A weekend in Phoenix.
I was in Phoenix this weekend for my buddy Steve’s bachelor’s weekend. The weekend was made possible by Brinkman, who let me crash at his place for a couple of nights.
Night one was quite uneventful. Brinkman and his wife were actually away at her company’s holiday party but they left a key for me to get in. When I arrived, his dogs were barking at me like they were going to tear me to pieces. As soon as I was inside the house though, one of them was super cool with me and actually wouldn’t leave me alone because he wanted to play fetch. The other dog, who was barking so violently moments before, was now deathly afraid of me. Great. I was supposed to bring the dogs in and Kallie was too scared to come near me. I had to leave the door open and ignore her while I played video games. She eventually wandered in and it makes me think of how the inability to rationalize makes animals so dumb. I mean, here was her buddy, Achilles, and he’s already in the house and playing with me. Kallie was incapable of noticing her buddy was kicking back with me and I was doing him no harm but she was still terrified of me.
In any event, the next day was a good time. It started off at a bar where we went to watch the UA basketball game. Steve is one of nine people in the universe that doesn’t have cable so we ended up in some shithole but it was good because it gave us the opportunity to start boozing. After the bar we went to the park to play sloshball. Good times. A keg at second base, no movement along the base paths without a beer in your hand, you have to skull a beer at second before you can proceed – what’s not to like? I guess for one thing, it’s hard to bat with a beer in your hand and a cigar in your mouth but in the grand scheme of things, these aren’t terrible things. Also, my team won after an epic comeback and walk off run in the last inning. Awesome.
The night went south after that. We were… in Phoenix somewhere, I don’t know exactly where. Brinkman and I had to go back to his place to shower for the night’s festivities at Mill Ave. We got the plan from Steve and Chris and headed out to some place that I think was called Big Bang or something similarly stupid. Steve had eschewed the usual tradition of strip club in favor of joining his fiancée for a joint night out. I’m guessing the choosing of the bar was left up to her as we ended up at a dueling piano bar. What. The. Fuck. I appreciated the musicianship; at times it was quite entertaining. But then I remembered that I wasn’t retarded and piano versions of sororstitute classics like “Blister in the Sun” and “Margaritaville” were dumb. As I was lamenting my bad fortune, Brinkman texts me with the following message “dude – it’s not too late to get out of here and go to a straight bar.” Awesome, way to save the night. I do feel bad about leaving Steve and his assembled crew but I did need to get out of there. I’m guessing if I was super, super, super drunk the Big Bang concept might have been slightly entertaining but since the layoff from drinking caused us to sober up considerably, Brinkman and I were in no mood for such tomfoolery.
Sunday was a relaxing day. Brinkman had Direct Ticket and TIVO so we were able to watch the Steelers game (my team) and the Vikings game (his team) at the same time without missing a snap of either. It was nice to see the Steelers end the Bears streak though it was hardly surprising for anyone who’s seen more than three consecutive seconds of any football game. That is all the understanding needed to know that the Bears had no chance. 21-3 was a nice final score too (yeah I know the papers say 21-10 but I refuse to acknowledge the 3-play, 80ish yard TD drive. It was too stupid to believe it really happened so I’m simply refusing to admit that it did. Sue me.)
My last impression of the weekend is simply this: Phoenix is fucking big. When the weekend was being planned, Steve was originally talking about going out to a bar near his house. Brinkman said there was no way we could do that and ever make it back to his house. I was confused. Then I drove from Brinkman’s to Steve’s Saturday morning. Though both locations are well within the greater Phoenix area, it was a 45 mile and hour long journey. Huh? Crazy. When I was leaving Sunday afternoon, I asked Brinkman if there was a shortcut to get back to I-10. He said, “well… you can take the 101 to the 202 and then merge to the 60. That’ll get you back to the 10 quicker than if you drove down Power and took 60 the whole way.” What the fuck? No thanks, I’ll take the 60 all the way rather than switch freeways 47 times. Which does bring up one last thing: there are oodles of freeways in Phoenix. The drive to Steve’s place took forever because of the spatial distance, not for any lack of ways to get to the destination. WHY DOES TUCSON NOT SEE THIS AND EMULATE IT. How is it that I live in a city with one “cross town” freeway that only skirts around the very edge of the city? Oh yeah… because there are a bunch of backward asshats here that want to maintain the quaint small town charm. Well here’s a concept for you eggheads to wrap your feeble minds around: a city with a population nearing 1 million is no longer quaint! It is fucking big and needs a reasonable transportation plan.
Night one was quite uneventful. Brinkman and his wife were actually away at her company’s holiday party but they left a key for me to get in. When I arrived, his dogs were barking at me like they were going to tear me to pieces. As soon as I was inside the house though, one of them was super cool with me and actually wouldn’t leave me alone because he wanted to play fetch. The other dog, who was barking so violently moments before, was now deathly afraid of me. Great. I was supposed to bring the dogs in and Kallie was too scared to come near me. I had to leave the door open and ignore her while I played video games. She eventually wandered in and it makes me think of how the inability to rationalize makes animals so dumb. I mean, here was her buddy, Achilles, and he’s already in the house and playing with me. Kallie was incapable of noticing her buddy was kicking back with me and I was doing him no harm but she was still terrified of me.
In any event, the next day was a good time. It started off at a bar where we went to watch the UA basketball game. Steve is one of nine people in the universe that doesn’t have cable so we ended up in some shithole but it was good because it gave us the opportunity to start boozing. After the bar we went to the park to play sloshball. Good times. A keg at second base, no movement along the base paths without a beer in your hand, you have to skull a beer at second before you can proceed – what’s not to like? I guess for one thing, it’s hard to bat with a beer in your hand and a cigar in your mouth but in the grand scheme of things, these aren’t terrible things. Also, my team won after an epic comeback and walk off run in the last inning. Awesome.
The night went south after that. We were… in Phoenix somewhere, I don’t know exactly where. Brinkman and I had to go back to his place to shower for the night’s festivities at Mill Ave. We got the plan from Steve and Chris and headed out to some place that I think was called Big Bang or something similarly stupid. Steve had eschewed the usual tradition of strip club in favor of joining his fiancée for a joint night out. I’m guessing the choosing of the bar was left up to her as we ended up at a dueling piano bar. What. The. Fuck. I appreciated the musicianship; at times it was quite entertaining. But then I remembered that I wasn’t retarded and piano versions of sororstitute classics like “Blister in the Sun” and “Margaritaville” were dumb. As I was lamenting my bad fortune, Brinkman texts me with the following message “dude – it’s not too late to get out of here and go to a straight bar.” Awesome, way to save the night. I do feel bad about leaving Steve and his assembled crew but I did need to get out of there. I’m guessing if I was super, super, super drunk the Big Bang concept might have been slightly entertaining but since the layoff from drinking caused us to sober up considerably, Brinkman and I were in no mood for such tomfoolery.
Sunday was a relaxing day. Brinkman had Direct Ticket and TIVO so we were able to watch the Steelers game (my team) and the Vikings game (his team) at the same time without missing a snap of either. It was nice to see the Steelers end the Bears streak though it was hardly surprising for anyone who’s seen more than three consecutive seconds of any football game. That is all the understanding needed to know that the Bears had no chance. 21-3 was a nice final score too (yeah I know the papers say 21-10 but I refuse to acknowledge the 3-play, 80ish yard TD drive. It was too stupid to believe it really happened so I’m simply refusing to admit that it did. Sue me.)
My last impression of the weekend is simply this: Phoenix is fucking big. When the weekend was being planned, Steve was originally talking about going out to a bar near his house. Brinkman said there was no way we could do that and ever make it back to his house. I was confused. Then I drove from Brinkman’s to Steve’s Saturday morning. Though both locations are well within the greater Phoenix area, it was a 45 mile and hour long journey. Huh? Crazy. When I was leaving Sunday afternoon, I asked Brinkman if there was a shortcut to get back to I-10. He said, “well… you can take the 101 to the 202 and then merge to the 60. That’ll get you back to the 10 quicker than if you drove down Power and took 60 the whole way.” What the fuck? No thanks, I’ll take the 60 all the way rather than switch freeways 47 times. Which does bring up one last thing: there are oodles of freeways in Phoenix. The drive to Steve’s place took forever because of the spatial distance, not for any lack of ways to get to the destination. WHY DOES TUCSON NOT SEE THIS AND EMULATE IT. How is it that I live in a city with one “cross town” freeway that only skirts around the very edge of the city? Oh yeah… because there are a bunch of backward asshats here that want to maintain the quaint small town charm. Well here’s a concept for you eggheads to wrap your feeble minds around: a city with a population nearing 1 million is no longer quaint! It is fucking big and needs a reasonable transportation plan.
posted by Sivlitz at 8:53 PM
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