DEAR ALCOHOL COMMERCIALS: IT’S A DRINK, NOT A MIRACLE CURE FOR LIFE

Alcohol commercials are one of TVs greatest mysteries. Several main varieties, but rarely any that nail how normal people engage with the product.

YOU’RE A MEAN ONE MR. GRINCH

But your dog is adorable and it’s a miracle he hasn’t left you for a more loving family. Good thing the Whos are unable to decipher sarcastic comments or your heart may never have grown.

WHY CHEWY COOKIES ARE SUPERIOR TO CRUNCHY COOKIES

The only thing crunchy cookies are good for is throwing at the squirrels trying to steal food from the birds. If it isn’t borderline cookie dough coming out of the oven, I’m not interested.

IF MY DOG HAD AN INSTAGRAM

You ever think about what it would be like if our animals had access to some of the same things we do in life? Like social media apps? Specifically the digital scrapbook, Instagram? No? Lucky for you, I do!

KING BOO, SO NICE OF YOU TO JOIN US

Ghosts are cowards. All they do is sneak up on people, tease them, scare them, and then vanish into the safety of the darkness never to be seen or heard from again. It’s about time to bring out my Proton Pack and send all these little bitties where they belong – to the Containment Unit.

HOW COMPETITIVE IS TOO COMPETITIVE? ADULT SPORT LEAGUE EDITION

We all know someone who takes adult sports a little too seriously. We might be that person. If we are that person, stop being that person. Nobody likes that person.

RANKING THE iPHONE COLOR OPTIONS

Every year in September we wait patiently for Apple to unveil their latest technology. Or, I guess, more accurately, their new marketing spin on what remains mostly the same from year to year. Rarely is it something so dramatic it requires an entirely new version number and higher starting price, yet here we are. Trained like Pavlovian dogs to anticipate the most attention apples everywhere will get all year, then to open up our current phones, cry because we’re now out of date and no longer cool, and pre-order what’s to come.

Kind of feels like the circle of (modern day) life. Buy the latest technology. Be in the know. Low key flex on all your friends, co-workers, acquaintances, and strangers that you encounter out and about. Operate with the latest, bug-free systems … well, ok, nothing is perfect and usually the newest releases have the most issues. So basically you spend all of the money to get the latest flashy piece of equipment that doesn’t work as intended. Seems like a solid investment.

I’m not here to rant about new phone releases, however. All the companies do it, not just Apple. I mean, shoot, even Samsung is branching into the rainbow for their latest Galaxy versions and bringing back the flip phone. And why would they not? Everyone loves the colorful Apple options! Or do they? I, for one, don’t particularly care for the iPod feel of the colors. This, after all, is the next level up. The iPhone. They kind of look like toys. But no toy I had growing up came with a four digit price tag. I want my phone to be sleek. I want it to feel expensive – because it is expensive. And the color options scream standard edition model.

So, without further ado, let’s rank the available iPhone color options! According to me. The Restless Professional. You may feel differently and I guess that’s fine. You do you. I’m doing me. As a quick helpful background, there are currently 13 color options depending on how far back you go on the available, still updating and actively maintaining, iPhone options on Apple’s official marketing website. For fun, we will rank all 13 in order of most desirable to why:

Graphite
Black
Pacific Blue
Blue (iPhone 12 Edition)
Purple
Silver
White
PRODUCT(RED)
Coral
Green
Blue (iPhone XR Edition)
Yellow
Gold

As established earlier, not a huge fan of the colors so it should come as no surprise that those fall into the middle of the rankings here. Despite the color versions traditionally being kind of obnoxious, Apple has actually made the blues a nice toned down navy starting with the 12 and I find it acceptable. White, silver, and purple are all interesting. I don’t particularly dislike any of them, but as a general rule I like to get things that won’t get dirty as easily and I feel like these lighter colors have a higher chance of getting stained. Which is not a good look. So the darker ones are my top preference. Down at the very bottom of the list is yellow. That’s a happy color. It’s not a phone color. I don’t want to look like I’m calling you from a sunflower. And that just leaves gold. Why is this an option? It’s not real gold. It doesn’t even look like real gold. It’s dull. It’s like a weird mix between the white and the yellow and I’m 100% not here for it. Besides, only rich people opt to buy the newest phone model and not get a case to cover it with.

Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!

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THE COLLEGE FOOTBALL ANTICIPATION

Someone, somewhere, has been counting down since mid January to the start of a new college football season. Many people probably. At any given point in a calendar year you can do a quick Internet search to see exactly how many days are left until American football returns. Much the same way you can also easily find out how many days are left until a particular holiday season … or any random date for that matter. Whatever your heart desires, there is something online that will give you a countdown for it.

While I enjoy the college football season more than the average person, I find it ironic that the same people who shamelessly countdown to kickoff day are the same ones who generally like to judge others for knowing, say, the exact number of days left until Christmas. If you can keep a daily countdown for football, I can keep a daily countdown until my favorite holiday. That would be 114 days for all you fellow merry reindeer. But today is the start of one of college sports most exciting weekends. Labor Day.

You love March Madness, I love March Madness, we all love March Madness. No denying that. Not as exciting for the College Football Playoff because, let’s be honest, only having four teams compete is garbage. Mostly because the polls are political and I have yet to see a playoff where the four chosen teams were truly the four who should have been in there. I clearly would like a word with the committee, as would a lot of Texas A&M and Oklahoma fans, I’m sure. You’re telling me a team, nay, TWO teams with two losses on losing streaks make it over another TWO teams with only one loss and on 8 game win streaks?! From stronger conferences?! Collusion.

My favorite part of the anticipation is the calm before the storm. That is this week. All of the experts have spent literally months predicting different scenarios and arguing for their alma maters. Sometimes they just talk – actually most of it is them just blowing smoke. After all of that settles, though, the only thing left to do is wait for tonight. There is nothing else to be said. We’ve waited 7.5 months and it’s finally here. And can we talk about how great it is to have the Thursday night kickoff now? Why wait until Saturday when you can start your long weekend with some football? Because no work gets done the Friday before an official long weekend anyways.

Sure, some of the D1 teams from smaller conferences kicked off this past weekend, but, does that count? Until we get a top 25 ranked team in the lineup, it might as well be pre-season. If you weren’t busy, you probably tuned in for a bit. If you were busy, don’t worry. You’ve got the big boys coming in soon with another deadly lineup of top team matchups every week to get any sports fan pumped up. Despite their shortcomings in the playoff debacle, the college football scheduling committee knows how to keep fans entertained for over four months.

Clearly I’m not passionate about the season starting at all. Football is one of the many reasons that fall is the best season of the year. Tailgates being a close second, but what’s a tailgate without a game to attend? Saturdays, and Sundays if you roll with the pros as well, are booked from now through the end of the year. When someone asks if you can hangout, they better put in a Calendly invite for a workday because I’m going to be busy watching a bunch of unfortunate guys get absolutely raked.

There is no better entertainment in sports than seeing a good, hard, tackle. Or a hail mary play. Or a ridiculous, should have never happened, but it did, kickoff return for a touchdown. Or a last minute impossible pick six for the win. Or your team putting an absolute beatdown on a rival. Or your team, hopefully, hoisting the trophy come January. So many ups. So many potential downs, as well, but the season hasn’t started yet. So there is nothing but hope. T minus 10.5 hours to kickoff.

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IF HIGH SCHOOL WAS LIKE THE MOVIES

Remember high school? Some people loved it, some people tolerated it, and some people wanted nothing less than to get out. Regardless, one way or another you made it through! For better, or worse, high school happened and now it’s a distant memory for a good portion of us. No matter what your feelings were during the experience, and probably even to this day, can we all agree that it was nothing like high school is in the movies?

I’m not sure if screenwriters skipped high school, went solely to the most expensive private high schools where money can buy you a degree, or if they have the memory of a goldfish and forgot the minute they left, but how they portray the puberty nightmare is very different than what the real world is like. All of the made up drama that goes away just so easily … where everyone is accepting of you and is willing to change overnight … where kids have no chores to do … and money is endless … what planet is this high school scenario on?

Let’s take a journey down memory lane, but reimagine it as if we were movie stars and always had a happy ending. Starting, of course, with freshman year. Day one, specifically. New school year, new school, obviously, have to start with some circumstantial drama or else viewers wouldn’t stay engaged. The most popular kid at school notices you and takes an interest in you. Ergo, overnight you become popular and have successfully quelled the ‘will I get invited to parties’ hurdle.

Your first year goes seamlessly and you enter the summer on top of the world. But alas, everything is about to go horribly, horribly wrong. You get caught in a romantic moment with someone other than your partner. That secret crush of yours that you’ve been eyeing since you first saw them, but was already taken so couldn’t act on it. Instead of having an adult conversation about it, your current partner jumps to a conclusion and starts to act stand-off-ish. Out of revenge, or confusion, you do the same. Rumors start and by the time Sophomore year comes around you’re the jerk who everyone hates. Everyone except your secret crush.

You spend most of year two repairing broken relationships, that, again, could have easily been avoided by not believing everything you hear. In a remarkable twist, by the end of the year you’ve grown into a more mature person and are once again back on top of the food chain. Until it comes out that despite having seemingly endless amounts of money based on your leisure activities, your family lives on the not as wealthy side of town.

Once again you enter the summer, but this time with a solid group of real friends around you. Despite having people in your life who don’t care about how extravagant of a present you’re going to get them, you feel sad. And start to ditch your actual friends to chase the elusive popularity once more. Annoyed, as they should be, your real friends get tired of your nonsense real quick and decide to stop inviting you to things. So you head towards Junior year angry and alone yet again.

If this is all starting to sound like a ridiculous cycle of unnecessary drama and unbelievable forgiveness you would be right! Can you believe that Junior year you eventually apologize to your real friends and start to finally be comfortable with who you are? You stop caring so much about what other people think and start to make decisions for yourself, and not because of how many likes it will get you. You cruise through your last two years like a freaking pro – end of story. You live happily ever after and become a tech entrepreneur, or highly successful author, or a professional chef, or something where you for sure make a lot of money and people want to be you. What possible discrepancies are there between that and how it actually went?

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LIFE LESSONS FROM OWNING A PET

It’s Tuesday. Which means that yesterday was Monday. And Mondays are, well, the worst of the weekdays. 7 out of 7 as you are well aware – straight from the official weekday RANKINGS. Having survived another grueling start of the workweek and making the long, exhausting commute from the bedroom to the home office, while somehow managing to get a shirt on and your hair brushed, we all know what makes your stress disappear at the end of the day. That’s right! A dog! Or, I guess, technically, your pet.

Owning a pet is one of the best things you can do for yourself, your future self, and your social life. Thesis statement: check. Takes me back to middle school and the adventure that was the writing test. Or really any English class ever. Three parts to a well-written paper (supposedly). Beginning, middle, and end. The beginning should hold your main point for the whole essay. The middle should support the argument. And the end should wrap that nonsense up. Take your multiple paragraphs or finely tuned BS and summarize it in different words.

Then you get the creative writing classes which are all like stream of consciousness. Who needs structure. Write what you feel. And teenage me was so confused. Several years later TRP is the result so if you’re not a fan, blame the school system. If you are a fan, blame the school system. Ok … let’s wrap that tangent up. School taught me how to write with a confusing blend of structure and nonsense. Yipee. Like school, pets have also taught me a lot about life and what’s really important. Specifically:

Some Things Are Out of Your Control

Like what day of the week it is, or who is willing to take you on a walk. Either way, accept it and live your best life!

Little Things Matter

Like getting lunch delivered or finding your favorite toy under a couch cushion. Small things add up, so stop and smell the roses!

Attitude is Everything

Like choosing to not be stressed, or choosing to jump all over your owner when they come home. Either way, it’s up to you boo!

Don’t Just Forgive, Forget

Like when the sales guy calls you out in a meeting and you take the high road even though you weren’t part of the issue, or when you get in trouble for stealing raw chicken off the counter. Move on – life is too short to hold a grudge!

Squirrels are Sneaky Little Devils

No further comment …

Make The Most Out Of What You Have

Like when you realize that Whales are their own unique snack, or when you only have kibbles in your bowl and no human treats. You don’t have to have it all to have it all!

Love Everyone

Like when someone cuts you off and you choose to not send them a certain finger signal, or when a new puppy threatens your attention levels. We’re all people, choose the high road!

Do What Makes You Happy

Like when you call in sick to work and go to the spa, or when you play with a squeaky ball by yourself. Happiness is the best feeling in the world and it’s 100% in your control!

Loyalty is Sexy

Like when you celebrate your first decade together, or when you protect your owners from the birds that could present a threat. Nothing is better than knowing your true love is loyal!

The Restless Professional

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