Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Don't even get me started on sweet 16 parties

(I’d like to thank Vista for just rebooting and causing me to lose everything that I’ve just written. Actually, it was probably Natalie (named after Perfect Mate # 2 Natalie Portman) showing her anger at the praise I gave Perfect Mate # 3 Kelly Willis last night. Do not anger a vengeful laptop.)

I just could not get anything going at trivia tonight and that was with categories on Family Guy, The Simpsons, current events and baseball. I should have been sweeping those categories but instead I just could not get anything right. I even missed a question on Ollie Williams and he is one of my favorite Family Guy characters. Sometimes it just isn’t your night. It’s a bummer as I actually felt smart going into tonight and that isn’t a very common feeling.

I don’t have any real theme tonight so I’ll just hit on a few topics. I am really happy to see that my beloved Lindsay has obtained a sponsor for her 21st birthday party. In true Lindsay Lohan style, it’s a vodka company. Yes, the girl who a) was in rehab and b) admits to attending AA meetings has decided to get a vodka brand to foot the bill for her 21st birthday blowout bash. You have to admit, if you are going to screw up your life you might as well do it in style.

Isn’t it amazing that your 21st birthday could be so wild that it would require a sponsor? How out of control is your life when people are cutting advertising deals around your birthday. I didn’t have one for my birthday, which I celebrated in Champaign over a Labor Day weekend when everyone went home. I do remember much of it as we went on a bar crawl hitting most of the bars in town until I turned 21 at that place across from the EE building that had a dance floor. Two important points there: 1) Since you could enter bars at 19 in Champaign turning 21 didn’t really have much significance other than it gave my group of friends one additional person who could go to the bar and buy a pitcher and 2) While someone was smart enough to place a bar directly across the street from the electrical engineering building they decided to turn it into a dance club. I consider that to be a combination of poor marketing and just pure meanness. I literally spent Friday nights in that building working my ass off on some project only to look out the window to see some girls dressed up to hit the club. I’m sorry, but that was just freaking cruel.

(Oh, and if any Illini read this my old bar of choice was R&R’s as you could typically sit there, have a beer and watch the game in peace. I even had a buddy who did mechanical engineering homework there. When we wanted to meet girls we’d hit C.O. Daniels (where I tended to find myself up against a wall watching everyone go by). I think I only drank at Kams once or twice, it just wasn’t my kind of bar.)

Birthdays stopped being an event for me a while ago. Hell, I spent my 30th birthday alone, mainly because I had just moved to town and didn’t know a single soul who wasn’t also a bartender. It’s just never been a big thing for me. I never needed or wanted a big get together with huge amounts of organization. Just meet me at the bar, preferably the Backer, and we’ll find out where things go from there. We really don’t require sponsors for this. Well, at least not before. Maybe after.

No comments: