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Last weekend my sister and I went to Amherst, MA, where my brother is currently living. My sister's graduation date is still up in the air due to a botch in a credit transfer, but she will be graduating within a year and a half, and she's been looking into grad school. Since my brother attends UMASS Amherst, she decided we should visit my brother to see his new apartment and check out the UMASS grad program at the same time.
For those who aren't acquainted with the area, Amherst is way out in the wasteland that is Western Massachusetts. Ok, wasteland is pretty harsh. It just happens to be covered in trees and mountains - basically, it's like the rest of New England once you leave the Boston metropolis - and everything that is not nature out there can be placed into two categories:
-Colleges
-Businesses and housing to service attendees of said colleges.
I am not exaggerating here. Off the top of my head, in the Amherst-Northampton area there's UMASS, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst College, Hampshire College...and I'm fairly sure I'm missing a few more. Those schools are all within 30-45 minutes of each other, and UMASS alone has an undergraduate population that crushes the permanent population of the local towns surrounding it. I can't imagine living in the area permanently, but if you are young anda hipster douchebag unsure of what you want to do or where you want to go in life, it's a fun and enjoyable place for the most part.
The weekend was pretty interesting.
My brother moved into a new apartment in September, which no one in our family had seen before; all we knew was that it was above a restaurant. What my brother neglected to mention was the fact that the restaurant had been abandoned some time ago - the owners had been unable to pay rent for nearly a year, apparently - and had left everything behind in their haste to avoid collection agencies.
Anyway, my brother has the key to the restaurant now, since the circuit breakers are in the restaurant basement, and he and his roommate gave us a tour of the place - at night, for added atmosphere, and also because my sister is easily spooked and we are douchebags who like to poke fun at her.
The restaurant was named 'Roosters' and as one might guess, there was a lot of tacky rooster decorative paraphernalia left behind in the dining room. My brother and his roommate are particularly fond of a stained-glass rooster lamp that has eyes in a shade of red that one normally associates with demons from hell and fountains of blood in a really gory slasher film, which horrified my sister to no end. I was determined to find another rooster decoration that was equally chilling. I like to think I succeeded:
I should mention that I have cut myself twice on this beakless creature. Those fake(?) seashells are really sharp. :o
My sister absolutely hates this guy, by the way. She told me multiple times that if I tried to bring Mr. Mutey (i have made this name up just now) home she would refuse to let me in the car. Luckily, I was able to sneak it into my bag without her seeing it, and it is currently hanging out in my room. I plan on re-introducing Mr. Mutey to my sister soon, possibly by leaving it on the passenger seat in her car the next time she visits.
Aside from discovering Mr. Mutey, there was also a very cool sharpening stone in one of the back rooms, and one of the basement walls was...it looked like it had crumbled in on one side; there were piles of bricks and stone and dirt everywhere. It - it looked a little bit like the underground tunnel tour in L4D2's Passing level, tbh, which I thought was neat. It would probably be less neat if I lived on top of it, though.
After that little exploration, we went to the Moan and Dove, which is...a beer restaurant. All it serves is beer and peanuts. You are allowed to bring in your own food, but most people don't because there are only so many tables/chairs and usually there is not enough room to place an actual meal on the space you have available to you...assuming you have a place in front of you at all. There were a lot of people who had to hold their drinks the whole time.
I've been to a few restaurants that are known for their large beer selection - there's a really great one in Allston which is about 45 min. away from me and was very close to where I went to college - but Moan and Dove was the first beer-only establishment I've been to. I didn't have the cash to taste as much as I wanted to, but what I did have was honestly some of the best beer I've had.
I had a few really nice dark beers, but the highlight of the night was something called a 'Breakfast stout' which was like having a beer that turned into a breakfast halfway in your mouth. Like, it tasted like a dark coffee at first, then you got the heavy stout flavor, and at the end I swear there was a hint of maple syrup and pancakes. The other beer I had that I would possibly kill people to taste again was a simple raspberry-wheat beer which was a little bit like having a summer evening die all over your tongue. Which sounds terrible, now that I think about it, but that was how I described it in the restaurant so I'm sticking to it. XD
We also visited Northampton. If you have never been to Northampton, you should know that it is basically Hipster Douchebag Central, where all the eating establishments tout their organic ingredients and all of the shops are little quirky hobby stores or privately owned boutiques specializing in granola chic.
The last time I went to Northampton my brother and I spent the day hitting up the many used bookstores in the town and I ended up with a massive pile of books that I still haven't dented. I wanted to do a little of that again, but the first store we went into was very dusty and full of loud obnoxious college freshmen, and my sister's allergies and my brother's idiot tolerance levels went haywire so we had to leave quickly. We ended up visiting a music shop called Turn It Up which was like falling into a music hipster's wet dream - it's a tiny shop hidden under some other, shinier stores where the aisles are cramped and filled with CDs and records that are hideously cheap. To wit: the average price of CDs was around $5-$8; new releases were about $10. It was fab.
I got a bunch of stuff, but of all the purchases made that day (there were a lot) I was most pleased with an old, $5 CD from Raphael Saadiq's old band, Tony! Toni! Tone! - they aren't like, the BEST UNHEARD HIP-HOP BAND OF THE EARLY 90'S or anything, but I had only heard a few of their songs and I love Raphael Saadiq, so I went why not? and bought Sons of Soul.
I personally love the CD, but that is because I am a huge, huge fan of eighties and early 90s hip-hop and rap, which is...not an acquired taste, but I don't know how many people reading this share the same taste. So I won't bore you all with an exhaustive review (also, I cannot write decent music reviews for the life of me) but I will share with you this song from the album, titled My Ex-Girlfriend:
This song had me in fucking stitches when I first heard it. 'My ex-girlfriend....is a hooo-oohhhhhh...' sung in beautiful three-part harmony will never get old, NEVER.
There was some other stuff that happened, but it's not really important. Well, the story about my car battery going kaput and my learning how change a battery on the road was important, I guess, but it's also boring and I have less than 20 minutes left to post this before I miss my self-imposed deadline so I will shut up now. :)
Tomorrow's topic: I have no idea, but I suspect it may involve the reunion of my sister and Mr. Mutey. ;)
For those who aren't acquainted with the area, Amherst is way out in the wasteland that is Western Massachusetts. Ok, wasteland is pretty harsh. It just happens to be covered in trees and mountains - basically, it's like the rest of New England once you leave the Boston metropolis - and everything that is not nature out there can be placed into two categories:
-Colleges
-Businesses and housing to service attendees of said colleges.
I am not exaggerating here. Off the top of my head, in the Amherst-Northampton area there's UMASS, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Amherst College, Hampshire College...and I'm fairly sure I'm missing a few more. Those schools are all within 30-45 minutes of each other, and UMASS alone has an undergraduate population that crushes the permanent population of the local towns surrounding it. I can't imagine living in the area permanently, but if you are young and
The weekend was pretty interesting.
My brother moved into a new apartment in September, which no one in our family had seen before; all we knew was that it was above a restaurant. What my brother neglected to mention was the fact that the restaurant had been abandoned some time ago - the owners had been unable to pay rent for nearly a year, apparently - and had left everything behind in their haste to avoid collection agencies.
Anyway, my brother has the key to the restaurant now, since the circuit breakers are in the restaurant basement, and he and his roommate gave us a tour of the place - at night, for added atmosphere, and also because my sister is easily spooked and we are douchebags who like to poke fun at her.
The restaurant was named 'Roosters' and as one might guess, there was a lot of tacky rooster decorative paraphernalia left behind in the dining room. My brother and his roommate are particularly fond of a stained-glass rooster lamp that has eyes in a shade of red that one normally associates with demons from hell and fountains of blood in a really gory slasher film, which horrified my sister to no end. I was determined to find another rooster decoration that was equally chilling. I like to think I succeeded:
I should mention that I have cut myself twice on this beakless creature. Those fake(?) seashells are really sharp. :o
My sister absolutely hates this guy, by the way. She told me multiple times that if I tried to bring Mr. Mutey (i have made this name up just now) home she would refuse to let me in the car. Luckily, I was able to sneak it into my bag without her seeing it, and it is currently hanging out in my room. I plan on re-introducing Mr. Mutey to my sister soon, possibly by leaving it on the passenger seat in her car the next time she visits.
Aside from discovering Mr. Mutey, there was also a very cool sharpening stone in one of the back rooms, and one of the basement walls was...it looked like it had crumbled in on one side; there were piles of bricks and stone and dirt everywhere. It - it looked a little bit like the underground tunnel tour in L4D2's Passing level, tbh, which I thought was neat. It would probably be less neat if I lived on top of it, though.
After that little exploration, we went to the Moan and Dove, which is...a beer restaurant. All it serves is beer and peanuts. You are allowed to bring in your own food, but most people don't because there are only so many tables/chairs and usually there is not enough room to place an actual meal on the space you have available to you...assuming you have a place in front of you at all. There were a lot of people who had to hold their drinks the whole time.
I've been to a few restaurants that are known for their large beer selection - there's a really great one in Allston which is about 45 min. away from me and was very close to where I went to college - but Moan and Dove was the first beer-only establishment I've been to. I didn't have the cash to taste as much as I wanted to, but what I did have was honestly some of the best beer I've had.
I had a few really nice dark beers, but the highlight of the night was something called a 'Breakfast stout' which was like having a beer that turned into a breakfast halfway in your mouth. Like, it tasted like a dark coffee at first, then you got the heavy stout flavor, and at the end I swear there was a hint of maple syrup and pancakes. The other beer I had that I would possibly kill people to taste again was a simple raspberry-wheat beer which was a little bit like having a summer evening die all over your tongue. Which sounds terrible, now that I think about it, but that was how I described it in the restaurant so I'm sticking to it. XD
We also visited Northampton. If you have never been to Northampton, you should know that it is basically Hipster Douchebag Central, where all the eating establishments tout their organic ingredients and all of the shops are little quirky hobby stores or privately owned boutiques specializing in granola chic.
The last time I went to Northampton my brother and I spent the day hitting up the many used bookstores in the town and I ended up with a massive pile of books that I still haven't dented. I wanted to do a little of that again, but the first store we went into was very dusty and full of loud obnoxious college freshmen, and my sister's allergies and my brother's idiot tolerance levels went haywire so we had to leave quickly. We ended up visiting a music shop called Turn It Up which was like falling into a music hipster's wet dream - it's a tiny shop hidden under some other, shinier stores where the aisles are cramped and filled with CDs and records that are hideously cheap. To wit: the average price of CDs was around $5-$8; new releases were about $10. It was fab.
I got a bunch of stuff, but of all the purchases made that day (there were a lot) I was most pleased with an old, $5 CD from Raphael Saadiq's old band, Tony! Toni! Tone! - they aren't like, the BEST UNHEARD HIP-HOP BAND OF THE EARLY 90'S or anything, but I had only heard a few of their songs and I love Raphael Saadiq, so I went why not? and bought Sons of Soul.
I personally love the CD, but that is because I am a huge, huge fan of eighties and early 90s hip-hop and rap, which is...not an acquired taste, but I don't know how many people reading this share the same taste. So I won't bore you all with an exhaustive review (also, I cannot write decent music reviews for the life of me) but I will share with you this song from the album, titled My Ex-Girlfriend:
This song had me in fucking stitches when I first heard it. 'My ex-girlfriend....is a hooo-oohhhhhh...' sung in beautiful three-part harmony will never get old, NEVER.
There was some other stuff that happened, but it's not really important. Well, the story about my car battery going kaput and my learning how change a battery on the road was important, I guess, but it's also boring and I have less than 20 minutes left to post this before I miss my self-imposed deadline so I will shut up now. :)
Tomorrow's topic: I have no idea, but I suspect it may involve the reunion of my sister and Mr. Mutey. ;)
