Weekend of Weird Al

So this update is pretty late, but that's how I like to do things. I only want to write when you're trying to put off something else, and I haven't had anything to put off except this!

So about 3 weekends ago, the last weekend in August, my one roommate, Cathy, and I had bought tickets to go see Weird Al in Milwaukee, WI cause the show in Glen Ellyn, IL had sold out except for single seats. And who really wants to sit alone at a concert?

The night before the show Cathy and I decided to get drunk and play video games as a Friday night celebration. We bought two big, cheap bottles of wine and proceeded to drink and play Halo 3 online. I believe I had a pretty interesting Twitter stream that night about how I was going to eat all the ice cream because I had finally gotten a gym membership (that I just used for the first time last night) so it was justified. We both had headsets and while our first few games were good, later games spiraled into us just screaming random bullshit into the mics, talking about our lives while not paying any attention to the game, and then singing Lady Gaga to our team. I'm surprised we didn't get kicked from any games. Or maybe we did and I just don't remember it.

I woke up the next morning with a massive headache (thanks cheap wine and lack of pickle juice) and the desire to die. Didn't seem like the best way to start off WEIRD AL DAY but it was only 9am and we didn't need to leave until 5pm for Milwaukee. Lucky for me I had a professional massage scheduled for 11 that morning, so I got up, got myself a giant Gatorade to start proper hangover recovery and went off to my massage. The massage got rid of my pounding headache, which was much appreciated. I'm not really sure what I did the rest of the day, I think it involved napping and Starcraft II.

Anywho, around 5ish we finally left for Milwaukee. The trip consisted of talking about boys, listening to some podcast that kept bringing up Fleshlights and then eventually stopping off in Racine, WI for Chick-Fil-A at a horribly depressing mall. The wing of the mall where the CFA was had only the CFA and a Chinese fast food place that no one was eating at, the rest of the wing of the mall were closed up storefronts. We decided we had enough time to explore this sad depressing mall. We were then disappointed when the rest of the mall actually turned out to be decent and then we couldn't resist but stopping in the Gamestop where we then wasted time talking to the two employees who were amazed at two girls who played on Xbox Live (I had been looking at some of those xbox controller keypads for drunk xbox live messaging).

We left a little later than expected, got lost in Milwaukee trying to find the parking garage that's address was on one street but the entrance was on another. Cathy's gas light was on so as we continued up floor after floor of the parking garage trying to find a spot we were sure we were going to run out of gas, but we made it, ran to the Riverside Theater and only missed the first song. After the show we went and were nerds by the tourbus to try and get some autographs.

We met his guitarist, Jim West, and he signed my R2-D2 shirt for me and then we got to talking, told him we were from Chicago and drove here cause the show the next night had sold out. He ended up thinking we were awesome (or cute) enough to give us his comp tickets and aftershow passes to for the next night! We also met Steve Jay, the bassist (who I am strangely obsessed over just look at how happy I am) and Weird Al himself. All three of which signed my shirt.

Steve Jay what a guy!

Me, Weird Al, Cathy!

So, we didn't get home till like 4am and then promptly went to bed. Next day I don't think I moved from the couch most of the day. Just had a nice, proper, lazy Sunday. We texted Jim thanking him for the tickets and that we would not be late to this show. As we were leaving out the door of our apartment I somehow missed the last step and gracefully caught my fall with the side of my right ankle. But I limped my way to the car and we made it to the MAC Theater at the College of DuPage on time. This time I packed my camera and got a boatload of pictures!

Polka Medley with "I Kissed a Girl"

"You're Pitiful"

"Wanna b ur lovr"

Oh Weird Al how I wish you would put your crotch in my face.

"Eat it"

"Amish Paradise"

YOU KNOW I'M FAT, I'M FAT, HAM ON. HAM ON WHOLE WHEAT

We all have cellphones so come on let's get real.

Dancing. Stormtroopers. Hell. Yes.

So the previous night in Milwaukee they did not have Stormtroopers. It's apparently something they do with local Star Wars clubs and Milwaukee didn't have one (or didn't have one that was awesome enough to do this). Cathy and I (but mostly Cathy) were more excited about Stormtroopers than anything else at this point.

After the show we got to go to the aftershow room cause of our awesome passes and we got to MEET STORMTROOPERS. Yessss.

Cathy and her Stormtrooper Boyfriend.

I loved Darth Vader before the new, crappy movies came out.

Not sure why I'm touching his leg but eeee Stormtrooper!

They let us wear their helmets!

Hell. Yes.

We got to chat with Jim again for a bit, got a pic with him that I look silly in so it's not going up here. We then got Weird Al to sign our aftershow passes and Jim introduced us to him as "Two girls who are raising the bar on nerd-dom."

We then rocked out to Lady Gaga and The Black Eyed Peas on the ride home all the while Cathy is having nerdgasms over Stormtroopers.

All in all, a great weekend.

Lolla & Pickles

I recently found that despite my earlier expectations that pickle juice is, in fact, delicious.

AND according to the Internet it's a good hangover preventative / cure.

So two weekends ago was Lollapalooza here in Chicago, which I easily dropped $200+ on for a 3-day pass despite not knowing who other than Lady Gaga, Devo and Green Day were playing. I worked a half-day the Friday of and went straight down to Grant Park to

meet up with my boyfriend and his friends. They had worked quite hard in preparing "road sodas" or in this case water bottles filled with vodka since you were only allowed to bring in two factory sealed water bottles.

Well how did we keep them factory sealed if we filled them with vodka? Super glue. Yep, super glued the caps back to that little strip although I have a feeling we didn't even need to do that because the people checking bags just kind of saw full water bottles and were like "Kay you're good."

So needless to say we all got a little drunk while at Lolla, a water bottle full of vodka is quite a bit of vodka. So we went to Devo because I wouldn't shut up about how awesome Devo would be. And they were awesome, and old, and awesome because they were old.

Hahah oh Devo I love you.

And then we watched Matt&Kim and Chromeo and then was Lady Gaga who was amazing even though halfway through her show my dear, beloved Sony Cybershot died for good with its lens sticking out. Even after a good few smacks to the lens I was still unable to revive it. (I would then later lose all the subsequent pictures I took on my iPhone after restoring it from a backup. I'm so SMRT).

I was pretty upset about that and remember complaining about it during a song I didn't much care for while all my incoherently, drunk boyfriend could say was "She's covered in blood. Kyle look, Lady Gaga is all bloody." "My fucking camera won't work!" "But she's got blood on her!" Yeah.

By the end of the evening we were all pretty incredibly drunk, I nearly lost my iPhone while laying in some grass and had to go running back to find it. I believe we made a Taco Bell run and I ended my drunken night by drinking some pickle juice we had in the fridge. I managed to take such a big gulp that the saltiness hit me right in the throat and I was unable to breath for a second. But delicious, pickley goodness none the less.

And I woke up mostly bright eyed and bushytailed the next morning with no horrible hangover, ready to make some more road sodas and get back to the showgrounds.

Saturday was kind of meh at Lolla. I dragged the group we were with to AFI since I had loved them back in high school. And we learned that mango smoothies can mask the taste of well over half a water bottle of vodka. This was probably more of a bad thing to learn in hindsight. Green Day was the headliner that night and they were much better than I expected, to be honest. Or maybe that was because I was so drunk. Who knows! I was rocking out man. One of the boyfriend's friends and I even had a mini-mosh pit, just the two of us. I'm pretty sure we looked insane. Their show was great, they even let a fan come up and sing the entirety of "Longview" and gave him a guitar after. Night of that guy's life right there.

After Green Day we decided it would be a good idea to go to a bar, so we did. And we drank more and played a giant game of Connect 4 which my teammate and I got our asses handed to us. After this bar we decided to go to another bar where we could dance and we danced until probably near 4am.

Then we were hungry! And we decided to walk home and get pizza on the way, forgetting that we were a decent distance from home. But luckily I got a piggyback ride out of it! And we got pizza, and it was good, and I drank more pickle juice before passing out on the couch somewhere near 4am watching Jersey Shore.

And then I once again woke up feeling fantastic the next day. We made one, final, road soda with the remaining vodka we had, after mixing the last of our Svedka, Dimitri and Gordon's we had a full water bottle and one disgusting tasting vodka. Needless to say, I didn't drink any vodka on Sunday, especially after seeing the face my boyfriend made after taking one sip of it. Plus vodka and I have a history of not getting along, but those are stories for another day.

Sunday was kind of a bust, Cypress Hill was really the only band worth noting and they were awesome. And they had a giant bong, and I'm pretty sure I got a very long lasting contact high from being in the crowd for them since the majority of their songs were about smoking and there seemed to be a very distinct haze hovering over the crowd for them.

But the rest of the day was spent listening to bands we thought would rock but instead sucked or we didn't know enough of their music to care. We didn't even stay though the headliners that night.

Instead we left, got even more Taco Bell and watched Entourage and Hung and ended our awesome weekend with the last of the pickle juice.

Busy busy busy

I don’t think I’ve spent a weekend in Chicago in a long time. Last weekend we went to Indianapolis to see Tom Petty play at the Verizon Wireless Music Center. It was a pretty awesome, and intoxicated, time. We stayed in a little campground across the street from the Verizon Center with a bunch of my boyfriend’s old friends from high school.

The weekend before that was July 4th weekend and we went to Michigan and spent a lot of time out on his dad’s boat on a lake, getting tan and drinking beer. Along with some fun time with sparklers, my favorite type of firework.

And the weekend before that was Cedar Point, where I fell in love with Top Thrill Dragster and Millennium Force.

Went apartment hunting with my two future roomies the past two days and we’re pretty sure we found the one we want. We submitted applications yesterday for it and hopefully it doesn’t go to anyone else.

I am really NOT looking forward to moving though. I feel like I have so much shit. I can probably sell some of it though, I have a pile of clothes that need to be donated somewhere and I can probably spare to part with more clothes that I keep around for some reason I’m not sure of.

I thought I’d feel like I have more free time now that I have only a job and don’t have class/homework to go along with it. Instead I feel like I go to bed earlier (like 11pm instead of 1am) and that I’m getting much less done.

Things I Need to Do ASAP:

• Write and send out thank you notes for graduation gifts
• Sell old textbooks that I’m keeping around for no reason other than I think “maybe someday I’ll want to code in Scala again”
• Sell my iPhone 3G, they seem to be fetching a pretty penny on eBay.
• Get some boxes and start packing up my apartment