Wednesday Rambles

It's going to be hard to top my single life post. According to Google Analytics, the blog received more visitors on Monday than any other day since I've had it. The post is already the fourth-most clicked individual post, which is crazy because it needed only one day to eclipse some posts that have had weeks to accumulate clicks.

Do you remember those old IMChaos links you could put in your AIM profiles, and it would tell you exactly which screennames clicked on it? Damn I wish Google Analytics worked that way haha. Alas, it does not. It cannot tell me who clicks my posts. So fear not, blog stalkers. Also, I love all of you for clicking anyway, so whatevs.

There'd be no point in writing if no one read it, so I'm just glad people find whatever reason they may have to read. And a HUGE thanks for that!

So I got to run my four miles in the rain again today. Kick. Ass. Also, I kicked the run's ass. Ran four miles in 38 minutes -- my second-best time ever on that distance.

Normally when I run, I go really hard for the first mile because I'm trying to finish a mile in under eight minutes. I'm getting there. I think my best mile time right now is 8:07? Either way. The problem with that is it takes enough out of me that by the time the uphill mile 3 rolls around, I have to walk for a few minutes, which really sabotages my total four-mile time.

Today, I decided to take it easy, run casually and try to get a decent time. I still finished mile 1 in 8:42 -- not bad at all for taking it easy. I was able to run the first three miles without stopping, which is impressive because half of mile 3 is straight uphill.

Turns out the strategy worked, as I finished in 38:34. Damn good day!

Although I do have a slight groin situation going on. I don't think it's pulled (THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID), but something isn't right. I might postpone my third run this week until Saturday morning. I'll stretch hardcore for the next few days and see where we are this weekend.

I have to make sure I can play flag football! We're playing Maryland on Sunday morning, and we have a great chance to get a big division win.

We narrowly lost to No. 2 Michigan this past weekend, 20-13. We had the ball with a chance to tie or take the lead with no time on the clock, but the fourth-down pass fell to the ground. We have a LEGIT flag football team, though. CAN'T WAIT to make some noise in the league this year.

Also, since when did Tuesday become the official rain day? This is, like, week FOUR of our softball season, and we've played exactly ONE game due to rain outs and cancellations. C'mon now.

So Rosh Hashanah starts at sundown tonight. If I were a better Jew I could tell you what that means, but, alas, I'm not, so I can't. Besides, I'm technically not at all Jewish, since my mom is Catholic. But you know, as that T-shirt I saw last year said, I'm Jew-ish.

It's the Jewish new year, and apparently it will be the year 5772. So Happy Jew Year to you and yours. I've got nothing else to say here. Lulz.

I went to Giant and bought one of the Jewish memorial candles you light for loved ones. It was 53 cents. I think I can swing that. You light it at sundown, and it burns for 24 hours. It's for my grandfather, who passed away when I was a freshman in college.

He deserves a post on this blog, so I'll probably write one for the anniversary of his passing next month.

Jon texted me today to let me know his parents recently purchased a condo on a lake in Charlotte. Their downstairs neighbor? Pia Sundhage, the U.S. women's soccer coach. Naturally, being the excellent friend he is, he's going to talk to her to try to get me set up with Hope Solo. Obviously.

This much is inarguable: I am, today, one step closer to marrying her than I was yesterday. Don't stop believin'.

So that movie "50/50" comes out this weekend. I'm pretty sure I've talked about it here a few times, so I wont rehash my thoughts on it. But all the trailers I've seen have made me really want to see it. And the song in the trailer, "Do the Panic" by Phantom Planet, is so, so good. Love it.

Anyway. Sorry this post was so terrible haha. My groin hurts. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Lulz. I'll try to be funny on Friday; I promise.

Again, thank you a million times to everyone who stops by to read this blog. I just love writing so much, and I hope you get even a fraction of the enjoyment out of reading it as I get out of writing it.

Life is good, friends. Life is really, really good.

-BG

Mailing it In

Look, I'm not saying I'm going to mail in this post, but I'm not NOT saying it either. So you know. There it is.

Here's the deal: I get sick like once a year. It's a cold that lasts for a little while and then it goes away. And I sort of feel it coming on right now. You know that cloudy-head feeling and sort of sore throat deal? Yeah. Fail.

Is this related to my insane weekend in Raleigh? It could be. I went harder in Raleigh than I have probably since my trip to Savannah back in June. Who knows.

So prepare for a little random, stream of consciousness today!

This weekend feels like a couch weekend. After last weekend and last night, I wouldn't mind a little relaxing and recovery. Tonight is a rest night, for sure. Gotta head this potential sickness off at the pass.

And it's raining again. We're supposed to play flag football on Sunday. This is the CAN league, so it's the N.C. State flag football team (like my N.C. State softball team from this summer).

The team was really good last year. Ended up ranked no. 8 out of like 60-65 teams, I think. We won our first game last weekend 34-0 over South Carolina. Obviously, I was in Raleigh, so I didn't participate. This weekend, we're supposed to play No. 2 Michigan though. I hope the rain stops long enough so we can play.

And then don't rain anymore! I don't want any more softball games to be rained out! We're supposed to play Tuesday night. *sigh. We'll see.

So last night, we hit up Front Page for happy hour before going downstairs to Buffalo Billiards to watch the State game. Let me tell you why happy hour specials are awesome: four beers, $11 bill, including tip. That's tough to beat, friends.

I don't want to talk about the State game. Except to say this: ATTENTION DEFENSE AND OFFENSIVE LINE -- THE SEASON STARTED FOUR WEEKS AGO. SHOW UP.

I sort of blame myself for the two losses so far this season. I've worn my two-time national champions shirt for two games this year. Yup. The Wake Forest and Cincinnati games. Might be time to retire this shirt for game purposes. I was going to wear the kick-ass long-sleeve shirt I bought in Raleigh (that I wore to the South Alabama win), but it was just too warm for long sleeves last night, no matter how thin and comfortable the shirt may be. Next week, I'm not risking it. I'm wearing that shirt regardless.

We had a great group to watch the game though. Probably had 50 State people show up. So that was good anyway. Really though, the only way to watch a State game is at a bar. Watching the team just makes you want to drink to forget most of the time, so it helps to cut out the traveling and just start at the bar.

Matty's playing rugby tomorrow against Georgetown, but if it's raining, I probably won't make the trek down to watch that. Not as much fun to stand and watch in the rain as it is to run or play in the rain.

Tomorrow night, however, we're going to go see Moneyball! I never read the book, but I know about it, obviously, and the sabermetrics teams use to evaluate players. I fully support sabermetrics. I think stats like RBIs and pitcher wins are ridiculous measures of a player's worth because they are completely dependent on OTHER players and not the individual you're trying to examine.

Plus, Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay for the movie. I will see anything Sorkin has a hand in writing. If it came out that he was writing the screenplay for the next Sex and the City movie, I'd be there on opening night. He's responsible for two of my favorite shows of all time -- The West Wing and Sports Night. I'm pretty excited to see this.

I'll be surprised if we don't end up at a bar after the movie, but there's no chance I'm going like I did in Raleigh. A couple drinks, and then home. Because if we DO have a flag football game, it's 11 a.m. on Sunday, and it's a little bit of a drive from my apartment.

Otherwise, Matty and I will head to McFadden's for the Panthers game at 1 p.m. I gotta say, I'm incredibly surprised there are enough Panthers fans in the DC area to designate a bar as a "Panthers bar." But there it is. McFadden's is a Panthers bar. Who knew. I'm not a diehard Panthers fan like he is. I'm mostly indifferent on the NFL. I love watching football, but I don't have ONE team I live and die with by any means. I loosely follow the Jets and the Panthers.

Brief health update: After three days in Charlotte and three insane days in Raleigh, I gained a couple pounds back. Nothing crazy and nothing unforeseen, and undoubtedly worth it. But back to the grind this week and next, big time. Feel great, folks. Feeling really great.

Have you seen the previews for the movie 50/50 with Seth Rogen and Joseph Gordon-Levitt? I may have talked about this before. I don't recall. Whatevs. Anyway, JGL's character gets cancer. Rogen plays his friend, and it appears to be about how they deal with it.

Every time I see a preview for this movie, it looks better and better. I really want to see it. It comes out next weekend. But I mean. There's no chance JGL's character lives, right? He has to die at the end of the movie, doesn't he? I just don't know. One of the reasons I want to see it is because some of the conversations the two guys had in the previews were strikingly similar to conversations and interactions I had with Erik. I got the chills when I first saw the previews.

I'm afraid of this movie hitting too close to home, essentially. But I don't know. It looks so good. I think we can all agree this would be a poor decision for a date movie, though, right? Haha of course.

I foresee myself seeing this movie and bringing plenty of tissues. You know, for the emotions.

You know, I really love the phrases "xxxx is the worst" and "the game is afoot." I think the first one comes from The Office. Michael was always very fond of saying how Toby is the worst. And the way he said it with such disdain and disgust really cracks me up. Plus, it's so definitive. That's the worst. Love it.

The game is afoot. Whenever I hear this it reminds me of those awesome SNL Celebrity Jeopardy sketches with "Sean Connery." It's just really great. It's definitely NOT the worst. I believe I said it a few times this past weekend. Very appropriately, too. And I think we should all try hard to work it into our daily speech as often as possible. There's just no downside to that.

Anyway, I'm pretty excited for a relaxing, low-key weekend after the past couple of weeks. It's been beyond awesome, but even I need a break every once in a while -- ridiculous energy levels notwithstanding. Seriously though, the past few months is the most fun I've had since college. Which is pretty much what I knew would happen. Lulz.

Once again, thanks to everybody who, for some reason, reads whatever it is I feel like writing. Thanks for the comments and messages. It means the world to me.

Back on Monday!

-BG

Speechless

Funny thing about me: I'm very rarely speechless. Verbose may be the best descriptor ever used to describe me. Ask my friend Clark about the time I submitted a 1,200-word column on a football game I covered. It should have been in the 500-600 word range. Whoops.

I usually don't have a very hard time coming up with things to say or to write, and I have opinions about almost everything (even if I don't necessarily articulate them at every moment of the day [restraint, my friends -- a valuable skill]). Those are several reasons why I've always enjoyed being a "writer."

It's a wonderful outlet for when I have things to say (which is often), even if the number of people who care about those things can be counted on one hand (which is also often).

Imagine my surprise when I sat down to write for the blog today, and I had nothing. I don't have anything particularly funny or interesting to say (not that anything I ever say is particularly funny or interesting, mind you), which is both pretty funny and interesting to me, anyway. I have a list of 20 or so ideas for posts sketched out, but none of them really excited me today.

I'm honestly pretty shocked I've been able to keep up with the three-times-a-week writing schedule, with only a couple slips, for almost three full months now. Anyway.

So there you go. This post is about to get a little stream-of-consciousnessy. Continue at your own risk.

I was so blown away by the response to my story about The Cycle. Google Analytics tells me the blog received the second-most traffic yesterday behind only my (500) Days of Summer break-up post. That's so awesome. I loved writing that story yesterday. I seriously loved playing in a band, even if it was only for a brief time.

You know, maybe I should hop on Craigslist and see if there are any fun bands around here looking for a drummer. I'm not trying to join a super-serious, pretentious band or anything. I seriously doubt I'm good enough to play in a band like that. I just want to play some fun music that gets people dancing. I'm going to have to think about this one. Not a bad idea.

I just saw a new show on BBC America called "The Hour." Let me tell you this. I think it's going to be awesome. The pilot just aired a day or two ago. But it's set in 1950s England at the BBC as the network tries to launch a new news program.

Because of the time period in which it's set, it kind of has a Mad Men-esque vibe going on, which I'm obviously a fan of because I love Mad Men. McNulty from The Wire stars in the "Don Draper" role. My only gripe is BBC America is not available in HD (I know, #firstworldproblems). It's just really distracting on a 55-inch HDTV (#humblebrag, to continue the out-of-place hash tag trend). Oh well. DVR is set. I'll have to deal.

So last night, my friends and I went to Front Page for happy hour because they've got some pretty good specials there on Thursday nights ($2 Miller Lites, Corona and Corona Lights, as well as free tacos). I didn't get any tacos though. They ran out. I love when I can go out and have a really good time for like $16. And I like it even MORE when it doesn't lead to any weight gain the next day.

Yes, I weighed in for the third consecutive day at 193 for a loss of 34 pounds. I'll take it! I really wish my ribs would stop hurting so I can get back to running and lifting the way I want to. I'm just too scared to try anything in the gym with my ribs hurting the way they are.

I'm definitely taking it easy tonight because TOMORROW one of the Katies has a friend in a band, and that band is playing somewhere in Bethesda! It almost doesn't matter what kind of music it is. I just like to go listen to live music. It'll be a good time, for SHO. And then we'll likely go out somewhere after that. I most definitely cannot go out three nights in a row. So tonight is a TV/reading/walking the dog kind of night.

For privacy reasons, I have my Twitter settings such that you have to request to follow me (which you should totally do, by the way). In the past 24 hours I have received no fewer than SEVEN requests from obvious porn spam accounts. What in the world. So very strange.

Still no word on the job front, but my confidence is renewed! Google's Revenge will not allow me to speak about these things publicly, but feel free to gchat me/text me or something. I am hopeful and optimistic as ever.

Oh, my dog Allie walked into a tree today. So that happened. She gets in the habit of not looking where she's going when she sees other dogs across the street. She follows them intently with her whole head and pays no attention to what's in front of her.

Well on our walk this morning, there was a big German shepherd on the other side of the street, and Allie was, predictably, pumped about it. Well I'm so used to her going nuts for other dogs, I didn't notice she stopped looking forward. Then I heard a yelp and saw her snorting and making funny faces. Yup. She walked into a tree. Once she and I determined she was not hurt, it was actually quite funny.

I felt so bad for her. I think she was embarrassed. She didn't want to walk for a few minutes and just buried her head in my legs. Poor thing. She's fine, of course, and we were able to complete the walk successfully without another tree-crashing incident. Oh dogs. You never cease to amaze me.

Wow, look at that. I started writing this thinking I had no idea what I was going to write, and I've turned in more than 1,000 words anyway.

As always, thank you so, so much for reading and for the feedback you give me. People telling me they're reading, laughing and enjoying the blog is seriously amazing, and it always makes my day. I'll try to come up with something thoroughly entertaining by Monday. Until then!

-BG