When Mercury is in retrograde

Hi blogginos.

It's been a while since I've written an honest-to-goodness post. Things have been a little nuts around here. I know, you're probably sitting there, like:

But for reals. It's been like this:

So what's my deal? 

The planet Mercury.

See,  Mercury is in retrograde. Basically that means everything here on Earth is jacked. When Mercury's doin' it's own thing, spinnin' whichever way it feels it wants to, the Earth gets this funny feeling until all is right again in the universe. I'm* affected in such a way that it makes me act a little "off." (*I'm not the only one. The whole world is-- electronics, people, animals, you name it.)

So my normally organized desk, looks like this:

And more amazingly, I was able to FOCUS on homework and complete my final project in two days.

In my daily life, things have been quite stressful. My boss is retiring and lots of stuff is happening to wrap up the loose ends she might leave behind. I've been trying to stay organized while she's sorting things but let's face it-- it's a hectic time when someone leaves. All things considered, I've been feeling pretty proud of myself handling the stress levels so well up until about a week ago. That's when I finally noticed for myself that I might be a little out of control.

It all started when my coworker came into my office...

Unfortunately that last part isn't exaggerated.

I really did wave a box half my size over my head and throw it at him.

Soooo... moral of the story: Watch your back. Mercury's gonna be doing its own thing for about a month.

Scrabble Fail

NKOTBSB

Back in June I went to my fourth New Kids on the Block concert. To say that I loved the NKOTB as a kid would be a pretty tremendous understatement-- I had everything from tacky rings to bedding, dolls to clothes-- but back in those days, there was no internet to click and buy a ticket. My parents were never going to stand in line outside for hours/days on end to get me tickets to see them and when the guys split up in '94, I knew I would never get to see them play live.

When I was in college at MSU in 2003, my friend Tiffany and I attempted our own New Kids revival. It took a while but in 2008 the NKOTB announced their comeback. Tiffany had our tickets about .32 seconds after they went on sale. We went to a show in October (the greatest day of my life), then one in April, and I went with Jamie in June. It was bit excessive - even for me-- but each show was super different.

Over this past winter, the NKOTB had a new announcement: an upcoming tour with the Backstreet Boys! Incredible!!! Needless to say, our ever-vigilant Tiffany had the tickets right away again. Things were going to be epic.

Our friend Angie came with us-- she was at the October show with us in 2008. Angie and I have a little tension in our friendship because we're both totally in love with Joey McIntyre, but fortunately this time around she was distracted by the BSB so it all worked out in my favor.

We got to the venue and had to do the obligatory chick thing and take 800 pictures of ourselves. (We also stopped at the restroom and laughed our butts off because the Men's Rooms were converted into Ladies' Rooms on account of no respectable guy going to an NKOTBSB concert.)

Although the concert was beyond amazing, my favorite thing of the night happened before the music started.

We got to our seats and tried (unsuccessfully) to take pictures of ourselves when the lady behind us offered to take our picture. We turned around, she took our picture with the stage behind us, and then we sat down. Tiffany-- precious, precious Tiffany...-- started looking through the pictures on her camera and stopped at one we had taken just inside the door when we got there. Angie and I were standing like normal people, and Tiffany was bent to the side like she just jumped in the picture at the last minute.

It looked kinda like this:

Then this happened:

PS: The night before the concert, the Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup. It was super awesome to see the boys come out in their jerseys.

The Most Confusing Concert Experience Ever.

Last week, Jessica scored some last minute tickets to see Panic! At The Disco. It was a sold out show so she got them just in time, and it was a pretty stinkin' awesome show. We didn't really know much about the opening bands, Foxy Shazam or fun., but I think it was unanimous that the music of all three bands was pretty much fantastic.

The only thing we didn't really get was the performance by Foxy Shazam.

And by didn't get, I mean we were flat out confused. And made uncomfortable. And generally in shock.

It looked like this:

The bass player was balancing his bass upside down on his hand and walking around. The trumpet guy was throwing his trumpet in the air then putting it on the ground and humping it. Keyboard dude would dramatically stand on his keyboard after every song and randomly during some songs. The guitar guy was just standing there playing with this ridiculously huge afro when the lead singer jumped on his shoulders and started humping the dude's head, then he (the singer) was running around the stage like a monkey on his hands and feet and doing sommersaults all over--- The drummer was the most normal dude out there and that's probably just because he was hiding behind the drumset.

To say the very least, it was stimulus overload for Jessica and me. We were like this:

~ UPDATE ~

Upon reading this, the Nerak laughed about how old Jessica and I appear to be in this post, us complaining about the music of today's youth and their wild ways and all.

I said, "Well, we WERE the oldest people there besides the parents who brought their kids... The kids in front of us were like 12!"

So now, I think we must've looked more like this at the concert:

Getting old is sad.

How I Almost Became A Scientist

Hi everybody!

Sorry it's been so long. Things have been crazy in the real world.



Fortunately all that stuff is over (for now.) You know what that means? Time for...

Yaaaaaaayyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I've been keeping a list of awesome things that have happened since the last time I posted. I figure I'll sprinkle them here a little bit at a time.

So what's first on my totally excellent blog post list?? I thought since you all liked the story about Jeff so much, I'd include another one with him in it. I call it,