Having a reckless friend makes life that much funnier

While a lot has happened over the last week or so, I figured it would be more fun to only post two stories about my friend Sam Zuber this week. Sam is an amazing person, but two things he did set him apart from anyone I've ever met and show me why I love him. Even people who don't know him will fall in love based on these stories. Here goes.

Story 1: Friday night, we are at the bar on the roof of the Rivington Hotel at around 3 am. Bob and I are on the dance floor having a good time when we pull out the classic "ball game." For those who are unfamiliar with this phenomenon, the "ball game" involves pretending like you are holding a ball and rolling it around your body on the dance floor, "passing" it to your friend in absurd manners whenever you feel like you have exhausted your creative juices. It seems stupid, but it's a great way to communicate to a girl that you have a sense of humor without ever even saying a word. Whatever.

Bob and I were communicating well, and a random girl was succumbing to our initiatives to the point where it looked like Bob had a chance. Bob and I had some telepathy going and started a mini baseball game, and he threw me a fake ball, which i "hit." Sam, out of nowhere, jumps out of the crowd to try to catch it (note that he wasn't even involved in the game at this point). In doing so, he spills the girl's drink all over her and literally knocks her to the floor. We would've been mad, but I'm pretty sure his response was "hey, I caught it!"
Ridiculous.

Story 2: It's sunday night, and I'm sitting on the couch where I currently reside. Sam calls me. Here's how the phone call goes:

"Jared, did you watch the VMA's?"
"No Sam, why do you ask?"
" Ok, so here's what happened. They were doing best female video, and the nominees were Kelly Clarkson, Taylor Swift (lists the nominees, because they were clearly relevant for the story). And guess who won? Taylor Swift! So she's giving her speech, and then this RANDOM BLACK GUY runs on the stage and takes her mic from her!"
"What?"
"Yah! He just starts talking about how Beyonce should have won! It was crazy!"
"Wait, who was this guy?"
"I don't know, just some random black guy who must have been on drugs or something."


The fact that Kanye West is one of possibly the 15 most recognizable African Americans in the world of entertainment. Gotta love Sam.

Speaking of Kanye, at the Owl City concert last night (which was AMAZING. this song was sick and the opening DJ, Unicorn Kid, was awesome) Taylor Swift showed up--the pic is below. I convinced a 15 year old kid next to me to start a "Fuck Kanye" chant, which didn't exactly pick up, and actually was picked up in the blog I mentioned in this morning's post...don't ask how i found that. I'm just a wizard with internet crap.

Overall, having fun in NYC, applied for a great apt at 13th and 1st today with some good roommates, so hopefully it works out. Go Rockies!

The Best Part of Last Night

I realized that I didn't even document my favorite part of last night in my most recent blog. It deserves some attention, because it was amazing.

As I walked into the bar, I noticed that there were a lot of pretty women. Most were looking at whomever they were talking to...but one girl was staring right at me while talking to another guy. Was there something on my face? Did she know me? I was intrigued.

She proceeded to approach me, and, smiling, exclaimed "Oh my G-d! You're the guy from Cash Cab!!!"

I'm not the guy from Cash Cab. And I've never been on Cash Cab. But I like to lie. The rest of the convo went as follows:

Her: "Yah, you were on Cash Cab this afternoon!"
Me: "....Holy shit, you saw that?? How embarrassing..."
Her: "You were amazing! I can't believe I'm meeting you!"
Me: "I just wish I had done a little better"
Her: "What?? You made $1300!"
Me: "I know, but it could have been more."
Her: "Are you kidding? That was amazing. You were like 'trapeeeeeeeze!' Wow. I can't believe I'm meeting you" (then, walking away slowly) "trapeeeeeze! hahaha"

That was amazing. I'm a celebrity.

Playing Ping Pong with Adrian Grenier

Before I start, I thought I should mention that it is 4:00 am and I am blogging. That's called dedication...or I just have a feeling that I won't remember what happened tonight in the morning. Nevermind that last thought, let's just give the credit to dedication.

The night started at Bergson's, where none of us won the $330 Million Lottery...weird. I thought we had it in the bag. Either way, we ended up heading downtown to a bar that Carolyn had a friend at. Had no expectations until I approached the bar, and, looking to my right, realized I was standing next to the one and only Vinny Chase, Adrian Grenier. AND he was talking to Susan Sarandon. Crazy! I was tripping out. I admit, it would have been cooler if she had looked like a cool celebrity, but I will say that if I hadn't know she was Susan Sarandon I would have assumed she was a stoned hobo who wanted my spare change. Clean up your act Suze, you look like a female Richard Simmons. No Offense.

We played a bunch of Ping Pong next to Vinny/Adrian, who I offered the next game on our table to. He respectfully declined, though I have a feeling he never would have played me in the first place because he's just too damn famous to play ping pong against a paddled stud like me. Again, this is the 4am talking. I suck at ping pong, but he seemed to as well, it would have been a great match. Too Bad.

Left the place to meet friends from B-right, who decided as a group that we would get Artichoke Pizza. The line was wayyy out the door, so I thought I would pretend I was cool and see if I could sneak to the front. When I got there, Glassman was second in line, and he got us 4 slices. What a man. I seemed cool for having the speedy pizza hook up, and Glassman finally seemed like a gentleman for doing a good deed for us. What a man.


Great Friday night, hope the rest of the weekend stays as fun. Happy Saturday.

How the stars of Gossip Girl fucked me over...almost

Here's the story:
At about 2pm on Friday I decided I would go to Chicago (via Milwaukee) for the weekend. I knew Airtran had their X fares deal, which is pretty cheap, and there were plenty of seats available, so i thought, why not, what could go wrong?

I arrived at Laguardia with time to spare, only to find myself stuck for 4.5 hours when Hurrican Bill struck the facilities. I went to the concourse bar with a girl I met who was on her way to see a Packers game, and due to the flight delays, the bar was so packed that the bartender couldn't keep tabs on all the beer she was handing out. Free beer! Yay!

Got to Milwaukee late, then took the drive down to Chi and spent a great weekend with Annabelle, including some nice time with cupcake and phil, among others. Chicago is a nice place, I like it there. I described it to someone as "New York but with nice people and a comparable polarity in their baseball teams' success this season." By that I mean the Cubs are the Windy City's version of the Mets...which isn't a good thing for either city.

On the way back I got another standby ticket, and while waiting at the gate I heard my name over the loudspeaker (he obviously struggled with his decision on how to pronounce it, but ended up going with the rhyming "kline-stine" rather than the typical "kline steen." No judgement passed, the name pronunciation isn't even agreed upon within our family).

What was he going to say? Did I get on the flight? Russell (I looked at his name tag so I could man flirt my way onto the flight) ended up completely blueballing me, telling me there were no seats available. Come on Russ. He did mention that three people had checked in but not gone through the gate yet. So I still had a chance.

Next thing I know, a couple in sunglasses come running down towards the gate, apologizing for having thought the flight was delayed longer. Who was it? These people below:

Yah, two actors from Gossip Girl. If the cast of that fucking show had held me back from getting to NYC, I would have gone ape shit and made it a goal to take down the CW and any shows that even remind me of that God Forsaken NYC prep school culture (no offense Mishkin).

It turned out there wasn't a third cast member, and I got on the flight with them (though they got the "luxury" of airtran first class). Luckily, the airline knew that I had been involved in an already long travel experience, so they made sure Laguardia re-routed our direct flight to NYC through Pittsburgh for an hour long refueling and sightseeing stop out the window of my seat on the plane. Now I can say I've been to Pittsburgh and I had two 9 hour travel days in one weekend. Thanks AirTran!