Fall, Glimmer, Sparkle and Fade

:: Saturday, March 27, 2004 ::

This One Time...

Oh, if only she knew how long winded my stories are:
Top 5 anecdotes. Your favorite stories that have happened to you that you tell everyone.

As soon as I saw this one I had a million stories running through my mind. However, after getting through the first couple I realized just how long my stories tend to be. So in the interest of brevity, I'm making this one a Top 3. Please hold your applause until the end. Thank you.


1. The name's have been changed...
- to protect those involved. The scene is a typical college dorm party. Except that the residents of said dorm were tired of having kids steal stuff from their kitchen at all of their parties, specifically their liquor. So in order to exact some revenge, one of the residents -- we'll call him Ken -- decides to relieve himself into a bottle of alcohol, mix in some water (I'm still not sure why the water had to be added) and leave it in the kitchen area. Whoever is stealing their liquor will pay the ultimate price. Well... a few hours into the party and no one has touched the bottle. Then, all of a sudden one of the sober residents -- we'll call him B-Love -- notices their friend -- Chuck? -- not only drinking from the bottle, but posing for a picture with it. Ooops, not really who it was meant for, but the damage was done. So Chuck takes a swig and gets a puzzled look on his face. He proceeds to ask B-Love "what's in that bottle? It tastes kind of salty." Well, Chuck was done drinking for the evening, to say the least. He spent the better part of the night pouring toothpaste into his mouth. Meanwhile, I've spent the better part of the last four years telling people this story.

2. In no way do I...
- mean to insult anyone from the south with the following story. 99% of my time spent in the Carolinas and Georgia was just fine and dandy, but the one time I stopped in Clemson with a couple friends on the way to Atlanta, bizarreness broke out. I actually originally posted this story on April 9th, 2002, but that would make sense, since these are the stories I tell the most. After passing the driving duties off to someone else, I slept for a good three or four hours and awoke when we pulled into an Exxon Mart in Clemson, SC. I was actually unaware of just where we were, so I asked one of my friends and before I could get an answer, the clerk responds with "Y'all in tiger country now." The Clemson Tiger orange apparently runs very deep in those parts. After filling me in on exactly where I was, he continued to show us how he and his fellow Exxon Mart employee were trying to 'win the big one', meaning $100,000 from a scratch off ticket. They both seemed very excited about the fact that you can put the tickets into the machine WITHOUT EVEN SCRATCHING THEM and find out if you won. Apparently he wanted us to try our luck at some tickets so that we could take the $100,000, 'drive to Greenville, then turn the car towards caaaaaaaaaancun'. Our friendly clerk, however, would use the money to open a 'flop house'. Call me crazy, but I had no idea what a flop house was. He let us know that it was exactly what the name says, a place for all your friends to come over and just 'flop around and do nothin'. I love the south.

3. I wouldn't necessarily call...
- this all that interesting, but it's certainly another story I tell too often. Again, the significant names will be changed to prevent any hate mail. I worked for Sony Music for almost three years and had the pleasure of working with so many great artists. And I don't even mean musically, but just accommodating as artists. Five For Fighting, John Mayer, Ben Folds, Our Lady Peace ... the names go on and they were all amazingly easy to work with. There was one artist, however that fit the stereotypical rockstar attitude perfectly. I don't want to piss of any fans by using their real name, so I'll call them Locomotive or just Loco for short. Let me preface the 'meat' of the story by saying the whole band was awesome, except the lead singer. The lead singer of Loco -- we'll call him Pete -- is who the story is about. Now I had been a fan of Loco for years, so I thought it was cool I was going to spend a day with them and help run a couple of their events: radio station visit/performance and pre-show performance for winners from another station. And things were going great when the day started, sitting on the bus hanging out with the guitarist (who the lead singer has since kicked out of the band) and going over the days events with the tour manager. Then the lead singer shows up. Yikes. Apparently they didn't teach eye contact or personality in rockstar school. Okay, no big deal, it happens. So we're coming back from the radio station interview and all he can do is bitch about how he never has a free day. Every time the 'band' has a day off, he is 'forced' to do interviews at various points during the day. Welcome to the world of being a lead singer, but again I gave him a pass because maybe he things were extra hectic and he was having a bad day. Then we're on the bus and they're going over what they should put on the set list for that night's show. Just throwing songs back and forth. I figure, it's a good time to pop in with some info that would at least let them know I'm not blowing record company smoke up their butt when I say I like the record. So I suggest my favorite song, which was on an EP that they played live a bit on their last tour. I got a good response from the drummer "X is hard to get into the show now that we have two albums (it was the tour right after the release of their sophomore record) to get through". Good answer! So I suggest my favorite track off the first album. This time lead singer Pete chimes in with: "What about the new fuckin album?!". Yikes. His fellow bandmates seem as flustered at this point as I am. So I rattle off some songs from the new CD and he puts his head down to look into his cell. He's momentarily settled down. After that wonderful exchange I head to the back of the bus to play some video games with the rodies, who obviously aren't going to be biting my head off about anything. After a while it's getting closer to show time and we had another band on the bill so I head out and on my way towards the door, I stop in the bus lobby to pick up my 'all access' pass from the tour manager, who is going over the upcoming European tour with all the band members. Being polite, I don't interrupt, but instead wait for him to finish. In a lull of the rundown, Pete chimes in with another jewel: "You all set here Ryan?". Wow, he's 2 for 2. I explain I need to pick up my pass and the tour manager happily slaps one of those bad boys on my jacket and now I'm all set. The point of this story is... Well, I guess there isn't a point, but it gave you something to read.

:: Ryan 1:41 AM [+] ::
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What's Your Sign?

Deirdre always brings top shelf suggestions to the table and this is no different:
Being the stud that you are, I'm sure you never have to use pick-up lines, but hypothetically speaking, what are the Ryno's top 5 pick-up lines?

Just like D says, I certainly don't need to use pick up lines. Nope. Not me. But, if I did, I've come up with a few that would be my first choices to use. I hear that chicks really dig a guy with a great pickup line, so if you're looking for some help, try these on for size. Oh, and if you get slapped? Blame Deirdre.


1. My magical watch says you aren't wearing any panties. Oh, you are? It must be an hour fast.
- Definitely cheesy enough to maybe garner a sympathy laugh and maybe get you a bit of a conversation. Of course, if you get the wrong type of girl, it could get a drink thrown on you. High risk/high reward.

2. You know how some men buy really expensive cars to make up for certain, well, shortages? Well, I own a Taurus.
- Wow, what a coincidence. I drive a Taurus! Anyways. Everyone knows the theory that the more expensive the car, the smaller the unit. Again, you have to be careful who you use the line on. Because despite the small johnson label, a good number of girls still manage to get turned on by a guy who has a muscle car. God knows why.

3. If I could rewrite the alphabet, I would put U and I together.
- This is the most classic of all pick up lines. Not that I would ever use something so cheesy, however, I've heard that you'll usually get a good laugh out of the girl if you actually go this route. Although they're usually laughing at you, not with you. Or so I've been told.

4. Do you know how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie-pop? Wanna find out?
- Similar to No. 1, this is high risk/high reward. You could get creative points or you could get a slap across the face. So, you've got to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do ya?

5. Wow! Are those real?
- Hmm. Okay, no matter how good looking you are or how nice your car is, you probably want to steer clear of this one. Well, unless she looks really dumb, then she might take it as a compliment. Either way, it's mostly high risk/high risk.

:: Ryan 4:49 AM [+] ::
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Animaniacs

The first genre-specific movie list, from Phoe:
Top 5 animated films. I ask you this because: I CAN. Muahahah.

I'm certainly not the first in line at the movies to see animated films, but I do enjoy the occasional cartoon as much as the next guy. I suppose I should apologize now for not including Finding Nemo, but as cute as it was, I didn't love it as much as seemingly everyone else in the country did. There's nothing too off the wall here, but there's at least one that I'm sure will leave you scratching your head. I'm sure I missed something just as obvious as Nemo, so let me know.


1. Monsters, Inc.
- This was a great movie, not just a great animated movie. I think the fact that I liked this film so much has a lot to do why I didn't think so highly of Finding Nemo. I expected to enjoy Nemo better than this and it didn't happen. John Goodman and Billy Crystal form the best duo in all of animated films.

2. Toy Story
- Even though the sequel was disappointing, it doesn't take away from how good the original is. Easily the best cast of voices top to bottom. Tom Hanks and Tim Allen finish right behind Goodman and Crystal for best animation duo.

3. Oliver & Company
- I mentioned this one to a bunch of people the last couple days and besides the weird looks for bringing up an old cartoon, those that had seen it weren't all that impressed. Maybe I'm biased because I'm a Billy Joel fan -- he was the voice of a main character -- but I really enjoyed this when I was younger. Along with The Wizard of Oz it's the earliest film I can remember watching as a kid. Good times.

4. Lion King
- I never saw the sequel, which I'm guessing is a good thing. For a while I hadn't seen any animated films worth mentioning and this is really the one that made me think maybe it wasn't a lost genre. Could've done without Jonathan Taylor Thomas as 'little' Simba, but that's nit picking. Quality flick.

5. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
- This could get a few of you to scratch your head, but I always thought this was movie was a lot of fun. C'mon, a pseudo love triangle that includes Bob Hoskins, a cartoon rabbit and his hot woman. It doesn't get much better than that.

:: Ryan 5:52 AM [+] ::
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