If at first you don't succeed, blame someone else and seek counseling.

Well nation, my least favorite time of the year is quickly approaching: the end of football season.  This means a couple things, the first of which is that the playoffs/Super Bowl are upon us.  I love the playoffs, even though my Cowboys haven't had a significant run since 1996.  I think that my favorite part of the playoffs, however, is the concept of the "Bandwagon."  The Bandwagon, for those of you who think the Super Bowl is that huge thing in the soup kitchen, is the figurative term for when someone starts acting like a huge fan of whatever team is doing well, effectively "jumping on the bandwagon."  Now don't get me wrong, I have jumped on the bandwagon tons of times in just as many sports, but let's be clear, I love supporting several teams (such as the New Orleans Saints), but when those teams lose, I can move on.  However, when MY team (Dallas) loses, I turn into the fifth grade girl that didn't get invited to the birthday party.  Unfortunately that seems to happen very often. But I'm getting sidetracked.  The Bandwagon.  As far as I'm concerned, the Bandwagon is the greatest thing that has been introduced to sports since steroids.  (If you haven't read it already, my opinion on steroids is made explicitly clear towards the end of this blog, click here to read it.)  What the Bandwagon does is ensure that there is always a surplus of fans for every game that matters, and that the majority of people are happy at the end of a season, as bandwagonners are prone to simply flip sides mid game by slowly making excuses during the game about how they really have enjoyed watching [insert star player from other team] throughout the season.  And I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I'm a pro at this.  But honestly if I could, not only would I jump on every bandwagon possible, I'd be the fucking driver.  How great would that be??  You'd have a winning season every season, a championship every year, IN EVERY SPORT.  Think about it.  Even if we lose, this is the scenario:  We're on the figurative bus, tailgating like it's our effing job, we watch the game, it ends, we lose, we pout for seven minutes, redecorate the bus and start celebrating again.  What was your justification for not doing this again?  I don't care, your reason is irrelevant and stupid.  Of course there are always those sports fans who are so avidly obsessed with their team that it actually takes the fun out of watching sports for other people, and these are the ones that will unfailingly call out the bandwagonners, saying (and make sure to read this in an extremely whiny voice) "I've been a true fan my entire life, even when they were losing."  Good for you, douchebag.  I'll be sure to let them know at the Fan Of The Year Awards that don't exist.  I call these people the Hipsters of Football.  (Side Note:  If and when the Cowboys win the Super Bowl in the future, I will without a doubt convert into a Football Hipster.)

Speaking of Hipsters, does anybody remember when long distance phone bills existed?  I completely forgot about those.

Okay so if you're reading this blog, you know that I have a very vivid imagination.  (That might be dumbing it down a little, but it's better than admitting I've gone insane.)  Anyway, my question to you is:  If a bad dream at night is called a "nightmare," is a bad daydream called a "daymare"?  I ask because if that's what it's called, then I had one hell of a daymare the other day.  Basically any time I'm running (it's a kind of exercise) or even walking somewhere that takes longer than three minutes, my mind dives headfirst into a daydream.  There is no pattern to it at all, but I can tell you that they aren't light-hearted daydreams.  In these dreams I'm not on a vacation or anything.  In the good ones, for example, I’ll be somewhere in an alternate universe and I've just solved their alien equivalent to cancer, effectively saving the entire species from extinction.  The bad ones, and they get bad sometimes, are simply too gruesome to write about.  Luckily this one wasn't too horrible.  In this dream I was base jumping off of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel in Singapore.  I jumped off, free fell for a little bit, and from there two things happened:  First, I was somehow transported over to a forest, but because this is a dream and that kind of stuff is for some reason completely normal in dreams, I didn’t even question it.  Second, I pulled the ripcord and promptly found out there was a hole in my parachute.  Being that I was in the middle of the jungle, I realized I had no hope but to try and land, so after a string of expletives I began looking for something soft to land on.  There was nothing, so I proceeded to aim for a tree with large branches that I could tangle my lines on and hopefully climb down.  I found such a tree and tangled my lines, then, because my own self-conscious hates me, the tree fell.  Now, in case you've forgotten, this was all a dream.  And not only a dream, a DAYdream.  While all this is going on in my head, my body is walking through campus surrounded by a large number of college-aged strangers.  God-knows what I was doing throughout the majority of this dream, but I can tell you that when that imaginary tree fell, I let out a short yelp and flailed my arms out to my sides.  I thought I was trying to catch any other branches to save myself, but in reality I was just punching the building I was next to while simultaneously stiff-arming the young woman passing me into the street.  Not one of my smoother moments.

I don't like the term "horror stories."  Also, I don't like horror stories.  But I really don't like when that phrase is used as a way to described a bad time.  For example, when someone is "telling horror stories from when they were in the war,” it means they're talking about some of the unpleasant times they had when they were enlisted.  And I don't mean to downplay anybody in that position, but when I hear the phrase “horror stories from the war,” I immediately picture the American military going to war against the girl from The Ring, Scream, and Casper the Not-So-Friendly Ghost.

Fact of the Day:  Sounds travels 15 times faster through steel than it does through air.

Shout out to Joseph Mount.

I may have schizophrenia, but at least I have each other.

As I'm sure you all know, I live a very hard life and am constantly plagued with intense life or death decisions, such as Chickfila or Zaxby's, Sierra Nevada or Flying Dog, and Ranch or BBQ Sauce.*  My most recent dilemma can be solely attributed to social media.  My blog frequency has decreased, as I'm sure you have noticed during your hourly checks, and I completely blame this on Twitter.  I struggle daily with whether to tweet my random thoughts or save my genius for a blog, and recently Twitter has been winning out.  I'd like to apologize because I know how much pain this is putting you through.  Please do not harm yourself.

*Answers: Zaxby's, Sierra Nevada, and Ranch.

So winter break is over. (Side note: All of you with 2 month winter breaks that don't go back for another 2 weeks can go swallow a sword.)  Now that we're all back in the swing of things, let's talk about our travel. To get started, I'm going to go ahead and officially say that I win.  I did a lot of bouncing around this break, including 7 cities in 5 states, 5 flights, and a little over 30 hours of road tripping.  In short, I am better than you.  And coincidentally, I am also in far more debt.  It was fun though, and I got to do a lot of people watching.  However, I discovered something during part of my travel, and that's how much it sucks to be the one being people-watched.  On Christmas day I woke up and drove from Macon to Atlanta, then flew to Dallas.  (That’s Georgia to Texas for the geographically challenged readers.)  Now there aren't a lot of people that travel on Xmas, but out of all the people that did travel, every single one of them had a family member, significant other, or travel buddy with them.  It didn't even faze me at first.  As I watched the passers by I realized everyone looked sad.  It was pretty depressing.  However it wasn't nearly as depressing as when I realized that they weren't just sad, they were looking sadly at me.  These people were pitying me, and it was excruciating.  In their minds, no one loved me, I was completely alone, and the airport janitorial staff was the closest thing I had to family.  But you can't blame them, can you?  What sad, pitiful sap travels alone on Christmas?  I'll tell you who:  THIS FUCKING GUY.  Don't judge me, you don't even know me.  I'm traveling to see even more of my family, and then friends all across the country.  I get the most out of my Christmas, so you can suck it.  However, as much as I wanted to I couldn't yell expletives, accusations, and insults, so I resorted to throwing lightly salted, honey roasted peanuts at the strangers and taking their picture when they looked at me.  I think we all know who really won.

Another thing I learned over the break is that my mother is subtly trying to kill me.  You heard me, Birthgiver, I'm on to you.  At first I was in denial, but now the signs are too blatant to ignore.  For example, the last time I went home, there were no Pizza Rolls in the freezer.  NO PIZZA ROLLS.  Clearly the woman is trying to starve me.  And then I found out she redecorated my bathroom when I went to college.  My first thought was, "Okay, that's normal.  A bunch of parents do that when their kids fly the coop.  I don't technically live there anymore, so she's free to do whatever she wants."  I went home, and I have to admit it looked nice.  Little did I know it was a death trap.  The shower curtain is some new evil concept curtain that waits til you're comfortable in the shower, mid-shampoo, and then flings itself in your direction in an obvious attempt to suffocate you.  And the light fixture.... oh the light fixture.  Floating above the sink, illuminating the whole bathroom in a homely glow.  A glorious touch to the room's aura, or a malevolent concussion machine?  I'll give you a hint, it's the second one.  It hangs a solid 8 inches below the top of my head, blocking my view, and trying its absolute best to bash my head in every time I lean down to brush my teeth.  And it's getting very good at it.  I feel like I live in a slightly toned down episode of SAW IV.

I think Doritos are one of the greatest things ever.

During the break I drove up to Chicago to pick up my current roommate and all of his possessions.  We stayed with two of his friends, and like honorable guests we stayed on our computers nearly 100% of the time we were at their house.  At some point I came across an online quiz of company slogans, and it was enlightening to say the least.  My absolute favorite was Google's slogan: "Don't be evil."  It made me think two things:  First, I've got to take down Google if I ever want to rule the world, and second, what other companies have cool slogans?  So after spending and embarrassing amount of time researching this question on the Internet machine, here are my opinions on certain companies' slogans:

Company > Slogan > My Opinion

Guinness (2000):  "Guinness is good for you."  Okay Guinness, let's chat.  I find a couple problems with this slogan, namely that is absolutely wrong.  Yes, certain ingredients used in the brewing of your beer may be good for you, and you may feel good while drinking Guinness, but in no way does that mean the beer itself is good for you.  That's like saying that because peanuts are appetizing, dynamite itself must also be tasty.  (Peanuts are an active ingredient in dynamite.)  I appreciate the effort, but let's stick to something that isn't clearly a lie.  Also, who is honestly going to believe that?  We aren’t working with toddlers here, and even if we were, shame on you for trying to get toddlers drunk.  BOYCOTT GUINNESS, THEY’RE TODDLER KILLERS.

7-Eleven:  "Oh thank Heaven."  To be honest, I love it.  Why?  Because when you walk into a 7-Eleven on a hot summer day and take a nice big gulp of your own personal Slurpee concoction, that slogan is exactly what goes through your mind.  Seriously though, think about the last time you when into a McDonald's.  At what point were you thinking "I'm lovin' it"?  I'll tell you when: Never.  After the first few bites you're thinking something along the lines of "WHY DO I KEEP DOING THIS TO MYSELF??" or "Sweet zombie Jesus this feels like edible suicide..."  Not 7-Eleven though.  No sir.  Thank Heaven indeed for the infinite number of Slurpee possibilities and seemingly endless array of snacking options.

Heineken (2000):  "Heineken refreshes the parts other beers cannot reach."  Stop it, Heineken.  I don't feel thirsty, I feel violated.

Visa:  "It's everywhere you want to be."  ...........God?

Folgers:  "The best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup."  False.  The best part of waking up is realizing you have another hour to sleep.  Aside from that, it is a very catchy jingle that you're now singing in your head.  You're welcome.

Energizer:  "Nothing outlasts an Energizer."  You gotta hand it to them, that slogan just kept going and going and going and going.....

Sarah Lee:  "Nobody doesn't like Sarah Lee."  Also, nobody likes double negatives.  Are you trying to confuse us into buying your bread?

Okay so I could do that for a very long time, so I'm just gonna cut myself off there.  You get the idea though.  There are a lot of good slogans, but there are even more very very shitty slogans.  Just goes to show........ something.

Fact of the Day:  Domestic pigs average a top speed of about 11 miles per hour.

Shout out to Sarah Mellema.