The buttons and the pins and the loud fanfares

Jordan Knight's a total sleaze and Danny Wood still resembles The Missing Link, but damn it -- New Kids On The Block still rock my world.



Reason #14484653131364874631797913213 The Best Friend is my best friend -- In the same three minute span, he downloaded and emailed Tonight by New Kids On The Block for me and managed to call me, 'such an asshole' for a completely unrelated matter. Man, I miss my broseph.

I'm going where the summer never ends

Tim Whitaker of the Philadelphia Weekly wrote this great piece on Summer in Philly and it got me thinking. When you live in a place where you it isn't perennially summer, you appreciate it more. You make more excuses to stay and play outside longer.

Summertime is tall glasses of sweet tea, beaded with condensation and clinking with ice.
Chirping birds, baking asphalt and Latin-tinged hip-hop blaring from car speakers.
Smoke, fireflies and fans all floating to Dave Matthews.
Soft mango flesh, sweet juice dribbling down your chin.
The smell of barbecue, freshly-cut grass, gardenias and coconut sunscreen.
Cold Coronas with lime, lemon drops and laughing out loud alfresco.
Brown sugar skin, pink toenails and well-worn flip flops

What defines summer for you?

Heliophilia: A sun-splashed mix for summer.

1. Daydreamin' -- Lupe Fiasco feat. Jill Scott
2. Amber -- 311
3. American Baby -- Dave Matthews Band
4. Summer Love -- Justin Timberlake
5. For Me, This Is Heaven -- Jimmy Eat World
6. Brasil Brasileiro - Caetano Veloso feat. Joao Gilberto
7. Lucky Star -- Madonna
8. Paper Planes -- M.I.A.
9. I Get A Kick Out Of You -- Frank Sinatra
10. Island In The Sun -- Weezer
    
11. Cruel Spell -- Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
12. Summer Jam -- Craig David feat. The Artful Dodger
    
13. Summertime -- Will Smith
14. Summertime -- New Kids On The Block
    

I learned today why Olympic athletes make endorsement deals with Nike, Reebok and Adidas as opposed to Manolo Blahnik and Jimmy Choo.

By sheer coincidence, Dan and I work in the same corporate center so we carpool to work four days out of the week (we take a break one day a week so he can come in later and I can listen to music at ear-shattering levels and delude myself into believing I have Mariah Carey's vocal range).

Today, like a complete yutz, I forgot my lunch in his car. I remembered this fact after I got to my desk and spent the next fifteen minutes of my life sprinting up and down several flights of stairs and hurtling to the opposite end of the corporate center where Dan works. Now this usually wouldn't be a big deal, but the fact that I managed to do this while wearing three inch heels is a pretty impressive feat.

Corporate America really needs to institute an across-the-board flip-flop policy.

Mortal Nemesii Part 2

The copier/fax machine at work. We are no longer on speaking terms. As much as I would like to live in the world of Office Space, recreating the PC Load Letter scene at 8:30 in the morning? Seriously not cute. On a more positive note though? I'd watch Kung Fu with Peter Gibbons any day.



Let's focus less on the fact that I look like an ass and more on how ridiculously good-looking Ron Livingston is, shall we?

Voice activated customer service helplines. Was Terminator 2 a teeny little indie flick that only I saw? Does nobody else live in fear of the day computers become sentient and collectively band together to eff us in the a? After talking to a robotically perky operator for a good five minutes, I heard it say, “Thank you! I now have all your information in front of me!” First off – you’re not a me! You’re an it! A thing! Not a being! And secondly, the fact that you have all my information makes me feel nuts in that tin-foil hat kinda way.

The VCR. It fell on my foot and if I ever get a hold of Dan’s baseball bat, I’m gonna recreate the following scene:

Awesome Vs. Ehhh, Not So Much

Now usually, I blantantly rip off borrow from Sports Guy's format of Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down, but today, we're switching it up a little.

Awesome: Iron Man.



I didn't think I was going to like it, but you know what? It was bad-ass. It's was funny, action-packed, made an interesting statement about war (despite what the neo-cons tell you, it is possible to be pro-troops, anti blundering, bumbling cluster-fuck) and was a great way to kick off Summer Movies Season 2008. Favreau's direction was fantastic and glimpses of him on-screen playing Tony Stark's driver were a treat. He's lost a lot of weight since The Break Up and I've gotta tell you, he looks great. Homeboy behind me made the most succinct and salient comment regarding Jeff Bridges' character, Obediah Stane -- "Dude is seriously sinister." And you know what? Dude is.
Another thing I loved? Tom Morello's cameo. The Rage Against The Machine/Audioslave guitarist pops up on-screen for a brief, blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment playing a terrorist who gets obliterated. If there's one thing I've learned, at heart -- the coolest kids are all comic book nerds. Oh and speaking of, the trailers for The Dark Knight and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull preceded the feature. One gave me goosebumps and one made me wanna fling my boy shorts at the screen. I'll let you figure out which one's which.
Ehhh, Not So Much: Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay.



I wanted to like this movie because I love its predecessor and can quote pretty much every single line, but I really wasn't that impressed. The thing I loved about Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle was its simplicity -- stoners get munchies, head to burger joint and get into adventures along the way. This was a little too big, too epic for our THC-loving twosome. Funny but compared to the first one? Ehhh, not so much.

Awesome: A sassy skirt from Forever 21 and two pairs of Old Navy flip-flops. Hello Summer. I've missed you!
Ehhh, Not So Much: Not being able to rock aforementioned flip flops at work. Heartbreaking.

Awesome: Betsey Johnson perfume. It smells delicious!
Ehhh, Not So Much: Speaking of delicious, I ate a cheeseburger and onion rings for dinner last night (Yeah, healthy eating ranks right up there for me) and then, an hour later, thanks to Iron Man, I got the munchies for an another cheeseburger and NYC style pizza. Dude, what am I? A 14-year-old boy? Comic book movies and junk food. I think a pretty good argument can be made.

My mortal nemesises (nemesii?): An Abbreviated List

Kristen Bell – Nothing personal. I love Veronica Mars and think Ms. Bell is all sorts of cute, sassy and fabulous. But I have to dislike her on principle. If she ran me over with her car, Dan would be taking off his pants while dialing 911 (of course, I would do the exact same thing if confronted with Ron Livingston, so it all evens out).



Converse Sneakers – I want to love them, rock them and look undeniably cool as legions of others do, but I can’t. Why? Because on my feet – they look like clown shoes.

Ganondorf – Link is my homeboy and I am a nerd. What’s up? This is also applicable to any other boss or miniboss I may be locked in battle with at any given time.

The Firewall at Work – My lack of blogging lately has been due to the fact that I can’t access blogger.com at work. I also can’t access the ‘Book, Livejournal or a litany of other sites that keep me entertained and informed. I can, however, access my email, ESPN.com (Even though Sports Guy is a rabid Boston fan, he’s still my favorite columnist) and The Huffington Post, so that keeps me going and brings me to my next point:

Reading about politics makes me angry. Knowing I can’t vote makes me angry. Knowing that the people who can vote do so for stupid reasons makes me angry. Actually, that last one also makes me want to paste huge billboards all over the country that read: “Hey numbnuts! You will never have a beer with the president!! Vote for economic self-interest instead!”

The mainstream media makes me really angry as well. I mean, there’s a war still going on, the economy is spiraling further and further out of control, people can’t afford to put gas in their cars, corporate avarice is consuming the country and what are the major news networks flogging to death? The bare back of a 15-year old (Sidebar: Ms. Cyrus, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be Role Model Sweetheart and Lolita. Did you learn nothing from Britney Spears?), lapel pins and Reverend Wright – a man who made claims remarkably similar to the claims made by John Hagee, Pat Robertson and a slew of “agents of intolerance” (John McCain’s words, not mine) known as televangelists.

Does anyone really care about this stuff? Does it even matter? What is more important to you?

Miley Cyrus – an actress (and I use that term in the loosest sense) who most of us have never even seen perform or the fact that you can’t afford to fill up your car and yet, Exxon-Mobil are reporting the highest profits in history?

The fact that 4000+ of your fellow Americans have died or the fact that Senator Barack Obama (like millions of other Americans, including his opponents, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator John McCain as well as critics like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly) doesn’t have an American flag permanently stapled to his lapel?

Read for yourself. Think for yourself. Don’t believe the hype. You’re smarter than they give you credit for. Prove it.