November Rain

Damn. The nice weather didn't last, but nothing lasts forever in the cold November rain. Oh Axl. Though I didn't enjoy the later days of GNR as much as the older stuff (You Could Be Mine was pure crap, nothing beats Sweet Child of Mine and Patience), the November Rain video is classic. Anyway, I did a couple little changes to the website. To your left you'll see I've added a convenient link to the Herald News, so your finger will always be on the pulse of fair Joliet (and her Romeo. . .ville). I've also added a Weatherpixie so you can decide what to wear before venturing outside. Isn't it cute? I have a coat very similar to hers. In music news, I'm starting to like the new Britney Spears song against my greatest efforts not to, though I now loathe Madonna for participating in it. Madonna, if you're trying to regain your "cool" status, try to leech on to someone who is actually "cool" and respected rather than someone who's on her way out. I'm thinking about buying the new Bon Jovi CD with remixed versions of their classics, but after doing a little research, I saw that it includes a version of "Living On a Prayer" that features the vocal stylings of . . . Kevin's sister from The Wonder Years. I guess we should just be happy that it's not Wayne.

Fun on the (J) town as of late. . .Thursday before Halloween I headed out to Heroes with Wens and Megan. It was not an entertaining evening at Heroes, there weren't a lot of people we knew and our usual favorite DJ (it figures since I complimented his musical stylings the week before) was not present, and the owner's brother took his place. This was not a good thing. I asked for my favorite Outkast song and he played the other song, argh. One of the more entertaining regulars was out though: Jennifer Love Hewitt Girl. JLHG, as I will be calling her from now on, has been coming to Heroes a lot lately. My friends and I are amused not only by her striking resemblance to JLH, but also to her hilarious facial expressions when she dances. This girl definitely had to be a pom back in the day, her facials change from "happy" to "pouty" to "crazy" to "gangsta" at the speed of sound. It's quite entertaining. Other than that, there was nothing much to report at Heroes. It appears to be in one of the low points in the Line Graph O' Fun these days. . .
As for Halloween, after work I saw a few trick or treaters then went to the JCA game with Megan, where we watched the Hilltoppers beat the pants off Corliss, which featured a player by the name of Keon Licorish. I think I'm changing my name to Emily Kitkat. After the game we headed back to my house to put on our costumes, met up with Courtney and Nancy, and headed out on the town. I dressed up as a hula girl, Megan was a '50's girl, Nance was a witch, and Courtney did the all black/Halloween themed attire. We began our evening at Samy's for a change of pace. Sam-why's was packed, and there were some amusing costumes, including an inflatable sumo wrestler (accompanied by a glaring Geisha girl), an old man in a walker (who apparently wasn't up for being photographed, though he seemed to like being danced on by a girl whose costume consisted of jeans and a shirt featuring glowing Miller Light buttons in inappropriate spots, classy), and a girl dressed like Pocahontas, who aimlessly danced by herself while running around the dance floor, perhaps praying for rain, I don't know. The tunes started out good at Samy's, "Thriller," old school Madonna, etc., but then they segued into old school Motown (we're not in The Big Chill) and continued into Janis Joplin, so we felt it was best to check other venues. We found out that our good buddy O.J. and his friends were at Alfa's and decided to head over there. We pulled into Alfa's parking lot, where I got my favorite hula-themed pick up line of the night ("I'm Gilligan, wanna come with me to my island?") and paid $5 (note: only place we paid cover that night, argh) to spend about 15 minutes at Alfa's. Best costume at Alfa's was probably a guy dressed up as the Slim Jim guy. As usual, we were not too entertained by the establishment and after meeting up with the guys and making a game plan, decided to head to greener pastures. Heroes was the place, and we arrived to see a fairly vacant parking lot and a fairly vacant bar. It appeared that after the costume contest, most of the Heroes clientele had vacated the premises. However, this made it easy to get drinks and carry on conversations without screaming, so we stayed there till close. Costume highlights at Heroes included an Oompa Loompa and a Whoopie Cushion. There was also a man who, while perhaps not intending to go in costume as the Michelin Man, was wearing a very puffy white coat that made it seem as though this was a possibility. Sir Michelin got in some sort of scuffle and was escorted to the parking lot by Heroes Staff. Watching this parking lot scuffle through the window, set to the 101.9 the Mix style music DJ'd by the owner's brother (yes, again), made it seem like some sort of surreal music video. We added on a couple other pals to our entourage and decided to end our night at the Grapevine, but when we arrived there they weren't letting anyone else in, so we called it a night.

Saturday night Kelly had a "Murder Mystery" party that was very entertaining. Several guests were part of the mystery, and the rest of us watched the mystery unfold while drinking and eating "fresh focaccia" and starfruit. I was very excited to see that there was starfruit, and Melanie commented that fruit is always better when it's shaped like stars, thinking that there had been some creative chopping of apples going on. I informed her that starfruit is a real fruit, and I'm sure she felt enlightened. Post mystery we played a whole lot of Dance Dance Revolution, and were amused by Kelly's friend who is apparently a DDR addict. He had skills that we could never hope to achieve.

Nothing too exciting happened between last weekend and yesterday, just a whole lot of bad TV watching. Rich Girls is a great substitute for Newlyweds. It's been a slow week in the Herald News, and isn't that new "upscale dance club" supposed to open this month? I'm not counting any chickens. Last night to take a break from the thuggish sluggishness of Heroes, we decided to try out Samwhy's on a Thursday again. It was definitely a good decision, we had one of the best Thursdays in a long time. The minuses of Samy's ($5 cover, draft beer= lots of spills, long waits) are outweighed by the plusses (50 cent draft, better music, more entertaining clientele). The music was really good last night, they started with the usual rap/R&B, switched to techno for a while (this is where we took a break), then ended with an excellent mix of 80's hair band music, including Bon Jovi, Poison, and Def Leppard. Wendy and I were worried that taking a break from Heroes would mean a week without JLHG, but there she was on the dance floor, acting out "Pour Some Sugar on Me" with her usual facial expressions. For some reason the bass in the women's rest room was higher than anywhere else in the bar, and the rumbling in the rest room led to at least two rumbles on the dance floor, both girlfights. Other sources of entertainment included the return of Chapstick Boy (without his beloved lip remedy, at least he didn't whip it out. That doesn't sound good.) and a Heroes regular from a while back that we used to call "Joey Tribbiani," some dancing on the bar (but not the ceiling, we'll leave that to Lionel), and a Toys R Us employee who tore off his orange smock on the way to his car in the parking lot. With the windows in the car closed, I yelled "Take it off!" not thinking he could hear, but apparently he had supersonic hearing and looked over to see the source of the yells. We quickly ran over to Samy's after that one. It's looking like Samy's is going to be the hot spot again, but rest assured that that'll change eventually, every time we get to liking a place it starts dipping down in the line graph o' fun again. Thank goodness that Samy's and Heroes' lines aren't parallel, otherwise we'd have to find a brand new source of amusement. Hmm. . .upscale dance club in downtown J-town? Again, not counting the chickens.

I'm leaving for vacation on Sunday, so no updates until the end of next week. I don't know that there's Whiskey Tango in Hawaii, but we'll soon find out. Adios!