Absolutely nothing.

Aww New Year’s Resolutions. I have no idea anything I have ever resolved to do, but alas, I will do them anyways. Sigh. Here’s 12 things I want to do in 2012:

1. Put on real pants and leave the house every day.

Yeah, you probably think I should have higher standards for myself but let me remind you that I am in college AND a student athlete. Some days it’s really difficult to not roll out of bed and drag my sweatpant’d self to class. Seeing that I only have 12 months left before full on adulthood, I should probably start making more efforts.

2. Drink more (water, mostly).

Hydration, blah blah blah. I’m a hospitality major so I need to be a wine expert and the only way I’m going to learn more is by drinking more wine, right?

3. Accomplish everything on my New York Bucket List.

Ok, so I haven’t actually made this yet but the idea has been stewing in my head for years. I only have 1 more year in New York, for certain, so I need to get on this. I have done a lot of the major things there are to do in NYC but I still have many more to do. I want to go to a Knicks game, visit the Guggenheim, pick up a crack whore, etc.

4. Blog more often.

I try, but some weeks go by that I feel really uninspired. I want to attempt to blog every day, even if I just post a picture or talk about something that I found elsewhere.

5. Speak like a real adult.

As part of my journey into adulthood, I need to stop abbreviating words. Sometimes I think it’s adorable when I say words like “jelly” instead of “jealous”. Why have none of my friends punched me in the face yet? I also want to stop bastardizing words/phrases like “literally”, “must see”, “best friend”, “love”, “best/worst thing ever”.

Of course, maybe I should take it a step further to learn some more pretentious vocabulary to make my peers feel inferior.

6. Stop saying “sorry” unless I mean it.

Why do we apologize for things that aren’t our fault at all!? Don’t apologize unless you should and you mean it! Add “sorry” to my list of bastardized words ^^^.

7. Keep a budget.

I have no idea if I spent $100 or $1000 a month on food/shampoo/fun. I pay my credit card bill in full every month but I do not pay attention to anything I spend, nor do I make any effort to save money or track what I am spending. I want to start paying attention to what I spend and save within my own reach.

Maybe I'm exhausted from so much shopping?

8. Spend $ on experiences, not stuff (unless it’s going to help me in the future).

I made a deal with myself this summer that I could buy whatever clothes I wanted, as long as it was classy. As a result, I spent an absurd percentage of my income on clothing in the last 6 months, but am a lot better dresser. In 2012, I want to spend more money on experiences that I will remember instead of frivolous things I hate, LIKE APPLEBEES.

I started to think about the money I spend doing things I hate every month (like eating at Applebees with my roommates) and instead if I saved that, I could splurge on something awesome. I turn 21 on May 23 so I’ve got my eye on a particular vacation I’d like to take Memorial Day weekend. I’m going to save money (???) the next 5 months so I can go!

9. Cook something new every week. 

I love to cook but I don’t do it enough, especially when I am in New York. I want to try to cook more recipes (and potentially blog about them)! I am resolving to cook something new every week (food testers needed).

10. Keep a planner

Sigh, another step towards adulthood. I’m starting to feel boring.

11. Be more spontaneous!

Can I resolve to be more spontaneous or does that ruin the very nature of it? Many of you know that last year I got on an airplane to see a guy I had never met, on a whim, because I felt like I should. And it was completely wonderful. I’ve always tried to spontaneous but I want to find more ways to say YES in 2012.

12. Make sleep a priority. 

This should be on everyone’s list but alas, I see you all on twitter at 1am.

Well, there you go. 12 things I want to do better at in 2012. Can’t wait to see how many I can break at once! What did you resolve to do? Leave a comment below or tweet me @MerKenyon!

Fill in the blank.

Contrary to what my mother believes, this is 2011 and romantic interests shift very quickly. I have man-ADD (that is an officially recognized affliction) and someone at the top of my list one day might be off the list 2 hours later. For all you married folk, think back to the times when you were single. I know it may be difficult, but try your hardest. People you got really excited over fizzled out, sometimes before you ever even went out with them.

Last week a friend of mine told me he met his future wife in line at Starbucks. I don’t want to have to go through the process of trying to remember her name is Kelsey (nevermind, we don’t know her name because he didn’t even speak to her) so instead we will just call her Starbucks girl. Inevitably 2 days later when he decides they “aren’t meant to be” I didn’t waste any brain space trying to learn the name of someone I don’t care about in the slightest.

Because mine and my friend’s interests shift very quickly, I am in favor of never calling a romantic interest by their actual name until you become a regular “thing”. Obviously you would call them by their name to their face, but to everyone else you pick a distinguishing characteristic and refer to them by that. A sample of men I have been interested in/have been interested in me in 2011:

• Rite Aid Guy – the one who thought walking me 20 minutes to Rite Aid to get my migraine medication filled was the proper time to confess his unrequited love for me.
• Yacht Club Man – he was so deliciously Connecticut, he must have been plucked out of a harbor.
• Blue Shirt Boy – does he only own that one blue shirt or are all his Facebook photos from one night?
• ESPN Guy – he was so boring I watched Sportscenter on a loop behind him while he tried to make out with me.
• Airplane Boy – well yeah, you read that blog.

By referring to men (or women) by some type of nickname, it’s easy for everyone to remember. It cuts out that step of conversation between my friends: “So I was talking to Nick today.” “Which one is Nick?” “That guy in my German class with the tattoo of Abe Lincoln.” “Oh right, him.”

Instead I could have shortened that to say “so I was talking to Abe Lincoln tattoo today and he told me…” It cuts out the process of people trying to remember who this guy is when next week it won’t matter because he has a tattoo of our 16th President.

Disclaimer: men have been doing this for years but the point is not to be derogatory, rude, or mean. The nicknames should not be hurtful in case that person ever finds out what you are calling them, plus that’s just bad manners. Don’t ever call anyone something about their body shape (however baldness is totally fair game). Good suggestions on names are where (or how) you met, a unique hobby they like to do, or a weird idiosyncrasy they may have.

Whatever you call them, save your friends the hassle and call them anything but their name. At least until the relationship is stable enough they have earned it.

Do you follow this practice? Am I feminine-less pig? Let me know! Comment below or tweet me @MerKenyon!

We are a needy society constantly searching for the approval of others and never has that been more clear than on twitter. Recently I’ve read two posts that got me thinking: this blog on selfishness on twitter by my friend @burnSTYLEr and this Deadspin post by @WillLeitch. I’ve noticed several patterns regarding twitter behavior that prove no matter how secure we appear to be, twitter has made us more dependent on each other than ever before.

The beauty of twitter is the instant feedback; however, that aspect can be the very demise of users. We live in this self-centered mindset where we believe that everyone is else is doing (or wanting to do) exactly what we are doing. In reality, we end up alienating (and pissing off) followers. If you’re a regular person you probably just get unfollowed but as a celebrity you get hated on around the tweetosphere. Ways to annoy followers (but not limited to): nonstop tweets about a non-major sporting event, live tweeting TV shows, nonstop links but no content, 17 tweets about your niece’s birthday party, pictures of all 10 courses of your meal, etc.

We hide behind the internet and critique every little detail of each other. In his weekly Jamboroo for Deadspin, Will Leitch comes to some really insightful conclusions (if you ignore all the bashing on a man I truly respect, Darren Rovell).

“We’ve always said and done things online that we wouldn’t say or do in person: This is the very nature of the Internet, and one of the million ways it is awesome. But Twitter is so quick and so pure and so valued that you can make an argument that it’s more human and true and honest than actually being human.”

And this is exactly the way the world works now. People (myself included), have become so unabashed and blunt that the internet is becoming a part of us. Those online “twitter personalities” are becoming blurred with who we really are, or who we thought we were before we signed up for twitter. We feel this need to stay current and stay on other people’s time lines so we are constantly searching for new material. Honestly, I’m not sure how some of you even do your day job with how much work you apparently put into a website THAT MEANS NOTHING.

My larger point with this post is that we are all searching for the approval of others. If one of my tweets gets RT’d or favorited by anyone I am happy. If it gets retweeted by someone “famous” (in any sense), I am thrilled. But really, what does that mean? For .4 seconds, someone on the other side of an internet-capable device saw my tweet and thought it was funny/useful enough to pass on. I derive so much joy out of this when really IT DOES NOT MATTER AT ALL. Want proof? Tell someone who isn’t on twitter (parents are great for this). Even if it’s someone famous, they still probably won’t care even a little bit.

I follow plenty of comedians on twitter but have come to realize that there is no need to follow athletes/celebrities because if anyone says anything even remotely interesting, it will be RT’d repeatedly. However, I put plenty of great tweets out there daily (along with millions of other users) and it’s as if I’m waiting for replies, @ mentions, and RTs. If I don’t get as many as I think I should have for a great tweet, it’s like the twitterverse let me down. We have lower standards of what is “retweet worthy” for famous people. I while say it myself, this is all pathetic. Twitter has furthered us as a generation who needs to be coddled for attention. If we aren’t getting it when we want, we go to more outlandish extremes to get what we think we deserve.

It’s an ugly cycle and the only solution is to break it. We are so dependent on the thoughts of others that we have lost sight of many of the original purposes of twitter. But as with many things, this isn’t the fault of twitter, it’s a flaw of society.

Here’s an article I wrote for CNBC.com and Darren Rovell. The Original can be found here. 

Tattoo 4" on outside left thigh

You won’t meet a more crazed group of Broncos fans than the guys at Love n Hate Elite Tattoo Studio in Denver. In fact, they are even closed on NFL Sundays, to make sure that everyone is home watching the game.

So when 22-year-old tattoo artist Josh Lucern heard his coworkers bashing on Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow, he had to speak up. Even though everyone at the shop is a born and raised Broncos fan, Lucern is the only one who believes Tebow can win at the professional level.

One of Love n Hate’s regulars, Juan Contreras, 26, loves to poke fun at Lucern about Tebow. What started as an innocent joke grew into a bet with some pretty high stakes.

“If Tebow doesn’t win five games [over the 2011 season] then he gets to tattoo me ‘Te-[expletive]’ but if I win he has to get a tattoo that says ‘Tebow Time,’” Lucern said in a phone interview Wednesday night.

That bet is extra-risky when considering that Contreras has no previous tattooing experience.

As Tebow started to rack up miraculous fourth quarter wins, Contreras began to get nervous. But Tebow won and won and won.

Initially, Contreras assumed that Lucern would tattoo on him a small watch inscribed “Tebow Time,” but when it was time to make a decision, Contreras said, “I’m not going to like it either way, might as well make it funny.” And funny it is; even Contreras’s wife and mother think it’s hilarious.

Lucern had previously drawn out plenty of Tebow sketches before (he even has a Broncos logo tattooed on his left calf), but when designing a tattoo for Contreras, he wanted to create “the most ridiculous thing possible to punish him for doubting Tebow.”

Oddly enough, that inspiration came from the centaur on the Old Spice commercial. The original design was going to have a horse’s leg mounted onto Tebow’s body but Lucern felt the half-horse, half-man depiction was even better. The tattoo, about 4 inches in diameter, is on the outside of Contreras’s left thigh. There is no head inside the helmet due to the scaling of the drawing. Though Lucern is usually meticulous with his inking, he intentionally made this tattoo look cartoonish to mock Contreras.

The reactions have been mixed. “Everyone thinks I’m this Tebow maniac but I really don’t like him,” Contreras said. “I don’t think he should be an NFL quarterback.”

For a man who already has several tattoos, one more as a joke is nothing to worry about.

“Everyone has a different perspective on tattoos but it’s a piece of skin,” Contereras said. “It’s not on my face and I don’t think I’ll ever regret it but if I do, my buddy does great cover-up work.”

Tonight when I should have been sleeping, I came across a website called http://overratedlist.com/ in which the premise was simple. Pick 4 things in which you thought were totally overrated. There are hundreds of people’s selections on the page but I will pick mine here and elaborate. I encourage you to share yours too either by comment or tweet me @MerKenyon.

1. New York City

Yes, it has it’s upsides but people talk about New York like it is the greatest place in the entire world. There are a hell of a lot of downsides to living here including (but not limited to): over population, high cost of living, traffic, pollution, trash, weather, public transit and having to tolerate New Yorkers. A part of me will always be partial to this city because I went to college here but I know better than to proclaim it as the greatest city on earth.

2. The burn of working out

I love the feeling of exercise right after I am done. The exhausted feeling is great because it gives me a sense of accomplishment but I have never enjoyed working out really hard, at least not to the point where I feel like I am dying. So many people talk about how they love the burn of the extremely intense exercise but I find that hard to believe. I still do it because I know that it is good for me and is going to help me reach my goals, I’m just not going to pretend to be someone I’m not.

3. Saving other people’s feelings

I’ve never been one to be politically correct and honestly, I’m not interested in being that way. If you ask me a question, you are going to get the blunt truth whether you like it or not. Most of the time, people are not good at getting hints so you just need to tell them straight up. One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was this: “Take what other people say about you in stride. What they actually think is probably way fucking worse.”

4. Cupcakes

I don’t know how they did it but bakers managed to take cake and make it taste less delicious! Nowadays they charge you $4 a pop for them and you can’t even get your whole mouth around them. Plus, who came up with this awful ratio. We have 2 inches of dry cake on the bottom and an inch of gunk frosting on the top. Because the cupcake is so large, it is not possible to properly chew to mix up the icing and cake. For these reasons I utilize the cupcake sandwich! I take off the bottom 1/2 of the cake and plop it on top of the icing. When I go to eat it, the icing is in the middle for a better mix and my hands don’t get all sticky. Either way, I’d rather just eat regular cake.

Honorable Mention for overrated things:

• The Beach
• Breakfast at Tiffany’s
• The Office
• Steak
• Yoga
• Fantasy Sports
• Camping