1, 2, 3, 4, Get Your Booty on the Floor

I don't have a lot of news you can use this week, but I did take a look at what Coolio's up to. According to his official website, which doesn't appear to be updated too often, Coolio had a couple concerts in Bend, Oregon in December of 2001. When I tried to click on the link to "For the Kids Videos," it said, "Coming soon! My bad!" Obviously the official site, picturesque as the layout of cds rotating around Coolio's head was, wasn't getting me much info. My Google search, "Whatever happened to Coolio?" led me to VH-1's site, in which an article from April 2002 gave me the scoop that he released an album last year. Some more research led me to the scoop that he's currently filming two movies: Dracula 3000 and Love Hollywood Style. I'm thinking we'll see Coolio's face emblazoned on many a DVD cover going straight to Blockbuster in the near future.

Other info: Went to Heroes last night with Melanie, it was surprisingly kind of crowded. We only stayed for an hour or so, nothing too exciting there. We had an encounter with a random lad from Manhattan who said f**k every other word, lovely fellow. We also saw a guy wearing a sweatband like a choker around his neck, either a fashion trend I haven't been privy to yet or he had a sweaty neck. Hopefully this weekend, which will include a trip to a "corn maze" and possibly a "corn fest," will bring more entertainment. In other news, I don't understand the business owners of J-town. I was driving down Jefferson the other day, and while I'm really happy that Senor Tequila's was open on the 4th of July for all those who want to be patriotic Margarita style, do we still need that info almost 3 months later? My other beef: Essington: Illussions of Beauty. Is the extra "S" for extra shampoo, or "skunk" highlights? Was "Illusions" already trademarked? Please, for the love of God, how do we expect the children to spell correctly if our beauty salons can't spell their own names right? As a former spelling bee champion, I'm a bit incensed. Ta-ta for now!

Flashdance

I hope you've all read the article about flash mobs that I posted a couple entries back. In case you haven't, a flash mob is basically a large group of people, gathered through a website or mass email, who meet at a designated location and time and do something wacky. For example, there was a flash mob in New York in which a ton of people went to the Toys R Us in Times Square and bowed down to worship a giant dinosaur. I think this idea has a ton of potential for Whiskey Tango readers. I'm coming up with a list of possibilities, please vote on these, or give other ideas, and we'll try to schedule something.

1. Go to Gippers. Dress up. Order wine.
2. Louis Joliet Mall. Go to the consumer research place where they do surveys and ask to do a survey, or seek out a survey-taking person in the mall. It would be hilarious to see a swarm of people all voluntarily asking to do one of those surveys.
3. Go to Grapevine, or another karaoke spot. Everyone fills out a slip to perform the exact same song, preferably something really long. Nothing like a night filled with 20 performances of "Paradise by the Dashboard Light," though that probably happens already.
4. Heroes on a Thursday. When some song they always play comes on (Magic Stick?), everyone go out to the dancefloor and do the Electric Slide.
5. Have a "pack the place" night at a restaurant that usually doesn't get much business (Chompers?). Everyone wear the same color shirt.

Ok, I don't know how inspired these ideas are, so please write in with your thoughts. News You Can Use (including the scoop on Coolio) will be posted tomorrow.

Ain't No Party Like a J-town Party

Before I go into the weekend, I need to add a football game related story as requested by readers. Apparently the new trend at JCA games is to wear shirts with your relationship to the football player written on the back. Say the player's name was A.C. Slater. You might see "Slater's Mom," "Slater's Sister," "Slater's Aunt," and so on. Megan and I thought it would be entertaining to have these shirts as well, but take the relationships a bit further. While Megan could have "Burns' Sister," I could have "Burns' Sister's Friend," Courtney could have "Burns' Sister's Friend's Friend" etc. It would be pretty amusing to see a shirt where the relationship to the player became so long that it took up the whole shirt, like, "Burns' Sister's Friend's Hairdresser's Uncle's Second Cousin's Baby Daddy's Plumber." The possibilities are endless!

Thursday night I headed out to Samy's. Inspired by the new pirate themed Survivor, I decided to cut up an old t-shirt '80's style, and I was pleased with the results. I was less pleased when I tried to do it to another shirt on Saturday (too much distraction from the Miss America "I.Q." test, in which one of the questions was "What is 'bling bling'," caused my cutting skills to decline dramatically), but Thursday's shirt went well. I hadn't devoted an entire evening to Samy's in quite a while, and I was very pleased to see that there was no Studio 54-esque line out front. Samy's had quite a crowd, ranging from people I knew to others whom the likes of which I had never seen before. One bargoer, who somewhat resembled Rerun from What's Happening without the beret, was walking around the premises taking pictures of groups of girls with his digital camera. We posed for a pic, and I'm hoping his intentions were good, and that we're not going to be on any sort of "Ladies of Joliet" adult website anytime soon. At another point in the evening Nancy and I were at the bar ordering drinks when we got a "Hey girl" from a guy who introduced himself as "Giovanni." I used my deductive reasoning to come up with that spelling, as he pronounced it, "Joe-vahni." Later on in the evening while we were on the dancefloor, "Giovanni" tried to introduce himself again. I told him we had met earlier, and so he asked me what his name was. I replied, "Giovanni." He continued pestering us throughout the evening until Kelly saved the day and got rid of him. This lad was accompanied by a couple consisting of a long haired, doo-ragged man who tried to enter the place in a classy tank top until the bouncer made him put on a tee, and his lady love, wearing skintight leopard pants, a matching leopard top that ended under her chest, and impossibly high sandals that looked straight out of the Frederick's of Hollywood catalog. They enjoyed having "sex with clothes on" near the bar for much of the evening. JCA alumni encounters included a guy who insisted he knew me from high school and that we had had a class together (not bloody likely as he was a freshman when I was a senior), and another lad who asked if we girls had gone to "the Hill." As we were not males aged 28 or over, this could not be true, but we got his drift. Another odd Samy's change: they seemed to be shifting their musical style toward a lot of techno. You have to be in the mood for techno, and the atmosphere of Samy's (sports bar) does not support my being in such a mood, so I sat those songs out. All in all, I never enjoy Samy's quite as much as Heroes, but when Heroes is in its valleys on the line graph, it's necessary to explore other options.

Friday night I hung out with the fam (Whiskey Tango Survey: What's your favorite Chinese restaurant in the area? I like Dragon Light.) and worked on my DDR skills. Saturday I went to the mall to do some shopping and as luck would have it, Louis Joliet was smack dab in the middle of its annual fall Craftfest, or as I like to call it, "Crapfest." If I ever needed to buy a footstool with SpongeBob on it, this would be the place to go, but as this was not necessary, I tended to stick to the stores. Post-mall I went to Melanie's jewelry party and purchased a lovely bracelet, then went home and watched Miss America (note: why oh why must that famewhore Trista from the Bachelorette still be on TV, and why won't she let Ryan speak?) before heading out to Naperville with Shannon and Joe. We began our evening at Quigley's, where we met up with a bachelor party. The bachelor had on a shirt that had a bunch of things he had to do by the end of the night. Some were innocent (give the bachelor a massage), some a little more risque (give the bachelor your bra and/or panties) and others that the bachelor's pals had added on to the shirt, including "skirt helmet," were probably not too likely to happen. I gave him a shoulder massage so he could check that one off, but declined the other options. As we left Quigley's, Down Under Dan (the australian Quigley's employee who once informed bar patrons of after hours establishments that were open until "tree firty"), busted out with a little Coolio to entertain the passersby. Speaking of which, whatever happened to Coolio? I'll check it out and post the results in News You Can Use. We headed over to Features, and again ran into the bachelor party, now including a dead ringer for Legal Larry and a lad whose parents were hippies and named him Forrest Green. We had a battle of wits with these guys as they tested me on my knowledge of rappers and 80's metal and learned that there is a person in Iowa who has an Atari tattoo. All in all a very entertaining evening. Unfortunately my neighborhood picnic was cancelled on Sunday due to lack of interest (note: I did not lack interest, I always love drinking with my neighbors, even when it's Miller High Life). Thus, more shopping was done, this time at Fox Valley. Important Mall Question: Does anyone actually have one of those necklaces with your name on a piece of rice? I don't get it. My mom had not seen the wonder of "rice jewelry" before and we went over to the booth, unfortunately the proprietor of the rice jewelry stand took our "what the hell is this? interest" for "potential purchase interest" and offered me a free sample of my name on a piece of rice. So now, among my worldly possessions, is a piece of rice with my name on it. You can imagine the sheer bliss I'm feeling. Other entertaining moments at Fox Valley included hearing a Korean rap song fade into a version of "How Deep Is Your Love" at the Hello Kitty store, and the sad, sad realization that they closed the Nascar Heaven store. Probably too many people going in there to see if they could meet good ole Dale. Not to worry though, the mall now has a "Crepes Counter." Iwasn't really aware there was a great need for a crepes stand at Fox Valley Mall, but then again I'm from Joliet. That's all for now, adios!