Thursday, June 30, 2011

Volleybrawlers vs. Winning

Volleybrawlers dropped the second game of the season with a 2-0 loss (and a loss on the consolation game).

First things first, I missed last weeks game but the record was 1-2 against Sandy Balls. Apparently 5 people showed up for our side but whatever, Vegas.

I won the PRS game by just buckling knees when I threw rock. Chose side instead of ball because the sun was just blazing hot.

Squad size of 9 (3 boys and 6 girls). One of the more solid attendance showings so far this year.

Lots of good bumping out of Kramer, Larissa, and Keith. Keith was just taking dives into the sand hoping to grab digs where he could.

New guy, Luke, had a solid game just being big at the front and keeping balls alive.

If whatever higher power is up there (God/Ganesh/Antmonsterwithpenisarms) created a volleyball player I would have been what he (She? Hahaha, no) created. Had a few fireball serves that snapped a few limbs. Just adjusting in the air on balls and scoring points. Keeping plays alive with nothing else but stabbing at line drives. Call me Picasso because yesterday's game was a work of art. Except when I was on the back line. I suck on the back line.

Squadron grade: B-. We weren't bad but the other team wasn't good either. We should have taken at least 1. They had 1 guy who served daggers and made me look foolish a few times but damn, we should have taken 1.

Season record: 1-3.

Volleybrawlers are unbuster. Keep coming back.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Tax Calculator

Check THIS out.

You can go to White House website and check out just how serious Republicans are about this country's long term fiscal situation. The Republicans are going to cut all agricultural subsidies AND halve the food/nutrition assistance budget? Thank goodness for you guys, top shelf, because that's a whole MONTH of cable/phone payments that I just got returned to me and all it took was a few kids losing their subsidised school lunches. Fair trade off. Call me when you fuck sticks are going to go after Medicare/Social Security.

Tax Calculator is an unbuster scene. Keep coming back.

Portugal Day 2 (part 2) - Day 7

I'm kind of over this whole "writing about Portugal" thing because I'm forgetting a lot of what happened and I want to move on. Highlights:

-Superbock. 6 euro at the hotel? Fuuuuck.
-Lisbon subway system: kind of sketchy, blind singing beggars, and slow assholes. That’s apparently universal regardless of language: slow dick bags should be banned from public transit.
-When I smoke at 9:30 in Chicago it’s gross as hell. When the French people smoke after breakfast it’s cultural. Shit is sexy over there.
-Lots of fish/duck.
-Met a girl from Kazakhstan. Someone made a Borat joke. She didn’t like it.
-Portuguese waiters suck. 2 separate situations where people ordered something they didn’t like and the waiters’ response was “that’s how it’s done in Portugal.” Thanks, motherfucker, do I look local? Obrigado to you to, dick.
-Kazakhstan girl says they eat horses and everyone freaks out. It’s a landlocked country; you eat what’s walking around. I’d eat the shit out of a horse, no problem.
-Barrio Alto = place for German/Italian teenagers to get shitfaced and puke all over. Just a big alley with bars on either side and kids getting drunk off their asses.
-Stop offering me cocaine. Don’t just pull it out of your pocket and show me, bro. What is this country?
-No heroin either! Just let me take a picture!
-Castles.
-Haha, the eastern European crew stayed out too late and missed the last day of the conference.
-Portuguese insurance commissioner gives a long ass speech and the gist of it is basically: “give us more money to fix our economy.” I’m pretty sure the German crew is ready to carpet bomb the entire Iberian Peninsula and be done with this shit.
-Watch the Champions League final and order a sandwich with fries. 10 fries, to be exact. For all the jokes I make about portion control, it blows.
-We go to the dock area for the last night just in time to see the SS Edinburgh pull into port with shitfaced Englishmen
-Airplane home. Watched "True Grit" (awesome), "Driving Miss Daisy" (Oscar winning?), and something else. Business class is just the plushest thing out there.

Portugal day 2 (part 2) - 7 wasn't buster. Keep coming back.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Volleybrawlers vs. My Bumbs

Volleybrawlers dropped the second game of the season with a 2-0 loss (and a close loss on the consolation game)

We won the game of "Paper-Rock-Scissors" when the other team threw a mixture of paper/rock and gave us the choice of ball or side.

Squad size of 6 (2 boys and 4 girls) which grew to 7 when Ben showed up during the second game.

Krista and Larissa both get hat tips due to solid bumping and serving ability. This other team was tossing fireballs and they managed to deal with a lot of them.

Ben is better at the net then I am because he actually spikes the ball instead of just flailing at it like I do. We need more tall people to come to games.

I didn't suck as bad as last week but I'm still not proud of myself. I was stronger at the net and back line but managed to look like jerk when a ball I tried to bump basically hit me in the face. Embarrasing. Also unhelpful was the fact that I had no legs for the first 10 minutes because my jog to the beach was hard as hell. It was heavy hot yesterday; it felt like I was carrying a dwarf on my back when I was running.

Squadron grade: B-. We weren't all that strong but the other team was one of the more solid sides I've seen at the recreational level. They had guys laying daggers at the net, girls serving fireballs, all that shit. Too much.

Season record: 1-1.

Volleybrawlers are unbuster. Keep coming back.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Portugal Day 2 (part 1)

Continued...

-What time is it? 11? Longest I've slept in for a while.
-I'm going for a walk to see some different parts of the city. I can't decide if I'm really excited to experience a historic city like Lisbon or if I just want to prove to myself that I'm not afraid of getting gang raped by a bunch of Portuguese fellas.
-People are looking at me. Am I not supposed to be in this neighborhood?
-Lots of graffiti/murals in this town. I've seen THIS in person. CULTURE!
-Thank God, I see Asians. I'm embarrassed at how happy I am to see the Asians.
-Fuck this hill.
-Hey, a mural of Al Capone! Is that the coolest thing that America has done? Made a bunch mafia dudes rich by passing prohibition laws back in the day? Does anyone want to talk 'Boardwalk Empire'? Steve Buscemi is awesome.
-Some other folks are kicking it by the pool. I'll meet them.
-AH, I forgot to pack swim trunks. I'll just hang out in my shorts. Sunscreen? Hahaha,no.
-A girl ordered Thai salad and got lettuce, rice, and raisins. She was not pleased and said as much to the waitress. The response? "That's a Thai salad in Portugal! That's how we do it!" Do we look local? Damn.
-No, I don't want to order lunch by the pool because I'm pretending that I'm cool and I'll just get lunch from somewhere when I'm walking around.
-My buddy asks if I can find razor blades for him. Sure, any moron can find razor blades, right?

Portugal Day 2 (part 1) was unbuster. Keep coming back.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Portugal Day 1 (part 2)

Continuation of Day 1:

-I feel gross as hell.
-Go to pick up the luggage and I'm relieved as hell that it's there. As far as bad situations go having to buy new underwear in a foreign country is pretty high on the list for me.
-Welcome to the Sheraton Lisboa! We use your currency as toilet paper so your bill is going to be fucking bananas.
-Lets go for a walk. I'll be fine if I wear my slip-ons, right?
-Lots of stone streets and old buildings. EUROPE!
-These roundabouts are insane. Just giant statues of kings/generals/whatever and high speed thunderdome carnage going on around the base of them. Grandmothers merging at 55 and think nothing of it. Carnage.
-I can't explain why I'm suddenly afraid of jaywalking. In Chicago I sprint in front of taxis 4 or 5 times a day but over here I stand and wait for the green guy to say it's okay. Did I forget how streets work?
-Man, there are a lot of cool things out here. I should have brought my camera but I'll make sure to walk back here and take a few shots. I know that's a lie as soon as I say it.
-Lets grab some lunch. 2 Americans and 2 British people look at a menu that's primarily in Portuguese. The joke writes itself.
-There's one Irish bar in all of Lisbon. Found it.
-Guinness and sandwiches. Pretty solid. The sandwich comes with horseradish? Haha, could have mentioned that. I'm all good with it but my buddy is kinda pissed.
-Been walking for about 5 hours. The slip-ons were not a great idea, after all.
-Back to the hotel. Kick it for a few hours and go out to dinner.
-My buddy and I head out to dinner right around the corner. The receptionist said it was good but who knows. I could probably be convinced to eat out of a garbage dumpster and I wouldn't say anything because I don't want to look like a dick.
-Do we seat ourselves? None of the wait staff is even looking at us. This guy will help us but he looks pissed about it. Are we being a pain in the ass?
-What's this? Cheese? Why is there plastic on it? What are these craw fish doing here? Did the waiter leave them here by mistake? Someone explain the craw fish to me.
-They serve beers. Superbock is the local taste and it's pretty solid.
-They took the craw fish away and it's probably the happiest I've been since we sat down.
-Portuguese style pork gets an A for sure. Red wine reduction and some potatoes in this bitch.
-All done. Solid service. Do I tip? I've heard you don't tip in Europe but that was from friends in Ireland. Is it different here? Just don't tip and walk out the front door as fast as you can without making eye contact. I'm a rock in high pressure situations.
-Bedtime.

Portugal Day 1 (part 2) was nervewracking but not all that buster. Keep coming back.

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Volleybrawlers vs. Electric Mayhem

Volleybrawlers open the season with a 2-0 win (not including the consolation game win).

We won the game of "Paper-Rock-Scissors" when I opened with scissors (WHAT!). Don't ever try to peg me in PRS because I'll freeze you up with a breaking ball and make you look foolish as hell. We got to open with the sun at our backs which was clutch, that sun was brutal.

Squad size of 7 (2 boys and 5 girls). 3 brand new faces on the team. I'll have their names down sometime in August, I bet.

Larissa played lights out as usual and I think she gave herself a concussion going after a dig. Best bumper/digger on the team by a mile.

Boche is tall and had some good spikes/sets. Never a bad idea to add height to the squadron.

I fucking sucked. I scored a few points at the net and had a couple decent serves but I rely way too much on other people covering space when I'm on the back line. I only like playing at the net; the back line sucks and it shows because I'm usually looking at the lake when I'm back there.

Squadron grade: B+. Never bad to shake off offseason rust with a win but our opponents won't be going pro anytime soon. They had a dude with glasses that was serving fireballs over the net. They could have used him earlier in the game.

Season record: 1-0.

Volleybrawlers are unbuster. Keep coming back.

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Portugal Day 1 (part 1).

So I recently went on a trip to Portugal for work and took some notes for blogging purposes. Here's day 1:

-Probably as nervous as I've been in a while. What if the cab driver makes fun of me because I only speak one language? What if I break one of the local customs and get yelled at in Portugese? This is the shit that keeps me up at night.
-Family of 9 flying internationally that want two rows of 4 right across from each other. The airline may not be able to do that because, you know, they're trying to fit 300 people on a flying tube to travel over the Atlantic. NOT GOOD ENOUGH! THEY WANT 2 ROWS OF 4 AND THEY TALKED TO SOMEONE ON THE PHONE ABOUT IT! People are the worst.
-I got to fly business class which meant I had access to the Admirals Club. Maybe it was the fact that I had a t-shirt with bacon grease stains on it (I made BLT's for lunch that day) while everyone else was in business casual but I decided to leave pretty quickly. $9 for sushi tray? Buster ass move. I'll get myself a snack wrap from McDonalds.
-Business Class is the most baller thing I've ever seen. I'm just watching re-runs of The Office and slamming Diet Coke at 20,000 feet. Fully reclinable chairs when it's bedtime.
-Welcome to London! My breath must smell like dog shit.
-Diet Coke = Coca Cola Light in Europe. I'M LEARNING!
-London co-workers. I'm embarrased by how relieved I am to not have to find my own cab.
-London to Lisbon = pass out time.
-Welcome to Lisbon! We speak 7 languages, you ignorant dick.

Porgual Day 1 (part 1) was kind of buster. Lots of travel. Keep coming back.

Continued Blogging Schedule

So I stopped the blogging for a while. Part of it was not having anything to write about but the main reason was that the format was all screwed up when I blogged at work. I'm a creature of habit and little issues like that will totally throw me off of my game.

Continued Blogging Schedule is (hopefully) not buster. Keep coming back.