Turn the Page

Well you walk into a restaurant,
Strung out from the road
And you feel the eyes upon you
As you’re shakin’ off the cold
You pretend it doesn’t bother you
But you just want to explode

-Bob Seger

Lonely horn riff.

Looking back, we did indeed live in charmed times.  At one time it appeared that the Brewers would win the World Series, the Badgers would waltz into the National Championship, and Packers would go undefeated and bring home another Super Bowl.  One by one those items came off the table, and we looked with longing eyes to the next on the list.  By the time we got down to the just the Packers it was no sweat: that was the one we were most sure of.

Apologies to everyone at the party for my abrupt departure; I needed to go somewhere and throw heavy weights around to get my mind off of all the blowjobs those men-in-suits-talking-about-sports were gonna give Eli “Mushroomhead” Manning.  My therapy worked fairly well– I worked out real hard and then almost couldn’t walk afterwards.

This would normally be the space where I triumphantly announce that it’s only one month until pitchers and catchers report (Feb 19!) except that with the whole Ryan-Braun-injecting-crushed-up-Flintstones-vitamins-directly-into-his-balls cloud hanging over the Brewers I’m not sure how excited to get about even that.  Sorry, didn’t mean to turn this post into a downer.

Hey, next week is wwhazz’s millionth birthday. Let’s all go play air hockey at Union South!  LET’S EAT GRANDMA!

Rose Bowl 2012

Badger Pep Rally

The Rose Bowl was what it was: disappointing but fun. We arrived late, late Friday evening and slumped into bed.  Saturday was the pep rally on the Santa Monica pier, and we headed down early to get a bite to eat at the Scientist-recommended Mariasol. No sea monster sightings, but I did spy the fishermen/federal marshals hanging out with their “fishing poles.”  The marine layer here has been utterly bonkers all weekend. The morning starts out sunny, but by noon you can’t see more than a block away.  Case in point, by the time the Badger players arrived at the pep rally it was around 45 degrees and visibility was about 50 yards.

Saturday evening our original plan was to go out in Santa Monica and take it easy. I didn’t want to chance a club with lines and lists, and preferred the idea of just having a six pack in our hotel room.  Until, that is, I found out that See-Yew and the Bay Area Badger crew were partying in Pasadena for NYE.

We finagled a ride to Pasadena and back to Santa Monica (on NYE!) and headed out.  I met about ten million former fuddruckus direct-reports and drank two gigantic Jameson shots.  The shots were curiously world-ending for me; I didn’t leave the room on New Year’s Day and just laid around and moaned loudly.  To Spacebee’s credit, she got sick of the moaning and left the room for awhile to see the sights.  My total meal consumption on New Year’s Day: hamburger/fries, pepperoni pizza, ice cream & cookies.  Sigh.

Pregame Tailgate

The day of the Rose Bowl we woke up early and got dressed in our epic multitude of Badger Stuff.  Beads, pins, shirts, stickers, sunglasses, and more.  The bus to Pasadena arrived late and we sat in traffic for a looong time.  We had tickets to the 10:30a-1p Badger Blast tailgate (all-u-can-eat/drink) but didn’t end up getting there until 11:30a.  Sad face, but we still managed to get a brat and a few beers.

The game was very exciting, and the only problem was that we were in a micro-island of Badger fans swimming in a sea of Oregon fanatics.  It made it all the more sad at the end as it was slow-going getting down the aisle what with Ducks fans dancing in it.

Tuesday was probably the best day we had out in California; the sun was shining in Santa Monica and after checked out we had a few hours to kill so we walked around the downtown area, had luncho at Ye Olde King’s Something-Something, visited the Palisades (bro!), and wandered down the pier one more time to see if we could catch a glimpse of the Monkfish. Alas! No monkfish.

The Palisades, Bro!

New Baby Thread

I’ve got nothing much to say about anything, but the old thread is long and we’ll have new baby news any day now.

Spacebee and I are heading out to Pasadena tomorrow (Friday, 12/30) to hit The Rose Bowl and attendant partay-ing.  It should be a fun trip, as I was adamant that we do absolutely no sightseeing or touristy shit.  I think the Rose Bowl/pre-party/tailgates/etc. will be fun, but I other than that I just want to sit around and be lazy.  The Badger Pep Rally is on the Santa Monica Pier and I can only hope that I see Phillip Seymour Hoffman there walking his dog or whatever.  I’ll say to him, “I DON’T WAIT FOR OLD PEOPLE!” and then giggle.

In other sad but awesome news, Yuri left Intuit to join a startup and he’s headed down to San Antonio for three months to get acquainted and get down to biz-nass.  He’s leaving next Thursday and we get back from California on Wednesday.  I’m down to have a good ol’ sendoff- anyone else?

CAL CAL CAL!

Here’s some Childish Gambino for you…

Anything else? SOPA is shitty! I’ll probably have to shut off comments on whazzmaster if it passes- which sucks. All so some shit-eating hollywood-man can add another bottle of Dom to his bathtub. Fuck SOPA.

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

The Canfield Experience (look closely)

Dubuque was great! Well, not so great as the last time, but a good time was had by all.  We also saw CAL and he even played craps with us!

From the top? Ok.

Wwhazz, Lawman and I raced out of town Friday afternoon with a gleam in our eye and the rising feevah.  Oh, we played it cool; we sauntered into The Canfield Hotel and answered all questions asked: where we were from, how we were doing, if we knew not to park next to the hotel because they like to keep that lot open for the karaoke patrons, if we had ID, if I knew what kind of name ‘Moneypenny’ was, if we had any singers in our group, if I would retrieve the front desk worker to watch when I returned from dinner and sang, how many people we had with us, when were they arriving, which room did we want, if we wanted this in one credit card transaction or two, and so on and so forth.

Once we were safely ensconced in 227 we unpacked a bit and decorated. On one wall, a 1992-1993 Milwaukee Bucks poster.  On the refrigerator, Will Purdue’s size 27 shoe.  And IN the fridge? Oh, look closely to your right and you’ll see the treasures buried there.

Soon we were out and about, headed towards Mystique Casino- which is really hands-down the greatest casino in Dubuque.  Whatever little Internet cred I have I would like to cash in now in order to say: Mystique equals GREAT and Diamond Jo’s equals DUMP.

The watchword of the weekend: see-saw.  Sally saw seashells by the seashore, and then she watched me dump five bills two hours before a triumphant six fold score.  Sally, WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY ANYTHING~!  I only had two non-craps experiences this time: I won $80 playing roulette and the next day I got straight-up mugged by a blackjack dealer for like a hundo in five minutes.  Sad, really, that they had to resort to such skullduggery.

The high(low)light of the trip was when we went to Diamond Jo’s and got treated like scum by their ever-dour team of meanmugging dealers and boxmen.  No jokes from that crew and lots of being yelled at for the smallest of infractions.  Example: I had been betting $1 Any bets off and on, but pretty consistently.  At one point I decided late to bet and reached for my chips.  I fumbled grabbing a white chip but, being just at Stick Right I said aloud “dollar any” while the dice were in the air and tossed the chip onto the table before the dice landed.  The boxman yelled “NO BET THAT’S NO BET” and then sternly lectured me on when bets could and couldn’t be made.  Look, FUCK YOU Diamond Jo’s craps pit; I have booked verbal DOLLAR-FUCKING-ANY bets from Ho-Chunk to Vegas and back.  It’s an 11.11% house edge and it’s a 7-to-1 payout on ONE FUCKING DOLLAR.  And you’re going to call my bet off and, even worse, give me grief over it?  When I’m betting hardways for your dealers all night?  How about you just eat shit and die?

At the far opposite end of the scale from the terrible, rude service at Diamond Jo’s Casino was the once-again stellar time we enjoyed at Mystique Casino.  The craps crew working over the weekend was in large part the same folks we had a great time with last December.  Really fun crew all around, and even though we only roll through once or twice a year we were even remembered by some of the people.  We had a few good rolls, a few great rolls, and a few not-so-great rolls, but we had a fun-as-hell time there.

It may be heresy, but the idea that we stay at Mystique instead of the Canfield was even discussed.  May not go anywhere, but that’s how much we hate Diamond Jo’s now.  Don’t go there; it is terrible.

Anyway, lah-dee-dah and all that- we headed out rather early Sunday morning to get back to Madison for a joint-baby shower-slash-Packer-game.  Packers won handily, which was great, because I wasn’t in the greatest head space after a weekend of fooling around in Dubuque.

Brewers News

Ugh, well, we got the news that Braun was roiding (or whatever, dude was drinking some kind of Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde potion) as we sat at the bar in Champagne, eating steaks and listening to wwhazz bitch about being made small of by the host at the entrance.  All of our cells started buzzing incessantly as Cubs fans from all over the country poured on the scorn.  Whatever, jerks, soon you’ll have Prince Fielder and you can cackle all the way to another mid-division finish in 2012.

I returned home to find that the Brewers had signed Aramis Ramirez to a 3-year deal, and just this morning the Crew traded MAGUHAHEEEEEEEE to the Pirates for a pitcher.  I’m worried about Tony Plush, but I have FAITH~! that the Great Mustache will make the right decision and extend his contract.

T-Minus One Week

The Dadchelor Party is incoming; t-minus one week until lift-off towards Dubuque, IA and untold riches.

Let’s do a quick check-in on area sports teams:

• Badgers: going to the Rose Bowl again
• Packers: going to the Super Bowl again
• Prince Fielder: the market’s heating up!

Hallo!

When someone complains that a thread on whazzmaster is too long I immediately leap into action and open the offending link. “Yup,” I say, “That there is one long ass thread.”  And then I go back to doing work I get paid for.

So for you that hate scrolling, and REALLY don’t like looking at those Wal*Mart-brand models in the Packer Rock Anthem video, here’s a new playground for you to gander at.  It’s fresh, clean, and filled with the unspoken (until now) promises that The Old Man will appear from the mists to tell us what he’s been up to these past six or seven years.

I can’t wait for Dubuque. I can’t wait for the MaddCal pitcher’s duel.  I can’t wait for xmas.  I can’t wait until everyone’s babies are born (and there are a shitload in the hopper).  I can’t wait until January, when I’m trying to get the eff outta Wisconsin and jet down to San Diego.

I can’t wait for you!

And On and On…

I’ve put some distance between myself and the Brewers season, so why not celebrate the fact that the Packers are un-fucking-stoppable:

Canfield is engaged for December 10th.  Everyone invited, even you fools out in California.  Cal, grab Greg’s hand and skip on over to Dubuque.  Judd, push Fournier into some kind of burlap sack and throw him in the belly of a plane.

“Stop, the Bears are bad.”

Vacation Winding Down

Spacebee and I are headed for San Francisco this morning; it’s the staging ground for the final day of our trip.  We’ll check-in, throw on our Badger gear, and then head over to Aces to watch the game.  We have it on good authority that Badger fans are welcome there.

I also threw out an invite to Cal and his Lady to head on over and join us.  Maybe he’s out lawyering tonight, though.

It was a hectic as shit week out here, but Spacebee seemed to have fun and I was able to juggle work and fun-onna-bun socializing.  Fuddruckus and Manders took us to Cin-Cin in Los Gatos, and it was A+ fantastic.

So tomorrow morning we’re headed home- I’m looking forward to quite awhile with no traveling, and I made sure we’re stocked up on wine for the holidays. Woo!

Horton Babies, Y’All

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

It’s my pleasure to report that Arlo and Jen had a baby last night! It’s a GIRL and everyone’s feelin fine.  Major congratulations to all three of them.

I won’t post any info because this is the INTERWEBS and doncha know a kid don’t need to start her life with her name plastered everywhere.

What A Long, Strange Trip

The Milwaukee Brewers are in the National League Championship Series.

We’ve spoken at length about the Brewers- you and me. We can even go pretty far back and talk about the bad ol’ days.  We knew there would come a day; we just didn’t know if we’d be alive to see it.

At any rate, let’s talk about the Cardinals a second.  I’m not sure if I’ve ever witnessed a bigger bunch of complete dickheads- every Brewers story online is filled to the brim with a teeming, boiling lake of shitstains complaining about how the Brewers have no class, Nyjer Morgan is a cancer, etc., etc.  I never quite understood why Cubs fans hated these dudes so much, and now I know in spades.  Is there a sort of Dour Fuck Attractor attached to the Arch that beckons long-faced schmoes from far and wide to cheer and play for the St. Louis Cardinals?

I know the Brewers can stomp the Cardinals- this is a fact born by the realities of this season.  I hope and pray that they use this opportunity to hit a grand slam, BEAST MODE around the bases, flip off Tony LaRussa while rounding third, cross homeplate doing a backflip, and then have sex with Pujol’s wife.  And then park the Cardinal’s bus down at Grand Avenue Mall during the game so they gotta walk to it.

So, er, Go Brewers. Do eet.