Burritos on a Plane!

My favorite column on cnn.com:

Kim Kardashian: 'I didn't cause plane stench'

http://www.cnn.com/2010/SHOWBIZ/04/30/kim.kardashian.burrito.plane.ppl/index.html?hpt=Sbin

Must Have Been the Squirrel Meat

Playing homage to my favorite early 90’s flick, Troop Beverly Hills, I felt compelled to purchase this luggage tag yesterday…I love not camping. "There are no outlets, and there are bugs and it rains there…"
Off to Sarasota for the rest of the week where we’re definitely not camping!

If there was a bucket of things: Part IV

If there was a bucket of things I don’t appreciate, the creepy Italian guy who’s in the kickboxing class after my Tabata interval class at Equinox would be in that bucket. Every Monday, I rush out of work to get to my Tabata class at the Equinox on Michigan by 5:30. Tabata is a method of interval training where you complete 8 20 second sets of 6 exercises with 10 seconds in between sets and 1 minute in between each interval. To put it in perspective for anyone who ever was given workouts by Peter Teagen, it looks something like this: 6(20’x8, 10’ rest). No CCP allowed in this class!  These ‘excersises’ range anywhere from jumping lunges on a bosu ball as fast as you can to burpees to essentially a one footed standing long jump onto a bosu (no idea how no one broke their ankles but I got some mad props from my instructor about how far I could standing LJ….duh. She said I was smiling and everyone else was pissed because it was so awkward. Score.). We go through lots of ‘Day at the Beach” type plyo drills (to all you tracksters out there who know how glorious plyo’s in the sand pit are) so I feel great after a half hour class of Tabata, followed by another rhalf hour or “above the belt” work (arms, abs). By the end of the hour, your whole body is just drained. Don’t get me wrong, the 300 cals you burn in the first half hour alone is completely work it and I love the class…up until about 6:29. The kickboxing class that follows my Tabata/Above the Belt class is full of a bunch of those annoying people who HAVE to be at the front of the class right next to the teacher. My Tabata class is tough so not many gym-goers attend, so naturally I’m at the front of the room closer to the middle. At the end of every class, I have at least a bosu ball, 2 sets of weights, an elastic cord, and a yoga mat to put away, it’s kind of a hectic 2 minutes after you just worked your bum off (hopefully literally at some point). In the middle of the ruckus, this creepster, Italian guy runs to the front of the room, right in the middle of my station and just stands there waiting for his kickboxing class to start. How do I know he’s Italian? Well he wears a Ferrari shirt every Monday and looks like Giles from DWTS. One of these days, I’m going to muster up the energy and stay for kickboxing just to be like, “dude get out of my spot.” That’ll show him. If the death stares and eye rolls I’ve already thrown his way when he does this EVERY MONDAY haven’t worked yet, maybe this will. Get in the bucket Ferrari!

Volcanic Ash Over Chicago?

So I’m going to Florida with Dave, Laura & Joe next week to escape a multitude of things (clients, taxes, law books, the funky smell seeping into my apartment from my neighbors) and for some reason we’re all acting like we forgot what the sun looks like. I felt something strange, yet familiar, yesterday when I stepped outside after work, but not sure it was warmth. Perhaps some of that volcanic ash traversed across the Atlantic and hovered above Chicago for 36 hours. If global warming will have a similar effect on Chicago-area weather, then sign me up. Maybe I’ll visit my local Hummer dealership on my lunch break. That whole warm thing is already gone, which makes me think it wasn’t the sun, and now it’s all cold and windy again. But alas, come Wednesday night, I’ll be submersed in 80 degree weather, numb by a 24 hour mimosa-educed buzz, and walking/stumbling along the Sarasota shoreline collecting shells like a 5 year old. Can’t wait!

New Orbit Flavor Alert: Lime Melon

Against my jaw's wishes, I chew through at least a half pack of Orbit gum per day.  Imagine my excitement when I left the 7-11 on State yesterday with a NEW FLAVOR! Lime Melon essentially tastes like every other fruity flavor, except it says NEW on it, which (if I've learned anything from Deb) makes it better.

SATC 2

It's completely cliche to admit, but I'm pretty psyched about SATC 2 coming out at the end of May.  Especially after seeing the newest trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjWl-82Yau4

Aiden??
The Middle East??
Carrie's closet??
Camel Toe??

Gettin' Luck with Bucky...and Maybe Even Ditty Again?

Yes I'm an obsessive planner and everything, but this is a specific case where obsessive planning is completely necessary. If you live under a rock and don't know yet, Bucky's doing Vegas over Labor Day and basically if you love Bucky, you'll also be doing Vegas over Labor Day (TWSS).  If you're not in Vegas over Labor Day weekend, you'll promptly be placed on Bucky's shit list and let me tell you that's a not a list you want to be on.  It's like the antithesis of being on Schindler's list.  Yea real bad, like holocaust bad.  Anyway, JT$ and I already booked tickets since they keep getting more and more expensive because HELLO it's Labor Day weekend!  We found direct flights out of Midway on Southwest leaving our beloved Chicago around 3:30pm on 9/2 and returning on 9/5 around 5:15pm.  This allows for us to work a half day on that Thursday and still stay in Vegas long enough to crawl into Hard Rock Rehab on Sunday for long enough to only make questionable decisions as opposed to bad decisions. English Rugby players anyone?  Here are some highlights from the last Bucky Double-Down:

Jessica Simpson at Salt?

My boss Bob lovessss to play long, drawn out, April Fools-ish jokes on every new employee at Salt. It was only a matter of time before we collectively got him back. That day was April 1st, 2010. We all had to traverse over a plethora of lighting equipment, extension cords, and people we didn't know to climb the stairs up to the Salt offices in the morning. Apparently all the hubub was just for a Raymond James commercial and we wouldn’t be experiencing any fabulous celeb sightings. It didn't occur to us until about half way through the day that this could ultimately set the stage for the greatest prank Salt has ever seen. Our Art Director Tony decided we should take a picture of me outside in the middle of all the commercial lights and Photoshop a celeb’s head on my body. We ended up going with Jessica Simpson (B list) to make the whole scam more believable. Below is the end result which we then sent in an email to Bob with the following note:
“Hey Bob!
Salt logo in US Weekly?
When we all arrived at work this morning, we were greeted by giant lights and cords, etc. We were all a little confused because they’re filming in the Raymond James office on the 1st floor so guessed we assumed was something to do with RJ. Since it was 80 degrees and sunny today, a bunch of us went to Quartino’s for lunch and when we came back, there were some random people standing in front of the building taking pictures. It turns out Jessica Simpson is filming some sort of romantic comedy in Chicago and used the office on the first floor (soooo random) for a scene. See the pics attached (looks like Ms. Simpson’s packed on some poundage :-)). j/k She looked great!
Just though you’d all like to know and maybe the Salt logo will be in a tabloid next week?? -ae”
Genius. He apparently forwarded the email to a bunch of family and friends and was in complete shock when I had to break the news to him the following day. Score. Going down in the history books as the #2 April Fools Day prank of all time for me, 2nd of course to the 1998 prank involving my middle school guy friends, a Playboy mag, and our school VP.  But that's a story for another day...

Macgruber: the Ultimate Tool

For those of you who haven't seen any Macgruber sketches on SNL, sorry you're so lame.  But don't worry, help is on the way to bring you back to awesomeness.  For those of you who have a life on Saturday night and/or do not know how to work your DVR, you'll be able to experience the Macgruber phenomenon on the big screen (coming soon).  Apparently the group behind the original Macgyver show are not thrilled with a parody of their thrilling early 90's series turning into a feature film, but c'mon like Macgyver series DVDs are flying off the shelves. Flawless execution of Macgruber's mullet: check. Non-broadcast TV friendly trailer: check >> http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/universal/macgruber/