Rock you like a hurricane

Five beers after we left the Pyramid Alehouse last night, Tyler and I decided to take a "sober up" lap around downtown Walnut Creek before I had to drive home, because neither of us were fit to drive the five miles back to Alamo.

On our way through the streets -- at 10:30 p.m., we got started pretty early -- and past the Century Theaters, we heard terrible music coming from this really shady looking bar in the middle of some side street. The bar was Tiki Tom's and a large banner written in Guitar Hero font announced that every Wednesday is a WIPEOUT WEDNESDAY sponsored by Red Bull.

At first, we were a bit apprehensive, but who am I kidding, slightly buzzed and decided right on the spot to check it out. I should have known it was going to be a good time when the bouncer stared at my I.D. for an entire minute, before making me smile and then held my card up to my face for another minute.

I suppose I barely got in because for some reason he wasn't buying that my I.D. was real. Once we decided this was going to be a good choice and settled on some drinks -- Tyler, your's was DEFINITELY pink... ok maybe orange :) -- one of the waitresses asked if we wanted to sign up for the Guitar Hero tournament. That meant the two of us were pitted against each other for the first of, I want to say, four brackets. He actually did really well for a.) being drunk and b.) never having played before. I think our scores came out to like 89 and 86% of the notes hit in that round. So that's a personal first, playing Guitar Hero a few drinks deep into the night!

Since I won, my name was placed into the next bracket against the very same bouncer who didn't believe I was 22 years old. He asked if I'd played before and I responded (falsely) that this was about my fourth time and he decided we were probably even in skills.

So not true. I kicked his ass in The Allmand Brothers' Jessica. I want to say he hit maybe 60% of his notes and after one practice in two months, I was back on track. (You know, the more I think about this, before Guitar Hero came around, I'm pretty sure that podium in the front of the bar used to hold screeching-drunks trying their hands at karaoke.)

After winning the next bracket, I was told I'd meet Aaron in the championship round. Praying and hoping that he wouldn't royally embarrass me, Aaron apparently hasn't played any higher than Medium. And he's pretty damn expert at the Medium level. His friends had a $100 bet going that I'd work him and supposedly when he first saw me playing, he wagered that "blondie" would make it to the final.

So I get up on the stage, shake his hand and his friends call out "Yo, dude who's that blondie chick you were talking about?" and he points to me saying, "Right here, bro." I'm really not that good, but with a few drinks flowing, I felt pretty damn good during that moment. With me on Easy and him on Medium, I'm certain that Aaron LET me beat him at Monkey Wrench. It was something ridiculous like 97 to 94%. Riding my wave of confidence, I decided to challenge the same waitress who asked if we wanted to play. The same girl who claims to play Expert level in the privacy of her own home. She absolutely cleaned up when we played Lynyrd Skynyrd's Freebird, I want to say 140,000 points to oh about 60,000. Time to go home :) And mission complete because both of us sobered right up enough to drive back to Alamo and Hayward.

Long story even longer... just kidding, short... I walked away from Tiki Tom's as the Wipeout Wednesday Red Bull Guitar Hero champ that night. Oh yeah, and we stayed until sometime around 1 a.m. The night definitely became exponentially more random and exciting!

My prize? An entire 24-pack of Red Bull. What the hell am I going to do with that?

Anyone want to come back with me next Wednesday?!

...9 JOURS!!! (I'm finally down to the single-digits!)