A Second Helping of Schadenfreude

There are 32 teams in the National Football League. There is no team I enjoy rooting against more than the New England Patriots.

There are 32 starting quarterbacks in the National Football League. There is no quarterback I enjoy seeing lose more than Tom Brady.

While pulling against these two entities is the popular thing to do for a multitude of reasons, I have my own reason for sending no love in their direction. Watching your team lose the Super Bowl sucks, but with their two loses to the Giants, I'm able to take a little bit of joy in knowing that Tom Brady, the Patriots, and their fans are familiar with that feeling too.

Sure, the New England Patriots have three Lombardi Trophies in a case somewhere in Foxboro. Even so,  it's nice to know that they (once again) won't be adding a fourth any time soon. Go Giants.

The Dog Search, Pt. 1

...as told by Emily:

We went to the animal shelter yesterday [Saturday], as we are beginning the process of looking for a dog. I fell head over heels in love with this one, Cooper. He’s a beautiful dog. He’s got lots of energy and seems really smart. I feel like while training will take work but he’s definitely trainable. The volunteers said he’d do better in a rental where he doesn’t have a yard to roam free in since he likes to jump fences. And he can definitely jump high. They said he’d do well as an only dog to start with, which he would be too. And he needs lots of walks/people who’d be active with. I would love a jogging partner.

He’s been at the shelter for 13 months and just hasn’t found a home. Seriously, he’s a sweet heart though. I had treats in my hand which he gobbled up, but he was very careful not to bite my hand at all. I bent down to pat him and he was all about giving me kisses. He LOVES other dogs and are very curious about them. He only started barking when 1 dog came out, even though there were about 5 others out there. Terence and I think he wasn’t a huge fan of that dog.  As soon as we brought him back to his kennel he went in with no problems, didn’t try to escape, just stayed there and drank some water.

I want to give him a home. We’re calling our complex to talk future rates today. Rent increased a lot last go around. So we’re going to see what predictions are for when our lease is running up. If it seems reasonable we’re staying put and we’ll put the pretty high pet fee in. If it seems unreasonable we’re going to look at moving which means we’ll need to wait to get the dog. I like this apartment and I really want a dog so I’m hoping things aren’t bad.

After we call today, if it seems like we can’t get Cooper. I’m calling to donate $20 towards his adoption fee. He already has a $40 donation. The fees for dogs are $95 total. So that will make him only $35 and hopefully get him a home. He’s been there since he was 3 months…he needs a home. If I can’t be that home…I want to help him get one.

---------------

As if you couldn't tell in her writing, Emily is more than excited about getting a dog. Me? Well, as most of you know, I very rarely stray from the center so I'm neither excited nor unexcited about the whole thing, but I do like Cooper though. We only hung out with him for about 20 minutes or so, but in that time he filled most of my necessary prerequisites for a dog: he didn't bark a lot, he wasn't all about getting in my space, and he didn't look like he could be someone's fashion accessory. He was a bit overly energetic, but some of that can be trained away. Not all of it though - Em needs a running buddy.  As she mentioned, there's some logistical and financial things that need to fall into place before anything happens, but we'll see how things shake out. Though, with only two things on her wishlist (a KitchenAid Mixer being the other), the odds are good this story is going to wrap up as soon as she can arrange it to.

Things I Don't Miss

...at least not at this point in life.

• Working nights. My first big boy job was that of a second shift production supervisor. While I enjoy being up at 2am, I have no desire to be doing work at that time of morning.
• Working weekends. Same said job also came with frequent weekend stints. As did my second job, which was amazing considering no one knew we were even open on the weekends.
• Being single. As a guy, I’m not going to say that being single didn’t have its perks. Damn if it didn’t have its shortcomings too. But pros and CONS of being single aside, I love Emily and I have no plans on tossing her back anytime soon. Even if she does get on my case for not feeling the need to clean up every 18 seconds. (Pretty sure I’m going to get a mean side eye for that one…)
• Grad School. There is no bigger hustle in education than the one that says the Masters degree is important. They were already fairly common five years ago and by the time everyone gets done “escaping” this recession, everyone will have one. Long story short, it’s a fairly expensive and time consuming way of getting your “ticket punched.”
• Going clubbing / bar-hopping. It’s fun to do every now and then, but going out three to four nights a week really wasn’t a productive use of my time or money. I'm fairly certain that my liver thanks me for cutting this out of my life too.
• Going to strip clubs. Great for people watching, horrible for your savings account. On the bright side, it was more fun than throwing my money directly into a paper shredder, even if the end result was essentially the same.
• Making life more complicated that it needed to be. Your twenties are a time in your life when you really haven't accomplished anything, so more times than not you have to "fake it til you make it." Well, I'm "almost 30" and I don't think I've really accomplished anything, but I also feel like I don't have to "fake it" any more. I am who I am. I'm not a brand. I'm not a caricature. For better or worse, I'm a simple guy who loves the Internet, video games, and pro wrestling. I'm OK with that. If others aren't, then too bad.

Sunday Night Selections #MusicMonday

Sunday Night Selections - NOW WITH MORE SPOTIFY!

Chillwave
Artist: Washed Out
Song: "Feel It All Around"
Album: Life of Leisure (EP) (2009)
Tidbit: Best known as the theme to IFC darling, "Portlandia"

Listen on Spotify

Indie Pop
Artist: fun. ft Janelle Monae
Song: "We Are Young"
Album: Some Nights (Scheduled for release in February 2012)
Tidbit: "We Are Young" has been featured on "Glee," "Chuck," and WWE programming.

Listen on Spotify

Rap
Artist: Killer Mike
Song: "Ric Flair"
Album: PL3DGE (2011)
Tidbit: "Ric Flair" features snippets of interviews featuring "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair

Listen on Spotify

Electropop
Artist: Breathe Carolina
Song: "Blackout"
Album: Hell Is What You Make It (2011)
Tidbit: "Blackout" was deemed MTV Buzzworthy back in June of 2011. Pardon my surprise, but I didn't even know that the "Buzz Bin" still existed.

Listen on Spotify

2K11 Reflections: December

9 days after the beginning of the New Year, I'm finally at the point where I can wrap this series up. Next year, I'm going back to the standard "1 shot, 1 post" recap formula. This mess is for the birds...

Clemson defeats Virginia Tech to win the 2011 ACC Championship

Considering the way we limped into this game, this was probably our most surprising win of the season. After 20 years, it felt good to finally have that monkey off of our back. (As this is a 2011 recap, lets pretend the Orange Bowl hasn't happened yet, OK guys.)

Em turns XX years old

For her birthday, Em wanted to go to Charlotte to see "Being Elmo," the documentary detailing the life of Elmo puppeteer, Kevin Clash. Well, what Mama wants, Mama gets. We then ventured to Dave and Busters for dinner and gaming afterwards. There I found out that Em takes Whack-a-Mole a bit too serious.

Ring of Honor Wrestling

In December, I attended my first Ring of Honor show. After going, I'm definitely looking forward to going again. The action was fast and furious and worth every penny. Fun Facts about this show? Well 1) This Ring of Honor event was being held in the same building (Greensboro Coliseum) at the same time as the Disney on Ice "Dreams Come True" event (which I attended with Emily and our neighbor earlier in the week). The contrast in crowds could not have been any bigger. 2) With this event, I can say that I saw all three of the major US professional wrestling organizations in one calendar year. While not mentioned in my recaps, I attended a WWE Smackdown taping in April and an TNA Impact Wrestling house show in July.

Homebrew
Somewhere, Emily and I found the time to learn how to make beer and ice cream in our spare time. I don't know about her, but I'd much rather just buy both. Yes, I know I'm lazy.

Holidays

Even though we've been dating for a little more than two years, 2011 was the first time that Emily and I spent Christmas or New Year's together. Christmas was spent in New Hampshire with her family while New Year's was spent in Greensboro with some friends. While both were full of good food, good brews, and good times, one was definitely colder than the other. I'll leave it to you guys to guess which.

...and that's about it. I'm sure I left out some cool moments and glossed over some that I'm going to later wish I went into more detail on, but hey, those are the breaks. It was a good year and I thoroughly enjoyed digging through the memories that were created. Here's to hoping that 2012 is twice as good. Who am I kidding? I'll be happy if it's 80% as good.

Seriously ya'll, 2011 brought the thunder.