RyRySays

I am going to profess my new secret shame (as opposed to the others I've shared with all of you, some of you or the ones I will take to my grave): I still love New Kids on the Block.

I had the albums, except the horrible last one before the melt down in the 90s. "Popsicle" is still one of my all time favorite songs and never fails to make me smile - just ask my sister. Joey & Jordan were my favorites and I had posters, and buttons (Joey had a big one, Jordan had a little one). I think if Jordan wasn't sporting a rat-tail he would have been my fave. I had a video (as in VHS tape) of "backstage" that I got for a birthday one year. It was love.

When I read about the reunion on yahoo! after the announcement on the Today show, I was so excited! I waited for awhile before I decided to buy the new album because I was gun shy - would it bring me back? I bought the new New Kids album a few weeks ago because I had to go to Best Buy and it was on sale. Plus I liked that "Summertime" song. The album is so deliciously awful/good. There are some songs that are so stupid you can't help laughing. Then they get in your head and you love them!! One that I can specifically reference is "Dirty Dancing". The lyrics are somewhat ridiculous, but it has a good back beat and it's catchy man. Just like the old school version.

On a slightly different topic, I never liked the fact that they "changed" the name to NKOTB. That's just dumb. It's ok to have it as shorthand on merchandise, like the Weezer ""W"", but it takes just as long to say and it's just dumb.

Additionally, to add to the shame, I watched the VH1 Behind the Music on the New Kids the other night. I wasn't as excited as Maria Menudos, but it was damn close. Oh how I often miss the 80s, and I'm glad that they're back, albeit with a stronger bass.

Someone who watches Dancing with the Stars, please help me. Every time they show the band and the singers (who are great, don't get me wrong), there is a woman in the front who ALWAYS has some weird thing on her head. Is it a religious thing? Does she think it just looks cool? Is she somehow obsessed with Stars Wars & the Princess Leia costume? Please tell me why she wears it!!! I so want to make fun of it, but if it's like a thing that keeps her wig on to cover up early baldness or something, I don't want to bring that karma my way - I already have thin enough hair as is.

On a side note about DWTS, the show is still annoying me. 2 hours is way too damn long. Maybe I'm just getting a little bored with it. Unlike So You Think You Can Dance, they really haven't added anything "new" to the show. Yeah, it gets new celebrities and they try to mix it up, but when you have the same 6 dances, and then get yelled at by a judge when you add different choreography, there's not much else you can do. I really loved seasons 2-whatever the last one was, but for some reason, I'd rather watch the crappy (albeit awesome) teeny bopper shows that share the same time slot instead and catch the recap on ABC.com instead.

Also, the dancers don't get to pick their own music, so if you're going to give them "I Kissed a Girl" for the paso, then expect something not typical. If you want it to be fair, they should all have similar music. Shut it Len.

I don't know why this bothered me, but the fact that not only did I learn about Paul Newman's death on ESPN's scroll under NASCAR, but I didn't hear about it on other channels until the next day. That's just sad to me. Yes, I spent most of Saturday watching football, but still, I watched some E! and some other stations. Still don't know why it bugs me, but it does.

Also, yay USC loss and yay Florida loss and I'm pretending that a certain other game just didn't happen so yay that too! I suppose if we had to lose, this was the week to do it, and we came back respectfully (well at least it wasn't a blow out). Sadness.

So even though I am closer to 30 than to oh say 14, I am still getting pimples. It's not horrible, in fact I don't even have a dermatologist to deal with it. I'm sure the main reason I'm still getting them is stress. All I know is that I have a lump on my chin that is god awful right now. I don't know if this has happened to anyone else, but basically, 3 or 4 pimples got together to form one huge zit. That's right, I have the Voltron of pimples. Unfortunately, unlike the cartoon/comic, they have decided to band together for evil instead of good. Now I must come up with a plan to wipe out their power to take over my face. The problem is, I can't stop myself from messing with it, which exacerbates the problem. Hopefully a big dose of Oxy will do the trick. We will find out in the morn.

I got the following in an email from a friend a few days ago. I don't know where the original article was published, but I am sure you could Google it or try the AJC or Red & Black for starters. The Lewis, by the way, is Lewis Grizzard. It was too good not to re-post, but I can't take any credit for it:

Greatest headline in the history of sports journalism . . .
On the eve of the UGA/South Carolina game 41 years ago, I was hanging out with three of my fraternity brothers (the Hound, Tex , and Bake), drinking a few cold PBRs at the old Callaway Gardens Apartment on the Atlanta Highway . We were discussing the upcoming game against the Gamecocks and lamenting the fact that we were going in with several key players out with injuries, including our starting DE, Billy Payne and his roommate, MLB, Happy Dicks.

About 10:00, another fraternity brother, Lewis, came in after he got off work. Our buddy was inactive at the time because he had gotten married over the summer to his high school sweetheart, Nancy. In addition to taking a full load at the university, he was working two jobs to help pay for (as he called it) "this expensive habit". A talented young man, he was writing two columns daily - one in the morning for the Athens Banner Herald and one in the afternoon for the Athens Daily News.

Lewis walked in, went straight to the refrigerator, got a beer, plopped down in a chair, pushed his glasses back up his nose and announced, "Gentlemen, with any luck at all, tomorrow morning you'll witness journalistic history. I have submitted my column and if it gets by my editor - and there's a good chance of that happening, since he "took drunk" earlier this evening - you'll enjoy the greatest headline in the history of sports journalism."

He refused to tell us what it was, and to be honest with you, we all forgot about it. As Lewis went home to his lovely, young bride, the four of us went back over to the fraternity house to get a head start on the weekend.

The next morning, as usual, I went straight for the Sports Section. As I pulled it out, I could do nothing but smile, because our buddy had pulled it off. To this day, Vince Dooley calls it his most memorable column ever - all because of the headline, which read:

DOGS TO PLAY COCKS WITH DICKS OUT

There's no doubt about it, it was "the greatest headline in the history of sports journalism".

I've only told maybe 3 people about one of my football superstitions that I am about to share with you. Since my freshman year at UGA, I've worn red underwear on game day. I know that my choice of undergarment really doesn't decide the outcome of games. There have been a few times where I was wearing red and Georgia lost. But, I can tell you, the few times I did not wear red, we lost - such as last year's loss to South Carolina.

The reason I decided to bring this up is because of yesterday's game against SC. The game was at 3:30 & I had to leave my house at 5 to go to some work thing. I decided to stay in pjs until I had to take a shower and leave. I was not wearing red underwear at that time. By the time I hit the shower, Georgia was up 3-0. As I was in the shower, the Gamecocks went ahead 7-3 (still no red unmentionables). I put on red underwear and what happens? We go to the end zone and the half runs out. Then, with the red drawers - we win 14-7. Coincidence that we were losing without the red panties and that we won once I got them on? Probably, but that fact will keep my superstition alive and means that I must go buy some more.

So a few weeks ago my car was smelling like gas every time I drove it (fuel gas not butt gas). I sort of ignored it for awhile because I was afraid it was a transmission problem and I really can't afford a new transmission, plus the thing is a 96 Villager so it's probably not worth the $$. I know, it's stupid to wait on something like that because if the problem is caught early, it's easier to fix. But, whatever.

Then I drove to Raleigh 2 weekends ago and my brother and his roommate both yelled at me because of the smell etc. I waited until this Monday to go to a garage. The main reason I went is because the smell was stronger than ever and then the car stalled. Luckily I got it to the garage without it stalling again.

When I got there, I told them what the problem was and asked them to take a look. One of the mechanics stopped me as I was filling out some paperwork and said, "You can not drive that car!". He took me out and showed me a wet spot on the engine block. Apparently, my car was spraying gas on my engine. As in I am lucky as hell that I didn't get blown up. Oops. They told me they'd have to take apart some crap in order to see what was causing the problem and I asked them to take a look at my brakes while they were in there.

I got a call later in the afternoon and was preparing for the worst. I was hoping, just be less than $$ (not telling you how sad my budget is). Good news! My brakes are fine & they only had to replace 2 gas hoses - no transmission problems! $50!!! Yay!

When I went to pay, a different mechanic came in and showed me the hoses. The rubber was so corroded that it had spider webbed and cracked and you basically see through it. Oops again. Now I know better - if you smell gas, go asap to shop. Thanks for looking out for me guardian angel!

I love when UGA is in the news, on ESPN etc. So you can imagine how happy I was when I opened up a window (my home page is yahoo) actually to post about something else and the top headline story was about Knowshon Moreno jumping over a Central Michigan guy in last week's game. Here's the link to the story and the video clip. Coolio.

What I was actually going to post about the new series Fringe on Fox. I watched it because of Pacey (damn Joshua Jackson keeps getting hotter and hotter - and I loved him from the first Mighty Ducks on). I actually kind of like the show so far. It's a little X-Files, which I watched religiously, but then grew out of. The stuff they were showing though was pretty gross. I hope it doesn't stop me watching the show, but I really don't need to see someone's face fall off. And I hope only the pilot will be an hour and a half, because with my lack of DVR, it cuts into Greek and that's all I have to say about that.

Additionally, I found this website a few months ago and just was reminded of it recently. I love Scrubs. I watch it almost everyday at one of the multiple times it's on. Oddly I haven't seen most of last season's episodes because they keep not showing them. I like the characters, actors etc. but I do think they have an excellent music director who picks some great songs. I actually have a bunch of them. Anyway, I saw an episode last week which led to me downloading this song. I love it! It's very dirty, but with a kind of melody where if you're not really paying attention it sounds sweet, which is another reason I like it.

First, it always makes me miss vacation when I open a book and sand falls out. Although it's slightly annoying if you've just changed the sheets.

Second, I felt like the worst fan ever earlier this week when I found out that Sugarland had a new CD out and I hadn't heard anything about it. A girl at work happened to have the CD, was playing a song and I thought the voice sounded familiar. Then I went and bought the extended version. Pretty good. It's like their other CDs though in that they have all the fast songs first and then the end gets really slow. I do like the couple live songs they do.

Third, which I guess is slightly related to the second, so my title is wrong, is I'm old. I don't really listen to the radio that much anymore (which is why I didn't know about the Sugarland song) because I have CDs and/or my Ipod on instead. I'm only in the car for about 20 minutes each way, and I hate talk radio, so I never have the radio on in the morning and generally if it's on in the evening it's on an oldies station or one that plays classic rock or 80s. The girls in the front listen to one most of the day and that's when I hear new songs. What made me think I'm old though is that tonight was the 25th VMAs on MTV. I knew about 1/2 of the acts and I hated the other ones. This is what people call music?? I have turned into an old person!

This weekend I went to Raleigh. I hadn't seen my brother since the beach, and he's going to get his assignment any day now, so I want to spend time with him while I can. Plus, the UGA v. GA Southern game was on PPV and I wanted to watch it at Sammy's with the Raleigh Alumni Association. That's my brother on the damn front page by the way. I was sitting across the table from him but was cut off. I'm not totally pissed because it would have been a god awful picture of me, and I don't need that on the internet, but seriously, he didn't go there and he was wearing a shirt he stole from me 3 years ago! Sons a bitches. Also the guy standing in front of the TV had a hat that had a super G on it that would light up. It was cute. Then again he left at halftime.

Anyway, after the game (Go Dawgs!) we went to play disk golf with second brother and his girlfriend and I got the shit bit out of me by mosquitoes. Then Sunday we kind of hung around and tried to go golfing but were lightninged out. When we got home 2nd bro said, "Are we having family fun night?" and it made me all squishy inside because I love that stuff. M&S taught me & my brother a new card game that their grandpa plays at the Moose Lodge called scat. It was fun. Then we played various other board games including Mad Gab, which I had never really played before. Some of them were hilarious.

Overall we really didn't do anything special, but that's what I like about going up there. I have people I love around me and we can do or not do something and it's all good. They like it when I go up there because, although they won't admit it, they love Layla (aka Henry to them) and because I help them clean their house. And because, while they could play all the same stuff we played this weekend, they don't without me.