"I Have an Irrational Love for Train."

My name is Jonna, and I love Train.

I do, I can't help it. At the risk of making all my friends and the readers of this blog think I'm ultra lame, I'll say it. I'm a proud, Train-loving, 26-year-old.

My friend Eddie and I once went to a Train concert. Actually, we sat through an entire rodeo, complete with bull-riding and calf-roping (or whatever it's called) and then watched Train. And, it was freakin' incredible.

You know how bright and lively and energetic Train sounds through your car speakers? You know how "Hey, Soul Sister" makes you want to sing and smile and be happy? That's how they sound live. The lead singer runs around the entire stage and takes pictures and he belts it out to the crowd, which is mostly full of women straddling the 40-year-old line of life.

So, why am I professing my undying love for Train? Because I am head-over-heels for their new album. This album is totally worth the $10.99 that iTunes sold it to me for. And, because I'm hoping that I can get a group of friends to buy tickets and go up to Dallas in September and watch them with me.

But, because I don't want to bore you too much, I'll just share with you my three favorite songs from the new album, in no particular order.

1. "50 Ways to Say Goodbye" 

It's a really upbeat song, which is semi-challenging since it's starts off talking about an "it's not you, it's me" situation. This should be pretty unsurprising from the title but the vocalist rattles off a series of hilarious, and inventive, excuses he'll give his friends who ask, "where's your girl." For instance, he maintains that maybe his ex isn't around because she got "run over by a crappy purple Scion. This is something I find particularly entertaining, mostly because I have a friend that has a Scion. But his isn't crappy. Or purple.

2. "You Can Finally Meet My Mom" 

This little nugget is really about taking advantage of any time you have with loved ones. Not a new, crazy innovative song theme. But still good. Now, while this song is insanely peppered with pop culture references (I think Bieber, Whitney Houston, Steve Jobs, AND pop rocks all weasel their way into this one), it's actually pretty awesome. I find this lyrics especially memorable: 

... There's so much that we miss
Trying to be rich, and famous
Pretty and thin, to win 
It's a shame that youth is wasted on the young ... 

That lyrics is just screaming to be a status update, if you ask me.

3. "This'll Be My Year" 

I think I have a thing for songs with pop culture references. These lyrics highlight different pivotal events from the world and the songwriter's life. And, for any other 26-27 year olds who are reading, this song starts recounting events in 1985 and makes it all the way up to 2012. Gotta love it.


And, if you didn't believe me when I said Train was awesome live, listen to this one. Proof.

The Best Stuff on the Internet: Lip-Dubbing, JCPenney's, "Heroes," and Doritos

Some people have jobs where they are always up and about. Always moving, never sitting still, and definitely never sitting at a computer screen for hours.

I envy those people. More often than not, you can find me sitting at a computer screen pretending to work. I know, I know, I ought to be working. They pay me to do a job and I should be doing it. But, I like to work under pressure. It's the college student in me. Don't give me something with a completion date two weeks from now because I will wait until two days before you need it to start.

And, despite my work's best efforts to block most of the Internet, I still manage to stumble upon fantastic-ness online.

So, here are the highlights, in no particular order:

1. Lip-Dub Proposal. Do yourself a favor and watch this. In a time where real-life humans are literally eating the faces off other humans, videos like this find a way to make you smile. Not only is the proposal incredibly well thought-out and thoughtful, you've gotta love seeing a group of family and friends come together just out of the kindness of their hearts. I sat at my desk and cried a stream of happy tears a minute into this. You might just do the same.

2. JCPenney's Gay-Friendly Ads. I have a mother that loves JCPenney's. She loves the place. Shops there all the time. Was abnormally upset when they closed the location nearest her house. As for me, I think the last thing I bought there was my Jessica McClintock senior prom dress. But, JCPenney's may just earn a few more dollars from me. In addition to seeking out Ellen as a spokeswoman, they've come out with these incredibly awesome, incredibly progressive Mother's Day and Father's Day advertisements that feature same-sex couples. 

3. On Calling All Soldiers "Heroes." My place of employment blocks about 99.2% of all websites that provide any ounce of fun. However, Thought Catalog has somehow slipped under the radar of our web filter. (Hope I didn't just jinx myself.) Well Thought Catalog is full of entertaining, but kinda pointless articles. So, when I came across this article, the title was initially off-putting. It seemed to assert that our country's courageous soldiers maybe shouldn't all be called heroes. Um, what? Can you say that? Isn't that like, really bad? But the article's author makes really good points about not cheapening the word "hero" and using it in for individuals and circumstances that really are heroic. It's definitely worth the read. 

4. Doritos have MSG?! So, this may be kind of ignorant / naive, but I thought that food ceased to contain MSG. I thought we were done with all that. So, imagine my surprise when I saw THIS tweet: 

You learn something new everyday! By the way, the day that I read this, I went to Target during lunch, and got a bad of Doritos to accompany (and negate) my Lean Cuisine lunch. 

Well, there you have it. 

It's not an exclusive list of all Internet goodies, but it's stuff I think is pretty cool. 

Have a good week everyone!