How I Spent My New Year's Vacation (HISMNYEV) Part The One

For the end of 2010, I was invited up north aways  to hang with some groovy folk I don't get to see that often. I must warn everyone about the graphic imagery to follow. Documentation of the my pre-party is amazing to behold. Thou hast been advisedetheeheheheth.

Here's the charming house my friends live in. It's called a craftsman style or something. That just means it's cooler than your house, with lots of neat rooms. Total fluke that I captured this vagrant hanging out on the porch when I snapped this picture.

 Inside is kind of crazy, because it looks like real grownups live there. Healthy dose of irony provided by the fact that about 1/5 of the house space is dedicated to games and toys. But there are lots of grown folk things too, like a lovely little front room library space:
\

And they are like, crafty and artsy and stuff, so they display their objects d'arts around the place. They think they are so fancy:

And in total envy, may I present the most Kickass Sink, Ever. So badass, I took pictures. Lookit that thing!

 It's like, COMPLETELY FUNCTIONAL. The backsplash is BUILT IN. The drainboards are BUILT IN.

It's almost as if someone designed the device with the idea that water, soap, and other cleaning detergents and activities might be carried out within its cozy steel confines. Brilliant.

Alas, I failed to capture a good picture of Calliwicious at work, but rest assured, its a mellow little place. The doctor did her magic mojo on my back. It was sort of like the kinder, gentler version of chiropractic. Very interesting. And I'm really interested in anything, whether its meditation or acupuncture needles or manicures or massages, that make you slow down, stop, and hold still.

But wait, I hear you cry, surely there is more to tell?!

Oh yes, babbies. How does one prepare for a high class NYE blowout? What goes into the prep for a party like that? What levels of depraved indulgence can one sink to?

Never one to disappoint, I went hog wild and. . . opted to walk around the deserted Berkeley campus. Oh lord, I just heard a thud. Somebody get gramama the smelling salts. I see I've shocked her into unconsciousness with my unconscionable ways once again.

Berkeley is kind of like somebody took a slice of Maine or Massachusetts and wedged it into the California countryside. I don't know what I expected, but it wasn't this.

This is the famed Golden Bear of Berkeley. Every Friday they sacrifice a picanic basket to it, and burn a park ranger in effigy. It is the source of all the school's power, and the reason they consistently make the nationals in their sports clubs. Berkeley lore says that if you kiss the bear at midnight on a full moon, within two years the California congress will recognize, reject, and then recognize again your rights to full bear/human domestic partner equality.

I think this is the main gate to one of the several roads that lead to Berkeley. (Note to self, make addendum to that aphorism about roads and Rome).

Old Sather Gate here was first erected during the Moorish invasions of the 14th century. St. Sather was a local Lakota who some traveling French furriers titled and tossed in front of the invading hordes in the hopes of evoking holy terror. They say his ghost can still be seen roaming the campus on misty evenings, often moaning softly, "One minute you're hanging out in your sweatlodge, the next the bastard French are sticking funny hats on you. I hate whitey."

This building is where smart people think about smart things. 

This is a clock tower. I am too refined and tactful to make a joke.

Ever smarterer people sit here, and think about math and stuff. I can't help but feel that the jokes on the engineers and mathematicians, though. They got the second crappiest building on campus. 

If I had to walk into this door to go to class, I think I'd take it kind of seriously. I'd also expect to learn some alchemical tricks. And how to run an apothecary. Just me?

This is the amphitheater that was chained up, so we couldn't get in. Not a terrible thing, but information that might have been useful BEFORE we climbed the highest hill on campus to find that out.

This one of the 3 main ways a library should look. I bet I would get real smart in there. 

But in the end, folks, it's still just a college. Another institutionalized learning facility. Not that much different from the others. To wit, I give you our parting shot of Berkeley. And I ask to consider: couldn't this be a picture from just about any campus anywhere?

Next episode, wild NYE hijinks exposed!