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.