Entry 105: Another One Doesn't Ride The Bus

[The title of this post is a play on Weird Al's "Another One Rides the Bus", which itself is a play on Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust". This is actually a fantastic song -- terrific bass line. Sadly, it's been so overplayed that it's impossible to really enjoy now.]

I went out drinking with my friend RT last night. It was pretty fun. Now that we live in the city again, it's pretty easy to get to U Street, which is a big bar scene in DC. In theory, I could just take the bus, it's only about a 10 minute ride, and there is a stop right outside our door, but I didn't last night. S gave me a ride there (she didn't feel like going out, herself) and then I took a cab back. I was going to take the bus back. I was standing at the bus stop, and the bus came, and then the bus went, and it didn't stop. It was almost completely full, and there were like 20 people waiting with me, so I think the driver just did the math. It was just as well, as I immediately hailed a cab and it was only $7. If I had known it was so inexpensive, I would've just taken one in the first place.

I met RT at a place called Nellie's, which is a huge place -- a weird kind of sports bar / night club hybrid. It's ostensibly gay, but there always seems to be a decent dusting of heteros in the mix. I met a bunch of RT's coworkers as I came in at the end of an informal happy hour get-together. They were all really cool. There were a few attractive, 20-something, single women there, which to a middle-aged gay guy like RT doesn't mean much, but which I appreciate, even though I'm happily married to the most wonderful woman in the world (hey, she read this thing sometimes). Actually, at the end of the night one of them made a comment to me, something to the effect of "It was nice to meet you... Too bad you're taken." It was really quite innocent, but I must admit, it made me think back nostalgically to my single days. Yep, the plight of the desirable married man -- it's rough for guys like me, let me tell you.

Chris Rock has a hilarious bit about this type of thing. About how when you're single, it's tough to get girls to give you so much as the time of day, and then as soon as you get married, and can't act on it, woman suddenly treat you like you're Mick Jagger. I couldn't find it on youtube, but this is a different clip about being married that's pretty funny. (Warning, it's not suitable for work.)




Anyway, after Nellie's, RT and I went to The Saloon where I had a $10 bottle of beer (it's a cool, but overpriced place), and we had a discussion (maybe it was more like an argument) about abortion. It was pretty silly in retrospect, as it was very alcohol-fueled, and we actually have very similar views.

So as not to end the night on a sour note, we stopped at one more bar, Stetson's (where Jenna Bush was once supposedly kicked out of) and had one final drink. It was fine, but I don't think either of us really needed one more. It certainly didn't do me any good this morning, when I woke up with a headache. I've reached that point in life where it's absolutely impossible for me to drink more than one or two beers without being hung over. It kinda sucks getting old, sometimes.

In other news, the new house is working out great so far. A few unexpected annoyances have cropped up -- like the smoke detector in the kitchen being mounted directly above the stove, so that it goes off if you so much as boil water with the fan on, or a hole for the cable connection being drilled in the middle of the floor instead of against a wall -- but nothing too bad.

[Just a quick jog from our house -- very cool.]

Our neighborhood is pretty nice, I went for a run this morning through Rock Creek Park and parts of it are really pretty. In the park, there is a tennis arena where they play the Legg Mason Tennis Classic. I actually went to grad school with a guy who once played in this tournament. We had the same advisor, and he helped me out a lot by giving all this computer code he had written that would've taken me months to replicate on my own. He graduated before me, and one day after he finished and had moved away, my advisor randomly told me that he was once an aspiring professional tennis player. I Googled him and found out that he an All-American as an undergrad and once played a doubles match in the Legg Mason against Andy Roddick and some other guy -- kinda cool.

[William H. G. FitzGerald Tennis Center.]

Speaking of computer code. I've decide to embark on a new project. I'm going to try to make an iPhone app. I have no idea what to expect nor how hard it will be, and I don't really know where to begin. I've ordered a book that will hopefully explain things. I really just want to try it out, I don't have expectations about doing anything super awesome.

I have two ideas. The one I'm going to focus on first is a word game kinda similar to Boggle. I figure it's OK to make apps similar to other already existing games, given the success of Word With Friends. I mean, I like Words With Friends, I play it all day (and rarely lose, I might add, I think my record is about 50-4, literally), but it's just Scrabble. In fact, I don't see how they aren't being sued by Hasbro. Not only that, but the makers are on a commercial that aired during the Super Bowl? Really? They get hailed for a blatant rip off? (Yes, I get the airplane joke.) Seems weird to me.

It's like if I went to a basketball court, moved the rims down a few inches, made the court a few feet shorter, changed the three-point line to the four-point line, and then declared, "Hey, I made this new great game, hoopball. What do you think?" And everybody was like, "Wow! Hoopball is awesome!" Actually, that's not such a bad idea, I think I'm going to start working on the schematic of the National Hoopball Association.

Until next time...