John’s Crawlspace

So I hope everyone had a great New Years. I spent mine in Montreal with some friends. I’d never been to Canada before, so it was pretty cool… But Montreal was expensive as hell. Most beers cost at least $8. I was trying to watch my spending so I figured I’d grab a few 40s since typically thats cheap, and it turned out that they were like $7 each. A case of 24 bottles of Molson was like $36! Anyway, it snowed pretty much the entire time we were there. I didn’t mind too much, since that was the first snowfall I’d seen since arriving back from Ghana (and therefore the first snow of the Winter for me), but it was much colder than I had planned for.

I’m not sure if this is an accurate way of describing it or not, but Montreal almost seems like a red light district that gets off without being trashy about it. We were offered drugs countless times, and there are strip clubs all over the place, but they blend in pretty well with the other non-sleazy establishments.

The first night, we went out but no one got too drunk, even though I think each one of us spent around $80-90 at the bars. They’re open til 3 am, which is a nice change from the 2 am closing times we’re used to in the states.

The second day, my friend Joe and I walked around during the day trying to figure out what to do for New Years. We figured we would probably end up spending around $80 for an all-you-can-drink special at one specific bar, as opposed to wandering around aimlessly looking for new bars to check out all night. There were “promotional guys” all over the place with flyers, advertising different specials. After checking out at least 10 of them, we decided on Orchid Nightclub. They were advertising some beach party (called “The Real Cancun”) and said it’d be open bar 9-3, and that they had a manmade beach inside, and all kinds of other far-fetched stuff that didn’t turn out to be true. They wanted $90 per ticket, but I got them down to $75 each since there were 7 of us.

So we got dinner and pregamed in the hotel, and headed out around 8:30 or so. We waited in line outside the club for like half an hour, at which point I realized that almost everyone was dressed much nicer than we were. The guy who I bought the tickets from never said anything about a dress code, he just said “don’t show up in hip-hop gear, because that’s just not cool man” – Not sure what that means, but it was funny hearing a black dude imply that “rap fashion” is low class and/or trashy.

When we got inside we wasted no time making our way to the first bar we saw. We definitely took advantage of the open bar, even though it was limited (no carbombs or shots or anything). At one point some dude reached behind the bar and snagged a bottle of grey goose and passed it around. My memory of the night gets a bit hazy after midnight, but it was a pretty good night overall. Unless you take into account the fact that my cell phone and new digital camera were stolen. That being said, it kind of sucked. That definitely was not the way I wanted to start off my New Year… And it’s even more frustrating because it’s not even close to the first time that has happened. I’ve been through around 10 cell phones, and if I remember correctly, that was my 5th digital camera. I really need to start taking better care of my stuff… Even though I thought I was. I had lots of great pictures on there too, from that trip as well as everything else that has happened since I got back from Ghana. Ugh.

I have heard of tons of crazy things being sold on eBay, but I never came across a list of them before, so this was interesting. Of particular interest to me were the authentic JFK assassination shooters perch window (went for $3,001,501 this past February) and the vampire killing kit. And while we’re at it, here’s another good top 10 list thrown in for good measure: The top 10 unintentionally worst company URLs. My favorite is therapistfinder.com, though it’s hard to choose with classics like molestationnursery.com.

Oh yeah… And it wouldn’t be the end of a year (or, I suppose, the beginning of a new one) without the annual Darwin Awards. If you aren’t familiar with the Darwins (named after evolutionary theorist Charles Darwin) they are given out each year to people who “do a service to humanity by removing themselves from the Gene pool”, usually in ridiculous (and amusing) ways… Check them out if you’re looking for a laugh or two.

If you’re like me and aren’t exactly glued to the TV when it comes to politics, this little guide is helpful for learning what exactly goes on at these caucuses… I suppose it’s only relevant since Iowa’s is tonight… And how often are politics ever touched on at this site? I do remember learning about this stuff in school, but definitely couldn’t have told you what went on there without brushing up.

Hopefully I’ll get a chance to write more about Ghana within the next few days. I have an interview tomorrow morning, but as usual it doesn’t seem like a job I’ll be too interested in. But I’ll give it a shot anyway and see how it goes. Have a good rest-of-the-week and an even better weekend urrbody. And to those of you in climates similar to mine: Don’t let the cold get you down, Summer will be here… Soon?

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