. Words fail me.