Yes we can! (blog again)

Sometime in November, work got crazy, I was planning a move, and caught what may or may not have been bacon flu. But I (along with Three Word Chant and its tireless contributors) am back!

It’s 2010! Some things have stayed the same (troubling economy, two wars abroad, prominence of Lady Gaga), while others are vastly different (Umar Abdul Mutallab is definitely getting less action than he did at this time last year).

Over the next several weeks I will be ramping things back up, along with dishing out some long-saved posts and links. In the meantime, some key highlights since I last blogged:

• I Have Been Domesticated: After four years of living with a good friend and 26 years of leaving the seat up, I moved in with my girlfriend Lauren a few weeks ago. We have a great new place (still in Astoria) and we are almost done unpacking. I have an actual living room and have cooked every night so far – both things that I’ve always wanted to do. I don’t want to say that moving is expensive, but my first child is almost certainly going to Bed Bath & Beyond University.
• A New Blog Is Up: My friend Dave is a Van Buren Boy by night, but highly decorated Philly sportswriter by day. He has started up a blog with the Penn Gazette and is covering University of Pennsylvania sports regularly. He is a long-time contributor to Three Word Chant so go check his site out: http://penngazettesports.com/.
• I Worked On Several Items On My 101 in 1001 List:
  • 90. Do something charitable every Thanksgiving: I participated in a November cancer walk at Yankee Stadium with Lauren and my cousins. I probably got too much enjoyment out of it to call it charity. Some Yankee Stadium outfield dirt may or may not permanently reside on my desk.
  • 45. Talk to a Celebrity: On December 27th, I went back to see Alvin Ailey, the ballet that Lauren’s family helps sponsor. As luck would have it, we sat directly in front of Alicia Keys. She was with a few young girls (they looked like they might be cousins/nieces) and was extremely friendly. We asked her about growing up in NY, and it turns out that she went to the rival high school of Lauren’s sister. I know all of this because I spent most of the time staring and humming Empire State of Mind rather than speaking. I wondered why I wasn’t awkward meeting Bill Clinton but I was with her. Then I realized that Bill Clinton isn’t hot. Anyway, it was a pretty cool surprise to meet her, and I would have taken a photo but her bodyguard was larger than me by a factor of Jupiter.
  • 97. Send 20 Letters Through The Mail: I sent my first one today. My aunt and uncle got me a copy of Outliers when I mentioned I hadn’t read it so I sent along a thank you. In retrospect, this bullet point is a huge letdown after all of the name dropping in the last one.

Other than all that, I spent a lot of the holiday doing family things, purchasing unnecessary cooking tools, and celebrating New Years with a few friends. I will close with a sequence of events that took place that night while playing Taboo:

Bryan: He’s a guy..lots of women around. He gets a lot of ass!
Erica: The Pope?
Bryan: Hugh Hefner.

Welcome to 2010!