Add it to my short list of sports gestures

Thanks to my (hoop) dream coming true yesterday at the Harlem Globetrotters (or, for the layman/in-crowd/fanatic: The Globies), I now know the referee hand gesture for a four point shot. Yes, I said four points. And no, this move will never make sense at any other sporting event but I will use it forever.

SPORTS!

Some Buddy That I Used to Know

did i do that?

Yes, the title of this is to be spoken like one notorious TGIF character.

But that’s neither here nor there.

This expose is the exact reason I have a category called “Shame Shower”

Umbrellas up, people: Some things I overheard myself say this week:

• OOH I love he said/she said songs
• I’m really good at Google.
• Wait. The SHELL is a DORITO??!
• I think that’s what they mean when they say thug life.
• The worst part about working out is all the extra showering.
• I heard beast is the new epic.
• It’s the millenium!
• Playas gonna play, ya know?
• You know what they say…if you give a girl a brownie…chances are…yeah I dunno.
• His handwriting looks like my pledge mom’s.
• Blimes taste like summer.
• Ooh is this Selena Gomez?

Ok your turn. Confess. I’m talking to you, Annie, Tyler, Mindy, Raleigh.

You’re welcome!

LR

Your Life: Cooler

Ok I admit.

I have posted the following things on Instagram:

breakfast smoothies, manicures, sunsets, recipes-in-action, brunch! gifted flowers (bonus points for not saying who they’re from. #mystery #intrigue), more smoothies, alternate nail polish shots. Oh and copious coffee cups. Like, a tour de coffee cups. Times infinity.

THE FILTERS ARE SO TEMPTING, OK? It should be called insta-cool. Or Insta-interesting (Insta-resting? Look out Pinterest). Or Insta-look-at-my-life-I-am-cooler-than-you-thought-i-was-aren’t-I?

Since I took stock of my life in a recent self-intervention (Yes, I wrote myself a threatening letter,) I have ceased posting a lot of the above. But it’s still a trigger whenever I’m at a concert or the sun is going down on my drive home or I just painted my toes.

It’s damn near an obsession. Just wait until I have a child someday. Lord help us all.

Insta-sham,

LR

P.s. The image designed by my insanely talented bro, Jonathan, or to the twitter world, @rushstache.

P.p.s. What is your most shameful Insta-trend?

The Lost Effect

I know, I know, I know.

This topic is so 2004. But I just started watching it so the whole phenom is really real for me (or IS it?? Dave??? Is that you?)

See what just happened? Watching Lost for the first time–eons after the rest of the world–has turned me one coconut short of a pina colada.

And now that I spend approx 44 minutes a day (during my lunch break thankyouverymuch) stuck on an island with Hurley and Jack and Kate and OH MY GOSH ARE WE EVER GOING TO BE RESCUED?? –my line between reality and television and reality television has been seriously blurred.

Thanks for nothin, JJ Abrams.

Well, actually, JJ, thanks for Felicity. I really loved that show.

LR

Wear Sunscreen.

Everybody’s free, you guys.

That little song-bird child sang it in the adaption of Romeo and Juliet. And Baz Luhrmann (thank you, Google) spoken-word-sang it in the late 90′s.

It was a poetry slam dunk back then.

And, true to form, I would like to ruin it by bringing it back 10+ years later and using it for my own pleasure. (And secretly I will maintain that it makes it better. And also, that it’s for your own good [none of which is true].)

So here are some of the things I dare you to do to bring this speach/song back:

1. Ding your glass at the next really informal dinner you attend and dedicate it to a friend who recently accomplished something really minor, like renewing his tags or becoming the four square mayor of IHOP.
2. Adapt one of his suggestions to, “Do one thing every day that scares your roommate.” and, when confronted, insist to said roommate that you misunderstood it.
3. Pin it on Pinterest like you just discovered it and think it’s “SOOO true, you guys.”
4. Read it straight-faced, verbatim at the next open mic wedding rehearsal you attend. Off of notecards. Maybe add a single tear.
5. Write it out in your next graduation card. All of it.
6. Name drop Baz Luhrmann more so people ask you who he is and you can give them looks of shock and disdain that they don’t know him.
7. Turn each piece of advice into 31+ separate greeting cards/bumper stickers/mugs/henna tattoos. And make MILLIONS.
8. Mostly, just re-listen to it and be filled with nostalgia. And do it in your car when you’re picking someone up and see how long it takes them to say, “Wait a second…”

I’m always here for you guys. But seriously; wear sunscreen,

LR

Sh*t Girls Never Say

• I cannot seem to keep any weight on!
• Abbreviating is no fun.
• No. Don’t tell me a secret.
• Can we turn off the Bachelor?
• I really like his new girlfriend. Super glad he found love again.
• Oh, you can stalk people on Facebook? Huh. Never done it.
• She is really pretty and deserves all of the blessings she keeps getting without trying.
• I hate yoga pants.
• Wait. Why are we dancing right now?
• Frozen yogurt is a waste of time.
• Let’s not celebrate/grieve/ponder over some wine.
• There probably does exist a more epic group of besties than us.
• I find it sexy that he loves his parents enough to live in their basement.
• I don’t care that he forgot my birthday.
• I’m happy for her.
• I’m really attracted to his ringback tone.
• Ryan Gosling? Ew.
• She definitely looks better in that dress than I do right now.
• All I’m looking for is a guy who won’t respect me. Is that too much to ask?
• I dunno, I’ve never looked up song lyrics before.
• Nah, I’m not interested in knowing what he meant by that.
• Stop listening to me so well.
• We should forgive Chris Brown
• Ooh I hope he’s in debt.
• Chocolate? Nah.
• I don’t care at all what I’m wearing tonight.
• An 80′s movie about unrequited love and dancing? Not interested.

Jumpin on the bandwagon,

LR

Note from the Editor

That’s me. We have a small, but intimate staff at this blog.

So good news, bad news: my lovers over at 2 Man Chain Gang got word (I emailed them and twitter stalked them) of my new chain restaurant game and….they LOVED it. In the words of Rich, it’s “brilliant,” and “so funny,” No word yet from Max (rude.)

BUT. Tragically they just shot their Olive Garden episode. So, “when you’re here you’re family” will have to sit this one out for a while. Sigh. I have faith, though, that if any 2 people can weave in a chain restaurant slogan into casual conversation, it’s these two. I can’t wait to see them try.

If you don’t know these guys yet, please do. If my “Taste Buds” food + friend blog/social network ever takes off, I’m hiring them.

2 Man Chain Gang #3 – Outback Steakhouse from Eater NY on Vimeo.

Chain Gang

2 weeks ago I had lunch at Olive Garden.

I know. I know.

But sometimes you just need a chain restaurant. Sometimes you need fatty, affordable, mediocre food with your family. No?

Well, as a precaution from making this a new bad habit and finding myself knee-deep in a TGIFriday’s happy hour tradition,  I stumbled upon a new way to haze myself when dining at chain restaurants:

Find a way to work the restaurant slogan into casual conversation with your waiter.

Yep.

At the OG, I asked for a third refill on our breadsticks and she said, “Baby you can have whatever you want as long as you’re sitting at my table,” to which I trigger-responded, “When you’re here you’re family, right?”

I thought perhaps I had broken the time-space continuum or time had frozen; it felt that monumental of a discovery. Combining two of my loves: overeating and slogans? Felt too good to be true. Turns out I had been practicing for years by trying to make “No rules, just right” (Outback Steakhouse) my personal life tagline.

So, to bring you in on this newfound Rush family tradition, here are some ways to do this at other glorious chain restaurants as you experience–as my favorite food blog, “2 Man Chain Gang” puts it– “the irony of slow cooked, fast food.”

• IHOP - “Come Hungry, Leave Happy”
• • When your waiter asks how everything was, reply, “Well, we came hungry and we’re leaving happy, so what does that tell you?”
• Red Lobster – “Life in Land is Dry
• The only thing I can think of that is breezy here is using the slogan to get a refill.
• Applebee’s – “Eatin’ Good in the Neighborhood”
• This one is easy. When your waitress says, “Thanks for comin’ in!” You can explain, in a heartfelt way, “Oh our pleasure. We really try and eat good in the neighborhood. Gotta keep it local, right?”
• Dominoes - “Get the Door. It’s Dominoes.”
• This one will be really natural, especially if you are rude to your roommates. Doorbell rings and you just tell your roommate to get the door because the pizza is here. Doy.
• Chili’s Bar and Grill “Like No Place Else” (P.s. it’s amazing to call it by it’s full name. I am for SURE doing this from now on, always.)
• This one is a cake walk. Because after queso and an awesome blossom, you will quickly remember why it is unlike anywhere else on earth. Try a simple, “Man you guys make a guiltless grill chicken sandwich like no place else!”
• TGIFriday’s – “In Here it’s Always Friday”
• You can either go on friday and have too many Ultimate Electric Lemonades and keep screaming something about being so glad it’s Friday, or make small talk on a Tuesday and earnestly tell your waiter, “Frankly I came for the distraction from work, because I heard in here it’s always Friday.”

So go, godspeed. Make Mama proud.

LR

CAPSIDDENT

That there is a word you have probably never heard before.

You’re falling right into my trap (insert Ursella laugh from when she gets the trident from King Triton and grows 18 times her size.)

Sorry, I grew up in the 90s.

So anyway, I spend (spent) a lot of time apologizing for the cornucopia (not an appropriate word here, but i wanted to welcome the fall) of typos that i send in a given text.

They are copious. And I never bother to correct. I like to think it keeps my friends on their toes and one step closer to becoming private eyes (everyone’s dream right?)

So now, there’s a word for when you are chatting, emailing or texting and you accidentally caps lock:

capsiddent.

Caps + Accident.

Or, CAPSIDDENT, rather.

Spread it like wildfire, kiddos.

xo

LR