I just want to share my pop secret with you!

why is popcorn so hard to eat? everyone always ends up looking like they’ve just learned how to use their hands for the first time. the pieces are strangely shaped and don’t fit nicely into your hand. they go rogue at a moment’s notice and spill out between your fingers. also, it’s greasy as hell. no one likes butterfingers. not dropping a football or the delicious candy bar, but the actual possession of butter on your fingers.

i recently bought some baby bags of popcorn. i can’t even say i’m a fan of the stuff, there are just times i want some. it’s a love hate thing. i’ve discovered that the only way to eat popcorn while maintaining your dignity is to not eat it out of the bag (you’ll end up with butter arms too). you must put it into a bowl and peck at it with your thumb and index finger, like a bird.

it’s exhausting to eat popcorn this way, and then you have to clean a bowl (not what i signed up for…) but it’s the only way to come away from the experience looking like you’ve done it before. and ah don’t even get me started on having kernels stuck in your teeth! especially in the wire brace that so conveniently keeps my bottom choppers in line. what a bitch, now i have to thread floss through it.

moral of this ridiculous story: i have 8 bags of popcorn up for grabs if anyone wants them.

Date Watch 08

i got a call from an old friend (Andy) on Saturday night. we were the bestest of buds, watching movies together via telephone during late night airings of The Three Musketeers and Selena, pining over American Idol contestants during its first season, having lofty dreams of opening our own bowling alley with regular “salsa nights.” the dip, not dance.

anyway, i went to college in Pennsylvania and he stayed in Illinois. Freshman year we talked weekly on the phone, but like most long distance relationships, this one fizzled. i hadn’t really heard from him besides the occasional facebook wall post (god where would we be without the ‘book?) and it had been about 2 solid years sans contact. it was never intentional, but we just grow apart as people.

He called, we talked for an hour, chatting about former friends (weird to say former, but it’s so true), high school, finding love, happiness, etc. it’s so nice to know that there are people in your life, even if they’re not always present. He even helped me set a goal for my summer! Find someone stupid enough to agree to attend a wedding of someone they don’t know in the middle of Iowa.

stop laughing, please. said wedding is supposedly going to have an open bar, according to the groom. he knows that an open bar isn’t something to joke about.

Andy and i were discussing how he feels like a failure sans lady friend, and i just kind of laughed, but in a weird way agreed. now i don’t feel as if i’m really failing in the dramatic sense, but statistically speaking, we’re kinda fucked. i told him that it’s just not a life priority for me right now, because let’s face it i’d rather get a job than something that wants monster truck season tickets (although that’s oddly attractive in a Greg House kind of way).

back to the wedding date. it’s my turn to introduce the group to someone and have them sit there awkwardly playing with the butter dish and knife while the rest of us argue over who has to team up and finish the keg. since i was on keg duty last go-round, i’ll have plenty of free time to spike drinks and eat cake. Posse weddings are fun for everyone involved. plus Iowa is great. corn fields, world’s largest truck stop. it’s win-win.

at publishing time i’m the last single member of the posse, a group in which i retain junior status, so it’s important that i start making bad life decisions as soon as possible, and show them off to my friends. so who’s with me?!? i cannot guarantee that driving across the country to wind up in Des Moines would be remotely fun, but the Iowa Cubs play there, and i bet there are huge balls of yarn along the way. and car karaoke is a specialty of mine so bring your earplugs. forward this to all of your single friends. June is coming in 9 months.

after quickly scanning the above composition, i feel a slight need to clarify things. i will most likely find this date on the road en route to said event. probably at the world’s largest truck stop, a mere 3 hours before you reach Des Moines. i’ll be marking plus one on my invitation regardless because i love a challenge.

and in a completely unrelated note, i just want everyone who reads this to know that i took the photograph that serves as the header to this rarely visted page. it’s a portion of Tesnov, the legal graffiti site in Prague. i love that it glows. it was so cloudy that day too. also, new sports night mockery coming soon, i need a Dan Rydell fix and i’ve got plenty of work to avoid.

if you can hear this, we’re not talking about you

my friend went to a petting zoo in Idaho and they just pet potatoes like retarded people.

-Keith Malley

“…confidence that is disproportionate with my looks and abilities”

i love award shows. yes, they are boring about 4 minutes in and i wish i was doing something else, but i always manage to stick it out with minimal switch-overs to the Sunday night football game. of note: tonight was the first time i watched any NFL game AT ALL this season. and i won the pool last week with an impressive 96 points. who says you have to pay attention to the league? and oh goodness way to go team USA for taking back the Ryder Cup! golf claps for all of you.

anyway back to my point about award shows. they’re deliciously awkward a lot of the time, and my favorite actors are usually looking delicious. but really, the highlight of any show of this magnitude is the “in memorium” montage that’s tacked on between the directing awards and the ones that people care about.

I love this 3 minute clip package because it’s a test of me remembering if/when this person actually died. well not so much if but when, and this year was filled with “who?” and “her?” moments. they showed George Carlin twice. did he die twice, or do you think the audience is too dumb to recognize the man?

Don Rickles was clearly the highlight of tonight’s 3 hour snoozefest. god that man is funny. I’m upset that Jon Hamm was robbed of a much deserved outstanding actor in a drama series Emmy, but snaps to AMC for picking up the award anyway in the work of Bryan Cranston. 30 Rock kicked ass and took names with their category wins for lead actor and actress, and outstanding comedy series, so congrats to them! funniest show on television right now. blerg. and aces high to Mad Men for picking up the outstanding drama award. that cast is just too pretty for words. i love how they all look so modern when not in costume/character. makes them extra jumpable. that doesn’t look like a word… but you’re on watch Ken Cosgrove. from accounts.

onto music. Glen Campbell’s latest album (from August, i’m a little late) is pretty fantastic. he’s covering other people’s work, much like Paul Anka but in a waaay less creepy form. his cover of one of my favorite Tom Petty songs has been stuck in my head since i first heard it, so yeah.

and finally, i come home Saturday evening to a dinner party, filled with yummy food and drink (nice job on the fresh watermelon margaritas). I wake up Sunday morning to my dad reading the paper, scanning the Best Buy ad, and then declaring “i’m going to buy a Wii, want to come?”

i think it’s needless to say that there is now a Nintendo Wii sitting in my living room. Wii Fit as well, because who doesn’t love hula hooping without a hula hoop? i’m actually very good at it. take me on. and i beat my mom in golf. and baseball.

anyway, i predict this console will get minimal use in a house with two adults approaching age 50 and will be in my room after Thanksgiving Break, when i smuggle it into my car without them knowing. i’ll be working on my short game, so come ready for a golf throwdown.

and starting tomorrow, i fear i won’t be seeing much of anything besides a computer screen and textbooks. wake me up with it’s time to go home for Thanksgiving break, and hope to god I know where i’ll be in January. let’s think positive so it doesn’t involve sitting on my parents couch, or wait! playing Wii.

So, uh who’s Dorian Gray?

i’m sorry for youtube doing all the talking, but i was thinking about this hot slut today and couldn’t stop laughing. and Joel McHale of course. Who is Johnny Ramone?

but i probably would buy a house from Chad, i watch this show sometimes at 3am and he’s the most competent one on the program.

not 1970 but a year sooner

I was watching this youtube clip earlier. don’t ask. and i’m sorry for this song being in your head for all eternity. got me thinking…

quick poll: do you think the moon landing actually happened? or was it created in a Hollywood basement?

this probably wasn’t the best idea

let’s get this out of the way, and coincidentally it’s a nice segue into what i mean to talk about anyway…

i almost fractured my patella. yes, Patty patella, your kneecap.  i was cutting a rug so to speak. ok not true at all, but i was on a wooden floor masked as a place where people dance. i would venture to say that it’s not dancing so much as dry humping with flashing lights, but you get my point. anyway, someone spilled their Long Island on the floor and i planted my right knee directly onto the ground, supporting my fat ass all the way down. it was a quick plant, but damn effective in the bruise department.

went and got it checked out this morning to make sure there was no tearing and the doc took some xrays in fear that the kneecap was cracked, thanks to the blood/bruise pattern (called a sunrise apparently). no break, but “she’s just a family practitioner, so the radiologist will look at them tonight to make sure.”

anyway, this has a point i promise, in addition to me asking for free drugs/errands i don’t feel like doing.

things expire. namely, the ibuprofen i had in my medicine cabinet thing. and not just like, a month off, because i would gladly pop them into my mouth without batting an eyelash. they’re pretty old.

this upsets me because now i have to go downtown to pay for overpriced drugs that will probably do little help me actually feel less pain, especially from the additional experience of walking downtown. but i’m out of icy hot patches too, so this trip is two fold. scratch that, three fold: i need to buy my management textbook before the exam on Thursday.

and in other news of things that expire: my preserative free eyedrops. i think their throw away date was when Al Gore thought he won the Presidential election, but i was still using them up until last week, when i made a comment about how old they are to a friend who reminded me that they expire for a reason: bacteria grows in preservative free things. so that’s why my eyes have been bloodshot for the past few weeks… and here i thought it was all of the speed i was chowing down.

at least the Phillies are showing signs of life, otherwise this weekend would have been a total wash.

what’s my age again?

tack this onto the list of things i’m sick of: people thinking i’m a freshman.

i have a few strikes against me, like my height and the fact that i wear a backpack (shoulder support!) but seriously, it’s getting old. and coincidentally, so am i.

it was the first or second day of classes and i was in the West commons waiting around for one of my classes to begin. thought i would get a USA Today and dominate the puzzle page per usual, and i was particularly excited because it would be the first time in quite a while. I get my ID out and attempt to open the white contraption that holds the papers hostage, and after 1 swipe this chick comes up to me and says “oh sweetie your ID card goes picture UP”

um, duh. i do realize i was at fault, simply looking at the picture with the bar on top with written instructions that it faces down (what? yeah…) and well, i haven’t used that thing in months. as soon as i put my card in though, i knew i was wrong and had to flip it, so i didn’t need the Barbie doll to tell me what to do. i couldn’t really say anything to her but “oh thanks,” which i did, then proceeded to glare at her as she skipped off, presumably doing her good deed for the day.

i guess i should just stop doing things that make me look like a freshman, but come on! i like the free HUB movies on Thursday nights. no one said i was sitting there doing crafts on Friday night, but for all these people know that pass me on the sidewalk, i probably do. (for the record, i don’t)

so what are my options here? dress up more for class? no, that makes you look even more freshmany. carry an open beer? no, that’s against the law. constantly make references to the 05 football team? sadly that’s probably the best option i have. or i could drop my notebooks on the ground every few steps making sure everyone sees that they’re 400 level courses. except for the fact that 3 of them aren’t…

looking young is a battle that you can never really win. you always want to look older until you actually do, and then you spend all of your time trying to look young. luckily for me, that will happen much later in life than for everyone who looks age appropriate now.

weapon of choice

this is a problem that concerns young adults around the world. So you’re friends with someone. they have a boyfriend/girlfriend. you’re friends with said couple. they break up. you must take sides.

it’s never fair. even if you were friends with one of the people involved before the “love of their life” came along, choosing who to remain friends with just plain sucks.

Our age group sucks because break ups are more common and you also have a higher frequency of being friends with both parties. it could even be two friends who got together after you’ve all been amigos. whichever way it starts, the ending is rarely happy and battle lines are being drawn. you can’t be stuck in the crossfires, unless you’re me.

at this time i should probably delve into specific examples, but i think you understand the quandary. you’ve probably been involved in something like this too.

Let’s just say that there are upcoming opportunities to see friends and their exes in the future and i’m having trouble deciding on how to handle it. Ideally, i would like to see both of them. doesn’t have to be together. i’m guessing it might be better as a separate occasion thing.

…and then there’s the “i’m probably going to upset someone” factor of seeing a friend’s ex. it’s probably an unwritten rule that you must pick one and get over it, but i really don’t want to. Just because the two of you broke up doesn’t mean i have to as well. Think of all of the time we spent as a group, sharing laughs and memories, why do i have to pay for your misfortune? it’s not like i’m going to start dating this person myself, it’s a platonic friendly thing.

in summary, friends of mine, don’t make me choose! you all know that if i actually enjoy someone’s company i’m going to be friends with them with or without your approval. if i choose to see someone you no longer can be in the same room with, please save your judgment of me for another issue. i took the time to be this person’s friend too, and while there were never sexual favors involved (that was your job), i still owe them my friendship.

can i get your number?

it never ceases to amaze me: drunk gentlemen and their telephone.

i must be a nice person, because i always end up talking to said ‘men and only after a few minutes am asked to surrender my phone number as if i’m interested in continuing our conversation about his hometown, major, and why he’s soooo ready to get out into the real world. spare me, please. i am not interested, i am being courteous to you while my friends laugh and then run off to the bathroom. i’d also like to take this opportunity to inquire for some new wingmen while i’m at it, because these people suck at it. if i’m giving you the death stare, please intervene, it hurts my eyes.

what i’ve learned from this first week of American bar hopping is this: i need a fake phone number. not necessarily the reject hot line (i have two of them in my phone in case of dire emergency), but maybe i should take the time to memorize someone’s phone number who i’m not super fond of and just pass it out like candy. i could always do the one number off trick, but that gets old too.

in contrast, i could just be honest and say that i’m not interested in receiving copious amounts of drunk text messages from that person a few hours later because i won’t answer. but while i’m usually all about honesty, there is a sensitivity that comes with alcohol and i don’t need death threats immediately following a rejection.

is it better to give out a fake, reject them on the spot, or give them your real number and then just ignore?

i can’t believe there’s a cover charge for all of these shenanigans.