my new (second) favorite hobby.

this is just plummy as wordart. don't worry, i am also shocked that the words "tv," "television," "reality" and "awesome" are not featured prominently.

the next two represent papers i wrote for a management course on (surprise!) innovation:


and my personal pride and joy (on so MANY levels) - a paper i wrote for an economics course on the hollywood writer's strike of 2007-08:

so in conclusion:

+ rehashing my own pointless writing
+ diverse font selection
+ various color palettes
= FULL of WIN.

create your own word clouds (honestly, what else are you going to do with all of those grad school papers?) here.

{source}

incremental innovation in full effect.

not sure how much time little boys spent time thinking about their various crushes and whether they would live in mansions, apartments, shacks or houses with them, but the girls i know did. which was why we played mash incessantly during sleepovers, field trips and phys ed. many a crush was revealed during those lil labors o' luv.

well apparently the actual labor part of filling out the mash form was way too much for the millenials, so it has also been digitized like word processing and human interaction. you can play your own version here. or here. or here. apparently everyone is playing mash except you.

so here is my own future as determined by mash. all info that follows is true to life with the exception of each fifth entry. under the new jersey school of mash regulation, the last space has to be filled out with the worst possible option, although i definitely forgot what the numbers and colors were for. i mistakenly assumed number of marriages and house decorating schemes, respectively. this is the gen-y yuppie in me talking.


and without further ado, here is my future as predicted by mash:


it is surprisingly spot on. i would TOTALLY marry optimus prime in a heartbeat. squee!

hobbies that i can tell other people about.

so in b-school, i realized that i can't put "avid (voracious? insatiable?) tv watcher" down under the activities section of my résumé, no matter how accurate/reflective it might have been. therefore, in my countdown to rw-day (rw = rejoining the workforce or real world, not random walk or retirement weekly as suggested here) i've decided to try to grow some hobbies, seeing how athletics is obviously not an option.

with m safely tucked into his internship and fellow newly graduated friends acquiring real estate/having babies/generally being adults and doing adult-y things, i'm feeling a little homeless without anything tangible to call my own (sadly, saaby has passed on to the wholesale car market in sky). my first project? teaching myself how to cross-stitch.

you didn't honestly think i was going to waste my time on dried flowers and baby animals, y/y?

(image via subversive cross stitch)

how to sound like you're being productive.

i can't seem to break the 66 wpm barrier. i will spend all day trying though. have your own go at it here.

name that tune.

i was about to say this was the song of my childhood, but if i wanted to be factually accurate, i should say it was the sound of my friend desi's childhood that i used to be invited over to play with from time to time. yes, i was that kid.

i also now have a craving for a screwball from an ice cream truck:

how i taught myself how to dance.

seriously. i even freestyled through the parts where you can't see any of the choreography.

i like that my physical activity even when i was younger was still based entirely around watching tv. it really set a precedent.

my latest entertainment obsession.

because sometimes dvr, rockband, netflix, trashy non-fiction and regular tv just aren't enough.

"the mysterious ticking noise"


"wizard swears"


"wizard angst"

snape seriously kills me every time.

my summer reading list.

our lives are just like we saw in that movie, juno.

minus that whole teenage pregnancy thing, of course (nothing confirms that you are truly of adult age like realizing that if you had a baby right now, not only would it no longer raise societal eyebrows, but it would totally fulfill a lifelong dream of your parents).

anyway, this observation is according to m's parents, who saw our (ridiculously AWESOME) guitar hero/rockband pseudo-music studio, a.k.a., our living room. they found it mildly charming that i have picked up the "drums" while mike likes playing "lead guitar", clearly akin to ellen page and michael cera dueting at the end of juno.

...which is definitely 100% true after you give mike a sense of pitch (and hot pants), make me white (and sassy), and sub out any real-life instruments for imitation ones pretty much intended for young adults.

i personally think we're more like the white stripes, except tanner and not at all musical.

i love secrets (!).

just read this in a local restaurant review:

[i'm going to] let you in on a secret, the Moules Frites on the menu is Mussels and Fries.

it is admittedly a secret well-kept from everyone except french people, other people mildly fluent in french, francophiles (btw i have a story about a douchebag who used this word in the WORST. ANSWER. EVER. when i was interviewing him) and foodies.

poor guy.

(the reviewer, not the douche)

what i love this valentine's day.

...is being (price) discriminated against myself. apparently yahoo bizarro c (recipient of the offer on the right) has way more money to throw around than student bizarro c (recipient of the offer on the left).

i can only hope that i one day live up to my aspirational yahoo lifestyle. word.

(hypothetical) humiliation at home.

so... if the following took place in your life, what would you find the most humiliating?

1. solidifying my social isolation by coming home and challenging a stranger on the internets to a game of guitar hero (seriously, who's even home this time of day?)...
2. losing said game and taking out my frustration by playing a rather raucous version of "when you were young" by the killers...
3. getting caught going crazy on the whammy by a construction guy swinging outside of my living room window (in my defense, we're on the third story)...
4. all the while wearing leggings as pants.
   

i know, i know. the killers, what was i thinking? they are SO 2006.

right now, m has "never been so exasperated".

all because our internet connection and cable box just died simultaneously.

(no but really, it was a scary four minutes as we waited to see if we had fallen victim to some bizarre cable-based apocalypse. we even began to make entertainment contingency plans like watching a billion episodes of veronica mars on dvd. yes, again.)

time warner, we're giving you the finger right... now.

my ego just inflated by about a billion degrees.

i'm pretty sure writing a blog and expecting someone else to read it is among the most narcissistic things i've ever done, along with asking my friends to hold up mirrors around me so that i can constantly look at myself while simultaneously telling me how freaking awesome i am.

anyway, so imagine my delight when i notice that readership spikes overnight. wow, i tell myself, people must really ♥ my inane pop culture references. or constant ongoing fodder about what i'm watching on tv.

but just kidding, it's (obviously) not me. i pretty much owe it all to being included in this:

Crushing on Michael Cera

it's really just the virtuous cycle that is ♥-ing michael cera. i post about my (inappropriate) crush, which in turn gets linked to, driving new traffic to the blog, which then inspires me to write again about my (still inappropriate) crush. amazing.

clearly, he and i have a special connection. sort of just like this, i think:



if michael cera was a baseball player, i would balk him. fo sho.

my new hobby.

in light of the ongoing writers' strike, i've had to increasingly rely on the world wide web for supplemental entertainment. and i do realize this is only the billionth time i've talked about it, so no, i'm not (read: completely) traumatized. lately, i've been watching a random mix of cover songs, like this:



and this:



and this:

and yes, that IS tony lucca of mmc/keri russell ex fame. i personally preferred marc, though. he is the bad dancer in this:

anyway, after seeing the following, i'm pretty sure that this guy and i were bff in previous life:



they should definitely bring back both shows RIGHT NOW. talk about low-hanging fruit.

the story of my vacation.

since i know you're insanely curious to know what i'm up to when i'm not chained to the tv or comp (in that order, btw), i thought i would take the time to show you how i elect to get some fresh air.

STEP 1: get in car, warm up jersey girl mall radar.


STEP 2: cut across four lanes of traffic once you see any sign that has the word mall on it.

(shut up. mills is close enough.)

STEP 3: follow signs of life towards the sweet, greedy smell of retail. mall radar is starting to bleep more intensely now.


STEP 4: it's the holy grail! the carefully honed jersey radar has done right by you yet again. only oh shit, you've got options. you must make the right choice or be faced with mediocre (non) shopping like bebe or the chinese massage parlour. so... will the red gate lead you to your destiny?


STEP 4 (cont.): or does the orange gate guard the true path?

STEP 4 (cont.): just kidding, the blue gate is clearly the best. the electric color soothes you as you mentally prepare to engage in another round of gladiatorial battle. nevermind that your sworn enemies are 11 year olds with LiLo's D&B bag, uggs and leggings. or bermuda shorts, depending.

(plus, this is where the tourbuses full of asians get dropped off, so you know some good brand name shit has to be going down here)

STEP 5: wander the mall, exploring every nook and cranny to the delight of your (bribed) shopping companion, who spends hours (days?) waiting outside.


STEP 6: fill up as many shopping bags as possible, as if you're going to be judged on both speed and heft, and the loser will die gladiator-style. that is, in a blaze of glory, a la bon jovi.


STEP 7: when you've reached max capacity (in my case, about 78% of my total body weight), return to the vehicle, exhausted and ready to leave the Wonderland that is The Mall. btw, john meyer, you were WRONG.


STEP 8: lather, rinse, repeat. in ny, nj, pa, dc, va and nc. i know, i've got a problem. i'm trying to get dr. drew to stage my intervention at the chesapeake house rest stop on I-95.

so there you have it. what i did on my christmas vacation. i know your life is at least 0.02% better than it was before you started scrolling. after all:

(shoutout to everyone who posted the above pics on google/flickr to be manipulated for my self-indulgent purposes. and to principal belding for inspiring the graphic above)

need to burn two minutes?

the good thing about this one is that you can leave it on all day and check as you please. so far, i've read about someone's love of potatoes, a wife bitten on the arm by her husband and national i-wish-i-was-a-pirate day.

(i'm sorry, were you looking for something substantial? you should probably move along quickly to the previous post with the two videos)

this is for the (female) j.crew shoppers who want to see what all of those final sale items look like on actual living people before laying (yet another round of) alms at the altar of the urban-prepster-yuppie empire. i beseech you to practice safe shopping since just like in church, there are no refunds/exchanges on these almsgivings either.

btw, remember when mallory of real world paris fame was featured in j.crew catalogs? no? it's just me? awesome.

finally, that reminds me - if we're really friends, you'll be equally excited about the gauntlet returning for a third season in less than two weeks. it'll be sans mallory, but with my favorite tv bitch coral, who's way more compelling anyway. refresh your memory of these k-list reality stars (including tidbits re: their incestuous love lives!) here.

you're welcome.

my musicality is evolving.

if only i had put as much effort into practicing the cello back in the day as i do now with guitar hero. there is no doubt that i would have sat higher than 8th or 9th chair. fucking knights of cydonia is even more troublesome than pretending to play marriage of figaro on stage in front of my parents.

although, really, this is coming from a girl who switched from violin to cello in 9th grade so that i didn't have to lug a violin case to school everyday (it didn't go with my backpack or outfits).

fyi my new favorite song is talk dirty to me by poison. if that doesn't indicate that i am spending way too much time with GHIII then perhaps the fact that i now listen to songs on the radio with potential guitar hero fingerings in mind will convince you. seriously.

what i will miss about nc.

pretty much just regular access to this stuff at a wonderfully spacious, clean, well-lit target:


just had the one in the middle last night. it has actual chopped olives inside; none of that pureed bland crap that ragu tries to pass off nor the pureed bland crap with teeny bits that prego tries to pass off. the archer farms arrabiata sauce is also awesome. furthermore, if you've made the unfortunate decision of paying $8-ish for a jar of Rao's (no worries since i, too, am a wannabe yuppie), target has done a pretty solid job of replicating it with this line for less than half the price.

i would totally have target's babies if i could.