Item #24 - Join the 9-9-9 Club

"Because it's there" -George Mallory, when asked why he wanted to climb Mt Everest

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Why attempt the 9-9-9 Club? Because it exists . . . and because I like baseball . . . and because I like beer . . . . and because I apparently have a taste for large quantities of pig lips and assholes. 

What exactly is the 9-9-9 Club? Well, it's having 9 beers and 9 hot dogs over the coarse of 9 innings. You can have them at any time of the game, you just have to get all 18 down by the final out. Technically, it would probably be done at an actual ballpark. But I live in Boston, which I believe has the 2nd most expensive ticket in baseball after the Yankees. Add in $5 dogs and $8 beers, and we're talking about a $150 day. No thanks. 

So, Walter graciously decided to host the 9-9-9 home game (though not participate), as we grilled outside and watched the Sox take on the Yankees. Ryan decided to be the Big Papi to my Manny, as we attempted the Club in tandem. Below, the unedited and sometimes misspelled semi-live blog:

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1:15 - First pitch.

 

1:22 – 3 dogs down already for both me and Ryan. We figured it was best to sprint out of the gate with the dogs. We’re starting with turkey dogs, mainly because we don’t want to die from a sodium induced heart attack by the 9th. Their each 70 calories, and with 110 calorie buns, we’re talking about 1620 calories total . . . at least for the dogs. Add in 9 more delicious Keystone Lights, and we’ll be about 2500 calories deep for the game. Really, not as bad as I thought when we agreed to do it 

1:26 – Ivan Nova pitching in the bottom of the 1st for the Yankees. I think that’s a good thing. The Yankees-Sox games are usually a nice and robust 4 hours long. Hopefully some shitty pitching will extend that out even more. However, that also means extra time with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Dealing with those 2 may be worse than the 9 hot dogs.

1:29 – Buck and McCarver have their first round of “who can suck off Jeter more”

1:39 – Ken Rosenthal doing the sideline reporting. He’s wearing a bow tie. It’s awesome.

1:50 – Starting beer #3. Already feeling a little full. Not good.  That’s really what we’re fighting here. 9 beers in 3-4 hours really isn’t that much of a problem. We’ve done the Century Club multiple times before, which is about 8 beers in an hour and 45. And I’ve done Crazy 40 Hands a bunch of times, finishing 80 ounces of beer/malt liquor in around 90 minutes. So the alcohol shouldn’t be the problem (though considering I’m 31 and still occasionally doing the Century Club or Crazy 40 Hands, maybe it is the “problem”).  An inning and a half done.

2:06 – Its perfect weather. We’re at Walter’s house watching the game outside and grilling, just like in college. Perfectly clear day . . . and the moon is out. Not sure if that’s good or bad.

  

2:25 – Start of the 4th inning. 1 beer and 1 dog ahead of 1-per-inning pace. And frankly, the game is a little head of pace too. Just over an hour for 3 innings. That’s a little slow for a typical baseball game, but WAY too fast for a normal Sox-Yankees game. Damn pitchers duels. I want a slugfest!

2:33 – Just discussed the difference between Christiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi having sex. I think Messi would be a much more caring lover, while Ronaldo would probably last 2 minutes and only think of himself. He’d finish, and then put his hands in the air, tell himself how great he was, and leave the girl unsatisfied.  A – I’m not gay. B – The beers have slowly started to have an effect.

2:47 – Still the top of the 4th. Bucholtz just got yanked. Things are starting to slow down as I hit the halfway point. 5 dogs down, 4 and a half beers down. This is good. And Ryan just dribbled some beer on himself. Another good sign.

3:13 – “he’s dark skinned. I don’t know what flavor” – Matt on some guy named Xerxes

3:13 – “I wonder what the poor people are doing” –Walter\

3:14 – Granderson with a 2 run shot. I miss him. That’s a quality Tiger. Also, I have no idea who’s pitching for the Sox.

3:27 – Bottom 5. 6 beers down. 6 dogs down. Full, but not feeling like death yet. Though I do still want to punch Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.

3:31 – just had a bite or 2 of mac n cheese. Feeling cocky. I think the last 2 innings have taken about an hour and a half. Classic Yankees and Sox. This is going to be easy money from here on out. I think. Kind of wish we had a second TV outside here so we could watch the Masters.

3:45 – “of course I’ve seen his dong” –Me, talking about the Favre pictures

4:00 – Top of the 7th. 7 beers down. 7 dogs down. 3 hours gone. If I’m doing this during an NL pitchers duel, I’m screwed. I could have probably done all 9 of reach in a typical 3 hour AL game . .  .. but I wouldn’t be happy.

4:02 – “I don’t smoke enough. I really don’t” – Walter

4:10 – Just had a 5 minute discussion on Exit Through the Gift Shop about whether the whole thing a big mind fuck my Banksy or not. Way more philosophical discussion than I expected 7 beers deep into this. And I’m typing way too well. I expected a ton of gibberish by now. Either I need to drink more today, or I need to drink less on the whole and decrease my tolerance. Sigh.

4:16 – Wakefield’s in! I used to play MLB 2K all the time in college. I loved playing with knuckle ball pitchers. They’re a bitch to play against in computer games. If I ever have a kid, I think I need to teach him to throw a knuckle ball (if I knew how to throw one). Collect a MLB paycheck for like 25 years. That’s gold, Jerry!

4:23 – Seeeeeeeeeeet Caroliiiiiiiine. Bah! Bah! Bah! . . . . . . .. . . To quote Rachel Phelps from Major League – “I hate this fucking song!”. God damn pink hats. Seriously. I’m not even from Boston and I’m annoyed as shit with the majority of Boston fans. I actually wish the Sox would start sucking again and go back to .500 so I can get some goddamn tickets to the goddamn Tigers game when they’re here. Not that I’m bitter or anything. Bottom 8. 1 dog and half a beer to go. Hooray.

4:42 – “Victory tastes like a Girl Scout cookie?” -Angela
“No, like a girl scout” –Ryan
“That’s not right” –Walter

Aaaaaaand done. Wow. So full. Semi-drunk. But not feeling like death.

 

4:44 – Aaaaaand game over. JUST finished the last dog under the wire. Still counting down the seconds till the potential heart attack. If this were at a normal timed game, again, we’d be screwed. A Nice 3 hour and 35 minute long Sox-Yankees game. Long enough that I could have 9 beers and not type like a moron (I think?).

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Well, that was fun. . . . kind of. A nice drunken time, but filling as all hell. And today, the day after, my stomach and intestines, ummmm, regretted my decisions of yesterday. It was another beautiful 60 degree in Boston, and yet I didn't get out of the house until 4:00 when I had to make a run to Walgreens. Old. Tired. Lazy. Lethargic. Oh well. I'm in the Club*

*Yeah, the home game might be a little bit of a loophole, but cheating is ingrained in baseball. Corked bats, spitballs, steroids, and in the case of the crafty Eddie Harris, Vagosil, which will get you another 2-3 inches on your curveball. So let's just say this was done in the spirit of the game.

Item #23 - Do Hot Yoga

Last year I ran in the Reach the Beach relay for the first time. It's a 200+ mile team race that starts in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and finishes at Hampton Beach. Over the course of about 24 hours, your team winds its way through the hilly rural roads of New Hampshire down to the ocean. 12 people typically make up a team, with each person taking 3 different legs of the journey. At all times, someone on your team is running - weather, time of day and potential-for-Deliverance-like-backwoods-encounters be damned.

 Ready to run 5 hilly miles through the darkness while watching my behind

On our team of 12, I only knew 3 of my teammates beforehand. And of course, those 3 teammates ended up in team cargo van #1, while I ended up in van #2. Typically the vans only connect every 6 hours or so for about 15 minutes at a time, so I spent the majority of the next 27 hours that it would take our team to finish with 5 total strangers.

I spent about 2 of those 27 hours running, with 30 minutes or so of that running hills that don't exist in the Boston area. And all of the time spent running was spent without headphones, as they're not allowed on the course for safety reasons. This was the first time since high school soccer tryouts that I'd run without them, as I was stuck listening to the thoughts in my head. "How much farther . . . fuck I'm tired . . . . when does this goddamn hill end?!?"

I spent a whole 2 hours of those 27 hours sleeping on the back bench of a cargo van (and 5 minutes figuring out how to climb over the 4 benches in front of me full of sleeping teammates to go piss in the middle of the night). I don't think I ate anything that could actually be classified as a "meal", as all food ended up in "snack" form (bananas, Cliff bars, cheese and crackers, etc). Any bathroom break was spent in the cozy confines of a port-o-potty. And of course, any time spent in the van was spent with 5 other people who would go showerless despite running anywhere from 13-20 miles over the course of 3 legs.

Basically, there is nothing on paper about this relay race that should be fun. Stuck in a cargo van with smelly strangers for 27 hours with almost no sleep and no decent food while running hills in the middle of the night that make your fight back tears. Nothing fun at all.

But it was. It was more than fun. It was fucking awesome.See those people below? Those are 12 happy people that just ran 200+ miles as a team. Those are 12 people that immediately committed to run the same race in 2011 because they had so much fun together. Those 12 people drove an hour back to Boston, showered, and then met back up at the bar to get drunk and close it down at 2am, despite getting almost no sleep for the last day and a half,

So the idea of doing hot yoga with Katie and Sarah from work was kind of like running Reach the Beach. Take something I enjoy doing and tweak the atmosphere so that it's a more arduous experience. Expect to bitch a lot during it. Expect to finish it and then look forward to the next time. If it doesn't kill me, it'll only make me stronger.

The man in the picture below just finished 90 minutes of hot yoga.  This man. . . . is not a happy man.

This man is holding 2 drenched shirts that he used to constantly mop up sweat for 90 minutes (this man stupidity forgot to bring a towel). This man is wearing a t-shirt, shorts and boxer briefs that are as wet as they would be had the man just walked out of a pool. This man had to stop multiple times during the 90 minutes to rest in order to not pass out, despite guzzling down 40 ounces of water in an attempt to survive the absurd heat and humidity (probably 100+ degrees and 50% humidity). When asked by Katie and Sarah if he would do hot yoga again with them, this man said "ummmm . . . . we'll see."

Now 2 days later, and my answer is still probably an "ummmm . . . we'll see." It was brutal. And it's amazing how many different types of "in-shape" people can be. I could probably go out today and play 90 minutes of soccer in 90 degree heat, and I'd be fine. When I'm moving, and when I'm thinking about the competition, I'm not thinking about my stamina. Even during the lonely runs of Reach the Beach, I still was able to fall back on the "gotta keep moving for the team" mantra. Hot yoga was just me against my ability to avoid passing out. Get into a pose and stay there, as you watch sweat drip from your shirt at a rate of about a drop per second. I've already done yoga on my list, but this was a completely different beast, worthy of its own itemization. Yoga was me vs. my pseudo-ADD. Hot yoga was me vs. the need for an EMS.

Anyway, like the half-marathon I ran last year, I'm glad I did it. It pushed me to my limits . . . but I'm not sure I need to reach those limits again. A case of what doesn't kill me only makes me a disgruntled, exhausted sweaty mess.

And that navy blue shirt I'm wearing in the post-hot-yoga picture above? If you zoom into that little yellow logo, you'll ironically see the following:

• Thanks to Katie and Sarah for taking me along. Though it may be the same type of begrudging thanks I gave Danielle for Item #10

Item #22 - Try New Foods (Round 2)

"You do not like them, so you say. Try them! Try them! And you may. Try them and you may I say."  Sam-I-Am
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About a year and a half ago, my friend Katie was throwing a surprise birthday dinner for her husband Doug. Doug apparently has a taste for Himilayan food, whatever that may be, so Katie held the dinner at Annapuna in Cambridge. You can check out the menu here. It is . . . not Alan-friendly. None-the-less, I showed up, hoping to concoct some kind of Alan-friendly substitution-laden plate. I think I ordered some type of fairly generic beef dish.  Beef, sauce, maybe some peppers or onions.  For sides, the menu gave us the option of either rice of french fries, and not surprisingly, I ordered the fries.

A few minutes later, the waitress came out and said that the menu was old. They no longer had fries, and I was stuck with the rice. Fine. I'll survive (I think). So the meals came out, and I had my beef, as I mixed it in with the rice. And it was acceptable.

And it was also the first time in my life I had rice. A staple for 2 billion people. And I was 29 years old.

If there was a single story to explain why simply trying 6 more foods with my freakishly "discerning" palette qualifies as a new list item, I think that's the one. 

Food #1 - Falafel

This is one I'm actually surprised I hadn't tried yet. It's apparently deep fried. It's been shilled for by my man crush Tom Brady.

And there's a place in Central Square called Falafel Palace, that I've drunkenly passed 100 times, that's stolen it's architectural design from my favorite fast food place, White Castle. The laws of drunken food probability state that I should have at least eaten there once by now instead of Hi-Fi Pizza (to be fair, it does have the highest fidelity pizza you can get).

Alas, I haven't had it. So when it was offered to me at lunch post-snowshoeing, I accepted. And

 3 Blech's out of 5. Not horrible, but not something I don't need to eat again. Overrated. Most of your opinions are wrong. 

#2 - Roast Lamb

I've been to Olga's 100 times, and I've probably gotten the chicken roll-up and burger-like roll-up 98 of those times. Never an Original Olga, and I've never had a gyro. Basically, I don't think I've ever had lamb (again, just tried rice less than 2 years ago). So while in Barcelona, at fancy-pants Casa De Comida, the roast lamb was probably my best option available.

A mere 1 Blech out of 5. Fairly benign. Actually tasted like a burger, just in an odd form and texture. Not clamoring for more, but not against having more.  However it does get props for basically being meat on a stick (though as my ole pal Ted says, there really should be more meats in cones). 

#3 - Tuna Steak

This is actually one I've been wanting to try for awhile. I've been told it's basically like a regular steak, but since I was never going to risk a $30 meal on something I might immediately spit out like a 2 year old, a tapas restaurant in Barcelona was the perfect chance to give it a try.

1 Blech out of 5, and the only reason for the Blech was that it was fairly dry. It was cooked all the way through, but the rest of the crew said it's better when it's just seared. So I guess this one also gets an Incomplete until I see some pink (yes, I'm still talking about food). 

#4 - Foie-gras

Now it's time to get exotic. At the same tapas meal as the tuna steak, I learned that this is duck or goose liver.

AFLAC Duck does not approve

And thus, this was probably the food I've tried to far with the biggest mental hurdle. Not just a new animal, but a new body part (though I guess I should say this is the first time I've tried liver by itself, as I'm sure hot dogs have liver, intestines, lips, anuses etc).

2 Blechs out of 5. I think I may be grading a curve though as the foie-gras was covered in caramelized onions, which ended up being the dominant taste. So that helped . . . along with the fact that we had been drinking sangria and wine along the Mediterranean for the majority of the afternoon.

#5 - Alligator

My buddy Ryan has a Mardis Gras party every year, and every year, he goes balls out. Embracing his Louisiana roots, he flies in some real Cajun food for the extravaganza, and last year that included alligator. It was deep fried, and basically looked like popcorn chicken. But Ryan tried to be cute, and as he went around offering it to everyone, he told me it was indeed popcorn chicken, from southern icon Chick-fil-a. I . . . . was not amused by his ruse. And thus Ryan learned that I have no problem not trying something purely out of spite.

This year, Ryan learned his lesson, and when he made his rounds, he offered up the truth, and I obliged.

And it was pretty darn close to actually tasting like popcorn chicken, though it gets the one Blech because it just had a little . . . funk to it? I don't know. Maybe like popcorn chicken that was left out overnight? Though I did have it without ketchup, which is really a sin in the Book of Alan (hmmm, does deep fried falafel go with ketchup?) 

#6 - Thai

Yes, I am getting real specific here and just listing "Thai". I think I may have had it before, but I'm pretty sure it was the aforementioned meat-on-stick, in both chicken and beef varieties (and it done was so out of necessity. My work gets a catered lunch once a month, and one month they lost their minds, and decided to get a thai buffet. So what was I to do - go out and PAY for lunch? Crazy talk).

And while I can't find the menu online for the place Jill, Alycia and I went to, I do know this was probably a little more authentic than meats-on-stick.Some type of ground chicken. Peppers. Onions. Tomatoes. Basil. Maybe even some curry.  And to give myself a little more adventure, it was given 2 out of 2 on the menu's spicy pepper rating. 

 

No Blechs!  I could have done without the stems on the basil, but now I'm just being anal retentive for the sake of being anal retentive. It was quite delightful, and I handled the spice like a MAN. . . and then walked out wearing purple shirt and scarf.