Tents and Color Me Badd

I realize I didn't post anything last week. I had something written, but honestly, it was crap, and I would rather spare the 6 people reading this the pain of reading something badly written. So you're welcome?

Anyway, this week's favorite thing is sleeping in a tent. This past weekend was the culmination of staff training for my summer job (yay no more subbing!) and we went on a camp out to Ekluta Lake, just north of Anchorage.

I love a good camping trip; the camaraderie, the campfire,  the dumb outfits you end up wearing when you start adding more layers. But I mostly love sleeping in a tent.

I've spent a lot of time in my tent, and I think it's pretty great. I can set it up in under 5 minutes, it's bright, sunny orange and waking up in the morning is a lot like waking up inside a sunrise (which I both love and hate), it has a window that looks like a port hole, and I can stretch all the way out. All important characteristics.

I feel like most of the time, if you wake up in a tent you know it's going to be a good day. (Exceptions include: waking up in a tent that's iced over on the inside, and if that tent is your permanent residence)

When I was little we took a lot of camping vacations (See Long Drives). In fact, I can't really remember any vacations that didn't involve camping. Maybe one? Anyway, "back in the day" my family didn't have a fancy waterproof nylon tent. Oh no, we had a 7000 pound canvas Boy Scout tent that had to be waterproofed every year before we went out. It was green and giant and awesome. I'm pretty sure they don't make those anymore, I just tried to find a picture of one, but didn't have any luck. My favorite time of year was when my dad set the tent up in the backyard to re-waterproof it for the the summer. Have you ever run around inside a big tent in the backyard? I love the way the grass feels underneath the tent floor.

If you've never been camping or haven't been recently, get on that. It's refreshing.

Hot jam of the week is I Wanna Sex You Up by Color Me Badd. I Wanna Sex You Up was released in 1991 as the first single of Color Me Badd's debut album. What a choice! They were certainly not messing around when they picked that one.

The song starts with nice romantic lyrics, "Come inside/take off your coat/I'll make you feel at home" but quickly turns more direct when the chorus starts, "I wanna sex you up/all night/you make me feel real good/I wanna rub you down/I wanna sex you up" Way to get right to the point, Color Me Badd. (Does anyone else love that they spelled Badd with 2 b's? I know I do)

My favorite line, by far, is, "We can do it 'til we both wake up." Um what? You were asleep? What does that even mean?

The frankness of Color Me Badd and I Wanna Sex You Up makes it a hot jam. I chose this live version for a couple reasons: it's from The Arsenio Hall Show (so it's automatically awesome),  the suits, the sweet dance moves, and the lead singer's overly tweezed eyebrows.

Also, please take a moment to notice the wide variety of hairstyles represented by the CMB members. My personal favorite is the bob. Enjoy!




Fun fact: Some radio stations edited out the word sex and replaced it with love. I Wanna Love You Up just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Birthdays and Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned the big 2-5, which seems totally weird to me, but that is beside the point. This week's favorite thing isn't actually my birthday, it's birthdays in general. In fact, I think I like other people's birthdays better. All of the attention on my birthday makes me uncomfortable, I don't want to be sung to in a restaurant (although, I will take a free dessert. I'm not above milking birthday benefits like that), or even really sung to at all. Sitting there in front of a flaming cake while people look at you and smile for 30 seconds is really weird. Am I the only one that thinks that?

Anyway, my favorite part of other people's birthdays is gift giving. If there was a triathlon of things I'm good at, one of my events would be gift giving. I love the thrill of the hunt, trying to find that perfect, unexpected gift. I've given people crystal figurines, weird Japanese DDR mats, Muffin Top cereal, and Warriors of Virtue movie posters as gifts in the last several years. And each person loved whatever weird gift they got.




Lately I've been on a pretty tight budget, so I've switched my focus to finding the perfect birthday card. Sometimes they are homemade (the last two cards I've sent have featured paper cutouts in the likeness of both me and the friend receiving the card) and sometimes Hallmark really makes the perfect card. They know what they are doing over there.

This week's hot jam in Good Vibrations by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. I know that Mark Wahlberg has tried to distance himself from his early 90s persona, but I'm not totally sure why. I get that he is a "serious actor" now, but that's no reason to be ashamed of his Marky Mark days. Mark Wahlberg, if you're reading this, there is no shame in having a number 1 hit song and a platinum-selling album.

I would love to know how the meeting about this video went, I imagine it sounded something like this:

Video director: So Mark, tell us what kind of stuff you like.
Marky Mark: Well, I like boxing and sex and gold chains
Video director: Excellent. How to do you feel about abandoned warehouse?
Marky Mark: They are only my fourth favorite thing in the whole world!
Video director: I have the perfect idea.

And the Good Vibrations video was born.