Category Archives: adventures

by | December 9, 2009 · 10:50 am

ladies and gents, a christmas post!

It’s that time of the year, folks! The time of the year when you have 14,000 things to do because you’re in grad school and you’re bitter because all you want to do is gorge on cookies and listen to Christmas music. So as a subsitute, you eat whatever free food is given to you, and stand in front of Five Guys for long periods of time because you can hear their Christmas music from outside the restaurant. (No, that didn’t happen. Except one time, maybe it did.)

It’s also the time of year that, apparently, my office goes CAH-razy for the holidays. We have at least three full-size Christmas trees on my floor alone (not to mention the intense lobby decorations), and this morning I walked by the office of a co-worker who appears to have scotch-taped a Christmas dish towel to his door. Also, our office party begins at 11:30. In the morning. And lasts all day. Happy Holidays indeed.

So have you guys heard Lady Gaga’s new “Christmas” song? I’ve heard it once. It goes like this:

Now, I hadn’t heard that song at the time that a stranger sent me the following lyrics via Gchat:

Light me up put me on top lets
Fa la la la la la la la la
Ho ho ho
Under the miseltoe
Yes everybody knows
We will take off our clothes
Yes if you want us to we will (huh) you
Ho ho christmas
My christmas tree is delicious

He was one of those automatic people that got added to my Gchat even though I don’t know him at all (you Gmailers know how that works), and he sent me that awkwardness. And that made me smile, because normally I do the awkward things around here.

UPDATE: My officemate tells me that this isn’t Lady Gaga, and she’s obsessed with Lady Gaga, so I kind of believe her. I feel like a sucker. Can anyone clarify?? Either way, that story is still awkward OKAY?

UPDATE THE SECOND: Wait, maybe it is real?

In conclusion. I know that I make a lot of jokes on this blog, but I’m about to get serious. I really and truly need someone to buy me this for Christmas. In return, I will give you my eternal love and adoration, along with a piping hot cup of coffee (or tea!) and a damn good breakfast sandwich. (Seriously. Not a joke. I’ll send you my mailing address.)

[Posted by Mallory]

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by | November 30, 2009 · 9:58 am

sarah palin is my unpaid intern.

Happy Monday, y’all! I hope you all had gluttonous and drunken Thanksgivings, just as the Pilgrims intended.

On Saturday night after falling asleep circa 10 p.m. while attempting to research for a paper (RAGEEEEE), I had a really disturbing dream. There’s this newsletter that I’m supposed to be writing for one of my internships, and it’s been hanging over my head for months and stressing me out on a regular basis. I needed to get it done, oh, in September, so every time I think about it I get heart palpitations and feel like a bad person. Such a bad person, I guess, that in my dream I hired SARAH PALIN to help me finish the newsletter. SARAH. PALIN. I know what you’re thinking: “Mallory, she was a journalism major, and she did just write a book, in only a few months. The talent!” To which I counter with a very serious “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.” The only good part about this dream was that I got to boss Palin around while she furiously took notes.

In other much, much better news, my mom sent me a really cute video the other day. I’m going to preface the video by telling you that you should not be expecting Beyonce-esque choreography here. The reason I love this video (and why I cried so much) is that it’s just a bunch of normal people having a ton of fun for a really good cause. How great is that?

Speaking of crying, I saw The Blind Side on Thanksgiving. I haven’t cried that hard in a movie since probably a few weeks ago, but guys it was BAD. I was with Kelsey and her fabulous roommate A.J., and Kelsey and I were legitimately making a scene. This means I’ve now seen at least four movies that made me cry so hard that strangers in the theater stared and made comments. Awesome. (UPDATE: This local DC blog has a pretty good guest post discussing The Blind Side and Precious. I saw Precious last Friday and holy jeebus, it was depressing. Good movie, but honestly such a bummer that I’m not sure I’d recommend it to many people.)

And to continue the stream-of-consciousness: A.J. is a really good dancer. One time, he did almost the whole Single Ladies dance while I awkwardly jumped around nearby. The other day, I asked him how long it took him to learn that dance, and he was all, “Oh, that? What do you mean? I didn’t ever really try to learn it. I was just having fun!” Sigh. Don’t you just hate some people?

[Posted by Mallory]

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by | November 25, 2009 · 2:58 pm

happy thanksgiving, all you little turkeys!

Thanksgiving is upon us yet again, and I’m currently at work hoping that we will soon get an email saying “LEAVE. NOW. EVERYONE. GOBBLE GOBBLE.” So far, no luck.

I was taking a look at my Thanksgiving post from last year, and I must say: not a whole lot has changed. I’m still thankful for all of that good stuff (like goat cheese and Michael Franti and not being pregnant). Yesterday in my Pilates class, while we were doing a move called “the teaser,” the instructor asked us to think only of things we were thankful for. No bad thoughts like “hot DAMN this is hard!” I thought that was kind of sweet.

This year I’ll be spending Thanksgiving here in DC with Kelsey and a couple other lovely people, and we are forgoing the traditional feast-and-family route in favor of Korean spas and fancy dinners. I’ll let you know how that goes.

While we’re at it, I’ve gotta confess: World, I am thankful for Jason Segel. Even though I’m very NOT thankful that he pulled this stunt at the Swell Season concert in LA rather than the one in DC. Asshole.

Eat lots of delicious things tomorrow, and be happy about all you’ve got going for you. Gobble gobble!

[Posted by Mallory]

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by | November 20, 2009 · 2:19 pm

the things i liked this week.

Happy Friday, readership!

Oh, hello.  Me again.  Since the real job is getting in the way of my bloggy job, I’ve condensed a week’s worth of what I liked into one fabulous Friday post.  Does that work for you?  I sure hope so!

You all know how much I love stories about sci-fi weirdos (apparently the cool way to spell it now is SyFy.  Anybody else notice that the Sci-Fi Channel changed its spelling?).  Well, here’s a good one!  Computational linguistics expert d’Armond Speers spoke only Klingon to his son for the first three years of the boy’s life.  Ummm, WHAT?  He claims it was an experiment to see if his son would learn it like any normal human language in the early developmental stages.

He just confirmed what every child already knows– you are an experiment, and your parents are trying to corrupt you and make you as uncool as possible.

Here is the best quote from the article:

As for Speers, who still gets nostalgic when he recalls singing the Klingon lullaby “May the Empire Endure” with his son at bedtime, the experiment was a dud. His son is now in high school and doesn’t speak a word of Klingon.

Stay strong, young Speers!

Like any good yuppie bleeding-heart liberal, I have an iPhone.  We all know that there is an app for everything, but this new one is so hilarious and wonderful that I have to share it with you.  It’s totally politically nerdy, but it’s a bobble head guide to every single member of Congress.  Here is my favorite member of Congress:

Best 99 cents I’ve ever spent.  Download Bobble Rep.

Speaking of politics, lots of good stuff going on, eh? Lieberman sucks more than ever and the women’s movement took two steps back no thanks to Rep. Stupak.

I also remain perplexed as to how people can manipulate the messages of Christianity in light of healthcare reform.  To me, it seems that giving a little extra so our brothers and sisters will be able to be healthy and able to succeed in life is following that message.  Yet even the Christian right wing (like my girrrrrrl, Michele Bachman) has condemned it as communism, fascism, Marxism and any other ism you can imagine that probably doesn’t make sense.  Grrr.

Hey, speaking of Christianity– I know people are complaining about how early it’s coming, but sweet Jesus I love Christmastime.  And I love the new Gap ads!  Add being a Gap backup dancer to my bucketlist, right after being a Fanta Girl and a dancing iPod shadow.

Sigh.

In other news, Oprah is ending her show in 2011.  I’m not too upset about this.  She’s going to have her own TV station in 2011, and she’ll have 25 years of her show in syndication so I really don’t see the big deal.  They’ll still be enough of O’s wisdom to go around.

Oh, and just in time for a junky fastfood lunch:

But you know where you should really go?  Chipotle.

Okay, I think that’s it for now.  Miss me, because I miss you.

[Posted by Kathleen]

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by | November 19, 2009 · 7:14 pm

it’s my best friend’s birthday! yay!

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s my best friend’s birthday! Her name is Kelsey, and sometimes she wears earmuffs with party dresses:

And that, among many, many other things, is why I love her.

Something I don’t love is oysters. I just discovered that today. I was convinced to try an oyster from the Sustainable Oyster Dude at Whole Foods (how do you like THEM samples), and even though I was skeptical, I was in a brave mood. I’m not a big shellfish person because, um, ew. We made lots of jokes about shooting it back — but not like vodka, haha! — and squeezing the lemon on the oyster — but not like you bite a lemon with tequila, haha! — and then I shot that oyster back and only the nasty juice came out, with some chunks of the shell. YUM. I was shell-shocked (pun originally not intended, but retrospectively fully intended) and feeling queasy, but I grabbed a plastic fork and ate that nasty little piece of oyster meat because I’M NOT A QUITTER. And now I want to throw up. The Sustainable Oyster Dude did not enjoy my jokes about needing a LOT of vodka or tequila before I do that again. He recommend a dry white wine. Some people are no fun.

Kelsey is not one of those people. She’s one of the fun ones, thank goodness. For that, among many, many other things, let’s wish Kelsey a happy birthday. Yay!

[Posted by Mallory]

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by | November 18, 2009 · 9:44 am

the flyest kid on the block.

On my walk to the metro this morning, I spotted a tall, slighty scruffy-faced boy wearing low-top Chucks with nice work pants and pulling it off. I decided right then and there that I wanted to marry him, so I gave him a good stare, just so he knew. Then — in my head, obviously — I had a conversation with him about what music we were both listening to. Do you ever do that? Imagine someone striking up a conversation about what you’re listening to? I do it a lot, and my hypothetical level of coolness fluctuates wildly from day to day. Some days I’m all “Ooh, I HOPE someone asks me today so I can tell them I’m listening to Cloud Cult, which means I’m alternative and cool.” Other days, I think I should probably be ready to scroll back a few songs in case someone pops the question. “Taylor Swift, haha, silly iTunes Shuffle. What was before that? Oh, Coldplay, um, and before that? ‘Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)’? Where did that come from??*” And then I’d awkwardly laugh and walk away.

Not that anyone’s ever actually stopped and asked me what I’m listening to. Sigh.

In other news, on Monday I went out to happy hour and realized that I left my ID at work. The waiter was being strict but luckily, I only lived two blocks away and was able to run home (bitterly, of course) to get my passport. This morning I found my ID buried in the pocket in my wallet where it’s supposed to be, juuust deep enough that it looked like the pocket was empty. Son of a bitch.

Also. You know how when you were little, you were told that if you put the plastic rings that hold pop cans (or “soda” cans, as the kids say) together directly into the trash/recycle bin, the dolphins would strangle themselves in the holes and die? Is that true? Because I totally still cut every individual hole and think about all the dolphins I’m saving.

*I’m kidding here, of course. If I ever found a man who loved “Aaron’s Party” as much as I do, I’d propose on the spot.

[Posted by Mallory]

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by | November 14, 2009 · 7:13 pm

youtube video of today: free hugs.

Because we watched this video in one of my classes and it was so happy/sad that I had to try really hard to not cry too noticeably:

One Christmas Eve, my mom was boarding an airplane, and the guy taking tickets hugged every single person as they got on the plane. Strangely, not a single person resisted or seemed to think it was weird, and everyone was a little happier after that. Sometimes, I just really love people, don’t you?

[Posted by Mallory]

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by | November 13, 2009 · 12:18 am

poetry, lost umbrellas, and nice strangers.

umbrella

Don't bother sending compliments. I already know I'm a phenomenal artist.


Wanna hear some random thoughts I have? Great!

  • A good way to pace yourself when eating is to eat something that’s both absurdly spicy and absurdly (temperature) hot. It’s also a good way to make your mouth hurt like shit.
  • So remember the overpriced umbrella I bought from Anthropologie because I didn’t have a functioning one and I was having a bad day and dammit I needed a cute umbrella? Well, yeah, I lost that one in a bar the day after I bought it. I bought ANOTHER cute, overpriced umbrella from The Gap the other day and after three days of use, I left it in a cab. And today I discovered that I lost my water bottle somewhere between all of the millions of places I went on Tuesday. Now, these are all small things in the grand scheme of things, but REALLY? Is it REALLY necessary for me to lose 140 things in a row? No one likes to lose things, but when I lose something it stresses me out to the point that I can’t think about anything else until 1) I cain’t think about it no mo’ or 2) I replace the thing I bought. But see, I can’t buy another umbrella, because then I will just lose it. (And no, the DC Cab Commission has not found my umbrella, nor has anyone on Craigslist. What are these services FOR, if not helping me find my umbrella?!!)
  • Today as I was leaving swim practice and feeling all tired and parched because I didn’t have any water to drink because I lost my water bottle, I was talking on the phone with ex-roomie Miss Potter. Then a gust of wind blew by and flipped my umbrella (the cheap plain-colored one that I have to use in emergencies) inside out. I was carrying a large bag and attempting to hold my cell phone to my ear and the wind was still blowing, so flipping the umbrella back to its natural state was proving, er, difficult. And then — AND THEN — a kind stranger (probably a drunk college boy) flipped it back for me! How nice was that? I mean, okay, maybe he’s not Mother Teresa, but that made me rull happy. There are good people in the world. I just wish one of those good people would find my umbrella. And my water bottle. Sigh.
  • Officemate E.Lee sent me this video this morning and (if you can believe it), it made me cry.
  • Officemate E.Lee’s boyfriend is officiating his best friend’s wedding this weekend, and he is going to read his favorite poem at the wedding. This is the poem, and I lurve it:

Poem to Old Friends Who Have Never Met

When I’m not wishing I could find a unicorn
I wish all our old friends knew each other
The very least they deserve
is the pleasure of each other’s company

We’d go down by the river
and the rocks would hum
with this rich collection of men & women
They would look around and see themselves
no longer isolated

no longer points in the darkness pointing nowhere

but as links in a magnificent chain of
impossible flowers
girdling the world and their talk
(they are all talkers)
would burst like spray in the sunlight

and I would smile
saying nothing
with a bottle of beer in my hand
and a small white bird banging in my heart

By Peter Meinke
From The Contracted World (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2006)

That’s enough random thoughts for now. I know I missed the Veterans Day Google Holiday yesterday (and all of the Sesame Street ones after the Big Bird one), but yay for all of those!

[Posted by Mallory]

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by | October 30, 2009 · 5:21 pm

happy little beards, haaaappy little beards.

Read this. Just do it. It’s about Kevin Gillespie/David the Gnome/Beardo (obviously).

If you don’t have a Halloween costume yet, dressing up as Kevin could be fun. Although finding fake beards online is a LOT harder than you’d think. I’m being Bob Ross, so I know these things.

bob-ross

Thanks for the tip about Kevin, Lanster, and hey, everyone? Have a haaappy little Halloween, a happy little day.

[Posted by Mallory]

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by | October 30, 2009 · 5:19 am

devil wears prada correspondent on MFCs.

anne_hathaway_devil_wears_prada_chanel

Our dear friend — let’s call her Corporate Barbie — had the most ridonk, legit Anne-Hathaway-in-The-Devil-Wears-Prada job ever. She survived a year and got promoted, and luckily her sense of humor emerged unscathed. Because this here blog is the quickest way to fame — of any kind, really — she penned this little number and asked that we share it with the masses. And I DO mean masses (hi masses! thanks for reading!). As Corporate Barbie explained, “I thought you might enjoy a piece I wrote earlier today.  It is inspired by my life”:

Earlier today I mentioned to some friends that we should go to the movies tonight. I was under the influence of a “Mid-Friday Crisis” (MFC). Allow me to elaborate.

The MFC typically occurs between 11am and 1pm on Fridays after a Thursday night out, although it can happen at anytime. You know you are having an MFC when you look at your clock and think to your self, “Crap, I have to start being more responsible. It’s only 10:59 and I can’t order lunch yet because I just ate an egg sandwich. The day is not even close to over and I have so much to do that I inevitably will not accomplish.”

Once this thought enters your head, ideas such as “staying in on Thursdays” and “going to the movies on Fridays” immediately follow. And you are actually able to think they are good ideas.

Then you order a grilled cheese/chicken parm sandwich, someone mentions a cover band and the clock turns 2:45. The end of the day is in sight. The Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling” becomes the theme song to the soundtrack of your life and you can already taste the bad decisions and terrible dance moves you will be pairing with Yuengling and whiskey tonight.

It is safe to say that our resilience when faced with an MFC is the direct cause to why we are such messes.

I wish you all fun Fridays. I’ll be at the Whiskey Bar in Hoboken if any of you care to join!

[Posted by Mallory, but written by Corporate Barbie. (Maybe you think Corporate Barbie is meant to be offensive. It’s not, don’t worry. Corporate Barbie just has a tendency to look exactly like a Barbie in photos.)]

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