I Hit On A Guy Last Night

...Not to be confused with "I hit a guy last night." There was no physical abuse involved.

Now that that's cleared up, I hit on a guy last night. Lauren, Mark (AKA Big Mac), and I ventured out to some new bars in Union Square. Per usual, our pregame lasted far too long, and we didn't actually leave the apartment until 11pm. First stop: Sally O'Brian's.

I'd passed by that bar before on a Friday night (I was going grocery shopping, don't mistake me for having a social life), and it sounded like it was bumpin', as the kids say. As we were crossing the street, I spied a massive, white beard through the window. We should have turned around as soon as I saw that. The place was full of people my parents' age or older. Don't get me wrong, I actually really enjoy hanging out with my parents and their friends, but this was on another level. They looked like creepy, townie-type old dudes. And we saw a woman sitting at the bar doing a crossword puzzle. At 11:45pm. On a Saturday night. After one beer, we clearly needed to move on. Next stop: Bull McCabe's.

Bull McCabe's is right across the street and has live music every weekend, so we braced ourselves for a cover charge. We decided if there was a cover, we'd rather be spending that money on beer instead of an average band that we might not even like. Of course, the doorman said there was a cover, so Lauren thought up a story and she thought it up quick (the Grinch? Anyone?), and we made like a tree and got the fuck out of there. Last stop: The Independent.

We've been to The Independent a few times, and I've always liked the place. There are actually guys there. Like, a lot of guys. Young guys. So that's nice. I'm very rarely in a place where there are more men than women, so it was very refreshing. The DJ was spinning some sweet sweet 60s/70s funk, and I was diggin' the vibe. We ordered a round of Narragansetts and bellied up. There was a group of girls dancing behind us having a great time, and we knew it was only a matter of a few beers until we'd be tearing it up on the dance floor with them.

In the meantime, I was attempting to lock eyes with a few cute guys across the bar. (This post is way too long already, I'm sorry.) I'm usually not a forward person, I'm too shy/unconfident for that shit. But I was the perfect amount of drunk to feel ballsy enough to approach someone, but not drunk enough to embarrass myself in the process.

After weighing the pros and cons with my trusty roommate, I worked up enough courage to go over and see what his deal was. The worst he could do was say no, and the best would be that I could have a potential date. I decided to take the no-nonsense approach, and the conversation went something like this (And I got the inspiration from here):

Me: Hi. What's your name?
Cute Guy: Andrew.
Me: I'm Jamie. Are you straight?
Andrew: Yes...
Me: Do you work?
Andrew: Yes...
Me: Do you have a girlfriend?
Andrew: Yes...
Me: Well then why isn't she here!
Andrew: She's at home studying.
Me: Ok. Well I just thought you were cute so I figured I'd come say hi.
Andrew: Well thanks, I'm flattered.
Me: Nice to meet you, have a good night!

Obviously it wasn't as awkward as that reads, but you get the picture. Now, usually I'd be filled with sober regret the next morning for an interaction like that, but I'm actually pretty pleased with how it played out. I'm not embarrassed by it, and I'd totally be amused/flattered if someone did that to me. So I got rejected. I then proceeded to cry in the bathroom for 30 minutes. That was a lie. I just continued drinking and dancing, and it was actually one of the better nights out we've had.

What I learned: start out with "are you single," don't end with it. And I GUESS I learned that I'd rather be shot down than not to have tried in the first place. I most likely will be trying this approach again in the future.

kthanksbye.

10 TV Shows I Hate

Yo to my ho's.

I've been told by many (and by many I mean, like, two people tops) that they are deeply looking forward to the TV-shows-I-hate-post, but to be honest I've been quite dreading it. If you disagreed with the shows I love, then it's whatever. No harm done. You still respect me as a person, for the most part. However, if you disagree with the shows I hate, there's a good chance you might not look at me the same again. Ever. Depending, of course, on how strong your love is for the show I despise.

Not to mention, I don't exactly have a concrete explanation citing proper evidence for why I cannot stand these shows. Most of them I haven't even watched for more than five minutes, but that's because they're the worst. I just don't like them. Why can't that be enough. I trust my gut for a lot of things, and so far it hasn't steered me wrong. Except for that one time I ate that expired yogurt...

Alright, here we go. In no particular order, here are 10 shows I hate with very little explanation as to why:

The Big Bang Theory-- From my experience, this seems like a love/hate kind of show. I just so happen to absolutely despise it. I can't even stand the sound of their voices. "Mehhh my name is Sheldon and I'm named after a turtle but I'm really smart so I'm gonna make you feel dumb! lol" PASS. And the girl isn't even that hot.

Seinfeld-- I know a few people in particular (cough, Mark) are not gonna be happy about this making this list, but I just never really caught on to it. Maybe I don't like the actors, maybe it's too 90s for me (though I still love Friends, which is as 90s as it gets), maybe I don't like the format, maybe the humor isn't clever enough. Whatever the real reason is, I'm not a fan. Period.

Here Comes Honey Boo Boo-- This show embodies everything that I hate about America into one, 30 minute slot. They're fat, stupid, and disgusting. But I will give them this much: they do really enjoy spending time together, and they all seem to love each other very much. CORNY whatever.

Two And A Half Men-- Another show that I always avoid. Charlie Sheen looks like a crow that wants to rape you. None of them are good actors. And it's been on for about nine years too long. Yes, it's been on for nine years. I looked it up.

How I Met Your Mother-- You all hate me, I know. How I Met Your Mother has been on for a few seasons too long as well. I've given it a shot, but there was nothing spectacular about it to keep me coming back. Jason Segel is by far the saving grace. Love him.

Any "Real Housewives" show-- How can they claim that these are real housewives? First of all, nothing about them is "real," including their personalities. Or faces. Or boobs. Second of all, nah... I'm good. No more.

The Secret Life of the American Teenager-- I'm sorry, so every American teenager gets pregnant during high school, marries a bunch of dudes, is a terrible actress, and has Molly Ringwald as a mom? THANK GOODNESS THE SECRET IS OUT. I feel so relieved. Great portrayal of our already-hated country. Thumbs up.

American Idol-- When you've changed judges four times, it's about time to call it quits. Does anyone even watch this show anymore besides my parents? Yeah, didn't think so.

Dancing With the Stars-- "Stars" is a very loose term here. If I'm going to waste my time watching a dance show, I want to watch people who can actually dance (So You Think You Can Dance, anyone? Love that show.) These people are washed-up, fat, desperate actors who are attempting to crawl their way back into whatever dim limelight they had in the first place. Plus, Tom Bergeron is the host. 'Nuff said.

Gilmore Girls-- The "banter" drives me crazy. No one thinks that fast. I actually did watch quite a bit of this show when I was in high school because one of my good friends liked it, but I secretly never did. Simply put: it's annoying.

Kostecki, out.
(You see what I did there? American Idol reference, what up)

This Will Take You Over an Hour to Enjoy

HELLO.

Guess I haven't posted for a while... cry me a river. To make up for my lack of attention to this blog, this post will be full of links/videos/my bitchy opinions.

Let's jump right in. I go through spurts of watching TV depending on how busy I am after work and how many friends I have (which is still, like, two for the record). Lately I haven't been keeping up with very many TV shows, but I still have my classic favorites (and not-so-favorites) that I'd like to share with all of you. You're welcome.

Imma split this up into two posts cause it'd probs be media overload, and I'm sure half of you will be too lazy to watch all the goodies included in this. I also would like to add that I gained my excellent taste in TV shows mostly because of my brother's influence. I know he'd rather punch himself in the face than read my blog, but I still feel obligated to thank him for that. Thanks bro.

My top 10 shows (in random order; too much thought involved to actually rank them) that you should watch, plus little slices of awesome from each:

Arrested Development-- I pick up on new jokes almost every time I watch this show. Pity it was cancelled after three amazing seasons. Buster is my favorite character.

Tosh.0-- Not only would I drop my pants for Tosh in a second, but for some reason I'm drawn to his equal mistreatment of every race and type of person. I could definitely do without all of the puking videos though.

Teen Mom 2-- Watching other peoples' train-wreck lives makes me feel really great about my own. It's just one bad decision after another, and it's even a bad decision to watch this show. This was the best clip I could come up with...

South Park-- Such a consistently good show. Clever, relevant, and ruthless. This clip gets me every time.

Cougar Town-- I would say this is a guilty pleasure, but I don't feel guilty about loving this show. All they do is drink wine and hang out. I want to be part of their Cul de Sac Crew, damnit! And if a show makes me want to be friends with the characters, then it's a-ok in my book. Plus they make fun of their shitty title on the reg, so that's cool. Plus, who doesn't love a good ol' game of penny can?

Happy Endings-- Chicago based, ridiculous plot, hilarious. Brad is my favorite. Again, I'd cut off my left boob to be friends with them. Too bad they don't exist in real life... or... do they?

Workaholics-- Directly give credit to the broski for this one. You gotta be fresh.

Destination Truth-- Another bro show (rhyme five! (Cougar Town reference)). Oddly entertaining for one of those stupid let's-look-for-monsters-that-don't-exist shows; they don't try to fabricate things and make it seem like the boogie monster exists. And the people are actually pretty funny.

Too Cute-- I always get SO excited whenever this show is on Animal Planet. I could seriously watch it for hours and not get sick of it. What's better than puppies and kittens clumsily running around in slow motion? Correct answer: nothing.

Archer--60% smart ass, 30% clever, and 20% hilarious. Wait...

So give them a shot. If you don't like them, then I could always just disown you as a friend.

To come: 10 shows that I fucking hate.

Hope Santa doesn't give you coal. PAZ.

Hwhiskey

Hey nerds,

Here's another Elmhurst adventure from Thanksgiving for you:

My friends Annie, Abby, and I were at a bar in the ‘hurst, and it was getting pretty late. We were about 30 minutes from closing time, and we had struck up a conversation with three gentlemen. Turns out they were three years our senior. They were talking a big game, and were trying to talk us into taking shots (AKA shaking tots). They asked what we wanted shots of, but for some reason I have the hardest time choosing drinks when someone else is buying. Actually, I’m sure that’s not an uncommon problem. But anyway. So these bros were all like, oh ok, then how bout whiskey? And I was like, ok perfect. I love whiskey. James (that was his name) was shocked, to say the least, and proceeded to dub me as a “keeper” for liking whiskey. I was oddly flattered.

The shots are poured, and I take mine like a champ. Drink it in, it always goes down smooth. Guy-whose-name-I-forgot winced like a 15-year-old girl. Naturally, I called him out on it and made fun of him. He then proceeded to claim that I’d be "on the floor" in 10 minutes. Does he even know me? Don’t answer that. Then, get this, he ended up actin’ a foo’ in 10 minutes while I was still playing it cool. RHYMES. Somehow I’m not surprised. Then they called their other friend over to meet us, and ended up wandering away. They must have been embarrassed/intimidated by their lack of drinking skillz and my occasional tank-like tendency. But really, don’t be impressed. Cause sometimes I’m almost, ALMOST, hung over after having two beers the previous night. Can I chalk that up to old people problems yet? Don’t answer that either.

Peace out, girl scout.

From Airport to Bar in Sixty Minutes

Hey turds.

As some may know, I recently traveled back to the 'burbs of Chicago for Thanksgiving. My flight landed at O'Hare at 9:15pm. I arrived at my house (after much traffic) at 10:00pm. I met my dear friend, Annie, at the bar at 10:20pm. Good use of time, right?

Now, Annie and I really haven’t gotten the chance to catch up since I moved to Boston, so we had about a month and a half of things to discuss. Needless to say, both of our lives have been unusually eventful lately, so we knew this could take at least two beers.

About 10 minutes after we arrived, drunk dude #1 walks in to the bar, beelines (while stumbling at the same time) directly toward us, and introduces himself. He must have been at least 30, but acted like he was 18 tops. He bothered us for about 45 minutes, so I’ll try to make a long walk short: he tried to set us up with his creepy short friend who did nothing to keep him in check, asked us if we were married, accused us of calling him ugly, then called me ugly, shook our hands about six times, acted offended when he offered us up to the guy across the bar (him and I had a lovely conversation about hurricane Sandy), and left/came back at LEAST seven times.

To put it lightly, I wanted to cut off his testicles with a blunt knife. Whenever Annie and I finally had 10 minutes to get deeper into our conversation, #1 would stumble back and interrupt us. Additionally, Annie and I are both too polite to tell someone to fuck off, so I had a bad feeling that if we didn’t say something this would go on for the whole night. We’d continue our process of nodding, smiling, and conversation killing.

So I finally manned up and told him to please gtfo. Except I really said something like this: “I don’t want to be rude, but my friend and I haven’t seen each other for almost two months, and it’s getting really hard to catch up with you interrupting us all the time. So would you please just leave us alone?” Pretty mature/adult, right? And it actually did the trick. 10 points to Gryffindor.

Shortly after, drunk #2 made his move. He was at the bar with his grandpa, cute right? Not so much. His g-pa ended up falling asleep while his grandson was attempting to hit on us, and the bartender had to tell him he couldn’t sleep here. #2 stared at us for a good 30 minutes before actually coming up to us (which is super creepy, don't do that.), was from Bolivia, was very impressed (for some reason) that I knew Bolivia is in South America, asked us our names three to four times, and came up to talk to us four plus times. Uh-noying.

Essentially, we were the bar’s entertainment for the night. Two different groups of girls came up to us and apologized for drunk #1 and #2, and offered to come to the rescue if necessary. Which was very nice.

In conclusion, here are my tips to how to effectively meet people at a bar (types of people may vary):
•    Wear a blazer or long sleeved t+scarf.
•    Act engulfed in your conversation, that way people will know they should interrupt.
•    Don’t make eye contact with people. This is also apparently an indication that you want to be approached.
•    Go to the bar with ONE (this is very important) girl friend. Oh, and make sure you’re a girl too.

Shout out to Abby, HOLLA.

Boyz

What up, thugs?

Warning: this blog post undoubtedly will make me come off as conceited, judgmental, and/or rude. But whatever, I tell it how it is.

K, so I've officially been in Boston for a month, and I was hoping to have met the man of my dreams by now. But alas, all of the scenarios I've concocted about meeting the perfect guy in the Public Garden or on the T on my way to work have yet to come to fruition. But never fear, friends! I've sure had some winners approach me in the past week. Check it:

Monday. Waiting for the train after work. Some dude wearing glasses, a gray track jacket, and some form of khaki-colored dress pants asks me if a Lechmere train has come by yet. I know what you're thinking: he doesn't sounds so bad at all! False. He's not wearing any form of fashionably acceptable glasses frames/shape. Wire framed. Oval. And a track jacket? Come on. Unless you're super jacked or an athlete of some sort, you just look like a dweeb (I hope you're taking notes, boys).

So I reply with something like, "No... not yet. I've only been here for a few minutes though." He doesn't say anything back, yet continues to stare at me. Smiling. Creepily. I then, of course, pretend to be fascinated by the granola bar ad across the tracks.

Another train comes by. Government Center. He looks at me again, smiling. I just kinda shrug my shoulders as if I'm actually upset my train hasn't come yet. This happens again about two more times. And I'm feeling increasingly awkward. He tries to start conversation again a few times, but it's pretty damn loud and I can't hear anything he's saying. I nod and smile, and promptly look away again. Finally the right train comes, and he looks at me AGAIN smiling. I'm determined not to have any further conversation with him. I smush my way into the train, almost have my ass pinched by the doors, and I'm free. Is it bad that I'd rather have my face in some stranger's ass than talk to that guy?

Wednesday. Waiting for the bus after work. It's snowing. A shockingly similar guy to the first one stands next to me, and asks me what time it is. TYPICAL. "It's 5:35," I reply, disinterested. Hunk #2 has the type of haircut where it's almost like he has really short bangs, and the precipitation plastering it to his forehead isn't helping him any. He then goes on to ask me if I work around here (TYPICAL), says he works by the Charles River (don't care.), and that it's too bad he forgot his umbrella today... but good things it's snowing, cause he can just shake it off his jacket (complete with a demonstration)! I reply with just enough information to not be rude. I proceed to pull out my phone, text my mom, and act as preoccupied as possible. Clearly the guys are just lining up wanting to take me out.

Now, the problem isn't necessarily with the strategy, but with the execution. Well, that combined with their poor fashion choices. I mean, A for effort and for these guys having the balls to start up a conversation with me, but what exactly did they think was going to happen? I wouldn't go asking out Brad Pitt. I'm just sayin'. Thank goodness I never gave them enough to work with for them to deem it appropriate to ask me out, cause then I'd have to make up a fake boyfriend. Ok, so I'm an asshole. Tell me something I don't know.

Take it sleazy, and I'm out.

Things I Love

Hey howdy hey.

As promised, I'm countering my negativity with things I love. I'm happy to say I think this list is considerably larger than the Things-I-Hate list, so I guess that's a good thing.

Things I love: 

Sleeping freshly changed sheets. So fresh and so clean clean.

Pickles. My roommate and I were oddly excited when we discovered that we both love pickles.

Putting in a new pair of contacts. It's like seeing the world in a whole new light... everything is so damn clear!

Asian babies. Not quite sure when this fascination started. But they're so stinking cute.

This dog. Still makes me lol.

Naps. There was a time when I took a nap every single day. And I was definitely not mad about it.

Drinking heavily and waking up without a hangover. I feel like I got away with murder or something. 

Remembering dreams. Future blog post: one of my messed up dreams.

Bow ties. Made both my prom dates wear them. What's up.

Laughing. A day is not complete without laughter. I especially love when other people's laughs make you laugh even more.

Funny people. If you can make me laugh, I want you to be my friend.

Red lipstick. Rawr. 

New Zealand accents. Not alive. You know, did.

Nail polish. I have a whole toolbox full of it. Yes, a toolbox. And I made it myself.

This song. And I especially love the photo that accompanies the video.

People watching. Everyone does it. Best when done wearing sunglasses.

Sitting on a roof/porch/balcony. I love being outside. I love having a different vantage point. And I apparently love heights.

Watching storms. GET AT ME HURRICANE SANDY

Chapstick. Specifically, Lip Smackers chapstick. Yes, I'm 7.

Post-it notes. I'm insanely organized. And Post-it notes make me happy.

Looking at the stars. I've never really lived in a place where you can see them very well, so seeing a star full of skies is like seeing a unicorn to me.

Candles. Perfect for fall. Great gifts. Good for setting the mood.

Snuggies. I was a Snuggie hater for a while, but then I got one for Christmas. They're kind of awesome. And ridiculous at the same time.

Google doodles. Those doodles during the Olympics this summer kept me entertained for longer than I'd like to admit.

Lamp.

See you later crocodile.