Rage Against The Green

I am walking down a street in Santa Monica when and a guy with long flowing hair and an accent runs up to me and asks, “Please, let me take you to dinner?” It was as if I had been transported into a Hilary Duff movie and I had no idea what to say. “I am sorry,” I reply “I am new here and don’t really trust anyone. I will give you my email?” He throws his head backwards as if I just have just slapped him in the face. (Dramatic? Yes, but in LA everyone is working on their acting career so it’s not out of the ordinary.) I can see the wheels in his brain turning. We both know he has 3 seconds to say something before I walk out of his life forever. As I turn to leave, he heroically shouts his last argument, “but you can trust me… I AM A VEGAN.” and that’s when I knew…(sigh)…we would never be together.

Attack of the Vegetables

What people forgot to tell me when I moved by the beach is that eating healthy is a real thing here. People actually believe in microwave-less cooking. They LOVE vegetables, farmer’s markets, and the word “fresh”. Every meal is calculated to perfection and people legitimately cook dinners that I have only seen on TV and assumed weren’t a realistic option for anyone less than Betty Crocker status. I have read plenty of blog posts about this lifestyle, but to see it so actively lived and promoted is a whole new story. I have to say I am impressed. In Provo we grab a Jamba Juice, jog around the block, and call it good. Here, eating well is a religion and running around the block would be considered a 5K.

The Alien in The Office

Flashback to my first week of work. I am innocently typing away when an unnamed coworker asks, “what is that?” He points to a red plastic cup on my desk with a Kit-Kat wrapper peaking out of the rim. “It’s candy?” I stammer. He picks up the cup, tips it over, and just like a snow globe an avalanche of empty fun-size wrappers come fluttering out. Time graciously froze so I could see my coworker’s wide-eyed reaction followed by “Gasp” #1. This was the first of many party fouls. I continued to shock this new health-centered community with my diet.

• “Gasp” #2 Came when I revealed that I brought a ravioli TV dinner for lunch.
• “Gasp” #3 when I suggested McDonalds for dinner
• “Gasp” #4 When I inhaled a bag of M&M’s mid-conversation during a meeting.
• “Gasp” #5 When I threw up in my mouth after my first taste of this…

Say hello to my arch nemesis, a shake made entirely out of plants called THE SLURRY.

Your turn to “gasp.”

Drink or Die

Sink or swim. I had been thrown into a colony of cabbage patch kids and if I wanted to fit in I was going to have to start drinking this thing.

Special Note to Green Monster Drinkers: This is not a green monster. A green monster has tons of fruit with a pinch of spinach to make it look green and seem unusually healthy but to taste like..Jamba Juice. The slurry is the opposite and could actually be considered fruit abuse. Even if it had a glimmer of hope called a pineapple, it would immediately sabotage it’s flavor with something that tasted like an onion.

This drink does NOT taste good and is a test to prove that you have what it takes to outlive everyone by 30 years. Here is the breakdown.

The Slurry Breakdown

A slurry can contain any combination of the following:

• Beets
• Celery
• Asparagus
• Spinach
• Lemon
• Ginger
• Bok choy
• Carrots
• Green Leaf Lettuce
• Pineapple (the poor thing)
• Zucchini
• Lime

Side Effects From Drinking This Concoction of Earth.

After a burst of morning energy you will realize that the cheap Asian salad aftertaste in your mouth is not going anywhere. However, this drink is said to have vitamins A through Z and is actually really good for you. It can also keep you from getting sick and will help you gain or lose weight depending on what you want.

Beet Me Senseless

After 4 mornings of painstakingly trying to take more than two sips of the slurry, I had lost all hope. Was I ever going to be able to fit in? In this land of Trader Joe’s and granola is there a place for someone who lives for double-stuff Oreos? Head on my desk, my coworkers appeared with a peace offering. “We know how much you love chocolate so we made a slurry just for you.” Tears welled up in my eyes as they explained that they had blended all my favorite candy bars into a cup of hot chocolate.

The Choco Slurry Breakdown

The chocolate slurry contains all of the following, but is not limited to these candy bars. In fact this drink is limitless, there are endless amazing combinations:

• A Bag of M&Ms
• Two Mr. Goodbars
• Hershey’s Milk Chocolate
• Hershey’s Dark Chocolate
• Kit Kats
• Chocolate Chip Granola Bar
• Hot Chocolate- Extra Chocolate

Side Effects From Drinking ALL Your Favorite Candy Bars at Once

After a three-hour burst of energy from the high levels of caffeine you will crash. Completely pass out to the point of drooling only to be woken up by a tornado in your stomach. Worth it? Totally.

Note: make sure you have a solid tooth brush before drinking. 30 minutes of brushing will barely make a dent on the layers of sugar that will cement onto your teeth.

Why Can’t We Be Friends?

What I have learned from hanging with these Wild Oats is that people who love sugar and people who love salad can peacefully co-exist. There is room for both. Your tasting palette doesn’t define who you are, but your willingness to branch out and try something new does. Enjoy the recipes above: one will speed up your death the other will just taste like it.

I am interested to know what people drink or have been forced to drink to keep their bodies from deteriorating, if you have comments or recipes leave them below! Especially if it is a game-changer for your health and somehow doesn’t taste like it.

For those of you who don’t know, I was recently featured on an internet dating show called The Mormon Bachelor as a bachelorette. It was announced today that the bachelor, Kent Tuttle, has decided to leave the show. I have had some rough break ups in the past, but I have to say that this one is probably the hardest. I wasn’t expecting a relationship with so much promise, and so many unique page views on the internet, to end so fast. I also wasn’t expecting to get dumped by Kent’s producer’s intern via iPhone (Devin you did a great job and should get a raise.) Since I didn’t get the bad news from Kent Tuttle himself, I am left to assume the worst. Here are just a few reasons why I think our relationship may have ended.

1. Not Playing Hard to Get

There are two rules to playing hard to get. A) Put in little to no effort B) Keep your affections mysterious. Considering the fact that I spent time filling out an application to date Kent Tuttle, followed by a web video, followed by a Facebook post with comments from my girlfriends that said, “You will thank me when you are in Kent Tuttle’s arms.” It was difficult to play the mysterious “maybe I like you, maybe I don’t” card.

2. Playing too Hard to Get

Unfortunately, when I applied for TMB (Lingo for The Mormon Bachelor) nobody informed me that Kent Tuttle would be moving into my ward before the show actually taped. Trying to start a conversation with someone you made a web video to date and never planned on seeing outside of context is harder than you would think. My solution? Running. It was sort of a “bad luck to see the bride before the wedding” type of mindset. Our date wasn’t for two weeks and I wanted our first moments together to be caught on camera for our future kids to see. What I didn’t realize while I was diving behind church pews, is that Kent was getting the impression that I wasn’t interested. My distance was the beginning of a downward spiral in our relationship that ultimately drove a heartbroken Tuttle into the arms of another woman.

3. Trust Issues

I started getting an uneasy feeling about me and Kent’s relationship on June 8th when I read the following statement on his blog, “I am 6’6″ and my high center of gravity makes surfing a little tricky for me.” I had the sinking feeling that he might have been lying. A few days later my worst fears were confirmed by an anonymous friend who happens to be 6’6″.

Our foundation of trust was shattered.

4. Revealing Deal Breakers

Emily Maynard charmed the world when she used the Flawless Flaws strategy on a recent episode of the Bachelorette. The Flawless Flaws strategy is simple. You reveal flaws that are just big enough to show you aren’t too perfect, but small enough to not be considered a party foul. For example one of Emily’s go-to’s is “I go to the grocery store in my pajamas.” By using simple phrases like this one, she is able to show the world that although she is gorgeous and a new-born celebrity…she is a real person too.

In my efforts to seem real and relateable on camera, I revealed several flaws on my audition tape. Unfortunately, I underestimated the impact my honesty would have on Kent, Cougs Rock, and 5b30e80e-b23e-11-e-b2d3-000bcdca4d7a. Read below…

The flaws I revealed were shocking enough to elicit a “wow” response from both blog commenters. Coincidence? I don’t think so. It was looking very possible that my plan backfired and that I revealed deal breakers instead of minor road bumps too early in the relationship. In an effort to prove I was still worthy of Kent’s love I recently ran to the only place I could think of to get honest raw feedback, Venice Beach…. I asked the following men if each of these things were deal breakers.

Battle For Kent’s Love: COUGS ROCK VS. CARLYBIRD

Round 1: No Cooking Skills

Round 1 Winner- Carlybird. This response was common from the males I interviewed at Venice beach. Shocking? Not really. Yes Cougs Rock, guys outside of Provo don’t live off of frozen taquitos, hot pockets, and whatever is left over in the neighbor girl’s pantry. Man up and buy a skillet.

Round 2: Bad Driving

Round 2 Winner- Cougs Rock. I would like to respectfully apologize to Cougs Rock and drivers everywhere for not holding my circle.

Round 3: Bad Dancing

Round 3 Winner- Cougs Rock. In this instance, I am really glad that Cougs Rock tried to stop me from dancing before it was too late. I am very lucky I made it this far in the competition without getting shot. Since I live in LA, I am lucky I haven’t been shot in general but it’s good to know that revealing my Robyn-like dance moves could increase my chances.

Round 4: Gold Digging

Round 4 Winner- CarlyBird It looks like 5b30e80e-b23e-11-e-b2d3-000bcdca4d7a may have gotten confused at who he was calling a gold digger. Considering he is also going through an identity crises, it’s understandable.

TIE BREAKER: Our Children’s Survival

Tiebreaker Win- Cougs Rock (by forfeit) Unfortunately the only way to prove that me and Kent’s children would survive would be for me to have not gotten dumped. By default Cougs Rock takes the final win.

When It’s Over…That’s The Time I Fall In Love Again

Now that our relationship is over, I can’t help but relive some of the highlights from our relationship. Here are a few of my favorite memories

The Pick Up

When We First Met

First Public Display of Affection

Saying Goodbye

I am not sure how to officially end this, but I guess this is where me and Tuttle part ways. I would use the whole, “it’s not you it’s me,” line but I think it is pretty much implied at this point. Kent it was great while it lasted and I am really going to miss you and me on the internet.

What is Next?

I know I have built a big fan base since I joined the show (no I haven’t) but I regret to inform everyone that I will be dropping out. Unless… my coworker Vince is voted as the new Mormon Bachelor.

A little about Vince: Vince sits next to me at work and looks like Jack Black. He has no plans of ever becoming a dentist.

To Vote: CLICK HERE

We all deserve a second chance at love.

Since I have abdicated my throne as a bachelorette contestant on an online dating show, I have started to draw in a shadier crowd of men who prefer to run their dating lives in the digital world. I think I have given guys the wrong impression and would like to clarify. As great and as solid as my relationship with Kent has been in the internet realm, I usually don’t prefer to date in a virtual reality. Yes eHarmony.com that includes you. It also includes the greatest threat to real-life classic dating of all time…the text message. There is one guy’s digital dating style in particular I feel is necessary to address. To protect names and identity, we will call him: Rally Tingwood.

Enter Rally Tingwood

Imagine the Most Interesting Man in the World from the Dos Equis commercials with a cell phone. Now imagine every text message you got from that cell phone had a winky face to make you believe the 60 characters before it. Now imagine never actually dating the man behind the texts and receiving messages just far enough apart to believe there is nothing going on, but just close enough together to think there may be something going on. Brilliant. The timing is flawless and a text usually appears after you post a good-looking Instagram of yourself or run into him for 5-seconds at a party. You have met a “Rally Tingwood.”

Over the past few months I have received messages similar to this one from Rallywood:

The emoticon placements are flawless and he has me in the palm of his iPhone. I usually reply to these texts with a “Let’s go out,” followed by at least three exclamation points to show I am serious, followed by a victory celebration fist pumping the air. The thrill lasts a total of t-minus 3 seconds before I realize…Rally Tingwood has out-smarted me again. His typographic charm has temporarily blinded me from the reality that, like many other men, he has no intention of taking me out and that two weeks from now I will still be spending Friday night by myself watching reruns of Downton Abbey snuggling a body pillow.

It has also blinded me from an even harsher reality that most guys these days rarely put in effort to seduce women beyond predictive text and abbreviations.

In an effort to illustrate to Tingwood and men everywhere why I am currently becoming desensitized to my buzzing phone, I have created an Infographic:

Enter the Infographic

My girl Carly Rae Jepsen said it best when she made a hit pop song and had Abercrombie models sing it shirtless, “Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my number….so call me maybe?”

I am walking down the street with a grocery bag full of tacos when he stops me. “Excuse me, I just wanted to say I thought you had great style.” I stop and do a double take. His eyes get wide as he realizes why. Bless America because I am wearing this T-shirt….

He is nice enough to keep pretending,”Yeah you have total California girl style.” I smile as I try to count in my head how many women in LA I have seen with Myrtle Beach South Carolina written across their chest (or just the number of women in LA who have something covering their chests in general.) I pretend not to be mortified. He chokes and hides his rows of perfect teeth. END SCENE.

We can take two things from this experience: A) Mexican food is never a bad choice and it is more likely that this man was smitten by the smell of corn tortillas then he was my youth large t-shirt B) Despite the head-tilted puppies on this 100% cotton…I passed as a girl with LA style and have moved up to level 2 of amateur blogging to become: A FASHION BLOGGER.

Come on Vogue

As seen in the photo above, I am lucky enough to have coworkers that gave some great training and feedback on how to approach my first outfit post as a fashion blogger. If you are wondering how exciting the photo shoot was, here is VIP backstage access: VIP BACKSTAGE ACCESS.

In the 4 minutes of company time wasted to take pictures, here is what we came up with. I created a collage out of the photos to illustrate that I may or may not be the next Twiggy and a shoe-in to be published on either Vogue or the WFCP (Women’s Fashion Category Page) on Pinterest.

A special thanks goes out to the Camera+ App for letting ordinary people hide behind strategic shadows and photo filters.

To Get This Look

Because lets be honest. You are all curious.

1. T-shirt from a legitimate gift shop in Myrtle Beach. Compliments of two really great friends. Nothing says, “I am a hipster” more than wearing a T-shirt that nobody has from a place that nobody will ever go.
2. Tiggggghhht pants from Urban Outfitters that function like a wet suit only for air.
3. A pair of Converse high-tops that I bought as a gift to myself if I promised to stop acting like an LA tourist and apologizing to street performers.
4. Vince. An accessory every woman should have.

To Get This Hair

1. Sleep on a fried bunch of curls for two nights straight without an air conditioner.
2. Put it in a bun and pretend that it won’t be affected by the mist from a sub-par shower.
3. Take out rubber band and untangle the very top layer of hair with your fingers (depending on your hair type there is a good chance a hair brush isn’t going to make it through.)

And there you have it. The first CarlyBird.com fashion post. Comment below if you aren’t speechless at this point.

Tweet Cred

Currently trying to build up my tweet cred. If you feel like doing a good deed follow me at @Carly_Bird. One lucky follower will be chosen out of a drawing to win a gift certificate to Pollo Loco.

The STOP-IT office memo came at 4:55 today during a rainstorm of keyboard “click-clicks” and space bar “slams.” The chorus of computer taps could have easily been caused by a group of office junkies frantically putting together reports, but the memo knew better. So did Google. Google knew exactly what it was doing when it created the greatest threat to office productivity of all time: THE OLYMPIC GOOGLE DOODLE.

Today’s was hurdles. Tomorrow’s is basketball. We don’t stand a chance. None of us do. When you take an average joe chained to a desk and give them a chance to become an Olympic hero in the click of a button, what do you think is going to happen? It can take months of work, even years for some people to get recognition at the typical office job. Google offers you a medal an OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL in less than 10 seconds for hitting a space bar super fast. Which do you think is going to win?

Time will be wasted. Jobs will be lost. And Google is laughing somewhere as it designs more Olympic Google Doodles that will sucker us all into thinking we have a shot at beating the guy in IT who treats street fighter as a second job.

Since there is nothing we can do about it, here are best practices for Google Doodling

1. Stay calm

When you get the g-chat from your co-worker that there is an Olympic Google Doodle act like you could care less. Keep your cool and try to pretend that you aren’t concerned about the cartoon athlete’s long torso and short legs. Miraculously enough, his body structure does not affect his performance doing hurdles.

2. Try not to click in patterns

While you are competing in the Olympic games try to click extra keys to throw everyone off.

3. Resist the urge to yell. Also, take screen shots.

When you reach victory (the best score in your office) don’t yell or attract attention. Take a screen shot so no one can question you and let your victory dance out with emoticons slapped all over an email chain.

4. Keep an open mind

The best tricks may come from other co-workers. Don’t let your pride keep you from trying the double-tap technique or the space bar instead of the ^ key. You can cut a couple seconds off your score (and company time) by learning from those around you.

Trick: one of the key findings we discovered today is that left-handed players can gain an advantage by turning their keyboard upside down. Adapt and conquer.

5. Don’t Sweat

Dead giveaway

6. Get it out of your system during your lunch break

After 5 minutes, if you suddenly find yourself on a downward spiral toward addiction, take your lunch break early. Use that time to secure a high score that will keep you from questioning your self-worth the rest of the day.

Best of luck to you all. May Google have mercy. Comment below with your best tricks and score. Obviously.

Tweet Cred

Currently trying to build up my tweet cred. If you feel like doing a good deed follow me at @Carly_Bird. One lucky follower will be chosen on Aug. 15th out of a drawing to win a gift certificate to POLLO LOCO.

The idea of hope is hard to swallow. Especially when it rests on another person’s shoulders.

It goes along with the cliche phrase “don’t get your hopes up,” and the idea that high expectations in others can only lead to great falls. It’s a skewed mindset, but it is easy to cave into. Unless you saw the idea of hope from a different frame of reference.

Enter City of Hope

Two months ago, I had the chance to take a tour of City of Hope. It’s an incredible cancer comprehensive center in Duarte, California that believes in not only healing the body, but the soul as well. One of the most interesting things about COH is that their hospital was purposely built across from the research center. Every day cancer patients sit in front of windows overlooking a courtyard and a building where scientists spend hours on end trying to find a cure. And every day researchers look across the same lawn to see the faces of the people who believe they can do it.

Hope is the fuel behind the patient’s drive to survive and the researcher’s drive to keep trying. It’s a high hope that chooses to believe more in another person than on possible outcomes or falls. It’s a high hope that in my opinion can become a game changer.

Enter This Video

Recently the agency I work for and COH teamed up to produce this film to raise awareness about the bone marrow registry. In the process we were smitten by the story and by Gavin.

This video is proof of how much we need each other and it’s proof that as my coworker put it life is “pretty damn precious.”

A month after this video’s first preview, I got in my car. I drove a couple hours away from my pride to fix a friendship that means the world to me. As I stood at the top of a windy ledge overlooking a lamp-lit city, I breathed for the first time, laughed with someone I hadn’t let myself laugh with in a long long time, and realized every day should be like this. I am snot-nosed. I am lucky. And life is too sweet to waste on anything less worthy than loving someone else. Regardless of what may come.

Two Things:

1. Help make more stories like Gavin’s possible by clicking here.
2. Let yourself love and care about the people you are blessed enough to have standing by your side.

I can’t name the number of times a woman has said to me, “I love him. Even though he wears cargo shorts and tennis shoes, I love him.”

I would like to make a bold statement.

Women. Women everywhere. I don’t believe you love him despite the cargo shorts, I believe you love him BECAUSE of the cargo shorts.

I said it. I am not taking it back.

Lets start from the beginning.

Why Cargo Shorts Were Taken Away

Thanks to an anonymous tip (ahem Russell) I don’t believe cargo shorts were taken away because of style issues. I believe they were taken off the “chic” list out of spite. Women designers were offended that men didn’t think girls looked sexy in the rompers they painstakingly tried to make popular. Yes. Because their terrible invention was banished to Forever 21 for not looking good on the majority of women, they retaliated by taking the most useful item of clothing men have and made them… shameful.

I am sorry. I am fighting back.

Three Reasons To Become an Advocate for Cargo Shorts

Reason 1: Storage Space

Let’s start with the obvious. The pockets on these shorts could fit an entire purse in them if need be, giving you the freedom to frolic through concerts, clubs, and rodeos (yes, looping in cowboys) without worrying about your wallet, iPhone, lipstick, etc. In summary, cargo shorts: no storage issues. Guy that is wearing the same pants as you: storage issues.

Reason 2: Cargo Shorts = Pre-Conditioned Survival Skills

How many Eagle Scouts do you know that don’t own a pair of cargo shorts? How many wilderness-obsessed men have you met that have never experimented with the double or triple zip-off pant?

If there were a zombie apocalypse which one of these guys would you team up with to survive? Take some time out of your day to answer these questions for yourself.

Reason 3: Rage Against the Machine

If you are the type of woman that is attracted to rebels (every woman, so I am speaking to every woman right now.) You should realize that wearing a pair of cargo shorts with Nikes and socks is a bold statement. It’s a guy saying, “I am not like you and I don’t care if Vogue is throwing a fit right now.” It’s a guy that is actually rebelling against the majority unlike the hipster on your doorstep who begs to be unique by manipulating his facial hair but could literally cut himself out of an Urban Outfitters catalog.

To help you all appreciate men in cargo shorts I created a board of men in cargo shorts on Pinterest. Click here to solidify any remaining doubts you may have about this legendary menswear item.

Have a Strong Opinion About Cargo Shorts?

Comment below if you agree, disagree, or hate this blog.

I met Jay Tibbitts at Freshmen orientation 2005 in Rexburg, Idaho. He was so hot I couldn’t help myself. Or at least that’s what I got from this poorly narrated video documenting one of our first conversations.

Back then, Jay was part of a college gang called the Turtles who was in rival with a gang I rolled with (literally) called the Scoots (we rode razor scooters to school.) Surprisingly, our relationship survived this My Little Ponies version of Romeo and Juliet and 7 years, 2 ankle touches, a game of footsie, and 1/2 a back rub later we are still friends with benefits.

As much as I wish I could say this post is about me and Jay Tibbitts, it is actually about another gang/band he joined 4 years later called Parlor Hawk and their Kickstarter for their second album.

Band Promotion?!?!

Yes, I sucked you in with a flaxen cord and a hint of a chick flick only to lure you into buying a t-shirt, album, and VIP backstage passes for life from a band in Provo, UT. But it’s in your best interest so hear me out.

You may be the type of hipster that needs no explanation and has a collection of music T’s documenting your loyalty to all bands raging against the record label machine. If so, props. Party on with that Burt Reynolds mustache. But there are other reasons you should support ridiculously good looking musicians and this is where I come in.

3 Reasons You Should Donate to the Parlor Hawk Kickstarter

1. Pay It Forward

I made a graph to show you how helping someone else follow their dream may in turn help you follow your own. Here is my ROI (Return on Investment) from being a dedicated PH band fan for the last 4 years.

Ironic, but Carly Bird came from a Parlor Hawk. If you are as emotional as me after taking this journey you can get a book of more Parlor Hawk memories by clicking here.

2. Romance

I use this term loosely because I haven’t in fact ever kissed a member of Parlor Hawk and because most the members are married to babes. However, this doesn’t mean you can’t find romance listening to their album you pre-ordered here on a velvet green couch backstage at Velour only accessible by buying the VIP access for life package found here.

It also doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the private “drum lessons” with Jay offered here.

3. American Apparel T-shirts

I can’t tell you number of times a guy has complimented my Parlor Hawk T-shirt, said “I wish I had one it looks comfortable,” and then had an immediate desire to give me a back rub. If you are wearing silk, denim, or any fabric from Forever 21, consider your chances of a good cuddle session severely low in comparison to these gems.

Also, my good friend Kristopher Orr frequently Instagrams his T-shirt and has found that it get’s him more double-tap likes and women than any other photographed item of clothing.

Closing Statement

I could go on and on about reasons why you should stop getting frustrated with the Parlor Hawk ads running up your Facebook feed and start clicking on them (especially ones like these that are hilarious), but I would rather just sum it up with this.

Give some love/money to my friend Jay Tibbitts and his band because they sing great music, seduce great women, and would help you reach your dreams the same way you are helping them if they ever had the chance.

Support your local Parlor Hawk. Donate to their Kickstarter here.

People Magazine Punishes Ryan Gosling for Not Reading CarlyBird

It was announced this morning that Ryan Gosling was once again snubbed by People Magazine as Sexiest Man Alive. The only explanation for People Magazine not giving the award to these abs:

This face

And the guy who engrained this romance into all women’s brains to torture them and leave them unsatisfiable through the rest of eternity.

Is that A) People magazine is jealous that it’s flimsy pages will never be as rock solid as his body or B) They still haven’t gotten over that Ryan Gosling didn’t respond to my tweet 3 months ago asking Ryan if he reads CarlyBird.com.

Let’s be honest with each other, both reasons are undoubtadly terrible (keep in mind I own this blog) and do not justify the injustice they caused when they refused a man that does not get refused.

GOSLING VOTED SEXIEST MAN ALIVE BY CARLYBIRD.COM

In light of what happened. This blog has officially voted Ryan Gosling as the Sexiest Man Alive. The 25 people a day who read this site have agreed that in fact it would be a failure to all womenkind to not jump on board #teamryan at this time.

Comment below if you need to vent or would like to jump on the #teamryan hashtag. If you are currently still on #teamjef from the bachelor ABANDON SHIP. You should never have jumped on board.

The first time I realized my coworker was an extreme foodie was when he spent 10 minutes breaking down the elements of what makes a good popsicle. Turns out that if you want to know everything there is to know about the ideal frozen sugar-free fruit freeze, there is a foodie for that. His name is John Liu. And he graduated when he was 15. Meaning he learned how describe his upper-class palette with words like texture, umami, and froth at the same age that I was inhaling frosty covered chicken nuggets.

Since, it is not healthy to let him keep pacing by my desk and thrusting his forehead into his palms out of frustration of my eating habits, I agreed to do a food challenge. And in honor of the greatest tumblr of all time selleckwaterfallsandwich.tumblr.com, I will be illustrating the entire post incorporating Tom Selleck, waterfalls, and this weeks feature: the Fluffer Nutter sandwich. Without further adieu meet John Liu

The Foodie – John Liu

My favorite CarlyBird.com blog post is How To Fit in With a Colony of Vegetable Lovers. This post has everything – great cover image, hilarious anecdote, and then… a list of “Gasps” that I happened to be a part of.

I gasped when Carly brought her tv dinner for lunch, and again when she was so enthusiastic for McDonald’s. Not because I’m a healthy eating nut, but because I’m a foodie. I love good food – it’s really important to me that to make as many meals as possible a great experience.

The Tragedy

Meals are opportunities to delight your senses – and you only get so many of them. You’re only really in charge of your own food after you’re an adult with a stable income, and there’s always going to be times you’re just too busy or too broke. So, in reality, you only get to control what you eat for about 15,000 meals in your lifetime. To some people, that’s a lot. To me, that’s a depressing limit.

Coming from this mindset, it’s shocking to me how many people (like Carly) just throw away their opportunities to have a delicious meal, settling for something bland or generic.

The Challenge

So, we bring you the Carly Bird Food Challenge. I’m going to challenge Carly to eat a variety of different things. Some of them I expect her to like, for others “hopeful” would be a better word.

Episode 1: The Fluffernutter Sandwich

For the first week, I figured we’d start off with something easy that we could make in Carly’s kitchen that she’s almost guaranteed to like. I picked a regional specialty from where I grew up in Southern New England – the Fluf fernutter Sandwich.

Marshmallow Fluff, also known as marshmallow creme, is a sweet, spreadable marshmallow-like confection – more or less spreadable sugar. It was popularized in Somerville, MA – a small suburb of Boston – and has become a regional tradition, right up there with clam chowder, lobstah rolls, and the New York System.

and the city of Somerville responded by starting an annual Fluff festival.

Fluff is most popularly eaten as part of a Fluffernutter Sandwich – a sandwich of white bread, fluff, and peanut butter. It’s like a PB&J, except with Fluff. Sweeter, chewier, and still (kind of) delicious. These sandwiches are actually a little too sweet for my palate, but I figured it’d be a great fit for the recipient of the Choco Slurry.

The Review- Carly Bird

I don’t know how to do a food review other than saying I endorse this sandwich. It’s super easy to make and packed with sugar. The marshmellow fluff had the perfect amount of froth to make this creamy textured sandwich delish. I would give this selection a 10.

Help John Liu help me by listing any food ideas for next time below or just comment with your feelings about Tom Selleck and the Fluffer Nutter.

How to Make Your Holiday Heart/Lungs Burst

• Step 1: Meet my nephew Sam and his neon green jacket.
• Step 2: Treat him to a day of Chuck E. Cheese and candy dispensers.
• Step 3: When his sugar intake reaches the highest level possible, yell-along with his cover of “Jingle Bells (Jingle All The Sway.)

Happy Holidays from our lungs to yours. I couldn’t imagine a better one spending it with my family.

.

I wish I could say the picture above isn’t me kicking an ex-boyfriends black Audi in Ugg boots (more sorry about the Ugg boots.) I wish I could say that I never left 4-part voicemails, threw library books, or was straight up close-lined by a set of monkey bars while walking away from a break up. If someone asked, I would deny choking down tubs of ice cream while listening to Taylor Swift. I would also deny that my roommates ever had to play red rover with my Jeep to stop me from driving (in surgical boots) through a snow storm to win someone back. Enter image of surgical boots:

Although all these college stories are mortifying, I learned a lot over those years that may help women who are slowly transforming into hot messes as we speak. At the cost of my pride (as if I had any after showcasing a photo post bunion surgery), I am willing to admit what few women will. My name is Carly. I am 25-years-old. And I am an incredible ex-girlfriend.

Monstor Mash

In May 1962 Marvel comics introduced one of the greatest antiheroes of all time: The Hulk. Wikipedia describes him as mutated humanoid monster with an inability to control his rage.

He is also described as an emotional, impulsive alter ego of a withdrawn and reserved physicist. This makes him the comic book character most relateable to—-

Women and/or EX’s (I won’t be exclusive with this post. Looping in passionate males).

At this point you may be wondering… Why am I drawing a comparison between the hulk and emotionally unstable Taylor Swifts? Because Nerds in a basement somewhere were passive aggressively trying to help those struggling with separation anxiety via sharpie markers and this tiny gem of information:

Dr. Banner was able to find a way to control an overwhelming alterego by avoiding emotional triggers. These triggers were anything that caused: anger, terror, or grief.

To continue the service of Marvel, and to put my years of research to good use, I will be spelling out triggers to avoid. This is specific to anyone trying to get over a breakup in a way that limits their need for damage control later on.

Trigger 1: Social Media

Immediately delete the individual on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, etc. etc. In extreme cases (ie: “the love of your life” or “the one who got away”) unfollow any of their close friends and family temporarily. It’s the same idea as trying to avoid finding out the ending of Downton Abbey before you get to watch it. Shield your eyes and unfollow anyone who is known for being a buzz kill when it comes to epic moments in historic dramas.

Over time you can win these privileges back, but for the immediate time being watching someone live while you are dying is never a good idea. If you give a mouse a cookie, he will want milk. If you give an emotionally unstable girl her ex-boyfriends profile on Facebook, she will will want to read every comment from other girls and question their friends in common for details. It’s like a slow motion train wreck. I have seen entire breakdowns over scenarios made up from reading one 140 character tweet.

Trigger 2: Saying Sorry

A street performer in LA (surprisingly very credible life mentors) once told me, “Don’t be sorry. A sorry person is a sad person.” I believe it. If you did something wrong, say it once. Make it epic. Chase him down in the rain, show up on his doorstep, get edgy and vandalize a freeway overpass by poking millions of plastic red cups through a chain link fence to spell out the word “SORRY.” Make sure he knows you mean it. After that move on.

You accept the love you think you deserve and by repeatedly apologizing you create an idea that you don’t deserve forgiveness or much of anything. Over time this will do damage to your self-esteem and change you into a person you don’t recognize.

Trigger 3: Staying Friends

By far the worst part of breaking up is losing a best friend. And not like a Homeward Bound lost my best friend in the wilderness kind of way. More like a Men in Black my best friend was possessed by an alien type of way.

You may be experiencing hulk tendancies, but the breakup-ee goes through major metamorphic changes as well. But to be honest, it doesn’t matter what strange things he/she is doing to compensate for what happened. What matters is that their relationship to you has changed. They may look the same, they may even act the same around you at different times, but they are not the same person that they were with you before they decided to call it quits. Nor can they go back to that point.

But why can’t you still be friends?

You can. I am not saying you can’t. I am friends with two of my ex’s and we often laugh about the times we ripped each other’s hearts out over brunch. But it takes time. And if you don’t give it enough time, you will find yourself having to repeatedly start all over in the recovery process. I once had a former boyfriend ask me “how long till we can be friends?” Unfortunately, there is not a timeline. For some people it’s two weeks I have seen other’s still recovering three years later. Here is a way to gauge “How long.”

It hasn’t been long enough if:

• You are having to “work on your relationship.” (You are not in a relationship. You are friends. A good friendship requires little to no effort.)
• You can’t talk about each other’s love lives.
• If they are inconsistent with how they treat you.
• You are frustrated more often than you are laughing after hanging out and are distracted when they don’t text you back.
• You pretend you are dating other guys, but would fail a pop quiz about the names and occupations of all the people you recently went on dates with.

It has been long enough if:

• You have dated multiple people since.
• If they asked you if you wanted to get dinner you would go unshowered and suggest taco bell.
• Can laugh about how much you hated or still hate each other.
• Only think about them when you are with them.
• Think more about your good times together than your bad.
• Could go to their wedding and hug their other half with the right amount of pressure.

I Gotta Go My Own Way

I hate telling people what they can’t do without telling them what they can. In closing, here are things you can do that are not triggers that do help.

• Sleep. There is a reason people tell you to “sleep on it.” Bad decisions involving Damien Rice lyrics as your Facebook status, were never made with a good amount of ZZZZ’s. If you can’t sleep exercise until you can. I recommend Richard Simmons work out tapes for obvious reasons.
• Hang out with people who are funny.
• Help someone else out. My Dad once told me “If it is too hard to be in your world, put yourself in someone else’s.” Distract yourself by doing good for someone else.
• Surround yourself with men who treat you well and say nice things about you. Even if it’s  just your nephew. And you paid him in M&M’s.
• Stop focusing on what you don’t have and look at what you do. They make movies like Win a Date with Tad Hamilton for a reason. There is almost ALWAYS a guy best friend who has been there all along. Turn around and kiss. his. mouth.
• Start over: Get a haircut, buy converse high-tops, rearrange your room, put up poster’s of strong female roles (Stevie Nicks, Carley Simon, Robyn, etc.), and channel your energy to start a new life or start dancing like this:

So there you have it. The best tips I can give when it comes to going your own way.

If you need a support team, you know where to find me and Vanessa.

Hello Venice Beach

I wish I had an explanation for this. I dont. Have you ever met someone for the first time and realized you were meant to do sub-par street interviews together?

At the time this seemed like a good idea. And since this was in fact the first time me and Daniel Rossi ever met in person, it didn’t seem weird at all to also film each other singing Taylor Swift with bongo drummers, street vendors, and some poster children for marijuana (see below). Regardless of how it happened or how awkward you will feel watching both these videos, let’s all be thankful that it did. Bless you Venice beach for putting your hearts into pop country, roller skating, and extensive basketball tutorials.

A special thanks to all the friends we made that day including but not limited to: Nunu, J-Swift (Check out his rap/tutorials on Black History at TupacRadio.com or follow him on Twitter), Jef Holm, Oliver from Austria, and Russ shooting the totes.

Taylor Swift from the Voice of Venice Beach

I currently sit in the armpit of Eric Chevalier. This is thanks to a free-thinker who thought they were benefiting society by shopping at Whole Foods and developing the stand up desk with abandoned Ikea furniture.

Our office recently gave everyone the option to get a stand up desk or to continue using chairs. This put me and my desk neighbor Eric in an awkward position, but mostly it put me at eye level with any object that rolls across the edge of his desk and into my forehead. As a result, over the last three months I have documented my coworkers with stand up desks to reveal the truth about taking a stand. Here are some of disadvantages I have noticed: (Note – All of the photos below were taken unknowingly over the course of three months. Dedication.)

1. Set Up

Building a piece of furniture from Ikea is about as stressful as taking the ACT. Except with the ACT you are guaranteed that the critical thinking nightmare won’t be longer than 4 hours. So unless you have an intern who will build the desk for you and measure your eye levels to guarantee optimal posture, stop. (So basically unless you have Spencer, which you don’t because we have him.)

2. Sidlers

Seinfeld introduced the “sideler” during its 162nd episode. A sideler is anyone who sneaks up behind you without you knowing. Refer to the pirated video below:

Because you are always standing, you are always in a vulnerable position for sidlers walking by. However, it could be argued that a professional sideler can commit to meeting various eye levels.

3. Full exposure to your feet.

Unless you have presentable shoes that also meet the comfort level needed to stand all day, stand up desks are not a good option for you. Vibram FiveFingers are also not a good option for you.

4. Nobody wants to stand all day.

This becomes a problem when you have a stand up desk. As a result, I have seen all sorts of strange solutions to avoid the discomfort.

Standing on an inflateable.

Denial that you have a sit down desk.

Denial that you are at work.

Benefits?

So far, I have only seen one benefit to the stand up desk discovered by Ellen Lu. And that is, there is more space to hang photos of good looking men. Slow clap goes out to Ellen for making lemons out of lemonade, and a beautiful montage out of a somewhat disfunctional color printer.

What’s Next

Although some of you may continue to deny that your stand up desk is killing your feet and that you schedule meetings for no reason other than to sit in a chair, others might be interested in more comfortable alternatives. Here are some new up and coming trends I have seen in the office:

Arms elevated.

Feet elevated

Legs perpendicular

Laying down

Cardboard

It’s been a little over a year since I moved from Utah to Los Angeles. I haven’t run into any celebrities besides Mario Lopez and parts of my car have not been stolen, so I am still considered a transplant. However, the header image of this post is not me looking sexy in a Dodger’s hat which pushes me higher on the LA local scale. (Having Jerry Sloan and Jef Holm on the header image pushes me back down to transplant, but lets pretend I have enough authority to write this post.) Since I left the mother ship, I have repeatedly been asked two questions from friends back home. 1) “When are you coming back?” 2) “What is it like to leave?”

To the former, when Utah stops doing this:

To the latter, this post is for you.

This past year has been a game changer. Enough to break my 3-month blogging sabbatical to tell my friends who are standing at the edge of an overcrowded pool in Provo somewhere… to jump ship. Also, to abandon LIME RICKI SWIMWEAR (<-link surprise). Here we go. A beginners guide to leaving Utah.

1. If You Leave, Don’t Look Back.

Not to get OMD. But really. The more you miss Provo, the worse your move will be. You can’t move forward if you are always looking back, so step one is to exhaust every ounce of your Provo being before you leave. Stock up on J Dawgs, hit up the Raintree pool, and date like it’s the 4th of July on University Avenue. When you start getting bored of history repeating itself, dance parties with Cotton Eye Joe, and mini golf, you will know- It’s time. It is time.

2. Don’t Panic When You Realize There Is No One to Date

I loved the things people used to tell me as I was getting in my car to leave the Mormon dating capital of the world. “It only takes one.” or “There are too many guys in Provo to choose from, dating will be so much easier in a smaller pool.” NOOO not true. It’s the worst. Ha ha.

Your options will never be as plentiful as Provo. And dating will never be as easy. Since people in Provo like to talk about dating like ice cream flavors, I made you a visual.

It doesn’t look good. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t move.

One year later, I don’t have a husband or kids, but it doesn’t mean I am single, alone, or family-less. I am a committed partner to coworkers, I am a mom to friends who never had anyone to tell them to stop smoking weed, I am a sister to my close girlfriends, and I am a daughter to two bosses, a Bishop, and a Baptist Pastor.

Relationships I have built with strangers in an overwhelming city have been stronger than any relationship I built playing arcade games at Nickelcade with dates in Provo. And surprisingly, I am more happy. Relationships in and of themselves, are about learning to love someone else to the point where you couldn’t live without them. That doesn’t stop when you move. You actually learn how to do it better.

Also, you start to realize quickly that the people you want to date are the ones who have expanded their horizons. They are few and far between, but quality over quantity? That brown ice cream cone could be moose tracks.

3. Stop Acting Like You Are Still in Utah

When I first moved, I hated it. But it’s because I acted like I was living in Utah, when I clearly was not. I only hung out with friends from college, I only went to Provo-extended parties, I tried to plan 4 different events into one night regardless of the fact that LA has an insane problem with traffic, and I chose to eat at chain restaurants because they were cheap and familiar. I should be punished for single-handedly keeping Applebees in business.

One day I realized I was depriving myself of the only real experience I have ever had outside of Utah. I decided to do the opposite of what I normally would do and the tables turned. I fell in love with real Los Angeles food (it’s an art). I started hanging out with coworkers outside of work who became my best friends. I learned my neighbor’s viewpoint on alien abductions and looked up “must see” places around the city. I adapted to the culture and quickly became obsessed with the abnormal quirks of the strangest city I will ever live in.

4. Figure Out Who You Are When All Of Your 1,000 Best Friends Are Not Around

Freak. You don’t have to wear make up or shower when you leave Provo. Nobody will know you. I would rank this as my #1 reason to get out. There is a sense of freedom that comes with being able to do things on your own without worrying what people will think. These things include but are not limited to:

• Going to a movie by yourself
• Eating Taco Bell in bed
• Experimenting with leopard prints and high-wasted jeans
• Talking to strangers at dinner about alligator wrestling techniques
• Figuring out if you love Quinoa or if you think it tastes like rubber

I have learned more about myself this year than any other cumulative year in my entire life. This includes turning 14 and getting the puberty talk (Men reading this just shut their laptops).

5. Adopt Brad Pitt as a Godfather

As Brad Pitt said with his baby blues in World War Z, “Movement is Life.” If you move, you have a better chance at surviving a zombie apocolypse, but more importantly, you have a better chance of surviving a fate that I believe to be much worse…staying the same. A year from now, after you have left, when you think of all the tears, confusion, and the nights you were homesick for Sunday night dessert parties, you will look in the mirror and see someone that accomplished something hard and you will like yourself much better for doing it. Growth is a beautiful thing and as George Zimmer would say:

Have you ever met a group of people and instantly known that you were meant to be in a zombie-inspired rock band together? I don’t know how to explain why once a year my agency channels all of its energy into costume makeup and hit-list mashups in an effort to become the #1 voted ad agency cover band in Los Angeles by drunken applause, but whatever the reason, it is probably the best thing that has ever happened to me.

I was like Sandra Dee in Grease before my coworkers threw me into a sequin dress, ratted my hair, and made me conservatively hip-thrust to Thriller in front of Macklemore. Look how far we have come.

For those who don’t know, AdJam is Battle of the Bands with LA’s finest advertising agencies governed by three judges and an audience of over 1,000 people. Last year, we didn’t win on a technicality that our band had to play first. This year, AdJam is having people vote for the band line up based on music video submissions. I don’t ask for much (besides letting me throw up an absurd amount of Amazon affiliate links on my posts so I can fund my personal blog), but I would love it if you could vote for BLITiZen Kane this week to get us the ‘sweet spot’ at AdJam coming soon to a House of Blues near you. See our video submission below and click here to vote.

Props goes to the classy Jack Schlinkert for this video and copywriting as well as Ken Martin for changing the lyrics of ‘We are the World’ to something much more heartwarming for advertising professionals.

VOTE HERE

When I am in an elevator alone, I walk in circles really fast.

I have no idea when I started doing it or why, but it happens almost every morning. I walk into the elevator, step inside, and keep walking in circles until it stops. Then I walk out as if nothing weird ever happened, as if there isn’t a guy watching the footage on a camera somewhere, and as if I didn’t just speed walk my way around a box like it was a competition in the summer Olympics. (Put that on my list of sports: dodgeball, rope swinging, and elevator rotations. How do you like me now you sporty men?)

Anyway, I don’t think I am the only one.

Someone once told me that our thinking processes can get stuck spinning in circles. It’s common (I just trace mine with my feet.) We tend to overlap the same ideas in our heads until they create ruts inside of our brains that are hard to get out of and hard to stop. Over time these fears, doubts, and mistaken beliefs keep us from doing anything outside of our comfort zone. In other words: We overthink to the point of not needing to think because the rut keeps us revolving in the same limited patterns.

We guess, assume, mind-read, and avoid based off of past experience and future predictions that we might get hurt.

Until. The True Love Spin.

Introduced during the 1950′s and 1960′s by Gene Kelly and Julie Andrews, the true love spin was developed to show that when it comes to showing how you really feel, you should throw your body and caution to the wind. The spin also adds momentum to the euphoric feeling of falling in love, whether that be with a guy, a girl, the rain, or being an Austrian nun.

How to Spin

This tutorial is as simple as it gets:

1. Spin counter-clockwise of your monotonous thinking process.
2. Focus your eyes on the sky instead of the floor.
3. Relax your neck
4. Let your hair loose

When you feel small explosions of happiness going off in your body, you will know that you are doing it correctly.

The trend has surprisingly taken form, but gone unnoticed in pop-culture and animated .gifs for a long time. Here are my top 10 True Love Spins and why you should try them.

1. The Conservative True Love Spin

This is a great starter spin. It gives you just enough momentum to feel good about your day or good about the new intern who is attractive.

2. The Tandum True Love Spin

For couples looking to spice things up.

3. New Dress True Love Spin

For when you are sporting new threads for a date. For best results, make sure to have a roommate enthusiastically clap while you do it.

Important Cautionary Note: Me and my roommates used to introduce a guy to his date by having the girl do a spin while we sang KC & JoJo on a Karaoke machine in our living room. I wouldn’t recommend this. There were at least two breakups during that time period that we attributed to introducing the new dress spin too prematurely in a relationship.

4. Whip Mah Hair Spin

Close your eyes and take a deep breath through you nose while letting the wind whip your hair. This spin works best in mountainous settings and in clubs.

5. True Love Flip

Ariel one-upped all the Disney princesses when she proved she would do a flip for true love, sell her vocal chords, and sport a sheet if it meant meeting prince charming. It’s a given, but this spin could come off as desperate.

6. Call Your Girlfriend We Belong Together True Love Spin

Accomplished with high speeds while moving towards a specific destination, this determined spin tells guys, “We belong together, call your girlfriend and break up with her.” It’s a niche spin for a very niche circumstance.

7. True Love Spin with Eye Contact

This true love spin is best served in front of your significant other. By maintaining eye contact throughout the entire spin you ensure that nothing will come between your love. Not even a light shower of rose petals.

8. The Colbchella True Love Spin

Skip to 4:15 for a flawless spin for business professionals.

9. Tandem Roller Skate True Love Spin

I can only assume that these are the only two people in the world that can do this. And that we will never be able to experience true love in this euphoric of a moment on roller skates.

10. Double True Love Spin

For times when one spin isn’t enough.

This seems like a dumb post any blog with more than 5 animated .gifs does. But I sometimes wonder where that feeling went that used to pump our blood, that kept us up at 3 am looking for something that we had to have and couldn’t live without. Something that even in the smallest dose, would have us waking up feeling like Beyonce, dancing barefoot out of our covers, and into the living room in our underwear.

Maybe the true love spin is a dumb tradition advocated by absurdly wide-eyed Disney princesses.

Or maybe it’s exactly what you need to counteract ruts in your head built by fear in its most monotonous repetitive forms.

Whatever it is. It’s worth a shot. It’s just a spin.

True Love Spin featuring John Liu, the greatest .gif-t of all

Speaking of True Love…

I was recently asked by some good friends to help advertise one of San Francisco’s finest bachelors. If you are looking for smart, funny, and incredibly successful spin your mouse on this eye candy: Meet Scotty Clawson.

Image Credits- Julie Andrews: Favim, Carry Grant: GifSoup.com, Conservative Spin: Tumblr, Tandem Spin: Perez Hilton, New Dress Spin: Tumblr, Whip My Hair Spin: Fan Pop, True Love Flip: Sky Rock, Call Your Girlfriend Spin: Tumblr, Eye Contact Spin: ABC.com, Roller Skate Spin: Blogfiles, Double Spin: Starcasm.

The most wonderful time of the year has come and gone and I am left with a hole in my stomach where bad junk food and poor dance moves once built a crater. But just like the movie Braveheart couldn’t take away Mel Gibson’s freedom, no one can take away the smile slapped on my face from AdJam 2013. Our agency killed it on stage in a battle between advertising professionals covering whatever sub par hits they could find after the 90’s (Nothing good ever happened after the 90’s).

These are stories I plan on telling my grandchildren daily, pretending I have a bad memory so that I can obnoxiously replay my glory days at a moments notice. But, because there is a good chance I will remain single the rest of my life, I am sharing them with you now. So without further adieu, here are 10 things I loved about AdJam this year so that we can all soak in the limelight known as BLITiZeN Kane.

1. Eric’s passionate eyelids

Sometimes AdJam is too much to handle with both eyes open. This post is for Eric, because I don’t think he saw any of it.

2. The Body Roll

Harmonies aside, the body roll was our biggest struggle this year.

3. Gagnam Style

Yes. Tim Richards looked at flash cards for at least 10 hours straight to learn to speak Korean. And yes, this may have been the greatest moment in BLITiZeN Kane history. It was the only time we have ever been able to dance in sync. Every dance rehearsal before this was ruined by my hip shuffle. (10 style points go to Jasmine Pae.)

4. Phil in Locked Out of Heaven

Phil is the most comfortable man I know in his own skin and his choreography for both Gagnam Style and Locked Out of Heaven are unmatched. Had he put more energy into his dance moves, he would have been flying. Had he put more energy into his tantrum when no one danced during sound check, he would have been in tears.

We learn an important lesson from Kiczula, live life to the fullest my friends.

5. Christina Aguilara Meets Icona Pop

I will never be happier than the time I wore a snowsuit and jumped around in a motorcycle helmet on stage with my soul sisters Jasmine Pae and Andrea Gedrich. Nor will I ever have the chance to use my entire wingspan to sooth a crowd into realizing how beautiful they are.(Apologies for not having the full video for Icona Pop.)
Beautiful

Icona Pop: I Love It

6. The D#$* in the Box Explosion

AdJam got wind that we were going to start the show with an explosion. They notified Ken Martin, cofounder of BLITZ Agency, that it would be a $1500 fine if the confetti explosions went off on stage. You know you work for someone great when they take less then 3 seconds to shrug and answer, ‘Okay that’s fine with us.’ Unfortunately, the second card they threw down was banning BLITZ from AdJam FOREVER. For the many disappointed fans who watched the contraption get built, here are some videos for you. [Note: I try to censor my blog because I am, for the most part, pretty PG and because my grandmas read this. For that purpose, I wanted to put a little disclaimer that these two videos are not within that rating.]

The Explosion:

Here is the whole AdJam Performance

7. I Believe In A Thing Called Love

The only thing missing from this performance was the full body suite with a lion printed on it that was originally mapped out for this number. However, I have to say that the Johnny Depp meets full body tattoo suit thing looked pretty awesome.

8. Trying to Trash Talk Other Agencies

It’s hard to trash talk via Twitter. But we killed it right?

9. The Facial Hair

This is a text photo I received the morning of AdJam. It felt like the first present you open on Christmas morning and I wasn’t disappointed by any of the flawless mustache combinations to follow.

The only thing missing from this display, was the arrow Eric tried to shave into his chest hair. It turns out geometric shapes are hard to manscape, and BLITiZEN Kane was left with a hairless Chip N’ Dales waiter with sideburns on rhythm guitar.

10. Losing… Again

I love that someone caught this moment on camera. It expresses how I felt being ranked 3rd by volunteer judges in PacSun hoodies. It is hard to walk away from something you put 40+ hours into empty handed. However, it makes me feel better that the winners of Think LA’s AdJam don’t walk away with anything either. Unless you count the guitar they give out on loan that has been defiled by girl-handwriting with metallic Sharpie markers.

I could keep this list going, but will sum it up with this: I love AdJam. Not because of the artificial fame, unlimited pizza, or free mesh t-shirt from H&M, but because it is the one time a year I get to work with creative geniuses to do something totally ridiculous and completely out of our comfort zone. Sometimes the best side projects are the ones you do because you ‘love it’ regardless of what anyone else thinks. No Shame = the greatest gift of all.

Special thanks goes out to my friends at BLITZ who stewed through LA traffic during rush hour to make it to the show, BLITiZen Kane – my bandmates for life, Miguel for teaching me the same 3-note harmony over 30 times, Shelly for taping these videos and making surprise guest appearances, and Chris Morabito for designing rad t-shirts. I had the time of my life, and I owe it all to you.

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“I couldn’t do what you do.” I had a friend tell me the other day as she debated about getting married at the tail end of her senior year of college. Her fear of graduating husbandless was confusing to me, until I remembered the way my brain used to think when I was going to school. For my friends who aren’t familiar with Utah or Idaho culture, a good majority of girls get married off before they graduate.

I remember being halfway through school seeing 23-year-olds leave my college without a rock on their hand and thinking, “wow, that would be terrible.” I felt bad for the hags, and I KNEW that would never be me. There were many times I laid on my bed sulking with friends after break-ups and saying, “at this rate I won’t be married till 2014.” Then we would laugh and choke down more ice cream, because we KNEW that would never happen to us. Fast forward to yesterday when we hit 2014…

Oh how the tables have turned.

This isn’t a post about why I didn’t get hitched years ago. There are plenty of resources for that; starting with half relatives who somehow bypassed getting blocked from my Facebook posts, and ending with strangers who were convinced that forcing a 2nd date with a guy who made me pay for valet parking would do the trick.

No.

This is a post about not fearing what you don’t know and not being worried when your life doesn’t turn out the way you planned it.

I wish girls realized that they have more than one option. That there really isn’t just one way to do things. And that when your idea of perfect happiness dies, you can still choose to live. After sulking around Utah as a post-grad for two years, I moved out of state and had a roommate that changed my perspective completely. She was beautiful, smart, funny, and living life to the fullest. She was 29, had a boyfriend, a successful business, and was making plans on a weekly basis to try things she had never done before. She operated opposite the ‘norm’ and was the happiest person I knew because of it.

From that moment on, I made it a point to find out what really made me happy, and even if it wasn’t the traditional route for someone like me, I did it anyway.

I would never have guessed that at 26-years-old, I would love a life that has turned out to be so different than the cookie cutter lifestyle I had always envisioned for myself. But I am. And I am so grateful for people I have met along the way who have lives as odd as mine that have taught me to enjoy all the elements of surprise that come with being a human being. Life is unpredictable. There is a lot we can and can’t control. But regardless, happiness is yours for the taking if you fearlessly look for it. The road less traveled, my friends. That’s what I’m talking about (or Robert Frost if we are getting credit hungry).

You want a new start? Do it. You want to go back to school? Apply for it. You want to start your own business? Why not? You want to climb Mount Kilimanjaro? Hike it. The Babcock did.

Cheers to 2014 from the happiest hag to ever eat her own words. And a toast to the abnormal and the unexpected.

**Note: Most this post was written mid-2013 before more recent events, but I didn’t want to leave it unpublished. My personal life may have changed since then, but the beliefs have not.

I decided to start a new series on my blog called West Side Wisdom. Why? Because some of us thought we had street smarts only to move to LA and realize we were useless.

Lucky for me, I live in a city that is a smorgosborg of human beings who have mastered life hacks worth noting. As a result, one of my goals this year is to stop looking at my phone when I go places, and start picking the brains of West LA’s finest.

Round 1: Hair Hacks From a Fortune Teller

I was at a beauty supply store pretending that my hair wasn’t over bleached and suffering from grocery store soap, when I met a fortune teller. I call her a fortune teller because she had a flawless accent and eyes that defaulted to looking directly into my soul. I normally don’t ask questions, but I had hit a breaking point. I held up a bottle and asked her from across the store, “Will this fix my hair?”

She hung up her landline phone while slowly unravelling the chord wrapped around her fingernails, and leaned forward. “Can I touch your hair?”

“Yes.”

She touched my hair, twitched, and let the silence build up before opening her arms to the entire store and saying, “these products will not save you.”

A unique sales approach.

“In Santa Monica the water is terrible,” she continued. “If you don’t drink it. Why would you wash your hair in it?”

And just like that my juvenile mind was mildly blown.

I have been searching for years for the perfect shampoo and the answer was right in front of me. It had nothing to do with the shampoo. It had everything to do with the one other substance that goes through my hair daily, water.

The WHOLE time?

She then explained how this cousin and that cousin and this neighbor and her mother all use shower filters from Home Depot. They are $30.00 or less my friends and anyone can install it.

She drew me in for the next half hour with hair advice that cost less than a bottle of fancy leave in conditioner from Beverly Hills and has single-handedly saved my hair from feeling like straw. So from the fortune teller herself, here is a glimpse into a better future.

1) Get a shower filter. It’s like dancing in a fountain of youth. (And is also better for your skin.)
2) Never brush your hair wet. You are basically ripping it out. Use a wide-tooth comb like this one. Don’t use a brush until it is at least half-dry. I even prefer to comb my hair out in the shower to lose less hair.
3) Trim your hair often (at least every 3 months). Your hair is like a plant. If the tips of a plant are dead, it can’t grow so you have to trim them. Same concept here. Long healthy locks start from the ends of your hair.
4) Wash your hair less. Make a shower cap and dry shampoo your best friend. Try only shampooing it 3-4 times a week.
5) Give It The Magic Treatment. Once a week, put conditioner on the bottom half of your locks while it is dry. Let it sit for five minutes before getting in the shower. While in the shower, shampoo the roots of your hair only, and leave the bottom half of your locks alone. Let the water naturally rinse it out. (I like using Moroccan Oil Hydrating Shampoo, and Moisture Repair Conditioner).

Bonus tip: Use no crease hair ties. These ties are softer on your hair and don’t cause as much breakage.

And there you have it. Two cents that make sense.

One thing I love about where I live is that no one keeps personal boundaries. People aren’t afraid to ask about your life and instantly invite themselves to become a part of it. So warm up a little (it’s 80 degrees here) and start chatting more with strangers. If you listen, more often then not, they have something valuable to say.

And even if it isn’t valuable, you can pretend it is an abstract metaphor for something valuable.

We could go either way on this.

Images: Shower Filter – Amazon, Comb – Sephora, Plant – Sunset Magazine, Dry Shampoo – Klorane, Shower Cap – Pinterest Puppy, Shampoo/Conditioner – Moroccan Oil