I Can't Stop Watching This Video

New Song of the Day: Please Me Like You Want To by Ben Harper ft. Jack Johnson (Please ignore Carson Daly...)

I Love Rainy Days (And Ben Harper... And Books... And You)

That's all I really need to say today.  

It is pouring outside.  And thundering and lightening.  And being altogether awesome.

It's one of those warm, spring rains that actually improves my mood significantly.  Because it makes me sit in my coffee shop, drinking a soy latte, and reading.

And reading.

And then reading some more.

I finished half a book when it was kind of rainy the other day and I plan on finishing it today while I listen to Ben Harper.  But it may take a long time because I have to break to stare out the window and write emails and such.

There is no better rainy day recipe.

I highly encourage all of you to do the same.  I guarantee you will enjoy it.

Liz and I walked around and asked people questions about sandals yesterday.  It was really fun.

Oh, and on Friday we're going to win a year's worth of movies at a new AMC opening here.  It may involve dressing up.  You'll have to wait for the pictures.

Also, I just realized that this blog really sees the highs and lows of my life.  I feel like I'm either whining incessantly or gushing about how awesome life is.  I don't think I'm an overly-emotional person, so this may misrepresent me.  But I do get really excited about things, so maybe not.  

Now I'm paranoid.

I hope it's raining where you are!  Much love.

Song of the Day: Walk Away by Ben Harper (ridiculously good)

KC is Pretty Cool

I'm hanging out at the Roasterie with Liz.  They legitimately have the best cup of coffee in KC, but it's 20 minutes from my house.  Why does all the bad stuff happen to me?

But I made the trek and it's rainy and that means I splurged on a soy carmel latte which is ridiculously delicious.  Well done, Roasterie.

On another note, in the past week or so I've come to really love KC.  I've always enjoyed it because of the people, but I've come to really appreciate the city itself.  It's pretty cool.

A few weeks ago, I was talking to my friend Drew who lives in Portland.  I was telling her that I thought she should come visit me here in KC and she started laughing.  I was a little confused by that reaction until she said, "Is there anything to do in Kansas City?"

It was then that I realized she thought that I was living in something akin to a farm town.  I had to explain to her that Kansas City is literally almost the exact same size as Portland.  

My favorite thing about KC is that there is a ton of stuff to do, but none of it will break the bank.  You can go to a major league baseball game for $7, you can get dinner for $10, you can get an awesome apartment in the middle of the city for $500/month.  

Oh, and the people are nice and there's good jazz.  

KC is awesome.

This is fun for me and also makes it a great place to visit.  (Hint, hint.)

People Watching is My Fave

So last night I attempted to go to the Royals game with some friends.  And, oh yeah, it was sold out.  

Huh?  

The Royals sold out?  That doesn't really compute.  

But it was Buck Night and Zach Greinke was pitching.  (He's good.)  And the Royals are leading their division.  Kansas City is stoked.

So we didn't get to go to the game.  But we did make $20 scalping tickets and went and got ice cream.  So not a loss.

Today I actually made it into the Royals game.  It was Jersey Day so that was awesome.  And these 3 hilarious things happened:

*Preface:  My absolute favorite thing in the world is catching people doing hilarious stuff that they didn't intend for me to see.  It's the little things that crack me up.

1)  On our way to the game, we drove past a giant billboard for a gun show.  Standing in front of it was a 20-something man.  His girlfriend was taking a picture of him as he hilariously flexed.  You have to love a guy who will pull over his car to make a "gun show" joke.

2)  Walking back to our car after the game, we were walking behind a couple who were in a little bit of a tiff.  From what I could gather, girlfriend was annoyed at boyfriend but he was making funny jokes about it that were making her laugh a little and therefore pissing her off more.  I understand that this is extremely frustrating.  So, in justifiable retaliation, girlfriend (without missing a step) noticed some trash on the ground, picked it up, and threw it in boyfriend's face.  Boyfriend started cracking up and yelled, "You just hit me in the face with Jimmy John's.  You got mad and hit me with Jimmy John's!"  Girlfriend kept walking but was clearly also cracking up.  Sometimes all a relationship needs is some trash throwing to diffuse a potential argument.  Also, I like boyfriend a lot for thinking that was funny.  Because it was.

3) My friends Ben, Ryan and Pat were on the Jumbotron winning a seat upgrade.  Ashley and I started screaming, "That's Ben!  And Ryan!  And Pat!"  People all around us thought we were crazy but it was irrationally exciting.  

We finished off the night by watching the movie Once which is now one of my all-time favorites.  (See the song of the day if confused about why.)  

Oh, and my Cardinals beat the Cubs.

Life is good.

Song of the Day: Falling Slowly by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova (Seriously, watch this one.)

More on the 'Stache

http://americanmustacheinstitute.org/cs/blogs/ami_2009/archive/2009/04/23/bearing-witness-to-a-powerful-st-louis-cardinals-mustache.aspx

My favorite part of this article is when they refer to his mustache as a "mouth brow."  Sick.

Rick!

I'm not going to lie, I was concerned when my favorite starting pitcher turned outfielder, Rick Ankiel, was struggling a little throughout the first few weeks of the season.  He couldn't seem to get a hit to save his life and the Cardinals are playing with an extra outfielder.  It didn't look great.

But then he stumbled upon the perfect good luck charm: a super-de-dooper creeper mustache, a la my dad in 1992.  

He rolled this out earlier this week and has since gotten several hits including a home-run tonight and won the top spot in Sports Center's Top 10 with an awesome catch in center.

I hope he also believes the 'stache is his good luck charm and keeps it all season.  I wouldn't want him to pull up next to me in a van, but I think he looks awesome on the field.

Also, is it weird that every time I hear/see the name Rick, all I can think of is that Amy Poehler SNL skit where she plays a tween that screams at her stepdad Rick for 5 minutes straight?  I'm laughing right now just thinking of it.

A-La-La-La-La-La Life is Wonderful

I am in a great mood and here's why:

It has been 80 degrees out for the past few days.  

I spent all of yesterday afternoon in the park with Liz, Elizabeth and John.  

Ashley, Elizabeth and I hung out last night, got dinner and watched Idol.  

Today I had a pretty great interview at a really cool new coffee shop.  (Fingers crossed!)  

The Cardinals were on TV last night (they won) and are up 12-5 in the 7th against the Mets right now.  

I'm going to Buck Night tomorrow night to watch the Royals play the Tigers.  

I have had an awesome time the past couple of days talking to Liz about Sseko stuff and getting really excited.

I'm drinking an iced Americano and laughing at a gaggle of middle-school skater punk kids in a Taco Bell parking lot across from my coffee shop.

And, again, it's 80 degrees out.

Life just does not get any better than this.  Seriously.  I can think of no better combo of things.  I think I'll go home and watch a couple episodes of Friends to cap off this awesome day.

Song of the Day: Life is Beautiful by Keb' Mo' (Again, this is the only video I could find to embed that included the song.  I don't know why it's pictures of a park in St. Joe, but I'll take it.)

These are the Life Plans I Like

I've said it before and I'll say it again:  I really like my friend Liz.

I like her for many reasons, but one of my favorite is the fact that she actually puts her money (figuratively and literally) where her mouth is.  

She has started a business.  

In Africa.

An awesome business that I really want to be a part of.

Because she's going to be changing lives.  (And really already is.)  And I like the idea of being a part of something like that.

She's been talking about it for a while and I've been secretly hoping that she would find some niche for me to fit into in it because I really want to be a part of it.  So today we spent a bunch of time talking about it and I made it clear that I legitimately want to be a part of what she's got going on.  And I can see where I can fit and how I can help.  And that is very exciting.

I want all of you to be preparing for the day that I hit you up to help.  It's going to be awesome.

Stay tuned...

I Was Always Mario, Luigi Sucked

Have you ever seriously wondered if you accidentally stumbled into an alternate universe?

That happened to me today in Leawood, Kansas.  And the alternate universe was World 4 from Super Mario Bros. 3 on Super Nintendo.  That's right, Giant World.

It all started when Ashley and I headed out to Leawood for Liz's bridal shower.  Leawood is a suburb of KC that has a lot of big fancy strip malls and such with every kind of chain you could ever imagine.  

We started out at a Target Greatland which is basically a supersize Target.  We both commented on how huge it was as we wondered through, looking through Liz's registry.

We then had to drive about 15 miles to get to the house the shower was at.  During the drive, we first noticed an extremely large Home Depot.  Then there was a huge Panera.  And then a giant Macy's.  

And it just kept going.  Over-sized Red Lobster, giant Bank of America, humungous Starbucks.  On and on.  Everything was just slightly jumbo sized.  I started to legitimately wonder if I was getting smaller.

It probably would've been more rational to make a comment on the Super-Size It attitude of American consumers, but instead I just kept screaming to Ashley about how weird this was and how I really felt like I was in Super Mario.  I think that's perfectly rational.

Long story short, the burbs are creepy and soul-stealing.  

The Jumble

OK, I have several things to talk about today:

1) I'm trying really hard not to over-post about the Cardinals.  I know that most people don't necessarily care about them as much as I do and therefore probably don't care about how heartbroken I am that Carp is back on the DL and whether or not I think it was a good move to bring up PJ Walters.  

But just in the name of full disclosure, I love my Cardinals more than most people in my life.  It's true.  And I am very happy after a week in mid-MO because I watched every game I could and listened to the others on the radio, 2 things I can't do here in stupid KC.  Also, I'm sitting at Caribou right now, watching the Game Day pitch-by-pitch and getting excited about the fact that the Sunday Cards-Cubs game is going to be on ESPN.

2) A group of Red Hatters is meeting right next to me.  They are loud and have names like Norma.  They are wonderful and I want to be them when I grow up.

3) It is a beautiful day outside and I had an interview with an awesome new coffee shop going in in Power and Light.  I don't want to say any more about it until I hear something from them, but I'm excited.

4) I went along with my oldest brother on sales calls yesterday which meant a whole lot of time in the car together.  It was really fun.  I don't get to spend a lot of time with him, especially one on one.  It reaffirmed that I think he's cool and we both decided we feel really old when we realized that he's only a couple years younger now than my dad was when he started dating his mom.  In fact, my nephew (his son) is only a couple years younger than I was at that point.  Weird.  

We also talked about how freshmen in college make us feel ancient because we both still feel like we're college-aged until we see 19 year-olds.  They look like babies all of a sudden.  But he's 10 years older than me, so I would imagine that feeling's worse for him.

5)  I officially have health insurance!  My mom found out that I can still use her insurance through the entire year that I turn 25 even though I'm not in school.  So I'm going to have insurance for another year and a half.  Which is good because I still have a wicked cough.  I'm going to have to go to the doctor soon.  I have a serious concern that it is TB.  

6) Why is people falling down so funny?  (The ESPN highlight is way better because it shows David Wright cracking up at him.  But you get the idea.)

7)  This is a really long post.  My brother only read #1 and #6 on this.  If that's you as well, go back and read the rest.  I'm witty and entertaining and I do this for you.  (Actually, I do it so that I have a reason to be in the coffee shop for 3 hours.)

See you tomorrow.

Watch This!

I can not for the life of me find an embed code for this video, but I implore you to watch it.

It's awesome!

It's Never Too Late to Post

I can't tell you how often throughout the day I think, that would make such an awesome post and then when I actually sit down at the computer I can't remember any of those things so instead I write about absolutely nothing of consequence.

Because this is really frustrating, I got in the habit of going to blogger and creating a new post every time that I come up with an idea. I'll start a post, jot down a couple of notes and then save it as a draft so that I can go back and finish it later.

In looking back through them today, I found one from a few weeks ago that said simply:

Best day ever!
exchanged book for 3
got Tivo back
turned in application

I am here to apologize to you all, internet, for not finishing this post. Because I know how much you all love me and how much you would care that I actually did have the best day ever just about 3 weeks ago.

It started when I decided I should turn in an application at Barnes and Noble because maybe they give discounts to their employees. I remembered as I was leaving that I had a book to return to them. My brother had given me Maya Angelou's newest book for Christmas, but I already had it so I had been meaning to return it ever since. However, I'm horrible at remembering to return things and they normally just sit there losing value until I finally return them months later.

So I grabbed the book and headed to my neighborhood B&N hoping I'd at least get to pick up one book out of the deal. It was a hardback, so that was promising. I got to the checkout and the man explained that I would have to take the exchange in store credit, which I expected (and was excited about). He handed me my gift card and informed that there was $27 on it.

It took all I had not to shout WAHOO! out loud. I was so excited. I had to look insane as he handed me the card because I'm pretty sure my face was lit up like he had just handed me a job at a small community-based non-profit as a Volunteer Coordinator or Community Outreach Specialist. (My wildest dreams.)

First thing I did was buy a celebratory iced Americano (10% off with my membership!). Then I went to work.

An hour and a half later, I walked out with 3 new books! Two new paperbacks (one of which was 40% off because it was in the "check out these new authors section" and I have a membership) and a B&N classic.

I was on a high.

This was followed by going home and getting my Tivo hooked up. It had been close to 2 years since I had used my Tivo, so I had a lot of fun watching the hilarious stuff still saved on there such as my Blazer on the news, Santa dressed as Waldo pumping gas, this hilarious prank, the Hamm twins, and fetus in fetu. Also, there were two episodes of the Lacey/Neil/Danny season of SYTYCD on there. Hours of entertainment.

Oh, and before anything else that day, I turned in my application at the only actually promising lead I have on a real-person job. So it was exciting then. But now it's 3 weeks later and nothing's really happened on it, so we'll see.

There it is people. The best day ever. Sorry you had to wait so long to hear about it.

Action Shots are Never Flattering

Facebook Friends = Real Friends

I have come up with a completely arbitrary measure of friendship that I now use pretty often. I will share it.

In order to determine how good a friend someone is, I simply go to their facebook profile and look for 2 things: 1) Are we actually friends? and 2) Do we have more than 50 mutual facebook friends?

This is fairly foolproof. The first question is important because I have a lot of fb friends that are not my actual friends in real life. I have recently been contemplating going through and unfriending everyone I don't really care about, but then I get too lazy. And I only want to do that if it doesn't notify the people that I've unfriended them.

I think my criteria for unfriending will be as follows: 1) I have not spoken to you either in person or on the phone in over a year, 2) I had to look at your profile to make sure that I actually knew you, 3) I get mad when you take up space on my newsfeed with your worthlessness, and 4) you have more than 1,000 friends.

More than 1,000 friends is completely unnecessary and proves that you are only trying to get a big number, not actually using fb to keep up with people. It's arrogant and weird.

That was what is called a tangent.

Back to my measure of friendship.

So, we are actual friends in real life. And now I see that we have over 50 friends in common. This is pretty arbitrary in some ways, but for the most part I think it shows that someone is really in your life. When I started out in the Canyon, my fellow interns and I only had like maybe 20 common friends. I was just on my friend Sara's profile and I noticed that we now have 74 friends in common.

74 is a big number. That's a lot of people that I love that she loves as well. That's a whole lot of people that are privy to both of our lives.

I like what that says about our friendship. I like that even though we live 2,000 miles apart, there are 74 people that connect us. It makes me feel like that distance is a little smaller.

Even throughout the volatile relationship I have with facebook, in this moment it brings me some comfort. I like that it makes the world a little smaller when people I love are far away.

Thank you, internet.

Song of the Day: Love You Till the End by the Pogues

I Like My Brother

My brother just relived one of the worst injustices that has ever been inflicted on me.  You should all read about it here and then immediately send me letters of support.  Thank you.

The Beauty of the Written Word

Have you ever coughed so much and so hard that you literally thought your head was going to explode? That is how I've been feeling for the past several days. Everyone please pity me.


On a separate note, I think one of the reasons I love baseball so much is that it brings with it one of my favorite kinds of people, the baseball beat writer. These men (and the occasional woman) are true poets of sports writing.

They follow the team around and create prose that can make you weep, such as this excerpt from a Bryan Burwell article in the Post Dispatch describing the joy of seeing a healed ace back on the mound:

Since sweet dreams really are supposed to be made of this — jaw-dropping and outrageous and perfect beyond your wildest imaginations — then surely this was the epitome of Tony La Russa's sweetest baseball dream in many years. The manager stood there in the drizzle on the top steps of the Cardinals dugout on this gloomy Thursday afternoon at Busch Stadium, mesmerized by this absolute thing of baseball beauty:

Chris Carpenter was out there on the hill again, tossing all these precise darts between the raindrops, buckling knees and painting the plate, doing the impressive things that aces always do.

That is just plain pretty. And I do love pretty writing, especially when it's applied to something manly.

Just so you have an accurate look inside my brain, I completely imagine all baseball beat writers as 1920s journalists complete with "press" hats and suspenders. It just makes it more fun.

Let us be for real, baseball is beautiful. Not only are these word-smiths vomitting out this beautiful prose for newspapers everyday, but Walt Whitman himself wrote about baseball in Leaves of Grass:

I see great things in baseball. It's our game--the American game. It will take our people out of doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us.

Word up, Walt.

Long story short, intelligent people love baseball.

Two Things Today

1) Mary Catherine Gallagher's blonde cousin is on Wheel of Fortune right now.  She is an opera singer from Tampa and graced us with a rather stirring original opera composition about the Wheel during her intro segment.  She also won both of the first two toss-ups and did quite a bit of dancing around in celebration, almost falling over in the meantime.  She is now battling out the personality-void church choir director in the ankle-length button up denim skirt on country music week a couple years ago as my favorite Wheel contestant ever.  (Remember denim skirt woman, Paige?  She was the best!)

2) I have a cough.  It's really annoying.  I don't actually feel sick at all, I just have a deep in the chest, hacking cough that limited me to 2 hours of sleep last night.  I would go to the doctor, but I don't have health insurance.  So I guess I'll just tough it out.  (In all honesty, that's what I would've done anyway.  I don't ever go to the doctor.)  Here's hoping it's not TB!

I'll be back in Mid-MO all next week.  Hit me up if you're around.

Call Me Picasso

It physically hurts me that I'm not watching my Cardinals play right now.  The Fox Sports Midwest feed here is replaying this afternoon's Royals game.  Here's what I say to that:

BOOOO!!!

But I am listening to the game online.  And Idol was awesome tonight.  So the evening is not a total loss.

Actually, I have had a great past couple of days.  And that is all because of my awesome friend Elizabeth.  She puts me in a good mood just with her presence normally, but this time it's because she bought a house and I get to help paint it!

That's right, the past two days I have gotten up and had somewhere to go.  That is all I needed.  It makes me ridiculously happy.  On top of having a purpose to my day, I also get to hang out with Elizabeth and John because he's helping too.  And Liz came and painted with me yesterday.  And there's a lady named Tracy laying tile.  That's a whole lot of people to talk to.  

It's even alright when there isn't anyone there to talk to because then I get to play whatever I want on my iPod player and sing along very loudly.  Today it was a lot of Rascal Flats and Panic at the Disco.  

On top of all of that, I get to paint all day which is one of my favorite things to do.  Really, it's weird but I love it.  I think it's because it makes me feel a little creative without having to have any talent.  Also, it reminds me of the Canyon and I get to wear my painting outfit.  

Does it get any better?

I sent in another resume today.  Keep your fingers crossed until I tell you otherwise.  I would like to keep this feeling alive.

Song of the Day: What Hurts the Most by Rascal Flatts

High-Falutin' Vocab

I have discovered that there are a few words in the English language that are impossible to say without sounding like a pretentious tool.

These are mainly words that are borrowed from other languages, but are now commonly used in American English.  The problem is when you just say these words without remotely even trying to pronounce them correctly, you sound ignorant and uncultured, but when you take a stab at the actual pronunciation, you sound overwhelmingly pompous.

The best example of this is the word milieu.

Seriously, try using it in conversation today.  It is impossible to say it without sounding like Alex Trebek.  And let's be real, every time Trebek makes is a point to say some word on Jeopardy with "correct pronunciation and inflection," I call him names.  Intelligent-sounding names, but not nice ones.  Because he sounds like a bombastic dweeb and nothing deserves name-calling more.

The problem is, I like the word milieu and I'm going to keep using it even though I'll probably giggle a little every time I do.  It's just how I roll.

Yeah, this is the kind of blog post you get a 2:45 in the morning.  I'll come up with something with social significance in the daylight. 

Goodnight.

Ugh

OK, I had my first really frustrating day of joblessness.  Even though I whine a lot on this blog, I've managed to stay fairly optimistic about being unemployed.  Not so much today.

Yesterday, I left my resume at a Starbucks by my house and the lady working seemed to indicate that they may be hiring and that I should come back and talk to her manager today.  She was very helpful and I was optimistic.

Then I went in today.

The manager wouldn't even come out of the back room to talk to me and the extremely stoned man barista working the register didn't even give me an application to fill out after telling me they weren't hiring.  

Seriously.  

I have a college degree and I can't get a job that a bleary-eyed stoner can do.  That is frustrating.

I would normally be amused that this guy was as high as he was at work, but in this case it pissed me off.  He actually put his head down on the counter while he was talking to me.  This man is a better fit for Starbucks than me.

OK, I'm done whining about it.  I just had to get that off my chest.  I'm going to return to optimism in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1.

Better.

It's cold, rainy and windy here today but in a way that I love.  I'm sitting in my coffee shop in a big leather chair listening to my Rainy Days Mix and I splurged on a real latte because I needed it and it's cold.  So life really is good.

I just have to remind myself every once in a while.

Song of the Day: Already Gone by Sugarland

They Should Make it a Holiday

Apparently it's cute boy day at my coffee shop.  I am not complaining.

First was one of my favorite types of people, the man barista.  He's a little emo looking but dark haired, blue-eyed, tall and skinny with an angular face and long, long lashes.  He's one of those people you're pretty sure they hired just to keep the ladies coming back.

Next comes the opposite end of the cute boy spectrum.  That is Royals hat-wearing, C.S. Lewis-reading, mac-toting, approachable and lovable cute guy.  I have to say, I like this one better.  He was forced to talk to me because his mac was plugged in behind my table.  And in the process he melted my heart a little with a great smile and direct eye-contact.  It's simple but it works, people.  

I didn't plan it that he would have to climb behind my table to unplug his computer, but I'm not sad it happened.  Don't judge me. 

That's my news for the day.  Cute coffee shop boys.

Yep, I'm still unemployed.  I need a life, desperately.