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!strangers×!best×

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Love these two!
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Hahaha. So good.
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Was walking the hounds and took a picture of these two kids fooling around with the hamper coming out of the laundry mat.
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I was walking out, she was walking in! Look who I ran into on the way home! If you need a pack of smokes, a toy with blinking lights or a DVD with either variety of a person having sex with a horse ("You want man fuck horse or horse fuck man?") THIS is your lady! (I've been running into her on the mean, late-night streets of NYC since 2005!)
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While walking Maddy through Tomkins, we briefly paused to admire this hunk, you know, just hanging out in the dog park all casual. Probably waiting to meet an OKCupid date.

Her: "The dog park? Sure! That would be a great first place for us to meet. How will I find you there?" Him: "Oh, you'll see me."
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Back in Whistler later that evening, Grant and I were eating dinner outside when we watched a stumbly drunk dude briefly slow down and and artfully pee his name in excellent cursive before lurching onward. Nicely done, Brett!
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I also had the very "New York" experience of getting closer and casually realizing, "Oh, I know that guy."
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1. Air (Yellow) represents mind and thoughts, the ability to think.
2. Water (Blue) represents emotions.
3. Fire (Red) represents will, the ability to direct your thoughts and emotions towards action on the physical plane.
4. Earth (Green) represents all the materials on the physical plane that the three subtle-elements interact with.
5. Space (White), or aether, represent the "5th element" and it is the "background canvas" or "cosmic lattice" that the "material earth" is projected upon.
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While I believe that the "five elements" actually related to a funamental truth about the structure of matter at the microcosmic level, I also really like how in alchemy they're used as a metaphor for the ingredients of human experience.
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We also had the pleasure of watching this lady repeatedly trying to fight off an afternoon nap...
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...and failing in the best way possible. Every time she'd fall asleep her head would go ALL the way back and for a brief glorious moment she'd look like a human PEZ dispenser and then when she'd wake up, she'd snap her head upright. SO. FUCKING. FUNNY.
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...this section of destroyed boardwalk still contained a working payphone.
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On the subway ride home I stood next to this guy's awesome Grant Wood costume on the platform. Haha.
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...make a new travel buddy! Like this sleepy little abuela who spent most of the bus ride bouncing her tiny snoozing noggin against my shoulder. Haha. Adorable.
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On Tuesday evening I was walking Maddy through Tompkins when I happened to have a chance encounter with The Dark Lord.
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Nom nom.
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I chatted with him a bit (very nice guy) and asked him if I could have some birdseed. He reached into his pockets...
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On the walk back through the park, we stopped to watch a gentleman who was making a big show of getting crazy with the pigeons. Leigh thinks pigeons are terrible filth-birds and couldn't even watch what he was doing. Hahaha.
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If you've got to talk to strangers and ask them to do weird things, you want Catrinel on your team! Not even a block later, jazz hands with a stranger! 10 POINTS!
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Before we'd even left the park, Cat managed to charm a stranger into letting her push a baby in stroller. 10 POINTS!
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Matt & Tinkerbell!
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While I was sitting there, two guys showed up with upright basses and started playing together. They were both using bows and making haunting, mournful, beautiful sounds and a man wandered over holding his newborn son and was holding him up into the sound. All while reading a book about learning to let go and get lost in life moment to moment. Call it the reason I live here.
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She was wearing all orange and she was FEELING it.
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Next thing we knew we had a new best friend. (A best friend who, incidentally, liked to lift up his shirt and smack his belly loudly and repeatedly after each drink). Pauly can't believe it!
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NONE SHALL PASS! (The guy at the temple didn't speak any English, put he certainly understood the pantomime for "Hey, wanna pretend we're having a SWORD fight for this photo?" Yes!)
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The temple was getting ready to close and we were the only visitors! Luckily, there was a temple minder there who's job was to show you around and to help keep the monkeys from getting too aggressive!
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Mike took this great photo of us with some of the Cathay Pacific flight attendants, then we said goodbye and headed to the gate. Thanks so much for coming out to see us off, Mike!
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Making new friends always.
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It was afterhours at this point, but since it was a real quiet night, the bartender told us we could hang for a bit and he locked the place up. This guy was the only other place in the bar so we agreed to play some Big Buck together.
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FOR THE WIN! As soon as this image showed up on my camera, we both started chortling and we came dangerously close to awakening our new friends and had to run down the street before our heads exploded with laughter. OMG, I'm crying with laughter right now while I type this. Holy shit, was it funny. (By the way, this is totally the right move in this situation. When I've passed out drunk in a car, I've always made sure to snap a photo of myself before passing out. Hahaha.)
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Awww, nappy-nap time! Nothing is funnier than trying to be really quiet around sleeping people that you're kind of fucking with and after I took this photo we were both laughing hysterically but also trying to be as silent as possible.
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As we got closer we noticed two buddies inside totally crashed out and sleeping it off with the windows down! So sleepy!
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I found a small table by myself, ordered a pizza and a big frosty mug of beer and was reading a book when these three characters came over and asked me if I wanted to join them! Who could say no to that? From L to R: My new friends Thomas, Maria and Mohamed!

Maria was from Sweden and approached me because she pegged me for a fellow Swede. She was a self-proclaimed "cougar" who came to Egypt on vacation after a terrible divorce, met Mohamed and fell in love and they'd been together for a couple years. They explained to me that they were working on getting Mohamed a visa so he could live in Sweden, but that everyone was skeptical about their love and thought it was some kind of scam to get a visa!
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Here's me saying goodbye to Ahmed after we got back to my hotel around 4pm! This guy was the best! Despite only knowing a few words in each others' language, we managed to talk all day for an eight-hour road trip. Thanks again for driving, Ahmed!
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The guy with the mule wasn't getting much love (everyone wanted to sit on camels) so I figured I'd throw in with the underdog!
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Around 3am, things started getting rowdy with public makeout on the dancefloor! Hahah.
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Lawrence, Mandy and Michael! At first I thought Mandy and Michael were sharing a floating red leather hat, but that's when I looked closer and noticed Mr. Creepers McPeepers getting his L U R K on in the background.
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...and then parlayed them into a really nice face-to-face halftime dance breakdown.
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Can you tell that I liked her? (I think this is my favorite creepy picture of myself, btw.)
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Oh man, I love this picture SO MUCH. Every time I look at David's face I can actually hear the perverted little cackle he does when something naughty happens: "Heh...heh...heeeh."
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Grant was so distracted, that he eventually just ended up inviting the guy up on stage. Things got even weirder when he produced a Minnie Mouse hand puppet from out of thin air.
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Two really cute girls dressed up as Pantone colors that I didn't even bother trying to flirt with because...
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So Jenne decided to show him how we do.
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...or the fact that he was accompanied to the park by an actual woman. Seen here hiding her face. Which I'm sure is only because of the sun. (What, you mean you'd be embarrassed to have a parrot on your ass?)
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Check out Silky Black Cowboy giving me the "I'll give you one guess which whiteboy's so gonna throw up when he gets home?"
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...to HER ASS.
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KA-BLAMMO! Hahaha. Look at how excited he is!
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Then a panty check? (To be honest, I'm not even sure what's going on here.) And then?
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Then late on Sunday night, a super-nice girl Jane (who has a friend in NYC who reads my site and told her that I was moving to SF and didn't know anyone out there....so nice!) invited me to garden party. I was wiped out from walking around all day and I had to get up for work, but I decided to swing by and at least say hi and try to meet some people. By the time I got there, things were winding down, but I did manage to see a GIRLFIGHT on the way out! Check out the double-knee shoulder pin in full-effect. (You know that means that she totally has brothers that she had to learn to defend herself against.
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After screaming along incoherently into an extra mic during the first half of this couple's duet, homeboy in the green shirt finally managed to wrangle away Shef's mic and hide it on him. Unfazed, Shef decided to make up for his lack of mic by just singing even louder for the remainder of their song.
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On the way home, Tinny and I stopped at the totally scary, 24-hour McDonald's in Chinatown so I could get my McChicken on. There was this cute little old Chinese guy passed out in one of the booths and Tinny wanted me to take a picture of her giving him a kiss. I showed her this one and she decided she wanted a better one and motioned for me to give her the camera...
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...NAKED MAN! Hahahaha. This old dude is always chilling there in a lil' Speedo-type thang and from certain angles (ok, most angles) it looks like he's buck naked.
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After our jams, we were shooting the shit about his company and the prospect of me moving out to San Francisco when this lady (who weighed like 83lbs and was totally spun out of her mind on meth) came over to us and just kept talking and talking and talking and talking. The only time she even stopped to take a breath was when she smiled for this photo. After ten minutes of politely enduring her word-torrent and hinting that we were ready to be left alone, we finally gave up and literally walked away in the middle of her (still!) talking. Thumbs up for meth!
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So amazing.
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...HAHAHAHAHA. Hooooo-leeeeeeeeee fugging shit. I almost pissed myself. What's that? You'd like a close up? Yeah, me too.
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There was this dude there who had slathered himself in that awful bronzer skin dye that makes you look tan. He kept going up to Sid and Buddy every five minutes and saying stuff like "Yo dudes, am I going to be up anytime soon? I'm going to be a famous singer someday and it might be in your best interest to treat me right." He tried that nonsense for 90 minutes and finally growing discouraged, bribed them with $40 and was instantly put on stage. Hahaha. He started singing some awful Justin Timberlake song while gyrating and air-humping. This prompted Carol to bum-rush the stage and sexily unbutton his shirt while he sang. He thought she was into him, but everytime he looked away from her, she'd pull faces like this...
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Before we left, Leigh made sure she invited Dave to Misshapes - because, in her words "he just seems like our kind of people."
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With Grant still away (he was in the UK and then Spain for a few weeks chilling with his family), Fatty had some serious comedy slack to pick up. Luckily, he was up for the challenge, hunchedly chasing this snooty fur shawl-wearing lady down Park Ave while making a silly "I'm tip-toeing" face on our way back from playing Frisbee in the Sheep's Meadow in Central Park. Comedy gold, I tell ya. Later that night, a whole bunch of us met up in the East Village to celebrate...
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...YOU'RE DRUNK!
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The best thing I've ever seen in my life was this pack of eight year-old girls from the Lower East Side who rolled up on their bikes to watch in disbelief. Their collective look of "WHAT THE FUCK ARE THESE CRACKERS DOING?" cannot even be described.

After watching them try to make sense of the situation for more than five minutes, Grant and I wandered over and tried to make things more interesting. We explained (er, ok - lied) to the girls and told them that the kids were dancing as part of a hidden camera show - they were dancing stupid on purpose in hopes that people would yell stuff at them and heckle them - but the problem was, no one had heckled them yet. We told the girls that if they started shouting insults, they'd totally get to be on MTV. We let them ponder that for a few minutes, and then slunk back to enjoy the magic that ensued. Needless to say, the Dance Revolution packed up and headed back to their NYU dorm in a fucking (embarrassed) jiffy.
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Afterwards we went to Piano's where Amber totally won the "see who get a better photo with this guy" contest. Red gloves? Two sets of handcuffs? Bondage collar? There's so much going on here I don't even know where to start the joke.
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When you do the Jovi right, girls can't help but touch their boobies! Hot damn!
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...when he's really just interested in egging Amber on to see how close she'll actually come to...
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Hmmm, who could've done that?
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Hahahah.
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Sarah and Rob took it upon themselves to...
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Hahahaha.
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...actually lay in her lap while frenching. (I love how Rob's laughing and it's causing Sarah to accidentally lick his face).
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...totally passed the fuck out. Sarah went over to seranade her and when she didn't wake up for that, we knew there was trouble to be had.
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I'm not sure who this guy is or whether or not the drunk girl was a friend of his. He was sitting next to her the whole night and he loved that everyone was posing with her.
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...and refugee groupies from the 80s! Awwww, yeah! (This lady was awesome - she was totally all over Fatty. Fatty was laughing, but at the same time he was all nervous because she was there with a bunch of scary looking dudes. Check out how Fatty's all got his arms up in the air like "I'm not touching her, see? She is the one touching me!")
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But we went up to them afterwards and were talking to them and they turned out to be the nicest people in the world. (And although you can't really tell from this pic, this lady was actually pretty hot. Fatty kept nudging me and nodding over at her being like "Dude, she's so hot....and TRAAAAASHY." Yep, Fatty loves him some trashy women.)
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For some reason this is the only pic I have of Grant singing...see him there in the background? Look carefully, I know it's hard to see him behind the group of people who actually got up out of their seats and started doing a FUCKING KICKLINE to the end of his incredible rendition of Frank's "New York, New York." (People from California got up and kicklined to "New York, New York" sung by a Brit. Think about that.)
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The best part was that Liz had like seven inches on him. (Bonus points for his American flag tie, bless his lil' heart.)
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Then Candy and Gina got in on the act.
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Why yes, there is: The Fatty with a group of German ACDC fans. These guys were fucking hardcore. They got wind of the surprise show in Munich that morning and flew over on a whim.
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Hans, me and Fatty. Hahahaha. Soooooo good.
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Seriously, is there anything better than a photo of German ACDC fans?
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...and this guy! I wish I could remember his fucking name! ARgh! He was a total Staten Island-style guido who was pretty much the friendliest guy I've ever met. He saw us taking pictures and wanted to take a look at my camera...which of course led to us taking pictures with him.
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On the way over to some bar called O'Donohughe's, Crazy made friends with a homeless Puerto Rican guy and they sang us some songs together in Spanish. (Which was extra entertaining because, um, Crazy doesn't speak Spanish)
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This was the best part, I was standing really close to him with my nuts out and all of sudden he woke up. He seemed started to find me standing so close to him and and was like "What's up?" So I said to him enthusiastically, "Nothing, dude! You're rocking the fuck out, that's what! Let's take a picture together!" He jumped up and with like "Ok!" So that's how I turned an "Almost Got My Ass Kicked" situtation into the greatest "You Don't Know You're Posing With My Balls But You Are" picture of all time.
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So it was around this time that we noticed these two (aka - "The Greatest Couple in the World."). He was completely shit-hammered; to the point where his head was all bobbing around like we was on a fucking wagonride on a cobblestone street. And she (as if her matching aqua skirt-outfit wasn't enough) had the biggest belly button jewelry thing I've ever seen. I mean look at that thing - it's like the J-Lo engagement ring of bellybuttons. Anyway, she was really drunk and kept heckling people in between songs, yelling that it was her turn already....we'll get back to these guys later.
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So check it: This guy's long, braided hair was making Grant all mad. Even though he was standing 10 ft away from the guy Grant was all like "Ew, can you smell it? Can you smell his dirty, braided hair? Ew! I bet it smells!" So I was like, "Why don't you go find out....PUSSY?" So Grant goes over to the guy and I took this great picture of Grant smelling his hair. And then...
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...egged on by me cracking up, he got all big balls and got really close and starting sniffing all loud. What my camera didn't capture is Grant almost getting handed a braided-beating when right after the above pic was snapped, the guy turned around all quick and almost caught Grant leaning in and sniffing. The guy wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but he was privy to the fact that he had just missed catching Grant doing something behind his back and wasn't very happy with him. Priceless. (Oh, and by the way, what's with his spray-painted shirt? Is this becoming a stupid trend or something?)
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So there was this cute teenager working the counter and she took a liking to Fatty, so he asked her if she'd take him on a tour of the place and show him how the donuts here made.
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After months of getting people to willingly pose with my balls, it was time to try something new: getting unsuspecting people to unknowingly pose with my balls. I discreetly whipped out my bag, and grabbed one of our new friends for a picture. I handed off the cam to Seth who totally shit the bed by not managing to get my balls in the pic. Doh! The rest of the guys in the pic (Check out Grant and Franks' faces) were laughing so hard that the girl in the black shirt was totally confused...
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This guy was one of the only people there that fit-in with the rest of the crowd less than we did. I mean, c'mon, homeboy was wearing a leather vest! I went up to him and told him that he bore an uncanny resemblance to my brother-in-law (you know, the guy that married my non-existent sister) and asked if I could take his pic (when all I really wanted was a pic of his leather vest). Anyway, he turned out to be the nicest guy in the world and we ended up hanging out with him the rest of the night (and I got the pic of his leather vest, taboot).
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...a bunch of hipster-tools, oh sorry, I mean street artists, tag some girl's dress. Yes, seriously. They tagged her fucking dress. And no, this wasn't some performance art-nonsense; this girl, after several minutes of watching these guys she didn't know write on the walls, went over to them and asked them to write and spray paint on her.
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Besides seeing the Eiffel Tower, the only other thing Tara wanted to do in Vegas was go to the Rainforest Cafe (don't ask me, I'm still trying to figure out why as well). So check it out, we sit down at our table and then I notice there's this lady at the table behind Tara who's wearing a shirt that looks like it has a gold lamé bib built into it. When I pointed her out to Tara (who's from Texas), Tara shrugged and explained to me "Oh, that's just her eatin' shirt."

Later on, when the lady was finished with her meal (all four plates of it) she took off the bib, folded it up (see the fold-marks in it?) pulled out a matching, gold lamé, bib carrying-case, and put her folded-up gold lamé bib into her matching gold lamé bib carrying case, and put it back into her purse. I was shocked into silence. I had been kidding about it being a bib, I just thought it was part of her shirt. Who carries a bib (nevermind a gold lamé bib) around with them? Who? Fucking Vegas. Jesus.
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Even our new Chinese friend wasn't fooled by their clever subterfuge.
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Happy Birthday, Lo!
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So after we leave, who do we see sitting on the sidewalk just a few feet from the broken door slumped against the building next to a pile of his own vomit? (Suddenly his little, matching denin Osh-Gosh-esque outfit seemed apropo). That's right, it's the evil door kicker! Regardless of the rough shape he was in, he was still a good enough sport to wipe the puke from his chin and coldlamp for this supremely awesome pic.
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You know, life's funny: One minute you're riding high at a fancy-smancy club in the West Village and dancing with a hot chick. And then just 10 minutes later...
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Turns out, the chica was totally diggin his shizzit and started cutting some serious rug with him.
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Grant was sweating this chick for awhile, so after he finished his ridicu-normous-sized drink he mustered up enough liquid courage to go up and start dancing with her.
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Look at that smile, think Russ has had a few? Brave soul that he is, he starts chatting up her friend too. "Why yes, you're legs are smooth." Priceless.
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Hulk Hogan's (not so) Little Sister. Jesus Christ, look at that fucking forearm! We would've been laughing hysterically if we weren't so scared that she was going to grab hold of one of our heads and crack it open like a walnut with her bare (man)hands.
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No stranger to whipping out my own bag, I handed over the camera and teamed up with Grant for this amazing photo. (Look at our faces!!! nd bonus points to me for actually resting my nuts on the guys chair.)
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Christ, haven't people in New Jersey ever heard of irony? (PPS - Check out Kenny full-on grabbing her tit. Ha!).