Hey! Just because it's October (er, and still 84 degrees in NYC) you didn't think we were done with wedding season did you? Let's rewind two weeks ago (Sept 21) to Randy and Lisa's wedding out in Brooklyn!

(oh real quick, a quick shoutout to anyone who's pics I stole for this recap... there are *hundreds* of Flickr pics from the wedding)



In case you're totally lost here's our little love birds... this pic skips ahead a bit though, let's start at the rehearsal dinner down at Dekk in Tribeca...



Four course meal... and all we've got to do is wear a tux tomorrow!! The steak was one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten (note to self: go back to Dekk and see if it's always that good). Grell giving me the stinkeye over the last bite.



All the groomsmen got the hookup from Randy with these hifiny shirts (er, hifiny being Randy's bbblllooooggggg).



I got a brown one. Kid silkscreened them himself! (ps: the kids in Amsterdam were wondering were to get 'em - ha!)



And onto Friday... I cut out of work early as all the groomsmen met up at Randy + Lisa's place in Tribeca for a get-yer-tux-on party. Rentals courtsey of Men's Warehouse - Kyle busted on his shirt to find this nasty blood stain on his sleeve. We tried to imagine how this went down - I like the idea of someone getting clocked in the face at some ex-girlfriend's wedding in NJ, the dude just wiping the blood on his sleeve and being like, "Let's do this!" and then a huge brawl breaks out in parking lot of the Paramus Mall... or whatever.

Hey! Did you know Randy is getting married in September? (wedding #5 of the season, btw!). Last weekend A thousand weekends ago (8/25!) a crew of us got together and made a raodtrip down to Ocean City, MD in celebration of his last days of singlehoodness (Is that a word? Should be. BTW, bachelor party #3 of the summer!)



The adventure starts early Saturday morning (8:30! Tribeca!). The lovely Lisa.S made us some Danish pancake balls ("aebelskivers") and some mf'ng sausages (if you've got an escargot pan aebelskiver pan try making them at home. And if you're awesome - like I'm going to be when I get ane of these little pans - then make those lil' pancake balls and fill 'em with powerdered sugar and bits of bacon and syrup and, oh man, sounds delicious, no?!?)

Anyway, oh yeah MD - we set sail in two cars around 9am... and... with... all... the... traffic... got there aroud 3pm (an hour of that is my fault for missig *one stoopid turn* off the highway which cost us about an hour. Ugh.)

Before we left, Randy laid out a selection of fine men's attire for us to choose from. Here (well, above) all of us (sans Carney) looking like the hottest douchebags you've ever done seen. This was taken with Josh's magical camera which is why it looks phenomenal.



In case you needed better lighting, we moved to the deck. As you may have noticed I got a haircut for J's wedding which looks like a stoopid Lego Person's haircut. Stoopid Astor Place.



See!?



We had a half-plan for the night... around 5pm we made the trek to the boardwalk, nine dudes crammed into a minivan cab.

Back in October we hung out with some folks from Glamour Magazine Italy as they were doing a story on social networking that somehow revolved around teendrama. I dunno.

Anyway, the issue is out. Girls in Italy are adding me to their MySpace by the truckload and there's about 1000 words written about us that I can't understand. Me + Kevin + Dianne + Youngna + Chrissy + Courtney + Carney all made guest appearances.

I love that (a) from now on I can say I had a two-page spread (w/ Courtney!) in Glamour mag and (b) me + kevin made the mf'ing Table of Contents - ha!

View the whole 6 page spread (ha!) here.

Sometime last year (seems like forever ago), me + Randy + Grell + AK + Josh + Carney + Doug + Becca helped Spiers put together a fake recruiting video for a fictional investment banking firm ("A.P. Corgan") for the launch of Dealbreaker.com (her finance/gossip blog).

As Krucoff says on Young Manhatanite:

Here it is, the long lost Dealbreaker promo video that was supposed to be released with the blog's launch last year. It's a mix of improvisation on top of a script written by Elizabeth Spiers and Dana Vachon, based on a JP Morgan recruitment video he "acquired." A final version was never agreed upon so the material sat in various short and long remixes on Randy's laptop. For better or worse (I'd say the former), he's just unleashed the definitive under 10-min final cut on YouTube. "Unauthorized" might be applicable but it's not like John Carney knows anything about law. Ahh, sweet memories.

Alex just forwaded me Chris Shott's "Blog Ghetto" piece which appeared in the NY Observer today. Thanks for the tdrama + dball shoutout, but Mr. Shott...

Verbal spats are common, particularly when the neighborhood’s most argumentative old-school blogger, Andrew Krucoff, is involved. But no blogger could recall an actual fistfight.

Still, a new blogger-centric faction has emerged. A number of prominent bloggers use Dodgeball, a social-networking service for your cell phone, created by Lower East Side denizen and Teendrama blogger Dennis Crowley, that alerts subscribers to your whereabouts and vice versa.

"I’d say it’s more the Dodgeball scene that now rules L.E.S., not the bloggers per se,” said Mr. Steele, himself a Dodgeball member, “but the difference between the two scenes might take an anthropologist to sort out."

Friday afternoons sure are good for puttin' together some teendrama recaps!

Monday. Happy Repeal Day. LVHRD celebrated with a anti-prohibition casino night / dance party at the Player's Club near Grammercy Park (awesome, btw - check out their recap). A few poker tables upstairs, burlesque show downstairs and lots of people trying to cheat their way through cards and invent ways to scamming chips off people (push up contests, chips-for-nips trades - ha!). I arm wrestled Jake.D all the way to victory. Random bit of trivia from Matt Spangler: The Player's Club used to be the apartment of John Wilkes Booth's brother. (A few mins ago I had accused Spangler of being a LIAR after I confused Booth's brother w/ Aaron Burr's ficticious brother. Ha. I am sm.dumb sometimes.)



Checked my chips on the way out of LVHRD and headed down to meet KK + Lock + crew at Villedge Public House Stanton Public. We dressed Courtney up real nice in this ninja scarf. (Rumor has it we may start dj'ing here???)



Wednesday. Anyone remember the Guitar Hero fundraiser from last year? Held last year at Barcade, Joel from Gizmodo invited a whole bunch of people to some try out Guitar Hero for (brand new!!!) and donate some money to the Children's Hospital of Montefiore. Maybe 50 people showed up? It was much fun (and yes, I did end getting Guitar Hero for Xmas that year).

Anyway, they did it again this year and it was *packed*. Like 200 people? There was even a tournament (read: nerds. decked. out.) Started at 8p, I got there around 9 and it seemed like the place was at capacity. Rumor has the sign up sheet to play was all filled by 8:10p. Huh.



Thursday. Man, it was freezing last night (like 25 degrees!) and stoopid me only wore a hoodie to work (it was like 50 degrees that morning!). Anyway, I met Dianne at UCB and then Kevin.K at Bleecker Bar and then Courtney at One and One before trekking in the cold over to 2A to meet up w/ Everyone Else in the World. On the agenda was Lawrence's karaoke bday party @ The Annex and I was ttthhhiiiisss close to skipping cause it was just so so so cold. But we walked over anyway. And, it. was. amazing.



First of all, starting today everyone should be wearing a tux on your birthday. It's just makes sense. By the way, I took this about 3 mins after we walked in. The two guys in the background are the emcees (Karaoke Killed the Cat) [video]



Battjer is to karaoke what Ted Williams is to baseball. 40 years from now I'll be bragging to my grandkids about how I saw the legend once perform on a crappy little stage in the Lower East Side. If you don't watch the whole thing, at least watch until the guy in the red shirt starts benchpressing the mic stand. Hahahahahahah. [video]

Happy post Thanksgiving... and I'm 10 days behind again. Before I left town to drown myself in Zelda, I survived Kevin K's bday throwdown at Lorley Saturday night. Me + Alex + Kevin dj'ed.



Remeber a few weeks ago - that bender of an evening @ Marshall Stack - when Katie's bf Matt spilled a glass of wine all over Kevin? Katie swore she had the technology to fix it (hough we all said it was impossible). Come Saturday though she wrapped up KK's most favoritist shirt and brought it along. Clean as a whistle!



Best. Birthday. Present. Ever? He had to hold it up to Loreley's Playmobile terrarium to double check. Well done, Shoops!



Oh, and besides the slamming hip hop dance party, the other big news of the evening was that Jonathan and Jackie got engaged (!!!). Word spread quickly via the magic of text messaging. Not to be outdone, I reinacted the scene with a face-blacked-out-to-protect-the-innocent Caroline...



... and sub'ed in this awesome lava-rock thing.



Oh, hello there Jill and Steve. Jill was whispering sweet nothings in my ear - sweet nothings along the lines of "nobody wants to hear Def Lepard! Play more Michael Jackson!" (SHUT UP!)

Why hello Friday! A quick recap from the week?

+ I hit up Spring Lounge twice this week - a Tuesday night bender w/ Harry + Kearney + Carney crew and a rematch Thursday night with celebrity bloggers and Google kids. Both times the guy behind the bar *skipped over my jukebox tracks* (I didn't even know they could do that from behind the bar). Tuesday it was Lionel Richie Stevie Wonder's "I Just Called to Say I Love You" (yeah yeah, I know) and last night it was some Ben Folds Five track (not my pick, I swear!). I revolted both nights. At least on Tuesday the bouncer gave me my dollar back.

+ Some friends of mine (and PacManhattan alumn!) are putting on a Big Urban Games festival in NYC this weekend called Come Out and Play. If running around in the streets is your thing, come battle me in Life-sized Space Invaders (awesome) and Identity (tonight @ 8p), StoryMashUp and CrossRoads (Saturday @ 12:30) and Payphone Warriors (!!, Sunday @ 12p)

+ Sat in on a consulting panel this week where someone brought up this guerilla campaign for John Mayer spoofing those ubiquitous "Dan Smith Will Teach You Guitar!" flyers in NYC. Clever, though not as clever as Josh.D's camera phone game (out of my class at NYU, pow!) that spoofed them first.

+ That video above? From the GOOD Magazine launch party last night. Lots of white kids dancing (thank you + thank you + thank you, sweet Jesus that the digivideo machine didn't find us). Trapped outside for hours ("we're not letting any more people in till Al Gore leaves!") then trapped downstairs for hours ("Fire Marshall says no more people upstairs! The end!") and then discovering the secret fire escape warp zone to the hip hop dance party. I didn't take any pics, but whatever. ps: Gawker did.



+ Picked up a Nike+ kit this week (and *another* stoopid iPod since it only runs on the Nano). Huh? One piece plugs into your shoe, the other into your iPod and together they keep stats on your running habits / progress *and* let's you set up challenges with friends (most mileage in 10 days, first to 100 miles, etc). Email me if you want to battle.

+ Oh, and I've been getting emails all morning from friends who spotted me on CNN. Apparently they're running a piece on dball that we filmed a few months ago (this one?). Get yer Tivo on:

Friday on HLN between 6:30a-7a
Friday on HLN between 11a-11:30a
Friday on CNN between 11a-noon
Friday on CNN between 2p-3p
Friday on HLN between 6p-7p

Saturday on HLN between 9:30a-10a
Saturday on CNN between 10a-11a
Saturday on HLN between 12:30p-1p
Saturday on CNN between 4p-5p

Sunday on HLN between 8a-8:30a
Sunday on CNN between 9a-10a
Sunday on HLN 1p-1:30p

Okay friends, are you sure you can handle the awesomeness of this Alex + Karen wedding recap? (and only 10 days late!) Quick background: Alex + Karen = friends of mine from grad school @ NYU (come'on, you already know this!). While Alex and I worked on just about every project at ITP together (how sweet), me + Alex + Karen (and Giselle! Boomer!) worked on larger Special Group Projects together. Oh, and these days I work with Alex @ G on the dodgeball stuff. Good times! So, ready?



Let's start at Friday's rehearsal dinner - reserved for all the VIPs who get to be in the wedding (pow!). I was a Groomsman. Or an usher. Or something. Whatever. I got to wear a tux.

At dinner, family and friends gathered around round-after-round of appetizers and wine. When it came time to sit, we split into a Kids Table and a Grown Ups table. The poor bride and groom-to-be got stuck with the grown ups(, suckas!)

Now before we get too deep into this recap, let me take a second to say that the A+K wedding was perhaps the best wedding I've been to. I mean, everything was so thought out and planned out and pretty much perfect. Let me trying to call out some examples. See, that way I'll be able to remember when it comes time for My Special Day (hopefully with that girl I made out w/ at Steve Swozowski's party in 7th grade).



Best Wedding Ever Example #1: Everything on the menu was picked out by A+K. Right? I mean, it seemed like it. Lobster roll apps? Karen! Pork wrapped in bacon? Alex! Root beer floats! Well done!

I stole this video from Manlio, but here's me breaking down our reherasal dinner strategy - Kevin and I went splitty-splitty. (the 2nd part of the video is from the post-wedding reception, btw) [video]

Manlio says: "I think my favorite part is Kevin’s “I can’t believe I’m going to be in this video” look."



Wait, did you hear what I said a second ago? I said *pork wrapped in bacon*. Perhaps the most delicious thing I've ever tasted.



After the rehersal dinner, we trekked about 100 miles over to Floyd, this bar in Brooklyn I've heard of a thousand times (mostly via dodgeball check-ins from A+K). Anyway, bocce courts + drink specials!



Micah in the white. Oliver in the blue. Karen in the black. Amy (?) in the pink. Kevin gesturing wildly in the background.



Only two of these pics in this recap, I swear!



A+K retired early (smart!). Me + Kevin.K trekked into Manhattan and drank till 5am (dumb!). I met up w/ Dianne and Jen.D who were DJing at Backroom (hi!). I kind of heart this photo.



Fast forward to the next morning. Team Groomsmen met up w/ Alex for brunch at Schiller's (why don't I have a pic of this?).

When we went to settle up the bill, I busted out these temporary tattoos that I had made up for the wedding. I brought maybe 15 of them to brunch to give out to the wedding party. We left a few extras behind for the waitstaff.



... but not to worry, there are plenty. (er, you have to order them in batches of 1000 - foreshadowing!)

Met up with Jesse.O and his entourage for drinks @ Dusk late last night. Carney and Kearney were still there(, of course). I spent a good five minutes with Carney trying to remember exactly what we did this weekend (er, two days ago), specifically Saturday. That's kind of sad. The Thurs night VMAs + three day weekend = makes everyone a little hazy.

So, the recap:



Thursday. VMA after party. I posted some pics. Rob posted some pics. Christian made a video??

If you want to go A-list, check out Carney and Krucoff (and that starfucker Matt.U) over on thecobrasnake.com (hint: middle column). If you want to go B-list, you can find Krucoff and Carney again over on Gawker. If C-list is more your thing, I'm an background extra on the Best Week Ever's recap. Post VMAs we ended up @ Annex. Everyone in the world was hungover on Friday.

Friday. Caught up on my Tivo. (Prison Break!)



Saturday. Field trip to the Upper West Side. CZ made dinner. I made out with this girl's headshot. She looks like Rachel Leigh Cook!



Jill text'ed me about Nat getting engaged (congrats, btw!). I sent my congrats to Natasha by mistake. Huh.

Saturday night ends at 2A, er, Backroom.

ps: Dianne, we *totally* should have distracted that girl's friends at 2A with a pizza. So many regrets!



Sunday. Field trip to The Upper East Side (Mel's 30th bday). Me + Steve dressed up in our best above-50th-Street getup.



Mel + Jackie + Beth + Adam. All friends from the Syracuse days.



Then to Lolita -> Sing Sing on Ave A (too crowded) -> then we kicked this stick (named Stickey) all the way to Scratcher.



And when we got sick of playing telephone at Scratcher (die die die to the losers at the far end of the bar who didn't want to play), we hit up Sing Sing karaoke @ St. Marks. We posed with our new NYU freshman BFFs on the way.



Dear Battjer, how do you get your digi to take pics with those magic light effects? I've been trying "nighttime" mode but it sucks. So I switched to "underwater" mode which is brighter for sure, but also crazier. Please advise.



Lolita -> Scratcher -> Sing Sing -> The Automat. Has everyone heard about this already? (from Gothamist. ps: Automat co-founded by an ITP grad) It's like the little ham and cheese vending machines they used to have at the bowling alley, only replaced with fancy + delicious late night food. I had a pocket full of quarters from a day's worth of errands which I totally blew in like 10 minutes (all the machines take quarters, most expesive item is $1.75). There's like six things to order. We sampled as many as my laundry fund could afford:

+ Mac and cheese croquette (A++)
+ Mozarella sticks (A-)
+ Chicken nuggets (B)
+ Chicken wings (B-)

Monday. Nothing really. "Little Ms. Sunshine" w/ Becca (recommended, btw) and some random cookout (via dodgeball) on Rivington/Allen. And then naptime. (the end)

Back in my Working-for-MTV days, I got to go to the VMAs. It was fun. I sat in the very very very last row (it was the Brittney + Madonna making out VMAs) and spent most of the time at the bar.

Anyway, since I'm 30 and b-list these days, no more VMAs for me. Instead I'm stuck trying to sneaking into after-parties with Krucoff and Carney (and Kearney), pretending we're on the press list for d-list blogs.

But just when you're thinking you're FD + old + b-list, it all works out and some dude named Bucky pulls you in with his entourage. (thanks for the mini-keg, btw)



And then you end up meeting up with the rest of your friends who scammed their way in. Hey, C + RJ are shooting the party for a record label? Can I get one of those VIP passes, please?



Sweet, thanks! To the green room! (a combination of Strong Island dbags and Johnny Smashing Pumpkins).

Green room = shorter line for the bar....



... and free bottles of tequila! (er, five finger discount) When we had enough of midtown, we hailed a town car (Six in the City!) and headed downtown...



... to the Annex. Was that even a VMA party? Either way, ran into Everyone I Know, had another 800 drinks, went to bed around 4am. I'm pretty banged up today. Summer friday pow pow!

Grellan: "you should petition mtv to have the VMAs monthly. dball traffic would triple."

ps: More pics from Lawrence and Brian.V. Who's Mandy?

ps2: Mandy = bassist for Stellastarr

Teendrama Week in Review! Live from Montauk! (me = on vacation for 10 days!). Woo-hoo!

Actually, I'm a wee bit behind. I got a good 50 photos from Alex's Bachelor Party that I still need to put online (maybe this wkd? Previews here). But today is all about, er, me + Dianne + Youngna roadtripping to Tribeca to check out Extra Action Marching Band at the Knitting Factory last Saturday.

Quick backstory: Sean.S dragged me to see them in SF a few weeks back and now I'm there #1 superfan (Pilot to Gunner, anyone?). Show was a little more tame than the one in SF (perhaps because the crowd didn't know what they were getting themselves into?)



Still marching-band-marching-through-the-crowd is pretty rad.



And color-guard girls (and boys) sporting traditional marching band attire, waving flags, climbing rafters, crawling on floors.



I tried my bestest to convince some of my friends from home (er, MF, Mike.d, Jon, Adam, Mom, Dad... you're all lame) to go check them out when they played in Boston last weekend, but I think everyone stayed home watching the teevee. [video]

They're playing in Brooklyn tomorrow night (Saturday). Go!

Rubulad at 3rd Ward
195 Morgan Ave.
Saturday 8/19, 11pm



Post show, met up w/ the kids who went on Lisa.S' fishing trip @ Back Room. Everyone stank of fish. I'm kind-of-clear on why Carney was rolling with rubber gloves, but whatever.



Fast-forward through a pretty uneventful week and we get Wednesday's mini-version of Dinner Club. Dinner Club = old school attempt to get all our Syracuse friends together once a month. All the dudes dropped out / got married / moved away, leaving me, five ladeeeeez and a better-than-you-would-have-expected lobster roll @ Elmo.

(five ladeeeez = Nat (in from SF!), Jackie, Jill, Lauren Hourse, Mel.W)



Dinner to drinks to signature shot at some pretentious spot in the meatpacking district.



Jill.S = engaged.

Mel.W = engaged.

DPS = rocking rings like my name was Chingy.

Last week I got an email from Will that said:

December 17th
Sing Sing on St. Marks
2-5 pm
Egg nog, holiday punch, food and Total Eclipse of the Heart

Three random pics from a holiday party hopping on a random Monday night (12/20). We started off at Common Ground (bonus trivia: owned by Beaver Creek Pete's friend from high school) where the Onion had an open bar (all the whiskey you can drink). Unfourtinately, they ran out of whiskey after about 40 mins (no thanks to WIll and Carney's triplefisting efforts).

Next stop = Franklin Street where we crashed a holiday party for boutique fashion store? (no idea... Grellan was in the lead). We met up w/ Nikki (1:00) and her friend (7:00, sorry I forgot your name), grabbed beers out of a trashcan full of ice and stuck around till the drinks were gone.



Then we caught a cab to Spring Lounge (er, where else?) where we met up a bunch of random girls, including this girl Allison who is married to my friend-of-a-friend Bill T. (from Syracuse). Huh.



Hmmm... that's about it. Will and Nikki. Pretty crunked up for a Monday. (oh wait, didn't we go to Happy Ending after this? Free vodka, right? Just remembered that. Hmm. Carney + Will + Grell + Nikki... I think I stayed for 1/2 a drink then went to bed. Good times.)