Tuesday is the best day of the week [Reprise]

As some of you may remember, way back in the day on my blog (see post here) I had claimed that Wednesday was the best day of the week. It had it all! New comics! Lost! Trivia Night! How could that be beat? Well, a number of things happened to bring down the quality a little bit. First off, Hooters closed which effectively killed trivia night. Second off, Lost moved to Thursday. Finally, it is still the standard comic day, but one in every five Wednesday's don't even bring my sweet, sweet comics into my grasp (like today).

So even though it is still very lustrous as comic days have only gotten better (seriously, combine becoming friends with Will and Jared from my comic shop with the major events that are happening right now - Secret Invasion AND Final Crisis - well, let's just say my visits are satisfiying) and Colver and I have picked up Wednesday as our official day to go play basketball and show off our mad hops and elite dunking skills. So it's still a great day.

However, last night Tuesday launched it's first salvo in what may become a very ferocious war for "best day of the week" (clearly weekends are exempted - they're weekends! they are obviously the best), as three fantastic events went down for the first time, with one being a weekly repeat for sure and the other two potentially standing up as weekly or bi-weekly events. What were they?

• Trivia Night v 2.0
• Foosball at Koots
• Rock Band at Koots

As we discovered last night, the Drunken Cowboys (back from the dead!) may have found a new home at one of the least likely of places - Eddie's Sports Bar. Arguably a bit of dive, Eddie's essentially has become the spiritual descendant of Hooters, except it may in fact be somewhat less classy (as unbelievable as that sounds). However, it does have a few things going for it.

• Fast paced
• Reasonable questions
• FREE!
• Cheap Taco Bar!
• Shuffleboard, Darts, and Pool
• Decent service

Of course, it misses a little somethin' somethin' that Hooters had going on, it was still really fun and very packed. Strangely enough, considering Humpy's is a far "cooler" bar, it seemingly is by far the worst of the three trivia nights. I personally can't wait for next week, as we almost won and the money is carrying over to next week ($400!! Bling bling!).

In addition, they have two man team Sports trivia on Thursday's, which Colver and I will start attending next week. This is where I will likely unleash my fury, as I have a rather encyclopedic knowledge of all things sports. Besides gymnastics. I know nothing about gymnastics.

After this, we were nearing the revelation of Rock Band supergroup Bitchface (as we've so colorfully named ourselves) starring the one time Hey Hermano and current Puma Town singer, guitarist, and drummer...aka Amy, myself, and Jason, and the shredding champion of Eagle River band Five Star Whammy...aka Jon. We went a while early to hang out and have a couple drinks (don't worry kids, I know it was a school night plus I had a blood test the next day - all water for me, so the night was cheap!) and play some Foosball.

As some may know, I've always despised Foosball. I generally don't like doing things I'm bad at, and I was terrible at Foosball. However, since getting involved with the crew, their overwhelming passion for the sport has rubbed off on me a bit, and after playing A LOT I've become not bad at the game. At times good, but I make a ton of dumb mistakes still. Regardless, the teams were Jason and myself (fresh off of a 4-0 evening at the Homestead Lounge two weekends previous) and the shooting stars that are Amy and Jon. Now if I was going to do a ranking on skills of us four, it'd likely go as follows.

1. Amy
2. Jon
3. Jason
4. Me

However, in true sporting fashion the most talent does not always win. No sir it does not. This time, the best team won. That team? The Slo Mo Rollers, starring Jason and myself. We took five of six games from the absolutely shocked Amy and Jon, as they simply could not handle Jason's staunch defense, my magical dribbling up front, and our perplexing off-speed shots.

It was about as much fun as I've ever had playing Foosball, and honestly, we may have taken five of six but every possession and game were close (besides one, where we shut them out). I'd say it was Foosball on steroids, but that be a bit cliche, although there was a lot of yelling and hooting and hollering. Mostly from yours truly.

After our six games, we were totally ready to rock. Sadly, Rock Band was not in the Swing Bar at Koots like we thought, with the wide open spaces of that bar but a dream as we had to go and play in the weird bar in the entry way of Koots. It's tight, confined spaces were not ideal for Bitchface's premiere, but in typical fashion for the band, we persevered if only in the name of rock.

Of course, the situation wasn't helped by the fact the first song we played Jason had to drum on lefty mode (as we didn't know how to switch) and myself and Jon were using sub-par house guitars. We're used to having room to move, kick, and dance with my wide open living room and our two cordless guitars. This was with a Guitar Hero 2 wired controller (bleh!) and a Rock Band wired controller (even worse than the first!).

From left: Random stranger, Jason, and Amy rocking at Koots

But that's enough for excuses. We still totally rocked, starting off with old standby "Wanted Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi, which I totally blew at to start (the intro always bugs me on expert) but picked it up and we manged to do OK. We followed it up with a far better run through on "War Pigs" by Black Sabbath and then an even better yet rendition of Oasis' classic ballad "Wonderwall," which we even had an audience member sing along to (thanks guy!!).

About that point a guy came over and bugged us to let him play, and I let him take my spot. He was not good, as he played on medium and forced crappy songs on the band, bringing our overall appeal down. Bad stranger!

However, after two songs he departed and Bitchface ended our inaugral performance with a rousing rendition of Weezer's classic track off the Blue Album, "Say It Ain't So." All four of us played expert, and we finished at 90% (Jason on drums, rock on!), 96% (myself on guitar), 97% (Jon on bass), and 98% for our showoff, diva of a lead singer Amy. Five stars, foooo shoooo.

All in all, it was a great experience. It won't necessarily be an every week thing, but it was definitely a lot of fun. I really hope someone puts on a Rock Band competition that we can participate in, as that was what we were really hoping for. However, we did the best with what we had and we had a great night. Even better, it was a ton of fun and I spent $1 (on Foosball) and all that I had to drink was about 10 glasses of water.

Oh Tuesdays...how I love thee.

Why can't it always be the weekend?

This weekend was pretty much stellar. Nearly everything about it was fantastic (some small things really bug me, but nothing is perfect) and I enjoyed the heck out of the whole thing. Sadly enough I am without one shred of photographic evidence even though I managed to have my camera the whole time. How does that happen?!

Anyways, instead of giving a very lengthy breakdown of everything that happened, I'll do a Cliff's Notes version with a bit more detail afterwards.

Top 10 reasons why this weekend ruled

1. Claire d'Loon
2. Rocking with Puma Town
3. Better Letter
4. Palmer Trip
5. BBQ at Jason's
6. BIG BEN!!!
7. The Homie
8. AK Wild
9. Ryan Zimmerman's walk off blast
10. The Crew

1. Amy and I are big fans of fancy dinners. There is something awesome about having a really nice dinner with a great friend, sharing a bottle of wine and having delicious food. We've typically went to Mixx Grill, but this time we decided to (oh god, pun alert...) mix it up and go to Claire d'Loon. The experience was exceptional as the strange little bistro that was Da Loon turned out to be excellent, in spite of the fact that there were literally no other patrons and that they played Kenny G. Our food was great, our waitress looked exactly like Naomi Watts, and it was a great time having dinner with Amy like always. A+ experience.

2. Due to Lacey leaving, our Rock Band experience has been nameless lately essentially as we had to abandon the Hey Hermano moniker. As Amy, Hannah, Jason, and I still wanted to play, we needed a new band name. Friday night, we had our first session as rock superstars Puma Town. It was amazing, as Princess Btown, Whammy Town, Blaze Town, and T-Rex Town all melted faces and we downloaded 6 new songs, the new Boston song pack and "El Scorcho" by Weezer. Puma Town rules.

3. Amy and I crafted our fourth exceptional cover letter as our fledgling business continues to grow. This one may have been our best one yet, and it was a grand and very rewarding time like it always is.

4. Late Saturday afternoon, Hannah, Kim, Amy, and I drove out to Palmer to get coffee. Yes. We drove three towns away to get coffee. And it was delicious, fun, and well worth the trip.

5. In a freak occurrence, I managed to be in Eagle River three consecutive days. My bubble is getting dangerously close to being burst at this point. Saturday evening Jason had a get together at his place as he had bought a new BBQ, and we grilled up burgers and steaks and had a great time drinking and being merry. BBQ season is making me very happy, and it's as early as it has ever been.

6. At the BBQ, I played old reliable drinking game Kings Cup for the first time since college. Due to an extreme lack of alcohol, we played a highly modified and far more fun version of the game, more based off interactivity and less off volume consumed. I highly recommend incorporating the rule called Big Ben as the new rule for the ten card. It involves standing up and forming a clock tower over your head with your arms. It's pretty amazing.

7. The Homestead Lounge is the bar in Eagle River. I'm sure it isn't the only bar there, but from my experience it might as well be. It was my second experience out there, and it was a great time again. Any night that features winning all four of my games of foosball, dancing the Cuban Shuffle, and a bizarre bald man that was utterly shocked by me washing my hands has to be considered a success.

8. Hannah, Jason, Colver, Lorna, and I attended the AK Wild's second home game today. The AK Wild is Alaska's second year Intense Football League team, and amazingly enough we won our second game this season in just four attempts (took us 11 attempts last year). It was a great time, being a far smoother experience than the first game this season and being more strangely entertaining as well (unintelligible referees + hilarious linesmen crew + mega wave = hilarious good time).

9. The Washington Nationals officially kicked off the season against the Atlanta Braves today (sorry Red Sox and A's, this felt like the real start to the season) in style, with Ryan Zimmerman launching a blast with two outs in the bottom of the ninth to win their season opener. Perfect way to start the season I say.

10. Last but not least, the Crew. I have to admit, it's been a while since I've had a full gang of people to hang out with at any time, but it feels great to have one again. The friends I've made through Amy are awesome, and this entire weekend was full of them. Hooray for the Crew! You make your country proud.

So yeah, it was a great weekend. This somehow still ended up being fairly long, and I casually omitted some things that went less well (the end of the Homie experience was not as good as the preceding hours...I'll leave it at that) but all in all, it was an awesome experience. Why can't it always be the weekend?