Riley needs...

So, I'm taking a break from working on a few freelance projects to have a little fun.

I googled "Riley needs" and these were the first 10 things that came up that made sense. Try it with your name! It's a hoot.

Here's mine...

Riley needs to recruit bigger, faster athletes to hang with the Ducks.
[Ok, cool. I'd like to hang with the Ducks]

Riley needs to fire himself. Again.
[Not in this economy!]

Riley needs a forever home!
[I think I've found that in California]

Riley needs help
[Indeed. Professional.]

Riley has Heterotaxi Syndrome and he needs an Extreme Home Makeover.
[Driver, move that bus!]

Riley needs financial help again.
[If I fire myself again, I will indeed need some financial help.]

Riley needs a friend!!
[Preferably one who enjoys cooking healthy food.]

Riley needs a trampoline.
[...under my balcony. That would be awesome.]

Riley needs to take some posture lessons
[Give me a break. I'm 6'4". I have to duck everywhere!]

Riley needs some fangirling.
[If fangirling leads to a date, then, yes, I need some fangirling.]

Top 9 So Far in 09

Every now and then I like to post my top 10 favorite brands, products, services, etc at the moment. Here is is my favorite things right now.


• Mamma's Boys on NBC
What's better than 32 girls living with 3 moms of 3 bachelors? Well, seeing everyone fight! The fights between the moms and sons are great...the fights between the moms and girls are even better! Go to the Mamma's Boys site.


• Bohnanza Bean Game
This is my favorite game at the moment. You plant, harvest and trade little cartoon beans. You can't buy it many stores. You'll probably have to go online. But it worth it. Check out the Bohnanza.


• Jon McLaughlin
Just a really great record. A little poppy, but not too much that it's annoying. Preview him on his MySpace.


• Stuff White People Like
Organic foods, studying abroad, Apple products, Barack Obama...all things white people love. You'll find yourself laughing at how on-the-nose this book is. Check out the author's blog.


• Los Primos Mexican Food restaurant
It's a Mexican food restaurant in a Foothill Ranch gas station with amazing burritos (breakfast burritos in particular). Here is the location of Los Primos.


• Cetaphil
the cheapest, best face wash. You can get it on the bottom shelf of any grocery store. Learn more.


• Kuler.adobe.com
This one is for the designers out there. This site suggests color palettes for a project. It gives you the RGB and CMYK colors. Just play around on it. It's my top design resource site right now.


• Amazon iphone application
I did 90% of my Christmas shopping on my iPhone. You take a picture of something and Amazon tells you how much they sell it for. Learn more about Amazon for iPhone here.


• Penguin clothing
my grandpa wore these shirts. I love them now. Their website is hideous but you can check out what they sell.

So my parents...

really like their new dog, Ruthie.

Well, let me start of by saying that my family is not a "pet" family by any means. We could never keep pets around while we were growing up. We would forget to feed and water them and they would die. We would run them over accidently. Sometimes they would just run away to a safer home...those were the smart ones.

But now my parents have a dog. An indoor dog. I have a slight problem with indoor dogs in general...as did my parents about 3 months ago before they got a dog. I just think it's gross and it makes your house smell weird and the dog owners don't notice it because they are used to it...and there is hair everywhere, that's the worst. Anyway, that's not the point of this entry.

My parents sent me two separate Christmas cards showing off the new member of the family.



(The first one is thankfully a joke that they just sent to my sister and I.)

She is pretty cute, I must say.

I'll admit I am excited to meet Ruthie next week when I got back to Hereford.

Have Yourself An SYM Christmas

Last week Veronica, the other designer for SYM, was in from Colorado. Chris and I tried to show her a good time while she was here by taking her to Downtown Disney for a night.

Here we are in the Disney Californian. Yes, Veronica and standing on a foot-tall box and yes, I am still taller than her.



On Friday night we had a our SYM Christmas party at Opah.

Here's Doug and Cathy.



Chris, Veronica and I. We really bonded last week!



Veronica, Debbie, Nadim and Brandi.



I freakin' love my team!

Fresh Look

So, as you can see my blog has a new look. Thanks to Tim Moore for the sketch...and the CSS coding of the page.

Thanksgiving

Living in California with my family living is Texas can makes it impossible to go home for every holiday. I've been fortunate though to have awesome people out here who take me in every holiday that I am out here away from my family. This year at Thanksgiving was no exception. I got to spend Thanksgiving with Tim and Melody Davis and their family yesterday.

John and Dominik were also family-less this Thanksgiving, so we all got to enjoy Thanksgiving together. The food was incredible. I have no idea how she made it all, but Melody prepared the most elaborate spread of food. It was a classic Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings topped off with a 6-inch-tall, homemade apple pie.

I snapped this picture of Dominik right before dinner.



Highlights of the night were:

• hearing about Dominik's family history at dinner. Dominik is from Germany.
• meeting Tim's friends Adam and Nikki who Tim knows from the music industry
• post-dinner conversation about which music artists are pleasant and which ones are very much not...it was very interesting.
• Watching the "Signature Sound" concert on DVD with GiGi and Joe, Melody's parents. You can't beat southern gospel music.

It was such a great Thanksgiving.

Name That Logo!!!

On the new cover of Billboard magazine the headline reads "Maximum Exposure" using the letters of some well-known, iconic brand logos. Can you figure out where each of the 15 letters comes from?

Post a comment with your answers.