The Roach Hotel

A few weeks ago, on a Sunday nonetheless, Jen had a wine and cheese party.  Nothing says close out the weekend like dressing like a used car salesman and drinking a bottle of Wild Irish Rose.
If you go back and forth between these two pictures really fast it looks like the vest is photoshopped in(it’s not, duh).

It was a fun party with terrible consequences for the Monday workday.  DJ brought some really expensive Scotch that tasted like a band aid to me, and tasted like Chloroseptic to Nick and Zack.

Kevin was incredibly proud of pulling off multiple perfect commercial standard beer pours.

The weekend after that Jen and I went to Minneapolis so she could see some bands.  7th Street Entry at First Avenue is a neat venue.  Very intimate.
The Canadian Tuxedos were in full force.  That Grainbelt Nordeast beer is of the strange variety.   It’s too sweet.

Minneapolis sidewalk graffiti.

The weekend after that I went to Gilead music fest in Oshkosh with Brad, Palmer, and Mike.  Lots of black metal, and stoner metal.  After a while it kind of sounded the same to me.

On Sunday morning we had a couple hours to kill between checking out of the hotel, and checking out the bands, so we did the most reasonable thing we could think of; played baseball.  It was a fucking blast.  The one shitty thing was the mayflies had just hatched, and there were black swarms of those fuckers flying all over the place.  It was insane.  Also, Palmer broke open a blister while batting and painted the handle with blood.

This was the only picture I took all weekend.  Palmer said the guys that drove this van were pretty old.  That’s  awesome.

Stay dry out there amidst the monsoon season everyone.  Oh, and I just made some cupcakes.

The Brewers are losing to the Braves, and it’s raining out, so hey, here’s an update.

I started phase 2 in operation:  Roach Hotel Garden, yesterday, it here’s a few snaps.

While rototilling, it kind of took off on me a bit, and my hand connected with the top of a 55 gallon drum, and rip some skin off my hand.  It bled like crazy.

Raking via the help of Point Beer.  God damn, it was nice out yesterday.

I kinda got bored at one point, so I decided to break up the yard work by trying to hit some wiffle balls over the house by tossing them to myself.  I am 27 years old.

Raw Destruction in Wiffle Ball format.  I hit two over the house, and when I was trying to hit them back over the house from the front yard, it took my life 30 swings.  A bit rusty I am.

Wine and Cheese party tonight at 6pm. Oh jeez.

A couple months ago I help Curt and Kala move into a new gigantor house.  They fed me pizza and beers as appreciation.  It was an excellent end to a day where I was running on 2 hours of sleep.

On top of that they had Jen and I come over a couple weeks after that for a pizza cook off where Curt made a delicious traditional Chicago deep dish, and I brought over a homemade shitty traditional pizza.  This is the part of my post where I would insert photos of some mouth watering homemade pizzas, but I regretfully forgot my camera.

We also drank some whiskey from Door County.  This was no ordinary whiskey.  It was clear, and tasted nothing like your traditional brown whiskey.  Almost like a paint thinner with flat generic 7-Up.  I would definitely like to drink some more of that shit in the future.

Ok, back on track, go read that first paragraph.  At the pizza showdown Curt and Kala also presented me a set of nice tumbler glasses, and a fancy bottle of bourbon for my help with moving.

I’m more of the shot guzzling, barf slinging, bourbon connoisseur, so I was excited to sip fancy Bourbon like a senator from the 1800′s.

My first impression was, “holy shit snacks, this stuff is spicy”.  It had really good flavor, and after some of the ice cubs melted a bit the spice was reduced down a tiny amount.  It has a weird vibe that if you did a lot of shots of this stuff, it would probably sprout a monocle on your face, THEN KILL YOU.

If anyone reading this(all 2 of you) has anything you would like to see a human consume, send ‘er on over and I’ll give a thorough reviewing.

It’s been a bit since the last update.  You can blame the nice weather, beer, and a garage with cable tv.  Yeah, blame that.

Jen and I went up to her cabin for a few days during her Spring Break and explored some areas up there.  This is what I saw on the way to pick her up.  It’s no secret that Wausau loves ICP because they are both trashy.

For reasons far to complicated to even come up with a reason for, I have two wigs occupying some room in my car’s trunk.  Jen wanted a picture with the one that was ugliest.

I threw a snowball at Jen while taking a picture of her to try and capture a funny face.  This plan worked better than anything I’ve ever done in my entire life.

The weather was insane.  Snow on the ground and 60-70 degree temperatures.  Did some hiking around in the woods looking for lost treasures and using sticks to play air guitar.



Make up your own story for these two pictures.

We went up to Copper Falls State Park one day and that was pretty awesome.  Lots of waterfalls, and 2 incredibly friendly deer.  We got within 2-3feet of them while holding a handful of sunflower seeds, but they didn’t want indulge in the free seeds.



And this deer said, “rrrrreeeeee, consider this a warrrrrnniiinnnngg”.

From the observation deck.  Apparently on clear days you can see Lake Superior and the Apostle Islands.  I guess it wasn’t quite clear enough that day, so I present to you this boring picture of Northern Wisconsin.

Nature shit, and some cool waterfalls that would be a ride on a boogie board.

A lot of fun stuff happened since then, a lot of which I can’t really recall to well, or at least not well enough to write about, and there weren’t any pictures.  Most importantly the baseball season has started back up which kicks a whole lot of ass.  Go Brewers!

It’s been almost a month since last update, not a whole hell of a lot going on around here.  Waiting out winter, and laying low trying to avoid the ultimate hangover.

Speaking of hangovers, DJ picked this up for me.  Tundra Ice.  It’s made by the fine people at Minehas Brewery, which also makes the over so popular Boxer lager. If there was ever a manly beer name, Tundra Ice was it.  Plus the can has laces of a football on it, which shows the proper hand positioning if one would decide to rifle a can to one of your buddies.  After taking my first swill it tasted like some sort of beverage mixed with the grainest, oilest tundra one could find.  I was impressed.

It actually started to taste better the more I drank of it.  This is probably due to the 6.2% alcohol content.  In a brilliant marketing scheme the 24oz can is dubbed, “Monster Can”.  For the record Monster Energy drink is incredibly, incredibly lame.

I needed a new snow shovel because the old one broke.  I bought this one.  The reason it is such a crappy picture is I threw it in the middle of the yard, and didn’t feel it was worth putting boots on to go get it.  This shovel fucking sucks shit.  It has a metal edge along the bottom which makes it hard as fuck to shovel snow since it basically bonds to concrete when you push it.  Fuck, I was so mad, which is why it was in the middle of the yard.  It’s supposed to be in the 40′s this week, so I’ll just let the sun take care of it.

later.

As you might know, it’s Wednesday.  We’ve had some unreasonably warm weather for the beginning of February, and it feels like Spring and Milwaukee fucking Brewers baseball is right around the corner.  Then you realize it’s the beginning of February.

Jen and I went up north last weekend and did a lot of hiking, and some snowmobiling.  I got the luxury of taking Jen on a snowmobile for the first time, and the first time I’ve driven a snowmobile in at least 10 years.  We topped out around 65 or so in which Jen responded, “I think I’m going to throw up.”  Wussy girl.

The weeks go by fairly fast, and not a whole lot of tomfoolery goes on which brings out the chef in me (think poor, drunk, Emeril Lagasse).  I saw this the other day, and I really liked the idea.  This is strange because I hate cauliflower, but have never really ate it to back up my hatred.  Jen is trying to eat more like vegetarian, and I like trying weird shit, so I gave it a whirl.

My food processor is only a 2cup that I got for Christmas a few years ago, and it does a decent job, but it took a couple of cups to get enough cauliflower.  I used about half of a whole cauliflower, which was just enough for 2 people.

I friend up some garlic, red onion, and jalapeno in some oil for a few minutes to get my eyes watering all nice.

I dumped in the cauliflower, and it’s important to keep in mind the cauliflower is going to shrink a bit when cooking it.  I added some taco seasoning, pepper, and chili powder to the mix. (I added more after the picture was taken.)

That’s it for the pictures because I forgot to take more.  I fried it until it was browned and a little crisp.  Perfect.  I put it on a shitty corn tortilla, and a delicious tostada with salsa and cheese.  I would make this shit again.

A bunch of us are taking part in the BnR 9-pin tap tournament on Saturday which consists of ridiculous amounts of alcohol, dancing, and a great deal of shit talking.  Should be a good time.

Purge The Woods played our debut Minneapolis show last weekend, at a little thing called January Fest.  This would be the same event at the Medusa that Greg has just posted about (I think we exchanged about two words at the event).  Naturally, the weather was shit on the way there.  We rolled in and got all our gear unloaded right off the bat.  One of the best parts of the Medusa is free beer for the bands.  I immediately got a beer, did a shot with Hammers, turned to Zakk and asked, “Hey, would you be cool with driving back tonight?”  Zakk laughed incredibly fucking loud, right in my face.  When I questioned the laughter, he replied that he was surprised it only took me two minutes to ask if he would drive back, because usually I wait two hours until I’m too drunk and there is no question about it.

Purge played good, Zakk looked crazy, as usual.

The next day, a bunch of the Wiscpunk dudes came to Eau Claire for the Razorfist show at the Mousetrap.  They all got hotel rooms at the Ramada, so I met up with them there.  When I stepped off the elevator, I could hear the party from down the hall.  Naturally, there were already beer cans, martini glasses, and all sorts of other shit strewn across the room.

The Mousetrap was pretty busy, with a fair amount of shady people milling around.  The first band was some okay butt-rock.  Razor Fist kicked ass though.  Highlights:

-Me pretending to shoot up heroin every time Nick from Gayzor Fist played a solo.
-Josh was a little tanked up, and there was this guy called “Crazy Nelson” up front, even more tanked.  Crazy Nelson kept lethargically thrashing around, bumping into Josh, and I guess he was spilling his beer on the bass player.  Josh decided to take care of Crazy Nelson by sidestepping towards him and throwing his elbow at Crazy Nelson’s head.  Problem was Crazy Nelson kept moving, and Josh kept missing, so it just looked like Josh was doing a retard’s version of a polka dance.  It just looked like some really fucked up dude with a polka-ing retard following him around.

Razor Fist

The next day we all went to Ray’s for bloody marys.

Found out that Zoni is also a member of the Zebra’s Can Do People Sports Enthusiast Association and Empowerment League.

Wouldn’t that picture be more awesome if those were two dicks instead of a boring arm and leg?

Lastly, I will be leaving you with this gem that I forgot I had.  Earlier this summer Agitate (awesome grind from Minneapolis, very awesome dudes to party with), was on their first day of a month and a half tour or something, and they stayed at the Beer’d Museum.  They had this ridiculous dildo with them.  Well…

-Nate

I went to Minneapolis last weekend to see some bands, but more importantly to see some friends I hadn’t seen in a while.

Of course on the drive there I hit some shitty snow and strong winds about an hour outside of the Cities.  I got to the house around 12:45pm which resulted in Cody and I cracking open a few beers for lunch.  We shot the shit, and I got a tour of their rad place.  They live above a printshop which is run by a rad dude named, Eric.

I was whimpering for a juicy lucy, so we picked up Jesse on the way to Matt’s Bar.

Jesse got his grilled cheese style…

And then stuff french fries into it.

A normal version.

It was good, but I really thought it would be cheesier.   Kinda like me.

We went to a Savers thrift store after that took look for cassettes.  Duke Ellington and Bon Jovi tapes were purchase.  Baby making music right there.

Brandon got off work and we continued to have some beers before heading to the Medusa to see some bands.

Cody and Brandon.

The Medusa while Purge the Woods plays.  Every band was pretty good.

Team Dilly tag.

We were all kinda drunk at this point so we went to Mesa pizza, which had one of the best slices I’ve ever had.  It had guacamole and some other shit on it.

Saturday we fucked around most of the day.  We went to Modern Times for lunch where a female Steve Buschemi was our waiter.  At one point Cody said, “Well, I’m addicted to two things, Booze, and the dick.”  And I just fucking lost it.

We got back to the house and cracked open some beers.  We watched a few older bmx videos which reminded us how gay bmx is nowadays, and came up with nicknames for certain dudes based on their last names like, “Rick Hellyeah” and “Scott Raper”.

We broke out Scrabble after that, in which Brandon and I had never played before.  We played for close to an hour, and were all pretty bad, until Brandon shut the game down with this:

AC SLATER.  It was incredible, we didn’t fell the need to keep playing after that.

Brandon had this old Eddie Bauer ski mask.  No mouth hole (glory hole), and it looks like something out of a horror movie.

Brando and I hit the bars after that and did too many double and triple shots of 100 proof liquor.

It was an awesome weekend, and will be spending much more time there, especially on baseball Sundays.  Go on now, I need to do my taxes.

A good ol’ fashioned Winter cold season is going down right now it appears. Mine isn’t too bad, but it more than likely can be traced to partying in my sister’s garage last Friday night. Chugging half a bottle of 3-year old Boones Farm seems like a splendid idea, as did chugging some aged 140 proof apple pie. I had a hangover that would have destroyed my New Years day hanger.

Saturday was spent watching tv, but not just any tv programming, these were movies. In particular “Encino Man”, and “Kindergarten Cop”. I remember my parents renting us rugrats “Encino Man” just after it came out on VHS. Hillarious then. The last time I saw it was when I lived in Eau Claire, and while probably in a hungover state. Tolerable then. As of Saturday’s viewing, it was mindblowingly retarded. Whoever cast that movie and decided some late 20, early 30 year olds make great High School seniors needs to take a step back and just think, “what the fuck was I thinking?”

“Kindergarten Cop” holds up incredibly well. Mainly in keeping the stereotype that anyone with a ponytail is usually bad news.

My favorite part might be when the fire alarm goes off for the first time, and this little black dude just hops up on the table, and starts cutting a rug.  Hilarious.  This movie also opened up my eyes as a youngster that tinfoil is baaaddd assss, and can be made into fake lasers.

Just as I was ready to not watch any Milwaukee Bucks basketball this season, they beat the Heat on Sunday, and just knocked off the red hot Houston Rockets who came into the game on a 7 game win streak.  On the road too.  That’s 3 wins in a row for the Bucks on the road, after starting a dismal 0-8 on the road.

January Fest 5 is going on in Minneapolis this weekend, and will more than likely be attended by a few select individuals.  See you there…

This is wild: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/4l0Vov/six.pen.io/

I made some pretty tasty chicken in the crockpot last weekend using some Chipotle peppers, salsa verde, garlic, and some other seasonings.  I also bought about 40 corn tortillas because they were cheap as fuck.  Jen and I ate the chicken on nachos, tostadas, and said corn tortillas.  The corn tortillas were gross.  They were rubbery and fell apart.  I didn’t want to keep eating them like that, so I brainstormed and thought about making a Mexican type lasagna.

It turned out awesome.

Ingredients:
-1 can corn
-1 can black beans
-2 cups of cheese
-some cooked chicken or if you want to take the veggie route, refried beans
-12 gross, cheap corn tortillas
-1 can enchilada sauce
-(optional sliced black olives, dices jalapenos)

1.  Preheat the oven to 350*
2.  In a bowl combine the chicken and any of the veggies you are using
3.  Dip the tortillas in enchilada sauce and lay in a greased 12×9 casserole dish
4.  After you have put one layer of tortillas down cover it with the chicken mixture, and put some cheese over the top of that
5.  Repeat steps 3 and 4.
6.  Cook for 25-31 minutes.
7.  Feast.  I put some sour cream, and diced tomatoes and onion on the top.  It was soooo damn good.

I leave you with this.