To be 30 again

Monday, December 26, was the SIL’s birthday. Can you imagine growing up with a birthday so close to Christmas? I once worked with someone who was born on December 25 so they celebrated Christmas on the 24 and her birthday on the 25. Anyway, we tend to lump the SIL birthday and my brothers birthday together toward the end of January and celebrate then. With my Mom having a lung disease, the fewer times we get together in the winter months, the better. Well I was invited to go and celebrate her birthday, on her birthday. Since I do not do a lot with them, and since it was her 30th and she was not taking it to well, I decided it would be a great idea to attend.

The plans where a dinner and a night at the arcades. I decided to do something silly but I am all about silly. I bought her a pretty pink Princess card for her birthday. You know the kind that you might get someone that is 5 to 10 years old. I explained in the card this was an anti-age card to ward off or offset some of the nasty cards she was bound to get. She actually kind of liked it. We gathered at their house and proceeded to the Irish pub/restaurant to begin the evening. I went with my brother to the restaurant.

Might I say now that my brother has had advanced drivers training and driven on the GM proving grounds before. Might I also say he scares me the way he drives especially when he is in a car that has some muscle to it. Well just the same we arrived in one piece. I thought about jumping out of the car and kissing the ground but I thought that might have been a little obvious, that and the ground was covered in salt, yuck.

The restaurant was nice with lots of alcohol choices to be made right of the bat. I ended up with something with cider in it and was not real impressed. What I was impressed with was the lazy susan. It was huge. The table we were seated at sat 12 and the lazy susan allowed them to get the orders to all the people just by dropping it on the wheel and giving it a spin. Most people behaved themselves and allowed the table to be used for it’s official purpose. Of course there were those that just could not resist playing with the thing. A few beers were even almost spilled. How childish! OK, so I was one of the ones playing with it but it was just so much fun. It spun so nice and all.

The remainder of the party, 11 people in all, showed up and we were ready to order once all the drinks were in hand. The food was sort of expensive but then I discovered it was because there was enough food to feed three people. I had narrowed my choices down to Corned Beef and Cabbage, Irish Stew, or Shepards Pie. I chose the dish with the cabbage. How dumb is that on an evening that I will be around a bunch of people, many of whom I either just met or maybe only met a few times? Well I managed to get through the evening without embarrassing myself to much. I wonder if beano works on cabbage?

Part way through the meal it was time to venture into the beer list again. This time I decided to try a Black and Blue. What, you may ask, is a Black and Blue? One guess could have been Guinness and Blue Moon. Good guess but they gave that some other creative name. Here in Michigan Labatt is a very big seller outselling many of the domestic beers. As a matter of fact I believe it believes it is a domestic beer. This drink was with Guinness and Labatt Blue, hence Black and Blue. Now I know the Black and Tan drinkers out there are growning. This should be made with Guinness and Bass Ale or Harp Lager. None the less it was not bad.

The dinner was good and the drinks went down well but it was time to move on. The target, an arcade called Lucky’s. Another short road trip latter (funny how I did not mind my brothers driving near as much now) and most of us where there. Some chose not to continue on with the evening.

After checking the coat I proceeded to get a gaming card, charge it with money and venture into the sea of people. At first the group did one of those dance machines, I watched. Most were OK but one of the songs was insane, no one could have survived that except for one of those 12 or 13 year olds that seemed to be floating around. After much fun being had the group kind of dispersed to opposite corners and explored.

I ended up playing skeet ball a little and did poorly. Don’t know if it was the drink or the arm that has been killing me for a little while. I decided time to move on. I bumped into the group here and there.

I raced a snowmobile a few times. What I do not understand is why I seemed to be driving the snowmobile through a mall or at least indoors, very weird. I can only assume it was to show off the controller vibrating as the sled proceeded along the cement.

I did some various shoot'em up games and some car race games, each time coming in close to last. Now I might have an excuse here. By that time all the underage people had been banished but I was the token senior citizen there. Most everyone there was a twenty something or maybe in their early 30s. I am working on a half century in a few years. That must be it.

Off to try a few games that required no luck, no skill ... just my kind of game. Drop in some coins, which the game card was used to buy, and see if you can fill a coin box which causes the coin box to dump or just try and knock coins off the shelf that was moving in and out. Well I earned a few tickets. I then tried a few more times and had 85, 105, and even 185 tickets dispensed for my skillful playing. Oh wait, I already said it does not take skills, darn.

Well I handed over my tickets to the birthday girl as did others and they ended up with over 1000 tickets. I believe it took 300 tickets to get a stick of gum! They had a cool clock/weather thing with wireless outdoor sensor, which they won before, for 4000 tickets. Some fun bar signs for about the same, a bunch of stuffies for less and much more. I am not even sure what they ended up getting. Well time to move on. Off to my brothers house to finish the evening.

A little munchy type stuff was brought out and the PS2 games were started. We had a few Guitar Heros there but not me. I did not want to show them up. OK, so I might have gotten smoked but I have not had any time to practice. By the way, side note, I ordered my equipment which should be here within a week or two so I can continue my passion, guitar superstar. I promise a picture or two when I get it but it will never be the same as the first time, it never is.

The crazy eye-toy game was brought out and people got to chop pickles, mush the tomatoes, salt the fries, protect the cupcakes, flip pancakes, and grate the cheese against the head chef. I must say he was rude when you beat him and he basically said it meant nothing. Now if he won he bragged up a storm. Then it was time to be short order cook and make hamburgers and fill orders with that, fries, cupcakes, and pancakes then ding the bell for pickup. Surprisingly, if you take the game seriously, it can work up a bit of a sweat. Once again I did not do that mostly because there were a bunch of people wanting to do things and only the one machine. I thought I would be polite. So what did I GET to try. Karaoke.

OK, maybe I can be the lead singer instead of the Guitar Hero. I think I could handle the ego trip and all. Then I can be the super star. Everyone will look up to me. Groupies will be everywhere and I am sure that could be fun. Yes, that is it, a different career all together. Time to be a lead singer. I will spare you the gory details but I think I killed the dog. I only lasted part of the song before the tomatoes came out and I am not sure all the tomatoes were just from the game. I think the people I had just been out having a good time with were pelting me too. I got booed of the stage, the game was buried deep in the ground which was not easy as it was frozen, and the microphone was melted down to make sure this incident would never happen again. I tried to say something about it but everyone kept changing the subject. It is as if the night never happened. Shortly after that the party broke up. Some of the other people were OK at the Karaoke but I guess I was not one of them.

Well we stayed up and watched a little TV after everyone left and finally called it a night about 2:30 am. This may have been the earliest night I got to sleep over the Christmas extravaganza weekend, no wonder I am sick. Well I have one more day with the extravaganza that I will write about but it is much shorter. I better get it in today because I think I am giving up strange stories for the new year.


You know, Peter, just because you guys entertained a bunch of drunken idiots at a karaoke bar doesn't mean you have what it takes to form a band. -- Family Guy