"quit makin' faces at me!!"

oh god...oh god. if you only know sinbad from such CLASSIC movies as "houseguest", "jingle all the way", and "first kid", you're missing out. in middle school, my dad and i were watching tv one saturday afternoon and happened upon an old sinbad stand-up special that was on comedy central, and proceeded to ROFLOAO for the next hour and a half. i was introduced to a brand new world of hilarity that i never knew....the genius that is sinbad.

so clearly, when i was trying desperately to come up with a great christmas present idea for mi padre this year and saw that the man/the myth/the legend was on tour and coming to the wilbur theatre, i knew it was the perfect idea.

seriously, i had tears rolling down my cheeks and my face was in PAIN from howling with laughter. the entire audience was just dying the entire 2+ hours (!!!) the man was on stage last night, talking about everything from boston drivers to online dating to sending a ragtag army of serial killers overseas. and, as i knew from seeing his previous material, the man is FUNNY AS HELL without using any word worse than "damn" - i'm no prude, but it's just refreshing and totally awesome that he's so hilar on his own that he doesn't even need to pepper anything extra in. seriously, see him if he comes to your town. check out some of my two fave clips - one from that special that started it all, and one from his most recent special, "sinbad where u been?" LOVE.

slow it down...

totally crushing taylor-hanson-style on this man right now and would pretty much do anything for him:

who is he, you ask? his name is jaren johnston and he's the lead singer of southern rock outfit american bang. it doesn't hurt that their music is totally better than kings of leon (as a brilliant youtuber said, "this is what happens when the black crowes, tom petty, and kings of leon have a threesome and don't use protection. awesome band." more beauty/awesome below!! ok i'll stop now.

100 things to do in 2011: month in review

hello again, friends! i come to you a month into the new year, still feeling pretty good about 2011. i've been keeping painstaking track of the items i've completed and made a dent in from my list of 100 things to do in 2011, so let's take a look, shall we?

12. finish the crossword every day for a month: COMPLETED.

i'm currently completing today's usa today puzzle, and am shocked that i actually knocked this one off in the first month. full disclosure...while i didn't have time to do a puzzle every single day, i made sure to make up for any missed ones in the following days. commitment!!

14. dine at 50 new restaurants: STARTED.

slightly disappointed at my pathetic showing of eateries in the first month, but i guess i was too busy focusing on my fast food avoidance (see below). however, i had an amazing breakfast at blue moon grill, a nommy pre-bowling cheeseburger at kings, and killed 1.5 birds with 1 stone at the beehive.

19. win a contest: COMPLETED.

i enter contests like it's my job, so i'm not incredibly shocked about this one. when white castle announced a twitter giveaway for telling them what you'd do if you were stuck in a white castle restaurant for 24 hours, i was all over it. clearly, i'd pretend i was the queen of white castle, decorate the restaurant in regal fashion, and sit on my throne and eat sliders all day. bam. the next week, i get a cardboard crave case filled with a white castle baseball cap (STYLIN'), a scented candle (literallysmellslikeburgerswtf), a coffee table book, a car magnet that reads "craver on board", a t-shirt and a bunch of other awesome junk. what makes it even more amazing is that i've only actually been to white castle once in my life.

25. try 5 new foods: STARTED.

can you believe i'd never tried veal? me neither. i think it had something to do with being told it was cow tongue when i was like 8, and never bothering/caring to actually find out if that was true. but i finally did it...in the form of a veal parm sub. MEH.

32. try one new recipe a month: STARTED.

i made an absolutely godawful crock pot meatloaf during a snowstorm. i was all excited to eat it after a horrible shoveling experience, and couldn't even get through a slice. lesson learned: meatloaves belong in the oven.

47. spend a day in newburyport: COMPLETEDISH.

okay, so basically what i meant by this is that i just wanted to go to newburyport because i'd never been. emily and i wandered around for a little bit and went into some cute shops while digesting our cupcakes from eat cake!, so that was sufficent for me. semantics...

75. go to a jazz brunch: COMPLETED.

i met up with an old roommate for brunch at the beehive in boston, a cute lil' bistro with live jazz on saturdays and sundays. we wolfed down delicious omelettes while some soft sax played in the background. just lovely, really!

81. whiten my teeth: COMPLETED.

i found a package of crest whitestrips that i'd abandoned and have been surprisingly diligent about remembering to use them. i'm almost done, but i can see a difference already!

94. go a month without fast food: COMPLETED.

ooooh, this was a doozy. towards the end of the month, i started having dreams about being stalked by 1/3 pound angus burgers and swimming in vats of ketchup with french fries. but folks, i did it. and you can too! but for real, if it wasn't for being ridiculously snowed in right now, i'd be parked at some mcdonald's with 5 bags in the passenger seat. :)