Why I'm Dumb (Part 294)

Last week I broke one of my precious Sweetwater glasses (I believe this would've been #39) on my kitchen floor. I had a bunch of stuff in my hands, thought I was putting the glass on the counter...and missed. Oops! I swept up all the pieces of glass. Or so I thought. On Saturday I felt something sharp on my foot...without thinking, I wiped it off on my other foot. Ooops! Glass! Blood! Gross! Ouch! Your foot is never a good place to cut yourself. I'll survive. Scott managed to sleep through the girlish screams.

Last night I stepped on ANOTHER piece of glass. On top of that, I found a piece of glass on my couch! What the hell? So, I finally decided it was time to invest in a mop and some other cleaning supplies. I still had some Target gift cards leftover from my housewarming party (still working on those thank you cards by the way!!!!). I go to Target at lunch, ASS-U-ME-ING that the cards were still in my wallet. I get to the register...$48.53 please. (Why does that always happen to me a Target? They have way too much of my money). I open up my wallet, in search of a gift card...NOTHING. Damnit!

Atlanta, Kansas?

EDIT: Ok, so I thought I was being funny, but apparently there really is an Atlanta, Kansas. So much for my jokes.

I have no idea how people in Kansas (or wherever tornadoes are relatively frequent) deal with them. Friday seemed like a regular day. It was somewhat rainy during the day, but it stopped before the work day ended. Headed over to sweetwater for after-work beer. Mmmmmm, beer!!! My friend, Scott, was supposed to be flying up from Pensacola later Friday night, but they told him no flights were going into Atlanta. I thought this was weird because at about 6:30 it was pretty much clear and sunny. After sweetwater, we went back to my friend Matt's house, to watch a Thrashers game (on TV - it was a road game). Just after the game, about 9:30, some storms picked up and just standing by a window at Matt's house, we could tell it was getting ugly out. Still, didn't really think it was anything to worry about though. It started hailing and the rain got a lot heavier. A small river formed on part of the street in front of his house. Some of his neighbors had bagged a bunch of leaves, which started floating with the river. ALL of them stopped right at Matt's car! Eventually we turned the TV to a local station to see if there was anything we should know about going on. There sure was.

The SEC men's basketball tournament was going on at the Georgia Dome. Mykal Riley, (if you click that link, ESPN says he's 4 years old) hit a game tying 3-pointer at the end of regulation for Alabama. By doing so, he literally probably saved THOUSANDS of lives. If he missed that shot. thousands of fans would've been leaving the Georgia Dome. That would've been bad because with 2:11 left in overtime, a tornado hit downtown Atlanta (Georgia, not Kansas). It ripped right through the area where the most populated spot in Atlanta probably was at the moment: Georgia Dome, Philips Arena, CNN Center, Omni Hotel, Georgia World Congress Center, Centennial Olympic Park. There was also an Atlanta Hawks game going on, but as you can tell, nobody cares about the Hawks! (Ok, cheap shot, my bad). Last year I was actually at the SEC tournament, a former coworker of mine found out one of his old college friends works for the SEC and gave us VIP passes to the whole tournament! Couldn't pass that up! For this years tournament we tried to get tickets again, but it just didn't happen. And good thing!!!!

The next 2 hours or so we were glued to the TV, watching various local stations' coverage. They all had one thing in common. They're all TERRIBLE at covering stories like this. One station kept showing clips of the georgia dome where someone used a telestrator and drew something looking like a potato. Saw that at least 15 times and still have no clue what they were showing us. The reporters on the scene were annoying. For some reason they felt the need to interview a cab driver who we couldn't understand. In retrospect, I wish we turned on the closed captioning to see if it was just us. I doubt it. Eventually we couldn't take it anymore, we were hungry and decided to go out and get some food. The skies had cleared up, so it was safe to go out. Went out for some uneventful pizza. Didn't see any kind of damage anywhere. Went back to Matt's house afterwards and just watched more crappy news coverage in hopes of seeing some good footage of something. But there was nothing. I decided it probably wasn't a good idea to go anywhere, so I just crashed on Matt's couch. Which is pretty much my 2nd bed anyways.

Scott was supposed to be getting on a 6am flight out of Pensacola, so i was gonna have to wake up early to go pick him up. At about 5:30 I woke up to some LOUD thunder and lightning. I turned the TV on and here we go again. HUGE storms were coming through and there didn't look to be any end in sight. I sent Scott a text, telling him to keep an eye on the ATL weather, and I didn't think he'd be getting here anytime soon. I just told him to let me know if he actually boarded a plane anytime soon. I went back to sleep until I got a call from Scott. The weather had actually cleared up enough to get a flight in. Not only did he get on a flight, but the little bastard wound up getting sat in FIRST CLASS. And he wound up realizing he was sitting next to the aunt of one of his high school friends. Small world. So eventually Scott's flight (after circling Montgomery for a while) got in around 10:30 and we took a little tour of downtown. A lot of roads were closed, but it was still pretty unbelievable what we saw. Sooooo many buildings were missing random windows. Very bizarre. We came back to my neck of the woods, where luckily it seemed as if nothing even happened. More serious storms were supposed to be coming towards Atlanta around 1:30pm. We had some time, so we went and got some food. 1:30 came and went and all seemed well with the sky. Still, we went back to my place to see what was headed our way. One by one, it look almost like someone in Birmingham was spitting these storms out and right at Atlanta! I haven't ruled out a terrorist attack! Storms were coming, one right after the next, luckily they were all heading just north or just south of me. These were seriously powerful storms. We've all seen radars with green, sometimes red colors. I wonder how many times purple and black have shown up?? There were reports of hail over 4" wide. Grapefruit size. The local ABC affiliate had some pretty cool graphics where they showed these storms in 3D. They were also able to use something called a "BTI" (Baron Tornado Index). It's a scale from 0-10 that gauges the likelihood of a tornado. If the number is over 7, its pretty much a guarantee that a tornado has touched down. And the number was over 7 at least 5 times throughout the day. Pretty scary stuff. Luckily, for me, all this stuff managed to avoid my house. Hell, I didn't even get any rain! At one point a siren did go off, which was odd, I didn't even know we had a tornado siren! I guess that's good to know. It was LOUD. And last for a good bit. The dumbasses that me and Scott are, we ran outside to see if we could see anything. Nothing. Still sunny. Very odd. By about 4:45 most of the damage had been done and things were finally clearing up.

Just in time for us to get to the They Might Be Giants concert at the Variety Playhouse. They had a "family/children" show at 3pm. Apparently their stage manager had to tell the lead singer to play some more songs because they couldn't let people leave because of how bad it was outside. The "adult" show was at 6pm. Still early, but apparently the band had a couple thousand mile drive on Sunday. They still played for just over 2 hours. I tried yelling out that there were more tornadoes coming that they needed to play more, but they didn't get that message. Oh well.

I'm adding a bunch of pictures below, of which I took none of them. The 7th building, is from Scott's phone, I believe that is where my roommate works. Haven't gotten confirmation from her on that though. Pretty devastating stuff! (Sorry I have no idea how to keep these pictures somewhat organized, they like to spread out I guess)

Premiere Week!

I had a pretty relaxing weekend. Saturday was the bulk of Yom Kippur, so I was fasting, and watching college football all day. Then went out to the Brick Store Saturday night (no, they don't sell bricks...they sell beer!). We sat outside and it was really nice out. We had a good view of a small wreck. A car was pulling out of a spot and nicked a Yukon parked next to it. Left a dent in the corner of the rear bumper. We thought at first they were gonna leave, but they left a note with their contact info. Some nosy people went and looked, then we convinced them to put the license plate on the note. The guy who's car it was came out alot later and didn't really seem to care. Weird.

Anyways, busy week coming up! Tomorrow is all you can eat chicken nuggets at the ChicFilA in Marietta. I was dumb enough to eat 30 of those damn things last time. And of course I regretted it, but I'll probably do it again :)

Other than that, I have to say, thank G-D for my DVR!

Monday:
8-8:30pm - How I Met Your Mother (CBS) Season 3 season premiere!
8:30-9pm - The Big Bang Theory (CBS) New show, its got some people I recognize, gonna give it a shot.
8-9pm - Chuck (NBC) New show, looks good, we'll see?
9-10pm - HEROES!!!! (NBC) Season 2 (whatever happened to the Heroes:Origins show?
9:30-10pm - Rules of Engagement (CBS) Season 2 - Puddy from Seinfeld makes this show too funny!
And of course...Monday Night Football (ESPN) - Saints-Titans. What to do????
Oh, and at 12:35am - Late Night With Conan O'Brien (NBC) - The Season Premiere of Pale Force (starring Jim Gaffigan)

Tuesday is all quiet in TV land. But there's a preseason Thrashers game at Philips!!!! I don't think Matt can go, so I may have to search for someone else to go with...

Wednesday is also quiet, there's a new show with Frasier - Back to You - where he's a news anchor. We'll see how that works. Outside of TV-land, Wednesday is sweetwater and then Improv in the Park.

Thursday picks up again.
8-9pm Survivor:China (CBS) (premiere was last week and kinda slow)
8-9pm My Name is Earl (NBC) Season premiere
9-10pm The Office (NBC) season premiere

Then Friday I'm off to Jersey for what should be the last Bar Mitzvah in my family for at least 13 years!!!!

So, updating an earlier story...my ipod is not here. Its not in my car. And its not at my desk. Its gone. I'm pissed. But, I was playing around on ebay this morning and found an 80 gig ipod ($250 value) and an itrip ($70 value) that comes with 18,000!!! songs on it. It was $200, the bidding wound up going up to $244 but I'm happy. Hopefully I get it before Friday!!!!

Wednesday Night Fun - Improv in the Park

Haha, I tricked you into coming to my blog again! (or for the first time?)

So, improv in the park kinda snuck up on me! As most of you know, Wednesdays are very special to me. I spend every Wednesday that I can at Sweetwater drinking beer (mmmmmm, beer!). That goes from 5:30-7:30. Its $8, you get to keep a pint glass and 6 free beers (6oz each).

So, thats pretty much EVERY Wednesday.

Now, for the next THREE Wednesdays, Improv in the Park returns. Its 100% free.

Piedmont Park's website:

Improv in the Park - Piedmont Park Conservancy and Travel Girl Magazine welcome
back the 4th Annual presentation of Improv in the Park. Join us as our friends
at Whole World Theatre bring three free nights of hilarious comedy to Piedmont
Park, September 19 and 26, and October 3. Shows start at 8:00 pm in the Meadow,
located near 10th Street and Monroe Drive. For more information visit www.wholeworldtheatre.com.

From Whole World, via myspace:

The next three Wednesdays is Improv in the Park. Join Whole World Improv Theatre
and Dad's Garage as we provide two hours of FREE improv comedy on the Meadow of
Improv in the Park, located near the 10th Street/Charles Allen gate. Sweetwater
Brewery will be on tap and so will Plant Smoothie beverages. The weather could
not be better so come on out tomorrow night for the 1st Improv in the Park of
2007.

So thats always alot of fun, and it sounds like that crappy third improv group is gone. So, thats that. Plenty of sweetwater for everyone all night!!!! See you there?

Why I'm Dumb (Parts 288-290)

I'll incorporate my dumbness into my weekend tale...

So, Friday night me and Lauren were finishing up packing. I got her boyfriend (who I named Re-Todd, you know, since she's already dated a guy named Todd before) to help me carry stuff to the dumpster. Said goodbye to the couch, somewhat broken recliner, my dresser and night table. So sad. But I learned its more fun to move furniture when it doesn't matter if you ruin it! But that was still exhausting, we eventually just dragged and pushed the couch and dresser up a hill and to the dumpster. The movers were supposed to be coming between 7:30-9am Sat morning, and of course we decided sleep was more important and we could finish packing while they were moving our big stuff. Wrong! When the movers got to our place, he seemed pretty surprised that we weren't completely ready to go. He also proceeded to tell us these long stories about all of his moving-people experiences. We pay these bastards by the hour and it turns out the "clock" starts when he got there, so, less stories, more moving our shit please! It took almost 3 hours to load the truck (compared the 26 minutes to load Courtney's truck!). We got to the new place and the guy said he'd just charge us for 4 hours (it took over 5 overall). He kept bragging about how great he is and how he saved us so much money by not charging us for little things like mattress-protection? WTF? Anyways, onto my dumbness...

Why I'm Dumb, Part 288

This should probably count for more than 1. But, I won't. So, in my new place, I've got a gas stove and (apparently) a gas water heater. And as of Thursday, the stove worked just fine. As of Saturday...not so much. So, we've got no stove/oven and of course...no hot water. Until Thursday. I've had to take 2 cold showers so far. It SUUUCCCKKKKSSS!!!!!!! Its been almost 3 hours now and my feet are still cold. And I'm wearing a jacket...indoors...at work right now.

Why I'm Dumb, Part 289

Saturday night, after moving all day, I decided I needed to do SOMETHING fun, so I went with Matt to another sweetwater-related house warming party (same house as last time actually? Thats weird). It didn't occur to me that all day I only ate a chic-fil-a sandwich. I had about 4 beers and was absolutely hammered. Luckily Matt was driving and I crashed on his couch. I did notice a distinct improvement in my flip-cup abilities though!

Why I'm Dumb, Part 290

Sunday morning I came home to find out that the key I had to unlock the doorknob didn't work. I could've sworn I tested it, but, well, nope! So I had to go find Lauren and get her key. Oh, did I mention I was somewhat hungover? On my way home, I stopped at Arby's (because it had been about 20 hours since I last ate, seemed like a good idea. It was about 11:30 so it was pretty empty, I ordered my food, got a drink. Went to go get ice and there was none. I went back to the counter to tell them they had no ice and the dude at the register couldn't possibly care less. He asked me if I tried BOTH ice dispensers. I did. He just stood there. Another girl at the counter yelled, "Go get that boy some ice, fool" (I may have added the "fool" portion). He still just stood there, so she gave me a cup of ice. On top of that when i got to my car, I realized the soda was flat. 5 minutes after that is when I found out I was locked out. D'oh!

Bitching about packing and other ramblings to help procrastinate

T-minus 15 days til the move. I packed THREE boxes tonight...doubling my output of 6 total boxes packed. Of course, 2 and a half of those boxes were pretty much all CDs that I never seem to listen to anymore but have a hard time giving them up. You just never know when I might have a sudden desire to pop in that old Bell Biv DeVoe album I guess. You'd think I'd be good at this...since I started college I've moved 11 times (and I just counted, I've had 18 different roommates during that time - fun with procrastination, I'm the king!) But anyways, you'd think I'd be good at this whole moving thing by now. I'm not...its the worst. Last time I wasn't even halfway done packing by the time moving day came. I had people just throwing shit into boxes as people were taking my stuff out to the truck. I really hate packing, but I vow to at least be done by the time moving day gets here!!!!! I promise!

Other short stories from this past week...

Got a pretty good review and raise at work last week, so thats always good.

Hung out with my new friends at Sweetwater this weekend. Went to the brewery Friday after work then to a BBQ afterwards at Erica and Peter's house. We got to tour the house being built next door, which is still very much under construction, but on sale for a cool 750k. Thats crazy! They don't even have any doors or windows in that house! Maybe its in the plans, but its risky.

Saturday night was a housewarming party, again with the sweetwater crowd. Played some darts, oh...they had an old school atari system, I definitely need one of those!!! Then i learned how to play flip-cup. Something you're probably supposed to learn in college...its a drinking game. Needless to say I slept on Matt's couch that night and spent most of Sunday sleeping as much as possible.

Monday I tried to watch the home run derby, but good lord, it took over 3 hours!!!! I consider myself a pretty big baseball fan and I lost interest in a hurry.

Tuesday night was the All Star game, and it was a pretty good one. Comcrapstic's DVR screwed it up for me though, i missed an inning while I was helping Lauren fix her router.

Wednesday was a big day. I know I'm retarded, but I was very excited that the 2007-8 Thrashers schedule came out at 2pm. The home opener is Friday October 5th at 7:30pm vs the Washington Crapitals - who apparently have some new gay looking uniforms. Wednesday October 10th the Thrashers play Ottawa, which is the first time I get to hear my favorite National Anthem next season. They play home games against teams from Canada 9 times next season!!! Thats just about one-fourth of all home games. Very exciting for this wanna-be-Canadian!

Wednesday night was me and Matt's weekly Sweetwater beer tour gathering. One of the guys I know who pours beer there, I chat with and asked him about his girlfriend twice apparently. The second time he told me they broke up last night. Yeah, so I felt like an asshole. A group of us went out afterwards to help cheer him up.

Thats about it, I've been pretty tired all day today, gotta rest up for the weekend. Tomorrow is Lauren's birthday and I'm sucking it up and going to a bar I really don't like. It'll be fun though, the band playing she says is pretty good (its her boyfriends' brothers' band). So she's probably biased. I'll be sure to let you know!

Alright, thats enough procrastinating for one night. Night kids!

The Adventures of Buying Matt's TV

Now that I am an expert in big screen TV's I'm getting all kinds of requests. Yesterday I went with Matt to pickup his new 42" Panasonic Plasma TV (named "Visor" with a soft "s" I believe). First we stopped at our favorite drinking spot, the sweetwater brewery. After that we were riding up to Buford, GA to get his TV. Which means I didn't have to worry about driving for a while, so i took advantage of it. I think I had 8-10 "half" beers (they're only allowed to fill your glass up halfway - its a law! And they're actually threatening to change the law, that would suck. There's a petition to sign, so do that) Anyways, I digress. And now I'm gonna digress some more. They have a new un-named beer that kinda tastes like a raspberry/chocolate combo. Its pretty decent, and 9% alcohol, I recommend it.

So, after sweetwater, we drove up to Buford - I slept (and snored, I was told) in the car. Finally we get to the Circuit City outside the Mall of Georgia. This TV was an "opened box" model. We weren't sure if it was returned or what. Turns out it was just being used in the employee break room. He got a pretty good deal on it, but it was kinda sketchy. They did let us go back in there and we got to make sure it worked. It was mounted on the wall and looked pretty good. They didn't have any HD channels for us to see, so that was kinda surprising to me too. So they take the TV down and bring it out to us and explained that they couldn't find the pegs that attach the TV to the stand. Oops. They said for Matt to call Panasonic to order the part, but it seems to me like thats something they should be responsible for. What do I know? Anyways, the store closed at 9, we wound up getting the TV in Matt's car by about 9:30. No box, just some bubble wrap and a reprinted instruction manual. Oh, and later Matt realized he never got a receipt. (Update - they apparently faxed it to him later)

From there, we went over to a friend of ours - Eric's - coffee shop (Its called Jittery Joe's). It was really a pretty cool place. I'm no coffee drinker, but it was neat. I hadn't seen Eric in a couple years I think, so it was cool catching up with him. We talked about the retarded aspects and laws he has to deal with in running this shop. Most of it didn't make much common sense, but, hey, what do I know?

We wind up getting back to Matt's place with the TV at about midnight, and without the pieces to attach the TV to the stand, we couldn't even setup the TV. So that kinda sucked. Anyways, I hope the TV works out for him, it was a fun night, even though I had to help carry a TV around town :)