Again?!

New post on the other blog people. And it's serious* business.

go here soon!!!

Merry Christmas (again!)

Lowering your electricity bill the old fashioned way!

You wanted it? You got it!!

I told you last time that I was going to be publishing a running series on how to make life entertaining when you’re poor and in graduate school. If you’ll recall, the theme of part one was something like “Take Joy in Making Others Happy”: it doesn’t cost you anything, and it makes you feel good! The theme of the second in a cavalcade of awesome blogs is something akin to “Making Your Heating Bill Go Further.”

I was thinking about this topic the other day as I was scanning my electricity bill. For those of you living North of the Mason Dixon Line, down in the South a lot of the heating apparatuses for the winter run on electricity…not gas. It’s a blessing and a curse. So my electricity bill is getting higher and higher as winter rolls in, and I’m starting to have flashbacks about my nightmare apartment on Elm Street (search the archives here…the Elm St. Blogs are classics, people). I’d love to be able to turn my heat down, but if you know anything about me you know I hate to be cold. After reviewing my bill, which was starting to climb into nosebleed territory, I decided to chill out and take a shower.

Now, taking a shower in my apartment isn’t necessarily the greatest experience one can have. The water pressure is just one notch above “slow trickle”, and in order to get my shower “hot” I have to turn the “hot water” handle completely on, and sort of jimmy the “freezing water” handle a little bit to get an adequate amount of hot water. If I give the cold handle even a quarter turn, the cold water completely eclipses what little heat my water heater can produce. But what’s awesome about it is that the hot water kicks on right away and the cold water doesn’t start until about 3 minutes later. So on many occasions I’ve been in the shower thinking it was the right temperature, only to have my wonderfully warm shower turn into an ice bath. It’s as alarming as it sounds, let me tell you. The only good news here is that my landlord pays for the water heating element in my apartment, so thankfully that’s not part of my utility bill.

Since I can never really seem to get the temperature right in the shower, what I’ve started doing is just not turning on the cold water. I know what you’re thinking: “Andrew, that would probably make the shower dangerously warm…I don’t know if that’s a good idea”. Well, it does and it’s not. But while I was standing under scalding hot water the other evening, I realized that I could solve my lukewarm shower AND outlandish electricity bill ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!!! Think about this: When was the last time you were in a hot tub? Probably pretty recently. Hot tubs are great not only because you can relieve yourself in them and no one knows, but also because after about 20 minutes in the hot tub, you are REALLY hot. When you get out of the hot tub, do you instantly become cold (provided you’re not in a hot tub outside when the weather is terribly cold)? NO! Your core body temperature rises and you stay relatively warm for at least 20 more minutes.

This is the crux of my story people! I found out that by standing in a shower emitting dangerously hot water, my core body temperature was being raised! Consequently, whenever I got out of the shower I was pretty warm! If you have read the last few sentences and observed the inordinate number of exclamation points which I have used, you can get a sense for how excited all of this made me!!! What I am now starting to do is when I wake up in the morning, I turn my heat off. I quickly run to the shower and turn the “hot water” knob on. I then take a painful shower, but afterwards I’m able to get dressed, eat breakfast, and get out the door to class without being cold! It’s a miracle!!!! I won’t know how well my plan works until next month, but I’m sure it’s going to lower my electricity bill a little bit. That way, if I leave my heat off ALL day, whenever I come back to my apartment all I have to do is hop in the shower for about 10 minutes to get all roasty toasty, and then I won't mind the period of coldness where my apartment is starting to warm up. I think my idea is just shy of "genius" level, but somewhere above "legendary" status.

That's all for this installment of helpful tips for you struggling kids out there. Make sure you stay tuned for more insight, "learning by doing" life experiences, and an update on when you can catch Andrew in a town near you (i.e. maybe I'll get to see some of you rascals over Christmas).

Until then, Merry Christmas (not Haunakah or Kwanzaa)

"This one's on the house"

Hello friends!

I just wanted to drop by to make a re-appearance on the old faithful blog. I'm going to link this blog from my other blog so hopefully everyone will come over and read the genius that is "Keith and Andrew Fight Back!" Speaking of Keith, where is that kid anyway?! You make sure he comes back and blogs. But for now, take THIS!!!!!!




Back when I was in college the first time, I learned very quickly that just because something’s ‘on the house’ it does not automatically mean it’s a good thing. It could be a good thing, in the following examples:
1) You get a free beer from your favorite bartender (“Hey, Smith, it’s on the house”)
2) Someone does you a favor (“Don’t worry, Smith, there’s no charge”)

But consider:

3) Some 6’4” inebriated college senior startles you awake at 3 in the morning because he wants to jump into your bunk bed, cuddle, and then twist your nipple (“Smith! Smith, don’t worry, this is on the house I promise”).

When I think of the phrase “It’s on the house”, this is the scenario that comes to my mind. Welcome to my sophomore year of college, and while we’re here let me also introduce you to Foust, my senior suite-mate. Foust taught me a lot about life. He taught me that some people actually do get fired up about hockey. He taught me how to structure my scholastic priorities (“SMITH!!! 10 years from now are you going to want to say that you STUDIED all Wednesday night or that you got to hang out with FOUST at BENJAMIN’S?!!?!!). He also taught me the value of respecting people older than you (“SMITH!!! If we don’t get some food on the way home, I’m going TO KILL YOU!!!!”). And above all, Foust taught me how to make sure that when you’re going to do something to someone that they probably won’t enjoy, it’s best to preface your action with phrases like “Hey, this is going to be on the house”. It makes them feel better, I guess.

Fast forward now to, well, right now. For the better part of 4 years I’ve been slinging the phrase “It’s on the house” or “There’s no charge for that” around whenever I feel like doing something that someone isn’t going to like. At this point I say and don’t think about it. But lately it’s sort of been troubling me for two reasons:

1) I say it to people who can’t hear me.
2) I think it’s funny

Let me tell you whenBeing as that I live by myself, sometimes I forget that my road faces one of the busiest intersections in Boone, North Carolina. Every single day, at every single minute of the day the roar of traffic from the intersection of routes 421 and 105 fills my apartment. Since I live by myself, and since I don’t have anyone to tell me otherwise, sometimes I forget that when I’m changing my clothes, everyone outside can see me. In fact, not only can the people who are stopped in traffic look right into my window and see me, but the people at the car wash across the street can also see me. It’s great to be the center of attention all of the time, but I doubt that the people across the street who have just seen a flash of Andrew in his underwear feel the same. It’s amazing how desensitized I’ve become to it! Every morning I do my usual routine: wake up, open the blinds to see if it’s still raining, scratch my chest, yawn, stand there for a while, and then go get a shower. Inevitably, some guy in a car looks up at me and quickly turns away. Or sometimes the lady with her kids, who is washing her Ford Windstar is staring up at me all offended like. It’s usually when our eyes meet that I realize that I have no pants on, and that these people are probably none too happy for having seen me in my britches.

This is the entertaining part, people. Since I’ve become so used to being on display for everyone to see, what I usually do when people spot me is point at them, give them a little head nod and mouth the words “That’s on the house!” I usually get a big kick out of it, and chuckle to myself thinking “that person just got a free show…lucky”. It seriously happens all the time. I’m changing for class…BAM I’m spotted, and that’s on the house! I’m getting in the shower, WHAM how about THAT for a view and of course there’s no charge for that! I feel like I’m in the Red Light District in Amsterdam what with all these cars whizzing by and people gawking at me. But the main difference is there’s no charge at my house! It isn’t until about 5 minutes later that I realize how retarded I am (or “MR” or “special” or whatever the preferred nomenclature is these days). It really isn’t that funny, but it gets me every time.

So after years of incorporating Foust language into my vernacular, and after just 3 months of living in a one bedroom apartment, this is what I’ve resorted to: entertaining myself by making nonsensical quips to people who can’t hear me and who probably don’t want to see me either. I guess it’s all just as well…we have to entertain ourselves somehow. And in case you haven’t guessed by now, this is just ONE blog of MANY which will give you tips on how to entertain yourself if you are a poor graduate student living in a rural mountain town. Stay tuned, because there’s nowhere else to go from here but up.

And speaking of looking up, if you were driving by my apartment this morning…that one was on the house.

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

I've been blogging about how horrible the South is. You've all read my opinion (probably five times since I'm so slow). But before finishing this series, something got my ire up again. I can't stand it. I know you all want to hear about what could take me twenty minutes at a Dairy Queen ... and still end up without CHOCOLATE FREAKING ICE CREAM!!!! Be patient kids. Very patient. I have another tale to tell. One that smacks of ...

JIBBS! Yes that's right, the rapper Jibbs, commonly referred to as, "Young Jibbs" so as not to be confused with the other widely known, "Old Jibbs." Give me a freaking break. Jibbs has decided to grace the musical world with a new, "hit" single. He shows off his musical prowess with his song, "Chain Hang Low."

I have a couple gripes about the song, past the first that it obviously sucks something terrible.

1.) The song's beat and chorus are off the old children's song, "Do your ears hang low?" If you want to establish some credibility, say I don't know, writing your own music, and then do a cover ... go for it. But to start your musical career with a sample that someone else did all the work for ... c'mon man! Forget you! That's so weak!

2.) The beat. I could have made this simplistic baby beat with a keyboard, a block of wood, and a spoon. Seriously. Give me a production room and five dollars. I'll top this one.

3.) Your name is YOUNG FREAKING JIBBS!

4.) The lyrics of this song. I know rap isn't all about the lyrics, but let's look at some quick excerpts. (These are off his website by the way ...) MY COMMENT IN CAPSLOCK!

"my chain hang
all it do iz blang blang,
have blue have red
like my diamonds gang bang
and don evn thank
we on tha same thing
charms so heavy they couldn' lift it till the crane came"


CHARMS SO HEAVY THEY COULDN' LIFT IT TILL THE CRANE CAME! WHAT THE HECK DOES THAT MEAN! HOW DOES YOUR NECK HOLD THIS CHAIN?!?!

"(chain)Yeah yeah yeah yeah
I'm so icy (do yo chain)
my trunk so heavy that my neck dont like me (do yo chain)"

MY NECK DON'T LIKE ME! I HATE YOU TOO!

"my music give u a black eye
cuz of the beating
they think i am a mutant
they way a boy iz beasting (chain chain chain chain)
i stay when n sometime u a call it cheating
yeah my boyz alwayz around
like iz a mee-ting"

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START!!!!! THANKS FOR EXPLAINING WHY I HAVE A BLACK EYE. I GOT A BEATING FROM YOUR MUSIC. A MUTANT APPARENTLY IS BEASTING. I MISSED THAT IN GRADE SCHOOL. MY BOYZ ALWAYZ AROUND LIKE IZ A MEE-TING!!! WE FORGOT HOW TO SPELL MEETING APPARENTLY WITHOUT A DASH. I'M SO ANGRY MY HEART JUST EXPLODED I THINK!!!!!

FINALLY THE CHORUS

"(Do your chain hang low
do it wobble to da flo
do it shine n n the light
iz it platinum iz it gold
could u throw it ov'r ya shoulda
if ya hott it make ya cold
do your chain hang low)"

WE'RE DOING OK UNTIL IF YA HOTT IT MAKE YA' COLD. GRANTED YOU RIPPED OFF A CHILDREN'S SONG FOR THE BEAT OF YOUR CHORUS, BUT HOW DOES A CHAIN IF YA HOTT MAKE YA COLD?!?! PLUS EARLIER HE SAYS THE CHAIN HANGS 24 STINKING INCHES!!!!! HOW ARE YOU THROWING THAT OVER YOUR SHOULDER!

Anyway I'm so pissed that this song is on the radio. I can't believe it was produced. I can't believe people like it. Scratch that ... I'm ashamed for my country that people like this. It's a top four download on freaking iTunes now for like three days straight!!!! What is wrong with you people?!?! Go find a friend that has it, listen to it, and then punch them in the face for liking it!

That is all for now. I'm going to listen to some wholesome music!!!! Anything not by Young Jibbs!

2nd and 3rd Levels

The 2nd level, of Dante's Hell that is, would be not just entering the South, but having to stay there for a few days. The levels become progressively worse and involve having conversations, staying longer, and purchasing property. So for the purpose of this blog ... I traversed the 2nd and 3rd levels of hell.

When you left me last time I was leaving, NAY FLEEING, the state line of West Virginia. We continued to drive through North and South Carolina until reaching our destination; Savannah, GA.

**A side note. Although we did not stop in Charlotte but just drove through it, it seemed to be a reasonably sweet city and the only place I saw that I would live. The rest of the South was undeniably READ THAT ANDREW UNDEFREAKINGNIABLY terrible.**

So it was the Fourth of July weekend and hotels were a tad scarce. We also are shackled by my parent's darn dog, Toby. So we have to find pet friendly hotels, which is great for the guy allergic to dogs and cats. I can handle my parents dog as he has hair, so he doesn't shed, as opposed to fur. But I assure you the majority of the muts at this hotel were not hair dogs. My allergies are going crazy. So we got to our hotel room, and as is the unwritten law about hotels, it's hot in the room. No one wants to leave the air on because it's wasteful. I can understand that. No one wants to blatantly raise electricity bills and hurt the environment (except me). But this hotel ... the hotel of the south ... has gone too far. Allow me to elaborate.

I'm sure some of you have seen hotels that have placards telling you they will only wash towels left on the floor to conserve water. So if you will reuse your towel, hang it up, and Mother Earth thanks you. Some ask you to turn the water off when brushing your teeth and help save a stinking whale or something. It's irritating, but no big deal. Allow me to say that I usually leave the water running and throw clean towels on the floor to make them wash them. I hate stupid stuff like that. So I take the extreme and I'm wasteful. Where as before I would have been responsible and polite.

There are also other hotels that when you enter, you have to leave your hotel key in the wall for the lights to be on or the air to be on. This is annoying, but easily averted by, oh I don't know, ASKING FOR A SECOND FREAKING KEY AT THE DESK. How hard is that? The concept started in Europe so it's undoubtedly socialist, but has since made its way here to the States and I abhor it. As aforementioned, I always get an extra key, leave it in slot, leave the lights on and the air conditioning on high when I'm gone. Yes I'm a turd.

Allow me to say that I'm a bit of a harsh user of the environment. Everything grows back. There's always more water. Nothing is being destroyed. Please. I hate recycling. You all know that. Also, and let me put this bluntly ...

I would drill right through a reindeer's head for a gallon of oil. I'm sick of people telling me that drilling in Alaska is bad. Please.

So this hotel we stay at has a new, and even worse form of protecting the environment and conserving energy. It's called The Energy Eye. I had never seen one before this trip and it's terrible. It's kind of like a motion detector that comes with your house's security system. It detects motion in the room and people so that when you're in the room the air kicks on higher and colder. But when your gone there is NO WAY for you to make the air cooler so when you return from the 110 degree day in the sun, that your room is refreshing like your home would be.

So here we are, at a pet friendly hotel, my allergies are bad, it's 110 out, and we can't make it cooler. Not to mention that my pillow had blood on it. I'm sure that was to save the environment too. They probably killed the last heavy user of water and buried him in the earth to grow a tree. We can't get the air cold, and the eye doesn't seem to work well. It barely senses movement, so when you're in the room, if you don't move in your sleep it will cut out and back on. I can't stand it.

I went ape on The Energy Eye. I broke it off it's stupid post and threw it against the wall. I then placed it on the table right next to us so it sensed every motion possible. What you have to do, after breaking it off, is put it next to a fan or something tht blows a shirt in front of it. Then you too my friends, can be a harsh user of the environment again.

So that's it for now. I was going to blog more, but this one got a trifle long and out of hand. Next time stay tuned for our interaction at the Dairy Queen where they took 20 minutes to get us ice cream, barely spoke english, and didn't have chocolate.

THE SOUTH WILL RISE AGAIN! If it takes them 20 minutes to get a freaking blizzard, I'm banking on some 200 years before they think of rising again actually. I think we're safe Yanks!

1st Level

Man I need to post an alarm clock that tells me when to blog or something. It seems like just yesterday that I blogged when in reality it was like 2 weeks ago. Hmmm ... has to be an easy way to remedy that.

So back to the subject at hand. My parents have long talked about moving somewhere where it's not always winter and never Christmas (name that reference you smart kiddies) so they started looking at more "fortunate" climates. After several trips and journeys to the south, they decided that Savannah, GA was where they would make new root. So after a life in Western Pennsylvania, and some hard years no less along the trash filled Monongohela river, they moved to sunny climates, multiple golf courses, and easy access to water that's not polluted.

My parents being the strong supporters of capitalism that they are, have accumulated a fair amount of goods and junk during their years on God's green earth though and needed some help and extra muscle, mostly the former, in moving their worldly possessions down to Savannah. Solution: Keith generously offers to take his summer vacation to move Mom and Dad down there and help unpack their stuff on the other end. In return a get two rounds of golf and food for the week. Sounds like a plan to me?

So we leave Pittsburgh. Yep, you guessed correctly, the sky was gray, but oddly enough you couldn't see a single cloud in the sky. That's the way it always is. It's like a curse from God for something we did years ago I'm sure. But I get to drive my Dad's Jaguar down with XM radio. It's pretty slamming. I'm cruising listening to anything from the Goo Goo Dolls, Pussy Cat Dolls, to Classical Music ... ok no pussy cat dolls since I hate them. They're awful. I can't even come up with something witty to say I hate them so much.

Anyway, we stop for dinner in West Virginia. No, we didn't eat road kill, we stopped at a gas station where I got a piece of Pizza that had been there since roughly the Jurrassic period. It was rather unfortunate since we saw an oasis of Burger Kings roughly 5 minutes later. But I did decide to eat a piece of food that has descended from God's hand to us here on earth. I wholeheartedly believe God gave us this food in order to make us a more happy people ...

None other than ...

The Fruit Pie.

Those things are so slamming. Sure there is approximately 75,000 calories in one and I think maybe 164,000 grams of fat, but who cares. Once you bite through the hard and frosted coated crust and get to the fake fruit filling, all is well with the world. The Apple Fruit Pie might make me smile more than like 99% of all other things in life. Other contenders being like the Steelers winning the Super Bowl.

Now if we could have had the Steelers serve me a fruit pie after winning ... hmmmmm ...

The trip went downhill after this moment though. Well, that's not entirely true. We did get out of West Virginia without contracting anything as serious as say, I don't know: The Bird Flu, SARS, 1 tooth, or a sister for a wife. So I'd say that was a positive. But as we continued further south to the Mason Dixon line, things only continued to get worse. Next time allow me to marvel you with stories of:

1.) Our Hotel!!!!!!!! Dirty, hot, and concious of saving the environment! Damn Liberals!

2.) My 20 minute trip to Dairy Queen!!!!!!!!!!!! Still no chocolate ice cream!

3.) Our trip to IHOP!!!!!!!!!!!! Nothing like slow service when you're waiting for breakfast food!

The North reigns supreme!!!!!!!! Just like Jefferson Starship! We Built This City on Rock and Roll Guys!!!!

Life Without Internet Part 2

Woah ... Keith is alive. Yes, not only am I alive, but I'm back from some absolutely horrifying and sobering adventures. Which, yep you guessed it, I will explore in detail right here before your very eyes.

First off, Andrew is right, life without the internet is tough. I'm surprisingly ok without cable. I mean yeah, sure we missed Avril Lavigne either A) growing up or B) getting lots of surgery but who cares. I also had no clue that there was some Nic Cannon show on MTV (which as a side note I haven't watched since March of 2005) which is called Wild On or something. I thought that was a show on E! last time I checked. So on the one hand while this makes me feel old and like I'm one step away from saying, "I can't stand the music you guys listen too. It's so horrible!" It's better since I'm not being forced to watch horrible shows. When you bring back good sitcoms, then you'll bring me back to paying for cable. Capitalism at its finest folks.

But life without internet is a drag. You're hanging out at the apartment and you want to know what time a movie starts ... hmmmm ... you have a few options:

1.) Check your newspaper (woops don't get one)
2.) Call 411 (That costs a whole $1.50 so who's doing that)
3.) Rely on a friend to look for you (kind of lame but doable)
4.) Drive 5 minutes down the road to your office and mooch their internet (also good for blogging).

So I think once Drew leaves me here next week, so sad, I think I'm going to try to get internet again off someone for cheap. That way you can keep up to pace with my life playing video games and reading as I blog about it! I know I know contain yourselves please.

But I started to talk about adventures before I got off on that tangent now didn't I. Oh I had one large adventure over the last two weeks. It was an adventure that involved scorching heat, wailing and gnashing of teeth, people moving about slowly, and never ending torment. Noooooooo I haven't been to hell and back, but you're close. Wait for it ...

I VISITED THE SOUTH!

Yep, you heard it right. I went south of the Mason Dixon line, and it was horrific. My parents have moved to Savannah, GA and I went down to help them move. Now it's not all terrible though. I did stumble upon a lovely fast food chain called Sonic. And sweet mother alive do they make some slamming burgers and shakes. But it also takes you twice as long to do anything in the south (probably because if you move at regular speed you melt, like actually melt into a puddle). But I'm going to chronicle some of my happenings next blog. Which will be soon I assure you. Sometime next week, or perhaps this weekend. So until then, don't go further south than the PA state line. It's not worth risking it. Cause if you do, you might end up looking like this ... Yep you might turn into Bubba Sparxxx!!!!! Booty booty booty booty rocking everywhere! Oh no!



No seriously ... it's not. That wasn't even a joke.

Later y'inz guys!

Life without internet is a dangerous thing

OH MY WORD IT'S ANDREW!!!

Yeah that's right folks I'm back to drop a short article at you, namely because:

1) Keith hasn't in a long time
2) I'm at Carly's house-my only outlet for internet bliss
3) Carly is watching "Days of Our Lives"...a show I could do without having in the days of my life (oh snap!)

But if you read this blog you nwill note that as stated in point 2 here, Carly is the only source of internet that I have right now. I used to have a computer, but that computer belongs to my former employer (who was obstinantly against me paying them good legal tender for the computer, which has been used and abused for 4 years now) and I must have return it. So therefore the only way I can get on the internet is if I come over to Carly's. I've found that I've missed out on a lot of cool stuff by not having the internet. Here's what I've been missing:

1) Apparently PNC park was put to its first good use since its creation a few years back...serving as the host stadium for the MLB 2006 All Star game! MY friend Ryan told me that "the game" was in Pittsburgh this past week. He actually had to explain to me what "game" he was talking about and I was instantly shamed. Apart from not knowing that the All Star game was going on literally in my back yard, I also felt like a heel because it shows how disconnected I am to professional baseball-a sport which happens to be "America's Pastime". Because I wasn't able to check sites like FOXNews.com, espn.com, or Accuweather.com for the past 2 weeks, I've been made to be a heel-and even worse a heel that doesn't even respect America!!

2) EMAIL!!!! I've gotten several important emails over the past 2 weeks sans-internet. I know because I just checked them. In my email cache were emails pertaining to (but not limited to):
a) an accepted transfer student to my alma mater who had not heard peep or pipe from my alma mater confirming her studentness. When you get emails from students with the subject title "Do I exist at your school?!?!", you know things aren't going well.
b) copious amounts of vacation planning with my 4 best friends from high school. Me, Mike, Bill, Colin, and Jeremy are all headed to Virginia Beach tomorrow with our "respective" girlfriends (but Jeremy is engaged so his FIANCE is coming...please take note). In addition to a rock solid friendship and an overabundance of side splitting tales or misadventure, we five friends share a penchant for apathy when it comes to planning seemingly large events. However over the past few weeks gmail has logged probably close to 30 emails from our little rabble of ne'er-do-wells all of which involve planning our vacation:Who's buying the keg of Yueng, who's cooking what meals on which days, who's bringing Colin golf clubs, how we're all going to car pool down...this is big stuff here! I of course have been out of the loop because of the lack of internet at my disposal, and so I just hope that Bill picks me up on the way to the beach on Saturday morning.
c) A .pdf file of a fax from a one Honorable F.R. Spohn of French Creek, NY announcing that he was absolving me in his court of any potential outstanding charges of "Theft of Serives". Whew!

3)Did you realize that I've been invitied to hang out by Laura, been invited to join the Tara Wagner Fan Club* , and I've been poked by Carly about 3 times over the past few weeks on facebook.com?!?!? NEITHER DID I?! It just so happens that all of these things have happened to me without my knowledge...and facebook is really important so I feel at a loss for not knowing this sooner.

4) Bloggggggging! I know I don't have a whole lot of important things to say, but I do miss blogging a lot.

I plan on getting a computer soon, so before you know it I'll be pirating wireless internet from my neighbor and making more hilarious blogs that make you say "Uhhhhhh!!"** I'll talk to you kids soon.



*TREATED!!

**IF your name is Judge F.R.Spohn and you just read that last sentence, pleaes pretend that you didn't. I am not a crook!

half an hour until lunch!

Hello all.

This post is to sate the hunger of those in blog land who long for an update. Last time we chatted I told you that I was going to make a year-long-blog. This is something I'm really excited about, because good ideas and the impetus to act on them don't usually go hand in hand for Andrew. After receiving tons of feedback on the what this year-long-blog should be about (read: not a one person gave me feedback save for Trey ) I've decided that I'm going to explore a topic both indigienous to Northwestern North Carolina but universally entertaining as well.

Next year I'm going to a large state school which some of you are familiar with thanks to Patrice O'Neal. It's called Appalachian State University and yes, for your information, it is hot hot hot!! ASU is going to be very different from my alma mater, Grove City College. For one, ASU is larger. For two it's more diverse (oops, I didn't say that). For three people are ALLOWED to get drunk! Since people are allowed to drink at ASU, as a socially responsible scholastic entity ASU provides a service to shuttle students around from bar to bar. Now granted this form of "public transportation" is most likely intended to be used by students so that they can save money on gas, and not have to worry about parking their vehicle on campus. The reality though, as any able bodied and hardy livered college student will tell you, is that "college town public transportation"="drunk bus"!! Enter, the APPALCART !!!

The APPALcart of the 21st century isn't the applewagon of days gone by, though I'm sure it still manages to attract a number of rotten cores. From the innards of the APPALcart, I will bring you a weekly set of fantastical stories! This documentary of sorts will last for (you guessed it) one whole year!! This year long canticle will document weekend after weekend of "Stories from the APPALcart"! There will be romance! There will be comedy! There will be tragedy! And hopefully there will be a few socially disastrous debacles which my nimble pen will transform into APPALcart lore. Personally, I could not be more excited to see what shenanigans unravel in the APPALcart!! But come hell or high water (or come spells from fire water!) I will endeavor to post a blog about my experiences as a passerby on the APPALcart. I hope it's entertainig, and I hope that I get to meet some cool people. I also hope that I can chuck this inane formatlity of holding in the SHIFT key every time I want to write APPALcart.

So that's going to be my year-long-blog ('ylb') next year ('ny'). On a lesser note, I'm probably not going to blog for a while. Whereas Grove City gives me a cool computer to use whilst I'm employed at the College, they take it from me when I leave. Thanks alma mater. And it turns out that my last day of work at Grove City College is tomorrow. As of late, though, I've been blogging too much-it's time for Keith to take over and hoe this row for a while. If you get really bored and absolutely HAVE to read an article by Andrew you can scan through some of our archives and find some old gems to sink your teeth into. Since I probably won't see you all for a number of weeks, have a splendid summer and keep your eyes peeled for "Stories from the APPALcart!"

We're all a part of the same body, but it's still ok to chop off your arm

Hello blog friends (and Nathan),

Yesterday I composed a rather compulsive, scathing blog about something near and dear to my heart. It's also something that's near and dear to my work...actually it is about my work. In talking with Keith about the appropriateness of posting my blog, he advocated an exercise of caution and restraint. Being as that restraint has NEVER been a strong suit of mine, I've worked out a compromise. Herein I will not include the contents of my aforementioned blog. But if for some reason you actually want to read what I'm reticent to post on the internet, I'd be more than happy to email you a copy of my blog. It's a revealing portrayal of how another office affects the effectiveness of my office...and that's all I officially have to say about that.

PS: does anyone know of an apartment for rent in Boone, NC that I could rent? I'm really hurting here...

The Year Long Debate

Hey gang,

First and foremost let me say, for those of your disappointed about not being able to look at matoke every day, I had to take the post down. Just looking at the stuff every time I signed onto the blog made me ill...I feel Keith's pain. So it's down, sorry James.

For those of you who are glad to see Matoke go (and glad to see another post come up, of course!!!) let me pose to you a question-a blog feedback question if you will. Most of you know by this point that Keith and I are going to split up here by the end of the summer. I'll be down south of the Mason Dixon line , and he'll be up here in Horriblevania. Don't worry, we're going to try to keep the blog going-so you can wipe the tears of sadness from your eyes and blow the snot out of your nose. But the question I pose is one I would legitimately like your feedback for.

Since I'm moving, and am going to be living in a completely new area, I'd like to chronicle something in my weblog for a year. I take inspiration from people like this fellow and others who decide to chronicle otherwise mundane activities, but infuse them with intrigue through the power of blogging. I have no idea what I'd like to chronicle, or what annual canticle I would like to regale you wonderful people with.

I'm sure you can guess my question by now: what kind of things would hold your interest for a year if I decide to document them? What type of thing would make you say "OH! It's Thursday! I wonder if Andrew's put his weekly blog up yet? I can't wait to hear about what _____________________________________ is like this week!!" The floor is open for discussion, so let me hear it people. I will tell you I do already have one idea, which would no doubt be a blog-blockbuster; but I still need you to give me more ideas.

When Andrew leaves and heads down south, what one blog theme would hold your interest for one year if it were consistently chronicled? READY?!?! COMMENT!!!!



On a lesser note, I'm trying to revive ama mizu's now deceased blog (and believe me I'm trying to use mouth to mouth recussitation a haaa heh heh heh yeeaaahhhhh!!). You should start a deluge of comments on her page to make her come back (and if you can somehow bring her back from North Carolina, that would be great because I miss her a lot).


Ok to the task at hand!! En Viamos!!

The "L" Word

So I keep getting yelled at by people since I never blog. These people are right. I don't blog. I don't know why since I have tons of time on my hand, but I think it's because I always figure my blogs should be about something. They should be well-researched, solid, and potentially read by conservative radio personalities since they're sweet.

Well ... my blogs are not like that. I think I just need to accept it. We tried to reformat, but try as we might, Andrew and I are still blogging about semi-trucks and stupid people. So without further ado ... I'm back. (I wonder how many times I have said this in past blogs? At least a half dozen I'm sure.) So I was looking for some TV clip of the Today Show (read Horrible Show) when I clicked on a link to an article, The Right Time to Use the 'L' Word: Love. A couple of points come to mind:

1.) Thanks for defining what the 'L' word is. I was really confused. I thought you were referring to licorice.

2.) This article is written by someone with a doctorate. I have lost all faith in higher education. I could have written this article. Here's a link to her site. Read the Tom Brokaw quote in the bottom left!

3.) He used the word sagacity! That's unreal. The second paragraph of her "About her page" includes the sentence, "She has interviewed Woody Allen, Tom Brokaw, Gail Sheehy and Rosie O'Donnell" Wooooooooo! Man she's so sweet now. I didn't even know Dr. Gail Saltz existed 24 hours ago, but I'm thinking she's lame.

4.) This article is garbage and I'm going to point a few reasons why. The internet allows stuff like this to become important and taken as serious writing. This article is so lame and here's why!

In paragraph four she says, "The power of the 'L' word is intense." Then in the next paragraph she goes on to define what love is. If you're going to make a serious point, can you use more serious terminology please? We're not in third grade here. You're not passing me a note asking, "Do you like me check yes or no?" Can we just come out and call it saying I love you. Can we call it something a little more mature here Dr. Gail?

Then in paragraph five she gives us this nugget of wisdom:
"What does love mean anyway? Sometimes the definition is murky. When you say, “I love you,” you may mean that you feel close to your boyfriend, he seems right for you, and you want a future together. He may see saying “I love you,” as meaning that you have to get married. And if he doesn’t feel obsessed with you, then he may not think that he’s in love with you. Sometimes people confuse lust and love. Having great sex is terrific, but does it mean love?"

Are you serious? Did you just write a paragraph FOR MSNBC.COM WHICH IS A FREAKING NEWS WEBSITE listing examples of what people may think love is?!?! I think she did. These are thoughts that we all have on a daily basis. I just wasted like 30 seconds reading it, and now like 15 minutes more blogging about it. How is this worthy of being a news site? Shouldn't this be in like Cosmopolitan or something?

More sage advice from Dr. Gail, "Someone who can’t say, “I love you,” may have a problem with commitment."

Really?

You think?

I never would have guessed that. Huh.

Ok this one is good:
"The point is to try to wait to say, “I love you,” until you feel pretty certain you and your partner are on the same love page. Discuss your feelings for each other to test the waters." Wow. Talk about your feelings. Wow.

Ok, I know I've never really dated anyone. Shocked out there right? But are our couples really just messing around so much and watching so much TV on dates or just going to movies so that every single date they never discuss their feelings? Like there's not one date even when they discuss how things are going? If that's the case, like what are these couples talking about when they talk about things? Are they talking about cheese? Cleaning products? Sports? I'm just kind of perplexed.

Last one ...
"And if you’ve said the “L” word too soon, it’s OK to say, “Oops I blurted out in a gooey moment and I’m not really I am not ready either.”"

Is that quote really going to fly with your significant other? I don't think so. A gooey moment?!?! C'mon now. This isn't Saturday morning cartoons or the Disney channel. I know real life isn't like a Matthew McConaughey movie, but you should be able to come up with something more articulate than gooey moment. And you can't just change your opinion by saying, "I'm really not ready either." Words are like tooth paste man - after it's out of the tube it's not going back in ... ever. So let's not pretend here. Be mature enough to talk it out or just let some time pass and then talk about it.

I guess my problem with this article is that I think I could have written it, it's basic, someone with a doctorate wrote it, it's taken as serious, and it's horribly lame. Most people deal with this on an every day basis. If you can't think this stuff through yourself, you shouldn't be in a relationship or telling anyone that you love them.

And a whole other blog for another time should be, "Why are guys painted as idiots?" I know we usually drop the ball and suck and have commitment issues, but this whole article is about the girl saying I love you and the guy being like, "Love (grunt) not good (grunt)." Some of us are a little more advanced than this.

Now if you excuse me, I'm going to go eat a snack pack and read about video games online.

Just another Collab-creation!!

Hello all!

I've heard disquieting rumours* that some people are not content with starting at the wonderful Avril Levigne forever. To placate those dying for a blog update, I present to you the first (of many?) collaborations between our blog, and that wonderful satchel of satire and wit known as Joel's blog! I know that Keith and I have always been a fan of "You Better Believe It" and now is one of those tangible ways in which we express our affection. So without further ado, I present to you a blog FROM Joel, ON our blog. It's mindblowing, right?!

____________________________________________

I try to avoid blantant ranting on my own weblog, but every once in a while, duty compels me to go against my beliefs. And when Keith and Andrew asked me to do a guest spot for theirs, I had to man up, strap on a pair, and get mah RANT on, mutha truckas.

So in the spirit of fighting back, here we go, and just remember the number one rule about reading an article from Poppa Joely: YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT! Ha! Get it? Because that is the name of my weblog. It's the title, and I was using it as a tag...line... ha... okay.

Semi trucks are great. That is, they are great if you like enormous, awkward, lumbering box-things that cannot make a turn, veer into your lane around a curve, spray jets of water at your windshield, blinding you when it rains, and could literally roll over your Satneovalier (or in my case a 1995 Pontiac Grand Am with a leaky heater core) and not even think twice about it—or even realize it! So yes, semi trucks are wonderful, if you are into that sort of thing.

Personally, I am not. Now, we have all seen the slogan, “Without trucks, America stops.” Of course you have probably never seen this slogan anywhere else than on a sticker on the back of a semi truck itself. I take issue with the slogan, myself. I prefer this version: “Without trucks, America doesn’t have to awkwardly back up to make way and then crash into cars behind and around it.” Please, let me explain.

The other day/week/month/whatev, I was driving a fraternity brother’s pickup truck to the bank in town (not National City—I loath National City). For those of you who are familiar with the G.C.C. area, you know the stop sign down by the police station on the way into town. And you also know that it is a pretty wide intersection. Plenty of room. But you also would probably agree that that is no place for any vehicle bigger than maybe a pickup truck or possibly a hummer. Maybe a tank, even. But seriously, no bigger than a tank, or you’re pushing it. Well, one unfortunate truck driver did not seem to get the memo that semis belong on the highway, not barreling through the narrow streets of small Pennsylvania villages.

Here is what happened: I was stopped at the red octagon, like any law-abiding driver, when, from the right, a huge semi truck comes chugging along. Quickly I realize that the driver intends to make a left turn. No problem, I thought, he wouldn’t even attempt that turn if he didn’t know he could make it with me sitting here. Wrong! Without so much as slowing down, this truck starts going at it. Um, dude, I said nervously. Dude, what are you doing… I’m sitting right here…. No dice, the driver must not have noticed my worried expression—or my fifteen hundred pound bright red and purple vehicle either. Understandable how he could miss that (?!). I realized quickly that I was going to have to back up fast or literally get run over.

I started to drive in reverse slowly, because there was another pickup right behind me, also stopped. He began backing up, and I sped up. I looked back the the front, and this truck was seriously inches from hitting me. At this point, it was either bump the guy behind me or get rolled over by an eighteen-wheeler. I hit the gas. Skreeeee—THUMP!!! That is what it sounds like to narrowly avoid death by semi truck. Flustered, embarrassed, and breathing heavily, I got out of Dave’s truck and walked over to survey the damage. The other driver was really nice about it. After we agreed that there was no harm done, we got in our trucks and continued our day. But the fact that there was “no harm done” is not the point here. The point is that semi trucks are rude, too big, clumsy, and inconsiderate. Their drivers seem to have concern neither for other people, nor human life in general. This is not the first time something like this has happened!

So, you get my point. I have long said that semi trucks are like fat guys in a crowd. Think about the metaphor, you’ll see what I mean. And you will agree, or I am going to get in a big rig right now and run over your house.

Let us stop the madness now, before it’s too late and people start to die. Horrible, grisly, semi truck-related deaths.

Obligatory disclaimer: I was talking to my dad about how I hated semis at a baseball game the other day, and he informed me that the man standing behind me was a truck driver. Of course, I felt like a huge chomp. So let me just say that I’m sure not all trucks are bad. I am sure there are many drivers out there who are courteous, kind, and considerate. To those men and women I would like to say, WHERE THE HECK HAVE YOU BEEN! PLEASE START DRIVING ON I-80 LIKE RIGHT NOW! BECAUSE YOU SURE AS HECK HAVEN’T BEEN THERE THE LAST FOUR YEARS OF MY LIFE!!!!1!11

Thank you.

fin

________________________________________

*(British spelling!!!)

This is what happens when you get rid of cable

You miss the amazing metamorphosis of pop punk princesses!














When did this happen, America?! When?!??

"Who the TRUCK hit me?!"

Exacatly!!!

Alright as a throw back to days of yore when I blogged because our appointment caledar was devoid of...uh appointments, I'd like to introduce you to a little blog called:

YOU'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!

You may or may not know this, but last week I wrapped up my last "road warrior" experience ever (well, as an admissions counselor). While touring back and forth across America, trading rental cars every other week and filling my belly with endless supplies of Hampton Inn sludge-coffee I've learned a thing or two about how to stereotype people by the type of car that they drive. I know that some people will poo-poo stereotypes under the rally cry that not every similar person fits into the same self-imaginied cubby hole. Those people are stupid...all of them. So throwing caution to the wind, I want to share with you about what I've leared about people simply by looking at their cars!!!!

Our first car specimen...THE HUGE TRUCK!!!!

I was driving around with Carly once and saw someone driving this massive hunk of steel which is apparantly supposed to have some utilitarian purpose like towing boats, cranes, other cars, whathaveyou. I remarked on how completely unnecessary it was to have a Huge Truck, to which Carly responded "Maybe they need it for something useful". After spending hours times hours on the road, and seeing hundreds of these Huge Trucks, I've debunked Carly's hypothesis that they are actually useful for something. These cars are useless wastes of space on the road. There are really 3 main people who drive a Huge Truck:

1) Well off, but confused retirees who have something to prove to other road-dwellers
2) Not well off, but-as-equally-obsessed-with-something-to-prove middle aged men
3) Morons (can also include 1 and 2).

The Huge Truck is completely unnecessary. If I had a nickel for every time I was cut off by one of these Trucks with the sticker of a Calvin and Hobbes-esque character peeing on Osama Bin Laden, or a rival high school, or a whatever I'd have about $8.35. The only people who drive these cars are people who have bought into the ever present consumer lie that the bigger your car is, the better you are as a person! Is it any cooincindence that the opposite tends to be true? The Huger the Truck, the smaller the person (in character usually...not in stature). The Huge Truck serves no purpose save to eat gas, be shiny, and take up two parking spaces at 'The Derr'. It's so effing stupid. No one uses these trucks to do work! The only people who actually use their trucks to do work are people who have trucks that look like this: Yeah, now there's a truck!

NEXT UP...THE SATNEOVALIER!!!!
The what?!!?! you are asking? If you are as perceptive as I think you are, you've already picked up on my lampoon and are laughing to yourself. If you are still confused, let's do some simple addition...add all 3 of these cars together and what do you get?!?!


The SATNEOVALIER!!!!!

I combine all of these cars into one for a number of reasons. First of all, when you were a kid in 10th grade remember that guy/gal who turned 16 and their parents immediately bought them a car? They went around bragging about how sweet their new ride was. When you finally went to see their car after school, remember how you about doubled over laughing because they were driving a saturn/neon/cavalier?! HA! I do! This is the stereotypical first car. After my travels on the road I am 100% convinced that the ONLY people in America who drive these cars are people between the age of 16-22. The upper end of the spectrum only have their car because they've carried it on through college. Young kids own these cars, and they drive like they are freaking invincible...which is odd because if you look at a Saturn wrong it breaks apart. Another reason why I'm sure that only 16-22 year olds drive these cars are because they are arguably the most oft 'customizable' car on the road! Look!
They look ridiculous hahahah!!! Picture this familiar scene: You've been stopped at a red light and you hear the echo of a whistle-tip come screeching down the lane. You whip your head around to see what amazing machine could make such a mellifluous purr. As your eyes search in vain for a Ferrari or Mercedes AMG, up rolls a Cavalier with the actual word "Cavalier" stenciled on the top of the windshield. Of course there's some teenager sitting in the driver's bucket seat, Marlboro blazing, giving your car the most condescending look ever: "Psshhh whatchyou got? A Honda Accord Coupe? Psshhhhhman I've got a Saturn/Neon/Cavalier with a body kit. I'm rollin' in stylee". You stare blankly at the kid until they screech off, giving you a eat-my-dust view of an oversized tailpipe and Calvin flicking you off (and peeing on a 'Ford' emblem). If you drive a Satneovalier, you are 1) too young to know anything about life and 2) a moron.

NEXT UP!!! THE MINIVAN!! (yay it opens!)

The mini van. I think those Americans who do NOT own a mini van have an inherent aversion to owning or operating a mini van...and for good reason. The only people I've ever seen driving mini vans are (oddly enough) old people or moms. Either way, if you're cruising around town and get stuck behind a mini van, you can bet your sweet cheeks that you're going to be slowed down. I still can't figure out if mini vans are assembled with a governor on the throttle, or if owning a mini van makes you a less competent driver. But regardless I've never been driving around a mini van doing at least the speed limit. The people driving mini vans are always distracted, always lost, always hanging around high schools, and always giving me a hard time. I've seen a countless frustrated mother tossing her head two and fro in the mini-van. It's like you can see the words "Look at the kids! Look at that car! Look at that speed limit sign! Look at that street sign! Look for gas! Look at the kids!!" etched all over her panicked face. Maybe driving a mini van is just more stressful than driving a regular car. Who knows. To the credit of the mini-van driver, I would guess is if you've got this or that in the back seat it might be a bit harder to concentrate.

Finally, as a throwback yet again to WHY I started blogging, let me tell you about the bane of the road, the hellion of the highways...

THE SEMI TRUCK!!!!!

Yeah, real freaking classic. If you see a semi truck approaching your car you can automatically take two things as a given: 1-the semi truck driver has little concern for your safety and well being and consequently 2-whoever is driving the truck has no soul whatsoever. Semi trucks, and semi truck drivers (the two are often inseparably linked. The heretofor mentioned 'semi truck' and 'driver' will now only be referred to as the 'semi truck') are a staple of the open highway, and also an ever present reminder about the wickedness and degeneration of mortal man. Semi trucks hog the road, slow down traffic, tear up the streets and sidewalks of little towns, and then act all indignant whenever you try to pass or go around them. In all of my travels throughout the United States of America, I've never been in a state where semi trucks were cordial, shared the road well, or were easy to drive around. Semi trucks everywhere are awful. I could go on and on about how much I hate these metal death harbingers but my blood pressure is rising, and I know that I'm preaching to the choir. Semi trucks are hellspawn.

And there you have it ladies and gents! In sweeping brush strokes I have endeavored to tell you a little bit more about the sociological breakdown between Americans based on their automobiles. I know some of you will disagree with me but I just want you to remember this: I'm probably right and you know it! Minotaur!!!!

an addendum to communication

From a man far more intelligent than I will ever be:

"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horor and a corruption such as you now meet, it at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.

It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them that we should conduct all of dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilazations-these are mortal and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry and snub, and exploit-immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.

This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and is in fact the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously-no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner-no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment. Next to the blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbour is the holiest object presented to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbour he is holy in almost the same way, for in him Christ was vere latiat-the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden."


excerpt from C.S. Lewis's essay, "The Weight of Glory".

Just so things are in perspective for us.

sometimes it's ok to kill people

Look at this, people of America. This is an exceprt from the mother of Zaccharias Moussaoui in regards to how she feels her son is being treated:

Aicha El Wafi, who returned to France earlier this week, said the trial was a masquerade that did not prove her son's guilt, and she accused the French government of not fighting hard enough for him, saying it did not want to oppose the United States.

El Wafi, dressed in black, was emotional and nervous as she spoke with reporters a day after the jury in Alexandria, Va., decided to send him to prison for life without a chance of parole, and she repeated over and over, "This is terrible."

"I share the suffering and the pain of the parents of the victims. I'm with them," she said.

"I feel like a part of myself is dead, buried with my son, who is going to be buried all of his life at 37 years old for things that he didn't do. Because he spoke too much," El Wafi said.

She called her son a scapegoat, adding that the life sentence imposed for his role in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks was worse than the death penalty.

"Now he is going to die in little doses," she said. "He is going to live like a rat in a hole. What for? They are so cruel, they were wrong to want his head. They should have gone all the way to the end if they were capable"


You know what Aicha? I completely agree with you. A jury found Zaccharias Moussaoui guilty on accounts of conspiring to injure/kill Americans, found that he was involved in the terrorist plot of September 11, 2001, that he sought entrance into this nation in order to gain knowledge to kill citizens of this nation, and that he has never showed an ounce or remorse for his particiaption in said plot's success. For involvement in arguably the most heinous crime committed against America during peace time, this man will get to live out the rest of his life...just like you and me. In fact, we're going to pay an estimated $100,000 a year to keep him well fed, well read, well exercised, and well protected from prisoners that might (for some odd reason) want to harm him.

And now his mother is going to complain about his sentence? His mother is going to go to bat for him despite that he himself acknowledges his involvement in 9-11, and despite the fact that a grand jury found him guilty of such crimes? She's going to cry that he's going to be treated like a rat? She's going to go so far as to say that she "is with" the families of those whose deaths her son relishes...that he grief is comparable? I vomit on this woman and I vomit on Zaccharias Moussaoui.

For my tax dollar's worth, I'd kick in a couple of bucks to fund the expediture on ammo that a firing squad may need to do its work.

You emo kids will appreciate this (if there are still any emo kids out there)

Last night I went over to a gentleman's house who I've been priveleged to befriend over the past 2 years since my graduation from College. He's one of the theology professors at my College, and he's been a great friend of my family. I don't get out to see him as often as I'd like (which is probably better for my health...and you'll see why), but whenever I go to visit I spend on average a minimum of 3 hours at his house. In the company of this gentleman and with others from the community we drink, we smoke cigars, we listen to jazz, and we talk. For hours on end smoke mingles with laughter and the blare of brass as we pass the evening enjoying one another's company. One of the things that makes the evening so unique is the fact that aside from the music in the background, the only 'entertainment' on the agenda throughout the evening is the fellowship afforded through conversation (and I guess the burning of only the finest tobacco the world's soil can offer).

While hanging out with Dr. Gordon, every once in a while he'll toss you a nugget of wisdom that only age, experience, and a broken heart can yield. Last night we were talking about talking (any surprise that I was implicitly trying to pry wisdom out of Dr. Gordon for my blog?) and with the wisdom and presence of a sage Dr. Gordon says (in so many words) "People don't always like to talk with each other. Having conversation can be awkward, uncomfortable, and unusual...in that regard it's like life. But even though conversation can be uncomfortable, it's something that you can't just not do." Boom. That's exactly it. Whereas conversation and communicating can be awkward and unwieldy, it's something that we humans we have to do if we really want to live full lives.

The word 'conversation' actually is a derivative of the Latin word con versare, which means 'to dance' or 'to turn'. Could there be a more appropriate deriviative for a word decribing how people interact? When you watch people talk, their hands, bodies, faces move to what the other person is saying. Since we know that conversation happens almost exclusively without words, it's in the movement of bodies where conversation is either made or broken. Think about it. Dancing is something that I don't think anyone is naturally good at doing . It takes practice, it takes awkwardness, and it takes a willingness to go through with the embarassment of being all discombobulated around another person. But once you know how to dance, everyone loves you! Guys want to be able to dance like you, and girls want to sleep with you!! Dancing is one of those things that, regardless of whether you are natually gifted at it or not, you need to learn how to do in order to be a well rounded person (and impress the ladies). The same is true for conversation and communication. In order to be good at it, it order to be comfortable with it, you need to do it. And not just converse in a halfhearted way, you have to be able to give and take. In other words...don't half-stand behind your booth at Pizza Hut with drink in hand and right arm akimbo hoping your moment of awkwardness will pass.

Someone who I love and respect very much once told me that when you are expressing your love for someone else, it's not always so much what you say that conveys your feelings but how you listen to the object of your desire. The same is true in dancing.Thus the same is true with communicating. You've gotta be willing to listen. I think of myself as a good listener. In fact I get paid essentially to listen to people. I mentioned before that in my job at X Christian Liberal Arts College I get paid to deliver information about my school. Inasmuch as I have to talk to people, I have to listen to people to decipher, through garbly mumbled adolescent lingo, 1) what kind of information they want out of me and 2) if this person is conveying that they would be a good fit at my college (yes, I do a lot of interviews as well). For example, I just overheard a family talking with Keith. He was telling them that while he was interviewing their son, they had talked for a while and took longer than they should have taken. Listen to this short conversation:

Keith: sorry we took so long
mom: that's quite alright I guess
Keith: Yeah, it's probably better to talk for a longer time than a shorter one!!
mom: Well I bet you have to talk for a while to get to know them!
Keith: shut the heck up you old bat!!

Alright I confess, Keith didn't tell the old bat to shut up (how sweet would it be if he would have, though?!). But I thought the mom made an interesting observation because with one statement she was both right and wrong! Sometimes it does take a while to get to know a student: their passions, their maturity, their insights, their life story, their ability to mesh with the students already admitted here. However sometimes it doesn't take more than 3-4 seconds with a student before you realize that the next half hour of your life will be wasted time which you will never...ever...have back again. The bridge of discernment between the two options lies in how you listen, and what you listen to. Setting all other distractions aside and taking just half an hour to listen to another human being speak yields unparalleled insight into the workings of their lives. If that's not reason enough to listen, to converse, to dance, then I don't know what is.

So I leave you with a few thoughts.

1) Think about how you communicate with your body...what are you telling people (Keith put your shirt down, I'm not talking like that)
2) Don't be afraid to communicate with people. Yeah it takes effort and it might be uncomfortable at times. But the key to a rich life is, I believe, being able to communicate richly with others
3) Listen. Communicating is reciprocal. Give then take.
4) Whatever you do, don't trivialize your conversation. You only get so many opportunities to make lifelong connections with your fellow humans.

That's all I've got kids. Go talk to each other. Go con versare

("Wait wait wait...what about the part about emo kids liking this blog? I haven't seen anything that tugs at my hopeless romantic heart yet!!!)

Alllllllllright I started with a song so I'll end with a song just to make everyone happy.


"we turn our music down and we whisper 'say what your thinking right now.' tell me what you thought about when you were gone and so alone. the worst is over. you can have the best of me"

Listen to how this looks!!!

The other night I was watching "Hitch" with Keith. Yeah...I watched Hitch. It's a delightful romantic comedy where Will Smith, playing Alex "Hitch" Higgins wields words like a battle mace on a conquest to slay the hearts of women for oafish dudes. Somehow, over the course of the movie Hitch gets some stupid heiress, Allegra Coles to fall for some dude named Albert-a portly, maladroit accountant. Through the twists and turns in the plot line, (that's false by the way-the plot twists of "Hitch" would be comparable to the twists of a ruler) Hitch drops some helpful hints of information to us, the buffooning dudes. While most of the info that Hitch tosses us is probably made up to suit the bent of the movie, in light of my blog on Friday one little tidbit of information did stand out to me. Near the beginning of the film, Hitch is providing a voice over narration while we watch some hot young girl roll around in bed. In his narration he mentions:

"60% of all human communication is nonverbal, body language; 30% is your tone, so that means 90% of what you're saying ain't coming out of your mouth"

Bingo, Hitch!! 90% of what we say isn't what we say, it's what we do. I've done a little more investigating, and from what internet sources I can track down, I have gleaned that actually 55% of what you say to people is expressed in your body language (facial expressions, posture, etc.). 38% of what you say to people is expressed in how you say it (rhythm, tone, volume, etc.). So that leaves a whopping 7% of communication that is actually expressed by the words that come out of your mouf . When we look at communication, be it a successful event or be it the fleeting, inconsequential communication that happened between Steve and I in Pizza Hut, you have to almost exclusively look at how you are communicating...not just what you're communicating.

"Oh BIG DEAL Andrew I knew that when I was like 6 years old, tell me something I DON'T know!" you're probably gassing. Well if you know so much, then how come you don't pay attention to how you say stuff?!?! Take this blog for example. I can try my best to communicate with you time and time again. And in fact, I try very often to communicate to you in earnest. In the last blog, I implored everyone who might happen to read this blog to leave a comment. The only one who left a comment was Joel, and even then I think the only reason he left a comment was because he felt bad for almost getting me killed in a bar fight.

But on a daily basis, through a series of inflections, movements, and a few power stares I can compel even a total stranger to complete a favor for me with just a few words: fax me a copy of your transcript, write me a letter and tell me that you still like my college, don't come in tomorrow for an interview, go get me a cup of coffee. I place more complex tasks on the shoulders of those who I work with and for, and they more or less agree to go along with what I say. Why is that?! BECAUSE they can see me. You all in blogland can't, and that's why we can never actually communicate with one another (awwwww). Communication is nonverbal. In reflecting on my conversation with Steve, I was actually putting up a barrier between he and I. I was half standing behind my table, plateful of pan pizza piled perilously high on my plate, with a drink in the other hand clearly not ready to talk. For all intents and purposes you would think Steve was the guy interrupting my meal with some inane conversation, but I was the one trying to start one. How on earth was that going to work?

For those of you who know me, you know I like to play golf. For those of you who know me well enough to actually play golf with me, you know that my putting game is abysmal...simply abysmal. Among other taunts that either Keith or my dad toss my way when my putt stops rolling about 15 feet from the pin, they always inevitably say "Come on Smith, you have to give yourself a chance!!" I think the same thing is true with communicating. You have to give yourself a chance to get into a decent conversation with someone. Think about how you talk. Then think harder about how you act when you talk. Before you start talking with someone, try to engage your whole body and mind in the conversation. Not only will it help you actually further your relationship with people, it may also score you a date with Eva Mendes .

Up Next...the great dance!!

"Hollow words will burn...

...and hollow men will burn" is the clarion call drilled through your skull in Shai Hulud's "Set Your Body Ablaze". I've been listening to Shai Hulud a lot over the past week and I can't get over how amazing their lyrics are. As much as I like to listen to Shai Hulud, there is one thing that I tend to listen to more than anything else. It's not a band. It's not a song. It's not a TV program (down with the beast!!). The thing that I listen to more than anything else is, you guessed it, my own voice. I hear it all the time. For those of you out there who may be new to my life, I essentially get paid to be the voicebox of a small private college. I talk for an hour and a half straight about the ins and outs of campus on a weekly basis. I talk for 20 minutes just about sports, music, and theatre programs every day. I talk about whatever it is you want to know regarding my school in as long, or as short, of a timespan as you wish. I get paid to talk and subsequently hear my own voice a whole lot.

Whereas talking allllllll the time has helped me in terms of how to relate to people in public speaking engagements, it's had a few detrimental effects on my personality. One of the most insidious baobabs which has taken over my personality is that of constantly relying on hollow words to carry my conversation. During any given day at work, I'm expected to talk and wax-eloquent about aspects of my college which, frankly, I could care less about or don't know about. In these instances I've seamlessly preprogrammed into my oration a whole lot of fluff statements that really convey no important information, but somehow manage to appease the inquirer.

"Like what Andrew? Everything you've ever told me has been sage-like in character!!" you remark! Ohhhhh stop it you're too kind, too kind. Let me give you some excellent examples.

Student: Tell me about your communicationssss program (emphasis on the 'S'. Our Communication program is called...a communication program, no 'S')
Andrew: Our communication program offers a very indepth, well rounded curriculum that lends itself well to going in a lot of directions within the communication field!
(duh...)

Andrew (delivering a public address): I think our college is unique because we really encourage you to grow in your faith. We want to make sure that you're given opportunity to grow in and outside of class. We have an authentically Christian environment.
(hmmm...how many ways can you say "Christian College" back to back? This time, it was 3).

Andrew (to prospective student's family who compliments him): Oh...well you know, I do what I can.
(seriously I say this all the time. of course I do, that should go without sayingWhat does that mean? Anything?)

I could go on and on people, but you get the idea. I realized today that the fluff and hollow words that I drop at work have taken root and are taking over my life. This was the conversation I had with a friend at lunch today:

Steve: Hey man what's up?
Me: Not much, just out for lunch. What about you?
Steve: Yeah me too, going to get some pizza at the buffet.
Me: Yeah man, you come out to Pizza Hut and get some pizza on the buffet! It's a good deal.
Steve: Yeah tell me about it
Me: Alright man I'll let you get to your lunch.

MEANINGLESS!! Nothing said on my end of the conversation was substantial talk, even for a 5 year old. A five year old would at least ask what kind of pizza Steve was getting, if he could have some of Steve's Moutain Dew, or how he got to be so tall. Ok those are dumb questions, but as you can see they would certainly carry the conversation a litle further than I did in my now 24 years (to the date) of existence. It was at this point that I realized that I've got to do something about my hollow words! And if I'm going to do something, then that means YOU should all do something about it too!

Over the next few blogs I want to talk about communication. Why do we do it? Why don't we do it enough? Why do we take it for granted? How is it that we can have entire conversations with people composed of purely hollow statements and topics?? I know that these questions are the stuff that communicationsssss classes and text books are based around, but I'm just presumptuous enough to think I can do a general overview in a few blogs. Will it work? Maybe if I can cut the fluff out of my blogs you'll find out. In the meantime, leave some meaningful comments for us...we love to hear your feedback!

TV Be Gone!

It is finished. No, not the final words of Jesus, but yes you are correct. I'm referring to our life with cable. As the clock switched over from 11:59:59 to 12:00:00 on the evening of April the 14th, our cable was shut off. We are now 100% cable free and actually internet free. Not by design, but I know I promised a third blog about life after cable and what you can do with your time. So here it is, although admittedly lame. So it will also be a recap blog, but short. Andrew wants to come back and talk to y'inz.

1.) You watch a ton of TV.

2.) TV makes you have a shorter attention span.

3.) Get rid of it.

That's all I have to say really. Look me in the eye and tell me that you couldn't use 28 more hours week to do other stuff. Now I know that was the statistic for children 8-21. So adapt it a bit. You get home at 5:30 from work, cook dinner and sit down at 6 to eat it. You watch an hour of Seinfeld, then maybe two other shows after it, so you're now at two hours of TV a night. Let's say you watch Lost for an hour and some other random thirty minute show. That's three and a half hours of TV a night, times 7 ... and yep you got it ... 24 and a half hours of TV a week. Heck, I'll dock it to 21 for you.

Tell me you couldn't use 21 more hours a week. When we're all soooooooo busy. Who isn't busy anymore? Get over yourself and do something about it. You could gain almost a whole other day. What can you do in this time?

1.) Read more ... obviously.

2.) Learn to play an instrument.

3.) Learn to paint or pick up a hobby (say origami or sign language)

4.) Learn a foreign language, and then learn to speak it in a really sexy way (ladies love that).

5.) Hang out with people. Life is not like Flavor of Love. Real people are not like Flava Flav.

6.) Get outside and kill an animal ... woops ... that's a bad idea.

Those are just a few suggestions. If you don't want to be as radical as we are and get rid of cable, get someone to keep you accountable to an hour of television a night. NO MORE! When you're done with that hour, throw a bed sheet over it. You're less likely to get up off the couch and take the sheet off, then you are to turn the TV on when you're bored. Just cover it up.

That's really the only point of my blog. Except to ask you to send suggestions our way as well. What should we do now that we don't have cable. Your input is greatly appreciated. And many thanks to faithful reader Trey for commenting and reading. I think that was a shout out. I'm so lame. Catch y'inz later.

TV Makes you Dumb

Did the title get your attention? I bet it did. I hope it did. I used simple little words so I wouldn't lose you. That's what TV does. I'm going to hit a few quick points, mostly opinions, on why TV makes you dumb. The article title of this blog is a link to a blog article about why TV isn't making us smarter. Click on it when you're done with my thoughts. It's an awesome blog about media being horrible actually. I'm going to link it on the side of our blog as well. The article is long. I know we all don't do long anymore, thanks to TV ... that and I'm a 23 year old hack writer who isn't even a writer. Anyway let's get it going!

Let me start off by saying that TV does some things well. It has a purpose and there are some things that are better off visualized ... if you know what I'm saying. You probably don't, because I'm referring to tying a tie. This example someone gave to me the other day. I'm much better off showing you how to do it than trying to give you written instruction. So TV CAN BE GOOD. I submit that it's best in moderation and for certain reasons though.

Reasons TV is bad include, but by no means are limited too:

1.) It exists to make money (a.k.a. not educate you but rather point you towards advertisements.) Some people may say shows educate us now by being more complex, but are we really learning anything? I think not. They're just trying to throw more information at us since we've become desensitized. I highly doubt the president of CBS wants you to learn more, but I DO KNOW that he wants you sitting there for the next Bud Light commercial.

2.) It takes us away from books. Think about your life. When you watch TV or look at stuff online, think about what gets bumped. Is it hanging out with friends? Maybe. Is it eating? No. It's usually reading. Your response is likely to be something like, well reading is boring and there are no good authors anymore. Yeah, but not really. This most likely just seems to be the case since TV simplifies everything.

It uses a more simple language. It keeps our attention for maybe seven minutes before a commercial. And it throws lots of little things at us. Example - the NFL draft coming up a week from this Saturday. Watch how many things are on the screen at one time. They will have two to three bars scrolling at one time on the screen, someone talking to you, while showing video. All of it teaches me virtually nothing. It says nothing. It shows no concept. Our minds struggle now to focus on one thought or concept for more than seven minutes, or even to understand/use big words.

Big words and thoughts don't keep you watching till commercial. Naked girls, gay people, and controversy do. We need to retrain our minds to think differently.

3.) So much crap is on. Do I really need 70 channels? Yeah maybe I enjoy Extreme Home Makeover on Bravo (I don't even know if it's on Bravo) but do I need a whole Bravo channel? Probably not. Condense it down so I'm not paying for crap. I talked to a guy at my fair tonight. He said that he did the math, with the shows he watches, he spends $9.00 per program he actually watches. It's ridiculous. Condense it for crying out loud.

4.) We're paying for stuff we don't need or want to support. Andrew and I, by having cable before, were technically giving money, albeit small amounts, to MTV. I don't want them to have my money. I haven't watched them in over a year, since I think they're a hypocritcal joke. I don't want to support them. So now they don't get my money.

These are just a few reasons. I've probably left out many more, but I don't need to rail against cable anymore. You get my opinion/point. Just think about what we say here. MTV is garbage, and probably deserve their own blog, and now they're not going to make me more stupid. I'm going to learn to think again. I'm going to pick up a book and read. I'm going to relearn to play guitar. I'm going to get outside and enjoy life. If the cable company decides to be part of Capitlistic America again and compete for my money, maybe I'll give it back. But until you offer me the ability to buy say five channels ... forget it.

We called to cancel the cable, and it's a long story (if you care ask me), and finally the lady laughed at us. She asked what we were going to do. Andrew replied, "Read more. I haven't read much since college." The lady laughed at us.

Well, we're laughing now. We're going to take our 50 bucks, get a good case of beer, and learn to read again. See ya' later Armstrong ... see you later.

Facts about the old Telly

Alright alright ... I'm slow. I know it. It's been my downfall as a blogger. I'm not on top of things as I should be. What truly matters though is that I'm here and I'm blogging now. So buckle up here we go ...

I mentioned in my previous blogs things I hope to cover. The first off was the quest of Andrew and I to get rid of cable! What that you say? This sounds proposterous? We must be stupid? Well you're right, we are stupid and TV is the reason why. So a few days ago Andrew and I began a quest to get rid of our cable. I'm going to try to keep this brief, since I know that none of you read long blogs. But I'm going to cover today why we wanted to get rid of cable. The next blog will be about the process of getting rid of it and why it's horrible. Finally the third blog will be things you can do after getting rid of it ... or more realistically how to limit TV time.

I'd been feeling discontent with my life one weekend. I spent the weekend doing nothing really of consequence. I felt like I had done some good things, but that people my age just had to be doing something cooler. I explored this thought further with our bartender out at Elephant and Castle and some of our friends and found out two things:

1.) I had watched far too much TV that weekend really.
2.) Everyone else my age typically does that as well.

The decision to get of cable began slowly creeping into our heads at this point and reached a head after Andrew and I spent an hour one night watching Flavor of Love on VH1. The show is so stupid and left Andrew and I asking, "Why do we care about who Flavor Flav (a bona fide idiot) dates and why is TV so lame?"

TV has overtaken our lives. Don't believe me ... check this:

1.) 66.3% of American Households have Cable. This is some form of at least basic cable on up.

2.) The cable industry makes over 95 billion dollars a year in terms of advertising and prices.

3.) Average price of cable is $41.17 dollars per month. This is absurd.

4.) 42% of those under the age of thirty say they feel watching TV is a bad use of their time, but of that 42% ... 72% say they plan to do nothing about watching too much.

Only a few more:

5.) The average child (age 8-21) watches 28 hours of cable a week, sees 20,000 thirty second commercials a year, and watches just under 1,500 hours of cable a year.

6.) The average child has 32.5 minutes of meaningful conversation a week with parents.

7.) If you live to be 75 years old, you will have spent anywhere between 7-10 years of your life watching TV.

The point is, TV is slowly taking over. No wonder either ... it's incredibly relaxing. Nothing is better than putting up your feet and laughing a little. You relax your mind. But that's exactly the problem, as I'll explore next time. There are now more voices telling you what to think and why. And we're just kind of believing it instead of critically thinking about it. So Andrew and I realized that we want those 7-10 years of our lives. Or at least 4 of them. We can get rid of cable and do more constructive things with our lives ... read, write, or talk to people.

Chew on that until I give you some reasoning as to how Cable is influencing your thinking ... without you even knowing.

Time for a Lesson

Alright guys - Keith's turn. Andrew did an excellent job exposing Rock the Vote for the farce that it is. He did a ton of research, made some sense, and gave us a plan of action. I dig it. Now it's my turn. I want to give you a heads up for my plan of attack. Am I attacking a particular organization? No. Am I attacking a person? Not really? Am I going after a set of ideas? Not really. So I know you're all dying to know where I plan on going.

I plan on discussing, in several forms, the oversaturation of society. I'm sick of it. Society has reached the breaking point. We can no longer hold any more information without collapsing.

Merriam Webster defines saturation as, "loaded to capacity."

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see oversatuation os "overloaded or exceeding capacity."

Think back to basic chemistry. You remember taking water loading it with sugar, it held some, then it started sinking to the bottom. The water couldn't hold any more sugar. You then heated the water and it held more sugar ... until it became cool again and disturbed. Bang sugar falls to the bottom of the cup.

That my friends is oversaturation. And our society ... has reached a point. Let's continue the analogy. We my friends are the water, filled with sugar, about to be disturbed. We can't hold any more information without becoming stupid or disturbed. There are so many voices competing for our attention that we can no longer hear our own thoughts. It's my goal to make this evident through a series of blogs. Subjects will tackle include, but are not limited too:

1.) First and foremost the recent quest of Andrew and myself ... to get rid of cable TV. Why did we get rid of cable? What do we hope to accomplish?

2.) Sports in society. We've lost it. My teams fifth wide receiver will make multiple millions of dollars. This is absurd.

3.) The horrible state of music these days. Lyricall awful. Creatively dead. Severely lacking.

4.) Partisan politics ... all one sided and no compromise.

5.) Gas prices why are they so darn high? Ok that one is just a recent complaint.

But these are things I will explore, starting with the state of TV and how it's led to oversaturation. Keep an eye out over the weekend for my first installment.

I'm off to watch some TV on this our very last night of cable ... so refreshing.

Rock the Socialism part Deux

NOT!!!! I'm totally not even going to waste any time talking about RTV anymore. I didn't have a whole lot else to say, and I feel like I'm preaching to the choir by telling you that Rock the Vote is worthless. But I want to give you a few brief bullet points before I move on:
1) RTV sucks. If you read the article that I sent on the blog, you know that they basically wasted tons of funds on ridiculous ad campaigns, yet failed to sign on celebrities as financial courtiers of the organization. Something tells me putting "Talk to Mya and have her donate to RTV" on the social agenda might be more effective for long term operations than "let's have a concert and pay the Black Eye Peas". Hmmm.
2) RTV creates nonissues like college-graduated unemployment and re-instating the draft political hot buttons. RTV boasts on its website that they forced all presidential candidates to address whether they would vote to reinstitute the draft; from reading their website rhetoric you'd think that they probably pulled their arms out of socket while patting themselves on the back for that. The fact is it was a nonissue until Rock the Vote made a stink about it. It's still a nonissue. Thanks a whole lot, Rock the Vote, for concentrating thousands of dollars in contributions to formulating endless public service announcements that had no basis whatsoever.
3) Rock the Vote PANDERS to democratic candidates. Democratic candidates PANDER to the worthless MTV generation. Look at the interview on MTV with Bill Clinton. Is Bill CLinton's saxaphone playing, boxer wearing, hash pipe hitting personality expose vital to national interest or to the political sphere at all? Heck no! But RTV knows its audience well enough to know that when one burnout hears that another burnout is running for President, the burnouts are likely going to stick together...and in fact they did. RTV organized a panel of Democratic presidential candidates on CNN to talk about their plans to improve America, but nary a look was cast in the direction of the incumbent Republican party. Nonpartisan? Nonplus is more like it.
4) I'd encourage you all to go on the rock the vote weblog and disparrage them for their thinly shielded liberal sympathies. I'd encourage you to pick apart their shallow campaign strategies, their straw man issues, and their ridiculously immature ideologies on their weblog for the whole world to see. Now that RTV is on the ropes, we who are of sound mind need to do what any red blooded American does when they see an enemy struggling...kick them while they're down! Expose their baseless largess, their liberal pandering, and their bigotry against the Conservatives in this country on their own turf. I'll post comments if you do. Together we can rock Rock the Vote and hopefully bring them down, or at least legitimately demoralize them even more! We don't need Rock the Vote to think for us, the MTV generation, any longer.

Make sure you tell them I said as much.

Rock the Socialism

The thing that bothers me MOST about Rock the Vote is the fact that they try to pass themselves off as a nonpartisan group, trying to stimulate voter awareness amongst young people. Rock the Vote tries do to this through a number of different media, such as through recommended readings , pairing up with other non profit non partisan agencies, and through sponsoring music/cinema icons to tell you what to vote for.* Let's debunk this myth of the bi-partisan media charade and explore how RTV is completely disingenuous in their claims to political neutrality.

BOOKS!! I'm trusting that by now you've clicked on the recommended readings section. Go ahead a browse around. Do those books look like good non-partisan books with no political agenda whatsoever? Not likely. Take Dispatches from the Culture Wars by liberal radio demagogue Danny Goldberg. This guy is so liberal it's unreal. Danny Goldberg, as of Feb 2005, is the CEO of liberal talk radio network Air America Radio. Since taking office last year, he's made it clear that he wants to make sure to increase the network's advertising and public awareness and to get it aired in 90% of the country. America immersed in liberal radio rubbish? That doesn't smack of nonpartisanship. It turns out Goldberg isn't even that good of a CEO. Since Goldberg's arrival at the progressive talk network, he has been the object of blame for numerous decisions that have sparked controversy among Air America's fans, such as dropping hosts Lizz Winstead and Marc Maron (formerly of Morning Sedition). Citing this guy's book as a recommended read doesn't seem to be politically neutral to me. Not convinced?

Check out the Political Action Handbook (the full title, not displayed on RTV.com is the Political Action Handbook, a How-To Guide for the Hip Hop Generation) by Dr. Maya Rockeymoore . Rockeymoore, a noted Democrat activitst** has constructed an Anarchist's Cookbook of sorts for the Hip Hop generation. From how to's on how to demand your rights and how to protest the current admisistration, Rockeymoore provides the 'disenfranchised' youth of today some feedback on how to fightback against a Republican dominated Democracy. Nonpartisan reading? Give me a break. If this woman and Goldberg got together and made a baby, they could name it something like Stalin, or Lenin, or Disaffected Black Youth...you know, something with a little ring to it.

The other books follow suit, you'll just have to take my word for it because I'm too fired up to write more about them. Read them if you want to, but I wouldn't necessarily put them on a recommended reading list.

Another of the most blatant mis-uses of the word 'nonpartisan' pertains to RTV's description of it's offical non-profit backers, or partners . I went through and just did a little bit of re-hee-hee-search on some of these so called nonpartisan non-profit organizations. Wouldn't you know it, most of these organizations are directly tied either to the Democratic/Socialist party, funds from either party, or the endorsement of said parties and their constituents. If I had all day, I could recount to you how seditious these groups are in their presuppositions of political neutrality. If you really want to look into it yourself, head on over to Discover the Network and check it out. Anyway, here are some highlights for you. This is unbelievable:

Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN):
ACORN drew national attention during the 2004 election campaign, when its get-out-the-vote activists turned up at the center of numerous reports of voter fraud, especially in the swing states of Ohio, Colorado, Missouri Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Minnesota. Election crimes allegedly perpetrated by activists from ACORN and from its front group Project Vote include, but are not limited to, the following:
•Falsifying thousands of voter registration forms, either by registering the same person multiple times or by registering deceased or imaginary people
•Hiring canvassers to collect registration forms from Democratic voters, while destroying those of Republican voters
•Registering convicted felons, even in states where felons are ineligible to vote (Meghan Clyne, "ACORN & the Money Tree: Taxpayer Money Helps Fund Voter Fraud," National Review Online, 31 October 2004; "ACORN: Voter Registration Fraud Allegations are Just the Tip of the Iceberg," PR Newswire, Employment Policies Institute, 13 October 2004)

Service Employees International Union (SEIU):
•Largest labor union in the AFL-CIO
•Committed $65 million to defeating President George W. Bush in the 2004 election
•Advocates government expansion for the purpose of coercing increased taxes for the public sector
•Gives millions of dollars to Democratic lawmakers and politicians who promote government expansion and higher taxes
•Union organizer Andrew Stern is the current president

League of Women Voters:
•Ostensibly nonpartisan organization that in fact supports the leftwing political agendas
•Supports abortion-on-demand
•Supports "motor-voter" registration, which allows anyone with a driver's license to become a voter, regardless of citizenship status
•Supports gun control, tax hikes, and socialized medicine
•Supports unrestricted immigration

Alliance for Justice
Founded in 1975 by Nan Aron, Alliance For Justice (AFJ) describes itself as "a national association of environmental, civil rights, mental health, women's, children's and consumer advocacy organizations." All of these member groups push leftwing agendas. AFJ believes "that the public's interest is best served when the policies of government result from a dialogue involving not just the decision-makers but also those whose lives are directly [a]ffected by such decisions." Since President Bush first took office, AFJ has deemed that the "public's best interest" requires the commissioning of an "independent judiciary," and to this end, the group has been systematically opposed to each and every one of President Bush's judicial appointments, despite their extensive qualifications. Alliance for Justice is an ideological organization dedicated to leftwing agendas and opposes Bush appointees because of their conservative ideology.

People for the American Way:
•Wages perennial smear campaigns against non-leftist judicial nominees
•Works in partnership with the Democratic Party
•Monitors activities of "right wing" groups
•Played key role in creating United For Peace and Justice

(Oh you want to know about United for Peace and Justice just for fun? OK!)
•Anti-American, anti-war coalition consisting of more than 800 local and national groups
•Co-chaired by committed Socialist and longtime activist Leslie Cagan
•"The Bush Administration has sought to use aggressive military action…to forcibly dominate the world and impose right-wing policies at home under the cover of fighting terrorism."

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP):
•Ranked by the Capital Research Center as being ideologically near-radical in their leftist goals and agendas
•After being removed from office under allegations that he had pocketed over $60,000 from the coffers of the NAACP, former executive director Ben Chavis blames "forces outside the African American community" for his demise, prominent among which were "right-wing Jewish groups." Hmmmmmm.

I could go on and on and on and on people. The benefactors of RTV have an agenda to push and a fleece to pull over your eyes. No where in the litany of suggested readings and nonprofit partner organizations do you see a moderate, let alone Conservative representation. Never do you see conservative personalities in print, radio, or television campaigns with Rock the Vote. Coincidence? I think not. Essentially, conservatism has no place in the "get out the vote" strategy of Rock the Vote. RTV wants you to register to vote if you're going to vote Democrat, or if your ideals fall in line with their narrowminded view of the political process.

If you're sick now, wait until next time. You should SEE what Rock the Vote is doing with YOUR money!!

*(this probably merits a whole separate blog as to why the opinion of a celebrity is canonized among the leftist elite in this country. What more does Justin Timberlake or Leonardo DiCaprio know about voting than you or I? Probably nothing, if not less. Why do we deify these people's opinions, these who makes their living on depicting fiction and making it believable? Hmmm. I'd guess it's because un-reality is actually more exciting than real life, and also that RTV has failed in its mission to start a self-perpetuating youth mobilization towards more political activism. That's a stab in the dark, and also a digression)

** (VP Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, served as the Senior Resident Scholar for Health and Income Security at the National Urban League Institute for Opportunity and Equality, advisor to Mel Watt (D-NC) and Charles Rangel (D-NY), etc.)