Building a Model Car - Home Entry!

After bitchin’ and complainin’ about money in last week’s entry, you had to know that this week would be a home entry, didn’t you? I thought this time I would take my mad skillz (I have no idea who has taken over the little dictionary in my brain but I think I want to kick their ass) out of the kitchen and into the living room for a little hobby-in’. On Thursday I stopped by the craft warehouse by my place of employment looking for some inspiration. I’ll have you know that before the model car that is this week’s new thing, I almost brought home a ‘make your own yarn booties’ kit. (Because, really, it would be pretty damn funny). But alas, I stuck to my gut and got the model car as I knew Kevin would probably be excited to help.

And he was! Never being a young boy like Kevin has, I never had the inclination to build a model. Kevin, however, has built quite a few in his day. I like his stories of trying to be quick in building the model just so he could play with it. And some weird story about just breaking the propeller off right away…I don’t know, guess you’d have to have once been a young boy.

So….let me introduce you to the 1968 Shelby GT- 500. Or the box that contains the parts to a 1968 Shelby GT-500.



Kevin had warned me not to get my hopes up on what the picture on the box looked like compared to what I was actually going to build. Apparently the car pictured on the front of the box is air-brushed and put together by a hundred 5-inch munchkins who’s sole job is working at the Shelby GT-500 factory at 32 cents an hour. I guess most of the munchkins are over 300 years old but from what I gathered, that’s pretty young for a munchkin.

But yes! I was talking about ME building a model.

The very first thing I noticed while building this car is that there are a lot of freakin’ pieces. The 2nd thing I noticed is that the instructions aren’t really that clear. And the very last thing I noticed was that my car would never be as nice as those damn munchkins!


I just realized I was using the Obits to do this. (forshadowing, no?)

Per Kevin’s instructions, I began with painting the pieces I knew would take a while to dry. After the 2nd coat on the body of my model I realized that Kevin is pretty damn smart and that the enamel that you use to paint models is a lot like nail polish. I didn’t think those things at the same time by the way. But yes, nail polish. And here I went and bought a tiny vial of enamel thinner when I have an almost full bottle of Sally Hansen Nail Polish Remover in the upstairs closet!


Huh?

After painting some of the pieces, I build the engine. 3 hours later I said, “a-ha!” and Kevin dragged me out of the house for lunch. I really didn’t think this project would take so long.

When we got back I started on the chassis. This is really the point where I got frustrated, starting with the tie rod that didn’t seem to go anywhere. I think the tie rod was suppose to magically float around the body of the model in some mystically fairy-type way. I innocently asked Kevin if I really needed a tie rod and without waiting for him to answer, I threw the piece away. In retrospect, this may be the reason why my tires keep falling off, but oh well.

At Hour 7 the body of the car was ready to make sweet love to the chassis. In my excitement I kind of jammed the whole thing together, which caused two tires and the rear view mirror to come off. I persisted my jamming technique only to come to the conclusion that I broke something and that the body and chassis would never come together as one as designed. Talk about not finishing! I put the tires and mirror back on with a half tube of glue and called it a night. The model came with cool looking decals but my patience had been depleted and I ended up just tossing them out. Sorry Shelby GT-500! Sorry munchkins!



All in all, I enjoyed making the model during Hours 1 – 4. I think if I attempt this again, I’ll build it over the course of a few days instead of just one.

This picture, by the way, is the glamour shot of my Shelby GT-500 and my little buddy, Arlo. (Beth should remember Arlo well).


Arlo looks to the future without munchkins!

Ah, sweet paycheck! Out of the house again next week!

Orange County Museum of Art - Newport Beach, CA

A few precursors to this week’s new thing:

Number one: When I first started the new thing every week, I never actually factored in the cost of doing it (a.k.a. True Cost). Honestly, the true cost never really crossed my mind for an iota of a second. And when Kevin reads that last sentence I promise you he will be nodding his head and rolling his eyes in absolute agreement. Obviously doing new things usually involves going places, and driving places, and spending a few Washingtons in the process. With that said, I have been searching around for cheap new and even better, free things to do. This is how we ended up at the Orange County Museum of Art on a Thursday night for what was described on their website as a "contemporary after-hours scene" of the Orange County Museum of Art, including a live DJ.

Number two: Not all new things turn out to be good new things.

The website stated that the mingle\music started at 7 PM on Thursday. We got there at 7:15 and noticed that the ‘museum’ was really a ‘well lit hall’ and that not too many people showed up. We also noticed that we were severely underdressed compared to everyone else in our jeans and sweatshirts. The biggest thing we immediately realized was that the museum wasn’t actually open…. and according to the front desk personnel, wouldn’t be for another few weeks. What we were attending was apparently a fashion show\fashion design competition\live DJ (which was a older man in a plaid flannel and trucker hat).


Well-lit hall

Yeah, Kevin wasn’t very pleased, and neither was I to tell you the truth.

We did spend some time in the museum’s gift shop which I find funny was open when the actual museum was not. But, whatever.


$50 art puzzles anyone?

We stuck around long enough to see a few models, have a glass of wine, convince the local radio station to give us a free t-shirt, and for me to take close to 20 not-very-well-lit photos of nothing in particular.


Enter in your own "I'm too sexy" joke here.

Then we went to Ralph’s. I took a couple photos of the cashiers at Ralph’s just to be obnoxious. The cashier on the left asked us where we were from as obviously no one local would take a picture of the inside of Ralph’s if we weren’t from out of state. They looked disappointed when we told them we lived across the street.

Warning kids! Ralph's checks IDs. And will evil-ly smile when doing so.

So all in all, this week’s new thing was a thumbs down. However, we did end up having a great weekend doing a whole bunch of been-there-a-hundred-times-before things like dinner at Mother India, brunch at Woody’s Wharf, pool at Balboa Saloon. I even cleaned the house.

I’m still not sure what’s on the agenda for this upcoming weekend but I think I’ll avoid anything with ‘fashion’ and ‘free live DJ’ for now.

Have a great week everyone!

Scrabble Club, Aliso Viejo, CA

I will fully admit that by last Friday afternoon I had no idea of what I was going to do new this weekend. Kevin and I stopped at Memphis for Happy Hour after work Friday (Go there and have the Happy Hour Meatloaf sandwich for $4.00. It will be the best $4.00 you will have spent in a long time) and I picked up the Squeeze OC (how clever) for some ideas. We had planned on going to see Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band at the Galaxy, but at $30 a ticket it was really out of our price range. It was a cover band after all and I don’t care if Gary Sinise was naked for most of the show, that’s a lot to pay for a show where they don’t even do their own music.

Just opposite of the listing for Gary Sinise, Kevin saw an event. He gasped, and then shut the OC Squeeze quickly. When he does this, it usually means that there is something he doesn’t want me to see, or more importantly, something he desperately does not want to do. Of course this only makes me want to do whatever it is more. And that, my friends, is how I ended up at The Neighborhood Cup on Sunday afternoon playing Scrabble at a scrabble club gathering.

I figured the outing would be cheap at $4.00 a session. What I didn’t take in account was the $7.50 in tolls it took to get there and the massive amount of beverages one can consume when they are concentrating very very hard at not losing too badly at Scrabble. Thankfully I no longer drink caffeine as the amount of decaf coffee and stress that is club Scrabble may have forced me into going postal.



By the way, I’m sorry for the lack of pictures, I was too busy thinking of words and not getting my ass kicked.

So club Scrabble….It’s a bit different than ‘at home’ (or “Normal People”) Scrabble as you have a timer set up very similar to chess, you have to keep your score as well as your opponents, you have approximately 3.2 seconds to come up with a fabulous word (see timer above), no one smiles, and nonsense words are completely legal. OK, so I guess technically they aren’t nonsense words as they are in the dictionary, but you won’t hear me using zyzzyva (a genus of tropical American weevil often found in association with palms) any time soon. Actually, zyzzyva is a bad example because of the ‘Z’ thing, but you get the picture.

Here’s another short list of two letter words that are completely legal. The full list can be found here.

zi – an honorific used in Imperial China
st – an exclamation of impatience
qi – Chinese life force (chi)
ny – to approach
ky – cattle (also a jelly!)(I’m so sorry I went there.)
io – an interjection

You may be asking yourself, “Well Moe, how did you do?”

I will respond in saying, “Not as bad as I thought I would.”

The first person I played against was a serious weekly club goer. She scolded me for most things that I did, including putting my fruit smoothie on the table where it might spill and ruin the chess-like counter thing and not shouting out my play score when I worked out the math. But I only lost by 70-some points. Which isn’t so bad I think. This lady was also kind enough to say, “You don’t play online and you got over 300 points your first time here? You’re a natural. You’ll be really good if you keep it up.” I think she was giving me a load of crap but hey! I’ll take compliments (and post them unbashed here) where I can get them.


Check out the cute pink timer thing. That timer ruined my life.

The 2nd lady I played was also a newbie like myself. We didn’t take the timer too seriously and she opened herself up a lot on the Triple Word score spaces. I beat her by over 100 points (I’m a natural!)(*har har!*) and felt that was good enough to end on. Normally a session would last for 4 games, but it was getting late in the afternoon and I didn’t want to spend my entire Sunday wondering if the lady with the squirrel embroidered sweatshirt was going to take me to school and show me what the letter ‘Q’ is really made of.


Oh sure, they LOOK all sweet and Grandma-ly...

Would I do this again? Maybe. But I think I might wait a few years until I’ve aged like a fine wine (*GAG!*) to attend again. Hell, if I’m a natural my skillz (with a ‘Z’ even!) will sustain and grow with me (*I’m totally gagging myself with the cheesiness*).

See you all next week!

Pimpin’ Ho-Ho’s - *Home Entry*

Before you all think that I’ve crossed over to the dark side of this ‘new this weekend’ thing, I would like you to take a quick (click) journey with me for some understanding.

Please click here. Stay awhile if you’d like. I’ll be waiting for you when you get done laughing in wonder and amazement. Especially since the Cadbury Egg is the greatest man made creation this side of the Mississippi. Or even the other side. Hell, the world!

Because of this wonderfulness that is Pimp That Snack and the ease that the submitters appear to accomplish such feats of Pimpin’ Glory, I had to try my hand at it. It didn’t look too hard, really, and I figured it was about time someone gave kudos to the greatness that is the Hostess Ho-Ho.

My plan was to submit my entry to the site once completed. I didn’t do that. You’ll see why.

I got a recipe for Hostess Ho-Ho’s off of the Food Networks website. The recipe was for normal sized snacks but I figure a little improvising would get me through.

I started off with twice the amount of the recipe’s suggestion. This would happen to include the entire continent of Africa’s ration of butter.


This is only SOME of the butter I used.

Packages of Ho-Ho’s used to contain two, um, Ho’s. Hostess, God bless them for feeding into the nation’s obesity problem, has since included three ho’s in every package. Not knowing this, went for the classic two ho’s in my project. Man, how many hits am I going to get on this entry?

I started off with the cake part of the first Ho. This included a lot of melting of sugar via steam and brushing off my mixer that never sees the light of day except to whip Thanksgiving mashed potatoes. I added the cocoa and used a standard cookie sheet to bake the cake in.

While the first cake was baking, I tried putting together the sugar whipped creamy filling. This really was the start of my pimpin’ demise and the unneeded waste of a crap load of Africa’s butter.

While the filling looked OK, once spread on the cake, I realized that it wasn’t going to fill the cake once rolled. I tried whipping some mini marshmallows (read: more butter!) but I got too anxious putting the marshmallows on and rolling the cake that the filling just oozed out the side and covered most of my kitchen, myself, and the always underfoot cat with a sticky goo.

I put the pitiful first ho in the freezer to chill.

This might be the saddest thing I have cooked since souffle.

By the time I started on the 2nd cake, I felt like I had grown as a person just a little bit. I felt as though I couldn’t possible make the same mistake on the 2nd ho like I did the first. I would perfect it I said! And by all accounts, the 2nd ho is a heck of a lot better looking than the first. I figured that the standard Ho-Ho chocolate coating would cover up at least some of the mistakes I made.

Yeah. Except I kinda didn’t get enough chocolate. By this time I was both exhausted from 3 hours of pimpin’ and on a bit of a sugar high from all the wayward crème filling that just happened to jump in my mouth (oh the hits I’m going to get!) that I just poured on what chocolate I had and called it a night.

Kevin came down right at the point where I took my final picture and helped me clean up the kitchen. After the kitchen was finally clean, he preceded to make the best homemade pizza in the world. Show off. Too bad it wasn’t a pimpin’ pizza or else I would have forged his creation as my own and submitted it to Pimp That Pizza. If there was such a thing. Which there isn’t.

Getting hungry, huh?

See you folks next week when I plan to actually get out of the house.

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New Site of the Week:

If you haven’t yet, you should check out a blog called Whoopee. If the weasel on a motorbike entry doesn’t get you laughing (like a weasel rodent, not like a weasel dumb butt)(on a motorbike!), you are a robot and I will make you do my taxes…for free. Because robots don’t get paid, see?

Warner Bros VIP Tour, Burbank, CA

Happy New Year Boys and Girls! Hope this post finds you happy, safe, and not stuck somewhere in Toledo with no recollections of the New Year festivities and how you ended up in Toledo in the first place; unless you actually live in Toledo of course.

This New Year’s Kevin and I headed up to Burbank, a.k.a. the Valley. This was multi-purposeful as we had two destinations in mind. One was to watch Brett Favre’s last game at a Packer’s bar (previously mentioned in the Hollywood post) and to go on the Warner Bros VIP lot tour, this week’s new thing. In between we went to a great little lounge called the Blue Room to ring in the New Year. If you are ever in Burbank, I would highly suggest going to the Blue Room. The cocktails are cheap and the clientele are actually very friendly.

So the Warner Bros VIP tour…



First off, if you go on the tour I would recommend not going out for cheap cocktails to ring in the New Year the night before. That said, the Warner Bros tour was actually quite fun. A tour guide takes a group of no more than 12 people around the lot in a large golf cart. You get to see sound stages, prop rooms, fake-front sets, etc. Normally people would be working on the lot so the chance of seeing a show being filmed or Charlie Sheen picking his nose in between takes is quite high. Unfortunately it was a holiday so the lot was a ghost town.

One of the very first places we were shown was the outside set of ER. They described how the set was made, how they film in different angles, and how they can fabricate the dreary Chicago weather in sunny California, all very interesting.


Part of the ER set

We then moved on to Stars Hollow, the Gilmore Girls town. I am (and should be embarrassed to admit it but I’m not) a huge Gilmore Girls fan. Show watcher I guess would be a better term as I couldn’t tell you the birth dates or favorite colors of the main actors characters and I am not the president of the Gilmore Girls fan club (ala Marsha Brady). Regardless, Kevin made fun of me for taking so many pictures.

Gilmore House and the town center. I had to stop myself from stealing the gnome.

After Stars Hollow came the museum. No pictures were allowed or else I would have given you a photo of myself hugging the big spider from Harry Potter. (Just because I’m a big dork.)

Car from the Harry Potter movie

From there we did the sound stage for Two and Half Men, the Gilmore Girls house, the prop room where they had the Friends Central Perk café set up, and a few other things I barely remember. The tour is two and a half hours so by the end the novelty of it all wears off a bit and you start to hope that they feed you lunch. They don’t by the way.

German tourists love 'Friends'

I will say this though, to be a tour guide there you must have to be a walking IMdb(.com). Our guide was throwing lines from movies like a 13-year boy who just saw Animal House.

All in all I would recommend checking it out. The ticket prices are a bit steep at $42 a person, but is a great tour and worth the price. I would suggest going on a ‘working’ day, as I feel a bit cheated in not seeing Charlie Sheen pick his nose.

Kevin sings 'Smelly Cat'

Again, Happy New Year everyone! See you next week.

Christmas Break!

All good things take a break...

Chloe the hellyen takes a nap...

This week I simply enjoy the Christmas holiday. Hope y'all are doing the same. See you next year! (By the way, I really hate the "see you next year" bit. I still used it. Damn.)

I got a label maker!! Weeeeeeee!!!!

**UPDATE**

If you are looking for something to read this week while I kick up my feet relaxing, check out: Play in the City. I just ran across this site today. Apparently this blogger is doing what I started doing only she's been doing it for longer (I swear I didn't steal the idea!) . She also resides in the Milwaukee area so you cats who live that way can try the things she blogs about. I'm actually jealous...her site is so nice!

Cruise to Ensenada, Mexico

I am still home sick but if I don’t get this out soon…well, who knows what might happen. Flying fluffy balls might fall out of the sky to spite me. (Yes, flying fluffy balls. So sue me, I’m still sick.)

On to the blog…

So last Wednesday was Kevin’s birthday. I did something I’ve never been able to do for more than a day and that was to keep a surprise from Kevin. On Friday morning I got him up for work at our normal time, putzed around making us late, and then promptly took him to breakfast where I let him know that not only did he not have to go to work that day (or Monday) but I was also taking him on vacation. Kevin, of course, did not believe me and made me call up his boss to make sure that he really did not have to come in. I also ended up not telling him where we were going but he pretty much guessed it when we made the turn off for the San Pedro docks.

I had bought the tickets for the 3-night cruise to Ensenada on Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas ship back in October and it had been killing me not to tell anyone because I was so excited. Thankfully Kevin seemed excited as well as this was his birthday present.

Stepping on to the ship we were met with the first buffet meal of many. If nothing else, you have no one to blame but yourself if you go hungry on a cruise. We than proceeded to our very small cabin (People complain about the size of the rooms on a cruise ship…why? You’re only there to sleep after all, and if not, you’re doing something wrong)(just saying) to drop off our luggage, then promptly took a tour of our home for the next 3 days. While I’ve seen commercials and pictures and whatever else of cruise ships, it still amazed me being on one that this boat had a pool and a rock climbing wall and a full sized theater and multiple restaurants and a mall and…well, you get the picture.

At 4:30, before we set sail, we had to go through an emergency drill. Everyone met at the Muster station on deck 7 in their life jackets while the captain speaking in some sort of unrecognizable accent over the loud speaker let us know what to do if the ship sank. Since no one could hear the captain or for that matter was paying attention, I’m pleased to tell you that the ship did not in fact sink. Thank God. The little flashlight on my life vest was broken; I would have been totally screwed.


Seriously, no one is listening to you Captain

The rest of Friday night was pretty much settling in. We ate, we gambled, we bought duty free liquor, we played the most expensive round of bingo ever, and we even saw a comedy show. But since I was starting to get sick already (though I was still in denial at this point) and we had gotten up so early, we ended up going to bed at 10 that night. I am also embarrassed to say that 10 PM on Friday night was the latest we stayed up the entire trip. So much for those salsa lessons they had.


Ensenada

Saturday morning we arrived in Ensenada. I tried really hard not to do the tourist thing and had us walk 12 blocks out of the way to a ‘local’ part of town. I’m not really sure what I was planning to do in the local side of town. Eat maybe? Unfortunately the ship fed us so well that there was no need to try our gastronomical luck on the local cuisine. Shop? We weren’t really out to buy anything. We ended up just walking around for a couple hours until we found this hole in the wall dive bar. Our Spanish was enough to order us two beers (“dos Coronas por favor”) and two more after that (“dos mas, por favor”). A fellow who sat next to us attempted to get us to have some soup they were serving, (“Esta FREE! Free! Free!”) but again, we really weren’t that hungry. After accidentally walking into the men’s room (Kevin: “Damas is ‘Ladies’ by the way”) we decided to move on. We next stopped in a place a few blocks down, which was incredibly touristy, but we still got the best shoeshine in our lives by our new friend, Manual.


Manual and Kevin

Finally, we stopped in my favorite place of the entire trip…the local pool hall. The owner of the joint gave us the stink eye the entire time (if you look hard enough in the picture below, he’s sitting in the corner), but we were well behaved. We played pool, had a couple $1.50 beers, and headed back to our ship…


Pool Hall. Kevin is losing.

…where we had dinner and fell asleep. At 6 PM. On a Saturday. We didn’t wake up until 7:30 the next morning.

Sunday is kind of a blur. We did so much, but not much at all, if that makes sense. We ate BBQ, we drank out of pineapples, we played trivia, we saw the Sexy Legs Competition at the pool, we gambled (I was up in roulette but lost it all at poker), we shopped, we ate some more…so on and so forth. And we were back in bed at 9 PM like the grannies that were in the room next to ours. The next morning we were unfortunately back in San Pedro.



Overall we both loved the cruise. It was more expensive being on the ship than we thought, but there was plenty to do. We both agreed that two more days longer would have been perfect. This is definitely something I would do again.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go lay down.

Merry Christmas everyone!


Looking out from our State Room

Delay...

Sorry about the delay getting this past weekend's post out, I'm out sick with bronchitis. It's going to be a long one too so I want to wait until my head is out of a fog.

Til then...

Souffle! *A Home Entry*

A soufflé is a light, fluffy, baked dish made with egg yolks and beaten egg whites combined with various other ingredients and served as a main dish or sweetened as a dessert. The word soufflé is the past participle of the French verb souffler which means "to blow up" or more loosely "puff up" — an apt description of what happens to this combination of custard and egg whites.

I have never eaten a soufflé before much less actually trying to make a soufflé. All my knowledge of soufflés was what I saw on television sitcoms and they always were of the fallen variety. What I love about soufflés is that they join their cousins the banana peel, the cream pies and the sugar lump (Bugs: How many lumps would you like with that? Stupid Lion: Oh…3 or 4) as being food types that are always met with disaster. A comedy of errors I suppose. I figured that if I were to make something new, I best try the one thing that actors posing as cooks have never managed to accomplish.

Before there was Dr. Phil, Betty Crocker was backbone of the housewife mentality. I used her recipe, ‘Classic Cheese Soufflé’ as a starter point. I figured that if Betty Crocker didn’t know how to make a soufflé, no one would.

These are the ingredients. Thankfully we had everything in the house already except for the Cream of Tartar and Ground Mustard. The chances of me using the Cream of Tartar and Ground Mustard again are very slim. So slim in fact that 6 years from now I will need Cream of Tartar for something and go out and buy it again because I would figure that there would be no way that I actually owned Cream of Tartar.

So I began. Kevin helped by making the tin foil strip (why a tin foil strip? I have no idea, ask Betty Crocker) and separating the eggs. I actually made Kevin hold this yolk here for a while so I could take a picture. I might have stalled a bit as it’s funny watching someone stand uncomfortably holding a slimy yolk in their hands. Sorry Kevin.

Everything started off fine. Butter melted, flour stirred in, everything bubbled successfully. I started to think to myself what idiots actors posing as cooks must be not to find this simple.

But then I added the milk and cheese and something went horribly wrong. Betty Crocker kept alluding to this boiling that the milk and cheese would do. I stirred and stirred but it just got thicker and thicker until it was like bread dough, no boiling. Of course this is when Kevin’s brother, Robert (who is a great cook by the way), decides to call. I believe I was mumbling, “Oh, something’s not right here. Kevin! Look at this, is this suppose to look like this? I think I screwed something up. Oh man…”

Not wanting to stop at this point, I went ahead and started mixing the egg whites and yolks. I ‘folded’ the eggs into the cheese dough per Betty Crocker and carefully poured the mixture into the casserole dish. Betty Crocker used the word ‘carefully’ a lot in this recipe by the way.

I set the timer for 50 minutes and started to watch “I Love Lucy” while I waited. It seemed appropriate.

50 minutes later and I had an unfallen soufflé!

That is, until I cut into it. It also wasn’t very fluffy. In fact, it was kind of wet, like scrambled eggs. Kevin and I ate it anyway…it wasn’t too bad, but nothing I’d make again. Since I’m pretty sure that I screwed up somewhere, I’d like to try a real soufflé for comparison sake.
Is Betty Crocker still alive? I’d like to speak to her about this recipe. Boiling indeed.

Marlboro Hot Laps, Fontana, CA

I’m about to make Bethhead very jealous by saying that this weekend Kevin and I went to the California Speedway’s Driving School and IT WAS AWESOME.

Before I get into the event itself, I just wanted to let you know how I came about going to the driving school in the first place. I want you to know this simply because if you get the chance you should go too. Like right now. (Have I mentioned it was awesome? Because if I haven’t I will do so many many more times before I am done.)

I was able to attend this event because I receive mailings from Marlboro. I couldn’t tell you which bar I signed up for the mailings from Marlboro because I was most likely drinking and only wanted the free cigarettes. Normally Marlboro sends me coupons, which equates to paying for half the tax of a normal pack. This time they sent me an invite to attend ‘Marlboro’s Hot Laps’ which I honestly thought was just a joke at first (read: Attend Driving School! Small print: 1 in 10,001 chance to win!) I gave them a call just for the hell of it and 10 minutes later Kevin and I were reserved for the event. (Awesome).

On Saturday afternoon we arrived at the California Speedway. The Santa Ana winds were blowing pretty hard so I was worried that they would cancel the event. Nope. They rounded us up to the waiver release, gave us a backpack filled with gifts, got measurements, suited us up, snapped our picture, and off we were to the IROC stock cars.




Of the three cars that we rode in, the IROC was the least interesting. Not to say that going 150 mph around a track was boring. It was just the least interesting. I only felt that I might die three or four times.



IROC Stock Cars

After the IROC, they moved us on to the Panoz GTS for some street racing. Basically the drivers went 130 MPH then made a left turn. Or a right turn. I might have screamed a little. (Awesome!) After that, we got to ride in the Mustang. It was your basic Mustang really except that they let us experience drifting. I never quite grasped what drifting was until I was sitting in this car going sideways.


Drifting

Finally the rides were over and they fed us lunch. We filled out survey sheets that in not so many words said, “Do you think this event would make you tell your adult smoker friends that Marlboro is awesome?”

Adult Smoker Friends, driving school is awesome. Marlboro, keep sending me things like this while you kill me with your poison.
Awesome!

Comments...

I made a mistake somewhere and comments from yesterday's post are missing. You can put them here instead.

Hint Hint.

Sunday Brunch Cruise, Newport Beach, CA

I had a hard time thinking up of this weekend’s new thing to do**, which is a bit strange as we had a 4-day weekend that I certainly could have used to my advantage. By Saturday afternoon I was still pacing about coming up with ideas, none of which sounded too appealing. Kevin, again, came up with idea and a mighty fine one at that.

“How about one of those reggae brunch cruises that you are always talking about?” he said.

I immediately went to the computer and booked us two tickets on the Hornblower. Yeah, it does sound dirty, doesn’t it?

The Hornblower

Sunday morning we got up and went down to the pier where the Hornblower was. We were immediately greeted (Ha! ‘Immediately.’ I use that word in the vaguest of terms) by the parking attendant\inspiring model who I will now refer to as Chet. Parking was $6.00 so I gave Chet a twenty. At a second thought, I offered Chet another dollar thinking he could just return $15.00. Chet’s response? “Yeah, if you don’t mind, I want to keep my change.” Now I’m no parking attendant but one would think that he would want to keep his singles. Tool.

The boat wasn’t ready to be boarded yet so we walked down PCH, shared a drink at the Shamrock, and headed back. By the time we got back there was a line and our buddy Chet was chatting up a Paris Hilton look-alike completely ignoring the fact that he needed to dole out his ‘change’ to other people who were parking. It was at this point that I realized what the people of Newport Beach (the ones the other people roll their eyes about) do on Sunday. *Insert Stereo-Type Here.*

First champagne of the day

Finally we were seated and the champagne began to flow, as well as orange juice and coffee. The brunch was served buffet style, and I’m assuming that the lack of kitchen was the reason all items appeared to be from Costco. Not that Costco food is bad by any means, not great, but not bad either. Kevin really liked the Costco Orange Roughy and I really liked the Costco sausage links and potatoes. We ate, we drank, we kidded with the table of folks next to us, all while watching the harbor float by.

Costco desserts

After brunch we headed to the top level of the ship. There was a group of about 20 twenty-something’s with two bottles of champagne for every person hanging out with their designer jeans and CHIPs style sunglasses. They were really fabulous. It kind of reminded me of One Tree Hill\the O.C. throwing up. Kevin and I aren’t so-very-fabulous and we spent the remainder of the cruise watching birds and making jokes about ‘it’s not really a party ‘til someone jumps in!’.

Fabulous!

Overall, it was a good time. The food was OK, and they never skimped on champagne. The parking attendant was a tool, but our server was really nice and answered all my stupid questions.

Oh. And the reggae portion of this event? I just checked on line and it doesn’t look like they even have reggae cruises this time of year. D’oh.

After the cruise and feeling like we just didn't want to go home quite yet, we headed down to Balboa Saloon where I kicked Kevin's butt at pool. He was a good sport about it though.

**Due to unforeseen cash flow issues (read: “Oh my God! I spent HOW much on Christmas gifts?”) this weekend’s new thing almost did not happen. The surprise donation from a not-wish-to-be-mentioned sponsor (much to my protests) made it possible. So, not-wish-to-be-mentioned sponsor, this weekend’s new thing is dedicated to you. You shouldn’t have, but thank you so much. It was well used.