HAZAH!

This weekend was a weekend to remember, but knowing I probably wouldn't be able to, I took pictures to document the trip to the "Electric City". So here they are, the images and story of a truly electric weekend. (I apologize for the layout, but html is not my bag and this looked much different in creation and when previewed. )

We arrive in the EC around 8ish to find Javen's feisty feline, Simon, cowering under a chair. Apparently knowing what his poor home was in-store for this weekend. But Simon would not be able to escape Bill's grasp. The look of sheer terror on Simon's face says it all.

Bill

finishes up his double cheeseburger from the BK Lounge, careful to not drop any crumb

s on Javen's freshly vacuumed floor!

We are joined at Javen's by the one, the only "Electric City" Paul (to your left) and his special lady friend Becky! Oh yeah and also Dunford. My prediction: PAIN! We were off and runnin'. We had a few of Billyball's homemade brews and were ready to paint the Electric City red. First stop: BL's! BL's is a nice little watering hole with some damned fine wings and sometimes a dog. Not to eat, it just roams around the bar wagging it's tail and lookin for scraps. Much like Javen.

While at BL's we drink, laugh and be merry, but do receive a major "dang-it" as we find out that there are no chicken wings to be had!

You see BL's is going to be shutting down to retool and reformat, so they were all out of, both chicken wings and chicken tenders. We needed to press on. I saw the lightbulb over Javen's head shining bright. Since we weren't gonna be gettin any chicken wings, the BL's stop was gonna be a one and done, and by that I mean two pitchers, a Guinness for Becky and some Jalapeno chips and we were outta there and headed across the street to good 'ol Uncle Ben's Tavern.

Uncle Ben's was where our night would take a turn for the worst. And the best. It wasn't long before we met Gary. A "dude" to say the least. Gary had a sweetie Ballston Spa Country Club sweatshirt only outshined by his gloooooooorious pony tail. As ECP and I played a game of pool, he placed his dimes down signifying that he had next. ECP and I exchanged a look, as pool sharks, we were not. Card Sharks on the other hand? Anyways so I lose to ECP by scratching on the 8-ball. ECP would then lose to Gary, and Gary and I were set for an epic duel, or so I thought. Gary broke and to the disbelief of everyone he had made the 8-ball on the break! Now for those of you not familiar with 8-ball, this is a very, very rare occurrence and is more luck than anything else. But after this shot Gary raised his arms, tossed his cue to the table, and strutted away, the cock and the walk baby. He made it seem as if he planned it all along. I was dumbfounded. We would go again and I would win, even making one combination shot that had Gary giving me a dollar.

Look at me I'm an actor. AN AC-TOR for crying out loud!!

All that pool really takes it out of you. I needed some jerky. ECP, more of a Slim Jim man, buys one for he and his lady. Not one each, they would split it of course. That is if he can get the package open. Luckily UB's had some local nihilists that would let him borrow thier gardening shears. ECP and Becky would give us a delightful Lady and the Tramp reenactment. So would Bill and I, but no one got that picture!

Nine pieces of jerky and quite a few alcoholic beverages later, we head out looking for some grub and perhaps some grog. You see, the jerky was not quite as filling as one might think. ECP and Becky call it a night, leaving Billyball, Jables, Dunford and myself left on a mission for food. Jables leads us to the Grog Shoppe.

Word has it there is also a barber shoppe down this hallway. The great thing about the Grog Shoppe is it is a bar that still serves food at about 1 or 2 in the morning time. And I'm talking REAL food here! Burgers, and other things as well! Javen and Bill were intently thinking of the delicious yum-yum that was about to come. I ordered the bacon cheeseburger and let me tell you it was fannnnnnnnntastical! Javen also is full of glee after he has something in his belly.




We finished up our beverages and headed back to Javen's to snuggle, er, um do manly things like hunt and rassle. Friday night was in the books. We would fall asleep watching Ron Burgundy, cuz, well, he's the balls!

Saturday morning is not a welcome thing. I think this sums up the general feel of the room:

Paul comes over and he and Javen pal around, playing on the internets. Bill lies around all hot as I get set to eat a delicious three cheese tuna melt on some Dark German bread. If you want to know what the three cheeses were, you'll have to subscribe to Bitterness Insider.

We sit around the apartment long enough to catch the tip-off of the highly anticipated battle between the Belmont Bruins and the Lipscomb Bisons for the Atlantic Sun Championship.

After that, it's off to Bombers with Javen, Billy and TT for some MAAC Championship pregamin'.


Bombers is a quaint little Burrito Bar in a trendy section of Albany. That's right folks a BURRITO bar! Several types of what some might call, fancy, burritos and tacos on the menu, as well as several fine brews on tap. I ordered a BBQ Pulled Pork Burrito and a Magic Hat Fat Angel.

We all enjoy some delicious beverages, fine conversation, hearty laughs, and some excedrin as we wait for our food!

My burritto came and it was a sight to behold. I quickly had to formulate a plan of attack. I could feel it opening up, unfolding. This was going to get messy. This would take a balance of adept fork maneuvering, rewrapping of the tortilla shell and an utter disregard for making a mess. Bill had far less trouble with his tacos. From there it was on to meet up with Dunford and ECP at the Pepsi Arena for the Siena/ St.Peter's game. In a wild game, Siena lost by one point as it came right down to the buzzer. But Keydren "Kiki" Clark was too much for the Saints, scoring his 3000th point, of his career, not the game (only the 7th player in NCAA history to do so!).

From there it was on to Broadway Joe's. A bar in the Pepsi Arena where went to collect our thoughts and grab some refreshment in the form of $10 pitchers. Ummm, ummm drunker! Paul and Dunford decided they would head back up to the games, while Billy, TT, Javen and myself headed out to see what the Capitol City had to offer. And quickly found that what they had to offer was not great. We went to Jillian's for a quick bite and a couple of beers.

Now Jillian's is sort of chain bar with floors of "fun". We only explored one of them. The restaurant part. Bill made me quickly wonder what exactly was in this beer? We didn't stay long at Jillian's as it was overpriced and the service sucked ass!

We headed back to the Electric City for an EC bar crawl. We dropped TT off at the apartment and Bill, Jav and I were out and about. We would hit several bars in the area for some one and done action. We started off at the Van Dyck a nice little bar the has a lovely ornate fireplace and a large collection of fine brews. Bill needed some energy, so we hit the Night Sky Cafe for Billy to grab a coffee and Javen and I to grab another beer. The cafe was a quaint little place to collect one's thoughts. Well, Bill was reenergized and we were off. We the headed to the Union Inn. Now this was more of a college bar than us old fogies were into, but we stayed for a brew. After about 15 minutes, Javen managed to rassle us up some watered down beers. The best news though, was that we were met here by ECP, who would join us for the rest of this late night adventure. We were out of the Inn and headed to the Mulberry, where suprisingly they had no Busch? This bar appeared to be some sort of bodybuilder bar that might as well have been named the Sausage Factory if you get my drift. Clearly not our scene, we headed to mysterious hole in the wall bar, that Javen and ECP were a-itchin to get to. If only they had, had an idea of how to get there. It was all good though, as we got to see parts of the Electric City they don't show you in the brochures. Anyways we made it to Christy's Saloon, where ECP was happy to see they had Genny readily available for consumption, while Bill and I eyed the karaoke set-up. We drank Gennys and were treated to an abosolutley smashing rendition of Journey's "Faithfully". We did not envy who had to follow that performance. Of course, that was Bill and I singing Billy Joel's "Piano Man". We were not quite as good, but we did get a few scattered claps. A quick note here, the pictures from the saloon are all from the next day as my camera's battery was exhausted, we were not actually there until sunlight, not that we couldn't of been). Anyways we all headed back to javen's for some beer and Arrested Development, "Let the great exxx-pppperi-ment begin!" Saturday was done. Eight more bars in the book.

Sunday we awoke and prepared to watch some college hoops, but not without filling our tanks up with some breakfast foods. So we went to the Brandywine Diner, which has received the ECP stamp of approval. The chocolate milk was phenomenal, the cornbeef hash was the hashiest, the bacon was greasy (in a good way), and the ham and swiss omelet was fluffy and cheesy.

We headed back to Javen's and watched S-U lose to Villanova, then watched about 10 consecutive runs of the America East promotional ad as we eagerly awaited the UAlbany/ New Hampshire America East semifinal. Some of course were more pumped than others. (see pic. to the right) We took in a bit of the game before heading back to the 'Cuse, leaving ECP, Becky, Javen, TT, Simon, Dunford and the Electric City behind......for now.

This trip blog has been sponsored by Artisan Cheeses.