Last Weekend In Madison

Coming into this weekend I was less than excited. Nothing quite beats a weekend stuck in your apartment doing work on a computer, right? Turns out it was a bit more fun that originally speculated.

Friday night I was ready to go get some food and didn’t want to fight the crowds at the brewery, so I went the Russian restaurant that is located in the same strip mall. The place is pretty great too. The food is entertaining enough, but the service is exceptional. Not in the normal “How may I help you?” and “Can I get you another drink?” kind of way, but in the “Hey, that waitress is smokin hot!” kind of way. Friday night was exceptional in that I was the only person in the place. That means that I get conversation throughout dinner and my beers don’t ever run dry.

Little background for you: The place is run by 3 individuals. Alex is the cook/owner. Yana is the waitress/hot piece of ass and is pretty much married to Alex. Oleen is the Mexican from LA that is NOT down with working hard (duh).

After getting my first beer I ask Yana where Oleen is, so that I can give him some shit about the Celtics destroying the Lakers.

Yana: He doesn’t work here any more…

Turns out the guy actually quit before getting fired. I take back anything I said about his lack of ambition. He really took some initiative there.

Once Alex got my order and went back to start working on it, Yana started pouring shots for us. We had a few before dinner and at least one to follow, plus a few beers on top of that. Towards the end of dinner I told them that this was my last trip out here and that I didn’t know where I was going next. Alex immediately starts to grab bottles (obviously vodka) off of the shelf and offer them to me for my superior patronage. Not being a hard alcohol drinker, I politely turned them down. So the next offer was for them to take me to the Dells and show me a good time. This was my last weekend here so I decided what the hell and agreed to the trip. The plan is to meet at the restaurant at 9pm, go out there for the night and come back in the morning.

For those of you that don’t know about the Dells (I assume everyone that doesn’t live in Wisconsin or Illinois hasn’t the foggiest), it is a city based entirely on cheap touristy attractions, namely waterparks. If you have ever been to Daytona, Honalulu, Tee-shirt/Tattoo Land [The] America, you know what I’m talking about. You can only be offered the same shirt/towel/croc sandal with different colors before it all just seems like the same thing (read: future jizz rag…something to catch your population paste when you are out feeding the geese). I hadn’t seen the place, and I was going to take this opportunity to at least set my eyes upon it.

I get there at 9 and watch some UFC while the two of them close the place down and change out of their work clothes. I got to watch Spencer Fisher punch his way into my wallet and take the money that I had on Stephens. We are now ready to go, Yana had time to change her clothes and once again I’m left desiring to bang somebody else’s girlfriend. Sweet Jesus she was looking good. She takes off early for something she had to do in town while Alex and I get into his 2002 Beamer M3 and hit the road.

[Insert from Keev’s “Important Rules To Owning And Driving A Fast Car]
…and for those reasons alone you must modify your attitude to fit the vehicle instead of attempting to mold a steel/aluminum structure to become who you are. Simply put, shop wisely. The number one attitude change that must be made at a bare minimum is boosting your pride to match your horsepower. If the driver of a 300hp STi gets into the front seat of your 333hp M3, make sure that you pride yourself as a fast driver and put the effin pedal as close to the floorboards as possible without spinning those high end rubber composites. Man cannot live on bread alone. He must accelerate.

Although I think that car is bad ass, the 2006 STi with AV mods is still much cooler in my mind (AWD for heroes, two tires spin for zeros). Haven’t been in a ‘06 M3 though…

When we get to town, Alex gives me a drive by “what’s what” of the place and then shows me where I’ll be staying. Sure as shit…I’m not staying at the same place as them. Who knew? It is a small one room apartment (read: single wide trailer divided into 3 rooms) right at the end of the Dells “strip”.

Alex: I’m going to drop you off at a bar and come back and clean the place up.

Me: Are you sure? I can help you out.

Alex: No, this is your time for…relax.

Me: Ummm…ok.

He drives me down to a bar called Das Boot (sure as shit they have boots! I half expected to sit down next to Barry Badrinath and Landfill), introduces me to the barmaid and heads back to the apartment. Knowing that I didn’t want to wake up on the side of the road naked and covered in blood next to a dead deer again, I opted to skip out on the boot and just have a pint. The fight night was just getting to the main event, so I sat back and watched Kendall Grove win back the money that my other fighters tried to squander away.

After about 30 minutes and enough time for 2 bachelorette parties of Midwest’s greatest grass grazers to enter the place, Alex and Yana show back up. We go to the upstairs of this place and place some darts and pool in what appears to be a great depression era bar. The place was empty except for the 3 of us, so I started to rally the troops a little and get the party moving. I was able to get them to try out two other bars. Sadly the cliental of those places is ugly women and women that don’t speak English. If an attractive individual walked up and I would start talking to her, she would give me a strange look and then start to talk to Alex or Yana in what I’m left to assume was some sort of playa-hater tongue.

Around 12 or 12:30 A&Y decided that they are going to head home and go to bed (they had to work in the morning), and I was left to make a good time for myself.

Turns out I wasn’t on point with my solo skills. After a few beers and failed attempts at engaging anyone in conversation, I went back to my room, smoked a bowl and put my head down for the night. In the morning I got up, had a wake’n bake, then caught a ride back to Madtown with Yana.

I give the whole experience a B+. Normally it would be a lot lower, but at least I wasn’t catching my man butter in the apartment for the 24th consecutive hour. I was living it up…Wisconsin style.

On Wednesday I head for the mountains (of Busch…beer), and we’ll see what my new adventures will entail.