Blog Master G

Thanks to our awesome, amazing friends who made this hilarious, fun, crazy weekend in Vegas possible: Ben, Enoch, James, Jeanine, Jess, Katie, Martha, Miguel, Peter, and Tiff! You guys rock. Jen and I will never forget our 3-day, pre-wedding party. On to the memories… and don’t forget to add your own.

At the Bellagio: James drawing spectators and cocktail waitresses galore with Hooooot Rod (click for movie); Ben getting huge payout after only a few tries…on Hoooot Rod; then later losing it all at the blackjack table, where Gabe won his first $95 gambling, then also lost it all (*yes, Jen advised him to walk away when he was on top). Getting kicked out of all-you-can-drink champagne brunch…hey, there were 11 of us. Who says 8 bottles is too many?

By poolside: Kick-ass, fifteen-dollar mai tais…water misting in the face while chillin’ in the hot tub…Playboy and How to Win at Blackjack…

T ‘n A show at the Aladdin: Cowgirls…girls in vertical bed got vote for everyone’s favorite scene…Playboy lingerie model Stacey Linde was hot. Over at the girls’ table, Jen and Katie wondered when the show was going to get dirty.

Shadow Bar at Caesar’s: After cruising the strip with 3 cases of Bud Light and MGD in tow (followed by bad hotel porn), we watched the shadow dancers at Caesar’s. Jen won at blackjack. As the boys wander off to some gambling at Paris, Jen orders them to get Gabe a lap dance (it was never meant to be). The boys conk out early (4am) as Jen and Jess gamble the night away (5:30am) — coming out ahead.

All weekend: Martha wins hundreds at the slots, putting us all to shame.

Saturday brunch at the Mirage: Pete, James, and Enoch arrive at 1:30pm. Enoch eats fish stew nonstop until 5pm while Pete and James line up the champagne glasses; they get their money’s worth.

Limo ride: Beers. Drink while riding. Taxi ride: Santa Claus lookalike Oklahomam driver reminisces about the good ol’ days: His granddaddy shootin’ a man over tractor parts. “The meat wagon rolled in. Justifiable homicide.”

View all Las Vegas photos on Ofoto
View Ben’s photos (link added 9.23.2003)

I breathed a sigh of relief this morning after I avoided nearly getting ripped off by the dealer from which I bought my WRX and where I go for regular maintenance. It’s there today getting the clutch replaced — and there through tomorrow I recently learned (grr…gotta roll the ghetto Buick Century till then) — and I almost got suckered by the new service adviser into paying for a wheel alignment. Here are my emails to my WRX mailing list about the saga:

Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 14:43:41 -0400 (EDT)
From: Gabe
To: subaru_wrx@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: advice re: alignment

Phew! I’m glad I checked with my local, long-time tire shop (Mark Morris
Tire in San Francisco) that did the tire replacement. They have a LIFETIME
(once every 6 mos.) alignment for the SAME PRICE as what the dealership
charges for ONE ($150). So I’ll be bringing my car there tomorrow…and
from now on. And they charge $69 for a one-time alignment.

I feel like a fool for almost having been ripped off at the dealer…but I
had a bad feeling about it, so I’m glad I trusted that instinct.

Generally speaking, do you guys have your regular service & maintenance
done at your dealership or a local shop?

Thanks,
Gabe

—
http://gabeanderson.com/wrx

On Tue, 24 Jun 2003, Gabe wrote:
> Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2003 12:15:12 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Gabe
> To: subaru_wrx@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: advice re: alignment
>
> I dropped off my WRX at the dealership this morning to get the warranty
> clutch replacement. I have about 19k miles and recently had that problem
> with the nail in my tire, so got a whole new tire. Alignment was not
> included when they put on the new tire, but they balanced the tires, of
> course (at a tire shop, not the dealership).
>
> This morning there was a new service adviser there (dealership). He said
> it looks like I’m getting some outside wear on my tires and suggested I
> get the $150 four-wheel alignment. I told them to hold off on it until I
> give them the go-ahead. I don’t think I’ve had an alignment to date, since
> I don’t think it’s included in the 15k service, right?
>
> Should I go for it? Is it included in the 30k service?
>
> Thanks for the input.
>
> -Gabe
>
> —
> http://gabeanderson.com/wrx

We returned from an awesome weekend in Vegas last night (this morning) at about 3am. We got just 4 hours of sleep and went to work today. I feel so tired I’m nearly oblivious and like I was fighting off a cold today; I’m hoping a good night’s sleep will turn me right around. But here I am at 930pm about to hit the sack…and paying bills. Pictures from Vegas are uploading. We took upwards of 100. I hope to post the majority of photos, along with some of my favorite memories, in the next day or two.

Tomorrow my WRX goes to the shop for a clutch replacement — to replace the morning clutch jitter problem.

Hot rod!

On March 26, 2002 Jen’s former coworker snapped this picture of Jen playing hooky from work. What was she doing? Cruising in a powder blue Pinto and playing with Evil and Mrs. Bendy, of course. Isn’t that what you would do if you were playing hooky?

Mark Morford in Stop The Gay Canadians! First icky legalized homosexual marriage, then the apocalypse. Conservative America trembles:

“Hordes of quivering GOP lawmakers and vast throngs of proudly homophobic right-wing Christian Americans fell into an adorable tizzy the other day as the entire really, really big country of Canada announced it will change its law to allow full-on homosexual marriage anywhere in the whole country including Vancouver and Toronto and even ‘that weird province with all the gay French people.’
…
“The air was thick with tension. Conservatives were stupefied. The religious right, so accustomed to viewing big scary cities like San Francisco and Amsterdam as debauched hedonistic Sodom-a-raffic pleasure palaces to be avoided like a good book or a genuine orgasm or an original thought, suddenly took one look at a map of the world and noticed the size of Canada and went, holy crap.”

Tomorrow 12 of us are heading to Sin City for a weekend of insanity and fun. It’s the combined bachelor/bachelorette party for me and Jen. It’s gonna be good. I’ll have lots of pictures, I’m sure, to post here when we return. And tonight we got our tickets all squared away for what’s bound to be a hot performance Saturday night of X, which features eight showgirls, including a Playboy model (this month the featured “X-Mate is Playboy lingerie model Stacey Linde”), doing the following:

“They lie together in a tub. Undress each other in bed. Act as strict headmistresses who reprimand naughty schoolgirls. It must be hot in here, because there’s not much of the costumes left when the women of ‘X’ get done with them.”

Plot…uh…story line…who cares? It’s gonna be great. The show is at Aladdin. We’re staying at the Mirage, a few hotels up the strip from Aladdin, and in between Treasure Island and Caesar’s Palace.

This will be my first time in Las Vegas (not counting the airport). I’m really excited for the trip.

Tonight Jen and I are cleaning up, doing laundry, and waiting for James to show up. Earlier we started to watch Shaolin Soccer, which arrived to my office earlier today. Aww yeah.

In the ongoing fight against big tobacco, I was pleased to learn today that NASCAR has cancelled its 33-year contract with JR Reynolds and brought on Nextel as its latest sponsor. Of course, JR Reynolds claims it was going to end the contract anyway, but I believe (at least I would like to believe) that part of the reason was due to the signatures of 14,000 of us collected by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids pressuring NASCAR to change its sponsorship. Grassroots in action. Gotta love it.

Related links:

• SmokeFreeNASCAR.org
• Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids

Arianna Huffington on WMDs And The Psychology Of Fanaticism:

“By all accounts, the behind-the-scenes battle within the Bush administration over just what information should be used, or spun, or hidden, to make the case that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat to America and the rest of the world was a knockdown, drag-out fight between the facts and a zealous, highly politicized, ‘who needs proof?’ mindset. And, at the end of the day, the truth was left writhing on the floor.
…
“Dr. Norman Doidge, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, has identified among the telltale symptoms of fanatics: an intolerance of dissent, a doctrine that is riddled with contradictions, the belief that one’s cause has been blessed or even commanded by God, and the use of reinforcement techniques such as repetition to spread one’s message.”

(Excerpts from story on Common Dreams.)

I read somewhere and have heard recently that due to all the towing company scandals going down in San Francisco lately, there’s some ruling wherein any individual who’s had his or her car towed within the past 5 years is eligible for a substantial refund — up to $400. I just posted to craigslist in hopes of finding out more info, and dropped an email to my Dad, who had also mentioned this. He works for a politically-connected (and former California Assemblyman) lawyer, so I’m sure he can get the scoop.

If anyone has the details on this, please let me know.

Catching up on recording a number of random links sent to me by Jen via email (to have on hand for future reference, as well as for your amusement):

• Weight Watchers recipe cards from 1974
• Japanese kitty costumes
• Camp site in Mendocino (not comedic)