Friday, May 14 through Sunday, May 16

I don't know whether or not to judge the past weekend as an utter failure or success. It's open for debate. Let me start at the beginning:

I worked a full and (mostly) productive day at work; although, it became a struggle around 3 p.m. Nevertheless, I pushed onward. After work, I headed up to Gay City to get my periodic STD testing. Yes, I'm responsible like that. I must say, the guy who screened me, Victor, was unbelievably attractive. It didn't help that he positioned my arm in such a way that I could easily grab his junk. No, Jon, no. Show some restraint. Okay.

Onto the next and final part of my day: my friend, Rich's, 25th birthday party. We all got drunk for about six and a half straight hours. During that time frame we played ping pong, smoked cigars, chatted, and eventually found ourselves smoking our hookah on the roof, stargazing, while two people played guitar and the ukulele. It was extremely peaceful and relaxing. As the night came to a close, our (RB2) band, The Shredders of Dignity, decided to play a few gigs. By this time, we were dead tired, and called it a night. However, there were some--Rich--who did not want to fall asleep just yet. "What was your favorite Goldeneye sleepover moment? 'Dude, I thought we agreed on no Oddjob...and pistols only.' 'I changed it when you went to the bathroom.'" We wanted to sleep, so Rich went and slept in his own bed, rather than the hardwood living room floor. Finally!

Now there are four of us: Rich, Kristin, Jessica and me. We woke up, smoked the hookah (for the millionth time already), and drove over to Mae's Cafe on Phinney for some delicious breakfast. I had the Denver omelet, while Jessica indulged on the smoked salmon and cream cheese omelet. I can't recall what Kristin and Rich ate. It was a sunny and beautiful day, so we opted to walk to the park to throw the Frisbee around and play hackeysack. For whatever reason, we thought it would be a great idea to do the Infinite Setlist 2 on Rock Band. Let me emphasize the fact that we never doubted our ability to beat this monster of a project.

For the next nine hours we played Rock Band. Yes, you read that correctly. Nine hours. There are 84 songs in the Endless Setlist. We completed 81 of them before we ran into the impossible: "Visions" by Abnormality. This horrendous piece of musical garbage slammed the brakes on our winning streak and forced us to face the fact that we could not complete the IS.

Dear Rock Band,
Fuck you!

Sincerely,
Rich, Kristin, Jessica and Jon

By this time it was nearly 2 a.m., if I recall correctly. Again, we went to bed, but this time we did it with shame and defeat in our hearts and minds. Jessica, however, drove home. I didn't have such luxury--I don't own a car. So, the next morning, Rich, Kristin and I drove to Krispy Kreme to grab a donut, and then we finally parted ways: they went to their kickball game and I caught the bus home. When I got home, which I had not been to since Friday evening, I took a long shower followed immedialy by a long nap. The end--sort of.

Here are some of the email exchanges the four of us had this morning:

From Jessica:
I’m still sad about what happened on Saturday. I don’t know if I will ever be the same. 81 songs. 81 freaking songs. Happy Monday!

From Kristin:
I’ve been borderline depressed….the last 3 songs are EXACTLY why we were going to choose medium…. I don’t even want to listen to the radio or any rock music at all.

From Rich:
I had a similar thought.... I feel like we should have taken a picture of 81 of 84 songs complete and posted on failblog or something. Overall the whole weekend was a giant success in my opinion.

From me:
Agreed. I hate Rock Band. I don't even want to see any of the instruments. Can you put them downstairs in the storage room? I might smash the drums if I come across them.