Cougar recap eps 2

First of all Tracey has been complaining about the plethora of Saved by the Bell clips that I have been posting recently. To be honest, I think she is more concerned with my obsession with a tv show that was a large part of my childhood. I mean, this show was truly ahead of its time. It dealt with such subjects as drug abuse, why white people should not rap, and how to make friends. To prevent my wife from worrying about my obsessions I will attempt to limit my use of Saved by the Bell clips.

Now on to other things. So last night was the second episode of Age of Love or as I like to call it young girls with fake boobs versus older ladies with fake boobs. I have just a few observations about this awesome episode.

First, what is the deal with Mark Consuelos. I mean he really is the best reality show host recently by being likable without being intrusive and trying to steal the show. He is also married to Kelly Ripa so he has plenty of experience dealing with a future cougar. I do have two issues with him being host. First is should they really have both the host and the star of the show have the same name. I know this is minor but it makes writing about the show a pain. Second is when you see the two Marks standing next to each other I always wonder if one is a giant, or the other is a midget. Maybe it is a combination of both, but when they stand together they look exactly like this.

Next is this show is far from impartial. The way they edit the show you would think that the 20 year olds are complete morons that just sit around and say mean things about the 40s. This is completely different from the portrayal of the cougars. The cougs are shown to be interesting, accomplished, and still full of energy and fun. It is obvious what segment of the population the producers are tailoring the show for.

Finally, the show is still awesome. Just when the tennis player forgets how much older the cougs are, they throw in a moment where the oldest coug drops the bomb she has been married twice and has a son that is 25, almost the same age as tennis dude. Just a reminder he is dating someone that is the same age as his mom. Awesome

Family Update

I figured that I would buy into Ben's new plan to give family updates. So here's the big news . . . After nine months as a temp I was offered a full-time position with BMW today! YEA!!! This is awesome for many reasons. First of all, I don't have to worry about Synthia (my awesome boss) packing up my belongings and fedex-ing them to my house because I smell funny one day and haveing the temp agency call and tell me that BMW doesn't need me anymore. I'll be much harder for her to get rid of this way. (Synthia, you know I'm writing this for your benefit!) Second of all I get awesome new benefits. I'm not going to go into detail because it's none of your business!

This is a little bit sad though because I moved from BIG desk to a smaller one. However, my new desk has an awesome view of the Salt Lake Valley and it's inversion (see picture). I only get this desk because my friend Maria is really nice and let me have it when she moved. What a sweetie! It's also a little sad because I have to move out of "man central" where all of my neighbors were guys who provided me with endless entertainment. Now I get Mandy and Synthia as neighbors which will be fun for a whole different set of reasons.

Friday post

First off, if anyone was trying to remember the name of the rock start that was in the Saved by the Bell episode that the drug commercial came from it is Johnny Dakota.

Well it is the end of the week and it is time for the typical Friday post where I attempt to be funny, badly fail, and then try to provide some time killing links to hopefully pass this Friday afternoon. First of all after reading Sam and Anya's blog (well mostly Anya and the two boys with a few appearances by Sam) I realized that Tracey and I may need to put more family stuff or perhaps more what we are doing in case anyone is curious (highly unlikely). Keep an eye out for these types of posts and I will try to label them so those uninterested can just skip on by.

Ok this first link has been all over the internet recently but for the two people who have not seen it yet, here is an awesome parody of those lame David Blaine street magic shows. This is actually the second video in this series but in my opinion it is the more funny of the two.

Next is a link to the AFI 100 greatest movies 10 year anniversary edition that was recently released. I would like to point out that this list is a complete fraud since there is not a single movie on there starring Will Ferrell or Steve Carell. This oversight of these supremely talented actors has to be one of the greatest tragedies of all time, possibly rivaling the time the Zack Attack almost broke up.

Speaking of the Zack Attack and since I seem to be on a Saved by the Bell kick, here is a clip of their great song Friends Forever. I just realized that even though the song is about them being great friends, Jesse is nowhere to be seen. My guess is she is off popping caffeine pills , trying to get ready for the next Hot Sundae video. I hope that helped with your Friday afternoon.

Amazing video

I know I have been posting a lot but when I saw this video I could not resist. A good message to get you through your Wednesday

The rise of cougars

Last night Tracey and I were watching television and we got sucked into what will become my summer guilty pleasure, Age of Love. Before you judge me for watching one of those lame dating reality shows, let me explain why it is so good. First, it is a train wreck on the level of Flavor of Love, but the ladies on this show are much classier than the Flavor of Love girls. They do not look like they just polished off a 40 of Old English seconds before the cameras were turned on. The second reason is not since Kim Bauer somehow got caught in a bear trap and was almost attacked in the second season of 24, have cougars been so prominent on a television show. Lets just say that they should have this sign in the ladies apartment.

For those of you who do not know about this awesome new phenomenon, a cougar is a lady of advanced age who refuses to admit that they are older. They often spend hours and hours at the gym to keep their bodies in good shape. This is necessary because they also wear the same clothing as their 16 year old daughters. They typically are on the prowl for younger men often in bars or other places with dim lighting. This lighting scheme is cougar camouflage, it prevents their prey from being able to determine the cougars age from their face and emphasizes the scantily clad cougar body. I found this helpful poster to identify a cougar but it is specifically for Canadian cougars so you may have to modify a few of them for the states.

Anyway, this show prominently features a pack of cougars against much younger women. There has only been one episode but the show looks like a winner.

Finally, on a completely unrelated note, I would like to share this awesome video of Steve Carell doing this video of the German who says nice things

I love lamp

So last night we were over to Tracey's parents house to see the baby before she is shipped via ups to California. Ups or they are driving, one of the two. Anyway, VH1 had the 40 greatest soft rock hits, and due to Tracey's weakness for list shows we ended up watching it. Now, Afternoon Delight was on this list and it is one of the dirtiest songs but in a sneaky way. I decided to post this awesome video for your Thursday morning

Anchorman - Afternoon Delight!

Add to My Profile | More Videos

My wife's obsession

First off I do not want anyone to think that I am disparaging my wife in any way for being obsessed with something. I would like to come clean that in the realm of becoming obsessed because I am about a million times worse. Once I get focused on something I will literally spend weeks researching it and spend all my waking time thinking about it until I get burned out. A perfect example of this was my obsession with the xbox 360. When it first came out, any time we were in Target I would come up with some excuse to walk by the electronics department just so that I could see if they had them in stock. I did this even though I had no intention of actually buying one. I have also blogged about my unhealthy obsession with Disney as well so I am comfortable with my history of obsession. I think this personality trait is rubbing off on Tracey because she has recently become obsessed with all things relating to cupcakes.

Now I have no idea when his started but it began to manifest itself a couple of weeks ago. Tracey suddenly began to spend hours (ok, so maybe minutes) searching the internet for the perfect cupcake recipes. Now since I am an experienced obesessor (I made that word up) I was quickly able to recognize the signs. First, wanting to make cupcakes every night despite the fact that her husband is roughly the size of an orca whale and definitely does not need more cupcakes, although I will be more than happy to eat them. Second, the increased purchasing of cupcake memorabilia. Now you may be thinking, what the hell is cupcake memorabilia and do such things even exist? The answer is yes and if it exists we own it now or will shortly. Again I have no room to complain because Tracey is an awesome wife that lets me have a Wii despite the fact that I am 27 and probably too old to own one. Finally, she spends a large amount of time on the internet searching for cupcake recipes. This is the most glaring because the internet is filled with awesome stuff to look at such as this video or pictures of unicorns and she is looking at recipes. It is not a problem unless she has a secret boyfriend whom she calls cupcake and then I am going to be super pissed.

Anyway, as far as obsessions go this is a pretty mild/awesome one because it provides me with plenty of desserty goodness so some day I can become as large as these people. (warning, do not click on this link if you are eating or planning on eating soon)

I don't know if you've noticed, but Ben seems to refer to BYU with a slight note of disdain. He really doesn't hate BYU, he just thinks some of the people are crazy. Ok . . . A lot of the people.

Often as a BYU student or alumni, you run into people like my siblings who dislike BYU and claim that they would have never gone there. (I often wonder how many of these people would have even been admitted.) I think part of these people just don't want to live in Utah County because of it's special social demographics. Some people think BYU is too Mormon . . . Uh, duh, it's a church school.

Some of these people say "I would never sign the honor code, it's so dumb. They can't tell me how to live my like" To that I say, nobody is forcing you to go there. If you don't like it. . . Don't go. However, some people do like it, so let them live their lives.

Other people LOVE BYU. It's a great school. You get a great education. Students are in the top 20 for the happiest college students. Granted it is more difficult to get into and once you arrive the competition can be fierce. Average ACT is 27.8 and the average GPA is 3.78. Students may be naive but they are no dummies.

I believe people like Ben have the best perspective. Ben's undergrad is from BYU and his Phd will be from the University of Utah. He has experienced both sides. BYU is full of crazy people and classes can be harder. The U is a bit more "normal" but the sometimes academic experience is less competitive. (I'm not saying it's bad . . . I'm just saying it's not as competitive)
BYU is full of REALLY young couples with lot's of kids (see Ben's Ikea post). I can't say anything bad about young mothers because my mom was only 19 when she had me (and look how I turned out) but sometimes I wonder what these people are thinking! I think it may be one of the only campuses in America where you can see babies in class on a regular basis. Sometimes I wonder why they don't adopt Disney World's stroller parking

Students at BYU also have their own language. It includes words like heck and fetch. Due to the missionary culture a lot of them also speak foreign languages. I can't tell you how many times I've walked across campus and heard guys speaking to each other in Spanish. I think they do this so they can freely talk about passing women.

Perhaps the strangest things about BYU are the mating rituals. Ben has already mentioned into nerd love. The weirdest thing I ever heard of was tunnel singing. That's right, students will go to tunnels on campus and sing (they like the acoustics). Believe it or not, this often constitutes a date. Mormons can be very musical people. (It's because nearly everyone is forced to take piano lessons) Sometimes this translates into loony behavior.

Recently I was studying in the student center. The room was full people quietly minding their own business, hunched over text books and laptops. All of sudden some douche bag decides that we would all benefit from his impromptu piano performance of a stylized hymn (you know this is the only song he knows and he memorized to impress people, specifically females). GAG!!!! I instantly IM'ed my husband who reminded me that this was the mating call of many BYU males. Unfortunately this ploy did not work as all the girls who would fall for it were attending the Tuesday devotional. My guess is that he made is way over to the Marriott Center to join his barbershop quartet where the attempted to snag women.

The funny thing is, this is that at BYU, the men might think they are chasing the women, but I assure you Mormon women sneaky. Just ask Ben.

Ikea thoughts

I know I have been posting like crazy recently but it will probably be dying down soon so enjoy, or hate, it while it lasts. I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts and maybe a video or two to help pass the time on a Friday.

So Last night Tracey and I decided that Thursday night might be an ok time to actually brave Ikea since it is the middle of the week and the crowds would not be as bad. Man were we wrong. I should have know how it would be when the 5 cars that got off the freeway in front of us all went the same direction but we drove all the way down there so we proceeded.

First off, the store is ginormous. To put in perspective how large it is, you could put all of the pregnant 18-19 year old BYU students belly to back in the place and you would almost be able to contain them. I know this because we saw a large portion of this population waddling around the store. Now after seeing the store I am amazed Ikea took this long to come to Utah. I mean they have free day care (which was already full causing parents to let their kids run wild in the aisles, I know I was shocked too), they have a "restaurant" that has kids meals for $0.99, and their furniture looks ok and is dirt cheap. You put all of those together in an area with 2 university and approximately 10,000,000 married couples in or barely out of their teens with 3 kids and another on the way and you have a recipe for success.

As for the furniture, it was exactly what you would expect. It is very minimalist, very cheap, and not so comfortable. In other words it is perfect for people that want their apartment to look really nice and don't care that their couch feels like it is filled with Swedish meatballs. They did have some cool accessories but I would stay away from the big furniture.

Ok, for some time wasters here is a link for a funny video of Paul Rudd on the Daily Show which reminds me I need to watch the Daily Show more. Here is another funny clip from Conan for those of you that have watched Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

A cool video

I just wanted to post this cool video I came across last night, plus I wanted to try to figure out how to embed video into the blog. As a warning the video is 16 minutes long and there are 3 songs. Enjoy!

Summer Movies Part 2

So back by popular demand, and by popular demand I mean that I can not think of anything else I can possibly think to write about, it is the list of movies that I have never seen and all I know about them is what I have seen in the trailer. I think I said the list was supposed to be 5 long so I will do two more and then finish it up later on. Now I know that you are dying to hear about the most hyped, most highly anticipated movie of the summer Bratz but I do not think that I did it justice so you will just have to go see it in the theater just like every other person on the planet. The only questions left is how soon can they make a sequel and how high the box office records will be. Anyway, on to the precaps.

3. Knocked Up: aka The 40-year old virgin 2 the electric bugaloo. Ok so maybe this movie is not the sequel to the 40 year old virgin but it has the same writer, same director (which isn't too hard since the writer is the director), and almost the same entire cast. From what I hear even Steve Carrel has a cameo as himself. This is like one of those "Frat Pack" movies that has the same core people but it is about 100 times dirtier than any of those movies with Vince Vaughn or the Wilson brothers. If I did not know people that talked like the characters in the movie, I would think it was fake. Precap rating 3.97 stars

4. Ratatouille: How Steve Jobs continues to suck the cash out of my wallet. I was going to say that these two movies could not be more different but Tracey was nice enough to point out to me that one movie is made for kids and the other is about making a kid so I guess they are not as unrelated as I previously thought. Anyway, this is a Pixar movie so you know it is going to be really good for kids and with enough adult humor that grown ups will like it as well. Throw in the fact that it is about cooking and I am sold. Precap rating 3.76 thumbs up

The final Movie precap coming some time in the future

Kate Lauryn Staples

So in case you did not know Tracey's sister gave birth to their first child and the first grandchild on the Dannelly side on Thursday. If you would like to see one or two pictures I took of the new little girl you can go look here.

Bob's Brain Freeze Continued

The greatness of Bob's has now spread to the office of BMW Bank.

Typically, my cubicle neighbor Jeremy (that dude on the left) doesn't like things that I like. He makes a POINT of not like things that I like. I personally believe that this is just his way of antagonizing me throughout the day. However, I talked about Bob's enough that this afternoon he suggested an outing to get try the joint out. Jeremy had my personal favorite, Pirate Juice with ice cream. Although he may prefer it without the ice cream, even the thought of me enjoying it did not deter his appreciation for "only the best shaved ice in the entire world." It must be good.

As for those of you thinking "Who is that handsome devil with the Styrofoam cup and where can I find him?" We'll find him for you, you just let us know! After all he is most eligible bachelor in the office, if not Utah itself.

I may even post a blog about him. . . <<0601071523a.JPG>>

Concert douchebags

First of all I have to apologize for a lack of recent posts. The beginning of summer and an increase in work has led to the blog getting neglected. I will try to do a little better. Ok, so I am going to interrupt my summer movie precap to make some comments about the Killers concert Tracey and I went to last night. First of all I would like to say that it was a very good concert. The Killers sound almost album quality live and Brandon Flowers is a pretty good front man. Plus, their drummer looks like a cross between a 70's porn star and that guy that is in his 30s, a philosophy major, and still living in his frat's basement. In other words, awesome. Anyway, it was a great show but I do have some things/people to complain about.

1. The super tall moron in the center of the crowd. Ok, I am not against tall people as a group, mainly because they can do that thing where they put their hands on my head and then I can try to punch them and just swing at air. Anyway, this guy was like 6'8" to 6'10" which meant he could see the stage from anywhere but insisted on standing right in the center blocking the view of a large group of people. He needs to get his goofy looking self out of the way.

2. The potential serial killer in the red polo shirt. Ok so I was fascinated this guy. He sat through the concert with a minimum of movement and the same facial expression the entire time. Now I am old so I no longer get in the middle and jump around but this guy was just like a statue. Super creepy

3. The overexcited couple in front of Tracey and me. This is a combination of two morons. First the girl who had no rhythm and would jump and whip Tracey repeatedly with her ponytail. Now if that sentence ended differently it would be a completely different thing. My hatred of her was just compounded by her douchebag boyfriend that was way too excited about the show, would thrash around, make lame gestures, and sing along way too loud. I could go on but I am getting worked up just thinking about him.

4. People who just don't understand how a concert works. Ok, I know you want to rush out and get in your car so you can get to the long exit line super fast, but unless the house lights and music come on, chances are the band is going to do an encore. Now I could write an entire post about how mandatory encores are stupid, but that is how concerts work. I am not complaining too loud since after half the people left we got to move a lot closer for the last couple songs.

Ok, that is just a small list of things that prevented a great concert from being perfect and I am obviously neglecting things like crowd weasels that try to squirm to the front even though they are late to the show and girls who wear flip flops and then complain that their toes get stepped on. I think that is enough ranting for now but hopefully I will be back with the precap on Monday