"I Never Drew First When I Drew First Blood"

This week's Hair Band Friday is out of control, since it will be my last one in Dayton. I made it clear that, like my impending funeral, I don't want this to be some weepy affair; I want it to be a celebration of all the good times we've had since the inception of Hair Band Friday. Apparently the ladies have taken this to heart. Many of them have been bonging beers since 9am while catching one last glimpse of my astounding Lexis-Nexis researching abilities. Just for shits and giggles, Lita, Gigi, Kat, and I were playing a halcion-and-Jack-charged game of "sexual favor poker," a much better version of the formerly exciting strip poker. Kiki is so fucked up on absinthe that she is currently performing fellatio on the leg of an overturned chair that she honestly believes is Harry Truman. Candi has been making use of the south stripper pole while she still has the chance, performing a "best of" routine from her many dances over the past 2 1/2 years. While watching her, I thought I felt some tears running down my cheek, but it turned out to be the Sauza I was drinking off of Michele's naked body. Meanwhile, on the north stripper pole, Lexi has been performing a hell of a speedball-induced act to the last three songs: "I'll Never Let You Go" by Steelheart, "Blaze of Glory" by Jon Bon Jovi, and "Winds of Change" by The Scorpions. A lot of good memories have allegely been made during Hair Band Fridays in this office. It's been real.

Last night's The OC didn't quite live up to the hype, which still meant that it was the best option of the day, however.

1. While at the airport, after seeing Seth and Ryan off to their respective prospective freshmen weekends at Brown and Berkeley, Kirsten sees Teresa with a baby that looks a lot like Ryan. Eventually this gets back to Ryan, so he goes to Chino to figure it out. Teresa wasn't there, so she comes to Newport to talk to Ryan. It turns out that the baby is "Fast" Eddie's, and not Ryan's. I don't believe her for a second, but that might have a lot to do with my theory that no woman can be trusted. Whatever the case, it was sure anti-climactic.
2. Kirsten, after ripping Sandy in public in front of a bunch of doctors, heads outside of the restaurant, grabbing a glass of chardonnay on the way out. She gets onto the restaurant's front patio and chugs it. The look on her face afterward seemed to say, "Oh sweet nectar of the gods, how I missed thee."
3. Seth goes to Brown's prospective freshman weekend, where his goal is to try to convince Kojak that he should be admitted to Brown. Sans lollipop, Kojak isn't having any of it.
4. While at Brown, Seth also runs into Anna, his former flame. She now has a worse haircut than before. It looked like she either had a wig on or a bowl cut with extensions. When will women realize that bangs rarely look good? Additionally, she has apparently gotten tooth implants that cause her to talk with an annoying slight lisp, not unlike that of Ellen Pompeo (of Old School and Grey's Anatomy fame).
5. After his failed attempt at getting into Brown, Seth decides to head home. Anna magically arrives in the cab that he is going to take to the airport. She has some wacky plan to get him into "Riz-Dee," which is actually RISD, which is short for the Rhode Island School of Design, which is a phenomenal art school that would likely not admit Seth based on his graphic novel. After an apparently decent admissions interview, Anna sees Seth off at the airport with a hug, just in time for Summer to see them, thus believing that Seth has been planning all these years to go to Brown just to be with Anna. Obviously.
6. Ryan's "freshman buddy" at Berkeley is a guy named Wes, who resembled an odd mix of the kid from Mask and the guy from Wings. Yet somehow he almost bagged Marissa.
   
7. Having always been intrigued by the glorification of romance in Austrian mountain towns, Marissa tells Volchok that she can no longer go slumming with him, in part because she always dreamed of having a relationship like that of someone in The Sound of Music. So after returning from Berkeley, she heads over to Volchok's dungeon to pick up the inordinate amount of stuff she had left there, such as clothes, half-drunk bottles of Dark Eyes vodka, coke mirrors, and her dignity. Sitting on Volchok's coffee table was the DVD box of The Sound of Music with a "5 Day Rental" sticker on it. What we didn't see was that Volchok did not actually watch the movie (since there's no way in hell he has a DVD player), but instead put the DVD in a mason jar, lit it on fire, and huffed the effluence for a fucking sweet buzz. This explains why he was asleep/passed out when Marissa arrived. By the way, that guy's life of surfing, rampant drug abuse, banging Newpsies, and fashioning shanks from discarded bedframes (or so I assume) must be exhausting because it seems like he sleeps for a good 18-20 hours each day.

In the remaining three episodes, here are the questions that we should be looking to have resolved:

1. Now that Kirsten's back off the wagon (or is it on the wagon?), will Sandy finally realize that he has become a puffy-eyebrowed monster? If not, will Kirsten become the drunk street walker that we all know she is more than capable of becoming?
2. Will Seth get into Riz-Dee? If so, will he make the move back to Anna? If so, will she get rid of that stupid haircut and shave her teeth so that she can look and talk like the Anna we all grew to know and kind of like a couple years ago.
3. Do Josh Schwartz and McG honestly think they can fool us into believing that Eddie's boys can swim?
4. How soon before this scenario happens: Seth doesn't get into Riz-Dee, Ryan finds out the kid is his and stays home to take care of it, Marissa decides college is not for her, and Summer decides she can't be 3000 miles away from Seth, and thus, they all conveniently end up back in The OC, commuting to fictional Cal U. in LA. Or alternatively, they all end up at Berkeley.
5. When will this Volchok and Marissa thing end? In a related question, is it possible that The Sound of Music is actually Volchok's favorite movie too, and that he uses his tough guy surfer image as a front for vigilant salad tossing?

In random news, I have the Worst-Case Scenario page-a-day calendar, which entertains me each day with a nice mix of "how to" tips and survival history. Today is the only day that I have been outright disgusted with its contents. Yesterday was the best "how to" since the one about how to fend off a bear attack. It was "How to Hot-Wire a Car." Sexy, intriguing, generally helpful, and always relevant.

What survival history tidbit do they follow that up with? Bear in mind that the standard survival history facts are about people overcoming disasters or extremely difficult or unnerving circumstances, such as earthquakes, avalanches, and Kathy Griffin stand-up routines. Not today, though. Apparently April 21 is the page that they let the editor's flaming son write, because here's the harrowing tale of survival with which I was greeted today:

"On this day in 1975, the Swedish pop group ABBA released their self-titled album, containing the hit single, "S.O.S." Formed in the early 1970s by Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Anderson, Agnetha Fältskog, and Anni-Frid Lyngstad, ABBA arguably came into their own with this, their third album. One of the album's songs, "Mamma Mia," became the title for the Broadway musical based on the songs of ABBA, which premiered in 1999."

What a story of survival. I'm still trying to piece together how they made it out alive.