The Final Three...

Sorry about the delay in getting back to my blog. Apparently we are in the midst of an unexpected busy spell in the Thrivent world. Without further ado, here are the big three city nicknames as voted on by... me.

3a) D.C. (Washington, D.C.) - Forty lashes with a red, white and blue noodle to me for not remembering our nation's capital in the list of top city abbreviations. D.C. conjures up fond memories of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s speech, JFK Jr. saluting his father's coffin, the Redskins, and the time they re-elected a crackhead as mayor. Speaking of the 'Skins, isn't it ironic that the most politically incorrect name in sports is located in the center of said politics in the nation?

2) NY / Big Apple (New York, NY) - You know what, I'm sick of New York getting all this credit for being the huge metropolitan area that it claims to be. When you include the entire state of New Jersey as your metropolitan area, it's not hard to claim you are the biggest. That's all right, I just declared that the greater Appleton are includes Neenah, Menasha, Green Bay, Milwaukee, Chicago, Detroit and Indianapolis. How do you like me now? Welcome to Appleton, population 5,439,882. Just include the five burroughs when you figure out population and for gosh sake, move your NFL teams to the city already.

1) LA (Los Angeles, CA) - There is not one single city on the planet that is more known by its abbreviation than the Los Angeles area. Think about it, it is more often refered to by those two letters than by its actual name...by far. Los Angeles is made up of many smaller cities, but I still can't tell you where the Southern California Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and Orange County play baseball.

Lemme tell ya somethin, folks. Moving within 500 feet of a busy railroad track takes some getting used to. Not that I don't like being woken up 3-4 times per night and wondering if I am going to in fact get run over by a runaway locomotive, but it is still a little startling. Ashley and I moved to downtown Appleton a couple of weekends ago to a house on Lawrence St., right near the... well, near the train tracks. It is good to be within walking distance of some great restaurants and such. We are however a few miles and several stoplights from all of our old haunts and as we found out last night, quite a ways from the nearest grocery selling establishment. (I still can't believe they call a grocery store chain "Piggly Wiggly." I can't stop thinking that perhaps Piggly Wiggly is the long lost Tele Tubby.)

Well, I've got a short work day tomorrow which will be followed up by a long afternoon of cleaning up the old apartment at Lynndale to be presentable for inspection by the old landlords. I then work my once-quarterly Saturday morning shift and then trudge off to my boss, Chris "C Dub" Werner's place for a get together for our mutual funds team.

I'm finished,
Nate

Tellin Me About A Party Up In MQT...

There are some cities in the US that need not be introduced by their formal names. Abbreviation is of course the way of the yng amrican. We abbreviate everything from MNF to KFC, and of course, HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language.) I thought it would be a keen idea to rank the cities of the US according to their abbreviations and nicknames.

Honorable mention: Brew town (Milwaukee, WI), The AP (Appleton, WI), Rap Town (Rapid River, MI), Sac Town (Sacramento, CA.) Now on to the top 10...

10) C-Bus (Columbus, OH)- I've only ever heard this uttered by my boy, Jim Rome when he talks about the inhabitants of the capital of the great Buckeye state. Concise and to the point.

9) The Lou/STL (St Louis, MO)- Everything about St Louis Seems to be tied to two things: The Arch and the STL logo of the Cardinals. When you hear Nelly rap about "The Lou" or that he's from the "M - I crooked letter - crooked letter - O - U - R - I, no one can do it better, hey!", that's just a touch of rap genius.

8) The D (Detroit, MI) - Where the price of livin's going up... and the chance of living's going down.

7) MQT (Marquette, MI) - "Q107...WMQT." Love that city. Of course it's on the list.

6) Nawlins (New Orleans, LA) - Mardi Gras, Bourbon St., The Superdome, where does all of that go down? In the city whose name has a deservedly southern drawl.

5) ATL/A-Town (Atlanta, GA) - "Peace Up/A-Town Down," says the cell phone commercial. Since the dawn of Ludacris and the advent of Little "YEAAAAAHHH" Jon, Atlanta has put itself on the map as the home of the funkiest cats in hip-hop. Oh, and it also means that the nicknames make it into pop lexicon.

4) KC (Kansas City, MO) - When you hear KC, do you ever think of anything else?

3) Vegas (Las Vegas, NV) - When one part of your name becomes completely unnecessary, you know you are making the list. Can you imagine Vince Vaughn saying "Las Vegas, baby. Las Vegas?" I didn't think so.

The last two everybody should know...but who's number one?

I'm finished,
Nate

Party All The Time

I got to see first hand how the other side of the "college apartment party" lived last night for the first time. Our neighbors, whose balcony is to the upper left of ours, had their typical Tuesday night get together with the typical crew of two or three 19 year old girls (who spend most of the time on the balcony bragging about their various degrees of promiscuity.) Well, last night some folks from the complex across the parking lot decided to join in the festivities. They decided that actually going in to the apartment was not in the plans and that shouting back and forth to people on a third floor balcony was a much more acceptable practice. Besides, that's the only way they could play hacky sack in the parking lot. Meanwhile, our 19 year old ladies have gotten the 3 beers in them that turn them into loud ass giggling machines and let me tell you, on this night, everything is funny. This is all in combination with the occasional bottle rocket that gets shot of to signify the little known Fifth of July. Eventually though, I was able to drift off to Dreamland and start catching some needed Z's. Later in the night I get up for a bathroom break and the kids are still going at it... at 5:30am! I sigh, and then realize that was me three years ago. Ah, the memories (or lack there of.)

So, did I get all angry at the hooligans hacky sackers and party girls for being loud at all hours of the morning? Nah. We're moving to our new apartment in about a week, anyways.

I'm finished,
Nate

One Year Down

Just a note of historical significance, I have been now blogging this thing for over one year. We've had our good times (Red Sox, Patriots, new jobs) and our bad (Cheese Hut screwing up my day, Copp's Foods incidents), but ultimately it has been a good year. Looking forward to another year of commenting on society and sports. Thanks for checking in.

I'm finished,
Nate

RANDOM SONG LYRIC!!

I'm telling you now this girl is so good she deserves an Oscar,
The girl’s in the bed he starts snatching her clothes off,
I'm in the closet like man, what the f_ck is going on?
You’re not going to believe it but things get deeper as the story goes on,
Next thing you know a call comes through on my cell phone,
I tried my best to quickly put it on vibrate,
But from the way he acted I could tell it was too late,
He hopped up and said “there’s a mystery going on and I'm going to solve it,”
And I'm like “God please don’t let this man open his closet.”

- Actual lyrics from R. Kelly's "Trapped in the Closet"