Saturday, February 19, 2011

Letter to a Stranger

Dear dude in the steakhouse this evening,

You stunk! Please understand that covering yourself in your cheap cologne is no substitute for bathing. I wanted to enjoy my delicious steak and buttery baked potato, but I couldn't get the taste of your overwhelming stench out of my mouth. Try the scent of body wash like Irish Spring. Now THAT smells good. And doesn't waft over the booth divider.

Also, please shave your scraggly face and wear some shirts that are not a girly shade. Or how about a nice suit and fedora? I can imagine the grimace on your face right now, but give it a try. Your girlfriend would find it attractive. Or did you scare her away with your awful cologne?

A note about the next time I sit in the booth adjacent to yours: If you ruin my steak and tato again, I will have the waitress take the bill to your table.

Thanks!

Mandy, Sam and Grace

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Fight

"...Remember the Lord, who is great and awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your homes." - Nehemiah 4:14

So many times I've seen someone I love make a mistake that wound up being life altering. I hated it for them, but they knew they were wrong and probably needed to crash 'n burn in order to learn their lesson. After some effort to talk some sense into them, I would give up and hope they grow up.

But this quite passive attitude is completely unacceptable. I need to fight for them. Instead of fighting with a sword or bow and arrow like in my favorite action/adventure movie, I need to fight through prayer. The God who has promised to answer that prayer is "great and awesome," and has already proven Himself to me countless times.

Jeremiah 32:17 says "A Lord Jehovah! Behold You have made the heavens and earth by Your great power and by Your outstretched arm; there is nothing too hard for You." He holds all that power, so granting a little wisdom to a loved one would be no trouble at all for Him.

Psalm 62:11-12 says "One thing God has spoken, two things have I heard: that You, O God, are strong, and that You, O Lord, are loving." So not only does He have that strength, but He also loves His kids. When one of the kids He adores requests wisdom, guidance, or strength to do what's right, He's not going to hold it back!

Obviously, He is the one who holds all the power. My words of advice to a friend are only so potent. So what can I do? Fight. Get on my knees and fight. Remember MY Lord who is great and awesome and pray for this loved one. I'm going to pray for a miracle and expect a miracle. And then I'm going to excitedly praise His name when He does something awesome.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Phone Etiquette

Part of my job at the radio station is answering calls and directing them to the appropriate individual. Not my favorite part of the job because I tend to get tongue-tied and sound like a babbling idiot. And now you're wondering why I'm in radio if I tend to get tongue-tied. Well if you weren't wondering before, now you are because I just mentioned it. And I hate to disappoint you with my lack of an answer, but let's get back on track, shall we?

So I answer the phone a lot. And recently, I've had several calls where I answer as normal, then the person asks for someone who either isn't in the office at the moment or does not even work there at all. Upon hearing my less-than-desired answer, they abruptly hang up on me. How rude!

Instead of calling them back and fussing them out for their rudeness, I'm going to record some of my tips on phone etiquette and hope by some miracle they stumble across this post. You know who you are. Take notes.

First, simply because YOU dialed the wrong number and didn't expect to speak to me does not mean it's ok for you to just hang up! People of decency should apologize and it is super nice if you'd wish the phone answerer a nice day. Only then can you end the call without acting like a jerk muffin.

Before you call, please have in mind exactly what you want to say. Write down a few notes to refer back to if necessary. Because if you're all confused and spouting out "um's" every three or four words, you will be thoughtlessly wasting the time of the person on the other end of the line and probably trying their patience. I generally have a whole dang speech prepared when I call requesting an interview. It goes something like this...

"Hello, my name is Mandy and I'm with the Talk Station in Morehead City, North Carolina. I was calling to see if Congressman Jones would be interested in joining Ben Ball on the morning show Coastal Daybreak to talk about his efforts to increase the North Carolina public beach access with Senators Hagan and Burr. (pause for big breath) Would this possible early next week?"

Normally after the quick spew, I take the next few seconds to really catch my breath as the Congressman's aide responds. It may be a lot of information, but at least I'm prepared and ready to do business, dangit!

Now I must take a couple paragraphs to address teenage phone manners. When you call a home and someone answers, don't just say "Hi" and expect us to know who you are. We are awesome yes, but not psychic, so please introduce yourself. Because when you start asking about the time of the youth event thingy my parents planned, then I'm twice as confused because I don't know what you're talking about in addition to who you are.

Please request to speak with the person you're trying to reach instead of assuming I am my mother. My mom is adorable, so I'm flattered, but still! There are five women in my house and only frequent callers have just recently begun to name us correctly. And sometimes even they have to go down the list of sisters before naming the right one. It's almost like a fun guessing game, but the only clue they get is "Nope, try again!"

So people, PLEASE talk on the phone properly. Ok, rant over. I hope you learned something.

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Super Bowl XLV

While I truly love football, I wasn't all that into the Super Bowl this year. I don't know if it's because I'm battling a cold or just because I didn't really care about either of the teams. But it was still a super fun time spent with my family while we ate way too much junk food. If only the preacher hadn't talked so long tonight, we would not have missed the entire first quarter. *cough*Dad*cough*

Even though I didn't care about who would win, I chose Steelers from the beginning. But with about two minutes left of game time, I switched my already-shaky loyalty to Packers just to say that I was rooting for the winning team. And also because their quarterback was cuter. Yay Green Bay!

Commercials

I was hoping to see some awesome commercials, but I was really disappointed. Yeah there were a few cute ones, and a few super raunchy ones, but only two or three that I really loved. My number one favorite commercial was the VW Passat commercial that I talked about in my previous post. My second favorite was this Doritos commercial...



Doritos always comes out with some great ads, so I was glad to see another great one. I seriously LOL'd. Here's my third favorite...



I don't care anything about the Best Buy program, but I loved seeing Ozzie say "What's a Bieber?" and then have Justin in a ridiculous costume make fun of himself. I cannot stand his music, but props to him for taking a good joke.

Half Time Show

I'm not a fan of Black Eyed Peas, but in my opinion they were tons better than last year's The Who. Here are my observations on their halftime show...

1. Voices and Sound were pretty bad. I'm willing to give Fergie and her homies the benefit of the doubt because I could tell their sound peoples weren't doing a good job. And if the sound people weren't doing a good job, their monitors may not have been functioning properly either, thus throwing the singers off key. But off key or not, I still didn't care for the singing. Kudos to them for actually doing a live show instead of lip-syncing.

2. Fergie's outfit made me happy. Not only did she not dress like a loser, but she had on what looked like a football player's set of shoulder pads. And it was sparkley!!! I spent half the show fascinated with her twinkling suit. Am I easily amused? I think so. Everyone else's outfits were lighted too. Apparently their costume designer thoroughly enjoyed the new Tron movie, because the outfits were undoubtedly inspired by it.

3. The stage show was awesome. Usually there's just a simple stage and they let fans on the field to enjoy the concert. But this time, the people on the field were part of the stage show. Their lighted suits and carefully choreographed routine made for a visually appealing performance in addition to the band's weirdly suited stage presence.

Facebook Activity

Every now and then I checked my news feed on Facebook to see what was going on. Lots of my friends were either yay-ing or boo-ing recent plays and making their own (mostly disapproving) comments about the half time show. But then a post caught my attention. Owl City posted, "There's the kickoff. Legolas goes wide! BUT WAIT! Gandalf with the interception! He's running down the field shouting 'YOU SHALL NOT PASS!'" I had a blast reading his following several updates giving us play-by-play commentary of the Lord of the Rings football game going on in his head. As if I didn't love him enough already!

Friday, February 4, 2011

Cutest Commercial Ever

Wow, it's been almost two weeks since I posted anything! How can this be?! I'm way too narcisis...

narsicisicis...

narcistishasdjkhalskdjhf...

*sigh*...

fascinated with myself to let this occur on purpose! Anyways...

As an article on Yahoo notes, the web is abuzz over the new VW Passat commercial featuring a mini Darth Vader. And because I stalk follow my favorite actor on Facebook I was one of the first few to see it. So for the first time ever, I was aware of a viral video before it was really viral! Woohoo! Here it is...



Is that not just the most adorable commercial ever? It almost makes me want to go out and buy a Passat, which is a big deal because I'm in love with my Corolla. (41 more payments, baby! Yay!) Not only is the nerdy little kid adorable, but the daddy rocks. If only men like that really existed! Again, most adorable commercial ever.

I could go on and on about other commercials I love, but it's been a long day and I'm sleepy. I'm so sleepy that while checking out at the grocery store tonight I referred to my MVP discount card as an mp3. Yeah. So goodnight, all. I lahve you!