In search of a midnight Sled

This past Saturday evening was a rather interesting one, especially considering I did not partake in any substance consumption at all (I know, I am responsible and studious =). I spent the begginning of the night viewing the truly epic 3:10 to Yuma for about the twentieth time. This was an amazing experience as always. However someother individuals down the hall were partaking in some certain stress relief methods and after the viewing was over I meandered down the hall.

Upon investigation I discovered that a certain couple altered floormates had decided that it was time to go sledding. I found this to be an excellent idea for some reason, it was probably just out of sheer boredom and a slight urge for an adventure on the scale of Yuma. A detail worth noting is that it was in the single digits plus wind chill. WE armed ourselves to the teeth, each of us three bundled to the brim, all carrying our stolen trashbag "sleds" as we exited the warmth and comfort of Millis.

The initial stages of our quest were unsuccesful and cold. We traveled towards Redston in search of an adequate hill. Unsuccesful, we decided to make an exodus towards Davis where we knew of a ideal slope. Upon the way we encountered a large snow mountain formed by plows. The logical thing to do was to try to sled down that. As we ascended this miniature hill we were startled as people emerged from inside the mountain. This was startling to say the least, especially for my more twisted friends. They implored us to get off of their igloo for fear of a collapsed. We realized the merit of the situation and ascended promptly. We ere then invited inside to partake in some extracurricular activities. The absence of neccesary materials dictated that we move on. We said farewell to our hosts and continued into the night.

Unfortunately, the "igloo" has long since been washed away. The rest of our quest was succesful, and yes, large trashbags are surprisingly effective as sleads.

What the F*** happened to winter?

It seems as if Kaleb's wishes were granted; God decided to cancal winter this year. Ok, it supposed to snow alot this week so its only temporary but serious, how does it go from being wind chill of -10 to nearly 55 degrees out overnight? I happen to enjoy winter and find freshly fallen snow to be incredibly sublime and beautiful. The current state of brown mud combined with the ugliest, damp, green grass and the little bit of whats left of the snow amkes for an incredibly depressing sight.

Granted it was awesome to walk to the Marche this morning in gym shorts, but I still miss my Winter. When I decided to go here I signed up for a solid 5 months of harsh snow, ice, and wind, none of this weak early groundhog day shit. I am not even one of those skiiers who constantly is bitching about the conditions at Jay, Stow, Bolton, or wherever. Plus I think the mountains should be fine. As far as those of us who opt for the Nordic variety of skiing, we should pretty much accept that conditions will be invariably shitty down here next to the lake.

The forecast is looking good for the rest of the week for snow, so maybe god decided that he would reinstate winter and give us humans one mroe chance after fucking up the environment so much.

The best of Broomball

Many are probably familiar with the sport of broomball, and intramural favorite here at UVM. It's pretty much floor hockey on ice but without skates, a bigger ball, and weird sticks. Apparently it originated in Canada (the first week I was under the imprssion it was UVM exclusive, false) and now has spread throughout North America. I made a post a while back about the specifics of broomball. The jist of it probably was that it is incredibly fun to play and hilarious to watch since pretty much everyone sucks unless they have a lengthy background in hockey. Also the fact that many students choose to participate inebriated can add to the potential humor.

My perception of the sport changed drastically when a floormate showed me a highlight video of the Canadian National Broomball team. It is nothing short of ridiculous, although prior experience actually playing the sport would enhance one appreciation of the amazingness of these guys. It is also a much more rugged game at a higher level, I think UVM should chill out about some of the sliding and contact rules personally

Enjoy  

Laundry at UVM

One of the most pleasant surprises that came with attending our fair University was the realization week before we moved in that laundry was free here. My older brother insisted that I must collect quarters all summer in order for a successful first semester laundry-wise at college. that was a nice little bonus at the coinstar the day before I left.

However, actually doing your laundry is far from a happy, loving, egalitarian environment. The laundry room in Millis is nothing short of a battlefield, where a constant war is being waged by hundreds of students who often do not know each other out side of the laundry context. There are only 6 washing machines accompanied by 12 dryers. A load of laundry will take about 38 minutes in the washer and 60 minutes in the dryer. If you so dare as go even a minute or two past the time when our laundry has finished, youd best watch out. People are ruthless, they will remove your laundry and replace it with theirs, usually giving no thought to the sanitary integrity of your clothes. Most will respectfully place them on top of the machines or the bench next to the dryer. But every once in a while you will return the laundry room to see half of your clothes strewn on the floor. This is a devastating sight especially considering that grossness factor of the floor there. It is pretty bad.

I would never mind doing laundry at home but here it is a dreaded weekly routine that just adds an unneccessary amount fo stress to my free time. The key is to find a time when other laundry patrons are few and far between. On a final note, I am deeply grateful to the University for providing free laundry. At least we know that tuition is going somewhere =).

The Dark Knight

As most people are already aware, The Dark Knight was released on DVD last Tuesday. This is kind of a big deal considering how popular it was in the theaters and just how good a movie it was. I am not going to make some absurd, overarching statement like "the best movie ever", but its damn good especially from a genre not known for consistently producing critically acclaimed films. And of course Heath Ledger's last performance was incredible.

Most recently a friend down the hall purchased a copy of the film and ever since it has made it's was around to pretty much every room on the floor. This was initially a good thing since I got to experience the movie again, but it has quickly turned into a black hole for wasting time. It seems like ever time I walk into a room now, The Dark Knight is playing and I am obligated to stay for at least the current awesome scene. Next thing I know I have wasted two plus hours of time on  a movie Ive already seen three times. This wouldnt be that bad except that it was not limited to an isolated incident. I haven' actually watched through and through more than once since it has been on DVD, but I have committed too many hours to bits and pieces that form a huge chunk of time.

It is still a great movie, and probably one that I will still be watching decades from now. It would have been awesome if they decided to release it after finals week. Also RIP Mr. Ledger, it's too bad we werent able to see more examples of this caliber of acting talent that he displayed.

Red Neck Rock

Half of the reason that Atlanta soimetimes gets a bad reputation is because of it's surroundings, and something called Stone Mountain. Atlanta is surrounded by the most Conservative states in the country, so for some one that is ignorant Atlanta would fit into that mold. Atlanta is extremely liberal and far from deep south, except for one huge red neck monument directly in the center of the city.

Stone Mountain in Atlanta is really just a gigantic piece of granite. It is not a mountain it is a rock. First of a little history about stone mountain. The KKK was started there(I heard that the avid members still meet there today). For some reason that I seem to missing, tourist and people that come into Atlanta always go to Stone Mountain. One reason is that Stone Mountain advertises there "spectacular" laser show. As a new comer to the city a laser show sounds awesome(how could a laser not be cool?). Personally I think that the Laser show might as well replace the KKK meeting that used to be held at Stoned Mountain. At one point the laser show projects a giant confederate flag onto the mountain, and the southern crowd in the audience erupts in cheers. I really do not understand the pride in a confederate flag. All sorts of things like this happen through out the show. The worst part about this display of "southern Pride" is that Atlanta is associated with Stone Mountain to new comers.

Stone Mountain really is a huge advertising ploy. Only half of the name is true. Stone mountain is just a large stone, maybe a hill, but not a mountain. Also Stone Mountains clever advertisement about the laser show helps sway new comers to go to Stone Mountain. I am sure that after the new comer pays ten dollars to go look at a huge rock they are thoroughly disappointed. The moral of this story is if you are ever visiting Atlanta do not go to Stone Mountain.

The Epic Death of a rat

I have always hated rats. I have can never really do anything about the diseased filled rodents other than almost throw up every time a see one. There tails are the worst part, so long, fat, and hairless. This is a story about me and a couple of friends acting on my hatred for rats.

It all happened back home in Atlanta. My friends and I were walking out of my other friends dorm at Georgia State when we saw it. For a moment of my life I had the eyes of an eagle, I spotted it way down the hill behind a stop sign it was so fat, long, and hairless. I knew it was a rat the moment I spotted it. I alerted my friends of the situation. We decided to make an attempt at hitting the rat with rocks that were at the top of the hill. I grabbed a dense gravel piece and hurled it in the general vicinity of the rat. The rock made contact disabling the rat. After the rat was disabled to a pathetic squirm my team of rat killers finished the job with there rocks. The deed was done, my friends and I actually killed a rat for the good of human kind. Of course one person had to take killing a rat to the next limit and hit the body again with an extra sized rock.

Usually I hate hunting, or just killing something uselessly, but I make two exception to my rules. The first exception obviously is rats. The second exception which rivals the rat is the cock roach. When I see either of these fowl creatures they turn me into a stone cold killer. Usually I am not able to act on my deep hate for the two creatures but this story is an exception.

Streeter

Streeter is a gigantic, old, psychotic, and great teacher at my high school. I thought that it could be interesting (or just take up one of the four posts I have to do in three days) to post about him because of how ridiculous this teacher is.

First of all if you just look at him you would think he is crazy. He is about six feet tall, and his stomach actually looks like he swallowed a television. Also he is bald just in the center of his head, and all around that lone spot he has hair down to his shoulders. His looks are not the weirdest part. He has had the same teacup since the ice age when his kind went extinct. Also that same teacup does not get washed. He was quoted in our school paper saying,"I will wash it when something crawls out." He washed that disgusting cup the year that I graduated (I will let you imagine why). Also everyone that has been in one of Streeter's classes has seen his never ending but crack(Especially when he gets the latter out). The final thing that I want to describe about Streeter is his insane appetite. He let students cut class to eat if they brought something back for him. Sometimes in class you could catch a glimpse of him shoving a whole hard boiled egg into his mouth as a snack. If you were really lucky you could see Streeter eating his daily package of cold cuts and mustard. He began by placing the ham into his mouth, while the ham was still in his mouth Streeter would squirt packages of mustard in to go with the ham.

Even though I make Streeter sound like a nasty fat man, he was actually the best teacher I had. I learned a ton about photography and also enjoyed every minute of his class. It was best to laugh at his cheesy jokes and then look away when he climbed a latter, but other then that he was a great nasty fat man.

Semantics

HAHA funny title.

Anyway, to business. This is my last blog post. Possibly ever. You might think that makes me sad. It does not. If I had anything interesting or funny to say on a regular basis and the drive to post about it online I would probably continue this blog. Sure, maybe in some abstract way this is all electronic literature, but I just can't get the will to blog.

That wasn't the purpose of this post, just so you know.

I am actually posting about the old game Sim Ants. Yeah? Now the title seems funnier? Oh well. I still think it's kind of clever.

Anyway, I played Sim Ants for the first time in a long time a few days ago and it was a lot of fun. I won't lie, the spiders are still very scary and I am not really sure how to kill them, but overall my colony is doing well. No complaints, anyway.

The graphics aren't great and the interface isn't entirely simple and the objective is rather trite, but even so I don't hate it. I will even play it again. Now.

Blog over.

Good Green Landlord!

Green Team by Will Ferrell

The Landlord by Will Ferrell

Good Cop, Baby Cop by Will Ferrell

Yeah, I know those videos have been around for a while and that everyone in the known universe has seen them, but I just love them. My friend Chris was showing me a clip about Wayne Brady from Chappelle's Show, and it reminded me of those so I figured I would blog about them and kill another homework assignment. Seemed legit.

After having had watched them, I realized that Will Ferrel is actually funny. When I was younger I always thought he was an idiot and ought to die. Well, not so! He is actually quite droll, as it turns out. I won't speak as to how intelligent or unintelligent he is because I frankly have no idea, but I know that he makes me laugh quite often.

I wonder how I didn't see that before?

What's All This About Exams???

As we enter into the home stretch for the semester, most of the students at UVM are preparing themselves for final exams. I, through a combination of luck and... luck, only have two!

These two exams actually don't require too much in the way of studying. One is for French, and it is an exam that is broken down into three sections. The first is a short answer section on the readings over the semester (so I need to read... all... of those), the second part is a paragraph that is full of mistakes of all sorts that needs correcting and the third part is a short essay on an undisclosed topic.

My other exam is in Calculus. It will be the standard math-style test wherein I shall have to find derivatives and integrals. I will have to be able to evaluate critical numbers for extrema and decide when the MVT and Rollé's Theorem are applicable. All of this seemed easy enough when she was telling us about it... but now that I look at it maybe I should go study some of this...

Umm... I am going to go study. I guess I'll post later on or something...

See you in class (?)

The Office

Okay, it really doesn't need to be said, but The Office is the best show ever produced and everyone who watches it becomes a better person. Some people say that it isn't that great. They are stupid and have no idea what they're talking about. That or they watched it for the first time alone and had no idea what was going on or anyone there to prompt them when things were funny and they should laugh.

Once you're hooked, you're hooked for life, though.

I have seen almost every episode of The Office that is out and I am rapidly coming to the point where I will have seen them all. I have seen all of Seasons 1-3 and most of Seasons 4 and 5.

The Office, if you aren't aware (and if you aren't, make yourself aware) is about Dunder-Mifflin, a paper supply company in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The stars are Michael Scott (Steve Carell), the Regional Manager of the Scranton branch, Dwight Schrute (Rainn Wilson), the leading salesman for the branch, Jim Halpert (John Krasinski), the funny and charismatic salesman and Pamela (Pam) Beasley (Jenna Fischer), the receptionist.

The Office is based on the premise that every activity in the Dunder-Mifflin office at Scranton is being filmed. The characters interact with the cameras watching (held by real people in the show) and give interviews to those cameramen about what is going on throughout the day. While I am not sure why the Scranton branch of a failing paper supply firm is being filmed, it is still funny.

This show is absolutely amazing and I would recommend it to anyone who asked, and many who didn't.

Also, if you "like" John Madden (It's hard to express what I mean here. No one really 'likes' him, but anyway...) and know anything about Dungeons and Dragons then you should watch this. It's called John Madden: Dungeon Master.

Sprained ankle

The other day I decided to attempt to play pick up basketball with a couple of friends from my hall, now I am scarred from embarrassment and have a sprained ankle. I made the mistake of believing that even though I am horrible at basketball I could still try and play it just for fun. That is where I went wrong...

Pick up basketball at the gym was everything but fun. First of all it seemed like everyone knew what they were doing. That was bad because I had no idea what I was doing but tried to act like I have played the game my whole life. My first game(which my team lost horribly) I ran around and got dominated by a huge guy that seemed to have roid rage. Every time I touched this beast of a man his face would turn bright red and he would scream,"FOUL! FOUL!" Even if it was a foul all of the screaming was completely unnecessary. After running around the court aimlessly for an hour I found my one opportunity for glory. A player on the opposing team was on a break away and I was the only one that had any chance of catching him. I ran as fast as I could and was able to catch up to him. The opposing player went up for a lay up completely oblivious that I was right behind him. I went up to swat the ball and find my glory, but alas I missed and landed on my ankle side ways. So now I am hobbling around realizing once again that basketball is not my sport.

I believe that this fatal attempt at playing basketball is once again telling me never to play basketball. I have not been blessed with any attributes that would be help full in basketball, I am short, I have an awful shot, and I can not jump. This instance of terrible play is just another sign that basketball is not meant for me.

Il a ete tres chere

This weekend I went to Montreal for the first time, also I went to a bar for the first time. Apparently it is very obvious that I am a stupid young American that has never been to a bar. To introduce my stupidity me and two friends bought three hot chocolates for forty Canadian Dollars.
Sucked in the glee of being in Montreal and also feeling the extreme cold my two friends and I decided that it would be a good idea to find some hot chocolate. We stumbled across a very fancy bar that advertised there hot chocolate as tres bien. In the bar we all ordered our hot chocolate and everything would of been fine if one of my friends did not ask the bar tender to "throw a little" vodka in his hot chocolate. Obviously being a naive American going crazy that the drinking age is 18. Of course that gave my other friend and I the brilliant idea of asking the bar tender what would be really good to mix in Hot chocolate. Of course the Bar Tender suggested something that sounded absolutely perfect. We got our hot chocolates and they were probably the best drink I have ever had in my life. Then we got the check... Suddenly the drink left a bitter taste in my mouth. It turns out what ever vodka the bar tender "threw" into a drink was ridiculously expensive. Also it turns out that nothing is perfect because what ever the stuff he suggested to put into my other friend and my drink was eighteen bucks. The bill came out to forty dollars for three hot chocolates.

My friends and I seriously contemplated running out of the restaurant to avoid paying the bill. We decided against that course of action and spent a chunk of our Canadian money on hot chocolate. I learned many things from simply buying three glasses of hot chocolate. One is figure out what you are buying before you buy it.

Final project

I am severely dreading our final project that is due next week. I chose to go with the boring not so creative route and just write a paper. Hopefully my paper will be some what unique but that is unlikely.

The main question that my paper is trying to answer is how is the Internet changing literature, and how is that change in literature affecting our society?In the first half of my paper I will give examples of changing literature based on the Internet. In the second half of my paper I will give examples and explain how the Internet is creating a whole new community based on the literature that is being created. I want to show that changing society and changing literature are connected. Also I plan on using many examples from the things that we have already done in class to help explain my two points. Almost everything we have read/watched in class are perfect examples of how literature is changing using the Internet. I plan on using different kinds of examples such as blogs, digital stories, YouTube etc.

I am hoping that my paper will show the connection that I am trying to make while showing many valid examples. Also I will be arguing that all of the examples that I am using are literature. I am explaining that literature is no longer just something you can hold in your hand and is written down. I am asserting that literature is much more then something you can hold in your hand, literature can really be anything. As hopefully my paper will explain digital literature and non-digital literature are really not that much different in what they are but it is what they are doing to society that makes them different.

Wall-Ewood

Like the title? I thought it was clever. A nice little portmanteau (of course) of Wall-E and Hollywood. Yeah, I know, you got it. Shut up.

Okay, so I have been railing against Wall-E for the past few months because it sounded like a terrible idea. A robot that compacts trash and somehow is going to make the Earth life-supporting again? It really sounds ridiculously stupid.

Well, I watch it. And then I ate a lot of crow. It was actually a really cute movie. The plot maybe wasn't too original, but then, what plot is? The movie looked really cool and the fact that all of the humans on the ship had gotten so lazy that they were supermassively obese was funny when compared to today's society where obesity abounds.

Wall-E builds buildings (why don't we call them 'builts'?) with the compacted trash squares in order to help clean up the environment. A girl robot, EVE, comes to the post-trashpocolyptic Earth on a 'classified' mission. I won't disclose too much for fear of spoilers, but a nice movie follows the beginning with cute animated infatuation and more hilarity than expected. This movie is, of course, good for the entire family. The kids will see a fun film about robot shenanigans and the parents will actually be able to look into the plot a little deeper to get some meaning from the movie.

Oh, and this is really funny.

A Cup-le of Prodigies

I was on YouTube today after I finished with my Kingdom of Loathing adventuring for the day, and I saw this as one of the featured videos. It is basically (not even basically, but actually) two young kids with a cup stacking routine. I thought it would be boring but figured it couldn't be worse than some of the things we watch in class (Oh, the nightmares!)

Anyway, after about 2 seconds I was mesmerized. I watched the entire routine. I got my roommate over and made him watch it. I showed some people down the hall. This routine was absolutely amazing and I was its thrall. Their hands moved like lightning and the routine was nearly flawless. Their moves are synchronized and choreographed almost to perfection.

This is one of the coolest videos I have seen in a very long time. Here it is:

scrabble

I thought that the scrabble story was... well... I don't really know what the scrabble story was other then absurd, ridiculous, and actually kind of funny. The worst part was that I thought the scrabble story was real. I was slow to pick up on the fact that it was all false.
I think the way that some one judges the scrabble story is purely based on how it is perceived. Since I am slow to pick up on things, I thought that the scrabble story was extremely stupid, and slightly humorous, because I thought the story was real. The reason that I thought the scrabble story was so stupid is because I thought that the author really wanted me as the viewer to take the story seriously, which is impossible since it is talking about scrabble as a religion. The whole time I was watching the video I was just thinking how psychotic the narrator was because of how seriously she took scrabble. On the other hand if I had viewed the scrabble story as an obvious falsehood(which it is) then I would of understood the sarcasm and play on religion present in the story. Once I came to my senses and realized that the story was meant to be taken as a joke I started to understand the humor and cleverness of the digital story.
In conclusion I think that the scrabble story was both clever and funny, because of it's realistic feel. I myself am evidence that the story is presented in a realistic way, or at least realistic enough to fool some people into believing that it is real. If you take the story as real it is both psychotic and funny. If you take the story as fake it is funny and clever.

We are the best

Burlington was named the healthiest city in the country by the CDC. Everyone here is fit based on hippie activities like skiing, biking, hiking, and almost anything known to man. One of the best places to see just how healthy Burlington is, is in the UVM gym.

In UVM's elaborate gym there is two tracks, three basketball courts, multiple tennis courts, a weight room, ice rink, soccer fields, racket ball courts, and an indoor pool. Offering plenty of places for students to stay fit. The most intimidating place but also the best represented of Burlington's healthy status is evident in the free weight room. I do not know if the people in this room are legitimately as strong as they seem to be or if UVM has a steroid problem, but every time I enter that room I feel like a baby. Every one in that room is lifting a huge amount of weight and all of them seem to be part of Americas worlds strongest man team. I think that Burlington could be even healthier if they created a second weight room for people like me(or people that do not bench 500 pounds), then those wimpy kids that just want to stay in shape could not feel insignificant when working out. All though maybe those ridiculously strong people in the weight room are part of the reason why Burlington is so healthy, because they pressure the people that are not as healthy to become more healthy.

I did not mention that the article explaining why Burlington is so healthy compares Burlington to the most unhealthy city in the United States Huntington West Virginia. Surprisingly as the article explains the two cities are very similar. If you want to read the article here is the link.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081116/ap_on_he_me/med_healthiest_city

A Million Problems

A Million Penguins? A Million Forms of Torture, more like. It was terrible. I am not sure who thought that having a book written by 10,000 stupid people would be better than one, but they were wrong. A book with so many different authors really has little chance of coherence and less chance of meaningful meaning. Walry? I mean, come on!

Generally I enjoy or at least don't hate everything assigned in Literature in a Wired World, but this was just TERRIBLE! I don't think this is even of the type that I could suggest others read it. Normally if I suffer through something I get others to do so, but I don't think I could be that sadistic. It was funny in (very) little spurts, but taken on the whole I would rather a lobotomy than a reread.

A Million Penguins is on my hate list right up there with Number the Stars and The Giver.

You know what isn't on my hate list? Well, I mean, there are a lot of things. The one I am thinking of right now, though, is Pandora. I had heard of this site a while ago but never went to check it out. I went to it while typing an essay for French when a friend who as also in the lounge with me showed me the site. I put in Reel Big Fish as the search term and the resulting radio station is awesome. For those that don't know, Pandora takes a song or artist that you like and creates a custom radio station for you based on the information you give them. It is awesome, because I've discovered probably 10-12 new bands over the last week that I would probably have never found otherwise. Look into it if your music library just isn't doing it for you anymore.

But back to A Million Penguins. It sucked. It was painful. Crowdsourcing a book is a bad idea. Don't read it. Don't think about it. Scream whenever someone mentions it. It's that bad. It is something like what I'd expect to experience when I was sick, on a bad acid trip and severely ADHD.

End.

Eff You, Winter Weather!

With the onset of winter weather here at UVM, the residence halls have turned the heat on. That's not a bad thing, right? That way we aren't balls cold at night and shivering through the night. Unfortunately, the air is very dry.

I am currently sitting in my dorm and my nose hurts. It is very dry from breathing this air in all the time. We aren't really sure what to do. My roommate thinks we ought to get a humidifier, but I don't know. Are they even allowed? It would be nice!

A friend of mine down the hall actually woke up with a nose bleed from the dry air. This is borderline ridiculous! In any event, despite the rules, my roommate said he's going to get a humidifier tomorrow. That should make things a lot better.

As an aside: Fuck winter. It is the worst. I have been in Vermont my entire life and I hate it. The leaves only look cool for so long. The snow is always too cold for reality. I am definitely not staying in this state. I am thinking tornado alley. Sure, tornadoes are worse than snow, but they are only around for about 10 minutes, not months and months, they hit a small area rather than EVERYWHERE and they are at least warm. 'Nuff said.

End.

Tootsie Pop Problems.

I got several Tootsie Pops for Halloween from my Residence Hall to tell me about a Halloween party they were planning (it flopped, incidentally). I got two brown pops and a darker-red one. The raspberry one I know I will eventually get to.

However, TWO CHOCOLATE ONES?!? What the heck am I to do with those? They are, and I say with with a straight face, the worst Tootsie Pops out there. I would sooner eat orange. Yeah, it's intense.

Anyway, The real reason for this post is to ask what I ought to do? I can't throw them away or give them away as they were gifts, but I don't want to eat them. Should I keep them and see how long they last or should I turn them into an abstract art project?

I am really at a crossroads of the ridiculous variety. There shouldn't be so much angst over nearly month-old lollipops.

In fact, there isn't. But it's another post done.

About that Obama...

Recently, you may know, there was a presidential election in the U.S. where Barack Obama (D) won the presidency over John McCain (R). My hatred of bipartisan politics aside, I was irritated with the election in general.

I am a lifelong Vermont resident and, as such, I am registered to vote in Vermont. I hate that fact, because ever since the seventies Vermont has voted liberal. We voted for Reagan in 1984 over Walter Mondale (Mondale, of course, only won his home state of Minnesota) but other than that we have really been a blue state for a while now.

That means my vote doesn't really doesn't matter. Looking at the data for Vermont, McCain got very, very few towns here. No matter whom I chose to vote for, it really wouldn't make a difference in Vermont.

I voted for John McCain. Why? A friend from the next floor up attacked everyone constantly for about a month leading up to voting day to vote for Obama, and that was irritating as all get-out. I mean, as my vote I should have the right to choose my candidate. If anyone tells me how I should vote, I am generally okay with it if they give me good information and don't press the issue.

That is at least half of the reason I didn't vote for Obama. Good job, die-hard Obama supporters. Let's push those on the fence away with our ass-hattery. Probably a good plan.

Another prime reason was that the Democratic party called my cell phone at 10 a.m. the day after Halloween. Saturday. Day after Halloween. Who is really going to be up at 10 a.m.??? They didn't chat, they just said, "This is with the Democratic party calling to remind you to vote for Barack Obama and all the other Democratic party members in the upcoming election. Are you aware that elections are on the fourth of November?"

What a way to start a day! Call me, wake me up and treat me as an idiot. Also, saying "calling to remind you to vote for Barack Obama" makes it sound like I don't really have a choice or as though he were the only candidate.

And nobody acknowledged the Libertarian, Constitutionalist or other non-Democratic/Republican candidates. Why are we so deadlocked for either party?

Anyway, I felt like this is a suitable way for me to boost my blog count.

Written Up

Everybody knows how the University of Vermont's alcohol policy really works. Sure there is what the handbook and all that bollocks says which is that UVM is a dry campus and you will be caught by whomever, RA's or cops usually, should you choose to consume alcohol on campus. In reality most RA's run by the same philosophy, we know it happens, just don't be stupid about it and don't force me to write you up. This pretty much entails not leaving your door open, not walking around with alcohol in visible possession and not hosting thirty person pong or dance parties in your shitty forced triple in which ever hall you ended up in.

I have been fortunate enough all semester to avoid subjecting myself to any extreme and blatant stupidity that would result in a citation from the ResLife system. However, one must account for the factor of sheer bad luck before they can assume in gliding through their years on campus without any run ins with the law just on common sense.

Unfortunately, I was subject to such a dose of misfortune this past Saturday evening. After a truly epic Friday night and a plethora of studying and work to do in the coming week, I was taking Saturday easy. I spent most of the early night either jamming with my roommate or watching college football around the hall. Granted there was some drinking taking place but by the hour of eleven, all those truly in pursuit of inebriating themselves had generally vacated the premise.

 At this time my roommate Chris, Joe from down the hall, and myself were all chilling in Joe's room, contemplating what to do with our fairly lazy weekend night. The key fact in this situation is that Joe, who is a sophomore and has a car, has been in the habit of collecting various redeemable bottles every weekend to deposit for a little extra cash each week. This fateful night he had collected three empty 1.5 liter bottles of liquor from various acquaintances to add to his collection of redeemable for the weekend. Sadly these three bottles were straight chilling on the floor and had not yet made their way to the closet with the rest of the collection when Chris and I were vacating the room. As the door was opened allowing us to leave, three RA's were walking by doing their usual rounds. Of course they see the three empty containers, leading to write ups for Chris and I who were walking out of a room, stone cold sober, where no alcohol was being consumed, and Joe, who gets screwed for recycling other peoples shit. 

We were all written up for actively consuming alcohol from a common source. This implies that each of us had put a handle of liquor to our face that night.

One doesn't have to be familiar with the nuances behind the basic forces of Blood-Alcohol levels to question the validity of this assumption.

I am in no way pledging myself to be an angel when it comes to this sort of thing but it does strike me as somewhat ridiculous that all three of us are facing a fine and citations for literally doing nothing other than walk out of a room at the wrong place, at the wrong time. My hearing is on Wednesday, we shall see what happens and I have hope that whomever is calling the shots on this can appreciate the ridiculous nature of the situation for at least Chris and I, Joe may be another story. In any event this serves as an excellent example of the inherent flaws in our University's policy.

fairy tale hotel

The other night I was watching an older James Bond played by Pierce Brosnan(who was not a good bond) and I commented on how ridiculous and excessive Bond is, not that it is a bad thing. The scene that I chose to comment on was the one that was really not that ridiculous. The scene I commented on was the car chase through the Ice castle hotel.

Who would have thought that an Ice Hotel actually existed in multiple places? It seems that most people already knew that they existed not including my self. I looked up Ice Hotel on Google and the first one that came up is in Quebec. For five hundred and seventy four dollars per night any one can stay in a winter wonderland. It amazes me so much how excessive the human race really is. No one would ever come close to need to drink out of a cocktail glass made of ice while sitting in there frozen bed , which is in there spectacular double room ALL MADE OF ICE! Although it would be really awesome it also seems like the most impractical thing ever created. Also obviously it is a temporary hotel that I am assuming must be re-created every year.

Even though the effort and the money put towards staying in an Ice Hotel I still want to at least go in one, maybe even drink out of the ice glasses. Also am I the only one that has not heard of this waste of human activity?

A great fall

Falling has always fascinated the human mind including my own. Falling is the universally funny thing all over the globe. No matter where a person falls if they are not seriously hurt(or even sometimes if they are) someone will laugh.
I have had many awkward and clumsy falls in my life that made me look like a complete moron, but to avoid that I will tell an extremely funny falling story about one of my friends that made him look like a complete moron. One of my good friends and I were simple taking a walk. Suddenly my friend decided that it would be a great idea to add some excitement to our innocent walk and run and jump on to a seemingly low ledge. Little did my friend know that the "small" ledge that stood only three feet tall had a significantly bigger drop behind it. Of course he did not notice that and neither did I. My friend ran(which is really funny in it self because he is very small and round..) and leapt onto the four foot ledge and caught his loose shoelace on the landing. He tumbled(when I say tumbled, I mean he really did a somersault) over the ledge, landing face first in some very soggy grass. Maybe in writing this story does not have the same effect but believe me we were both crying from it(at least one was from laughter).
Seeing a fall always helps the spirit, so just in case my written documentation of a hilarious tumble did not do the trick I resorted to YouTube to find something that is really funny. The best part about this video is the situation of it, meaning that the person in the video is completely alone. Also fast forward to two minutes and thirty seconds, enjoy.

Family Feud Failures

Okay, so just now I posted about eggs. That was a boring post. It is related to the filler episodes in a television series, where they still want to put something out every week but aren't interested in advancing the plot at all. Just apply it to a blog and there you go.

In any event, YouTube.com has some great failures at Family Feud. I don't want to write too much about them because I would give away the surprises, but these videos are so worth watching. You can see a man fall to his knees in mirth. Hilarious.







They are rather long, but dear me these people are dumb. Where did they find these people???

Really? Good Eggs at the Grundle!?!?

Here is a random post for you:

This morning I woke up at 7:55 a.m. after having stayed up until 2:30 a.m. and I was balls tired. I managed to get up and get into the shower, though, and then I started to feel myself really wake up and felt semi-ready to face the day. I normally go to breakfast with Casey and/or Chris and/or Rebecca. I knew Rebecca was under the weather and planned on sleeping in, so it looked like I would be going with Chris and/or Casey or by myself. Chris was still in his pajamas, so he was out. Casey was almost ready, so I decided to wait for him. I didn't have anywhere to be until 2 p.m. anyway, so I was not in a rush. Well, in the end Casey lallygagged too much and had to skip breakfast for a 9:30 class. That was fine, I wasn't ravenous or anything.

Chris, after he got back from his 9:30 class, accompanied me to breakfast. We arrived at about 10:30, which we refer to as "awkward time" because they are transitioning between breakfast and lunch at the Grundle and so there is slim pickings. I went over to where you can get omelets on weekends, because they tend to move breakfast there at about 10. I got eggs and home fries.

THE EGGS WERE DELICIOUS!! Normally at the Grundle they are too fluffy and bland, but they were the perfect consistency and had a great flavor (especially with a bit of salsa on them).

Chris disagreed. He found them too flat and bland. He was wrong. Taste is not a matter of opinion. It is empirical fact and I know he was misinterpreting the facts.

Those eggs were DAMN good.

Belated Obama Post

Okay, so its been almost a week since Barack Obama was announced as the projected winner of the Presedential Election and the following campus-wide explosion that took place. I must say that I was personally very happy with the result and expected some sort of positive reaction but certainly nothing of quite that scale.

Unfortunately I did not follow drrogers and company downtown to witness that spectacle. However, I was still witness to and a participant in the continuing celebration that took place in between good ol Harris/Millis and the U-heights complex. Somebody had the amazing presence of mind to break out a set of congo drums to supplement the natural crowd noise. The fairly talented percussionists manning these drums kept the crowd together for much longer than I expected, providing a steady but constantly changing beat to the celebration. At some points the festivities were very reminiscent of tribal dancing or maybe something out of Lord of the Flies. The definite highlight for me before I retired to view the speech online with drrogers and company was a barely distinguishable, yelled version of the national anthem. I don't think I've ever seen that sung with such fervor in my lifetime, especcially not by the younger generation.

One thing that I did find very disapointing about this whole celebration was that there were many people who I know are not that political and just used this historic event as an excuse to get trashed on a Tuesday night. To each his own I guess. On another note, my Dad, who is a fervent Obama supporter, just had surgery and was on Vicatin when I called him. He was loving life to say the least =)

Skunk siting.

I have seen all sorts of new things while I was in Vermont. Almost all of them were in some was rewarding or beneficial. The other day I saw a skunk for the first time in my life, which apparently is not that big of a deal.

I was standing by Williams while talking on the phone around eleven o'clock. I was casually walking on the side walk minding my own business and I saw a skunk. I flipped out and ran very fast away from the scene. I did not get the memo that Skunks are not a vicious killers. I looked like a complete fool running away from what most of the people around Williams thought was a common occurrence. In a slight defence to my stupidity I ran because I did not want to get sprayed by the skunk or have to do something weird like take a bath in vinegar to get the smell out.

Next time I see a skunk now I know that it is really not a big deal, and I don't have to run away like the foot tall skunk will eat me alive. I understand that this is a really useless post to most people but to me a skunk siting is a big deal.

Obama happy riot

When Obama clenched the election I was ecstatically happy, but I did not expect the thrill of what was to come(even though I really should of, knowing that Vermont is the most liberal state in the nation). I heard some slight celebrations outside of Millis and me and a couple friends walked outside and realized we were joining a riot of joy.

We stepped outside with hundreds of UVM students running towards central campus chanting. The mob built up to over three thousand participants basically controlling the flow of traffic Burlington. The thing that I was so impressed with is the whole concept that a mass group of young people were chanting," U-S-A! U-S-A!" The students that were part of the spontaneous Obama rally really meant and felt like they were part of the United States of America. Maybe it is just because I did not believe in manyof the policies of the government in my lifetime, but I think that Obama did a pretty Damn good job of helping a majority of young people feel a since of patriotism(or at least what Obama stands for). In the rally we sang the national anthem not in the boring way (like when it is forced upon you in middle school) but we sang it with heart. I even saw a couple McCain supporters dancing and chanting for Obama.

The riot in Burlington was a once in a lifetime experienc. The rally at least felt like every thing in the United States would be okay. Completely contrary to the UVM rally, not to the people that loved Obama, a friend I have at the University of Georgia told me that it was a completely opposite reaction there. At the University of Georgia there was a small riot out of anger(they flipped and burned a car). I prefer the happy euphoric riot over that.

Holy Projectile Vomit, Batman!

Here is a true story. This really happened. Hold on to yourself. Be seated. Stop performing pilates.

This weekend I went to some Halloween parties (shocker?). The first was substance-free. We watched Evil Dead, Final Destination, the original Halloween, etc. Then I got bored with movies so I came back on campus (I had been in Essex Jct.) and went to a party here. One of my friends had been drinking for several hours and he (who stands about 5'5" and weighs maybe 120lbs) had apparently been drinking A LOT.

I was at the party for maybe 45 minutes (I was not in any way drunk, let me assure you) and was sitting on the bottom bunk when I hear my friend above me say "Someone get me a bag." He didn't say it loudly, but I heard his message loud and clear. My legs had been dangling, but within 1/2 of a microsecond, I had my legs up against my chest and was huddled far back on the bed to avoid the ensuing vomit-fest.

He vomited more than his own body weight, I am pretty sure. It was gross. Desk, floor, DVDs (even inside some cases, oddly) were covered. My shoes were across the room and somehow he got them too. It wasn't just projectile puking, either. It was a cross between the distance of a sniper rifle and the spread of a sawed-off shotgun (yes, I have been playing Fall Out 3).

The moral of the story: Leave before they vomit. If you leave after you have 'bailed' and if you don't leave after you have to help with cleanup, which can involve several hundred Kleenex tissues and one towel (that will disappear in the washer, never to be seen again).

I must admit, though. That amount of vomit was impressive. Five stars.

Lee is a douche.

How Stereotypes are formed?

Being from the south and coming to a northern school I am very aware of both the redneck community, and the stereotypes that a person that is not part of that community get when they come to Vermont. First of all let me explain that Atlanta is not part of the stereotypical community in the south that parades around with confederate flags, does snuff, and shoots squirrels off of there front porch(even though I would not mind doing that...squirrels suck). Atlanta is a huge city composed of "city-folk," just understand that.
The instance that I saw the other night at U-mall was both really funny and also enlightening to how some of the ideas people in the north form the ideas they do about people in the south. First of all where would you expect a group of rednecks to walk out of at a mall? They walked out of the Apple bee's, of all places these southern folk could of walked out of they chose the most stereotypical location. Also at the time it was snowing outside so when this southern family walked out of the Apple bee's they immediately started yelling very loudly,"Oh My God! It Is Snowing Outside." All of which is said in a very heavy southern accent. It is fine to yell about the snow, it is ridiculous that it is snowing right now. The thing that got to me was when this family kept on screaming about things that were not necessary, in fact I don't even know what they were screaming about because it was so uselessly loud. Everybody that was outside was starring at them and then the family said,"It's okay were from the south." That is the statement that really got me, I am not like that and I am from the south, but now a few of the people that were watching this situation will have the idea that most people from the south yell for no reason and have heavy accents. I do not have or do either of these things.
My heritage is southern, but in reality I am not a deep southern boy that has lived on a farm his whole life. I live in a massive city, that is very liberal and not in touch with there southern heritage. I am not disregarding my roots but I am also not part of the stereotypical apple bee's eating, Camo wearing farm boys that a lot of people seem to think that people from the south are.

Meet the lucky ones...bleh

Watching Meet the Lucky ones for a second time did not enhance much other then make me more mad . I disliked Stella even more for falling for such a creeper. Although There were only two things that noticed that were minutely different then when I watched this story in order.
The first thing that I noticed which probably has almost no significance is that Bill's pill subscription was able to be viewed in every episode. My guess to why the author of this story did this is to make sure that the reader understood that Bill had high blood pressure. I think I did not notice this because, I understood it the first time so the point of letting the audience read the prescription is unclear.
The second thing that watching Meet The lucky Ones again might of done for me is give me a clear since of how the family was related. Instead of watching them from left to right I watched each episode based on who was mentioned in the previous episode. That way I would see who was related to who more quickly. The First time I watched Meet the Lucky Ones I thought that Sharon was Stella's daughter, I did figure out that was wrong through watching Meet The Lucky Ones in an order that made since.
Maybe it is just because I am not very observant, but I really did not get much out of watching the episodes again. I found out one relatively important thing and one thing that did not matter at all to the story.

Meet the Lucky Ones... Again!

Okay, so after rewatching "Meet the Lucky Ones" for a second time and in a different order than I watched it the first time, I got absolutely no better understanding than if I had watched them again in the same order. The fragmented stories certainly had more nuance the second time because I already had a vague idea of what was going on in a general sense. I really don't think that watching them in order this time (as I watched them in a random order last time) enhanced anything. I am still not sure why Alice does her laundry in the driveway. I still don't know why Frank is such a miserly asshole. I still don't understand how Sharon giving her mom the car that she and Frank bought her makes her feel any better, as she is giving her the means to abandon her family. I still don't understand why Alice eats her damned ice cream cone so slowly that the ground gets more of it than she does. I still don't know to which side of the family Estelle belongs, nor why she has decided to compile a bucket list.

There are stil many unanswered questions, but I definitely got a better understanding of the semi-intelligible things in the story. I understood the family dynamics better, wasn't confused when Alan seemed to hit on the same woman twice (mother and daughter, duh!!), I picked more up on how much of an asshole Frank is.

The real question, though, is why a Danish exchange student has two coconut-whatevers. There are no coconuts in Denmark. Also: why don't they tie into the story at all? They are on center stage on the welcome screen before you select an episode...

WHY?!?!

Also: How is this a commercial? They never once try to convince you to do anything, let alone buy a car. They mostly try to convince you to try to kill yourself when you see Alan and kill others when you see Frank.

End Transmission.

Personal Understanding

The Understanding entries, to me, speak of someone who made a mistake that really wasn't their fault and then coming to own the finality of their decision without owning that it really wasn't their fault. When Ben Peek turned the car away from the truck to make it so that he wouldn't be hit, he wasn't actively trying to kill Geraldine Lee. He just jerked the wheel where he felt he would be safest, as any human would.

That he thought "fuck you" is irrelevant as even he doesn't specify what he was "fuck you"-ing. The survival instinct saved him, but he holds it against himself. In the picture of the eyes, his eyes reflect the full realization that he killed Geraldine, whom he loved, and that she would never be coming back. The understanding was false, though, in that it did not take into account that he really didn't plan on her death. Turning the wheel so that she was hit was the best option, really, when one considers that as both the side of the car with the wheel and the side of the road people drive on is backward, him turning the wheel as he did would have him moving empirically away from the oncoming truck. Thus it is plausible that he was just trying to get the entire car away from the truck.

On an unrelated note, the Personal Diary Entries were a good insight into Ben Peek's thoughts about Geraldine and life in general. The only personal diary entry that wasn't written on Oct. 12, Ben's birthday, was written shortly before Geraldine was killed. Ben had gotten a book deal and was happy and he and Geraldine were going out to celebrate. Then they somehow became pissed at each other and were driving home angry. Geraldine and her unborn baby were both killed in the crash (actually revealed in "X is where you sign your name"). Ben goes througha deep depression on his birthday, where he doesn't feel his life matters.

That's important.

The fact that he feels guilt and remorse on the day he is officially one year older is important because the guilt most likely stems from the thought that he will continue to get older but Geraldine will not. This guilt is compounded by the fact that he only sees himself as respsonsible for the accident.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. You may disagree. I may not care. That sounds harsh. I do care, really. But just a little. Don't take it personally. I never go back on an idea once I have ideated it. Forget that noise.

Finally, and on a happier note:



That only gets funny after a few minutes.

I don't understand

First of all if any one reads this post please understand that I am really not sure what Ben Peeks Understanding entries are meant to do. From what I gathered in the two understanding entries/pictures is that even though G's death hurts and depresses him Ben Peek he has to understand that G is gone.
I think that the second understanding post is what really helped me figure out what I thought the meaning of The two understanding posts were. It shows Ben Peek looking over after waking up and seeing that G is not there. The picture shows that G's spot is imprinted on the bed next to Peek. I think the eyes in the first entry represent his look of sadness and understanding that he is expressing in the second entry on understanding. It is doubtful that after G has been gone for so long that there is still an obvious imprint of her presence still on the bed, but the picture is meant to help the reader understand what Ben Peek is feeling. I think that the first entry of the picture of the eyes is purely a connection to the second entry, just more intimate.
I think that using a picture like Peek does in the two understanding entries can truly help the reader grasp his feelings, and also visualize what the characters look like. With out a picture the whole message the Peek is presenting could be presented too directly. Finally if I analyzed this at all correctly then the two pictures are used simply to help the reader understands Peeks thoughts.

Lord of the Skim

Okay, so this weekend I had to take an online reading quiz for Racial and Ethnic Geographies in the United States. That's GEOG 060, if you were wondering. I have had to do several, and they are always 2 weeks apart. Due to the midterm, though, we had one moved and one other was devoted entirely to a book we were to have read, "The Fire Next Time" by James Baldwin (a decent book, I might add).

Well, due to one thing or another, I had somehow gotten 3 weeks behind on readings. The fact that I have a ridiculous English teacher who assigns books all willy-nilly didn't help at all, let me add.

In any event, I digress (what's new?). I had to catch up on 3 weeks' worth of readings and take the quiz this morning in anticipation of class tomorrow at 9 a.m. (Fleming 101 if you are interested in sitting in). I read all of the readings but the last (it was 15 pages long and I'd been reading for a VERY long time).

I scored a 90. Nice!

Moral of the story: It's alright to slack, as long as you are an excellent skimmer.

Also: this is a video called "Driving on Salvia" and it is hilarious. Don't be appalled when you see it. They had no intention of driving. Note the duct tape over the ignition.



Quite droll!

The Worst Building On Campus

Yesterday when waking out of the horror show that is the Billings Lecture Hall Basement, I asked myself, what is the worst overall building on campus? The logical answer was under my feet but I decided to think a little more. Perhaps it was the nondescript Rowell with its cramped boxes that serve as excuses for lecture halls. Unfortunately my train of thought was abruptly cut short as I walked back to Athletic Campus. The answer of course, was right in front of me.

As I rounded the corner, I glimpsed a mammoth and hulking geometric shape that could probably best be descriped as a some sort of rhombus or trapezoid plopped in between the life science building and Cook Commons. This building is of course the Angell Lecture Hall. I'm not quite sure what the architect was thinking and/or what he was experimenting with when he had the great idea of inundating an otherwise gorgeous section of campus with possibly one of the worst examples of architecture that Vermont has witnessed this past century, making most of the residence halls look like contemporary masterpieces of building design. He successfully integrated the worst elements of early seventies/late sixties design with a experimental Geometry survey gone horribly wrong. 

The next time you're walking out of Cook or anywhere else in the area, take a moment to visualize that area without that geometrical abomination that is Angell. You will be surprised at how temporarily euphoric you feel upon visualizing this blissful state. Unfortunately, you will soon return to the painful reality that Angell is still there and is probably not going anywhere fast.

Ben Peek and the Letter "C"

I will post what I wrote in class in response to the question: Which entry in "Twenty Six Lies/One Truth" have you enjoyed the most so far? I think we may be the only blog group where every member chose the same entry or entries. I chose the entire "C" chapter in general with some emphasis on the seventh entry.

My favorite entry/chapter was definitely the "C" chapter. This is by no means based upon the sheer profanity or the shock factor. I actually found his argument about why the "C-word" is considered so offensive in our society, where as other words are seen as less offensive when they actually might be just as, if not more, profane or demeaning. Speaking from personal experience, I have never used the "C-word" in the presence of a woman, However, I have seen other males do so to disastrous effect. Adversely I've never took much offense to something like "dickhead" which is pretty much a masculine equivilent, so I see his point.

I especially enjoyed the passage from the seventh entry where he argues that females should be offended by the offensiveness of the word, and that some feminists have already made this point. His justification is as follows "If someone was to tell me that my cock was considered the physical manifestation of the foulest word in the English language. I'd be pretty fucking pissed off" I think he makes a pretty good case.

On another note, the eight entry in that chapter is a little bit suspect on a couple of different levels.

The great escape

I am usually not a fan of writing about "what happened to me this weekend," but this is one of the few times that I believe it is a worthy event for such an entry. To introduce the situation I went home this weekend and got trapped in a very unfortunate situation.
While in Atlanta I was visiting one of my friends at her house around two in the morning. She is still a high school student, and is forced to sneak out after twelve. So in other words I was not supposed to be in her house at two in the morning, so as we were leaving her mom woke up, which is usually not a big deal. The problem is that this time when she woke up she immediately went to the kitchen and set the alarm, forcing me to find a new route out of the house(which requires no doors and most of the windows are off limits). We frantically searched for a way for me to exit the stronghold that I was trapped in. There was only one window that was able to be opened in the whole house, that was in a rather extreme spot.
The window is located on a very steep incline on the roof which is around twenty feet off the ground. I climbed out shaking, and I realized that the only way that could get down is to get to a lower part on the roof. This required me to clear a five foot gap between one part of the roof to the other. Once I did that my escape was far from over, I still needed to find a way to climb off of the roof, which was still around fifteen feet off the ground. I experimented with hanging off the gutter and climbing down(the gutter almost fell off), also I tried to use the tips of my fingers to scale the bricks of the house down(once again I failed). Finally I realized that the only way to get to the ground and finally escape was to dive into a tree about five feet off the roof. I dove off the roof grappling the tree any way I could and slid to the ground(note that I had to do all of this in my socks because NO ONE can where shoes in the house).
After I reached a safe spot on the ground I immediately realized that having the alarm set on the house is much more dangerous then just not setting it. Really my friends mother is causing much more danger to what ever misdeeds the five girls in the house could be doing if they just snuck out the front door.

Lots and Lots o' Cuntries

Yes. I do like the portmanteau of "cunt" and "entries."

Ben Peek likes the infamous "c word," and so it is in this spirit that I will only be slightly squeamish about using the word cunt in this entry. Test the waters with it. Write a loveletter about it. Whatever.

Okay, so here is what I wrote on that scrapule of paper in class:

My favorite entry in Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth was the entire Cunt chapter. All of the entries had the same title, so I cannot easily distinguish one from another, but here is a summarizing rundown of the damned thing: Man likes word, "cunt;" man has students use word; man uses as insult; man uses as term of endearment; man has homosexual acquaintance who pretended to have a cunt for online sex channel; man goes into in-depth etymological discussion of cunt; man admits he is fascinated with word cunt; man doesn't like word slurry (nasty); man talks about puissance of cunt in other countries; cuntcuntcunt"

Then when I went back and looked, I was pretty much right, give or take some details. Those were irrelevant. Well, not really irrelevant, but less stand-outish. I really wrote as much. But is isn't droll. So I won't share it. How much more cuntries do you really want to hear about, anyway?

That about wraps it up. Just one last thing for you:



Fun, neh?

Tales about Tales

So last night some friends and I decided that there could be nothing better than staying in and watching the original Tales from the Crypt movie. I have seen it several times, and Amelia had heard of it, but Matt, Pat, Casey, Chris and Hannah were entirely in the dark about it.

Many people have seen the series or the other movies. Those that have remember the Cryptkeeper looking something like this:



Yeah, he looks like a champion. He is.

The old Cryptkeeper is more flesh-oriented. He is similarly a badass, but more humanly so. He tends to look more like this:



Despite an entire lack of illegal substance, this movie was damn good. I have seen it quite a bit recently and have to say that without Amelia and Hannah to set the mood, the movie would not have been scary. There was a scene where a homicidal maniac dressed as Santa reached through a grate to grab at a woman. It has reflex-action and a little jumping potential, but by and large it isn't scary. Hannah screamed. Amelia, who was reaching for the popcorn that Hannah was holding, screamed because Hannah screamed. I was sitting close to Amelia. When she screamed, that caused me to start and nearly fall out of my chair, as well as sacaring Chris. Casey admits he jumped as well.

That was the first of the five stories in the anthology. That scream set the mood and the movie, featuring zombies, wishes gone awry and killer animals/blind people, creeped everyone out to greater or lesser extent.

Anyway, the moral of the story: If watching a vaguely scary/creepy old horror anthology, bringg a few jumpy girls. They know how to set the tone.

Ben Peek entry

My favorite Ben Peek entry of course, was in chapter c. The reason I chose this entry is because it makes a good point in a clever funny way. The entry that I chose is the one where Ben Peek points out that it should be offending to women since the foulest word in English refers to female genitals.
Number one I agree with the point that it is offending or at least should be to women that Cunt is the worst word in the English dictionary. I loved the example when Peek imagines how he would feel if Cock was the worst word in the English dictionary. Using that example helps the male reader get a grasp on Peeks reasoning.
The second thing that I liked about this entry is that it is about the word Cunt. I have always thought that it is really offending, but never new why it should be so offending. Peek cleverly pointed out the real reason why cunt should be offending. Also I thought that this entry expressed Ben Peeks voice well. Overall I really liked chapter C. I am not sure if it is because I think the word Cunt is funny or if it is because of Ben Peeks thoughts on the word. Which ever it is section C is defiantly my favorite section.

Not So Hippie Any More

On Monday night I was nuzzled in between two six foot five skin heads covered in fake blood and other bodily fluids that I do not need to name. Where did I find this odd scenario? No where else but the Gwar concert. This theatrical and "hard core" show features the band Gwar (outer space beings that come to take over the world through heavy metal music), numerous thrash dancers, skin heads, an imitated slaughter of all the presidential candidates(plus Hilary), and of course being sprayed with many alien fluids.
I had no idea what to expect at this head banging, blood spraying concert. In the very beginning of the show I was thrown into a mosh pit where I was introduced to thrash dancing, which is absolutely the dumbest type of dance I have ever seen. Thrash dancing involves flailing every limb of your body in any place you like, with complete disregard to the people around you. One of the thrash dancers in this pit kept dancing in front of me almost knocking me out multiple times. I ended up having to plant a firm kick to his spine to make him stop freaking out in front of me. After the thrash dancing incident the concert was actually quite entertaining. When the band came out, they introduced the idea that the alien band was running for president, and they were going to have to kill the entire audience.
After Gwar informed the audience that the band is running for president, they brought out dummies of all the political candidates(excluding Ralph Nader which is relevant since he is excluded from all debates) and either cut their head off spraying red water all over the crowd, or did something a bit more gruesome in Hilary's case. Those were not the only fake murders of the show, Gwar also murdered multiple other persona's such as a skin head and a hippie. At this point in the show I was covered in red from head to toe in the very front row squeezed between two huge skin heads. By the end of the show I was so hot I was begging for more fake murders so that I could cool off with the cool fluids(never thought that I would say that sentence).

My wish was granted when the lead singer eject fake heroin into his penis, which then started spraying cold green water all over the crowd. Really the water was mainly sprayed on me because I was in the very front and the singer did not make an attempt to spray it all over the crowd...So I was being hit directly by the green stream for around five minutes. Even though this concert sounds disgusting, it was quite an experience and I had an amazing time seeing the insanity of a Gwar concert.

I don't like Sociology

First of all if you are a sociology major then don't read this post or judge me by it. Maybe I hate sociology so much because it is just an intro level class and all of those suck. I don't think that is the case, mainly because I think I am getting the general idea of what I believe sociology is. Sociology is the science of putting names to things that you either already know or you (or at least I) don't care about. Sociology is a nightmare class that is as broad as the mass media. THE MASS MEDIA!
In this class we learn things like the news creates symbols not reality. Wow.. thank you for making a simple idea sound so complicated. The news creates ideas by covering something a certain way, obviously it can not create reality because it is only showing reality. I took notes on what a "public sphere" is and how it work. A "public Sphere" is really a large scale debate for a community where people get together and talk about problems in that community... or a completely worthless term. This term "public sphere" really is putting a name to something that I do not need a name for and I already know what the idea is.
This sociology of the mass media has taught me one very important thing that I will use for the rest of my college experience. I will never take another sociology course no matter what it takes. This class is miserable either because I am to stupid or I really just do not care about the large assortment of useless terms that are being forced into my mind. Who knows though, maybe later in the year sociology and I will some how bond and I will fall in love, maybe major in it... Which is as likely as me growing wings, and even if I did grow those wings as a sociology major I would most fly to hell.

Alice in Italy

Alright. First of all, enough with the Wonderland crap. Alice here, Alice there. Lewis Carroll turns in his grave. Not really, though (Interestingly enough, he died just two weeks before turning 66).

Okay, but now I must actually post something about Inanimate Alice. I really did not like the first one. The interactive elements in the China episode left a lot to be desired. Namely, interactivity.

The second one, then, is my favorite. The interactive nature really shone through and I was part of the story (the bike took me ages to finish because I just kept clicking on the back tire and expected it to solve itself...) and felt involved. Much more so than in the first.

This story, in Italy (as I am sure you know) was cool because essentially we have a kid in Italy specifically to ski/snowboard and then, somehow, forgets to go to ski school. That seems odd considering that was all that the kid had on her agenda that day and she was supposedly REALLY looking forward to it. (As an aside, the ski lifts were closed that day. How was ski school supposed to work?) It's good that I think logical flaws add character to a work. Really.

In any event, this child's parents are gone for the day and, scared, Alice the 10-year-old decides that there is no one better to call than her tutor in Saudi Arabia. Because she will be able to do a lot.

Anyway, it was also odd that when you are solving the bike puzzle you are told "You can't have any supper until you've solved my puzzle." To whom was that directed? I would easily have had supper without finishing the puzzle. It was for her dad, but she can't really tell her dad when he can / cannot have dinner, either. She's cheeky.

Anyway, it was fun and the abrupt ending which showed Alice as exactly as paranoid as the people in the beginning who called her paranoid was awesome.

That last bit was hard to understand, even for me. Sorry.

Anyway. I am done.

Oh! Here is an amusing video, courtesy of YouTube. The funny bit is the host's reaction to the event. Enjoy! I do. Often.

Why Alice's Soundtrack Kicked Ass

Honestly I wasn't a huge fan of this whole Alice business, it seemed like one of Steve's adventures gone very wrong (See "The Adventure of Steve" for reference) with some scarring childhood expieriences and a lot of death thrown in.. What really caught my attention was the fusion of two very different musical genres as the soundtrack. 

 

Lets be honest, how many of us have actually dabbled in ElectronOpera (Yeah, thats a real genre name, No I didn't make it up). I admire explorations in music, especially when people are combining elements of music that we don't usually see together. Example: "Contradanza", everybody's favorite juxtaposition of classical violin with techno. It was just pointed out in class that this ElectronOpera bears a resemblance to the "Diva Dance" in "The Fifth Element" (you may or may not think this movie is complete trash, if anything else, its damn entertaining). 

They should release a compilation of this stuff on iTunes. I wouldn't buy it. Some people might though. Apparently people buy the High School Music soundtracks, so as far as I'm concerned, pretty much anything can sell.

favorite inanimate Alice

My favorite inanimate Alice was definitely the one when the family was in Moscow. I thought that this story was the best because of the plot twists that actually seemed to mean something, not like some of the other episodes. Also I really like the doll finding game.
The reason that I say the plot twists in this one were better, is because something horrific actually did happen to the family. I don't mean that I just hate Alice and her family, I just wanted something to actually happen, instead of almost happening. In most of the other episodes before this one something would almost happen but then it would be resolved. In Moscow how ever the family actually was forced to move away from Moscow, and change their life style completely.
The second thing that I really liked about the Moscow episode was the option to play the catching Russian doll game. Not only did it make me interested and enthralled in finding all of the dolls, but if you did not find them then you as the viewer would influence the story. In a way the doll game gave the viewer a since of control in the story. Also I thought that it was a cool way to relate to why Alice's player was so important to her. The player helped Alice not focus on all of the bad things going on around her by tuning into the player and tuning out the world. In a way the Doll game helped the viewer see how Alice used the player, by forcing the reader to play a game that was on the player as a side note to the story. I really have no idea if that is what the writer of this story was trying to accomplish with the doll game, but that is what I gathered.
I thought that inanimate Alice was done well in the since that it did leave you hanging on what the family will do next. Also it left the viewer wanting to know more about the family back ground and personal information. I could really relate and feel what Alice was thinking and feeling through the way the story was told.

Digital Story: Finally

I hate technology. Although I got through actually making this thing all right. It has taken me the past two days to finally figure out how to get this final version up. On another note if you could not watch this.....yeah......... that'd be great..........mmmkay

Oh, and by the way

Most of you seemed confused about 5 minutes ago (i.e. 3:59 p.m. EDT) when I assaulted Parent about our subtitle/tagline.

I said "No. It was definitely "'The truth shall make you flee!' by Terry Pratchett. And on day two you were like, 'I like that. I like Terry Pratchett.' And then I was like, 'Good. You don't have to die. I have since changed that opinion."

Not whatever ~reparent thought I said. But I don't repeat myself normally. I just smile like a creeper until people laugh and change the topic.

Um, that's really all that I have to say.

All This Fuggin' Musical Chairs

Alright. I am not an unreasonable person. That's a lie. I am rather unreasonable. But it's also irrelevant. I am not here to talk about my reasonableness. I am here to talk about the seat changes in English.

You probably aren't very irked by them at all. I am. I have sat at good ol' laptop 20 for the majority of the semester. The one a row behind it didn't work for me, so on day two I moved to laptop twenty (codename Harriet. Not Tubman) and it was like a match made in heaven. She and I got along so well. As with all good things, though, Professor Parent crushed my blossoming relationship.

"Everyone move somewhere drastically different," the order rang out through the classroom. The tone was leaden, unmoving, cold and callous. All the pleas (I think I was the only plea-er) were for naught. So I moved to the back of the room like some kind of second-class citizen in exile.

It wasn't a happy moment, but after half the class I was getting settled in and happy (ish) with my new place in life. There was the benefit of ~reparent not being able to sneak up behind me unless he can somehow move through walls (which I, oddly, don't doubt). Even so, I missed Harriet. My new laptop (whom I shall call Gertrude) was nice and fairly identical to Harriet (though there was just something special about Harriet) but at the same time, we didn't click. We were just finding our groove when class ended.

Sad face?

I can back to class about 20 minutes ago, and surprise surprise, ~reparent made us move again! To a "dramastically" different spot (Damn you, portmanteaus! Some words don't need to be fused!). Now I am at laptop number 13. How lucky.

I will be level with you. I don't like it. But I did like "The Lazer Collection" on YouTube (Produced by DFear Studios). As well as its sequel. Here is the video. Enjoy. I did.

The Longest Game

This Redsox-Angels game has the lasted the entire damn night. Officially kill any prospect of having a truly productive Sunday night. Needless to say this makes me rather angry with both myself and the Sox for not being able to lock it up. I just now realized that I forgot to email my blog tally earlier in the weekend and am feeling like a major slacker. If they can't close it out tonight then we at least have Lester probably for the next game and he was absolutely dominant in the later innings of the season opener. As I am writing this the Angels have scored a run.............

FML

On another note, my roommate's younger brother was up this weekend. We had a good time.I know that he had a good time, I just hope he can remember some if it and will then apply to UVM Parent's Weekend rocks. Even if your parents don't come. Speaking of which one of my roommates parents decided to come up on Saturday night at around 9 pm. We had to put our closet door back on in a hurry, I think most other college students should know why. 

I guess I didn't completely waste my weekend away, I hiked Camel's Hump on Saturday. It was good hike and the view would have been awesome if the summit wasn't in a rain cloud. Despite that it was still a good hike, I even got to see snow for the first time in a while.

Jesus H, it's almost 1 AM.....time to go

The Good Medicine

This is my completed digital story.

And You Thought Your Life Sucked...

Well, this video has taught me several things. I hate Macintosh computers, and I think that video editing software shouldn't be so ridiculous about importing and exporting things so that things are flattened like when you save a photoshop image and it gets flattened.

Then you go to edit them later and you can't really do a good job.

End.

Oh yeah, I guess I ought to include the video. I will, but I strongly advise you to not watch it or to watch it with your eyes and ears covered. Or kill yourself first. You will probably want to afterward.

In any event, enjoy (?)

Name of the Game: Broomball

Tonight I had my first experience with the UVM exclusive game of Broomball. The team that I am on was formed at a floor meeting by a bunch of freshman who had no idea what the hell it was. This lack of experience was clear during our first exhibition at Gutterson earlier this night. As far as I could tell its pretty much floor/field hockey on ice, this is much more difficult than it sounds

We got to the Gut at around 8:00, led by our fearless leader Ralph, we numbered 8 guys and four girls. This would eventually result in some incongruities in playing time due to the rule in Co-Rec that their must be three of each on the ice at all times. The proceeding two fifteen minute halves were nothing short of painful yet hilarious to watch. The long and short of it is that we lost 2-0 at the hands of a much smaller and mildly more experienced team. It was certainly frustrating as a guy and not being able to play much but I took solace in knowing that no one could really do any better than the other at this stage in our careers.

Despite our brutal opening loss, Broomball was an otherwise enjoyable experience. The brass band in th stands playing fight songs definitely added to the ambience in a half serious way.At the end of this I found my self wondering: Who came up with this idea? My hypothesis is that this sport was founded with the aid of some *ahem* external influences on some creative UVM students from years past. I certainly hope our season picks up after this initial set back.

Sleep Control

Since I was young I have always been a out of control sleeper. Ever since I was a baby I would do strange things when I woke up or while I slept. My out of control sleeping was re-emphasized this weekend on a canoe trip. My friends back home always told me about the ridiculous things that I did and said when I was sleeping, but this is the first incident in Vermont.
First of all back home I did weird things like sleep walking, talking, and the two were usually combined.
One of my friends told me about one instance where I stomped around my basement(and his head) screaming profanities looking for the bathroom, in my own house, while he laid frightened below me. My parents also noted one instance when we were on vacation in Wyoming and they thought I called someone in my sleep just to yell every profanity know to man at this imaginary caller. Every time something like this has happened I already know the people. Even sometimes though with my best of friends my odd sleep habits can be embarrassing. For instance once I woke up with my hands grasping each one of my best friends butt cheeks. Of course it was very surprising to my friend to find my hands on his butt. Still I know him very well and it is hard to really surprise him. Camping this weekend I definitely did not know everyone.
While camping we slept in a row of six under a tarp on the ground. I rolled out from under the tarp three times during the night. All three times it happened to be raining slightly. Waking up three separate times mildly wet was not what I expected. All three times I fondled the girl that was sleeping next to me(in this case above me) legs looking for my flashlight. When the girl woke up to this guy she did not know touching her legs it did not look like I was looking for my flashlight, that was embarrassing to say the least. The worst part I don't even remember, I was just told by the girl that I assaulted. During an obviously deep sleep I rolled on top of the girls legs and stayed there until she eventually woke up because she lost feeling in her legs. She pushed me off and I continued my psychotic slumber. I don't know if these odd sleep habits will ever be a real problem but I will continue to freak people out I do not know while I am gently sleeping.