Weekend Recap

After XBox Girl's ADD combined with a weak storyline, we had to turn off "The Black Dahlia" on Friday night, but the rest of the weekend introduced me to a couple of firsts around the city.

Saturday, I watched my first beer pong tournament. I'd heard of the drinking sport for years, but had never played nor even witnessed such an event. I expected to be surrounded by Fraternity Frank and Sorority Sue, but the crowd was surprisingly older than college age, which was nice. The scene went down at Turtle Bay Grill And Lounge at 52nd and 2nd. I went there to meet my dude Jason and some of his people. Jason is a PR guy who's organizing a mission trip to Africa in 2008 in which I'm expecting to take part, and he was among the combatants in this beer pong competition.

Remember the Dick In A Box video? Well, Jason and his teammate Mike lost in the second round to two guys sporting, um, dicks in boxes. It's true; they had boxes somehow fastened to their belts and every time Jason or Mike was preparing to throw the ball, one or both of the other guys distracted them with pelvic, box-covered thrusts. Sophomoric no doubt, but entertaining nonetheless.

After the loss, we ended up downstairs where we watched the bartender pour himself a drink for seemingly each one he served. Then two gals named Heather and Meredith, names of my two most serious ex-girlfriends, came over and despite my 10 days of orange facial hair, seemed to think I looked safe enough to talk to.

A short time later, we ended up next door at Opal, where a pub crawl (called a bar crawl up here) was visiting. Even though it was only 7 o'clock or so, it was packed with drinkers. Jason and Mike both have girlfriends and live in New Jersey, so they finished a beer each, quite quickly, and had to head for the train. I'd just come back inside the bar -- my cell phone was blowing up, you see -- and they were walking out, handed me Meredith's beer, as she was in the restroom, and told me she'd be right back.

Sure enough, Meredith never returned, and when I looked for her girl Heather, who 15 minutes earlier was seated at the bar, becrutched with a broken wheel, she too was nowhere to be found. Clearly I looked like someone whose friends had ditched, so three bar crawl gals sitting at a nearby table invited me to make them laugh. Can it seriously be this easy?

Anyway, I split about a half hour later and it was nice to be in bed by 10 or 10:30 on a Saturday night.

My early bedtime yielded an early rise on Sunday morning, so I hustled down to Trader Joe's at 14th Street. The joint opens at 9 a.m., and I arrived only minutes later, yet this place was already a zoo.

I once walked into Trader Joe's in Chicago with Marcus, but never had I gone there to shop for myself. This story doesn't get much better. In fact, it's never been quite good, but I just wanted to express that I'd lost my Trader Joe's virginity this weekend.

Ohio State plays Wisconsin today. That should be a good game.