How You Doin'?

Dating is an interesting creature. Everywhere you go dating has its own little rules that you have to learn and adapt to. When you're in middle school, you're dating if you hold hands while walking to class. In high school, you hear through the grape vine who's liking who and start dating from there. At BYU, within the first month you have to have a "DTR" to "see where this is going." Now, in New York, let me tell you about what I've learned...

First off, you don't really see who's dating within the ward. Since there is such a large group of singles and we don't live all that close to each other, you can't really keep track on who's dating who. You don't have the great common courtyard that you get at the Y where you can spy on everyone. Basically you have to work the gossip circles if you want to even keep some sort of track of it all. I swear it's almost too much work to be even worth it sometimes.

Secondly, like Kentucky, they are a WHOLE lot more guys that are not members than are in New York. But unlike Kentucky, you have a greater chance of actually coming across these guys and talking to them.

Thirdly, you have to be careful that you aren't accidentally flirting when you don't mean to be. One day after work back in October I ended up talking to some old guy smoking a stogy right outside the doors of the Nielsen offices for a minute or two. Now, I was just being polite and chatting with this guy, who had to be in his late 40s. (Sorry Mom, but for this story, that's old.) Nothing was said that was of any real value. I probably said that I grew up in Kentucky and had just moved to New York after finishing an internship. That had to be the extent of the conversation, but when I went to leave, he gave me his business card. Laughing it off I headed home and told Kim about it, thinking nothing much more about it. Well, the next day I get a call at my desk and it was Cigar guy asking me out to a orchestra performance for that next Sunday. I was shocked to say the least. I ended up turning him down, for obvious reason, stating that I was busy and gave him the standard "maybe next time" answer. Anyway, point being, be aware with what you say and how you sound when you say it.

Fourthly and most importantly, be aware at all times. Tonight, on my way home from a stake speed dating event I was in a packed subway car with a large group of LDS singles all heading back down to the Financial district. Also in the car was a group of four or five 20-something guys who were obvious head off to some bar somewhere. Being myself, I was off in my own little world, chatting with Kim and not really paying attention to what was going on around me. Somewhere between Grand Central Station and 14th Street, while in the middle of a conversation with Kim, Kim noticed that on of the 20-somethings was trying to get my attention. When I finally realize this, he introduced himself as "Reed" and proceeded to ask Kim and me what our names were. We got talking for a bit, him asking us what we were doing and mentioning how he was heading off to Brooklyn, though he wasn't really "keen" on the idea. When we told him we were going grocery shopping, he said he would rather be heading off with us, and said "hey, let's go somewhere and have some fun." I told him sorry, we really needed to go grocery shopping and head home. "Oh come on," he said, "you can't just reject me like that. At least tease me a little." At this point it finally dawned on me that Reed hadn't been really been looking at Kim while we were talking, but primarily focused on me and was trying to flirt with me. Now, you'll have to forgive me here, but I NEVER get hit on, EVER. So it's not the first thing that crosses my mind when a random guy starts talking to me. Especially while on the subway where people just randomly talk to each other anyway, just to kill time, if they even do that. So I've finally had the lightning bolt "flirt alert" go off, and proceed to start playing along with him to at least give him back some of his manhood. I ended up saying something along the lines of "oh right, sorry, I've got to string you a long for a while first." He proceeded to try to get me to go out with him again, slightly including Kim in the offer to get me to come. I replied that "well, you can come to Whole Foods with us." Luckily, our stop came up at that moment and we had to leave. However, that didn't mean the slightly awkward situation was over. As I was leaving, he asked for my number. I wasn't going to give it to him, not that he wasn't cute, but left's face it, I just don't want to deal with the "flirt to convert" concept. They only thing I could think of to say was, continuing with the playing with him idea from before was "Maybe next time," and I got off the train. As soon as the doors closed, Kim started laughing her head off and I said, "Oh my gosh..." and we went on our merry way to Whole Foods.

So the point of this tangent on dating my friends is this: I really am a blond and completely oblivious when it comes to flirting with guys. Kim claims that I recovered fairly well once I clued in, but lets be honest here, it couldn't have been all that great of a job. Oh well, maybe after enough of these random flirty guys I'll finally get a cute LDS guy that I like that starts flirting with me and I realize what's happening.

I'm Coming Home!

So last night made it official, I will be back in Kentucky for another week and a half in May! Yesterday I ok'ed it with my boss to take May 14th through the 22nd off from work so I could come home for Michael and Caroline's wedding. But the great thing about it that the 25th is Memorial day so I don't have to be back for work until Tuesday the 26th. So when I bought my ticket last night I'll be arriving the Thursday morning before the wedding (14th) and leaving Memorial Day (25th). That's 10 days this time. YAY!

Also another great thing about it is that with Kim's help, I was able to save about $50-60 from the tickets Mom was looking at.

Superbowl XLIII

Since I had my anual Superbowl party on Sunday I thought it would be appropriate to make some sort of a post about it. As usual, I made Cafe Rio for the ocasion and invited alot of my friends. We ended up having between 25 and 30 people stop by throughout the game, so not to shabby if I do say so myself. If only the Cardinals had won though... sigh. Maybe next year.

Unfortunately, because of the need to eat, I didn't really get any pictures from the party when we had to highest attendence. However, since I am a Nielsen employee and all, and this is the biggest night for advertising, I've attached a press release from NBC, using Nielsen data that was released today, on the game. As it turns out, this year's Superbowl was the most watched ever! Can you believe that having the Arizona Cardinals in the superbowl was actually a good thing!? Too bad companies were cutting back on the advertising. Those that stuck it out and still bought ads made a killing! Anyway, here's the press release: (Thanks Sports department!)

Release by NBC
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:
Adam M Freifeld
212-664-6772
Adam.Freifeld@nbcuni.com

MOST VIEWED TV PROGRAM IN HISTORY:
SUPER BOWL XLIII ON NBC

151.6 Million Total Viewers
& 98.7 Million Average Viewers Watch Super Bowl XLIII

TAMPA - Feb. 3, 2009 - Super Bowl XLIII is now the most viewed
television program in U.S. history with a total audience of 151.6
million viewers, according to official national ratings data released
today by Nielsen Media Research.
"It's always incredibly satisfying to amass large audiences, but this
television record simply reaffirms the power of the Super Bowl and the
National Football League," said Dick Ebersol, Chairman, NBC Universal
Sports & Olympics. "Everyone associated with the NFL should feel a great
sense of pride in this accomplishment and in providing a day of
enjoyment to American families - especially those who are struggling in
these difficult times."
MOST VIEWED TELEVISION PROGRAMS IN HISTORY (total viewers):
1. Super Bowl XLIII 151.6 million NBC 2009
2. Super Bowl XLII 148.3 million Fox 2008
3. Super Bowl XXVIII 144.4 million CBS 2004
The total audience of 151.6 million viewers tops the previous Super Bowl
record audience of 148.3 million viewers by 3.3 million viewers (Super
Bowl XLII, Giants-Patriots, Note: total audience measures viewership for
all or part of a broadcast).
MOST-WATCHED SUPER BOWLS (average viewers):
1. Super Bowl XLIII 98.7 million NBC 2009
2. Super Bowl XLII 97.5 million Fox 2008
3. Super Bowl XXX 94.1 million NBC 1996
4. Super Bowl XLI 93.2 million CBS 2007
5. Super Bowl XXVII 91.0 million NBC 1993
The average viewership of 98.7 million is tops in Super Bowl history,
beating last year's game by 1.2 million viewers (97.5 million). NBC now
owns two of the top three and three of the top five most watched Super
Bowls of all-time, with Super Bowl XXX third on the list with 94.1
million viewers and Super Bowl XXVII fifth with 91.0 million viewers.
(Note: P2+ measures average viewership per minute). * The M*A*S*H finale
in 1983 averaged 106 million viewers and total audience figures for the
program are estimated to be 122 million viewers.

Members of the media can get more information about NBC
Universal and its programming on the NBC Universal Media Village Web
site at www.nbcumv.com.
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