back to the nest

First of all, let me start by saying I’m sorry for not posting anything in over a week.  Really lame and bootleg of me.

But now I want to tell you about my latest discovery:  Omegle.  I came across this site while reading an e-article that listed “40 Fantastic Time-Wasting Web Sites.”

So, Omegle.  It’s a website who’s tagline is “talk to strangers.”  Ok..why would someone want to do that?  And what in the wonk do you talk about?  I spoke to three people: a teenager from Ireland, a girl from England (who was excited to inform me that she was bi, after finding out my gender) and another person from England (who I assumed was a guy) who never held a job and hasn’t been able to get one since finishing school over a year ago, but he gets money from the government.  This fellow also happens to be an Eagles fan.

Now keep in mind, my preferred topic of conversation for each of these chats was Fantasy Football.  The Irish kid never heard of it, and the two English people were worthless when it came to deciding which of my wide receivers to put in for week 8.  (I have Anquan Boldin, Devin Hester, Lee Evans, and Johnny Knox, and I still can’t decide!)

But after that last conversation I made the executive decision to quit becuase the whole thing felt a little too much like in 6th grade, when the only thing to do on the internet was check out websites that weren’t any good and go in random AOL chat rooms where you’d more often than not spend most of your time answering the question: a/s/l?

So not being super into talking to random strangers, I found the next best thing: omegle.tumblr.com, a blog with hilarious and absurd Omegle conversations posted on it.  So now I can read about the absurdity and madness that goes on in these awkward chat rooms, without participating and potentially subjecting myself to being thoroughly creeped out in any capacity.

Add this to the list of hilarious blogs where anonymous people make complete fools of themselves for your entertainment.  LameBook, Don’t Even Reply…

Just a warning, a lot of the posts on the Omegle.tumblr thing are pretty offensive, so be careful reading them at work if you could get in trouble for that sort of thing.  But here are a few of my favorites that should be fun for the whole family:

If you’re an 80’s baby, you probably remember being into Strawberry Shortcake and Rainbow Brite when you were little.   My coworker and pal (and possibly my twin separated at birth) Michelle over at Slightly Domesticated just informed me of some news regarding these two childhood friends.  Here’s what she had to say:

Friday, October 16, 2009

Stop This Madness

I haven’t blogged in a while, and I am going to start making up for that right nah. First off, dlisted introducted me to some new horrible revelations. The world of cartoons is taking old favorites and making them THINNER. Case in point, Strawberry Shortcake. Who I loved! Who didn’t? She smelled fantastic. I personally enjoyed her oven and baking supplies. LOOK AT THE TRANSFORMATION.

For shame. I mean the new one is cute, but Strawberry Shortcake is a cuddly little baker girl with color/ scent coordinating friends. Not a pop princess. I was a bit ticked. I worry for young girls now, they are taking away all the cutesy old school items and revamping them. Strawberry Shortcake was a child! She doesn’t need to be all flashy just yet!
So I was already upset having read about her, and then, the world went too far and touched Rainbow Bright.

Old school -

Sure, this doll was a little creepy, but in a cabbage patch mixed with Chucky sort of way.

Where is that video tape of mine that had this recorded on it? I want to watch it.
Oh, and the Updated Rainbow Bright -

SIN SIN SIN.

Please make the makeovers stop.

Madness, indeed.  What genius thought that turning Rainbow Brite into a bootleg hooker was a good idea for kids? This is the type of nonsense I blame on Miley Cyrus.

The name of my favorite fruit also happens to be the name of the band responsible for one of my favorite songs of the moment.  “Corriander” by Pomegranates is on heavy rotation at back to the nest, and you need it in you life too.

Off of the album Everybody, Come Outside! (realeased back in April) “Corriander” is dreamy and ethereal, but still tinged with toe-tapping energy.  Fall in love with “Corriander” via my track player on the right, but definitely give the whole rest of Everybody, Come Outside a good long listen because you’ll want to hear the entire story the album tells.

Get more info on Pomegranates HERE…

And definitely read their great blog, Everybody Outside.

PS-How great is this shirt??

I guess you used to be able to buy it in their store, but now it’s gone.  Pomegranates, if you’re listening, bring back your monster t-shirt!  I so wanna buy it.

So yesterday after working in the morning, my favorite co-workers Courtney and Michelle and I decided to see the little movie everyone’s talking about, Paranormal Activity.  For all intents and purposes, I wanted to see this movie purely on my curiosity stemming from its viral marketing campaign.  Not to call them out or anything, but Courtney and Michelle were pretty much freaking out up to the minute the movie ended.  (Love you both!)

Before the movie, we had lunch at On the Border.  I had never been to On the Border before, but that place is kind of awesome.  And it’s a chain!  I guess just because I’m more than a little in love with Mexican food, it doesn’t take much to sell me on a Mexican restaurant.   Unlimited chips and salsa (my ultimate deserted island food)?  Yes please!!  In addition to lunch, we shared a pitcher of Sangria so C & M could calm their nerves.   I like Sangria too.

Luckily for the movie, Courtney had  free ticket coupons so we didn’t have to pay.  This was clutch, because did you know that a matinee costs $10??  WTF? Absurd.  Not trying to sound like an old lady or anything, but movies do not need to cost that much.

What’s a scary movie without the Snuggie? Among the many wonders of the Snuggie, they actually protect you from being scared.  Courtney rocked  a zebra print one.

This woman is my superior.

Your hair is wonky.

So Paranormal Activity turned out to be a pretty good movie.  It’s about a couple who start experiencing freaky stuff going on in their house, primarily while they’re asleep.  So the boyfriend sets up a video camera and tapes everything that happens.  The entire movie is that footage.  I wasn’t super nervous because this isn’t a true story or anything, but getting further into it I was really freaked out.  So freaked out that 10 minutes away from the ending I made Courtney (who read the ending online before seeing it) tell me what was going to happen.  All in all, I was happy to have been scared by Paranormal Activity because I would have been really disappointed if I wasn’t.  Success!  I even managed to sleep through the night, which is surprising because A) the folks were out of town and I was alone, and B)  every night there’s a shadow in my room that looks like a man!

So if you’re curious, Paranormal Activity is worth seeing.  Here’s the trailer, in case you’ve been living under a rock for the past month and haven’t heard of it.

Typically, my fortune cookie fortunes are really bad.  Well, maybe not so much bad but absolutely irrelevant to anything.  Like, “hard work pays off” or an equally lame statement that’s not even a real fortune.

However, these fortunes from my two most recent adventures in Chinese takeout were, in my humble opinion, really fantastic so I thought I’d share:

Call it motivation for getting through another Friday and making it to the weekend!

Side rant: Is anyone else watching that 100 Greatest Songs of the 90’s show that VH1 always airs when they run out of shows about washed up celebs trying to find true love?  If so, did you just hear Kelly Rowland (you may know her as 1/3 of the now defunct Destiny’s Child, and more noteably from the classic film Freddy vs. Jason) try to say that “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is her hands-down favorite song ever?  I’m sorry Kelly, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” is not your favorite song ever.  Now get a hobby,  and maybe a job while you’re at it.

Still can’t believe race day has come and gone so fast, but I did it–completed my very first half-marathon!  Can’t wait to do it again!

I arrived in Baltimore on Friday afternoon and met up with Molly (close friend & former Penn State roommate) her boyfriend Matt (who ran the race with me).  We went out for dinner and for a nice walk around the harbor.

After a trip to the grocery store for some pre-race bagels and Powerade, went back to Matt’s apartment to relax a for a mini YouTube-fest ranging from cute to crazy absurd to downright disgusting.   Beware of that last one, but if you’re fearless and in the mood for serious vomiting go ahead and click.  But  I warned you…

Anyway, after I laid out my race gear (which Molly thought was pee-your-pants hilarious for whatever reason), we hung out for a few more laughs andthen called it a night.

7am wakeup call, breakfast, and a quick ride on the Light Rail, and we were in downtown B-more for the 9th Annual Running Festival.  Like our coordinated all-black ninja race outfits?  I do.

The Baltimore  Running Festival consisted of a marathon, half-marathon, marathon relay, 5k, and kids’ 100 yard dash.  Mad people!  I loved seeing that many people come together for running as a common goal, when in life most folks I encounter tell me I’m crazy for doing it.

So Matt and I started the half together while Molly headed to the finish line to wait for us.  We stuck together until mile 4, when I had to pee like you wouldn’t believe and didn’t want to make Matt wait.  He went on ahead, but I couldn’t quite catch up after that.

Let me tell you I was definitely not as prepared as i should have been.  It wasn’t the cakewalk I thought it would be.  Mmm, cake.

Anyway, the second half was a bit of a struggle.  I’ve been a runner for years but I now know that I had never run 13.1 miles at one time ever.  But the two things that kepts me going were the massive amounts of people who came out to cheer on the runners, and the awesome tour of downtown Baltimore.  I would actually consider moving there sometime in the near future.

So my offical time crossing the finish line was 2:21:34.  A little rough.  I was hoping to be a lot closer to two hours, but I’m still happy about it.   Matt’s time was way better than mine, which is badass since he barley trained.   And Molly finished first in being awesome.  All in all, a fantastic experience and one I would gladly repeat.  Next time though, I’ll complete a real training program in the months leading up to it, and also pee two or three times before starting.  Whew!

The finish line

Waiting patiently...

It's over!

Some time next week (hopefully), Back to the Nest will be getting a Tyrafied makeover.

It has come to my attention that the pink  bird featured in Back to the Nest is some variation of the Twitter bird logo.  This is a problem, as Twitter is something I can’t support other than from a promotional/marketing standpoint, on the grounds that as an internet utility it is has a found a way to promote egocentrism even more so than this blog.  In my humble opinion.  Also, Back to the Nest is looking rather bootleg, which is bothering me a lot and needs to be addressed.

So ya know how on America’s Text Top Model, when they do makeovers there’s always that one girl that gets her long hair totally shaved off and then after looking in the mirror she cries for the whole rest fof the episode? Cause like, ya know, she really loved her hair!  Well, it’ll be something like that.