December 22, 2010

Top 5 things I’ve learned about packing

I travel often, usually only with a carry-on suitcase, no matter the length of the trip. These are some of the tricks I’ve learned to save room:

5. Perfect hair is for chumps. Leave the dryer at home. Figure out how to style your hair using no more than a brush. Hair appliances are bulky and people will still like you even if you aren’t rocking a perfect blow out. note: if you aren’t friendly or fun, maybe this won’t work for you.

4. Do not pack for “what if” situations. They rarely happen. Pack for 2 occasions: Work and Play. If you suddenly get an invite to something black tie, you’ll probably want to buy something new anyway. Also, you probably won’t work out. Leave the running kit at home.

3. Baby shampoo. It’s shampoo, it’s soap, it’s face wash and it’s laundry detergent. The more things you can find like this, the better!

2. Match your outfits to your shoes, not your shoes to your outfits. Wear a pair of boots, bring a pair of dressy shoes. When it’s summer, wear your fancy shoes, bring flip-flops!

1. When you buy really expensive jeans, they tell you to wear them for 6 months without washing them to break them in. Why on earth would you need to bring more than one pair for a vacation? The more you travel, the more you realize you want to be wearing the same thing all the time anyway.

December 8, 2010

Top 5 things I hate when restaurants get wrong

I think we have all experienced some of these:

5. Unwelcome interpretations of the classics. If I order a classic comfort meal, you can pretty much assume I want comfort food, not your whacky fusion inspired interpretation of it. The only exception to this rule is if you add bacon to it. Bacon always works.

4. No gluten-free or vegetarian options. Ok, only the first one really bugs me. I know if everything is cooked in the same kitchen, you can’t say it’s certified gluten-free, but I’ll take that chance, I just need one or two items that don’t include wheat.

3. Sad Salads. There are very few people that wouldn’t rather be having a delcious juicy burger with fries. Why make things worse by making all of your salads a sad state of affairs? Wilted lettuce, boring toppings…it seems like you just don’t care.

2. Hot sauce that doesn’t match the ethnicity of the dish. People enjoy eating food from different countries because different countries use different flavours and spices. Don’t go messing it all up by passing me a bottle of Tabasco sauce no matter the origin of the dish.

1. Websites. Please stop with the flash, stop with the music and stop with the PDFs of your menu. Think about why people go to a restaurant’s website. They either want to see your menu, see your hours of operation, or see if you have daily specials/special events. That is all. Also, they are probably doing it from their smart phone, so the music/flash/PDFs make them cry.

December 3, 2010

My Month of New Music Top 5 Tracks ( #monm )

Well, I’d love to say that you should download everything I listened to this past month, but I can’t in good conscious let anyone else buy Love & Fist. It was terrible. If you’re like me and just want the quick and dirty, surefire hits to add into your heavy rotation list, you’ll appreciate my top 5 songs to come out of #monm. Listen and enjoy, I promise zero disappointment.

5. Junip – In Every Direction

I really, really want to hear these guys at a summer music festival. Listen, you will too.