So my friend Erik got married this past Saturday.  I'm sure you're expecting some post about how marriage this young is not a good idea and what have you....but we're not even going to touch on that.  I don't really have an opinion either way, and frankly, that's not funny.  Instead I will recant to you hte basics of the trip, as well as some anectdotes along the way. 

It was wednesday morning when I realized that I had yet to get Erik and Rachel their wedding gift.  The porno store being more than an hour away, I was forced to make a number of concessions in my buying strategy...most importantly, what stores were close to the comic shop?  Which brings me to an important point.  What the hell happened to my comic shop?  It used to be populated by the darkest denizens and dregs of the nerd world.  We had three THREE shelves of terrible 70's comic porn, and now, NOW it's all warhammer geeks talking about how big their plasma pistol is while swaggering around tables like drunken musk oxen.  Have you ever seen a warhammer nerd?  It's like smelling your grandfather's old work shoes.  You know the ones, he never got rid of them after war, they just sit in the basement, with a pile of rat and insect corpses in a three foot radius.  Now imagine that smell as it applies to all of your other senses.  Imagine a man with a goatee that looks as though it has been badly taped on to a false chin made out of whale blubber.  His hair is invariably falling out, though he does much to hide it in the way of comb overs and ridiculous hats that say things like 'wait until you see my holy avenger.'  His shirt fares little better, riddled with all kinds of nameless food stains, even from foods that you would think....don't normally stain, like peanuts.  It would literally take a sizeable amount of time spent either sitting bodily ontop of a mound of peanuts or forcibly rubbing them into your shirt to achieve this kind of effect, but clearly the act of getting the food from one's hand to one's mouth is nearly impossible, this mouth being always open and spewing condescension as if the surrounding thirty feet of airspace really wants to know why the sixth edition douche-scrambler is a better gun for its point cost than the dead puppy covered in butter ejector.  But this isn't even the biggest problem.  What is it you ask?  Well, being that the majority of my time is spent looking at people's asses, it is not hard to miss the gargantuan posterior of the warhammer geek.  In fact, I'm fairly sure that due to zoning restrictions, the geek's ass actually requires its own local government, to help handle trade transactions, as well as all travel that must pass through the geek's ass.  This being said, I had to travel through several prefectures to get to what I wanted......the rpg stuff.  Now certainly, the scummery which arises out of this profession may certainly be indicative of a far greater social disease.  BUT AT LEAST WE"RE NOT FAT.  FATTY FAT FAT MCBUTTERPANTS ESQUIRE.  THANK YOU YOUR CORPULENCE FOR ENABLING ME TO PASS THROUGH YOUR ILLUSTRIOUS ASS-COUNTY WITHOUT A PERMIT YOU HUMAN GARBAGE.  So wait, where was I, oh yeah, Erik's wedding.  I leave the comic shop, now smelling of stale potato chips and covered in a thin ooze.  I cross the street to go to the music shop, where I purchased his and her effects pedals for the couple, and promptly made my way home.  Several hours later, I reach my friend Allan's house, where we would be spending the night.  Let me just say, I think Allan is a champ; he does much for his buddies and is generally a super guy.  His house on the other hand, is the site of several nazi war atrocities.  A moat littered with the corpses of mailmen and icecream purveyors alike surrounds the house, warning all those that would enter that only hell awaits.  Now I've been to Allan's house before, and yes, I remember it being dirty.....very dirty.  BUT NOT THIS DIRTY.  Remember the Labyrinth?  Remember when the female lead gets caught in a house that looks quite a bit like her room, everything's all perfect.....and eventually it collapses into a GIANT TRASHOLE FILLED WITH NOTHING BUT TERROR AND THE LOST DREAMS OF CHILDHOOD.  ALLAN"S HOUSE IS SO MUCH WORSE.  It has that smell that often comes with old houses which equates to 'everything in this house has been wet/riddled with mold for about 30 years.'  Oh that and 'well we pretty much pee anywhere these  days, sure does save on the water bill.'  I slept on the floor.  I say sleep, because I think if I had been awake, the room would have sensed my fear and eaten me alive.  So we get up in the morning, make our way to the car, and Jeremy breaks out his ROBOTRON 5000.  This device is one of those satellite dealies that allows for a global positioning array to tell you where your car is going, and calculate a route that will get you to your destination as quickly as possible.  No matter how hard I tried to program the thing, it absolutely refused to take us to funkytown.  (Excuse the bad joke/life I'm eating a moldy bagel right now......it's ERGOTLISCIOUS)  And I got to thinking because of it.  What if we had such helpful devices for other aspects of life.  RELATIONSHIPS:  Turn left to meet the love of your life.  Pull pants down.  Grasp the legs firmly.  Move excess wool out of the way.  TRANSACTIONS WITH THE #$&)(*#@&$ ASSHOLE BEHIND THE COUNTER AT DUNKIN DONUTS Take money from customer.  Calculate change.  Refrain from coughing directly into your hand full of change.  Give change to customer.  Listen to customer when he orders donuts, do not arbitrarily place donuts within box with artistic whimsy provided to you by the blood sample you found in your girlfriend's toilet.  So, after the ROBOTRON told us to clean ourselves thoroughly, we were OFF!  The first stint of the trip was 495, which for those of you who live in a real city, is DC's attempt at being as awesome as Baltimore.  Clearly DC fails miserably.  Soon we got on route 66.  Now I'm not sure if this was the famous route 66, as I have heard that road is as long as my list of sexual offenses, but it was A route 66.  LET ME SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT.  THERE WERE ABSOLUTELY NO KICKS INVOLVED.  NOT EVEN ONE.  NOT EVEN KIX.  NO CEREAL, NO FUN, NO NOTHING.  ONE FEATURELESS ROAD FILLED WITH JERKS.  I think the infrastructure decided 'I want a road that goes through absolutely no towns, with no gas stations along giant lengths.  This way, should anyone be in trouble, they must call for help in the way of VA/OH/whatever other shitty states' natives for help.  Now we were in VA.  V-A?  VIRGINIA?  IF WE STOPPED WE WOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD!  I CAN SEE IT NOW, A HUGE PICKUP TRUCK WITH 'QUEERBUSTER' SPRAYPAINTED ON THE SIDE DRAGGING OUR BROKEN CORPSES DOWN A DIRT ROAD WITH MEATHOOKS ON CHAINS!  STOP IN VIRGINIA MY ASS.  (We later found out that the majority of our 10 hour trip was to be going through the bulk of virginia)

FLASH FORWARD

We found out, through trial and error, that apparently, in TN, you don't have to use traffic lights.  They're really more of a suggestion.  People stop at a red light momentarily, then just bust on through.  Oh and revving your engine is not a sign of masculinity.  In fact, your engine must be constantly revved at all times, because your wreckass car will fall apart if not constantly infused with a ridiculous amount of fuel.  Exhaust pipes have been replaced with septic drainage systems, which are not only like 3 times as wide, but spew out that lovely black smoke that we're so used to getting from dump trucks.  THANK YOU MR AND MRS LUXURY SEDAN FROM THE 70's IF THERE IS ANYTHING I LOVE IT'S TO SMELL YOUR FRIKKIN ASS-SMOKE WHILE WE SIT AT A LIGHT BEFORE YOU BLAZE THE FUCK THROUGH IT EVEN THOUGH IT IS RED.  Eventually we reach the house we're supposed to be staying at.  Nothing of any worth happens.  That isn't to say we didn't do anything.  You see, my friends are gamers, hardcore gamers in fact.  BUT, they like different kinds of games than I do.  They like stupid games.  One of these stupid games was played that night.  Imagine, if you had a board game, with no board, all the pieces were the same, and it wasn't even marginally fun.  Well they have a name for it.  An 'abstract strategy' game.  Abstract strategy?  WHAT!?!?  NONAPPLICABLE STRATEGY?  IMPRACTICAL STRATEGY?  BOYOBOY THAT SOUNDS LIKE A FUCKIN DELIGHTFUL TIME, TWENTY THREE SKADOOOO.  You can imagine how thrilled I was.  It was about as fun and enlightening as listening to four continuous hours of dialogue between Anakin and Padme, it felt like a four year old was forcing me to do it.  We went to sleep when our hosts came home, drunk.  Oh, and I think I've discovered something.  Guest room is really a nice way of saying, 'this is the room where my mother died while strangling a wild boar.'  I mean really, why is the guest room always the least desireable room in the house?  Isn't this pretty indicative of our society?  That the house is a private space that denies all attempt at social interaction?  This particular guest room was filled with BITING INSECTS the likes of which I can only ascribe to in biblical proportions.  It was as if Charleton Heston (the great man himself, brother to diamond j and all around swell guy---->He saved you from the apes asshole, pay some respect!) himself was biting me in my sleep.  I woke up with lumps that reminded me of they days before the herpes medication.  That day we did......something.  Which then passed to an evening of SEVERE AWKWARDNESS.  I was introduced to grandmothers.  ME.  On the plus side, there was novelty soda.  And I looove novelty soda.  We're not talkin yo' pedestrian ass flavored sodas like 'cherrycoke' or 'lemon lime with a stupid twist' we're talkin STRAWBERRIES AND MUTHAFUCKIN CREEAAAMMM and PEACH soda.  Now granted, it's not mexican soda, which sometimes....I could kill someone for.  It did do the job though.  The job of making me feel less awkward as the only person NOT GETTING DRUNK.  Then came the longest marriage tradition running, making your children feel like they're still pooping their pants into their 21st, 30th or 55th year.  It began with a clumsy rendition of GOD KNOWS WHAT.  CORPSE STOMPING?  RAPING BABY COYOTES?  On the other hand Erik's stepdad did a pretty charismatic rendition of I'm getting married in the morning...

more later....gotta work