I have returned from a weekend Bachelor party celebration for Pucci (a good friend from college). An album of pictures are forthcoming, but for now I hope this picture will tide you over:

Pucci: the Man, the Myth, the Legend.

UPDATE: the album is now online.

I’m heading up to Chicago this weekend for a bachelor party. We’re renting a rooftop for the Cubs game and probably going to destroy our livers. Drunken revelry will ensue.

One of the guys going has insisted we hit up the Weiner Circle hot dog stand on one of the nights. There is a great clip from Ira Glass’s “This American Life” highlighting this fine Chicago establishment (language nsfw):

Sometimes I do things that are not quite dumb, but definitely not smart.

Yesterday Libby peed on her onesie while I was changing her, so Shannon grabbed a white terrycloth bathrobe from upstairs for her to wear. We shared a few giggles looking at Libby in her “lounging outfit”.

Now it just so happens that I was also drinking a glass of red wine (it was my first: this was not a booze-induced blunder). Left to my own devices I decided it would be cute to set up Libby for a picture in her robe. I imagined a suave pose would be cute: like she was wearing a dinner jacket and sipping from a sifter of booze. Very debonair.

This is the first (and only) picture I took with our camera:

It took her all of 0.3 seconds to reach out and turn that glass over. Zero point three seconds is just enough time for me to push the camera button and in the same horrifying moment realize the inevitable set of events my stupidity had set in motion.

I don’t think I could have shot a better picture if it had been posed. White robe, red wine just beginning to spill over, Libby’s fascination with this new toy, and my frantic hand reaching in vain to stop it all.

It’s a damn good thing Shannon has a sense of humor about these things; I am thankful that all the stains have since been washed clean as well.

Ok, it’s Friday afternoon and my server is recompiling (yes, this is a legitimate excuse for slacking off). I finally got some time to watch an old episode of Tiki Bar TV where they play a “Bunny Drinking Game” that looks like it could be a lot of fun:

Maybe the next time I am with a large number of people drinking (HS friends, IU friends, co-workers, people at a bus stop) I will try out the game and see if anyone plays

For our second night of “clubbing” in Vegas we headed over to Pure, a very trendy club at Caesars Palace. Naturally Paris and Nicky were there - this time they were celebrating Nicky’s 23rd birthday. We (and by “we” I mean hundreds of other club patrons and our group) sang happy birthday to Nicky, gave her a toast, watched a slideshow of some family pictures, and saw her open her presents (she got a nice diamond-crusted watch from her sister).

After all the birthday formalities Paris got on the mic (with her bunny ears on) and sang her song “Stars are Blind“, which is an abysmal testament to all that is bad with pop culture. I must admit that Paris looks rather skeletal in all the photos I have seen, but in person she is quite attractive and seemed fun.

The club has many different rooms, each with their own theme and color scheme, so even if my eyes were blurry I would have at least known where in the club I was. They also have an outside deck upstairs which allowed for a nice open space to breath. There were gobs of beautiful people dancing and everyone seemed to be having the times of their lives, which made for a very fun and exciting evening.

We had two big party nights in Vegas - the first was at Tangerine, a pretty hip club at Treasure Island (I’ll talk about the other night in another post).

We had prearranged to have a table and thus were able to bypass the line of several hundred people, which in retrospect is really the best way to experience these clubs. That’s not to say we avoided any wait, but it’s better than the 4 hours other people had to endure.

There were six of us, so the total cost of the table was reasonable. The table itself was in a separate room, behind more bouncers, and included two bottles of liquer and unlimited mixers. We also had our own little waitress and a huge hawaiian bouncer called Cena. The view was nice, with the club on one side (pic above) and the strip on the other.

But we weren’t the only ones at the club that night: Paris and Nicky Hilton stopped by with their entourage. There was a carpet and picture backdrop set up and everything, which is exciting (I guess).

Actually I was much more excited to see Kevin Connolly (aka Eric from Entourage), who is Paris Nicky’s boyfriend and was also partying at Tangerine. We never got close enough to talk, but we decided that the best thing to say if we were ever in earshot would be “Hey, tell Sloan I say ‘What’s Up’”.

I’m back from a crazy bachelor party in beautiful Las Vegas - stories will be posted soon, just tired now and going to sleep.

I ended up going to Comedy Comedy on Saturday night. It was a last minute decision to go - I had planned on spending the evening on the couch watching a WTTW special on Fidel Castro. But around 8:00pm it occurred to me that I would not be content eating frozen pizza alone on the couch (my wife is out of town).

I’m boring, but not THAT boring.

So I got up off my butt and went to watch some live stand-up comedy at Walter Payton’s roundhouse (for those of you keeping track this was my second time there). I enjoyed all of the comedians. In particular the opening act, a local guy named Jim Flannigan, had some very funny observations.

After the comedy came a band and I stuck around to listen. They were a cover band called CoverGurl (picture in blog entry), whose claim to fame is that their lead singer was on Rockstar:INXS. They put on a very good rock show. It probably didn’t hurt that their lead singer was a babe - and that the next best thing to do was sit at home alone and watch a Fidel Castro special.

After the band stopped I went into the next room (the “Cognac Bar”) and watched an incredible magician perform some “close” magic. His name is Jonathan Kamm and his tricks literally made my jaw drop. It was mostly slight-of-hand magic and I watched him for a good hour or two. Even though I saw the same tricks a couple times I still couldn’t figure out how he did it! If you are in the greater Chicagoland area and looking for a great entertainer I strongly recommend Jonathan Kamm.

Danish scientists have found that moderate drinking (1-2 drinks per day) can help reduce the risk of heart disease for men:

The researchers studied the effects of alcohol on more than 50,000 men and women over more than five years. Men in the study who drank one day a week had a 7 percent reduced risk of heart disease compared to non-drinkers, but daily moderate drinkers were 41 percent less likely to suffer from heart disease.

Women showed a smaller reduction in heart disease incidence, though for them it did not matter how much they drank per week (as long as it was not excessive). So have a beer or two tonight - it might save your life.

Heather, Bob, Shannon and I spent a fun Friday night cheering on the Cougars, a single A baseball team in the area. We were going to stay for the fireworks after the game but the cool spring night turned cold after the sun went down.

God, I love single A baseball. We splurged on the second most expensive seats in the park: $10 to sit a few rows behind home plate (for two bucks more we could have been in the first two rows). The players are there for the game (or at least the dream of a future major league game), the food is great, and the beer is slightly cheaper than Wrigley’s. Between each inning there is usually some sort of event involving kids racing around the bases, so it’s always entertaining.

I think the night is best summed up by what the four of us ate:

• 2 cheddar-wurst dogs (mmmm… cheese-filled meat)
• 2 regular hot dogs
• 1 “grande” nacho
• 1 bag of peanuts
• 2 hot chocolates in collector’s mugs
• 6 draft beers
• 1 bag of blue cotton candy (hence the picture)

[note: This post has been backdated to correspond with the date of the events described]