Happy Birthday, Russ... now, anyone got Tylenol?

Good God... It's 3:04 PM on Saturday, and I just woke up... just a little bit of a hangover from last night's festivities. I woke up this afternoon and my liver was sitting next to me having a cup of coffee saying, "thanks a lot, asshole." If you hadn't heard, me and the boys took Russ out for his birthday... had a hard time getting into my apartment because I think I drank it. Wow... haven't had that much to drink since my birthday. Anyway, in the glorious tradition of my literary endeavors... here, in photos, is the course of events that took place last night.

The plan was to meet at Woody's at 9:30 and get started there. I showed up at about 9:50 and was the only one... everybody else turned out to be late too. Regardless... a couple cocktails went by, and everyone showed up around 10:15 or so, which was fine because it gave me a little bit of a head start on my alcoholic haze that I planned to strap on for the night... and strap it on I did. Anyway... a couple more cocktails and we headed over to the Alexander Street Pub. My favorite Rochester band, The Taint, was playing. It's always good to see those guys. Check them out if you get the chance.

The bass player in the red shirt is my buddy Anthony... used to work with him in a former life. Good stuff... every now and again they'll let me live out my rock star fantasies and get up on stage. Pretty cool. The link to their website is above.

Alas, last night I didn't have the pleasure of my alter ego getting up on stage. Instead, we hung out and watched the band for a while, then retreated out to the deck for a couple more cocktails. It was a really nice night out... about 70*, no rain (surprisingly), and the booze is flowing, cigarettes are burning, and the Rychkid's mouth is running. I asked a girl to snap a quick picture of us, she agreed, and then pointed to a dimple in her chin and said, "we're twins," referring to the fact that I too have a dimple in my chin. Now, folks, I don't know if that was an invitation to conversation or not, but, sadly, I did not engage. Maybe if I did I'd have more to write about. Anyway, she took a couple shots of us, and here they are.

From Alexander Street, we made our way, once again, to Soho. I have to put this in because I thought it was pretty funny... let me start by saying this; Russ hates smoking, and I am a smoker. We're standing outside at the bar, I pull out a cigarette, screw it into my lips, and proceed to light up... aah... flavor country. Russ promptly grabs it out of my mouth, throws it to the ground and stomps it out. I gave him my standard really-confused-what-the-fuck-was-that look, whipped out my camera and actually took a picture of him doing this. Nice shoes, by the way.

Anyway, on with the show. Soho's fun... I like it, but it would be a tremendously wise investment to put another fucking bathroom in that joint. Jesus, every time I have to take a piss, I pretty much have to plan an hour in advance. I have to fight my way through this crowd of drunken morons with silk shirts and enough gel in their hair to grease a Ferrari, then wait in line with 30 other assholes, half of which are just going in to check the mirror, finally take a piss, then fight my way out through the aforementioned drunken, silk shirted morons, and find my friends all over again. Then, I have to attempt to re-join the conversation, and now I'm lost. I think next time I plan to go there, I'm going to go to the doctor the day before and get fitted with a colostomy bag. Of course, then it's going to be even more difficult to talk to women, what with carrying around a piece of luggage filled with my own urine. The other side of that coin is that it'd probably be a great conversation piece. Hmmm... decisions, decisions.

But I digress... here's a few more shots from the night. Ugh... did someone just say shots?

Russ, doing his very best drunken goldfish impression.

Can anyone tell that I've had a few hundred too many in this pic?

Nick, the 5 Dog & me... more game than Parker Brothers.

Todd, Nick & Russ... the boys.

Anyway... a damn good night. Hope you had a good birthday, Russ. My liver thanks you.

So, that's it for now. I think I might need to park it on the couch for a while, or maybe do a little online shopping... I'm running low on silk shirts and gel.

Until next time...

R