My big fat Greek New Years

Firstly happy New Year's too all! Hope the holiday season treated you all well.

My New Year's Eve was very entertaining. The night started with some drinks and appetizers and led to a restaurant in Astoria (which I hold off from mentioning in case they decide to send us a bill). Let's just say (without naming names) that three out of the six of us got a little sick (not me) in the restaurant bathroom, leading two out of the six to leave the restaurant shortly after appetizers arrived.

Anyway, sparing you all of the sickly details, the rest of the evening was actually pretty entertaining, despite the fact that we knew no one else in the restaurant and apparently everyone else there knew each other or knew the waitresses and owners. So it basically felt like we were crashing someone's wedding, especially since most patrons were dressed in suits and dresses (and we were their white trash cousins dressed in sweaters and jeans). There was live music with an acoustic guitar duo singing traditional Greek folk songs and eventually some of the restaurant patrons started dancing to said traditional Greek folk songs which led to more Greek traditions. But before I get into that let me just rave about the food for a moment.

The food was exceptional and arrived in droves. A greek salad arrived alongside shrimp that was placed in a phyllo pastry puff, a plate of grilled sausage and marinated meatballs. Unfortunately it was already 10:30pm by the time apps had arrived and we wouldn't see our main courses until well after midnight.

Like 45 minutes after midnight.

However despite our stomachs on revolt and the novelty of making noise with party favors wore off, the main courses didn't disappoint. We were treated to lamb, shrimp and steak. Being that this was authentic greek, I went straight for the lamb which was tender and juicy. Forgoing knife and fork, I grabbed said chop in my grubby paws and went to town (my apologies for the shitty pics my camera phone took).


Lamb


Steak

Shortly after stuffing our face with meaty goodness out came the dessert. Needless to say I was all over the baklava.



During dinner and dessert is when the dancing started. It was entertaining watching everyone dance around in circles, with their arms held high snapping their fingers.



But then the most unexpected thing happened (which I later found out was another Greek tradition). Some of the men in the restaurant started making it rain (the first three are videos - click to play).









I found out that throwing money around is a way to garner wealth and prosperity in the coming year.

Granted these guys were only throwing wads of singles in the air, but by the time we were ready to leave there had to be a few hundred dollars worth of singles on the floor.

Crazy times. Those greeks know how to party!

Vacation - a brief recap

I may have misled some of you into thinking we took an exotic vacation based on the previous pics of the beach.

Well we did go down Souf to Florida. But only to the extremely exotic location of Orlando, Florida.

Our trip was to Universal Studios, to which I have never been.





Since we got down there a few hours before our hotel opened, we decided to do what anyone else would do in Orlando in the late morning. Play mini-golf.

However the mini-golf gods weren't pleased with our playing mini-golf at 11am apparently, as they caused my shorts to rip. How you ask? Well I straddled a bench to get my ball that had gotten away from me and into the water. And then psssssffft. We got a ripper.



As you could image I was pretty despondent after my "wardrobe malfunction"



But I finally sucked it up, and we went to play in the park.



Right off the bat we went for the Hulk ride...which is a looping, twister fast coaster. Ordinarily I would have laughed my way through, but only after popping some motion sickness pills. Sans pills the ride was still fun, but I was definitely a little nauseaus afterwards.

Luckily I resisted the urge to blow chunks



After finally settling down, we grabbed drinks at Pat O'Brien's, home of the famous hurricane.



After treating myself to some shrimp gumbo


and a muffaletta, day one came to a peaceful end capped by a gorgeous "moonset" over Universal



and checking into our "futuristic" hotel.


Day two found more fun at Universal's Islands of Adventure, where we met some four legged friends





The pug you may recognize as Frank from Men in Black II.

After passing on some turkey legs for lunch



we took a quick drive over to Hollywood.



After returning from our drive, the rest of day was full of attractions and rides, such as the standing roller coaster Dueling Dragons and the most soaking water rides you'll ever go on. Seriously. We were drenched for about two hours.

Day 2 capped off with a Macy's themed parade where we saw some interesting friends




Nice dance move there


Shrek knows I'm the man



How did they know I just love a girl in cake?



Day 3 was filled with even more rides and fun, including going back to double dip on the Hulk ride, Doctor Doom and Spiderman's virtual reality ride. After 6 hours of non-stop action, we needed to break for a well needed drink



I won't bore you with the rest of the details from our trip but overall it was a great mini-getaway. Plus the park was EMPTY! There were no lines and we were able to go from ride to ride with ease. Definitely advised to go there the week before the week before xmas. In fact the only people there other than us were pretty much European tourists.

Before I depart, wanted to share some of my mad photo skills with y'all (Don't say you're not impressed ;)

On Vacation

WhatPushesMyButtons is on vacation this week.





Enjoy the cold weather everyone! :)

How nice of her!!!

So got this email in my Inbox this morning.

----
Date: Fri, 07 Dec 2007 08:31:30 +0000 (GMT)
From: KTFlynn@san.rr.com
Subject: I wish you well

Dear Friend,

My name is Mrs. Felicia Adam Swanson I am a dying woman who have
decided to donate what I have to you/ church. I am 59 years old and I
was diagnosed for cancer for about 2 years ago.I have been touched by
God to donate from what I have inherited from my late husband to you
for the good work of God. I have asked God to forgive me and believe
he has because He is a merciful God.I will be going in for an
operation later today.I decided to WILL/donate the sum of (five.five
million dollars.)to you for the good work of the lord,and also to help
the motherless and less privilege and also for the assistance of the
widows. At the moment I cannot take any telephone calls right now due
to the fact that my relatives (They had squandered the funds i gave
them for this purpose before)are around me and my health status.

I have adjusted my WILL and my lawyer is aware.I wish you all the best
and may the good Lord bless you abundantly, and please use the funds
well and always extend the good work to others.Contact my lawyer with
this : Name: Barrister William Francis. Tel:+447011132753
williamfrancis_chambers@yahoo.it

Tell him that I have WILLED(US$5.5M) to you by quoting my personal
reference number Jl/Wds/953/5015/GwrI/316 us/uk and I have also
notified him that I am WILLING that amount to you for a good work.I
know I dont know you but I have been directed to do this.Thanks and
God Bless.

Regards,
Felicia Adam Swanson
----

I mean how sweet is she???? She donated $5.5 million dollars to me/it/my church! I'm so eternally grateful I'm about to cry. I mean I know she said she doesn't know me but she has been "directed to do this" by God. Maybe my wish of hitting the lotto has finally come true!!!

I'm going to email Barrister William Francis right away with all of my banking information and my social security number so he can deposit the $5.5 million to me! Needless to say I'll share my new found riches with all of my faithful readers out there!

So in turn, if you'd like to receive some of my riches, please email me or reply to this post with your Name, Address, Banking Information, Social Security Number, Date of Birth, Maiden Name, Occupation, Name of your first born or unborn child, your pants size, Eye Color, Hair Color, Toenail length, Name of your pet, Your preferred Underwear brand, The number of teeth in your mouth, and most importantly all of your credit card numbers, expiration dates and three digit ID # on the back of your credit card.

Once you send me all of that information, I'll be sure to directly deposit a lump sum of no less than $1,000 to your accounts!

I know...how kind of me. But I'm just sharing the wealth, just like Felicia Adam Swanson shared her wealth with me!

Make it rain bitch...make it rain!

Pizza Pizza

So our friends at the ACLU (that would be the Ass Clowns Leaveusthefuckalone Union) are at it again. This time they've produced a very tongue-in-cheek example of what ordering pizza could be like in the year 2010. (click link or image to play)



Basically the guy calls up his local pizzeria, the Pizza Palace, and they have his whole history on file, including his health conditions (among them impotence - very funny ACLU) and a warning from his insurance provider that the Double Meat Special pizza he wants is bad for him and thus he'll have to pay an extra "Health Surcharge" for his pies.

Now while this is meant to be nothing more than a "holy shit, let's stop this from happening now" fluff piece from our favorite Asshole Cleaning Lickers Union, it could very well happen in the not so distant future. Especially if that whole "GoogleZon" idea ever comes to fruition.

But for now, take heart that invasion of privacy such like this is probably way down the road. So don't listen to what the "We do more harm in the world than good" cocksuckers have to say.

In fact we should concentrate on more important things than trying to find "civil liberties" for humankind. Like, for example, eliminating the sounds of farts in public. Now THAT'S something we can all get 'behind' right?

Well now we can. All we need to do is purchase some Toot Tones and all of our pesky fart noises would turn into cheerful, harmless cell phone rings!



Now all we need to do is find a way to turn our 'gas emissions' into some sort of usable environmentally friendly substance that could fuel our automobiles. Now that would be extemely practicable! Just think, when you can say "I have enough gas in me to get me to Pittsburgh", you could really mean it!

Grimgrinch Rascalton

So I was passed along an email yesterday to "find my grinch" name.

Normally I don't play along but this was actually pretty fun, in an office humor dorky sorta way (click on the image to launch the page).



If you use my full name, Christopher, my grinch name becomes: Meanmonkey Rascalton.

Nice...i always wanted to be a Mean Monkey. Actually I had auditioned for a mean monkey part in Family Guy, but got beaten out by the much more sinister looking Evil Monkey.



Anyway, thought it would be fun for everyone to share their Grinch name. Sort of like a bonding experience to pull together the WPMB audience this holiday season.

So please reply to this post with a comment stating your Grinch name!

Btw...happy Hannukah to all of our Jewish friends out there.