If you remember, Samantha and I had a horrible time at the Circus. We were really upset about it and to try and make it up we ordered the DVD from Ringling Bros. Then yesterday she came over and we made circus food (Nachos, French Fries and more junk) and sat down to watch the DVD.

Well the DVD is a lie! It’s 20 minutes of rough cut footage. The actual circus is 2 hours long! No where on the DVD case or online does it say that the DVD is so damn short. It was a total rip off. The people that are on the cover of the DVD are barely in it or not in it at all!

So last night I called the 24 Hour Costumer Service for Ringling Bros. online store. I told the woman that I wanted to return the DVD because it was so short and that the website was misleading about it. The woman told me that it was non-returnable because it was open and that it wasn’t her problem. She then gave me the snail-mail address for Ringling Bros. headquarters and told me to write to them ((oddly enough its based like 45 minutes away which I had no clue)).

I spent this morning writing a 2 page letter about our whole circus experience and I’m mailing it off this afternoon. Hopefully I’ll get our money back for the DVD and then maybe even like FREE VIP seats to make up for all the garbage they’ve put us through.

After all the events in the past few weeks, Samantha and I finally saw “300.” Both of us liked it, though she laughed at several points because cheesy/lame things were said.

It seemed to me, the two biggest changes from the comic to the movie were good ones. The Queen was added to the movie and her storyline fit with the overall plot. And then the King was far less stoic in the film and more badass. I know the movie was set in ancient Greece, but the King was soooooo an American Action Hero in the movie. He just would make snarky comments or every now and then would give off an ancient-Jake-Bauer vibe.

Other than the over the top cheesy moments the only other problem I had with the film was the underlining message. I read the comic back in January so maybe I’m remembering wrong, but the movie just felt 10 times more political. How many times in the film was it mentioned that the King and Queen were fighting for freemen and all that jazz? It just felt like the filmmakers were beating a dead horse and overfeeding the theme. By the end of the movie it was way more an allegory about America and freedom than I remember the book being.

As a birthday gift, Samantha got us tickets to see Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. So last night we hit up Baltimore and were excited for the “Circus of Dreams.” It started and we found out that there was an overall narrative to it. It seems a “family from the audience” is picked to be in the circus to have their dreams come true. The father became the ringmaster. The wife a trapeze artist. The daughter a slut …errr I mean dancer. And Dan, the son, was on a quest to find his place in the circus.

Well Samantha and I never found out where Dan fit into the circus. You see the event was the worse event her and I have ever attended. We were forced to leave our seats and demand our money back! (Read on …)

Samantha and I visited the Geppi Entertainment Museum and we were both thoroughly disappointed. The first problem with the museum is that its in downtown Baltimore, where the only real option for parking is in a garage where you can easily pay $10 to $20 for merely two hours.

The next step is finding the museum. I went to college (undergrad) just outside of Baltimore, so I�m familiar with both the city and Camden Yards. When I saw the photos on the internet of the building where the museum is I wasn�t worried. I knew exactly where it was, yet when I got there all the signs said �Sports Legends Museum.� I don’t mean just one sign, but like six or seven.

I was really confused and worried that the Geppi Museum had closed. Samantha and I ended up walking over to the Oriels-ticket box office and asked the guy there. He told us that the Geppi Museum was above the Sports Legends Museum and that we had to use the back door of the building and go up a flight of stairs to find it. (Read on …)

It�s my favorite time of year! For a limited amount of time, Samantha, Sarah, and I are all the same age: 24! Samantha�s bday was this past weekend and I have a butt load of pictures. I�m mostly posting these for her and some of her friends who bugged me for copies so if you don�t enjoy looking at really dumb drunk photos of Samantha don�t (Read on …)

I didn�t get to have a �snow day� with Sarah, something I�ve wanted for like FOREVER. I�ve been soooooooooo wanting snow that Sarah cut out the comic to the side months ago. So it really sucked when it snowed on Sunday and instead of getting to enjoy it, I had to ride back to Ocean City with Samantha to get my broken car.

Of course things weren�t that easy. We left her place (just north of Baltimore) at 3. We drove for 30 minutes and in that time we saw at least 20 accidents. The highway was insane and after passing a major accident, where we saw dead bodies, Samantha�s car started sliding all over the place. She got really nervous and we decided to turn around. It took us until 5 to get back to her place because we had to drive so slow in the snow and because everyone else was going slow.

But I�ve never seen so many accidents at once. It was literally a new accident about every 100 feet and roughly 50 total in the two hours we were on the road.

This is a massive photo-dump from our trip to Philadelphia. It�s really just so Samantha can get copies of some of the pics, but feel free to check them out (ps may take a while to load). (Read on …)

Going to Baltimore so I can finish up Samantha�s digital-portfolio that she�s using for grad school applications. Then we are going to Philadelphia so she can check out one of her schools. I�ll be back late late Wednesday so don�t expect blog updates till Thursday.

This is one of the many many reasons I love Samantha. The above picture was taken today on my cell phone while Sarah and I were at the Arboretum. I text-messaged it to Samantha with a message saying, �Hey! We R in freaking Rome! Sarah surprised me as an early bday gift. R U Up Yet? Call me Dude!!!�

I talked to Samantha a little bit later and she was shocked to find out we were in Rome. Though she was a little upset because next week her and I are finishing her portfolio and then going to Philly, and I told her I wouldn�t be back from Rome to do that.

Samantha totally believed me on all of it!!! Hahahahaha isn�t that great? Man I�m so lucky to have her as a friend!

When Sarah and I went to the zoo in December �05 we saw that they were building a new section called �The Asian Trail.� Ever since then I�ve been super excited to go see it! Well Samantha and I went on Thursday and we were thoroughly disappointed.

The first problem was that we didn�t see any animals! Yes I know its �January� but when we went it was almost 70 degrees out. Also, these animals are the kind that stay out doors year round. (Read on …)

   Samantha and I hit up the National Art Gallery today. This was our fifth time going in seven years. I was pretty bored. Even she was bored. But we had to go because she needed to look at ancient Chinese ceramics and I needed to look at a photography exhibit. Both of us were getting extra credit for classes we’re taking.
   But even though the gallery was boring, I had fun because I was with Samantha and I always have fun when I’m with her. We also got lunch and I had a cheeseburger with French fries, but you aren’t allowed to tell Sarah or I’ll get in trouble.
    A cool thing that came up today too was that we heard an ad on the radio saying that "Wicked" is comming to Baltimore and that tickets go on sale next Sunday. It’s a show her and I have tried to see twice in NYC, but it is always sold out. So we are really excited for getting tickets to see it.

    Uncle Tim and (Aunt) Laurie’s wedding was really nice. The ceremony was held at 5:30 at the Blue Ox in Ocean City and the reception was immediately afterwards.
     The ceremony was a family-only-event and was very simple. Actually it was awesome! We didn’t have to listen to a full mass or long boring stuff. We just got there, sat down, and BAM the wedding happened.  

(Read on …)

     Samantha is trying to go to grad school next fall for Art Therapy. As a result she has to take the GREs and is freaking out about it. She needs to take the test by the end of September and can try it again in October.

    Since I just took the GREs myself, to get into AU, and since I’m a pure genius when my maturity level doesn’t get in the way, she came over today and I tutored her on math.

    We basically did a full day review that covered basic arithmetic, all of algebra, and geometry. I also gave her some tips on how to handle the math section of the GREs.

   She’s going to do some math practice work on her own and then we are going to meet again in a week so I can help her out more.

   So that’s why I was busy today and there were hardly any post. TRUST ME, it took all day! But it was a huge help to her and that’s all that matters.

   When we were done I cooked us dinner and we settled down and watched a movie with Sarah before she headed back to Baltimore.

    Note: I’ll post about the first week of my classes and AU stuff tomorrow.

This cartoon… which I dont’ remember where I found it, reminded me of Samantha.

    OH my god. Samantha drives me absolutely crazy. There is literally no other person alive that drives me as insane as she does. The only solace I get from it is knowing that I make her feel the exact same way.

    Her and I hit up the Maryland State Fair. I don’t know why. We just always do dorky things. I think I’m her only friend she can be “dorky” around so she always makes me do extra dorky things with her.

     We had fun at the fair, we’ve been before, but I was surprised at how much smaller it is from the Delaware State Fair. I think it’s about 30 or 40 percent of the DE fair.

    There wasn’t anything too exciting, but being the manly man that I am, I won her a prize. I played a dart game, popped three balloons and won her a stuffed pug dog. She decided to name it “Bud” since she was drinking Bud Light at the time.

     For the rest of the day and night, I kept Bud in my pocket. We didn’t get many stares when we were at the fair, but later when we went shopping and out to dinner, everyone gave us weird looks.

    It was just really cool to hangout with her ‘cause when we aren’t arguing like a divorced couple I have more fun with her than I do with anyone else.

    I’m also really excited cause it looks like she’s coming here to visit next weekend. I mean her place in Baltimore is only a 40 minute drive so its not like she’s far away or anything, but it looks like she’ll come next Friday and stay for the weekend.

    Other Samantha stuff coming up: She really wants to go with me to the Baltimore Comic-Con since I have press passes. I think she’s hoping to be the only girl there so that she can pickout any guy she wants. I tried explaining that there probably wouldn’t be anyone that would interest her but she doesn’t listen to me. Then in two weeks she’s being my date to Uncle Tim’s wedding so that should be fun too!

    I think both of these objects would make great gifts for Samantha. The first is a brainteaser that you can put on a bottle of wine. It locks in the cork so that it can’t be opened until you solve the puzzle. The puzzle also fits onto soda bottles and anything that has an elongated neck, but its just not as funny as having it on alcohol. I can just imagine someone already drunk trying to figure out how to open one of these things. Man it would be f*ing hilarious. The puzzles sell for $38 bucks.

    The next gift for Samantha is a watch, that doesn’t just tell time. Instead of having to count how many times she says “I love you” to figure out how drunk she is you can make her use her handy new watch, which has a built in breathalyzer. Of course the problem with a gift like this is drunk people think its funny and most likely would use it to compete and see who can get the higher blood alcohol level. The watch sells for $100.

This is just a photo-dump that Samantha and Jo have been bugging me about. (Read on …)

I finished up fixing the last of the coding problems on the website last night at 1:53a.m. I was just about to put up an away message on AIM when out of the blue Samantha gets on and IMs me. It took me all of a few seconds to realize she was a tad intoxicated. I won’t post the whole convo (which lasted until 3 a.m.) but I thought it would be funny to pull a few quotes out of context.

Samantha (2:05:00 AM): i dont drunk dial
Samantha (2:05:08 AM): i drunk text

Samantha (2:10:25 AM): now u just want me to say ill make out wiht u
Scott (2:10:32 AM): oh u wish
Scott (2:10:44 AM): We could never do that. you’d end up getting your heart broken

((Silly was the word of the night))
Samantha (2:11:36 AM): ur silly
Samantha (2:13:07 AM): u are silly
Samantha (2:14:08 AM): i am always silly
Samantha (2:23:54 AM): thats silly
Samantha (2:27:07 AM): u silly
Samantha (2:32:19 AM): Silly boY
Samantha (2:46:22 AM): ur are sillys
Samantha (2:49:03 AM): silllly dude

 On Saturday night Samantha and I went “out out” after getting back from the concert and fair. She really wanted to hangout with her friend Itimar, who we went to high school with. I’ve never been a big fan of him but he and I get along.
     So we are supposed to meet Itimar and his friends at Fishtales. We are almost there and get a call saying they are at Seacretes. We go there and we wait outside for 30 minutes. We get another call and they say they are at Mackey’s. We go there and they are there but after ten minutes they leave!
I was severely annoyed at this point and so Samantha and I just stayed at Mackey’s and Christine met us there to hangout. We were there for an hour before the bar closed down.
      Afterwards Samantha called Itimar and we met up with him and his friends at some weird house in West Ocean City.
     Oh I mean WEIRD.
     The house was being leased by the owner of Marlin Moon Restaurant and living there were four girls and four guys from Mexico.
     We get there and everyone living in the house is asleep but Gary the owner of Marlin Moon is there. He had ordered like six pizzas and went to his restaurant and got five pounds of jumbo steamed shrimp. When we got there he was in the process of cooking them.
     So as we all enter the house we start making noise. All the Mexicans start to wake up and at first they are cranky. I mean how would you feel if all these strangers were all of a sudden in your place in the middle of the night?
      But Garry offered them free food and free beers and literally they were yelling out “Fiesta!”
     It was at this point that I started having major flashbacks to my Phillips Crab House days. During one summer I lived in employee housing and people would party there nonstop. At times it was way too much for me to handle.
     I had a friend named Brittany who worked there and she’s big into other languages and different cultures so she made friends with all the Mexicans that worked at Phillips and when housing was supercrazy we often would leave and go over to the Mexicans to hangout with them.
     So this past weekend I had MAJOR flashbacks. It was actually a lot of fun. I learned some salsa dancing and other cultural things.
Probably the funniest think of the night was realizing words with double meanings don’t always make sense in other languages.
     For example, Gary was talking about how he got a tattoo on his arm. He said the reason he got it was because tatooes are really popular right now, specifically tribal or Asian ones. He went on to explain that he was born in the Year of the Cock on the Chinese calendar and pulled up his sleeve to reveal a giant penis drawn with permanent marker.
      The Mexicans all thought it was funny but they didn’t understand that “Cock” means rooster as well as the male body part. Itimar and his friends spent a good thirty minutes trying to explain it but no one understood.
      The funny part was watching the miscommunication. It didn’t help that the Americans were drunk and the Mexicans were getting drunk. But sitting back and watching as an observer it was just too damn funny.
[Gary learning to Salsa dance]

[The violinist, drummer, and bass player of Yellowcard]
      Awwwwwwww man. Seeing these guys at the Delware State Fair was just awesome!
      They had played at Tigerfest in Towson back in April, but Samantha got stuck working and couldn’t come to the show. Plus I was with Canadian Christine and she honestly had never even heard punk music before. So it was so much fun to go with Samantha.
      We got to the stage and it was weird because they had seats set up. I’ve never ever gone to a punk concert and seen seats. We sat down and it was extremely crowded. My knees were touching the chair in front of us.

 The odd thing about the concert is that I felt so damn old. The majority of people there were not only teens but YOUNG teens. For example there were a group of seven girls that sat behind us and the youngest was 12 and the oldest was 15! I find it shocking that parents would let girls that young go to a concert alone.
     They were also the most annoying girls I’ve ever met in my life. They talked in this weird mix of valley-girl-slang/punk-emo. They also screamed for no reason constantly as loud as they could which defined Samantha and myself.
     The opening act at the concert was The Ataries. I have two of their CDs and I was excited to see them. So was Samantha… but we both HATED them!

The lead singer is going bald and has this hideous come-over. It was so pathetic looking. On top of that he came off as a total dick when he was talking between songs. What made it even worse was that out of the 50 minutes they played they only played one song that Samantha and I knew!
     While they played there were maybe 20 people in the whole crowd who were standing up. Everyone else stayed seated.
     When Yellowcard came on stage EVERYONE stood up. The best part of that is kids flocked to the front of the stage and the audience was almost empty so Samantha and I had a perfect view where we were. Plus with everyone gone from the chairs we were able to move chairs forward and have more room.
     Yellowcard kicked ass. It was one of the best concerts I have ever been to. Not only did they play my favorites out of all their songs, but we knew every song they played. Plus the lead singer comes off as a nice guy and is funny.
     My favorite out of everyone in the band is the violinst. Yes that’s right. The punk band has a musician that plays violin! The guy is just so animated and the concept of “rocking out” on a violin is so funny that he deserves mad props for being able to do so.
[These are the youngest lesbians I’ve ever seen]

[killing an icecream cone from the buffet]
    Samantha and I headed up to the Delaware Fair this past weekend. We were went to go see Yellowcard who was performing, but we got there a good four hours early so we could enjoy the fair.
    It was really weird. Her and I have gone to the MD-state fair several times but this was so much different. It was like 10 times bigger!
    The first interesting thing is that when we got to the fair we found out you have to pay $6 to get in. We had tickets for the concert but that didn’t cover the cost of entering the fair. But you literally had to enter the fair to get to where the concert was held.
     So this woman explained it to us and I pulled out the “I’m a reporter” line. I flashed her my camera and went to pull out my non-existent press pass. She just smiled and said “oh ok. You can go in.” So that was cool that Samantha and I got into the fair for free.
     The first thing we had to do was find Samantha a toilet because she realyyyyyyyyyyyy had to pee. We walked halfway across the fairgrounds when we finally found a bathroom.
     She went to use it while I snooped around a TV-Station remote location setup. The interesting fact about this is Stacy Sakia was there! She’s an anchor for WMDT. I always see her when I watch “Lost” and “Grey’s Antimony” because during commercial breaks she does the “Tonight at 11….” Speech.
     The interesting thing about her is that Sarah and I are baffled by her. We can’t tell if she’s white, black, Hispanic, Asian, or what! I mean one day she’s got a fro and is totally black looking. The next she looks like the whitest white girl I’ve ever seen. Then the next day she look Hawaiian!

     So I found it very interesting to see her in person. I realllyyyy wanted to ask what she was but by that point Samantha had finished peeing and flat out told me I wasn’t allowed to ask something like that.
     After leaving that building we walked around the fair grounds and made our way to the animals. It was kinda gross to be honest. There weren’t any baby animals! It was big fat stinky ones!

    From there we sort of started walking toward where the rides were but somehow ended up entering Midway Slots. It was sooooooo strange in there! It was like a mini-mini-mini-Atlantic City, but it was ONLY slot machines! The other interesting thing is that I swear to god there wasn’t one person (other than us) under the age of 50.
     Being the Wildman that I am I talked Samantha into gambling. We sat down and since I pretend to be her sugar daddy I gave her a one dollar bill and we spent the whole thing on a 2 cent slot machine.
      It actually took us about 10 minutes to spend a dollar each on the 2 cent slots. So it was kinda cool, but I honestly couldn’t spend more than that. I just have a problem with gambling. I don’t like it. The idea of just giving away money when you don’t know for sure if you’ll get anything from it… the concept just seriously bugs me and I can’t do it.
      At this point Samantha was getting hungry. I know what your thinking… “Samantha, craving food? NEVER!” hahahahahahaha. She got super excited because she say a sign saying that International Buffet at Midway Slots was only $5.99. She convinced me that we should eat there because it would be 100 times cheaper than buying like a pretzel and soda outside at the fair.
      We get in line and are surrounded by old people with canes and walkers when Samantha realize that the buffet is only $5.99 between the hours of 11p.m. and 2a.m. The real cost was $12.99. Well even so she talked me into doing it and we did.
  Our waitress was real nice, the food was uhhhhh interesting and after we ate it was time to go to the concert.  
[it looks like a statue but it is a real person]

Wooo Hooo! Samantha was home last weekend and it was awesome!
The craziest part of the whole thing… ok one of the craziest parts is that she actually got me to go to the beach. I never ever ever go to the beach.
My problems is that I don’t like to be sandy. I don’t like to be hot and I hate tourist. So normally the beach and I just don’t click. I’ve not been in 2 or 3 years. I don’t even own a bathing suit.
However she gave me that Samantha smile and said she really wanted to go and I couldn’t tell her “no.”
We were only on the beach for an hour and a half so it wasn’t too bad. The problem I did have is that when at the beach I LOVE to swim. I can literally get in the water and stay there all day until I leave. But Samantha said the water was too cold and she really didn’t want to get into it for more than like 15 minutes.
So after an hour and half of being on the beach without getting in the water she started to get hungry and suggested we go back to her house, get food, and then swim in her mom’s pool.

 
[wicked sunburn samantha got only on her knee]
Now I wasn’t sure how it would go once we got swimming but we had a BLAST in her mom’s pool. First we spent like 20 minutes fishing out these scary ass beetles and spiders.
Then we played SilentMarcoPolo!
Oh my god we had so much fun doing something so stupid and simple like that. The way the game works is that it’s just like “Marco Polo” only instead of calling out and listening to where someone responds you do it without saying anything.
It sounds hard but it really isn’t. You just need to not only listen for when the other person makes any sort of splash but also for water moving.
We played the game for almost an hour and at one point Samantha’s stepdad came home and he got a kick out of watching us play.
Normally what happened is that we would play and lets say I was it with my eyes closed. Well I’d be feeling around the pool trying to find her and it turns out she’s literally right next to me, but I have no idea. Only because I’m so close and can’t find her she ends up bursting out laughing.
So between the beach and the pool we had a fun time.