Wasted Away in Wrigleyville

Title is not too creative, it's the slogan on the t-shirt I got outside the Buffett concert. Admittedly it's not the cutest of the shirts available (it had a drunken parrot), but I needed a small in whatever they had available. Anyway, back to Buffett in a few.

H-N has had nothing of note lately, unfortunately. However, I continue to be amused by Sapphire happenings. I went on their website the other day and I saw that on Fridays they will now be having ladies' nights featuring "manicures & martinis." I don't know if I want to get my nails done in a bar, but ok. Also on the website: they've updated their pictures, and I hate to be rude, but there are some scary, scary people on there, and not even people I know! Also: the Sapphire commercial is on the radio now yet again. One of the girls in the commercial drones "Sahhhhhhphiiiiiiiiiiiiire" in the same tone as you would hear in the "Heavenly Bahhhdies" commercial. Dirty Schoolgirl contest tonight. . .my guess is that they turn the dancers into human chalkboards and let people write on them.

Recent adventures. . .last Wednesday I went to my last Jackhammer game of the season. Thanks to whoever the guy was that gave us his tickets for Waste Management's seats while we waited in line, leading us to get into the game for free. As usual, left early and have no idea who won. I just can't focus during games during losing seasons. I did have a Red Stripe though, Jamaican beer is quite tasty.

Thursday evening was yet another Jameson's night, nothing too much of note except that apparently the new hot dance style is pretending to hacky sack, and some guys who were trying to come up with a name for their new band rejected my proposal of "Gargamel." Friday and Saturday were chilling and movie watching days. Wendy and I managed to watch 8 hours of The OC with very few breaks, and Shannon, Joe and I discovered a bizarre reality show on cable called The Villa. It's apparently a British show, and one of the girls on it listed as one of her dislikes "men who are bastards." There was also a contestant whose last name was, seriously, Golightly, and had listed as a dislike "cartoon socks." Hmm. OK, I just realized that he probably meant socks with cartoon characters on them. I was thinking more in terms of animated socks, kind of like Towelly on South Park but in sock form.

Sunday night I went to Naperville with Court, Rob, Nance, and Aaron for their Last Fling fest. We dined on a variety of carnival favorites including cherry limeade, chicken on a stick, and, of course, a corn dog for Aaron, and the guys tried their hand at some shooting game in which you could win some "lifelike" panthers and cheetahs and such, but were unsuccessful. Another game was run by a man who looked like Jon Bon Jovi on acid. Overall, the carnival crowd was less sketch than Romeoville's, but I did see a lot of straight leg jeans and managed to overhear one of the best conversations ever. Man (who was wearing the aforementioned straight-legs and had a fanny pack on, moved jauntily to the side of his left ass cheek) says to his lady friend: "Are you a thonger or a non-thonger?" Lady friend (with Southern accent) steps away, whining, "That's not a question!" Man: "Well some people like them, and some people don't. . ." Was this a first date? Do people actually use the word "thonger"? Did I witness a "Love Connection" episode from the '80's, complete with appropriate garb? No one knows.

Eventually we headed off to the bars, declining an invite to a "kegger" from some kids who looked to be 18. We started at Features as we had a craving for their nachos, and we weren't the only ones; we quickly spotted a somewhat unkempt older man who was eating nachos while moving rhythmically to the extremely loud music. As the song playing was "Don't 'Cha," we improvised some lyrics for the Nacho, Nacho Man, including "Don't 'cha wish your nachos were so cheesy," and "Don't 'cha wish your nachos had guacamole?" Also present was a girl who had full on Pippi Longstocking braids (and according to Aaron, kept tickling him with them) and seemed to be taking up with an A.C. Slater lookalike. Eventually we decided we valued our eardrums and headed over to Rizzo's, where we encountered overly attentive waitresses who informed us that the purchase of a Miller Lite would give the buyer a chance at winning Buffett tickets. As I already had tickets and no one else wanted to go, this was unexciting, but Rob and Aaron got Miller Lites anyway. However, they never announced the winners of the contest, and after a while the bouncers started shooing everyone out. Something seemed odd, and it wasn't just the fact that they were playing the Hillary Duff "Wake Up" song in the bar. The only Duff song that is acceptable to me is "Come Clean," which is a high-quality tune.

Monday was the Buffett concert. My sister was going with some of her friends (in the good seats) and found out they had a couple extra tickets (in the upper deck seats), so Shannon and I ended up going. We started the day at Murphy's across the street from Wrigley, where Shannon and I got some hot dogs and Shannon was chastised for putting ketchup on hers. Shannon explained that she was from Joliet and the guy seemed to understand. We soon went to the concert, which was awesome. This was my second show and we had a great time. Even though our seats weren't the best, we could still see everything and we had a nice breeze. As usual, the people watching was awesome. There was a strange love triangle going on in front of us: this one girl seemed to be there with her boyfriend, who should have kept his shirt buttoned as I didn't want to see his stomach. A bit later, a couple of their guy friends arrived and Unbuttoned Bobby made tracks for a bit. While he was gone, one of the other dudes moved in for the kill, stroking the girl, hugging her, and appeared to even be smelling her. Eew. Eventually they went away and Unbuttoned Bobby came back. The girl seemed to be pissed at him at first for disappearing, but eventually they made up. For a while we seemed to rotate between seeing Bobby and the other dudes, kind of like how Tori was never on the same episodes as Kelly and Jessie on Saved by the Bell, but nearer to the end of the concert they were all their together, and both dudes appeared to be macking on the girl. After the concert I finally got my prized pinstriped Cubs v-neck tee and we went with my sister and her friends to an awesome pizza place/bar that had literally the worst bar music ever. Among the tunes heard: Sarah McLachlan's "I Will Remember You" and Alanis Morissette's "Uninvited." I know I heard some Creed too, but I can't remember if that was in Chicago or at Rizzo's. We also saw a dead ringer (in profile only) for Ian "Steve Sanders" Ziering and dealt with a girl with bad roots who tried to steal one of our chairs. All in all quite a fun Labor Day Weekend. . .more news later!