my own worst enemy

The Great Easter Keg Hunt

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Yes, you read that correctly. An Easter Keg Hunt.

What's so amazing about this idea is not so much the pure genius of turning a childhood tradition into something adults would enjoy, but rather the fact that neither I nor my roommates (current or previous) thought of it first.

No, it was not our idea but that of the employees of that oft-visited seller of spirits, the Tavern on Main. Those sly purveyors of potent potables figured out a way to get Christians to come to a bar on the most holy of days -- by giving away free stuff.

Here's how it worked. Teams of two arrived at the Tavern at noon on Easter day. Sitting on the bar were two empty kegs; one gold, one silver, and both decorated like Easter eggs. The finders gold keg would be awarded a grand prize which included t-shirts, hats, shot glasses, pint glasses, two $50 gift certificates to the Tavern, and two tickets to an LA arena football game. The finders of the silver keg would be awarded with an unknown consolation prize.

While all the teams were held temporarily captive, two Tavern employees hid each keg in a public park somewhere in El Segundo. The picture below shows a map of our fair city and each dot represents a park or recreation facility. Finding these kegs would be no small task.

Six of us (roommates and friends) formed three teams which divided up the parks. Armed with bikes and cars, we quickly raced off to find the coveted quarry.

Imagine our surprise when, 25 minutes later, we had all searhed our respective parks to find nothing! These guys weren't kidding around when they hid these things. We quickly began backtracking, still trying to beat the dozen or so other teams that seemed to have caught up with us.

Over an hour into the hunt, we received a call from Matthias saying that found the silver keg! It wasn't much longer that the organizers of the hunt called to inform us that both kegs had been found. The grand prize winner? A guy on a scooter whose teammate had abandoned him at the starting gun. It turns out we walked past the winning keg several times but never saw it because we failed to look up (it was in a tree).

Matthias's team was awarded with t-shirts, hats, and two mini bottles of very cheap champagne. On top of that, Matthias achieved Tavern fame when, after finding the silver keg, ran it back through town to the Tavern on his shoulders.

Best of all, we all got happy hour prices for the rest of the day!

Author: Goat » Comments:

I'm a whale watcher...

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

"...watchin' whales go by. My, my, my."

Okay, no; I am not a perv who gets his kicks out of ogling whales. Man, just thinking about that gives me the jibblies. The nibbly jibblies.

But what I most certain am is a Certified Whale Watcher. And I've got the card to prove it, bitches. What do you got now?

How did I become a Certified Whale Watcher, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. Seeing as how neither my roommates nor friends were around the week/weekend of my birthday, they felt the need to celebrate it last weekend. So Phil and Pangle (who I presume were the ringleaders here) decided to round up some people and take me on a whale watching cruise on the South Bay. Most excellent!

The excursion itself was a bit less simple than you might think, though. There were many obstacles and terrors to defeat in order to obtain my newly achieved title. First and foremost was getting on the boat before it left the dock. Phil, with the planning skills of an army general (e.g., Custer), had not pinpointed the exact location of said dock prior to departing on our adventure, and we arrived at the ticket counter at precisely the last minute. Luckily, the curator of ticket sales wasn't going to pass up the fares of six extra passengers and we were allowed on board.

Upon leaving the dock, the captain of the Voyager (our barely seaworthy transport) began rattling off the safety announcements. We all perked up when he mentioned the most important of topics: vomit. His entire speech on the matter was summed up by one sentence: Swallow your pride; go over the side! And boy did they. I saw no less than three asian tourists lose it over the side of the railing. The best part was that there was an 8 inch ledge on the side of the boat which seemed to act like a puke-magnet. One poor shipmate (employee of the tour company) had to go around the boat with a brush on a pole and wipe down the side of the ship whenever someone blew chunks. And I thought my job was crummy.

The tour took us down between Palos Verde and Catalina Island as our guide informed us that we were looking for the (apparently elusive) gray whale. About 45 minutes into the tour, we spotted a few dolphins. I can't remember the species name; it started with an R, I think. Apparently these bad boys are normally a dark grey, but like to stratch each other's skin with their teeth which makes them turn white when they get old. Why do they do that? No one knows. Not even God. So stop asking questions.

We also saw some sea lions sleeping on a bell buoy. A few woke up to check us out as we drifted by, but they just fell back asleep. Can't say I blame them. Then we saw a few bottlenose dolphins, but they swam away from us. Maybe it was all the boot on the side of the boat that drove them away.

After three hours of trolling around the South Bay, our tour came to an end. Grand total of whales seen: zero. Awesome! The tour guide tried to inform us that dolphins are indeed whales, just small whales. "Blasphemy!" I shouted. "You're a whale heretic!" She then pronounced us all Certified Whale Watchers and tried to sell us merchandise. Matthias bought a patch and gave it to me for my birthday present.

So there you have it. To become a Certified Whale Watcher, you don't actually have to see a whale. You just have to taunt your tour guide. Done. Aaaand done.

(I took my camera out with me, but the pics are on film. If any are good, I'll post them soon.)

Author: Goat » Comments:

Somebody kill me please

Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Okay, so I haven't posted much lately mainly because there hasn't been anything interesting to write about. Why is that, you ask? Partly due to the fact that all my roommates (and most of my friends) were out of town last weekend, but mostly due to the fact that I'm bored out of my mind at work.

Let me paint you a picture. It's only fair to warn you that it will be no Picasso or Monet, but more like finger paintings children bring home from their daycare and their parents fawn over with accolades of "You're so talented!" and "You could be the next Picasso or Monet!" because, well, they're parents. That's what parents do. I don't expect such response from you, the readers, as you are not my parents.

Okay, so I've been working on implementing a cool tool for work that requires working on a server (I would tell you more, but then I would have to kill you.) Being that I don't have a full clearance yet, there is only one computer I can use to access said server. The problem is, there are like three other people in the same situation, so getting time on this computer is like DART-ing for a class back when we had to use phones. "BEOOWWW beooowww. The computer you are trying to use .... is UNAVAILABLE! Eat shit and die."

Today is the first day this week I've been able to access the computer, and for only an hour at that. The problem: I have nothing else to do. I have even asked for things to do. This actually resulted in a new task yesterday, for which I need to use that same computer. So now I have twice the work and no way to do any of it. Awesome.

Why don't they just set up a new terminal to the server, you ask? Because that makes too much sense. Actually, there's a lot of bureaucratic red tape involved like making sure you don't use a computer bought for a different contract and making sure the computer is set up to handle classified stuff. Bottom line: getting menial tasks done at a defense contractor is sometimes like squeezing a camel through the eye of a needle.

In the meantime, I'm becoming a hell of a sudoku solver.

Author: Goat » Comments: