Happy Birthday Subastar, Let's Make You Wish You Were Deaf.

Yes it was indeed Subastar's birthday on Monday, and to celebrate we got up to some silliness on Saturday night.

By silliness I mean producing heart-explodingly awful shrieks of soul-castrating noise that I previously believed could only be made by a Banshee forced to watch the films of Ashton Kutcher.



And by that I mean Karaoke.

Now, those of you unfortunate enough to have seen the video evidence left from Oach and my last turn at such a project, rest assured that there will be no video of similar nonsense this go-around.

As for the rest of you, who have presumably never actively sought out an ice pick lobotomy, you can find the motivation to do so HERE.

It was actually a rather sane gathering. Instead of a bar with randoms and chaos and horrible waitresses who didn't know how to put together a bill like last time, we got a karaoke suite for our party of six people.

It was basically a padded cell like you would find in any insane asylum, except that the locks on the doors weren't as effective and demands for beer actually result in someone bringing you beer.

Here's me with the Birthday girl:


I was singing, I think she was just excited. I doubt those two facts had anything to do with each other.

I did get her a nice shirt for her birthday, which many people have agreed is pretty damn near perfect for her.


I'm sure I'm going to pay for this someday.

But where are my manners? I must introduce the rest of the players in this butchery of the musical world.

Myself and Oach you know, unless this is your first visit to my fair blog, in which case welcome, and I'll wait while you read my other 140 posts leading up to this one...

All set? Cool. You now know a lot more about me than I know about you. Right, Oach and Me.


We're delightful and not even drunk yet.

Woot! Has been featured once or twice as well. She's acquired a ducky paper plate since the last time we've seen her, evidently:



Also on hand was her brother, JWoot!


He's very mysterious.

AllDone was the last to arrive, LATE. We chided her for such behavior, and I think she took our constructive criticism to heart.


Or not.

Anyway, it was a good time with dancing



Cake that I made



And songs that spanned many decades and ran from brilliant to just awful.


This one is brilliant.

We laughed, we cried, we learned a few things.

1) We learned that the only lyrics to 'This is How We Do It' by Montel Jordan that anyone knows are "this is how we do it."

2) We learned that AllDone is a musical theater fetishist, and is basically two Chenoweths stacked on top of each other, like how other midgets would try to get into movies.


Wow. That's not at all what I meant.

C) Everyone else learned that I can sing all of Mambo #5 flawlessly without looking at the screen. We all have our secret shames.


Mine is that I own this album.

After the karaoke split up, we headed over to Dave and Buster's, but unfortunately all that happened there and the lessons we learned is a story for another time.

G'night folks,

Rev

Boilermaker 2009

Hello Hello,

Yes, the rumors you've been hearing are true. Last week I completed the Boilermaker Road Race for the 3rd time. Hat Trick Baby!



Yeah... I don't know what that is, either. I just typed "hat trick" into Google's image search and this is the first result. Let's see how Bing does:


Well, this seems to be a little more on target with the whole "making sense" thing.

What do you have for us, Yahoo?


Ephing YES! That's more like it!

Maybe I should use Yahoo more often...

Getting back to the point, three down. Oach, Subastar and I made the trek to Utica last weekend for this grand spectacle. I was in some doubt as to whether or not I would be successful in my latest attempt at the 15 kilometer (9.3 miles for those of you who hate the metric system) race. Mostly because I hadn't trained properly.

I blame two things:

Shin Splints


Maybe not so much the pretty lady part, though.

and

Laziness


I don't really have a pool. I just couldn't resist this picture.

Long story short, I approached the race with an uneasy feeling. But in all honesty, the race was secondary to what the weekend was all about. Dr. Rev and K'May were running as well, and Lt. Rev and family were down too.

It was a big reunion of the Revenawesome family.


First Utica, then a nap, then... THE WORLD!

A.Rev has gotten big, and learned a few words and is as adorable as a stack of puppies romping with an otterpile.



Here's A.Rev playing with Grandma Rev.

Much of the trip consisted of watching her run around, laugh at Oach and say "no!" whenever you asked her questions. A.Rev was fun, too.

Then, inevitably, the morning of the race came. I felt pretty good. I had loaded up on carbs the night before with my Mom's delicious lasagna. I had mentally prepped myself by hurling verbal abuse at the mirror every morning. Most importantly, I had purchased a sweet new shirt to run in. Check it out:


Yep, REVHS Competitive Eating. I couldn't not show that off.

Basically the only thing I didn't do was run long distances consistently over an extended period of time in order to prepare my body for a rigorous 9.3 mile endurance test.

No biggie.

As I mentioned before, I wasn't the only one who ran.


That's Curly, yours truly, K'May and Dr. Rev.

Curly had promised to run with me, and sympathized with my shin splint pain because he had somehow banged up his knee, presumably whilst playing lacrosse.

K'May is on another running plane of existence altogether, having run several marathons and Dr. Pete is no slouch, either (for a jerkface).

Oach and Subastar went with the remaining Revs to their traditional cheering area, about 5 miles or so into the race.


I enjoy this picture of them.

While waiting for us folks to pass by, Subastar took the opportunity to make sure A.Rev becomes a loyal fan of doughnuts and coffee for the rest of her life without really knowing why.



She'll probably just think it's because her Dad's a cop.

Then they saw K'May and Dr. Pete.


Of course the shirt came off. Of course.

Some time later Curly and I arrived.


I believe I'm trying to say "Woo!" at this point.

So wish I had a picture of the back of Curly's head, because that's all I saw of him shortly after this picture was taken. I think he'd be disappointed if I didn't bitch about this just a little, so here goes.

Apparently our definition of "running with someone" varies greatly. I generally think that it should imply starting at the same time, finishing at the same time, and generally running near each other for motivational support, pointing out acquaintances and the occasional filthy joke/look at that person moment.



Curly took a different approach, and when I veered to a water station to keep myself hydrated/motivated, he got a little ahead and then I lost sight of him completely around mile 6.

We still finished together though, so it was fine. Oh wait, no. He finished 14 minutes before I did.

I don't want to be dramatic, so I'll just say that in Dante's Inferno, there's a special circle of Hell in set aside for such behavior.

PS: it's the lowest one (9th).


Not to be dramatic or anything.


"I don't know where he is, I ditched him when he started crying."

But I suppose I gave away the ending with that rant. Yes, I did finish. I survived it in one hour thirty six minutes and thirty six seconds. That put me just out of the money in 8,353rd place.

And then came the beer, and all was forgiven:




Champions! Wait, we picked up another cow print shirt on the way... ah well.

Of course, A.Rev was absolutely riveted by the spectacle.




Catch you later, folks.


Rev

Happy Birthday, America!

Rather, happy conception day. Hmmm... now that I think about it, it would be a strange world indeed in which people celebrate the day they were conceived rather than born. I suppose it would lead to a lot of vague approximate celebrations, or an increase in banners reading:

"Happy to-be-honest-I-was-so-drunk-I-

thought-your-mother-was-her-sister Day."


The cake says "It was pretty win-win, actually."

I get that it's the Declaration of Independence, and that took the smartest guys we had using the power of their huge Balls to tell the King just where he could stick his tea, but there's plenty of other milestones. And who doesn't need an excuse to party?

We don't really go nuts over the ratification of the Constitution, though I use it as an excuse to get drunk every June 21st. This goes along with getting drunk celebrating the Articles of Confederation on March 1st, and from January 16th, when the 18th Amendment started Prohibition, through December 5th, when the 21st Amendment ended it.


Unless there's a fraternity pledge in that hole, this is a terrible thing.

I'm pretty sure I had a point to all this... oh yes, I was to tell you what I did over the weekend of the 4th of July. Well good news! It was a lot of fun.

Oach and I were visited by our old college roomie. I just had to look back in time to a previous visit to find out that on this blog I call him FH, for Former Housemate. It's tough keeping track of the nicknames sometimes. Anyway, here they are, looking appropriately crazed.




This was on Friday, when we went to Ellis Island. I was excited about this because despite living in NYC for nearly three years, the last time I visited Ellis Island was a sixth grade bus trip from Whitesboro. So back I went.



Here's FH inside of the main building:



And here's Oach, pretending he knows how to read:



And this is my favorite picture of the day:


Nice.


But as I said, that was Friday. On July 4th itself, we went to the Central Park Zoo!


Penguins!!!!!


Red Panda!!!


Polar Bears!!!

But we all know that the zoo was really just foreplay for what the 4th of July is all about. Fireworks and silly hats.

What? No silly hats?


Communist.


Anyway, to celebrate the 400th Anniversary of Henry Hudson blah blah blah the city of New York, along with Macy's, decided to hold the fireworks on the Hudson River this year instead of on the East River, where they're supposed to be. My attitude on this is colored by the fact that I live on the banks of the East River and also by the fact that I hate New Jersey.

Anyway, our crew headed over to 12th Avenue, which was a designated fireworks watching place thingy. We were right at 47th street, up about a block from the Intrepid.

Our crew consisted of me, Oach, FH, Subastar, FH's brother and his boyfriend.

We picked out a nice spot around 5:30 - 6:00 and sat to wait. Subastar and I held down the fort while the others foraged for food.


Holding down the fort.

In that picture you get a good look at the scar on my chin, that I got in a knife fight in which my wrist was tied to my opponent's.

Wait, that was the music video for Beat It.

Anyhow, it was pretty crowded over there.

This is the scene about 3 hours before the fireworks were scheduled to go off. Note the huge amount of sunlight.

People were getting there early because they didn't know what to expect, now that the fireworks were on the wrong side of the island. Regardless of what they expected, what they found was a huge lack of planning and a lot of cops with no real command structure, method of communication and only the vaguest of instructions to work with.

The blocks along 12th Ave were split up by fences. Once the police determined a block was full enough, they closed the fences, keeping people from entering or leaving. There were a few problems with this.

1) They did not tell anyone they would be doing this.

2) When they decided that our block was full, Oach and FH and company were still getting food for us.

C) There were no restrooms inside OR outside the cordoned area.

Thousands of families with small children + No bathrooms + a three hour wait before the fireworks went off = lots of unhappy people.

From my bladderly mighty perspective, the big problem was that it took 45 minutes to beg, plead and cajole the NYPD into letting my four friends back into the space that they had claimed 90 minutes prior. But I succeeded.

I must be one charming son of a gun. That or a mid-20's straight white male who approaches law enforcement officials with politeness and deference. Either way (both), I'm awesome and we all got to sit together.






And we had lots of food.

Really long wait, lots of crowding and don't even get me started on that Chinese family behind Oach and Subastar in that picture.

Still totally worth it.





And no, those aren't reflections. From our vantage point, we could see the fireworks from all six barges in the Hudson. It was great, and a fantastic way to end the day celebrating the Declaration of Independence.

Except that wasn't the end. We went back to the Troll House and had a silly hat party till 5 AM.


Happy 4th of July, Everybody!


Rev