Just Plain Chips

Here are a bunch of pictures you might like. I’ll only put the first picture here on the home page so that the download isn’t huge for anyone who doesn’t want to look at them. Click on “Read the whole post” for more pictures. And as always, click on the pics here to see a larger version.

Here is the gang at the bowling alley. Starting in the back row on the left is Emily, Heidi, Scott, Jason. Then dropping down to the front row there is Sean, Garrett, Stephanie, Ricarda, and Jesse. The only one missing is Matt, who is probably out buying me a drink.

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Finally…

So we left the BBQ and headed for the bowling alley. Everyone seemed to be in a big hurry to get out of there (I wasn’t worried and the Gophs were on TV, so I was content) so we all headed into town. Steph and I didn’t race over there, we even stopped by my house first, but when we got to the alley, none of our friends were there yet. Well, that was worth it!

So I sat down in the bar area and continued to watch the football game until my friend Emily got there and bought me my first drink of the night. I had to order my drink of choice, Southern Comfort and Coke. I learned this drink kind of from my brother (he had a bottle of Southern in the apartment when I moved in two and a half years ago) but mostly from my roommate Matt. I’m not a huge drinker and I don’t like cola, but the combo tastes good to me. Southern has a little sweetness in it that appeals to my sweet-tooth and also is very smooth for a 100 proof drink, when mixed with Coke. (I was given a shot of it at one point in the night–that wasn’t cool at all. I don’t like it plain all that much, but it’s a sippin’ drink if anything.) My point earlier about having a beer at Matt’s house comes in now because I didn’t have any more beer for the rest of the night.
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After the football game Steph and I rode over to her house. I just chilled out on the couch with ice on my knee (which was hurting from basketball and hockey) and watched football. Steph was in the kitchen fixing a few things that I was not allowed to see. Thankfully I am lazy enough to appreciate that situation. After she was done with her stuff she gave me the last part of my birthday present, which was a bag of M&Ms candies. The special part was that she had ordered them online in custom colors: maroon and gold. (for those of you who don’t know the significance, those are the colors of my alma mater)

Finally, after she had finished making her surprise she also made some garlic potatoes and we went to a friend’s house for a barbeque get together. A bunch of people were there and my buddy had cooked up some steaks and burgers. We all just chilled out while watching the Notre Dame/Michigan State game (a friend’s brother played at Notre Dame, so she’s a big fan). When 8pm rolled around we turned to the Minnesota/Colorado State, which was the first Gopher football I’ve been able to watch this year. The Gophs scored pretty quickly in the first quarter, so the night started off pretty well.

I got a couple of presents at the party. A couple of friends gave me two books. They are the Worst Case Survival books. Some of the situations that they describe are pretty outrageous, but fun to read about. Another guy gave me a “fake ID” that he had found while hunting that morning. It’s a Montana drivers license of a guy that looks kind of like me at a quick glance. We all had a good laugh about it. My friend from Wisconsin gave me a “present” of not burning my gold Minnesota Gopher hat. What a guy. Plus a couple of bday cards. I have great friends.

After dinner the singing of “Happy Birthday” commenced as Steph brought over the cake that I had no idea she had made. My dad had suggested that my friends put on a ton of candles and then laugh at me when I can’t blow them all out. It’s true, ever since I was probably two years old I have never gotten all of my candles out. Sometimes I just don’t blow right, or don’t have the breath, but usually it’s because I’m laughing too much. Luckily Steph only put in two candles, one shaped like a “2″ and another like an “8″. I made sure to get both of them out. Of course, right when I closed my eyes to make a wish the Gophers scored a touchdown–what great timing.

I did have a couple of beers while at the party, so I made sure to fulfill that requirement of the BBBBB. You’ll see why that’s an interesting fact later. The night was still young, we all had full bellies and were looking forward to bowling.

Before I continue on with the narrative, I suppose I should interject with a few of the nice things people did for or bought for me.

On Friday night Steph took me out to MacKenzie River Pizza downtown. It is a really nice pizza place that I don’t often go to because of the price. So Steph and I each got our own deepdish pizzas. I got mine with Italian sausage, green peppers, and sun-dried tomatoes, she had a pizza called the Sequoia with basil pesto, sun-dried tomatoes, avocado (instead of artichoke hearts) and sliced toasted almonds. It was quite good.

After dinner we headed to the crappy movie theater in town, Campus Square 8, to see Hero. Wow, what a film. You just never know what to expect when it isn’t some cookie cutter American director behind the camera. The movie was beautiful, completely different than what I expected, and surprised me a few times. If you liked Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon at all I am quite confident that you will like this as well. It isn’t as much action, but still so good and just different than films we’re used to seeing here.

One thing that surprised me was the role they had for Ziyi Zhang. We (in the West) have really only seen her in Crouching Tiger, where she had a major role. (and to a lesser extent as a bad-gal in Rush Hour 2) From my experience with CTHD and what I consider her powerful performance I think of her as a nearly-leading lady with crazy kung-fu skills. It was odd to see her in a minor role with only a tiny bit of action.

So tasty dinner was my first present (I took Steph to the movie), along with a couple of bday cards I had received that day but didn’t open until Saturday. Then when I woke up on Saturday I walked out of my bedroom and on the main room table was a wrapped box with a card on it. Wow, what could that be? It turned out to be from Eric, my roommate. He had gotten two bottles of BBQ sauce from my favorite BBQ restuarant in town. The place is called Bar 3 BBQ and is owned and run by a guy on my hockey team. My favorite menu item is the pulled pork slathered in the house BBQ sauce. I have often thought about buying some bottles (they sell them, obviously) but they are a bit more expensive than stuff at the grocery store. So now I have two bottles, it was a great present.

When last we heard I was sore from hockey and heading towards a tailgate party before the MSU Bobcat’s football game. Well, it didn’t quite work out the way I wanted it.

First I was running late from hockey and trying to take a quick shower. Then I got a phone call (a wonderful birthday wish from my parents), then some people we were meeing to go to the game with weren’t ready. Rrrr, it all added up to not even making the kickoff or first touchdown of the game, let alone the tailgating before hand. Oh well.

The game itself was mostly fun, as are most football games in an outdoor stadium. Though we actually missed the best plays of the game while heading to the game. The defence made an interception and then the offense turned the opportunity into a touchdown. That’s pretty much the only thing that went right the whole game for the Bobcats. They missed at least 2 short field goals and really couldn’t get anything done. I was pretty happy that I don’t have anything invested (emotionally) in this team, it could be a long season. Since we missed the tailgating Steph and I had to pony up for some overpriced, not-that-good concessions food. Even my old standby, the big soft pretzel, wasn’t that good, it wasn’t all that soft!

I said that the game was mostly fun. It would have gone a long way towards “completely fun” had the weather cooperated or had I actually brought appropriate clothing. Before too long the sun started dissappearing behind gigantic clouds and the wind started to pick up. It had been a beautiful morning so I had stupidly only prepared for a beautiful day: I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt, and open toed sandals. When the rain started falling in the 4th quarter, Steph and I decided we had had enough of watching a football team we really didn’t care about and headed for home.

Ouch. Hockey is fun but losing 10 to 3 hurts. Especially when you’re out of shape and sucking wind the whole time. Especially when you have a stiff knee and sore groin from basketball the morning before. But I did get an assist. A puck was drawn back to the point (I’m a defenceman) on a face off in our offensive zone. A defender was coming to cover me so I had to get a shot off quick. I turned and fired a pretty hard shot in the direction of the net. It was way off target and heading for a teammate. He wasn’t fast enough to get out of the way or to get his stick on it. All he had time to do was turn his body a little bit as the puck hit him in the hip. His turn deflected the puck right into the open net! I was pretty excited.

Now I am going to a tailgate party before heading to the Bobcat football game, my first one. The party day has begun.

That would be the third annual Brenden’s Birthday Beer and Bowling Bash, happening this Saturday, my birthday, the 18th of September, at various locations around Bozeman, MT. Everyone is invited!

Two years ago on my birthday a few friends, my brother, and I went to a bar for a couple of drinks on my birthday. We ended up finishing a few pitchers of beer pretty quickly and decided to head to the bowling alley just a few blocks away and a tradition was born.

We took up two lanes and the beer flowed like wine all night long. People started heading to the bar to get beer and kept coming back with two pitchers every single time. I don’t think that some came back with a single pitch even once all night. I was gently encouraged to drink my share of beer and had to have at least a pitcher over the course of the night, probably into the one-and-a-half to two range. After a few games we all stumbled back to Brian’s and my (is that proper grammer? I have never figured that construct out) apartment for a big surprise. Brian had bought me an ice cream cake! Everyone shared and had a piece while crammed into the kitchen/my bedroom (those were the same room–our apartment was exceedingly tiny).

I think I threw up a bunch after everyone left, but that meant I didn’t have a hangover the next day, even though I think I called in sick to work. Ha Ha!

Last year we did about the same thing but went to a bowling alley a ways out of town. It was fun, I got really drunk and people had a good time, but it wasn’t quite the same as the first year.

I’m hoping that we will have an upswing this year, but it will be difficult to live up to the spontaneous great party from the first year. There are some points in my favor for this weekend though. First is that there will be a bunch of people who hadn’t been able to make it to the first two coming this year. Second, it is on a Saturday night so no one has to worry about work in the morning. Third (and this could be a pro or con) we have a great plan for the night. Though the festivities (for me) actually start that morning at a hockey game out at the Valley Ice Gardens at 10am. Hooray. The season is only a month and a half away or so. After that I will probably be taking a nap or just doing nothing. Sometime that night we will all try to get together for dinner, maybe grilling or pizza or something. After that we will head to the in-town bowling alley. Many drinks and a few thrown balls later I think we are planning to head over to a new bar in town called Mixers. It used to be called Little John’s where I had seen the Clumsy Lovers the first couple times. It has been totally redone and is supposed to be pretty cool. Then I think after closing down Mixers (2am) we will head downtown to a new restaurant that is open until 4am(!) called The Pita Pit. I understand it gets a little crazy after the bars close down, so that should be exciting.

Anyway, that’s the plan. I will certainly report on it after the fact.