"You're slacking on your pimpin'. Turn it up." It's as if these lyrics, taken from 1998's Money Ain't a Thing, written and performed by Jermaine Dupri and Jay-Z—throw your diamonds in the sky, if you feel the vibe—were aimed directly at me. While I never got into the business of pimping hoes, I am, it seems, in the business of pimping prose (isn't rhyming fun?). And on that front, I have certainly been slacking in the past few days, as I was away for the weekend in Virginia Beach. But no worries, I'm back and don't plan on being late, or missing posts (as that would mean my blog is pregnant).

So, like I said I spent the weekend in Virginia Beach for my fraternity's Spring Formal. All things considered, it was a great time, especially considering my initial sense of foreboding after reading some reviews of the hotel we were booked in for the weekend (one particularly colorful review on tripadvisor.com stated that the hotel was, in fact, "hell" and that the only people who would think it was a nice establishment would have to be "previously homeless before this trip or coming from a 3rd world country"). The weather wasn't exactly beach friendly, it was kind of rainy—a fact for which I personally blame the Native American dance troupe that was staying in our hotel—so we wound up walking around during the day (I don't know for certain that there was a Native American dance troupe, but I see no other reason for it to have rained).

After about five minutes of walking up and down the V.A. Beach "strip," I could have sworn I was about to turn a corner and come face to face with Jenkinson's Aquarium or Kristin and the Noise rocking it out at the Rusty Rudder. It seems like every single beach town I go to is an exact doppleganger of every other beach town I have ever been to (Jenkinson's can be found in Pt. Pleasant, NJ, while Dewey Beach is home to both the Rusty Rudder and Kristin and the Noise). Literally. They are all exactly the same. I wonder if someone somewhere along the line wrote a How-To guide for designing a beach town. It would probably look like this:

How To Build a Beachtown
Step 1: Hotels
-Build 18 hotels along the water that just barely pass safety, fire, and health regulations.
-Hire as many people who dropped out of 7th grade as possible to work in these hotels (it is preferable if they are lethargic and do not have a firm grasp of the English language).
-Neglect the upkeep and maintenance of these hotels at all costs. Remember, it costs more to provide your guests with hot water than freezing, sub-zero temperatured water.
-Provide free coffee in the lobby, after all, the hotel business is about customer service!

Step 2: Restaurants
-Build a pizza place on at least one corner of every street. On every 2nd street, make sure said pizza place advertises its pizza as "New York Style."
-In the middle of every other street, build a Kohr's brothers or similar ice-cream shop.
-Have at least one seafood restaurant featuring an old sea captain and/or a sailfish in it's logo.
-Give every restaurant establishment, down to the little girl with the lemonade stand, a liquor license (Little Suzy will make much more with her Mike's Hard Lemonade stand, trust us)
-Build 2-3 diners minimum. Drunk visitors and townies alike need someplace to get a decent burger, pancakes with bacon, a plate of pickles, and a slice of lemon meringue pie at 4a.m.

Step 3: Shopping
-Make sure every third building on the main road sells T-Shirts, hemp necklaces, shot glasses, Frisbees (note: make sure these were so poorly constructed by Korean children that they stand no chance of actual flight), disposable cameras, assorted key chains with people's names on them, and beer bongs.
-Have at least one convenience store per block; this should also double as a rental location for 4 person bicycles.
-Build 1 Surf Shop or Skate Shop. These may be combined into one gargantuan "Board Shop," if you so choose, or if you run out of funding.

Step 4: Entertainment
-Build 4 miniature golf courses. One must be pirate themed. This is non-negotiable.
-Have an aquarium featuring the saddest looking animals known to man. (We assure you, children love this! Don't let little things like their tears fool you).
-Provide games on the boardwalk. However, make sure the prizes for these game are either completely undesirable (a life-sized, inflatable version of Sloth from the Goonies circa 1985) or completely unattainable (ie: You have one shot to throw a single dart through life size replicas of President Kennedy and Governer Connally, passing through each twice. If you're successful, you win a Maserati!)
-Build 6 bars: three for tourists, one for townies, one for the hip hop crowd, and one gay bar. Of the three bars for tourists, at least one must have a live cover band on any given night.
-Host monster truck rallies, gun shows, and other events that can only be classified as a "hick of a good time."

A good beach town also has a few drunken beach bums to drive cabs while intoxicated and stand on street corners wearing neon tank-tops, army boots (sans laces, obviously), and bike shorts mumbling and scaring small children. However, I felt placing them in any of the above categories would have belittled their importance.

I'm thinking about a career in city planning if this whole medical school thing doesn't work out.

-Adam