LJ updatey
the bandito of love, aka: Ben's Girlfriend, Jen, has hijacked his LJ because Ben never updates anymore. And we were talking about going back to NYC for this wine tasting thing and he was trying to remember what we did when-as in what happened which time we went to the city-and said he should LJ it, but it would take too much time. so now i'm going to attempt to do this with my incredibly poor and selective as fuck memory.
here goes!
so last christmas--as in December 2004--Ben bought us tickets to see the trans-siberian orchestra at MSG. both of us pretty much only give two craps about that carol of the bells song, but it was an excuse to go the city at christmas and for ben to hijack me from the craziness of my store at the holidays. we ate at chevy's, which i don't remember where it is, but we found it easily and we ate mexican food like champs and i drank a super large margarita super fast and was super tipsy on the sidewalk, but since it was so cold and i was then so drunk, i could not longer feel how frozen everything was.my friend Kelley was right on when she said they had kick-ass yummies. ben helped me navigate and we found our way to the tree and took pictures like tourists and they came out blurry because hi, its dark and that's a lotta lights. we also went to F.A.O Schwartz. at this time, Chevy's belly started to creep up and we were only wowed enough by the 12 foot tall stuffed giraffe before we have to find a drug store for pepto. we got to our seats at MSG, burping and realized rather quickly that this was going to suck. they played the only song we cared about no more than 20 minutes into it and then some guy with a ponytail and a cowboy hat with the american flag on it came out and started doing that whole "ARE YOU READY NYC?!!!' thing for way too long and we were both ready to run away. as a rule, we come to all shows 'ready' regardless of where we are and man, i hate when people do that...that shameless bit of throwing in the name of wherever they're playing. and the audience never fails to react. dorks. so that was that. i believe this is when we had to run to catch the train too and i was mad about it since ben saw hotdogs and pretzels and insisted on getting both which made us late enough to have to run for the train.
then we went to the city in may last year for a big fancy wine tasting that most normal people can't go to. this is what makes my job not suck so much.
we get to hang out on the entire 9th floor of the marriott marquis, which is completely lined with tables of people serving wine. i think there's something ridiculous like 500 wines open and then if you're slick, you can get their catalog wines and feel really naughty about it because drinking a 400 dollar wine on someone else's dime sure is nice. from past experiences where i passed out in central park in the grass after one of these things, i was a championship wine spitter at this event. ben was having a great time.
he was going table to table downing anything he liked, which was many and spitting only the ones he hated. we tried to save the Bonny Doon wine girl--who is this fun girl covered in tattoos--even if they were kinda shitty tattoos, i can't hold it entirely against her--but she comes dressed like one of those cigar girls and she passes out cool merchandise and crap.
but we tried to save her from this gross old guy who kept hitting on her but it didn't work. ben kept hitting up the Illy espresso bar hardcore because free espresso + ben = happy man. my rep had hers spiked by another retailer and i got to hang out with her and this great wine maker Jean Luc Columbo and take pictures with that guy. he's a tiny french man. ben and i drank more espresso and had more wine and then we headed off to Little Italy. we found cheesy tourist gifts and one for my dad that says 'slovenian parking only.' and ben was patient while i went on a search for cheap vans or pumas and only came up with one pair of vans with pink skulls on them. we ate in Little Italy and some guy sang to us wanting money. we didn't give him any.
then there's the time we went to nyc to see paul mcCartney at msg in october last year. we were dumb enough to try out a theme restaurant in times square and went to jeckyll and hyde's. don't do that. don't ever, ever do that. the food was horrible, the service was great if you were 12 and the shows were annoying. this isn't a big surprise. we went to msg and ben was all 'oooh, we're gonna see paul mcCartney!' and his bladder was acting like a little girl's and these women in front of us were older and were in love with paul since day 1 and had seen him on every tour. some drunk guys were air-banding pretty hard and i thought one might have a stroke. this DJ that opened for paul mcCartney was awesome--wish i knew his name. but he was mixing beatles and wings songs, which normally that might sound like a truly awful idea, but it worked really well. even if some people looked like they wanted to run away.
the show was incredible and ben was all cute and singing and hugging me when he played 'baby, i'm amazed' and i was all teary like a little girl because how could you not like that song?? ben tried to call people with parts of the show on his cellphone and i came home to mine which sounded like horses clopping and various 'woooooo!!!!s' thrown in. i don't know how anybody else's turned out. and i think the 'woooo's' might have come from me.
we left the show on one of those 'holy crap' highs and then went out onto the street to about 5000 yuppies trying to catch a cab. man, they were brutal too-stealing cabs from each other. we navigated ok to the subway and to the very last shuttle and power walked to the train with about 10 seconds to spare. good times.
i think that might be all i have to update here.
here goes!
so last christmas--as in December 2004--Ben bought us tickets to see the trans-siberian orchestra at MSG. both of us pretty much only give two craps about that carol of the bells song, but it was an excuse to go the city at christmas and for ben to hijack me from the craziness of my store at the holidays. we ate at chevy's, which i don't remember where it is, but we found it easily and we ate mexican food like champs and i drank a super large margarita super fast and was super tipsy on the sidewalk, but since it was so cold and i was then so drunk, i could not longer feel how frozen everything was.my friend Kelley was right on when she said they had kick-ass yummies. ben helped me navigate and we found our way to the tree and took pictures like tourists and they came out blurry because hi, its dark and that's a lotta lights. we also went to F.A.O Schwartz. at this time, Chevy's belly started to creep up and we were only wowed enough by the 12 foot tall stuffed giraffe before we have to find a drug store for pepto. we got to our seats at MSG, burping and realized rather quickly that this was going to suck. they played the only song we cared about no more than 20 minutes into it and then some guy with a ponytail and a cowboy hat with the american flag on it came out and started doing that whole "ARE YOU READY NYC?!!!' thing for way too long and we were both ready to run away. as a rule, we come to all shows 'ready' regardless of where we are and man, i hate when people do that...that shameless bit of throwing in the name of wherever they're playing. and the audience never fails to react. dorks. so that was that. i believe this is when we had to run to catch the train too and i was mad about it since ben saw hotdogs and pretzels and insisted on getting both which made us late enough to have to run for the train.
then we went to the city in may last year for a big fancy wine tasting that most normal people can't go to. this is what makes my job not suck so much.
we get to hang out on the entire 9th floor of the marriott marquis, which is completely lined with tables of people serving wine. i think there's something ridiculous like 500 wines open and then if you're slick, you can get their catalog wines and feel really naughty about it because drinking a 400 dollar wine on someone else's dime sure is nice. from past experiences where i passed out in central park in the grass after one of these things, i was a championship wine spitter at this event. ben was having a great time.
he was going table to table downing anything he liked, which was many and spitting only the ones he hated. we tried to save the Bonny Doon wine girl--who is this fun girl covered in tattoos--even if they were kinda shitty tattoos, i can't hold it entirely against her--but she comes dressed like one of those cigar girls and she passes out cool merchandise and crap.
but we tried to save her from this gross old guy who kept hitting on her but it didn't work. ben kept hitting up the Illy espresso bar hardcore because free espresso + ben = happy man. my rep had hers spiked by another retailer and i got to hang out with her and this great wine maker Jean Luc Columbo and take pictures with that guy. he's a tiny french man. ben and i drank more espresso and had more wine and then we headed off to Little Italy. we found cheesy tourist gifts and one for my dad that says 'slovenian parking only.' and ben was patient while i went on a search for cheap vans or pumas and only came up with one pair of vans with pink skulls on them. we ate in Little Italy and some guy sang to us wanting money. we didn't give him any.
then there's the time we went to nyc to see paul mcCartney at msg in october last year. we were dumb enough to try out a theme restaurant in times square and went to jeckyll and hyde's. don't do that. don't ever, ever do that. the food was horrible, the service was great if you were 12 and the shows were annoying. this isn't a big surprise. we went to msg and ben was all 'oooh, we're gonna see paul mcCartney!' and his bladder was acting like a little girl's and these women in front of us were older and were in love with paul since day 1 and had seen him on every tour. some drunk guys were air-banding pretty hard and i thought one might have a stroke. this DJ that opened for paul mcCartney was awesome--wish i knew his name. but he was mixing beatles and wings songs, which normally that might sound like a truly awful idea, but it worked really well. even if some people looked like they wanted to run away.
the show was incredible and ben was all cute and singing and hugging me when he played 'baby, i'm amazed' and i was all teary like a little girl because how could you not like that song?? ben tried to call people with parts of the show on his cellphone and i came home to mine which sounded like horses clopping and various 'woooooo!!!!s' thrown in. i don't know how anybody else's turned out. and i think the 'woooo's' might have come from me.
we left the show on one of those 'holy crap' highs and then went out onto the street to about 5000 yuppies trying to catch a cab. man, they were brutal too-stealing cabs from each other. we navigated ok to the subway and to the very last shuttle and power walked to the train with about 10 seconds to spare. good times.
i think that might be all i have to update here.