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?

Go AK Wild!

The AK Wild shortly after the last TD

Go Alaska Wild!

Better than Fairbanks, for sure.

Everyone else? Uh uh.

Tonight, the AK Wild (Anchorage's Intense Football League team - essentially Arena Football) kicked off their second season against the one team they definitely can beat, expansion team the Fairbanks Grizzlies (as in Fairbanks, Alaska). In attendance were myself, Brian, Colver, and Nick, as I had managed to capture free tickets from work, and good ones too. Was it a good game? Depends on who you ask.

Ask the AK Wild, hell yes! With 8 minutes left, when we decided to depart, the Wild were up 68 to 12 (!!). Far better than the season opener last year, when the only thing they had 68 of with eight minutes left were fumbles (sadly barely overexaggerating). At times, they resembled what could be a real football team, being very solid defensively and returning no less than three inteceptions for TD's and one kick for a TD.

Ask the Fairbanks Grizzlies, not so much. They have maybe the worst QB ever created. He telegraphs every pass, and when he doesn't, he saves time by simply throwing the ball directly at the opponent. When that isn't bad enough, their defense is picking up penalties on every snap. They are worse right now than the Wild were at the beginning of last year - and the Wild were terrible.

Ask old friend from Hooters Chastity, and I'd say for sure. As per usual the AK Wild cheerleaders were just as, if not more, entertaining than the actual team. Chastity has joined the squad now, and she totally rocked the house. Of course, I was sad to not see old favorite "Edgy" cheerleader this year, but you can't win them all.

Ask AK Wild mascot Striker, and you'd likely get a yawn, followed by a lackadaisacal high five, and then excitement if you were a small child. At one point he picked a small child out of the stands to spin said child around in his arms, but with much glee to go with it. I'm not going to go into detail, but Brian and I definitely noticed his attention to children, and his apathy towards everything else. Needless to say, our discussion definitely involved these words, and you choose to do what you want with them: little kid, van, candy, come here, huffy.

Striker is a sick puppy.

Now ask myself and my crew, and you'll get a resounding...mostly. IFL officials clearly need to make the games speed up a bit, because I left my seat, went to the bathroom (far side from me), came back, and 3 seconds had passed. The last minute of the first half lasted 30 minutes. I wish I was overexaggerating.

But besides that, did I mention the fact we put up 68 points? The Grizzlies made us look like the New England Patriots, if only they were the Washington Redskins. It was ridiculously entertaining to see how amazing they made us look and how truly terrible they were. It remains to be seen if we are good, or if we're just beating up on far inferior competition (to prove a point, we discussed whether or not 8 random men from the stands would do better against the Wild than the Grizzlies would...the answer was clearly not, but the question was asked).

Also, there were a lot of hijinks to be had, such as Brian and I going on and on quoting There Will Be Blood (needless to say, the Wild's cornerbacks were drinking the hell out of the Grizzlies QB's milkshake), Colver announcing that he thinks he could kick the football from one end zone, out the other side of the field and out of bounds (we - by that I mean I - mocked him relentlessly about this), and the weirdo's in the bathroom who were having urine battles. I will not go into detail about that, but I will say this - only at the Sullivan Arena.

Overall, I'd say the first AK Wild game of the season was a success, and I'm looking to attend some more throughout the season. Hopefully we don't play Bartlett High School's JV team next game.

As a fun little inclusion, to continue the love for the drinking of people's milkshakes, I'd like to share with everyone the "I Drink Your Milkshake" skit from SNL two weekends ago. It stars the truly awesome Bill Hader as Daniel Plainview, Daniel Day-Lewis' character from TWBB. It is an uncanny impersonation, and for people who have seen the movie, I'm guessing you will find it hilarious. For those that haven't? Probably less so...no less, enjoy!