New(-ish) Seattleite. Obsessed with food, music, books, trivia nights, recipes, KEXP, and bad television.
Monday, January 30, 2006
Only $1 for the champagne...of beers.
Saturday night found a bunch of us at a new karaoke venue, Kozak's. This may officially become my new favorite karaoke place--it's 3 blocks from my house, they have insanely cheap drink specials ($4 fancy drinks, $3 regular mixed drinks, $1 Miller High Lifes [guess which option I chose--a DOLLAR for a beer?!]), it's really uncrowded, and...apparently they have french fries. (I was telling Tom how excited I was about the fries, and he said, "what are you, twelve?" The answer to that is, yes, yes I am, and I am going to get excited about a karaoke place where I can order french fries.)
There are manypictures of the evening, but here are my two favorites: Colin and Raam and their tongues and me and my gang sign. (I am not quite sure what I was going for here. Apparently a puppies-and-kittens happy gang sign, as opposed to the traditional mean, scary gang signs. Or maybe I was just expressing my love of french fries.)
Also, I think I need a new song. "Faith" is great and all, but it might be getting old. Any suggestions? (I can't sing at all. "Faith" seems to be within my..."range," or whatever that's called. So don't suggest Whitney Houston or anything. [I really hope you wouldn't suggest Whitney Houston, anyway, though.])
[I'm reluctant to post anything new, because the comments for my last post are so awesome! And now I know the secret to getting people to comment: boobs!]
Third place! I should clarify for everyone that you don't actually win anything for a third-place finish. First place gets $30, second place gets $20, but third place gets nothing. Coming in third still seems good, though. Maybe because we'd still be up on the podium for the Trivia Olympics medal ceremony. (There isn't such a thing, but how awesome would that be? Trivia Olympics!)
Anyway, we had to split up into 2 teams, due in part to Teman's brief return from Japan (unfortunately, not solely for trivia night) and Cam's cameo appearance the night before he left on his Central America adventure.
Categories: Disney, breakfast cereal, "Things I Read in the News," British invasions, aviation, '90s sitcoms, horse racing, and Madonna. My favorite answer was to the question "What did Isaac Mizrahi do to Scarlett Johansson on the red carpet at the Golden Globes?" The correct answer: grabbed her breasts. But then I was compelled to put in parentheses: "felt her up"! As if our first answer wasn't clear enough!
On Saturday, when Chris and I were drinking beer at the Middle East, we somehow started playing a game of this-is-just-how-unconnected-I-am-from-popular-culture (the geeky version). I forget who won, but here's my tally: I've seen only one of the newer Star Wars movies, I've seen only the first Matrix and Lord of the Rings, and I haven't read a single Harry Potter book or seen a single Harry Potter movie.
But! On the plane back from Boston, I got tired of the in-flight magazine's crossword puzzle (half of the clues were about old-school movies I haven't seen), my book was a little too attention-requiring for plane reading, and the movie was over (incidentally, I really liked the movie--for plane watching, anyway--and I had to surreptitiously brush away some [okay, a lot, I am a freaking softie] tears at the end). So I turned to the magazine's sudoku puzzle. I've managed to avoid this trend so far, just like the Harry Potterish stuff, but what was I thinking? Sudoku is great. It totally appeals to my organized, kind-of-mathematical-but-not-too-much, obsessive nature. Yay!
(Overall, obviously, Chris totally wins the disconnected from popular culture game, because he doesn't even have cable. Not to mention the fact that I was able to work an anecdote from the new season of The Bachelor into conversation. [I'm still rather embarrassed about that one.])
I am back from the whirlwind Boston reunion weekend. Oh, it was great. Seriously, people. I love it here in Seattle, but it's hard to return to a place with friends I miss (and isn't it great [I meant "great" sarcastically, but it IS a good thing, I guess] when you only realize just how much you miss people when you see them again?), things I won't get to see (a SPIKE'S is coming to DAVIS SQUARE), and the East Coast atmosphere that's ingrained in my being (jaywalking, unfriendliness, etc).
I'd love for this to have been a trip of nostalgia, to feel like I'm finished with Boston, but I can't say that.
So it was great. But I am exhausted.
(The weather was actually fantastic this weekend--the post's title refers to this song I love.)
I feel that this deserves a new post. Fred has sent me his pictures from the Penthouse pet lingerie party we went to in Vegas. Definitely definitely definitely not safe for work.
(I fear I am opening myself up to a LOT of weird Google searches from this entry...)
Second place! Of course, we had to win a tiebreaker to get it, but still. The categories (the Seahawks, the 1930s, old school video games, Monty Python) seemed a bit less fun this week--and by "less fun", of course I mean, "I didn't know many answers."
Our team name: Tainted Love. If you didn't see Tuesday's Daily Show, watch the "Level of Taint" video. So funny and yet soooo wrong.
The music category was really great, though. Fred played about 2 seconds of the beginning of a song. Some were immediately recognizable (Prince's "Kiss" and the B52's "Love Shack"), one baffled me but other people in our group got it (Yes' "Owner of a Lonely Heart"), one I think only I knew (50 Cent's "P.I.M.P"), and one we missed entirely (Modest Mouse's "Float On").
I don't know what you heard about me, but a bitch can't get a dollar out of me...
Marooned (who I met through the FG--and I don't mean "met" in the blog sense, I actually met the guy in person) asks for our top 10 love songs. If you know me, you know that putting items in list form is one of my favorite activities, especially when music-related.
OKAY. Finally finally finally I am going to tell you Vegas stories. (You might have already seen the pictures.) Of course, now that I've waited 3 years to tell you, it's not going to be as interesting. Oh well.
Any self-respecting Vegas tale should start with gambling, right? Well, I bet a grand total of $3 on the slot machines, and I lost everything. [Sob.] I wanted to play craps or blackjack or at least roulette, but the Bellagio's table minimums are too high for me, and I wasn't around the night Nate went to the cheap casino with his coworkers (some may say I had a better evening, though--you can decide in a few paragraphs).
(I've had one real gambling experience in my life. I once won $80 playing craps on what had to be the weirdest first date experience ever. If you haven't heard this story before, ask me, because it is awesome.)
Onto the food! I wholeheartedly recommend the all-you-can-drink wine restaurant--I was expecting the food to be terrible, but it was actually not bad. I also had a great experience at the Aladdin brunch buffet (recommended in a NYT article), despite photographic evidence to the contrary. And THEN on the way to the airport, I had my first In-N-Out experience. Oh MAN was that good. (Next time, I'm ordering from the [corporate-endorsed, not-so] secret menu and getting well done fries and my cheeseburger animal style!)
So, what with staying at such a swanky hotel, you'd think that I'd see Nicky Hilton or something. Well, alas, I didn't. We DID see Charles Oakley playing craps (he was at a $100 minimum table, and he was playing for at least 2 hours), although another observer had to tell us who he was (the signing autographs thing kind of gave it away that he was at least someone famous). More exciting was Alex from West Coast Customs (and Pimp My Ride)--I recognized HIM. (I actually first noticed him because he was with this beautiful blonde woman and she didn't seem to really "match" him that well. And also...he was wearing a West Coast Customs t-shirt.)
And now for the best part. Women and alcohol! On the night Nate went to a fancy dinner and gambling with his coworkers, I hung out with Fred and Ashley (Fred was producing some kind of Windows dance team performance). We got free passes to the Light club at the Bellagio, and we decided to check it out. Now, I am not one to use my, um...female assets to get stuff. But I have to say, it was pretty awesome to be behind 25 men and have the bouncer push aside the velvet rope to let us inside. What made it even better: it turned out that the Penthouse pet lingerie party was that night. Oh man. We saw middle-aged men with beautiful 20-year old women, lingerie, and pole dancing.
The next night, we went to Red Square at the Mandalay Bay (complete with ice bar!) and then to Forty Deuce, a burlesque show. (Again, I got in free and the guys had to pay $20! Score!) The actual burlesque dancers were very talented (and it was fairly tame--no nakedness), but the "amateur" dancers who took the stage between the paid dancers were...interesting. Seeforyourself. There was nothing "amateur" about these women.
In summary: Vegas was fun, particularly when a large corporation is footing the hotel bill, but a little over-stimulating for my tastes. (Not that I'd turn down another trip for next year's conference...)
Third place. We were tied for second, and Doug and I were elected to compete in the tiebreaker (my strategy is to avoid the tiebreakers as often as possible). We got the first question right about Queen Victoria, but then missed the next question about the minor league baseball team from Albuquerque that shares their name with the team from The Simpsons. Um, yeah. The girl who got the question right was FROM Albuquerque.
Our best categories were Vegas (Fred mentioned our attendance at the Penthouse lingerie party when he introduced the category!) and NFL stars, if you can believe that.
And, I had a personal best of 3 UAFs. I knew one about the Stratosphere, I knew that "LL Cool J" stands for "Ladies Love Cool James," and I correctly identified a song as one by Harvey Danger.
The funniest/saddest question of the night: "Who is Randall McCloy Jr. known as?" The correct answer: The only surviving miner. Our answer: The Game.
Give me a book of football trivia and a fake fire, and I'm yours.
Nate sent me this article today. Now, I am not the target audience--I actually enjoy watching football (I'm normally reading at the same time, though), and I am a huge proponent of the accompanying drinking/eating (for some reason, I always want Miller Light--I know, bad beer!--and nachos during the game).
Just this past weekend in Vegas, I had a great time watching the Pats game (during which I drank Miller Light and ate chips and salsa).
But even as someone who likes football, I cannot imagine how anyone could possibly take this article's advice seriously. This is my absolute favorite part:
Have a special "date night." Start off with a romantic candlelight dinner, followed by sitting by the fire and sharing a football book. If you don't have a fireplace, you can download a fireplace onto your computer monitor and have it crackling away while you read the book to each other. After you have gone over a chapter, have a Q&A. For every answer one of you gets correct, you two kiss... you get the picture, don't you?
I REALLY want to see what happens when someone suggests this "date night." (Quotation marks indicate heavy irony.) Who needs a restaurant or a movie when you've got a crackling e-fire and a romantic book of football minutiae?
Okay, so I know I owe you a Vegas recap, but I'm being lazy. I DO have to give you last week's Trivia Night report before tomorrow's Trivia Night, though. (Because I know you all REALLY care.)
So, here goes. We got 34 points, but I honestly forget what happened. Did we come in second? Third? Maybe someone can fill me in. I know that our nemeses won, and there was some suspicion of cheating...
Anyway, I did have one UAF, but I can't remember which one it was. Was I the only one to know the name of the Tower of Terror free-fall ride? Or did I know that the cerebellum was the sensory center of the brain?
I do remember that the music category was awesome--we heard clips from Richard Cheese cover songs and we had to identify the original artist. Alanis Morrisette lyrics sung in a lounge singer-style voice are excellent.
