cattlemen don't

As I'm writing this, I have switched from watching the MSU-UNC game to MTV to catch the new season of The Hills. At this point I am correlating Spencer Pratt with the UNC shooting game, while the MSU defense is being played by Heidi - in other words, its a lopsided match. Speaking of The Hills, the best text message of last Saturday night goes to Selfy for our 1AM note saying "Frankie from the hills is here!." Thanks Jason, I sure hope there is more to that story.

Our Saturday afternoon began at Schoolyard, which is the 2nd time we have visited there (3rd time for me) this year. I met a couple coworkers there, who one is a proud MSU alum as we watched the first half of a Spartan victory. We were met by our EBONY followers in Chenoweth, Holland, Claire, Hall, Chuck and Adam. Hall shows up around 6 claiming that he has been drinking since noon at Brownstone, and it is crystal clear he isn't bluffing. At Schoolyard we had a heated debate of who is one person you put a picture of above your fireplace? This eventually led to a split debate of who is the worst person one could possibly put there. In the end, the final two came down to Hitler and Osama bin Laden, what do you, our readers think? At halftime we walk down the street to Mystic Celt to get some food in our bellies before the show. Hall immediately orders a round of Duvel's for us and the evening went downhill since. At one point Hall tells a joke in which I ask Kyle if it would be PC if we included his quote in the blog, and Kyle answers with an emphatic NO!. From what I remember, it may have involved a rapist.

At 7:30, we along with Hall and Chuck arrive at the Metro to catch the last couple songs of Ladytron before The Faint eventually takes the stage. For 90 consecutive minutes all we hear is constant complaints coming out of Hall's drunken mouth - everything from the atmosphere of the club to mundane sounds coming out of the speakers. After awhile we couldn't take it any longer and just told him to hit the road. Fortunately for the way the evening was rolling, he listened (no offense dude). Around the same time a girl carrying drink walks by the 3 of us and says "thank God there are 3 straight guys here." Whatever that's supposed to mean. After The Faint put on another amazing live show (check out the video in the previous post) the three of us went downstairs to SmartBar. SmartBar was pretty lame and completely dead. When Kyle and I are at establishments like this, we usually start a game to get the dance floor going. Each person assigns one artist to another, and when that artist is being spun by the DJ, that individual must lead the dance floor. I ended up getting The Rapture, Kyle had Hot Chip and Chuck has LCD Soundsystem. In the end, no one won (or lost?), which was mainly due to the DJ being pretty shitty. I'm sure we'll be back to SmartBar by the end of the end of the year though.

After this, the night slowly becomes foggy. Chuck joins us for two more pretty dead bars at Trace and Yak-zies. We hand out a couple business cards at Trace and for probably the 30th time this year we hear "yeah, we'll definitely join your Facebook fan club page of the blog," and yet it was all an act on their part. Your bluff has been called. The only thing I remember fom Yak-zies is Kyle saying "this place is NOT funny." It was no lie. As we're walking home we walk by a warehouse looking building across the street from Whole Foods. We decide to check it it and learn the place is called Circuit and is filled with 90% lesbians. This entices Kyle to buy a round of Irish Car Bombs for whatever reason, and we walk around the bar to soak it all in. We definitely feel out of place but still stay for a 2nd drink. After Circuit, we are committed to going to bed, yet stop by Roscoe's to have one drink to cross it off the list. Nothing else memorable here, but I bet Hall wishes he didn't go to bed so early.

Oh snap, Spencer just punched a dude!

Parrots That Talk

This title makes no sense, please disregard it.

The Schoolyard (named due to it's location, on School Street) has a promotion called "Riding The Rail", if you drink 12 different drafts and get your list checked off at the bar you get a t-shirt. If I ran a bar and had a promo like that I'd probably have to kick a lot of people out. School Street, School Street, home of the brave.

They also have a framed painting of Elvis above their fireplace, which led to the discussion of what icon you would put above your fireplace. answer: Gilbert Arenas

via freedarko.blogspot.com

Theoretically we should have bowled while at Southport Lanes, because that's what you do there. Unfortunately there's a long wait for one of the 2 lanes and there always seems to be a family of 9 with several small children occupying the place. Also, a previous outing to Southport featured the "worst billiards game of all-time", so that place will forever be cursed in terms of bar skill contests. Their menu is the same as the one at The Daily in Lincoln Square (and probably a few other places). The Honeymooner is delicious.

While at the Newport an older man with graying hair missed his stool when he attempted to seat himself and ended up on the floor. Several people laughed, much to the dismay and anger of the girl with him. We never could decide if she was his daughter or girlfriend.

I didn't know Lange's existed until last night. Baumer purchased a raffle ticket for one of those must-be-present-to-win drawings. We had zero intention of attending the raffle drawing and he knew this, which is why you should always have pretty girls selling the tickets.

The Gingerman probably has one of the 5 best jukeboxes in the city of chicago.

Unrelated to anything: I wonder if the dry cleaners are disgusted with me when i stop in wearing torn jeans.

8 down, 160 to go

this is the midnight abridged version. we called our partner in crime in Hall to meet us at the Schoolyard Tap for the inaugural drink. after a packed house of pub crawlers we ditched this popsicle stand and ran into Baum and his buddy and proceeded to knock a couple bars out - Southport Lanes, Lange's, and our always favorite Newport Bar & Grill (minus Ugly Betty to Hall's avail). to our surprise, the pub crawlers seemed to follow us (including an old man who smelled like sausages), so we had to ditch that route and hit up one of our favorite chill places in the Gingerman. as usual, the place was dead, but with an amazing set of LCD Soundsystem, Ryan Adams (Hall's gay lover), and the Shout Out Louds on the Juke-box. Baumer was getting bored, so headed out after a Newcastle and sadly went to Casey Morans (we had to go at somepoint). at this point we needed to ditch the Wrigleyville vibe, so we tried our best and crossed the street to the Irish Oak. after an hour of waiting for the magical wings and downing Carlsburg, we headed for our final destination of the Darkhorse. here we watched Kyle watch his Colts blow a lead late in the 4th quarter and drown his sorrows in a couple Miller Lites and quote, "Let's gets surly right now and go dancing!". Hall and I thought Kyle was going to break some guys head, so in a wise decision, we decided to bail and call it a night. overall, not bad for the inaugural evening - 8 bars down and plenty to go.