Double Wedding All The Way Across The Sky

The Wedding of the (Pick One: Week, Month, Year, Decade, Century, Millenium) went off without any hitches at all this weekend!  Spacebee and I were married in front or dearest family and friends in Madison on August 28th, 2010 and I couldn’t be happier.  There will be much more to come once we get the myriad photos and videos processed and ready for viewing, so for now we’ll focus on the key things we learned this weekend:

1. The Don does Good Work as a best man, including the ability to carry 20,000 dental remedies at all times.
2. The Madddddddddddddd Scientist and Rach-O are gonna have a kid. Jesus Christ; nice curveball scientist. Can’t wait for this.
3. Wedding Summer is over and done (and not too soon)
4. It’s funny but scary when someone whips a pizza fastball-style at someone’s head from 5 feet away
5. The UW Band is terrifically awesome at weddings
6. Isthmus DJs are fucking incredible

Again, more to come.  For now we’re chilling out in the San Fran area, and we’ll be up in Napa come the end of the week.  I think we’ll get the pics back within a few weeks and then I’ll put up a little somethin-somethin for y’all to look at.

Crash!

Spacebee and I strolled, ambled, moseyed, etc. up to the Jamba Juice on State Street yesterday and on our way home we passed a crazy car crash at Johnson & State.  One car had run into the Cosi previously Stillwaters) and another was sitting in a trash heap on the sidewalk outside Triangle Market.

We wondered what could have caused the carnage and then promptly forgot about it by the time I got home.  In relegating the weirdness to wwhazz this morning he wondered what had actually happened.  Good question.  After a little eenternet search I have the full story:

A 78-year-old woman driving the wrong way on Henry Street started a bizarre chain of events which started with a car crash and ended up with both drivers and two pedestrians injured and an outdoor cafe damaged, authorities reported.

Seriously, go read that thing.  Crazy.

In Pneumothorax News, I had my follow-up checkup last week and everything looks A-OK.  Hurray!

Whatta Weekend

Spacebee's Birthday Hat

It was quite a celebratory weekend here in Madison; we pretty much partied straight through from Friday at 5pm when we set out for a fondue dinner of epic proportions.  Three hours later I was filled with tiny bits of boiled meat, veggies, and chocolate-covered rice krispies.  We met a few pals and then dove into more celebrations, and long story short I woke up Saturday morning not feeling the greatest.

A Spacebee coworker was retiring and had a bash at the Hilldale Great Dane on Saturday.  Free beer from 4pm until 7pm started things off, and I hilariously fell asleep at wwhazz’s with a beer in hand around midnight.  Hey: two consecutive party nights don’t agree with my 31 year old bones.  So sue me.

Alas, I think the Iowa trip has been delayed.  Consolations to belly for her loss, and hope everything goes well next weekend.  Diamond Jo will always be there, and I’ll be ready to stick my finger in the small of his back and whisper “gimme everything you got.”

I’m super behind on TNG on my DVR… need to sit down and catch up. I saw that Time’ Arrow is on there and excitement can’t describe my feelings.  HELP A FORTY NINER! HE’S GOT A BAD COUGH! OH NOES, AN ALIEN STOLED HIS LIFE FORCE! GUINAN, HALP! TIME WARP! PICARD IS A DANDY FOP! DATA IS A FRENCHMAN! SAMUEL CLEMENS OF THE 24TH CENTURY!

What’s Up, Dirty Dawgs?

Cah-razy weekend: Friday “80 Degreez” Night we walked over to the Stadium Bar and had fun onna bun with wwhazz, belly, and the ILL Connection.  Woke up a tad under the weather on Saturday morning for Cah-razylegs to a bit of thunderstormin’ and rainin’.  Instead of doing a 5K walk, we found ourselves back in the Stadium Bar for Bloody Marys and a gigantic plate of nachos.

Saturday afternoon: nap time and a DVD viewing of the Rescuers Down Under.

Saturday night was the 80s Party at Spacebee’s coworker’s house.  It was a really fun time: wwhazz and his coterie were there, they had High Life on tap, and we rolled craps in a dusty garage for almost the duration.  I think I ended up owing wwhazz some skrills, but I can’t remember how much at this time.  We alkso spent the early portion of the party eagerly following the Brewers/Astros game via an iPhone screen.  Once Timmer arrived with his Premium service we were also able to catch Uecker’s call of the game ending out.  Hurray, Brewers went 5-4 on the road!  Wwhazz left at the end of the night with Spyder’s right-hand man in tow.  I think he has the guy chained in his basement to extract info now.  Spacebee has pictures, and once they’re on her computer I’ll throw a few on Flickr.

Sunday was just your average Hungover Day: made homemade hashed brown potatoes and scrambled easies and watched the Brewers lay an egg in the Asrtos finale, but it was fun all around.  My friend Jay came over with Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis Collection for the Xbox 360.  It was great: Golden Axe 1, 2, and 3, Streets of Rage 1, 2, and 3, Altered Beast, and tons more (Phantasy Star 2, 3, and 4!)  I’m definitely picking this game up: $30 for tons of nostalgia.  Fuck, it even has Ecco the Dolphin for you weirdos that like that stuff.

HOLLLARIT!

Halloween 2007

California was pretty great last week, if hectic. Between work meetings, social get-togethers, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium spacebee and I went from hither to yon and back from Thursday to Sunday. Saturday night our very own madd scientits came up to have dinner with fuddruckus, manders, spacebee, and I at the Fahrenheit Ultra Lounge. The dinner was great, and we stayed afterward to dance to odd 80s-dance-pop-fusion and slurp down $9 crown ‘n’ cokes. We followed that up on Sunday by going to meet some of my old work friends at the Oktoberfest festivities in Campbell (near scientist’s old homestead: pRUNEYARD!)

That brings us to Halloween 2007. For all the pictures, see my Flickr set.

Blammo!

We had some friends over for an evening of Ultimate Fighter marathon, Guitar Hero II, and some beers at the Main Depot. We didn’t end up heading down to State St., in part because we didn’t want to wait in line and pay $7 each in order to walk up and down a street, but mostly because my costume involved going shirtless and it was goddamned cold outside Saturday night. At the Depot, an incredibly drunk man insinuated that I was not man enough (or perhaps, too much man [i'm fat]) to be the boyfriend of a classy dame like spacebee. I whispered in his ear, “Psst, I’m not really a wrestler.” His response, “You think?” Later on he attempted to paw at bellygirl from the bathroom doorway as we left and ended up falling down. He also knocked down a dancing machine while being drunk and almost got his ass whomped. All in all, there was no need for me to do or say anything to this dude: he was gonna get the holy shit beat out of him before the night was over anyways. I hear tell later on of wwhazz and bellygirl at bartime seeing an incredibly drunk man on stilts take 3 giant wobbly steps and then eat concrete. Oh Halloween!

Black Cat Fever

Pretty good Packer game last night, too. Spacebee and I watched it at scubby’s new house out in Middleton, on the Ultra High Def TV. Man, watching Favre throw million-yard touchdowns in high def was sweeter than watching it on my dumb ol’ cable. So what if I’m out of the suicide pool, I hedged against a Packer loss so that I’d be happy either way. Say lah vee, there’s always next year, and all that rigamarole.

Man of Mysterio

Birthday Bingo

So it is that early October is here. GMX, peterstiffly, todder, and myself (possibly more?) all celebrate birthdays this week. As for myself, verily I declare that I am NOT a good friend anymore. I am a thoughtless homunculus, riding the winds of terrible selfishness. Really though, I’m a dick for not calling GMX. I will rectify that… now. Hmm, he answered the phone and then hung up on me. Hope it was an accident.

So, er, on with the show? There aren’t many plans for Number 29. Surprise dinner somewhere, and Spacebee is making me lunch. That’s fine by me; sounds effing delightful.

Peterstiffly, I’m not sure what you’re doing this weekend for your birthday, but maybe we could hook up for the Badgers and/or Packers game. I’ve got no plans to speak of, so HOLLLARIT.

The Bakersfield Wastelands

AND lo, unto the hellscape of Bakersfield there was delivered a couple. AND that couple didst live in squalor amongst roaches, big-ass bugs, and team players. THE men and women of the hovel did not yet know their betters were upon them…

And so on and so forth. Hey everyone, it’s nice to be back. I was in Racine on Sunday for a trio of birthdays: my niece, my soon-to-be sister-in-law, and my grandmother. We had a gay old time eating delicious risotto and marinaded beef tenderloin. Then we had a Speed Party: eat cake, pinata crash, open presents in 30 or less minutes. Spacebee and I rode dirty down to Racine, spent about 3 hours there, and then headed back up. Our driving time equaled the time we were there, but it was worth it to see so many family members’ birthdays in one shot!

There’s also crazy news on the Racine front: my parents are moving to… Door County. My father accepted a position as the president and CEO of the visitor’s bureau up yonder, and so by the end of the year they will have (hopefully, in this housing market) sold their house and moved up there. My brosef and seestor are moving out soon or have moved out already, and so they won’t be going with. I know I’m still digesting the news… but I am looking forward to going up there to visit.

Now, as anyone in Madison can attest to, I’ve been going buck fucking crazy on a cookbook I received from my dad recently.

[Backstory] As some of you may know, my dad used to work for Visit Milwaukee, the convention and visitor’s bureau for the area. As the VP of Sales, it was his job to sell the city to various large conventions so they would come and buy up a bunch of hotel rooms and spend tourist money like ‘whoa.’ So they have these conventions where people representing large conventions come and get wined and dined and look at booths by various cities in order to hold their convention there. My dad worked hard to set up a dinner for under a hundred people at the home of Art Smith, Oprah’s personal chef. So a bunch of people went to his house in Chicago and had some great food and (I hear) raved about it to others at the convention the next day. As the guests left, Art Smith signed copies of his newest cookbook for the them, and my dad snagged a copy for me as well. [/Backstory]

Now, I had paged through the cookbook and found a few good recipes, but I hadn’t actually taken a step to cook anything until last week. I went to Whole Foods and bought all the ingredients to make 4 dinners from the book on consecutive nights. Many of them involved brining and long-lead prep work, so I set up a schedule where I would be cooking one night’s dinner while prepping for the next night’s dinner. Long story short: these things went four-for-four. Each one was goddamned tasty (which can be attested to by those on whazzmaster who tried them, I believe).

All this to mention that the fourth night of Back to the Family-inspired dinners happened to fall on Saturday: college football during the day, Badger football at night, free UFC ‘pay-per-view’ (I’ll let wwhazz expound on that one), and Brewers and Cubs baseball. Mississippi Chicken and Rice with homemade cornbread turned out to be the perfect compliment to 6+ hours of various sports. By the way, GMX, the cornbread we made was straight outta Good Ol’ J.R.’s Country Homemade Cookbook you got me. So now I have two signed cookbooks: one from Oprah’s personal chef, and one from the WWE’s lead announcer. The cornbread was made in a cast-iron skillet, which got ultra-high marks from me. Anything made in a cast-iron pan is going to taste twenty to thirty times better.

Finally, Wisconsin sports are looking good, if shaky. Badgers are 2-0. Packers are 1-0. Brewers are back atop the division (for the moment). And wwhazz is winning Peterstiffly’s Whazzmaster NFL Pool. Incredibly.

HOLLLARIT Bakersfield.

Yo Ho Hello There Go To Racine And Do A Show There

Hey everyone! Wiggity wiggity wiggity! It’s your old pal whazzmaster and have I got a deal for YOU!  Get this whazzers: I’m gonna be out of town next weekend! Wheee!  Spacebee and I are going down to Elburn Days… hmm, where did I put that link… here? Hmm, no.  Aha, here it is.  I’m gonna eat me a big ol’ thing of sweet corn.  Then I’m gonna ride the Tilt-A-Whirl, slap some money down on the Meat Raffle, and probably contract salmonella.  All in a days work, my friends.

Plus, on Tuesday I’m delivering a new computer to my parents, and I’ll probably hook up with my brother again for some old fashioned Ray-Seen golf action.  Will we play Johnson’s Park, where sonuvabitch rangers yell at you no matter how fast or slow you play?  Or will we play at Ives Grove, where the gale force winds blow your tee shot out into a random cornfield in Union Grove? We won’t know until Wednesday, so stay tuned!

Also, I recently made some trip plans to travel out to the Valley in October.  I’ll be in San Heezy (For Sheezy) Oct 16th through the 22nd, and as an Extra! Surprise! spacebee will be joining me on the weekend.

This past weekend was relaxing, and I even got to play some golf with Scubby out at Bridges.  I lost about a dozen balls on the back nine and stopped keeping score, but the front was pretty good; I shot a 43.

That’s about it for now, I’m sure this week will be full of tales of Rogue Bartending by wwhazz.  Also, scientist, I ask you a direct question: how’s it going out in San Diego? Are you guys planning on doing a few more rotations out there? Gonna move to LA proper so you can heckle the Live at the Bike dudes… live?  Or are you planning on moving to Atlanta, GA?  You know (from first hand stories) they gots some good strip clubs there…

Say lah vee, whazzmaster.

Come On Down!

Spacebee is triumphantly moving into my place this weekend, so my attention will likely be elsewhere.  Cal: it’s good to know that you are no longer suffering from measles, mumps, and/or rubella.  Arlo stayed over at my place on Wednesday night and on Thursday morning we went and had a good game of tennis.  Cal, my shit is off the heezy, you can’t win.  I joined Tennis-league.com (free local tennis ladders) but there’s only one other guy from Madison on there.  I suppose we can have the world series of tennis, but I’d to find some more competition.

Sundance, Pus, and The Cubs

First: The Bad News.  I went for a wisdom teeth follow-up check-up yesterday and the doc informed me I have two abscesses.  He informed me that if antibiotics don’t clear it up then he’ll have to go in and re-open the area and clean it out which would be me back at the beginning of the healing process.  Ugh.  Please let the antibiotics work.

While picking up my meds, however, I checked out the new Sundance 608 theater/cafe/restaurant/bar over at Hilldale Mall.  I heard that they were serving Peet’s Coffee (my favorite from my California days) and wanted to check out the digs.  Man, really nice indeed.  The interior is really… comfy, I guess, is how I’d describe it.  Leather chairs, nice lighting.  It made me really want to drive back to my house, get my laptop, and camp out there for a day writing code.  I liked it so much I went and got wwhazz and brought him back there for more coffee and newspaper-reading.

Finally, next week is the second (and final) Cubs @ Brewers series for the season.  I’ve got tickets for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  Monday is spacebee and I, Tuesday is wwhazz and I, and Wednesday is me, spacebee, wwhazz, and bellygirl.  Of course, there’ll be pictures when all is said and done.