We Survived the Slootpocalypse!!

Last weekend (nearly 2 weekends ago now) was the long anticipated culmination of many months planning... for some people. It was Halloween!! The weekend of OUTRAGEOUSLY AWESOME COSTUMES and just generally slutty attire! Andy and myself of course, being the procrastinators that we are, didn't take time to put a costume together until Wednesday afternoon, 2 days before we needed them. Classic Niandy (wow, there's really no way to properly combine our names! The point is, we generally function as a single unit) maneuver.

Anyway, we went to Ragstock to find something interesting to inspire us, but after spending about 20 minutes sifting through countless wigs, boyscout uniforms, scrubs, and pimp coats, we decided to move on. I was feeling concerned about our costume future when we entered Goodwill, but it was there that i stumbled upon inspiration!

while digging through a pile of ridiculous hats, wondering who in their right mind would have worn them previous to donating them to the goodwill, when i remembered an obscure internet meme! The link there is this cartoonist's attempts at commercials for several different networks, and they are all really disturbing in one way or another, but the one the hats brought to mind was at about 1:54 in the video. Basically, the costume is this.

So Andy and i bought like 9 outrageous hats (some of them so outrageous that they were never worn) and made a couple signs. It was simple, mildly clever, and easy to include new people should the need arise.


Anyway, here was our finished product, pre-state street. We dressed up strangely to avoid appearing too lazy. Which made it infinitely more fun. I really enjoy dressing up.



In honor of the fall season, we conjured up about 2 gallons of "apple pie" for the weekend, as well as ammo for the beerstick (btw, it will henceforth be known as Excalibur). The apple pie took us a solid 3 hours to make on our first run through (its a crazy process. you mix apple cider and apple juice, bring it to a boil, stir in cinnamon and sugar to taste (it supposedly tastes even better if you have cinnamon sticks to leave in the drink while it cools, but they were in a grocery store far away, and too expensive) then you allow it to cool before adding everclear. again, to taste. The stuff is potent, and it tastes pretty much like apple juice. Its frightening. (best served chilled btw. You're thinking o, apple cider, that would be good hot! We once thought as you did. Honestly, don't do it.)

In the end, what was initially set up to be a small gathering at our apartment on Friday became a party that just barely fit in our apartment (comfortably). We ran out of apple pie that night, and so discovered that there's a much easier way to make it really quickly: pour everclear, sugar, and cinnamon into apple juice. tastes almost exactly the same.



ANYWAY my friend Rob and my cousin Sam came down to join us in the celebration of this esteemed holiday. Rob was Clark Kent (which turned out totally awesome Rob) and my cousin forgot his costume in Cincinnati, so he donned a silly hat and marched with us against all wearers of humdrum head ware!



Speaking of humdrum, how was the fun-vee Jake?


Another really fantastic costume.





So our friends from last year (shout out to all my Slichter peeps! Love you guys) came over on Friday to warm up for other parties. They drank all of our booze, went off to different parties, then ended up coming back later because of some crazy altercation with the other parties. Which was wonderful!... kinda. It was broken up shortly thereafter by one of my good friends becoming violently ill, but it was still overall a pretty fun evening. Eventful, if nothing else.

But Saturday... Ah, Saturday. This was the day we had all been waiting for. We woke up at the crack of 1 PM (Sam got up far earlier, but that's because he passed out at like 11:30. He claims to have been up til 1:30, but i think he's lying. He totally pussed out) and began setting plans in motion. And by that i mean we started drinking again. Everybody whanged, everybody chunged, everybody did a beerstick! Good times were had by all.

Then we went to State Street.

This tradition has changed a lot over the last 5 or so years from the free, crazy, riotous havoc it used to be to a more regulated, police infested, closed off area for people to prance about and take pictures with everyone in their super cool outfits!! I won't say these changes are for the better, but State IS a much SAFER place to be on Halloween than it once was. With the exception of the bandstand of course. Which i come back to later.

People come out in droves for this event, and i won't lie, aside from the many geeky awesome costumes that are witnessed, the best part about State is the women. The ladies go all out for state street, and honestly, it's a bit surprising. Girls, your dedication to the slutty attire in the face of freezing temperatures is inspiring. Really.

Here's a few more of the better costumes I witnessed this Halloween.










In addition to the huge numbers of people that showed up on State for the festivities, UW hires a band each year to play at the base of the capital. This year they brought in Third Eye Blind, with Cage the Elephant as their opener.

Now among my State Street crew was Jake Rohrig (Tony Stark) who loves Third Eye Blind, Rob Finlayson (Clark Kent) who loves Cage the Elephant, Andy and Sam (fellow silly hat wearers) who are mostly indifferent to both of them, and me. I like Cage the Elephant, and i REALLY like Third Eye Blind, but i wasn't sure i wanted to go to the concert. It was kind of a big time commitment, and getting up close would require an amount of effort (ie. shoving) that i didn't really want to participate in. Everyone could sense my aversion to the whole idea, so we decided to forget about the concert and move on.

...

Bazinga! (you guys never see my little practical jokes coming)

We totally stayed! Rob heard "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" and we all scrambled forth to be up close for when Third Eye Blind came on. We randomly ran into our next door neighbors from the apartment during said scramble, but during the ensuing press forward, we were separated. Like, extremely. Andy and Rob somehow stayed relatively close together, and Jake, Sam and I got up really close to the bandstand. I'm still carrying my "SiLLY HATS ONLY" sign, and in close proximity there is literally nothing i can do with it. I have to hold it above my head, which is already pretty high up. Of course, this little (relatively speaking) Asian dude starts shouting at me to put my sign down. Like i'm capable of something like that. I can't even tie my shoe, how am i supposed to set my sign down? Asshole. Whatever. I hadn't planned on being this close to the band.

It is at this point that State Street becomes frightening. Everyone is pushing to get closer (unsurprisingly) but there's only so much space to smash together, so we all inevitably get a little closer than we would generally be comfortable with, particularly among strangers. This results in some unplanned and occasionally unintentional grinding with a couple of random cute girls we ran into. I honestly couldn't tell you what their costumes were anymore. I've completely forgotten.

Anyway, when Third Eye Blind finally comes on, people get rowdy. Everyone rushes toward the bandstand, shoving violently. And sorry, i lost track of my story a little but it was at THIS point that State got scary. I lost my footing once and almost fell over, which i am CONVINCED would have been the end of my life. There were points where i couldn't breathe, and i had my feet trampled on and my head kicked by crowd surfers so many times i nearly lost my temper (in an 'i might kill you with my sign' sort of way).

We eventually escaped the madness, (dragging our 2 ladies in our wake, as they had had enough trampling too) because honestly, i couldn't even focus on the music, because i had to focus on survival. I had to think about ways to not die. It wasn't conducive to a good concert.

We finally met up with everyone at the apartment around 1 in the morning, at which point we decided we didn't need to go out to any parties, but would rather just watch a movie. And so we played "Tonight We Drink in Hell," a really intense drinking game to the movie 300. Then everybody passed out. The end. I'm sorry, but that just reminded me of this.

Rob and Sam ended up staying through Sunday and going home Monday, which involved watching the Packers vs. Vikings game, sitting around being lazy, eating a crazy unhealthy meal concocted by my cousin, and eventually watching Battle Royale. Man, every time i think i'm gonna wrap up this post i think of something else that i just HAVE to tell you about!

If you haven't seen Battle Royale... well, you have something in common with 98% of America. But it is seriously so funny. The basic plot is this: the Japanese government is sick of children boycotting school (or maybe they were just bored? i don't remember the details), so they round up a random class of school children, bring them to a deserted island, strap explosive collars to their necks, and tell them they have to kill each other. They give each child a random weapon, and send them out into the island to murder each other. It's so crazy!!! And the weapons are great. Some kids get guns, and then the less lucky ones get like... well, the protagonist gets a pot lid, and somebody gets a gps, etc. It's pretty awesome. If you are into the "so bad it's good" movie genre, you should DEFINITELY check this one out.

We actually enjoyed it so much that Andy went out and rented the 2nd one (that's right, a SEQUEL) which turned out to be nowhere near as good. The plot was crazier, they went way too in depth into each characters back story, and there was a lot less killing.

MY FAVORITE SLUTTY HALLOWEEN COSTUMES FOR THIS YEAR ARE:


The Olsen twins, as slutty... sluts?
OK, so there are some wings involved, and what appears to be haloes, but... what are those, butterflies? I don't know what it is, but i like it







And secondly, this slutty sailor. You know what? It's been so long since i started this post that i can't remember where i got this image. It's probably not even from Halloween. Looks like maybe she's just a stripper. Like maybe i just googled "slutty sailor" and saved this image. But ya know what? she's hot, so i'm gonna let it slide.

Alright everyone, it's taken me several hours over several days to finish this damned post, but i've finally done it!! Happy Halloween everyone!

Bazinga!!

I'm totally back!!

I just watched Greg make his lunch! And it was even more awesome than it sounds. He asked me to blog about bologna sandwiches, which i was immediately averse to, but when i wandered into the kitchen, i changed my mind.

Bologna has to be one of the more disgusting meats out there. It's like hot dogs, only flattened. For the record, i really like hot dogs. AND i don't mind bologna, given the proper circumstances.

The proper circumstances are as follows:
1. There must be some form of cheese in the sandwich.
2. There must be mayo in the sandwich.
3. I must be outrageously hungry, with little to no time in which to think of/make an alternative meal.

Greg's sandwiches flew in the face of all of my bologna sandwich criteria! He made TWO bologna sandwiches (one slice of bologna each), with nothing more than butter as a buffer between his mouth and questionable flavor! In addition to making one of the most boring sandwiches i've ever seen (second only to me grabbing a plain piece of white bread to eat on my way to class one morning. A mistake i shan't repeat, btw), it was PREMEDITATED! He was packing a lunch! For his trip to the library. There is a whole slew of issues with this plan, but i'm trying to stick to the packed lunch. There was no rush here! After he proudly placed his sandwiches into an overlarge tupperware (does another noun belong there? i never know what to call tupperware. It wasn't like a tupperware bowl. It was like... a tupperware... thingy), he sprinkled some of his staple food, tostitos, over the top. No one love tostitos like Greg. He eats them with/on everything. It's pretty great. So if anyone ever needs nachos...
You had better go find your own chips, because those are Greg's.

I don't remember what random YouTube search brought this on, but i found an alternative to an old meme using a different meme that made me chuckle. It's here.

As long as we are being immature, here's the poop thesaurus. Don't ask how this came up. It made Andy and i laugh for awhile though. But we are occasionally the maturity equivalent of 7 year olds.

I'm finally done with stressful activities until Halloween now, and i am feeling very relaxed. I am caught up on my work for once, so all i need do now is sit through classes until my friends arrive! It's gonna be a wonderful weekend. We found some new female takers for the beerstick!! I really am not going to stop repping it. It is so cool. In fact, if you wanna be cool like me (LOL) then you could get one yourself! One of my friends from high school sells them. Or you could just come hang out with me. Either way. Either way is fine.

CONTAINER!! That's a word that might have worked in the sandwich paragraph. Ugh.

The show Castle made me happy this week, though as Andy already linked the the Malcolm Reynolds comeback moment, i guess i'll leave off. It was pretty great though. Castle decided to be a 'space cowboy' for halloween. Good stuff.

Halloween updates are imminent! You can have 'em next post.

This Is Me, Being Contrite

I said some things I'm not proud of yesterday, shaming myself, causing unnecessary friction, and just generally being a punk.

I used my blog to vent some late night drunken frustrations, dredging up old stale arguments and twisting them to make me feel better about my (then) situation. I have since deleted them, hopefully before too many of you got to it.

I have to study a bit for an upcoming exam, but this may be my last post for awhile. The immediate flurry of well deserved hate mail regarding my 'crossed the line' post has me thinking that perhaps i need to take some time to consider whether i should have a blog at all.

Sorry to have let y'all down.

Drunk Blog Time!!

Evening friends!!!

I am slumped in my computer chair on this lovely Saturday evening (Sunday morning) trying to sober up before bed and i thought to myself "hey self! know what you haven't done in a while?? BLOGGED!" so here we are. (the we in this case being myself, and then drunk me, who will henceforth be referred to as Francisco. The two of us will be battling for coherence throughout the post. Its gonna be epic. Dear, i hope i win.)

For the record, i HAD a plan for today's post earlier, but Francisco went through my mente and threw all of my brilliant ideas in the basura.

BAZINGA!!! I'm full of good ideas.

Andy and i (and Francisco) are looking for love in this college town, and thus far, we've found lots of drunken hussies. And lots of really cool, really cute girls with boyfriends. And a few crazy girls. But very few girls we could/should be dating! *gasp* Shocking, i know. We are working on it.

The sad reality is that i have at MOST one more year to work the college venue, relationship wise, and after that, the dating pool is going to be absolute garbage, comparatively speaking. Buckle up kids, it's time to get more aggressive. No holds barred Nick (or Francisco, situation pending), comin' at ya! I'm swearing off of cowardice. Opportunities will be taken, boldness will be my daily breakfast, and... well, this pep talk has gone kind of... swervy. So I'ma move on.

I'M REALLY EXCITED FOR HALLOWEEN!!

Last year, i was a pimp











The year before that, i was Harry Potter (my favorite Halloween by far so far)

I have no costume for this year thus far, so i may just go as a college student.

...

Bazinga.

But seriously, I'm not telling you what my costume is. I'll post pictures if it turns out that i'm proud of it ;)

That's all for tonight as we are approaching 5 en la mañana, so with no further adieu, ...

"Stamp a Nick on her forehead and call it done!"

I was listening to some Owl City on the way to work today, and i got to thinking. As happens from time to time.

I was listening to Fireflies (the one that's super popular right now. you know the one i'm talking about. If you don't, here it is) which i honestly really like. I'm totally on the Owl City bandwagon. Fireflies is a great song, but my favorite song by them is On The Wing. But ANYWAY I was listening to Fireflies, and i decided one of the lines kinda made me uncomfortable.

Throughout the song he is talking about how beautiful and awesome the thousands of fireflies are, and then about 2/3 of the way through, he's like, well, the fireflies left, and it made me sad. The next line is, "But I'll know where several are/if my dreams get real bizarre/'cuz i saved a few and i keep them in a jar"




First of all, the concept of 10,000,000 of any insect is pretty frightening. To me. I DO NOT LIKE swarmy things.







So there are these 10 MILLION fireflies right? Scary. Bear with me (lol). OK, let's pretend it's nighttime. Beautiful, lots of lights, that's great. daytime? those aren't lights, that is a LOT of freaking BUGS!! RUN AWAY!

Now that we are past what i would consider to be a plague of insects, i'd like to draw your attention to the next line.

He GRABS a couple of them and holds them captive in a tiny prison-like jar!

...

I haven't decided whose side i'm on yet.

My friend Nick from high school posted this on his facebook, and it made me giggle, so i thought i'd share it with you!

Andy's weekend is pretty well spoken for, so i have to find other people with which i can hang. I plan on going to see a movie at some point, but other than that, my weekend is pretty wide open! Give me a ring. Or a comment if you don't have my numba ;)

My annoyingly helpful roommate says we can't watch the new How I Met Your Mother until i finish my homework, so i have to go now.

TTYL

Mood Pollution

Today, i woke up feeling rather crabby. There are a plethora of reasons for this, but it will suffice to say that i didn't get enough sleep. I rose with a short fuse, and felt my temper flare almost immediately. Firstly, i woke to the girls chattering in the living room. Which is fine. But what i was thinking was, "Why aren't they busy making my french toast?"

I woke up and asked them how they slept (with only a bit of mockery, considering the events of the past evening), followed pretty abruptly by WHERE IS MY FUCKING FRENCH TOAST?!

Then there was some hedging/excuses involving Andy still being asleep, and asking if we had the appropriate ingredients. We had no cinnamon in the house of course, so i dutifully went and bought some while Andy entered the world of the wakeful.

When i returned, Andy was awake, but as i entered the apartment with the final necessary ingredient for french toast, Lauren and Emily had convinced everyone to watch "I threw It on the Ground!" which is an SNL skit (its really funny actually). I begged her to start the french toast instead, but she insisted that the video had to be viewed immediately.

It is at this point that i grow frustrated. I've been up for a good 45 minutes now, with no near future prospects of the delicious breakfast i was promised. Because we all know what is started when one embarks on a viral video journey. It's never just one video. Once you pop, you just can't stop. They SAID it would be just one video, but this is a common theme of my life. I tell someone how something is going to happen, they refuse to listen, do the stupid thing anyway, and then it happens.

EXAMPLE:
Sophomore year, back when i had football tickets, Jake and I would always go to the game together, with a hodge-podge of different tag-a-longs (incidentally my favorite girl scout cookie). Nearly every game, we would stay until the very end, and then participate in "5th quarter." Now these games are already at least 3 hours long. By the end of them, I am always tired of standing, and absolutely ravenous, however Jake always wants to stay for the little song and dance portion which is another 30 minutes of energetic jumping, shouting, and thrusting hips about that i frankly never feel up for post game. We were there with people who had done 5th quarter before (and for those of you that have never done it, or perhaps done it just once, it is always the same. They play the same 5-6 songs every time, without fail. Not exciting. In my opinion at least. Which is currently the one that matters.)

I turn to Jake and say, "Jake, can we PLEASE go get some food? I am gonna die if we stay for 5th quarter today, and everyone here has experienced it before, and you KNOW i love the badgers, but i've just been expressing it for three solid hours! I'm hoarse, exhausted, and starving. Food? Please? I'll let you decide where!"

At this point, he looks at me contemplatively, as if to size up whether my current figure could withstand another hour of malnourishment. He says to me, "Nick, i just want to sing Varsity, and after that, we can go." Sounds like a bargain, right?

WRONG!!

I KNOW that if we stay for Varsity, the transitions are far too smooth with the band, and far too alluring to this school spirit filled all-American badger cheering machine. If we are here for Varsity, i will not be able to pull him away. I voice my concerns.

"Jake. Please. I know you. Don't make me do this. Please."
"Nick, i promise, it will just be varsity"

It wasn't just varsity. We did varsity, the band started "Tequila" and i saw Jake's eyes light up, and i resigned myself to starving to death. Back to my original story.

We watched I Threw It on the Ground, which led to repeated quotations of other Andy Samburg shorts, which led to statements like, "Wait!! You haven't seen _____ ?! O, we have to watch that right now!!" Rinse and repeat. I just want my french toast.

So i'm trying to stifle my urge to scream as the third Samburg classic comes on when Aaron pokes his head into the room and asks me if i could help him do some dishes. Not only am i not enjoying a delicious, sugary, fulfilling breakfast, but i am also now engaging in courtesy driven labor. I am feeling pretty furious.

Generally this sequence of events would have been a minor disappointment at worst, but this is cranky Nick. I take no prisoners. It's all i can do to be cordial. I finally get my french toast, and it was pretty great. an hour and a half later than i would have liked it, but delicious nonetheless (thank you Lauren). We finish eating breakfast, and realize that we have about 45 minutes before our movie showing of Where the Wild Things Are. Andy jumps in the shower, and comes out with about 32 minutes til show time. Now i know that it will take us about 15 minutes to drive to the theater, and i've also made note that the car taking us there isn't directly outside of the apartment. So when Lauren declares she would really like a shower, i once more voice my concerns.

If we left when Andy came out of the shower, we may have made it to the theater in time for previews. I explained my quick number crunch to Lauren while Andy was finishing his shower, but as is nearly always the case, i am assured that what i am sure will happen won't happen. Lauren says she can take a shower in 5 minutes. I am skeptical. But once again, it isn't like i can forbid my friends from doing what they are gonna do, so i let her take her stupid shower (WE ARE GOING TO A MOVIE THEATER. WE AREN'T GOING TO LOOK AT YOU, WE ARE GOING TO LOOK AT THE WILD THINGS. ITS DARK IN THERE. ZOMGZ.) Her shower takes 10 minutes, and the consequent hair and make-up session seals our fate as not only missing the previews, but potentially the first few minutes of the movie. This is a huge pet peeve for me. I walk with them all the way to car, at which point i look at my phone. It is 2:50. The movie starts at 2:50. I realize that if i go with them, i am just going to be a bundle of negative energy. I would certainly have brought the whole group down.

I turned around, walked home, and took a nap. I felt much much better after that. And Andy told me the movie was "pretty good," which if you know Andy, is like a 4 out of 10 for anyone else. He likes everything nowadays. Pretty good is a condemnation as far as i'm concerned.

Later, we watched All the Real Girls, one of Andy's favorite movies, but right at the freaking climax i get a text from one of my friends in my Shakespeare class reminding me to go to a review session for the exam i kinda forgot i had. So i didn't get to see the end of that, which was kind of disappointing.

These are two things that made today more tolerable
















shane singing 5 octaves
LOL!!! Check that finale!!! excellent.
Have a good day everyone.

These Bitches Wanted to Play a Game

"Identity theft is not a joke Jim! Millions of families suffer every year!!"

Once upon a time our honored guests, Emily and Lauren, that we agreed to house for the weekend thought it might be a fun idea to commandeer our super bed. This wasn't a fun idea. They thought to catch us unawares by sneaking into our bedroom and falling asleep whilst a movie was on.

In addition to attempting to wrest control of the comfortable sleeping quarters Andy and i call... well, sleeping quarters, (AKAs: the superbed, the continuum), Lauren thought it might be funny to put up a fraudulent post in my esteemed name. (see last post)

OK, so it might have been a LITTLE funny. HOWEVER Andy and i agreed we weren't budging from our 'they can't have our bed' standpoint before they arrived. Mostly out of spite, because they said they would be trying to steal it from us for the entirety of their stay. Also i would like to point out, it may have been in our hearts to allow them the bed had they asked nicely upon arriving. And bought us a drink or two. However not only did they steal what was ours to give or not give, they ALSO promised us breakfast each morning!! I don't think it was too much to ask.

They broke the agreement

We couldn't let the rampant theft and lies go unanswered, so we reclaimed what was ours. We obnoxious'd Lauren out using loud music and chauvinistic humor, and Emily (who wakes up for nothing and no one) we had to carry out. Anyway, i am looking forward to our conciliatory french toast tomorrow. It's gonna be delicious.

I think we are going to see Where the Wild Things Are tomorrow as well, which is kind of exciting.

O ALSO Andy and i stayed up late watching "One Missed Call", which we have owned for possibly an entire year without watching. And it was spectacularly awful, as anticipated. I freakin' love bad horror films.

Alright, talk to ya soon blogosphere!