Ramblings, Man.

I was going to start this with a big rant about how I haven't blogged in a while and was very thankful that my last blog on college reunions went over so well. It was going to blame social media for being a cesspool and stuff but I found myself boring....myself so I just erased and I'm starting fresh now. That being said, the last blog was the most viewed I've had in almost 2 years, so thanks, you guys. Good to be back, until I forget and go on another unplanned hiatus.

End of speech. Let's talk nonsense in the world today.

Mr. Met flipped someone off and got busted for it. While this is not as controversial as when Benny the Chicago Bull mascot was caught hotboxing his costume mid-game, this was hilarious in it's own way. There is something about big, dumb cartoon-humans flipping off their own fans which brings me joy. I think what really made me crack a half-smile (can't give too much of a grin, that shows weakness and I have a persona to keep up) was the fact that Mr. Met has only 4 fingers and he had to hold down the remaining fingers with his other hand to make a middle one. It's also amusing that Mr. Met has showed more passion and grit in this one instance than any of the Mets 7 ace pitchers have this year.

It's so satisfying! That's what she said.

After years of always hearing good things but never giving it a good shot, I finally watched Parks and Rec. All this time spent rewatching classic episodes of The Office while Parks and Rec was right there being neglected...God dammit Jim. I think at some point I will do a full in-depth power-rankings on the whole cast of the show, but for now I will give you my very brief top 5: 5. Leslie Knope 4. Tom Haverford 3. Ron Swanson 2. Andy Dwyer 1. April Ludgate. I've also come to the conclusion that Andy and April is my favorite fictional couple, replacing my previous favorite of Ray Romano and whoever his wife was on 'Everybody Loves Raymond'. I have to thank my friend Adriann for pushing me to my limits and making me watch this. It was totally worth it. I really don't know what took me so long to watch this show, and I kinda hate myself for not doing it sooner.

A man's man.

Speaking of hating myself, I've started running again. How's it going you ask? Well, even before my first run in God knows when, I made a Spotify playlist called Dreadful Running Mix, so that's a good indicator. I can't believe that there was a period in my life that I ran cross country for year in high school, just for fun. Then again, I also can't believe that I tied for 'Friendliest' in the 8th grade superlatives, so hey anything can change I guess.

I saw AFI play Providence two nights ago and I'm starting to seriously wonder if they are taken for granted. They formed in 1991 (!) broke out in 2003, somehow survived as a goth-emo band who went mainstream, got even bigger with Miss Murder, and have still been making albums that are good. To sum up the show, they play the hits and get the crowd all sorts of amped up. Also, they had some impressive mosh pits, so if you wanted to go get our your inner teen angst via shoving and throwing elbows, that's a place to check out. Seriously though, they were really good. I'm talking like, soundtrack to the movie Drive good. It was also fun to learn that lead singer Davey Havok was voted the World's Sexiest Vegetarian in 2007 and was on the cover of Vegan Health and Fitness in 2015. What confuses me here is how there is a whole magazine out there I've never heard of, despite every Vegan out there never shutting up about how they are in fact, Vegan. How selfish. You can brag about your veganism but can't promote publications that support your health and fitness.

Fav?

Without getting too deep into politics, how the hell is Rage Against the Machine not back together right now? Doesn't this seem like the perfect time for them to come back and write the next great anti-politics album? I mean, they got huge in the 90's when Slick Willy Clinton was in office, and the only thing people had to worry about back then was shenanigans in the Oral Office. Simpler times, I guess. I just feel like there is a missed opportunity here for a band like that. My great-great-great grandfather's tomb reads "strike while the iron is hot" and Rage is simply ignoring the tomb of my great-great-great grandfather. Sad!

Amanda Bynes is back! It's hard to think of a more fascinating Twitter feed that when she was doing her best Britney Spears circa 2007 meltdown impression. Her desires for that Drake fella were pretty intense, as were most of her feelings on things. While it's wonderful that she has cleaned herself up and is making a come back, I have to imagine that the world missed out on her giving her two-cents, or her three-dollar-bill on hot button topics over the past 4 years. Would've loved to get her conspiracy theories on that missing Malaysian Airplane, if she thought that dress was Blue or Gold, and if she thought Left Shark was the real star of Katy Perry's SuperBowl halftime show. Also, wouldn't mind a return of the Amanda Show. That's one reboot that I would support. Can't be any worse than Fuller House.

In hindsight, this caption was a little too true.

Instagram has been filled with "the floor is..." memes which is starting to drive me crazy. I am impressed in a way though. It's the first meme to go viral in which there has never actually been a funny one. Ever.

Chose one quick after that google image search. Woof.

I know times are wild right now and no one can agree on anything, but I think if there is one thing this country can all be on the same page about: no more Spider-Man reboots for at least 15 years. I mean, does Hollywood really think people want more? Just to keep you in the know, we had the Tobey Maguire and all his boring charm in Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3 from 2002-2007. Next, of course, was Andrew "I Love Lasagna and Hate My Dog Odie" Garfield who tried his darndest to make himself seem exciting in The Amazing Spider-Man and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. The only thing that makes him 'amazing' is that he may have had even less of a personality than Tobey Maguire. Now we have some thing called Tom Holland who is the new Spidey in Captain America: Civil War, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and I guess they already have Spider-Man: Homecoming 2 planned. If anyone has a proper system on how to rank these, let me know. We get one movie of Heath Ledger's Joker yet we have 73 Spider-Man reboots. Another sign that life ain't fair.

Me avoiding the barrel of spiderman reboots.

Lastly, and most importantly, stop this nonsense with male rompers. In fact, stop it with all rompers. I've been anti-rompers for years now. I feel like if you are too old for a sippy-cup, you are too old for rompers. Male rompers are just a way for you to look like an asshole and get people to notice you. Rompers are for guys who love making people roll their eyes into the back of their head in agony. It's dumb. Leave rompers for kindergartners. This is 2017, people. The world is a messed up place already. Don't make it worse with male rompers. Stop with the man buns too. They're only for european basketball players.

Not even Leo DiCaprio can make this look good.

What To Expect When You're Expe...Uh...Reuniting

It all started a few months back. I came home to visit my dog and play some FIFA 07 on my old Playstation 2. My Mom told me "Hey Stupid, there's some mail for you", and threw a postcard sized flyer at me. I'm just kidding. She handed it to me, totally didn't throw it. The card was inviting me to come celebrate the 5 year reunion of the 2012 class of Providence College.

Holy shit.

Friends til the end!

My mind was racing, trying to figure out how the hell time had flown by that quickly. I was counting the years backwards to see if it was really true. I used my PC education to subtract 2012 from 2017 and was still skeptical when I arrived at an answer of 5. It just didn't seem possible. I suddenly had to prepare for what would be one of the more wild weekends of my life since leaving college. I'm not going to recap the entire weekend for you, because it would be A) boring if you weren't there and 2. it wouldn't really be funny/helpful to anyone who didn't go to PC.

This is why I'm going to do something better and give you something that I wish I fully had going into this past weekend: a guideline of expectations. Therefore, allow me to introduce to you the Breakfast at Jimothy's Return From The Dead Great Expectations For When You Reunite After 5 Years Blogpost. For short we can refer to it as the BAJRFTDGEFWYRA5YB.

All of these shirts came with a free bowl of soup

SADNESS - Yes, there will be sadness. The two weeks or so leading up to the big event, you will do plenty of reminiscing to simpler times. Back in college, you didn't really have to worry about being too old to remain on your parent's health insurance. You just had to worry about what time to show up to the bar of your choosing before the line started, or how much of your paper you could fill by regurgitating the same line with different wording. You will most certainly go down the dreaded Facebook path of memories and look at all the fun you had, wishing you were still living that dream. It's a sobering moment to flashback to the last time you could enjoy life before the real world. Such a sobering moment that it'll make you want to drink a Keystone Light just thinking about it.

Where else in the real world can I meet a Hot Dog?

SHAME- You may also experience shame throughout your 5 year college reunion. This can be broken down into three different Shame Departments: Jealous Shame, Regression Shame and Shame Shame.

Jealous Shame is the shame you endure by catching up with peers and realizing how much more people have their shit together than you do. That kid who once threw up the Red Velvet Cake in your hallway Sophomore year that he had for dinner before drinking too many 1$ beers on a Thursday? He's engaged and making 3x the money you are. The girl who saw you in your Austin Powers costume on Halloween senior year and asked if you were George Washington? She's doing way better than you. Sure, some of the people you will be happy for, but most will have you asking where the hell did I go wrong? (Answer: choosing psychology as a major is where you went wrong). This of course is easier to handle if you are one who actually has their life together and is doing well at this point in your life, and if so, you suck.

Find me on any 1$ bill

The Regression Shame is more related to the fact that you are now 26-27 and can't hang like you used to, or you can hang that long but the consequences are FAR worse than when you were 18-22. I'm not a big believer in magic, witchcraft, voodoo, sorcery, whatever, but I do believe that when you walk across that stage on graduation day, you lose your drinking capabilities the second you shake the hand of your school's President. It's some sort of whacky transfer thing that doesn't make any sense, but once you do it, you simply can't drink like you used to. It's like a weird unspoken graduation ceremonial ritual. I've been asking around various friends the past 2 days, and it is absurd how many people have lost their voices, had hangovers creeping into Tuesday, and have sworn off drinking ever again after this past weekend. It almost seems that drinking extremely cheap beer up til 5 in the morning for two straight nights is a bad idea or something. You'll end up hurting, and you'll be amazed that you once did this kind of shit regularly for a 4 year period of your life.

Shame Shame is the type of shame that will be brought back up while you and your friends are discussing stories from your glory days. I mean, just think about the embarrassing stuff you did back then and tried to forget. You may have successfully blocked out that time you threw up on your friend on St. Patrick's Day after finishing your Irish Car Bomb and then had to finish hers because she was a whimp, but as that hunk James Franco learned from Jonah Hill in Super Bad, "People Don't Forget". I really don't need to elaborate on this one, do I?

DRAMA- Well now this is exciting! Who doesn't want to add a little pinch of drama into the blender already containing too much alcohol and old memories? Chances are you'll see that person who screwed you over on that group project in your Finance class, or the girl you had a crush on and broke your heart when she hooked up with 4 of your suite-mates Junior year. Grudges can last a lifetime. Drama was what made Jersey Shore such a successful train wreck, and it has the possibility to do the same for your 5 year reunion.

Maybe you'll want a bit of revenge on someone. For instance, I had never been so personally insulted then when some douche neighbor of mine senior year went around telling people that my whole house was lame and still wore American Eagle clothing. The fact that I was lumped into this gross accusation that I wore that stuff made me want to hurl. Last I checked you can't buy a FIDLAR, Wavves or Japandroids shirt at American Eagle, Jackass. I was looking forward to being drunk enough to tell him to his face to go kick a brick, but unfortunately I didn't see him and kinda forgot about it until now, but you get the point!

Former American Eagle Model

Maybe you'll finally reveal a crush on someone you've had but were too afraid to tell that person 5 years ago. I was looking forward to finally telling Dot the lunch lady that she was the light of my world, but she wasn't working this weekend (hope you're doing well/still alive Dottie!). Maybe you'll randomly hook up with someone you didn't even know went to your school. You can rekindle former flames, wreck some still-fresh marriages, and toy with the feelings of others who deserve it. The choice is yours, but it can certainly be a dangerous game. Godspeed with that. As a dear friend once told me, "True Love is Not A Lie"...or is it?

SHENANIGANS- Lastly, and most importantly, as long as you went to a fun school with people who enjoy having a righteous time, shenanigans will absolutely be involved. This may be the biggest wild card of the group. Was I expecting to play in a game of 50 vs 50 Flip Cup at 3 am in a hallway? Nope. Was it awesome? Damn straight it was. You can reconnect with the people you want to, beat them at drinking games and then commiserate over how hungover you are at brunch the following day. Trying to do shots of Kamikaze at your old bars with your fellow marketing majors is a surefire way of briefly curing the real world blues. Go put Ke$ha (bless her) on the jukebox, follow it up with T-Swift 'Love Story' if you really need to (actually, please don't) and then burn the place to the ground with a Taking Back Sunday 'Cute Without the E' sing along. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you have one night or a weekend to work with for your college reunion, don't blow it. Go crazy and enjoy the shit out of it, because these sort of things happen only once in a lifeti...every 5 years. But still, 5 years is a long time. Go get drunk and sneak a table out to the quad and play beer pong or something.

He was rightly dropped at the conclusion of this photo.

I saved shenanigans for last because I wanted to leave this on a high note (whoa look at me being optimistic for once!). When it comes down to it, it'll be a delightful time. It's an escape from the real world for a brief weekend. This past weekend was like a time warp back to the favorite period of my life, with people that I adore, doing stuff that I enjoy, like drinking beer and laughing at old stories of my idiot friends. While it may be for our best interests health-wise that this is a once every 5 year event, if you told me we could get the whole gang back together tomorrow I would leap at the opportunity and take a 11 minute Uber ride back to campus.

I may be bias when I say it's impossible to beat a Providence College reunion weekend, give it your best shot. Hopefully your college experience was almost as fun. Enjoy the hangovers! For this weekend only, it'll be worth it.