Bacon Vodka

I read somewhere about a bar having made its own bacon infused vodka. This sounded like a wonderful idea, so I decided to replicate it. I could combine two of the best things in the world. How could this fail? The the vodka taste's too bacony? Impossible, I say. The beauty of this idea is the two end products are vodka that tastes like the most delicious thing ever, and bacon that will get you drunk.

So I fried up some strips of bacon and bought a fifth of Crown Russe Vodka and put them together in a Tupperware for a week. I stored it in a dark place and a week later it had turned into a pale yellow liquid with bacon fat suspended in it. I used a coffee filter to filter out the bacon fat and I was left with some homemade bacon vodka. Unfortunately it smelled like rubbing alcohol.

Apparently I forgot what happened last time I combined two of my favorite foods.

It was then that I found out that two good things don't necessarily combine to form something better.

Although it smelled terrible, I decided to unveil it at the tailgate on Saturday. Since no one in my house would not try it, I passed it around to people who didn't know what it was. Half of them immediately threw up, the other half were convinced it was urine. I took 4 swigs, and while it did taste like bacon, it wasn't something I would drink again. But I still have three strips of vodka bacon that I can make into a killer BLT.

As for an event that doesn't deserve its own post but is still good. Today there was some 5k run that they had state street closed in front of our house. So we sat on the porch to watch the people run. I picked up a Cottage Inn and stood along the course offering runners pizza and beer. One guy had to turn around to get a slice, and a Fire Brewed Detroit Original. Then when the walkers came we played the song I Would Walk 500 Miles by the proclaimers. It was a beautiful Sunday Morning.

FYI

I just ate a sandwich that was just bread, mayo, cheese and very undercooked bacon. I now feel terrible.

Also, it is job recruiting season and believe it or not this blog might be viewed negatively by some employers. So the blog might be down for indeterminate lengths of time over the next several months. Thank goodness there is someone out there to push me down the Google search results.

The UT Weekend

This summer when Mark and I were talking about which away games we wanted to go to we joked about going down to Knoxville for the Tennessee - Florida game. We decided that going to UT would be absurd.

Last Wednesday when my old housemate Fritz called me up and asked if I wanted to go to Knoxville for the game I tried to think of a good reason not to go. I had no business going to Knoxville. The only thing that I could think of was "This could be quite blogable".

On Friday the 5 of us left. It was Me, Mark, Fritz and 2 of his frat buddies. We stopped at a Sonic and then picked up a case of beer for the last hour of the drive. Amazingly in Tennessee you can drink in a car as long as the driver isn't in possession of alcohol. The guys we stayed with, Brian and Chris, live in a really nice condo. It was far to nice for college kids to live in. Chris was like a mix between Tweeter from Varsity Blues, Don Dawson from Dazed and Confused, and Luke Wilson. After pounding some beers we went over to a party a few streets down. Just people chilling outside during a warm Tennessee night. Our hosts were both in a frat and they were having a "band party" that night even though on the way down we thought they were having a "man party". Instead of walking there the guy called a pledge to have him drive us over there. They put all of the pledges on a rotation and make they carry around beepers just in case a brother needs something. So we all crammed in the back of a pledge's Suburban with our beers and sang Rocky Top the entire way over to the frat house.

The frat wasn't so much a house as it was a compound. It looked like a mix between a dorm and the living quarters of a fire station. Southern hospitality is great because the guys there treated us like family. We got stoopid drunk then decided to hit up the bars on "The Strip" Before we left Chris had to go piss. He made one of the Pledges come into the bathroom with him and had him hold his beer while he peed. The pledge was standing behind him and he looks over his shoulder and yells "DON'T LOOK AT ME PLEDGE". Then he made the pledge give him a cigarette and light it, all without making eye contact. They really haze the shit out of those kids. If we hazed like that I would be much more inclined to join a frat. Hazing and keggers are the best things about the fraternity system, it's a shame Michigan is so PC about both, also date rape.

We had a pledge drive us to the bars while we yelled Rocky Top for the about the 12th time. Fritz, being Fritz, of course ran into someone he knew. I swear that kid can't eat a ham sandwich without seeing someone he knows. We grabbed some late night trash food and went back to the condo and polished off another case of beer and got some sleep before the big day.

On Saturday we woke up and got all dressed up for game, which was a T-Shirt I had gotten from a pledge. We went over to the frat house to hang out before the game. SEC tailgates are a little bit different than the "slam as many beers as you can" Big Ten style. Everyone gets dressed up. It appears that the recipe for success is cutoff's as short as possible (bonus points for corduroy or seersucker), dressy shirt, and dirtiest 'stache. All the guys in the frat had grown out their mustaches and they looked magnificent. And the girls. I wished someone had told me when I was a senior in high school about the girls of the SEC. There were so many turbo babes in orange sun dresses. These southern belles have smiles that would melt you heart, and bodies that would melt even the thickest M&M candy shell. The frat had some barbecue and a live one man band. We only have one speed, and that speed is let's get drunk. We just started binge drinking. Passing around a fifth of Jim Beam, chugging beers, doing shotguns in the shower. We made the musician play Rocky Top about 6 times. Everyone else was casually drinking, and we were at Crunktown city limits. Fritz gets us to play "Drunkest Man in America" where the objective is to be the drunkest man in America. It's my new favorite drinking game btw. We wandered over to another tailgate and ate some grilled alligator. We then went over to the stadium to get some tickets. Mark and I ended up getting seats together in the upper bowl of Neyland. We got chairs with seat backs and were in the front row so we could put our feet up. Of course we brought in some single shots of Jim Beam. We sat with our feet up sipping on Jim Beam and Cokes enjoying some hard nosed SEC football. We kept asking ourselves what we were doing in Knoxville. We were the rowdiest fans in our section by far.

After watching Tennessee get smoked we started back towards the condo and along the way Mark and I both bought bottles of Andre and then picked up a case of Keystones. On game days the cops don't enforce open intoxicant laws, which is awesome. We staggered through the streets of Knoxville trying to sing Rocky Top and taking swigs from our Andre's and being those guys. We could only remember 2 lines, and we didn't even have those right so we just kept repeating "Rocky Top oh Rocky Top, home sweet home to me, Rocky Top oh Rocky Top, WHOOOO, Rocky Top TENNESSEE" I don't care how many times Hail to the Victors gets voted best fight song in college football, Rocky Top is much better. Mark and I finally made it back, but are too drunk to walk up to the 4th floor, so instead we lay down on the grass and finish our champagne and sing Rocky Top. Andre is the Miller High Life of Champagne. We then start in on the case of beer. The condo across the street has a tiki bar on their balcony and people inside of it too. We wander over there for awhile before coming back across the street. Mark and I decided to go get food and we are convinced by a Dominoes employee to purchase a large pizza for 3.99. Mark is still certain that there was ejaculate on that pizza, but either way it was tasty.

We met back up with everyone and then headed out to the bars. We got to the bar and started doing shots. I've now been drinking for 13 hours and am completely hammered. I start texting people. I'm not sending normal texts, I'm sending completely absurd texts (mostly poo oriented) to random people in my phone book, most of whom I haven't talked to in a long time. Here is a sampling of some of what I sent:

"I made a dumpo on your bedsheets, come party with us."

"Can I put Seran Wrap over your face and then poop in your mouth?"

To a girl I hadn't talked to in a long time:
"What are you thinking about?"

"My meatrod is raging in Knoxville"

To my roommate ex girlfriend:
"Can I take you to grizzly peak?"

"I am Spartacus!"

"Can I have my way with you and 6 clones of your childhood dog?"

"I killed a dear!"

"You smell 12 times worse than Dave Wannstedt's 'stache. Will you date me?"

"Can I poop your bed?"
Her: "haha what?"
Me: "Is that a yes or a no?"
Her: "You can poop my bed anytime you'd like"

"Your a big dirty poo"

"Your my poopy queen"

"I ate out a lemur, where were you?"

By far the best one was to a girl I lived with 2 summers ago:
"I just strangled a hooker to death. What should I do now?"
Her response: "Who is this?"

Near the end of the night Fritz is at the bar and he keeps ordering shots so he can hit on the hot bartender. He would order shots and then turn to me and go "I'm not going to pay for these". After closing time we stumbled back to the condo with some girls we met at the bar, singing Rocky Top the entire way. When we get back we keep drinking and I totally blackout. I guess I go out on the balcony and when I come in like an hour later I have completely peed myself. I rarely blackout, but then again I rarely pee my pants. I pass out on the floor in just my boxers.

So that's one way to spend a weekend. I feel like my "Why not?" mentality is eventually going to come back and haunt me, but what the hell. It was quite possible the best weekend of my life. Plus, I now have the number 1 and 3 largest college football stadiums checked off my list this season and a trip to Happy Valley in a month should get me the silver. When else will I be able to live like this?

Brian uses his balls

There is only one way to deal with ruthless, soulless, logically inept organizations that are property management companies. That is to use your balls. With all their complaining about advertisements on the house, and kids living in basement, and me performing more than 10 minutes of auto work in my driveway. Sometimes you just have to go in there, threaten to take them to court, and make them look at your meaty balls.

Today I had to show my neighbors landlord my massive, yet nurturing balls. We park double wide in our driveway and also on the grass on the other side of our driveway. Like this.



Today we had notes on our cars that they were going to begin to tow our cars because they were parked on their lawn. Our neighbors don't care but I guess their property company does. But I like parking there so, I decided to show them my hunky balls. I called them up and the conversation went something like this.

My balls: Hi we live next door to your property at 1001 S. State. We park our cars beside our house and today we had notes on them from you guys saying you were going to tow them in the future. You see, when you put the addition on that house you built right up to the property line and our cars aren't on your property, but in fact your air conditioning units fall onto our property. We don't really care about your AC units being on our land, but if you try to remove our cars from our property we're going to take you to court and also remove your AC units from our property. They look like really nice units and I would hate to see anything happen to them.

Her: Uhh... I can't really talk with these juicy balls in my mouth.

She said something about bringing it up to the staff and shit. I told her that in the future they need to came talk to us and not leave unsigned notes on our cars. Then I rubbed my balls against the phone.

To be honest I have no clue where the property line falls, but I do know where by balls hang.

Back to the Heartland

Yesterday morning I got back from a weekend trip to Iowa City for the Iowa - Iowa State game. It was my 5th trip in the past year and a half. I went with Mark, Mike and John. We drove 18 hours for what boiled down to a 36 hour bender. Since people are never impressed with how much others claim to have drank, I will instead impress you with the amount of trash food that I ate.

We left Friday at noon, but left Mike P. in Ann Arbor to to finish a lab report. He ended up driving out solo later that day. I brought 2 Michigan shirts and one Iowa shirt. Along the way I got a few Whopper Jr's, O-Rings and Beef Jerky. We got there at five and started drinking at 5:10. We went out to dinner with Mark's parents, I had a dozen wings a few beers and a side of 'slaw. Then we went back to Mark's gf, Val's apartment where we continued to drink. Staying there with the 4 of us was Val's little brother and Val's roommate's friend from Iowa State. We kept drinking and then we hit the town. As per every Iowa post I must comment about the gnarliness of Iowa City's bar scene. A 3 by 3 block area with about 30 very large bars within it.

Saturday morning we woke up at 7 to tailgate. I ditched the guys and went with Val and her roommate to a true Iowa tailgate. Once you get a few blocks from the stadium the cops stop enforcing the open intoxicant laws. The tailgate was pretty good, but it is such a culture shock to have to pay 5$ to go to a tailgate. The coolest thing there was a paint can that had a gallon of mojito in it. I really hope they cleaned the paint out of it first. Maybe it was because I was still drunk, or maybe it was because I have been to Iowa enough, but I seemed to know about half of the people there. After awhile I went to Mark's parents tailgate because I had gotten a little too drunk at the other one. I scarfed down some brownies and eggs and washed it all down with a few Michelob Ultra's (the cans are ribbed for your pleasure).

The game was utterly boring. I stayed for the first quarter plus some. It was raining and I was about to crash for the past 7 hours of driving, 14 hours of drinking and 4 hours of sleeping. I went back to pass out for the rest of the game and on the way bought a porkburger for 1$. The power nap worked out really well because I was refreshed for the start of the Michigan-ND game at 2:30. We went to my favorite bar in IC, The Fieldhouse, to watch the Michigan game. While the game was depressing, I did get to preform the first original telling of the never released, best blog post ever. After the game we went back to Val's to watch Legally Blonde 1 & 2, and selected parts of Bring It On Again. We ordered Gumby's Pizza which is terrible, terrible food. It was about this time that the heartburn started to kick in. Also the farts. I put my ass literally on marks face and ripped one. He then punched me really hard in the hip (the hip?) which still hurts. I guess everyone else was too exhausted from the past 24 hours of drinking to go out. Except John, because we went out big. We met up with Val's very cute roommate McKaylee (I like that name) and some of her friends at one of the bars. We had a rackin' time out at the bars and didn't make it back until way late. I slept on the floor and am pretty sure that Mark got me back for that fart earlier, because when I woke up I had pink eye. The contents of my stomach at that point were so violate that I almost refused a IHOP trip. I went anyway but only got the carafe of cranberry juice and the fruit salad.

We left IC around 2 pm which was 4 hours after Mike and John had left to go home. Due to flooding from Hurricane Ike, I-94 was closed in Indiana. Right as we were entering the traffic backup, Mike and John were getting out of it, and despite leaving 4 hours before us, they were only 25 miles ahead of us. But it also took us about 4 hours (plus another 2 Whopper Jr's) to get through it and we didn't make it home until 1:30 AM. Since I pissed off my boss a few weeks back, I of course had to work Monday morning at 5:30. Which was nice.

The entire trip to was an excercise in novelty, and I can confidently say that for the roughly 2 days I was there my BAC probably didn't drop below .06. Also I've only averaged 4.5 hours a sleep for each of the past 3 nights. I have pink eye, my hip hurts, I have a cold, I am 150$ poorer and twice as likely to die before the age of 65. I can't wait till my next trip out to Iowa City.

Brian Adds to the Internet

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Brian Solves a Crime

Last night started as most Sunday nights should, splitting 20$ worth of Burrito Joint and 20$ worth of booze with my roommate Peter. We were watching college football, Unbreakable, Mario on N64 and of course, Gettysburg.



Around 11 I went over to my buddy Ben's house, where we proceeded to shotgun and chug beers. About midnight we left to go to some girl's birthday party on Benjamin, my old stomping ground.

The party was really good. They had kegs of Miller Lite and the party was full but not packed. You could easily move around or get a beer. I called some of my roommates to have them come over. Right about the time they got there someone threw a tiki torch at the porch. While everyone was looking at the kid who threw the tiki torch, I was looking at a kid in a red shirt and jeans untapping the keg. I figured that the keg was empty and he was going to give it to someone in the house. A few minutes later one of the girls in the house ran out and said that their tap was gone. It was then that that I knew all those years of reading Nancy Drew would pay off.

A minute later I saw the kid walking back to the party from the backyard. I told one of the girls that he was the one who stole the tap. She confronted him and then I went over and told him I saw him take it. He insisted his innocents. I took a play from the Hardy Boys: The Clue of the Hissing Serpent and apologized for accusing them of taking it and then talked to them for a few minutes. They said they were Evans Scholars and I told them that Evans Scholars wouldn't steal a tap, because they were good people. Afterwards, I went to my buddy Ben who said he didn't believe them for a second. I didn't believe them either, they never looked my in the eye and seemed really nervous. I told Ben to keep an eye on them.

Later I went to the porch to get a beer. The two kids saw this as there opportunity to get away and moved towards the back of the house. I told Ben to follow them to where they stashed the tap and I would flank from the left. He came back to me and told me that they got into a car and they were holding the tap. Gotcha Motherfuckers. I watched as they pulled out of the alley and turned up the street. I called the cops and told them that there was an intoxicated driver heading down Hill Street who was in possession of stolen property. I knew their location, make, model, licences plate number, names, description and best of all, their destination.

I went back to the party and told everyone I saw that I was getting the tap back. Most people didn't really believe me. Sure enough 7 minutes later the cops called me back and told me they apprehended the subjects and have recovered the stolen tap. Then they asked me if I wanted to press charges. Well, it wasn't my tap and I didn't live there so I said that I didn't want to. I am pretty sure being pulled over by the cops for stealing a tap was good enough to teach those punks not to steal another tap. The cops said they would bring the tap back.

About 15 minutes later, people were really doubting that I was going to get the tap back. But then a squad car pulled down the street and stopped in front of the house. Everyone stopped and nervously looked at the cop car. I walked out into the street and talked to the cops for a minute. She gave me back the tap and I turned around and thrust the tap into the air. Everyone erupts in cheers. The cop thinks that they were cheering her and flashes her lights, but they were really cheering for me. I walked back to the lawn over the roar of the cheers, and girls flock me. I got kisses and drinks and high fives. I publicly declare myself king of 419 Benjamin. By now people are chanting my name as the crowd parts I walk up to the keg and retap it. I am glowing as the girls who live there say I can come back any time and drink as much as I want. Dudes are asking me how I did it. Someone throws around the term Party MVP. I was the coolest person there and I basked in it for the rest of the party.

I think that for my Harriet the Spy-esq actions the cops should look past that littering violation that they gave us on Saturday.