Things I want for my golden 27th birthday, thanks:

-iPod Nano, (long story) I'm separating from my iPhone in mere days and therefore have to succumb to having both a phone and an MP3 device once again. Life is hard.



-Bose Headphones, because its sound clarity is infinitely more amazing than mere earbuds even though its style, storage, and convenience factors are infinitely worse. But whatever, good sound is good sound. And I like to bop.



-Paper shredder, because I'm a sensitive person with sensitive information.



-iTunes, because I like to bop and rock.

The Daily Word:

-I might be a light switch on this one, but I really do regard Facebook as being dead. Yes, I still have a profile but every time I log-on I get this much closer to having an anger-induced heart attack.
-I'm lazier than normal.
-I probably didn't call you back because I would rather not talk than talk.
-I don't visibly sweat and I enjoy that in others.
-Something big is going to happen to me. I can feel it.
-My personality is 75% bad attitude. I've come to terms with it.
-If one more person describes me as short only because said individual is taller than me, I may cut them. I'm 5'10. It's an average height. It's not short. I feel tall in many, many circumstances outside of standing next to someone who is 6'0. And sorry, but it's true: tall men do not age gracefully. Sorry 'bout it.
-Bourgeois is not fancy, Tregg.
-The onset of Spring/Summer means one thing, and one thing only: I will now start feeling guilty about sleeping past 11 AM on weekends.

Facebook is dead. Sorry 'bout it.

And don't EVEN get me started on MySpace.

It's been dead longer than Mossimo.

Just for verification purposes: I am not anti-Obama.

Get off my back.

Friends, it's OK. I can make statements that do not = OMGIHEARTOBAMA and, at the same time, not fear consequential persecution or crucifixion.

It's OK. It's an opinion. And a non-extreme one at that.

It doesn't mean I'm a hater. First and foremost I'm a lover. Not a hater.

But that doesn't stop peeps from leering at me like I'm a terrorist or a Republican or something similar in nature.

What I am though is observant. What I am though is "a holder." You say something, I hold you to it (which is 50/50 because my memory is shrinking at an incredible rate).

And what I am though is a leader of my own life. Not a follower. Unless we're talking about Twitter, and even then I reserve the right to disseminate NTF and NNF (need to follow and need not follow).

Point is: I lead my opinions, they don't lead me.

I'm amazed at how many people are absolutely enthralled with Obama. I will never EVER be that enthralled by any politician, ever. Politicians are politicians, and you can never fully trust one, even Obama. But I still respect Obama and I still have faith that he will do his very best to fix a very complex situation(s).

Obama is a great leader and I'm so excited that he and his amazing team are tackling this nation's obstacles head on. I anticipate the results, both good and bad.

But I will not be sold to as some idiot who will (literally) buy into the extravaganza that is Obama = savior.

He's our President. And he has a very important job to do. America: quit celebritizing him. He's not a celebrity. He's a public servant who has a lot of crucial work to do, which doesn't include posing for GQ and/or being on the Tonight Show. Or subliminally selling orange juice or any other orange drink.

Let him do his thing. His real thing. His President of the free world thing.

The end.

Beer has carbs?!?!

Whatever, I'm getting cheese fries.

Thanks Neil Patrick Harris for twittering this interesting vid:

Smart Tropicana...very smart.

Walking down the street you can't help but NOTICE this ginormous ad outside the local Jewel-Osco:



Do you think the guy in the ad, and I'm just going out on a limb here, MORE THAN OBVIOUSLY resembles/is a carbon copy of someone? I don't know, someone you've perhaps seen maybe once or twice before...a person who's kind of a big deal these days?

Yeah, him.

Well, you now know which kind of OJ to buy, if you were ever questioning it before.

Smart Tropicana...very smart.

Love this:

I know I'm going to catch some flack about the following statement, but it's just what I think:

I think the Olympics are completely unnecessary.

I just don't get the Olympics. I don't get the source for sheer spectator craziness over the Olympics. Personally, I couldn't tell you the last time I purposely watched the Olympics. It doesn't do anything for me. At all. Regardless, I don't get the hoopla, I don't get the sense of awe or fascination, I just don't get it. Yes, you run fast. Yes, you swim fast. Wow, you can do a backflip. Cool.

Nice job. You are all very athletically-inclined. Congrats.

Let's move on with life.

Would anyone really care (besides the athletes) if the Olympics didn't exist? I wouldn't.

Chicago is competing in the last rounds for a bid to host the Olympic games in 2016. I, on the other hand, am seriously thinking about joining the sizable protest against the Olympics. And my reasons for protest aren't specifically due to the fact that "I don't get the hoopla." Here's the reality: Chicago has a crumbling education system, a completely flawed and bankrupt public transit system, the highest sales tax in the country, a potential increase in income tax, a corrupt political system, the streets are crumbling, crime is at an all-time high, taxes are rising, and many Chicago peeps are broke, jobless, and/or in need of public aid. Does Chicago have it sights on fixing any of these issues? No, we don't have the money. Does Chicago care about the Olympics? Yes, and it will invest money it doesn't have to eventually turn a profit in the year 2017.

It's 2009. What about NOW?

Don't you think it would be wiser to spend public tax dollars and the city budget on ACTUAL issues rather than bragging rights and (eventual) increased tourism? Plus, where would anyone park in this city when downtown meters cost almost $3 an hour (a strategic effort by the city to make more money)?

This city is a joke. Lets spend all of our time and energy in investing over 4.8 billion dollars into fixing up Chicago as an Olympic host city just to make an (eventual i.e. accounted for in the year 2020) seven billion dollar return. Let's overlook the needs of Chicago citizens now and instead accommodate the needs of Chicago tourists in the future.

It's like painting a turd and charging people to look at it.

Give me a break. Down with Daley.

Down with Games Protest. Next week in Chicago. Google it for more info and join if you agree.

World of Sports/What time do the highlights come on?

If anyone knows me, they know I'm a diehard sports fanatic.

...yep, as evidenced by the pictures below:

Football



Basketball





and Baseball!



Phew, I'm tired. Who wants a fun-size Twix?

ME!

omg, look how precious you are...

just sitting there, all pretty-like, with your sloppy chocolate frosting and variously-sized sprinkles.

so sloppy. so pretty.

just the way i like it.

now i don't know what happened to the one before you...or the one after you.

and i probably never will.

but it matters not;

for some reason, you are still here.

and it's you that i like.

you.

you are perfection.

you.complete.me.

xoxo

nom nom nom

Just FYI: I might rescind my "I will no longer V-Log" statement. The whole ordeal has been resolved, thankfully, and I can now sleep peacefully once again.

So, stay tuned.

I love GQ. It's a great magazine, although sometimes their articles (or should I say their writers) irk me a little. The voice of every article is always written in that all-knowing, entitled, cool-as-shit especially because my-shit-don't-stink, douchey male voice that gets under my skin at times. Despite that, I came across an article that I thought was hilarious and all-too-true for us city folk:

Why Brunch Blows

Fake-farmy restaurants! Hangovers with strangers! Long lines! Watery mimosas! Seventeen-dollar French toast! Sickly orange slices sadly dying next to overwrought infantilizing pancake concoctions on chipped china! Half your waking weekend day spent in a hollandaise haze!

“Can I top off your shitty coffee?” Yes, please! Because it’s brunch. And everyone must love brunch. Because if you do not love brunch, you have a serious problem with joie de vivre and America and the whole point of living with all our best friends in the city and being alive.

But you know what? Brunch sucks. It’s a ritual— not a meal— and an annoying, unsatisfying, badly conceived one at that. Eat breakfast alone. Leave the house when you are ready to do something real at a normal time like an adult. Actually, it doesn’t matter what you eat or when. Just stop saying “brunch.” Stop. GQ declares brunch is over. We bury brunch. Huevos rancheros estan muertos. Enough. Long live the real drinking lunch: drunkch.

My best friend John and I have a similar situation, except we're waaaay not as cool as the brunch crowd. He'll call me Sunday morning around 1 or 2 PM, ask me if I'm still drunk or if I've slept it off enough. I'm usually 50/50. Are you starving? I'm starving. You wanna go to Melrose for food? Yeah give me a sec so I can shower and I'll meet you there in a half hour.

Melrose is completely unassuming, unpretentious, serves decent food, and does not have brunch. Nope, no brunch. Just regular menu food. No one goes there because it's the cool, brunchy thing to do. You go there to eat and chill and stare out the windows that line the street. That's it. We read magazine and newspaper ads, we discuss last evening's events (at least what we can recall), reminisce a little, and go forward with our lives. No gaggles of peeps. No lines. No getting out of bed while still drunk just to eat overpriced food.

Drunkch. Perfect.


And don't even get me started on the sushi crowd...

...omg, let's go get sushi!

OMG get out of my face.

Disposition.

Funny little word. What's your disposition?

I was walking down the sidewalk on a grey, cloudy day, en route to get a haircut. It was way too long, too uninspired. As I was walking, quietly humming to the melody of Eric Bib's "Shine on," minding my own business. I passed this young, black kid. Probably 12. He was carrying an instrument case of some sort. I guessed a saxophone.

I noticed his face. He was looking straight ahead, head held high, mouthing a song, a smile stretched across his face. His teeth were so white. He didn't even see me somehow, he was so caught up in his own world.

Or, should I say, his metallic blue Shuffle was rocking his world.

I loved what happened next. He looked up to the sky and sang "heyyyyy ya"...bounced the next few steps. His free hand was banging the beats out on an air drum.

Great song. Great disposition.

It was such a sight: unabashed happiness. Completely unabashed. It was a beautiful thing. And I loved every second of it.

I couldn't help but smile as I passed him by. Envied him a little. I wish I was that happy. Maybe I will be? Or maybe I won't care so much about the things that make me less than happy. Maybe from now on I'll walk down the streets singing a song. Whatever song I wanted, too. Bouncing every step. Sure, people will notice. And perhaps they'll change their disposition to that of something better. Just like that kid changed mine.

Thanks for that, kid.

My new disposition: shake it like a Polaroid picture.

Shake it.



Music:
Eric Bib: Shine On
Outkast: Hey Ya!

I'm back. Hey.

I'm back from the depths. It's a long, non-interesting story of where I started and where I ended up, so I'll make it quick: I basically took, head-on, my biggest professional proposal project ever. It required a river of blood, sweat, and tears in addition to countless hours of my life that I'll never get back to actually enjoy...but it's over. And the end result was damn good.

It came down to the very last minute, too. I'm a department of 1 person, so everything was on my shoulders to get it done. After having 80-hour work weeks (and weekends) for the last month, it all came down to today: I had until 8 am this morning to finish my business proposal (all 24 proposals, 800 pages each) as they were to be shipped off to the Department of Transportation at 8 am, no questions asked. I literally finished at 7:59, literally 7:59 this morning--an absolutely beautiful morning at that, as shown below.

What a Monday/Tuesday, what a conclusion...I worked non-stop, and I mean NON-STOP from 7 am Monday morning til 8 am Tuesday morning. 24 hours of too-busy-to-eat-or-pee, panicky, frenzied HOLY-CRAP-I-have-no-time Jessie Spano-like-anxiety during the final production moments. I wish there was some type of surveillance camera footage that showed the billions of things I did in a very small window of time. I bet I looked similar to ants building an ant hill. Anyway I documented the end via iPhone since I budgeted the extra minute to allot for picture documentation. Click the pics to make them bigger:

7:59 am Tuesday, March 17th




You can see a few samples of those bitches/the proposals that I wrote in less than two months (constructed and produced in less than one LONG 24 hour shift). While it was my biggest undertaking EVER [ate away at my sanity and forced me to have a hunchback and crossed eyes from sitting endlessly in front of a glowing computer all day, every day]...I must say that I love those proposals. They proved something to me. I now know for a fact that I'm capable of anything I put my mind to. I can so do it. And I did it.

And that feels real good. I'm in charge of my career. Finally.

Anyway. I've been listening to some new music in an effort to ease (or atleast numb) work-related stress and self-doubt (work-related and otherwise).

I've come up with some winners you might enjoy:

Anyway You Choose to Give It - The Black Ghosts
Georgia - Jaguar Love
The Tape Song - The Kills
Shh - Donora
Section 8 City - Andrew Bird
Come As You Were - The Bird and the Bee
The Park (Feist cover) - Bon Iver

Okay...I'm going to sleep. For a long time. Rumplestiltskin-style.

I'll be back to normal soon. I won't be going back into the office anytime soon.

Creative energy: pending.

Weird. I've received three emails from three different people whom pondered, why do you write (!) all the time and what does it mean?

Well, readers, I will explain myself. I'm pretty sure this is an original idea. T-shirts and copyrights are pending, so don't even:

(!) to me, means "freaking out on the inside"

...like, you know, when a "holy crap I'm freaking the F out" event happens in my life or an "Oh, snap!" idea or thought suddenly occurs, I like to extensively freak out on the inside, while playing it super cool on the outside. And I always play it real cool. I'm quite possibly the coolest person you will or will never meet.

But, to externally express my internal freak outs via my blog, I denote such freakings as

(!)

while in my mind I'm thinking

ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit...omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg

and on the outside i'm just like hohumhohumhohumhohumhohum

get the pic?

Facebook=information overload. I so don't get it's constant fear of complacency i.e. all of these massive face lifts. Something must be up. (?)

At any rate, yes Hilary, you were right all along. It's so yesterday.

Over it.

(I don't need to know 95% of the stuff on Facebook! It actually scares me at this point that I have access to the motherload of all motherloads of personal information for hundreds of people, some of whom I could care less what they're doing or when they did it.)

Therefore, I think I'm going to put all good pictures on a cool site, then with Twitter utilization, this thing I like to call a blog, and 3D interaction with actual human beings, my life may be complete in some regard minus Fbook. Otherwise...nope. Done. Cya. Basic profile, nothing fancy from now on. Facebook = online rolodex. That's it. Peace out.

I'm not hatin' on the club I'm hatin on the 'Book! - Rihanna (through the eyes of ryansumer)

Plus, I could go on for hours about how Facebook turns ordinary individuals into cyber-stalkers with ever-decreasing attention spans, but I have way too much work to do and I'm apparently not doing it because, well, here I am. Anyway...

TOO MUCH!

I just had my first psycho Twitter moment where I came to an overly bitter and drama-filled conclusion:

"Oh, you don't wanna follow me? Then I don't wanna follow YOU."

*selects "remove" with a fast, HARD click*

*pouts*

I don't get it.

...what, you're apparently too good to follow me but yet you think I'm going to follow you around like some lost PUPPY!? Get over yourself, you're not worth a tweet, you're stupid, you suck, you're boring anyway, who cares about you, no one, that's who, see ya later you no good such and such...blah blah blah...fire, rage, spit, boom, bah

Note: this internal rant went on for hours. And by hours I mean HOURS.






somebody stop me (!)

I'm getting so far off track with this eating regimen, it's not even funny. And I haven't worked out for three days. OMGWTF?

And, it happened again. I went to breakfast. Grabbed a banana. Grabbed some peanut butter. Grabbed some OJ.

And grabbed a donut.

Oops...





(sorry these blogs are entirely inadequate. I've been working 80+ hour work weeks, working weekends, living in hotels, driving way too fast everywhere I go. I just need some time to regather. I need my life.

And my normal gym schedule.

And less donuts.)

I win:

Hi Ryan,

I recently received your concern about your order arriving at 50 mins to your door. We as a company make it our goal to serve fast, delicious, and hot food to our customers. Unfortunately there are times when we can not always be as fast as we would like. I do apologize for your late order and I would like to offer you a free medium pizza of your choice for your next order. We look forward to serving you again. When you place your next order please call the store and give them the following information for your credit XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.

Thank you,

Your Dominos Team

Always write a nicely-worded letter of dissatisfaction when merited. You never know when good customer service will happen.

Uh, what the bleep is going on? Every day it's like this. I wake up, go to work, and right around that 8:45 a.m. stretch I start to feel SICK. Morning sickness-sick: my body temperature will start to fluctuate drastically, I'll get BURNING hot...then I'll look around the office and ask is it hot in hurr or is it just me?

It's always just me.

Meanwhile my stomach feels like a volcano. I have to literally talk myself out of erupting. I realized long ago that puking is 50% physical, 50% mental. All you have to do is put mind over stomach: Ryan, you're just fine, you don't want to throw up, you hate throwing up, you're not going to throw up. Just breathe in and out, in and out, you're fine, you're strong, this will pass...breathe one, two, three, four...

By the time 10 a.m. rolls around...all has passed, I'm fine, everything is A-OK, and my internal "keep it cool" coaching can finally be shut off. My frenzied anxieties of throwing up in public have also subsided, I can once again look at my computer screen without going cross-eyed, and I can also walk throughout the office without swerving and bumping into people's desks: Oh, whoops! Sorry Patty, I know that's the 3rd time I've ran into your cube wall this morning. My bad. This floor has dips everywhere...did I ever tell you how much I adore that Chicago Cubs troll doll? So cute! Mind if I have a green M&M? I'll send you that expense report in 5.

But seriously, for an hour or so something was UP. Something was definitely up.

Could it be? It may just be.

Which is fine because I could totally use the tax write-off.

Life:

I can't change the weather
And I can't stop the rain.

I just own a nice umbrella.


And.life.goes.on.

The sky is gray, the air wet.
The weekend.
It's here, and it's wet.
Really wet.
Prohibitively wet.

And I'm okay with that.
Because here I am.

Warm, in bed, content.
No work to do, nowhere to be.
But here
In bed.
And Pretty Woman is on.
Suhweet.

Home
Daughtry

I'm goin home...back to the place where I belong...where la la da da..blah blah blaaaaah.

I'm goin home.........

...god only knows what's out there...


Just FYI, I'm completely alone, sitting in a conference room, at 9 pm at night. You may or may not already know this if you're stalking me on Facebook or Twitter (MySpace died 3 years ago, so gross), or perhaps you're stalking me from 10 feet away on the outside (or inside!) of the building. Regardless, I'm hearing stuff.

Noises are everywhere.

Some of them are believable (water cooler gurgling), some are 50/50 (wind, tree scrapes), and some are down right unacceptable (feet skidding quickly on carpet).

I really don't know what to do. A part of me wants to scream and surrender and beg for mercy or a quick death. A part of me went in survival mode hours ago and is already planning my exit strategy/adrenaline-fueled, self-defense counter attack, and a VERY small, completely unstable part of me is mildly intrigued to wander around, face whatever's out there, pray to god that some stray cat jumps out of a trash can or something.

Uttering the words in a sigh of relief "Phew, it was just a stray cat in a trash can" would be pretty ideal right about now.

OKAY PEOPLE, you know when sometimes an empty water bottle has little indents in it and then randomly they "POP" out, making that "POP" noise? A water bottle just did that while I was typing the paragraph above, making my heart literally stop. And it HURT. I think it could have even been considered a heart attack. Okay, a mild heart attack. I mean, I'd atleast call it an F1 heart attack, pretty non-serious in nature, but still, a heart attack nonetheless since, afterall, my heart did, in fact, stop receiving blood for a couple millies.

Anyway, if I hear another unacceptable noise I think I'm going turn on every light in the building, walk cautiously to the door in a 360 motion, then run to my car, look in the backseat first, lock the doors second, peel out 3rd, crank BPM on XM 4th, drive at the speed of light to my hotel 5th, and then have my work peeps bill me the electric bill in the morning.

The predicaments I get myself into. Ugh.

So, I had yet another revelation last night. Well, it wasn't so much a revelation as it was a conclusion...

I think my V-Logs are on their way out the door. Here's my reasoning:

V-Logs are typically fun. I've had fun making them, I've had fun watching other people's v-logs, it's just a fun idea altogether.

BUT, and boy is it a big but, YouTube is such a buzzkill. You know why? People are ruthless on YouTube. Just down right mean and nasty. I can't tell you how many weird emails I've received via YouTube that are completely uncalled for and unnecessary and I hate to admit it but sometimes even scary. I received an email last night that really was an end-all of all end-alls. That one email (and trust me, there have been a few of similar nature but nothing like this) took all of the fun out of what I was trying to accomplish and extracted every last ounce of interest I had in continuing on. Like I said, for some reason, YouTube harbors undeniable hate. People love to be hateful on YouTube, and it's gone just a little too far. And by a little I mean a lot. Even more, I really can't keep putting myself out there only to be demeaned and threatened. It's totally not worth it.

Coincidentally, I recently watched someone else's reaction video to their own YouTube hate, and it got me thinking...he's absolutely right: inside somewhere deep and dark, YouTube enthusiasts are just a bunch of haters who don't even blink before leaving a nasty, unjust comment or sending a nasty, hate-filled email. Would these lurking YouTube haters ever verbalize such a thing, or do they talk to people in real life with such misery-filled, hate speech? Probably not.

But on YouTube, that's just the lay of the land. And I'm over it.

YouTube kills my self-esteem and for a soon-to-be 27 year old man, that's just not necessary. This isn't grade school.

Peace out, YouTube.

Blogspot is my baby anyway.

My daily CNN wrap-up:

Yay!

Sis, read this.

Good for you

Stuff like this keeps me up at night

I concur

From One Fine Day

Melanie (Mom): Sammy, I swear, you'll be just fine here, there are lots of nice kids to play with.
Sammy: I don't want to play with them, they always make fun of me.
Melanie: Honey, don't worry about it, you'll be just fine, I promise. Hey, look it's superhero day! Oh wow, look at Spiderman.
Spiderman Kid: Hey, look, he doesn't have a costume! (points at Sammy)
Melanie: Sure he does, he's a superhero too, you know.
Spiderman Kid: He doesn't look like a superhero, he looks like a whiney baby poo poo face.
Sammy: Stares at his Mom

This is going to be a week gifted from Hell. I'm in Milwaukee all week wrapping up a major state proposal. Crunch time...but, speaking of which (and more importantly) I could really go for an oversized bowl of Captain Crunch right about now. Although I must say that I can only handle so many crunchberries. In my mind, a perfect bowl would only contain about 8 or 9 crunchberries...and only the red kind, no blue. If you get too many of them, the cereal gets a little toxic--my teeth feel slime-coated while my stomach files claims of domestic abuse.

Much like the perfect chocolate chip cookie would only have about 4 or 5 chocolate chips.

However, it's been a good 10+ years since I've had a bowl of CC. Since then I've ventured in and out of my Fruit Loop days, generic fruit loop days, Lucky Charms days, generic Lucky Charms days (one bag only, SICK, and I swear the marshmallows shrivel into nothingness upon 5 milliseconds of milk submergence), Oh's days, and most recently, Apple Cinnamon Cheerios days, but in the spirit of embracing the ever-so-close-I-can-almost-feel-it arrival of Spring...it's all about the protein shake. That's it.

Although I went to the continental breakfast in the hotel lobby and snagged a donut on my way to work. It had sprinkles and I could not resist.

Yes, my life is disconnected. This post is merely one example.

Country Roses

My favorite is "Snowflakes."

REALLY?!

A) What is orange cola?
B) Since when are beverages political?
C) Pure Cane Soda does not sound good.
D) Give me a break.