Fan or Fanatic? 5 Crazy Pieces of Fan Merchandise

I'm a pretty big fan of sports merchandise- within my eye line right now are three Braves bobbleheads, a Braves cup, a Georgia Tech blanket, and several Georgia Tech cups. I have jerseys for all my favorite soccer teams and other jerseys from places I've traveled. Most people would say that makes me pretty dedicated, but browsing through fan merchandise on the internet, I've realized that I'm far from that. Here are the five most ridiculous items I've seen.

Back in the Pool, One Year Later

Last year, the London Olympics rekindled my love for swimming. It had sort of died out after I got to college and decided I'd rather hang out with everyone in Fitten than keep going to swim club after the first week (which I fully regret, by the way- not that it wasn't fun hanging out with everyone, but I really could have used some regular exercise). But when Olympic trials rolled around last year, I got right back in the swing of things. I was following swimmers on Twitter, watching all the races and the ridiculous "Call Me Maybe" video, but eventually I realized I wanted to get back in the pool too. So, a year ago yesterday, I went back to the Augusta Aquatics Center for the first time.

The It Girl: My Trashy Guilty Pleasure

Last week, I was thinking about what book I wanted to read next, but everything on my list seemed so serious. I wasn't in the mood for historical fiction or dystopian YA- too much thinking involved in both. I wanted something completely, purely mindless. So I picked up one of my old favorite series from my early teenage years- The It Girl.

Throwback Thursdays: Dear Mr. Potter...

It's been over two years since I spent an evening in a Spanish-language movie theater in Sevilla, crying over Harry Potter y las Reliquias de Muerte (Parte 2) and the fact that after twelve years of my life, the series was finally over. The Harry Potter series was and always will be my favorite series of books and movies, and it was such a huge part of my life growing up. Instead of writing an entirely new blog post about it, though, I decided that I would share my Dear Mr. Potter letter, which I wrote two days before the final movie came out.

Trying to get onto Platform 9 and 3/4 at King's Cross Station in London, Summer 2007.

For those of you who don't know, Dear Mr. Potter is a project run through the Harry Potter Alliance that collected letters to Harry about how the series changed their lives. So many people wrote letters, including other authors and actress Evanna Lynch, who plays Luna in the movies, and many of them were eventually compiled into a book. I wrote mine more for myself than anyone else, as a way to try and put into words what the series actually meant to me. I haven't really shared it because I was really emotional while writing it, but two years after the fact... I'm actually still emotional about it, but whatever. I hope you all enjoy reading it.

Why I Love Crappy Shark Movies

So I have a not so secret confession to make. I absolutely LOVE crappy shark movies. Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Swamp Shark, Super Shark, Sand Shark, Two Headed Shark Attack- I have seen them all and I love them all.  Tonight, Sharknado premieres on SyFy, and in honor of this wonderful event I thought I would talk about why these horrible, predictable movies are so amazing to me.

On Being a Female Sports Fan (or, why it's seriously 100% okay to think athletes are hot)

I've been watching sports for literally as long as I can remember- I was basically born an Atlanta Braves fan, and over the years I've been a fan of far too many sports to list. Thanks to the Internet, I've been able to be part of great communities of fans, particularly female fans, but with all of these communities there have always been those women who want to tell you the right way to be a Real Fan. It happens with every single sport (I'm assuming it also happens in ones I don't care about like basketball and football) and honestly, it needs to stop.

Newsflash: if you like something, you're a fan. It doesn't matter if you think one athlete is hot, or if you proudly support a team, or if you just enjoy watching a sport in general. There is literally no wrong way to be a fan of something, and there is no such thing as a Real Fan.

Watch It Wednesday - Bob's Burgers

Sometimes people recommend me shows and I just think "eh, I don't know." If I had a dollar for every time someone told me I should watch Sherlock because I love Doctor Who more than anything else, I would be rich (and for the last time, no I will not watch it because I have zero interest in anything Sherlock Holmes related, thank you very much). So when Brandy and Jessica told me I should watch Bob's Burgers I was a little skeptical, especially since I've never been a huge fan of Fox's animated shows- I think there are maybe two funny episodes of Family Guy. Luckily for me, Bob's Burgers is completely different and definitely worth watching.

Watch It Wednesday - Orphan Black

I was originally going to make this TV Tuesdays, but then I realized that today was Wednesday. Oops. But I watch a lot of TV shows, and I figure people will be looking for new things to marathon during the summer. So Watch It Wednesdays will feature a TV show that either I've started watching or a show that I love that I want you to love, too.

For my inaugural "Watch It Wednesday" post, I'll be talking about a show that I'm actually in the middle of watching right now, a show that basically everyone on the internet is talking about: Orphan Black. (minor spoilers through the first four episodes, but really nothing more than is revealed in the trailer.)

Throwback Thursdays - Summer League Swimming

One of the trends on Instagram is to post a "throwback" picture every Thursday for "Throwback Thursday" (#tbt). Since my past is actually more exciting than my present, at least when it comes to things to blog about, I'm going to try and write Throwback Thursday posts every week about things I used to love, stories from back in the day, etc. And, of course, a potentially embarrassing old picture.

In 2000, my local neighborhood pool formed a summer swim team. I joined with a few of my friends and thus began my (not-very illustrious) competitive swimming career. I went into the beginning of the season only knowing how to do freestyle, but by the end of the summer I was doing the 100 IM at meets, and I was hooked on swimming.

My team picture from 2002, back in the days when I used way too much Sun-In

Movie Review - This is the End

On Monday night, I had the amazing opportunity to attend a free screening of Seth Rogen's new movie This is the End. While I can safely say that this movie is not for everyone, it was definitely the right movie for me. I don't think I've laughed that hard in a movie theatre since I saw Bridesmaids back in 2011.

Let me preface this review by repeating that this movie is seriously not for everyone. If you're over the age of 40, unless you have a weirdly youthful and drug-related sense of humor, you will hate this movie. I knew for a fact after about ten minutes of the movie that my mom would've hated it. There were at least four people in the screening that were way older than her, and I'm honestly curious as to why they were even there - sure, it's a free movie, but I wouldn't go see a free movie that I had zero interest in.

With that out of the way, let's get on with the review (with some slight spoilers I suppose):

Where's the Wall??? An Adventure in Long Course Swimming

For my entire swimming career (if you can call a binder full of participation ribbons a career), I have swam short course yards - only 25 yards per length. The only time I did meters was when one of the pools we swam against during summer league was meters, and I would always look at the heat sheet in confusion because my times were much slower than I remembered. I also never did club swimming, which would have had me swimming long course meters (50 meter lengths) ages ago. Unfortunately, I didn't, so my first experience with swimming LCM was today, during my first trip to the pool after it switched over from SCY for the summer club season.

Happy 100th Birthday, US Soccer!

When I was nine years old, I wanted to be Mia Hamm when I grew up. Not just a professional soccer player - I literally wanted to grow up and become Mia, somehow. I'm not sure how I planned on accomplishing this, and obviously it didn't happen, but after the 1999 Women's World Cup, all I wanted was to be just like Mia.

This weekend, US Soccer celebrated its centennial. The team has been the biggest sporting constant in my life other than the Atlanta Braves, who I've been a fan of practically since birth. I was so excited by the US Women's National Team (USWNT) gold medal victory in 1996 that I continued playing soccer, even though my first season of co-ed youth soccer was so unsuccessful that the only time I got the ball, it was taken away from me by my own (male) teammate. I moved over to an all-girls team at the YMCA and began idolizing Mia and the other members of the USWNT.

Mia, Brandi, Michelle, Julie, Tiffany, Kristine, Shannon, Joy... these amazing women helped shape me into who I am today. At some point before the 1999 World Cup, I got a book called All-American Girls, which was essentially a biography of every member of the USWNT. I still have it with me today, and it's possibly the most torn-up, well-loved book I own. I read it constantly, learning as much as I could about these women. How they went from not really even having a national team to winning a World Cup and an Olympic gold medal, how they had to deal with playing with boys and having people tell them they weren't going to succeed as a soccer player and that they should do something else. Reading all their stories from when they were just kids playing in youth leagues like I was at the time gave me something to shoot for in the future.

I still get emotional when I see clips from 1999 (I may have shed tears while writing this post) and it's still probably my most vivid childhood memory. I didn't go on to become a professional soccer player, obviously. But they taught me other valuable lessons about persevering and not letting being a woman stand in the way of your dreams. So thank you, US Soccer, and congratulations on 100 years, but in my opinion, 1999 will always be the best of those years.

Final thoughts on WWRLD (with gifs!)

I've commented on Ryan Lochte's E! reality show What Would Ryan Lochte Do? a couple times previously, both negatively and postively, and since the show finished up last week, I figured I would give some final thoughts on it.

Party in the Park 2013

Last weekend I went to Party in the Park, a one-day music festival at Centennial Park in downtown Atlanta. The festival featured Grouplove, Ellie Goulding, and Passion Pit (as well as some artists earlier in the day that I didn't go in for because Doctor Who was on), and since I'd missed out on both Ellie Goulding and Passion Pit the previous times they were in Atlanta, I was really psyched for this concert.

There was rain in the forecast the entire day, but the music gods must have been smiling down on Atlanta because it was dry the entire evening and other than the humidity, the clouds kept it from being too hot and the weather was perfect. The grass wasn't even too wet from the earlier rain, so I was able to relax in my spot on the grass with no worries.

What has Ryan Lochte done?

So a couple of months ago, E! announced that Ryan Lochte was getting his own six-episode reality show called What Would Ryan Lochte Do and I actually defended it on my blog, saying it would be a good way to get people interested in swimming again before Worlds this summer.  However, E! finally released a trailer that was more than just 30 second flashes of Ryan saying "Jeah!" over and over again, and I'm going to have to go ahead and take back my previous statement.  This show looks like it's going to be the same sort of ridiculous train wreck that every other E! reality show is.

The majority of the clips in the four and a half minute "super trailer" focused not on Ryan's training or meets or really anything even remotely related to swimming, but on him trying to find "the one."  There were a couple of clips of him blowing off practice to go to a bar, clips of him trying to pick up girls at the bar, clips of him talking to his "assistant" about finding the one, clips of him talking to his mom and sister about picking up girls at the bar.  Ryan's explanation of how to properly say "jeah" was longer than any of the clips of him in the pool.

Sure, the clips of him with his family were cute.  Sure, the ridiculous faces he made when he was trying to think of what the "Lochte Edge" was were hilarious.  But Ryan said he's doing this show to try to raise the profile of swimming, and it doesn't seem like that's the angle the show wanted to take.  I'm sure E! didn't want to just air six episodes worth of Ryan swimming laps at practice, and I knew that was never going to happen.  It just would have been nice to have seen more swimming in the preview of a show about a swimmer.

Of course, the unthinkable could happen and the show could actually be better than it seems from this trailer.  There could be more swimming and less "looking for the one" but honestly, this is E! so that's never going to happen.  This isn't NBC trying to hype up the Olympics.  This is a channel whose showcase show is about Kim Kardashian, so I'm not really expecting it to focus as much on the sport.  That's not to say I'm not going to watch it, because I will be so there for every episode.  But I'll probably end up watching every episode with a sad longing for something much more pool-related.

Shows You Should Be Watching: 1600 Penn

This is going to be the first in a new series of posts for me.  I watch a lot of TV and I'm always trying to get people to watch shows that I enjoy, and what better place than my blog?  With cancellation season unfortunately looming ahead, I'll probably start off with shows that are sadly on the brink of cancellation in the hope that you'll watch them, love them, and tell all your friends to watch them too so they have a better shot at getting renewed.

I have to admit, when I started seeing promos for 1600 Penn on NBC, I was more than a little skeptical.  It looked cheesy, corny, and didn't look like there could be any more jokes in it than there were in the promos.  But after I watched it, my mind changed completely.  1600 Penn is a delightful addition to the NBC Comedy Thursday lineup.  Unlike the rest of the shows in the lineup (now that Up All Night's future is up in the air), it's more of a family sitcom, but that's what gives it its charm.  I've seen a lot of comparisons to Modern Family, but I wouldn't say that.  While Modern Family does have storylines about the kids, they're always in the background.  1600 Penn brings the kids' storylines to the front, especially with Becca and Skip, and that's what makes it stand out to me.

Why America Will Never Nationally Televise Your Second-Tier Sporting Event

So this week was the start of the NCAA Division 1 Swimming Championships.  It's streamed online only with delayed TV coverage, and this has prompted a TON of tweets about how swimming should be televised and not the NCAA basketball that is going on right now as well.  I really hate to say this, but those people are pretty delusional if they think that's actually going to happen.  Sports television coverage in the US is designed around events that the average American sports fan would watch, and unfortunately for many fans, a ton of sporting events don't fall anywhere close to this category, and as much as I love swimming, it isn't in that category

The "average American sports fan"

Welcome to the family, Bryn!

This weekend marked three and a half weeks of me living up in Kennesaw.  Living on my own has been great, I'm not gonna lie, but it has been a bit lonely, especially since before today I've been working from home.  So I decided it was time to make an addition to my household.

Meet Bryn, a 1-year old Siamese/Snowshoe rescue and my new best friend.  I adopted her from Fancy Feline Rescue of the South, a rescue organization that holds adoptions at the Petsmart here.  When I met Bryn at Petsmart, she was so affectionate- she came right up to me and nuzzled against my hand, wanting me to pet her.  She was so cute and sweet and loving that I knew she was perfect for me.

I am a Spoiled Swimmer Part 2 - Problem Solved!

After a second disappointing swim in the gym pool, where I luckily had the pool to myself but the water was way too warm for me to swim laps comfortably, I was thrilled to see the sign that said "pool closed for repairs week of 2/11."  It was the perfect excuse for me to check out an actual aquatic center.  Mountain View Aquatic Center was only about 15 minutes away, so I suited up and drove over there one morning that week to test the waters.

I Am a Spoiled Swimmer (or, Adventures in Gym Swimming)

For all the years I have been swimming, I've never really thought much of my pool situations.  For eight summers I swam once or twice a day with my summer league team at a nearby neighborhood pool.  For four years of high school, I swam five afternoons a week, four months a year, in the Olympic-sized aquatics center downtown.   From August through last week, I swam at that same aquatics center up to three times a week, and those were glorious swims.  I never had to share a lane, never lacked equipment, never had any problems. And apparently I shouldn't have been taking that for granted.

I recently got a job in a different city and moved into my new apartment last week.  My apartment had a deal where I could get a free month trial at the gym right down the road, and they have a pool so I figured I would try it out until I can find another pool that is convenient to home and work.  I don't know if it was just today, but there's a good chance I may be having to find another pool sooner than I expected.

When I got there and saw that it was only three lanes, I was a little apprehensive, but I blew it off.  Not every pool is going to have sixteen lanes like I'm used to, I could deal with that.  I thought I was going to have to share a lane, but in the time it took me to stretch one of the lanes cleared out, so I was good on that one.  However, my stretching time also made me realize two other things- first, the pool was in the same enclosed area as the spa so it was grossly steamy and hot, and second, that there was no box of equipment.  I have my own goggles, cap and fins, but I never bothered to buy a pull buoy or kickboard because my aquatics center always had plenty of them in their equipment box.

I was annoyed, but I could deal with this.  I looked through the workouts I had and picked one that didn't have lots of kick and pull sets and figured I would either remove the ones it did have or change them up.  With that settled, I jumped into the empty center lane and things went south from there.  I immediately realized two things-  the pool was only three feet deep all the way across and it was salt water.  I could deal with the depth, but the salt water is something I've never really had a chance to get used to.  I've always swam in chlorinated pools with the exception of a few summer league away meets.  It was really unpleasant at first and I found myself drinking twice as often from my water bottle (which overall probably isn't a bad thing) to get the taste out of my mouth. Maybe it's something I'll get used to over time, or maybe all the pools here are salt water and I'll be forced to learn to deal with it.  Regardless, it didn't make my experience any better.

While swimming my warm-up, I realized the biggest difference between an aquatics center and a pool at a gym- aquatics centers are for swimmers, and gym pools are for people who want to swim.  I don't want to step on any toes or insult anyone, and I know I'm not the world's greatest swimmer either.  Normally I look like an old lady stuck swimming in a pool of Michael Phelpses.  But today, I was the Michael Phelps in a pool of old ladies.  I really don't want to downplay anyone's swimming efforts, because it's a great way to exercise, but these people's strokes were all over the place.  They were kicking wildly and out of rhythm and splashing all over the place.  The small width probably made this more prevalent, but I felt more like I was in a wave pool than a swimming pool.  I normally pride myself on having a really even stroke count, especially when I'm swimming 200 or more yards at a time, but today I had a different stroke count every single length.  It was so annoying to me that I ended up cutting out almost half of my workout and leaving after less than an hour.

It could have just been the time of day, or it could have been those particular people.  I could end up getting used to all of these different factors over the next month, or I could end up going out of my way just so I can have all the luxuries I'm used to at an aquatics center.  Whatever the case, I definitely learned something about myself today- I am a spoiled swimmer.

Across the Internet: Ryan Lochte, Catching Fire, and The Winds of Winter

The past couple of days have brought some exciting things in the world of the internet, so I'm going to talk about them, because that's the point of me having a blog!

The long saga of Ryan Lochte getting a reality show has finally come to fruition- E! announced on Tuesday at the TCAs that they will be airing a six-episode reality show starting in April titled What Would Ryan Lochte Do?.  I've heard a lot of people making negative comments about the show, saying it's going to be awful and it's going to be a complete failure and paint Ryan in a bad light.  However, I'm of the opposite frame of mind.  

First of all, when has reality television ever painted someone in a good light?  Reality TV is about vaguely scripted drama and generally always makes people think the subjects are idiots.  You don't watch reality television for hard hitting stuff, you watch it because it's hilariously ridiculous and entertaining.  And if Ryan Lochte is trying to pick up girls in front of a camera, I'm pretty sure it will be both ridiculous and entertaining.

It's also going to be a huge promotional boost for the sport of swimming itself- with World Championships in Barcelona this summer, what better way to get people excited for it than a reality show on national television airing a couple months before the championships themselves? People love watching swimming during the Olympics, it would be great if the general public would show the same enthusiasm for the sport during another event.  I'll watch Worlds regardless, but if the show can bring in more fans to the sport, I'm not going to complain.

Top Moments in 2012- #4: Meeting Famous People

This seems like a really silly thing to have as a top moment, but the thing is, before this year I'd never really met or seen any famous people.  I've been to concerts over the years, and there was a brief moment when MGMT was performing "Kids" and I'm 99.9% positive Andrew Vanwyngarden and I made eye contact, and Usher made a surprise appearance at my freshman orientation, and I've taken pictures with Major League Soccer players, but other than that, nothing.  And in 2012, I had several celebrity encounters, so I was pretty pleased with that.