Honda Canada: “Happy Birthday Reggie, Here’s an Acura!” + Another Blackout Birthday Bash

That’s it, everybody. I’m 30. And I had a bad-ass birthday to report.

I’m probably the last person in the world who’s afraid of turning the page into the next set of double digits, but I think most of it has to do with the ageless Asian genes. It sure rocks when I don’t look a day over 23 still, but have the knowledge of a.. well, 24 year old. Me actually acting 30 is still somewhat debatable.

This birthday included a ton of cool surprises, but the biggest one sits on four wheels.

As much as I’d like to call it a permanent present, the folks from Honda offered me a new 2012 Acura TL to drive for the week. While I’m sure it had something to do with TIFF, I’m going to pretend it has more to do with my birthday. Ergo, the quotation in the title is a complete fabrication by my own doing and is otherwise nonfactual.

Driving downtown hasn’t exactly been my forte; I’m your average downtown Torontonian. I take cabs, ride a bike, occasionally hop a streetcar, and love to walk the streets (literally, I don’t use crosswalks). My previous automobile tenure dates back a decade ago – I had the Fast and the Furious fever and bought a ’97 Hyundai Tiburon. In New Brunswick, there aren’t that many cars on the street, and a traffic jam consisted of three cars idling at a red light. The highways were single lane without street lights, which made moose dodging at 120 km/hr a tricky thing to do in the pitch black. Parking was usually free, unless you ended up on one of those coin-operated machines that were regularly non-functional. Since leaving for Toronto, driving has been reduced to not-ever.

Needless to say, driving downtown Toronto is most likely the complete opposite of that.

Keri from Keriblog, who came along to test drive an Acura herself, was too kind. She let me keep my first choice: the black, 6 speed TL, over the white & automatic TSX. The TL seemed more me. Thanks Keri, you made my week <3

I spent a good 15 minutes staring at the dashboard. There wasn't an key/ignition slot - just a rectangular-shaped hole and a red Engine On button. I spent five stupid minutes staring at it until I realized I had to insert the entire fob into it. Mind blowing. Many a things have changed since 2001.

As many of you know, I like to stay in my box of Queen/University to King/Bathurst, and occasionally Liberty Village. I was in Markham. Yeah. Spent a good 10 minutes figuring out how to set the GPS, because there’s no way in hell I knew how to get home.

Aside from watching the car in front of me getting crushed by an 18 wheeler, I got pretty comfortable driving again. The quick reflexes, the gear shifting, and the general driving techniques that took a seven year hiatus all came flooding back to me pretty quickly. And I quickly fell in love with this four-door, high-tech freak show.

Shifting in six gear is pretty smooth. I’m used to five, but really, there isn’t really any difference. I fiddled with the XM Radio (another new discovery to my primitive ass), and spent an entire week listening to Weezy & Drake’s She Will (I don’t miss radio). The rear camera, a feature that will allow me never to go back to driving a car without it, was easily my most liked feature. It even had guidelines so you’d know how wide your car is while reversing into a spot. Legendary. And the black leather seats were kush.

Lil Wayne – She Will ft Drake by YMlilwayne

Also collected an absurd number of parking slips. Apparently, there are tricks of the trade that downtown parkers know of, that regular street walkers like us are pretty noob about. I think I was up to $90 spent on parking alone after a week.

If I got this car for TIFF, the most I did for it was drive Melissa from Gotstyle to a few TIFF parties – the Vanity Fair Belvedere Red Party being the highlight. I haven’t had time to look into what movies are the must watches – I’ve been spending most of my week working on client projects and setting things up for my big 3-0.

I rented out SCHOOL for that Saturday night. I’ve been helping them out with a lot this year: hosting their BBQs, building their new website, co-managing their Twitter account (which just reached 1000 followers last month!). So the friendly folks at SCHOOL were open to hosting my little get together.

I invited a whole bunch of my closest friends to my big dirty thirty. My awesome designer Ashley whipped up this awesome creative for it.

My birthday included an awesome four hour set by DJ Seven, spinning the R&B classics of the 1990s. He dropped a killer set. He got the approval from all.

SCHOOL offered a host of sweet snacks, including butter chicken poutine, beef sliders, fig & brie grilled cheese, and more. It caught everyone off guard for the most part. Heard the butter chicken poutine was a show stopper. Wish it were on the regular menu.

Owen, my favourite bartender at SCHOOL, made a one-night only drink for me called Reggie Sex. A lot of people had Reggie Sex that night, and made sure that every bit of Reggie Sex was in their mouth. Nobody left without getting a bit of Reggie Sex. It was a Reggie Sex party.

I also hosted Reggie Hour. I wanted to get everyone smashed. I also don’t like people giving me shit, including my birthday, so the best way to get people to not buy drinks for me (read: shots), is to buy all the liquor for everyone else. It kept me sober for a good hour, well, before the madness hit.

I blacked out (again) sometime before 11:30pm I think. Nothing new there, I always black out when I drink excessively, and apparently I was hitting the bar for shots on a repeat basis. Re-fucking-peat.

In my 2 hours of blackout, I:

• Was spitting my shots out at people’s shoes.
• Had a very serious 20 minute, life changing conversation in the kitchen with a friend that neither of us remember.
• Started trying to lift everyone – in which case i usually ended up showing their butts when their dress would come up.
• Also tried lifting my bigger friend Phil, which was a fail. I also tried to get women to lift me, which was also a fail.
• Clotheslined a co-worker.
• Spent 15 mins talk to my friend Gary, in which he went back to his girlfriend after and said, “I have no idea what Reggie just said to me.”

Not posting photos. You have to be a Facebook friend for those.

My thing, when I’m drunk, is I like to carry people. I like lifting people. It’s my way of hugging people, without having any understanding of how strong I could be. There seems to be a major disconnect between brain and body when I’m crunked.

To sum it up, here’s what Nicole (Late July) said:

• you were carrying them to the dance floor
• ‘this is MY party. YOU DANCE’
• you grabbed a bunch of people
• and told me THESE PEOPLE ARE REAL
• THEYRE REAL YO. REAL
• and you did some crazy breakdance move
• like some weird version of the running man
• you WERE the entertainment
• you were jumping on the couches

Awesome.

Thanks for the 30th birthday memories folks. Err, stories, since well, uh. You know.

Obviously, I didn’t drive home. That’d be ridiculous. Although there were times back in New Brunswick where I had blacked out and drove home. Stupid teenage things. I’m 30 now – I can look back and scoff. Don’t drink and drive kids, it’ll only put you in the idiot box (and kill people, and stuff).

I sadly returned my Acura on Wednesday. I miss it a lot. The comfort, the ease of use, the sexy blackness of it. One day, that bitch’ll be mine.