Contour Abs

I am a fan of infomercials. Who doesn't want to watch obnoxious people yell at you and bad actors being appalled by their clearly inferior products that ruin their days? One of my personal favorites is the Magic Bullet, where actors terrificly over-play their roles as the cynical, grumpy, chain-smoking house guests of the perky, well dressed and obnoxiously awake hosts, who show them how the Magic Bullet can take care of all you chopping and mixing needs in one-two-three seconds! Today, however, I was intrigued by the Contour Abs infomercial. For those of you who have tried EVERYTHING in hopes of getting those "sexy flat abs" we all want, there's a new solution! You don't even have to do that pesky thing called exercize. I mean, really, who wants to do that anyway? All you have to do is put on this belt, turn it on, and presto! you send an electric pulsing current through your abdominal muscles for the best abs of your life! Okay, I know better, but look at those happy people and their wonderful results! There's even a money back guaruntee! Oh. My. God. It's perfect!
I eventually dragged myself away and recovered my rational thoughts that reminded me that I don't really want to electrically shock my way to a better body...but still...maybe...
No! I have resisted purchasing my very own Contour Abs, though. You haven't won my soul yet, you vile capitalist swine!

Big Daddy's Fireworks

One of the greatest institutions to come out of the south is undoubtedly the ample number of fireworks super-stores that grace the sides of I-75 on my drive home from Charlotte to Chattanooga. The greatest of them all: Big Daddy's Fireworks. The enormous sheet metal warehouse hosts an array of fireworks, guns and beer enough to satisfy even the most jorts-wearing, mullet-rocking homeboy you could ever hope to encounter. The face of the warehouse is adorned with a larger than life announcement to the world that you are, in fact, at Big Daddy's firework emporium. Flashing lights set the sign shine, giving hope to passersby, reminding them that here are the best prices brands and variety of fireworks you could ever hope for! Just in case you aren't satisfied with fireworks (after all, there's onlyy so many times you can shoot bottle rockets at one another until you graduate to bigger and better things), your one stop shop provides you with an array of actual weapons! And of course, whether you are shooting fireworks or guns, or some brilliant new combination of the two, where would you be without a case of beer with which to wash it all down?

Superpowers

If I could have a super power I would be able to apparate and disapparate. For all you non-Harry Potter dorks, I want the ability to appear wherever I want and idsappear to wherever I want, whenever I want. I want the power of teleportation, essentially. It may not be as glamorous as shooting laser beams out of some orifice of my body (eyes seems to be the common choice, but ears could be cool) or flying, which is always a tempting albeit unoriginal option. But I thought about it and I have to say that life would be a lot easier if I could appear anywhere whenever. I would never have to buy another plane ticket again, or really any ticket at all if I could just appear inside said destination (i.e. concerts, movies, top secret government headquarters). So, yes, this is my choice superpower for the time being should I ever meet a genie to grant me a super power.

Ben Folds

Last night it snowed. A lot. This is an incredibly exciting thing for me usually, except that I had Ben Folds tickets that I was not willing to relinquish to my southern fear of “inclement weather.” So, with my trusty Bostonian friend, Katy, I dared to drive in snow. It was a bold move, but I had to see Ben. She showed me all the cool tricks that people know when they actually have to deal with cold weather and not shut down their lives. When we got there, we parked and pulled up the windshield wipers, so the snow didn’t stick them down (so clever!) and headed in. It was totally worth it.
Ben Folds…Ah, where to begin. It was my first time to see him live. I have to admit, I was more than a little shocked by the audience that gathered for this concert. It was the strangest assortment of surprisingly older people. That, and these people were the sketchy people that linger in corners and don’t seem like they go out often – I saw a lot of that. Give me 10 to 15 years and I’ll be among them, I’m sure. It wasn’t that part of the crowd that wierded me out, though. It was the amount of normal people there. I was a bit surprised by that. I mean, if you know anything about Ben Folds, aside from him being the love of my life, I just don’t expect exceptionally normal people to go to his shows.
Needless to say, he was amazing. Everything I had hoped for. He actually liked us! And assured us of his loyalty to us in the song “Brick,” where there is a line that say “Mom and Dad went down to Charlotte.” He said he never changed it depending on the city he was in. I feel much better now.

PS - Just noticed Carissa wrote about Ben Folds too. I didn't see you there!

Snow Day

So we have a snow day today! Hands down the most snow we’ve gotten since I’ve been here at Queens. I was thoroughly disappointed in the lack of school-wide snowball fighting throughout the day, though. I did manage to drag a couple of people out of bed eat 6:30 to go get Chic-fil-A, which was closed! We got McD’s instead. That meal, without a doubt, took 2 years off my life.
Instead of snowball fights, I had to settle for snowman building. This turned out to be a worthwhile way to spend my time. We built a big snow man in front of Triple Arch. He had your traditional 3-part body structure, with stick arms, but there was much more to Vlad than that. He had a broccoli Mohawk, mushroom nose, green pepper ears, and carrot buttons. This was not your average snowman. He was way above average.

Feed the Birds

I confiscated a loaf of bread from the cafeteria and wandered over to Freedom Park in the snow to feed the ducks. I haven’t fed the ducks in years, but there is one thing that holds true no matter where you are or how old you get. Bread tastes better when you’re getting ready to feed it to ducks. Really, there’s no other way to eat bread that compares. I stopped myself from nibbling away my entire gift to them before I got there, though.
Those ducks are trained. I had no idea. The second I got there and stood, looking vaguely like I might have something matter to attend to between the ducks and myself, they were all flying and paddling and racing over to where I stood. So I passed out little chunks of delicious bread to all the ducks, distributing it as evenly as I could and avoided praising the mean ducks that chased all the other nice ducks away.