You gotta hear this one song, it'll change your life I swear

You might recognize the title as a quote from Garden State referring to The Shins. Their new CD Wincing the Night Away has been out for a week and a day now and its excellent. I don't want to steal Leslie's shins review thunder, so this is by no means a review, just commentary.

First I'd like to say that I love the cover design. I have no idea what it is, but it fascinates me. Kinda Dr. Seuss meets blood platelets meets space meets little shop of horrors.

I definitely don't have a favorite song yet since they are all good, but two of the ones that stood out to me were "girl sailor" and "sea legs". Girl sailor more because I like the lyrics and sea legs because i like the tune. I started to wonder if these stood out to me because I was obsessed with water and boats and all that good stuff, but they did have two songs on one 11 song CD about that stuff so maybe it was them that was obsessed.

If any of you know me you know that in reality I am obsessed with it, so I wont try and deny it. But I think it might also be equal parts them. They have another song on the CD called "black wave" and then multiple other songs including "Australia" talks about the ocean. I began to think more about this so I listened to their second CD which Leslie gave me and it also had many songs that mentioned these same topics. So I've come to the conclusion that the shins and I have one very important thing in common, our love for all things water related. (notice how i didn't say water sports b/c that would have been gross)

great, now I have sea legs stuck in my head.

My Very own Dr. [not so] McDreamy

Sat night I was on my apt floor elevator lobby with Leslie waiting to go down when we ran into my neighbor. He was wearing a emergency medicine t shirt and was one of those overly friendly people. He tried to get an invite to play twister with us that night, but when it was clear we weren't going to offer one he asked for my apt number and said he'd stop by to play some other time. What could I do? just say I don't remember where I live? He suggested we set up a twister league in DC, but he wouldn't quit his day job to work on twister...trying to get us to ask what he did, but we didn't ask. Before parting ways he told us that if we got hurt he had some morphine in his apartment that we could have. umm...thanks?

This story goes back a little farther than that. We met earlier this year when he moved a few doors down from me. He is always very chatty and quite the gentleman offering to hold doors for me, helps me take out the trash etc. I always ran into him at the pool too. Now the weird thing about all these run ins is that he was without fail always either wearing his med school shirt, some other medical related shirt, or his scrubs. Ok I get the hint, you are a doctor.

Well to make it even better I saw him in the garage about a week ago. I know I shouldn't be the one to make fun of vanity plates, but I'm gonna anyway. his plates read "dr dan".

I don't think I've ever met anyone so proud of their own profession.

as a side note, mike and will are good twister players, and I still think there has to be some amazing story behind why ted refused to play.

lets get stupid, cuse stupid is free

iThis weekend was totally random and a lot of fun, I think i will have to break up the blogs though so it doesn't get too long, so look for the rest in following days (unless you get antsy then you can just see my photo website b/c i posted new pics). I'll start off with Friday night. (as most of you know I have a concert blog as well, but you've probably noticed I've started only blogging there about the important shows)

Leslie and I met up at "mexico Lauriol Plaza taco" with Tristan, mike, will, ted, and Joe. collectively we had some margs, some gin destroyers, some rum and coke, and some beer....oh i think there might have been food too.

Then Leslie Joe Will and I walked to the black cat to see some of Lets French, and all of These United States, and Washington Social Club. I've been wanting to see Lets French (who seemed really good from the 2 songs we saw) and These United States, and I love seeing WSC since Leslie introduced them to me when we started off being friends (yes, our friendship was built on music, but really, what good friendship isn't?)

These United States were nowhere as good as they are recorded. In fact they were almost comedic. At least Leslie and I found humor in their outfits...one of which included rain boots...read Leslie's blog to find out about that. (that being said I'll prob see them again)

WSC was awesome. One of the best times I've seen them. Totally got the crowd going, even at one point started a mosh pit! We only had one person in front of us so we had a pretty good view. I cant wait for their second cd.

Worth noting is this guy that was next to us. He tried to get Leslie to dance with him, briefly tried to get me to dance too but i hid behind Joe, so he fixed his target on Leslie. After we both refused to dance he got himself front and center and was the most ridiculous dancer EVER. Marty Royal even saw this and started laughing and then he started mimicking his hand motions. I haven't laughed that hard at a show ever. The kid just threw his body around and his arms up into the air, its almost indescribable except to say that he resembled Jack Black.

I am Rachel # 1 and proud of it!

I guess sometimes you have evenings where you don't immediately remember things, and over time it comes back to you. Evidently last weekend was like that.

Last night Will and I were chatting about random things like midnight forest (quite scary) and deep dish vs thin crust pizza when he reminded me of the drunken phone call I had with him on the way back from Camelot (yeah, already blogged about that). But that reminded me of one amusing thing. Outside Camelot they list all the girls dancing that night. One of the girls listed was "Rachelle 1" ...I know its spelled differently but its practically me.

You see in any group of friends names are bound to overlap, and lucky me we know a couple other Rachel's. Pretty soon after meeting the others my immediate friends made it clear that I was their favorite dubbing me "Rachel #1"...I think Leslie is the one that came up with that. One of our friends would trick them into going places on the pretense that "Rachel" was going to be there, and they soon learned to ask for specification if it was "Rachel#1".

A couple months into this we were at a party and one of our friends started flirting with another Rachel, so Leslie and I approached him, looking out for his best interest and said "we wont stop you, but just to warn you that's "Rachel #3" and we don't even know who #2 is, we just know she doesn't deserve that spot". He still hasn't forgiven us for putting on the mental cock block.

So thanks to my friends that made me Rachel #1. And weird that Camelot also has one!

Friendship is born at that moment when-

-one person says to another: "What! You, too? Thought I was the only one."-C.S. Lewis

Gmail's new chat feature is both awesome and terrible. At any given point I have anywhere between 15-20 "friends" that are active on gmail chat (not to mention my non gmail friends that email me). As with anything Gchaters fall into two groups, the good and the bad.

Good Gchaters are those people that im you when they actually have something to say. Whether it be a funny anicdote, or just a point that needs to be addressed asap. For example Jim will IM me to arrange meeting up for lunch, or Leslie will IM me to chat about our group email chains.

Bad Gchaters come in many forms. First is the type that IMs you just for the hell of it, they have nothing to say and are bored at work and dont realize that I'm at work too. The conversation will go back and forth for a while with one word answers till they realize this conversation is pointless, and I stop responding. Another type is the one that will leave mid convo and doesnt say so much as brb or hold on, and they never get back to you. Chris Shields is big on this, he'll start a conversation and then just leave! But i've learned to deal, he's been doing this as long as I know him(with aim too), and Jennilee and I got on his case once about it, so he knows he does it.

Gchat also allows for thier form of "away messages" I try and make mine either amusing or stating where I am at that moment, but I change it frequently. Katie Tilley is good at changing hers with amusing links daily. Some people never change thiers for example like when Diana left that she was on the west coast for like 2 weeks after she got back. Change your away messages people!

Lastly Green, Red, Orange dots...Clearly you cant help the orange dot which is good...but dont abuse the Red dot. Some people just leave it red all the time to pretend to be busy, but this ruins it for everyone. When I put mine on Red its because I am truly busy, but since you people have abused this I still get imed....although I must admit I too im people with the red dot.

For now that is all I have to say about gmail's gchat.

ipod's random shuffle...part two if you include leslie's blog

Happy Birthday Andreea on this lovely 1...2....SEVEN? ( not so inside joke from at least a decade ago, sure makes me sound old doesn't it?)

Recently Leslie decided she didn't buy the ipod's "random" in "random shuffle". I tried to explain to her about random number generators, but then I felt like a big nerd. I have to admit the ipod's function is a bit less "random" than others, this morning's ride in was a good example. I think my ipod knew it was two-fer-tuesday and played me two sublime, two harvey danger, and two phish all in a row! I guess technically that's random in some way, but definitely kinda strange.

My thoughts about the ipod's random number generator is that it takes out the most common ones first because generally what plays on my shuffle are the lesser known songs...like for Harvey danger it didn't play flagpole sita, but instead private helicopter and wooly muffler (yeah, i realize I'm probably the only one in existence that still remembers Harvey danger's lesser known songs, but hey I even went to their concert back in the day)....so yeah those are my thoughts on the ipod.

Bad attempts and strip clubs

And the winner for worst pickup attempt was.....

I was thinking about making this a weekly Monday feature in my blog, but most bad attempts are the same so I'll only post when they amuse me a lot.

Friday night I was at Lucky Bar and at one point I was sitting in a booth on one side by myself and katie was across from me while paul and laura and jessica were dancing (thanks for not saving me that time paul :( ) This guy comes and stands next to the table for a bit pretending to be on the phone. He sits down while on the fake call and hangs up. looks at me and goes for his wallet...instead of immediately going for his wallet he grabs my ass, I scoot over a little and he redirects his hand for his wallet. Pulls out a credit card and hands it to katie indicating she should order us all a round on him (he still has yet to say a word). Jessica returns at this point, figures out whats going on, hands the card back and tells him he shouldn't give his credit card to strangers. At this point he looks back to me and says (remember this is the first time he's spoken) "there is nothing more that I want then to make out with you right now"...Then he leans in for the kiss! Clearly i back away as much as you can do while cornered in a booth. He tries to lean in a few more times while awkwardly sitting next to me still neither of us talking to the other (i'm looking around for people to save me and trying to ignore him) he goes to run his fingers through my hair and pull my head in for one more attempt to kiss me...again i resist. He speaks again..."i'm persistent, i'm not going anywhere". "fine" i say, and continue to look away and ignore him. after about five awkward minutes of silence FINALLY HE GOES AWAY.

Also the most amusing part of the weekend was when we were at Camelot for chris' bday and ashley and I got up to give one girl $$ and a good portion of the guys started cheering for us instead of the totally naked girl. I dont think the girl minded though b/c after her performance she came over to me and ashley and told us we were very sweet.

Velvet Lounge and such

Last night a group of us went to see Velhalla at the Velvet Lounge. Katie invited us to see her mom's friend's son's band play. Without finding out any more information I agreed to go. Why not. So we get there and besides us there is a decent sized crowd, but I look around and realize that they are all significantly older than us. So I leaned over and whispered to katie "why are they all older, doesn't the band have their own friends?" at this point katie fesses up...."oh yeah, they are all in highschool".

I think Katie and Lindsay talked to the boys (and yes, i mean boys) for a little before the show while the rest of us sat on some bleachers in the back...who knew there were seats there! The first song reminded me of a cross between pink floyd and the doors, and then to my surprise for the second song they played a doors cover! Then later on for one song the guitar stoped working with the amp so you noticibly couldnt hear it at all, but they continued anyway and it still sounded really good. Then Rob went up and saved the day and made it work.

These boys were GREAT! The singer had an amazing voice, and the rest of the band was genuinely good at their instruments. Quite the musicians. I'd definitely be interested in seeing them again!

Also I picked up a sampler cd a few nights ago at stetsons and it had 6 bands on it, three that I really like (Cedars, These United States, Welbuilt) and 3 that I could take or leave (politics, leaving TX, some band whose name i dont remember) Clearly I'll be trying to listen more to the three I like. I just thought i'd stick this paragraph in while I was talking about local music.

You may have noticed that I recently started using the labels in my blogs. The place where i can type in labels gives some examples of what to use, like scooters, vacation, fall....SCOOTERS? really? is that something written about frequently enough to be any one's label, let alone the example label?

Everybody cut Footloose

Last night about 15 of us went to see Diana in Footloose. I had never seen the movie before so I was pretty excited.

Before the show Katie, Lindsay and I got some ice cream and walked about 10 blocks in the freezing cold, and it wasn't until intermission that I began to thaw out...not our smartest move.

The show was great! Diana has a really good voice, and it was fun seeing her go back in time and dance around :) Since she started auditioning for the part till now I've come to realize there are a bunch of songs from this show that I actually know, including my favorite "lets hear it for the boy"! I just found out yesterday that Matt reads this blog, but I'm not sure if any other camp people do, but one year we sang that song to the boys at camp. good times.

I sat between Rob and Jen who I now know are possibly the loudest breathers EVER. it was like i was sitting next to Darth Vader impersonators.

Also Leslie was at the show and I havent seen her in weeks b/c she's been a traveling girl, so welcome back!

So i'm probably going to get the footloose soundtrack now, unless someone already has it and they want to share.

Who doesnt like a good invention!

I just received some tickets in the mail to an upcoming show and it came in probably the best invention ever. Unfortunately I don't quite remember what site I bought the tickets from because it was not one of the major ones like tickets.com or Ticketmaster. Anyway, the tickets arrived in a magnet with a slot in it to hold the tickets.

If you've seen my apt (and if you are reading this I assume you have) you know its fairly messy, but if there is anything that has a specific place its my tickets for future shows since at any given time I have a whole bunch. Lucky for me this spot is metal so I can now hang my new tickets on it. Awesome!

On another note I keep getting "friend" requests from girls on myspace who claim to have gone to my high school. Why you would lie about this I DON'T KNOW. With 50 girls in each grade you kinda know who everyone is. Most of the fake girls are the ones with the slutty pictures of themselves and they claim to be lesbians. I guess that explains why they want to pretend they went to an all girls school...but why friend us? its just weird!!!

Back from a long weekend

First off Happy Birthday Jim and Kevin! Kevin if you've found this blog by now I'm not sure if I'll make it to the party tonight.

This weekend my parents were telling me what movies they planned to watch if it rained in cape cod while they were there, and as usual my parents both got on the phone at the same time
Mom: I really want to see Blood Diamonds have you seen it yet?
Me: Um yeah, Jordan and I went Christmas eve
Dad: Donna, did you just ask our daughter if she saw a Leo movie? She probably went opening night!

Unfortunately Leo didn't win any golden globes last night, but looked so cute all dressed up! I'll keep my fingers crossed for the Oscars. Chris Shields (yeah i gotta use last names when ALL your friends are named Chris) and I have our annual Oscars night viewing and betting and he's won two years in a row....My putting all my money on Leo will either be a really good thing or a really bad thing...we'll see! I would have picked the departed instead of babel for best picture last night but maybe that's because I haven't seen babel yet and I pick Leo over brad.

oh, and what? borat won an award? seriously?

SNES is way better than Wii any day!

As most of you know I recently resurrected my old super Nintendo system. At first I thought I had set it up wrong and needed to go behind the TV, but it turns out I did it right with the cords in the front and just needed to clean out the pin connectors on the cartridge to get it to work.

This week I finally had time to sit down and play. So I started with my favorite, Aladdin. I beat it once when I was younger, and I think I only passed the Lava Level once, and that might have been my sister passing it I'm not sure...all I know is someone passed and we got the code to skip it from then on. Anyway Last night I both passed the Lava Level AND Beat the Entire game in under an hour. Big night for me!

Games I have
* Aladdin
*Mario All Stars
*Super Mario world
*NHL 94
*Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back
*Lion King
*Wheel of Fortune
*Jeopardy

Games I want (and am bidding for on eBay)
*Dr. Mario and Tetris
*Donkey Kong

For some reason those two are "rare" and when they come on ebay they go for somewhere around 20 bucks or more, I did see one for 60. If anyone has any recomendations for other games I should get let me know!

In my defense Massachusetts is a really hard state for a little kid!

Heck, its hard for a big kid too. My parents just found this while cleaning the basement and sent it to me.

Dilbert is so lucky with his cubicle

Well I had two GLORIOUS weeks without my terrible office mate. But after one planned week, and one week getting "stuck" in morocco, he is back. I dont know the story about why he got stuck, i guess he claims there was an ice storm...that kept him there for a week...but basically I try and not ask questions. Anyway because I get cold I turn the heater on at work, which overheats him so I got the service people to fix it so there was a medium setting....so today is the first day where its not deathly hot but not cold. I guess for some reason he has more of a problem with this than with it blasting hot air so he asked me to turn it off because now he's too hot (um hello it was hotter before). Then he left the office for me to freeze. I really dislike this guy.

on a positive note, after MONTHS of saving coke reward points at 3 points for every 20fl oz bottle, 3 points for every 2 L bottle, and 10 points for every fridge pack of cans I have finally saved up 144 points to redeem it for a full year's subscription to cosmo magazine! Thanks to Joe, Karlyn, and Karlyn's mom!!!!

I Said -Its Great- To Be- (friends with) A Florida Gator

Katie and Sarah went to Florida so all season I've been invited to parties to watch the games as well as catching it at random bars we were at so that they wouldn't miss anything. I've learned a few of their cheers (ooooorange! bluuuuuue!) so I don't feel too left out at the bars and I will even dress color appropriate...although my only shirt with any orange on it is my hooters shirt, so needless to say I usually stick with blue. Even when we went to watch Katie run the marathon in NYC we tried to include gator colors in the shirts we made to cheer her on! Ours were Blue and Hers was Orange.

Well Last night Lindsay, Becca and I along with a whole group of Katie's friends went to Bailey's grille and pub in VA to watch the game. Evidently that's the rebel Florida alumni bar (the official bar is where the old fans go, and the younger fans adopted this bar instead). My expectations weren't very high, but I figured it would be a good game anyway, but to my surprise the Gators kicked OU's butt! At first it was kinda close, and then the gators got a questionable touchdown. Sarah felt pretty strongly that they couldn't win by one touchdown at that rate because that wasn't how she wanted them to win....well she got her way when the Gators won 41-14.

As a side note have you ever played checkers and gotten to a point where literally no one could move? (I'll try and post the board pic later) Well Lindsay, Nate, and Katie played a game where a few moves into it the board was locked up! crazy! (checkers were built into the tables) Also I'm way excited b/c Katie's friends Nate and Paul live down the street from me so they were nice enough to give me a ride home last night as well as this weekend. So after a pit stop at Taco Bell ( I didn't get anything) they took me home. I am exhausted at work today but surprisingly not hungover!

Congrats to all the Gator Fans out there! What a great way to celebrate 100 years of football!

Note 2 Self

Saturday night I was outside in the unseasonably warm weather waiting for Will, Tristan and Mike...as usual I was early. Since outside is now the happening place where all the smokers are forced to go I had to think quick and find something to make it look like I was busy and not just standing on the sidewalk like a loser, so I pulled out my phone and began to press buttons.

I came across the section of my texts that are notes and drafts and I realized there was a new one that I didn't remember putting in. Judging by the notes and drafts surrounding it I had typed this up sometime within the past 3 weeks. I have no recollection of typing this and do not know what prompted it. Anyway the text read Note 2 self dont die. Always good advice I guess, but definitely a little disconcerting. So if anyone remembers the story around this please let me know.

...And thats why I'm Awesome

Recently a friend told me that he waits at the end of most of my stories for me to add "and that's why I'm awesome". I'm sorry he feels this way and generally that's not true...today's story is different.

So as most of you know I recently got a GPS system in my car. Usually when its not rush hour driving directly through DC it works pretty well and I think GPS and I have gotten use to each other and decided on some pretty good routes places, both of us adjusting our original idea at one point or another. But that's how good teams work right?

This morning this partnership went horribly wrong. I was on my way to work as usual taking 395 to Pennsylvania ave to 295 when i noticed that it was taking me FOREVER to get through the light cycle. I looked ahead and 295 was stopped at a dead standstill. That's alright, I'll just continue down Penn ave and let GPS help me find a new way. I passed the turn I was supposed to take and right on cue GPS chimes in with "recalculating route". Great, 15 more min and I'll be at work, just a slight detour.

"turn Left, then make another Left" GPS instructs me. I thought about this and over rode it so I didn't end up back at 295..."recalculating route"....I drove a little while longer on Penn ave and i hear "turn right, turn right, turn right, turn left" WTF that just brings me back to 295 AGAIN. Don't you get it GPS, I'm trying to avoid that! So once again I just kept driving. After maybe three more recalculating routes that would have brought me back to 295 I saw a sign for 495 straight ahead so I decided to just continue on and ignore the GPS all together. A few more minutes down Penn ave and I see the sign I've been waiting for...Welcome to Prince George County. I've never been so excited to be in PG county. Another 10 minutes down I reach 495 which I get on and GPS finally gets on board with my route. Who knew that you could get to work that way! But I found the route on my own. And that's why I'm awesome!

Worst Thing Ever

The worst thing imaginable happened to me.

OK so when I go to bars i tend to take my ATM card and put it in my pocket so its taken a lot of wear and tear. Its all sorts of bent, broken in a few spots, and almost all of the images and strips have been worn off. So i did what any one else would do, I went to the bank and asked for a new one. Well this new one arrived today....AND ITS ORANGE. So now I have to deal with an orange ATM card forever :(

ok clearly this isnt my real card, but it might as well be !

And New Year's Eve was [NOT] as boring as heaven, I [Did not] watch flies fuck on Channel 11

OK i guess I took a little break with the blog, been a crazy couple of days but its now 2007 so happy new year everyone! Sadly two thousand oh sex is now over (not so inside joke from us kids on the party bus last NYE) but i can already tell that 2007 is going to be a great year! I wont post all of my new years resolutions but here is my main one:

**to not get annoyed by people as easily. and to always remember that everyone is fun when I'm drunk.**

What are your resolutions?