This July, I spent two weeks abroad in the United Kingdom. Two friends and I spent five days in London, followed by seven days in Scotland. The stories that follow are totally true and not in any way exaggerated or embellished.

Day 2

The best part of getting all our shit stolen was dealing with the police the next day.

It was like combining every buddy cop movie ever with every awesome stereotype concerning a team of English constables. One was irreverent and hilarious, cracking jokes all the time. The other played the straight man, making hilarious faces and shaking his head at us whenever the first guy said something particularly ridiculous.

I think my favorite moment was when one of them made fun of the Scots with a Scottish brogue. I had never really considered that people with accents could do accented accents of other accents. It was awesome to discover that other countries have stereotypes for people from other sections of their country too.

Basically, I’m glad Americans aren’t the only assholes in the world. Perhaps the biggest assholes, but not the only assholes. We are Amurica, dammit! We go all out for everything, including being fuckheads.

Artist’s rendition of the world’s biggest asshole

We spent most of the day walking all over the city. Those of you traveling to London who plan on walking, buy walking shoes. I thought my shoes were good enough for the amount of walking we were going to do. I can assure you that if you have the same thoughts, that idea is false.

Remember, no exaggerations here

Very, very false.

I spent much of my day with St. Jerome, St. Sebastian, and my homie, Eurocentric Jesus. Please check out THIS ARTICLE for a very brief explanation.

This July, I spent two weeks abroad in the United Kingdom. Two friends and I spent five days in London, followed by seven days in Scotland. The stories that follow are totally true and not in any way exaggerated or embellished.

Day 1

Before this trip, I had never been to another country, much less another continent. This meant that I would need to have my first experience flying.

I’m not sure we were meant to fly. If I was a god and I made a decision not to give a species wings and then discovered them flying through the air, I’d be pissed. If there is a god, I feel like I could have achieved the same effect by shouting “FUCK YOU, GOD!” for eight hours.

…Which I made sure to do the entire flight

After a concert I didn’t like, we returned to find that someone had stolen a bunch of our shit. My iPod was gone, and one of my friends and a cute Swedish woman lost their MacBooks.  Clearly the lesson here is not to trust Europeans and their damn socialism.

Damn you, Theodore!

The likely culprit was “Oxford Bro,” who regaled us with stories of “Totally, like, fucking this one Canadian chick” to celebrate Canada Day. This should have been our first hint that something was amiss because I’m pretty sure it’s common knowledge that Canadians reproduce asexually.

So, in half a day, I went to a concert I didn’t like and had my iPod stolen. Good start.

Posted by: Rites of Patches | July 18, 2012

Visiting The National Gallery in London

Read More…

Posted by: Rites of Patches | January 6, 2011

10 Best Albums of 2010 (To Which I Listened)

Before I begin, let me tell you how messed up this list is going to be. It’s going to be wrong. I promise. I started these at the end of 2008. I know music and I thought that would be enough to dazzle the masses with my musical know-how. Unfortunately, I underestimated my objectivity and have allowed for some criminally good albums to slip out of the top ten. Last year, I had Between the Buried and Me’s The Great Misdirect at 13 or 14 when it clearly deserved 4 or 5. Basically, I’m telling you that I screwed this up again.

That said, I still know music, and thus, boldly and confidently, I butcher the 10 Best Albums of 2010 to which I listened.

Read More…

Posted by: Rites of Patches | August 17, 2010

Fuck Nebraska (My Trip to Colorado by the Numbers)

Seriously, fuck Nebraska.

I recently drove out to Colorado from Minnesota. It required driving through Southern Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, and the Southeast corner of Wyoming. I left with an appreciation for the rolling hills of Western Iowa. Wyoming was quaint. I’ve lived in the Twin Cities for the last three years, so there’s something amusing about seeing a billboard for a business in your state’s capital city ten miles out of town (Hey! We’re in Minneapolis! Look! There’s a sign for Pete’s Salvage Yard! It’s only five miles away in St. Paul!). Colorado is breathtaking. But fuck Nebraska, because Nebraska sucks.

Louis C.K. has a bit where he explains that until the age of six or seven, nothing a child says matters. It’s great that they are talking, but if you didn’t hear anything they said for the first six years of their life, absolutely nothing in your life would be different. In this sense, Nebraska is the four-year old of the United States. It’s great that it’s a state and all. It really helps balance out our flag. But if Nebraska got nuked tomorrow, nothing about the United States would be different. We would lose nothing but six-hundred miles of flat land, some cows, and some sort of Southern, sort of asshole people.

 

Sad Day...

 

The trip was well worth it, though. Time of my life, thank you for asking. Here’s my trip by the numbers:

Read More…

I’d like to tap your Rockies if you know what I mean. If you don’t, I meant that ass of yours.

You take my breath away. Wait… No, it’s just the altitude and not being in shape.

You can scale my mountain? Does that work? Not really? Okay, sorry.

I like to try your bang-quet beer. I agree. Stupidity is a turn-off. How does that apply to me?

I’d like to rock your Y Mountains?

Denver? I hardly knew her!

Posted by: Rites of Patches | July 19, 2010

Bad Puns Part 2


I am somewhat well-known for being a planner. Friends always say, “Hey, Patches, you should be more spontaneous.” I carefully consider their advice before deciding against it. I also spend the next week carefully planning putting my balls on my friends’ faces. Who the hell do they think they are pointing out my weaknesses anyways?

Ummm… Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant

After all that teabagging and mushroom stamping, I suppose it’s really not much of a surprise that I couldn’t find anyone to go with me to the Band of Horses concert at the State Theater. Thankfully, I ran into an old friend there, Mick G. Light.

My Ever Faithful Friend

Mick and I met in college. Good guy.

Mick and I went to find our seats in the balcony. We were very confused for a bit since neither of us could read or match the strange, mystical symbols on our tickets with the ones on our seats. Since we were so clueless, an usher who looked like the guy that sold me my car found my seat for me.

Renaldo will sell the muthafuckin’ shit outta that muthafuckin’ car!

The opening band was Bryan Cates. I have nothing against the guy, but I hate him. Yeah, ponder that statement for a moment. I had a hard time getting over a couple of things with their show. First, Bryan seemed like a pretty good dude, but he wore a tie that looked like a shadow. It was the perfect color so that whenever it moved, I tried to figure out what moved in front of him. Not cool. Also, their lead guitarist wore crocs. I fucking hate that guy. Green ones too.

Not acceptable

Finally, they had a guy that looked like Christopher Titus in a v-neck t-shirt with a maraca and tambourine.

Pretty much this

Now… Call me a metal snob if you will, but it is never, NEVER, necessary to have a guy in your band just to shake two jingly things. (This would be the place where a less mature author would make a joke about sweet boobs.*) If your instruments can be played by an elementary-schooler, you are not needed in a band. There is no song ever written that needs a tambourine so badly that all the band members need to give up 5% of their check. That’s all that having a 5th guy in your band to play the tambourine is: a 20% pay cut. My future metal band, Love Drool (assuming I can get the proper permissions from the creator), will not have a tambourine player. Keyboardist? It’s possible. 2nd percussionist? It’s a stretch, but maybe. Tambourine player? Fuck no.

Band of Horses was awesome.

BONUS: 3 Things You Didn’t Know

1) Band of Horses is the world’s 3rd largest exporter of ironic facial hair.

2) Someone actually owns a #24 Mike Lamb Twins shirt. 80% of TWINS FANS will say “Who the fuck is that? Is that guy’s name Lamb?” The other 20% will say “Why the fuck does that guy have a Mike Lamb shirt? That guy fucking blew.”

3) Black people love Band of Horses. The two Black people I saw at the concert clapped after every song!

*

Really? You thought I was above this?

Posted by: Rites of Patches | July 10, 2010

LeBron James Has an Announcement

Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for tuning into tonight’s ESPN special, LeBron James’ LeBron James Special on LeBron James’ Decision for LeBron James, starring LeBron James.

These past few months have been difficult for me. Making this decision has been the most difficult in my life. I considered many different options and different choices. I consulted my mom and we agreed that the most important thing for me is to have fun. After several agonizing weeks, I have finally made a decision. Which is…

Read More…

Posted by: Rites of Patches | April 4, 2010

Happy Easter!

Sorry, everyone… Had to do it. Happy Zombie Jesus Day!

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »

Categories