new york city

Drunken Recollection… Going For The Goldfish?

Posted on by sgottahurt

I wouldn’t exactly say that I’ve been around the block (although technically, as a child, I rode my bike around the block a ton… I don’t know what I want this metaphor to mean!).

Let me begin instead with this: I’m for all intents and purposes (or is it “intensive purposes?”)…

I’m a bar frequenter.  An aficionado of affordable alcohol.  If you have drink specials, considered a seat filled.  It’s been this way for me for quite awhile, as I haven’t been tied down by much of anything.  Tumbling tumbleweed is how I often refer to my life.

So it’s safe to assume I’ve seen a fair amount of oddities in my bar days.  I went to New York City to participate in a Snuggie Pub Crawl for Pabst’s sake!

But now I’ve discovered this:

Yup.  Goldfish racing.  In the bar.  For prizes.

It's better than swallowing goldfish when drunk. Barely.
It’s better than swallowing goldfish when drunk. Barely.

Apparently, this is not a new practice either.  It (seems to have) started back  in Utah, as long ago as 2004 (whooohoooo), and it’s been a subject of controversy since it’s inception.  A press release by the Humane Society:

Words, words, words...

Words, words, words...

 There are a few styles practiced.  There’s the squirt gun style, as seen in the above video.  Some people use straws, and they blow above or below the water, depending on the arena.  And of course, some guy in Japan’s turned it into an art form… not unlike NASCAR:

Why do I bring this all up, you ask?  As we were leaving one of the bars I frequent, a friend mentioned he saw a sign saying something about goldfish racing.  I laughed and thought he was making it up, yet here’s this post.

Now if I can just remember which bar we were at…

Drunken Recollection… The Saga Of New York

Posted on by sgottahurt

Holy Magnolia cupcakes… New York City rocks!  In preparing to tackle the monumental amount of momentous situations that occurred over my weekend in the Big Apple, I thought, “What would be the nerdiest way to unfold such adventures?”

As if it was the Star Wars saga!  (I’m not sure if I’ll do the prequels… I’ll probably do the prequels…)

EPISODE IV
A NEW YORK

As we arrived in Newark, NJ (that we being cousin Steve and I), we parked our car in a 24 hour lot, stored our ticket to retrieve said vehicle, and noted that we needed gasoline prior to our journey home.

Realizing we had no idea exactly how we were getting to NYC via the train system (each for our various reasons), we flew by the seat of our pants, as we’re prone to do, and which usually tends to be more expensive.

We walked up some train tracks to find a NJ Transit machine, and luckily, a woman offered to help us the entire way through the process.  She almost missed her train, which ended up being our train as well.  Guilt-free help!

May not be inspiring to the locals, but to a guy from Detroit: "This city is alive!"

May not be inspiring to the locals, but to a guy from Detroit: "It's alive!"

Upon arriving at Penn Station (we thought we were heading to the WTC station – we were way off!), I witnessed a monk wearing a baseball hat and an old man in a super pimped-out Little Rascal cart.  We reached surface level and my first view was this:

We had attained some sizable pamphlets from underground, and after ripping away all the advertisements, we had all the map that we’d need.  We pinned down our location (Madison Square Garden), and our hotel’s location, and we got moving.

On the way, the saw Fuse Network Studios, the Sbarro restaurant that I thought Michael Scott on The Office referred to as “authentic New York cuisine,” and a comic shop that had a Silver Surfer in its window.  (We stopped inside because of this, but not much else was going on.  This is obviously why they have a Silver Surfer in the window.)

"Look up for power lines." "But I don't see anything." "That's good." (Detroiter inside joke)

"Look up for power lines." "But I don't see anything." "That's good." (Detroiter inside joke)

Then I had a chance to take this photo up above.  When I take things like this, I hope to impress my sis that’s a photog.  Eees good, Becks?  (Too bad she doesn’t read this blog.)

I think it's so the pigeons can be comfortable.

I think it's so the pigeons can be comfortable.

At my hotel, we had a nice view of the back of buildings, which I still thought was cool.  For some reason, there were a bunch of pillows, down below. 

Anyhotelincidentals, I have to put the brakes on this post.  To quickly wrap up the rest, we walked from our hotel to 30 Rock because of the show (the skating rink is not as big in person).  We hit up Broadway and Times Square, and figured out how to take the subway down to the World Trade Center reconstruction.  The Statue of Liberty was visible in the distance (has anyone realized her initials are SOL?), and I think we found the area that Will Smith rented jet skis in Hitch (over in the financial district).

Okay, there’s more to come for sure.  Stay tuned!  (I’m losing my TripleDoubleU connection shortly hence the wrap up… EPISODE IV is not finished.)

InASense, Lost… No To Boobs, But Blood’s Okay?

Posted on by sgottahurt

This is a post I’ve been meaning to write for awhile.  When I recently went to the theater to see the wretched Friday the 13th remake/revision/re-fried beans, there was a father behind me with his 8-10 year old son.  I had a major ass-id flashback when I overheard him telling his son, “Cover your eyes!” whenever nudity was shown.

“Cover your eyes!”  The adage of the forbidden.  The phrase my parents often demanded of me when renting schlocky horror and fantasy films (they were my dad’s favorite VHS tapes to rent) whenever there was any hint of an upcoming boobs, butts, or both.

In fact, at the showing of F13, there were a fair amount of kids.  My favorite was a dumpy looking mother with her dumpy looking tween son that was wearing a Girls Gone Wild t-shirt.

What bothers me is that these parents don’t even stop to consider what these films do to their kids’ brains (if they have any, for that matter – the big dopes or their offspring).

At least the father behind me was sorta censoring his spawn’s input.

As an example of the warping that can occur, let me bring up a few things that warped my mind in the original series:

1) It made me scared of NYC.  I haven’t been sure of the origin of my fear.  This intro makes it look not-so-inviting:

2) It made me scared of loud random noises.  In the middle of the night one time, I kept hearing this scary uggh type noise.  I thought the devil was speaking through my TV or something.  Ended up being a spider in the fire alarm, but whew!  I flipped the fuck out.  Now listen to the crap noise they call “music” that plays through the opening of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final (hah!) Friday:

3) It made me scared of getting naked, et. al.  People die, folks.  People die!  That’s why I shower in my bathing suit.  Just in case.