I did end up going to Ryan’s bar­be­cue, expect­ing to only know about four peo­ple, but actu­al­ly know­ing about half the peo­ple there. Aaron and I bought a twelve of Vex, which does­n’t taste like much but at 7% and only $10 for a six it was good enough to get us going. I was able to try some Bitburger which had a nice clean taste. Re-expe­ri­enc­ing some Smithwicks, how­ev­er, left my mouth with a ter­ri­ble bit­ter taste. The bar­be­cue was a great time, although after flame cook­ing my sausages, I’m afraid I won’t be able to go back to my Lean Mean Fat Reducing Grilling Machine. After cook­ing my steak on a camp­fire grill last camp­ing trip, I’ve been unable to look at broil­ing or elec­tric-grilling my steaks in the same way.

By 9:00 pm I was at the Southvale apart­ments, feel­ing com­plete­ly drained. Wheaties made us a pot of cof­fee while the oth­er kept drink­ing. Aaron, Wheaties, Trolley, and I fired up a game of Ghettopoly. I got my piece of choice, the pimp, and was own­ing the south­west cor­ner prop­er­ties like a…fat kid on cake. Eventually, the crack hous­es and projects on my best prop­er­ties won the game, since the vicis­si­tude of unlucky dice rolls gave me the cash mon­ey for some maneu­ver­abil­i­ty. A great time.

At one point, Aaron and I shared a Cohiba on the bal­cony. I was sur­prised at how light and smooth the cig­ar tast­ed, although it had a very tight pull, which made smok­ing it a bit of a chore.