Public Transportation Is The Best

Saturday night. I'm on the light rail train with Steve after a music festival in Portland.

An old woman sits across from us and knits.

Two tattooed teenage boys hold onto the handles from the ceiling and stand in the middle of the car.

Someone on the other end of the car blasts music from a cell phone. To be more specific, it's Lady Gaga's "Pokerface." Steve laughs. I bob my head in time. The teenagers grin.

The dude with the phone changes it to that awful Ke$ha song (you know, the one where she wakes up feeling like P. Diddy even though she's a white chick). I laugh and start to dance in my seat. Steve joins me. The boys groove to it too, all four of us discretely singing "Don't stop, make it pop, DJ blow my speakers up." "Oh my god, can we get some strobe lights up in here?" says one of the boys. "Yeah, dance party!" says the other boy.

The train comes to a stop and the dude with the phone gets off.

The tattooed teenagers go back to making jokes about elderly strippers.

Steve and I go back to geeking out about the music festival we just went to.

The old woman is still knitting.

All thoughts of a dance party are abandoned.


Public transportation is fabulous, yes?

Scott Pilgrim Vs. Me!

It was hot yesterday. I am such a wimp when it comes to the heat. I generally have three ways of coping with hot weather:

1. I crank up the AC and I don't leave my house.
2. I get in my car and drive until I'm at the beach, where it is always overcast and cold.
3. I go to the movies. I can always count on movie theaters to be properly air conditioned (well, with the exception of funky art-house theaters that were built in the 1930's, but that's irrelevant).

I had already spent too much time in my house yesterday and I live three hours from the beach, so it was time to go to the movies. I watched the trailer for "Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World" (posted below).

I decided to go see it based on the following:

1. It stars Michael Cera.
2. It has something to do with indie rock.
3. It features Michael Cera playing guitar in an indie rock band.
4. It's directed by the guy who did "Shaun of The Dead" and "Hot Fuzz."
5. The chick in the trailer had cool hair.
6. Parts of the trailer reminded me of "Kill Bill."
7. The love story part of it looked kind of cute.
8. Michael Cera is more than kind of cute.

So I conned Steve into going with me. We chowed down some Chinese food and made our way over to a pretty empty theater. Actually, we were the only people in the theater until the movie was about to start. Then a small clump of obnoxious teenagers came in. One sat right behind me and put his stinky feet up on the seat next to me. It was so repulsive that I made Steve move down several seats with me. There is nothing worse than watching a movie with stinky feet in your face.

Neither of us really knew what to expect from the film. I figured it would amuse and distract me for two hours but didn't have incredibly high expectations for it.

Five minutes into it, I leaned over to Steve and whispered "Oh my gosh, I love this film already." He gave me a silent yet enthusiastic thumbs-up sign. I looked over at him and noticed he was grinning. The opening credits overtook the screen and I saw the name JASON SCHWARTZMAN. I didn't realize that he was in the movie too and discovering this made me downright giddy.

Since it's based on a comic book, the film is pretty stylized and has a lot of references to video games and nerd culture in general (hence the reason Steve loved it so much). I'm usually unimpressed by comic book/superhero movies, but "Scott Pilgrim" was just fun. It had good music in it, hilarious dialogue, and enough clever cultural references to keep my inner hipster satisfied (though a true hipster probably wouldn't be caught dead in that theater).

Of course, the movie also deeply satisfied my inner nerd - a persona that I hide fairly well but has existed for years. *sigh* I guess it's time for an embarrassing history lesson.

When I was a junior in high school, I attended a charter school for kids who wanted to focus on Information Technology. I didn't really care about computers, but I needed a change of scenery from the chaos of public high school. The social ladder was completely flipped upside at that school. Nerds ruled the world and I usually ate lunch with the one misplaced jock and the one other female in the program. Fitting in at the nerd school proved to be just as difficult as fitting in at public high school. It didn't help that I was going through a pretty intense fashion phase that involved wearing vintage fur coats to the computer lab. I also had a thing for shoulder pads and often went to school looking like this (brace yourself, this is an actual picture of 17 year old Lauren):

Horrifying, right? Mary Tyler Moore called, she wants her jacket back.

Most of the nerd boys were a little bit in love with me. Though this helped me ace several computer programming classes, it was annoying because I just wanted some friends. At some point I decided that if I was ever going to be friends with anyone other than the jock and the girl (who really weren't that nice or interesting), I was going to have to be open-minded to nerd culture.

It was about that time that some stuttering nerd boy who had a thing for me offered to let me borrow his new copy of some stupid-looking graphic novel. I cringed but borrowed it just to be nice. I even read a few pages of it just to see what it was.

And then I stayed up all night reading it. It was much better than I had expected it to be. To his amazement, I returned the book to him the next day having read the whole thing. Without even hesitating, he supplied me with the next book in the series. And so began this strange season of reading graphic novels.

I think I borrowed an entire series from him over the course of a few weeks. I was embarrassed by the nerdtastic nature of the books and would keep them in the special zip-up pocket of my backpack during the school day. Once I made it home, I would go in my room and hide the book under my mattress. Yes, I know, I was acting like it was pornography or subversive political literature or something really offensive. There was nothing pornographic or subversive about it, but girls that wear vintage fur coats don't read comic books.

Looking back, I think the boy lending me the comics totally misinterpreted the whole scenario and therefore I accidently led him on. Actually, things got fairly ugly when he realized I just wanted to be his friend that borrowed all of his dorky-yet-fascinating comic books. He abruptly stopped talking to me. At first I thought it was because I returned a book to him with the cover bent a little bit (life in Lauren's backpack is rough sometimes). But when he hacked into my computer at school and started passing around my assignments for everyone to copy, I knew I had somehow unintentionally stomped on his little nerd-heart.


My trusty comic book supplier had become my enemy, so I began turning to the Internet for my nerdy comic fix. I paid attention to the web comics that boys in the computer lab were reading when they were bored and read them when no one was looking. Then I would reference them in the presence of nerd boys in attempts to gain acceptance and earn their friendship.

This catapulted me to Queen of the Nerds status (which is a little bit like "Queen of the Damned" but with less outfits made of leather and definitely less sex). Every boy in that stupid computer lab had some sort of weird crush on me. It was flattering and I got a lot of free computer help that way. But I really just wanted to be part of the group, not the star of teenage geekboy fantasies. I specifically remember there being some big geeky get-together at somebody's house on a Friday night. It was just going to be a lot of people drinking Mountain Dew and playing Mario Brothers or watching anime or something along those lines. I didn't even really like any of those things, but everyone in the IT cohort was going. Naturally, I wanted to go.

But I wasn't invited. This is pathetic, but I can distinctly remember sitting in my room on Friday night, writing in my journal and keeping my gigantic cell phone close by in case somebody remembered to invite me. The phone never rang. I decided I didn't want to be a part of that scene anyway.

The next week, I put on my sweatshirt that I had ripped up and sewn back together with safety pins. I got in touch with some people from public school and started a rock band in my garage. We called ourselves "The Accoutrements" and never left my garage, but that's irrelevant. That turned out to be my high school niche and my days of trying to fit in with nerds was over.

Except that nerdy part of me has never really died. Movies like "Scott Pilgrim" remind me that it's still there.

(Yes, I did manage to bring it back to the original movie review this post was intended to be. I have a way of rambling sometimes. Please forgive me.)

On another note, I found myself a little jealous of Ramona Flowers in the scene at the end where Michael Cera and Jason Schwartzman were fighting over her (kung fu fighting, to be specific). If I was in her position, I would just be like, "Hey guys, I can't choose between you. So I'm going to have to choose both of you. Welcome to my harem of adorably awkward hipster boys."

Anyway, go see "Scott Pilgrim." It's absolutely ridiculous, but it will make you laugh. It made me laugh, anyway. Actually, I think it's one of the funniest, freshest films I've seen in awhile.

And instead of sleeping last night, I stayed up making a silly avatar for myself on the "Scott Pilgrim" website. Because that's what all the cool kids are doing these days.

Oh man, I really am geekier than I give myself credit for, huh? I think I'm going to end this post before I incriminate myself any further.

Peace out, amigos.

Relatively Boring Bloggy Updates

So I just revamped my blog layout a bit.  That black background was making me emo.  I always forget how long it takes to do a proper redesign.  I innocently sit down and think "Hmmm, I think I'll change the look of my blog today" and then two hours later I'm still staring at my computer screen yelling "C'mon Mr. Header, WHY WON'T YOU BE CENTERED?!"  Maybe I'm just stupid and it's not really that tedious for anyone else.  But anyway, my blog is now ready to take on the fall season.  And if you are reading this, it is your duty to tell me how the new layout looks.  You have to look at it too, so if you think the color sucks and the picture of me prancing around in a baret is tacky, please alert me immediately. 

I also just discovered that if you log into Blogger in Draft you can read all sorts of stats about who is reading your blog.  Apparently I've been getting hits from really random places like Latvia and Malaysia.  Go me. 

In other news, I've been meaning to get my musical advice column up and running again.  Sadly, I'm running a bit low on emails.  Anybody out there in the universe need some advice in the form of a song? 

Also, while I'm spewing random bits of information, it should be noted that the infamous Steve is trying to get his blog off the ground.  He doesn't update it very often but I bet he would if people besides me read it.  He's generally brilliant and his blog can be found here.  Go leave him some love.  

That's all I've got for now.  A more interesting post will come soon, I promise. 

Drinking Beer With Dinosaurs

This is going to be a very strange, geeky, sitcom-esque post (complete high school memoirs and pictures of dinosaur bones). Consider yourself warned.

Last night, Steve took me OMSI After Dark. OMSI is a big science museum in Portland. There are a lot of really cool hands-on exhibits but it's generally flooded with obnoxious children. I haven't really thought to go there since I was about 14.

OMSI usually closes around 7pm. But every once in awhile, they stay open till 11 for the over 21 crowd. They open up a few bars and even get a dance floor going in the courtyard. Steve and I are little kids at heart and were pretty stoked when we found out about the event. After all, I magically like science again now that I am no longer in school.

So we drove to OMSI. Steve was most excited about seeing the old submarine they keep in the river behind the museum. He's a bit of a history buff who's watched "The Hunt For Red October" a few thousand times. This particular submarine was used in a couple of scenes for that movie, so Steve was descending into Sean Connery fanboy mode as we pulled into the parking lot. The Cold War really is interesting to me, but I saw something in the parking lot that completely took my mind away from Soviet Russia.

"Holy crap..." I exclaim as three vaguely familiar faces get out of a nearby car. "I went to high school with those people."

"What?" Steve says, still in Sean Connery land.

"That's my clarinet section from freshman year," I whisper, horrified.

I know I put up a scary picture of my old clarinet section a couple of months ago, but here it is again in case you missed it. If you're looking for me, I'm the dorky one. Oh wait, that's everyone in this picture. Okay, I'm the really dorky one. The girl with the bad perm who parts her hair down the middle and was probably wearing her favorite Paul Frank monkey t-shirt under her Star Trek-style uniform. The girl who could barely play the clarinet, let alone march at the same time. The girl who had ridiculous crushes on all the senior section leaders and could turn bright red at the slightest encounter with any of them. The girl that managed to break her arm at band camp. The girl who marched her first field competition with her uniform on backwards. The girl who made an art out of losing her instrument and forgetting her band locker combination.

That was me. I was the dorkiest freshman imaginable. I've spent years trying to make up for those days of being downright socially unbearable. And I've done okay. Three people in the last week have accused me of being a hipster, so I guess I've made progress.

But I digress. My old clarinet section leader and two first chair clarinets were there in the parking lot of OMSI. They are all nice people, but I haven't seen them (or wanted to see them) since the year 2002. I don't think I'm even Facebook friends with them.

Steve went to a small town high school and was BFFs with everybody, so he couldn't really understand my desire to avoid running into these people. I thought that maybe if I walked slowly on the way to the museum's entrance they would already be lost in the exhibits by the time I made it inside. But sure enough, they were still right there buying tickets when Steve and I got there.

I tried to stall by reading the program and asking an OMSI employee about events that were going on. Unfortunately, Steve did not pick up on what I was doing and jumped in the ticket line. I followed him and tried my best to be nonchalant. After all, I look much different than I did back in the dark ages. They probably wouldn't recognize me.

They recognized me.

The boy did, anyway. There were two girls and a boy. Boys that willingly play the clarinet are strange and this boy was no exception. We were never really friends but once I saved his ass at our final competition freshman year. It was the coldest night of the year and the upper register on his clarinet froze over (or something like that). Since I was notorious for faking it during competitions (I never really figured out how to play and march), he begged me to switch clarinet parts with him. He bribed me with money and promised me a lot of silly things like foot massages. I couldn't hit most of the notes in the upper register without squeaking anyway, so I let him use it for the night. He thanked me and vowed to love me forever and ever.

Of course, band season was over the next day and we never spoke again. Not to mention I never got my $20. Or my foot massage.

But he recognized me in line at OMSI. "Hey! How's it goin?" he said awkwardly. We shared a brief uncomfortable moment of painful small-talk and then I went on to buy my ticket.

Steve and I proceeded to have a blast. We geeked out over an Einstein exhibit. We marveled at at holograms and played with water rockets. There were free beer samples as well as multiple bars throughout the museum. Last night just might have been the most fun Steve and I have had together in awhile.

We went inside the infamous submarine. Steve got to launch a torpedo. His incredible sexiness almost rivals that of Sean Connery.

Almost.

When we were done snooping around on the sub, we ventured into the museum's Earth Science room. Right when you enter this room, there is a green screen that you can stand in front of and give a weather report. Naturally, Steve jumped in front of the green screen, beer in hand, and delivered a Ron Burgundy-esque weather report. It was greatly amusing, but I was quickly sidetracked by an epic display of dinosaur bones.

Laugh at me if you want, but it's not everyday you get to see something that large and prehistoric. I became caught up in studying a nearby display of fossilized dinosaur teeth. I was about to go find Steve again when I heard laughter coming from the green screen area.

I looked over and saw the three clarinets delivering a silly weather report of sorts. But there was a fourth person with them, drinking beer and acting like Ron Burgundy.

It was Steve.

Horrified, I did the only thing that made sense: I acted like I didn't know any of them. I stayed in my dinosaur corner and casually drank beer.

Moments like that make me realize why so many people move to entirely different towns/states/countries when they grow up.

Steve and I proceeded to cruise the exhibits. There was a whole room filled with vacuum cleaner tubes that you could build into things that used air to shoot little balls. It was fun in a dorky way, and we managed to get balls flying everywhere. One hit a girl standing a few feet away from us. She laughed and turned around.

I recognized her immediately. She used to play the flute in marching band.

I kinda wanted to just leave at that point. But instead I made Steve go out to the courtyard with me and we spent the rest of the night dancing with drunk hipsters. It was the best.

A Brief Romantic Scene

FADE IN:

EXT. BACK PORCH - NIGHT

Lauren and Steve sit close together on a bench.

Lauren: "Man, sometimes I just want to run away. Will you run away with me?"
Steve: "What? I can't do that..."
Lauren: "Pretend you can for 30 seconds. Let's run away. Where should we go?"
Steve: "England? We could go to Stonehenge."
Lauren: "Stonehenge? Those old rocks? Really?"
Steve: "Or we could go to this place I've always thought would be cool to visit..."
Lauren: "Where's that?"
Steve: "Well, there's this town near the site of Chernobyl that was completely evacuated right after the nuclear accident and now it's a ghost town!"
Lauren: "So if you could go anywhere with me, you'd pick a radioactive wasteland in Russia???"
Steve: "It's not technically radioactive. And it's in Siberia, to be specific."
Lauren: "You'd pick a wasteland in Siberia???"
There is a brief silence.
Steve: "I meant to say Fiji."

FADE OUT.

Good Boyfriend. Bad Movie. Fabulous Band Photos.

I've been feeling pretty sick lately. Bleck. I hate going to the doctor, but I think I'm going to break down and go see one tomorrow. Intense headaches that last for five days straight aren't really that normal. I'm sure it's just some virus or something. I'll get some meds and be good to go.

Steve came to see me yesterday. I warned him that I wasn't going to very much fun, that I was Sicky Sickerson, but he came over anyway. He even brought over a bad horror movie from the eighties! It was so wretched that it's currently out of print - he tracked it down on the Internet and downloaded a copy, complete with Swedish subtitles.

Yeah, Steve is kinda awesome. It's not everyday that you meet a guy who shares your love of cheesy horror movies and will spend his day-off watching them with you.

And now we've both seen "Silent Night, Deadly Night 2." It was so bad it was good.

If you like bad acting, terrible dialogue, awful synthesizer music, cheesy gore, and expressive eyebrows, this film is worth tracking down. Or you can just save yourself a painful two hours and watch this twenty second clip:

GARBAGE DAAAAY!

Oh man I'm a nerd.

Steve also brought over the disc full of band pictures our friend Mike took for us. Actually, that's what this post was supposed to be about, but then I got sidetracked.

So, here some of the pictures that Mike took/edited for us (he's got a lot of talent - you can check out his other work at http://www.michaelknightphotos.com/). I know I put up a preview of these a while back, but here are some more:

What thinketh you? Do we look like a real band yet? :D

That's all for now. Time for Lauren to take a nap!

When John, Paul, and George Met Ringo

Lately I've been wondering what it was like when John, Paul, and George met Ringo for the first time. I always imagined there was immediate chemistry there. Maybe they took one look at him and said "Blimey, you've got a cool name and there is no one on the planet that looks quite like you do. Let's get that Pete fellow out of here, we want you in the band." Maybe the clouds parted for a moment and a blinding ray of light shone down upon Liverpool. Maybe a majestic voice from above said, "John and Paul, my children, I have sent you a drummer. Go forth and rock."

Or maybe Ringo simply replied to a desperate want-ad he stumbled upon one night when he couldn't sleep. Maybe he went to an early performance of The Beatles, was intrigued by their music, and awkwardly left his phone number with a very drunk John Lennon. Maybe Paul McCartney flippantly promised to call him sometime in the next week. Maybe George Harrison was standing there silently, unsure of how to act when not onstage.

I've been playing in the same band for so long that, until recently, I've forgotten all about the strange process of trying to connect with other musicians. Musicians are a weird breed. We're emotional, competitive, creatively-driven creatures who often lack standard social skills and have an affinity for irresponsibility. We crave the limelight but often don't know what to do when it shines on us. Honk if you agree.

And since bands are made up of musicians, they're pretty weird things too. The relationship between bandmates is sometimes almost a cross between a dysfunctional family (minus the obligatory holiday get-togethers) and a really involved romantic relationship (minus the romance).

Anyway, I was recently cruising the musician want-ads on Craigslist (my favorite thing to do when I can't sleep) and I stumbled upon a pretty cool indie dance-rock band that needed a keyboardist. I listened to them on myspace, fell in love with their sound, and sent them an email. I emailed back and forth with them a little and ended up going out to see them perform last night.

Now, I know some of you are going to read this and think I've gone mad. "What about Original Sound Trash?!" you will ask. "What about Ryan and trash rock and making an OST album and all of that?!"

Rock bands are not exclusive creatures. Our friend Jack White shows us that it is possibly to be involved in as many as three bands at a time. Of course, it helps that the man's guitar skills are just plain sexy. But he is somehow able to musically multi-task and pour his talent into three bands.

(I'm not trying to compare myself to Jack White here - I know he's a one-of-a-kind rock sensation. But I'm just pointing out that the multiple-band thing can be done.)

And though Jack is fantastic in The Dead Weather and The Raconteurs, The White Stripes seems to be his musical child. If I do end up joining another band, Original Sound Trash will still be my number one. I'm just at a point in my life where I want to make all kinds of music with all kinds of people. You know, try on the starving-musician lifestyle for size and see if it fits.

Original Sound Trash began so organically that I barely know how the whole auditioning thing works. Four years ago, I started college and was determined to play music with other people. I spent all of orientation weekend targeting boys that looked like musicians. Ryan was the only guy I talked to that didn't get all weird and think I was trying to hit on him. Instead, we just talked about our love for Simon and Garfunkel and exchanged myspace urls. We snuck into the on-campus practice rooms to jam a few days later and the rest is history. Or something like that.

Once I tried out for a Shakespearean metal band (mostly just because I was bored and wanted to shake everyone up), but other than that it's been awhile since I've tried to dive into any new music projects. So last night, I put on my indie rock attire (doesn't really matter what you wear as long as glasses with big, black, Woody Allen-style frames are involved), took some pills for a headache that had been around since Tuesday, and headed downtown in hopes of making a good impression on this new band. Took Steve along with me and got there early enough to scope out a group of people that looked like the band.

"I think that's them," I whisper to Steve.
"What?" he says. It's loud in the room and I am whispering.
"Be right back," I reply, and strut off to the bathroom. Once in the sanctuary of the ladies room, I pull out my iPhone with the intention of looking at a picture of the band online. I discover that my battery has died. I fix my hair, take a moment to read some of the fantastic bathroom graffiti, and return to the table Steve is sitting at. I ask to borrow his iPhone and use it to pull up the band's myspace page. I scroll through pictures and look at the group of people in front of me. Just as I suspected - it's them.

"Go talk to them!" Steve says.
"I will in a minute," I say. I'm bad at approaching groups of people I don't know. Remember how I said musicians don't always have the best social skills? I'm really no exception.
"Want a beer?" offers Steve. "It might make this easier."
I shake my head and remind him that I took stuff to kill a migraine before the show. He agrees that alcohol probably wouldn't be a good idea for me but goes to get a beer for himself, strategically leaving me alone to talk to the band.

I wait until they look like they aren't totally involved in a conversation and approach them. "Hey...are you guys (name of band)?" They nod. I then introduce myself as the girl who's been emailing them about playing keyboards. Fortunately, one of them remembered who I was and greeted me enthusiastically. He wore tight pants and reminded me of a less-cute Michael Cera. His phone rang in the middle of our conversation and he answered it, walking away from the table and leaving me to interview the bassist. I was not trying to interview him but he was not that talkative so I nervously launched a game of 20 questions. Michael Cera came back to the table. I wished them both a good show and went to find Steve at the bar.

And it was a good show. The music they made was catchy, danceable, and over-all something I would love to be a part of (the same could not be said about the Shakespearean metal band I tried out for once upon a time). I gave Michael Cera my phone number before I left and we agreed that we would all get together and jam sometime next week.

They weren't like "OMG WE LOVE YOU, GET PETE BEST OUT OF HERE AND BE OUR RINGO," though I didn't really expect them to be. I'm not going to get my hopes up too high, just going to see what happens.

And this just happened: Michael Cera texted me, thanking me for coming out to the show and saying he'll be in touch soon about getting together. And after a long debate about whether or not to use a text smiley face at the end of the reply or not, I texted him back saying the show was great, blah blah blah.

What will happen? Will Lauren the Keytar Master and Avoider of 9 to 5 jobs add another band into her life? Or will this simply become another amusing anecdote, residing in the same category as the Shakespearean metal band?

Staaaaay tuned!

I'm Only Happy When It Rains

Good morning. Another rainy day in paradise. People are starting to refer to this month as "Juneuary." I'm a native Oregonian and a writer/musician, so naturally I love rain. But this is a little too much. Give me an ounce of sunshine. Give me an excuse to wear something other than a long sleeved t-shirt.

But enough about the weather.

I'm going out to a show tonight. An indie dance-rock band I want to meet is playing a venue I want to check out. Steve's going along with me, despite the fact that he has to go to work early the next morning. I'm stoked. The show isn't until 10, but we'll probably make an evening out of it. Perhaps we'll crash in a coffee shop for a bit and have one of our infamous writing parties. (Who says you can't be writing buddies with your boyfriend? :D)

For awhile, I thought it would be cool to write a book of high school memoirs. I've also always wanted to write a sitcom. Recently, I've merged the two ideas and am currently working on a sitcom that may or may not be based on my own high school experiences. I'm calling it "The Band Room" and letting it evolve from there. It focuses on a group of oddball band geeks and their daily adventures in public high school.

Yeah, you guessed it: I was totally a band geek in high school. Bet you can't guess which one is me:
There I am, freshman year of high school, all suited up in my fancy Star Trek style uniform and posing with my clarinet. Barf.

(I'll give you a hint: I'm on the fourth row from the bottom, end of the row, right-hand side. I was having a hard time dealing with the aftermath of a bad perm...)

But enough history lessons. Back to the sitcom.

Fortunately, I kept really detailed journals of everything I experienced in high school. Though I already remember a lot, it has been really helpful to have those journals as reference material. Over the past couple of days, I've been doing a lot of reflecting on what it was like to be an awkward, suburban teenager. I just might be ready to bust out the first episode.

I think I'll attempt to clean my room first, though. I'm naturally a slob, but I'm finally getting tired of how messy it is. Also, I want to wear something cute tonight and am having a hard time knowing where all my clothes are. My sexy jeans are no good if I can't even find them.

I made some reference to my sexy jeans while at band practice the other day. Ryan just looks at me and says, "Now, are those the same jeans that used to belong to me?"

For the record, no. Though those particular jeans are pretty sexy.

Okay, I'm talking about pants again. That means this post should be over.

The end.