Detective Vodka Pancakes’ inquiry into the TV Show Lost…

Something very upsetting happened to me recently.  But to be able to properly explain, I have to first explain how it relates to the TV show, Lost.

I made a ‘joke’ that at some point, all good conversations can be referenced back to either Nutella or Lost.   If it doesn’t, then you need to shut up.

I don’t know why I didn’t watch the show when it was on the air, I guess it all stems from that fact I ‘m not a big beach person.  Like, I didn’t watch Heros because I’m not really that big into cheerleading.  But about six weeks ago, my boyfriend convinced me to start watching Lost on Netflix.   Or Netflicks.  About three years ago, when the show was airing, I had a friend (who is type A to an alarming degree) who told me they watched each episode twice just in case they missed something.  I remember at the time thinking, ‘hmmm, you’re a weirdo.’    But alas, last night, I made the very comment, “when we have finished the series (I have two more seasons so don’t fucking ruin it for me) I think we should start all over again and watch it in case I’ve missed something.”  I’m like the Lost detective.  Detective Vodka Pancakes.

Maybe it’s the fact I’ve been sober for 17 days (I like saying that, sounds like my situation is significantly more interesting than it is…) but I’ve been watching a lot of Lost lately.  Like a lot.

Here are my thoughts on this picture.  Middle row, yes to both.  They can come to my island.  So can Sun.  Anyone who can fake knowing another language from their spouse is a badass.  Claire, she likes peanut butter, she can stay.  Charlie was cooler on drugs.  Someone should hit John Locke in the face with a paddle and thank god Shannon’s dead.  She was fucking annoying.

But back to the original point.  Like I said, something very unsettling happened to me last Friday night.  I was at the movies (like I said, I am currently not drinking, zzz) and I saw a trailer for some Hobbit movie.  Actually make that two unsettling things.  One of them being the fact there is another fucking Hobbit movie out.  How is that possible?  It’s like they’re rolling those out daily.   Anyway, while quasi-watching the trailer I saw Evangeline Lilly.  She didn’t quit acting after Lost?!  Like I said, upsetting.  I tried to explain this to my boyfriend over the noise from Hobbit Movie but I’m pretty sure he was ignoring me, hoping for compliant silence.  I will never be silenced!  Detective Vodka Pancakes has things to say.

First I found this upsetting picture of Evangeline Lilly in Hobbits Movie (I don’t know the name of that stupid movie so I’m just going to forever call it Hobbit Movie) but then I found this one…

What the fuck is up with her hair?

Knowing what I know now, that Lost is the best TV series of all time (Lost and True Blood), I can’t believe they let those actors act again.  They all should have retired.  I mean, Vincent the dog (who has his own IMDB page), only starred on Lost.   He apparently is the only one that understands that you go out on top.

Someone should have told Sawyer/James that before he starred in that dance movie with Chris Brown recently.  Weird.

But anyway I’m headed to Costa Rica in November.  Mysterious traveling island here I come.

Actually, scratch that.  I’m traveling with my mom, it’s best for all parties involved we don’t get stranded on a deserted island together.

 

Not Drinking…it’s even more boring than it sounds.

I’ve never really considered myself one of those people that needs to be constantly entertained.  Until I stopped drinking.  I can easily attest, it’s boring as fuck.

I gave up drinking for 30 days.   Thirty days in comparison to your entire life doesn’t seem like that long of a stretch.  But it is.  Oh, is it ever.

So as I count down the days (the hours…the minutes…I truly believe it’s all started going backwards at this point.  I’m like Alice in Wonderland) until I can once again feel like a well adjusted drinking individual amongst the population, I need a distraction.  Actually what I need is a paid companion.  Or maybe I could get an intern and have them just sit and slap drinks out of my hand.

Back to not drinking being boring.  Yesterday for happy hour we went to Brewed because they serve kombucha.  Kombucha is fermented tea.  If that doesn’t sound gross to you, then you’re doing it wrong.  But I HAD to get out of the house.  Although sitting at Brewed for 30 minutes is just as boring as it sounds.  And by the way, they have terrible service.  Last time I was there (hungover and eating a friedeggsammichohmnomnomnomnom) I swear our waiter was tripping on acid.  And not in a ‘fun to watch’ kind of way, but like a ‘this is really fucking annoying’ kind of way.

Last week we went to go to the movies but had to bypass the Movie Tavern.  They serve full bar.  Way too tempting for this non-drinking little lady.  Wine and movies…love it.  Just like wine and walking the dog or wine and blow drying my hair.  So we went to the theatre at Ridgmar and let me warn you, just don’t.  If you like hanging around obnoxious hormonal high schoolers that don’t give a shit about anyone around them then be my guest.  Of course the little morons sitting in front of us tried to get in a fight with the little jackasses sitting in front of them.  I find it impossible to believe I was that terrible in high school.  Maybe I was.  I probably was.  I was.

I took my boredom to the internets.  While you can google anything, you probably won’t like any of the absolutely fucking stupid answers you get.   So I googled, “what to do when you stop drinking?”  Here is what I got:  movies, masturbate, sex and ultimate frisbee.   While I do know what movies, masturbation and sex are, I had to look up ultimate frisbee.  I went to TCU, we didn’t do that shit.   Or we might have.   A) I’m getting old and B) I was usually drunk.

My recently pregnant best friend told me it was hard but she said what kept her going was the fact she didn’t want to fuck up her baby.  “So what you’re saying is I lack the motivation.”

So if you have any non-sexual/frisbee related suggestions, please tell me.  But as for now, I’m off to happy hour to cry at Brewed.

Sad hour at Brewed.  Boom.  Ugh.

19 days, 7 hours, 5 minutes…

Temaki…and Jazz Hands. And Recreational Drugs.

I can’t make fun of it because I genuinely love it.  But that said, it’s slow.  Like my dead grandmother slow.  Which is ok to say because she was mean as shit.  And didn’t like me.  Which is impossible.

Also, I told the owner it was my “favoritest restaurant of all time” and he wasn’t too impressed.  Like it was the 1,000th time he had heard that that day.

I always get the tomato miso soup because its ultra delicious in my tummy.  I wanted to take a picture, so I told my boyfriend to move his hands.  This is what I got.

Jazz hands at Temaki.

But my problem started when I walked into the Bearded Lady at 4:30.  Our two beers were $8.  My manfriend was like, “wow, $8 is really cheap.”  Is that what we have been programmed to think?  Eight dollars can buy me an 18 pack (if I’m getting all college style on your ass and get Keystone).  Anyway, we then hit the Usual then Temaki.  Apparently 5:45 is not an acceptable time for anyone under the age of 65 to eat, so we had to have a drink first.

Or several.  Thats how we normally do it.

Afterwards, we went to the Chat Room, another mistake, as I currently have a monster fucking headache and am having to one-eye it to write this.  Anyways, I read online the Chat Room serves minors, but I didn’t see anyone other than us under the age of 40 there.  That said, some guy I unfortunately know walked up and joined us saying he was about to leave to go eat at Mijo’s (buy the Groupon!  It’s always there!).  He asked if after we wanted to come over for “some weed and coke if yall like to party” (I shit you not).  Is that a measure of how much you like to party?  I thought I liked to party, but am I in the baby party league?  Apparently so because I thought the most interesting thing about that sentence was the fact he was going to go eat at Mijos.

So as he left with my imparting words of ‘get the quinoa tortilla soup and dare to get off drugs’ (boom) I realized I guess I’m not a ‘cool’ partier.  When tortilla soup is more appealing than recreational drugs you are with me in the baby party league.

I’ll just stick with my 18 pack of Keystone.  God, I’ll never be cool.

 

Chat Room…for the virtual drinkers

As I moved across town, I was plagued with thoughts of ‘where will I get drunk now?’ and ‘who will take out my trash?’.   But as I have lived on Magnolia for five days now I can easily answer those questions that so plagued me that initial drive.  One, as I am learning, I can easily get drunk anywhere.  And two, apparently I will take out the trash.  Which blows.

When we moved in, the landlord said, “Don’t mind all the pan-handlers.  I know them, It’s Little Joe and Waylan.  Just keep telling them you don’t have any money.  It took a couple years but they don’t even bother asking me anymore.”  Well thats fantastic.  Two dude, who probably make more money panhandling than I do at my real job, are going to be asking me for money for the next couple years.

But I’m getting off track.  I was curious as to what would be my new “Shamrock”, which was my go-to dive by my old house, so we decided to test some places out.

We started at the Chat Room.  Yes I have been here before and then I vowed never to return. But that says something about vows you make when you’re drunk.  They’re stupid and pointless.  I got riled up several years ago because the shot offerings of the day were (keep in mind I was looking to take shots which speaks to my frame of mind) a shot for Democrats, only $3 made with shittyshit, and shots for Republicans, at a less reasonable $12 made with fancy shit.  I get it, I really do.  But being the conservative Republican I am, albeit potty mouthed conservative Republican, I thought it was pretentious and placed my vow to the Gods never to return.   So I went back last night.

Honestly, Glenlivet is Glenlivet, and tastes the same anywhere you go.  But having it being served to you from a place that originated as a bar that you could go hang out with all your virtual friends makes it taste more interesting.  I don’t remember if there were any pooters (i.e. computers to all you non techie idiots) inside but I made a mental note to look next time I go back.  And if we are going to be saying truthful things, I will see you there tonight.

Post Chat Room, we went with the best idea at the time, which was tequila shots at Yukatan.  The dude I live with and I have revolve our lives around walking everywhere.  It was a major factor in deciding where to live; we have to be able to walk, get foods and drunk, and then be able to ‘walk’ home.  As I aforementioned about Waylan, I truly don’t have the money to spend on something frivolous, like a DUI and such.  So as we were leaving the Chat Room to head the TWO BLOCKS to Yukatan, the guy we were with wants to drive.  That we would walk two blocks apparently was a concept he couldn’t conceptualize.

So we pile in the back of the suburban and make the 12 second drive.

How many flights of tequila do three people need?  Two.  How many aspirin do I need this morning?  Five.  It helps at 8am while listening to Little Joe and Waylan call each other bitches outside.  I shit you not.

At least I haven’t been asked for money yet.  I don’t fucking have any.  Don’t bother.

SIDE NOTE: Actually the point, that I got out to bed to type, was that we ate at Temaki last night.  And it was fucking amazing.  Two things about it.  One- I saw a woman, sitting with her two kids order an entire bottle of wine and slam it.  Classic moves.  Two- everything was amazing.  Like spectacularly amazing.  Freshly made in-house french macaroons with fresh strawberries have ruined me for all other macaroons.  Even ones I ate in Paris aren’t this good.  I forgot to take pictures but thats fine.  I’m eating there every night for the rest of my life.

Temaki & Chat Room.  Match made in Magnolia heaven.

 

Fireside Pies & a shot of Patron. No thanks, I’m just going to go to bed.

Here’s the thing about Fireside Pies.  It’s delicious.  But here’s the thing about Patron.  It’s not.

 

My friend, who is a wine and liquor rep that I need to de-friend, and I were going to go to dinner.  So when she picked me up and informed me we had to swing by the bar for some coffee flavored Patron shots first I almost opened the car door and rolled out.  Would have been safer for me in the long run.

This is the same friend who three weeks ago, I passed out at 8am in her lawn til the sprinklers got me.  Same friend that two weeks ago her boyfriend had to carry her out of a party I hosted at my house by 8pm.  Like I said, de-friend.

We used to know this guy and when we would go to the bar, he would always make a big production and order everyone Patron shots.  Fast forward a year or two and I found out that every time he ordered shots, the bartender poured his as water.  Well, that guy sucks and we don’t hang out anymore.

But I learned two important that day.  One- don’t have sex with and not call back  the person you are depending on keeping your water secret.  She spilled and then informed him she had been charging him Patron pricing for that water all along.  Two- don’t fuck with that lady.

I feel like this is how they serve plates at Fireside because within seconds mine looks like this.   Honestly they could have served my plate like this because I had already had three Patron shots and I wouldn’t have known the difference.

This is one of my favorite places and I think the food is the most delicious food of all time.  Although, I used to really like this taco place but ate there sober one time and found that my tastebuds rejected it.  So who knows.

St Pete’s Dancing Marlin. Deep Ellum.

I had to meet a friend in Dallas the other day and was feeling like branching out of my normal range of two bars where I normally go.  Then someone told me that Meddlesome Moth was opening in Fort Worth so then I realized I will never have to go back to Dallas of the rest of my life.

Although it was extremely hard to get home, when I was in high school and college I used to love to go out to Deep Ellum for whatever reason.  When I wanted to be alone, it was a good place to go walk around (you see some weird shit there), at night to go out with friends (the music scene can be awesome or terrible) or go to rando shops selling anything from vintage to sex toys or $50 candles.

I hadn’t been out there in several years so my friend and I decided to brave it for a drink.  I had to google where to go, thank god for google otherwise I would probably never leave my living room, and it gave us St Pete’s Dancing Marlin.

It was a little hole in the wall but really cool.  I was the only person there for awhile (the person I met is habitually 45 minutes late everywhere we go), but considering it was 4 on a Wednesday I figured all the respectable people were still at work.

Overrated.  I had things to do, I had to go Pete’s.

Lola’s. I saw someone eating Twinkies.

So I love coming here.  It’s dark and moody and you can never tell if it’s day or night outside.  I also like it because I think that this pic over the bar looks like Lil’ Kim.  My boyfriend and I fight over that every time we go.  He apparently does not.

The people who work there don’t particularly seem to care for us but for all I know they could just be completely ambivalent to everyone.  If I had a bar and someone wanted to buy something from me, I don’t care what it is you want, if you’re giving me money I can muster up some bullshit for you.  Even if you’re ordering something terrible.  Rum?  Fine, even you get a half smile.

I like the decor and I want to steal their lighting.  Oh, and I sat next to someone who ate two Twinkies.  First off, I didn’t realize America still sells Twinkies and, second, I was grossly fascinated.  Who can legitimately pull two Twinkies out of their purse (yes, a female) and proceed to eat them in a smoky bar?

Go do that shit in the closet like a respectable person.  Anyway,this place is great, it’s one of the few small, old school bars left in the area.  Kind of sad…

Ghost Bar is Closing. Where will all the douches go?

Ghost Bar in Dallas is closing.  Wah-wah.

I have only been once, paid $20 for my drink  and got hit on by truly the most desperate person I have met to date.  As I sat there silently hoping he would pay for my $20 beverage (he didn’t.  Surprised?  Nope.) I realized this place blows.

Honestly, how does something I can make for $1.15 cost $20?  I guess because idiots like me pay for it.  So, I had two.

People kept telling me I needed to go outside on the terrace, that the floor is made of glass and you can see all the way down 33 floors.  No thanks.  Nothing rips a panic attack straight through my body quite like standing outside the side of a skyscraper.

So where will Tony Romo go hang out now?   Here’s the answer- no one gives a shit.

The Dungeon. A Vampire Bar. Obviously.

It took me bit to decide to write about this since its quasi-fucked up and portrays me like an idiot.  I would say, ‘don’t judge’ but based on all the other material in this blog…blahblahblah.

I was in New Orleans this past week, seeing as my boyfriend has family there we try and go a couple times a year.  We had walked around the Quarter during the day, going in and out of shops, bars, etc.  We had walked by this bar called The Dungeon (dun-dun) and my boyfriend non-chalantly said it was a vampire bar that opened at midnight.  Well I un-non-chalantly pointed out that we don’t have many Fangtasias in Fort Worth and let’s please acknowledge that shit’s crazy.  I knew True Blood was real.

The next day we decide to have Sunday Funday so we woke up went to Dante’s Kitchen for brunch and started drinking.  One of my boyfriend’s insane friends (understatement) joined us and next thing you know everyone is drunk (understatement).

I state my intention that at midnight we are all going to The Dungeon.  At this point it’s 1:30 and we have been at it since 10am.  No one believed we (let alone me) would last til midnight to go hang out with vampires but I was determined.  Everyone had stories about this place but had actually never been.  Sex in public, people actually drinking blood, etc. So obviously my interested was peaked.  I was on vacation and ready to see some crazy shit.

It dwindled down to three (we left the guy my boyfriend’s little sister was hitting on at the bar because he was a total douche and I’m almost positive he was missing half his brain) and when midnight finally hit we set off for the French Quarter.  We went into the front door of The Dungeon only to find you have to walk down this extremely dark narrow path, which I swear was like half a mile, covered in trees (dear God New Orleans is fucking humid) down a stone alley way that takes you to the front of the bar.  We showed our IDs to get in and went into the darkest bar known to man.

My picture sucks but obviously the place was dark.  I mean all the vampires would have died otherwise.  In all honestly, I had been drinking for 14 hours and there was a sign on the wall that said no pictures.  But, vampires don’t show up in pictures so I don’t really know what their problem was.  Anyway I tried to be sly, almost fell out of my seat but I got his great pic.

 Everyone in there looked normal, especially the fat old dude in the corner but he bought all our drinks so he ended up being pretty cool,  but since I hadn’t seen a vampire before I wasn’t sure what to look out for.  I sure didn’t see any people having sex and I sure as fuck didn’t see Alexander Skarsgard.

I guess vampires don’t like Sunday Funday.  So I went back to the hotel, ordered a grilled cheese and passed out.

Pop’s Safari & Bath Tub Wine

Before I went to my previous post’s wine tasting, I stopped to have some wine first.

It had been awhile since I had been to Pop’s Safari.  Seeing as last time I was there I broke two wineglasses, I decided it would be good to put a little distance between the two of us for a bit.

Here is how I would describe Pop’s: hot and smelly. It’s a quaint little cigar bar where the average occupant is 67 and male and the wine is mediocre at best (one might make the comparison to bath tub wine, which I have had and can legitly make that comparison).   The room temperature is a cool 96 degrees and is thick with cigar smoke.   Don’t mind that fan next to the bison face (or whatever the fuck that is), it’s just blowing some blazing hot smoky air in your face.

It’s very hunter’s lodge-esque feeling with all the dead animals covering the walls.   I would rank my fun level right up there rivaling this zebra’s.  Speaking of fun times, it also rivals the hour wait in line at Trader Joe’s I had the other day.  My significant other and I left without finishing our wine which is something I usually refuse to do out of principle but seeing as it was cooler to stand outside in the sun we went with that route.

So if you are out on the prowl, looking for a 60+ gentleman, hit up Pop’s.  It’s hot as shit in there, so don’t wear your clothes.