Flash what?

One of the more exciting things that I've done this year has been getting involved with a local flashmob group, The Societies of Spontaneity. "How?" you might be asking. Well, in my attempt to make new friends (aka meet a man) in Boston, I joined a meetup group called NerdFun. It was through them that I found a link to some even held by this BostonSOS. I went to the website and I was instantly in love. A whole group of people that like to do silly, random things just for fun? No shame whatsoever? It was my calling.

My first event was based on The Ministry of Silly Walks I met up with NerdFun and then we proceeded to meet up with BSOS at the Christian Science Center. This was when we were told the official details of our mission - to enter the fancy pants Prudential Shopping Center and walk around in the strangest fashion we could think of. Normal from the waist up, wacko from the waist down. Reactions were classic. I saw people walk into things from staring at us. Others just joined in for the heck of it. Security was FREAKED.  And I was in love.

For our flash mob anniversary, we had a simpler but still awesome mini-event. About 30 of us showed up on a weekday evening to pose as a group of communal cohabitants that were in the search of a new mattress for their love nest. We headed over to Macy's in downtown crossing and the adventure began! People piled up into beds everywhere. How many can we fit? This is too soft. I like this trundle. The buttons on this one hurt. This one is too thick. And so it went. Unfortunately, the mattress selling staff was off for the evening, so we didn't get to harass them too much. But the other staff was definitely getting a kick out of it. And we topped it off with a classy trip to Wendys.

One of my favorite events to date was the MP3Experience2010. In this event, everyone downloads an mp3 track, synchorizes their watches, and at the same time, we all begin listening and following the magical adventure directions given to us! This year, we were on a search for our inner child. Everyone had been asked to wear a red/green/blue/yellow shirt and most of the directions gave different people different assignments at different points. We had dance parties, hugged parts of the park that don't normally get hugged, gave high fives to each other, gave strangers high fives, searched for squirrels, formed a circle around the playground, played tag, walked in slow motion, walked in fast motion and just plain overall had fun. The audio from this track was amazing. And my favorite picture (and blog wallpaper) was snapped by a fellow blogger of me (and the yellows) being the sun!

http://sergioni.com/post/1287029114/hurray-taken-with-instagram-at-mp3-exp

A quickie but goodie was when we invaded the opening of a new dog park in Somerville. But did we bring our dogs? Of course not. We all had those invisible dog leashes, named our new pups and brought them to the park to meet people, run around, poop, eat, use the agility course and make friends. Most people took it really well and were more than happy to talk to me and Copernicus, but a few were a little put off. Just some average, good ol' silliness.

Care of  our wonderful photographer, Chris A.

Finally, there was NoPants2011, but I think I'll have to do a whole blog for that one. Being part of BostonSOS has been AWESOME for me this year.I've always had just silly friends - the kind where everyone thinks your drunk when you're totally sober and just being yourselves. Yeah, that was us. And now I have new amazing friends (not to mention just random people at every event) that love doing just the same kind of thing. Silliness for the sake of silliness. I hope that I'll always be able to remember that life is fun and to live it that way. What a great community. <3

Coming soon!

The Highlander: 1999-2003; Why am I sharing this? Part 1

Unlike most people in highschool, I think we had a fairly enjoyable time. It's begun to occurr to me, that these amazing memories are going to slowly disappear into oblivion, which when you have stories like stealing chess club, operation gobble gobble, coyneclops and hand made IUD's in health class just is not acceptable. So I'm going to start compiling some of mine here and damn well expect that my friends jump in and put in some of theirs.

Arnie, aka our Ron Jeremy look alike drivers ed instructor. I don't even know where to begin here. First, who was it? Me, Kevman, Jules and....Dan? Mike? See!! I'm loosing them already! Where do I start? The 21 point turn when we drove into the Constitution Marsh and ended up on a 5' wide road in the middle of the woods. That was pretty awesome/terrifying for your first time driving. The constant oggling? No, definitely the forced chinese fire drill at 5-corners when Kevin and Julie and to switch places during a traffic stop.  Wow. Just wow.  I don't think I even get any insurance credit for that extreme violation.

Oh Math Team. Yes, I was a Mathlete. And yes, we kicked ass. Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but we did actually have a really fun time given that it pretty much was all our best friends and a really awesome teacher. We trained, we competed, we won. And then we'd compete against the real teams....yeah. Nothing like Physics team, where we totally blew them out of the water....aka Dan cheated at the last minute and thew a bunch more sand into the bucket after the bridge had collapsed. Booyeah. And my homemade xlophone playing skills = AMAZING. We need to find the videos of that shit. I just vaguely recall some ridiculously team tshirts (anyone remember?). But alas, you'll just have to live with math team photos.

Now we also can't forget my first secret (ok second... stickman in 7th grade was first) secret admirer. And really, Fitz wasn't exactly secret. More like blatantly obvious. One of the few of the punk persuasion in the school, so somehow we had of course come into an aquaintainship of sorts (possibly through unitard Mark?). Now Kyle was one persistent young man, creating a variety of poems for me. But alas, it did not work for the self proclaimed teddy bear with "more to love." But here for your enjoyment - a supposed poem from me to my boyfriend, dumping him for Mr. Fitz, entitled "Welcome to Dumpsville: Population You" (a Short Music ref):

Where else do we even go? What about Mr. Nobile - I would say the best English teacher but I loved all of our English teachers honestly (especially glueing a certain one's head to a model's body as an xmas gift for a certain friend...). When I rewrote and performed Bohemian Rhapsody a la piano about Animal Farm for some project (lordy, I really am a dork). My most enjoyable moments with him were musical though. We had some good discussions...I brought him 90's punk and he gave me what he considers to be some essential rock ballads including Utopia's Singring and and the Glass Guitar, Rush's  2112, Yes's Close to the Edge, King Crimson's Lark's Tongues in Aspic Parts 1 & 2, Limp Richard's Attack of the Giant Painted Baby and Wave Phenomenom, and The Barking Spider's Some Bush Tune. Unfortunately, I have this on mix tape now and nada to play it with.  One day Nobes, one day....

Ok, well I think that's enough for part 1. I'm expecting requests or suggestions. We had some classic moments damnit. I demand they be captured, even if no one else understands them except us. Sorry :P

M.A.S.H.

I've been feeling fairly uninspired lately. Not too much has been going on that I've felt the overwhelming urge to blog about, but I have felt the urge to blog. So today I was thinking of embarassing things I could share with the public, and what's more embarassing than a list of those sexy men I've crushed on throughout the ages? So here were go. Sad but true.... my real life MASH hopefuls.

1. Keanu Reeves - I mean, seriously, who didn't? "Shoot the hostage." Dead sexy. When my sister and I were kids, we had a craft table of sorts. We used to write our crushes' names on the bottom of it.  There are many an interesting spelling of Mr. Reeves' name, surounded in giant hearts of course.

Eddie on "La Vitesse"

2. Devin Sawa - Oh man of man, he was a total teen hunk in middle school. Now and Then when he kissed Christina Ricci?? Ow Ow!!! You couldn't help but swoon. I'm pretty sure I still have a picture of him somewhere in one of my memory boxes. Oh you can't forget Casper while we're at it. (They said "bitch" in that movie!!! Ohhhhhhhhhhh).

Awwwww. Teen love.

3. Colin Firth - Love Actually, Pride & Prejudice, or Bridget Jone's. Name your movie, he's a sexy beast. Now, then and always. Who cares if he's old enough to be my Dad? Every time I see that man dive into Netherfield Pond... damn!

4. Will Wheaton - Time to get embarassing. I was born and raised on good ol' Star Trek: The Next Generation. I had to have the hots for one of them. Wesley and his rainbow striped uniform and sexy physics skills was the obvious choice. Who cares about Stand by Me anyways?

Oh Mr. Crusher!

5. Gavin Rossdale - Like most teenage girls of the 90's, this lead singer of Bush swallowed my heart and there was no coming down form it (yes, those are horrible references. sorry). Even more reason to hate Gwen Stefani (who annoys me to no end...except when singing about bananas).

6. Ewan McGregor - Anyone that knows me knows my love of this man. Be still my heart. He might just be my #1. Big Fish, Moulin Rouge, Down With Love, A Life Less Ordinary and of course, my favorite - Trainspotting. Doesn't matter to me if he's all clean and proper or "heroin chic." Oh and the voice, the voice!!! Take me now Renton....errr... I mean Ewan...

I don't understand how anyone could resist....

7. James Bond Jnr. - Last but not least, I couldn't end this list without including my first love. The one, the only. Bond. James Bond. Junior. This prep school student spends his free time fighting for the safety of the free world with the use of crazy gadgets and mad science. And he does it all while being dead sexy, at least to a sex year old. For those that haven't been enlightened, hold on to your horses and enjoy the show.

So that's that. My sexy 7 of the evening. Amazing. Embarassing. and True.

Just went from a 9 to a 12!

Woot woot!!!!  First serious lifting scar tonight baby! This is gonna be a goodun. Holy smokes.  So here's the story. And pics of course. Normal workout, just doing some circuits.  First circuit was some lateral squats, step-up and overs, med ball slams and box jumps.  Now I think EVERYONE hates box jumps and now I have a pretty damn good reason. I'm actually ok at them and have been getting better, but I certainly don't enjoy them.  Well tonight I was on round 2 of my circuit and guess who missed her jump???

This girl did!!!

Yup, I totally freaking just missed it and ripped my shin open on the box. Excellent.  This is what happens when swimmers try to do things on land that require coordination. So of course I do this when the pair of guys I really enjoy watching lift (because they're intense, usually doing some impressive oly lifts in circuits with actually good form, push each other hard- they kinda really inspire/motivate me a decent amount honestly) are standing right next to me. They're chatting up one of the trainers when I walk over and say "Sorry to interrupt, but I think this is worth it. Where do I get a bandaid?"  They all look down at my leg and jaws drop as they see the giant gash in my leg starting to pour blood.

So the nice trainer took me upstairs, took out the first aid kit, we cleaned me up, bandaided and taped the crap outta my shin. And then, this part is my fav, I'm actually stupid enough to go back and finish my workout!!!  HA. So I walk back down and the guys are still there, still doing their thing. We chat it up a bit. They ask me if I'm patched up OK and I tell 'em I'm hanging in there.  They're clearly impressed at my badassness as I joke around with my leg pretty much still gushing through the medical tape. Then the extra fun one of the two tells me "You're awesome.  You just went from like a 9 to a 12 in my book!" 1) I'm laughing having a good time. 2) He just called me a 12!!!! 3) My workouts were impressive enough that he's taken notice of me before and mentally labeled me a 9?!?!?! 4) Crap, my leg is still gushing.

Something tells me this will never be me, besides the obvious facts of being white and a woman.

So I guess this is how I'm supposed to impress men? Is that the moral of the story? What do I need to do to get me a husband? Oi. So I went to CVS, got some gauze and tape, went home, showered, sang myself a song about how much showering was gonna hurt, cleaned it up and called my Dad to figure out if I needed stitches lol. So for now, I'm sitting my ass in bed with some elevation and compression and hoping this bleeding stops soon enough that my dad doesn't guilt me into a trip to the doc.  Sucessful night if I do say so myself.

My first good gym scar and a pretty ridic story to go with it. I just straight up missed the box jump.  Good job Katie. Grace and balance always were my talents.

Ode to Cute Gym Guy

CUTE GYM GUY, WHERE ARE YOU??????? Seriously, this is starting to get ridiculous. He's been MIA for weeks now. Who am I supposed to drool over when I'm bored? Don't get me wrong, I love me my scrawny white boys (truly, I do), but I also enjoy dabbling in the more traditional eye candy, especially when trying to keep my own motivation going. Seriously, I'm not sure it gets much sexier than a Nate Green one-arm overhead snatch.

So in memory of my personal favorite local gym hottie (creatively nicked Cute Gym Guy by yours truly), I decided to write him an Ode.  And what better form to follow than that of the Ode to a Radish from one of my favorite obscure Disney movies, The Reluctant Dragon.  If you haven't seen it, or at least Morris the Midget Moose, get on it! They're wonderfully entertaining, as hopefully is my Ode. Enjoy.

Gym guy so cute,
Gym guy so cute;
Why don't you approach me? Why every day mute?
Is it because I sometimes let out a toot?

Gym guy so hot,
Gym guy so hot;
My oh my, what an amazing ass you've got.
But where did it come from? You don't squat a lot.

Gym guy so sturdy,
Gym guy so sturdy;
I'd melt in your arms if you called me purty.
But I'd like you even more if I knew you were nerdy.

Gym guy so cut,
Gym guy so cut;
It's great looking at you when I'm stuck in a rut.
I'd like to wisk you away to a private beach hut.

Gym guy so built,
Gym guy so built;
Love watching you with that medicine ball when side to side you tilt.
Eating whipped cream from your body, I would have no guilt.

Gym guy so buff,
Gym guy so buff;
Forget this poem. I've had enough.
Screw unique rhymes, I wanna see you in the buff!

Delicious!

Territoriality. He was Mine First.

No, not Clerks. DEGRASSI!!!! Seriously people, when did Degrassi become the cool place to be??

I remember first being introduced to this Canadian wonder in 7th grade guidance class in our music room. This of course was the original version of the show.  It wasn't until several years later that I was introduced to joys of The Next Generation (and not the Star Tek variation). Since then, I've seen this beast grow out of control.  Example A: Aubrey Graham.  How do you go from being shot and paralyzed by crazy Rick after Spinner blamed you for tar and feathering Rick to on stage rapping with Lil Wayne?!?!

Seroiusly, WTF???

I remember the early days of Drake when he was in love with Ashley and I had to stay up to random hours to find re-runs on Noggin, or better yet, marathons. And then...sigh...the college years. WPI doesn't exactly pay for their students to have access to the-N. I missed JT get Liberty pregnant, her give the baby up for adoption, him start dating Nina Dobrev and the triangle of bitchiness that proceeded when JT tried to get daycare at school for his new lady. Little did he know that she would soon be on the WB trying to ride this vampire wave - quite successfully (and kinda creepily below......)

Uhhhhh..... Teenage mom to teenage vampire lover?

And how can I leave out possibly the most dramatic transformation of them all? She started as sweet little Darcy, the Jesus lovin, virginity saving, Friendship Club attending Cheerleader who tamed the Spinmeister. Maybe it's the decay of moral values and eventual coming back to Jesus after being raped (sorry, but Paige's post-rape performance of Poor Thing was much more moving)  that set her up for her next role... on the remake of 90210?!?!?

Sooo not in Canada anymore, Eh?

How did Degrassi become such a start-up role for people? I don't get it! Dorkiest show ever. A true after school special and appearently the new Mickey Mouse Club. Here I thought I was going to have to wait for New Years marathons and bootleg episodes online to get my Degrassi drama. Slowly but surely we invaded the local channel MyTV, MTV's 10am slot, a primetime Degrassi Goes Hollywood Movie premiere and we're going strong!

My guess for the next step....Manny Santos comes out as one of the many mistresses of Tiger Woods.

Oh the embarassing guilty pleasures I have :)

Musical Motivation

As much as I love hitting the iron, some days I just don't feel like it. Really who doesn't? So what does one do in this situation?  What helps me the most is having a mental image that really fires me up. Might be something positive like the future fit you, or it might be something that gets you angry- like an ex or the office bitch or if you're me, your f*ing pig of a sexual harasser.  Usually I like to save these extra-motivating images for the really tough moments (like the last few reps of a set of the evil bulgarian splits squats). So for the remaining 98% of the time, it's usually just some good tunes for me.

"So Katie, what kind of tunes pump you up?" you ask.  Well, here is a random sample of some of my gym favorites - motivating, fun, and embarrassing - and some hopefully entertaining explainations of why.

Lunchlady Land - Adam Sandler "Sloppy joes....sloppy sloppy joes." This is usually when I get stared at for chuckling to myself for no apparent reason.

Punk Rock Academy - Atom and His Package You just need to hear it.

Brass Monkey - Beastie Boys  No 'splanation needed.  But I will say, this always makes me think of the boys at our middle school dances.

Bitches Ain't Shit - As covered by Ben Folds I can't think of a more perfect song to be covered by a man and a piano.

Mortal Kombat - Techno Remix "Test your might..... Test your might." Probably my most embarrassing but also probably the most motivating.  How can you not try to push yourself that extra bit when you have Kano and Johnny Cage by your side?

What Would Jay-Z Do? - Ben Lee Because the lyrics are just amazing and the tune is just so damn catchy.

Gimme More - Britney Spears I can't help but think of Billy Tank Guns when I hear this one.  Again, people staring as I chuckle at myself.

Machinehead - Bush This is one of those motivational ones. It was used at most every championship meet I swam at, and a few times it was the song I got to walk to the blocks to. Just one that really gets me in the zone.  I know, I know, kind of cheesey nostalgia, but it just reminds me of how empowered I felt walking up there, KNOWING that I was pretty good at this and I was going to do well and kick some ass. I don't miss 5AM practices, but I do miss that feeling.

You Gotta Be - Des'ree This one is the girl in me coming out. Again, really the lyrics on this one are honestly kind of touching? Wow, i'm such a sap.

Change - The Lightning Seeds This is an obscure one, but from one of my favorite movies of all time - Clueless- which I think it's just the most perfect representation of the 90's ever... but anyways, the cheeseball lyrics (specifically "Don't ever chaaaaange") of this one just make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside and I get that mental dialogue going where I'm telling myself "You're great! You're wonderful! Don't ever change!!!!"  Yes, embarrassing, girly, but true. This usually gets the speed up another 0.3 mph for me. (hey, i'm a swimmer, remember????).

Popular - Nada Surf  Just a classic that I actually didn't know when it was popular (hahaha pun intended). I got into them through some list of "If you like Ben Folds, you'll like...." and then discovered the song several years after it was cool.

Fuckin' In the Bushes - Oasis Besides Brad Pitt making it incredibly famous with this scene from Snatch, this song just f*ing rocks.  Cause kids are running around naked fucking in the bushes and that makes me want to move some serious weight.

Peaches - The President of the USA Millions of them. 'Nough said.

Wannabe - Spice Girls No, I'm not joking.   I'm finally comfortable enough with my masculinity to enjoy hot pink, Dawson's Creek and the Spice Girls.

I Wish - Skee Lo LOVE LOVE LOVE this 90's classic. Brings back memories of sneaking into my grandparent's basement to watch MTV. Who doesn't want a rabbit in a hat and a bat and 64 impala? And recently I just found this kinda wonderful remake:

The Sunscreen Song - Baz Luhrman OK OK, it was so overplayed and I hated it at the time... but again, the lyrics.... kinda poignant if you really listen.  Another tear-jerker moment for me on the treadmill. ::sniff sniff::

So that's my embarrassing list, or part of it. Hopefully you got a chuckle out of it or maybe some ideas for your next playlist. And I'm counting on seeing some ridiculous songs of your own. Don't let me down :)

Funnies, Part I

So to lighten the mood a bit (I know I get uber-bloggy sometimes), I thought I would also throw in some random funnies that I enjoy. Of course, genres of all type and some might be a bit inside joke-ish. But mostly, I just don't want to lose track of most of these! So I hope you enjoy.

Can squats cure cancer? An amazing compilation of Rippetoe quotes.



Most Legit Workout Workout Vid Ever. I want to marry these guys.



And one I was introduced to last night. German Forklift Safety:



Poke, Sniff and Lick: a lovely production by a coworker's kids (sorry, can't imbed this one!). Really funny actually. I think I would have had tons of fun with these guys :)


My heroes from The Principal's Office on Dirty Dancing.




Marker Face, again from the Principal's Office. Cause who didn't have a kid like this in their school?

And finally... my favorite clip from The Soup discussing our President's sexual habits that made me nearly piss my pants. MUST SEE.




Hope you Enjoyed!!!! Stay tuned for part 2 as I come across more funnies.