If WWII Was Fought by Online Gamerz

I can take no credit for this one. After 5 years of playing Quake, HalfLife, Duke Nukeum and other games online, this just completely killed me. I thought about cleaning it up and making it a bit funnier, but that'd be jacked up, so here's the original as relayed by DJHombre at VC.

*Hitler[AoE] has joined the game.*
*Eisenhower has joined the game.*
*paTTon has joined the game.*
*Churchill has joined the game.*
*benny-tow has joined the game.*
*T0J0 has joined the game.*
*Roosevelt has joined the game.*
*Stalin has joined the game.*
*deGaulle has joined the game.*
Roosevelt: hey sup
T0J0: y0
Stalin: hi
Churchill: hi
Hitler[AoE]: cool, i start with panzer tanks! ownage!
paTTon: lol more like panzy tanks
T0JO: lol
Roosevelt: o this fockin sucks i got a depression!
benny-tow: haha america sux
Stalin: hey hitler you dont fight me i dont fight u, cool?
Hitler[AoE]; sure whatever
Stalin: cool
*poland has joined the game*
poland:HAY GUYS HOWZ IT GOIUNG DUDZ?
*poland has been eliminated*
poland:****!!!!11poland:**** U ****ING SPAWN CAMPERS!!!
deGaulle: **** Hitler rushed some1 help
Hitler[AoE]: lol byebye frenchy
Roosevelt: i dont got crap to help, sry
Churchill: wtf the luftwaffle is attacking me
Roosevelt: get antiair guns
Churchill: i cant afford them
benny-tow: u n00bs know what team talk is?
paTTon: ****
Roosevelt: o yah hit the navajo button guys
deGaulle: eisenhower ur worthless come help me quick
Eisenhower: i cant do **** til rosevelt gives me an army
paTTon: yah hurry the fock up
Churchill: d00d im gettin pounded
deGaulle: this is fockin weak u guys suck
*deGaulle has left the game.*
Roosevelt: im gonna attack the axis k?
benny-tow: with what? ur wheelchair?
benny-tow: lol did u mess up ur legs AND ur head?
Hitler[AoE]: ROFLMAO
T0J0: lol o no america im comin 4 u
Roosevelt: wtf! thats bull**** u ***s im gunna kick ur asses
T0JO: not without ur harbors u wont! lol
Roosevelt: u little biotch ill get u
Hitler[AoE]: wtf
Hitler[AoE]: america hax, u had depression and now u got a huge fockin army
Hitler[AoE]: thats bull**** u hacker
Churchill: lol no more france for u hitler
Hitler[AoE]: tojo help me!
T0J0: wtf u want me to do, im on the other side of the world retard
Hitler[AoE]: fine ill clear you a path
Stalin: u arsshoel! WE HAD A FoCKIN TRUCE
Hitler[AoE]: i changed my mind lol
benny-tow: haha
benny-tow: hey ur losing ur guys in africa im gonna need help in italy soon sum1
T0J0: o **** i cant help u i got my hands full
Hitler[AoE]: im 2 busy 2 help
Roosevelt: yah thats right biznitch im comin for ya
Stalin: church help me
Churchill: like u helped me before? sure ill just sit here
Stalin: dont be an arss
Churchill: dont be a commie. oops too late
Eisenhower: LOL
benny-tow: hahahh oh **** help
Hitler: o man ur focked
paTTon: oh what now biotch
Roosevelt: whos the cripple now lol
*benny-tow has been eliminated.*
benny-tow: lame
Roosevelt: gj patton
paTTon: thnx
Hitler[AoE]: eisenhower hax hes killing all my ****
Hitler[AoE]: quit u hacker so u dont ruin my record
Eisenhower: Nuts!
benny~tow: wtf that mean?
Eisenhower: meant to say nutsack lol finger slipped
paTTon: coming to get u hitler u paper hanging hun ****socker
Stalin: rofl
T0J0: HAHAHHAA
Hitler[AoE]: u guys are fockin gay
Hitler[AoE]: ur never getting in my city
*Hitler[AoE] has been eliminated.*
benny~tow: OMG u noob you killed yourself
Eisenhower: ROFLOLOLOL
Stalin: OMG LMAO!
Hitler[AoE]: i didnt click there omg this game blows
*Hitler[AoE] has left the game*
paTTon: hahahhah
T0J0: my teammates are n00bs
benny~tow: shut up noob
Roosevelt: haha wut a moron
paTTon: wtf am i gunna do now?
Eisenhower: yah me too
T0J0: why dont u attack me o thats right u dont got no ships lololol
Eisenhower: fock u
paTTon: lemme go thru ur base commie
Stalin: go to hell lol
paTTon: fock this **** im goin afk
Eisenhower: yah this is gay
*Roosevelt has left the game.*
Hitler[AoE]: wtf?
Eisenhower: **** now we need some1 to join
*tru_m4n has joined the game.*
tru_m4n: hi all
T0J0: hey
Stalin: sup
Churchill: hi
tru_m4n: OMG OMG OMG i got all his stuff!
tru_m4n: NUKES! HOLY **** I GOT NUKES
Stalin: wtf is nukes?
T0J0: Yeah, wtf is nukes?
Stalin: d00d, gimme some plz
tru_m4n: no way i only got like a couple
Stalin: omg dont be gay gimmie nuculer secrets
T0J0: OMGWTFBBQ!!?
*T0J0 has been COMPLETELY OWNZORED*
*The Allied team has won the game!*
Eisenhower: awesome!
Churchill: gg noobs no re
T0J0: thats bull**** u fockin suck
*T0J0 has left the game.*
*Eisenhower has left the game.*
Stalin: next game im not going to be on ur team, u guys didnt help me for ****
Churchill: wutever, we didnt need ur help neway dumbarss
tru_m4n: l8r all
benny~tow: bye
Churchill: l8r
Stalin: fock u all
tru_m4n: shut up commie lol
*tru_m4n has left the game.*
benny~tow: lololol u commie
Churchill: ROFL
Churchill: bye commie
*Churchill has left the game.*
*benny~tow has left the game.*
Stalin: i hate u all ***s
*Stalin has left the game.*
paTTon: lol no1 is left
paTTon: weeeee i got a jeep
*paTTon has been eliminated.*
paTTon: o ****!
*paTTon has left the game.*

Eating in Durham

Went to Bullock's Bar-B-Que for dinner tonight. If you've ever spent any time in the South, you've noticed that the only sport more exciting than Nascar is multiple-chin counting; Bullock's is one of the reasons why. Before you even get to order, they drop off a basket of hush puppies (deep fried cornbread) that has more grease in it than a van full of rappers on their way to a Jerry Curl convention. We ordered family style, which, when translated loosely, means "a whole bunch of greasy food, supplemented with deep fried stuff that's really salty." Okra? Deep fried. Chicken? Deep fried. Beans? Drowning in butter. Cole Slaw? Dripping with sauce. Don't get me wrong; it tasted great. Still, I'm afraid I'll wake up tonight and feel like I had 2 pygmy goats with a bucket of Crisco. I suppose one man's eating nightmare is another Preston Gates biz dev manager's fantasy... After washing all that down with 3 glasses of sweet tea, I choked down a slice of lemon ice box pie and ate some of Morgan's banana pudding. Either I need to hit a treadmill in the immediate future, or I'll have to tape a red flag to my ass and start audibly beeping when I walk backwards in public.

Less than a month before school starts. At my current rate of consumption, I've calculated wine d-day to be Sept. 21. Of course, that hasn't been adjusted for present conditions (mother-in-law is staying here for 10 days, which means a possible depletion date of oh FRIDAY) and general wine notes (who opens a Turley Hayne PS w/o putting at least 5-10 years on it?), so I could be off by a month or six. After tonight, I'm really considering just switching to bourbon, so I may not have anything to worry about anyways. I'd share tonight's installment of "As My Liver Turns," but my wife would divorce me. Instead, I'll go brush my teeth, jump in bed and stare at the ceiling, waiting for the next potatohead friend of mine to call me at 11:00 at night and say "oops, I forgot you're 3 hours ahead." We're up to 3 nights in a row now :-) Tonight's award goes to the aforementioned Preston Gates manager that messaged "Beef Curtains" followed by "My penis is a vampire" to me. Pour another one for me and put it on Paben's tab...

Best wishes to Bob Bressler (http://www.bresslervineyards.com/), who makes phenomenal cabernet but apparently can't ride a motorscooter to save his life. Gravel + scooter = "Oops I've fallen and I can't reach my Reidel Master Sommelier glass." In all seriousness, I hope you get well soon - the 2001 Bressler Cab I toasted you with on Saturday dropped me down to 46 bottles!

North Carolina or Bust: Part II

Day 7 - Nashville ho! We jumped into the Maxima and headed for the heart of Hee-Haw and country music. Yippity skippity. After touring the Country Music Hall of Fame and listening to my father drone on endlessly about watching each and every hillbilly with a dobro on TV, we made our way down to Tootsies, the quintessential Nashville bar. Nashville is one of those few places in the world where you can walk into a bar at 11:00 AM and find live music going and half the bar drinking. Not wanting to be outdone by some tourists from Minnesota, we all agreed that it was 5:00 somewhere and ordered a round. Matt requested a cover from the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, which meant another round of Buds. Yeah, I admit it - I was drinking Bud. Toto, we're not in Oregon any more. As Weenie Nelson started into "Grandpa" by the Judds, I started to break for the door. Apparently, it's my mother's favorite song, so dad stops us all, dials home on the cell phone and starts waving the phone in the air. I was convinved, at this point, that confusing cell phones for lighters was actually a hereditary issue and felt much better about the night before. We let dad have his 80's concert flashback and ordered another round.

After a rousing dinner from the Ribb Doctor, we got a surprise - Matt's new girlfriend Daisy (really. And she's from Mississippi. No, she wasn't wearing Dukes.) agreed to grace us with her presence. Sure, come over and meet the in-laws after they've gone through a 12 pack. Needless to say, Daisy appears and withstands the Spanish Inquisition. I think we were pretty nice to her, ESPECIALLY given our condition, but she clearly looked like she'd sooner set up a free colonoscopy clinic outside of a run down Mexican restaurant than hang out with us for another hour or two. Dad and I went in to watch a movie and have a couple more beers while Daisy and Matt discussed whether Matt was really related to us or just trying to get free help with yardwork and his car stereo.

Day 8 - I had been riding Matt to go check out the Pancake Pantry in Nashville since seeing it on $40 a Day on the Fine Living Channel. I made an executive decision that we were going there for breakfast and everyone could deal with it. The Pancake Pantry is one of those tourist destinations that you always here about - the stars eat there, everyone waits in line for an hour (there was an article on the wall talking about regulars logging 40 hours in line a year) and the prices are on the steep side. 10 minutes later, a stack of sweet potato pancakes and cinnamon cream syrup shows up in front of me. I could have eaten 30 of them. It felt like I did, and washing it down with two gallons of sweet tea probably didn't help things. Constipated and happy, I waddled out to the car and continued the Nashville experience.

Matt was our trusty tour guide, which meant we were in for a tour of the bar district at 11:00 AM again. Stop 1 was B.B. King's place. Apparently, this was the only bar in town without live music at 11:00 AM, so we had a drink, pounded down some oysters and cajun shrimp and hit the pool hall. I'd detail all the other bars (Coyote Ugly, etc.) but they can be summed up with "went in, ordered a beer and walked next door to _____." Finally, we headed back to B.B. King's for more food, where we met up with one of Matt's buddies from West Point and his friend. More drinking and beer, but with live music this time. Kick butt live music. At this point, I decide that while the liver remarkably rebuilds itself, it would be in my best interest to switch to water and sweet tea. We bail out of B.B. Kings and head to some Irish place for ciders. We meet Rachel the cocktail waitress, who has the dubious distinction of being the target of Matt and his buddy's affections after 10+ drinks on a weekly basis. After a couple of rounds, Matt is trying to convince us to go to some topless bar, so we threw him in the back of the car and the designated driver (dad) drove home.

Day 9 - As Clarksville disappeared in the rearview mirror, I had this vision of Tony Bennett in my head crooning "I left my liver in Tennessee." There was a trip to the Jack Daniels distillery and some more drinking that I missed, but I'm tired. Needless to say, we finally pulled into Durham and spent the next three days in 90-95 degree heat with 65%+ humidity. On to the next chapter of my life...

Moving, Grooving and Too Much Beer

I finally made it. Durham at last. Of course, it's been 93 degrees with 70% humidity for the last two days, so I'm not super sure this is a good thing! Expecting the furniture tomorrow, so I'm sitting on the floor in the dark, typing away on Pirate Wireless Radio. Here's a recap of the trip for the three people that are still actually checking to see if I have written anything. Cheers!

Day 2. I pulled into Salt Lake City around 4:30 and took a nap. Zzzzzz. I'm not quite sure how I made it to SLC, but after the whole packing crap up, getting the wife and kid to the airport and then zooming to Boise, I was about as worn out as a Thai hooker during a carrier group port call. Matt and Dad showed up around 8:30 and we faced the first crisis on the trip - where in the hell do you find alcohol in SLC? *screaming* I started flipping through the cell speed dial and, after going through 4 Mormon guys, I found Carrie! Carrie was one of the few Gentiles in the city, who has since fled to San Jose, London and now Boulder. After a couple minutes of chit-chat, I pulled into the parking lot at Squatter's Brewery (ironically, a block or two from the temple). We ended up eating at the bar, which put me next to a woman's volleyball coach from Charlotte. 90 minutes later, Matt is irritated I'm cock-blocking him. Riiiiight.

Day 3. As we're flying across Nebraska, the dark clouds roll in. Torrential downpour, high winds and tornado warnings on the radio. Rather than risk driving in the dark during a nasty storm, we pulled into Sidney, corporate headquarters for Cabela's. Cabela's, as I learned, is a hunting super-store and basically the Bass Pro Shop equivalent for the hunting world. I've never seen so many guns in my life. As we're looking around at things, Dad finds a 1903 Springfield rifle and decides to hold an impromptu drill team demonstration for a crowd of kids. Yeah, that's the ticket. Every store owner wants a 64 year old man showing kids how to throw a rifle up in the air. Needless to say, Matt and I left Beetle Bailey in a hurry and went to play in the ammo dept. Hotel was $96 a night. In Sidney. Nebraska. A Days Inn, no less.

Day 4. As we're driving down backroads in St. Louis, MO because the interstate has been shut down due to a fatal car accident, we've completely thrown in the towel on getting to Clarksville, TN. This was all part of Matt's diabolical plan. He met a nice young lady on E-Harmony that lived in St. Louis and wanted to meet up with her. Her interests are (according to her online profile): grappling, submission holds and firearms. She's just wrapping up training at the Police Academy. Now, I don't know about you, but I'm not super inclined to go out with someone who ENJOYS wrestling people to the ground and rendering them incapacitated. Add a Taser and a nightstick to the equation and I'm running the other way. Yes, I realize for half of you, this is mildly arousing and you're angry I didn't start the story with "I never thought it would happen to me..." BUT, that's just not my thing. So, Dad and I went down to the arch and walked around the July 4th festival while Matt met up with Erin, who turned out to be very nice, but with bigger shoulders than any of us...

Day 5 - July 4th. Clarksville, TN. We arrive at Matt's house after picking up some fireworks from one of the four stands off the freeway. Matt's place is a pretty cool pad for a single guy, and I'm proud of him for being able to pick up a house at 24. Of course, his refrigerator had a 6 pack of beer and some orange juice in it, so we had to hit a restaurant for dinner. Matt's suggestion? Hooters, of course. And so the drinking began. I think I drove home that night, but I'm not quite sure - I just remember picking up more beer at the store. Warning lights should be going off in your head at this point. Beer + more beer + July 4th = carnage. Did I mention everything is legal in Tenn? I quickly came to the realization that the rockets I purchased (30" poles with rockets a little bigger than a small mag-lite attached to them) wouldn't stand up in a beer bottle. In a stroke of a pure genius, I managed to drop the pole INSIDE the grate to Matt's cement water cover in his front yard, providing a MX missile coming out of the silo effect as the rocket shot into the air. The coolest thing about these fireworks is that you don't have to clean up after yourself! They land a block or two away in someone else's backyard or, even better, on their roof.

Day 6. After a couple minutes, I finally found the Advil. I said a prayer or two to the Lord for creating CrackerBarrel, which is just the coolest chain restaurant on the face of the planet, especially after a night of fireworks. Pulling out of the parking lot, we noticed a big sign at the stand across the street - "FIREWORKS 50% OFF! EVERYTHING MUST GO!" $120 later, we had a mortar set, 20 shells, 8 more rockets and a lot of smaller stuff that I can't remember. We dumped the rockets at home and toured Fort Campbell for a while. I got to see Matt's office (zzzzz), some helicopters and a couple of cannons. Hooah. We spent most of our time in the PX picking out a BBQ and finding more beer. We sent Matt off to the store for food while I installed his truck stereo and Dad pulled his weeds.

Winnie the Jew comes back from the store with a pack of "thin ribeye steaks" that I would have labeled "thick cold-cuts," some green potatoes and a mini-keg with German beer. Apparently, he thought that if he gave us enough beer, we'd forget were eating ribeyes served proschiutto style. Yeah, right. Needless to say, we had a great dinner and drank a bit. Quite a bit. Matt decided that he didn't want to walk out around to the front of the house and light firecrackers in the street, so he decided to use his backyard instead. After my initial objections, I caved in and started tossing M-1000's from the deck. I pulled the rockets out, but to my dismay, I couldn't light them to save my life. I held the cell phone to the fuse for at least five minutes, pushing the 'dial' button, but nothing happened... Matt saved the day by pointing out a lighter would work better and handed me one, so the fireworks resumed.

I have to say it's incredibly impressive to drop a firework shell into a mortar tube, yell "Hang it!" and create a semi-professional show. After a lot of beer, it's downright amazing. Fortunately, Matt’s neighborhood is 95% military and they were all on pass for the holiday weekend. Nobody was around to see spent rockets and mortar rounds dropping on their roofs! About an hour later, we hosed down the backyard and collapsed into bed. Speaking of bed, I’m so there. I’ll finish the trip (Nashville, Jack Daniels and Durham) after I let this post sit a couple of days.

Driving

On the road again. I just can't wait to get on the road again...

I'm wiped out. The move was just ridiculous, and anything you can imagine going wrong pretty much did. Someone broke into our house early AM of the move day, so I had the pleasure of meeting several of Portland's finest, while standing in my underwear. We finished the move around 10:00 PM and crashed at a friend's house. Janis almost missed her flight the next day, hitting check-in 40 minutes before her departure. Even cooler, as we're running to the airport, Morgan barfed all over. Yippee. I finally got on the road at 4:00 PM and made it to Boise at 11:30 PM last night and called it a day. Today has been much more mellow, and Matt and dad just arrived in Salt Lake city and we're heading off to find something to eat. Supposedly you have to "join a club" to have a beer here. WTF is that all about? Try a not-so-subtle tax on alcohol by anal-retentive people. Ugh. So, off to forage.