How to Rock

Step 1: Go out drinking at seven-thirty on a Thursday.

Step 2: Drink approximately ten beers and three shots over the course of five hours.

Step 3: Engage in an idiotic, but ultimately hilarious, cinnamon eating contest with a buddy.

Step 4: Stumble home a little after midnight.

Step 5: Pass out on your sofa while smoking a cigarette.

Step 6: Wake up to the sound of your bedroom alarm clock blaring at seven in the morning, rub your pounding head.

Step 7: Realize in horror that, not only did you leave the door of your apartment wide open for some reason when you came in the night before, but also that you burnt a hole in your carpet with said cigarette.

Step 8: As you shower, dress and prepare to go to work, wonder if perhaps you are getting too old for this sort of thing, or if you are just plain awesome. After all, you did nearly eat a spoonful of cinnamon last night. Could an old person do that? I think not.

The Day That Was

For nearly two hours yesterday, I was sitting by myself at a local bar. I had the Phillies-Cardinals game on the TV overhead and, after picking at a plate of chili cheese nachos, I whipped out a pen and some paper and scribbled down some notes for my forthcoming dating manual. I think the bartender felt bad for me, thinking I was merely some lonely loser who came out on a Sunday afternoon to drink alone. That wasn't the case, but I could see how she could reach such a conclusion. But eventually, after I'd made some nice writing progress (The prologue? Done.), my entourage began to filter in. Tyler and Tera. Milt. Ike and Julia. Donovan. Vanessa. I hate to sound like an insecure idiot, but being able to successfully assemble an eight-person drinking crew on a Sunday afternoon will always be good for my ego. It makes me feel powerful and important. I love it.

A few notes from the day that was...

1) I've never seen any baseball player taken off the field on a stretcher. How odd that it should occur during the one random Phillies game I decide to make an effort to watch. It turns out it's just whiplash and/or a minor concussion, but while the game was stopped for those ten minutes or so, I went from laughing and saying things like "Ha! That fucker just got plowed over!" to somberly muttering things like "I think he broke his neck. I kind of feel bad for laughing at him now."

2) A wise man (my morbidly-obese Little League coach, who chain-smoked his way through every practice and game) once said, "Practice makes perfect." So, while I was quite content only interacting with my circle of friends, I decided to strike up a conversation with the cute bartender whom I'd never seen before, despite the extremely-prominent ring on her left hand. I detected a slight accent, something of the Hispanic variety, and this was to be my "in." The following is an actual transcript of what happened...

Me: Let me ask you... Where are you from?

Her [smiling warmly, obviously thrilled that such a devilishly handsome chap as myself would make an effort to speak to her]: Where am I from? Brazil.

Me [desperately scanning my medulla for any information about Brazil]: Really? Whereabouts?

Her: [Says either the name of her town, or Spanish gibberish. I'm really not sure.]

Me: Hmmm... I guess all I really know is Rio. Is that in the vicinity?

Her [coquettishly]: We're about five hours from there.

Donovan [sliding in next to me and leaning into the conversation]: Where'd you say you're from?

Her: Ksdfilbknsdsdpisdfbdsf. It's about five hours from Rio.

Donovan: Oh really? I've never heard of it. Is it nice there?

Her: It's very nice.

Donovan: You need to write that down for me. I think I might go there. My family and I, we have a place in Bermuda, but I go there all the time and I was thinking I might need to take a different vacation in a few weeks. Maybe I'll fly to Brazil.

She proceeded to write down the name of her town and hand it to Donovan, who folded it up and stuffed it in his pocket and stood there making awkward small talk, not noticing that, the entire time, I was glaring at him... not so much for swooping in on my conversation, because I genuinely like being the guy who helps his friends meet women when they're too shy to start the conversations themselves, but for sounding like a giant trust fund douche in the process. I may need to have a talk with him about doing that in the future. Trying to impress a married bartender by not-so-subtly implying that you have enough money and few enough responsibilities that you can hop on a plane and fly to Brazil on a whim is a ridiculously-bad approach.

3) When, in section 1 of this list, I say that it's "just" whiplash and/or a minor concussion, I don't mean to downplay the significance and/or pain that I'm sure comes with any injury, just as I hope no one downplays the significance and/or pain that comes along with the injury I sustained yesterday. While slowly biking over to a fancy bar down the street (Donovan's idea), I somehow managed to fall off my bike and simultaneously slam my ribs into a street sign and the toes of my left foot into the curb. Evidently, I'd been drinking. Thankfully, I don't think anyone saw my not-so-graceful tumble. The ribs, I'm happy to report, are fine. The toes? Not so much. The nail on my left big toe is partially torn off and the next toe over (my index toe?) is a particularly-striking shade of purple this morning. It is most certainly broken, which is ironic, because it's the same toe I most certainly broke about six months ago when I smashed it into some gay flowerpot or something in the courtyard of my apartment while doing laundry. Given that I've been through this sort of thing before, I know I can handle the searing pain that comes with every step I take for the next two weeks, but I will most assuredly be whining about it consistently.

4) I'm not a particularly classy person. I like dive bars, The Real World: Hollywood and Hot Pockets. And I'm fine with that. However, it would be nice if I could go to a place like, say,the fancy bar from yesterday and peacefully sip a glass of wine and talk intelligently about the political turmoil in Venezuela or the collected works of Albert Camus with the nice couple at the bar. Instead of, hypothetically, stumbling in drunk with a bunch of friends at nine o'clock at night, proceeding to loudly use the words "fuck," "horseshit" and "cunt" a combined 783 times over the course of an hour, accidentally releasing one of the most vile, repulsive farts in the history of mankind and, when asked, pretending not to smell anything and, in the process, inadvertently running off every single one of the other patrons.

It was a good day.

My Unfulfilled Military Career

I never signed up for the MySpace thing, mostly because I thought it was stupid and I wanted remain anonymous. I didn't want my friends to know who my other friends were, I didn't want anyone knowing who I was meeting for drinks that night, whatever. Mostly, I just didn't see any point in signing up.

I resisted the Facebook thing as well... until a few weeks ago. That was when I learned that Facebook has a game called Attack, which is the closest I've seen to a good online version of Risk.

I have been playing Risk since childhood. My father taught me the rules and would let me win with regularity. I was never a religious Risk-player, but it would make an occasional appearance during my teenage years whenever I had friends over. And, honestly, I can't recall ever losing.

I don't know whether I was a military prodigy, or if I just had stupid friends.

Well, it's starting to look like the latter.

I signed up for the Facebook a few weeks ago, and I added the Attack application. In my first game, I leveraged my stranglehold of North and South America into a thrilling world conquest. In my second game, I built up my forces in Australia before, once again, leading my brave armies to victory. Two games, two wins. Perhaps I am a military genius.

As it turns out, that was as good as it would get. Since then, I think I've lost approximately 250 consecutive times. Sometimes I'll get smoked right off the bat. Sometimes I'll hang in there before falling just short at the end. But I just can't seem to win.

So, basically, in lieu of having anything else to write about lately, I'll put this out there: as the kids say, I'm on the Facebook, and I'm looking for anyone who wants to take me on in Risk (Attack).

Bring your worst.