On Thursday the 22nd, Cole and I went to Club Motor to see SST: Chronic Pain, to cheer on the handsome Cruz Bustamante, start up chants comprised nigh-entirely of expletives, fling PBR cans, and high-five an amount which some may deem excessive. Fortunately for us, we arrived before the doors even opened, and thus started our evening down the street at Hooverville, drinking Odin’s Beard or Thor’s Warhammer or something along those lines. We then bonded over our compulsion to crunch pretty much anything on the ground that looks like it might crunch satisfyingly, like a small pile of leaves, a peanut, or a hollowed-out crab on the beach–whatever looks crunchable.

On our way to Club Motor, we found this wonderful spectacle:

It’s your call: Are these ironic rims or deadly serious minivan business?

Inside, we started on PBR cans in the hopes to store up some to huck; little did we know that instead of flinging cans this evening, we were to be throwing balls, so we drank a lot of really shitty beer for very little reason. I played some Terminator on their arcade machine. Cole and I hung out in some random cage that was sitting out and talked, and every few minutes, one of us would fresh realize that we were having a serious conversation in a cage.

By the time the show was starting, we were both on our way to Happy Drunk Land. When they threw out all of the audience participation balls, I grabbed as many as I could and stuffed them down my shirt for safekeeping. Yes.

On our way to the restroom between acts, we realized that you could look right into the men’s room, and felt this was a photo opportunity that couldn’t be missed:

Not that our antics went unnoticed. Guys came out and said we’d need a much bigger zoom lens to see anything. A couple came out and started hitting on us. We brushed off this attention by having a dance-off with the door staff.

Then we watched some dude whose name I don’t remember wrestle the Holy Ghost.

Ronald McFondle never disappoints:

I started up a chant of ‘Sweaty Asscrack’ about Mr. Fitness, an accomplishment of which I am inordinately proud.

And then the inimitable Cruz Bustamante won the coveted Glass Bitch, a triumph after five years of fighting his way to the top, which I then promptly molested, and then followed him to the bathroom and took a picture of him peeing. I am nothing if not a moment-spoiler.

It was somewhere around this time that the people sitting at the table with us told us that we were ‘hilarious’ and ‘should have a podcast’, an idea which tickles both of our fancies. Why should I continue to deny the world anecdotes read in my ‘tampax commercial’ voice? Who wouldn’t want to hear stories about attempted emu-riding and a foot stench so powerful it once caused one of her parents to vomit in a car?

We went to discuss the idea further and also to get some food in our bellies at some diner that looked like a Denny’s but was not a Denny’s. Sadly, The Simpsons & Family Guy-themed BBQ place was not open.

Happily, the Dennys-But-Not-Dennys had a sign posted saying that if you ate there within two days of your birthday, your meal would be free, and it was within two days of my birthday, so chalk up one more meal on my free-birthday-goods-and-services-awesome-business punchcard. They were also awesome for giving us pictures to color when I slurred that I wanted one.

…it’s almost mesmerizing in a way, isn’t it?

Bright and early on the 17th (everything feels early on three hours’ sleep), Tristan showed up–I strapped him into his surgical gown, slapped on my goggles, and we were off to the Lunchbox Lab.

In front of us in line for the lab were a couple of people I recognized from previous Flying Lab Software events, so it is clearly fate that we continue to run into one another for lab-related activities. The wife mentioned that when I appeared across the street, a great chorus arose with “She’s here!” and that she felt a little sad and left out that she didn’t know who I was…but then she did.

Seattle is a small, small town. Very small.

If you’ve never been to the Lab, they offer a selection of burger ‘experiments’, or you can create your own from an extensive list of ingredients. They also do house blends of meats: ‘Churken’–chicken and turkey, ‘dork’–duck and pork, and ‘Super Beef’ (I have no idea, maybe a blend of Superman and Bossie). Some short-sighted Yelp reviews have faulted the Lab for putting too much bacon on their burgers. The next day, they supposedly had construction workers lined up outside the door before they opened, who asked “Is this the place that has too much bacon?”

Pfft. Too much bacon.

I got the ‘Dork Freshman’–a dork burger with basil, grilled onions, and goat cheese, with a side of the garlic caesar potato salad, and a vanilla honey chai milkshake. And lo, it was delicious.

None of the employees even remarked on our science gear. Clearly this dress-up thing has been done there before.

After lunch, it was time for people to trek down to Renton for booze experiments set to a science themed playlist. Or, according to Napoleon, to pay attention to him and him exclusively. A shark could bite off his back half and he would be furious that no one was giving him a laser pointer to feebly drag himself after, trailing blood and gore.

In this picture are only half of the infamous all-nighter cupcakes. I was thrilled to pieces so many people recognized the frosting design on top was a brain, I’ve never piped on a design before and frankly it was more difficult than anticipated. Jason also told me that I could come make pastries for him anytime I want because they were delicious and these are exactly the sort of compliments that keep me motivated when I ultimately get overwhelmed by my grandiose plans for the next party–it’s my established pattern.

There was an actual scientist among us but she showed great restraint in not mocking us for our lack of science knowledge.

I would also like to take a moment to let you know that dreams come true.

They really, really do.

When I finish drinking this vodka straight from the skull (like any true badass would do), I will fill it with skittles. And eat those straight from the skull. Like any badass would do.

Tonya also brought me a jackalope head for my wall, wearing a string of pearls. Truly, I have the greatest friends in the universe. Once I have stopped trying to gore the dog with the horns to teach him his place in the food chain and have hung it on its proper place on the wall, I will post a photo–you can’t really capture its majesty, but I’ll try.

We then settled in to watch the MST3K version of “Mad Monsters” which was so awful, not even sarcastic robots could save it, and “The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra” which I have seen going onto a thousand times and laugh every.single.time.

Of course, no evening would be complete without a breathalyzer test before the guests were on their way out.

Too much science? Hardly. Do you know what this could mean for science, Betty? It could mean real advances in the field of science, some of them good!