An Odd Number of Topics from an Odd Day

Yesterday was Saturday. It started early and ended late. It was a good day.

1. Waking Up Early

I love to sleep. I love to be up late and sleep in and get out of bed whenever I want to wake up, whether that's at 8:30 or 10:00. I understand how and why alarm clocks are useful, but (as with tourniquetes and exclusive relationships with the opposite sex) I think they should only be resorted to in worst-case scenarios.

I knew that I was going to have a full day yesterday, and in preparation I stayed in on Friday night. I didn't "stay in" by having a friend over and watching movies... I was attached to my computer, chatting with people and watching bad TV playing in the southeast corner of my living room. It was pretty much like every other day, except it was darker outside and I knew almost all of my friends were out, doing something to themselves or others.

I didn't get to sleep early, but I was sober and I was well-rested, if not altogether pleased, when my alarm went off at 8:50. I hopped online (of course), had to cut a chat off with Big Apple, and went to the gym. 

Uneventful trips to the gym are good. It was an uneventful trip. No guys got in my way on the machines I wanted to use, nobody sweated on me, and I hadn't somehow inexplicably gained weight.

Got back. Showered. Scooped up TM2000 and we were off to Buddy One's place for a Rock Band party.

2. Song 82

OK. Let me say this: Rock Band is a great video game. For people who have not played it, it's like a combination of Guitar Hero and Karaoke Revolution... with drums thrown in, too. If you haven't played Guitar Hero or Karaoke Revolution or Rock Band: I salute your ability to avoid popular culture phenomena... and in short it's a way for up to four people to collaborate on a video game version of popular (and not-so popular) music.

Rock Band 2 is the second edition of the game, and it's quite good. It also has what's called the "Endless Playlist", where your band plays 84 songs. In a row. You can pause (although you get an extra achievement if you don't), but you can't save progress and come back later... it's kind of a big time commitment.

And a big time commitment is what Buddy One had in mind when he sent out his Evite several weeks ago. He sent out the call to those of us who have some degree of experience and interest in (a) Rock Band, (b) drinking, and/or (c) breakfast burritos.

TM2000 and I arrived at about 11:20, bearing ice. Buddy One, Buddy Two and a few other fellows were there, waiting to kick things off. After a round of breakfast burritos, we started rocking at 11:55 AM. We expected it to take between seven and eight hours.

One twist to the game is that different instruments can have different difficulty settings. Because of our more involved experience on guitar and bass, Buddy One set those two instruments to "Hard" difficulty setting (a step down from the most difficult "Expert") and set the drums and vocals to "Medium" (a step down from Hard and a step up from the easiest "Beginner"). We knew that the Endless Playlist had some random elements to which songs would be where, but that it would get progressively more difficult.

Well... we thought that would be the case, and we were right.

Setting Rock Band aside for a moment, I wanted to remind people that I have not been drinking alcohol that long. I started about 1.5 years ago, and there is still a long list of things that I have not done. Not that I'm waiting for the right moment or that I'm necessarily never going to do them, but that I just have not done.

Starting to drink by noon was one of those things. When Black Top offered me a Black Sparks Plus, though... how could I tell him no? They are, as far as we can tell, no longer being produced with caffeine, and getting his hands on a supply has been a labor of love for him over the last few weeks. I was obligated and delighted to accept.

The plan, in addition to the drinking that people did on their own throughout the day, was for people to do a round of Touchdowns every ten songs. I passed the first time--I was still nursing my Sparks at about 12:40 or so. I didn't pass at 20 songs, however. Or 30. Or 40. Or 60. Or 70. Or 80.

Notice there was no "Or 50" in there. That was because, over the course of the 9.5 hours that we were working on the Endless Setlist, we ran into three problems:

1. At about song 35 or so, the drums broke. We were using the Guitar Hero World Tour drums, and both the kick pedal and the red drum pad crapped out at about the same time. Black Top and the other drummers were able to power through for several songs until replacement parts arrived with latecomers to the effort, and all was made right with the drums.
2. We ran out of Red Bull before song 50. Touchdowns without Red Bull are like a blog entry from me without a bullet list... uncommon and not really what they claim to be. By the time Red Bull reinforcements arrived, we were approaching song 60 and I think I might have been the only person to notice that we didn't do a round at 50... and I was cool with it.
3. Song 82. Ugh.

I mentioned that we believed that the song list would get more difficult as things went along, and we planned for that by not putting the guitar and bass at Expert (where many of us could have succeeded on most of the songs). Our belief was correct, but our measures proved inadequate.

At about song 77, we started getting a lot of metal songs that no one really knew. Testament. Mastodon. Other groups no one had heard of and/or didn't want to sing. Nothing we couldn't handle, though.

When Battery by Metallica arrived as song 81, I was pumped. We'd joked about how no one would want to sing a Metallica epic because it was so rough on one's voice, but I was talking shit all day about how I would rock it and come through for the band. (Man... that sentence really drove home how geeky all of this is. I wonder why it took that long for me to notice. I should have PROBABLY noticed the moment I looked at the Evite.)

So I was gonna sing it, and no one wanted to stop me. I'd had a lot of Red Bull, remember. Heh.

Keep in mind, as I build this up: we had only "failed" about two songs all the way up to song 81 (Battery). Failure happens when the band members screw up a certain number of times. Our previous failures had been flukes and we'd usually bounced back to get five stars on the second attempt.

Battery was different, though, and a sign of what was to come.

On a difficult song, I totally zero in on whatever part of the song I am in control of... but Metallica has a lot of instrumentals in their songs, and I was able to watch how difficult the song was for the bassist and guitar. I did fine on my part, but we failed. And then we failed again.

And again. And again.

I think we failed about eight times before we finally finished it. My voice felt like it was a bit fried, but I was happy that I was able to contribute to a tough song.

When song 82 came, though? It was different. "Different" more difficult. "Different" worse. 

Our best guys had been drinking, in case you skipped many of the previous paragraphs, and their skills had slipped a bit due to that. And the song was freaking impossible in their condition (I was actually in pretty good shape, since I'd been sipping water throughout the day, rather than nursing beers).

Here. Watch. Or try to. The song itself is unlistenable, in my opinion. It gives you an idea of the way the game and song go (with a group, there are three of the cascading notes, one for each player, with a vocals indicator at the top for the fourth band member)...

The video is demonstrating "Expert" level, so it's faster that what we were attempting. But imagine two people having to do a similar number of clicks and moves... while the drummer hits things at the right time and the singer mumbles in time.

After about 80 minutes of failing (getting up to 69% completed, in one outlier of a performance, but generally under 40% completed per attempt), we decided to leave the XBox360 running until another day, when more sober players could attempt it.

We began our migration to Hula Hula, with slightly downcast spirits but with a lot of energy drink in our system.

3. Jelouse(?) Non-BF

There were about a dozen of us that made it to Hula Hula... all male but one. 54-Bait used to be Buddy One's neighbor and made an appearance in my blog nearly two years ago. I hadn't seen her in a while, and while I normally am happy to talk to a cute blond who I get along with, 54-Bait delighted me by talking about where she works, that her employer might be hiring, and launching into how much she loves my blog. 

Note to anyone, anywhere: I will get embarrassed and tell you to stop it, and I will be sincere in both of those reactions, but I will never complain about getting complimented on my blog. I like hearing about people reading it, and I love hearing when they like it.

In spite of my repeated domination of Battery, I signed up for a song and sang it and 54-Bait was right in front, cheering me on. It was cool.

After the song, I talked to her for a while, and I asked her where her boyfriend was. She told me that the guy she was hanging with that night was NOT her boyfriend, although she did not deny that they were dating. That's cool. Whatever.

The reason I bring any of this up is because of the way Non-Boyfriend interacted with me later in the night. I had not been introduced to him, but he seemed nice enough, and after I asked him if he sang (and he said "no"), he stated he liked seeing me do it. That's cool. Whatever.

A bit later, though, we had this exchange:

N-B: Hey can I get your number.

Me: Uh, sure... it's--

N-B: I didn't get your name, either.

Me: It's Ed... what's your name?
N-B: Yeah, so what's your number?

Me: It's xxxxxxxxxx.

N-B: Those aren't numbers. They're just lower-case "x's".

Me: Yeah. We aren't really saying this now. It's a joke in the blog I'm writing. I actually just used the x's to indicate that I'm not stupid enough to put my real cell phone number in my blog.

N-B: Oh, yeah. So how did I really react?

Me: Well, after I gave you my number, you said...

N-B: We'll see if it works.

Me: Dude. Really? Why wouldn't it work?

N-B: (Dialed my number. Waited for it to ring.)
Me: See? It's ringng. Why the fuck would I lie about that? 

N-B: ...

Why the fuck would I lie about that?

Why the fuck would he want my number?

Why the fuck wouldn't he give me his name?

Even though he'd been drinking, and I'd had a bit to drink, it was strange. It was all weird, and my best guess is not that he wants to give me a jingle to hang out sometime...

4. Mustache Man

Sometimes you meet cool-ass people. They might be nothing like you. They might not live anywhere where you live. They might have no common interests. But you can instantly tell that you can be their buddy.

Some time after Non-BF had left me alone and after most of the Rock Band party had moved on to Ozzie's and/or gone home to vomit, I met such a person. I'll call her Palindrome.

I was looking through a book to sign up for a third/final song of the night, and she was grabbing a book. She was wearing some sort of Peruvian-looking stocking cap and she was adorable. Since I'm a sucker for Peruvian-looking stocking caps and adorable women, I opened and we had the following little chat:

Me: Hey, what are you gonna sing?

Her: I dunno... what should I sing?

Me: Wow. I don't know.

Her: Based on how I'm dressed right now, what do you think I should sing?

Me: Uh... I don't know.

Her: C'mon!

Me: Rape Me by Nirvana.

Her: ...

Me: Uhh.

Her: That is such an awesome answer!

She got it. Instantly. She would have followed through on my little joke, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids. Or if, perhaps more relevantly, Hula Hula had the song.

We turned our songs in and later, about 15 minutes before close, we started talking again. We were watching a guy sing and there was a dude with a mustache standing there, staring at the four or five girls on the dance floor. I looked at Mustache Man and shook my head.

"He's creepy," I commented. 

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, earlier tonight I saw him gawking at a chick for about 45 seconds straight... looking her up and down and then they had a mini staring contest until she broke eye contact and turned away, laughing, to her friend."

"Oooh. That's sad. I feel bad for him."

"That's noble of you. But he's creepy. Let's just watch. You'll see."

I love being right. There are few things better in life, and the lack of frequency with which it occurs for me only makes it sweeter.

The chances of me meeting a cool-ass person and then being proven to be so incredibly correct right in front of her are, for me, infinitesimal. And yet, last night, about four hours after song 82 kicked the crap out of my friends and me, it happened.

Mustache Man looked at a dancing chick. Then he started to mosey on over. He didn't dance over. He didn't even really walk. He had his hips oddly open and his arms glued to his sides... it was like a Mehow open approach gone horribly wrong.

He kept getting closer and closer, with the same blank look on his face and the same pulled-by-his-hips movement. The target was blocked by two of her friends, who then all moved about 4 steps away from him.

Palindrome, though, had seem the oddness. Had seen the creepiness. Had understood that I was, at least in this one case, entirely correct. Mustache Man was very, very creepy.

5. Morning with Bernie

Weekend at Bernie's is sort of a infamous movie. Not just famous, but infamous. Terrible script, rather shoddy acting, and overall not good. 

But it's wedged in all of our consciousnesseses until the day we die.

I've never lugged a dead guy around before, acting like he's still alive and either sleeping or just bemusedly detached from interacting with his surroundings.

While I would love to tell you this is what happened last night, I had to settle for the next-best thing: Buddy One was WASTED.

By closing time, we'd been drinking for 14 hours. Whether because of self-discipline or because of frugality or because of my 14 year-old liver, I was able to weather the storm just fine... I'd had a couple of drinks in the four hours that I was at Hula Hula, and I hadn't crashed from the Red Bull in the Touchdowns.

Our group as a whole had been acting strangely since being released from the captivity of almost ten hours of Rock Band 2, and the alcohol had been taking its toll.

Buddy Two? He'd bolted after taking off his t-shirt and having difficulty standing without looking like he was on a boat. 

TM2000? He's left before midnight and sent a mass-txt about the difficulties he'd experienced at home.

Buddy One, then, was a champ for lasting as long as he did. At closing we decided to get some food at the Mecca and we invited a couple of ladies that work at Hula Hula to join us. They accepted, but had to close and so offered to meet us there.

After we finally got out of the bar, at about 2:10 AM, we walked to my car to drive the ~4 blocks to the Mecca. Well... I walked. Buddy One weebled. He wobbled. He did not fall down, to his credit.

When we got there, we grabbed a booth. We split some mozzarella sticks. Buddy One ordered a Philly cheesesteak, and I decided not to order more food until/unless the females arrived.

We talked for about a half hour, and we ate the food, and we confirmed that the chicks were going to show. Buddy One then slept.

Not, like, a light doze. Instead, something akin to death. Something akin to Bernie. (See what I did there? I finally got around to why the heck I talked about such a bad movie.)

It was fine. I got on my phone and checked email. I looked at boxscores. I polished off his sandwich. And I waited.

The women were still working when I called for the last time, but they agreed to meet us outside of the restaurant and we'd figure something out.

After about six minutes of prodding and non-inside-voice encouragement, Buddy One awakened. We closed our tab out and walked the 45 feet to my car, waiting outside. And he slept more.

The girls showed at about 3:20. We went to my place. We managed to pry him from my car, and Buddy One even  rallied for a bit, listening as we played songs on the guitar and being very supportive of Mr. Potts's comeback from back problems. By the time we were halfway through an episode of Important Things by Demetri Martin, however, he was sleeping on my couch. Back to being Bernie. At least he wasn't snoring.

I tucked Buddy One under a comforter, drove the women back to their car and apartment, respectively, and left him sleeping on my couch. By the time I was back home shortly after 5:00, he was snoring like a motherfucker and I was glad that the Red Bulls had worn off. I fell asleep after brushing my teeth and didn't awaken until about 7:45, when I gave him a ride home.

Yesterday was Saturday. It started early and ended late. It was a good day.