The Lone Star State...

I got the Internet in my hotel, hooray!

It's been a while, and I gotsta get to sleep pretty soon so that means bullets...

First I went to Fort Worth, Texas, which was fairly laid back and I got to go hit the town and hit up some of the bars my friend from the area always talked up. They were a blast.

* One even had $2.50 Long Island Iced Teas... ridiculousness. I can't remember the last time I had that much to drink (literally). The only minus about that place was that they wouldn't sell me (alone) a pitcher of beer to save money. Oh well.

* I can't even describe how good the the Mexican food was at one of the places I went... though I have to admit I tried a different Mexican restaurant and its food tasted like dog food. You win some and you lose some, right?

* The folks were all really nice... including this one guy who struck up a conversation with me while he was waiting for a bus. I could probably write his bio with all the stuff he told me (it was only a ten-minute conversation, hehe). He told me several of his past jobs, family history and even the name of the hospital he as born in, ... weird.

After a few days though, I got sent down to the Houston area to roll up my sleeves and do some real work (12-hour days, 7 days a week, 30 days total) so I won't be doing much drinking or partying (or posting really) for about a month. Don't get me wrong, it's fun and interesting and I'm glad I'm here... it's just long hours and a lot of work.

Heck, my liver will probably enjoy the break and quality healing time.

Though I will say there isn't much to do around where I'm staying, and I don't have much time to do anything... I am staying near a Hooters though, which is a pretty big plus. Maybe by the time I leave, the girls at the bar will recognize me...

Well, work starts at 7, and I've got a driving commute again (I miss the subway, bad), so I've really got to hit the hay.

I'll be back!... eventually.

September isn't supposed to be cold, right?

I forgot to mention this in the last post...

So this morning, I wore my jacket to work and was glad I did. It was like in the high 50's and windy as crap. The wind is what really makes it frigid.

I think God forgot that it's still only September, word?

I guess I'm going to have to get used to the whole "seasons" thing. Seasons don't exist in Florida.

What the hell is "autumn" anyway? There's "hot" and "slightly less hot" (January, give or take a couple weeks). That's my idea of the two seasons.

I really am totally looking forward to when it really starts snowing, even though my office says I'm crazy.

I figure it'll at least be neat for a little while before I get tired of winter like everybody else.

Either way, I'll be in Texas for a little while starting tomorrow... and it'll probably be back to Floridaesque weather there.

Who knows what it will be like when I get back to the Big Apple though. We'll see...

I'm headed to Texas tomorrow, plus some random ish...

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A friend from home, Law and Order, the Vag-ankees and toilet water definitely make for an interesting weekend...

So this weekend was definitely an interesting one.

First, on the way back to the office from lunch Friday, I noticed some commotion on the steps of the courthouse across the street from my office building. Upon further inspection, they were totally filming some "Law and Order" action since its steps are the ones you always see people on in the show.

Unfortunately I didn't see anybody I recognized, but whoever was there got
some schnazzy looking director's chairs to chill in.

It looks like they were filming some sort of press conference. You can't really see it in the picture, but the people were crowding around a guy standing at a podium.
So that afternoon, a friend of mine from back at USF flew in, which was cool. I hadn't seen her since last winter, so it was fun to catch up. We went to see the D-Rays at Yankee Stadium... twice! Granted the first time, our game got rained out... so we had to go back Saturday night.

The game was a lot of fun (though we lost), but it's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get, right? As she'll probably tell you, I won on that front.

They had the final destination of this year's Vag-ankees team on
display right in the stadium.
P.S. Along with both being mature and taking the high road we found ways to include "gay" in every Yankees player's name (Bobby A-gay-u, Gay-Rod, Robinson Gay-no, etc... sometimes I miss middle school)... We also determined that the Devil Rays need to draft Oroku Saki and put him in the infield to complement Akinora Iwamura.

Though, unfortunately Saki might be on the DL for a while after getting jumped (like out of nowhere and for no reason!) by a group of crazy teenagers...



Sidenote... On the way to the game, we passed a bunch of kids playing in a spraying fire hydrant, which I always thought was strange. For a little while there in the middle of the summer, I saw kids playing in gallons and gallons of spraying hydrant water almost daily. Heck, in Florida we had lawn watering restrictions, so it's always crazy to me to see that.

Every time I see it though, part of me is just waiting for someone to come out of nowhere and start beating the crap out of someone on the street, a la "The Godfather."



That's why whenever I see the whole fire hydrant thing... I keep aware of my surroundings.

Anywho...

So, along with baseball, we did some barhopping and wandered around midtown and just had an overall good time. We even caught Brutus the Buckeye being naughty...

Maybe they were a bit distracted
during the USC game, hmmm...
So God decided to make sure the weekend stayed interesting even after my friend flew back to Tampa, I kept busy all day Sunday in the bathroom... since that afternoon my toilet clogged and flooded out the bathroom... twice. The room filled with toilet water, I cleaned it up, then it filled again. That was weak... and gross. I'm pretty sure my neighbors heard me yelling obscenities as it flooded the second time. I was quite pissed.

Don't worry, I have no pictures of that to post, as it wasn't too pleasant.

It was extra weak because it made me miss the WNBA game I was going to go to to get Bill Laimbeer's autograph at. I guess that will have to wait until next year.

I've never been to a WNBA game, and while I've heard people talk trash about them I'd venture to say they are probably more fun than being on your knees cleaning up toilet water.

On another interesting note, my work is going to send me to Texas for either a couple of weeks or a whole month to help with Hurricane Ike related work... so that should be interesting. I'll probably leave by the end of the week. I'm not quite sure yet how exactly that will impact the posting and such, but we'll see.

I'm really excited, I think it will be interesting...

Me + Fashion = Jiggawha?

So... I'm going to try to keep this quick since I have to work in the morning (so please forgive any random typoes...)

So I had mentioned that a friend of mine was working Fashion Week... and today I figured I would wander by and check out the scene and maybe have a few drinks nearby with my friend if she was free.

She totally had other plans in mind for me...

Instead, she got me into the main Fashion Week tent and let me roam free while she went to see the Christian Siriano show (the weird little "fierce" guy from "Project Runway"). She told me as long as I looked like I thought I belonged there, it didn't matter that I had no badge and she was right. I wandered around there for a good couple of hours and nobody ever said anything.


So the tent is basically a bunch of booths promoting weird new items, with a couple open bars mixed throughout (which was golden!).

They had wine gals wandering around...


And they had a one main open bar...


I mostly alternated between a delicious red wine from the wine girls and Peronis from the main open bar (since it was Fashion Week I figured I would indulge in the free Italian import beer).

I had been hanging out with a couple of photographers for a while, but they decided to go outside to the back entrance and see if they could catch any stars... (P.S. they got very offended when some French photographers referred to them as "paparazzi")

So after about four glasses of wine and four Peronis, I wandered into the T-Mobile/BlackBerry booth (which of course had its own free bar deep inside in the back). I have a couple free "T-Mobile Sunsets" (which is basically a Madras) and chill there until my friend comes back from the fierce guy's show.

At that point I'm talking to this cute stylist. My friend comes and continues talking to her about fashion-related things and they hit it off. Next thing I know, we're in a New York Fashion Week runway show! Word?

So I got to see Aurelio Costarella's show... which was really neat... since I had never seen a fashion show live before in my life.

Most of the shots of the runway models didn't turn out too well, but this is one of the better ones.
Here's my friend snapping some of her own shots at the show we went to.

Good thing they're pros, or I might be worried that they'll run into each other.
As for celebrities?

I could have sworn one guy I saw was T-Weed from "I Love New York," but the photogs swore up and down he wasn't.

Also, I'm fairly certain Alexis Arquette was in the front row of the fashion show we saw.

I know, I'm busting out the big dogs, right?

While there weren't many big name celebrities inside the tent, I assure you there were plenty of beautiful models wandering around... which was definitely a plus.

Oh yeah also... I almost forgot to mention the booth set up by the Italian Trade Commission highlighting Italian shoes. It reminded of a certainly "worldly" travel with a shoe collection that could make most men tremble :)


On the way out, there were a bunch of fur protesters handing out "in-fur-mation" pamphlets. After mixing and matching several beers, glasses of wine and vodka drinks (I knocked out all three major food groups in one night!) on an empty stomach I wasn't actually kidding when I asked them what the heck "in-fur-mation" was. I was actually confused and figured they needed a new copy editor. I got it later... but long after I had already opened my mouth and asked the question... oh well.

Overall, that trip to Fashion Week went a lot better than my one earlier in the week, which ended with a police officer telling me to scram. I had wandered/stumbled to Bryant Park from a bar late Monday night and all the tents and stuff were all closed up so I was exploring around outside... until a police officer told me the park was closed and to get the heck out of there, so I did.

On that note though... it is way past my bed time.

P.S. Have I mentioned that I absolutely love this city yet? Word.

...

G'night!

A Real "KFC" - a Kentucky Fried Call to action!

I stumbled upon this today and just about messed myself...

KFC has an ongoing petition online to get a real Col. Sanders stamp!


Then I won't have to affix miniature portraits of him over those dumb Liberty Bells myself when I mail my letters anymore.

The Liberty Bell, I mean come on. Who thought of that one anyway? It's old, busted and definitely did not provide the world with the best fried chicken recipe known to man. Hopefully this petition will help rectify that situation.

So I went and saw a Mets game at Shea Stadium with a buddy this weekend, which was pretty cool. They'll be tearing it down after this season, so I wanted to see the old girl before she gets busted up like the Phillies' potential shutout Sunday. Just because we got served, doesn't mean I won't talk trash. We played the Phillies and indeed got poned, but it was still fun.


The new stadium, Citi Field (nice ring to it, right?), is right next door. You can actually see it on the right of the picture. I guess the name is better than something like "McDonald'" field, or something blatant like that. If you're not reading it, it's not obvious that the name is in reference to Citigroup.

I really wanted to get my picture taken with Mr. Met, this is about as close as I got to meeting him...

I know, it looks like a snapshot from the Zapruder film or something. And yes, in case you're wondering, Mr. Met is armed in this photo and taking aim at fans... with a shirt cannon.

I wonder if he shot a shirt point blank at the guy who wrote this fascinating article about him. We still love you Mr. Met, no matter what your lifestyle choices are.

Also, an old friend from the Oracle is in town and working Fashion Week, which is really cool. We watched the USF-UCF game in Times Square and played catch up, which was a lot of fun.

UCF fans (NSFW - definition 2, hehe...) can't quite figure out that they just can't win and have apparently resorted to threatening our QB... they really are just the pinnacle of class... ridiculous.

The friend who's working Fashion Week is blogging about the experience, so you should check it out... I'll put it in the little blogroll to the right.

Oh yeah, so my brother and his wife got me an iTunes gift card for my birthday, so now whenever I hear some random song anywhere, I can go pick it up and still have money left for the next song that gets stuck in my head... today I used it to buy my favorite Aretha Franklin song ever... "Freeway of Love." I've been told she has a couple others, but this one is where it's at...

Aretha Franklin - Freeway Of Love

Word... that ish takes a little while to load, but believe me it's worth it...

P.S. My library is lame, the outside book drop is locked shut and you have to wait in line to return books. There is no drop off place even inside. That's some white wheat right there. They also have pretty limited hours... which can cause trouble... oh well.