The Upstate Life

Monday, January 03, 2005

New Year's Edition

Now that the holidays are over and the year of 2004 is no more, The Upstate Life will now be returning to its normal schedule of nonsensical content. And what better way to kick off '05 better than with a New Year's Weekend Edition of the Wrapup? Despite the fact that it seemed TUL was only a handful of people actually working last week, my good deeds at the office did not go unnoticed as I got to be excused, just like the Thursday before it, on the kickass hour of noon. Half-days should be incorporated into the workplace more often, just as long as I'm paid a full day of course. Now that I had the entire afternoon free, it was time to pickup some speaker stands for the hot new home theater system that I decided to treat myself to. Getting to Circuit City via Rockville Pike was probably the most painful commute I've encountered in quite awhile. Driving there alone took about an hour, most of it stuck on the damn Pike right after White Flint mall. Then I misjudged where I was supposed to turn and ended up trying to get out of the wrong shopping center for a good twenty minutes. It got to the point where it was instant relief when I finally made it to the parking space in front of Circuit City. Leaving Rockville took about half as much time getting there, but I honestly can't remember wanting to commit self-mutilation so much during what was supposed to be a short, easy-going drive.

Thursday night a few of us went to our friend's apartment down the street from mine and kicked back a few before heading out to Barking Dog. By the time we left, it was about 11:30, allotting us about an hour before last call. TUL has got to point out he isn't much of a fan when bars close before 1am, especially when they should know that TUL doesn't have work tomorrow. Since the night was still somewhat young, we walked down Wisconsin Ave to our other friend's apartment, interestingly enough which was right across the street from TUL's. A few hours later and some beef jerky consumed in record time, 4am was about the time The Upstate Life called it quits for the night.

After waking up with some serious heartburn due to last night's binge, it was off to Ikea to find a suitable replacement for our current TV stand as our current one simply wasn't sufficient for the new theater system. Believe it or not, this was actually TUL's first time at the College Park Ikea despite going to college just a few miles down Route 1. It reminded me of an airport terminal due to its sheer size, parking lots, and even bus shuttles. Of course, the one piece of TV furniture me and my roommate liked happened to be out of stock. Actually what was worse was the fact that we later discovered the model had been discontinued. Through my advanced skills of Internet research, I actually found a dude on Craigslist selling the one we want so hopefully it'll be in The Upstate Life's living room soon enough. Yes, that's right readers. I'm dead set on getting it. We didn't leave empty handed though as my roommate bought one of those damn comfortable Poang chairs. Pain in the ass to assemble I might add, but I could rock in that thing all day while watching TV.

New Year's Eve was approaching, so we went over to my friend's apartment a few blocks away where he was hosting a kegger. It wasn't a huge turnout or anything but was still a lot of fun as I got to dust off my beer pong skills (and unorthodox throwing style) and actually pull off a few W's. It was so intense we didn't even realize it was close to midnight until three minutes before the ball was about to drop. I hastily corked a bottle of champagne, throwing caution to the wind and having a good quart of it explode on me. After rapidly pouring the bottle into a dozen red party cups in record time, I was able to pass them out seconds before 2005 arrived. We thought about going out to one of the area bars but rather decided to stay in and watch some Arrested Development and Curb Your Enthusiasm instead. More of a low-key New Years than past ones but still fun nonetheless.

It was pretty much unanimous that everyone was staying in Saturday night after two consecutive evenings of partying, so I met up with some friends in DC for some DVD selections. Turns out the two I brought over, Wet Hot American Summer and Anchorman, were the ones selected out of many which included Saved!, Napoleon Dynamite, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It was about the third time I watched Anchorman this week after buying it the past Thursday, but I just haven't got tired of it yet. The uncut scenes in the unrated version really weren't that good (for the exception of some humorous dialogue between Will Ferrell and Fred Armisen) and kind of diluted an otherwise hysterical movie.

Hope everyone got their Arcade Fire tickets already as the show officially sold out on Saturday. Even though 9:30 posted Bright Eyes and Arcade Fire a few days ago, despite the fact they were selling tickets for each act for over a few weeks now, tickets sold out in quick fashion once they were officially announced. If you recall, I stopped over at the box office and got my tickets on December 12th! But it seems as though that wasn't enough time for some people as the Craigslist demand has officially begun. Let the absurd price gouging commence!

Posted by Brett at 5:01 PM |