by Buck Tue, Apr 14, 2009

Intro

Another Wrestlemania here and gone. And this one a huge mile stone. 25! So young and yet so mature. As always, fun times with good friends and family. I went down to again subjugate myself and the masses to the wrestling experience. Those who've I've mentioned wrestling to, most have some vague remembrances of their childhoods. Fond times spent watching Wrestlecade or other shows on cable or even local television depending on how old or dedicated my audience. Guido is old, Scott old and dedicated.

Friday - The Start

Now why we'd like to be at the venue, the economy is in a rut and we're not getting government get-out-of-poorhouse-free-cards so we stayed in southern California. Scott hosted this extravaganza and his hostess the ever lovely Deana. She's kind to put up with our shenanigans year after year but we do the best we can to help mitigate the damage. Running around in all her energetic rampaging the red-haired spawn Justina.

 

Me and Jess arrived on Friday and we hung out with the Portera Trio. We had lunch at Lone Star which is sort of like a Black Angus/Outback/Amadillo Willys type of BBQ/Steak place. More TEX than MEX. Lots of good grub but expensive. Well that’s what vacations are all about.

 

When we got back we I hung out and watched TV with Scott and Jess watched Twilight with Justina. I don't think that DVD player stopped playing that movie the whole weekend. Whenever someone new showed up they just started watching it again.

 

The night was mellow with us messing with the Playstation and had some rounds of movie trivia playing their Buzz game. Scott beat us like a drum. He has probably played it like a million times but it didn't help he got a lot of animation/Disney questions. I put up a valiant fight at the end, but the sheer weight of destiny was against me. Who books this crap?

 

Saturday Morning Comics

 

Saturday was not the epic-struggle of the forces of evil and good but a more family friendly affair. Think Hanna Montana not Hanna Does Montana.

 

In the morning Deana was great and made us eggs, biscuits, bacon and some Mickey waffles! The things are cute but don't cook as well as they do in a regular waffle maker. However it was a hearty meal!

 

For lunch we kept it light with chips, dips and Joe made some impromptu snacks from Deana's cupboards that we munched.

 

Franco drove down for the camaraderie and brought his fiancée Des. She in turn brought her daughter Ava. Why not start the family off right with the wonderful experience known as Wrestlemania. That or he wants to quench her in the fires of Hades. Turkeybowl and this is about as bad as we get, and if she can torment this, she's good to go.

 

The Joe & Pete show also made an appearance and happen to pick up Nina as a hitchhiker. Those jokers started off their trip sending us false reports of their whereabouts. We had a mixture of worry, laughter, confusion, then skepticism about their txts. Either they were messing with us or the worst drivers on the planets. Luckily they didn't jinx themselves and still wound up at the place in plenty of time.

 

As night started to fall the Joe & Pete show drove off to meet some fellow Warcraft junkies in the flesh, of all places, a brewery. Little did we know that the Arrogant Bastard ale is made at the nearby brewery. Great logo and name. Okay beer. However as Pete mentioned, they have many, many items on draft and any number would please any mediocre beer snob.

 

The rest of the clan went over to a converted Kmart. It was now a bowling alley/entertainment center. Has arcade machines, a bound house/fun house and a bar/lounge. Nice.

 

We did a round of bowling and I got two strikes! Unfortunately the amount of strikes does not make you the winner and you're supposed to hit pins after those strikes. Has something to do with the overall score. I dunno. I just tried to have a lot of fun. Important safety tip. If you don't bowl that often, pick the lightest ball your fingers will fit into. Reduces the strain and pain.

Scott won, but he also has his own ball and shoes. Ringer anyone? It was pretty sick though and it was clear and had a skull inside it! Awesome. Scott even broke out a trophy to give to someone. He eventually gave it to himself, since he was at least 30 pins in ahead of Franco. Scott didn't care he put up the trophy, or that it was a soccer trophy. Give the old man a little time in the spot light.

 

After bowling we dumped some quarters into the arcade machines and spent time relaxing while the kids jumped around in a bounce house. It was the side of maybe 9 of those things, it was huge. It took up the majority of what seemed a conference room area. The place was weird and seemed out of the way and hidden in the back. Oh well let miscreants to get in our way.

 

We made it back safely and had another rousing game of movie trivia on the Playstation. This time Scott wasn't in attendance throwing off the curve and I got to dominate. Calming and nice way to wind down.

Sunday - Funday

Pete had woken up early despite getting in at midnight and had figured out the coffee maker. We hit the front porch and chilled there in the cool weather and warming sun talking warcraft, chicks and our nights out until Scott arrived with more supplies. Sunday morning featured the Intercontinental Breakfast. Lots of donuts, breakfast cakes, cereal, coffee, etc. even mimosas. Good stuff for that hang over.

 

After breakfast Scott and the Show went out for more supplies while the rest of us slugs slowly but surely prepared for the festivities while a whole new batch of victims arrived.

 

Coming from just on the English speaking side of the border was Cube! Always great to see that madman. He came mainly to see Franco but we're always glad to welcome him to an event he can stand. He's turned into Tim The Toolman and renovating his own little fixer upper in San Diego. That's Tijiuana without the drink mickeys or getting shanked at the bars.

 

Also appearing was Dana one of Scott's fellow bankers. We found out a huge portion of the southern California toy donation was due to her efforts. For that and since she would be the only remaining chick with us at Wrestlemania we thus crowned her Miss TurkeyBowl. Long may she reign. This year.

 

One of the pre-game events was the door prizes. Scott loves giving away gifts for Wrestlemania since he thinks of it as like Christmas. This is the second year he has used a crane game to give away the prizes. Cheesy but fun gimmick. A big hit. This year he instituted the 1 prize rule. Everyone gets a prize but only 1 prize. Mike cheated last year and knocked 4 prizes out so you can thank him for that.

 

I got a losing lotto ticket, but some other prizes were $1,$5 bills, tiny wrestler figures, candy, t-shirts, games, etc.

 

Another pre-game event was Name-That-Tune. Scott played part of some theme music, and if you guess it, you got a point if you didn't it continued to the next player. Nina, Pete and Joe were the primary players, since I was in the can when they started but I got to jump in late. Joe even drunkenly wandered off and left half way through the game only to return to get a few more points. It didn't really matter, we should have called it Nina-That-Tune as Nina crushed us with a score that was greater than our combined score. I think it was like 14 to 5. For crushing her opponents with little remorse she won a piece of Wrestlemania 21 memorabilia a piece of the ring. They chopped up the canvas into 4000 little squares and put it in a case. Well if you're into that, sure why not.

 

Guy and Jackie showed up to take the little ones out of harm's way and out of ear shot of all the profanity. Guy couldn't stop without having a few beers and giving everyone an earful. Joe was like 'damn it’s like being at home with dad giving me shit'.

 

Joe was in charge of the majority of the grub. He had marinated chicken and grilled it alongside some hot dogs which he had brought home made chili. The chili was spicy. I nearly died eating two ladles worth. Good spicy and not that bad spicy. I didn't get to the chicken until I was too inebriated to appreciate the taste, but I did know he had whole, nearly boneless breasts. Nice. I gobbled two of them. My gut would not thank me for that selfless act of food critiquing.

 

The Main Event

 

The stage was set, the players fed. The TV was on. The channel changed....and we got a 'click okay to order'. Which struck Scott as strange since he had ordered it on Friday. He played with the remote but to no avail.

He called and was promptly put on hold. Then Deana called and Nina and Cube. We had half the house on the phone trying to reach a live person. I tried the remote. Then Pete tried. He got an idea of unplugging the cable and turning off the box. Then he turned it on. We got picture!

We got boobs!? Apparently it wound up on the next channel that had signal and that was a porn channel. Nice! Everyone started laughing which luckily included Scott. He calmed down and decided to give up on Verizon and they had Deana's parents order it on their satellite.

Scott grabbed Pete and what supplies he could and got into his card and dashed over to the alternate venue. Luckily it is just down the street. Joe drove some of us over in my rental but we had to go back since someone had forgotten the lime juice. While all alone in Scott's place we turned on his TV just to see if it had come on. It didn't. Would have been funny though. Deana went and got another case of beer and we started watching the event.

The savages sat and ate and drank and soaked up the beer and sports entertainment. The civilized people (most of the chicks, kids and sober people) got up and went to Scott and Deana's to hang out. Guy wandered around drinking his beer and wine and Guy Jr saw and watched another TV. His juggy fiancée arrived in the middle of our festivities and hung close to her man least she get devoured.

Overall decent card. Some oddities, they had Chris Rock and the Diva match back to back. Usually they're filler between long matches. The tag team match wasn't televised. Weird. Having Mickey Rourke come out was expected but to me, having him knock out Jerico wasn't as 'fun' since Jerico is such a favorite even if a heel, and Rourke's acting may have been good or popular but him personally, not so popular.

Stone Cold was inducted to the Hall of Fame and in his style he came back out and drove his ATV around drank beer and got the crowd roughdy. Been done but fun to see anyway for the nostalgia. Scott decided to have some Stone Cold style toasts as well and luckily Deana wasn't home and the spillage was minor.

Scott made a promise to himself and Deana that he wouldn't turn tripple HHH again and wouldn't spout beer but during the matches Scott not only dived onto his guests not once but twice. Taking a cross body block not the funniest thing when the guy doing it is hammered and you're out of shape. Sitting next to Scott was like being the cabinet for wack-a -mole. My whole left side was numb. I had to move at one point.

Thanks to Dana 'Miss Turkeybowl' who stuck with us, and cleaned up the majority of our trash and dishes. I forced $10 bucks of my pool winnings on her which she eventually returned anyway. I felt bad, but glad she helped out. Guy is always welcoming but we intended to be at Scott's not Guy's place.

The sober ones drove us back after the festivities and retold, sensationalized, and replayed the frezie. I think after one version a donkey was involved. Everyone apparently had fun, and only Scott had 'too much' fun and turned his bathroom into the results of a barf o rama. That’s what happens when the host consumes the majority of: 41 beers, a shaker of margaritas, a shaker of Kamikazes, and a bottle of wine.

 

The next morning we got up slowly and stiffly. Joe made some freedom toast of the bread I had brought down. Wasn't half bad. As we licked out wounds, and drank to rehydrate ourselves, we hugged, kissed and parted ways until the next debacle, the next perfect storm, the next Wrestlemania.

 -Buck