Good Times with Friends and the Not-So Good Times with Strippers

"Cute but evil."

I certainly can be sometimes.

A week ago Mitch, X, Beetchie and I went to Kenka for dinner.
Why am I evil? Because anyone who doesn't really eat pork and/or is tall then 60% of the menu at Kenka is not for you nor are the tiny chairs they make you sit your ass on. Ahahahaha. Poor Mitch. He has every right to curse me.

He didn't like the pork gyozas but that's only due to the fact that he is crazy. And it took a long time for him to finally decide on what he should have but he ended up eating a ginger-flavoured beef dish. I think he actually enjoyed it...

X had ramen and we shared our grilled buttered scallops.

Beetchie and I had awesome times (note the not so awesome times we had at the last trip to Kenka):
Una Don (grilled eel over rice) which was soooo good. Grilled eel is awesome.

Fried flour balls with octopus. They burnt us being that we stupidly tried to devour them immediately but mmmm...There's nothing like fried flour and mayo.

Stingray fin, chewy goodness.

Salted Pork Ribs - need I say anything else?

With time to kill we talked, drank cocktails that involved bizarre concoctions and photos were taken of X drunk off her ass after one sip of said cocktails. She wasn't really but the picture says otherwise.

We headed out to see The Street Bohemians, a band in which apparently I have stock - the bassist (Melissa the crazy Mongolian) and lead singer (No.8) are my friends. Being this their first public performance, I figured I had no excuse but to go but I certainly was trying to find something. Har Har.
Lured by the potential of seeing strippers, quote "If the set is going downhill, I'm going downstairs to the strippers", we trooped off to the Pussycat Lounge in the Financial District.

Those SBs were pretty decent. Musically, the band sounded great. They were comfortable with each other.
No. 8 was a little shaky on the vocals at the start but being the first gig, she was a little nervous but became more confident further into the set.

Battler as always amazes me by the strength and clarity of her voice, her sheer coolness and antics on stage and of course, her bass skills. I have a heterosexual girl crush on her as a rocker. Yep. She knows. And she puts that compliment right up there with the "You make me sick" comment I made to her a few weeks ago. She assures me she'll treasure them forever.

As decent as they were though, I informed them that the next show I attend will be at Madison Square Garden or else no dice. I don't think No. 8 was very impressed by me but meh.

On to the strippers!

With a name like the Pussycat Lounge and a crowd of young, business men you'd think good times were abound but as the title of this entry already implies - that was SO not the case.

We did have quite a selection of strippers though. Let's see...there was the one that was 3 months pregnant. Then there was the one who was a tranny (oh yes, we saw the back of that when she/he turned around...). And then there was fried eggs...

Impressive the way she could alternately move one boob up and down after the other but we're not sure what kind of fried eggs Beetchie has been eating but she claims that's what that display reminded her of.

After we decided it wasn't even worth it to do dances of our own to show up the strippers and collect their dough (quite frankly, I think the pregnant one would have slayed us had that gone down), we all set off for home. Beetchie and Mitch back to Crooklyn and X and I to her place on the UWS.

After washing away the disappointment of my first stripclub via a well needed shower, X and I did what we do best. We talked until ungodly hours in the morning until finally falling asleep.
And then came the police and ambulance sirens...

And then came X screaming at me that it was my fault something was going down at 3.30 in the morning...
It really wasn't my fault but we figure I've some kind of dark, negative energy surrounding me that I need to be taking care of and hence, a usually quiet neighbourhood turns into chaos.

Luckily our building was not going down in a fiery explosion but perhaps something like it (or whatever warranted police and ambulance services) at the building next door. And then there was the poor old man who was attacked by a crazy dude wielding electric saws at the subway stop right after X's.
I had nothing to do with any of that but pretty soon people aren't going to want to hang around me anymore...

Thursday saw a whole lot of nothing happening save extreme tiredness from the fun-filled night of scary strippers the night before.

Friday - Pirates of the Caribbean. We gathered as much of the clan as we could to go see this unnecessarily long, not enough Johnny Depp, sorry excuse for a movie.
And even though the movie (starring Beetchie as the Kraken) was not fantastic, having the friends together, sitting in an overpriced midtown diner and then in the theatre is equivalent to the best times this Hochie can have.

Stupid things like walking with Stupid Franz to Toys R' Us and having incriminating photos taken at Barbie's Dream House make these times memorable (but note to self, destroy photos).
Beetchie, Battler and I sat together and we laughed our asses off the entire time because of the idiotic comments that always pass our lips when we're together watching a film. I know, people hate us. We're just like Mystery Theatre commentators. We're horrible.

Saturday involved the Adidas Store, Chinatown, shady neurologists, The Chicken Arcade, Shanghai dumplings, rice pudding and a scary-assed rat.

First, Mitch and I went to the Adidas store in one last attempt to acquire some France World Cup gear for the final. Let us just say this - if there's a shirt on display in the window, you better believe you should be selling it to me if you're out of stock and if not, then take it out of the damned window. Asshats!

We pissily made our way to Chinatown, met Beetchie and ate Baos. Mitch then left my ass to go take a three hour nap and Beetchie and I headed to her appointment with a neurologist.

Now, I'm not saying said neurologist didn't have creds on her wall...wait..did she? Ha, she did. She did. But there was something so suspect about the whole thing. Maybe it's just that everyone was being extra mean to the 1/2 breed Asian HoChie but I don't know. I guess you just had to be there.

And for those of you reading this and are concerned about the welfare of Beetchie (yes, that means you Beetchie - you're probably the only one concerned...ooo! I'm kidding. I heart you?), I think she'll be okay. She better be.

In typical fashion, with time to kill before dinner, Beetchie and I decided to float around someplace to build up an appetite. And how better to do so than to visit a Chicken Arcade. I am still a little fuzzy on why it is called the chicken arcade but I know it had something to do with live chickens and games... Now, it's just a regular arcade but there are pictures on the walls of various chickens to prove that chickens once played a vital role in that dark place.

Beetchie proceeded to kick my ass in Street Fighter Puzzle and racing. I crashed many times as expected. Then there was Miss Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man and we both sucked.

Dumplings - what I wouldn't give to go to a Dumpling House in Taiwan... We did the next best thing which was to go to a Shanghainese restuarant. It was the first time I had Shanghai style dumplings and even though the soupy goodness inside went down my throat too quickly and it was hot, oh man was that awesome!!!!

After dinner, we made an attempt to find "Rice to Riches", an upscale rice pudding dessert spot if you can believe that. Who knew rice pudding could be high class? Our attempts were fruitful and we feasted upon rice pudding of the cookies and cream variety (this after we sampled damned near 5 types of rice pudding this place had to offer including banana and rocky road).
And then it happened - I lost Beetchie...

To this!!!!!!


















I hate it that this is the last I saw of her - Oh Beetchie... I always knew that a random rat on a swing would get you...I always knew... =,(



Anyway, about Sunday (I'm all about fast recoveries):

The final in the 2006 World Cup.

As all know, I was supporting England because I figured that if I had to support a football team, it should be the best looking one. Someone commented once that they didn't understand my loyalty to England considering I was more supportive to that country having not been born there nor never been for more than a few days than the bastards who were actually born and raised there. My response, "Stockholm Syndrome".
And then when England went down, I supported Germany.

And then Germany went down and I could care less but Mitch insisted that there be a World Cup lime at the HoChies. Mitch was backing France and I decided I wanted them to win rather than my enemy team Italy.
I am now being blamed for the Zidane headbutting incident because my voodoo doll "Spider Boy" worked WAY too well when I was shaking it on behalf of a hopeful victory for France. His job is to tangle the enemy in a web just long enough for you to escape or do something. Well...I guess Zidane decided he needed to headbutt that ass.

And France lost.

So the dolls worked but not quite the way they should have...

That's me.

"Cute but evil".


Memorable quotes:


MC "I like my tea black like me."

Me "Rhinna has man hands!"
MC and Frass "Oh gawd, it's true!"
Frass "Doh worry, all she need is some ponds. She from Barbados."

During the game of dominoes -

MC "Wait, I can't play this...these numbers go up to 9. I can't count past 6."

Frass "I don't know how to play...oh, ok. So I match whatever number is on the tile . Um, what should I play?"
Me "What do you mean 'what number'?! The only number you can play - 9! It's double 9 on the board!!!! Stupid Frass..."

Battler, on Transformers the Movie "You guys don't understand, I've been waiting for retribution for Optimus Prime for 20 years!!!!!"

Currently listening to: Lots among the Muse playlist including my new acquistion "Crying Shame" and then, "Analyse" by Thom Yorke.