this past weekend, tommy, charles, jon and i headed out to the galaxy hut to get a pitcher or two. some lame-ass band was playing so the inside was packed, but we went out to the fun little alley/patio in the back and grabbed a table. unfortunately, it started raining a little too heavily for my taste, so we headed over to what turned out to be the BEST BAR IN THE WORLD: dr dremo's.

tommy used to rave about dremo's, but i only started going there occasionally this past winter/spring after their roof was fixed. i liked it well enough, but it's kind of a dive (the roof had to be fixed because, like, the entire place was condemned and about to fall in on itself or something). it's nice, and big, with a good jukebox and lots of pool tables. just not my favorite bar in the world.

that all suddenly changed on saturday night. since it was raining, but we didn't want to be stuffed inside, haggling with people over seats, we headed to the covered outdoor patio of dremo's, below the main establishment and next to the parking lot. charles and tommy played some darts while jon and i sat and observed the scene before us. and LO and BEHOLD, i learned something new: not only does dremo's have a great outdoor patio, they have a PING PONG TABLE and customized BEER PONG TABLES (which double as FLIP CUP TABLES).

excuse the capital letters, but HURRAH. i've been looking for a social setting outside of my dingy basement where i can play drunken pong games of all sorts. the presence of a ping pong table means i can finally start to think about the d.c. ping pong initiative that i've been yearning after for a while. and beer pong - well, suffice to say that i love beer pong, the way a mother loves her slightly idiotic child. i used to be good at it -- naomi and i would storm the uva beer pong scene at times. jillyn and i came back from a seemingly insurmountable bracket position to be second place in the maywood beer pong tournament of 2002. jeff and i whupped some ass at new year's.

but i haven't played since december 31, 2003. and the sight of customized beer pong tables at dremo's was enough to bring crashing back all the wonderful, hazy memories of warm lite beer, the complete lack of hygiene involved and the rush you get when the ball swooshes into the solo cup just so.

i didn't play beer pong last saturday because the tables were packed, and i was a zombie from having run 15 miles earlier in the day. but the tables are open wednesdays and thursdays as well, evenings when it's probably not as crowded and i haven't run myself into a sobbing mess of a person. so i'm saying: sometime this summer, i must gather a group of the willing to storm the beer pong tables, take over, and show dr dremo's and all of arlington what real beer pong is. who's in?