Day 2 location: Jojo's Tavern, Trenton/Hamilton NJ. http://jojostavern.com/ Great pizza, good beer, interesting characters, less home equity loans required than Salt Creek Grille. Be careful of Arty at the bar who may or may not be applying all of the Generally Accepted Cleanliness Procedures when handling food.
Ahhhhh, darkness at 4:30, freezing cold air, the sweet melodies of frequent noseblows, and inescapable Christmas music in every nook and cranny of the face of the earth....it must mean....it's time for....
Oh, wait, sorry, that's the TDDOC guidelines.
"On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a beer in the Princeton Forrestal Center"...that pinnacle of suburban highway corridor existence.
I'd first like to start off with a moment of mourning. Please bow head. This is very sad. It's about how Crack Pipe Larry was unable to drive the 300 yards out of his way on the way home in order to stop and have a beer with this friends. I mean, seriously, he works like 1/4 of a mile from the place, and passed within about 100 yards of the beer taps on route 1 on his way home. Look, I know that there was a Who's the Boss festival on Nick at Nite, and the TDDOC guidelines only mention that watching Alf reruns are not an excuse and don't explicitly mention Who's the Boss, and Tony Danza is very very funny, but please, please some flexibility here? Meanwhile, later on, at some point, I glance to the door, wave a greeting to Tmac as he enters, and then do a double-take. This is a Connecticut resident, driving down for the event. This now means that the state of Connecticut owns more TDDOC points than Crack Pipe Larry. That lead is only going to grow as Buffy road trips down later in the week. Right, Buffy? Anyway, rest in peace Crack Pipe.
So, Day 1, Salt Creek Grille, with the sort of California hip that just doesn't work in New Jersey, because frankly we have no idea what to do with it. I mean, it's just not enough to give us California architecture and turn us loose on it. We don't know what we're doing. They need to bring in some actual Californians to hang out in the bar with us, and train us to be cool. Lord knows there's enough profit margin in the drink prices to cover that.
Salt Creek Attendees: scugi, mrs. scugi, nancy hp, ska, tamps, BB, bobo, jeff, milot, dmile, billionaire pat worth, millionaire brandy, eman, dorian, donna, gman, su, lisa eman, trent, tmac, pods, lauren, anna, beth, yvette(non-goettle), randy, goettle, yvette, neufeld, mindy, dino
Scugi arrives first and therefore wins the title of 2007 TDDOC Kickoff Boy. Here is word for word what he told me upon my arrival: Place is fairly empty except for exceptional loudly laugh girl at back table. Peroni, goat cheese and marinara and the weekend edition of USA today, sitting on the bar, start the festival off with a bang. Nancy HP (Hogan-Perrine) is second in.. She and I start off the festivities with a rousing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner, and I climb on the bar to give a rousing kickoff speech. No response from the crowd other than a loud laugh from the back.
Back to stats author: Shame on Scugi. WHY is he there at the bar by himself, happily enjoying himself, when he could be giving someone a "WHHYYYYYY am I drinking alone!??!?!" call. Life is about opportunity. Don't miss it when it hits you in the face.
A band was playing. It was loud. It was not good. In my opinion. It seemed to be some sort of bluegrass/jazz fusion. I had this fantasy about walking over, grabbing the guitar, smashing it to the ground, and handing back the guitar neck with its splintered jagged edges. But then someone handed me a beer and I forgot all about it. I bought the band's CD the next day and it's spectacular.
Many people are drinking Peroni beer on tap. People! Doesn't it frighten you that this beer is made in Italy? Do you know what they do really, really well in Italy? I don't either, but it's not beer. I believe that there are some good wines, though, and I would really tend to label that as Italy's core alcohol production competency. Isn't drinking Italian beer akin to ordering a falafel in Japan or a taco in the Ukraine?
It was a big night for the loss of TDDOC virginity. There were a large number of first-time-ever point-getters (nancy hp, brandy, lauren, anna, beth, yvette(non-goettle), dino, melanie 123, jennifer), and the real test will be if any of these poor people come back again. Warning: It's ugly, it doesn't end well, and frankly, I'd advise against it.
Billionaire Pat Worth brought along a lady friend, and apparently they have gone through some hard times lately, as Pat is having trouble dealing with the fact that she is only a millionaire. On the bright side, though, she does like watching hockey ONLY for the fights. They fight in hockey? It makes me think of that old song "Brandy" from the seventies. I believe (I'm way too lazy to spend the 30 seconds to google it) the lyrics go "The sailors say Brandy...." and then something about her being a "fine girl". I'm not sure I picture a group of sailors calling any girl "fine", but then again, I may have the lyrics totally inaccurate, and if so, please make believe that this paragraph never existed.
In the "that's not news" department, at some point Bobo announces "I'm hungry", and proposes a road trip down Route 1 in search of food. Never mind that we are at a restaurant. No more yanky my wanky, the Bobo need food. This is a dangerous undertaking, frought with risk, as the no-repeat rules of the TDDOC dictate that anywhere we go is thus off-limits any other night. We settle on On the Border, and hit the road. OTB offers up beer in these huge goblets that are freezing cold, and frankly, way too big and dangerous to be entrusted to the care of someone who's already been drinking. What are they thinking? Bobo orders tons of food. We spot two women across the bar who seem very sad and not having fun. I decide they need shots. The bartender whips up some concoction, and of course, he's nice enough to give me one too. I round the bar to do the shots with our new found friends Melanie 123 and Jennifer, and find that actually they are quite happy and having fun, but due to some sort of lighting vortex in the bar, it looks quite the opposite from the other side of the bar. I go back to the other side of the bar, and they once again look sullen and unhappy. This is clearly a phenomenon unique to this one place in the world, as typically people look sullen and unhappy when I am talking to them, and cheerful and fun when I am away from them. Check it out sometime.....it might be a good homework assignment to go to the OTB on your own time and run some experiments. Or, have a conversation with me with a mirror nearby and see how sullen-looking you might become.
OTB road trip attendees: Bobo, Tamps, Ska, Goettle, Yvette, Eman, Melanie 123 (no particular significance to the 123, other than to distinguish her from our other Melanie, unless there is a significance that we don't know), Jennifer
Bobo also reports that the men's room at OTB smelled like a barn, and they had really good cheese soup. It's unclear at this point whether the two are related. He also believes that at some point Yvette actually had a lampshade on her head, although I'm not too sure that they have any lamps at OTB.
Perhaps as a revival of past tradition as part of Year 10 of the TDDOC, I may offer up a throwback to Year 1, when we created our own Twelve Days of Christmas song. Each day, the stat writer would offer up four suggestions, and the stat-writer of the following day could pick the one of their choice and offer up four more. Here goes:
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
-A huge bar tab in the Princeton Forrestal Center
-A missing Crack Pipe
-A splintered guitar neck
-A starving Bobo
Editor's addendum: Unfortunately most attendees were unable to enjoy one of the TDDOC's fine annual traditions the next morning, Massively Hung Over Gman. Usually this specific performance is saved for Day 12, but Gman offered up a special performance early this year while helping our friend Rachel move on Saturday morning.
Damage report. I actually don't think anything was damaged anywhere. Major disappointment. Please look to break, violate, lick inappropriately, or set fire to something as soon as possible, preferably tonight. Remember, if anyone sees it and says "WHO DID THIS?", you say, "It might have been this guy Crack Pipe Larry. He just left."
Wait, there was some sort of issue with Gman's parking light on this truck on Saturday morning. OK, I know it was one of you. WHO DID THIS?
Points total:
Eman 1
Ska 1
Gman 1
Su 1
Goettle 1
Yvette 1
BB 1
Pods 1
Tmac 1
Bobo 1
Tamps 1
Scugi 1
Mrs. Scugi 1
Nancy HP 1
Milot 1
DMile 1
Mindy 1
Dino 1
Jeff 1
Lisa Eman 1
Trent 1
Billionaire Pat Worth 1
Millionaire Brandy 1
Randy 1
Neufeld 1
Lauren 1
Anna 1
Beth 1
Yvette(non Goettle) 1
Dorian 1
Donna 1
Melanie 123 1
Jennifer 1
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