I Ran (So Far Away)

I've never really been an athlete. In high school gym class, my girlfriends and I would hide out in the bathrooms during weight training or stroll around the track while reading magazines. I played rec league softball in college, but mine was more of an organizational role-- sure, I caught a few balls, hit a few, but I was never a clutch player. And prior to this summer, I'd never run a mile in my life.

But now I'm sort of a runner. Okay, so I took most of August off. And most of September. And really only started running again last week, during which I accidentally underestimated the distance of a particular route and wound up running through East Atlanta in the dark of night. Bad news. Point is, I took up running back in June, and after sporadic training and my first 5K at the end of July, I guess I can officially say I'm a runner.



A lot of people like running because you don't need any equipment-- a pair of shoes and, presumably, clothing, but other than that, you can travel light. I need more than that. Without my iPod strapped firmly to my arm, I'm useless. Being alone with my thoughts is nice and all, but I can do that while lying in bed at night. If I'm supposed to be propelling myself forward at warp speeds in a big circle for the sake of exercise, I need tunes.

I consider myself to have pretty great taste in music. It suits me, at least. But I can't run to Iron & Wine, and Mumford & Sons really doesn't get my blood pumping. You know what does? Ridiculous, utterly ridiculous, pure pop nonsense.

My running playlist features such gems as Ke$ha's "Your Love Is My Drug." Paris Hilton's "Stars Are Blind." Britney, The All-American Rejects, Cobra Starship, and more than several Taylor Swifts. My "power song" on my Nike+ is Christina Aguilera's "Keeps Getting Better." There's something about an auto-tuned, up-tempo Top 40 number that makes me run harder, better, faster, stronger.

So what am I complaining about? Nothin'. I can't really bring myself to feel guilty about these pleasures. The running shoes go on and the girliness comes out, but hey, whatever gets me through that next mile, right?

What do you listen to when you work out? Surely you've got something on your playlist that can out-embarrass mine. If not, maybe you can recommend something a little less ridiculous for me. Ideas?

TIME TRAVEL

If I could travel time, I would totally bang all the olde timey, pastey white princesses. AW YEAH. Then I'd kill Charlemagne so that my bloodline STOPS EXISTING.

The present day is going to suuuuuck when I'm done fucking with the past. Just sayin'.

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Awkward Moments: Hey DJ Play That Song!

Life is full of awkward moments, and over the next couple of who-knows-how-long’s I plan on exploiting those moments for my own personal gain. Maybe, if you’re lucky and I am remotely as entertaining as I think I am, you may get something out of these as well.

You know what I find incredibly awkward? Other than Matt… YES! The “Oh, you have to hear this song” moment. Doesn’t matter what end of the moment you are on; it is always awkward. Let’s split this up into two players. Player A will be the person introducing the new song/band and player B will be the inductee.

Player A, it's your turn. Holy crap! It is a great idea for you to show your new bestest friend in the whole wide world that catchy song you fell in love with way too long ago to really be respectable. Surely this person with whom you have such an intimate connection will completely adore this heavenly music with which you have an almost spiritual relationship. Just hit play and life will be perfect. Wait for it… wait for it… oh shit, this was a bad idea… wait for it…

Come on Luigi (player B), step up to the plate. Smile and nod, smile and nod; if you share things in common you will be better friends/lovers/besties! Of course this buddy you share so much in common with will play you a song that you immediately connect with. Uh… I'm sure the intro was just a little off; once the chorus gets here, you are totally going to be into it. Uh… well, just nod your head and smile until the song is over. Uh… this song never ends.

A or B… it is awkward because nine times out of ten, the song just doesn’t connect. Maybe it's because when something gets hyped to another person, it just makes them downgrade it in their minds. That, or you have horrible taste.

Trick Or Treat

You know Rule 34? That if it exists, there’s porn for it? Well I’d like to add a corollary to that rule: Rule 34.1—if it exists, someone is wearing a sexy version of it as a Halloween costume.

Now if Mean Girls taught us anything, it’s that once you’re past trick-or-treating age, Halloween tends to be not much more than an excuse for girls to get all dressed up in revealing clothing and call it a costume. Few girls can resist the allure of looking real hot, guilt-free, and it’s fun to dress up. But sometimes, it’s taken a little too far.

Like this, as posted a week or two ago on Geekologie:



Why in the world would there be a sexy Chewbacca costume? Well, because of Rule 34.1, that’s why. There’s surely a sexy Darth Vader costume out there somewhere, and I think we all know what a sexy Princess Leia costume looks like.

Leprechauns are well-known for their sexiness, right? Apparently they can be.



Of course, in this case, the company called it a “Sassy” Leprechaun costume. They’re rebranding.

What about this sassy Viking?



Scandinavia is pretty cold and the sea spray on those big wooden boats can be chilly as well—I know these things; Maelstrom is my favorite ride at EPCOT—so I think she should at least bring a light jacket or a blanket for her legs.

Or one of my favorites-- sassy Robin?



It’s probably a good thing Robin didn’t wear this costume in any of the Batman movies—the gay rumors are bad enough as it is.

Got a sweet tooth? Who doesn’t? Indulge your inner dessert-lover as a sexy Three Musketeers. No, not a sexy Musketeer, of which there are three—I actually mean a sexy Three Musketeers.




Of course, some costumes just really can’t—or at least, shouldn’t—be sexified. I would advise against any of the following, lest you border on inappropriate or at the very least, too ridiculous.

• Sexy Obama
  
• Sexy Chilean Miner
  
• Sexy Dwight Schrute
  
• Sexy Dora The Explorer
  
• Sexy Bobby Cox

As for me, I’m considering doing my tricking and treating as the Hamburglar this year. A sexy Hamburglar? Well, we’ll see. It is Halloween, after all.

Note: Full disclosure-- I've been a sexy nurse and a sexy zebra, and I one day intend to be a sexy Wonder Woman, so I don't judge! I suggest everyone dress as something awesome that they look real hot in. Then we'll all be happy.

RT: Philly [WARNING: PHOTO DUMP]

So Mikey and I hosted RT: Philly this past weekend. I would imagine that most of our readers know what RT: Philly is, but in case you don't: Rooster Teeth is a production company responsible for an online machinima series called Red vs Blue. On the Rooster Teeth website, a very significant community has developed over the years within the site forums. RT: Philly is a gathering of RT users that is intended to showcase user generated content. Basically, it's a conference of creators -- writers, artists, crafters, etc -- where Rooster Teeth is the common denominator, the thing that brought us together in the first place.

The build up to the event seemed to take a long time; there was a ton of planning, but of course it all just breezed by... Part of me wants to recount the events, but there's really just too much to try and cover, too many details. Plus I don't want to be writing this update forever. Suffice it to say this: there were a few hiccups, but all in all it was an awesome weekend, and I'm already excited for next year. Not to gloat, but Mikey and I totally nailed it on Saturday (the main event), and being surrounded by other creative people was great. The Rooster Teeth community is full of talented folks creating unique content; I hope that even more people come out next year to showcase the projects in which they are involved.

Again, I don't want to go on and on. I'm sure that jokes from this weekend will end up becoming posts on here later on, so I will just put up some pictures from the weekend, along with a link to others. [Note: These pictures are from Virginia and our friend Sarah, and I tried to order them chronologically.]

A view from the balcony of our venue:


Our fantastic table:


Virginia's fantastic table:


Setting up:


HEY EVERYBODY, WELCOME TO TT.TKO


Chris O'Brien, writer of the webcomic [citation_needed]:


Steff Deschenes, author of The Ice Cream Theory:


Jozef Garcia, director of "RvBTO 2007" and co-host of the Javaheads podcast:


The whole guest panel playing Q&A Jenga:



TT.TKO at the after party:



Jeff and Vicki performing live:


TT.TKO hanging out with Jack Edathil, host of Late Nite Jengajam and co-founder of RT: Philly


HNNNNNNNNNNNG with Cusworth:


I see you.


On Sunday, there was a de facto TT.TKO photo shoot. Here are some highlights.

Mikey and Mattie trade places:


Hardcore parkour!


Popping lips:




Phew. To see a handful of others, check our Photobucket album.

let's just round out the weekend...

So after the blitz-weekend that was RT:Philly, I thought it might be relevant to show those of you that were there where we ripped off half of our jokes.

TING TING!!!!

Daily WTF

I mentioned that I have a new job in my last post. Well, our office is located in Midtown Atlanta, on W. Peachtree. There are plenty of places to eat around there, but I’m new and still broke, so I’ve been bringing turkey sandwiches and baggies of pretzels and applesauce and the like. It’s like school all over again, only less fun.

In any case, yesterday was the first day I ventured out of the office for lunch. One of my roommates works down the street from me, and the other drove up to meet us both. They told me to meet them at Colony Square, which is a big complex with lots of offices and a food court and stuff on Peachtree. Now, wouldn’t you think that W. Peachtree would be the west end of Peachtree? You’d be wrong. They're different streets. I walked a good bit (well, a few blocks) farther than I anticipated in my uncomfortable-yet-cute heels. But I digress.

After a delicious Chick-Fil-A Spicy Chicken Sandwich with the roommates at Colony Square, I hiked back to the office and diligently began to work (maybe). A couple of hours later, one of my coworkers Skyped me—“There’s a jumper on top of Colony Square,” she said.

Yikes. A Google News search yielded nothing, not even on the Atlanta Journal Constitution site. So we took to Twitter to find out what was going on (which is in itself an interesting commentary on how social media is the best new breaking news source, but that’s for some other time). @ajc had tweeted about the jumper, as had several individuals. Apparently, someone was sitting on the edge of the top of the building. They’d closed off Peachtree (not W. Peachtree, mind you) and everything.

An hour or two went by before I thought to check for updates on the story—back to Twitter. This time, though, this is what I found: "@ajc Yes, it is. He agreed to come down to meet TI. RT @edelvil: @ajc Did TI really talk that boy from jumping off?"

I’m sorry; what?

Now, a day later, we have a bit more information. According to the AJC, it was indeed Atlanta rapper T.I. to the rescue Wednesday afternoon. He heard about the debacle on the radio and rushed to the scene in hopes that he could help. Which, apparently, he could.

T.I.: Superman’s true secret identity? In any case, he can do whatever he likes.