The Butterfly Effect

So I watched this movie called "The Butterfly Effect" this past Sunday, and I can only describe it as a "Game 7 of the 2003 ALCS" type of movie. What I mean by this is that I did not enjoy this movie too much during the actual screening of it, but upon completion of the film, I loved it (much like that fateful Aaron Boone game winning homer game, back on October 16th, 2003). The whole movie had me thinking about the small choices I had made in my life, and how they have effected how I am today. It really made me wonder if I could have been anyone other than myself, and I ended up staying awake for a good few hours last night just thinking about it. What would my life be like if I hadn't checked the little box on the Villanova online student form, stating that I wanted to live in St. Mary's Hall back in freshman year. I wouldn't know the same people from Villanova for one, probably would have a different friend dynamic, and not no so many of the quality friends I have right now. My whole college experience was affected by one small decision that I made back in June of 2001 on some random day. Hell who knows, I could have been in a douchebag frat, could have been a total guido jerk, could have been a pothead if I had not been surrounded by the people I ended up with. That to me is very creepy. Okay I probably have wierded you all out by now....back to work.

Lazy Matty B will post a full one on Saturday.

Going home this weekend after a Ding Dong Extravaganza takes place in NYC tonight. I am sure it will provide great stories and anecdotes. Good thing Justin isn't coming, as he is home eating meatballs, and waiting for old girlfriends to call him, and reading romance novels, while his dad buys him some more doodads to make him feel good about himself. Justin didn't come to NYC for New Years because he thought it was necessary to make a reservation before ridding NJ Transit Regional Rail line. Alas he will stay in the quiet comforts of his south New Jersey home, where he will remain until he is 35 or 36.

Pittsburgh's going to the Super Bowl, Here we go!

When I begin to apply to business schools later this winter, I am going to seriously consider applying to Pitt. Although it has never been on my radar, I can't begin to describe how much I love the spirit of the people from that old steel town. It also fits my profile for schools pretty well too, as I have found out through some of my research. Oh BTW, I am prepping for the GMAT's pretty much every night right now, and my backpack always has a practice problem book in it. Yesterday some random guidos yelled at me calling me a nerd, because I was walking around Hoboken with a backpack on. I yelled back "Fuck You" and ran away. I am such a dork, I know.

Part Deux

Sunday January 15

Nothing starts a second half of a trip much like a breakfast burrito. Lindsey took the initiative in making these wonderful treats, which started the day out on a wonderful note. Once we were fully nourished all of us headed to downtown Ft. Worth to watch the Steelers-Colts game at a bar called "The Pour House" (Pun absolutely intended). After around 30 minutes, Tim and Lindsay left Sean, Greg and I to go and actually be productive, as Tim went to his LSAT prep course, and Lindsey back to her apartment. I can't blame them, as this game presented them with the perfect opportunity to actually get stuff done while the three of us were in town visiting. We watched the exciting game (In which Greg almost pooped his pants as Jerome Bettis fumbled on the 1 yard line) and drank around 4 beers each, while eating some nachos and chicken fingers. The bill....$42. I could have seriously had 5 beers in NYC and paid that much, I love Texas.

After wandering the streets of downtown Ft. Worth for around an hour, Greg, Sean and I made the short walk back to Lindsey's apartment to meet up with the other 2 and start off the evening. Our destination= The Ft. Worth Stockyards.

The Stockyards are a place that I would classify as a "must see" to any visitor to the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. On this glorious stretch of blocks there is a rodeo, dozens of cowboy type bars, and a ton of western shops. While it has the potential to be very seedy, it is not, and it was well worth the effort to treck on down there.

For dinner we went to a very cool Mexican place, which really would be an ideal first date place if one lived in Ft. Worth. Wile the name of the place escapes me right now, it was a mix of indoor and outdoor seating, that was both rustic and charming at the same time. The only problem I had with this place is that it exposed one of my great weaknesses.......Endless free chips. My favorite Mexican restaurant in Connecticut (Senor Panchos) also has this same setup, and it is the death of me. At this Mexican restaurant we were at, the free chips were flowing, and all five of us were devouring them. By the time our dinners came, not one of us even finished 75% of our massive entrees, and we all suffered from a debilitating symptom, which made drinking afterwards a tough task. This symptom.....the dreaded food coma.

As we all laid around Lindsay's apartment after dinner, watching the Spanish Channel on TV (which seems to me as the same quality of acting as a porno, without the sex scenes) all of us were in a bind. Our last night all together for at least a few months and the dreaded coma lingered. What were we to do????? As usual Tim came to the rescue and showed his natural born leadership abilities. He proposed an easy drinking game in which we drank every time we heard certain key words in the songs we were blasting form the CD player. Now this game began slowly, but as we drank a few, all of us started to come out of our comas and get much more lively. At this point Greg mentioned the grand drinking tradition called "Slapping the Bag", which was one that led to an array of inebriated nights throughout college. Tim again took control and recommended we start up a round of bag slapping, and luckily for us there was a container of unopened boxed wine at our disposal. Lindsey, who had never before partaken in this tradition looked at all of us like we were psychotic alcoholics, but nonetheless succumbed to the fun of this tradition. Tim had us all slap the bag in a certain "batting order" so we each took about 5 turns, and became very rowdy in the process. Lindsey left us after her second turn, as she couldn't deal with how insane we as a collective group were. Now if this previous paragraph doesn't make a lick of sense to you, next time we are hanging out together, and we have boxed wine at our disposal ask me about "slapping the bag". I guarantee you will love this game, and you will also have a wine hangover the next morning.

Monday January 16

We finished up our trip in a very laid back fashion, as we went back to the Ft Worth Stockyards in the morning and watched some Longhorns march down the street, and ate some lunch. We spent our last few hours together playing the bar version of shuffleboard (so much fun may I add) in Lindsey's apartment complex, before we packed up our bags for the airport. At the airport Sean and I had a few beers, while Greg departed back to Washington on his fligh about an hour before we did. Overall this is my favorite vacation I have taken since Spring Break 2005, and I was totallt bummed out about it being over when I went back to work on Tuesday.

A Bitch Wing Blowout

Okay everyone I am sorry for my month long absence. I have been in a writing rut, in which I have written 4 entries but not finished any of them. Now finishing them now would be pointless, so I'll just write about my venture down to the land of the Longhorns to hang out with my BFF's, Tim, Sean, and Greg. Now on a 1 to 10 scale this weekend was a 16.5, but let me start with my one and only complaint about this trip.......... The shitty Dallas Ft Worth Airport. The Dallas Fort Worth Airport sucks because of one reason;the negligence of the designers of the airport in providing places to for Sean and I to drink as we waited for Greg's flight to get in. Sean surprisingly landed hours before me at around 2:30, and I met up with him at around 5:00 PM CST when my plane finally got in. On a side note my plane ride was one of the top 5 of my life, as I finally was seated next to an attractive woman, instead of my standard obese grandpa, mother with screaming child, or person who has to get up 5 times during the flight to go to the bathroom. So after the standard salutations Sean and I decided to just walk around the airport until our favorite clergyman landed right on time at 6:00 PM CST. The league was almost back together as 75% of the team was assembled.

Lindsey Taylor, Tim's Girlfriend, picked us up to the airport and drove us back to her apartment, and we met up with Tim there. He had to coach his middle school basketball team, and couldn't make it to the airport, but finally at around 7:00 or so we were all back together. So what is the first thing 4 buddies do when they get back together? Well that is quite obvious. And if you said have a big long group hung, go punch yourself in the face. Obviously what people of our caliber do is go grab a beer and some tacos. We went to this place right off the campus of TCU, and after we sat down finished our food in about 1.1 minutes, it was time to make the 3 hour drive to Austin, Texas.

After a few "Boston, Texas" old school references, some gratuitous teasing of Greg working for the Jewish War Veteran's Association, and our regular standard fare of teasing we arrived in Austin, and proceeded directly to my personal Mecca......6th Street.
6th Street is man Mecca. Now Dustin and I used to joke that this place in Westchester County which housed a Home Depot, A Costco, a Stew Leonard's Grocery Superstore, and an oversized parking garage, was the true man Mecca. Well if that is, this is not far behind.
Imagine this:

• A mile long street which consists of entirely of bars, each with a different theme and atmosphere, and most having live music.
• Balmy weather, and college level pricing on beers
• Cordial and very friendly Texans everywhere
• Gorgeous blond girls every way you look.

Yes I loved ever moment of this night. I couldn't name half the bars we hopped too, but after about 8 beers and back to back Jaeger Shots, this post collegiate drinker was feeling pretty good. So to cap the night we decided to purchase a slice of pizza from the local place on 6th, before driving back to a house owned by one of Tim's friends about 8 minutes away, in a different part of Austin. Now when I bit into this pizza I almost died. It tasted like cardboard, bad cheese and ketchup. I don't mean to be a pizza snob but it was horrific, and be assured drunk Matt and Sean made the entire pizzeria aware of our distaste for it. The rest of this evening took on a classic 2001-2005 form, as I passed out randomly on the living room floor for an hour, before going to bed, and Tim took pictures of his own ass with Sean's camera (and later mine)

Saturday January 14th

To be honest with you the first 8 hours of this day were very dull. We went to the 'Nova-Texas game, watched our guys shoot a worse percentage than you would see in a 1 on 1 match between Justin and Sean in hoops, and then proceeded to walk around the UT campus for about an hour. After Sean and I had dispersed all of our tasteless Texas Tower jokes, we decided to check out the alumni post game reception being held at a bar called Speakeasy.

Now after a loss, you would expect most Villanova fans to be depressed, and not too enthusiastic after the game. The good part about being a Villanovan is that the majority are basically just a bunch of drunk Italian and Irish Catholics. We entered the bar which had been rented out by Villanova Alumni, and entered Man Mecca part 2............

FREE, TOP SHELF OPEN BAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

For almost 2 1/2 straight hours Sean, Tim, Greg, Lindsey, and I all did our best college student and drank as much as possible. I alternated, between, Crown and Diet, Miller Lite, Captain and Diet, Shiner Bock, and more. I mingled amongst the 300 other Nova Fans in attendance and saw many familiar faces. I did things drunk Matty B does, the things I tend to be embarrassed about the next day. At around 5:30 or so, as the open bar ended, we left the city of Austin, and started our travels back to Ft Worth.

On our way back we ate at a BBQ place on the way that would blow away any place in the Northeast. Mind you that this was a fast foodish type of place, and my whole meal including a 32 ounce beer was 8 dollars. Yes after having at least 10 drinks, wise old Matthew decided to drink just a bit more.

We got back in Ft Worth around 10, and were able to catch the end of the Patriots game in Tim's apartment/convent, and horsed around there for a while. After about an hour we drove to Lindsey's apartment in the heart of Downtown Ft. Worth, Greg pulled his usual "I am too tired" cop out, and went to sleep around 11. Then the most shocking event since Tori tried to replace Kelly Kapowski on "Saved By The Bell" happened......Sean "Guiness Blood" Bennington did too!!!! Since 2001 this has happened about 3 times, and it is a major upset when it does. Since I am a drinking warrior, Tim and I decided to walk for a couple blocks, and we entered a very cool/ hipster drinking establishment called The Flying Saucer, and had two beers each. After shooting the shit for a while, we went back to Lindsey's apartment, and half of our trip was over.....

Part 2 coming tomorrow..........................................