Shuffle Off To Buffalo

Thursday the 24th
------------------
So I left work after that massive update I wrote below (coincidentally this is about to be another one of those), to lug my duffle bag and backpack 10 blocks to the trainstation.
Lugging bags through Hollywood gets you a lot of strange looks. Everyone was probably thinking, "That poor washed up actor/musician probably packed his bags and is going back home."

I got to the airport exactly 2 hours early, as suggested, only to go through security in less than 10 minutes.
I hate waiting in airports. Is there a LOGICAL reason that EVERY seat has to be seperated with an arm rest? I mean, I can understand if SOME of them do, but SOMEONE has to be privvy to the fact that people like to lay down if it's not crowded! Why can't the utilize the same technology that is on the fucking planes and make armrests that possess the power to be in both the down AND up position?
So I read "Lord of the Flies," until it was time to board, which made me wonder what character I'd be if our plane crashed in the middle of nowhere and some of us survived (I settled on probably being the mystery parachuter corpse that everyone thinks is a Beast).
As I boarded the plane I wandered down the aisle to where my seat was, happily knowing that I book ONLY window seats so that when I'm ready to fall asleep I can prop my head between the seat and the window and be lulled to sleep by the gentle whir of the jet engines.
Window seat is SO much better than aisle seat people.
When I got to where my seat was (it was in a row of 3) there was a 20-something-year-old couple occupying the other two seats, the girl holding a very tiny, very young looking human baby.
The girl/mother looked up to me and asked if my seat was the window seat, "Yup!," I replied. "Do you mind if I take it? I'm still nursing." I gritted my teeth and smiled, "Oh yeah, that's fine."
GRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrr.
Would it have been inappropriate to inform her about Orbitz.com? Where you can book your OWN tickets and choose your OWN seating!?!
So I sat down in the aisle seat trying to convince myself that saying no to her would only result in hundreds of years of bad karma, when I noticed that the air conditioning on the plane was getting pretty cold. Unfortunetly I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts, and forget to get a hoodie out of my checked bag. Fortunetly there was a blanket on my new aisle seat in which to wrap myself with.
Until the mother chirped, "Do you plan on using that blanket?," giving me the bambi eyed look. "No, no, here ya' go."
It's ok Derek. It's ok. She doesn't KNOW she's being a complete pain in the ass. And eating her baby wouldn't solve anything, she'd just have another one.
So as the airplane stewardess walked by I politely asked for a blanket, "Oh I'm sorry sir, this is a booked flight and everyone seems to be using their blankets. I'll let you know if I can find one."
Don't eat the baby Derek. It'll only make you full for the bbq.

On the bright side, the girl that was nursing whipped her boob out like twice and hour.

Go ahead. Tell me to stop starring. I gave you my seat and blanket BIATCH!!!


Friday the 25th
------------------
Hours later, after enduring the baby screaming for hours, cold air conditioning and having to eat a Sausage McMuffin (first time I had McDonalds in YEARS, but it was the only place open in the airport that had food...it was NOT worth it and I will NEVER stoop that low again. I swear it made me feel like a million people beat me with baseball bats.) at the Detroit layover, I was on my final flight to Buffalo.
We crashed onto the fucking runway.
This was by NO MEANS a fucking landing. We just fell the fuck out of the sky and slammed onto the runway and coincidentally Pilot McFuckHead had the landing gear down.
I fucking bruised the side of my head when it slammed against the plane window when we landed.
It was grew and drizzling out to boot.
Welcome back to FUCKING Buffalo. 'waves hands in the air'

I called OP as our plane was "parking" to make sure he was still comming to pick me up. All was going according to plan. 'taps finger tips together'

So I got off the plane and walked a straight line through the airport I knew only too well. It was already hitting me pretty hard that I was back in the place I once called home.
I won't lie. It felt like someone was stepping on my chest.
Last time I had been in this airport I was in the process of saying goodbye to friends and family, and about to start my new/scary life on the west coast with the girl I loved.
I use ambiguous phrases like "hit me hard" and "like someone stepping on my chest," because I'm not sure if I was happy or sad. If I missed it and wanted to be back, or missed it for what it was and glad I left while it was still fun.
The life I had left behind in NY was pretty amazing. Yet the new one I've begun in L.A. has been pretty amazing as well.
I tried to keep in mind that things weren't how I left them. Many people have left Buffalo since, and the few that remained just seemed to be biding their time until they could leave as well.

While the flood of emotions was sweeping over me I was simaltaneously glancing around the airport in search of a familiar face. More than likely one of a traveling former co-worker, seeing as to how travel intensive my last job was.
Suddenly I was snapped out of my zombie-like emotional state when a pair of hands grabbed my shoulders from behind.
Wondering which one of my friends would have the ambition to come to the airport to surprise me, I finally gave up after a couple seconds and turned around.
Mom?
Dad?
To say I was surprised would be a gross understatement.
Apparently my father had a client he needed to meet with in Buffalo, and had asked to put it off until the weekend that I was going to be there.
I shit you not, the Derek doesn't show a wide range of emotion, but this one was of those moments where I was so happy I wanted to explode. Of course, translated into physical Derek form that is equivalent to smiling and hugging my parents for a very long time.
It's hard to show/look happy when you are equally amount SHOCKED, so I made sure to verbally assure my parents I was extremely happy to see them, just surprised. Hence the, what felt like, weird look on my face.
This trip was destine to be amazing.

After much hugging and kissing my parents kept insisting that they didn't want to intrude on my plans, and to go about as I usually would be.
Ha. Was that an attempt of parent psychology, did they seriously think that their visit was to be overshadowed by my plans to buy tons of meat and beer for the next day?
I felt bad calling OP to tell him not to bother picking me up, but I think he understood given the circumstance that had araised.

First on my list of things-to-do was to have my parents drive me down the street to the place of my former job. I stopped in and said hi to everyone that was there, had nice long conversations about how my life has been, how their life has been, et cetera et cetera.
It was nice to see all of those guys again, as well as reminiscent to be back in the building of my first "real" job, but after sizing up the place and comparing it to the situation I'm in now, I couldn't be happier with the decisions I've made.

Next stop was a delicious lunch at My Tomato Pie. Man, if there's one thing Buffalo is good for, and basically it is the only one...it's the food!
Then it was on to the hotel my parents were staying at. First off, the not-confusing stuff. My parents brought an antique "view-master" that belonged to my great aunt, along with tons of the wheels of 3D pictures that go in it (you probably had one of these when you were a kid, but this one is at least 50 years old). They also gave me an antique Polaroid camera that belonged to my grandfather. It's super-sweet, and I plan on displaying it in my room along-side my other grandfathers projector. Next time I see them I expect to be getting a ton of other memorabilia from my father's father :) (I LOVE family heirlooms in case you haven't noticed)
Ok, so here's the part where things get kind of confusing.
Originally my sister was supposed to come to the BBQ on Saturday (Notice BBQ is in all caps. This is for two reasons. 1) Because it is THE BBQ and B) BBQ is a word I rank higher than God, and if God is going to be capitalized then I'll be damned if BBQ isn't). But my sister, being as she is, is always up to no-good-nicks and planned on showing up Friday night to surprise me. My parents were aware of this, but given the situation that they surprised me first the new goal was to surprise Danielle. Therefore they had to clue me in as to what was going on, so Danielle's surprise was sacrificed for the even greater surprise.
The whole time Justin, Danielle's boyfriend, was the ONLY person that knew my parents where going to be surprising me.
Quick re-cap
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DEREK: no idea of any surprises. just wants to BBQ.
DANIELLE: plans on surprising derek night before BBQ.
PARENTS: plan on surprising both derek and danielle by being in buffalo.
JUSTIN: aware that both danielle and parents are determined to surprise derek, even though derek shows little-to-no physical response to surprises.
RON: contacted by danielle to make sure i'd be with him so she could find and surprise me
-------------
So my parents got Justin to give Danielle a half-baked story about having to stop at this hotel to grab something from a client his mom has, which would lead Danielle into the hotel, and consequently into our trap.
To further complicate this problem, Danielle had plans on buying me pizza from an amazing pizza place in Buffalo, but because her and Justin would be arriving around 9 p.m. it would be key to just order the pizza ahead of her so that we would all still have time to hang out and relax. So my parents did just that.
In the mean-time I was incapacitated on the couch while my body was trying to process the evil out of the McDonalds I had eaten earlier (this is around 6 p.m.).
Around 8 p.m. I woke up, prepared to surprise Danielle. But first I had to call Ron, OP and Marnie to explain to them why I couldn't hang out until much later that night. Ron was "confused" and kept asking if I was going to be at his house later that night, after explaining to him the above scenario he admitted he was in on Danielle's side, since at this point all surprising was to be aimed at her.
Around 9 p.m. there was a knock on the door, my mom opened it but stayed behind it, out of view, as my dad and I hid in the bedroom. I heard Justin say, "Uh...hello?" and Danielle make some comment about "Why did the door just open?," when we all leapt out at her and yelled "SURPRISE!"
I've never seen someone stand still with their mouth and eyes that wide for so long. It must have taken her at LEAST 5 seconds to register what was going on...and registering doesn't appear to go any faster if you open all the holes on your face as wide as they can go.
Don't fuck with my family when it comes to surprising and playing pranks. We all have some genetic function in us that compells us to get the last laugh at any cost. My mom being the most relentless.
Less than a minute later, while Danielle was still recovering from the shock, the pizza guy came. Boy did he step into an awkward situation of hugging, laughing and minor tearing of the eyes.
Again, Danielle was surprised that we had already ordered pizza in advance, fully convinced our plan was going to go off without a hitch.
We proceeded to eat pizza, drink beer and talk about the amazingly complicated the first few hours of my visit to Buffalo had gotten.

Around 12:30 my parents were ready to get some sleep, so Justin and Danielle drove me over to Marnie's so I could hug her and say hi real quick, then they dropped me off at Ron's and went back to sleep at my parent's hotel.

Ron and I then executed operation M.E.A.T.
We drove to Wegmans and parked in the FURTHEST space from the store, which was marked with a sign that read "RESERVED PARKING: for healthier people" followed by some subtext saying how walking a little extra each day is good for you, and how this sign was brought to us by Univera, a prominent NY health insurance comany.
We grabbed a cart and literally filled it with meat and beer. It was weird, the store was completely out of hamburger buns and dinosaur bbq sauce. Considering the size of this store, and the shelves that hold those items, it definately felt like someone out there was having a bbq of the same magnitude. Perhaps...a bizzaro BBQ....where the meat grills you.
Unfortunetly by the time we selected all of the meats we desired it was already 3 a.m. and the store was no longer legally allowed to sell us the four 28-bottle cases of beer we had decided to start off with.
But the great BBQ god in the sky smiled upon us. For the former "Man Spatula" hailed at all previous Ron and Derek BBQ's was recently grilled to death (ironically), and in search of a new replacement we discovered, un-believably, and even MANLIER "Man Spatula" replacement. Now built with more serated edges, scooping blades and bottle openers!
I was so impressed with it's design that I bought an extra one to take back to L.A. with me.

Two flights and 9 states later, almost 48 hours since I had last slept for a significant amount of time (which seemed somewhat symbolic of the BBQ-to-come), Ron and I returned to his domain. RETURNED with tenderloin steaks, pork loins, hot AND mild sausages, hot dogs, and mounds of ground beef.
I was deteremined to season and portion the 30+ lbs. of ground beef before the 48-Hour BBQ was to commence, in preparation of the hamburgers in which I've dedicated much of my BBQ-ing life to perfect.
This resulted in me being awake an extra two hours, from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m., playing with mounds of meat, until I was finally able to get a couple hours of sleep.

SIDE NOTE:
I have no idea how I was able to keep up with everything considering I hardly slept the night of Wednesday the 23rd since I was packing to leave, worked all day the 24th, didn't sleep on the flight, didn't sleep the next night when we bought all the meat for the party, and continued to not sleep much during the 48-Hour BBQ. Basically I didn't get more than 6 straight hours of sleep until Monday the 28th...making that roughly 5 days with little-to-no sleep.


Saturday & Sunday the 26th and 27th
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The events of the 48-Hour BBQ are going to be written in a seperate post that should be up in a day or so.


Monday the 28th
------------------
It was established during the 48-Hour BBQ that I will be going to NYC for New Years. I just wanted to make that clear.

Now that it is post-"THE BBQ", the rest of the time spent in Buffalo is purely to bond with old friends.
Monday evening of which was spent watching Season 1 of "Firefly" with Marnie. Marnie, aside from being a raging Jew, is my Buffy-buddy. Seeing as to how that show has been off-air for quite some time, it is only natural that we move forward to the next great Josh Whedon t.v. show!
I miss spending lots of time with Marnie watching good movies/shows (let us not forget the "Twin Peaks" marathon), so it was nice to be able to do that. I also miss NOT dancing with Marnie at clubs.
I look forward to her L.A. visit in December :)

I also spoke to Tristan briefly on the phone, that was neat. I was hoping to be able to visit him and Steve, and the rest of those guys in Cazenovia. Alas, it couldn't be done. I'll probably go visit them all in Philly sometime soon. I like that city.

The rest of the night was spent watching "Mirror Mask" with Carrie. I use the term "watch" loosely, because I think we both fell asleep about half-way through.
I like spending time with Carrie. She's neat :)

"Mirror Mask" is now also one of my new favorite movies (visually more than anything). You should check it out, it's a Jim Henson one (ala Dark Crystal...and Kermit the Frog...) so you can kind of see where that is going. Here's the official site:
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/mirrormask/main.html


Tuesday the 29th
------------------
Spent the day catching up on some sleep, and reading. Then around 5 o'clock-ish Pat came by (who just got married to Court!!!! WOOOOO!!! Congrats Courtney cause I know you're reading this ;) ) and we played some Katamari Damacy for a little bit.
Everyone I show that game to gets instantly hooked, a few days later Pat asked which one he should buy. The whimsy of the game is like crack people. Like CRACK.

Eventually we went over to his and Court's pad and hung out for a little bit. Marnie came over, yay Marnie!
Then we went to Duffs and met up with Ron and Carrie for dinner.
And by dinner I mean carnivorous mess involving meat, hot sauce and buckets of bones. Duff's has the best buffalo wings in Buffalo. Let's do some math:

Best Place In World For Wings = BPIWFW
Buffalo = (B)
Duffs = (D)

The statement "(B) = BPIWFW" is true.
The statement "(D) = BPIWFW" is true.

-(B) = BPIWFW - (D)
-(B) + (D) = BPIWFW
(D) = BPIWFW + (B)
(D) = BPIWFW + BPIWFW

Therefore Duff's is the ULTIMATE best place in the world for wings. Don't argue. It's mathematical logic. And it's right.

Afterwards Ron and I met up with OP, Nick, Dave, "Princess" and company.
-----------------------
SIDE NOTE:
"Princess" is another guy named Derek who used to go to Nick's house for BPT (Beer Pong Tuesday). We decided, after a couple nights, that there can only be ONE Derek at a party and therefore the dispute must be settled via a game of beer pong. The winner of the game walks away with his name and dignity in-tact. The loser....'dramatic pause'....shall be dubbed "Princess" for the rest of eternity.
-----------------------

It was totally awesome to see all those guys again, plus drinks were like $1.50 or some shit. Man, I miss how cheap it was to drink in Buffalo.
We had many a great discussions of life, politics, punish-fucking dave's sister, and how much my life would have sucked if I lost that epic beer pong game.
We also laughed and cheered as a girl tried to pull out of a parrallel parking spot with a 12-point turn. We gave her a standing novation.
I want to emphasize how much I miss those guys. Especially Nick and his vile sense of humor. Nick promised if I bagged a "cougar" (such as the one at work...or perhaps a certain MILF) he would come visit me.

'video game DING sound effect' !!!NEW GOAL AQUIRED!!!

Ron and I spent the rest of the night BBQ-ing steak tenderloins, it was kinda sad. I miss that guy so much :(

Wednesday the 30th
-----------------------
Wednesday afternoon Ron drove me to the airport. Time to go back to the land of consistant sun and attractive butts.
And expensive beer.

The flight back wasn't too eventful. Not nearly as weird as the flight to Buffalo. I read the rest of "Lord of the Flies" along with "The Complete Collection of The Brothers Grimm." The later of which was excellent. And totally made me even more pissed at Disney than I already was. They rip SO much shit off! Which, I was aware of, but it renewed the hate.
Then I watched "Prison Break" and "The Aristrocrats" on my PSP. You should check out "The Aristocrats" if you have 2 hours to completely waste. It's not that great, but it's a TON of popular comedians telling the same joke...kinda interested.
And Sarah Silverman is hot.

Actually, there was one weird little event. When everyone was settling in on the plane to get some sleep, and the stewardess turned off the cabin lights, the flourescent light above me stayed on. Out of the WHOLE goddamn plane, the SINGLE bulb above me stayed on.
The woman sitting behind me finally got fed up with it (I didn't care, I was reading anyways) and complained a shit load. Like, not just mentioned "What is wrong with that light?," but completely went off on the stewardess.
I was just sitting there minding my own business trying not to tell the woman behind me what an insensitive bitch she was being,
(Seriously. Did she want a stewardess to try and fix the light? Like they're suppsoed to be fucking electrical engineers too? Yeah that's a good idea lady. Let's have a complete fucking amateur fuck around with the electrical system on the plane.)
(FUCK HEAd.)
and the stewardess came over and handed me a rolled up piece of paper. I looked at her with a confused look and she pointed at the light above me. I shrugged and told her I didn't mind, but she said to just take it.
It was an "In-flight Amenity Coupon." I think she gave one to the belligerent lady too. What does it get me? Glad you asked. I can get
-500 Bonus Miles
-An AirPORT meal up to $10
-1 In-flight snack
or
-1 In-flight beverage

I think I'm going to opt for the $10 meal...the other ones seem like kind of a rip.

Anyways...got home at around 1:30 a.m. and crashed.


Thursday the 31st
-----------------------
Work sucked, there was a ton of shit everywhere since no one was around to do my job for me.
That night I unpacked and then went to Don's place to BBQ. I brought the Man Spatula. Chris showed up (another ex-intern at Moviola) it was cool to see him. I wish that kid would find more work though, he's so much smarter than everyone else his age in his field but I think his shyness is putting him at a disadvantage. Especially in a town like HOLLYWOOD.
So yeah, basically just hung around talking, drinking and BBQ-ing for the 6th night in a row.


Friday the 1st
-----------------------
Friday was a mess at work. A complete fucking shit-fest. Monique way over-booked on equipment going out, there was a shit-ton comming in, and I was completely overwhelmed.
At least it made the day go fast?
Actually, there was one girl that came in to prep a VariCam package who I met before. Her ex-boyfriend's name is Derek, so she always remembers mine. I always forget hers.
I'm actually currently talking to Ron right now (as I type this) about how when you meet girls in your line of work it makes them more attractive. This girl is a perfect example. She wasn't particularly attractive, but certainly not un-attractive. Yet after spending the majority of the day with her I was totally into her by the end. She was just REALLY pleasant to be around- very polite, older than me so the maturity level was easy jive with, and after talking about camera specs all day I was like...she's awesome.
You probably get the idea by now eh?

I spent the rest of the night trying to be alone. I really just wanted to chill out and not be bothered. It was pretty successful. I also got the chance to watch the Prison Break I missed earlier in the week.


Saturday the 2nd
-----------------------
Spent the day downloading MP3ZZZZZZzzzzzzzz, catching up on Xbox Live! content I had missed out on. I totally missed on getting the Texas Hold'em for free (you had to download it within the 48 hours it was released).

Later on I went over to Don's to play Risk....THE RIGHT WAY! With whiskey, classical music, hats with feathers, cigars and monicals.
Ok, maybe not all of the above, but MOST of it!
I think the Risk thing is going to become a weekly event, it's a pretty tight game, and easy to drink too (Speaking of which, I'm starting Poker Night Tuesday from here on out). I dominated Australia, but it was going anywhere, I was destine to lose at the GAME OF WORLD DOMINATION.
I had to cut out early for a date I had with Dave (ex-intern Dave). His friends were having a Halo 2 party. Who could resist!
They all seemed pretty cool. There was a german guy there that reminded me of a German exchange student I was friends with in high school. Clemens. He was a great guy.
I bonded over StarCraft with a few of the guys, and talked about modding systems and the likes. Nothing like g33kin' it out on a Saturday night :)

Got home, ate grapes and played Uno on Live! with Kate, watched some "24" and went to sleep.

Now it's 1:33 p.m. and I spent most of this Sunday morning writing this goddamn blog update. So fucking love it like it's your own.

Later shitface ;)

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"Shuffle Off to Buffalo"
-42nd St. Soundtrack

I'll (You'll) go home and get my panties,
You (I'll) go home and get your scanties,
And away we'll go.
Mm mm mm...
Off we're gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off to Buffalo.

To Niag'ra in a sleeper,
There's no honeymoon that's cheaper,
And the train goes slow.
Ooh ooh ooh!
Off, we're gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off to Buffalo.

Someday, the stork may pay a visit
And leave a little souvenir.
Just a little cute "what is it,"
But we'll discuss that later, dear.

For a little silver quarter,
We can have the pull man porter
Turn the lights down low.
Ooh!
Off we're gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off to Buffalo.

You'll go home and get your purses,
I'll go get my niece and nurses,
And away we'll go.
Mm mm mm...
Off we're gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off to Buffalo.

To Niag'ra in a sleeper,
There's no honeymoon that's cheaper,
And the train goes slow.
Ooh ooh ooh!
Off, we're gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off to Buffalo.

Someday, the stork may pay a visit
And leave a little souvenir.
Just a little cute "what is it,"
But we'll discuss that later, dear.

For a little silver quarter,
We can have the pull man porter
Turn the lights down low.
Ooh!
Off we're gonna shuffle,
Shuffle off to Buffalo.

Matrimony is baloney
She'll be wanting alimony
In a year of so
Still they go and shuffle
Shuffle Off to Buffalo
When she knows as much as we know
She'll be on her way to Reno
While he still has dough
She'll give him the Shuffle
When they're back from Buffalo