round two

Man, this rain can suck it. I can handle global warming. But this global drenching crap? It's for the birds.

It's June 26th for crying out loud. How about a little sun, New York? Leave the depressing gray skies to the experts...like Glasgow.

Anyway, we gave the Hamptons one more try last weekend (the Hamptons are on the way out to Montauk, the scene of the Great Escape), with a work friend of Crissy's, and his girlfriend.

Ooh, mister and missus fancy pants, jetting out to the Hamptons to sip sea breezes and rub elbows with the Kennedy's, eh? Not exactly.

The only thing that makes the Hamptons fancy, aside from the billion dollar houses, are all the Prada and John Varvatos-type stores that line the main drag. Otherwise, it's just like any little sleepy getaway town in Wisconsin or Michigan or whatever. And thankfully it remained gray and cloudy pretty much the whole time we were there, lest we get any funny ideas about having a good time.

Actually, that's not true. The sucko weather aside, we really did have a good time. Crissy prepared an outstanding Mexican feast, to accompany the 500 shots of tequila being served up by Mike, our host, while Franny tried to eat a small lapdog named Gracie for 8 straight hours. I woke up the next morning to a screaming headache with the sickly, pounding throb of a German techno beat.

Oh, and about those pictures. That's a little something we spotted on the way to dinner last night. What you're looking at is a massive load of horseshit. And his name is Dick Cheney.

that's just great

You slave away at your job.

You worry worry worry.

You bust your hump to make a name for yourself.

And who gets their picture in the New York Times?

That's right.

The dog.

She better remember to thank us at the Oscars.

oh, by the way...

we won the pitch.

hooray.

er, maybe not

When I was 20, I loved me a good frat party. Crissy too. The lukewarm keg beer, the public vomiting, the fight!fight!fight! What wasn’t to love?

Now? I’m not so into it. Especially when it’s happening all around you in your $300/night hotel room in Montauk.

Crissy, Fran, and I had been planning to head out to Montauk over Memorial Day weekend, but the Great Suck of ’09 (the pitch) forced me to cancel, so we rescheduled for this past weekend.

About an hour into the 4-hour trip, we pulled off the highway for a bite. While we were eating outside, a scabby, neck-tattooed couple approached us to say hello to Franny. As they reached out their open-sored hands to pet her, Crissy and I blushed at Fran's growl, which said what we were all thinking. "Hey meth heads. Beat it. We're trying to eat here."

We arrived at the hotel a few hours later, only to discover that they were hosting a Nylon Magazine party from 3pm-9pm. 22-year old pretend rich kids (Crissy tells me these people are called faux-cialites) poured through the front doors of the hotel, which was as soundproof as a cereal box.

Suddenly the entire place exploded with queeny gay guys wearing sunglasses indoors, startlingly anorexic girls shout-speaking with armfuls of ice-filled pint glasses, and people screaming conversations across hallways from open doors.

First we tried changing rooms. Which, in terms of annoyingness, was like going from firetruck sirens to firecrackers in a garbage can. When we couldn't take it one second longer, I went down to ask them to move us to their hotel's alternate location.

At first, the woman behind the counter was surprised. "The party only goes til 9," she said. "Yeah, I know. It's 3:30 right now." Puke, puke, glassbreak, puke. "Let me see if we have anything available."

We headed over to the other hotel, grabbed our key from the front desk, and poked our head into the room. The first thing we noticed was an unplugged tv on the floor, and a table in the fireplace. Crissy coined a new adjective, noting that it felt "a little serial killery."

We took a nap, awoke to what sounded like a herd of woolly mammoths stomping through the room above us, and took a peek outside. The temperature had dropped twenty degrees, covering the entire area with a thick, gray fog. Just then, the woolly mammoths began bashing their way down the wooden staircase directly in front of our window, cigarettes dangling off their lips. "Jesus. Look at these f*&#ing fatasses," I groaned as I twirled our miniblinds shut.

"Who said that?" one of them said to the other, stopping in front of our window. The insulation was so bad the window might as well have been open. "Did they just call us fatasses?" I hit the floor and army crawled to the middle of the room.

The missus and I weighed our options.

We could stay here, where the restaurants aren't as dog friendly as we'd hoped, it's 55 degrees, we might get mauled by a herd of pissed off wooly mammoths, if we don't get Dahmered in this hotel room first.

Or we could drive the 4 hours back to Manhattan right now.

So we bailed. What the hell. We got back to Tribeca around 10:15, dumped the Zipcar, flopped onto our couch, and enjoyed our non-serial killery surroundings.

much better

Well, it's finally over. Sorry if that last post was anticlimactic, but I was literally in the middle of writing it when they said go home. It was a glorious moment.

So here I am, sitting on my ass, taking the week off, relaxing, and basking in Facebook love on my birthday.

Man, it's good to have my life back.

DAY 32

Here we are, the night before the pitch. The lead team is in Seattle, doing a final run through of the show, and we're expected to be on stand by in case there's an emergency. Like a sentence ending in a preposition. Or a logo is too small.

Problem is, just for one last little turn of the thumbscrews, they didn't start the rehearsal until 9:30, Seattle time. Which means we're expected to sit on our asses until they're completely finished, which should happen sometime around never.

It's 2 a.m. right now....somehow I don't think I'm gonna make it much longer.

WELL WELL WELL. My project manager just informed me that we are DONE!

DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE DONE

PEACE OUT MOTHERF%$#&*S!!!

And Now a Word From Our Sponsor

Please pardon the interruption from Kevin's Wild n' Wacky Advertising Pitch Madness Special for something a little more, uhhh, heartwarming.

Since K was forced to continue his tour of duty at The Sweatshop last weekend, Fran and I had a chat and decided to get out of dodge to visit the Cirel’s up in Boston. Since it was a last minute trip as well as a holiday weekend, it was a little tough figuring out how we were going to get there. But if you know anything about Fran you know that when she has her mind set on something she will find a way to do it. She called all over town and couldn’t find a car rental for under $500. Then she looked into Amtrak but found out dogs can’t travel on that train (and she’s thinking about suing for discrimination since we happen to know an attorney or four). Then we both asked around (she at school and me at work) and I finally found us a ride from our gracious friend Mike and his lovely girlfriend, Evelyn.

The Mulroy family (minus Dad, sadly) departed Friday night from NYC. We had to take a cab to Grand Central Station, then a suburban Metro North train (the only train line that dogs are allowed on, luckily) to Westport, CT to meet Mike and Evelyn who were picking us up at the station. From there we snaked through Memorial Day Weekend traffic to Providence, RI, where Adam, Bekka and Moo were waiting patiently for us. We hopped in their car around 11pm, happy to be on the last 40-minute leg of the trip.

As soon as we arrived we took the girls for a quick tinkle break and leg stretch before heading inside to bed. We went to a nearby park and let them off their leashes and they immediately started going at it. Crying and snarling and hurt feelings ensued. Little did we know at the time, but it was the first of many fights we were going to break up that weekend.

The rest of the weekend was spent catering to the pups and channeling Cesar Millan. And I proudly watched on as my little gal bravely tried so many new things. Twice she jumped right in the nearby reservoir and swam like the doggie version of Michael Phelps (ok maybe that’s a slight exaggeration). She conquered her fear of riding in cars and learned to embrace the wind rushing at her face through rolled down windows. She frantically dug holes in delicious dirt and green grass and rolled around and got dirrrrrty. And after keeping her on a strict puppy diet for the past three months, I realized that we were on vacation and that Adam’s kielbasa maple syrup sausages were perfectly suitable for dinner. And finally, she got to sleep in the bed with me and oh my gosh I think I created a monster.

And when Monday rolled around, the girls kissed and made up and we could not physically tear them apart. They were wresting and kissing and play fighting and it was the best thing I’ve seen in quite some time. Thank you, thank you, thank you for a fabulous weekend, gals.

And now back to your regularly scheduled programming.