We found a folder at work today that in our ex-executive director's handwriting was labeled "Hungarian Sausage." What does that have to do with football?

I Don't Like Eggs

I do not like eggs. I do not like them with a mouse. I do not like them in a house. I do not like them here or there. I do not like them anywhere.

My mom makes omelets about once a month for Sunday brunch. Every time she does, I tell her not to make me one because I don't like eggs. Then she starts frying up the onions and ham or whatever and it smells so good that I decide to make myself one. What happens then every month? I take about four bites of it and throw it out because I don't like eggs. Plus I feel nauseated the rest of the day because disgusting eggs are inside me. Why do I do this every month?

On a related item, while I was looking for a picture of an omelet (as you can see I didn't find any very good ones), I came to a Korean website. All of it was in Korean, except the headings on the home page were also in English. Below a heading entitled "Diet Food" there was a picture of a cat. Curious?

In other news, a 50 or so year old woman was wearing Victoria Secret pajama pants in my step aerobics class today. I know because I almost bought them. How awkward would that be? Coming to aerobics class wearing the same pajama pants as someone else? Embarrassing!!

The Christmas Letter

We just received one of those family update Christmas newsletters from a guy that was my dad's boss about 15 years ago. He doesn't really say why it was so late, but it doesn't really matter. We always enjoy reading his family's news every year because he has a different job every year and is really pompous, which allows us to make fun of how everything is written.

This year, however, there was even more enjoyment to be had. There was a certain part about his daughter Alyse and we'll see if you think we're reading it too literally.

"Alyse is in her Sophomore year and is busy with student council, cheerleading, track and a boyfriend--I am searching for the right way to let her boyfriend know that I don't mind going back to prison if he should try anything improper."

Did anyone else catch that? "Go Back to Prison" Wouldn't that imply that he was in prison? Certainly missed that in one of their Christmas letters.

The Box

My friend Danielle's birthday is coming up. A few years ago for her birthday, I made the mistake of starting the tradition of what we refer to as "the box." Before I explain about "the box" I think I must explain about Danielle and I. Our entire friendship is pretty much based around how much we can annoy each other. Isn't that nice? I know its weird, but it works. And Christmas and birthdays are an especially creative time for us to get mean. To give you an idea, I hate Winnie the Pooh. I'm sure I'll explain this more in a future edition, but let's just say that I do. As part of my Christmas present this year, I got a Winnie the Pooh And Piglet Friends Ornament. I pull it out and on the top of it, it says "Navidad 2004".

Anyway, back to the box. A few years ago when I was in College I had a bunch of annoying stuff to give her (Notre Dame hockey socks, a spoon from the dining hall, etc.) sitting in a box in my dorm room ready to mail. Somehow people in the dorm started "contributing" to the box: an earring with no mate, a half used chapstick, a post-it, etc. Danielle was so confused by the box when she received it, that I decided to do it again the next year. Then Danielle started liking it, and now she'll be disappointed if she doesn't get one. Plus my mom knows all about the box and has starting buying little cheap stuff to go in it too. It's a lot of pressure to make a good box.

Just for example, here are some things Danielle has gotten in her box in the past:
A stuffed Giraffalo (it's a cross between a giraffe and a buffalo--actually, she got this two years in a row)
A Britney Spears Mini-Backpack
A Lance Bass Bobble Head Doll
The Book Will My Bunny Go To Heaven?
A "Jesus Is My Homeboy" School Supply Set
'N Sync fruit snacks
The book Hanson: Behind the Scenes
A pair of "Mrs. Pitt" earrings
My resume (she gets a new copy every year)

I buy all my stuff on clearance and probably spend more on shipping the stupid thing than actually on the stuff inside it. Anyway, I need some more little stuff for the box, so that's what I'm doing this weekend. A little bit of shopping, but mostly looking for crap I want to get rid of around the house.

Hi, Mr. Purse Snatcher?

Last night at the Notre Dame basketball game, someone snatched my mom's purse by sneaking under the bleacher and pulling it through. (I was home sick). When we start to cancel all the credit cards and stuff that was in it. I decide (I think because I saw in on Seinfeld once) to call her cell phone. As it's dialing though, I suddenly panic because I have no idea what I would say if the person answered (he does have our adress afterall). He didn't. It went to voicemail.

My Vacation

This is a picture of Ned Brower who is the drummer for Rooney. I had never heard of Rooney before but I met him on my vacation and thought he was kinda hot, so figured I'd put him on my blog.

Day 1:
I got up at way too early of an hour to fly from South Bend to Minneapolis to Orange County, but since my head cashier had told me she was quitting at 4:45 the afternoon before, I was happy to go anywhere that wasn't work. When I was sitting in the airport in Minneapolis, eating a Cinnabunn and chatting with some of my dad's coworkers, an annoying coworker named Lori who turns out to only be like a year older than I am asked me if I was still in high school. "No, I graduated college three years ago." "Oh," she replied. "I'm really bad with ages." Obviously! We went to the hotel and I went swimming outside in weather that probably really wasn't warm enough to go swimming in which may be the start of issues later on in the vacation, and then bummed around pretty much the rest of the afternoon.

Day 2:
I woke up with a sore throat (possibly from the swimming and possibly from circulated germy plane air). My mom and I went for breakfast where I had waffles with strawberries and whipped cream (my new favorite dessert). Then for the rest of the day we went to Downtown Disney and went shopping. I bought lots of Alice In Wonderland stuff that I don't need, because that's what I do. That didn't really take as long as we thought it would so we went to see the movie Glory Road. You know that feel good basketball movie they've been plugging. It was pretty good, a little too unbelievable though. Leaves you wondering how much of the true story is actually in the movie.

Day 3:
Disneyland
Still have a sore throat. It was crazy how uncrowded Disneyland was. We went on almost every ride. The longest we had to wait in line was for 20 minutes for Peter Pans flight...not worth it. We even saw the Tiki Room which was way cool though I still have the song in my head. Haunted Mansion (my favoritest ride ever) was closed. We ate dinner at the restaurant that is inside Pirates of the Caribbean.

Day 4:
California Adventure
Increasingly sore throat. Still not busy, first time there, not as cool as Disneyland. I got to ride an otter on their sea merry go round. There was a pretty cool roller coaster, but the scariest ride was the ferris wheel...yes, I said the ferris wheel. I am never going on that thing again! They had certain cars that were "rolling" cars and others that were "non-rolling" cars. Of course we had to get on a rolling car. They're on tracks that are kinda shaped like flower petals so when you reach a certain height on the ferris wheel, the car rolls down the track and then rocks back and forth (so that the riders are looking straight down either onto water or the middle of the ride) until is loses momentum. My parents ditched me for some business dinner, so I went to ESPN Zone to watch Marquette squeak one by Notre Dame in basketball (which could've been predicted). I got to sit in one of their lounge chairs and eat dinner in their screening room. However, feeling bad for my waiter that I was taking up one of his seats for 2 + hours during the basketball games I decided to order several of a certain mixed drink that he had recommended only to find out too late that they were $9 a pop and were in fact 1 part tequila, 1 part vodka, 1 part light rum, 1 part gin and 1 part Chambord. I stumbled back into Disneyland, rode the Alice in Wonderland ride 1 final time which was infinitely better for some reason, and watched the fireworks by It's a Small World while I sobered up enough to find my way home.

Day 5:
NAMM
Sore throat, stuffy nose. For those of you who don't know, NAMM stands for the National Association of Music Manufacturers, which includes anyone who produces anything having to do with music from guitar strings, to musical gifts (ties, pencils, bookends, etc.) to sheet music to people who actually make instruments. And there are all kinds of people from your music nerdy people (people I know from high school picture Mr. Martin, people from college picture Daniel Stowe the glee club director) to the people who are actually in rock bands with mohawks and pierced noses and thigh high boots. I went to meet some of the famous drummers that my dad's company was bringing in and get autographs. Besides Ned, there were other various people who I had never heard of but then there were a couple I had, or at least had heard of their bands Bryan Hitt from REO Speedwagon, Ronnie Vanucci from the Killers (who said my Kate Spade knock-off was cute), and Patrick Wilson from Weezer. The rest of the day I watched basketball games in my hotel room and crashed..trying to fight off the impending illness

Day 6:
Full blown sickness. We travel home. I'm miserable the entire way.

Slow News Day?
Last Monday (before I went on vacation) the hook before the 10:00 news on Fox South Bend was "Stay tuned at 10 to watch Samardzija get his hair cut!" They had a camera and crew at Armando's barber shop. When did this become news?

I was on vacation

Sorry for abandoning you, I was on vacation. There will surely be a post all about it, but not right now.

The Aerobics People

I got a new workout DVD for Christmas. I've used it twice and already this one person on it really annoys me. I try to make up stories for the people on the workout video. Does anyone else do that? I think the one girl's name is Kimber (I hate that name, by the way). She is way to excited about being there. She's always making stupid excited remarks to the head instructor ("Wow, Cynthia, this is such a great workout!" "This one is great for you abdominals! I can feel it already!") Bet you can feel it when I punch you in the face too. This is the animosity I feel for Kimber and I don't even know her. She has her hair pulled back like Chrissy on Three's Company. Kimber is also the person who "modifies the movement" for people that have back problems or whatever. I bet she thinks this is her big chance to break onto the scene.

Then there's another girl, Jill, who's in the back and looks like she thinks the whole thing is a waste of time. At one point the head instructor yells, "Jill, how you doing back there." and they go to a close up of Jill who says "oh..um...it's great!" really sarcastically and then blatantly rolls her eyes. I bet she's thinking about what a kiss ass Kimber is too.

I Read a Book!

I finished a book and had to post about it because all of you who really know me, know what a rare occasion it is. I read Omerta by Mario Puzo. It was ok. If you like Puzo's stuff, then I would read it, but if you haven't read anything by him before I'd start with a different one. Both The Godfather (of course) and The Sicilian were better.

Lost: Trophy

A certain place i work for lost a certain trophy and let's just say we hope that Texas has it. It was presented to Coach Mack Brown who then gave it back to us and then we gave it to someone to fed ex to Texas, but we don't know who we gave it to or where exactly it is. This is just like the Heisman getting stolen all over again.

A Travesty

I just saw that Timothy Goebel is 5th after the short routine in the US Figure Skating Championships. If he does not make the Olympic team, I will completely FREAK OUT! By the way, I have an autographed copy of this picture. Not as good as the picture of him sitting on a block of ice, but it will do.

This job is killing me!

Sunday night I started having heart palpitations. It basically feels like your heart is fluttering and then sometimes it feels like your heart forgot to beat and suddenly beats really hard trying to catch up. Yesterday I finally went to the doctor and they said blah blah blah it's probably just stress (from my job of course), but we'll give you an EKG anyway.

If you've never had an EKG, it's really weird. They put all these 3M sticky tabs all over you and hook a bunch of mini jumper cable looking things to the tabs. Then it prints out what your heart beat looks like for like 20 seconds or whatever. Well apparently mine was abnormal. All the beats weren't equally spaced apart like they should be. So now I have to go in to the cardiologist tomorrow where they hook up a little portable machine that I'll wear for 24 hours and also keep a log of everything I do (4:47 PM: blogged) Then go back and have them read it. I just know this all relates back to my job and how much it is sucking!

Random Thought

If you only had one leg, would you feel ripped off when buying a pair of shoes? I would

Project Linus

If anyone is looking for a good service project, I found a great one! Last night at our church we made blankets for Project Linus. Project Linus is a national organize that provides security through blankets to seriously ill or traumatized children (including teenagers). (This includes kids in hospital, kids taken by child protective services, and kids whose parents are in hospice care. They take all kinds of blankets from very simple (fleece with scallop cut edges) to quilts and crocheted blankets. Last night we made no sew knotted fleece blankets (very quick and easy). If you want more information or to find out who your local chapter contact is go to www.projectlinus.org. I think it's a great project because you can work on it on your own time, even when your watching TV.

I Watch Too Much TV

The other night on Comedy Central I saw a commercial for "Guys Gone Wild". Yes, you read that correctly. The makers who brought you Girls Gone Wild bring you Guys Gone Wild. A scary thought in itself. It was basically what you would expect: shirtless guys frolicking in sand and surf and every once in a while pulling their shorts down, but then the voice over said something like "and see what happens when frat boys get a little too crazy" and then it shows guys climbing on each other and stuff...I don't want to see that!

In an unrelated story, I didn't get the job in PA, and am still searching if anyone hears of any sort of marketing related opening let me know. Though yesterday on the bus trip to DePaul there was a certain loud mouthed former coworker of mine who's "position was eliminated" (read: was fired) four months ago and still hasn't found a job. Shocking!!

In really unrelated news, you know what I love about the alumni magazine? Reading that someone you knew joined the seminary. Fellow alums, check it out!

Dancing with the Stars

How painful was it to watch Master P and Kenny Mayne last night? It looked like a little kid dancing with their grandparent at a wedding, where the kid is like spinning all around and hyper and the grandparent is just kinda moving their arms back and forth.

I've Lost Interest

I've lost interest in telling about my trip to Arizona, so I'm going to give a brief run down and then if anyone has more questions, you'll have to ask.

We left on my birthday which was kinda a bummer because nothing really special happened on my birthday. Maybe i've been spoiled with really cool parties when I was little, but I was kinda bummed out. Because our flight was so early, I opened the presents from my parents the day before. Then we got on a flight, checked into the hotel and went out for dinner. I didn't get to pick where we went to eat nor did I get embarrassment from the waiters. So except from a few greatly appreciated text messages and phone calls from friends, you wouldn't have known that it was my birthday. I was in sunny Arizona though.

The next day was the parade and block party. The block party also included a ND pep rally where the speaker was some former swimmer who had been in a car accident or something. Really earth shattering stuff. We also saw some motorcross jumpers which were pretty cool and a mediocre magician.

The next day was touristy stuff. Some Indian ruins, Biosphere 2, and a mining town. At Biosphere 2 our guide was Claudio who actually had a hand in building the thing, or at least thinks he did. Anytime someone on the tour would ask a question he would act like they were an idiot...good times.

Next day was the game...we all know about that already.

Then we flew home.

The END

Yoga Booty Ballet

I haven't posted anything about my vacation yet because I've been too busy playing with my new ipod. However, this needed to be posted. On the TV Guide channel this morning there was a infomercial for the Yoga Booty Ballet workout videos. It looks like a workout for stripper wannabees. They have a move called the "bad kitty". And yet, I kinda want it.

I'm Back!!

This post is going to be mostly random thoughts about Ohio State and some other things that tie in. Then tomorrow (if I remember and feel like it) you'll get some other information about my vacation. On another note about a previous post D's mom M disappeared on Dec. 26th with one of her other kids, dropped that kid off 3 days later and disappeared again (fun times!!)

Things about Ohio State (I couldn't bring myself to put either the O or Brutus the Buckeye as a picture, so you get nothing)

1). I have to say my experiences with the OSU fans was generally good. I was a little nervous going in because my marketing director went to a game at Ohio State when she was an ND student and got pelted with Buckeyes. I guess neutral fields always help. But honestly, except for some dirty looks, no problems. I mean we were even staying at an OSU hotel (which we didn't know until we arrived, I assure you) with 400 people wearing red and not once did I have to pull my mom off of some obnoxious fan.

2) That time "incomplete pass" was not an incomplete pass. Unless there was some other angle which they refused to show on the jumbo tron, that replay was total BS. a) you can not tuck the football, if you have not already caught the football b) even if he was bobbling the football, there is no way you can overturn that based on that angle. If anyone saw a bag of peanuts fly onto the field right after that, that was my section.

3) This one was going to be that Brutus the Buckeye looks like a Hershey Kisskin without the top, but since I couldn't find a picture of one and 99% of you have no idea what a kisskin is, I'll move on.

4) The whole script Ohio, sousaphone dotting the i thing...I don't get it

5) If I hear Hang On Sloopy one more time, I'm going to lose my mind!!!

6) Have you ever seen those Notre Dame shirts that say "Got Eleven?" and then on the back it says "We do" and has a picture of eleven national championship trophies. Well, I saw an Ohio State shirt that was exactly this same, but red instead of navy and seven instead of eleven. We were walking back to the car and I saw this guy walking toward me with a "Got Seven?" shirt on and I turned around so I could see the back, fully expecting it to have some smart ass remark about Notre Dame on it, but it didn't. It just said "We do" and had seven trophies. Not only is it stupid to even produce such a shirt, but What a stupid shirt to wear when you play Notre Dame. Save it for when you're playing Indiana, jackass!!

7) They're one Hail Ohio song sounds like the theme from the Goonies

8) Maurice Clarett. Not related totally to the Fiesta Bowl, but is he the stupidest person on the face of the earth? For those of you that don't know, Maurice Clarett was charged with armed robbery in Columbus, OH. That's like Mickey Mouse robbing a bank in Disneyworld. I can picture it now:
Officer: Can you describe the man who robbed you?
Victim: Yes, it was Maurice Clarett
Officer: You mean the man looked similar to Maurice Clarett
Victim: No, I mean it was Maurice Clarett
Idiot probably had on his OSU letter jacket or something too.

Ok, that's all my OSU thoughts for now. More on my trip later