Wow, talk about an eventful New Years Eve.

I bussed it to 14th and P around 9pm — my short term plan was to get something to eat at the 17th Street McDonald’s in Dupont then walk back for overpriced two-for-one drinks at Halo until I got bored, then meander my way to Omega for Midnight, passing by JR’s, and Cobalt on the way.

McDonald’s was closing as I ordered and there was a large group of of 10-15 thug types in the center of the dining area that were being generally loud, rude and obnoxious. Once the staff started dimming the lights and locking the doors, the thugs just got more and more disruptive — swearing a lot, demanding to use the bathroom and throwing trash on the ground as one of the employees was trying to clean up around them. I started to put my trash in the paper bag I was served in when I heard the manager say to the group “keep doing that and I’ll call the police.” Four or five of the group stood up and began cursing at the employees and the others sheepishly started to walk out the front door. As their combative friends turned to follow them out the restaurant, they one by one threw their open drinks at the front counter, launching a deluge of cola and grape drink like nothing I have since post-Katrina. The police were called but I was out of there before a mop hit the ground or the shit hit the fan.

Some people just have no manners.

My belly full of burger and fries, I made my way back to Halo where I watched the crap that CNN was showing before the Anderson Cooper/Kathy Griffin NYE special. If I remember correctly it was Larry King talking to a still kind of nerdy-hot Bill Nye “The Science Guy” about whether or not the US government is concealing information about space aliens and other related UFO conspiracies.

WTF. Slow news day much, CNN?

On the way back to Halo there were downed tree branches blown everywhere and random bits of debris strewn about by the major amount of wind we’ve had all day. My favorite was this row of newspaper machines that got toppled:

Halo was annoying after a while because they were playing loud, crappy dance music and half the stuff on TV didn’t have closed captioning so there was no way to follow any of the “Best and Worst of 2008” show that was on — it was just random talking heads super imposed over clips of OJ and Britney Spears. Plus, it’s impossible to start a conversation with anyone over that racket. I decided I needed to move on to a less noisy and pretentious bar.

I stopped in at JRs and got a Woodchuck, but I just wasn’t feeling it so I drank it quickly, left and due to the cold weather I nixed the stop at Cobalt and moved on to plan D: Omega. I got to Omega just in time to pay the $8 cover charge only to find they had the same 25 music videos and the same 6 fat go-go boys they have every other time I’ve been there. Fuck it, it’s New Years, right? I had a few drinks and caught up with my friend Carl and the guy sitting next to him, Jake (I think). By this time I was getting tired and I really just wanted to get New Years over with, get a bite to eat, go home and crawl into bed with my cats.

Midnight came and went and I made some drunken and probably embarrassing txt messages to Gerry and some of my other east coast friends. (I tried sending messages at 1am to my NOLA friends but T-Mobile must have been getting slammed because I wasn’t able to send anything.)

Oh, I almost forgot the nasty New Years Champagne at Omega:

After the crowd calmed down around 1:30 I said goodbye to Carl and offered to get a bite to eat with Jake since he had mentioned he was getting hungry too. We talked a bit over burgers, I said goodbye and went to an ATM to get cab fare for myself.

That’s when it happened: Cannot connect to banking institution.

I tried again. Same response.

So, at 2:45am and with $3 in cash in my pocket and no way to get money, I continued my journey from 22nd and P to my house at 11th and Kenyon.

I made it home at 4:18am.

It’s now 4:58 and I’m finally crawling in bed with my cats.

Happy New Year!