Jesus Christ! Did You See The Size of That Sperm Whale? (August)

Well kids, it feels like an eternity since I've posted on here. To our few and far between devoted readers (yes, there are still a few of you who check it on a day-to-day basis) I apologize for our lack of literary substance and public debauchery that has entertained you through the first 7 months of 2009. When Kyle and I first devised this difficult task, we assumed the summer months, with its beautiful weather and street fests would encourage us to tackle the mighty task at hand. It turns out that this has been hardly the case with such distractions as Pitchfork, the Gay Pride Parade, Warrior Dash, bachelor parties and numerous weddings plaguing our open schedule in the last month. As Kyle tackled Wicker Park Fest and other important reasons to booze, I was out east in Raleigh melting to the near 100 degree heat and massive humidity in celebrating the tieing of the knot of an old college friend. Don't get me wrong, I had a blast out there taking full advantage of the open bar at the ceremony and spending most of the day Sunday walking around the campus at Duke University, but the EBONY crew definitely has some making up to do. I would also like to add that I was dubbed The Dancing Champion as this wedding by the brides mother, so I got that going for me, which is nice.


July has been a sad month with only crossing 6 bars off the list. But lets not let that overshadow the 108 bars Kyle and I have visited and reviewed together on this site. Of those 108, I tried to categorize to the best of my ability, which is what the handy chart below visualizes. By the latest count, we still have 78 bars within a mile on our list to visit, but I'm sure that number is in fact higher with a seemingly new bar opening up every month in Wrigelyville to the unknown bar we never knew existed on Broadway. Lets just say we have 85 left. That would reacquire us to average 17 a month for August thru December. Definitely a tall task at hand. Even more difficult considering I'm finally rounding out in to shape and don't see too many crazy bender weekends on the schedule that would interfere with training. The winter will be especially difficult as I've been accepted as an elite runner in the USATF 10 Mile Championships in the Twin Cities in October, and a potential winter marathon in either Sacramento or Dallas in December. I'm starting to fell pessimistic about this.


It's hard to imagine that I've actually been to 108 bars this year. Well, actually I've probably been closer to 140 given there were many happy hours and other weekends out and about that didn't involve Kyle. There have even been 24 bars outside of the mile radius of the 837 where Kyle and I have both drank together, including 6 of them out of state. We have met many people (and dogs) on the way. The first that comes to mind is The Internet Celebrity Baumer which Hall introduced us to on the first weekend of this starting this task. Today Baumer still outranks all other friends with joining the EBONY crew to a total of 21 bars. Others still in contention for the crown are Hall (17), Selfy (16), Chenoweth (15), Annie (13), Holland (12), Seidler (14), and Chuck (19). Everyone else, I'm extremely disappointed in your work ethic. Seidler also gets a big shout out as he's been to most of the gay bars in Boystown with us...way to suck it up Adam.


Enough fun for now, I should end my lunch break and get back to work in which I'm actually paid for now. I'm also competing in the Great Urban Race this weekend, so like Kyle provided after our latest trivia competition, I'll try to fill in the blanks to our readers how the clues rolled.

Update: Ha, after typing in this link (accidently w/o the s in blogspot), my Twitter account linked to this: http://www.emptyblogofnothing.blogpot.com
Too awesome, especially given the name of this post.

2nd Update: I forgot to add, at Polish Tom's wedding they had Yuengling at the open bar. Awesome move Tom, you get big ups!

March: BMW Man

The month of March is officially in the books, and EBONY is one stop closer to accomplishing our resolution. We took down 18 bars last month to bring our grand total for the year to 66. According to our most recent count for bars in play, we have 111 left to conquer. That’s puts us at a completion rate of 37% and we have only finished the first quarter.

First lets get to the leaderboard of the friends who joined us through our documented mayhem. Chuck, you took the gold medal this month for surviving 7 bars with us. Selfy and Malmo, you guys tie for the silver at 5. Look for EBONY t-shirts in the mail (you think we’re kidding?) and wear them with pride. It’s also nice to see all former 907 members on the podium – Hercules would be proud. Overall for the year, the legendary Baumer is still setting that pace at 18 bars, even though he has been completely MIA for a good 6 weeks now – dude wake up! Adam has made a big push lately and comes in at second with 12 bars. Pulling up the next three slots are Selfy at 11 and Chenoweth and Hall tied at 10. Hall, I’m not going to lie, we are extremely disappointed in your string of absences lately, get your shit together; you don’t turn 30 for another 3 weeks.

March was quite exciting, we experience memorable evenings that included election parties, St. Patrick’s Day, happy hours, karaoke, a dog named Potato, cougar hunting by our companions, the NCAA tournament, a 907 reunion and of course the Beer Olympics. Thanks for the memories guys. As far as the bars we visited this month, I would have to say we had the most fun at Jakes (and had the coolest bartenders), Goose Island, Trader Todd’s and AliveOne. The worst memories of my month go to Big City (Shitty) Tap, Parrots and Fearon’s – you guys suck. The award for the best new bar for us goes to Patsy’s Place and Wellington’s. We will be back sometime. I would have to say, the 2 best new beers I had this month were the Bell’s Hop Slam (an A+ rating on BeerAdvocate.com) and the Goose Island Stimulus. Cheers for giving us a delicious brew to get us drunk.

We would of course have to thank all our readers out there. Since we started handing out business cards, our hits per day have been through the roof. A special shout out goes to Martineu, your efforts at being the head of our street team has grown us leaps and bounds. If you haven’t received your EBONY business card lately, that means you are being lame and are not hanging out with us, get your act together! I would have to say our most interesting hit has come from the US House of Representatives. Fuck yeah! That got me thinking, who are the 5 congressmen I would most want to get drunk with, and I came up with this list:
-Virginia Foxx, North Carolina 5th District – with a name like that, you better be hot
-Thaddeus McCotter, Michigan 11th District – once again, another dope name
-Ron Paul, Texas 14th District – dude, how can you not want to get hammered with this guy?
-Harry Treasure, New Mexico 2nd District – I bet you do
-Maxine Waters, California 30th District – if you’re on the Bill Maher show twice a month, you got to be pretty badass

For those of you around this Saturday, come join us out. Eventually we'll be hitting the Metro for The Faint and Ladytron show, but will be partaking in the ritual before that.