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Since Scott is in town and last week was both his and Ken's birthdays last night we gathered at the froggy bar to celebrate!
It was good times as usual, with good food (I had half a chicken...and I mean half a chicken, I devoured every scrap of it it was so good) and good drinks (yummy chocolate cherry martini that tasted just like chocolate milk) and good people (ummm, I guess they are yummy too).
Professor John and Nicole were playing...and he even played "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" just for me because I didn't think he'd remember my name (I meowed at him so he'd remember).
They brought out three huge desserts (one was carrot cake!) and passed around champagne.
I have a bunch of crappy pics here...they'd be really good if I could take pics in very low light without a flash. But I hate bothering people in a tight dark space with my monstrous flash, so I'll make do with fuzzy grainy photos...
p.s. no tag teaming!
SPECIAL GUEST BLOG BY HEATHER, AS WRITTEN IN MY NOTEBOOK
My name is Val & this is my Emily's birthday Journal. We began the night at Risqué were we saw foamy messes & boobies. Fake boobies. By fake boobies, I mean cartoon ones. That looked fake. We are now at Rebel. Which was the Ivy. But this isn't the Ivy. It's the Ivy painted red with no punching machine which is lame.
lame lame lame
I broke my pen!!!
FUCK
NO MORE
BLOG
***
We now return to our regularly scheduled blog with actual Val...
Saturday's festivities started at a bar at 9:30...AM. Since at least I think that 9:30 is too early for beer or hard drinks we settled on getting some way-too-spicy bloody marys. But 9:30 is definitely not too early for a breakfast of cheeseburgers and french fries :)
Soon after arriving we were joined by Hareet (who is apparently not a figment of Emily's imagination) and Zipporah and Jeff. I was the only one of us not decked out in Cubs gear. I did wear a shirt though that had a bit of blue in it...I think that counts enough...
When we were done with food and drinks we headed out of Murphy's and across the street to Wrigley Field.
It was Em's birthday wish to get bleacher seats to a Cubs game so even though I am a south sider I sucked it up and went to the game. :-) Actually, I used to say that I wasn't a baseball fan but really just a fan of hot dogs and nachos, so as long as the team had those I didn't care and would go. But I think I will retract that statement as Wrigley had some pretty horrendous hot dogs.
Anyways...The game was fun. Heather came too and brought Jeff instead of Josh, which was a surprise. And we met Hawaiian shirt guy who was sitting in front of us.
And a baseball team won! Go sports team!
After the game we went back to Em's to chill for a bit then headed down the block to the Chicken Hut for chicken because all they have on the menu is chicken. Although Heather somehow managed to not order chicken. Crazy.
Then it was on to Risqué, which is an awesome bar that has pin-up posters and b/exploitation movies playing on a few TVs. It's a nice place but a little too contrived. One of the movies they were playing was a cartoon that had a naked woman running around sleeping with people. That's about as much of the plot as I can tell you.
The best thing about the bar though was the 8-ball floats...except that they only had runny ice cream so to make it we had to drop soft scoops of vanilla into our beer which made them all foam over creating a catastrophic mess and forcing me to chug much of the beer to keep it from spilling over. Everyone laughed when I did it...and then it happened to all of them too.
After that we headed over to Rebel. Josh (who works in my building), Josh (who is marrying Heather), Sean (who is insane), and Sean's friend we don't know the name of all joined us there. We rocked out to the music. Jeff bought me princess peaches (that's the name I dubbed the drinks he got me...I told him to ask the bartender for something girly made with peach schnapps). We got some tasty mushroom quesadillas and cheesy pretzels. We rocked out to the music.
Next up was The Irish Oak, which normally would be exactly my type of bar: a chill Irish setting with live acoustic music. Perfect for a relaxing night talking with friends. However, it's not so perfect from going such a high energy place to such a low energy place, so we all bailed after just one drink. But not until Sean went around to tables of girls to try to impress him with his joke-telling skills...Yeah, take one guess at how well that went over...
So next up was Big City Tap which is one of those bars that people only go to because its open until 5am after everything else is closed...which meant it was one of those bars where there was a creepy old dude walking around scanning for drunk chicks...and that they had the most disgusting pile of nachos ever...and that the bartenders idea of give me a girly drink was a jager bomb with a splash of peach schnapps....But it WAS the only bar all night to play a Bon Jovi, so they get props for that.
So finally we called it and I fell asleep curled up on Emily's chair because it was the only place that there was room for me...and the next morning we capped off Emily's birthday celebration with Disco brunch at Ann Sather's where we had the tastiest cinnamon rolls ever (they do have the best ever) and a ridiculous Swedish breakfast sampler of meatballs, pancakes, sausage (which I didn't eat), eggs, and potatoes...
Wow...what an Emily-filled weekend! Well...she kept drunkenly saying that it was the best birthday ever, so I'm going to agree and hope she had the best birthday ever!
MORE PHOTOS HERE!
OK, we're going to work backwards here...
Last night was JoeJoe's birthday. OK, so TODAY was JoeJoe's birthday but we celebrated last night.
About 45 minutes after I was supposed to get there JoeJoe gave me a call because he was worried about me. I told him I was there but just trying to find parking so he offered to come help. This offered up a brilliant opportunity. Julie was in my car. Julie, who as far as Joe knew was 1,000 miles away in Florida. So...while we waited for Joe to come down, Julie hid in the back seat of my car, and when Joe sat down inside, She jumped up with a pompom and yelled "surprise!" And that, well, totally surprised the heck out of Joe :)
After finding parking we headed back to Joe's place, ate some pizza, played some Mario Kart, watched some blueray. And Alina baked a yummy cake! Then we headed off to a bar where I got my fav raspberry beer and we all chatted for a bit and I tried my damndest not to fall asleep.
I got some pictures here.
1. Happy Birthday Chris!
Yesterday was Chris's birthday, so today there was a party! We ate food including some yummy red beans and rice (and I made a yummy onion dip, and I cried A LOT making it because my eyes are wusses) and watched Snatch, which I have never seen before.
2. Sorry, that was a really crappy recap.
3. After completely filling a 4gb CF card in 7 hours on Friday night, I decided that the 12gb of storage I curently had wouldn't be enough...so I bought another 8gb card...and now I have 20gb.
Happy Birthday Alina!
So, I tried my hardest to be late at getting to Joe and Alina's last night. He said to meet at his place at 8:30. So I stopped at the bank. Stopped at Starbucks. Drove around looking for parking for twenty minutes. Then finally got there around 8:50. I walk in, look around..."Don't tell me I'm STILL the first one here."
Joe says it doesn't count then as me being late. :(
As it turns out, no one else came to their place anyways. Em was MIA and JoeW can't read and went straight to the bar. So we left for Driftwood.
Joe picked out all of Alina's drinks as usual. We discussed crappy movies and pi and perfected our arrow making skills.
When I went to the bathroom Alina and Meredith warned me that the stalls were exceedingly tiny (they were correct)...they didn't warn me that there would be a dude in there. I opened the door and a guy was standing at the sink. I stepped back to confirm that the door did in fact say "Women" and then walked past him and laughed.
Apparently, this is the face of maturity:
And it took way too many tries to get a decent picture of the happy couple:
More photos here.
Story of the night.
We get out of the cab at whatever o'clock in the morning and walk into the lobby of Emily's apartment. "Wait..." she says..."where's my phone???" She checks her pockets. Not there. She checks her purse. Not there. She dumps the contents of her purse on the floor to riffle through them and it is nowhere to be found. At this point she's really frantic about losing it in the cab.
Heather decides that maybe we should try calling the phone and maybe the cab driver will hear it and answer. She's already holding her phone so she goes to dial. "Wait..." Heather says..."this isn't my phone!"
Yeah, so Heather was holding Emily's phone the whole time...And then we all died laughing because it was just too awesomely funny.
***
Before this hilarity was obviously a night of good times. We (Heather, Josh, and I) met up at Emily's, sat around watching the beginning of 10 Things I Hate About You (ahhh, Heath Ledger...) and then finally got off our asses and headed to dinner at Wakamono. I got the soft shell crab maki and a salmon nigiri. Yum. I went to the bathroom there, which apparently is the unmarked door next to the kitchen. I looked around forever for the soap which, apparently, is in the cast iron tea pot.
After dinner we again got kind of lazy again and ended up chilling with a bottle of wine and Heather and I made everyone watch Once Bitten. I love the movie and Heather loved it, and it was her birthday (kind of) so she had the power. Of course, no one else liked it. And Josh fell asleep :-( Once he woke up he insisted that it was the worst movie ever, so he went to IMDB to look up its rating and find which sucky movies had higher ratings. You will be happy to hear that The Gruesome Twosome has a higher rating :-)
After the movie we finally decided to get off our asses and head to the bars. We first hit up Moxie for their $5 martinis. Josh objected to any bar that turned Nirvana into a techno song. I objected to the fact that my melon martini did not come in a martini glass.
Later we headed across the street to the Ivy where they had much better music. Any bar that plays Like a Prayer AND Living on a Prayer (2 of the best songs ever written) is AOK in my book.
After a couple more drinks and me thinking my purse was stolen...twice (it kept falling off the damn chair and blending in with the floor), and Heather calling everyone (or making me call everyone else) to try to get them to come out (even though you couldn't hear a damn thing on the other end) we eventually called it a night...which then resulted in the missing cell phone hilarity. And then resulting in Heather thinking she lost her phone only to realize that she left it in Emily's boot. Then we all went to sleep.
Em had to leave super early, so she was gone when the rest of us woke up.We took over her apartment, got some Starbucks, watched the end of Ten Things I Hate About You (ahhh, Heath Ledger...) and then said our goodbyes. (of course, not before JOSH thinks he lost HIS cell phone...)
Happy Birthday Heather! Hope 25 treats you well :-)
PICTURES HERE!
p.s. did I mention that all these pics were taken with my shiny new baby?
1. When I was growing up I always thought I shared a birthday with Martin Luther King because we would often be off on my birthday. It was only much later in life when I found out what the term "observed" meant.
2. I now have three dresses to wear to the wedding next weekend and can't decide which one to wear. Or whether I want to wear any of them :-(
3. The last thing Val needs to learn: My boss wants me to take classes in and learn digital video production. Stay tuned for less photos and more video! hehehe.
4. I am right now watching a movie right now that is a spoof of one of my fav HG Lewis movies. A SPOOF of HG LEWIS. That's the most ironic thing ever. Yes, Napoleon?
Yesterday I turned 22 (+5). Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate with me!!! It was definitely a day filled with the three things a woman wants most: chocolate, wine, and naked men!!!
1. Chocolate
In the afternoon Nadia and I met at Chocolate for Your Body. Nad got a regular mani and I splurged on a "chocolate signature". It's my party, I can splurge if I want to!
The manicure involved a cocoa scrub that made my hands nice and soft (and tasty I can assume), truffles (to eat, not for my hands), and coating my hands with a layer of chocolate.
After getting our nails all purdy Nad and I headed next door to Kristoffer's Café and Bakery
for some chocolate flan and coffee. It was a cute place but, let me tell you, I have never before peed in a bathroom that had a urinal in it. Ew.
2. wine
After gussying up our nails and caffinating ourselves, Nad and headed over to Jen's place. In the time it took to walk from the car to her place, walk down the wrong pathway and get locked in the alley, I seriously felt like my hands were going to fall off. Luckily we finally found the way in to thaw off. Then Josh called and apparently the bar lost my reservation for 15. Fuck. Isla came and drove us to the bar and they were working on setting up our table. Thankfully they were still able to accommodate us.
The restaurant we went to was Volo Restaurant and Wine Bar and it was delicious. We had good wine, good food, good friends...
I tried some marrow bones and will never ever eat them again. Honestly, I really think all those chefs pretend they like such things to be all pretentious. But how can anyone like that crap? It had the texture of sandy snot and tasted horrible. On a better note the steak tartar was DEVINE and the duck confit was DEVINE. Josh and I also shared some Seared Yellowtail Tataki, but we still haven't decided what kind of citrus was pickled.
15 people showed up, which was totally awesome. Sarah came and, despite the fact that she hardly knows me, she completely gets me because she gave me a pink sparkly dragonfly and a Victoria's Secret gift card (pink, dragonflies, and VS are three of my very favorite things). Chelsa from work came and brought a friend. Rob and Chris and Aimee showed up despite having to be at a party in Milwaukee later that night. Meredith and Isla and Jen and Alina and Jenny and Adam and Nadia and Josh came too!!! Jen gave me a cute Smurfette tee and a pink candleholder. And Nadia gave me what she described as a "lame" present of a candleholder. It totally wasn't lame! But she said it was my fake present because my real one, a pink Rabbit wine opener, didn't arrive yet...In talking about this some people overheard pink rabbit and assumed it was something else...
Josh showed me what he really thinks of me by getting me a bottle of Bitch wine.
The label is PINK and, well, I am a bitch, so it's only appropriate.
Honestly I did not expect anything from anyone, I was just happy people came out during the zero degree weather!!!
My wine was yummy too. I was bad and ordered whites then proceeded to order a lot of red meat. But ohwellz. I had a lovely white wine flight. Then I had a Gewurtztraminer. Later I also had a yummy muscado d'asti.
They brought me a yummyyummy flourless chocolate cake with mint ice cream and everyone sang and I got to make a wish on my candle, which is always my favorite part, because I wish on just about everything you can wish on.
3. naked men
After the wine bar I bid adieu to a few of my female friends and all of the few guys left and the remaining chicas headed to Annoyance Theatre. We hung out at the bar there and played the game of Memory that I found on the shelf. Did I ever mention how much I suck at Memory? Ask me exactly what a certain person said to me at a certain time and I can probably repeat our conversation word for word. Ask me to remember where the little black boy is and I go blank.
After a couple rousing rounds we headed into the theatre for SKINPROV and the perfect night of entertainment to get your mind off of the fact that your best guy friends all ditched you for another party and none of them even bothered to call to wish you a happy birthday. But who cares about that when you've got drinks and half-naked men!!!
We beat the rest of the crowd into the theatre for prime first row seatage. The show was basically a bunch of men improving scenes and taking off all their clothes. They ended the first scene by all taking off their shirts. A couple short scenes later they paired up for small scenes that each ended with "Let's take off our pants." By the end of the show (and some taking off multiple pairs of underwear) we were left with g-stringed and jock-strapped men and a whole lotta nakedmanass.
After the show we headed back out to the annoyance bar to talk with the guys, still walking around shirtless. They got me a couple of shots and I ended up having both a buttery nipple and a pussy shot on them. The one naked man told us that he'd sucked more cock than anyone else there...and then introduced us to his lovely girlfriend.
We stuck around until they closed, drank some drinks, chatted up the bartenders, then headed off to Uptown Lounge...mostly because it was just around the corner and fucking freezing.
The bar definitely wasn't my cup of tea. Mostly because I hate talking to people I have absolutely no interest in. And because every three minutes the waitress came up and asked us if we needed anything else. We stayed out till about 4:30, well past the text message the guys sent to say their party was over.
All in all my party was totally awesome and I am so happy that everyone came who did! I have tons of amazing friends and I am glad they came out to share my night of turning 22+5!!!
INCRIMINATING PICTURES HERE!
Today was our departments Christmas party. Yes, yes, I know that Christmas was a while gone by now, but we're busy people damnit.
So a bit after noon we took the rest of the day off and headed to Quartino for lunch. We had three pizzas (I ate two: one topped with bunches of fresh spinach and one with a slab of spicy but yummy sausage), Italian "sliders" (a small sammich of fresh mozzarella (made in house) and tomato), nice pillowy gnocchi and green beans, and a sulumi platter of Duck Prosciutto, Bresaola, olives, artichokes, cheeses, and a few spreads. Yumyum.
When they brought out the dessert menu I was told that since we were also celebrating my birthday that I had to order dessert so I got some yummy profiteroles stuffed with chocolate sauce and vanilla gelati. When they delivered it everyone sang Happy Birthday. But then the restaurant staff brought me a cup of gelati with a candle so they sang again. I passed around the cup but was ordered by the boss to eat my whole dessert myself. Done and done.
After lunch we headed to 10 Pin for some bowling. It's a cool little place (I actually always expected it to be bigger) with a nice (but expensive) martini menu (I had a yummy peachy keen martini) and giant screens of music videos playing above the lanes. The first round sucked. I came in dead last. The second round I had the second highest score. I attribute that to the fact that for that round the scoring screen had turned to PINK. The next round we did a face off of marketing vs. pr with the losing team having to buy Starbucks for the department. Alas, marketing lost :-( I was horrible that round. The next round I did better (because the board was now a different shade of pink), but we still managed to lose again. Ohwellz.
 
  
 
 
1. I can't believe that Alina kept the "Master" on my name that we added into her database as a joke.
My invite to her wedding was delivered to "Master Valerie Bromann"
2. I am also dissapointed that there are only two choices...
what if I want to accept with regret (because I want to marry Joe) or deline with pleasure (because I want to marry Joe)?
3. Earlier this week the receptionist at work called me and said "Jennifer Reeger is here to see you." My first thought was that she must have dialed wrong because I have never had any one there to see me and I had no appointments or anything. Then I thought about it for a while and it took me entirely too long to realize that "Jennifer Reeger" was "Jenny Johnson" who has been one of my BFFs since third grade. I am never going to get used to her new name. Her and Adam were in the area so they came to say "hi." :-) It was great seeing them too since its been forever and a day since we've gotten together!
4. Friday night I was sick so I spent the night watching "Alice Sweet Alice" which was an AMAZINGLY GOOD movie and New Years Evil which wasn't quite so amazing.
5. Last night I went out for Julie's birthday. I was getting ready and was all set to drive to the bar when Julie called and said that Dave could come pick me up. Score! That meant I could actually drink for once! And I didn't have to find parking! We headed out to The Central where we chatted, watch the game (I really don't know which one) and drank and stuff. I had a Tom Collins, a sunset martini, and a tequila sunrise. Then we headed out to Red Ivy for a bit where I had another Tom Collins. Then we called it a night and when I got home I threw up two Tom Collinses, a sunset martini, and a tequila sunrise. :-( At least I didn't puke in Dave's car. I then proceeded to pass out and fall asleep still wearing all my clothes and with the lights on. I am really not a good drunkard.
Anyways, Happy Birthday Julie!
Happy Birthday Andy!
Last night was Andy's thirtieth bithday celebration at the froggy bar. Because I was early and determined not to always be earliest, I walked around a couple of stores before heading to Hugo's Frog Bar to meet up right on time...of course the one time I am not early everyone else has already been there for half an hour and is finishing eating :(
It was fun, especially since I never see Chris and Aimee and Robert(pronounced the French way) and KennyK anymore since Scotty is gone. (tear.) Oh, and since we always get massive amounts of choclatey goodness on peoples's birthdays. :-)
So Andy is older and I met his swell gal (I have to now use old people terms like "swell" and "gal" around him) and some others who I have never met before and ate a crab cake on a bun.
KennyK's new ladyfriend brought up a good "hypothetical" situation about if you borrowed someones laptop and saw a file on the desktop with your name on it, would you open it?
I would be good and say "nope," but who are we kidding? I am a terrible snoop... :)
Pictures Here!
although, I'm afraid I did not live up to my reputation because I only took a handful and am not very good at taking pics in very low light without blinding people to death...
Happy Birthday Cynthia!
(Please note: this is not Cynthia...I just thought it was a good photo)
Yesterday was Cynthia's birthday party! It was a Russan/Polish/Star Wars theme (I say Star Wars because that was what was on the Happy Birthday sign). We ate some very weird tasting "cookies," looked at photos from Cynthia's trip to Russia, listened to odd Russian hiphop/teen bop/dance music, and played with the horseys. One of them had only one eye (Hood asked me later if it granted my magic wishes, but alas I did not ask it to) and the other one tried to eat me. It bit my hand while I tried to feed it (even though I swear I kept it flat) so then every time I tried to feed it from then on I just ended up screaming and dropping the carrots all over whenever it came near me. :(
We ate some bbq, and drank some frozen wine. It actually tasted pretty good...despite the fact that it had been in the freezer for way too long and froze. I had to listen to technical explanations of the molecular composition of it or whatever (seriously Scott, can't things just happen without you having to give a scientific explanation of it???) Oh, and everyone liked my strudel. :)
and it was fun.
More pics here.
Scotty McHotty and KennyK turned a year older this past week, so it was off to the froggy to celebrate last night!
The frog bar makes the best Tom Collins ever. And I mainly say that because it tasted like really sugarry lemonade. Their orange juice with belly-button lint is good too.
Everyone is fascinated by laser pointers and blinky light things.
Their fish sammich is good. who'd have thunk putting a bunch of coleslaw on bread would be so yummy?
Scott is either very very short or has a whole lot of meat...you decide.
Andy has dared me to order the slice of carrot cake as my meal next time and I have to eat the whole thing. He doesn't think I can eat a whole slice of carrot cake.
Did I mention that this slice of carrot cake costs $15 and is the size of a small African country?
Andy thinks my idea of opening a brothel is a good life plan.
MK dropped some of the ice cream cake they brought out on the floor while trying to cut it. Then he picked it up and ate it. Then he licked off the chocolate that got on my arm.
MK plays way too drunk after not so much martini. And then he plays way too asshole when he readily agrees to do anything with anyone else but when I ask him to do something he says he'll think about it, which really means he's just waiting for anything else better to come along. Oh, and also when he talks on the phone to other people and texts other people and makes plans with them when he acts like he's always way too busy working to ever hang out and therefore never has any time to do anything with me.
Just saying.
More pics are below. I was playing around with my camera settings, despite the fact that I have no clue what I'm doing. I want to use the flash less because it's less conspicuous. Some turned out good. Some turned out crappy. Some turned out crappy but cool. They all turned out kind of grainy. I must have set the grainyness dial to high. Maybe I should learn how to use that damn camera.
I don't care what you say, this is a cool picture:
Matt beginning to get drunk:
Handy Andy:
 
A real-life professor:
Matt thinks he's cool:
  
Player Piano:
KennyK, Rob, etc.
 
Me and Rob:
Cake!
  
  
  
 
Me and MattyK:
  
Scott's Ass:
1. So, I put off touching most of my big final class project for the ten weeks I had to work on it. I managed to go to work on it Sunday morning and finish by 3pm. I'm either really good or the project is really crappy. I don't care though, I'm done until September! And then I'll be completely done in November!
2. I am moving out of my bigbig office and into a smallsmall cubicle :(
3. Tonight was Scotty McHotty and KennyK's b-day party at the froggy. I will post tomorrow when I have time to upload all the pics. Happy birthday!
4. I bought a book on Amsterdam today. Maybe I should go?
5. WHAT
6. THE
7. FUCK
8.?!?!?!
my day included...
1. feeling really awesome after spending 2 hours fixing something up and coming up with my own creative solution to a stupid problem that made me very proud of myself. I like troubleshooting :)
2. feeling really shitty after it turns out that after all my awesome effort I still managed to fuck up.
3. Watching So You Think You Can Dance and On The Lot.
4. Going and getting some black forest goodness from Coldstone.
5. Cleaning out my car to get all the menlted ice cream off of everything.
6. Going out at 11pm to Howl at the Moon to hear dueling pianos (playing all my fav songs - Like a Prayer, Laid, Hold my little hand, girls just want to have fun...), drink old man drinks, see Mike (who is NOT my friend!) and Julie for the first time in forever, and celebrate Isla (not a peninsula)'s birthday.
7. Coming home after 2:30 and writing this blog. :)
8. sleep?
   
   
 
Joe: If you slept over, you'd have to sleep with the cats.
Me: If by cats you mean tiger, and by tiger you mean you, then yes!
MK was having a work shindig thing to try to lure people in to get clients or maybe donate to charity or something. I stopped by and got me a free pork sammich and think I roped myself in to giving him all of my money. I at least better get taken out to coffee or dinner like he does with all his other clients.
After selling my soul...well not right afterwards...more like around 11pm, I headed out to the city to meet JoeJoe to celebrate his birthday. The night was filled with odd tv, many drinks, and trying to get JoeJoe to dance. On the list of three options for what he had to do once drunk "make out with val" ranked higher than "shave your head" but he would rther "dance" than any of those. I wonder whether Alina would prefer him to make out with me or to shave his head...hmmm. Needless to say JoeJoe is working in his underwear tomorrow. I however am not. :(
  
  
p.s. how insane is val? It's three o'clock in the morning...she has to wake up for work in a few hours...and she is writing a blog post and eating potato chips dipped in ketchup. :)
Friday:
i appologize in advance...i did a really crappy job of taking incriminating pics at Jen's bday. sorry! Here is the ONE pic I took all night:
I'll post a pic of me and Jen if she ever sends it to me :)
So, Friday was Jen's Birthday Extravaganza in which we did a bar crawl through Lincoln Park.
Mickey's: The first bar was A-OK. They usually have free alcohol for the hour we were there...but they weren't doing it that night. Whatever, I kind of gave up drinking anyways, but not really. But I didn't drink at all anyways. Anyways... It was OK but mostly because it was still early and so it wasn't crowded. Jen starts getting drunk.
Goodbar: Then on to bar two in which we crashed someones private party. But apparently they didn't care. It was hothothot (in the temperature sense) in there though. Jen starts getting drunker.
Delilahs: Bar three was my cup of tea. There was good music and Sin City playing and all the bartenders were covered in tattoos. My cup of tea. I had JoeJoe get me a Sprite. I went to give him money but he didn't take any because his mixed drink plus my Sprite cost $3 so he had no idea how much mine would possibly have cost. MattyK and ScottyMcHotty disappeared at one point and no one knew where. They were gone for at least an hour. Yeah...MK left his credit card at the last bar. :) We texted Glen to ask him his stance on lesbians. Unfortunatly he does not know. At one point a woman asked me where the men's bathroom was. I was a weebit confusaled. Rory tried to piss me off. Jen got drunker.
Next we stopped at Hoagie Hut so some people could eat because it was now around 1-2 and Joe still hadn't eaten. We watched a guy take about 30 tries at getting mony from an ATM.
Maxbar: Our last stop was one of those pretentious dancey places I don't really like where they make you stand in a line outside even though they are going to let you right in anyways and there are a bunch of scammy annoying guys and women in too little clothing. Jen got drunkest.
:) It was a funfun night.
Saturday:
Some of us (me, MK, Jen, and Isla) slept over at Joes. Jen had work early but the rest of us slept till 1 and then went for some pasta bowl (mmmspinachgnocchi). Then it was off home for like 10 minutes to take a shower before heading off to Bourbonnaise for dinner.
Rob was in town for Easter and he brought Christine!!! So JoeJoe, Sid, Sarah, Walter, and I met them at the Steak n Shake for dinner. mmmmilkshakes and steakburgers. :) We managed to convince Christine to go for it and get a Steak n Shake dinner. Good choice.
Afterwards we went to Rob's place and hung out for a bit...I did a better job of taking incriminating pics there :)
first let me present "val has fun with rapid fire on her camera and imageready: :)
and now more randomness:
   
  
Since I have no life to report on right now and haven't had human interaction outside of work in weeks, let's think back to happier times when I was having fun...
Tonight we go back to my infamous 21st birthday party. The night ended with Sid throwing up on the floor, Erika throwing up in my bedroom, and Mike throwing up in Amy's room. I didn't throw up though because I was too worried about everyone else to really drink (despite what the photographs might imply). :( Maybe it wasn't a happier time...
See pics here.
Happy Birthday MattyK!
(for real this time)
(hehe, his head is so big!)
My Phone: Ring Ring
Matt: Hello.
Me: Happy Birthday if it is your birthday.
Matt: How sure are you that it's my birthday?
Me: I dunno.
Matt: Then I'm not telling you if it is or not...
Me: :( (I actually made that face, but he couldn't see it over the phone)
...conversation continues in much the same way for half an hour...
But I was correct, and yesterday was his birthday.
So then at around 8:30 MK ims and totally interrupts my American Idol time to say that him and his more important friends are planning on going out and wanted to tell me in case I was interested. Then at 9 he tells me that people are coming over and I better get there quickly if I want to go with. So I hop in black pickle and book it at 70 miles an hour :)
We all (MK, Jen, Colin, JoeJoe, Hood, and me) then meet up at the Kerry Piper where much hilarity ensues. If I was not tired out of my mind right now I may be able to recollect more...Let's see...
Colin thought I was giving MK a condom for a present
I used the other warmer alone in the car with Joe
Apparently my choking while brushing my teeth is erotic
my nose is apparently cute when it crinkles
JoeJoe can't form sentences and drops ice on his crotch
I chug my beer for a minute and it doesn't go down at all
Jen likes it hard
I'll give you her number (about a thousand times)
MK weighs 800 pounds
I weigh 300
I have a salt shaker
MK hates me :(
After the bar we headed back to MKs for some Top Gear but mostly I just slept. Oh, and Matt brought me strawberry ice cream mmmmmm.I apparently laugh with my whole body (she doesn't have much to jiggle). More hilarity ensued...
and More pics ensued too...
MK likes to drink on his birthday:
 
Did you know that I'm going to marry this guy?:
Jen and Hood are having a torrid affair:
 
Matt and I fight to the death...since I am typing this, you know who won:
This person knows me because I sit:
MattyK is an old man:
menage a trois:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATTYK!!! (if it is your birthday)
For trying to fool me into thinking it wasn't his b-day, I told him I'd post a naked pic of him online...
:)
So, you know those memory games online? The ones where each time you make a match it will reveal more and more of a picture until you see the whole thing? It's good to know the government computers in the world of 24 rely on that highly sophisticated computer technology :) Seriously, computer programs on television always make me laugh because they are always made to look so flashy when I am sure in real life anyone in that position is just looking at a black screen with a bunch of white 0s and 1s. My favorite are always those programs where with a click of the button it will shave off ten pounds or give them a nose job or something when that takes a ton of time and skill.
Anyways, end rant. 24 is getting really odd and complicated and makes me mad and sad and angry. I need to stick with American Idol :)
After 24 on Monday we watched a new Top Gear, which was pretty funny (except when they showed the huge crash one of them got in) and had JAMIE OLIVER as a guest. Have I ever mentioned here that I am sososo in love with Jamie Oliver??? I love him. I would marry him if he wasn't already married. I own a set of Jamie Oliver pots and pans too. He's so dreamy :)
I also determined that MattyK will get more business if he wears a monkey costume. I swear he would.
My sister officially set her wedding date during Sheboygan Brat Days. No Kobayashi for Val :(
I started mapping out where all the bestest Illinois sites are for a mini-road trip and figure we might be able to do a little loop around the state:
When it's warm, of course. Who's in?
I saw half of Cosi fan tutte today, but was late to the second half :(
I am so glad that birthdays still excite me. I still get that giddy feeling all day just waiting to go out and celebrate. :)
So, yesterday I turned a big ole 26. And a big ole thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate! We went to my fav little wine bar Parallel 42, which I went to for the first time a year ago for my last birthday. It was a ton of fun! So many people came too! I think it was the biggest turnout I've ever had besides my infamous 21st. We had a Jenny, Adam, Nadia, Bryan, Josh, MattyK, JoeJoe, Alina, ScottyMcHotty, Wilkey, Plecki, Andrew, and Jen. Woohoo! I was especially excited to see JoeW and Plecki because I haven't seen either of them in forever.
I started out with the flight of French whites. Basically because a glass of one cost $8 and a flight of three (which were almost a full glass each) cost $8. Best deal around! All of them were mighty yummy too! Then I had some Rosa Regale, which was a mini bottle so I got 2 glasses out of that. And then I tried another wine...it was a dessert wine, and damn yummy...this was MK's reaction to it...
I'm too sweet for his blood :) So, yeah, I didn't have a lot to drink at all ;-) Especially since I sure didn't have any wine at work before I came to my party :) shhhh. I'm sure everyone will vouch for my loopyness after drinking. :)
I also had a hot date for my party ;-)
Hehe. Get it...it's a date...wrapped in bacon and stuffed with blue cheese with apple cider sauce. Yummy. Me and my girls also shared a warm cookie with ice cream. Delicious.
Josh brought me flowers because he knew I wanted flowers from a boy...
He also brought me chocolates and didn't bring his girlfriend. Me thinks he's trying to tell me something ;-) hehe.
Nadia and Jenny both got me oven mitts! Hehe. They rock because I wanted new oven mitts, and I like them both. Nad got me an apron to match the ones she gave me and Jen got me a matching kitchen towel. I'll be doing some good baking!
After we wined for a few hours most everyone called it a night so me and Poulin headed to a little Irish pub near my house so we could girl talk and such where this weird guy wouldn't stop hitting on us. Even after Jen first told him we were there "together" and then later after she showed him her engagement ring.
The night was tons and tons of fun and I am really happy so many of you came out for it! I love all of you guys, thanks for making my birthday so amazing!!!
More pics...
Val takes too many pics with MK
  
  
JoeJoe arrives:
 
Me and JoeW:
Me and Alina:
Jenny, Adam, and Josh:
Nadia and Bryan:
 
Me and Nadia:
"JoeJoe...pretend you like Alina"
 
Jen and Andrew:
Me and JoeJoe:
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