The Young and Coned

I awoke this morning with a cone in my room, one of those big orange ones. I had stolen it from the street to impress a girl. This story is about how I met a racist in a bar, stole a cone and kinda got the girl.

It was tuesday, that legendary day of drinking when I decided to go out with my new wingman, Fred. Let me preface this by saying that Dylan is an excellent wingman however he has upset the airplane gods and apparently is never in New York these days. So Fred and I trotted out, he a mixture of mustache and pop culture tattoos, me all dimpled and messy haired. We are quite the pair.

Our first (and eventually our only stop) was The Watering Hole, you of course know my disdain for this place so I didn’t plan on staying for long. Once inside Fred started talking to Bruce, an older guy who loves opera and talks with Fred about it for hours on end. After a discussion that was more akin to my Grandma’s taste we went and said hi to a girl who worked at our favorite bar and was sitting at the end of the bar with a friend. Her and her friend were being hit on by a gross, overweight lothario. We said hey to the girls and suddenly big fat gross man became all defensive and started ranting and raving about how we had ‘broken up then band.’ After five more minutes of huffing and puffing big fat gross guy decided to leave. He leant in slowly to the girls and after realizing he wasn’t going to be able to kiss them he made a beeline for one of their hands, perhaps in an effort to look classy. She immediately retracted her hand with a squeal before big fat gross guy once again got all upset and said ‘It’s not like I’m trying to sniff your fingers!’ It was at that point BFGG turned to me and Fred and gave us a giant bear hug. After releasing us from his iron grip he looked us both in the eye and said ‘we should start a band.’ Here’s the thing, Fred and I have a pact that if we start a band we will call it ‘Crazy Japanese Gameshow Audience’ so after BFGG suggested forming a band we started to tell him about Crazy Japanese Gameshow Audience. He got all excited and said he had a better name for the band, ‘The Racists.’ I wasn’t so keen on that one but before I could object BFGG drunkenly shouted at the top of his voice ‘Lets just call our band The Niggers.’ Silence. Wooooooah. BFGG had just become BFR(racist)GG. Slowly we turned away and he slunk out with all the finesse of an elephant giving birth.

After he left the girls said that their friend Stacey was coming to the bar and when she walked in we should all shout her name really loudly. Banter innit. So she walked in.... and guess what, we all shouted at the top of our voices ‘STACEY!!!’ The little slut lapped it, she loved it. We drank some more, but it seemed the more we drank the more friends walked in and the more we would shout out their names. Now I was drunk so all I remember is shouting ‘BLAH BLAHHHH!!!!’ So myself, Fred, Stacey, Blah Blah and the girls were by now pretty hammered and we all know what happens when I get drunk.... get hungry. And when I get hungry I get Blue 9 Burgers. So I suggested to Stacey (who had been throwing herself at my testicles) that we grab some food. She was up for it, however because it was Greek Easter she couldn’t eat meat or any food from an animal. What! Greek Easter..... Greek fucking Easter. I was gonna miss out on Blue 9 because of Greek Easter! I went to the toilet, gave myself that drunken pep talk in the mirror that all guys do, sung the hook-up song and decided to bite the bullet.

Walking through the street to a supposed killer falafel place on St. Marks Street I tried to suggest that maybe Stacey would enjoy watching me eat a burger. She wouldn’t. Halfway through our discussion about late night snacks I spied a large orange cone on the pavement. I don’t know why I picked it up but I did and before I knew it the cone was now being held by both of us.

It was a good job I picked up the cone because after 30 seconds we both realized nobody wanted to walk the cone all the way to St. Marks. At that point I spied a Falafel stand on the corner of where I live......

Cost of Falafel - $3. Extra Tahini - $1. Paying the $4 and looking like a gentleman..... priceless.

I must warn you if you are a family member and still remember me as the innocent spikey haired dimpled boy you love then don’t read on.... it gets weird.

So we’re back at mine eating falafel and drinking beer, a healthy combination. The cone is neatly positioned next to the TV. Of course we finish the food and drink and move to my room, away from the cone.

We begin kissing and suddenly ‘ol Stacey gets a bit amorous and bites my lip. I think nothing of it (I’m a good kisser, I bring it out in people). After a minute or so she does it again, this time longer and harder. I manage to turn my pained ‘owww’ into an ‘ooooh’ so it sounds as though it didn’t hurt. I stand up to turn the light off and Stacey straight up bites into my stomach. What the fuck! She had drawn blood! I was now in pain and bleeding. She told me that ‘that’s how real New Yorkers kiss.’ I really had no response that. I weighed up my options and decided to keep going, but with the light on. I told her no more biting. After another minute she couldn’t contain herself and bit my neck. Right, that was it. It was all good and well biting above the belt line but what if she got carried away with Rob Junior!? I have future generations to father with that guy. Scarily she told me she wanted to see me on Friday, I’ll be watching Twilight in anticipation.

As for the cone, it’s still here as a reminder that sometimes you bite off more than you can chew.

Snowballin'

Let me start off with he disclaimer that I am very bad at sports, rarely do I win. So last week when I won the Ultimate Snowball Fight I felt the need to gloat. The other snowball fighters fail to see how I won, but I will now explain how victory was achieved.

First off lets introduce the players

Robert Gilbert - 5 foot 9 1/2. Special skills; Dimples and accent.

Fred Nicholson - 5 foot 9. Special skills; A mustache that can shoot rainbows.

Nicole Patterson - 5 foot 5. Special skills; Like any good football team, a great pair upfront.

Ashley Herring - 5 foot 8. Special skills; A secret past as a Philadelphia Eagles cheerleader.

Katlin McGrath - 5 foot 2. Special skills; The loudest voice in the world.

Before I tell you the story I need to explain one thing. Recently I have undertaken a mission to phase out Katlin’s name and replace it with a combination of her name and what she is doing. For example when she is drinking I call her drinklin, if she is yawning then I call her yawnlin, if she is throwing a long pointy stick then she is javelin and so on and so on. For the remainder of this story she will not be called Katlin.

The 5 of us were at a bar to celebrate the lovely Kellan’s birthday, however an evening of a few drinks quickly turned into a lot of drinks. We all decided enough was enough and it was time to leave. As we walked out the bar we saw that New York had been covered in a blanket of snow. Our joy was cut short pretty quickly as we were confronted with an elite team of snowball throwers lobbing grenades our way. Ducklin got out of the way pretty fast leaving the 4 of us to take some hits. We of course responded in kind and suddenly the great snowball fight of 2010 was on. After 2 minutes it was off. Our foes had decided they had had enough and left.

Now there is a big question as to who threw the next snowball or who it even hit. We have our suspicions, personally I think it was turncoatlin but before we knew it someone within our group of 5 was firing snowballs not at the enemy but at their own side. It was time for all out carnage.

Left, right and centre snowballs were being catapulted skywards and falling on unsuspecting heads. As the 5 of us pelted each other with snowballs many other men, lured in by Ashley’s cheerleading skills and Nicole’s breasts, would try and participate but we were far to professional for them and they soon faded away. My cat like skills were ensuring I was pretty much remaining dry and un-snowed throughout this exchange but it was time for me to step up the game and manipulate my friends...

Ashley lives on the Lower East Side, Katlin lives in the East Village, I live by Union Square, Fred lives in Brooklyn and Nicole in Hoboken (stop laughing). Whoever gave up and went home first would lose and right now we were standing exactly in the middle of all 5 locations. I decided I didn’t want to walk home by myself in the snow so lagged behind the group and threw snowballs from the back. Unbeknownst to my friends I was the rudder of this proverbial motorboat, directing them to my apartment to I had an excuse to go home and not have to walk by myself. Genius.

However the shit then hit the fan. Bitchlin suddenly stopped in her tracks and picked up a big lump of snow, walked straight up to me and from 5 inches away threw a combination of snow and ice into my face. She had broken the universal rules of snowball fights; No Ice and no throwing from point blank range. The bitch had to go. I picked her up and threw her over my shoulder (not that impressive, she’s tiny). Flailin was complainlin but I was having none of it. I threw her headfirst into a huge pile of snow. Cheatlin was now soakedlin. She tried to stand back up but I just pushed her over. An undisputed victory for Team Rob. Confusedlin was then too disorientated and lamelin to hit me with snowballs anymore, thus eliminating her from the competition. I returned to my position of boat rudder and slowly but surely directed everyone to the where I needed to be.

After ten minutes we were standing outside Blue 9 Burger..... well whaddyaknow! It felt like the right thing to do and finish the fight and have a burger. Blue 9 is less than a block from my apartment. As everyone finished their burger they all realized they had to jump in cabs (hard to come by in a snowy New York) or ride the faltering snowed in Subway home. I walked for 2 minutes and was in my bed whilst everyone shivered and waited for cabs.

And that’s how you win a snowball fight.

My New York Love Story

New York is famous for it’s love stories, it’s over the top grand gestures which inspire songs and movies. This, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the story of mine.

Let me give you a little background to the story. There is a girl from work (I won’t name her, too many people seem to read these now!) who I have hooked up with many times and, I am a little ashamed to say, I have not treated her particularly well. You see unbeknownst to me this girl had a thing for me (this is where my Mother chimes in and says ‘who wouldn’t’). I was blissfully unaware of this fact and behaved in a manner as such. I would talk about other girls in front of her, try and hook up with other girls in front of her and generally behave like a guy who thought he had stumbled across a nice girl who enjoyed a drunk hook up. Let’s just say I kinda upset this girl.

This went on for 3 months until one day the tables started to turn and lo and behold I started to have a thing for her. Of course as is the way in these things she no longer had a thing for me. Unlike her I decided to do something about it and told her how I felt, she declined my advances and said she no longer had feelings for me (you can all pick your jaws up off the floor). It wasn’t long before I realized why, I had never done anything nice for this girl ever. So I concocted a plan, I was going to give her the greatest Valentines Day gift ever.

Project Valentine:

Phase 1.

At work there are more and more TV’s by the day cropping up on the walls. You can’t blink for some high def’d sports presenter beaming down from a screen telling you his pick of the week. As with all American TV’s there are a plethora of adverts, every five fucking minutes we have to watch ANOTHER advert. One day one of these caught my eye, an advert for a flower company. I took a note of their details.

At the end of my shift I checked to see when my girl was working during the coming week and formulated my plan.

I trotted off home and ordered 12 red roses to be delivered to work on Feb 15th with the following note; “Sorry theses are a day late, happy Valentines Day, ?”

On Monday at work I sat quietly in the back before my shift as every girl fawned over this mystery note and red roses trying to figure out who the admirer was, only one girl asked if it was me, I of course denied it before sneaking off to the toilet to have a giggle and congratulate myself. Then the actor in me struck, I swanned up to the host stand to talk to the girl and gave her about 5 options as to who could have sent her the flowers. She bought it. Later that night as she took the note home with her everything was perfectly set up for phase 2.

Phase 2.

This phase was all about upping the mystery and in order to do that I had to have a note delivered by hand to work. So after my lunch shift I ran to the print shop and printed out a note that said “I hope you liked your flowers, but they were just the start. This week I will be taking you for a drink, call this number at 2:00 tomorrow.” At the bottom of the note was my new roommate (who no one from work has met in order to maintain his anonymity) Dan’s number.

I needed a random member of the public to bring this note to work and then leave, however finding someone to deliver the note was harder than I thought. I first approached a group of kids, but as I started talking and said ‘excuse me, can you do me a favor?’ I realized I looked like a pedophile and aborted that attempt pretty quickly. I must have asked about 10 people with everyone just passing me by, I tell you something from now on I will stop when Green Peace ask me for a minute of my time.

Eventually I managed to convince a nervous teenager to deliver the note. In order to cover myself I spoke to her in an American accent, gave her the note and left.

We all went drinking that night and once again I sat for about twenty minutes coming up with possible answers as to who the admirer could be. She didn’t suspect me at all.

Phase 3.

At 2:00 on the dot she called. Dan answered gave her a time and a place to meet and hung up. Now in order to fully get an idea of what was going on I needed a mole on the inside. Luckily unbeknownst to everyone my friend Nicole was playing for Team Rob. Ten minutes later I received a call from Nicole saying that my girl was completely flummoxed and thought this was the most romantic thing ever. In true Gilbert fashion I clapped my hands together and gave them a rub.

Phase 4.

An important thing to know for this phase is that this girl often calls me Dimples.

Everything was set, all I had to do was call this cool little bar at 3pm on Thursday to make a reservation so my girl could meet there and explode from the shock. So I waited and waited and called, engaged.... I called again.... engaged... and again... engaged. This went on for a good half hour until someone picked up the phone and told me they were full for the night. Oh Shit. The whole plan was starting to fall apart, without the bar there was no reveal, fuuuuuuuucccckkkkkk. I needed options and fast. I called Dylan, obviously, who gave me some suggestions and I went with one (apparently in my mind Dylan is some New York love guru). However my girl was going to be turning up to the wrong place at 10:45 later that evening. I needed Dan.

Dan finally came home and I leapt on him, stole his phone and texted my girl the change of address and told her the doorman at the new place had a note for her. Now I couldn’t make a reservation at the new bar so I’d have to get their early to guarantee myself a nice little booth.

I arrived at the bar at 9, she was coming at 10:45. I spoke to the doorman about my plan and he, being French, loved it. Giddy with the smell of romance he sent me downstairs to put my name down for a table but I would then have to come up and wait in line to get into the bar. I then gave the doorman a note that looked like this.

Dear Girl,

I’m going to reveal who I am.

Many theories have been thrown about but it’s time for me to

Put my money where my mouth is.

Let’s make it easy for you and find out the answer to the question

Everyone wants to know.

Spell out the first letter from each line to reveal the name the reservation is under.

(it spells out Dimples for the idiots among you)

He was under instructions to give this to her as she walked up to the door.

I went downstairs and waited for my booth whilst slowly sipping on an insanely strong cocktail, at this point I was shitting myself with nerves. Thankfully the nice hostess seated me a little earlier than expected, she was a sucker for a love story I guess! So I sat in the booth for an hour and waited and waited and waited.

Finally at 10:45 after a week of crazy games and elaborate plans my girl walked in.......

You can plan most things in life, but you can’t plan what other people are going to do. Unfortunately the love story stops here and reality kicks in. She sat down with a smile on her face, I explained that this was her Valentines Day present and I had wanted to give her a great story that she could always tell people and hopefully make her forgive me for all the crappy things I had done to her. She thanked me and told me how sweet it was, the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for her actually. However here’s the thing, it seemed she had wanted her secret admirer to be someone else. Who I don’t know, but as she sat there trying to hide the disappointment it became kind of obvious. I don’t blame her for it, I mean who wouldn’t let their imagination run wild? We had a nice chat but really I didn’t want to keep her and make her have a bad time.

After one drink I decided to throw in the towel, I thanked her for playing along, made sure she got safely in a cab and then I left.

I don’t regret the last week, you have to do these things. For one thing I don’t think people at work have me down as lazy anymore! As anyone who knows me will tell you I am a big analyzer, well this time I didn’t analyze I acted and you know what, on Thursday night after it had all gone down I slept like a baby (thanks Nicole) because truly there was nothing else I could have done.

Vodka and Coat

Friday night was just one of those nights. One of those nights where the God's of the strange all come together and send you on a crazy trip.

I hadn't seen Dylan for a month, this is far to long so we decided to go for a burger at our regular date place 'Rare Burger' (I felt guilty for cheating on Blue 9). Our friend Dan came along as well and after some delectable burgers we decided to grab a drink.

We found a nice little bar called The Dove and as we walked in we noticed a nice amount of cute girls. Before we knew it an incredibly hot tattooed woman was walking up to us. Holy shit, had we found the only bar in the city where women hit on men!? We straightened up, smiled, and prepared to be chatted up. Of course this woman wasn't here for some English men, she was a bartender and asked us if we wanted a drink..... damn. We placed our order and before we knew it another cute girl was walking towards us. Now this girl was my type to a tee, girl next door with a little edge, big brown eyes, I've gone weak just thinking about her! She was coming up to me... to me! She sidled over and simply said 'Can I check your coats guys?' Fooled once again we sat down in a booth and began to drink. Five minutes later a woman defining the word sexy walked up and sat down in our booth.... Thank you God! However once again our hearts were broken as she informed us we could only sit there until the party who had reserved it arrived. Eventually some girls did come over with the intention of talking to us.... alas they weren't exactly the most stunning creatures of the night, in-fact they probably should have just stuck to talking to people at night.

We soon moved and were immediately accosted by the most annoying girl in the world. Let me start by saying that this girl was wearing a hat in a bar, always a bad sign. If a girl wears a hat she is either a moody bitch, loaded with baggage or a loud and annoying shrill human being, the girl who was talking to us was the latter. She refused to believe we were English and so in order to prove a point she spoke to us in a terrible English accent for the entire night. I wanted to kill her. This would result in me going to prison so I thought I'd fuck with her instead. Luckily Dylan was on the same wavelength. He introduced himself as Rob whilst I introduced myself as Dylan. I then proceeded to talk to her in an American accent and convince her I faked the whole English thing. She made all the hilarious jokes you would expect a moron to make to an Englishman; Harry Potter jokes..... that's about it. She was without doubt the least funny person I have ever met.

Finally relief arrived in the form of Dylan's latest squeeze, I will let him tell you about her. She brought a friend, unfortunately the friend was a guy, fortunately he was a cool guy. Dylan was feeling ill so decided to leave early, meanwhile this new guy, Chris, was heading to a club.... Fuck it I thought, I'm on this like cream cheese on a bagel. We found cute coat check girl and waited for our coats. Now fellow readers it's been a rough month and I needed to get back on the proverbial horse so in a moment of madness, egged on by Dylan of course, I decided to ask coat check girl for her number. I stumbled through, appeared to be losing her interest so brought out the big guns, the dimples. Success! Number in phone.... more on that later.

Chris and I proceeded to the next club, Lit Lounge. A gloriously gross place which plays an eclectic mix of music but i populated by horny 19 year old girls..... joy. Chris and I took some shots (because that's the sensible thing to do) and started to become acquainted with the local talent. Chris then found some of Dylan's girls friends by the bar and we hung out with them for the evening.

We went downstairs to the dance-floor and the fun began. One of the girls we were with (I have no idea what her name was) was absolutely shitfaced... and I mean shitfaced. However she wanted another drink from the bar, I happened to need my thirst quenched too so accompanied her. As we hit the bar she pressed herself right up against me. Hmmmm interesting. She then started dancing with me all up in ma grill, and i mean all. up. in. ma. grill. This felt wrong however, she was really drunk and I was just drunk. It wouldn't be fair. She then leant in slowly but wasn't going for my lips... she was heading for my ear. She whispered into it "We can dance and it's fine because you're gay aren't you?" Woah. Woah. Woah. I spat my drink out and objected before adding the obligatory 'not that there's anything wrong with that.' She wasn't convinced, she asked me to prove to her wasn't gay..... At this point I laughed and thought of Adam Pike and Jack Prevezer's saying that sometimes a theoretical pull is better than the trouble a real one can get you in... this was one of those times.

Drunk girl led me back to her friend Bethany who was immediately the love of my life. Cute, edgy, Jewish, smaller than me. Hot Damn. Next thing I know she has started dancing with me.... well hello. She's into it, this is fantastic, this is amazing this is... about to be interrupted by her friend who tells me that I will have to wait in line. Sure enough I look over to my right and there is literally a line of guys all watching this girl dance with me as they wait their turn. This was getting weird. The whole night descended into anarchy. I met a random guy, got some random numbers, was told I was gay and then had to wait in line for the girl of my dreams. I was stupendously hungover the next day.

Ahhhh yes, Coat Check Girl. I have done some stupid things in my life, however on Saturday morning I sent THE worst first text I have ever sent. Still blurry from the night before I grabbed my phone to check her number wasn't all a glorious dream, it wasn't! I then sent her the following text.

'Hey, it's Rob the English guy from last night. How was work? Did you get out late? Did all the coats get returned to their desired destination?' She is yet to reply.

Korea Town

Hardcore regular readers will remember the Ugly Christmas Sweater update from last year. Well the driving force behind it, the group of friends known as BSC were at it again last night. Inspired by our newest members Hana and Jen a Korean night had been arranged.

This had been organized months ago, our group of friends would have a typical Korean adventure, whilst I was a little upset the Korean's didn't share the Thai peoples love of prostitutes I was still game. Then the emails started. It's fair to say that in the build up to last night I must have received an email a day with different instructions/guest-lists/ideas/menu choices. Perhaps the most worrying one came in the middle of last week. we were all emailed a list of Korean traditions when eating dinner and getting drunk on Soja. Basically all the traditions can be honed down to one sentence; The most junior member at the table has the least privileges and has to be everyone else's bitch. Unfortunately for me I am the baby of the group by a good couple of years so it looked like I would spend the evening respecting my elders.

Disaster. Catastrophe. A flu epidemic appears to have struck New York. People left, right and centre started pulling out of our Korean extravaganza. It was suggested that the baby of the group send round an impassioned email begging people to come, but as a stickler for tradition, coupled with the fact I am lazy, I refused. We set off to a Korean Restaurant to begin the evening. The restaurant had been reviewed by the New York Times, a fact it was very proud of. It displayed the review everywhere, on the walls, on the place settings, everywhere. The issue with this was that the review gave it one star..... hmmmm. Also my place setting didn't have a review, it just had pictures of puppies for sale.

I thought the evening was about to take an interesting turn when a new member of the group sat opposite me. This cute new girl suddenly had me shaking off my hangover (oh yeah, I got shitfaced on saturday night). Cute girl looked younger than me too. After some prying I was left disappointed, she was 26 and was in the midst of some major relationship drama. Luckily for her right now my mind game playing is top notch so we had an Oprah moment and I gave her some golden advice.

Finally the food started arriving but not before I had poured everyone their drink whilst not making eye contact! There appeared to be now rules regarding the amount of food the Junior can eat so I stuffed my face.

At this point in the update let's all take a moment to applaud Miss Hana Jung on her food selection. Bravo.

As dinner finished we were off to the second half of the evening. Karaoke. Chinese for empty orchestra.... kinda haunting if you think about it. I had been practicing my repertoire of songs and had made the decision that unless I saw a drunk Asian businessman singing Lady In Red the night was a flop.

We scoured the streets for a decent bar in which to sing and my word did we find one.

We ascended three flights of stairs and pushed open a rickety door to find a Korean couple with some microphones. They ushered us into a room with really really small chairs. It was at this moment we realized we were sitting in a daycare centre. Yes we had managed to find the only place in New York city which is daycare by day and karaoke by night. I personally felt like I was in a crazy strip club. Bright flashing lights, private rooms, a strange looking Asian man on the door. It was odd. They made us place what can only be described as fuzzy condoms on top the microphones so as not to spread germs and we were ready to sing. Unsurprisingly Victoria went first. The music blared out of a huge speaker in our tiny private room and the lights went epileptic. Then the sound of The Spice Girls filled the air. We all chose songs and drank... we needed to, as one bad rendition after another was blared out in this daycare/Karaoke/strip club mash up. The best part of every song was afterwards they would give you a score out of 100. What this was based on we will never know. It was impossible to score below 85 and above 99.If anyone ever breaks the 3 digit barrier in that place drinks are on me. The songs kept coming (my suggestion of 'All By Myself' wasn't taken kindly by the cute girl) and eventually our hour was up (kind of like a strip club).

Eardrums bleeding, pupils dilated we stumbled out into the cool night air perhaps just a tad more cultured than we had been earlier that evening.

Pia Pia Piano's

When you wake up in the morning to find three stamps of varying words and pictures on your hand as well as a discarded Burger wrapper (of the Blue 9 variety) and half a Gatorade all accompanied by a thumping headache, you know you had an interesting time the night before.

That was me on Friday morning, slowly piecing together the night before.

It started with a song. To be more precise it started with the song 'Something in Common' by Free Energy, a happy clappy dancey pop song that my former roommate Victoria had fallen in love with. Whenever she comes to visit down from Queens we have to listen to the song many many times. It transpired that Free Energy were playing a small gig at a bar called Piano's. Now let me put into context why this was exciting. I fucking love Piano's (the bar.... I could give or take the instrument). If I have nothing to do and am out then inevitably I will recommend Piano's, it has everything, a bar, a dance/club bit and a gig venue in the back. I had my 23rd birthday there and to be honest when the big 25 hits I'll probably be there again. If you have come to visit me in New York, I probably took you there. I've managed to pull women from all corners of the globe in that place. It's my New York Robinski's.

Delighted that I had an excuse to go I was all over the idea of a night out like a rash on a nymphomaniac. The crew was a good one. Everyone had a connection to 203 East 14th Street, they had either lived in the apartment or were dating someone that lived in the apartment.

We started the evening in the same way any night at 203 begins, we listened to 'Something In Common' 7 times on repeat. We slowly started drinking some Wine and Beer. I harped back to an old saying 'Beer before Wine feeling fine, Wine Before Beer.... feeling fine!' A big night lay ahead. We arrived at Piano's after a rowdy cab ride and stumbled in. We headed for the back and into the gig room. Now I hadn't been in this room for a while and had forgotten the nasal stinging stench that singes your nostrils when you enter. A mix of B.O, beer and Hispters. It smelt gross. We sucked it up and had more beer. Victoria then requested we move to the front by the stage so we could dance.... begrudgingly I obliged. Once the band started setting up I could see Vic becoming more and more excited. Finally a waif like individual with the waistline of Kate Moss appeared n the stage and wrote down the set list.... guess which song wasn't on it! We asked politely and he decided to stick our song on one from the end. As the band struck up and started Victoria became 'That' girl. You know, the one at the front of the gig who dances way to much and is far far to into it. The rest of us had to take it in turns to dance with her to avoid embarrassment. It took a while, but eventually the opening chords to the one song we knew struck up. There was one problem, our friend Markus was in the toilet. So unfortunately for him he missed the one reason he came out! The rest of us danced, Vic may as well have thrown her pants on the stage and just like that the band were done. We had our picture taken with the singer.... seriously, and then scurried off upstairs to the club part.

By now I had switched from Wine to Beer to Vodka to JD, things were starting to become blurry. After busting out the weightlifter move a few times 4 of the 6 of us went home, these 4 are of course all in a relationship, so it was up to Victoria and I to hold down the fort. The problem was Victoria had been caught in the tractor beam of two competitive guys both vying for her affection. She seemed to be enjoying it so I took the time to talk to the bemused Chinese girl standing next to me. The conversation didn't exactly flow! Eventually Victoria managed to escape her two would be suitors and headed off home, I decided to stick it out with Miss China, unfortunately her boyfriend turned up and I took that as my cue to leave.

All in all a fun, drunk night at Piano's and now I have somewhere to stay should I get lost in China. I wouldn't expect anything else.

Oh and for those wondering about the Burger wrapper.... I was hungry when I got home.

Diary Of A Bored Man

Life is boring. Nothing exciting is happening. These blogs are stagnating as a result. In order to convey the total mind numbing boringness of my life we will once again delve into the diary of a typical wek.

Monday - Day off. This is one of those glorious days where you do nothing whatsoever. You rise at 12 consider breakfast but instead decide your time will be better spent sleeping for an extra hour. Once you are up at 1 the mother of all achievements is on, the less than 12 hour day. The less than 12 hour day consists of going to bed less than 12 hours after you left it that morning. In order to achieve this you will need the following. 1) Take out menu's. 2) Football Manager. 3) YouTube. 4) Cable TV. Once these are in place you can split your time equally between watching dancing midgets, winning the champions league, ordering Thai food and cursing the cable company that cancelled the food network, thus ensuring the commercial to put it back on plays during every single ad break! After interchanging between these things for ten or so hours you hop back into bed at 11:30 to complete your less than 12 hour day. Beautiful.

Tuesday - This day usually consists of a shift at work that I like to call a 'Nothing Shift.' Nothing shift's are exactly what they sound like nothing. Nothing funny happens, nobody makes a lot of money, but nobody makes a small amount. The world just continues to turn. Everyone smells of BBQ and is zombified by the sheer nothingness of the shift. Beware the nothing shift though. The nothing shift can lead to excessive drinking, for you see after a nothing shift the brain has become a mushy mass of ill formed ideas and the one that usually pops out is the decision to go to a bar. By the time everyone is off work and at the bar it is usually midnight, meaning we drink until 3. Meaning we close down the bar. Meaning everyone is hungover for Wednesday.

Wednesday - The day is a write off, no man alive can cope with a hangover that big. Instead all hopes and dreams are projected onto the night, for you see Wednesday night is the perfect date night. It's far enough away from the weekend to not feel like a waste of a night and close enough to it to make you want to drink. In short wednesday night is the perfect alignment of the stars and planets to go out on a date.
The rules remain the same. You meet for drinks/dinner. You keep on eye on the bill. You decline her offer to pay despite dying a little inside when you see the hit your wallet is about to take. You then move onto stage 2 of the date. Stage 2 can take place anywhere in the city say another bar or perhaps back at your apartment. The trick is to get it right on Wednesday though because otherwise you have another 7 days to wait before you can go on a date again.

Thursday - The double shift. Lesser men have gone insane when confronted with the terror of the double shift, it makes them weep and beg for mercy whilst they simultaneously crap their pants and piss themselves, beware the double shift.
You start at 10 moving tables, filling sauces and laying out silverware in a race against time to set up the restaurant for 11. After that the shift begins. Lunch is slow... always slow. You serve a few tables, fold a few napkins and the thought of the evening shift is yet to enter your mind.
Then you go on break. This is perhaps the toughest decision of the day... where to eat. It's enough to drive a man mad! Usually you end up at Starbucks eating apple fritters and downing Latte's.
Then it's time for the evening shift. By now your feet are sore, your legs weak, your eyes streaming and you nostril hair parched with BBQ sauce. You check your watch... it's only 8! You want to cry. You've been at work for 10 hours, that's 10 hours of non stop country music. Your pray for mercy as you hum 'Against The Wind.' Then finally, finally it's over. You go home and collapse on your bed half man, half Rib Sampler.

Friday - The morning can go one of a few ways. You can close lunch, meaning you work until 6 and are manically swept off of your feet as the only waiter in the restaurant from 2 onwards. Or you sometimes have an audition.
If it's the latter you hop on the Subway to some nothing part of New York, find some tall non desrcript building, head up a few floors and wait to be called. Smiling falsely you shake everyones hand and then read the page of script they have prepared for you. They seem to really like you, in fact, heck, they love you! They tell you when they will be putting on the play/filming the film and ask if you are free on those dates.... You are. They say they will call you..... They don't.
Friday night. Call Dylan find some cool New York bar and get right on it. Friday night is drinking night. You party hard because Saturday night will be spent at work... and that's no treat.

Saturday - The morning always starts with football. PHart and his terrible QPR side loose, nobody in the Gilbert household is happy but at least I got to see Warren Barton's opinions on Liverpool's current crisis whilst I sat hungover in bed.
Suddenly it's 4 and it's off to work. The weekends are a different animal at work, they get very busy. When it's like that it becomes every waiter for themselves. You have to get in with the hosts so they will sit your tables thus generating maximum income. After that you have to sell sell sell. Everything on the menu is your favorite dish and nothing can't be done for a guest. You do however want to stay out of the kitchen. If you don't you face the wrath of the chef, who at this point resembles a BBQ stained gargoyle wearing MC Hammer's pants, screaming at you for being in his domain.
Eventually... eventually you are done, off the hook. Usually with a nice amount of money in your pocket, so what do you do with the money? That's right spend it on beer. So you trudge off to some crap bar that is empty because you don't want to walk in and be the only sober people inside and drink until the wee hours of the morning.

Sunday - A day off. Always starts with walking the 200 steps from your apartment to Blue 9 Burger always fresh and always delicious. Due to the fat content of these being more than James Corden you limit yourself to one a week. This eases any hangover.
After feeling a little better Sunday gets underway and to be honest, it's a lot like Monday. You sit around, you watch TV, you play computer games. It also has the ability to be a second date night. After laying the groundwork on Wednesday you can often suggest something a little more relaxed for your hungover souls on Sunday such as a movie or even better just hanging out at the apartment and seeing what happens. I don't want to give away all my moves though.

So as you can see my life is pretty dull right now, although it could be worse, I could be snowed in, I could be a Liverpool fan or I could not be in New York. Guess I'll just have to get on with it eh!