some more random thoughts

i've seen some people that i went to high school with on the internet lately, and i don't get it. they look about 43 years old. what did they do that i didn't? I can say with certainty that i don't look like i'm in my 30's, much less like i'm a dinosaur. can it be that ben and jerry's creme brulee and zero-carb rockstar are the fountain of youth? is it because i've always had to wear 80spf at the beach for my fair little redhead skin? it is because, since i still play xbox, my body thinks it's still 13?

i got a new blackberry yesterday. it cost me -$75 dollars. evidently amazon gives you money back if you buy new cell contracts through them. i got the pearl, and i can't stop playing with it. but you know why i REALLY wanted it? because when i lived in vail, i was behind trista rehn in the post office, and she had one. in fact, her inner volume was set to deafening, which i'm guessing is pretty standard for her. i long to be like her.

lastly, i would like to apologize profusely to my dear friend kevin from philly. he took my critique of AMP to be a personal attack. i just want to say, for the record, that kevin is quite possibly the single most patient man on the earth. and he's hot. and he has a sexy voice. and he has this cute little giggle when he's being crafty that women everywhere can't resist. and i'd sooner stab a loved one in the face than do anything whatsoever to tarnish our relationship. that notwithstanding, AMP still remains an absolutely wretched beverage directly created my satan and his minions. the measure of a man is not by the drink he chooses, but how much he thinks i am super extra primo rad fantastico. which of course, i am. so he gets 365 million pts.

Official Energy Drink Trial Results

as some of you know, i weaned myself off of caffeine for about 3 months, only to fall off the wagon HARD by attempting to drink every energy drink made on earth.

i've been criticized by many of you for not being strong enough to keep myself off of the hard stuff, as well as for using these "trials" as an excuse to continue my addiction. furthermore a few of you *coughsunnycough* tried to sit me down for an "intervention."

i want you to know that i didn't want to do this. i was against it from the beginning. i underwent these trials not for my own benefit, but for the benefit of YOU, my reader. how could i live with myself if i knew that somewhere, in the cooler section of a 7-11, that the selection of beverages was so overwhelming that many of you might walk out without buying anything. and subsequently not be as productive as you could have been if only you had enough energy. and then, you look at your life of ill-productivity and get violently depressed and, in a late-night tragedy, your car careens off a cliff because your body lacked the essential nutrient of caffeine to keep you on the road.

and really, i cannot in good conscience, do that to you, your family and your friends. so be fucking grateful, already, you selfish sons o' bitches:

****
first off, the losers (sounds like my love life, but i digress)-

MONSTER -- this drink is god-awful. i don't give a shit how many colors of cans they have, green, blue.. they ALL suck. the m-80 and all the other "versions" they have are all about as consumable as creamed corn that has been sitting in a marathon runner's adidas. i'd sooner drink my own urine. if you want to drink a shitty energy drink in a big-ass can, you'd be better off drinking a rockstar. that company should pay YOU to drink their product. i give this a -20pts

RED BULL -- the first energy drink on the market, so that gets it points automatically (jolt does not count, people.) it took an acquired taste, and still tastes like some medicine they had when we were kids that i can't put my finger on. the sugar-free version isn't bad, but the original isn't much better. still, it's the company that started everything. they've even started selling them in the bigger cans. big points for being the pioneer in their field. score of +6pts

ROCKSTAR (the black and white cans) -- when rockstar came out, the black can was their first product. the white can followed shortly thereafter as their sugar free version. when i said before that i would rather drink rockstar before monster, that was a total lie. this beverage sucks equally as bad as monster if not worse. mix up some olive oil with cologne and put it on ice before even thinking about having a rockstar. i don't give a shit if you're dying of thirst in the desert. i take death first. they get negative points for stealing and defiling the brand name of a kick-ass video game company, not to mention hard-rockers everywhere. -40pts

UNBOUND -- this low-carb drink was new to me, so i gave it a whirl. it has that same acrid, artificial energy drink taste as most of the others, but also has a tangy-ness to it that i couldn't quite describe. i gave it to my friend stacey, whose comments were, "this shit tastes like cough syrup, a couple of fruits, and some pine sol." as of this publication, i have no idea how well this drink can clean and disinfect. -12pts

ACE -- this one has pretty rad packaging, with a WWII, pinup chick on the can. not bad. at least it comes with eye candy. 0pts

AMP -- this product of the mtn dew company (pepsi, inc) was recommended to me by a friend Kevin, who insisted i add it into my trials as it was his personal favorite. until this point, i was incredibly trusting of him and happily shelled out a dollar seventy to try it. to try and put it into perspective, go to 7-11 and buy a big gulp of mtn dew with lots of ice, let it sit in your hot car for 4 days, open it up, throw a handful of gravel in there, and drink away. they took all the amazing qualities of mtn dew and threw them the fuck out the window. no carbonation, extremely watered down (or "wooahtered" down if you're kevin and from philly), and tastes worse than the bongwater in the carpet of my upstairs neigbors. studies have shown amp also causes bowel obstruction and impotence. thanks, kev, you're a true pal. -378,012pts

WHO'S YOUR DADDY -- there are two flavors of this one, sugar free cranberry/pineapple and not sugar free something else. i haven't even tried the second one yet because the first one RULES. it's super awesome, and people i have turned on to it agree. it's in a red white and blue can, so toby keith would even feel pride drinking it while driving around in his ford grumbling about the dixie chicks. +350pts

ENVIGA -- made by nestea, this one was the winner for a long time. it comes in berry, peach and green tea (though they all have green tea in them.) the first two are very good, the plain green tea not so much. also they do not have a sugar free version, and after you drink about 30, all you can taste is the green tea because it eats away your tastes buds ability to pick up any or the peach and berry flavors after a while. on the upside, this gives you energy AND burns calories. green tea lovers, unite. +12pts

SOBE "no fear" -- the sugar free version tastes exactly like the sugared version, and they are both absolutely forgettable. skip this and just have a regular sobe, for christ's sake. that's what they do best. -15pts

ROCKSTAR (the other ones) -- rockstar carries a few other flavors since their first attempt, energy * juice, energy * guava, and pomegranate (i'm drinking the latter as we speak.) they come in an orange, purple, and red can respectively. much MUCH better than it's predecessor. all the kick-ass energy of rockstar without the taste that makes you want to hold a lighter to your tongue. +450pts

****

Runner up

ROCKSTAR, zero-carb -- this drink is super-awesome, fantastic, rad. it's better than a night of wine, pizza rolls, twinkies, a candlelit bath and incredible sex. it tastes like raspberry (and looks like it, as it's this dark pink color.) it's in a big, blue can that you can't miss, and comes in the MEGA MEGA can of like 84 ounces that has a heavy duty aluminum lid that looks like it should have STP inside. i had one the other night (the wee 16 oz one) at about 3pm, and I was up until 1am (for reference, i have taken a three hour nap shortly after finishing a red bull.) this drink will make your friends think you're a cokehead and will caress your taste buds at the same time. don't plan on sleeping for 21 hours afterward. actually, toss back a zero-carb, and you could probably handle a date with me, complete with wine, pizza rolls, twinkies, a candlelit bath and a night of incredible sex. +2,531.7pts

****

WINNAH

GLACEAU VITAMIN ENERGY -- comes in three flavors, fruit punch, dragonfruit and citrus. super amazingly tasty, and they each have a neat little story on the side of each can. in fact, if you're winding down and not in the caffeine mood, tip back a glaceau vitamin water -- also very tasty in multiple flavors and with the same amusing stories. i'm not a fan of the fruit punch, but the other two are rad. you don't have to take your one-a-day while drinking this beverage as, like the name, the vitamins are already inside. it gives you pretty long-lasting energy, though not a severe a rush as the others, which is it's con (also, no sugar free.) best tasting, and it comes with entertainment. plus, shaq, kelly clarkson and 50-cent drink them, so there's that. i'm not altogether sure that shaq doesn't drink urine, though. someone should give him a monster. +3,015,000pts

***

okay, there you go. if i get any follow up stats, i will pass them along. in the meantime, get the hell up from your computer, go get something to drink, and do something fucking productive already.

a quickie

first of all, thank you for viewing my blog NINE THOUSAND TIMES. was it like a month and a half ago that i was at eight thousand? you guys RULE. i'm going to have a party at 10,000, so you know.

i have a lot of stuff to blog about, like this being my last week of school, and me having to take my boards next week, and my experience at the beach yesterday, and of course my energy drink trials. and i will. I PROMISE. as soon as school ends, i will be a much more devoted blogger.

in the meantime, i was driving to work today and noticed a restaurant that i pass at least 7 times a week. i've never really thought about it before, but would you eat at a place called "the tickled trout?" i think not.

four more days of school, four more days of school...

repetition

i can't seem to get out of my own way.

i continue to make decisions, most of them poor. i make rash choices because i listen to everything inside of me except rationality. i don't seem to censor my own actions. when did i start to derail? have i always been like this and just never noticed?

aside from the disasters that come from my doing, i have plenty of other unpleasant things that have happened (as most of us have.) and for years now, i keep thinking that i deserve something good to happen to me. i feel like life owes me for all the things i've had to put up with. or that any day now, i'll get that one good thing that will turn my life around and reward me after all i've been through. when is my life going to be amazing like everyone else's seems to be? when do i get to be sublimely happy?

i think what i realized today is that nobody owes me anything. i don't have this event or incident coming to me that is going to alleviate all the negativity in my life. my life is not a movie, and it doesn't have that fair balance that i always hoped it did.

i don't write blogs as much as i'd like to. the entertainment factor (for me as well) is such a miniscule part of it. writing is so cathartic. i've hated my writing and, until this blog started a few years ago, i wouldn't let anyone read what i had written.

as my friend bob says, writing isn't about the end product, it's about the process - the process is what is important. and it really does feel that way. i feel elated, i write. i feel lonely, i write. full of guilt? self-loathing? in love with everything? i write. and sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. but thinking and typing and taking even the smallest time to write down how i feel makes it clear, makes me understand it more. and every once in a while, i regret getting that close to knowing how i feel.

yesterday was surreal. i worked a wedding for amanda, and helped with flowers. i was in an environment filled with super rich people who can sit around and bitch about pointless things because they are well off. a 20-something guy in a polo shirt and shorts comes riding down the hotel's course on a golf cart. he and two other guys pull up to whatever hole was in front of us, and he yells, "where the fuck is the grass on this fucking course?" there was a 5' by 5' patch near the cart path of just dirt.

i looked at him and thought, "i wish i could sit around and have nothing to worry about except what faults the 14th hole had."

i spent the evening with a group of people at the turf club, which is exactly like the minturn country club except that it's mostly a bar and the steaks aren't $20. my sirloin, if memory serves, was $6.95. and worth every penny.

everything about being there was wonderful. i laughed with some friends, and met a few others. we sat, ate and drank, talked shit, and laughed at each other without worry that we would offend or judge each other. it's one of those nights where, instead of periodically thinking about the near future, or the past, everyone was involved in the here and now.

i knew, however, that once the bartender asked me what i wanted to drink and i chose a manhattan (for whatever reason) that the night wouldn't stay perfect.

after we left the restaurant, the sharp edges of the evening started to blur.

that feeling lasted until the wee hours, and i spent most of the night quietly observing the people around me. i watched them talk, i paid attention to who looked each other in the eye when they spoke, i listen to their opinions about things and watched how they all reacted. i watched one of them, who normally reserves his sparse comments for the times when the situation calls for sarcasm, behave so unbelievably out of character that is was beautiful to watch. it was the first time i had ever seen this person smile. it blew me away to sit back and see a whole other person emerge from him. and though it was so contagious to be around, i believe it was temporary.

i don't think many people consciously realize this, but when a person is doing something that they are good at, it is true beauty. next time someone you know does what they do best, sit back and observe them. any faults, any awkwardness, disappears. for that one moment, they are beautiful and perfect. they glow.

i guess the same thing happens when people are truly happy. it happens for such a short span of time while that person worries about nothing and cares about only what is right then.

i have never seen that glow in myself, being that i have a hard time standing outside myself to see it. but i know when it happens because i know how it feels. it's so fleeting - we don't enjoy it enough while it lasts.

five things

five smells i can't stand:

-burnt popcorn
-gear oil
-sodium hydroxide relaxer
-cinnamon rolls
-polo by ralph lauren

five things i shouldn't like, but i do:

-the smell of gasoline
-the movie SWAT, starring collin farrell
-margarine
-excessive profanity
-hanson's MMMbop

five words i won't say:

-horny
-anyways
-"my bad" (that counts for two, i guess)
-nailed (in that context, anyway)

five men's voices that make me melt:

-shawn smith
-m. doughty
-corey glover
-jeff buckley
-josh homme

five irresistible things:

-ben and jerry's creme brulee
-good sushi
-the right man covered in dirt and sweat
-"u & ur hand" by pink
-rain

five phrases that have actually been said to me:

-in a lame attempt to make me swoon, "i want to get you off like a firecracker"
-in a lame attempt to hurt my feelings, "you have no heart" (and it worked)
-"you're so retarded" (deemed a compliment in national city)
-in response to me wanting to cut my long hair off, "don't do it, your hair is what makes you pretty"
-as a bit of advice from my mom, "never try to please anyone else, because you're the only one you have to look at in the mirror every day"

five things i won't leave the house without:

-lip gloss
-money (if i have it)
-phone (if i need it)
-perfume
-purpose

five things i hate:

-lying
-arrogance
-selfishness
-ignorance
-men

five things i love:

-pizza rolls
-sleep
-confidence
-the office (on NBC)
-men

top five cereals:

-cpt crunchberries
-lucky charms
-golden grahams
-special K with strawberries
-grape nuts flakes

five reasons i have to wrap up this blog:

-i'm thirsty
-it's "take your roommate to work" day at our house and i have to get dressed
-i'm losing focus
-how long can a blog be?
-to keep all of you wanting more. and YOU WILL NOT GET IT..