Just call me by my pseudonym, Ryan Voyles

I would just like to share my little scrap of brilliance found in last Monday's edition of the Daily Egyptian. Although my dear younger brother is full of wit and sass, his big sissy outdid him for one day only. I'll let him take the credit...this time.

Original brilliance: AQUI!

Snippet:
Banter: Schilling blogged his retirement, but how could it have been better?

Theresa "Ryan Voyles" voyles:

After some careful DNA extraction, I would breed thousands of career pigeons believed extinct since 1914. With only orange party hats on their heads and GPS devices on their wings, they would deliver the news of my retirement to the locations I saw most relevant. This is the only logical way to announce a retirement.

Cards and Cubs, the I-55 Series

"The Red Sox and Yankees is a tabloid-filled soap opera about money and ego and sound bites. But the Cubs and Cardinals are about... geography and territorial rights." - Buzz Bissinger, Three Nights in August

To start, I am from Springfield, Illinois and extremely proud of it. Land of Lincoln. The kick off point of Barack Obama's presidential campaign Booyah. I find it impossible to believe that anyone outside of this area can appreciate this post for all its worth. This is about the I-55 series or, if you're still reveling in the pre-Eisenhower era, Route 66. However, keep reading because I do not have many followers.

Two words and two worlds: Cardinals, Cubs. Central Illinois is the Berlin Wall of baseball rivalries. I chose West Germany.

Sure, Chicago will blabber on about Sox and Cubs, Southside Northside, whatever I get it and I don't really care. Your fate was primarily decided on your neighborhood, central Illinois isn't like that. We are conservative and liberal, Christian and Lutheran, right-brain and left-brain. Gray area. Boggles your mind. Above all - there is a choice and it is guaranteed you will choose against someone you love very dearly.

Beginning at childhood your world is turned upside down and the manipulation begins by adults pursuing you to sway towards the bright light.

Concerned adult: "Who do you like better, the Cardinals or the Cubs?"
Ignorant child: "I like both?"
Now exasperated adult: "YOU CAN'T LIKE BOTH."

I chose Cardinals. Well Dad chose Cardinals and what four-year-old chooses against Dad? Especially when this Dad had a mustache. I absolutely watched the Cubs' afternoon games with my Grandma and swayed to Harry Caray's drunken rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame." Some of the best memories of my life. For me though, trips to St. Louis took a day and we frequented the Arch City often. Score one for the Cards. The tradition of losing by an unsaid team probably helped solidify this lasting allegiance. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa in '96. Enough said.

This excerpt is from George Will at a commencement address at Washington University in St. Louis - down the street from my own alma mater at SLU. If you don't know who George Will is, and I will carefully let it slide if you don't, he is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist with a history at both the Washington Post and Newsweek. He was also referenced in "The Jimmy" episode of Seinfeld but that's either here, nor there.

"I grew up in Champaign, Illinois, midway between Chicago and St. Louis. At an age too tender for life-shaping decisions, I made one. While all my friends were becoming Cardinals fans, I became a Cub fan. My friends, happily rooting for Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst, and other great Redbirds, grew up cheerfully convinced that the world is a benign place, so of course, they became liberals. Rooting for the Cubs in the late 1940s and early 1950s, I became gloomy, pessimistic, morose, dyspeptic and conservative. It helped out of course that the Cubs last won the World Series in 1908, which is two years before Mark Twain and Tolstoy died. But that means, class of 1998, that the Cubs are in the 89th year of their rebuilding effort, and remember, any team can have a bad moment."

Amen sir.

Epic fail!

Liz sent me this new blog and I would like to share it with everyone that does not read this blog! Thanks followers! Cake Wrecks - the most hilarious site I've seen about baked goods in...ever. Here are just a couple examples of bizarre world of caking making. Granted, some are adorable but that's not what I'm still laughing about. I can't even put up the pregnancy cake, pregnancy is gross enough without putting up a stupid yellow cake stomach covered in sugar frosting. Bleh!

Here is definitely one of the weirdest.

Happy Birthday to a Dear Friend!

I would like to take the opportunity to write a post about one of my old best friends.

Barbie. Barbara Millicent Roberts to be exact. I just learned that today.

Barbie taught us we could do anything - be a doctor, a teacher AND grow up with perky boobs. Even when economic times were down she made working at McDonald's, with a talking drive-thru, glamorous. With her career choices she undoubtedly, from my assumptions, held 40 master's degrees and 17 doctorates. SHE COMES FROM ABOUT 150 ETHNIC BACKGROUNDS! wtf!. Still, she was a confident older sister, while we questioned her own parents' involvement in Kelly's upbringing. She owned a jeep AND a convertible. Then of course there was her most prized accessory in private-lacking, plastic-molded-underwear-wearing Ken Carson. In a solitary day I could turn Barbie into a cape-wielding heroine or a victim being held captive by my brother's Beetlejuice doll. She wasn't a doll I could fall asleep with (seriously pointy hands) but I sure loved her when I woke up.

Like any woman she has her own inner turmoils. In 2004, Barbie dumped Ken after 43 years of courtship. The official Mattel press release turned AP story can be seen here. A guy that can't commit? She had a hole in her hand JUST for a ring. Supposedly she is with an Australian now. TOTALLY HOT!

I'm rambling really but what is wrong with reminiscing? After all, Barbie is only one year younger than my mom and you can guess who looks better at her age.

To conclude, here is a commercial from the Sweet Dreams Barbie I owned. Ignore the spanish speaking, I could not find the English version. Disclaimer: I owned this Barbie Doll. She had a "magic" washcloth that, when you rubbed over her eyes, made them close so she appeared to sleep. Cold water, not the wash cloth, actually changed her eyes. As a confused seven-year-old I remember crying uncontrollably when my legally blind grandpa accidentally threw away her wash cloth. I feared Barbie would never sleep again and would certainly remain a wandering insomniac. Eventually the issue was resolved and this doll holds a place in my heart. I love you Grandpa!