Monday it was time to roll to Pittsburgh for their Opening Day against the Cards. I do the driving for this one and in the passenger seat is my boy Cork. It barely reached 40 degrees for the game, but we were pumped up regardless. It was a supposed sellout and standing room only. I think some stayed home since it was so cold, but we were fine. The biggest cheer of the game came late in the game when the sun peeked out for a few minutes. The crowd erupted at that, funny stuff. A nice pitching duel, the final was 3-0 Cards. Usually when we go, it's way high scoring. On the way home, we roll to Chili's in Morgantown where Cork works. He hooked me up with a 50% discount which rocked, so props there to him. Also, for the locals, we sat beside Coach Rod for whatever that's worth. Not a lot to me, but it's worth mentioning regardless. We walked in with his family and I was curious to what his wife looked like in person. I was telling Cork she looks hot on TV, but Cork said in person, it's not the same. He was right, she's not that hot at all, doh.
Let's fast forward to Friday morning, the main part of this blog. I get picked up at 7:45 AM and the road trip begins. We rolled 9 deep: Me, Ozzie, Maria (Ozzie's new chick), Kari, Matty Cakes, Fortney, Abbey, and Spank. I was technically the only single person on the trip, so that's always interesting. I can never keep up with my boy Spank on whether him or Alicia are together, so I always say he's not single anyways, that's how it works. They'll get married one day I still predict, but I don't stick my nose in any of that drama. As far who dates who and what goes on in town with hookups, I know less than my buddies that moved out of state, it just doesn't interest me much. We rented a van and I loaded up on car sick pills and took the very back to just chill. Luckily, I didn't get car sick, even with Ozzie driving like a maniac, but we got there. Hearing Kari get fired up at Ozzie's driving never got old the entire trip. Kari tells it how it is, the best way to be. I'm kinda the same, might as well just be honest and speak your mind. Some people may not like it. We're not trying to be punks, but if you want an opinion, I'm always willing to drop those.
As far as the ride itself, you can't beat a road trip. Spank and Fortney rocked it out with karaoke. A mixture of music on the ride, so that was fine by me. Not very much country that I can remember either. One stretch on the ride we got to talking about weird porn. Of course the guys had some good things to say on that, some things that locals have done (might surprise ya), and all of that action. This next thing wasn't anything major, but it turned out to be one of my favorite things on the trip. We were rolling along, about a half hour from Atlantic City. To the left of us, we see this thug doing a straight gangsta limp and seemed like he was in pain doing it. He was crossing traffic and would grit his teeth all gangsta style and we'd provide running commentary from the van. Why we didn't get a pic of this dude is beyond me. Each step, Fortney would be giving out a big mean "Yeahhh!" and I was literally in tears. Guess ya had to be there. So that became a running joke the rest of the trip with some of us as we'd do the limp and yell along.
The hotel situation I was big on. Somehow, the 3 couples stayed in one room, which made sense, but I doubt it was a lot of room. That meant that me, Spank, and Cork had a room to ourselves with a bed to ourselves, I wasn't complaining. 3 in one room, 6 in another, doesn't seem fair, but that's how they wanted it so I was cool. We had a little kitchen in the room and the TV setup worked out fine, pimpin place. It was either ESPN, BET, and one night we watched Deep Cover, a classic movie in my mind. That movie also featured the debut of Snoop as Dre made him what he was in the song Deep Cover, check it out.
Gambling wise, the casino part of the trip wasn't my cup of tea at all. I'm not a gambling guy and don't need people blowing smoke in my face. Spank did pretty well with that, while the others seemed to hold their head out of the water and just gambled a little. Last time I was in AC, I didn't gamble a dime. This time, I figured I'd throw $20 in a quarter slot machine, but it went by in about a minute, so that's never fun. Yeah, I'm tight when it comes to that stuff. Spank got it going on horse racing and blackjack. The others seemed to be pretty hot on blackjack as well. We thought we saw Clinton Portis in Bally's, walking out, but we weren't totally sure since he had big shades on. The guys with him were big and had Redskins coats on, so who knows. No other celebrity sightings.
Saturday was more wide open, so I liked that day. I woke up and had to get a workout in. We had a pretty nice setup with our hotel's gym as they had a Smith Machine (even though it wasn't too smooth), tons of treadmills, elipticals, and machines for everything else you can think of. I was surprised the others came along for the workout, so props to all of the guys for coming down and getting their buff on. I got a little run in, plus hit chest, back, biceps, and abs for whatever that's worth. Not too much I'm sure, but I'm writing it anyways.
After the workout section, it was time to get our shop on. Some guys aren't into shopping, but I don't mind it at all. I tend to blow too much money with that at times, but you do what you do. Spank and Cork opted to gamble while the other 7 of us went to shop. We joked that Spank was just along for the ride and we didn't see him a lot because he gambled the entire time instead of hitting up other things, but he had a blast and that's all that matters. Outlets all over the place and then Caesar's had a real nice 3-story mall inside its casino. Pretty crazy. Anyways, I loaded up on 4 new pair of American Eagle boxers, an AE fitted clover hat since it matches my Celtics gear, and then got a nice Celtics championship banner at this sports store that was a must buy. I was going to try out one of those dirty 24-hour massage places which I'm sure has a happy ending, but I figured I'd spend that money on the Celtics banner.
On the mall inside Caesar's, the top floor my crew shouldn't have even been allowed to step foot in. All the rich boy stores were there like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, etc. Most of the places I hadn't even heard of. I remember seeing this hair band for a chick that was $250. And that was one of the cheapest things in that store. The workers would look at us dumb rednecks and wonder what we were even doing in there, it was good times. We had to check it out though, it was definitely interesting.
I spent a good bit of money on food for the trip and that's what I planned. You can't put a price on some good food, nope. A few things though, as they say with Northern people, they're definitely total dicks for the most part. I could see the average person being that, no biggie there. But I'm talking about restaurant workers and the like. The farther South you go, you get that hometown feeling and everyone seems to get along and goes out of their way to be friendly. Also, the people up there have NO clue what sweet tea is. I tried to order it at this one place and this chick gets all grouchy and says, "Uh.. you must be from somewhere down near Virginia huh?" Close enough I told her. Even if I would've said West Virginia, everyone in the country thinks we're just Virginia anyways. We need to introduce these people to some real sweet tea and pepperoni rolls, we'd make a killing. Not saying everyone up there is like this, but more so than farther down. It was easy for everyone to pick up on our accents though, that's always a happening. I like how some people in my area say that we don't have an accent. People, we sound like big hicks, deal with it. I don't think I act like a redneck, but I sure sound like one.
The chick scene in Atlantic City? Brutal at best. This totally surprised my crew. Cork pulled out, "There's hotter chicks in Morgantown!" He was right, because there weren't too many good dirties up there at all. You'd think they'd be all over the place with all the people up there, running around half naked, but didn't see much of that. Also, we didn't make the wanted tittie bar trip for this stop. I think we got too caught up with other things and that wasn't as much on the priority list. I didn't see many actually. There would've only been a few of us that would've went anyways I doubt, but would've been a funny time getting the couples convinced to go. I've always said, for as much as I'm into porn like everyone else and stuff, I'm not huge on tittie bars. I'll go, but it's pretty rare, it just doesn't do a bunch for me. On the count, I've been to 4 different ones before (Lil Vegas, some dirty old truck stop place Jane Lew had, one in Morgantown, and a few years ago at some grimey ghetto joint in Atlantic City which rocked, never visited one more than once. Speaking of chicks, we ate at this one place and this one waitress (who I thought looked good regardless) was in a weird outfit. She was wearing a skirt with black hose and sneakers. This idiot from West Virginia doesn't have much say with style, but that was weird to me, oh well, she was still busting out of her top, so I didn't complain when she'd come over to our table.
Saturday night I had one of the better times on the trip. It wasn't anything major, but me and Cork wandered off on our own and went to Caesar's. The others spent most of the gambling in Bally's and didn't check much else out. The chick scene in Caesar's was better though, more of a younger crowd. We didn't want to gamble, so we found the TV section and we were instantly hooked for about 3-4 hours straight of watching baseball games on 4 different TVs at once. I got to watch 13 innings of the Yanks game, can't beat that with a stick. This older Italian couple sat beside us after a while and we were chatting it up. I can talk to anyone, so of course I'll ramble to them and tell them what I think. Come to find out, they're huge Yankees fans from New York and good people. Her husband is a big wig for Modell's, one of the main sponsors for the Yanks and they knew their stuff. I probably saw the most amount of Yankees gear as I've ever seen in my life in AC. I know most reading hate the Yanks, but I had a good time as the game heated up and hearing the crowd in Caesar's get pumped with the game and hearing the NY accents. All of that for free. Forget gambling when I can watch live baseball all night, me and Cork were loving it.
Sunday and the trip moves to the nation's capital, Washington DC. Out of the 9 of us, I was probably the only one looking forward to this part of the trip. That's because an NBA game was part of it, sweet. Bulls at Wizards. One story alone made DC and hopefully I can get some pics of it soon. As stated before, we rented a van for the festivities. We went to go to a parking garage and saw the clearance was 6'5". A few of us were guessing our van was about 6'7" or 6'8". Ozzie decides to go underneath the garage anyways. How the van didn't get torn up, I have no idea, but he was bashing water lines with the van, the clearance signs raking the top, and some sections we couldn't even get through. We were all in tears laughing and of course Kari was giving Ozzie every cuss word in the book. Once again, Kari makes the trip entertaining, gotta love it. And that's a good thing. We eventually got out, but barely. If our van had been a half inch bigger, we would've been stuck underground.
That's a good branch into the couple deal. Early on in the trip, Ozzie's girl Maria had to be scared to death with our bunch. First, she didn't know any of us hardly and knows about a day before we leave that she's going along. Bonus points for toughing that one out, but she fit in fine by trip's end I thought. Plus, she's Italian, so I'm biased and she gets bonus points on that, good find Ozzie. The other two couples have been together for a while. Matty Cakes definitely fits into the family as him and Kari will be tying the knot next year. A great dude and we got to hang as we battled in the arcade while everyone else was napping (boo on the naps on a vacation) and go to stroll around town while running into a local bum at a convenience store. The Fortneys had me going good since they'd make good cracks at the couples since they've been through it and rock out the married life. I think everyone got a kick out of Ozzie and Maria "true lovin'". Had to be Spank or Fortney that was picking on them for that, but all in fun, you know.
This is turning into one of my longest posts ever, so I better get towards the bottom half of this thing while you all are still awake reading this..
A few new CDs to make mention of. This is what we have added to the collection:
Devin The Dude: Waitin' To Inhale. Devin is talented if you've never heard his stuff before. He's probably the most laid back rapper I can think of. He makes his rhyme topics basic, he talks about weed and chicks. He's not out there making up things about him shooting up people or being a thug, he's just doing his thing. As he says in the song Broccoli & Cheese, he busts out the chorus of "Girl this dick is so clean, this dick is so clean that you can boil it in some collard greens. Girl this dick is so clean, girl this dick is so clean that you can serve it with some lima beans. This dick is so clean, it'll probably go good with your broccoli and cheese." Yep, that's different, so I had to put it in here, it cracked me up. Maybe it's just me. Snoop, Andre 3000, Lil Wayne, and Bun B all part of this CD.
Tha Dogg Pound: Dogg Chit. I liked this one. It reminded me a lot of older DPG stuff. My favorite song on this has to be Dat Ain't My Baby. If you can find that, give it a listen. Snoop, Too $hort, and The Game are all on this beast.
MIMS: Music Is My Savior. The CD itself isn't bad actually. He came across a lot harder and rapped faster than I expected. However, I'm about to bash This Is Why I'm Hot into the ground and bury it for good. They play that song ever 2 seconds and it needs a break for sure. His new single, Like This sounds good, but I hope it doesn't get ran into the ground as well, but we know it will.
Timbaland: Shock Value. A ton of people on this CD. Not one song is Timbaland by himself on. Beat wise, he's up there near Dre's level, so that's worth the purchase alone. We get a weird variety of people on this, but here is who is involved: Timberlake, Furtado, Dre (with a verse actually), Missy, 50, Yayo, and Magoo. Then we get towards the end of the CD, whitey rocker dudes which seems different such as The Hives, Fallout Boy, and even Elton John out of nowhere.
Bird's Dirty Thug Ho of the Week: http://www.myspace.com/femsxy3
Bird's Video Moment of the Week: Courtesy of #basketball, this comes from my boy Blahah: http://youtube.com/watch?v=-cCR3xKoDMk
Bird's Song of the Week: I wrote about this one when I got the CD not long ago, but this week's song will go to Buddy by Musiq, just click play: http://music.aol.com/artist/musiq-soulchild/441703/songs
3 Quick Thangs:
1. Let's try birthdays.. Thursday, April 19th: Indy driver Al Unser, Jr, he goes for 45. Famed Death Row Records gangsta, Suge Knight, 41. Hottie Ashley Judd, she's now 39. Actress Kate Hudson, 28. Star Wars dude Hayden Christensen, he's partying it up for his 26th. Tennis chick Maria Sharapova, Happy 20th.
2. State law in Ohio prohibits getting a fish drunk. Now you know, true story.
3. Another drinking thing: State law of North Dakota prohibits serving beer and pretzels at the same time in any bar or restaurant. Don't say I didn't warn ya.
