Update 25:

More fun at Junior High! I have absolutely no idea where that expression comes from, or why I use it but I do anyway without the foggiest as to it’s meaning.

I’m not a big fan of arguing or having any form of disagreement over a two-way radio. It’s not cool to get berated or berate when the rest of the crew can hear you. I didn’t want to argue with the guy that I got along with the best with everyone else listening in. So when I went to talk to the guy, three seconds in to me opening my mouth, I received the first sucker punch I’ve taken since grade 8. Anthony, buddy thanks for taking that one for me in Gastown a few years back.

It wasn’t a hit worth talking about, no cool scars or broken anythings. Just the actuality of the event is the coolest thing. The last paragraph I mentioned an incident in Gastown, downtown Vancouver. It was my birthday, a bunch of my friends and I were ripping pretty hard all night long at an Irish pub. It was a fun night really, until walking home. An awesome buddy of mine and I (and another guy, won’t mention names here…) were jumped by a bunch of guys. None of us can remember the details. We all remember the after effects. I’ll tell you the full story maybe, later.

Anyway, it was my first fight in which I didn’t even try to fight back. There wasn’t any point, there were probably 6 or so of them, and my buddy was already unconscious in a pool of blood, I was having a hard enough time taking the hits and stay standing (mostly due to it being my birthday). But still I didn’t fight back. The first time in my life! I was pretty proud of myself that night. Well at least until the next morning when I caught heaps of trouble for not taking my concussed friend to the hospital post beatings. Hey, sorry man, I wasn’t in any shape myself.

Well I haven’t been hit since then; I haven’t been in a fight since then. So when I took this last whack to the face I surprised myself by walking away. It made me wonder though. Am I getting too old to brawl? I never even saw it coming, so the answer must be that I just can’t react the way I used to. The Toby Keith country song “Not as good as I once was” seems to relate well to me now. Dammit!

Next item: Friday night roles into town with Saturday bringing nothing but a day off. When I start walking to the bar, I wonder what I would have done if I had known it would end up after hours in a bartenders backyard (that sounds wrong), drinking and smoking with a convicted sexual offender, South Africans and three random girls (wow, reading that again, that sounds terrible). I most probably would still have gone since the night rocked, in between the walk and the after hours party.

It was the second night this summer that I really enjoyed myself. It was awesome. A small town USA bar complete with football paraphernalia, beer girl posters, shuffle board and pool tables. Smoking is still allowed down here, so the bar reeks of beer and stale smoke. There is the typical old guy trying to drown his sorrows at the corner of the bar, uttering profanities indiscriminately. Just as typically, a few larger than life girls are hoping to snare something tonight, and we can’t forget the iconic coolest guy in high school that didn’t go anywhere but this bar on Friday and Saturday nights for the last decade.

And then there was the bartender. Rosanna. From the moment that she served me my first drink I knew that the night was going to be a memory. Rosanna had a Macbook just like mine, she played music from it that definitely was small town USA, hip-hop interspersed with folk and country, almost as eclectic as the mixes you’ll here coming out of my iPod. You know what the best part of being a crush of a cute bartender is? (aside from the obvious being the crush of a cute bartender) Lots and lots of free alcohol and a drinking partner that can keep up like a champion.