Taking A Splash in Baltimore's Finest Waterpark

I mentioned in one of my more recent blogs that I was considering attending my sixth and a half year high school reunion. After much debate, I decided I would attend, mainly because what else was I going to do on the night after Christmas? So the other night I headed down to Frank and Nick's West End Grill. Now, Frank and Nick's watering hole is located right by a few of my favorite watering holes, Pickles and Sliders, so getting there was rather easy. Upon my arrival I noticed it somewhat humorous that things were basically the same. There were probably thirty people there from Towson High, spread into five or six groups. Basically these groups consisted of the same people who were friends in high school and are still friends today. It wasn't until the alcohol started to take effect that people began to mingle and the five or six groups broke into one or two. About half way through the reunion, I started conversing with McGrain and as I've said before I'm a big fan of the kid. He shares my thoughts on the Orioles, at least some of them, and together we termed a phrase describing the academic careers of Stilling and myself. The term was the doctors, lawyers, Stilling, and Geilfuss plan, because well by the time Stilling and I graduate with bachelors degrees, some of our classmates will be graduating from law schools and medical schools.

After a while, the high school reunion started to dwindle down and people started to go their separate ways. Some of my friends were headed to this new club Mist in Powerplant, but I am far from a club person and was completely content with avoiding the crowds and loud music that come at the club scene and heading into Canton with Nate and Ryan. However, word eventually got to Ryan that there were plenty of shenanigans going on at Mist and next thing I know, Nate and I are outside hitching a cab with Ryan to join in at Club Mist. This happened primarily because Ryan decided to use his wheelchair as a battering ram against my legs until I agreed to go to the club. Mist was basically the scene I expected. An overcrowded bar with a huge dance floor used by overaggressive men trying to impress loose scantily dressed women. The cast of the Jersey Shore would fit in perfectly at this place. Eventually, the mood and music got to me and I was forced to strut a few of my finest dance moves and these dance moves have found their way to facebook, courtesy of Shannon, although Gabe does steal the majority of the show. After a few hours and a few too many red bull vodkas, last call was called and the lights came on. Throughout the bar, hundreds of guys and gals became terrified when they could actually see the faces of those they had spent the last two hours grinding away with, but like the majority of people in there, they realized they were horrible human beings and were taking them home anyways.

Alcohol played its part in my next days events as well, although, thankfully for my sake I was not the one involved. I don't know what it is, but when you combine football and alcohol and take away the presence of females, stupidity is sure to follow. Well, this was most certainly the case on Sunday as about halfway through the third quarter of the Ravens game it became evident that a rather interesting bet had been made. Brooks, who for some reason is a Steelers fan, despite the fact that he has never once been to Pittsburgh, made a bet with Corey and Gabe that the Steelers would win the football game. If the Steelers lost, Brooks would be forced to jump into the Inner Harbor not once, but twice. If the Steelers won, both Corey and Gabe would be forced to jump into the Inner Harbor once. For whatever reason both sides agreed to this bet. So when the the fourth quarter came to an end, Corey and Gabe had to face the reality that they would soon be diving into the cold dirty waters that surround the lovely city of Baltimore. Much to Brooks' liking the two men lived up to their word and were soon soaked in wet Baltimore filth. Herpes, hepatitis, and gonorrhea are sure to follow.

While the NFL season still has plenty to offer, with the final week being quite pivotal, at least in the AFC, the fantasy football season has come to a conclusion. At weeks end, I stood victorious in two of my three leagues, as Stilling provided me with a gift by dropping Jonathan Stewart the week before. Turns out the only league I can not consider myself champion is the one I dominated from beginning to end, largely in part to the fantastic fantasy duo of Chris Johnson and Ray Rice. But two out of three isn't bad and it never hurts to add a little pocket change. As for Stilling, I think I owe him a beer the next time I see him for dropping Mr. Stewart, because his two hundred yards certainly helped me defeat the very dangerous Crusty Cumsocks.

Supposedly, Courage Can Come in Many Forms

Brady Anderson once hit 50 homeruns in a single season. Buster Douglas once knocked out Mike Tyson. Michael Jordan played minor leaugue baseball and Ricky Williams played in the Canadian Football League. In the world of professional sports, strange things are bound to happen and that may be what makes sports so amazing. However, most recently another strange thing happened, something that most definately does not make sports awesome. Michael Vick was awarded the Ed Block Courage Award. Michael Vick? Courage? Really? I would just like to know when Michael Vick displayed courage. Did he display courage when he was electricuting dogs? Maybe he displayed courage when he was drowning the dog? Or perhaps he showed courage when he fought off the gang rape in federal prison? He could have possibly shown courage when he returned to play quarterback in the NFL to only take less snaps than Keith Null, Charlie Frye, Kyle Boller, or Ryan Fitzpatrick? But I guess I will never know, I will just have to trust the National Football League and accept the fact that Michael Vick is a courageous man and go on with my life. I do want to add one more thing though. Despite the award, Michael Vick is still not invited to my birthday party.

New Years is rapidly approaching and I currently don't have a clue as to what I'm going to do. Last year in my blog, I mentioned my thoughts on New Years and they haven't changed a bit. In my mind, it's just another day of the year, but yet a lot of people my age get all hyped up about it and try and come up with crazy complex ideas. Some people I know are spending upwards of 100$ for tickets to certain bars that offer an all-you-can-drink special. These so called specials are topped off with a champage toast at midnight. The whole idea is really quite silly, except if your the owner of the bar. He's gotta make a killing that night because I highly doubt there are too many people who actually drink 100 bucks with of alcohol in a single night. Ugh, it's just silly. Quite frankly, I'd rather play Uno with Pat at some dive bar, but I don't see that happening, as Pat will probably be pretty busy serving alcohol at the Rec Room.


If you have ever read this blog, you know I have a strange fascination with horrible horror movies. So you can imagine my excitement when I came across "Santa's Sley," a movie where former WWF superstar Bill Goldberg plays Santa Claus with a catch. The catch being that Santa Claus is really the devil and has been forced to give out presents for the past 1,000 years as part of a curse, but now his 1,000 years are up and Santa is looking for blood. It's pretty awful and by pretty awful, I mean pretty awesome. Any movie that begins with Santa sliding down the chimney and slicing up Fran Drescher is definitely worth watching.

I have a bit more to say, but I'm getting tired, so that will do for now.

The Dream Team Goes to Court

There were plenty of white flurries in the Baltimore area this past weekend and the overall snow accumalation was over 20 inches. Due to the inclement weather, I found myself trapped in downtown Baltimore, which is not a bad thing considering I have quite a few friends in the Canton/Highlandtown area. I don't know what it is about the snow, but it seems to bring out the best in people. For some reason, people just become friendlier when the roads are covered in snow and they are forced to resort to the more traditional forms of transportation. Yesterday, while I was walking to Patterson Park to enjoy some snow related activities, I noticed that everyone just seemed to be at ease. Perhaps its because the snow just provides everyone with an easy icebreaker. Typically people bolt out of their homes and go straight to their autombiles and are off on their way, but when their is a foot of snow on the ground, life slows down a bit, and neighbors start talking to each other and helping each other out. Ugh I'm starting to get sentimenetal.

As I mentioned in my last post, I recently had to take part in jury duty and it turned out to be quite the interesting day. The morning started out rather slow as I was forced to watch some informational video explaining the importance of jury duty. This video depicted jury duty as a patrotic act where jurors where along the same lines as members of the U.S. Army. Images of the American flag blowing in the wind and a bald eagle flying above mountaintops were shown in this short informational video. It was pretty silly and I don't think anyone bought into the idea. Quite frankly, the majority of people sitting in the room, looked downright miserable. It's possible that you see happier people at the MVA in Essex. After the brief video, the lady responsible for sigining all the jurors in put a movie on for everyone to watch as they waited to be called to the courtroom. The movie was Secondhand Lions and I actually kinda liked it. It was similiar to that movie Big Fish that got lots of attention a few years ago, but with a splice of redneck, which made it pretty cool. It also had that freaky kid from The Sixth Sense. After the movie, we had a 2 hour break for lunch, which just seemed absurd. 2 hours for lunch? I mean the woman behind me had three chins and she wouldnt even need two hours to eat lunch, even if lunch was at Golden Corral. Anyways, I ventured around the greater Towson area for awhile and eventually found my way back to the courtroom. I was half tempted to stop in the Kent and just get sloshed before returning to jury duty, but than I remembered the video and figured that getting hammered on my lunch break would be a way of disrespecting my right to serve as a juror. So I settled for a 5 dollar footlong and eventually found my way back to the courthouse and this is where things started to heat up.

After another half or so, I was finally called to the courtroom, where lawyers began to ask questions to some of the potential jurors. At this point, I was tempted to follow the advice of my buddy Damon and say something about how I hate Mexicans, but once again my mind flashed back to the video and I answered all questions honestly, because once again, jury duty is a serious thing and one of the greatest services American citizens can offer to their community. Eventually,the majority of people were eliminated and I was selected to be a part of the jury. We filed into the courtroom and once the opening arguements began, I soon realized that I should not have been selected to serve as a juror. I realized this because I knew the girl was who was suing in the case. She was a member of the infamous Dream Team and was pressing charges against some guy for sexual assault. Supposedly, she got all drunk and rowdy on George's tab at the Kent and than became flirtatious with this overweight guy with long shaggy hair. Eventually, the flirtation became serious and this fat-ass decided to invite her back to his Astro van for some post bar drinks. Here, is where the trouble started. At this point the girl had spent too much time in the third bathrooom at the Kent, which is a den of inequity and her memory started to fail her. So when she followed this overweight shaggy haired fellow back to his Astro van she was techincally out of her element and didn't know what was going on. The whole dream team was summoned to the court to serve as witnesses, but not to my surprise not one of them was helpful, as they all had drank too much in George's office and were not able to recall the events of the night. After a while, the two lawyers concluded their arguements and we were sent downstairs to discuss the trial. At this point, I felt that I should do the right thing and admit to having prior relations with the Dream Team and once I stepped up to the plate and came clean, three of the five other guys in the room admitted that they too had prior relations with this girl, and as a result we felt we could not serve the jury adequately. A few seconds later, one of the females in the room stepped up and said she had had prior relations with this girl as well on one snowy night last winter when she had a bit too much too drink at CVPs. So we were forced to admit our wrongs and as a result of the Dream Team's flirtations and provacative behavoir the trial ended in a mistrial. The Fucking dream team, they really do get around.

Currently, I'm watching the Titans game and that running back they have really does know how to run the ball. For a little guy he is an absolute monster.

"Sometimes the best defense, is a good offense!"

Well, the fantasy football regular season came to an end this past weekend and I've managed to make the playoffs in all three of my leagues, so the next couple weeks should get interesting. Miraculously, Damon managed to finish with a .500 record despite going against the conventional fantasy football strategy and selecting a kicker and a defense in the first two rounds, a move that is typically reserved for the final two rounds.

This past weekend I also enjoyed my first official deer hunting trip. Bennett and I packed our bags and headed up to Frederick with enough firepower to start a small militia, but unfortunately we came home empty handed. We did however find a couple of nice spots and hopefully on the weekend of January 8th, we will have a bit more luck and if not, there's always next year.

As Andy Stilling well knows, when it comes to judging movies, I am probably far from being an expert critic. In my opinion, movies such as 2 Fast 2 Furious and Lionheart are phenomenal and it's highly unlikely that you will ever be able to get me to change my opinions on movies. If the movie is able to keep me entertained from beginning to end, I believe it has done it's job, and therefore it is a good movie. In no way shape or form am I trying to say that Undersiege is Oscar worthy, but nevertheless it's a damn good movie. So this past week when I was browsing the free movies On Demand and found Double Team you can imagine my excitement. An action packed movie with Jean Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman. It seemed like a can't miss, but once the movie started, I was bored. It is by far the worst movie, Van Damme has ever been in, and one of the worst movies of all time. Even Legionnaire was better. I had to resort to fast forwarding the movie until the action scenes with Rodman and even those action scenes were sub par. It came as a complete disappointment because the combination of Van Damme and Rodman should have been able to compete with some of history's greatest tag teams, such as the Duke brothers. Maybe I just put too much pressure on the duo from the beginning.

I've been asked to blog about jury duty and I think I am going to do so, just not yet. Also, I watched Rocky II last night and it sparked a couple potential blog ideas, although the Rocky II blog will not be released for a while.

A Lady named T

There are several things I could ramble on about today, but as promised, the majority of this blog will be focused about a trip to the block and a lady named T. I met T one night in the summer of 2006. I remember the year because I would later name my fantasy football team in memory of T and my first pick that year was LaDainian Tomlinson and it was that year that LT went crazy and by crazy I mean 28 touchdowns crazy.

The night started off with Josh Mekalian hosting a poker tournament. It was nothing special, simply a 20$ sit-and-go type event. Eventually the number of remaining player's started to dwindle and I found myself in the loser's lounge debating my next move. It was here where all the trouble began.

After a brief debate we decided that the next most appropriate thing to do was to go see some titties and the best place to do that was the strip club. It was a Monday or Tuesday night and apparently some of the more upscale gentleman's club were closed for the evening so that left us with two options: Route 40 or the Block, we decided on the latter.

We bounced around a few of the shadier spots on the block and eventually settled down at Larry Flynt's fine establishment. A few hours later and a couple of bottles of Mr. Daniels finest Tennessee whiskey and we were on our way. With the alcohol flowing freely, Townsend began to open his mouth and when Townsend opens his mouth after a couple bottles of American whiskey, trouble usually follows. The trouble that followed this time was a rather large gentleman whose career depended on his ability to sell certain products. This man generated Townsend's interest and if it weren't for the advice of an elderly lady with a cane, Townsend would have most likely made a rather poor purchase. This elderly lady advised him that the man's products were no good and he would be better off purchasing them from a friend of hers. She had only one condition and that was that we had to give her a ride to her house. Next thing I know, I'm sitting in the back of Mike Fick's car with this lady as were driving up North Avenue.

It didn't take long for this lady to take a liking to me. Within just a few minutes, she had introduced herself to me as Ms. T and was moving her hand all over my body. I began to slide further and further away from this woman but an Acura is only so big and eventually you run out of room. Making matters worse, Mike and Matt found this to be rather amusing. After turning down several sexual advances, T was forced to become a bit more blunt. She began offering her services to me for a mere ten bucks. At a time like this, one would hope they could turn to two of their good friends for help. Mike and Matt did anything but help. T began to express concern as too why a good looking young male would turn down her sexual advances and I simply replied " I have a girlfriend back home, who I love very much." This started to calm her down a bit, I guess even crack whores have a sense of decency but almost instantaneously I was called out by my two friends in the front seat as a fraud. Once again T started her sexual advances and once again I was forced to resort to finding ways to get her to stop. I informed T that I had no money on me and would not be able to pay her for her services, but at this she had her hand down my shirt pocket and had a firm grasp on my remaining cash. At this point, T believed that I was a wealthy man, and was now attempting to get to know me in the Biblical sense. I tried to reassure her that my financial state was not lucrative and I could not afford the 25 dollar fee and once again T's sense of decency began to reveal itself as she was about to give me my money back and leave me alone for good. I was just a few seconds away from freedom, when the two jackasses in the front spoke up again. This time they were offering me 20 bucks a piece to take up on T's offer. Despite the opportunity to make an easy 40 bucks, I passed and eventually T's promiscuous behavior came to an abrupt end as we were pulling up to her apartment. At this point, Mike's car was surrounded by a group of homeboys that were all dressed alike, that is until T stepped out of the car, showed off her 9 and assured the homeboys that we were cool. At this point we sped off into the night and I made sure to drink another bottle of Mr. Daniels finest whiskey to help erase the memories of a lovely lady named T.

I didn't think it was possible, but last night, Joe Flacco looked more uncomfortable and awkward playing quarterback than he does in his Pizza Hut commercials.