Coug of love: episode stalkertastic

So in case you don't know, I (Ben) am a complete expert on reality tv shows, especially reality dating shows. You can ask Tracey, I was able to correctly predict which person would be eliminated in this episode about 10 minutes after the start of the show. I hesitate to reveal my secrets since it greatly reduces the intrigue of eliminations, but I will share the smallest of my secrets. If the producers spend an inordinate amount of time on one girl and the girl repeats in the interviews they are positive that they will be there until the end, then the chances of them being eliminated is the same as seeing multiple girls on the Rock of Love swinging on the strippers pole. In other words 100%. On to the recap.

I could go on and on about the brilliance of this episode and how it demonstrated that even successful, mature adults can act like 14 year olds. Instead, I will talk about two girls that had their own unique brand of crazy.

First of all there is Jayanna, i.e. the "manipulative" cougar. In these dumb reality shows there is always one person who think they are smarter and more clever than the other girls. This is demonstrated by them attempting to spread doubt about the bachelor's sincerity. The amazing thing is that sometimes this technique actually works. How dumb do these girls have to be to believe a single word that comes out of the other contestants mouths. That is like Bill Gates calling up Steve Jobs and convincing him that Apple's next big release should be a new banana hammock based ipod. Of course this ended up biting Jayanna in the butt but the fact that she even tried to mess with the other girls heads is just stupid.

Next is the token stalker Amanda. I do not know if she is actually this crazy or if the producer just edited it to make her look that way, but this episode she showed that she is not above acting like a jealous 12 year old. There was a 15 minute period in the show where she went from the girl who got caught up and fell way too hard, to the future target of a restraining order. Her wandering around the woods in an attempt to find Mark and Jayanna's date was stalkertastic but nowhere near as creepy as her deciding to sleep in Mark's tent. I would not be surprised if she cut a lock of his hair while he slept and made some creepy voodoo doll. Yikes!

One final note, did anyone else notice that they made it seem like the girls and Mark had to make a long hike to the campground and yet after eliminations the RV was a 5 minute walk away? Just something interesting

Real genius

I just wanted to post this awesome video of what happens when someone, probably killing time between Jerry Springer Show appearances, smashes a can of wd-40. Fortunately my brother Eric never tried this during his youth while blowing up refrigerators by the way I posted this with the audio off, there is swearing so you may want to turn off the sound

Why it doesn't pay to be a floozie. . .

Many of you (all 5 of you who read this) have heard Ben tell the story of how when we first started dating I ignored him. While this is not ENTIRELY true, I can't deny that maybe, just maybe, he didn't get my full attention because I was dating other dudes. I was a floozy, I admit it. All of those who side with Ben will be happy to know that he was vindicated today at lunch.

So there was this guy, Jerry, that I went out with a couple of times starting the weekend after my first date with Ben. Without going to into the gory details I'll just say I may have had amorous relations with this guy. (Not THOSE kind of relations! Get your mind out of the gutter!) Unfortunately for me, these relations occurred right before the World Series. Even more unfortunately I was ranked lower on the importance scale than his beloved White Sox. So the dude didn't call for weeks and Ben being the great guy that he is put on the friend hat and consoled his future wife. My attention span is shorter than the World Series and by the time it was done, Ben and I were good buddies. Such good buddies that we got engaged a short time later. The really funny part happened about a month before our wedding when Jerry showed up at Ann Taylor to "say hi" and see what I was up to. (In others words, "Let's hook up.") I'm not going to lie, I took GREAT joy in informing him that I was marrying the dude I went out with the week before I went out with him.

Anyway . . . Back to flooziness biting my in the hiney. I met Ben for lunch today, and who was sitting at the table behind Ben and facing me. You got it, "Scam and Jam" Jerry. Needless to say my husband quite enjoyed seeing me squirm when I realized who was staring me down in the middle of Noodles. He also really liked that part when he got up to get a drink to check him out. I think I'm going to be hearing, "You almost ditched me for THAT?" for quite some time. I hate karma.

The moral of this story, don't date lots of dudes at one time because chances are you are going to run into one of them and then NEVER hear the end of it from you spouse. Now if I can just keep him away from Myki . . . .

(Yes, that's how my ex really spells his name. Don't get us started on him)

Cougars: part.. (breaks down sobbing)

Due to a request by Anya, I am going to give a recap of the Age of Cougars. I have been a little busy and I have fallen behind on these recaps, so this is a catch up post. I am completely convinced that the editors of this show go out of their way to make the youngsters look dumb and immature while they make the cougars look smart and confident. There has not been editing this biased since Cinderella. They make Cinderella look like the the victim when her step mother was just trying to instill a strong work ethic and provide her with an appreciation for cleanliness and valuable work skills. They completely leave out the part where Cinderella is out late partying like a long ago Lindsay Lohan. I also think Mark needs to put more tennis terminology into the elimination. A possibility would be when he gets rid of a girl he could say something awesome like "Game, set, match and you are done" or just yell "out!" like the line judges.

Because there has been so much going on, I am just going to talk about three of the contestants, and why I feel their actions are the equivalent of a poke in the eye. On to the mockery...

First of all, there is Amanda. In every reality dating show there is always a girl that gets caught up in everything and falls hard for the guy. Amanda fits this role to a T. She has decided he is the perfect man and they are destined to be together. To further fulfill the stereotype she is convinced that even though Mark is dating all of the girls and making out with all of them that he really just cares for her. It is always fun to see the girls go off on dates and her just getting jealous and catty.

Next there is the cougar Maria. Now Maria is just completely insane, and has caused me to consider not watching the show. First of all, she thinks that there is no chemistry between her and Mark because he is not ignoring everyone else and just focusing on her. This makes her decide she is wasting her time on the show, and proclaim to the entire apartment that she is leaving no matter what Mark says. Of course, when she is in elimination and all the attention is on her she thinks she feels something she decides to stay. She has hijacked the show and needs to be stopped.

Finally there is my favorite person Mary. I kind of feel bad laughing at her since I feel she is just not emotionally equipped to deal with a reality dating show, but not bad enough to actually not laugh. Of course she was also one of the girls that was talking tons of trash in the early episodes about how the cougs did not have a chance and how dudes were always hitting on her. This girl will cry at absolutely anything. A perfect example was when in a previous episode someone told her to shut up and she cried. It is the highest of high comedy. The funny thing is that she did not cry when she was talking to Mark and he walked away while she was in mid sentence. Awesome. You just can't predict crazy

Slideshow

I am just doing a test of how to do a slide show. These are from last night at Los Hermanos

Flight of the Conchords

Ok, so I hate to be hopping on the bandwagon since this show is huge all over the internet and is getting a lot of press but Flight of the Conchords is really funny. Now we do not have HBO so I have not seen any real episodes but I have watched enough video online to know it is good. It is 2 New Zelanders (kiwis) who have a fake folk rock band. Anyway, here is a video for your Friday enjoyment

Primary sign language

So recently I have been struggling to think of stuff to blog about. It seems like my brain has stopped working and I have nothing to say. I thought about Tracey and my calling as primary teachers and I realized I must speak out against one of the most horrific practices inflicted upon children in the church. This needless act is the unnecessary incorporation of sign language into primary songs. To make this worse, the songs are typically performed in some sort of sacrament meeting program making this unusual torture highly public.

Before I get a bunch of hate mail from people with deaf family members (yeah right, there are like 5 people that read this blog and I know all of them), let me say that I think sign language should be everywhere to help those that are hearing impaired interact with the world. My issue is when sign language is unnecessarily forced upon kids who have a hard enough time singing loud enough that people can hear them.

To make matters worse the person teaching the children doesn't actually know sign language making it a learning experience for all parties. Now I know it is a lot of work and I commend our chorister for that but I just think the effort could be better spent elsewhere (I was going to make a comment about choosing clothes that don't look like they were made for a renaissance fair but that would be too mean). The best was when the other chorister (that is right, our primary has 12 kids on a really good day and requires 2 choristers) tried to tell the kids what one sign meant, only to be corrected by one of the counselors that actually knows sign language.

I could go on for much longer especially about the video where the person is making ridiculous faces while signing the song but I will refrain. The point is, this practice needs to stop, for the sake of the children and for my sanity.

Quick Post

Just a quick post of a trailer I think looks really good. You can't go wrong with Vince Vaughn and Christmas

My wife the thief

Ok so fist of all I need to say that my original title for this post was "My wife the snitch," but I was worried that people might confuse my intended definition of someone who thieves things with the more common definition of someone who reveals information which they should have kept secret. I didn't want people to start worrying that Tracey was in prison and was going to get shanked in the yard and various other prison cliches.

Now I fully believe that Tracey worked hard to keep this behavior in check during the dating process. I am guessing that this was due to my adamant refusal that we would be one of those couples that would share food (by the way I was kidding myself if I thought I could get away with not doing this. Not only do we share but I am now always tapped for food clean up duty, eating anything Tracey does not finish. I am sure that this will just get worse when we have kids). Once we were married all bets were off and now if I have something delicious and turn my back I can guarantee that she will snitch a taste. I was going to post a picture of her in the act but she is so sneaky that I am not able to catch her with the camera. Maybe I need to set out one of those scouting cameras to catch her.

Maybe I am to blame. I recall in the past that my sister Margaret would always steal a bite or two any time I made a sandwich. I may need to do some further investigation and/or look into some sort of food protection devices.

Here are a couple videos. First of all this awesome video of Natalie Portman that I hope I have not posted before.

Second is this video specifically for my wife since she loves this skit.

Finally this video is for Sammy who will get this song stuck in his head for the rest of the weekend

Anti Popped Collar Technology

All is well in the world for Ben. He discovered a shirt that prevents douche bags from popping their collars. He found it at Old Navy. There is a little button on the back side of the collar that keeps the collar attached to the shirt itself. We can all rest easier knowing that evil douche bags will be thwarted. Now we just have to protect certain nephews from their parents. Parents who pop their son's collars and cause our darling nephew to become a 2 yr old Guido. You know who you are!!! Leave the kid alone!!!

This image has been blurred to protect the innocent.

Ben's Birthday

Ben is FINALLY 28 so now I can stop hearing about how 28 is so old and how I already have one foot in the grave.

We had a party at our house consisting of Ben's siblings and their rugrats as well as my mom and two brothers. We ate in the backyard and it was so stinking hot that I was afraid Ben's awesome birthday cake would melt. For those of you who don't know, my husband LOVES Costco cake and there is half a sheet cake in our fridge right now waiting to be consumed by Ben and only Ben. It was hard enough to get him to share it at the party!

Despite the heat we had a great time. Our niece Miriam just learned to walk and it was fun watching her toddle around. (She almost stepped in Cameron's cake . . . that's a new thing to have to watch out for. We watched various kids pick cake up off the ground and shove it in their mouths. Doug (Ben's sister's husband) provided a valuable service and got some of the younger more persuadable nephews to play a neat game of "Let's throw the apples in the hole in the garden so Uncle Ben doesn't have to pick them up to mow the lawn!" Perhaps the best gift ever given to Ben. We also learned that when there aren't enough toys for kids to play with, they will find things to become toys. In the case of Grant, Thomas, Paige and Sterling, these toys were pipes from the garden. How exciting!

Ben got AWESOME birthday presents including steak knives, a game for the Wii and a hitch for the Tuscon. It doesn't get much better than that does it? Sterling and Grant gave him some silly string that I may need to hide out of self-preservation.

All in all, I think it was a pretty good birthday for him. He probably likes the left over pizza from the Pie and the leftover birthday cake the best.

Camping with the family

Every once in awhile my husband reminds me how freaking funny he is.

This weekend we went camping with my family. Camping means hanging out at the campground, going on ATV rides and eating a lot of junk food. Additionally on this trip, Ben got to hear me perform fantabulous hits of the 70's since they were the only CD's in my dad's Excursion. We had to drive it up instead of our car as extra towing power because my dad was afraid his new Semi wouldn't fit into the campground. Shocking thought isn't it. (Don't worry, I'm sure we will post on my dad's semi and all his crazy toys.)

Ben is relatively new to Dannelly style camping. This means he is constantly being trained by Paul (my dad) on various camping skills. My siblings and I have learned that this is how life with Paul goes. You are always being directed to do something. It might be the classic "Hold your plate with both hands!" or "You need to shine that flashlight on (blank)." No matter what the direction is, you sometimes wonder whether or not he forgot you are his offspring and not his employee. These directions/commands have good intentions because he wants us to learn things. The funny thing is that he often thinks that we need to learn something that it pretty much common sense.

On this trip Ben "learned" that he had to let the diesel light turn off before turning on the Excursion. He also "learned" that when cleaning dutch ovens, you don't want to scrub the black off and if you are going to lift a hot dutch oven lid with the pole, use both hands! He also learned how to cook (keep in mind Ben does almost all of the cooking at home) potatoes and that you can't mess with them or they fall apart. My dad is so stinking cute sometimes. All of these lessons are particularly funny because Ben is a chemical engineering PhD. student and pretty darn smart to boot.

One of the funnier moments of the trip has been documented by these photos. I have a little brother who likes to steal my helmet for his hoochies and then forget to return it to the trailer. As we prepared to ride on Saturday I found that the little punk had done it again! GRRRRR!!! This meant that we were short a regular helmet.

Leave it to my husband to solve the problem. When my parents first purchased our ATVs they also purchased the "Dumb and Dumber" helmets. As you can see, Ben found them. He completed the ensemble with some super awesome goggles and gloves all while leaving his ever present baseball cap on. My husband is H-O-T-T-T! Not to be outdone, Bessie (my little sister Bethany) donned the white helmet and the two made fashion history. He now plans to add stickers to increase the helmet's awesomeness. Possibly a glittery Virgin Mary or simply letters across the back stating the obvious . . . "Ben Rules!" I think my mom was a little embarrassed because she kept offering him her helmet.