A Series of Uppers?

What does Randal know anyway, life is *not* a series of downers, what a depressing thought... I for one can say for sure that life is a series of uppers... Lets take the last week..

Thursday, Friday and Saturday were all great days/nights, each one very different, and each one with a different beautiful lady. :D

Thursday night I went over Becca's house.. Got the tour of her house, met her mom and went to dinner at a local pizza place. I always like my pizza plain (especially when trying a new place for the first time because that's the true test of the pizza), but most people find that to be "not enough" so it was great to find out that she also likes plain pizza.. Not to say I don't like pizza with crazy toppings either but sometimes you just want cheese and sauce, maybe it's because I grew up with plain NY pizza? We also had a spinach croissant like appetizer, it was too much food, lately I've found I'm back to eating smaller portions which is a good thing.. After dinner we mostly watched Shock Treatment (god that movie is bad) and listened to lots of good music while chatting about the life the universe and everything.

Friday night I went over Lynz' house, on the way there I was thinking about how we had not had a true night out in a long time and how we have this great comedy club (Funnybone) close by and never go.. So, after looking up the comedian for the night we decided he was funny enough based on his online clips and went.. Being the smart people we are we knew that getting food in Man-town would be a long and drawn out process so we grabbed some wonderful sushi at the Asian Bistro by her house before going to the club. The headliner was Matt Braunger, I had never heard of him but as I said, his online clips were pretty funny. I'm glad to say he was funnier in person than he was on his clips too! The first two guys (don't remember their names) were also really funny, the MC was a guy with a mustache and he did this whole bit about how having a mustache makes him a "wild card", you never know, he's either the best cop in the world, or he's on to catch a predator. He's either a porn star or a gay porn star, you can never tell.. The second guy was also really funny, he did this whole bit about being metrosexual which was really funny, I had not heard that term really used since Queer Eye and it was cool to see it brought back.. Finally was Matt, he did a whole thing about people throwing up and it was so funny even Lynz was laughing at it. Go check out his site and his bits, I want to get his MP3 CD he was that funny. His taco bell bit and his Easter bit were also top notch.. I left the show and my stomach muscles hurt because I was laughing so hard! Funny Bones has a deal where if you buy a shirt you can get in for free on Thursday nights as long as you wear the shirt. Got a shirt, who wants to go on Thursdays? During the drive there and back we played "new" music for each other, I put new in quotes because it was not really new, just new to each other. How is it that I have dated someone for that long and they never really heard ManOwaR?

Saturday I went to the CT Ren Faire with Jessie. I was walking in and got grabbed by my friend who was in the receiving line so me and Jessie ended up standing in the receiving line with her. It was a little odd to be in the receiving line but also pretty cool too, heck it's not like we aren't dressed well enough and it's not like we don't go there enough.. This years show is an all musical cast show which was awesome, I filmed all the cast shows on my Droid so if you're interested I can show them to you but I will not post them online because you should go see it live. If you can't I will show them and I may post them on youtube after the faire closes for the year. Everytime I started to wander and look at shops I was getting waylaid by friends working different booths, not that I'm complaining because they are people I don't see often and I did eventually look at all the booths I wanted. I just felt bad because I kept getting pulled away from Jessie, mom and Joe. This years faire is also a "choose your own ending" where the faire goers vote on the ending, of course good won. I'm going to go back on Oct 23rd and hopefully I will see evil win. After the faire closed we ended up spending lots of time chatting with a friend of mine and we finally left around 7. We got invited to the after hours party but I had to catch a flight at 5am out of Boston so I needed to get a nap in at least.

One other thing I just wanted to add, Jessie and my mom each bought a dress at Aetas Designs. Great deals and great materials and workmanship. Jessie's dress was off the rack but needs some alterations, total price $65.. My mom is having a dress made from scratch and the price? $115!! For a hand made dress!? Check them out, you won't be disappointed..

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Got up at crazy o'clock and drove to Boston. Wanted to be there for 3:30 because that's 90ish minutes before my flight. Funny thing is that the stupid airport does not actually open till 4 so I spent some time staring at empty booths. Checked in and was the first person through security. Watched a few episodes of Glee while waiting in airports and being on flights. I slept the entire first leg of the flight and most of the second and we landed in SF 40 minutes early! I'm glad we landed early because it was close timing to get into Oakland. The SF airport is actually south of SF, when I got in the car it said it was in the 80s, I drove north through SF and while doing so the temp dropped to the low 60s just to have it rise back up to the 90s by the time I got to the stadium in Oakland. I don't know if I could live in area with this kind of crazy temperature zones. I have to remember to bring a long shirt at least when I go to the Giants game on Wednesday.

Anyway, I got to the Coliseum and found out that parking was cash only so I had to turn around and go find an ATM. Got cash and drove back, while waiting in line to pay a guy came up and handed me a free parking pass! Guess the benefit of going to the last home game of the season is everyone is looking to dump their free parking passes. The outside of the stadium is very run down and the area around the stadium looks like a demilitarized zone. I was expecting the stadium to be a dump so I was not surprised by the area. I am glad to say however that the inside of the stadium is very nice indeed. The seat I had was amazing, right behind home plate and very close to the field. The food was top notch, I'd actually put the food in the top 10 for stadium food. The upper deck had nothing but generic stadium food but the lower level had an irish pub, cheese steaks, a farmers market, etc.. The beer was vast as well, they had booths for Fat Tire, ShockTop, Pyramid, and others. The only place they had American Piss beers was at the generic stadium food booths. I had a cheese steak, fries and a fat tire. I guess it says a lot about the fans and the area that all the booths had glass walls between the customers and workers. The only bad thing about the stadium is it's a 100% non-smoking stadium which means the bathrooms become smoke houses. The first season at Citi-Field the Mets tried to make the stadium 100% non-smoking and they quickly realized that by doing so you create bathroom smoke houses so now they allow smoking on the forever ramp. The game itself was pretty lame, the Rangers crushed the A's and I lost interested in the game itself pretty quick so I wandered the stadium for a while and ended up leaving after the 6th inning.

Yesterday I had a date with a girl I met on OKCupid, we went to a brew house called Fault Line and then hung out at the hotel and hot tub. She is very cool and we are planing to go out again tonight.. :)

I sort of want to go to the Winchester Mystery House, maybe I can convince her to go there tonight. It's about 8 miles from my hotel..

Sweeps week.. 7/23 - 8/1

Got home on Friday the 23rd just to run back out again to Boston.. Jessie had gotten tickets to see Marc Maron at a bar in Allston, she listens to his WTF podcast. I listened to it once or twice and have been eh about it but I figured it would be at the very least funny.. I called the club and they assured me that the 7pm start time was accurate so against Jessie's better judgement I met her on the way and we drove up without eating first. I just have to say Smeg off to that bar! The doors opened at 7 but nobody went on for a long time after.. I can't be too upset at the cock knockers because we did end up with front row seats which is really great because of the way Marc Maron makes eye contact with his crowd and really seems to connect with them..

The first guy (who runs the comedy show there every week) came up and was pretty funny, he did a bit about hybrid Halloween costumes and did a Marty McFly / Abe Lincoln mix which was very good, his Michael J Fox impression was perfect and Abe Lincoln stressing out about getting back in time to free the slaves was awesome. He did another bit which was almost awesome, I saw almost because he went a bit too far with it.. It was about how he found a leather jacket at a hand-me-down clothes store and what he could deduce from the previous owner by what was in the pockets.. Great joke during the inspection of pocket number one, went to far when he looked in pocket number two.

The second guy was a local guy, Sean Sullivan, and he was very good. He did a bunch of jokes about buying a house in a horrible area and about buying a new toilet for that house. His stand out bit was certainly about the toilet..

Finally came Marc Maron who was the best of the night.. The only thing I will say about him is that if you ever get the chance to see him grab it.. I think he has a comedy central presents and a few other recorded stand up bits, actually I know he does because we have one on our iTunes. If you like funny with a bunch of real thrown in check him out.. Seeing him live will make me go back and try the WTF podcasts again, just need to get off my arse and put them on my iPod.

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Saturday was Scott's wedding, me and Jessie drove down and checked in at the Brooklyn Bridge Marriott before the wedding and then walked over the church. The church part was a church wedding, the music really stood out for me which is not surprising since music is a big deal to Scott. They actually had one of Scott's friends there via webcam so he could watch the wedding which was a really awesome idea.. The reception was a ton o' fun! It was nice to see everyone (including my brother) be silly and relax, it was so silly and relaxed that I even ended up on the dance floor for the end of the night. Lots of great pictures on my cousins facebook site, they had a silly photo booth which ended up being the biggest hit. You go in and click the button and it would take four pictures.. Great idea, will steal it... :D After the reception the place had a burlesque show so we stayed for the beginning of that, I was so tired and it was a very low energy show that we didn't stay long. It was more like half naked cirque de soleil then what I think of as burlesque. I want my burlesque to fun, goofy and high energy, I guess I can thank Pam for that..

Sunday we drove home and I got to spend a little bit of time with Lynz at Thompson Dam before the super work of cleaning my house on Monday..

Sweeps week... I was a bit stressed out about getting my disaster area of house set up for the bbq.. Luckily for me Kevin and Hoyle came over and helped me rip through the basement on Monday! We even cleaned the windows in the basement and garage! Vacuumed basement floor, walls and ceiling.. I don't remember which day I figured this out (might have been Monday), but the Furminator works wonders on getting cat hair off furniture! I spent a lot of hours working on each chair, couch and cushion so that our pet allergic friends could bare to be in the house for an extended period of time. I was going to bail on Tuesday dinner to clean but once again, thanks to Kev and Hoyle, I felt that I was able to go because the house was almost done. Wednesday I went to the Mets game and watched the Mets come back in the late innings just to lose in extras because our manager does not manage to win.. When you're home you can't reserve pitchers for innings yet to come, you need to play each inning in extras as if it were the last. Because of that he left one guy in too long and we ended up losing. That really sums up the entire season for the Mets.. We don't need to win today, as long as our players are healthy and rested tomorrow! How can your team lead the league in shutouts and era and be under .500!? Sigh... Maybe they will lose so many games between now and the end of the season they will have no choice but to fire him and bring back Bob Vay..

Thursday and Friday were spent prepping food and making sure all the last minute shopping was done. Oh, I forgot to mention, as if the normal load of getting the house ready was not enough.. We had a pipe burst in the basement! Luckily it was the outbound pipe so there was no water running into the basement unless you ran the sink and/or dishwasher. Almost $400 later we were able to do the dishes which had been piling up.

The bbq was great, thanks all for coming out! I even got to get out from behind the grill and play some games and hang out..

Sunday morning I got up and with Brad and Chris' help got the place cleaned up before heading out to Irvine...

--This weeks cleaning and being home was sponsored by teaching an online class!