2005: Year in Review

We hope everyone had a nice Christmas and looks forward to a Happy New Year.

Instead of wasting a post while most of you remain out of the office, I threw together a “Best of” for 2005 from a post I never used at the end of the summer and planned on putting in the DVD extras for the blog.


Best story: Everybody is getting married and I’m not talking about the celebrity kind. It’s been a great experience over the summer attending weddings and learning several sets of our friends will be joining us next year at the alter. Congratulations and best of luck to everyone.

Worst Story: Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes. Holy cow, is it me or is Cruise getting as nuts as Michael Jackson? Someone really needs to clue him in that a religion created thirty years ago by a person who writes science fiction novels should not be the foundation for people to stop requiring medical assistance. I feel this guy should be hanging out in his parents’ basement wearing his Legend of Zelda t-shirt painting figurines and talking to his Princess Leia life size cardboard cutout instead of having sex with girls half his age and babbling about being a self-proclaimed expert in psychology.


Favorite Film: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As mentioned in my previous review, I thoroughly enjoyed this vision of Tim Burton and cannot praise Johnny Depp enough for his portrayal of the wacky confectioner. I found this to be a film featuring the fun factor from start to finish and look forward to seeing it again. On a side note, I give The 40 Year Old Virgin the nod over Wedding Crashers as the better movie because WC tried to get serious for the last twenty minutes while 40 YOV saved it for the final twenty seconds.

Best TV Shows: How I Met Your Mother(CBS Mondays 8:30), The Office(NBC Tuesdays 9:30), Lost(ABC Wednesdays 9:00), and Veronica Mars(UPN, Wednesdays, 9:00): If you’ve run into me in the past few months the odds are in favor of me boring you with a forty minute presentation on how the sitcom has returned to television. And yes, I do watch Lost and tape Veronica Mars. It’s really bothered me how after the end of Seinfeld and the first five seasons of Friends people try to claim CBS’s dumb dad/hot wife lineup (Bethany’s joke) and NBC’s Will and Grace qualify as good comedy. I apologize if you enjoy this programming, but it’s poorly written and uses laugh tracks to mask bad jokes.

Worst TV Shows: Taradise(Formerly Wild on Tara) and Nick Cannon Presents: Wild ‘N Out. I have already explained how awful the Tara Reid program can be and I am not quite sure why E! recently changed it’s name aside from trying to trick people into thinking they would be watching something else. Once again, this awful theme song really needs to be heard, but please change the channel the second you see raccoon eyed Tara talking about the history of Monte Carlo. As for my second program on the list, it appears someone at MTV decided allowing Nick Cannon to hold a high school talent show every week would make for great television. There’s quite a few people out there who made everyone in their family or fraternity laugh, but if an average person can’t follow 75% of your material than it’s time to go back to making television shows for Nickelodeon.

Best song: Don’t Cha by The Pussycat Dolls. While this song will not(and should not )make an appearance at our wedding I really enjoy the beat along with the catchy chorus. I also feel for the female lead on this song because she clearly has talent, but her first taste of success involves no one knowing her name while performing in her underwear. I hope she doesn’t have some sketchy contract and will be able to have some well-deserved future success on her own.

Worst Song: Hollaback Girl by Gwen Stefani. During our party at the beginning of the summer I downloaded the unedited version of this song and ended up stopping this embarrassing excuse of creativity before it finished. It’s not that I’m morally against swearing, but this performance proves to be totally unnecessary and unacceptable. I find it amusing Stefani decided to protest attending the MTV Video Music awards because they did not ask her to sing live on stage and then proceeded to show up once she realized nobody cared.

Breakthrough Singer: Kelly Clarkson. From American Idol Champion to having men screaming her lyrics in bars without fear of embarrassment. Enough said


Have a safe New Year and we'll see you in 2006

Serving Up Some Holiday Cheer

Friday night, Bethany and I endured an icy walk out for dinner, picked up a bottle of wine, and returned home for a movie date night. We cut the lights, plugged in the tree, and popped in one of the all time classic Christmas films out there: You Got Served.

Now I know what you’re saying. How is a movie starring comedian Steve Harvey and pop group B2K about urban street battle dancing related to the holidays? Basically, the main group led by Elgin and David represents Christmas and how it’s the best kick ass holiday out there. Think of this team as Santa Claus, Rudolph, Frosty, and all the elves dominating all the other holidays because they get everyone all worked up months ahead of time. Plus, they have headspins. The group led by spiky haired Wade would be composed of the Easter Bunny, the Lucky Charms Leprechaun, Mother Nature, Father Time, Cupid, and the Pilgrims. They get their due and have some fantastic rhythm of their own, but the only way they can be as popular at Christmas is by stealing their moves…probably by the Dreidel. I see Steve Harvey as Mrs. Claus who has her allegiance to one of the teams, but in no way wants anything to do with dancing for money and tries to maintain the peace between the two groups. Finally, I see the drug dealer, Emerald, as a metaphor for St. Escobar, the patron saint of cocaine.

So if you’ve seen The Santa Clause or It’s a Wonderful Life one to many times I strongly recommend a hip-hop dance off to keep you in the holiday spirit.

Music For the Season

We’re plum in the middle of the only time of the year with hundreds of songs exclusively dedicated to the season. Some fall into the timeless classic genre while others remain feeble attempts by current artists to see if they can create their own holiday song to be enjoyed for years to come. Recently, certain radio stations started a tradition of only playing Christmas music and while I can appreciate this idea, I also feel the need to turn it off after 30 minutes before needing to blow my brains out.

In December 2002, I set out to develop the ultimate Christmas mix and there are many of you out there who own or have listened to my compilation. I feel everyone received it well and I realized it would be possible for me to complete a second album in 2003 with all the songs I missed. Last winter I started to collect songs for a third installment, but I really could only find enough material for half of an album so I scrapped the project in the name of quitting while I was ahead. After collecting the music for each album I reviewed my jumbled play list to try and order the songs so they flowed. Each time I wanted to open with something that would really perk up my audience when they hit play so “Merry Christmas 2002” opens with It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year by Andy Williams while the 2003 album kicks things off with What Christmas Means to Me by Stevie Wonder followed by All Alone on Christmas by Darlene Love. Personally, I prefer my second album and I definitely had a hard core personal dance off last Saturday afternoon while washing dishes by myself that had me choreographing an opening dance number through the first three rooms of our apartment. Also, while organizing music for the 2003 edition we saw Love Actually and it the took me three days to identify the name of the Darlene Love song by engaging in numerous google searches and downloads. Now that’s dedication…or obsessive compulsive psychosis.

As I began writing this post in my head, I envisioned myself railing on all songs outside of the Rudolph and Frosty genre, but I realized I enjoyed some of the music I wanted to assail. For starters, I think my all time favorite version of a holiday song would have to be the Jackson Five’s Santa Claus is Coming to Town which ironically does not appear on either of my albums because I went with the Bruce Springsteen version. I guess this would be a good time to mention there are no duplicates on either album, which happened to be a key goal of mine and a reason why I did not develop anything in 2004

So whether it’s Little Saint Nick, Jingle Bell Rock, or Baby, It’s Cold Uutside here's to a warm smile on your face when you hear it over the next week. And feel free to pass along your favorites.

Merry Christmas 2002

It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year - Andy Williams
(It Must’ve Been Ol’) Santa Clause - Harry Connick
Jingle Bells – Dean Martin
Deck the Halls – Nat King Cole
Santa Claus is Coming to Town – Bruce Springsteen
Little Saint Nick – Beach Boys
Baby Please Come Home – U2
Frosty the Snowman – Burl Ives
Holly Jolly Christmas - Bing Crosby
Rockin Around the Christmas Tree- Brenda Lee
Let it Snow – Dean Martin
Baby its Cold Outside – Ray Charles
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas – Judy Garland
Little Drummer Boy – Bing Crosby
Silent Night – Nat King Cole
White Christmas – Elvis Presley
Sleigh Bells – Frank Sinatra
No Place Like Home for the Holidays – Johnny Mathis
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer – Dean Martin
Jingle Bell Rock - Bobby Helms
Sleigh Ride – Garth Brooks
12 Days of Christmas – John Denver & The Muppets

Merry Christmas 2003

What Christmas Means to Me - Stevie Wonder
All Alone on Christmas - Darlene Love
God Bless Ye Merry Gentlemen – Bare Naked Ladies with Sarah McLachlan
The Chipmunk Song
It’s Beginning to look a lot like Christmas – Dean Martin
Santa Baby – Eartha Kitt
Blue Christmas – Elvis Presley
Up on the Housetop - Bing Crosby
Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire – Nat King Cole
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus – Brenda Lee
Do You Hear What I Hear – Vince Gill
The First Noel – Vanessa Williams
Hark the Herald Angels Sing – Frank Sinatra & Dean Martin
Joy to the World – Nat King Cole
Feliz Navidad – Jose Feliciano
Jolly Old St. Nicolas – Disney Kids
I Don’t Want a lot for Christmas – Mariah Carey
So This is Christmas – John Lennon
Christmas Wrapping – The Waitresses
The Chanukah Song – Adam Sandler
Christmastime is Near – Horatio Sanz, Jimmy Fallon, Chris Kattan, and Tracy Morgan

Deck the Halls

With the tree standing proudly in our bay window as the sweet smell of pine waifs through the apartment it’s time to humiliate it by dressing it up like RuPaul on New Year’s Eve. Now we have a little tradition between the two of us where each Christmas we’ve been buying ornaments for our future holiday seasons together, but four years doesn’t get you much bling to impress your neighbors. Plus we don’t have any lights. In a situation such like this there’s only one thing to do and that’s to head to my favorite French superstore, Target.

The first item on the agenda is the aforementioned lighting matter and while my parents usually go with the colored lights, Bethany’s in favor of the white variety. In recent years, I’ve been sold on the this option so it’s not a problem, but then we must decide what kind of lights to purchase and boy (and girl) we must choose between several features. Size? Shape? Blinking? Number? In circumstances such as this I like to fall back on one key option to help with my pick: What’s on sale. And that’s the story how we ended up with three strands of the non-blinking snowball shaped white lights.


Next up we decided to buy some of those colored glass balls as filler for our tree. Personally, I’m a big fan of the character ornament and I think my favorite would have to be a Santa Claus in a Hawaiian shirt lounging on a beach Bethany gave me last year. Of course these ornaments each cost $10 and I’m not going to drop $200 to make our tree look fashionable so we’re settling for the reasonably priced option while we boost up our collection. Once again, the varieties never end as we have all kinds of colors, sizes and shapes to choose from. Is there really anyone out there who wants to decorate an entire tree in purple? The best I can come up with would be 1980’s cartoon villains the Purple Pied Man (Strawberry Shortcake) and Skeletor (He-Man), but they don’t strike me as the holiday type. Plus, I think they were both Jewish. It also doesn’t help that one of the stock boys decided to have an early Christmas meltdown and smashed half of the balls in each box of the variety we liked and chose to leave them on the shelf. After a good fifteen minutes, we picked out some red, gold, and silver ornaments and headed home.

All right, so we’re back at the holiday homestead and it’s time to string some lights on the tree. Seven minutes later I have just completed wrapping two sets around the tree and we decide to turn them on to see if we will need the third box when I realize I’ve connected the lights by the plugs in the middle of the tree. Bravo to me and my genius handiwork, but we do some rearranging and use the last string of lights to make it all work out successfully. We hang the ornaments without any further incidents and now have a nice Christmas tree to keep us company for the next month in our living room. If you’re in the neighborhood feel free to stop by and have a look.

Oh, Christmas Tree

The day after the initial snow of the season Bethany and I decided to trek out to the ol Home Depot to buy our first Christmas tree together. There’s a large amount of pressure for this project because you only get one first tree and if it’s a Charlie Brown piece of garbage that’s all we’ll remember for the rest of our lives. We arrived at the outdoor lot bundled up in our hats and mittens to find a good amount of prospective clients for our bay window. The problem turned out to be that Le Depot pre-wraps all their firs so you can only really judge height and a bunch of smushed up branches. We solved this dilemma by holding up seven or eight tree before realizing we had no idea if any of them had good form and selected one about seven feet tall.

After paying for our new friend we requested aid to tie the tree to the roof of my sexy 1990 Honda Accord and were told the attendant, John, could be found wandering the parking lot in his orange apron offering assistance to needy travelers. I immediately grew suspicious as to why someone would be wandering a parking lot in Everett because there would be a good chance they could get mugged or worse without wearing an orange apron. Sure enough we walked outside to find a family of four women trying to strap their new tree to the top of their van. Now this is where things get impressive. One of them had climbed through the sunroof in a skirt and heels so she could STAND on top of the car to help tie it down. This strikes me as a really bad idea or a way to have a terrible accident, get John fired, and possibly end up with a majority stake in Home Depot via a lawsuit. Neither of us wanted anything to do with standing on my roof because I don’t have or want a sunroof so I go searching for John. Lo and behold I find John hanging out with the gentleman who told me his buddy would be in the parking and I’m fairly certain they had a good line of vision of a WOMAN STANDING ON HER CAR. Also, John did not have on an apron because he had been sweeping which I still don’t quite understand. I think I’ll try that one in the office. I’m not wearing any pants because I’m photocopying so get off my back.

The tree’s securely held in place so we drive home and it strikes me my car’s beginning to pick up some of the nice pine aroma from above. Forget those little trees people hang from their rear view window that lose their scent in two days, I’m going to start driving around with a full spruce tied to the top of my car. And best of all it will probably start making the cars next to it smell nice as well. Who wouldn’t pay $25 each month to make their car smell fresh?

We finally pull up in front of the house and I run in to grab the camera so we can take pictures of our first tree together. It’s funny how certain things can be completely uninteresting to your friends and family, but they have strong significance for yourself. I mean come on, it’s a tree. After snapping some shots and cutting it loose I head inside to put the camera away before hauling it inside, but for some reason Bethany grabs it herself and starts carrying it in. This works for me until it gets caught on all her buttons and it can’t fit through the door so we very quickly have pine needles all over the place. A few quirky maneuvers later and we have the tree in the living room up in the stand. We need to wait a day for it to drop before we can start decorating, but it’s in the house and we now have our first naked Christmas tree.

Food for thought

One of our favorite date activities has always been going to the grocery store every other week. It’s convenient because everyone needs to have food in the house and during Bethany’s midterm/final exam periods it became a good opportunity to spend time together when we lived apart. If you’re like us you always follow the same course through the store and I feel like I’m getting away with something when I walk down an aisle the wrong way. I also think I’m wandering through a foreign country when I step into a new store because I have no clue where anything will be located. Six weeks ago I met by parents at my brother’s place and on the way home, I stopped at the Shaws in Brookline to buy our sundries for the week. It took me twenty-five minutes to find the rice, which should have been next to the canned vegetables across from the “international foods,” but instead could be found next to the salad dressing. Damn you Paul Newman and Ken’s Steakhouse!! Here are some more notes from this week’s trip

• It’s clementine season, which means that you need to buy a 350-count crate of this golf ball sized fruit instead of the 4 you plan on eating for the week. Someone really needs to get Bono on this to help with world hunger
• After hitting the produce section we turned the corner to find the local senior center appeared to be holding their weekly meeting in front of the mayonnaise. I guarantee at least eight people over the age of 65 were in a roller derby style scrum not allowing anyone to pass. As of press time I cannot tell you who won the shuffleboard match.
• What’s with the people who forget they’re not the only person buying food for the week? Today, we encountered a woman deep in a cell phone conversation who twice decided to stop short at the entrance of aisles so other customers could unexpectedly slam into her. I’m don’t what in your could be this important, but put down the Funyons and wrap it up in the car.
• I’m addicted to the port wine cheese ball and am going to try to eat the entire thing during this week’s episode of The O.C.
• Can it be explained to me why a bag of Tostitos cost $20 more than all of the other bags of chips in the store? But damn those things are tasty. I assume they’re made with crack unless you buy the lime ones because they have ecstasy.
• For the third visit in a row these two smart shoppers saved over 25% of their bill clipping coupons and reviewing the circular. Three more successful trips and we qualify for Supermarket Sweeps.

Addressing The People

From talking to people, it has come to my understanding each groom plays a different role in his wedding. Some men show little to no interest in the planning process, feel they completed their primary job once they proposed, and only worry about showing up for the ceremony. In other cases, the bride expects nothing from her fiancé because she planned her wedding in 1991 or has visions of doing everything with her mother. From my perspective, I like the thrill and pressure of organizing parties for people so I would like to be as much a part of the process as I can possibly be. I understand I will not be a part of the dress selection and I will probably review the details from the florist without much more than a nod of my head, but if there’s something I can do to relieve the stress level I’m 110% behind helping out.

In early November, it randomly occurred to me that I could coordinate the effort between our friends and two families to collect the addresses of our guests without Bethany having to contribute much on this project. After reorganizing our guest list using my previously mentioned Excel skills, I determined I needed to personally contact 60% of the people to complete our address book. Sure, I could send out a mass email to everyone, but where's the fun in that? I decided to personally write everyone I needed to track down by putting a little something special in each of their messages to hopefully brighten their day and make the process a little more interesting to myself. When I started writing I had some concerns because I wasn’t sure if I could meet my own creativity challenge or if some of the people would be upset with me with regards to some of the angles I used in my approach. To be more specific, I’m a pretty weird dude and I’m not quite sure Bethany’s friends realize the capabilities of my brain. Fortunately, everyone seemed to enjoy the process and I received some amusing emails back. I ended up having a great time and I found my creativity to be running at such a high level that I found myself developing blog ideas as part of the process.

I would like to thank everyone for playing along and here are some of my favorite ideas:

• I regret to inform you our draft lottery did not include you as one of our top 425 guests, however, you did qualify as our twelfth alternate
• We reviewed your application to the prestigious Table 5. Thank you for the lovely tray of cookies although I do prefer chocolate chip to oatmeal so don't screw up next time.
• We're looking for a videographer for our wedding who could combine the skills of Tarintino, Ang Lee, and Penny Marshall. This was later described to me as “When Harry Met Sally” with machine guns
• A census review of our guest list alerted us to the fact we were not properly represented by enough residents from Allentown, PA.
• We've decided we would like our ceremony interpreted in Farsi
• I have recently contacted the Witness Protection Program to determine your whereabouts, but they could offer little assistance because they are also unaware of the current state you reside.
• The super secret Skull, Crossbones, and Savol Third Floor Organization is planning it's summer meeting in Boston. Please forward the correct contact information so we can send you your Kareoke assignment for the weekend
• As you know our selection process is very strict and numerous candidates are competing for our boarding student openings. Based on your location, we would like to see if you would like to also submit an application to be a day student this July
• Thank you for your request to appear on Sean "Puffy, Puff Daddy, P.Diddy, Diddy" Combs second season of Making the Band III. We have forwarded your information to Making the Wedding: Medeiros & Marcogliese
  

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Bethany!!!
It's Bethany's 28th birthday today so please leave her a message wishing her the best of luck with her 28 tequila shots.

I think my best birthday memory occured during her first birthday when we were together back in 2001. Bethany became deathly ill and spent the entire day lying in bed. I thought my plans were shot especially since my gift revolved on us going out out on a nice date, but she rallied and refused to postpone the evening. I am very thankful for this because I had no idea what my backup plan would be.

That was the best Big Mac we ever shared together. Happy Birthday and I look forward to many more together.

Love
D

Home Alone

I spent this weekend home alone for the first time as Bethany left for sunny Arizona to attend conference. It’s strange having no one around. Initially it’s somewhat peaceful, but then after a few hours it gets incredibly boring and I have to exert significant effort to motivate myself to complete my tasks for the day. Here’s a recap of what I’ve been up to:

• I settled down at a table at The Joshua Tree on Friday night with some friends. While it’s always nice to sit down, my back was to the crowd so I didn’t get to do much people watching, but a guy I see two or three mornings a week on the train ended up next to us. It’s funny because, “I know that guy”, was the initial thought that goes through my mind, but that quickly gets followed up with, “Actually, No I don’t.” It would still be fun to walk up and try to guess what his name would be….until he kicks you in the groin
• Also, judging by the excitement and loud singing at the bar I have a strange feeling people under the age of twenty five think Don’t Stop Believing by Journey is a new song because they heard it on MTV’s Laguna Beach. Also, have you noticed every show on MTV has included a montage or dance number to One, Two Step by Ciara (with Missy Elliot)?
• -Saturday, I had some wedding homework to complete so I sat at my computer enjoying the loneliness as I fired up my iTunes and hammered away at my keyboard. At one point, I caught myself screaming out the lyrics to This I Promise You by N’Sync and came to the conclusion I did not qualify as being alone because the three guys in the apartment above me could definitely hear me. For the record, I also hope they enjoyed my performance of Starship’s Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now and Jessica Simpson’s With You.
• -It’s errand time as I made my way to get my car inspected and to be honest I didn’t really think anything would come of it unless I failed like I did last year because a parking light needed to be replaced. As I walk in the door and find two guys in front of me, an employee who looks like the manager takes my keys and credit card from me. He proceeds to jack up the front of my car, look under it, have me sign my receipt, and sends me off before the cars of the first two customers are finished. The best I can come up is he became confused as to who bribed him, I will have a $3,000 additional charge on my credit card come Monday, or I will die in a horrible crash because I handed my keys over to one of the mentally challenged brother of one of the real inspectors who tagged along with him that day.
• -While watching TV at night I hear a suspicious sound and spend the rest of the night spreading tar on the stairs, heating a door knob, tying paint cans to ropes, and fleeing to my tree house to avoid two wanna be thieves who look suspiciously like Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci.

Raking for the Weekend

On Saturday, I undertook the task of cleaning up the leaves, pine needles, and sticks lying around our yard and grossly underestimated the amount of debris to be collected. I started by hitting the local hardware store and buying a package of five brown bags and while I contemplated shelling out the extra $1.97 to double my purchase, the frugal side of me won out and I decided against it. I mean come on, I could buy half a beer with that money. After returning home, Bethany made me a sandwich, I changed into some work clothes, and proceeded to undertake the task at hand.

I now feel I must dissect the previous statement because I feel there’s some material to elaborate on. First off, I am fully capable of making a sandwich for myself and while some may find the statement of my fiancé making me lunch chauvinistic, Bethany makes the best sandwiches I’ve ever eaten, so on the days she offers to whip something up for me I would be a fool to turn her down. She inherently always seems to know the correct ratio of meat, cheese and condiment spread to make a delicious lunch. It’s good stuff and if you’ve had one, you know what I’m talking about.

Now for the second part of the statement, I would like to make it known by “work clothes” I mean Adidas wind pants and a New England Patriots’ sweatshirt. Let’s be honest, who doesn’t like to celebrate filling a bag full of leaves by break dancing in their driveway to serve up their neighbors New England fall style.

Alright, so I have a good meal in my stomach and I look like I’m trying out for Breakin 3 so it’s time to hit the yard. I take out my trusty rake and begin my domestic duty for the afternoon. After seventeen minutes I’ve consolidated 40% of the front yard and I realize I should have spent the rest of that beer as well as part of the next round on more bags. I also need a nap so I curl up on the pile of refuse, promptly fall asleep, and wake up to a chipmunk licking my face. I now feel dejected because I not only need to drive to the store again because I Ebenezer Scrooged myself out of spending four dollars, but I’ve also been taken advantage of by one of the Rescue Rangers.

Fortunately, my luck begins to turn because I quickly find a parking spot, receive a free bag of freshly made popcorn at the store, and return home within twenty minutes with ten new paper bags ready to be filled with wet, moldy leaves. I complete the front yard and driveway so I head to the backyard where I find every square inch covered by something I can collect with my rake. I proceeded to make some pretty impressive piles of leaves and remember the days when I would have jumped right in. Obviously, I’m a little too old for that so I fashioned the piles into a fort and pretended I had been trapped in the Alamo with only my rake/rifle to keep me alive. Ah, the life of a sad, disturbing man.

Three hours later I finally fill my fifteenth sack and haul it to the front of the house where it looks like I’m preparing a barricade for the next natural disaster. The task has been completed and I head inside to enjoy a nice cup of warm apple cider.

Capital Gains

I apologize to everyone looking for their Monday morning blog fix, but we took a little four day trip down to Washington D.C. for Bethany to present at her first conference (good job sweetie) and we caught up with several different groups of friends. The nation’s capital is the site of our first vacation together in the spring of 2002 so it will always have somewhat of a special meaning to me. We did visit the Arboretum yesterday, but I never have great stories about site seeing in D.C. because I usually am trying to spend time with friends which is much easier to do at a restaurant than attending a museum to look at The Fonz’s jacket. It’s not that I hate site seeing, but I visited numerous historical landmarks with my family and I think I unconsciously found them to be very boring at the age of eight so I don’t get psyched up for them now. With that being said here are some highlights from the trip:

• Thanks to our host, the ever talented and occasional nudist, Chris White. Master of the Taco Soup and Oreo Cake, Chris always welcomes us to his apartment in Capital Hill. Chris will be working in Ann Arbor, Michigan this weekend so please throw some tomatoes at him if you are in town.
  
• Friday night we visited Old Glory in Georgetown and we had one of the best waitresses around. She recommended a wonderful peanut butter dessert, dealt professionally with some difficult clientele and we somehow ended up with a bucket of lollipops on our table by the end of the night.
• Do not take a cab ride from Dupont Circle to Georgetown because there zone fare system averages out to $6 a minute
• We caught Chris’s final show Saturday night at the Baltimore Comedy Factory and while I enjoyed the performance, I am disappointed this was the .00001% of the time someone doesn’t show up hammered beyond belief for the eleven o’clock start and tries to heckle the entertainment. I did, however, see a woman pass out with a good thirty minutes left, but her date stayed and at one point was clapping while using one of his arms to support her.
• Visit Café Luna at 1633 P St NW for lunch and substitute cole slaw for sauerkraut on the Rachel.
• Be warned of the militant bartender at Burke’s in Baltimore who had a Golem like obsession with making margaritas. I thought we were joking around, but then I grew concerned he would try to put my hand in a blender so I began avoiding eye contact
  
• Sunday night, I offered to buy everyone at the bar a drink (using Chris’s credit card), but I had to pick the combination. Surprisingly, no one wanted a Grand Marnier and Coke, Chardonnay and Cream, Dewars and Pineapple Juice, or Courvoisier and Sprite.
• My obsession for the weekend became determining whether a street name exists for every state and I found a map indicating this would not be the case. On our way out of town, however, I saw a Kentucky Ave, which once again proves you can never trust Rand McNally. Communist Bastards
• I met my cousin Danielle’s new boyfriend who works for an airline and we inquired as to whether the Mile High club is fact or urban legend. He proceeded to tell us a story about one of his friends taking up a student to fly the plane as he fulfilled the membership requirements with his stripper girlfriend. Petrified, the student would miss a radio call, the teacher kept his headset on for the entire flight. In addition, if you ever see one of the pilots roaming the cabin, start saying your rosary.

Back to School

Looking for a creative laugh? Some members of an Improv group at Boston College created a parody of the FOX's The OC called The BC and made it available for viewing on their web site. The humorous adventures follow expelled BU student Woody Atryan being taken in by the charitable Father Don MacMillan who partners him with Seth Lohan to assist with his rehabilitation. The show is cleverly written by it’s two stars, Woody Tondorf and Joe Sabia, and offers an opportunity for everyone to take a trip back to their college days of romance, parties, and video games.

The first two episodes can currently be found online and be sure to check out the commercials that are also available. My favorite moments are the singing of the Perfect Strangers theme by a member of the judicial council, a conversation among two priests regarding Usher’s Confessions, and the video game commercial with the Deans.

It's a Halloween rant, Charlie Brown

Happy Halloween from Bethany and myself, but I would guess anyone above the age of twelve celebrated the holiday over this past weekend. We’ve never really been big Halloween people and while I enjoy looking at the assortment of creative costumes people put together, I always find myself too lazy to put something together myself. The odd thing is, the last time I went out to celebrate in 2002 I went through all the trouble to dress like Britney Spears and I have to give mad props to all you ladies out there because those high heels hurt like hell. I didn’t really have a poor experience that evening, but I haven’t been motivated to do anything since.


Is it me or did people start decorating for Halloween this year like it’s Christmas? I’m used to the occasional pumpkin on the front porch, but we have candles, string lights, inflatable pumpkins, and dioramas in our neighborhood. It’s not like I have a problem with the ramped up celebration of ghouls and ghosts, but it appeared to come out of nowhere. In addition, are you aware all of the Halloween candy and costumes went on sale Friday which if my math is correct (carry a 7, multiply by Pi) would be three days before the 31st. This makes little sense to me because 85% of the people out there buy their candy on Halloween because the ingenious plan to purchase it early always results in it being eaten in three hours.

The big kicker here would be that all of the sweets, masks, and makeup have been pushed to the side for drum roll please…..CHRISTMAS IN OCTOBER????? Can someone please explain to me who decided the holiday season now needs to be celebrated over the parts of four months? I have enough decision to make in my life without having to choose between the Frosty wrapping paper or the bag of Snickers bars with Dracula and the Wolfman on it. So I guess this would leave Thanksgiving as the forgotten son of the holiday family because his younger brother started averaging 30 points a game. I think the conversation would go like this:

Easter Bunny: Hi Santa, how are your children doing?

Santa: Great, you have to come to one of Christmas’ games. He has malls decorated in his honor and staying up late for people to come see him. He has hundreds of songs written about him and people spend thousands of dollars to bring a piece of him into their homes. And did I mention he hit the game-winning jumper last night against Jefferson High?

Easter Bunny: That’s nice and how about your oldest, Thanksgviing?

Santa: Thanksgiving? Yeah, I think I took a nap that day.


Don’t worry because I’ll always love you Thanksgiving and will be sure to have a an extra helping of mashed potatoes and apple pie just for you.

Champions Collide

Congratulations to the 2005 World Series Champion Chicago White Sox who dominated their way through the playoffs with an 11-1 record after leading their division for most of the season

Next up for the White Hose will be the Galactic Series where they will face off against the Neptune Knights who won a hard fought battle with the Bespin Blue Tigers in the Milky Way Invitational. Will Chicago’s starting staff match up with the Leia Organa-Stottlemyer coached rotation of trading deadline acquisition Chewbacca(8-0, 1.69 ERA since August), Optimus Prime, Gordan Shumay, and Small Wonder? Tune in this Tuesday on ESPN 8: The Ocho for all the action live from Triton, Neptune’s largest moon..

A Glimpse of the Future

We may be in the middle of wedding planning, but I caught a glimpse of my future on Saturday when we attended the Jack and Jill baby shower for one of Bethany’s colleagues. I expected to blend into the background of this affair with some mild conversation, but I did not prepare myself for the four children under two who would be present and instead found myself thrust in the middle of my first party where my peers have families. Truthfully, I enjoy being around children so my shock value wore off quickly as I high fived a toddler, played with toys, and mooed like a cow into a plastic cup without missing a beat. Things turned out to a great afternoon and the woman who hosted the event assembled one of the most delicious lineups of food I have ever witnessed.

The lesson for the weekend would be that I am one step closer from all of my parties not beginning after nine at night and having seventy five percent of the people drink beer until two o’clock in the morning. While the thought may be scary to some, I am not ashamed to say I think Bethany and myself look forward to our future lives with a family with much more enthusiasm than we do our wedding day. Over Columbus Day weekend, we had a brief taste of what it would be like to be responsible for a child as Bethany’s brother and sister in law asked us to baby sit their eighteen month old son, Nick, so they could go out to dinner with some friends. Nick behaved like a champ for us, but he’s constantly on the move so you have to watch him as he jumps from toy to toy, wanders into dark closets, and tries to dish out hugs while you’re boiling water on the stove. You end up playing games you never knew existed, shrug it off when he decides to signal the end of dinner by sweeping his ravioli onto his clothes, and did I mention the running? At the end of the night, I gave my first bubble bath and then the three of us settled down for an alphabet book about a surprise party for a spider before putting the little guy to bed. We had a few quiet hours to ourselves, but the cuteness begins again the next morning

I’ve heard coworkers discuss the lack of sleep and work put into having children, but that one single day put it a little more in perspective for me. A baby requires a certain level of dedication and a mindset significantly different than being a single guy with hockey season tickets. Another person depends on you for everything and I can easily see how it can be overwhelming for some people to handle. On the flip side, it’s exciting watching a baby discover and learn from the world around him even if it does require some banging. My best days of spending all of my weekends watching sports and drinking will be behind me in a few years, but I look forward to the fun, excitement, and sleepless nights in store for me and our future children.

Of course this opinion could easily change after I change my 100th diaper.

Takeout Tuesday

It’s Take out Tuesday everyone and since you made it through the beginning of the work week, it’s time to celebrate like we do by giving yourselves a night off from cooking and ordering in. Open that drawer full of menus from restaurants you could never find if your life depended on it and select from Chinese, Mexican, BBQ, chicken wings, pizza, or whatever else you find yourself in the mood for. The only thing that matters is your meal will arrive in an environmentally hazardous Styrofoam container, the plastic fork they gave you broke on your first bite, and you don’t have to do any dishes. Enjoy and feel free to share what you went with.

Personally, I usually go with a toasted chicken salad sandwich with lettuce, cheese, and pickles while Bethany hops around the menu.

Hey Mr. DJ, Part II

In part I, we reviewed our reasoning behind deciding to locate a DJ instead of hiring a band or attempting the probable failure of coordinating our own music for next July. Now that we know the direction we’ll be heading in it’s time to review some of the key points we’ll be trying to communicate during the interview process.

For starters, there will be a large amount of dancing scheduled for the reception and I think if anyone has ever attended a party or wedding with us they know we’re usually one of the first people out there hopping around. Most of our prospective guests also have been known to flash some sharp moves on the dance floor and we’re expecting the same excitement and energy level featured at the world famous Beach Parties. There’s nothing like a good buzz leading up to a party where people begin talking about how much of a good time they will be having weeks in the future. I hope people take this approach to our wedding and Bethany and I want to be sure the DJ we select understands our vision, our guests, and our ideas for the dance floor.

We would like to locate a DJ who will be open to the idea of working with us and not claiming he can’t make any promises because he needs creative license to play the Electric Slide if the party needs it. I will freely admit I know nothing about music, the appreciation of music, or what qualifies as brilliant works of art. I do, however, understand what types of songs people get excited for so they will stay on a dance floor for three consecutive hours. I used to build play lists with popular songs mixed in with some of my personal favorites, but this usually resulted in people getting fired up for a few songs before leaving to talk to their friends when an unfamiliar artist came on. I then ended up alone and it would be difficult to get people up again so last year I carefully choreographed an entire six and a half hour play list beginning with some mood music before knocking everyone’s socks off for the final few hours. After the formalities have been laid to rest we want that dance floor hopping for the final ninety minutes to two hours like the end of Back to the Future when Michael J. Fox introduces Johnny B. Good to his future parents and their classmates at the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance except there will be no time traveling.

How do we achieve this goal? By hiring an individual who will be open to sitting down with us to discuss a suggested group of songs and the ability to comprehend the tone we hope to set for the evening. Our music range will include Oldies, Soul, Rock, and Hip Hop as we request a good ten songs we expect to hear at our reception without being Song Nazis and demanding a lengthy list of must haves. We will ask for classic songs we dislike(see Mustang Sally) not be played while requesting really bad songs we would like to hear(Queen of Hearts). There will be Barry White, The Jackson Five, and the Four Tops. You may be asked to Shout with Jessie’s Girl or Come on Eileen. The opportunity to say you Shook Me All Night Long as you Bust a Move to some Good Vibrations could present itself.

In a nutshell, after doing the meet and greet with all of our guests, we’re looking forward to closing things down in style and hope all of our friends and family will be out there with us.

How I Met Your Mother

I find one of the better new television shows of the season to be How I Met Your Mother on CBS (Monday nights at 8:30). The plot revolves around Ted (Josh Radner), a twenty seven year old, who finds himself worn down by the dating scene and ready to find the woman of his dreams. Bob Saget provides narration as Ted from the year 2030 as he relays to his son and daughter what events led to the meeting of their yet to be identified mother. Jason Segel (Freaks and Geeks) and Alison Hannigan (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, American Pie) play Ted’s recently engaged friends who assist him in his quest while Neil Patrick Harris (the artist formerly known as Doogie Howser) portrays their hilarious friend Barney whose obnoxious antics channel the television spirits of Steve Sanders and Michael Mancini. Being in the same age range of the characters, I find the nostalgia humor to be right up my alley and I support this claim by asking is there really ever a bad time to use a “Sloth loves Chunk” joke? Check it out and I guarantee a few laughs.

I enjoy the setup for this sitcom because it transcends the stereotypical Dumb Dad (footnote to Bethany for the joke) genre where incredibly dorky and massively overweight men somehow find themselves married to beautiful woman willing to put up with such antics as spending the grocery money at the racetrack. The premise relates to a characteristic that is part of every single relationship out there as everyone had that first look, the first sense of attraction, and the first date. Whether it lasts one month, one year, or a lifetime every couple had a point where they were together for two weeks and their friends all gossip about whether they think the personalities will be a fit for each other. All couples have their story and while you hear a great deal about the dating scene, the experiences of most my friends seem to occur in circumstances when you least expect it. I’ve had blizzards, theme parties, chance encounters, and saline solution all contribute to the development of a wedding.

For Bethany and myself, the 411 goes a little something like this. Old friend and roommate Nick had met his current fiancé, Katie, at a party we attended in April 2001. On Sunday, May 20th my brother, Chris would be graduating from Providence College and the night before Katie and her roommates(including Bethany) planned a margaritaville party. I figured I’d show up have a few drinks, keep it low key, and head out somewhere around midnight to prepare for the drive to Providence the following morning. Our first look occurred when Nick and I walked in the door holding a 6-foot tall inflatable palm tree and if my memory serves me correctly, Bethany stood just off to my left as we entered the Brighton apartment. After some introductions and a bite or two of her candy necklace, I moved on to do my own thing, but it very quickly became eleven o’clock and I assumed I would be leaving within the hour. At this point a group of people I had been speaking with unveiled a bottle of Captain Morgan and I realized the question wasn’t if, but when I would end up making myself a drink so I decided to get things out of the way. After making my way to the bar area (which I believe was the stovetop), I grabbed a cup and had tilted the bottle to the point where the rum began running down the neck when Bethany came around the corner and asked me to do a shot of tequila with her. After putting the Captain down, I explained my case of how I needed to leave soon and could only do one more drink, but she didn’t want to hear it. After some negotiating, I agreed to do the shot of Cuervo and I would say the rest is history….or for a select few sworn to secrecy. And in the year 2027 the name of that story will be “How I Met Your Mother”

Page 36: October Edition

After some slow traffic on the entertainment front I think we’ve had some good pieces of info over the past few weeks so here’s a quick recap with contributions from both of us:


Nick and Jessica-In or Out: US Weekly broke this story, but I bet you don’t know People isn’t touching it. So she forgot her wedding ring a few times, I guess we’re not engaged anymore either. And have you heard about the nineteen year old girl who said Nick picked her up at a high school football game in Ohio and took her back to his hotel room. That’s a pretty good line when you meet girls foolish enough to think successful celebrities have nothing better to do on a Friday night than watch high school football. I’m pretty sure Lachey doesn’t stay at a Motel Six and drink Crazy Horse either

Super Baby: Nicolas Cage’s wife Alice gave birth to a baby boy and they name the child Kal-el Coppla Cage. For those of you who don’t know, Kal-el is Superman’s name on Krypton before Marlon Brando jettisoned him to earth. Now while it may be surprising I somehow managed live with a woman with all of my useless pop culture knowledge, keep in mind Cage convinced someone to have sex with him and give their child the name of a comic book character. With that being said, we proudly announce the names of our children will be The Greatest American Hero, Captain America, and Wolverine. At least Britney and Kevin managed to give their baby, Sean Preston, a normal name and speaking of which…

Sex Tape Scandal III: Rumor has it Britney and Kevin have a sex tape of their own and do we really need to discuss how exciting this is? The only sad note would be that it comes during her white trash, trailer park, inbred stage and not her cutsie, cherry bomb ass “I’m a virgin(wink wink)” Justin phase.


I’ll see your sex tape and raise you three broken relationships: Break out the smelling salts because love has no chance of making it after the end of Paris Squared. Hilton reportedly could be seen dancing on nightclub tables and working the boyfriend of Mary-Kate Olsen the night of her breakup. In addition, rumors this week also indicate Paris the Blond could be responsible for the end of the six month marriage of One Tree Hill stars Chad Michael Murray and Sophia Bush. Word is Murray never saw it coming.

TomKat prepares to hatch their egg: Can someone please explain to me how Tom Cruise managed to convince Katie Holmes to have his baby within six months of dating? I apparently could’ve used this scientology material back in college because my cracks about Melrose Place and singing the Transformers theme didn’t get me anywhere.


Stay tuned for our next report when we post the results from Lindsey Lohan’s driving test

Hey, Mr DJ, Part I

I received my first homework assignment over the weekend as the wedding team captain designated me to prepare for our future meetings with DJs for our reception. This will be a task I welcome and look forward to working on because I’ve tried hard in recent years to understand what makes good music for a party and some of you have even inquired as to whether we would be outsourcing the music. While programming the iPod to play all of our favorite songs would not be difficult, we would still be responsible for locating all the necessary equipment so everyone wouldn’t be dancing to a radio I received during my sophomore year of high school. This arrangement would also require one of our guests to press pause when necessary and MC the event so we have decided not to ruin anybody’s time and locate a professional for the job although I will acknowledge trying to make it work would probably be an amusing disaster for people to observe.

Asking whether we would be having a DJ or a band turned out to be very popular question within days after our engagement and we had discussed this topic long before we decided to walk down the aisle. While I appreciate the value and enjoyment of live music, I personally feel it would be much easier to fix a poor DJ then clash with the egos of a band. If things aren’t going well on the turntables you can walk up with a list of five or six songs and tactfully get them played quickly. If a band struggles to motivate your guests to shake their tail feathers, they may not be willing to or know how to string together a requested play list. In addition, you’re stuck in the mud if they’re simply having an off night and no one’s feeling their vibe. The human element plays much more of a factor with a live ensemble and that’s a chance we’re not looking to take. We also feel music selections become limited with a band since both Bethany and myself appreciate the hip-hop genre and simply put, I want to shake it like a Polaroid picture at my wedding. With that being said, I know there are people reading this who have had or will be having live music at their weddings and I want to make it very clear I do not think you made or will be making a mistake with your decision. I’m not lobbing bombs, it’s just the choice we’re making and why.

More to come.

Red Socked

Friday night marked the end of the 2005 Red Sox season with a three game sweep by the American League Central Champion Chicago White Sox and I can’t say I’m all that surprised. This team has been battling injuries all year and has looked worn down since the end of August while giving up a relatively healthy lead in their division before clinching the Wild Card berth on the last day of the season. To be honest, this team had zero shot at winning the World Series and while most fans and obnoxious radio personalities would disagree with me, this they entered the playoffs with no one pitching above a third starter level and a plan to hit their way to a championship. The problem is no team has EVER hit their way to victory let alone without one dominant starting pitcher. Some people counted on pitcher Curt Schilling leading the team but, he battled injuries all year and performed as a shell of himself upon his return. A player may be a superstar, but circumstances occur to change his ability and just because he’s on the field doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed a gold star outing. Injuries become the most overlooked development in baseball because people think when a player takes the field they will always get 100% of his talent. Usually the player whose ability has changed is not a bum, but is recovering from some ailment he may need a good solid year to recover from. It can be applauded when players don’t simply mail it in, but Schilling clearly has not recovered from his problems. If you’ve made it this far, you’re probably disappointed with my negativity and may be surprised to know I barely watched this past series because this team no longer rests high on my priority list.


I became a devoted baseball fan after watching the All Star game in 1988 and receiving a box of discarded baseball cards the following day. I learned about the Red Sox from listening to the radio call of the game while doing my homework or waiting to fall asleep. Once the game was over I would change my dial a quarter of a turn to catch the all sports WFAN out of New York and learned a great deal about the game in general as opposed to being restricted to the hometown team. During games on the West Coast, I would actually set by alarm to wake me up at one in the morning so I could catch the final inning out in Oakland or Seattle. One on my most memorable stories involved losing power in our house for a couple of days during Hurricane Bob in 1991 so I broke out an old battery powered radio to listen to a game and if I remember correctly Wade Boggs hit a home run. During the summer of 1994, my friend Mike and I attended at day night double header which turned out to be the last game at Fenway before that year’s strike and we were at the park for over ten hours as we watched our beloved Sox split with the Cleveland Indians with about two hundred people remaining in the stands by the last pitch of the twelve inning nightcap.


During last year’s dream season, the Red Sox broke their eight six year drought by beating the St. Louis Cardinals in four games to win the World Series and while most people thought I would be ecstatic with the news I had already given up on the team or as Bethany likes to say, “You broke up with them.” Things unraveled for me in the first game of the American League Championship series against the New York Yankees as once again, the Red Sox didn’t show up for an important playoff series against their archrivals. An embarrassing Game One performance had them without a base runner until the sixth inning and a follow-up, uninspired Game Two led me to turn the TV off in the seventh inning and I did not watch one more pitch of this series. I followed the story in the newspaper and heard the drama recapped by every other breathing person in the Boston area, but I had peaked and realized I had become way to emotionally invested in something that should not have that much importance in my life.

The question I have posed to myself is, “What happened?” and after not designating all of my free time to following this year’s team I realized watching the Red Sox stopped being fun for me. The peak of my loyalty occurred in college where I could walk out my door and be in my seat within a half hour. A bleacher seat only cost ten dollars and I rarely had that ticket before walking up to the box office window the day of the game. Once inside the park, you could sit wherever you wanted in the bleachers because no one seemed to care and only the diehard fans made it to the park on a Tuesday in April. I’ve seen Pedro Martinez strike out thirteen or more batters on three different occasions in such dominant performances it’s insulting the media would corrupt the fan base to run him out of town. Two or three years ago all of this changed. It became impossible to get a ticket on game day and the worst seat in the Fenway costs a laughable amount of money compared to other cities. I feel relegated to telling my grandchildren, “In my day” stories of how baseball was once a game and not an over hyped business model with a media circus for a background. My own personal obsession found me staying up well past two in the morning when I had to be up for work the next day and I found myself going through weeks of emotional stress during the playoff run. The adrenaline rush from this effect ceased to be a source of enjoyment for me and I had an epiphany during the greatest run in playoff history to reconsider my direction in life. Perhaps in a few seasons, a youth movement or a mediocre record will slow down Red Sox nation, but until then I will be nothing more than a casual observer.

Color Guard

While talking on the phone with my cousin the other night, she inquired about the colors of our wedding. I did not have the faintest clue what the answer to this question could possibly be so I asked Bethany what to say and ended up in a situation reminiscent of my high school and college French classes. People were talking and appeared to follow the conversation while I pretended to know what was going on and didn’t follow a single word. This became a reverse form of interpretation as I found myself repeating the comments with no meaning to me so the ladies could interact on this topic. Taupe? Chambord? Celadon? Azalea? What in the heck was going on here?

After my usual calm reaction and snide remark, I was informed these words describe colors to which I respectfully disagree with. The color Apple isn’t even a logical description because this fruit comes in many different varieties although it would be cool if you could get that reddish greenish combo of some of the Macintosh apples I have eaten. If that’s not your thing and you’re still hungry other options include plumberry, truffle, and bisque. Perhaps, you’re watching your figure and would like to downgrade to a beverage themed wedding so please check out Latte, Sangria, Tea Rose, or Champagne. A sense of adventure? Then go with the Hunter tracking the ever elusive Calypso while a Sea Mist forms over the Oasis. I know what none of these colors actually looks like, but I can’t imagine going into the office and saying, “We’ve decided to go with banana as our wedding color.”

For the purpose of standing up for men everywhere I would like to explain to the ladies we know nothing, but ten colors and they are red, yellow, blue, green, purple, pink, orange, black, white, brown and gray. If you want to describe a particular idea to us the statement should go as follows, “I’m thinking of buying a new shirt and I’m trying to decide between blue, dark blue, or light blue.” The analysis of these colors goes like this: Blue would be the uniform of CapN Crunch, the dark blue would be a Yankees hat, and light blue would be my favorite underwear of yours. We can all understand this language as well as that outside of these hypothetical circumstances you will probably buy all three. Hah, I kid because I love.

Here’s my take on some of the other nine colors out there:


Red: I HATE the color which is a notorious fact in my office because it really bothers me to look at someone in a red shirt. On the flip side, I can wear a red shirt because I cannot see it on myself. One classic story involves our entire auditing team a few years ago all coordinating to wear red shirts to annoy me which did not end very well because I decided to drop a few jokes how Arthur Anderson would soon not exist and they wouldn’t have jobs. You can call that story, “The Time I was Kicked in the Groin” or “How I was Fired.”

Orange: When I received my First Communion in the second grade, I insisted I wear an orange shirt and my mom had to drive everywhere before finding one. I also think people with red hair should wear orange more often just because it would look awful.

Green: I wear lots of green with Bethany’s favorite shirt being my Neon Green Scooper Bowl shirt that runs on a car battery


Yellow/Pink: Is it me or every time you see a guy wearing either of these colors do you wonder what the hell they were thinking when they bought it. Seriously, these colors do not look good on men and if someone told you otherwise they are lying or dressing you. It’s called a mirror, use it.

Live From New York

This weekend featured the season premiere of Saturday Night Live with host Steve Carell (The Forty Year Old Virgin) and musical guest Kanye West and after a slow start I can truthfully say two or three sketches could be rated an “A”. I’ve always been a huge comedy fan and have regularly watched SNL since the eighth grade. I remember my first episode on New Year’s Eve 1999 with host Matthew Broderick and I have seen almost every show since that night. Most people can attest to the fact I have seen some of these episodes too many times as I can reenact several skits based on having taped several seasons and then watching them again to see how the skits faired the second time around. For the particularly great episodes (Jim Carey and the first Britney Spears come to mind), I would make it a point to ensure all my friends could enjoy these great comedy moments.

The show has suffered through its ups and downs over the years and I mainly feel you can attribute success to the talent of the cast. Personally, I feel the greatest group of actors combined the final years of Mike Myers and Dana Carvey with the early years of Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, and Rob Schneider. This ensemble performed dead on impersonations, memorable musical numbers, and had the creativity to develop their own characters. Things fell apart during 1994-1995, but producer Lorne Michaels rebuilt the cast with Will Farrell, Chris Kattan, Cheri Oteri, and Ana Gasteyer to string together another run of successful shows. I would like to add a quick comment regarding the original cast containing Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtain, and Dan Akroyd by saying I find these episodes to be atrocious. Saturday Night Live’s debut served as a groundbreaking event in television history because there was nothing else like it and while the episodes of this era receive much acclaim, I find them to be awful. The development of the impressions, writing, and characters has come so far it would be like saying a horse would be as good of a way to travel as a car. This group may have been considered a sure thing at one time, but there's a reason most of them have not been successful. With that being said, I feel the current state of the show could also use a makeover

Presently, Tina Fey who took over duties during 1999-00 and began co-hosting the news segment, Weekend Update, the following year, supervises the writing for SNL. I initially found myself to be a huge fan of her clever, sharp-witted style, but my opinion significantly changed after Fey began promoting her movie Mean Girls. With each passing interview, I observed a person who didn’t really seem to have much life experience and based her writing on a keen sense of knowing what would make people laugh. She would talk about being a social outcast and it began to strike me this is a person who spent her high school and college careers vicariously living through other people. I envision her cracking a joke and gossiping about some freshman being stuffed into a trash can. because she spent her days at lunch eavesdropping on the tables around her. While she tried to play it off, she struck me as someone who spent her life being angry and jealous of never being a member of the in crowd while trying to pretend staying home with her friends and mocking the popular kids was a good time. This isn’t a good time for anyone and while being denied by your peers during your teenage years can be tough, you still have to find your niche. The world doesn’t only include cheerleaders and quarterbacks and other pockets of people exist where one can go to develop an identity. Based on her media appearances, I feel this is a person who not only lacked any depth to their personality while growing up, but continues to not quite get everyone has a difficult time as a teenager and that most people get over it. All her jokes about hip hop and pop culture only occur because she has witnessed other people laughing at them and I began viewing her work differently.

While riding the success of her movie, Fey appeared to have been granted more power last season in the content of the programming and I feel NBC ended up showing 20+ episodes of her personal ultra democratic political agenda. This led to some badly performed political comedy from someone thinking they were making a point and so much time would be devoted to the political humor the rest of the content suffered. There were few original characters developed and there was little to no skill with regards to impressionism. With Fey currently out on maternity leave, I looked forward to watching last night’s episode because I hoped she wouldn’t have much influence. The program opened, however, with a George Bush skit concerning reaction to Hurricane Katrina and the big crowd reaction punch line they used about “Who is in charge” completely ignored the legal ramifications of why the federal government couldn’t go in and say they now ruled Louisiana. After yelling at the TV and lamenting another painful season, I survived a mildly amusing skit about the JetBlue emergency landing before falling asleep. This morning Bethany and I watched the rest of the show over breakfast and laughed on several occasion with the highlight being a cameo by Mike Meyers with Kanye West. In addition, Bill Hader of Punk’d fame has joined the cast and nailed some dead on impressions including Al Pacino. It’s too early to give a full verdict, but I hope the Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite, New Reese Witherspoon Ghost/Romantic Comedy) hosted episode next week continues to build on this week’s promising start until the college democrat returns to sink the righted ship.

Three Month Checkup

Thanks to everyone who supported the blog over the past three months and we look forward to continuing this fun project. As I’m sure you have noticed, we’ve strayed significantly from exclusively writing about wedding details over the past few weeks. This mainly occurred because it became difficult trying to come up with two or three topics a week describing our planning process and frankly it’s really not very fun writing about an idea you’re forcing yourself to create. I am sure there are those of you out there who really do want to know every single phone call and conversation we have, but I unfortunately doubt the majority of our seven person audience would find it all that appealing. Instead, we’ve adapted to writing about who we are and the topics that interest us as a couple because that’s what brought us together. After all, we will be living our lives together and most of the entries you have been reading stem from conversations we’ve had over dinner, in the car, or while hanging out around the house. We’re weird, dorky people so once the initial engagement enjoyment began to slow down, we turned to our minds filled with useless knowledge to attempt to entertain our friends.

I do feel we started out strong with our topical items with the engagement, setting a date, locating a site for the reception, and having our parents out for dinner. Then, we started getting wrapped up with moving, enjoying living under the same roof, and celebrating the end of the summer. The truth is we have been tossing around ideas and talking with vendors, but we weren’t comfortable sharing information which may completely change a week later. Frankly, it would make us look stupid and there could be a potential for an awkward conversation based on how things played out. In addition, we don’t want to make all of our ideas public and plan on saving a few of our tricks as a surprise for our wedding day. With that being said, we should be cementing some concrete details over the next few weeks so keep your eyes peeled for some wedding updates.

And don’t forget to check in tomorrow for Song of the week

Hidden Gem

One of my favorite activities is to sidle up to an outdoor bar and enjoy a few cocktails in the sunshine or out under the stars. There are numerous restaurants offering this option where I’m from, but up in the Boston area the options are pretty limited. I know of three or four places offering the opportunity to have a vodka tonic in the fresh air, but I frankly haven’t been all that impressed with them. This past Friday, however, I have found the oasis I’ve been searching for lo these many years.


After an enjoyable dinner in Harvard Square at John Harvard’s Brew House, Bethany, Kirsten, and myself wandered over to check out the Legal Seafood outdoor patio at the Charles Hotel and I could not have been happier after settling down at the corner of the bar. This area has been open for two summers and you may not have been aware of its location because the bartender informed me the hotel prevents them from advertising. A midnight last call and not finding its existence until September would be the only drawbacks I can drum up. If you find yourself facing a nice day or evening I recommend checking out the Legal bar before it closes for the season on October 15th.

Vacancy

While growing up in R.I. you never knew who would be over for dinner or would be sleeping on the couch for the night. My parents instituted an open door policy and never turned their backs on having another mouth to feed or another bed to prepare. In high school, my brother would often end up with several friends over and they began to refer to the house as the Marco Motel. Based on the activity Bethany and I have had over the past three weeks, I think our apartment has evolved into the Marco Motel II. It’s always nice to have old friends in from out of town and when I visit places I know I appreciate the opportunity to save money on lodging. As a host, having your home occupied does take a mental tole on you because after working all day you have to entertain instead of rest. In the middle of last week, both Bethany and myself frankly ran out of gas, but fortunately our guests were understanding enough to realize we’d been pretty busy and didn’t take offense to our bailing on a couple of nights out on the town. Things should be quiet for the next few weeks, but the Motel will be available for short and long term stays and as always, we do not require a multiple night commitment. Here are some of the perks in store for you:

• Our honeymoon suite has a queen size bed complete with two office spaces, 135,624 pages in psychology textbooks, 45 handbags, and an 8x11 Adam Vinateri picture. I do regret to inform our guests the closet space is reserved for maintenance
• The spacious gold room comes with two non-pull out couches, 33’ television, and several pictures of people you don’t know. Please be warned, do to high noise levels and power issues, you will not be able to sleep until 11:30 at night
• The garden level economy class unit may have lighting and odor issues, but for those of you who need your quiet space it’s separated from the rest of the house, offers free laundry, and all the Christmas decorations one could possibly dream of. If some sort of black substance drips on you while sleeping we know nothing about it and you did sign a waiver
• All rooms come with complimentary wireless Internet service, free parking, access to our one of a kind BBQ garage, mismatched towels, and use of our two calendars
• Don’t forget to try our exclusive room service menu including granola bars, English muffins, bananas, and chips with salsa

Email or call Bethany or myself to reserve your space now

Arrested to Television

Monday night at 8:00 P.M. marks the third season premiere of Arrested Development on FOX. This is easily the best-written and most amusing show on television today, but it needs some audience support. The plot revolves around Michael Bluth(Jason Batemen) trying to keep his family company alive while working around the chaos including, but not limited to his escaped con father, alcoholic mother, and three equally psychotic siblings. Throw in a sexually confused brother in law, Michael’s hatred for his son’s girlfriend, and Liza Minelli sleeping with both his brothers and you have yourself one hilarious party. This program also manages to receive long-term recurring role commitments from several well-known actors such as Henry Winkler, Christine Taylor, Julia Louis-Dreyfuss, and Charlize Theron. Every character has his/her own unique quirks and while Michael plays the straight man during most of the action he is far from normal. Producer Ron Howard narrates each episode by adding to the storytelling because instead of simply referring to events of the past, the viewer is provided with a setup accompanied by a ten second clip. There has not been such successful random plot development since Seinfeld so I strongly recommend everyone watch, TiVo, tape, or rent previous seasons on DVD. Enjoy the show!

From High School to Hollywood

Over the weekend I discovered the four people from my high school graduating class who have been trying to get into the television/entertainment market all have successful work right now. I find this to be remarkable because I attended a small school and the number of students in my senior year barely broke 70. Here’s the rundown of the group:


Angelo Spizzirri is currently starring in the Nick Cannon vehicle Underclassman about a police officer going undercover at a prep school and while this has been poorly reviewed I plan on checking it out on DVD. Angelo can also held a prominent role in the Dennis Quaid baseball film The Rookie as the high school catcher.

Pete Lucas spent the past few months as a sports anchor on the CBS affiliate in Rhode Island, but my parents have informed me he has recently moved to the FOX station.

Roberto Raad can be seen as the guy on the right in the new Miller Light commercial where two men observe a woman and her new soft shell cooler on the beach.

Charlie Day stars as a main character on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia airing Monday nights at 10:30 on FX. It’s a comedy about four friends who own a bar and while I have not seen it yet, I plan on watching tomorrow’s episode. Out of these four classmates, I was closest to Charlie and this guy may have only been an inch or two taller than me, but he would stuff a pillow under his shirt and do a killer impression of Chris Farley’s motivational speaker character, Matt Foley. Charlie also played Boscoe’s brother on Third Watch before being dismembered in the second to last season. I always dreamed of running into him at a bar and sneaking up to give him a giant hug while screaming, “I can’t believe you’re alive,” as I pick him up off his feet.


This probably doesn’t mean much to most of you, but I found it to be pretty cool and I’m interested to hear what you think of their work.

And the winner is...

In honor of this being the inaurgural song of the week and Friday I have selected Working for the Weekend by Loverboy. A priceless SNL skit featuring Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley competing for an opening at a Chippendales club brings back fond memories of this tune. Legally download it to get your exciting weekend started.

Dance to the Music

Over Labor Day weekend, dinner had finished and I knew the time had arrived to fire up the dance floor. The talented band on stage still appeared to be sizing up the appropriate play list for the crowd and the arrival of the police made them cautious of their noise level. To the left of the dance floor, observers would find Bethany and I in a heated discussion over our next course of action because she didn’t feel up to breaking out her hottest moves. After going back and forth for a couple of minutes, all seemed hopeless when Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn piped through the speakers. Bethany’s eyes opened wide, her body perked up, and she grabbed my hand so we could rush out to dance to one of her favorite tunes. The dance floor remained populated for the next hour and we even managed to ease the band into opening up a bit without fear of a return from local law enforcement.

Things turned around last Sunday night because the band played a song with the “it” factor. It can be tough to describe what composes the “it” factor, but everyone knows the feeling as the energy rushes through your body when you hear a certain piece of music. The arms, legs, and head start flailing as you belt out your best attempt at remembering the words without a care in the world. Personally, I’ve been known to bust out my finest (or least finest) singing voice while at work singing Bye Bye Bye and Can You Feel the Love Tonight and I would place a good wager everyone reading this has been caught in the car. Why? Because it’s fun to do and makes you feel good about yourself. It can be a way to bond with friends, a good pick me up, or done for no particular reason at all.

Every person also has his or her own relationship with a song. While I could leap up and dance to the same beat ten times a day, Bethany could turn the exact same thing off the second it appears on the radio. After a certain period you may also find the need to break up with a song for one of numerous reasons. You could simply not be feeling the love anymore or you could hate the experience so much you may wonder how you ever allowed yourself to become so intimate with such a thing. There will always be, however, those songs that will always stand the test of time and every time you listen to it will be a wonderful 2:47 of your life.


During the 2005 American Idol season, Brian, Becky, and myself loyally bonded over the events of this year’s aspiring singers while offering our expert analysis, commentary and a little bit of trash talking in support of Scott “The Junkyard Dog” Savol. While our quest for perfection ended with the very respectable number five spot, this exciting season motivated me to create a song of the week for the house. I would search far and wide for songs standing the test of time and always make you want to bob you head. I would now like to share this program with everyone to rediscover a little piece of sunshine from their past and to purchase it from itunes or whatever your legal choice of music downloading may be. Here’s what you’ve missed so far and I look forward to posting a new song every Friday


5/7/05 Take Me Home Tonight - Eddie Money
5/14/05 Bad, Bad Leroy Brown – Jim Croce
5/21/05 Alone – Heart
5/28/05 Nothings Gonna Stop Us Now – Jefferson Starship
6/04/05 Hold On – Wilson Phillips
I Can’t Live Without Your Love and Affection – Nelson Brothers
6/11/05 Footloose – Kenny Loggins
7/04/05 Sugar, Sugar – The Archies


Please let us know what songs have the “it” factor for you and just a reminder you do not need to register to post.

Wedding by the Bay

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend. We had a relaxing close to the summer reading poolside during the day while enjoying good food and beverages in the evening. This weekend marked a significant change to the lake dynamic because none of the group of friends attending lived together anymore. Our 11 o’clock arrival led us into a high-energy conversation of people catching up with old faces they haven’t seen for a few months. We quickly joined in and after several rounds of cocktails (including some shot gunning), more arrivals, and introductions to a few new faces someone noticed the clock read 3:30 in the morning. At this point, I found myself pressed into recalling my theme wedding material (see 6/28 & 6/29 posts) and after mildly protesting to hold off until the morning I tried to remember as much A-Team fodder my droopy eyelids would allow me.

The next morning, Rob could not stop talking about the fun evening he had and we started recounting the highlights from what really amounted to a few hours ago. From this conversation and with the help of many others, I now present the Baywatch Wedding.

• All members of the wedding party will wear red bathing suits, sunglasses, sun tan lotion on their noses, and carry an orange flotation device
  
• The bride will come down the aisle running in slow motion to an organ rendition of the Baywatch theme. I would like to ask everyone to open to page 127 of their hymn book to sing along.
• Hobie will be the ring bearer
• There will be a music video halfway through the ceremony
• When it’s time to pronounce the happy couple man and wife, the bride will pass out so the groom can perform the sacred kiss via CPR
• A yellow SUV will take the place of the limousine
• The entire reception will only be music by David Hasselloff so we recommend not booking a room because you will be leaving within eighteen minutes
• The honeymoon will consist of visiting and releasing an album in Germany
• After four years, the couple will quit their jobs to start a catering company called Baywatch Nights

Labor for the Weekend

Another summer will be closing up shop this weekend and we hope everyone spent some quality time out in the sun over the past few weeks. We’ll be heading down to Nueva Jersey for a few days for one of the greatest parties this side of Studio 54, but here’s some ideas if you can’t come up with anything to do.

Fall TV season lurks right around the corner and I can’t think of a better way to enjoy a nice weekend than by watching every season of the Gilmore Girls while eating six tubes of cookie dough.

If the weather proved to hold up, head outside for some exercise. And by exercise I mean drive over to your favorite trail, wearing a hockey mask with nothing else, and jump out at unsuspecting people jogging alone while screaming, “Are you my mommy?” The screams for mercy will ring in your head for days. If you’re looking to jazz this one up a bit I recommend working in some urine.

Go to a party you’re not invited to. Walk around your neighborhood, find the house where everyone congregating, and go inside. After that, the rest is up to you. Hide in the corner while enjoying a few free drinks or strike up a conversation with complete strangers who may become your friends. Of course my personal favorite concerns deciding you’re the funniest person in the room by being an obnoxious ass and seeing how long it takes before the host figures out you don’t belong and asks you to leave.

Spend a day in the kitchen and teach yourself to cook a new dish. I created my famous salmon l’orange by setting the oven to 450 and preparing chicken with chocolate sauce, a jar of mayonnaise, jelly beans, cantaloupe, cheese wiz, coconut, salt, pepper, and a little mint. Allow to sit in the sun for 45 minutes, consume, and be prepared to vomit. After falling ill, you will observe what appears to have once been a dish called salmon l’orange and will then stick your head in the preheated stove because you will feel so awful you will want to die.


Decide to fill you weekly quota for your blog by writing a particularly unamusing post to buy you a few days to come up with something acceptable


Have a safe weekend!