Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Pawn Super Star



Lately I've been watching a lot of the show "Pawn Stars" on the History channel. In case you aren't familiar with the show, it basically chronicles the day to day operations of a pawn shop in Las Vegas. And in case you really don't know, pawn shops are places where people bring in stuff to either sell outright or take a loan out against that stuff in order to buy drugs and/or pay off their loan shark. The show is interesting in the fact that people bring in some really weird and unique items that are sometimes worth a lot of money.

Now, why is this relevant to anything? Well, if you recall, I purchased a Country Legends autographed guitar about one and a half years ago. This guitar was autographed by country legends such as George Strait, BB King, Kenny Rogers, Charlie Daniels, Willie Nelson and Loretta Lynn. The idea at the time was to flip the guitar and make insane amounts of money. In fact, that is still the idea, one of my best.

You see, I plan on taking this guitar to that very pawn shop on the History channel. The reasons for this are three fold. 1.) Taking a trip to Vegas. 2.) Selling this guitar for lots of money. 3.) Did I mention Vegas? Not too mention the fun I am going to have haggling with the guy and potentially being on tv. I’m thinking about walking into the place with my newly purchased Captain's Hat that I got in Port Aransas over the weekend so they know I mean business when I walk through the door.

The current plan is to drive out to Vegas with my brother who has never been there before as an adult. I will then sell the guitar for a large amount of money and then I will make it rain in the club. Well, at least in the hotel room.

As to the decrepit state of this blog, yes, I have been neglecting it pretty bad recently. Hopefully that will all change on this road trip where I plan on blogging through out the entirety of the drive out there and back. If I am not too lazy, maybe I will upload a few pictures of the voyage as well. I am taking a much needed whole week off work to accomplish this. So stay tuned for more updates!

Christine and I again both recently passed the $100 mark in Google monies and are currently planning the party where it will all be wasted, ie: more riot punch! You can check out her blog here to keep the monies flowing into our accounts. You do want the monies flowing, right? Of course you do.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Painting and Alcohol


*stock photo, mine was a billion times better*

So this past weekend, I went with a couple friends to this thing called "Painting with a Twist”. The idea is that you show up, and these people will walk you through the step by step process of creating a masterpiece on canvas. Oh and there is also booze involved, hence the “twist” in the title. Now if you know me at all, you know I have the artistic skills of a rabid badger that has been drinking too much. However, it turns out that I am able to follow directions pretty well and needless to say my painting turned out to be one hell of a masterpiece. I’m talking Renaissance level art here.

Going into it, I figured that my painting would be, at best, abysmal. But they actually did a pretty good job of showing us how to blend the colors and create tree branches to hide any and all of the screw ups. The whole thing took about 2 hours from start to finish. And while the painting we chose to do was really effeminate (the girls chose this one), I still had a good time painting it while listening to Heather (shout out*) talking about how shitty her’s was turning out. Also, blending colors is a real bitch.

Christine (shout out*) and I each killed a bottle of smooth, delicious champagne that morning. Needless to say I was impressed with my ability to draw well while under the influence of alcohol and orange juice. All of our paintings turned out pretty well in the end. I found that the best strategy to not messing up your art was to just stop painting. The more I tried to fix problems, the more terrible it got. It’s like I always say, sometimes you just gotta put the paintbrush down and take another sip of your mimosa, you know what I mean?

So who knows, maybe I am in the wrong profession. Perhaps it was my destiny to paint the walls of the Sixteen Chapels in the Vatican or something. I would most definitely go do this again although I wouldn’t mind doing a more gender independent work. I always see people buying lame, non-masterpiece art for ridiculous prices at like Bed Bath and Beyond so I figure I could make quite a bit of monies selling my work on the side. Or, better yet, I’ll just start up my own art teaching class. With blackjack…and hookers! In fact, forget the art class...

*Shout outs were demanded by the viewing audience.

Link: Painting with a Twist
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