The Nickname Game

It's really kinda interesting how I just noticed this. I was IMing a friend of mine and she mentioned "Army Boy" and I knew exactly who she was talking about and just didn't even think anything about it. Then she went on to mention another dude that she calls "Asian Boy" and again, I totally knew who she was talking about and it got me to thinking about how it's so funny that I ONLY know these people by the nicknames she had assigned to them.

Then there's my blogmate, Maggie. She's notorious for assigning nicknames to people. Particularly people at work. And I swear, there are times that I had no idea what people's real names were when she actually said their real names. Sometimes, I still stutter in my head like "Hold up, this one is this guy".

And so when the first friend with the Army Boy was talking to me today, I started thinking, "Hmm, is this something that is just more common nowadays for people to do?" cause more and more of my friends are doing this and it's so hilarious. I don't generally do it...unless I don't know someone's name at all and then I use a descriptor but it's so funny just how a nickname can be assigned to someone when they're in a new situation and it can totally just stick. Maggie's got the innate ability to make them stick both when conveying stories and when speaking to the person directly and getting other people to use the same name. You gotta respect the fact that there's no shame there. Not a lot of people have a power that strong.

Call/Text/Twitter/Myspace/Facebok/Me. Love ya!

With the addition of the Facebook chat-toolbar-make-it-easier-than-ever-to-stalk-your-friends-thingie, I've now come to the conclusion that its completely impossible to NOT communicate with your friends anymore.

Cell phones are one thing. Calling, texting, hell I call people from my purse sometimes without even meaning to do it. (Has that ever happened to you? The background noises ALWAYS make it sound like one of your dear friends is being kidnapped and shoved into a trunk or something. Its always somewhat alarming.) Texting is handy when you have things to say but don't really feel like actually talking to someone, or are in a place where actually having your phone to your ear is not the best plan of action. But now, with the plethora of social networking sites and instant messaging applications, I almost feel like I work for some secret government agency tracking those fondest to me at any given moment.

Myspace and Facebook alone offer the abilities to blog, comment, chat instantly with your friends, and be "cryptic" and "mysterious" with status updates, as well as updating everyone you know, wish you knew, knew ten years ago and can't remember why you stopped talking to them in the first place, or don't know at all but didn't want to offend by denying their display of cyber friendship the opportunity to be notified whenever YOU update something. You can spill your soul, pimp your favorite artists *cough* Matt Nathanson *cough*, and look like you have way too much free time by posting obnoxious glittery kittens and unicorns all over your friends pages. Its fun, I swear.

Sites like Twitter take it a step further. Twitter offers you the opportunity to type or text update to their site that you can then post on your other social networking sites of choice. The problem here becomes that some people abuse the privilege (I'm looking at you, Matt Morris), and will sometimes post so frequently that its nearly a minute by minute feed. I don't really need to know you that well dude, just get the album out already. K thanks.

There are sites like LastFM.com, Goodreads.com,and Dvd Profiler, which allow you to meticulously track the songs you listen to, the books you read, and the movies that you watch. There are also sites that allow you to go so far as to keep a record of what you consumed that day, or keep track of everything from what medicines you took, to your menstrual cycle.

A quick Google of the two screen names I use the most often brings up my recent message board posts, my LastFm and Twitter accounts, and a host of links to online friends of mine, among other things that I either participate in, or signed up for and long forgot.

The point is this - I'm a solitary person by nature. Luckily I have the type of friends who understand for the most part that its exhausting for me to be with people in a social setting, and every now and then I just have to isolate and take some me time, plug in and recharge my batteries. With the advent of constant communication, this has nearly become impossible. Dropping off the radar for a day or two is no longer an option without a barrage of messages, emails, texts, etc - all wondering where I am and if I'm okay, and if I've thought about contacting someone for the obvious depression that I must have going on if I simply haven't felt like talking to anyone for a few days.

I'm an open book by nature. I'm obnoxiously outgoing, I'm definitely not the type of girl to have secrets. This is probably a good thing, because in this day and age its simply not possible anymore.

Passing the Teeth Whitening Time

Since the Crest Whitening Strips call for 30 minutes to work and I'm the asshole who put them on at 1am, how's about I do a little blog since I'm a week late on fulfilling my promise to blog more from last weekend.

So, here goes...random weekend ramblings:

• Friendly's isn't as much fun when you're trying to eat right: I think I had my first meal at Friendly's in years that didn't include some form of ice cream topped with peanut butter sauce and man, that makes me sad.
• Visitors from NYC love places like Target/Walmart: This weekend it was Walmart. And as much as I said to myself since their last PR disaster that showed their true colors that I wouldn't go there, I reluctantly went and well, ended up spending more money than I really should've (But Rocky IV and Spaceballs were 2 for $10!! And I got a "Rehash Your Trash" shirt for Earth Day!). Damn you, Target for not having any 24 stores!
• Old Country Buffet is not as much fun when you're trying to eat right: Like my Friendly's outing OCB just doesn't have the same magic when you're spending the majority of your time with the fruits and veggies.
  
• Early Sunday Morning Workouts: And by early, I mean 9am. Yeah, so because I had somewhere to be (oh, that's coming next), I had to visit the gym this morning earlier than I'm truly functioning on most work days. I think I got kinda overzealous and ended up not even being able to get the workout in that I wanted because I got so out of breath with one of the exercises that I had to take a 5 minute break and catch my breath. Haven't ever felt that way before but now I know I gotta pace myself better.
• Wedding Expos are interesting: Visited an Expo this morning with an engaged friend and I've found that locally, there are some odd, odd brides. The kind that makes a single girl go, "Um, yeah, I guess there's hope for me yet!" The Male Stripper scene in the Philadelphia area are kinda rough looking but apparently some women dig skeevy overgrown Carmine Gotti wannabes. Who knew that boudoir photo books were gifts brides can give to their husbands on their wedding nights...funny, I thought he was getting the real thing and not pictures that night.
• Priceline actually does work: Got a hotel for the upcoming Memphis trip (oh yeah, I'm gonna Twitter on that bitch Matt Morris style, baby!)
• Being on call is both good and bad: As I am about to wind down from my long day of working out and then Bridal Expoing, I get a call from the job. I get paid overtime but dammit, I want to sleep. Blah, I hope this is an easy one.

And now, the whitening strips are done doing their whitening and I must say goodbye. Yay for another week bringing me closer to vacation!

Maggie makes a promise!

It's well documented that I'm terribly anal about my music collection. Everything is meticulously tagged and organized, with correct track names, album art, etc. The problem with this is that every time I add a new album to my external hard drive, I have to go through the entire song and dance of adding it to my iTunes and Zune software, and tinkering with the names until everything falls perfectly into place and all is right with the world. I always find something else to fix (the next undertaking will be updating everything so it falls into the correct genre. Why? I'm not sure.)

The only problem with my extreme obsessive compulsive tendencies over my music collection is that I have so much music, and so much that I'll never get around to listening to that its almost disturbing. iTunes alone harbors 66.05 (37.2 days) of music, and thats just the tip of the iceberg. My hard drive is the home of well over 100 gigs of music. From Aaliyah to Zero 7, tons and tons of albums, most of which I'll probably never ever listen to.

So my personal challenge is this: once a week I'm going to try and listen to an album that I have, but have never listened to before. I'll step away from the Matt Nathanson's of the world and expand my musical horizons a bit. There are sure to be hilarious reviews to come!

We suck at blogging.

We totally do. And I intend to at least try to do something to pull my weight here soon...just not now cause I don't have much to say and should probably be in bed. But for sure, at some point this weekend, I will blog at least once. I promise!