Merry Christmas

It's been forever and a day since I've posted here. I want to restart it in the new year.

Until then, Merry Christmas from Boston is the Balls!

The Most Disgusting Burger I've Ever Eaten

I just ate the worst burger I've ever eaten. I know this sounds like hyperbole, but no...trust me...it's not. It was the new McDonald's 1/3 lb Angus Deluxe burger. It was nothing but a ball of grease that tasted worse than their quarter pounder (high quality my ass). But wait till you hear about the toppings. Lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, mayonnaise, and....MUSTARD. WHO THE FUCK PUT THIS PIECE OF SHIT TOGETHER???!!!!!


AVOID AT ALL COSTS

In tradition of the last few posts, I was going to do 5 things I would rather eat than a McDonald's Angus Deluxe, but it was making me even sicker. Maybe later.

Boston's Best Bands Part 2

Here is a continuation of yesterday's post. 5 more GREAT bands from Boston.

1. Gene Dante and the Future Starlets

Jill's favorite Boston band. Like a mix between Hedwig and the Angry Inch and mid-70's glam rock like Queen, Gene Dante and the Future Starlets are definitely an up-and-coming band in the Boston area. Best Songs: C Star, OK Sunshine, When the Starlet Hits the Wall.

2. Thick as Thieves

Post-modern punk rock. Really good stuff. Their albums are all concept albums. Recommended for fans of Rival Schools, Coheed and Cambria, and Cursive. Best songs: Here's to Waking Up, everything else - haven't found a song I didn't like.

3. Logan 5 and the Runners

Glam Rock at it's finest. Best song: Girls of the Internet

4. Blanks.

Blanks. is an offshoot of another Boston band, The Main Drag. I would include the Main Drag here, but haven't seen them live. Blanks. have a very awesome sound. Definitely dancable alternative pop rock. Best Songs: anything on the Infinite Lives EP.

5. My Stupid Friends

A side project of Waltham (again...haven't seen them yet...) that is really bizarre. They have 4 guitarists....lol...and a very juvenile sense of humor. I didn't like them at first, but their Green Jello like antics eventually caught on. Best Songs: most of their best stuff isn't on CD yet, but check out their cover of Hangin' Tough.

Look for part 3 in the future. :D

Boston's Best Bands

This blog is intended to be a snapshot of living in the Boston area and a snapshot of our lives. One of the most important things for me is music. I've played bass since 1996 (jeez...13 years?) and I love live music. One of the reasons we moved here is the local music scene. Over the past year and a half, we've seen a lot of local bands. Here are 5 of our favorites (that we've seen). Note: we first saw all of these bands at Church. This is a great bar in the Fenway area that has live music every night.

1. Anarchy ClubLike White Zombie ran into Bruce Lee in a dark alley, Anarchy Club is the brain child of Keith Smith and Adam von Buhler. They're famous for appearing in Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero 2, Rock Band and Rock Band 2 (Keith works for Harmonix, the company that created those games). Best songs: Hidden by Blue, Kill for You, Behind the Mask, Get Clean.

2. That Handsome Devil
There's truly no way to describe That Handsome Devil. They're part rock, lounge, hip-hop, bluegrass...jeez...just listen to them. Best songs: Squares, Rob the Prez-o-dent, Viva Discordia, Elephant Bones

3. The Lights Out
Absolutely perfect Alternative Rock music. I think they're the best song writers in the area. Best Songs: Anything on Heist!.

4. Death of the Cool
Great electronic-rock band. They put on an amazing show. See 'em live to hear their covers of Next to You by the Police and Mr. Fix-It by The Amazing Royal Crowns. Best songs: Can't Let Go, and a whole bunch more that I don't know the name of :)

5. Red Red Rockit
Great classic rock band. Seriously tight three-piece group. I've never seen a bass player that can play like he does while singing. Seriously amazing. Best songs: I Got a Woman, Goodbye Hello.

Jill's probably going to be pissed that her favorite band didn't make this list. But she didn't write it...so :P

We'll revisit this topic in the near future with 5 more great bands in Boston. Until then, check these bands out and know that there are more to come.

Plymouth Rock sucks

This is Plymouth Rock. I've taken shits bigger than it.

Did you know that it wasn't even where the pilgrims landed? It wasn't until over 100 years after they landed that someone made mention of Plymouth Rock being the spot. Chances are, they used it as a point of reference...wow the lies we are told as children.

Here's the real rub about Plymouth Rock. It used to be 3 times the size....where the fuck did it go? I understand erosion, but this was less than 400 years ago. Also, you might notice the plaster seam. That's because it was split during the Revolutionary war and used as a rallying point to show our desire for freedom. It's just a rock.............

I was so disappointed with Plymouth Rock, that I thought I'd make a list of 5 rocks more impressive than it.

1.

The Rock of Gibralter
Now this is a fucking rock. We should be ashamed.

2.

Stonehenge
Even just one rock out of Stonehenge would be better than Plymouth Rock

3.

A Kidney Stone
At least this hurt. Plymouth Rock wouldn't hurt even if it fell on you.

4.

AC/DC
Nothing can stop their rock from rolling. You could stop Plymouth Rock if it was rolling by spitting on it.

5.

The Rock
A Much more pertinent American Icon. Let's have a cage match between the Rock and Plymouth Rock to determine the more important American Historical Artifact

In closing, learn from our mistake. Don't waste your time.

No Pterodactyl Marrying in the Near Future

Patton Oswalt was wrong...we're never going to get to see Michael Jackson rape a werewolf or marry a pterodactyl...

RIP you crazy baby dangling bastard.

Susan Boyle is a Muppet

Just because I saw someone tweet about that ugly British woman, I thought I'd post this here. This is a side-by-side of Susan Boyle and the Beautiful Day Muppet

Dollar Bill's Discount World - Customer Appreciation Day

Oh the sweet joy that is Dollar Bill's Discount World in Derry, NH. We first heard about this blissful nirvana of existence when Dollar Bill was interviewed on the Toucher and Rich Show. By the way, if you're not listening to Toucher and Rich, then you should be ashamed of yourself. Even if you're not from Boston, you can listen online or download the show as podcasts.

So, back to the story at hand. Dollar Bill's Discount World is a store in NH that sells items that stores and catalogs wholesale to him. Since this is in the bustling metropolis of Derry, NH, you can imagine that there is a whole lot of interesting stuff there. Let's just say that if you want NASCAR memorabilia but aren't willing to pay the Wal-Mart prices, get your ass to Dollar Bill's. I do have to say though that we have bought a lot of merchandise from the store. We were initially drawn to visit after watching his weekly infomercial.....oh...he has a weekly infomercial on MY TV in the Boston area or you can watch it on his website...definitely worth your time.....and he was selling marshmallow guns for $5 each. We had to go. We also purchased a really nice bookcase for $30 and Jill buys a lot of candles from them...candles that retail for $20 and she gets for a dollar!!! You can't beat that.

No discussion of Dollar Bill's discount world would be complete without a full description of Dollar Bill himself. Dollar Bill talks like an auctioneer, makes really off color jokes that, if you can catch them, are HILARIOUS, wears an umbrella hat with dollar bills stapled to it and shorts with the same. In reality, Dollar Bill is a quite normal guy who is also wicked nice. He just plays this insane asylum patient on local TV :).

So, this past weekend, Dollar Bill's was holding their annual customer appreciation day. He was having the Clam Haven and Coke cater it and he was autographing umbrella hats. We had looked at the website and found out that he was autographing from 10 AM to 11 PM....since the store closes at 8 PM, we assumed it was a typo, and he would stop autographing at 11 AM...the plan for the day was to hit up the Sam Adams and Harpoon breweries. Sam stopped at 3...more on that tomorrow....and Harpoon stopped at 4:30...see yesterday's post...so I convinced Jill on Friday night that we could hit up Dollar Bill's in the morning and then still make it to the two brewery tours. That, of course, did not take in to account that we drank pretty heavily on Friday night.

So needless to say, we woke up late. I was incredibly pissed that I wasn't going to be able to get my free umbrella hat and almost wrote off going to the event. We picked up our friend who was visiting from out of town, and we decided that it was still worth going to just for the free lunch. So we made the trek up to Derry for free hamburgers and all the people watching you could stomach.

We arrived at my heaven on earth to find Dollar Bill in full regalia waving at everyone who pulled into the parking lot. I went up to him and asked if I missed the autograph session...he said that he would do some more after a trivia game that was coming right up. HALLELUJA! I was still going to get my hat and be able to compete for free swag from the store.

The trivia competition was hilarious to witness. Nothing like a whole bunch of New England hillbillies taking random stabs at questions that they never knew. Jill actually got the first question right which was the address of the store. We won 3 tickets to the Manchester, NH minor league baseball team! Unfortunately, stubhub.com doesn't appear to allow you to sell these on the site. Something about scalping $8 tickets doesn't appeal to them.... I ended up answering a question about the Simpsons. He thought that it was going to be really tricky, so put up one of his biggest prizes for the correct answer. It was a rolling backpack filled with what he called "novelties" that he assured us was worth several hundred dollars. The question was how many kids do Homer and Marge have and what are their names.....................................................the Simpsons have been on the air for 20 years! If you don't know that...then where the fuck do you live? I guess it shows you how much he thinks of his customers. So, the backpack was filled with toys. Worthless toys. What the hell am I, a 28 year old with no kids supposed to do with 150 rubber duckies? Jill and I ended up handing all of the toys out to the kids that were there. Figure I need to give something back every once in a while just to keep Karma off my back.

After handing out the toys, it was time for the umbrella hat signings. After waiting for over 45 minutes in line, I GOT MY HAT!!! WOOT!

Sorry about the lack of pictures. I'll upload them tomorrow.

The Walt Disney TIMESHARE? or What will you go through just to poop?

I'm throwing out this weekend's best story first just to get this blog started in the right direction.

This story begins at the Harpoon Brewery in South Boston. We had planned on visiting the brewery for its tour on Saturday, but arrived to find out that all the day's tours were sold out. We were assured that we could get a tour on Sunday and that they started at 11:30 AM. So, being the dedicated alcoholics that we are, we shook off the hangover and ventured to the brewery at 12:30 expecting to get right in and start our drinking.

On a side note, Harpoon has the best tour, hands down. They take you around the brewery for 30 minutes and then open the bar to taste as many beers as you want for another half hour. They even throw in a souvenir glass. All this for $5!! We're going to start our saturdays here a lot more often.

So, with our scarred livers in tow, we arrive at Harpoon, only to find out that the earliest tour that we could go on was 2:00. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal. But you try to kill an hour and a half on the waterfront of South Boston. I dare ya. You can go hang out at the Bank of America Pavillion....or....well there's not much there. It's mostly warehouses. Sure, you could walk in to downtown, but by the time you get there, you would have to turn right back around to make it back in time for the tour. So instead, we dicked around in a park for a while, until I got a certain urge. Let's just say that the previous night's booze was knocking at the backdoor. I HAD to poop. We happened to be across the street from the World Trade Center, so I thought it was worth a shot. I mean...it's a public building...they have to have crappers, right? If only I knew what was waiting for me behind that door.

We were greeted at the entrance by a grown, overweight man wearing Mickey Mouse ears and one big Mickey Mouse glove...no matter where that guy tells you to go, you follow him. Seriously. If he made it out of his mom's basement, you have to give him respect. He asked us if we were there for the Disney vacation event. Of course we said yes and he led us in. I looked frantically around the main lobby only to not see a single shithouse in sight. But we did see another person with a matching glove and ear set. She told us to go up an escalator and that someone up there would guide us the rest of the way.

Let me just take this time to point out how bad of an idea this obviously was. If I ever see anyone with a single glove on and no golf club in hand, I'm running in the opposite direction.

So, we get to the top of the escalator and we're told to cross a pavillion. STILL NO SHITTERS! So after going through the labyrinthine building and passing at least 5 more glove wearing weirdos, we near our final destination. The Disney Dream Vacation presentation. And guess what else....a pot to call my own...

Finally being relieved of my load, it dawned on me that we got in....but how in the hell are we going to get out??? That, and we were so goddamned curious about this presentation...how could we leave without taking a peek?

All the signs said the presentation was by invite only....the whole way to the final destination. Every glove wearer asked us if we were there for the presentation. We had no way of leaving, and no way of getting in. However, we found out that they were happy to let us in....and why wouldn't a timeshare presentation want extra people? You read that right. The Disney Dream Vacation presentation was being run by the Disney Vacation Club....aka the Disney Timeshare!!! We were each given a small remote and a bag that held a folder containing a pen, a tablet, a form to fill out for the "raffle" and a few pamphlets on the Disney ripoff club. We ventured into the auditorium when right in front of us, there appeared a man who looked like Jiminy Cricket meets Elton John's gayer cousin. He was in a shiny silver suit and when he saw us behind him, he looked at the 20-somethings with nothing but pure shame in his eyes. And rightfully so. What we witnessed next defies explanation. Imagine the most stereotypical Disney character from 30 years ago in real life. He was making up words and generally hamming it up to the point where I was embarassed for him. He left the stage because his calculateamonatron....or something like that.....was "malfunctioning". In place of him, 4 technicians....who just happened to be 2 guys and 2 girls.....appeared on stage to fix the machine. Only to break into a capella versions of numerous Disney songs. If that didn't make me want to kill myself, the act that followed them sure did....the slimeball timeshare salesmen.

After hearing the beginning of their pitch, we realized that it was 1:30 and we needed to leave. That's right...we had to leave a timeshare presentation........so...what do three college educated people decide to do? Say that our friend Wes's "wife" was in labor at Mass General and book it the hell out of there. Guess what? It worked!!! We left that place with giving them nothing but a raffle card from Phil McCracken at 123 Fake Street. We ran from that place and avoided as many of the single gloved douchebags as possible. But we couldn't avoid them all. Whenever we got near one, I would start mumbling about how we knew this was going to happen....as soon as we get in this presentation, we were going to get the call, etc.

Fortunately, this is where the story ends. We got drunk. We had fun. And we will never forget about the Disney Timeshare that almost was ours....:D

This weekend.....

What do umbrella hats, disney timeshare presentations, getting violated at Dick's Last Resort, $10 lobsters, office chair jousting, stolen boston globes, and a copious amount of booze have in common? Absolutely nothing, but it led to an interesting weekend. Full write up tomorrow!!

Welcome to the Blog!

My fiancee and I have been living in the Boston area for a year and a half. We recently realized that we have crazy adventures every weekend. This blog is intended to serve as a record of the bat-shit crazy things we encounter.

This picture serves as a teaser. Jill on the left, me on the right and Dollar Bill in the middle. Yes, he wears an umbrella hat with dollar bills stapled to it. And yes, that is how he goes to work on a daily basis. Don't believe me? Go to http://www.dollarbills.tv
More posts coming soon.