No bar stories this week. Really, I’m kinda sick of the bar. In theory at least, as I am not sick of booze, darts, or ridiculous adventures. That part of the bar I like. I’m just growing weary of the obligation of it all. See, as an aging, single dude, I HAVE to go out every weekend night. If any reasonable number of girls went out on weeknights, I would be out every weeknight too. I don’t have to spend a lot of money, I don’t have to meet my friends, I don’t have to get shitfaced (although, as you know, more often than not all three happen) but I do have to leave home and get out there. Sure, I could hang around coffee shops during the day to try and meet girls, but that’s lame because a) coffee shops don’t serve booze. That, and coffee shops are not conducive to conversation with new people, they are simply places to stay in your group or to eavesdrop on other groups.
A reason it could be harder to leave the house is my new internet obsession. If not for the hours and hours of downtime to kill at work, it would be tougher to leave home. A few months ago, my buddy David turned me on to sporcle.com. Not to be too hackneyed 90s about it, but don’t go there. Sporcle has completely ruined my capacity for killing downtime via reading or video games. It cuts into my sleep, it cuts into my TV time, and it totally eliminates the time I would otherwise be writing a brilliant unstarted novel.
Sporcle is, essentially, the ultimate game of categories. It’s nothing but lists in thousands of different categories under larger topics such as geography, history, music, TV, movies, sports, and others that I haven’t tried out yet. It asks a simple question, “Can you name xyz?” Examples include “can you name every US president?” (got 43, lousy Milard Filmore), “can you name all of the kings of France?” (didn’t do too well, but just typing William, Louis, and Richard with various Roman numerals got me pretty far) and “can you name the top 25 rushing touchdown scorers of the 2000s (did so-so, but even with my fantasy football background, it’s amazing how quickly I forgot about people like Rudi Johnson, Corey Dillon, Curtis Martin, and Eddie George).
Not surprisingly, geography is the category that I really go after. Can you name the major American cities when given three suburbs of each? I could, easily. Can you name the largest 100 American cities (not metro areas) by population? I always come close, but I always end up leaving out some bullshit town like Garland, Texas or Chesapeake, Virginia. Can you name the three largest cities in each state? I thought I would do well there, but the second largest city in Utah is some new burb I’d never heard of, and a lot of places in New England and the South are too obscure for me. Can you name the 20 largest cities of Kansas? Illinois? I can. Any other state? Not so much. Russia? I don’t know why I even tried that one. Like you, I can name 3 Russian cities. Can you name all of the countries of North America (including the Caribbean)? Europe (including lots of former Soviet republics and ex-Yugoslavia)? Asia (with all the “stans”)? Africa? For me, as of today, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Can you name all the counties of the world? I’ve played that game a lot of times, and thus far haven’t won - Oceania always throws me off, and I always end up forgetting a couple random obvious countries like Hungary or Singapore.
Weak entry this week, I know. Of course, I blame the sporcle, as writing about it caused me to procrastinate during a post about procrastination. Got distracted, did the “can you name all the countries in the world?” 3 more times. It’s a 15 minute game. I got 193 out of 195 on one - stupid Tuvalu and Kiribati. Trust me, live your life. Do not go to sporcle.com.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
No Comps for the Weary
I’m old. This isn’t news. Recently, I’ve become dangerously close to becoming a real person. I eat vegetables. I’m eating McDonald’s and pizza slightly less (though I threw down both today). I thoroughly clean my apartment every week, even vacuuming. I recycle. I pay my taxes. Well, file my taxes. I just crafted a small “office” in my apartment so that I can stay home and write rather than go to the bar. Worst, and most embarrassing of all, I joined a gym a week ago, and I’ve even gone a few times. I swore to keep it on the downlow, but here I am, outing myself. I never planned to ever have a “gym” conversation in my life, but I’ve had roughly 4,000 in the last week. However, I promise you this: I will never, ever have a “gym” Facebook or Twitter (once I inevitably get into that) update. I don’t want to read other people doing this, and I know you don’t want to either. This is the last I’ll speak of it on a public forum.
Though it seems I’m losing my edge (if I ever had one) and becoming a real person, I can still fall safely into the cartoon character category. Case in point, as per always, last weekend. I had a reasonably quiet Friday, drinking till 4 of course, but no later, and not to such a massive degree as my primary goal was to avoid passing out in public. I even met a girl, but choked as only I can. She looked at me a couple times, came up to me from across the bar, bummed a smoke, and hung out while I proceeded to charm her by saying... nothing. “Um, so you teach English eh? Cool, uh, me too.” This is why I drink. You would too if you had to deal with me all the time. Later, I played her in darts, which gave me a great opportunity to be really tight and nervous and inevitably lose the game in a big way. I also had some cool banter like “uh, so where you from?” I was really shocked that she didn’t just throw herself at me after that. She left, of course, and I played my buddy in darts immediately afterword, played loose, and won - which mattered a lot since we’ve played over 9,000 times.
I woke up early the next day (2 pm, early for a Saturday) to go hiking at the mountain near my house with Don and Martin. Don had already climbed a different mountain earlier that day, so he was a bit behind on energy and ahead on booze due to his habit of throwing back cheap rice wine on the peak. Though he was his usual mountain-goat self during the hike, he quickly crashed upon our return, but got back up to go for dinner and drinks. We hit up a Korean restaurant in Nowon that we go to pretty regularly, and moved on to the usual bars. Other than our discovery of Mojito, bartender Rain’s new bar (which actually served limes, heretofore unheard of in Korea) the usual bars were ungodly dull. Realizing it was only 11 and the subways were still running, we headed to Hyehwa.
Predictably, Don (who moments ago was lobbying to go to Itaewon, a longer subway ride than Hyehwa) passed out on the train within minutes. Martin and I then had this exchange with him:
Martin: Wake up.
Don: (looks up at the station sign, sees “Hyehwa,” closes his eyes again) Wake me up when we get there.
Martin: We are there.
Me: Where did you think we were going?
Don: Nowon.
Me: We came here from Nowon.
Don: Okay, cool.
Don lasted about five minutes in Hyehwa. I bought him a coffee at a convenience store (and in a mistake I won’t repeat again, my first Smirnoff Ice since the year 2000, when it was cool to drink Smirnoff Ice. Awful, awful drink.) After all the mountains and rice wine, plus the later beer and soju, Don was done. He got back on the subway and went home.
Martin and I walked up and down the major nightlife street in Hyehwa, and realized it was, on this night, as lame as Nowon. All the foot traffic was heading for the subway stop, we were the only ones going away from it. It only took until the merciful end of my Smirnoff Ice for us to join the subway-bound crowd and make the obvious change of venue - to Itaewon.
Not surprisingly, Itaewon was rocking. It was just a matter of finding the right bar. After having no more than one or two drinks in several establishments, we ended up at the old game-changer itself sometime after 3 - Polly’s Kettle House. Last time I was at Polly’s, as you may remember from a previous post, the bar was so dead that it literally put me to sleep. True to the never-ending schizophrenic nature of the joint, this time it was packed, mostly with English-teacher types. A fairly cute skinny drunk blonde girl and her goateed, lerchy, douchy looking boyfriend were standing not far behind us, so of course we made fun of them (though not loud enough for them to hear). Tending bar was a Korean dude who spoke flawless English, and the cocktail “waitress” was either pre or post op, can’t tell which, but who was obviously (based on voice and Adam’s apple) a full-fledged dude at some point in his/her past.
Martin got up to take a piss. I talked to the bartender about my recent adventures at Polly’s. He said he had been working the night I passed out outside, but never noticed. The skinny blonde and the douchy lerchy guy hovered closer to Martin’s seat. Martin returned, asked the blonde to step aside so he could reclaim his stool, and then did so. She took some offense to this malicious act of seatbacks, reached back to South Carolina, and slapped him in the face as hard as she could. Then she poured his beer on him.
I was, of course, shocked, and immediately started lobbying the bartender to get him a new beer for free. He asked me about the confrontation, and my report, essentially, was “that bitch is crazy.” And she was. Martin, beer soaked and slapped, yelled at blondie to get the hell out of here, and she reacted by hitting him in the face. Repeatedly. Where was douchy lerchy goatee guy the whole time? Voraciously making out with the cocktail “waitress” at the next stool. Blondie started talking to me, rationalizing her actions, saying that she had the right to the vacant barstool. My reaction, reasonably, was just to tell her that she was crazy and to fuck off. Fortunately, she did, but not before giving Martin a fat lip and causing him to lose a contact, but luckily without slapping me too. Most bars would have kicked her out, but Polly’s isn’t most bars.
Again, Polly’s doesn’t disappoint. If not for places like that, where I can witness my friend get assaulted by a crazy blonde waif while her boyfriend makes out with a ladyboy, old age might really take hold, and I may be forced to consider buying mutual funds and more than one suit. My only complaint- not that they didn’t kick that crazy girl out, as that would be un-Polly’s-like, but that they never did comp Martin a beer after that ball of blonde crazy spilled his.
Though it seems I’m losing my edge (if I ever had one) and becoming a real person, I can still fall safely into the cartoon character category. Case in point, as per always, last weekend. I had a reasonably quiet Friday, drinking till 4 of course, but no later, and not to such a massive degree as my primary goal was to avoid passing out in public. I even met a girl, but choked as only I can. She looked at me a couple times, came up to me from across the bar, bummed a smoke, and hung out while I proceeded to charm her by saying... nothing. “Um, so you teach English eh? Cool, uh, me too.” This is why I drink. You would too if you had to deal with me all the time. Later, I played her in darts, which gave me a great opportunity to be really tight and nervous and inevitably lose the game in a big way. I also had some cool banter like “uh, so where you from?” I was really shocked that she didn’t just throw herself at me after that. She left, of course, and I played my buddy in darts immediately afterword, played loose, and won - which mattered a lot since we’ve played over 9,000 times.
I woke up early the next day (2 pm, early for a Saturday) to go hiking at the mountain near my house with Don and Martin. Don had already climbed a different mountain earlier that day, so he was a bit behind on energy and ahead on booze due to his habit of throwing back cheap rice wine on the peak. Though he was his usual mountain-goat self during the hike, he quickly crashed upon our return, but got back up to go for dinner and drinks. We hit up a Korean restaurant in Nowon that we go to pretty regularly, and moved on to the usual bars. Other than our discovery of Mojito, bartender Rain’s new bar (which actually served limes, heretofore unheard of in Korea) the usual bars were ungodly dull. Realizing it was only 11 and the subways were still running, we headed to Hyehwa.
Predictably, Don (who moments ago was lobbying to go to Itaewon, a longer subway ride than Hyehwa) passed out on the train within minutes. Martin and I then had this exchange with him:
Martin: Wake up.
Don: (looks up at the station sign, sees “Hyehwa,” closes his eyes again) Wake me up when we get there.
Martin: We are there.
Me: Where did you think we were going?
Don: Nowon.
Me: We came here from Nowon.
Don: Okay, cool.
Don lasted about five minutes in Hyehwa. I bought him a coffee at a convenience store (and in a mistake I won’t repeat again, my first Smirnoff Ice since the year 2000, when it was cool to drink Smirnoff Ice. Awful, awful drink.) After all the mountains and rice wine, plus the later beer and soju, Don was done. He got back on the subway and went home.
Martin and I walked up and down the major nightlife street in Hyehwa, and realized it was, on this night, as lame as Nowon. All the foot traffic was heading for the subway stop, we were the only ones going away from it. It only took until the merciful end of my Smirnoff Ice for us to join the subway-bound crowd and make the obvious change of venue - to Itaewon.
Not surprisingly, Itaewon was rocking. It was just a matter of finding the right bar. After having no more than one or two drinks in several establishments, we ended up at the old game-changer itself sometime after 3 - Polly’s Kettle House. Last time I was at Polly’s, as you may remember from a previous post, the bar was so dead that it literally put me to sleep. True to the never-ending schizophrenic nature of the joint, this time it was packed, mostly with English-teacher types. A fairly cute skinny drunk blonde girl and her goateed, lerchy, douchy looking boyfriend were standing not far behind us, so of course we made fun of them (though not loud enough for them to hear). Tending bar was a Korean dude who spoke flawless English, and the cocktail “waitress” was either pre or post op, can’t tell which, but who was obviously (based on voice and Adam’s apple) a full-fledged dude at some point in his/her past.
Martin got up to take a piss. I talked to the bartender about my recent adventures at Polly’s. He said he had been working the night I passed out outside, but never noticed. The skinny blonde and the douchy lerchy guy hovered closer to Martin’s seat. Martin returned, asked the blonde to step aside so he could reclaim his stool, and then did so. She took some offense to this malicious act of seatbacks, reached back to South Carolina, and slapped him in the face as hard as she could. Then she poured his beer on him.
I was, of course, shocked, and immediately started lobbying the bartender to get him a new beer for free. He asked me about the confrontation, and my report, essentially, was “that bitch is crazy.” And she was. Martin, beer soaked and slapped, yelled at blondie to get the hell out of here, and she reacted by hitting him in the face. Repeatedly. Where was douchy lerchy goatee guy the whole time? Voraciously making out with the cocktail “waitress” at the next stool. Blondie started talking to me, rationalizing her actions, saying that she had the right to the vacant barstool. My reaction, reasonably, was just to tell her that she was crazy and to fuck off. Fortunately, she did, but not before giving Martin a fat lip and causing him to lose a contact, but luckily without slapping me too. Most bars would have kicked her out, but Polly’s isn’t most bars.
Again, Polly’s doesn’t disappoint. If not for places like that, where I can witness my friend get assaulted by a crazy blonde waif while her boyfriend makes out with a ladyboy, old age might really take hold, and I may be forced to consider buying mutual funds and more than one suit. My only complaint- not that they didn’t kick that crazy girl out, as that would be un-Polly’s-like, but that they never did comp Martin a beer after that ball of blonde crazy spilled his.
Friday, November 6, 2009
City by the sea
There’s a town by the sea where it’s warmer than here. Five star hotels surround the beach, and more importantly, $30 crash pads surround the five star hotels. Fresh raw fish, tasty Mexican, Indian, Turkish, American, Italian, Japanese, Thai, and Korean food is everywhere by the coast, and Filipino, Russian, and Chinese joints are a subway inland away. One could sit on the beach, throwing back booze and shooting fireworks, or hit up one of several trendy nightclubs and the casino. Or, with the time and the cash, do it all in one night. During the day, there’s the beach of course, several to choose from, and there’s the country’s best aquarium, mountains, temples, a cable car, open air markets, and one of the continent’s largest film festivals should you visit in October. Is it any wonder I keep going back?
I recently made my fifth trip to Busan. I don’t know anybody in Busan. There’s only one city that I’ve visited more times without having friends or family in said city - Las Vegas. Like Vegas, each trip has been a little different, but each trip has been somewhat the same. I’ve been to Busan twice alone, once with my dad, once with my buddy Don, and last time with a big group. Each trip has involved at least one night in Busan’s crown jewel - Haeundae Beach, the beach I referred to in the first paragraph. Yet, unlike Vegas, Busan is not a world class tourist destination, presumably because of the difficulty in getting to Korea to begin with. Plus, unlike southeast Asia, Busan is a seasonal destination, it’s too cold in the winter and (in my opinion) too crowded in the summer. Half a million Korean tourists plant their beach umbrellas into Haeundae’s one mile of sand every weekend in July and August - no thanks. The spring and the fall is when Busan really shines, when it’s noticeably warmer than Seoul. If anybody here in K-land happens upon this post and hasn’t been to Busan - go. This weekend. Hell, I haven’t been on vacation in nearly a month, I have half a mind to go too. Like last week, I’ll toot my own horn and post this link for another blog of mine, the last entry included the nuts and bolts of what to do in Haeundae.
Don’t worry, I haven’t gone soft, on next week’s post, I’ll return to my usual vulgar narrative.
Samyeon doesn't dissapoint for nightlife
Don could find his beloved Red Horse beer on Texas Street
Beumusa Temple, in the mountains of Busan
The Old Man does fireworks on the beach
another shot of Haeundae
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Polly's, Self Indulgence, Kia, and Really Horrible Titles
I woke in the cold, outside of Polly’s Kettle House. There was a puddle of vomit nearby, potentially mine, but in this particular neck of the woods you never can tell. Polly’s, as I’ve mentioned before, is far from Seoul’s highest end bar, as their signature drinks are served in plastic bottles. Polly’s, because of their ridiculous cocktails and their precarious perch over the very hellmouth of Itaewon, is what we in the filthy drunk biz call a “game changer.” The musical selection is as unpredictable as the crowd, and the crowd is never the same. Sometimes, it’s only GIs. Others, it’s only white English teachers. Occasionally it’s filled with Koreans. Once in a while it’s an exclusively black enclave, a rarity indeed in this country. On particularly bad nights, the place is populated with nothing but overly flirtatious, closeted Korean gay men and trannie whores. On its best nights, it’s all of the above. On its very worst, well, it’s pretty much empty, with me passed in the cold just outside the bar.
Even though my idiot buddy left me wallowing on a concrete bench outside a seedy bar (or maybe he said he was leaving when I was still awake and I blacked it out, I can’t be expected to keep track of these sorts of things), I managed to wake up before the sun came up, nothing stolen, in order to quickly procure a cab to pass out in. Korean taxi drivers are generally honest to a fault, but every now and then I find an exception, and I suppose 5 a.m. in Itaewon is a pretty good time to hop into a shyster’s car. I woke up a ways into a ride, only to discover that we were on some freeway far from the usual road from the T’won to home. Taxi rides on this most plied of routes generally run $14-16, $18 if there are abnormal traffic patterns. My total this time was $25. I started complaining to the cabbie shortly before we arrived on my street, then gave him $20. He didn’t argue it, he knew he ripped me off.
The point of this anecdote? Certainly not that I’m changing my ways, although I hope to avoid passing out outside in a non-beach situation for at least the next three weeks. I suppose it could be that the honeymoon is over, long over really. I realized this a while ago, maybe a few hours after I posted my “Honeymoon” blog last month, as the wheels fell off in whatever girl adventure I was into at the time. Then again, I’m been here long enough now (two months) that any sense of newness would be impossible to maintain - now I feel like I never left. It’s not so much that I’m back to all my bad habits (though I am), but that I’m back to all my habits. Pizza on Monday. Hot Dog Tuesday. Cereal for breakfast before work every day. Up at 12:47 (although 1:22 is the new 12:47). I’ve also added the inconvenient wrinkle of Subway Sunday, as it involves me actually leaving my neighborhood on Sundays rather than laying around my apartment all day.
Still, I’m not going to drive this post off a cliff. I don’t want to write a “woe is me” entry anymore than you want to read one (unless, of course, any girls in Seoul happen to read this and dig that sort of thing, in which case, ah, woe is me). Just this week, I changed up my 2+ year food routine. No longer will I live under the rote monotony of a pizza-Monday hot dog-Tuesday existence. Nope, from now on I’ll enjoy the liberating freedom of Korean food Monday, wing night Tuesday (50 cent wings at the bar, plus it gives me another bar night) and the shocking new world of pizza on Wednesdays and hot dogs on Thursday. See, pizza night and hot dog night have to fall consecutively, because the pizzas at the cheap place I go aren’t very big, but they’re too big for one sitting. I have five of the eight slices on one night, then the other three slices with a hot dog the second. The hot dogs at New York Hot Dog prove to be the exact perfect size to account for the two fewer slices of pizza, plus the cheap pizza becomes inedibly disgusting after more than one day in the fridge, kinda like Shuttle.
I’ve been extraordinarily lazy with a few projects that I planned on working on once I got here, such as work on three new blogs (including fashionably-lame.blogspot.com, which only has two entries thus far). Plus, there’s learning Korean, joining a gym, quitting smoking, selling my screenplay, working as a professional travel writer, and becoming a chess master. That doesn’t even factor in Nintendo. I figure I’ll have some more time after the season finale of Mad Men, and far more once fantasy football season ends.
Finally, a public congratulations to the baseball world (okay, Korean [okay, South Korean]) champion Kia Tigers! For the first time since 1985, a baseball team that I care about took home the title. Kia was in the cellar in 2007 and 2008, but things turn around quickly in an eight team league. Best of all, they won with style, Game 7 ... well, I’ll let you watch. If you like baseball or sports in general, you’ll dig this clip.
Even though my idiot buddy left me wallowing on a concrete bench outside a seedy bar (or maybe he said he was leaving when I was still awake and I blacked it out, I can’t be expected to keep track of these sorts of things), I managed to wake up before the sun came up, nothing stolen, in order to quickly procure a cab to pass out in. Korean taxi drivers are generally honest to a fault, but every now and then I find an exception, and I suppose 5 a.m. in Itaewon is a pretty good time to hop into a shyster’s car. I woke up a ways into a ride, only to discover that we were on some freeway far from the usual road from the T’won to home. Taxi rides on this most plied of routes generally run $14-16, $18 if there are abnormal traffic patterns. My total this time was $25. I started complaining to the cabbie shortly before we arrived on my street, then gave him $20. He didn’t argue it, he knew he ripped me off.
The point of this anecdote? Certainly not that I’m changing my ways, although I hope to avoid passing out outside in a non-beach situation for at least the next three weeks. I suppose it could be that the honeymoon is over, long over really. I realized this a while ago, maybe a few hours after I posted my “Honeymoon” blog last month, as the wheels fell off in whatever girl adventure I was into at the time. Then again, I’m been here long enough now (two months) that any sense of newness would be impossible to maintain - now I feel like I never left. It’s not so much that I’m back to all my bad habits (though I am), but that I’m back to all my habits. Pizza on Monday. Hot Dog Tuesday. Cereal for breakfast before work every day. Up at 12:47 (although 1:22 is the new 12:47). I’ve also added the inconvenient wrinkle of Subway Sunday, as it involves me actually leaving my neighborhood on Sundays rather than laying around my apartment all day.
Still, I’m not going to drive this post off a cliff. I don’t want to write a “woe is me” entry anymore than you want to read one (unless, of course, any girls in Seoul happen to read this and dig that sort of thing, in which case, ah, woe is me). Just this week, I changed up my 2+ year food routine. No longer will I live under the rote monotony of a pizza-Monday hot dog-Tuesday existence. Nope, from now on I’ll enjoy the liberating freedom of Korean food Monday, wing night Tuesday (50 cent wings at the bar, plus it gives me another bar night) and the shocking new world of pizza on Wednesdays and hot dogs on Thursday. See, pizza night and hot dog night have to fall consecutively, because the pizzas at the cheap place I go aren’t very big, but they’re too big for one sitting. I have five of the eight slices on one night, then the other three slices with a hot dog the second. The hot dogs at New York Hot Dog prove to be the exact perfect size to account for the two fewer slices of pizza, plus the cheap pizza becomes inedibly disgusting after more than one day in the fridge, kinda like Shuttle.
I’ve been extraordinarily lazy with a few projects that I planned on working on once I got here, such as work on three new blogs (including fashionably-lame.blogspot.com, which only has two entries thus far). Plus, there’s learning Korean, joining a gym, quitting smoking, selling my screenplay, working as a professional travel writer, and becoming a chess master. That doesn’t even factor in Nintendo. I figure I’ll have some more time after the season finale of Mad Men, and far more once fantasy football season ends.
Finally, a public congratulations to the baseball world (okay, Korean [okay, South Korean]) champion Kia Tigers! For the first time since 1985, a baseball team that I care about took home the title. Kia was in the cellar in 2007 and 2008, but things turn around quickly in an eight team league. Best of all, they won with style, Game 7 ... well, I’ll let you watch. If you like baseball or sports in general, you’ll dig this clip.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
So it's come to this....
Yep, a rerun. I'm dredging up my "Top 10 Overrated American Cities" post from my old myspace blog. My reasoning is hexfold:
- I want to start updating this blog at least once a week, and I don't have anything new tonight - I'm working on a couple pieces, but I won't finish anything this week. (and yeah, I'm aware that sportsthatareright is kinda jumping the shark here by virtue of the facts that a) I referred to a blog post as a "piece," b) I used the tern "jumping the shark," c) I'm running a rerun, and d) this list had a c and a d.
- This was one of my funnier posts on the old blog, though I don't necessarily believe in the contents of it gospel and verse anymore. I do stand behind everything I said about Texas though. I presume that this could be new material to a lot of people.
- To keep it real, I did minimal editing on this from its original form because, as always, I'm lazy. I changed the link on the Lawrence segment so that it goes to a page that actually exists, but the spirit behind the message remains. I removed a couple dated references regarding basketball and the 2008 election. Don't worry, they weren't interesting or funny. I also reversed it, going from 10 to 1, when the original went 1 to 10.
- This is probably the most caustic thing I ever posted, so take that for what it's worth. It's been a long week.
- I originally posted this in August of 2007. Because this puppy is two + years old, you can scroll down to my "Filthy Whore" post and see how much better I've gotten since I originally posted this.
- This post includes several quality jokes that I stand behind, surrounded by some horrible writing.
10. Lawrence, Kansas - not nearly as overrated as the other cities on this list. But oh, those Lawrence people are smug. They think Lawrence is the center of the world. Just look what this asshole wrote at lawrence.com: It’s the kind of asshole that runs a link to himself.
9. Denver - I don’t ski. I don’t snowboard. Generally, I don’t like people that do. Also, my hatred of the Broncos knows no bounds.
8. Tampa - I had to pick a Florida city, and really, in a list of the top ten most overrated cities in the country, one could easily argue for a list of 10 Florida cities. Being that I don’t recognize Missouri as a state, Florida edges out Texas as my least favorite state. I’ve at least met cool people that were born in Texas. I’ve never met anyone cool that was actually born in Florida (largely because, like other places on this list, almost nobody is actually from Florida.) When I lived in Florida (if you can call it living) I did finally meet some people that were actually originally from said state (but not until I’d lived there several months) and they were terrible people. So, with the likes of Miami, Jacksonville, Orlando, St. Pete, and Tallahassee as potential choices, Tampa won out for a few reasons. Jacksonville and St. Pete are both afterthoughts, so neither can qualify as “overrated.” Remember, this list isn’t the worst cities, its the most overrated. Orlando is a one-trick pony, and does it’s trick (theme parks) pretty well, so it doesn’t fit here. Miami is certainly overrated, but due to the fact that it spawned Sonny Crocket and Vice City, it gets a little leverage, Plus, the Dolphins, though I hate them, are the only professional sports team in Florida that I recognize, as they are one of only two teams (florida has 9 total pro teams, 10 if you count University of Miami football) that predate my existence. Tampa is basically known for two things: athletes’ off season homes (which I don’t understand as Tampa is an ugly, landlocked city with bad traffic, and beachfront property is only 20 miles away) and titty bars, and they can’t even do that right, as the titty bars are also known for their six-foot rule, ie, you can’t come within 6 feet of the dancers.
7. Olympia, WA - this is a small town, maybe the smallest on this list, but it gets a steady stream of fans. Basically, this is the city you run to (or take the Greyhound bus to) if you just can’t hack it in the cut-throat world of Portland. I don’t understand the appeal here. I’ve been a couple times. Rains a lot, like the rest of the Northwest. There’s good beer, like everywhere else in the region. but the city sucks. It’s depressing as hell, and there’s nothing to do but drink (which I’m all for, but you can drink anywhere.) To me, Olympia seems like a place where nutty people go to hide from the real world (um, unlike, uh, Seoul) yet still live a short distance from a major city. It’s kind of the drop off point for people who don’t have the guts to move to Bellingham (which has a much more distinct edge-of-the-world kind of feel, and is therefore a much better place.)
6. Boston. Okay, so I respect Fenway park, Paul Revere, the walkable-ness of the city, JFK, and the fact that Boston has one of four decent transit systems in the U.S. (the others, New York, Chicago, and Washington do not make this list.) But the accent, Harvard, the Red Sox, Romney, and the overall douchiness of the citizenry easily puts Boston on this overrated list. On the Red Sox - they are a poor man’s Yankees, that is, if the poor man has five dollars less than the rich man. The Sox and the Yanks are the same thing. I hate this rivalry, as the only good thing that can come out of the 112 games they play against each other a year is injuries on both sides. By the way, same deal for Duke-Carolina and Denver-Oakland. They are all just evil versus evil. Yet, it’s socially acceptable to say you are a Red Sox fan and maintain that you pull for the little guy, that you like the underdog. Horseshit. The Red Sox are every bit as much of an Evil Empire and bandwagon organization as the Yankees, and cheering for them doesn’t give you street cred. On the plus side, Boston often gets a reputation as a racist city, and when I was there, I didn’t encounter anybody who seemed to be racist. Of course, I didn’t encounter anybody from any other races either. Boston has all the ethnic diversity of North Korea.
5. Houston. This just seems like hell on earth to me. So, there’s the smog of Los Angeles, the traffic of Atlanta, the culture and history of Phoenix, the humidity of New Orleans, the sprawl of Dallas, the public transit options of Kansas City, the crime rate of Baltimore, and of course, Enron! This is a city whose top tourist attraction is a fucking mall, probably because when you are inside the mall, it means you aren’t stuck in traffic, or worse, outside in the soul-crushing heat and humidity. Plus, this city is chock full of billionaire robber barons that wear giant cowboy hats as they make money hand over fist in the oil industry, doing whatever they can to fuck over you personally and the country’s and world’s best interests collectively so that they can buy another ranch. Texas executes a lot of fucking people, and these soulless cocksuckers would be a great place to start.
4. Phoenix/Tempe/Scottsdale/Mesa/whatever other suburb there got to 300,000 people today. I have no clue what the appeal is here. It’s 100 fucking degrees every day. Great. Where do I sign up? Let’s not forget that, even more than Portland, nobody is really from here. It’s one giant strip mall that went up in the last few years. The population has grown literally 10-fold in the last 50 years. There is no history, no culture, and the invention of air conditioning is the only reason the city even exists.
3. Austin. Yeah, everybody loves Austin, it’s the greatest place in the universe, and if you go there, you are guaranteed to go to some club, pay 5 bucks to get in, see a band nobody’s ever heard of that turns out to be better than the Rolling Stones, BB King, Radiohead, and Johnny Cash combined while you are being served free drinks by a waitress that looks like a slightly sluttier version of your ex-girlfriend who later takes you back to her place and then buys you breakfast and a new car the next morning. That’s the word on Austin. But, the fact is, Austin exists for two reasons, and two reasons alone: it is the capital of Texas, and home of the “University” of Texas. UT is a big part of my “superschool” theory (along with Florida, Ohio State, and USC) and I believe they will soon ruin college sports. These 4 schools have so much money to spend on facilities and “recruiting” that they will ultimately destroy the competitive balance of college football and basketball. That’s another story though. Also - capital of Texas? How can Austin be considered a cool place with that moniker? Maybe there was a neighborhood with some cool bars and clubs on the Death Star too, but it was still the fucking Death Star. Austin gave W his platform to lose the 2000 election and assume the presidency.
2. St. Louis. How could St Louis be overrated, nonetheless my second most overrated city? Well, if somebody considers St. Louis to be even the second worst city in the country, that person is vastly overrating St. Louis. It is a hellhole, and the worst city in America. Worse than Gary. Worse than Cincinnati. Let me put it this way - I’d rather spend a week in East St. Louis than a weekend in St. Louis. Why is St. Louis the worst?
- Cardinals fans are whiney idiots that still bitch about the Denkinger call. Look, so Jose Orta wasn’t safe, but he wasn’t the potential 3rd out either, and the pinch runner the Royals put in for Orta was ultimately thrown out at third later in the inning, so all things being equal, the hit was meaningless. The royals won, straight up.
- Like Grandpa Simpson, I don’t consider Missouri a state. After all, this is the region with the glowing distinction of being the only territory north of the mason-dixon line to consider ownership of human beings to be totally kosher, not to mention the fact that these pro-slavery assholes burned my hometown to the ground on more than one occasion in their “noble” plight to continue their right to own other humans. Some may consider Columbia or Jefferson City to be the center of Missourah, but i say it gets worse the farther east you go. Kansas City gets a pass, as the home of my pro sports teams, Buck O’neil, Charlie Parker, and the best BBQ in the world, not to mention the fact that they have “Kansas” right there in the name. After that, every city is worse than the city wast of it, making St. Louis the worst of all, jammed 250 miles into Missourian No-Man’s-Land.
- The Arch sucks.
- Every time I’ve been in St. Louis, it seems like somebody has tried to kill me.
1. Portland, Oregon. I don’t get it. Come the fuck on. When my dad visited Korea, he was on a flight that went from Tokyo to Portland. People in Portland aren’t real people, and they shouldn’t be able to fly direct to Tokyo. Really, the Portland airport should only have nonstop flights to Lawrence, Omaha, and Minneapolis.
The reasons for Portland’s overratedness are multiple. Nobody lives there but hippies and hipsters, nobody is really from there, and you can’t even pump your own fucking gas. Portland is often compared to Seattle, but this is not a fair comparison, as Seattle is a great city and beats Portland in every conceivable way. Even the “good” things that Portland is known for - coffee, music, microbrews (taken way too far in Portland as every single man, woman, and child in Portland brews their own shitty beer) started in Seattle to begin with before Portland ripped them off. Plus, Portland has to be the worst sports town in the country, with no NFL or MLB presence, or even any nearby college teams worth a damn (Eugene is 3 hours away, not close enough be “nearby,” plus the Ducks traditionally suck at everything except maybe hackie sack).
This may not technically be Portland’s fault, but I have no problem issuing the blame here. Portland’s largest suburb (across the river in Washington) is named Vancouver, and is like 300 miles away from the real Vancouver, and even on the same fucking road as the real Vancouver. Which meant, when I lived in Tacoma and I told people I was taking a roadtrip to Vancouver, they had to ask which one. Who the fuck would take a roadtrip to Vancouver, Washington? ( by the way - Vancouver would totally be number 1 if I were to make a list of the top-10 most overrated North American cities. Skiing and swimming in the ocean in the same day? Come the fuck on, Vancouver, your Canadian ocean puts even Lake Michigan to shame in frigitity.)
The one good thing I will say about Portland is that when one of my friends moves there, I know that I won’t have to bother visiting them. Just as nobody is really from Portland, nobody ever really moves there either. I know I’ll never have to visit anybody there, because I don’t think anybody has ever lived there for longer than 4 months. I think even the mayor of Portland (though from what I understand, the title of mayor in Portland has been changed to lama) is some dude from Santa Cruz or Olympia or something who just got into town 3 weeks ago and is crashing on his buddy’s futon.
- I want to start updating this blog at least once a week, and I don't have anything new tonight - I'm working on a couple pieces, but I won't finish anything this week. (and yeah, I'm aware that sportsthatareright is kinda jumping the shark here by virtue of the facts that a) I referred to a blog post as a "piece," b) I used the tern "jumping the shark," c) I'm running a rerun, and d) this list had a c and a d.
- This was one of my funnier posts on the old blog, though I don't necessarily believe in the contents of it gospel and verse anymore. I do stand behind everything I said about Texas though. I presume that this could be new material to a lot of people.
- To keep it real, I did minimal editing on this from its original form because, as always, I'm lazy. I changed the link on the Lawrence segment so that it goes to a page that actually exists, but the spirit behind the message remains. I removed a couple dated references regarding basketball and the 2008 election. Don't worry, they weren't interesting or funny. I also reversed it, going from 10 to 1, when the original went 1 to 10.
- This is probably the most caustic thing I ever posted, so take that for what it's worth. It's been a long week.
- I originally posted this in August of 2007. Because this puppy is two + years old, you can scroll down to my "Filthy Whore" post and see how much better I've gotten since I originally posted this.
- This post includes several quality jokes that I stand behind, surrounded by some horrible writing.
10. Lawrence, Kansas - not nearly as overrated as the other cities on this list. But oh, those Lawrence people are smug. They think Lawrence is the center of the world. Just look what this asshole wrote at lawrence.com: It’s the kind of asshole that runs a link to himself.
9. Denver - I don’t ski. I don’t snowboard. Generally, I don’t like people that do. Also, my hatred of the Broncos knows no bounds.
8. Tampa - I had to pick a Florida city, and really, in a list of the top ten most overrated cities in the country, one could easily argue for a list of 10 Florida cities. Being that I don’t recognize Missouri as a state, Florida edges out Texas as my least favorite state. I’ve at least met cool people that were born in Texas. I’ve never met anyone cool that was actually born in Florida (largely because, like other places on this list, almost nobody is actually from Florida.) When I lived in Florida (if you can call it living) I did finally meet some people that were actually originally from said state (but not until I’d lived there several months) and they were terrible people. So, with the likes of Miami, Jacksonville, Orlando, St. Pete, and Tallahassee as potential choices, Tampa won out for a few reasons. Jacksonville and St. Pete are both afterthoughts, so neither can qualify as “overrated.” Remember, this list isn’t the worst cities, its the most overrated. Orlando is a one-trick pony, and does it’s trick (theme parks) pretty well, so it doesn’t fit here. Miami is certainly overrated, but due to the fact that it spawned Sonny Crocket and Vice City, it gets a little leverage, Plus, the Dolphins, though I hate them, are the only professional sports team in Florida that I recognize, as they are one of only two teams (florida has 9 total pro teams, 10 if you count University of Miami football) that predate my existence. Tampa is basically known for two things: athletes’ off season homes (which I don’t understand as Tampa is an ugly, landlocked city with bad traffic, and beachfront property is only 20 miles away) and titty bars, and they can’t even do that right, as the titty bars are also known for their six-foot rule, ie, you can’t come within 6 feet of the dancers.
7. Olympia, WA - this is a small town, maybe the smallest on this list, but it gets a steady stream of fans. Basically, this is the city you run to (or take the Greyhound bus to) if you just can’t hack it in the cut-throat world of Portland. I don’t understand the appeal here. I’ve been a couple times. Rains a lot, like the rest of the Northwest. There’s good beer, like everywhere else in the region. but the city sucks. It’s depressing as hell, and there’s nothing to do but drink (which I’m all for, but you can drink anywhere.) To me, Olympia seems like a place where nutty people go to hide from the real world (um, unlike, uh, Seoul) yet still live a short distance from a major city. It’s kind of the drop off point for people who don’t have the guts to move to Bellingham (which has a much more distinct edge-of-the-world kind of feel, and is therefore a much better place.)
6. Boston. Okay, so I respect Fenway park, Paul Revere, the walkable-ness of the city, JFK, and the fact that Boston has one of four decent transit systems in the U.S. (the others, New York, Chicago, and Washington do not make this list.) But the accent, Harvard, the Red Sox, Romney, and the overall douchiness of the citizenry easily puts Boston on this overrated list. On the Red Sox - they are a poor man’s Yankees, that is, if the poor man has five dollars less than the rich man. The Sox and the Yanks are the same thing. I hate this rivalry, as the only good thing that can come out of the 112 games they play against each other a year is injuries on both sides. By the way, same deal for Duke-Carolina and Denver-Oakland. They are all just evil versus evil. Yet, it’s socially acceptable to say you are a Red Sox fan and maintain that you pull for the little guy, that you like the underdog. Horseshit. The Red Sox are every bit as much of an Evil Empire and bandwagon organization as the Yankees, and cheering for them doesn’t give you street cred. On the plus side, Boston often gets a reputation as a racist city, and when I was there, I didn’t encounter anybody who seemed to be racist. Of course, I didn’t encounter anybody from any other races either. Boston has all the ethnic diversity of North Korea.
5. Houston. This just seems like hell on earth to me. So, there’s the smog of Los Angeles, the traffic of Atlanta, the culture and history of Phoenix, the humidity of New Orleans, the sprawl of Dallas, the public transit options of Kansas City, the crime rate of Baltimore, and of course, Enron! This is a city whose top tourist attraction is a fucking mall, probably because when you are inside the mall, it means you aren’t stuck in traffic, or worse, outside in the soul-crushing heat and humidity. Plus, this city is chock full of billionaire robber barons that wear giant cowboy hats as they make money hand over fist in the oil industry, doing whatever they can to fuck over you personally and the country’s and world’s best interests collectively so that they can buy another ranch. Texas executes a lot of fucking people, and these soulless cocksuckers would be a great place to start.
4. Phoenix/Tempe/Scottsdale/Mesa/whatever other suburb there got to 300,000 people today. I have no clue what the appeal is here. It’s 100 fucking degrees every day. Great. Where do I sign up? Let’s not forget that, even more than Portland, nobody is really from here. It’s one giant strip mall that went up in the last few years. The population has grown literally 10-fold in the last 50 years. There is no history, no culture, and the invention of air conditioning is the only reason the city even exists.
3. Austin. Yeah, everybody loves Austin, it’s the greatest place in the universe, and if you go there, you are guaranteed to go to some club, pay 5 bucks to get in, see a band nobody’s ever heard of that turns out to be better than the Rolling Stones, BB King, Radiohead, and Johnny Cash combined while you are being served free drinks by a waitress that looks like a slightly sluttier version of your ex-girlfriend who later takes you back to her place and then buys you breakfast and a new car the next morning. That’s the word on Austin. But, the fact is, Austin exists for two reasons, and two reasons alone: it is the capital of Texas, and home of the “University” of Texas. UT is a big part of my “superschool” theory (along with Florida, Ohio State, and USC) and I believe they will soon ruin college sports. These 4 schools have so much money to spend on facilities and “recruiting” that they will ultimately destroy the competitive balance of college football and basketball. That’s another story though. Also - capital of Texas? How can Austin be considered a cool place with that moniker? Maybe there was a neighborhood with some cool bars and clubs on the Death Star too, but it was still the fucking Death Star. Austin gave W his platform to lose the 2000 election and assume the presidency.
2. St. Louis. How could St Louis be overrated, nonetheless my second most overrated city? Well, if somebody considers St. Louis to be even the second worst city in the country, that person is vastly overrating St. Louis. It is a hellhole, and the worst city in America. Worse than Gary. Worse than Cincinnati. Let me put it this way - I’d rather spend a week in East St. Louis than a weekend in St. Louis. Why is St. Louis the worst?
- Cardinals fans are whiney idiots that still bitch about the Denkinger call. Look, so Jose Orta wasn’t safe, but he wasn’t the potential 3rd out either, and the pinch runner the Royals put in for Orta was ultimately thrown out at third later in the inning, so all things being equal, the hit was meaningless. The royals won, straight up.
- Like Grandpa Simpson, I don’t consider Missouri a state. After all, this is the region with the glowing distinction of being the only territory north of the mason-dixon line to consider ownership of human beings to be totally kosher, not to mention the fact that these pro-slavery assholes burned my hometown to the ground on more than one occasion in their “noble” plight to continue their right to own other humans. Some may consider Columbia or Jefferson City to be the center of Missourah, but i say it gets worse the farther east you go. Kansas City gets a pass, as the home of my pro sports teams, Buck O’neil, Charlie Parker, and the best BBQ in the world, not to mention the fact that they have “Kansas” right there in the name. After that, every city is worse than the city wast of it, making St. Louis the worst of all, jammed 250 miles into Missourian No-Man’s-Land.
- The Arch sucks.
- Every time I’ve been in St. Louis, it seems like somebody has tried to kill me.
1. Portland, Oregon. I don’t get it. Come the fuck on. When my dad visited Korea, he was on a flight that went from Tokyo to Portland. People in Portland aren’t real people, and they shouldn’t be able to fly direct to Tokyo. Really, the Portland airport should only have nonstop flights to Lawrence, Omaha, and Minneapolis.
The reasons for Portland’s overratedness are multiple. Nobody lives there but hippies and hipsters, nobody is really from there, and you can’t even pump your own fucking gas. Portland is often compared to Seattle, but this is not a fair comparison, as Seattle is a great city and beats Portland in every conceivable way. Even the “good” things that Portland is known for - coffee, music, microbrews (taken way too far in Portland as every single man, woman, and child in Portland brews their own shitty beer) started in Seattle to begin with before Portland ripped them off. Plus, Portland has to be the worst sports town in the country, with no NFL or MLB presence, or even any nearby college teams worth a damn (Eugene is 3 hours away, not close enough be “nearby,” plus the Ducks traditionally suck at everything except maybe hackie sack).
This may not technically be Portland’s fault, but I have no problem issuing the blame here. Portland’s largest suburb (across the river in Washington) is named Vancouver, and is like 300 miles away from the real Vancouver, and even on the same fucking road as the real Vancouver. Which meant, when I lived in Tacoma and I told people I was taking a roadtrip to Vancouver, they had to ask which one. Who the fuck would take a roadtrip to Vancouver, Washington? ( by the way - Vancouver would totally be number 1 if I were to make a list of the top-10 most overrated North American cities. Skiing and swimming in the ocean in the same day? Come the fuck on, Vancouver, your Canadian ocean puts even Lake Michigan to shame in frigitity.)
The one good thing I will say about Portland is that when one of my friends moves there, I know that I won’t have to bother visiting them. Just as nobody is really from Portland, nobody ever really moves there either. I know I’ll never have to visit anybody there, because I don’t think anybody has ever lived there for longer than 4 months. I think even the mayor of Portland (though from what I understand, the title of mayor in Portland has been changed to lama) is some dude from Santa Cruz or Olympia or something who just got into town 3 weeks ago and is crashing on his buddy’s futon.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
