40 Days of Awesome - Days 23-27

On the last episode(s) of I Have A.D.D...

40 Days of Awesome description
Days 1-6
Days 7-14
Days 15-22



Awesome Day #23: Dinner at Evvia


No photo for Evvia, because I was way too excited about lamb chops to remember to take a picture.


Evvia is Greek for Delicious, and it lived up to the name.  Or at least that's what I assume it stands for... I tried to look this up in Google Translate, but it told me that Evvia was actually Norwegian, and that it means Euboea, which doesn't really help me at all since I have no idea what Euboea means.  Thanks a lot, Google... what a junk company, who the hell runs it?  Oh.  Right.  Never mind.  This is awkward.  Dinner was delicious, let's move along.




Awesome Day #24: Nightlife at the California Academy of Sciences

In one of the coolest museum exhibits I've ever seen, the jellyfish started out orange, then changed into yellow, then changed into purple, then changed into two humans in a rainforest.


Every Thursday night, the California Academy of Sciences has an event called Nightlife.  Nightlife is just like going to the museum any other time, except that there's a DJ, and bars scattered around the building, and there are no little kids on field trips running around... so it's basically nothing like going to the museum any other time.  The highlight of the visit was the "living roof", which got its name from the fact that it routinely comes alive and terrorizes the city of San Francisco, and also because it's covered with grass and plants.  The jellyfish seen above were also very cool; jellyfish, like many other animals, are incredibly cool as long as there's a piece of glass separating them from me.


Awesome Day #25: Chuck Series Finale



Oops... wrong Chuck.  Not that I'd tell him he's wrong to his face...


On Friday, I had the fantastic idea to have people over to watch the series finale of Chuck.  Then I realized that the only other person I know who actually watches Chuck lives on the other side of the country... and suddenly, it became clear why it was being canceled after this season.


Awesome Day #26: Dueling Birthdays

The best part about the new Galaxy Nexus is that you can take a bunch of pictures really quickly, which leads to surprised people being caught in beautiful moments like this one.


I was going to call it Dual Birthdays, but everything is cooler when dueling is involved.

Saturday was a day full of birthdays.  While Rick Ross and J. Cole didn't invite me to their birthday parties (thanks, assholes), Brendan and Lindsay did.  In the morning, I went to a random bus stop at 11:00AM as instructed, only to learn that Bus Stop is actually a bar in San Francisco.  This makes a lot more sense, as I was wondering how we were supposed to meet up if we all just went to our random local bus stops with no further instructions.

That evening, I went down to a beer garden in Redwood City called Das Biergardenagenlagenragenmagen, or some German sounding name like that.  Shockingly, it turns out that people drink beer when they're at beer gardens - who knew?  This seems like a good time to mention that due to the amount of days that seem to involve eating and drinking as the awesome activity, my brother and sister-in-law have renamed my resolution 40 Pounds of Awesome.  I'd argue, but it actually seems pretty appropriate.


Awesome Day #27: Bike Ride on Stevens Creek Trail

Those aren't clouds - that's actually the sight of my hangover drifting away as I get some fresh air.  (Behind-the-scenes rejected joke caption: it's smoke from the fire on my head.)


Sunday began with me going in to the office to get some work done, as I have a busy week ahead of me.  Wait, what?  Working on a Sunday is my awesome thing of the day?  Well, not exactly.  It turned out I was too hungover to stare at spreadsheets on my monitor, so after an hour of work - and by "work" I mean "spending 70% of my energy thinking 'I wonder if it's late enough for me to pop some more Advil', and 30% thinking about my actual work" - I gave up and went outside to get some fresh air, and figured I'd finish up work later in the afternoon when I was less hungover.  I've never biked hungover before, and wasn't quite sure what to expect... turns out it's AMAZING.  The fresh air and the wind on your face really help cure the hangover.  I wouldn't rank it quite as high as a 5-piece nuggets and a Frosty from Wendy's on my list of hangover cures, but it's up there.


Hey, remember when I used to end every column with a joke about popping collars?  That made wrapping these things up way easier because I didn't have to think of any way to end it.  This time, instead of writing an ending, I think I'll just pretend that my internet cut out in the middle of a

40 Days of Awesome - Days 15-22

...where our blog's protagonist learns it's OK to have an awesome sober day from time to time.

On the last episode(s) of I Have A.D.D...

40 Days of Awesome description
Days 1-6
Days 7-14

Awesome Day #15: True Grit

Half the eyes, double the grit.


I thought this was a documentary about southern breakfast.  Turns out I rented the wrong movie and meant to get True Grits.  Still, it was pretty good, although not quite as badass as The Expendables.  Speaking of which: The Expendables 2 trailer is out!  I'll spare you my thoughts on it, because if I were to write a 5,000 word essay describing that trailer, it would just be "FUCK YEA" 2,500 times in a row.


Awesome Day #16: Sushi Tomi

I had an awesome picture of V-Dubs making a hilariously horrible face, but she demanded I not post it.  So instead, now we're all awkwardly staring at the back of her head as she reads the sign from six inches away.


True story: in Spanish, "su" means his or her.  So, if we break down this restaurant's name - "Sushi Tomi", or "Su shi to mi", it's basically saying "his shi to mi" - a rough Japanese translation of "his shit to me."  In other words, you're allowed to just steal random food off of other people's tables, as long as you yell "HIS SHIT TO ME" when you do it.  Just trust me that this is accurate and start doing it next time you go there.


Awesome Day #17: Cirque du Soleil: Immortal

The neon lights for the little boy on his knees came on moments later.


On Thursday, the very same day that we learned Google had been ranked the #1 place to work by Fortune for the 3rd time, Google bought 10,000 tickets to the Michael Jackson themed Cirque du Soleil show, and we all got to go to a free show.  If that's not awesome enough to make it to 40 Days of Awesome, I don't know what is.  (OK, fine, I'm exaggerating - I do know what still would be... and so should you, if you watched the trailer I linked to on day 15.)

The whole show was awesome, but the clear highlight was the guy with one leg.  You know how sometimes you see a handicapped person do something, and you say "wow, that's pretty good, considering his or her massive handicap"?  For example, you might see a girl throw a football 10 yards and say "wow, that's pretty good... for a girl."  Well, this was NOTHING like that.  This guy had one leg, and he could out-dance anyone I know.  He was spinning around on crutches, making awesome leaps and landing balanced on his one leg, pulling off classic MJ moves... I'm pretty sure I actually saw him save a baby while doing a triple flip and simultaneously brokering peace in the Middle East at one point.


Awesome Day #18: Dinner at Scratch


this picture was SCRATCHED.  Get it????  (If you're ignoring the pun and thinking "he forgot to take a picture, didn't he?", then yup, you got it.)


On Friday night, I did something I've wanted to do for months: I finally ordered salmon at Scratch.  "What's so special about salmon?", you ask?  "Shut the fuck up and stop interrupting, you impatient douche", I respond.  We're getting there.

Every time I go to Scratch, I think about trying the Salmon.  Then my eyes start wandering, and like a cheater in a nightclub, I just can't contain myself - I end up going for the skank in the black dress.  And by "skank in the black dress", I mean "the ribs or the fried chicken."  I know they're wrong... but they're just so damn GOOD.  For those of you who live in the South Bay, please go try the fried chicken at Scratch if you haven't already.  If we were ranking things by the SAT analogy system, Scratch:Fried Chicken::Street Fighter 2:Video Games.  It might not quite be the Mario 3 of fried chicken, but it's pretty fucking awesome.

Anyway, I finally tried the salmon.  It was also pretty damn tasty, although I'm not sure I'll be able to resist the lure of fried chicken and ribs next time I'm there.  On the bright side, I did still manage to ruin any chance of the meal being healthy by having both bacon wrapped dates stuffed with chorizo and some pork belly as an appetizer, so that's nice.  Or something.  Let's move on.


Day 19: Boots & Wiener Schnitzel at Leopold's

We couldn't fit that much awesomeness in just one picture.


True story: up until fairly recently, I always thought wiener schnitzel was some sort of German sausage, and the only reason I can imagine that I'd think this is because of the wiener/sausage connection.  Turns out that not only does wiener schnitzel look nothing like sausage (not that any of this stops a mature young man like myself from making "you've got some wiener in your mouth" jokes), but it's also damn tasty.

Anyway, Leopold's serves beer in 2L boots.  For those of you who don't do metric - which I hope is most of you, as the only people who know metric are drug dealers, or, even worse, Europeans - 2L is about 68 ounces, or a little more than five and a half beers.  I'm fairly certain that Paige paid off our waiter before I arrived, because he gave me a stern warning about cheersing with the boot before I had even picked it up, but we still managed to have an awesome time with it.  Also, since we clearly needed more booze after consuming a boot, we immediately followed this up by a trip to Wreck Room, which was highlighted by someone panicking that they had lost their roommate while their roommate was clearly sitting at the bar no more than 15 feet away.


Day #20: Bagel from The Bagelry

This was the most pleasant picture we could get of me the next morning.  Maybe Wreck Room wasn't such a great idea after all...


You know what's really awesome?  When you drink a ton one night, then wake up the next morning feeling great and hangover-free.  Or at least, I'd imagine that feels awesome.  I certainly don't know from experience on Day 20, because I felt miserable that morning.  After eating a delicious hungover bagel from my favorite bagel place in SF, I stuck around for a little football, then went home to watch the second game from my couch.  (See Day #6 for a picture of what this looks like.  Hint: it's exactly what you expect and not worth going back to look at.)


Day #21: Beer, Sharks, and Dinner at Tied House

Don't let the name mislead you - not all games watched there end in a tie.


Sadly, that doesn't mean I ate a Shark for dinner.  Although, I guess it really wasn't that sad, because chicken fried steak is pretty delicious.


Day #22: Massage

After three full weeks of awesomeness, it was time for a different type of awesome: awesome relaxation.  I got a massage after work (in our office - did I mention I love my company?), and it was glorious.  You know what I love about massages?  That moment where they tell you time's up, and you realize you have no idea if you fell asleep or not, followed by the moment when you realize that means it's 6:30 and the cafe downstairs just opened up for dinner, followed by the moment when you realize that you also have leftover Chinese in your fridge back home so you have multiple awesome choices for dinner, followed by the moment you finish eating and start writing this blog post, followed by the moment when you have no idea how to wrap up the blog post so you just keep writing a run-on sentence and hope people will give up and stop reading it before you have to write an actual ending, followed by thinking maybe you'll just write a string of swears and suddenly cut it off, followed by SHITFUCKASSBITCHWHOREBALLSDOUCHECRAPRUSTYTROMBONE

40 Days of Awesome - Days 7-14

Eh, too lazy for an intro.  Days 7-14, here we go...


Awesome Day #7: BCS Championship at the Sports Page

We would have needed a LOT more pitchers to make that game even remotely interesting.


Hey, here's a fun drinking game: watch an LSU-Alabama game and drink every time someone scores a touchdown.  It's fun because you don't need to worry about finding a DD, since you'll be more sober than a group of nuns afterwards.

That game was horrendous.  I'd rather watch back to back episodes of the Kardashians than watch a game like that again.  Fortunately, the day was still awesome, because we abandoned the game after three quarters and got some kick-ass burritos from La Bamba.


Awesome Day #8: Taco Tuesday at Nick's Crispy Tacos

I forgot to take a picture, but here's what it looks like when Georgia and I are eating tacos at Nick's.


Ah, Nick's... far more reliable (and more delicious) than a BCS game.  Random side story: this past Halloween, I met Nick at his other restaurant, Tacko.  Not only does he make amazing tacos, he was also a fan of my Tony the Tiger costume idea.  Good peoples.


Awesome Day #9: Trivia night at St. Stephen's Green

Photo of the winning team, taken by the losing team.

We may have come in second place, but the important thing is that we beat Ansel/Ryan/Quirk/Alyssa's team by a point and a half in dramatic comeback fashion.  Also, as you can see from that picture, not only are we "wicked smaht", we're clearly the best looking team as well.

Awesome Day #10: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The name is Blomkvist... Mikael Blomkvist.


After three days in a row at a bar, and eight out of the first nine days of awesome involving at least a little bit of drinking, it was time to do something a little different before this turned into 40 Days of Alcoholism.  Day 10 was a dinner at Google and a night at the movies.  The movie was good, but I have a few ideas that could have made it better:

1. Change Mikael Blomkvist's weapon of choice from "pen" to "pistol"
2. Change the name "Mikael" to "James"
3. Change the name "Blomkvist" to "Bond"
4. Add about 50 more explosions, 17 more fight scenes, and 3 more car chases

Also, fun fact: Rooney Mara, the star of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is the great-granddaughter of both the founder of the Pittsburgh Steelers and the founder of the New York Giants.  So, I now have two reasons to hate her.

Awesome Day #11: Grilling dinner and margaritas

Turns out this sweatshirt is actually pretty warm when I'm not falling into a cold river in Oregon while fishing.  Who knew?


Friday night was a pretty calm one for a Friday, as I wanted to make sure I was well rested for Saturday morning.  (Look at that: foreshadowing!  Who knew this blog had literary devices?  I usually barely even feel literate when I'm writing it.)  I grilled some blackened salmon and veggies with a friend, then headed over to an apartment in Sunnyvale for a couple margaritas with a few more friends.  After some fun "would you rather..."s involving rats, I called it a night and went home to get some sleep.  Kate, on the other hand, probably still hasn't slept since we gave her some horrifying new rat images that she won't be able to get out of her head.

Awesome Day #12: 49ers-Saints game!

Still amped up two full days after the game.  This must be how drug addicts feel after popping a giant handful of speed and then being wired all weekend from it.


On Saturday, I was lucky enough to go to the 49ers-Saints game, which was basically the exact opposite of the previously mentioned LSU-Alabama game.  The game itself was incredible; when talking about it afterwards, we decided that the only two playoff games we can think of that could rival it from our lifetime are the Pats-Giants Super Bowl (with Tyree's helmet catch) and the Rams-Titans Super Bowl (when Mason came up one yard short on the last play of the game.)  Also, I may or may not have written that last sentence solely so I could bring up the Pats-Giants Super Bowl again.  Suck it, Harrigan/Lanstein/every other Pats fan I know.

Anyway: tons of scoring, close the whole time, a big upset, a few huge plays (the two Vernon Davis catches at the end will probably get the most attention, but the Alex Smith run was one of the coolest sports moments I've ever seen live)... it really had everything.  And if that's not enough, the crowd was fucking PUMPED for the entire game.  I've never seen a crowd with that level of energy from start to finish, and it got to the point where the guy behind me literally jumped out of his seat and onto my back after a couple big plays near the end of the game.  Just an absolutely unbelievable experience.

That night, still feeling a huge adrenaline rush from being at the game, my night turned into an energized drunken adventure that included sake bombing, a karaoke bar, randomly bumping into a girl I went to high school with, an apartment party for someone who leaves for flight school next week, and probably a whole lot more details that I'm forgetting.


Awesome Day #13: Pub Crawl

I'd make a joke about drinking Peruvian beers at an Irish pub, but I've been temporarily blinded by the reflection of the flash off Paul's jacket.  Give me a few minutes.

To celebrate the fact that we have MLK day off, eight of us went on a Mountain View pub crawl on Sunday night.  Stops included two Irish pubs, a Spanish place, and a dive bar, where we invented a game that was basically the equivalent of "flip a coin... if it's heads, this half of the group drinks; if it's tails, the other half of the group drinks."  Car bombs were consumed, beer pong was played, and someone woke up wearing no pants and an inside-out t-shirt.  All in all, I'd call it a successful pub crawl.



Awesome Day #14: Brunch at Rick's Cafe

Everyone looks happy but Ryan... probably because he sensed the music we were about to subject him to in the car ride home.


After eating awesome tacos at Nick's and awesome brunch at Rick's, I'm making a new life rule: any time I see a restaurant named __ick's, I'm eating there.  Although, in a city like San Francisco, I might regret this if I drive by anywhere called Dick's...

40 Days of Awesome - Days 1-6

"Let the carnage begin!"
-some old Super Nintendo game I used to play at my neighbor's house

As promised, I'm going to be blogging once a week about 40 Days of Awesome (which officially began on January 3rd), because I'm a man who keeps my promises.  Unless I forget.  Or get lazy.  Or am too hungover.  Or just don't really feel like blogging that day.  But for tonight, I'm a man who keeps his promises!  Ladies, take note.

Awesome Day 1: Homecooked meal and beer pairing

Hidden best part of this picture: the fact that my Happy Birthday balloon is still going strong with no signs of deflating, even though my birthday was last September.


Just before the new year, a store called Artisan Wine Depot opened around the corner from me.  In addition to having a good beer/wine selection and giving Ansel and Ryan instant boners because they carry Pliny the Elder, they also offer pairing advice.  After a little too much partying on New Year's weekend (shocking!), Day 1 began with some low-key awesomeness - cooking some pasta with chicken, mushroom, and tomatoes, and drinking a bottle of Schneider & Brooklyn Hopfen-Weisse at the recommendation of the... whatever you call the people in those stores.  Store clerks?  Waiters?  Wine enthusiasts?  I'm going to go with Alcoholics, because they serve alcohol, and because it's fun to say "I got some great advice from the local alcoholic on Tuesday."


Awesome Day #2: Dartmouth Pong

And yes, I was quite generous in doling out the high fives.


Sorry, Dartmouth alumni - I refuse to call it "beer pong."  That name remains reserved for beirut.  And speaking of beirut, check out how detailed the Wikipedia page for beirut is - they've got diagrams of different arcs and everything.  I love Wikipedia.
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And we're back!  Sorry, that long pause was me spending two hours looking at random Wikipedia articles when I should have been sleeping.  They should just rename it Whoreipedia, because once you look at an article, it just sucks you in, and never ever wants to stop sucking your di- I mean, sucking your time away.  I suppose the main difference is that a whore doesn't have different people asking you for a donation every 30 seconds, she just charges you up front.

Awesome Day #3: Happy hour at St. Stephen's Green

Alf got a great happy hour special: only $3.50 for an empty glass of beer!  You can see her trying to drink it here.


The great thing about awesomeness is that it creates more awesomeness.  Thursday began with a simple plan of happy hour at the local Irish pub, and somehow wound up with eating a chef's choice of 10 different types of sushi and washing it down with a bottle of sake that mysteriously appeared at our table.  When we gave the waiter who brought the sake a confused look, he just said "it's from Santa", put it on our table, and walked away.  Awesome.


Awesome Day #4: Dinner and drinks at Cascal

Useful tip: if you're at a family-style meal, try asking people to pose for a picture.  Then, while those suckers are busy posing, eat all the food.  60% of the time it works every time.


Once again: awesomeness breeds awesomeness.  After arriving at Cascal with a few friends, I ended up bumping into a few more friends, including two who I hadn't seen in months.  This led to me eating dinner and drinking sangria with one group, then hopping tables to eat the leftover meatballs and sangria at the other table.  More food + more sangria + more friends = more awesome.

Awesome Day #5: Football and pizza at Mercy House

Ladies and gentlemen: Ryan C., the world's biggest sports fan!  (As you can see from his enthusiastic response...)


Continuing the week's theme of awesomeness leading to more awesomeness, football and pizza somehow turned into a late night of several beer pong games in the garage.  I have no idea how this happened, especially given that I showed up with a 30 of light pong beer...

Awesome Day #6: Langovers and football

Yup, my Christmas tree is still up.  Get used to it, because it's staying up for at least another month.


I am hereby coining a new word: langovers.  Langovers are the leftovers you eat while hungover.  The best langovers are clearly pizza and Chinese food, although which one is better has been debated ever since the Italian Marco Polo got drunk with the Chinese on his travels and they both woke up feeling like dogshit.

Bonus awesomeness: homemade steak dinner

This tasted even better if you were too hungover to eat much all afternoon, then finally started feeling better and realized you were starving.


Day 6's awesomeness was technically the langovers and football, but given that it was 70 and sunny outside, I managed to break away from the TV just long enough to grill a steak dinner outside.  An awesome end to an awesome week.