Keith and Andrew Fight Back

The old Blog

2010-01-29T22:19:00.002-05:00

This is our old Blog.

Keith and I dont blog anymore because we don't work together. In fact, we have not worked together for almost 4 years. It's really interesting to think of the things that have transpired in the world, and in our lives over the last 4 years. We elected a Black president. We elected the first woman speaker of the house. We navigated through (those of us who were responsible with our finances) the worst Recession in 80 years.

We - as Americans - have also lost our first love...reading this blog. So stay tuned, folks...Keith and I might be blogging again with a new format. Granted we both have professional jobs now, and discretion has become the better part of valor (or ardor from blog to blog) in our professional lives. But there is a good chance you MAY see blogs here soon. I will toss it over to Keith for comment...

New for 2008

2008-05-30T16:21:00.003-05:00

A Post!

Also, this survey. I've been messing around with Survey Monkey, and I'm trying to collect some data from a hack job survey I put together. Read it and love it people.

Andrew

This is my basic job search survey. Please take it!

Where IS Waffles, indeed!

2007-06-04T16:08:00.001-05:00

Ok gang,

This site is also going to have to double as the official "Where's Waffles Headquarters". Since I don't have time to simultaneously run 3 failing blogs, settling for two failing blogs (but one that has dual purposes) is alright with me. Just so long as it's ok with Keith. Has anyone seen Waffles? Post your Waffles stories, pictures, comments, or (most desirably) sitings of Waffles here! Good luck and Godspeed!

-Andrew

Dealing with Ambiguity

2007-05-18T14:11:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I started an internship in the Human Resources department of a medium sized company. So far I am, not exactly sure what I'm supposed to do with my time. I've been doing a lot of reading about workplace safety and lean manufacturing. Does anybody else have any ideas of what to do with the ambiguity?

I* fought the law, and the law won!

2007-03-26T21:30:00.000-05:00

*someone else

This post is long overdue.

There's nothing like the thrill of the chase. Think about it: chasing your first love, watching the car chase in the Bourne Identity, chasing victory and achievement...they're all a thrill! I was able to live out one of my favorite chase opportunities just around 20 minutes ago as I was driving out of lovely Boone, North Carolina. What am I talking about? PO-LICE CHASE!!!

Ok to be perfectly honest this wasn't the screech-vroom-brake-crush police chase that you watch on cops. Oh no, my friends, this was better-and let Papa Andrew tell you why.

I was heading out of town to check on Carly's sister Cassie's cat. Link is a cat like no other. He fetches, he whistles like a bird, and I swear by all thing bright and beautiful that the cat can understand what I'm saying to him. He talks back to me! But why I talk to cats is not that this story is about, so focus with me. I'm heading out of town and had just stopped to get some gas. As I was pulling out of the gas station into the right lane, some douchebag comes whizzing by me in the left lane as if to say "WHY DON'T YOU PULL OUT SLOWER NEXT TIME!??!"** I muttered something under my breath about whippersnappers and their white neosatvaliers, and proceeded to speed up to show him what I was made of!

My little testoserone boost ended abruptly about 100 yards down the road when I came upon a stoplight in the process of turning from yellow to red. As a polite citizen, I slowed down and stopped. My friend in the satneovalier, who was a little ways ahead of me, almost stopped. I saw him tap his breaks, and instantly I could read his hesitant tail lights like morse code. He was thinking, "Oh man, there's no way I'm going to be able to get through this light, but stopping now would mean decelerating from 60 miles per hour to a dead stop within about 15 yards!" He wasn't going to stop for this one, but rather he let off his brake pad and pumped the gas as his car sped under the already red light. I just sat there at the light and thought "Man, if a cop were here, this guy would be toast."

Almost on cue, my head pans to the right to see who was stopped next to me. Bingo, it's a cop.

Here I was, a law abiding citizen, sitting patiently for him to turn out onto the road. Here he was, a ball busting cop, with his left turn signal on like he was going to head back into town to break up a reported "wrong-way-down-a-one-way-street" phone in. The light turned green for him, but he didn't move. I think it was at this point that the cop and I had a brief moment of unspoken communication:

Cop: Dang, I saw that...
Me: Heck yes you saw that! Giddie-yap!!
Cop: I don't know...my left turn signal is on...err"
Me: Hey cop! Every time I step out of line, I GET SMACKED! My car gets towed when I'm only illegally parked for half an hour. I get busted for speeding on new year's day. I get pulled over for dropping off my girlfriend AT HER OWN APARTMENT. Someone else NEEDS to get in trouble in this town, and plus I'll be right behind you as you track this guy down!
Cop: I love the chase too! Come on Andrew!

And just like that I see the cop take his signal off and go tearing down the road after this guy. At this point I'm so excited I just want to run the red light to see what happens. The light turns green and I explode off the line like I'm Prefontaine in the form of a car. I am going to be the first one in line to watch some cop bust a guy, and he doesn't even know it's coming! Yes!! I've often wondered what cops do before they pull someone over, and tailing this cop while he tailed this dude was pure bliss. It was like watching the discovery channel, when you see a lion stalking in the scrubgrass waiting to pounce on a carne asada steak burrito! The guy in the satneovalier kept flying down the road and had no idea a cop was behind him.

I hugged every corner of that mountain road just to stay within sight of this beat walker getting ready to make a bust. I craned my neck around every turn in anticipation of seeing the reds and blues hang over that pursing police vehicle. As I got closer and closer to Cassie's house my hopes of seeing a cop bust a fool got slimmer and slimmer. "I can't have come this far not to see this!!!!!" I thought. But then, right before my turn.

Bingo! Blueberries and cherries baby, it was all over.

So this dude gets pulled over for running a red light and probably speeding too. And I got to see it first hand! I think I derived a sense of relief to know that it was not me sitting in that car, all ashen and riddled with self loathing for running that light. I also derived a sense of shared pain with the poor sap in the car. Lord knows I've gotten hammered for smaller stuff than that, and every time I've done something that I can get pulled over for I think, "I wonder if that's a cop behind me?" But the sense of sympathy soon faded at the realization of what had just transpired: I got to see a little chase, and who doesn't love a good chase every now and then?

**I can neither confirm nor deny that I've done this very same thing. Hmm

France is always trying to rain on my parade

2007-02-02T08:16:00.000-05:00

Andrew here.

It's been now a month and a half since someone posted here. I've tried to goad Keith into writing, but he seems to be in a state of quiet futility with our good, ol' blog. It's hard to get motivated to write a bunch of stuff when you're super busy all the time, or when you don't have the internet, or when your post-shower warmness doesn't stick around long enough to keep you warm all day. It's also hard to drop blogs about stuff that isn't on the whole, very interesting. So today, just as one who tries to start a camp fire using news paper has to quickly stuff sheet after sheet of paper in the fire in order to get a steady burn, I'm going to hit you all with some 'mini-blogs' that I've thought about writing before, but would have taken too much time and energy (and been relatively boring). That was a long sentence. But unlike Billy Joel , I WILL start THIS fire!!!

Firestarter One: France!! I was in the bar yesterday ordering some awesome chicago style pizza, and I heard some dude ripping on France. I guess he had just come back from being abroad, and was relaying his adventures to his friends. The only snippet I caught from his conversation from across the bar was, "I F*&$ing HATE FRENCHIES!!!" I silently nodded his way in approval. Today, I learn the Scientists in France have released a report about global warming. They have now proven the earth's core temperature is rising, and within a hundred years the earth will experience the most devastating meteorilogical cataclysm since the ice age: winter is going to be shorter. I was like "ARE YOU KDDING ME?! THIS IS AN ANSWER TO PRAYER, NOT A CAUSE FOR ALARM!!!!" As you all know I hate winter, so to hear the report from these scientists that in 100 years the earth might be 11 degrees Ferenheight warmer was music to my ears. Apparently not everyone is as pumped up about global warming though.

So in the report the French scientists make a note about how we can stop the global warming nightmare...oh wait, no they don't. Of course they don't!! No one's got a solution to global warming, of course. The fact of the matter is 6.X billion people inhabit this earth, which in itself is enough to cause ridiculously high carbon dioxde levels. Couple that with the fact that we have to work, eat, live, move, and generally manipulate our environment in order to survive, and I think it's a wonder the earth isn't warmer! I love how these same scientists, who are well versed in talking about pre-historic climate shifts, ice ages, and the like now freak out about an 11degree temperature increase. These dang French don't know how good they have it! Think about how all the dinosaurs (never forget!!) must have felt. I bet if you would have asked them how they would have liked an 11degree climate increase, they would have jumped up and down on their dinosaur legs with joy! "11 degrees vs. extinction?! Hooray for global warming!!" they would proclaim. Anyway, I thought it was perfect for some French scientists to whine over global warming then propose nothing to correct it. Viva la France!!

Firestarter Two: Speaking of Ice Ages, yesterday in North Carolina they were predicting the biggest snow/ice storm of the century. They had been talking for days about how we in North Carolina were going to get 5-6 inches of snow in the early afternoon, then get about a quarter inch of ice on top of that, and then have freezing rain all night. Boone, NC came to a halt yesterday. Schools closed down, skiiers unpacked their ski equipment, and salt trucks cruised up and down the street in anticipation of this winter maelstrom. Heck, even my college classes were canceled! I was under the impression (thanks GCC) that colleges never, ever closed. However one look at the forecast, and ASU closed up like something that closes up quickly. Surprisingly, I was really excited to see this storm. I figure a storm this bad, especially in lieu of global warming, had to be a rare sight in NC. I was looking forward to people freaking out, and falling down on the sidewalks, and taking their cars to the "Ride with Pride Car Wash" across the street to get all those inches of salt off their cars.

Anyone want to take a stab at how long it snowed yesterday? 3 hours? 8 hours? Try like 50 minutes. It snowed, stopped, the sun came out, and it got up to 40+ degrees. I was so bummed. That's the second time that has happened this winter. The first time it happened (a predicted winter catastrophe ends in a whimper), my friends and I left our conference in Sarasota, FL early just to avoid it. Of course there wasn't any precipitation then. So what I have come to devine is that people down here, sort of like Frenchies, like to make a big fuss about something that cannot control at all and overstate its impact on our lives. Maybe I actually live in France...

Firestarter Three: My new year's resolution is to put on a few pounds. Every time I say that to people they always ask the same exact question: "Why?!" Well people I've weighed the same for about the past 4 years. I've decided this year I'm going to bulk up and be huge. So far I've gained about 8 pounds. My grocery bill has shot through the roof, and now I'm hungry ALL the time. It's so weird. Anyway, that's about all I have to say about that. If this plan backfires on me, and I can't fit into any of my cadre of suits, though, I'm going to be one hot little potato (or a hot big potato).

Firestarter Four. Senator Hilary Rhodam-Clinton, or however you spell Rohdam (or Hillary for that matter). Wow...wow. I just saw a news report about a group of feminists who think she's too conservative, and that she's a war monger. This deluded group also claimed to be her core constituency. If a group of people who think that Mrs. Cliton has been too soft in her opposition to the war claims to be her constituency, image the people on the far left of her constituency. Yikes. I said it a long time ago, and I'll say it again, if Hillary wins the presidency I'm emigrating. Carly and I have talked this over, and she's cool with it (I think).

Firestarter Five: I guess Mrs. Clinton did initially vote for the war and has voted to send more troops, money, arms, etc. to Iraq, which could make her vocal protest of the war somewhat of a hypocrisy. Maybe the Dems are going to churn out another flip flopper. By the way, the highlight of this news story with the crazy feminists was that this one girl said that the democrats couldn't afford to have "another flip flopper" nominated to run for President. "Uhh I voted for the war, but only after I didn't vote for the war"...sound familiar people?

Firestarter SIX!!!! Speaking of the Presidency, how sweet is the revelrie "Hail to the Chief"? I doubt there's been a better song written for a President, and you can take that to the banc.

Alright people I'm going to make some more coffee. Keep it real.

Again?!

2006-12-19T14:05:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-12-19T01:30:00.002-05:00

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"

2006-12-03T20:56:00.000-05:00

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

2006-09-05T15:39:00.000-05:00

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

2006-08-16T14:49:00.000-05:00

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

2006-08-03T07:41:00.000-05:00

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

2006-07-20T19:25:00.000-05:00

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

2006-07-13T11:55:00.000-05:00

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!

2006-06-29T10:24:00.000-05:00

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

2006-06-23T12:04:00.000-05:00

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

2006-06-15T07:18:00.000-05:00

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

2006-06-06T10:03:00.000-05:00

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!!

2006-06-03T10:40:00.000-05:00

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

2006-05-24T14:52:00.000-05:00

You miss the amazing metamorphosis of pop punk princesses!

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

"Who the TRUCK hit me?!"

2006-05-18T08:39:00.000-05:00

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

2006-05-10T20:54:00.000-05:00

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

2006-05-04T14:19:00.000-05:00

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)

2006-04-27T09:31:00.000-05:00

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!!!

2006-04-25T08:10:00.000-05:00

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...

2006-04-21T14:48:00.000-05:00

...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!

2006-04-18T13:25:00.000-05:00

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

2006-04-13T20:40:00.000-05:00

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

2006-04-10T18:38:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-30T20:00:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-25T16:01:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-21T14:53:00.000-05:00

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.)

Let's get these wheels moving

2006-03-16T23:20:00.000-05:00

Alright folks,

First and foremost I have to say that this whole new layout that you all see...that's all Keith. He did all of this stuff. I just kind of checked up on our blog this morning and was suprised to see that it looked, how shall I say it, legitimate. It may even be legitimate enough that you read what even I have to post about.

But seriously folks let's get cranking here. I know you've been waiting with bated breath to see if Keith and Andrew can actually pull off a thoughtful series of postings. I'm here to assure you that we can. As Keith mentioned earlier, I'm going to be trying my darndest to tear apart a long-standing, politically conscious non-profit organization in the United States of America. And I bet that you've guessed that I've got my crosshairs set on the proverbial soft underbelly of the non-partisan farce known to you and I as Rock the Vote . Before I completely destroy and embarass the Rock the Vote organization, let me first start off by telling you why on earth this idea came into my head at this point in time.

In the presidential election of 2004, I took up a beef with Sean "P-Diddy" (or "Puffy" or whatever) and his "non-partisan" Vote or Die campaign. Go ahead and check the website...it's completely inactive, of course. Not only was the campaign slogan mind-numbingly preposterous, the entire organization was predicated upon promoting awareness about how American youth can "change the course of this country" and "make a change now" and on and on and on (read: vote for John Kerry). If you're going to promote making a "change" in an election year, and you're an official sponsor of the Democratic Party (like MoveOnPAC.org) then that's fine...I think you have the right to speak your peace freely. But when you are organized by confessing Democrats, align your campaign stategy to suit a Democratic/leftist agenda, and encouage an implicit changing of the Republican guard, then you should in no way try to pass yourself off as non-partisan. It's disingenuous, it's farcical, and it's a lie. Fancy Democrats lying about something.

The same duplicity which draws my ire with "Vote or Die" also makes me seethe when I read about "Rock the Vote". RTV is a Democratic vote-generating machine...and anyone with half a brain knows it. I am one who values integrity in politics. Regardless of my political stance, I'm going to use my voice to support whoever has the most character, the most inegrity, and the most up-frontedness with their political aims. Anything less, to me, is unacceptable. Groups like Rock the Vote, with their feigned nonpartisan patina over a heart gushing leftist blood make me sick. That's what initially put a fire under my can to blog about the incongruencies of their organizational philosophy. And the fact that RTV is on the ropes financially and in the eyes of their supporters only further fuels my desire to kick this group while they are down. Yeah I said it...I'm kicking them while they are down.

In exposing the inherent liberal bias of the RTV camp I hope to make you incredibly angry. I hope that in exposing the insidious nature of their "nonpartisan" supporters/partners you feel outraged. I hope that when you see how a bunch of incompetent 20-something's managed to put a (at times) "successful" non-profit organization on the brink of financial collapse you are full of contempt. But most of all...I hope that through all of this blogging nonsense you see how impressionable American youth are these days. They'll accept anything that Jake Gyllenhall tells them to. They'll put fake tattoos on their face because Sam Jackson tells them that to. And what's worst...they will attempt to sway the path of this country because some myopic idealist tries to beguile them into voting for something that they don't even fully understand. Knowledge is power, my friends, and knowledge forged in integrity and truthfulness is a weapon powerful enough to stem the tide of liberal sheep-clothing-masquerades. Over the next week you're going to see indignant, fired up Andrew do what he does best...fight back. This time, it's against ROCK THE VOTE! Let's shut 'em down! Go!!

We're Back!

2006-03-15T23:30:00.000-05:00

Well we're sort of back. You'll notice a new format here obviously. Just some new colors to kind of keep things so fresh and so clean clean. We've given you all a little easily accessible information about ourselves. One of the complaints we often had from the most basic of readers is that you could not tell who was posting what articles.

If you see now you can see that Andrew's moniker and mine. So just check the bottom of each post and you'll see who is writing with a friendly reminder down the side of who is who.

Drew and I have decided a new format for our blogs. We each are going to take on serious topics from several angles. It will go in a rotating manner. So for example Andrew may decide that Rock the Vote sucks. He wants to blog about it. He will have a week to complete his blog, or blogs. By giving a week we will hopefully accomplish several things:

1.) Shorter blogs more often. (Our readers have short attention spans apparently)
2.) Time to research our blogs. (While Andrew writes for a week, I can think about my blog for the following week)
3.) A mix of serious well-researched blogs and fun ones as well. (I can not only cover statistically why Rock the Vote blows but can go on a rant one day as well)

So you can expect to learn a little along the way and laugh a bit along the way.

Keep in mind, we do both have jobs, but this should enable us to post with more regularity and not always about things like Ikea or Karnov. Although our Ikea blogs was one of Andrew's better ones. Ah what the heck, I'll link it for you Make sure you check out some of his pictures. Great work Drew! So come back next week for exciting new blog about whatever gets Andrew's ire up!

I know things are under construction...

2006-03-05T22:54:00.001-05:00

...but I cannot pass over this unbelievable, unconscionable, stupefying story. Just read this. More substantial blogs will follow I swear.

(as taken from Smartlyrics.com )

[Chorus 2X: Shug - singing] + (Djay)You know it's hard out here for a pimp (you ain't knowin)When he tryin to get this money for the rent (you ain't knowin)For the Cadillacs and gas money spent (you ain't knowin)[1] Because a whole lot of bitches talkin shit (you ain't knowin)[2] Will have a whole lot of bitches talkin shit (you ain't knowin)

[Djay]In my eyes I done seen some crazy thangs in the streets. Gotta couple hoes workin on the changes for me. But I gotta keep my game tight like Kobe on game night. Like takin from a ho don't know no better, I know that ain't right. Done seen people killed, done seen people deal. Done seen people live in poverty with no meals. It's fucked up where I live, but that's just how it is. It might be new to you, but it's been like this for years. It's blood sweat and tears when it come down to this shit. I'm tryin to get rich 'fore I leave up out this bitch. I'm tryin to have thangs but it's hard fo' a pimp. But I'm prayin and I'm hopin to God I don't slip, yeah

[Chorus]

[Djay]Man it seems like I'm duckin dodgin bullets everyday. Niggaz hatin on me cause I got, hoes on the tray. But I gotta stay paid, gotta stay above water. Couldn't keep up with my hoes, that's when shit got harder. North Memphis where I'm from, I'm 7th Street bound. Where niggaz all the time end up lost and never found. Man these girls think we prove thangs, leave a big head. They come hopin every night, they don't end up bein dead. Wait I got a snow bunny, and a black girl too. You pay the right price and they'll both do you. That's the way the game goes, gotta keep it strictly pimpin. Gotta have my hustle tight, makin change off these women, yeah

[Chorus]

Just so you know, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences deems "It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp" by the 3-6 Mafia the best song written for a movie. This song was (which was most likely composed under a blue-ish gray haze) composed by throwing a handful of resampled music clips together, and laying some basic beats behind them. To compose a song of the caliper of "It's Hard Out Here...", you might need to spend the better part of an hour being tutored on how to use a mixing board...but that's about it. You don't need to know how to sing, how to rhyme, how to compose a musical score, or even how to perform well. The song, about a pimp who treats women like refuse, is the best song for a motion picture according to the Academy.

I know this is the Academy Awards and that there's a built in "this-makes-me-sick" factor inherent in the ceremony, but this travesty takes me want to induce reverse peristalsis. I might never turn on a television again. Am I off-base in assuming that this is a sign of a pending apocolypse? God help us all.

Does Blogging Ever Get Stale?

2006-03-02T19:36:00.000-05:00

You bet blogging gets stale! It's bound to happen when the internet is saturated with blogs and bloggers. You all have experienced it. You're bored out of your skull so you go to the internet favorites folder called blogs. You scroll through it, realizing 6 of your 7 friends haven't updated their blog recently. The one friend that has really is just linking you to some foxnews story and summarizing it in a witty manner with some fairly obvious observation. We've all been there.

No one comments. The same story stares you in the face. The color scheme never changes. Oh your friend may have put a fun picture in there. Maybe they went balls to the wall and put a poll on the side. But it's the same old crap. A cute story about Ikea here. Some lonely single girl asking why she can't get a date there. Some right wing fascist nut job telling you why recycling blows.

Is this your life? Well if it is I tell you to take a break from visiting Keith and Andrew Fight Back! Blogs about nintendo games, sports, and the right wing driving you crazy. Well, us too! We're kind of tired of our own blog. Now for those of you who have read this far, don't panic. We're not going to retire. You can all exhale now ... huge sigh of relief I know.

Instead Drew and I plan on scrapping the site for a bit, trying to revamp it, and coming back better than ever. We're going to change this boring as sin color scheme and hopefully I'll put some effort into learning how to do cool crap to the site. We'll get rid of the same lame tired google ads on the side ... we're never making money ... I know. And we're coming back strong.

I can't tell you what we plan to come back with in specific, but know this ... Rock The Vote is about to file for bankruptcy. This organization that claims to be unbiased and interested in registering young people to vote ... yeah their corrupt reign may soon come to an end. Crap! I've already said too much. So enjoy a week or too off, and come see us again in the near future!

Until then ... rock fist!

Everything I Ever Needed to Know in Life I Learned from KARNOV!!

2006-02-18T19:29:00.000-05:00

So I was sitting around the dinner table with Keith and (I think) Robbie Wright the other night regailing one another with tales about what we had been doing at work. Keith has been planning some travel and entering information into the most cracked out computer information synthesizer ever, aka Dreamweaver. Robbie has been somewhat involved in peddling kids' clothes at Baby Gap , but mostly he stocks the shelves and hides his secret Rock n Roll identity from the world. Of course the conversation naturally shifts to me. As my friends wait with Bated breath to hear what earth shattering task consumes most of my time at work, I announce finally that "I've been playing Karnov a lot". Yep...Karnov!!

For those of you who don't know what Karnov is, you can click on the link in the title of this blog. It will take you about 15 minutes to read through the synopsis of this epochal NES title, but it will help you understand where on earth this blog goes. For those of you who want the brief rundown of what Karnov is about, it's essentially like this: Some fat Russian dude runs around these torn down cities and towns, shooting fireballs at mystical creatures as he fights his way to the final quest. Think about how sweet that sounds...it's pretty sweet.

The whole point of the game is to...WAIT, I'm not going to tell you that right this second. See, as I was playing Karnov, I realized some ingenuity behind the story line. While one may think that the plot is vague and irrelevant, it actually serves to form the background for one of the greatest video game analogies ever. Are you ready for this? Karnov is an analogous to actual real Life! Let me explain, because that's really what this blog is about.

Throughout the game, Karnov, our protagonist, is assaulted on all sides by a wide variety of enemies. The enemies range anywhere from ornery pillaging pirates to immense T-Rex's. The enemies come in all shapes and sizes, and they always strike at the most inopportune moments. The ferocity of the enemies also varies. Whereas if I shoot a bat with one fireball he blows up, it takes me 5 fireballs to kill a gargoyle. And the Gargoyle shoots little balls at me too! So as you can see, the enemies are all different. Here we see the FIRST of many parallels to real life. In life, whether you are a fat circuis strong man or not, you face problems of all varieties. Maybe you have to deal with an ornery co-worker, or have to let someone cut you off in traffic (a pesky annoyance not altogether different from trying to shoot a bat with a fireball). Or maybe you have more difficult tasks to handle-a demotion in work, a boy/girlfriend breaking your heart, or getting into a car wreck because that douchebag didn't signal into your lane and slammed into you. But through the arduous or the mundane, you triumph...you shoot your fireballs of determination and will and you conquer that task, er villain eventually.

But sometimes in life, your problems aren't so easy that they can be easily defeated by (let's call them) fireballs of determination! Sometimes life hits you with the jumping mer-man of all problems! You've probably guessed that I'm hinting at the mini-bosses at the end of each level. As Karnov slugs his way through Babylonia, Water World, uhh Air World, and others, he eventually comes to a boss which he has to defeat (inset left). Look at that boss! He's a jumping mer-man who throws green balls at you out of his satchel of evil. Dang! But no matter how big the boss, it's always in Karnov's best interest to use one of his special items to help him defeat the boss.

As Karnov travles through each level, with its mini boss perpetually awaiting him at the end, he picks up special items along the way. He can get boots that help him jump, a mask that does nothing, a bomb that blows up 5-fireball-gargoyles in one hit, a neat looking shield, etc. Again, we see a parallel to real life. As we deal with the trials of life, we gain skills that help us cope. We grow in our faith, we learn how to develop mental and emotional fortitude, we learn how to defend ourselves against being taken advantage of, etc. These are only experiences that can come from adversity. As Karnov often has to take the path laden with more enemies to get that Shield icon, in the end it's worth it...because the shield is arguably the best special item.

And when should you use your shield? When the mer-man is throwing big green balls at you! The items that you earn to ultimately help you beat that tough mini-boss are invaluable. So are the experiences and times of personal growth that come through life's toughest adversities. As you've probably guessed by now, the jumping mer-man tosser and other bosses like him (the TRex, a 2 headed dragon, medusa, and a lion!) really represent the big trials in our life. They seem like trials that no one can weather, and in all reality they may actually kill you (I died about a hundred times trying to beat the 2-headed dragon). Keeping your head high, and keeping your chin set like a flint against the torrent of such trials prepares you to take on that one big trial that makes you a better person (and lets you get to the level where you get to use your Wing icon...what a sweet level!)!*

You've seen now that I've made 3 allusions to real life from the video game Karnov. Another neat allusion relates to how the enemies appear throughout the game. If you've ever played any video game in your life, you know that as you advance to higher levels the enemies get tougher to beat. Video games are very predictable like that. However in Karnov, on any given level you can fight any random assortment of enemies. There's no real rhyme or reason to how many enemies you fight, what type of enemies you fight, or even which miniboss you fight (not including the last boss)! I think I fought mer-man 3 times, medusa 2 times, the 2 headed dragon 2 times, and some old guy with a lion once. And guess what? there are a total of 9 levels! Sometimes you may be lolly-gagging through a level and BAM Medusa shows up right in the middle!! "WHA?! I didn't anticipate that!" you wind up screaming at your computer screen much to the chagrin of your co-workers. But that's just IT ladies and gents. Just as Karnov can never take for granted what's going to be thrown his way, and just as he can't sit on his haunches and predict that the flying yoda thing is always going to come at him in level 2, so too can we who are actually real humans never predict all of the trials and misfortunes which will inevitably plague our lives. We need to be ever vigilant, always seeking to be prepared for whatever life circumstance in which we find ourselves engrossed.

As Karnov himself would say, "Жизнь никогда не предсказуемый ..., используют ваш щит и скачущие ботинки!!" I could not agree more. But when the fight is over, and the game has been beaten, what is a noble warrior's reward? What is it that he finally accomplishes through his quest?

Treasure!

Or so you think. The picture above was taken from the victory scene in an arcade version of Karnov. Do you know what happens when you beat the entire Karnov video game on Nintendo? NOTHING! Literally, nothing happens. You get a black screen with the words "The End. Congratulations!" At the end of Karnov you realize that there was never really any point to the game. You don't save a princess, you don't stop a pestilential darkness from overtaking Russia, you don't even get a handsome reward. You beat the game...that's it. There's no cheezy Nintendo cut scene with Karnov awkwardly tossing gold dabloons on his fat, bald, 8-bit head. There's not even a fanfare postlude. You get nothing. At the end of Karnov you realize that there was never really any point to the game. It's at this point in the allegory that Karnov ceases to be a direct parallel to real life, and actually it becomes a 'choose your own adventure' novel . You can continue to see Karnov to its full allegorical ending...that life has no meaning, is fraught with trials and tribulations, and ultimately is vanity-a chasing after the wind. You sentimental existentialists out there are fervently nodding your heads and are already looking for Karnov on ebay (ps I HATE ebay that's why I'm not giving them the satisfaction of having an actual link in my blog).

OR!!!

If you choose, you break with the allegory that I have thus far proposed and make of life what you will. Maybe you see treasure in the end. Maybe you see that the treasure is actually finding out what on earth the Mask icon is used for. Maybe you see your life as a divine theatrical performance. I don't know what you see as the purpose of your life. And I'm not here to tell you what life is or is not about. All I know is that I was struck by how Karnov, the video game, is like life. How life strikes you is your decision.

*Author's note: I'd like to make a parallel here about how having others around you, who support and encourage you makes facing life's trials easier. But Karnov doesn't provide that outlet. Karnov pulls himself up by his bootstraps and don't no one come to help him out when he's down in the dumps. In the vein of typical Russian machismo, Karnov shoulders the burden of the world on his own shoulders. Sorry kids.

I Didn't Get Dumped This Year

2006-02-07T22:00:00.000-05:00

So as you all know ... the Pittsburgh Steelers are stinking Super Bowl Champions!!!! If you read my earlier blog I compared it to getting dumped by your girlfriend. This year I didn't get dumped. I actually went to the game, and it was phenomenal. There's so much to say about it, but I have a few sweet thoughts about the Super Bowl. So I'm going to tackle them a few thoughts at a time.

The game was awesome. It took us an hour and a half to get into the stadium as they had the area blocked off for about a square mile. We had to wait in a line about a mile long. We snaked through all kinds of metal railings and then through a pat down and metal detector. Outside the stadium it was like 150 to one in terms of Steelers fans to Hawks fans. We got in at about 3 and spent the next 7 hours in there. The stadium was electric. Nothing like bullet points so here we go:

1.) Aaron Neville sucked with the national anthem. The rest was sweet.

2.) ABC must have muted the crowd for TV. After watching the MVP part on Tivo Tom Brady was booed a lot louder at the game and Franco and Swann got much louder cheers. ABC did something. Even the half time show was sweeter with more energy and noise. It sucked on TV, but was ok live.

3.) Sloppy first half was fairly interesting since it was close and fans were into it.

4.) The Willie Parker play happened right in front of us and was so freaking cool. The crowd became infinitely more cool after that play since they loosened up.

5.) Freddie Prinze Jr. asked us Super Bowl trivia questions during TV timeouts while you got commercials. I don't care how bad the commercials were ... I lost there. There's no way I will watch his stupid show on ABC.

6.) We had two Seahawks fans behind us. Really annoying before the game, but they had, "That Look" on their face after the game. That Look being the one I've had on my face before during AFC Championship games. I had purposely been reaching in front of him all game to another younger Steeler fan for high fives. I felt pretty badly at the end, so I tried to console him.

7.) I got a pseudo-attractive forty year old lady to rub my stomach and my lucky 1995 shirt all game. I was pretty pumped about that.

8.) The end of the game was so surreal. It seemed like the trophy presentation was about 3 minutes. I just kept sitting there crying. I had tears streaming down my face while hugging and high fiving everyone. I just kept looking the fans in the face and saying, "We're the effing champs." I asked, "What song do we sing now? Here We Go doesn't work anymore." I kept asking if it was real and hugging people while just soaking it all. The confetti was for us and the thirty-one other teams were all crappier than we were. It felt great.

9.) Nothing like pouring out of the stadium afterward and high fiving every fan in the street in black and gold. Singing we are the Champions, Here we Go, and Na na na na hey hey hey good bye. It was so sweet. I just kept yelling, skipping, and dancing through the twenty degree night. I paid 30 dollars for a black Super Bowl Champion shirt with yellow lettering that I wore yesterday and today and plan on wearing all week. It was so unreal sweet.

10.) I'm starting to get pissed at Sports talk radio, opinion shows, and 24 hour coverage. People just say stuff to make stories, get people pissed, and tuning in and listening. Colin Cowherd said today that he wouldn't recognize a Super Bowl champion. He would just go by the Patriots winning the last one and trying to three-peat next year. That's JUST RIDICULOUS! If I punch you in the face, and there is video evidence of it, but you think it was the wrong thing to happen, you can't just say it never happened. It did. So eff you Cowherd. I'm never listening to your show again. Why he can't talk about Randle El's sweet throw or Willie actually breaking a big run is beyond me! Instead they drum up controversy, knowing it will piss off Steeler Nation (who were out in strong force) and they'd call in and his show would be better. So I think the fact that the officiating was bad has been BLOWN OUT OF THE WATER by stinking ESPN shows.

11.) Due to this I'm starting to boycott opinion shows. You can find something to gripe about in every game. I've yelled about the Patriots sucking for years and being lame champions. But from now on I'm only going to listen to minimal amounts of ESPN and coverage like that. So those are my thoughts. I'm able to enjoy the Championship because I wasn't tainted from the get-go by hearing how bad the calls were. I look at them and think they're exaggerating a bit for a story. I think we did what we had to do. It's just like a regular season when you win a lot of close one's ... like our 15-1 year last year. We won some ugly close ones ... but a win's a win. Way to suck Seahawks.

All-in-all it was easily the best day of my life up until this point. The Steelers are Super Bowl Champions and I went all the way!!!!

The 7 People you Meet in Heaven...er, Louisville.

2006-02-06T14:21:00.000-05:00

Louisville, where are you? Let's look at you better...

Ahhh there are you my harlot friend! The denizon of citizens who haunt thy streets is legion! I just got back from a 48 hour spat in Louisville. While there I fought off a blistering cold front (fortunately I planned ahead and packed only some Birkenstocks and a long sleeve tshirt to brave the weather. It turns out that Louisville has winter too...who'd a thunkit?), came face to face with the bitter mistress of sheer boredom, and confronted the spectre of Kin-tucky ignorance on just about every corner. Being someone who thrives on social contact, going to downtown Louisville without any friends seemed, to me, to be one of the more odious tasks that I would encounter in February. Everywhere you go in downtown Louisville there's something to do, provided you are not a loser and have friends. Because I have no friends in Louisville, I decided that I would try to make some while I was there. Whereas I flew into Louisville friendless and alone, I left Louisville with many new social contacts! Some of you may call these people dullards; some will call them deadbeats; some will call them boorish; and some will call them drunkards. I, however, call these new social contacts...friends. And through the art of the weblog, you are going to get to know a little bit about some of my new friends.

First...meet SEAN!!

Ok technically Sean isn't from Louisville...he's actually from Pittsburgh. And I didn't meet him in Louisville, I met him in Pittsburgh while our plane taxied out onto the runway. Sean works for NFL films, and is generally a cool dude. Sean is great because everyone has a friend like Sean. He's the guy in your social circle who has geek-chic glasses, always totes his I-pod aroud with him bopping his head up and down to the latest College Rock band that you've never heard of. He's the guy in your social circle who says stuff like "that's righteous", "right on man, right on", and "Hey man, it's cool...it's coooooool". Sean was a blast to talk to, and you could read him like an open book. He's got his struggles- he's been married for 5 years and is likely running headlong into a divorce. He's the guy who never really grew up, but managed to take his jois de vivre and turn it into a career...FILMING FOOTBALL GAMES! Sean was on his way to the SuperBowl to help film all the day's festivities. On a scale of 1 to 5, I give Sean a friend rating of 4.

NEXT MEET JACKIE!!!!!

Jackie...oh you rascal! Jackie was the bartender at the Red Star Tavern on 4th St. in Louisville. She was a really cool chick, espousing the stereotypical "hey sugar!"s and "there you go sweetheart"s that every good bartender with a Southern lilt should espouse. Jackie made my friend list for a number of reasons. 1) I belly'ed up to the bar with a book in my hand (relax it was before 10 O'clock at night...brining a book to read at the bar is totally legit if it's not during prime time) and proceeded to place the book face down in front of me. Jackie cruises over and is like "Hey sugar what can I get for you? Oh hey!" flips book over and says, "OH C.S Lewis...good for you man, Lewis is a great writer". BLAO a bartender who is familiar with CSLewis? Get outta here! I was impressed. 2) Jackie has this HUGE tattoo right on her chest (and of course her shirt was cut low enough so you could see it I mean I didn't look Carly I promise! Let me rephrase)...er, I HEARD Jackie had a huge tattoo on her chest. But it wasn't a slutty rose or butterfly or some other tartfully placed tattoo hovering just adjacent to the center of Jackie's boob. Her tattoo was RIGHT in the middle of her chest, and it was about the size of both of my fists clenched side by side. The tattoo said somehing about 'one love' and had a big rose in the middle and some kind of weird temple and I don't know what all else. But she said it was supposed to be dedicated to her mom and I can respect that. I mean who of us hasn't thought about getting something reminiscent of our mother tattooed on our chest?
Anyway, Jackie, 3/5 on the friend scale. We didn't get to talk a whole lot because, well, she was at work. But she was a heck of a nice girl.

I KNOW YOU'RE GONNA WANNA MEET JIM!!!

Jim is a bouncer at Howl at the Moon on 4th St. in Louisville. I waltzed into HATM, a rowdy piano bar, at the most unrowdy time of the day-8:00pm. As I looked inside to see what was going on, this big burly dude came walking over to me. If you've ever seen "Remember the Titans", Jim kind of looks like that big white guy who sings all those Motown hits and gets hated on by the other white guy who Denzel Washington calls Jerry Lewis. You know what I'm talking about. Anyway Jim is a bruiser. He also looks like his name could be one of the following: Bruiser, Brutus, Ched, Roy, Spike, Tiny, or any other random character who you might see in Nintendo's 'Final Fight' the video game. Now that you've got an aesthetic model of Jim in your mind, you can imagine I was a little disturbed to see him lumbering my way (looking very hungry). He asked if I was coming in, and I asked him why no one was at the bar. He told me that HATM doesn't get rowdy until about 10:00pm (again, primetime).

As he regaled me with the tales of drunken crowds all singing along with the two piano players, clanking their classes together and making general fools of themselves, I couldn't help but think that Howl at the Moon was kind of like Pirates of the Caribbean! It turns out that it's nothing like Pirates of the Caribbean. But I digress. Jim and I chatted for a bit about sweet it was so get drunk and sing along with popular music hits set to piano music and profanity when he noticed that I (once again) had brought my C.S. Lewis book into HATM. "Hey...didn't that guy write that book about the uh...lion, and the wardrobe or something" stammered Jim. Of course he did, Jim!! So Jim and I talked about C.S. Lewis for a bit: Yes I've read the Chronicles of Narnia, yes they are great books, no this isn't one of the books in the series, no Lewis didn't write just children's books, but the bulk of his works deal with philosophical and theological issues that wrack the minds of men, etc. etc.

After a couple of seconds of head nodding and "Yeah, well's" Jim says to me "Yeah well you should definitely come back later. It's going to be really crazy tonight. You can just come on in". It is on this last phrase on which I linger, beause after 8:00pm you can't just come in to HATM, as I found out later. I came back around 10:00 to see the rabble rousing pirates, I mean patrons, sing along with the piano men, but was told by a rather burly bouncer that "HEY YOU HAVE TO PAY COVER TO COME IN HERE!" I was a bit befuddled by said bouncer's rudeness, but as I stood there eyeing him up, Jim comes waddling over and tells the other bouncer "No this guy's cool. Come on in, man!" It was like I was VIP, and all I did was talk to Jim for like 10 minutes. Anyway, that gesture of kindness rocketed Jim to a 5/5 on the friend scale. In case you are wondering how my adventure into HATM sans friends went, shortly after entering the den of iniquity I was paralyzed by terrible stomach pain and had to retire for the evening. I'm attributing the pain to a physical manifestation of either the Holy Spirit's disdain (Baptists are nodding their heads here) or something else...I don't know what.

Anyway I'm going to have to continue this blog later because I just got my T SHIRT AND CD FROM MAYLENE AND THE SONS OF DISASTER AND I NEED TO GO SLAM MY NECK!!!!

The Impotence in Being Earnest

2006-01-31T14:43:00.000-05:00

No this isn't a blog about a play that you read in AP English, whose title I have obviously misspelled. But buckle in and get ready to read the first legitimate blog I've dropped in a while.

Yesterday evening I flew in to terrible Pittsbugh, PA from the sunny climes of Central Florida. For thsoe of you who don't know, I grew up in Miami, Florida. Even though I left Miami almost 10 years ago, I still consider it my home. Most of my family lives in Florida, I still have a number of close friends in Florida, and my stomach still flips over with happiness whenever I'm on a plane that touches down on a runway in Florida. The sights, the smells, the warm breeze that always seems to be floating through the air-everything about Florida appeals to every part of me. The experience of going back to Florida, for me, is akin to that feeling of walking into your parents house after that first bout with college finals-instantly everything feels safe, feels calm, feels welcoming. I know it seems to be uber-sentimental, but I swear that when I touch down in Florida the palm trees wave to me, welcoming me back. And when I leave, they sway their arms in the most exaggerated goodbye that never abates in intensity until they are far out of eyesight. It's like when I go to Florida I check the weight of my cares at the airport, and when I return I pick them up right where I dropped them off. This time back, though, someone piled up more baggage for me to take back.

I went down to Florida just for a few days to wish my grandmother a happy 80th birthday. While I'm sure that Grandma would love to have a slew of grandchildren fly down to see her on her birthday, the fact is that Grandma only has 4 grandkids: me and my brother and 2 sisters. So on this mission to Florida I was the unofficial emissary of goodwill from all the grandchildren...all 4 of them. My mom has 2 sisters, none of whome have kids but both of whom have failed marriages (which when you combine and average out the length of my aunts' first marriages, I think they total roughly 2 years). It's gotta be kind of sad for my Grandma to only have 4 grandkids. It's gotta be even sadder for her that one of her daughters (not my mom) still lives with her, works at Wal-Mart on the midnight shift, has no friends, and weighs roughly as much as a small elephant. I kid you not. This is where my blog starts for real.

My aunt, is for all intents and purposes, worthless. She doesn't produce offspring. She doesn't contribute to her local community. She doesn't better others with scintillating wit in conversation. She doesn't go to church and has essentially abandoned her faith...not because something incredibly traumatizing or disenchanting happened to her, but because she is too lazy to keep up. She doesn't exercise or maintain a semblance of a healthy lifestyle. She doesn't even give my Grandma a meagre check for rent. All my aunt does is consume...she's like a parasite. She consumes, I'm going to guess, roughly 5 times the daily caloric intake that humans should consume. She consumes my Grandma's money (and my inheritance?) and wastes it on things like going out to eat, impulse purchases on QVC, and tattoos of Tigger.
(author's note: Yeah you heard me right...my aunt has at least 7 Tigger tattoos. I dated a girl once who was unfortunate enough to find herself in a room alone with my aunt who was in the mood to show off her body art. While this girl and I eventually broke up in a not so conspicuous (or mature) display of fireworks, I do feel eternally sorry that the image of my Aunt Heiffer with no shirt on will be forever burned into her brain. Honestly!)
Basically my aunt is terrible. I know I throw that term around, but it's completely applicable to my aunt.

The purpose of this blog isn't to complain that I had to spend 5 days with a woman who is the spitting image of what a lack of self control/esteem should look like. The purpose is to pose a series of questions. How can you communicate to someone that they need to change when they don't want to hear it? How do you bring to light that someone is failing at life when they've put up psychological blocks that blind them to the truth? How do you earnestly try to care for family members who don't care about themselves? How do you resolve the feeling that you know you should love your family members with the reality that you can't stand being around them? These are questions that I've wrestled with over the past few days (in betwen rounds of golf, of course...hello I was in Florida!) and can't seem to come up with answers for. Maybe you all have answers, and maybe you don't; I really just needed to get some of that off my chest. And hey maybe we won't have to answer these questions. Maybe when my aunt gets married to the man she's engaged to (after having known him for 8 months) in June, she'll find the answers herself.

I've got 5 bucks and a failed marriage says that I'm wrong, though.

Top 100 Installment C

2006-01-30T08:59:00.000-05:00

So it's time for my last installment of Top 100 songs. Just a friendly reminder about some of the criteria I used to pick the songs. The criteria used are if you get 100 songs to listen to for the rest of your life which songs do you pick? I mean mostly all of U2's music would beat Like My Style by 50 Cent, but I also want some rap on the list and by default this is one of my favorite rap songs so it makes the list. I need a little bit of different genres. Secondly the list couldn't have too many from one band. This removes favorite band bias. Again I LOVE U2, but I'd get tired of it if 15 of their songs I listened to for the rest of my life. This adds variety and makes you think hard about your favorite band, as well as lesser known songs. Alright here we go.

33.) I Love Rock n Roll - Joan Jett
32.) Shake Ya' Tailfeather - Nelly, Murphy Lee, and P. Diddy
31.) Crazy Game of Poker - OAR
30.) Can't Stop Loving You - Phil Collins
29.) Amphetamine - Everclear
28.) One Day More - Les Miserables
27.) American Pie - Don Maclean
26.) One - U2
25.) Betterman - Pearl Jam
24.) Basketcase - Green Day
23.) Let it Be - The Beatles
22.) Seven Nation Army - The White Stripes
21.) Lithium - Nirvana
20.) Yellow - Coldplay
19.) Because The Night - 10,000 Maniacs
18.) Can't Nobody Hold Me Down - Mase
17.) Leaving Town - Dexter Freebish
16.) Fortunate Son - CCR
15.) Spirit in the Sky - Norman Greenbaum
14.) Want You Back - Jackson 5
13.) Come on Eileen - Dexy and the Midnight Runners
12.) Sympathy For The Devil - Rolling Stones
11.) All Over You - Live
10.) Slide - Goo Goo Dolls
9.) I Am a Rock - Simon and Garfunkel
8.) Hotel California - The Eagles
7.) Hook - Blues Traveler
6.) Glycerine - Bush
5.) Don't Look Back in Anger - Oasis
4.) Walk On - U2
3.) In My Place - Coldplay
2.) Mayonaise - Smashing Pumpkins
1.) Bad - U2

Let the crying begin!

This is a good get for Pittsburgh!

2006-01-24T15:17:00.000-05:00

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Oh Lord only in Pittsburgh. I'm so happy Pittsburgh is going to the Super Bowl and giving the people in this city something to live for...for at least two more weeks. Then it's back to the grind of living in an area with a declining economy, lack of new industry, startlingly low literacy rate, 30 year cultural lag behind the world, a terrible school system, endlessly gray skies, horrible looking women (present company excluded), and an abysmal hockey team that will hopefully be exported to Nevada. GO STERRRRSS!!!!

Top 100 Installment B

2006-01-24T14:10:00.000-05:00

So last week I posted the first thirty-three of my top 100 songs ever. I know you're all burning for the next installment. All two of you that posted about it at least. So I'm going to throw down my next thirty-three now, but not before I point out a couple of things.

1.) I have a few posts here of late that are slamming if I do say so myself.

2.) Recycling sucks and Joel Settecase agrees.

3.) Andrew is getting his piece on the gay McDonalds sign posted as an Op-ed piece in the Grove City Allied News.

4.) I HAVEN'T BEEN DUMPED YET! The Steelers are going to the Super Bowl and I get to hang out with my "girlfriend" for two more weeks. I've avoided her cheating on me somehow or breaking up with me. I couldn't be happier.

Without further ado:

66.) Drops of Jupiter - Train
65.) Flagpole Sitta' - Harvey Danger
64.) Down On The Corner - CCR
63.) Papercut - Linkin Park
62.) The Sign - Ace of Base
61.) I'll Be There For You - Bon Jovi
60.) Like My Style - 50 Cent
59.) Walk On The Ocean - Toad The Wet Sprocket
58.) Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard
57.) Fly - Jars of Clay
56.) Any Way You Want It - Journey
55.) Buddy Holly - Weezer
54.) All These Things That I've Done - The Killers
53.) Head Like A Hole - Nine Inch Nails
52.) Regulators - Warren G
51.) Fisherman's Blues - The Waterboys
50.) I Would Walk 500 Miles - The Proclaimers
49.) Grace is Gone - Dave Matthews Band
48.) Yellow Brick Road - Elton John
47.) Like a Prayer - Madonna
46.) Perfect Situation - Weezer
45.) Sweet Home Alabama - Lynyrd Skinner
44.) So Much For the Afterglow - Everclear
43.) On Fire - Lloyd Banks
42.) Jungle Boogie - Kool and the Gang
41.) Somewhere - Our Lady of Peace
40.) Freedom 90 - George Michael
39.) More Than Useless - Relient K
38.) December - Collective Soul
37.) One Headlight - Wallflowers
36.) Running to Stand Still - U2
35.) Run - Snow Patrol
34.) Fix You - Coldplay

Stay tuned for more ...

to Bowl or not to Bowl?

2006-01-23T12:34:00.000-05:00

Ok people Keith needs your help.

Keith, as you all know, lives a life where nothing bad actually happens to him. Following in this vein, he has received the opportunity to buy Super Bowl Tickets. He's going to have to shell out a ton of cash to get them, but if he wants a ticket he has a guaranteed spot to see Pittsburgh play Seattle in Detroit. If you know how crazy Keith is about the Steelers, you probably know that's excited to the point of climax over the thought of going to Super Bowl Extra Large. HOWEVER!! The trip to SBXL is one that will only be paved by dolling out EXREME amounts of cash. Keith, excited as he is about going to the see the Steelers look for 'one for the thumb', is a bit hesitant to commit somewhere between $700-$1,000 to this venture. Why don't you all comment and tell Keith what he should do...he really needs the help. Drop your thoughts, comments, pros, cons, yes's, no's, whatever! The more advice the merrier, so let those comments flow as YOU, our faithful blog reader, help one of your favorite bloggers with this TREMENDOUS life opportunity!

GO!!

Top 100 Installment A

2006-01-20T15:14:00.000-05:00

So I recently completed a project with a friend of mine where I ranked my top 100 songs of all times. So in the spirit of a meaningless blog. I'm going to release them 33 at a time from 100-1. Here they come. If you have questions feel free to ask. We e-mailed each other back and forth putting ten songs on the list at a time. And after we had 100, we ranked them from 100-1 until we reached the top. It was a sweet project that I highly recommend. Here comes the first few!

100.) In the Meantime – Spacehog
99.) Gambler – Kenny Rogers
98.) Brick House – The Commodores
97.) Dreamer – Ozzy Osbourne
96.) Don’t Stop Dancing – Creed
95.) This DJ – Warren G
94.) Fill It Up Again – Indigo Girls
93.) This Time Around – Hanson
92.) The New Workout Plan – Kanye West
91.) Welcome to Atlanta – Jermaine Dupree
90.) Against All Odds – Phil Collins
89.) Bad Medicine – Bon Jovi
88.) Sweet Child of Mine – Guns n’ Roses
87.) I Will Follow You Into the Dark – Death Cab for Cutie
86.) World on Fire – Sarah McLachlan
85.) Steal My Sunshine – Len
84.) Rosa Parks – Outkast
83.) Bad Boy For Life – P. Diddy
82.) Spin Me Right Round – Dead or Alive
81.) Nite Becomes Day – Citizen Cope
80.) You Can Do It – Ice Cube
79.) Old Apartment – Bare Naked Ladies
78.) Paint It Black – Rolling Stones
77.) Man in The Mirror – Michael Jackson
76.) Livin’ On The Edge – Aerosmith
75.) Under The Bridge – Red Hot Chili Peppers
74.) Found Out About You – Gin Blossoms
73.) Pepper – Butt Hole Surfers
72.) Livin’ On A Prayer – Bon Jovi
71.) Song 2 – Blur
70.) Loser – Beck
69.) Paradise City – Guns n’ Roses
68.) Rollin Remix - Limp, Method Man, Red Man, DMX
67.) Yesterday – The Beatles

Playoff Football Breaks your Heart

2006-01-13T15:45:00.000-05:00

So I wanted to take a brief moment to drop a quick blog. It's about my newest thought / analogy. I also wanted to blog before the Steelers lose this Sunday, because after that I'll probably enter a two week depression. It's one of those things that it's like a cartoon. Think a rain cloud falling me over my head and dumping on only me. That's what it's like when the Steelers season ends ... but there's 500,000 of those rain clouds following everyone in Pittsburgh. The only difference is mine is categorized as a microburst.

This leads me to the subject of my blog. Allow me to put a disclaimer before it. I have never dated anyone. I've never entered into a dating relationship or dated anyone for one day let alone one for seven months. The analogy I'm about to share though is very fitting, close, and accurate to some degree ... I think. When your team loses in the NFL Playoffs, it's like getting dumped by your girlfriend. Now quit rolling your eyes, quit laughing, and hear me out.

Let's take a typical Steelers season. They go to training camp at the beginning of the summer and you start hearing reports about the Steelers. The new rookie looks good. Their defense is looking really good this year. Kind of like murmurs you hear during the summer. New girl coming this fall. She moved to Treesdale this year and is absolutely smoking. So you get to August. The Steelers start playing preseason games and you're relationship is off and running. You asked the girl out (bought tickets) and she said yes. It's on. For the next six months, if your team makes the playoffs, maybe seven if you're lucky, you do everything you can to help your team or learn about your team. You watch games, you read box scores, you learn players names. It's worse than that though. You learn names, numbers, colleges they're from. When they're hurt you frantically search the internet to find what happened. You call into talk shows to talk about your team, ask for the opinions of others, and do stupid things for them.

This is just like having a girlfriend, I think. You start dating and you spend time together. The first few dates are awkward as you figure each other out. You get to know one another quickly. Just like the preseason. You have four weeks to learn your starters, new players, backups, and 3rd string. It's a crash course. Then after a few weeks you learn that you like each other. You like her after the first few dates and you're gonna keep going out. You commit to your team for 16 weeks, and if things are going well, it continues a little longer. You like that she's a good cook - you love the new wide receiver your team signed. You like how she treats your friends - your players are likeable and great at the press conference. She has that time of the month when she's tough to be with - so does your team when it has that three week road trip against the Colts, Chargers, and Bengals. It's up and down give and take. You pour yourself into stats and teams and things like that. You spend money on her - you buy jerseys of your favorite players. You sit there and think about your teams matchup all week - you think about your girlfriend.

All the while in both situations you're hoping you make it all the way. You hope you have a chance at the end to win it all, seal the deal, score. The word plays are endless. So it gets to the playoffs and you've invested countless hours in the aforementioned activities. You've talked to your best bud and Dad about the playoffs and your team, just like you ask your buds for advice about your girlfriend. I think I've made my point and I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting about. Generally you get excited about both. Then the playoffs come and it's down to crunch time - you're having an important discussion with your girlfriend. Maybe it works out, and you can advance the relationship - move to the next round - or maybe you guys split up. Let's say your team loses in the divisional game, better yet the championship game. You're one game away from the Super Bowl. Your team loses. It's over. You're done. You have nothing to follow, pour your time into, get excited about on Sunday's until June, July, or August. It's like you found out your girlfriend found another guy and she dumps you. You suddenly revert back to having NOTHING to do on the weekend. You suddenly are depressed during the week when you read about your team - see your girlfriend or hear someone talk about her. You think about all the good times you had watching your team, that sweet flea flicker they pulled off or that awesome time they shut out the Browns 41-0 -- just like you think about making out with your girlfriend or that awesome time you saw a movie where stuff blew up.

Those good times never happen for like three months. Then the NFL Draft comes in April and you hear rumors about your team maybe drafting this player or maybe they're signing a free agent. They're messing around without consulting you. It's like when you hear people at school say, "Did you hear Mehgan is messing around with John? Don't tell Keith he'll be so depressed." Then what happens ... they sign the players and they're back together as a team. They report to camp and you get your season tickets in the mail ... guess what ... your team wants you back - your girlfriend realizes that the other guy is poor, a bad kisser, and you had more cash anyway. So now she's coming back. She tells you this is the year we make it work. We'll spend more time talkin things out - practicing and working on fundamentals. We'll make better decisions - have better coaches. Get the job done better - have new players.

So you're dumb and you take her back. You think to what life was like in February, March, April. You remember how boring your weekends were and how you had nothing to do. You haven't had a girlfriend since, so you're not getting any action and you're a little frisky. This blinds you to the fact that six months ago or so you said you hated your team and you'd never fall head over heels for them like this again. But you do. Every year ... hoping ... that they'll win it all. It's a love hate relationship, but it's necessary.

That's why if the Steelers loseon Sunday to the Colts. I'll mope around for like two weeks with a generally sad disposition. I'll dream of happy times, the Superbowl, and wish they hadn't broken up with me. I'll have nothing to do on weekends, I'll let myself go, and I'll never have any excuse to do stupid things. You know when you're dating and you spend like I don't know, a gajillion dollars on something. That's what it's like when you don't wash your jersey since it's lucky or you sit only on the left side of the TV during games. So the team loses and I nap more, I'm sullen, and I just ... it's just ... it's horrible. Just like I think it would be when your girlfriend dumps you. I don't really know, but it seems like you would have a ton of free time and be really sad. So that's my story. Let's hope the Steelers pull one off this weekend or I might go into hibernation for a few months.

Let's Go Stillers ... don't dump me on Sunday! If they do, I'll probably start burning plastic and throwing away recycled unused paper.

haiku guessing game

2006-01-12T11:09:00.000-05:00

Let's play a game. I'm going to write some haiku's, and you're going to tell me what you think they are about. I haven't written a haiku since I was probably in 5th grade, and as I recall I won some pretty stellar awards for my haiku stylings. HAI! KU YOU GUESS THIS?!

Crash and Coalesce
Strings of black infiniti
Warm Cacophony

ok here's another one

Slicing the Darkness
with a heating sensation
get up, close the blinds

alright try your hand at THIS ONE!!

Crimson and Garnet
Arms reach out to greet your frame
wrap'd but not embraced

Ok one more

Parting careless curl
cover that which I desire
lightest golden brown

These are all thigns in my office, or at least representations of things that I have in my office. GO GUESS!!

Recycle ... get real!

2006-01-09T14:12:00.000-05:00

Ok. I've been quiet for a while. I know. People comment when greatness is silent. But in an effort to lower my blood pressure and to live a healthier more stress-free life I've been trying to be less opinionated. My Dad calls it the "who cares" factor. Merely just shrugging your shoulders at stupid things that bother me typically. These things include but in no way are limited to the following:

1.) Blown calls by referees.
2.) Horrible commercials.
3.) Bad TV.
4.) Raging Liberals.
5.) Stupid stuff that's not as sweet as I am or Andrew is.

So today I'm not shrugging my shoulders, but instead I am clenching my fists. Why you ask? I'll tell you why ... recycling is ridiculously stupid. It might quite possibly be the dumbest idea foisted upon us by the media and people who need a reason to get their panties in a bunch, do good, and feel better about themselves and their own excess.

So here's the beef. For this article I've gone to various sources, both conservative and liberal. I found some facts, from the ragingly liberal New York Times that speaks frankly about recycling and it's stupidity. Of course all these facts are probably lies since they come from the Times and I'll be proven wrong. This is a blog, not a newspaper, so I'm not footnoting here. But I do have the sources saved if you'd like to see them. A quick story then the facts.

My parents live in a township that has instituted a new, and dare I say STUPID, recycling system. They now are forced to separate all trash in the house before putting it in the can, and the trash can in general. I've always thought recycling was dumb, cumbersome, a waste of time and money, but it's infinitely worse now. Now we have to seperate paper scraps from plastic, lids from cans, and boxes pretzel sticks come in from plastic yogurt comes in, and so on and so on. It's absurd and now EVERY ROOM OF OUR HOUSE HAS TWO STINKING CANS IN IT! The two worst parts are yet to come. One we get find $30 American dollars for every infraction we commit. So if I mess up while visiting my parents and don't dismantle the Pretzle Stix box correctly we can get fined. Plus for large items or any extra bag each week we have to buy a sixty cent tag extra. If that doesn't just scream money-making scheme I don't know what does. Like we don't pay garbage men enough. Last worst part of it all, they didn't even get to vote on it all. How horrible is that? Last time I checked we didn't live in Cuba!!!! What is going on here.

So here's why I'm miffed. It's a colossal waste of time and I think it's a complete fraud to make people feel better about it. But you put up these straw arguments for me:

1.) But Keith we're running out of space to throw our trash!!! False - To fill up another thousand years worth of trash all you would need is space that equals 35 miles square by 100 yards deep. Wow that's so big. On all of God's green earth we don't have space like that ... HOW ABOUT ALL OF MISSOURI!!!! We have plenty of space. And the point of my article, if you care about space and waste ... quit wasting so much stuff. Don't buy 35 packs of starburst at Costco buy one pack at your local grocery store. Don't be a pig yourself.

2.) Recycling saves us money and energy. I even heard our very own Andrew utter this, "The energy saved from recycling one glass bottle can be used to watch TV 3 hours!" Maybe ... if we do it correctly. Recycling often costs more in time, money, and energy since it's so poorly run. Let's not even get into what it's costing me. I spent 15 minutes dismantling AN EFFING CARDBOARD BOX ON SATURDAY! 15 MINUTES! It would have taken me 10 seconds to walk it down with trash and another 15 seconds to smash in the truck ... wow. That's a lot of energy used by throwing stuff away. Look how much it cost me personally. But by the time you get a glass bottle, separated, where it needs to go, melt it, and then make something out of it. You have to be kidding me. Great we can run a TV for three hours off that. If it's poorly run you can lose money and energy as well. How about this. Turn off your lights when you leave your house. How about this turn off the TV when you go to bed. How about this quit running water while you shower in the sink or brush your teeth. Don't make me separate glass to make up for you being a wasteful pig.

3.) It reduces pollution if we recycle. False! Maybe in the ground, but those fumes you're letting out from melting plastic ... they're burning kindergarden kid's noses. They'll have three eyes thanks to you. Ok that one's false, but you're taking up space and making pollution as well.

4.) My point is this. Politicians and grain and nut eaters have created recycling out of some media scare that we were running out of space in the late 80's ... 87 if I remember correctly. Now people do it sine it makes them feel better. They feel like they're saving space, doing good, and getting rid of waste. Want to get rid of waste? Go look at packaging for Grocery stores and packaging companies use to ship products. Want to look at waste look at all the food you throw off your plate at an All-you-can-eat buffet. Want to see waste? Go see how much money is spent in a casino while the homeless dude outside it freezes (side note ... I gamble). There's so much waste in this world other than my plastic Wild Cherry Pepsi bottle.

So quit wasting my time, invading my life, and telling me what to do. Next time I want to recycle I will, but don't force me too. Allow me to at least vote on it. This isn't a dictatorship. So when did it become ok for someone to tell me what I have to do and how I have to do it. As for me, I'm going to start throwing more stuff away.

I'm a genie in a bottle

2006-01-06T10:12:00.000-05:00

Hypothetical situation:

You stumble upon a dusty magic lamp as you are tramping through the snow. As you kick the lamp, a genie pops out with a turban on and everything. He says to you, "Since you have awakened me from my slumber, I will grant you one wish, but I get to set the parameters for the wish because I'm ornery". You start to protest, but the genie continues. "I will grant you the ability to punch one celebrity of your choice in the face, without fear of ay legal ramification. When you say this person's name, they will show up right in front of you to begin their unfortunate meeting with your fist. Son of Adam (or Daugher of Eve), which celebrity do you choose to bludgeon?"

Some people might have to sit, and think about which celebrity they would like to pummel. I, on the other hand, could not spew the words 'Paris Hilton' out of my mouth fast enough. I know that there are thousands of internet sites dedicated to hating Paris Hilton, so in part my revelation that I'd like to punch her in her mouth isn't so stunning. But what is stunning is how she continues to suck...er be terrible. Let's make a laundry list of why Paris Hilton sucks, just really fast.

1) She sucks
2) She's not that hot
3) Her voice sounds like fingernail tires screeching to a halt on a chalkboard road
4) Her nose looks like a vulture's nose
5) Her incessant partying is actually annoying.
6) The crap that comes out of her mouth has actually been proven to make people stupider...her sentences liquify brain tissue
7) Not only is One Night in Paris a hit porn flick, it gets you over 35 million hits on Google. I'm sure most of you reading this have seen the movie, but I haven't, but apparently it's a documentation of the only one thing that Paris is good at.

I could go on and on, but the point has been made. Paris Hilton is a plague upon our nation. What makes matters even worse, people, is that the plague is now spreading to te airwaves. Yes, you heard me right, Paris Hilton is cutting a CD that she actually wants to sell to Americans. Her voice is terrible enough with no backgroud bubblegum pop rave going on behind it. Now imagine her voice, in a sing-songy manner, with said bubblegum pop rave booming in the background. I know, it's hard right? But try...trryyyyyyy.

I don't have to try. Because I secretly hate myself, I downloaded a copy of her latest song, "Screwed", from Morpheus (and yes, Morpheus is still around). Journey with me, if you will, to the land of Paris Hilton's creative side. HEY! Pull that gun away from your temple! You haven't even read the lyrics yet!!

Let's start it up again
You’re under my skin
Same old story
Boy meets girl
And she falls much harder than him
Baby, where’s the glory

If all night, all night
Your attention’s not mine
Then, please don't let me in
You’re under my skin
It’s a sin
Cause you’re starting to win

[chorus]
Since I’m already screwed
Here’s a message to you
My heart’s wide open
And I’m just not gettin' through
To the lover in you
And I’m still hopin’
That tonight, tonight
You’re gonna turn down the lights
And give me a little more room
Just to prove it to you
What do I gotta do

Ok that's just the first verse and chorus. I gets even worse from here and I can't even bear to make you, the faithful blog readers, look at this atrocity. Let me give you, as best as I can, an interpretation of Paris' song in my words:

Verse One:
Hey boy face, let's get back together and hook up...I like you more than you like me, so pay attention to me or I'm going to throw a hissy fit

Chorus:
I'm really easy, and have nothing to lose by throwing myself at you. Seriously, I'm really easy and will probably nail you if you just call me and express minimal interest in me.

BAM!! If the lyrics aren't banal enough, the music on this CD is absolute trash. TRASH! I could make the beats with my old Tuareg midi player on my computer. Remember Tuareg? I do, and Paris' song sound like it was made on a shareware midi player. HAHA!! This song is so bad, and Paris Hilton sucks so much, and the fact that she's trying to infect MORE of our media outlets with her terribleness makes me, well, want to punch her in the face. So that's how I feel about Paris hilton, and I'm trying really hard to think of a way to boycott her CD...not because it has questionable lyrics or because it's going to illicit violence from her listeners, but just because it's terrible. The fewer terrible things that we as Americans have to deal with, the better. So if you can help me think of a way to remove Paris Hilton from the ever watchful public eye, let me know.

Oh yeah, also:

Tell me that you do
Tell me that you do
Tell me that you wanna take my number
There will come a day
A hazy day in May
Or a storm in mid-December
When you need someone
Just to have a little fun
Then I could be the perfect girl for you

(read, "I'm honestly a stupid ho")

Your hands didn't move and neither did mine...

2006-01-03T09:49:00.000-05:00

New Years!!

It's the first day back at work, and here's a stream of consciousness rendition of what my brain looks like after a week and a half of not using it:

I'm so tired
I need some coffee
I shouldn't drink too much coffee
Man, I'm hungry
I need to download that all american rejects song
I bet no one knows who sang that song that titles this blog
Becca is loud
I hope it doesn't rain this weekend
I need to figure out my vacation days
Miles Davis
This computer blows
I love new shoes
I'm so hungry

Ok here I go to answer phone calls. Happy New Year!

CmyA

2005-12-22T13:16:00.000-05:00

In regards to previous two blogs:

Author's note-there are cool homeschooled kids out there. I invite you to comment now to make your presence known. Also, I am a master of the tongue-in-cheek comedy artform (I hope).

ROCK OUT CHRISTMAS!

Gettinga Slurpee is not a legitimate field trip...PART TWO!!!!

2005-12-21T13:30:00.000-05:00

So if you read my last blog, you know that homeschoolers in America are in quite a predicament. The forecast for 2006 does NOT look good. I know you've been waiting for bated breath to know how to help homeschoolers. People of America, I have an answer for you.

We need to get an apparel line strictly for HOMESCHOOLERS!!!

Think about it people. What unites high school campuses? What brings students together? What is it that bonds all people in a given school together in unity, despite what ethnic, religious, social, economic backgrounds they come from? The mere fact that students attend the same school bonds them together and gives them group identity. And nowhere is this most prominently displayed than when students sport apparel made for their school.

When I was in high school, you couldn't walk 15 feet without seeing someone with a Butler High School somethingorother T-Shirt, Sweatshirt, Hat, Smock, Socks, Letterman Jacket, etc. Even when people didn't like each other they all had unity in the fact that they, along with 1200 other students, were members of the same high school. It's a great unity builder! That unity is sorely lacking in homeschool students.

When you think about it, homeschoolers are a dislocated student body. THey belong in a high school, but they have been removed from that environment. THey crave peer interaction (at leat I hope they do), but have no outlet for peer interaction that doesn't center around either youth group or volunteering in a hospital. Homeschoolers need to find a way to bond together, to have a mutual understanding of one another. They need to find camraderie with their peers, and not so much with their parents. I propose that if homeschoolers bond together, they can make unique apparel that signifies a bond that transcends regions, states, and even countries. Below I will propose some items that I believe homeschoolers should don in order to signify that they are different from other high schoolers (as if social retardation itself wasn't a big enough signal...pfff), yet unified!!

HOMESCHOOL GEAR 2005!!

The Standard "Home High" TShirt:
This standard Tshirt sends a message. It says "I'm unified, I'm different". I think homeschoolers should mass produce Tshirts with the words "HOME HIGH" on them. Never mind that the Smith home is different from the Jones home is different from the Williams home...ALL HOMES can be SCHOOLS if you want to SHELTER your kid. So in that vein, I give you "Home High" Tshirts (as an aside, I think the Home High tshirts would be a hige hit with parts of the drug subculture. An unanticipated profit that could be made by telling kids to stay home and do drugs could be amazing! Just something to consider).

The Home High Button Down Short Sleeve Shirt:
Nothing says class and cool like a short sleeve button down dress shirt. Not only does wearing a button down short sleeve make you look ridiculous, it also reinforces stereotypes about your social maturity...I mean, enhances your unity with other homeschoolers! If Jilly Homeschooler is walking down the street in her button down short sleeve shirt with the Home High patch on the sleeve, and she sees Jimmy Homeschooler with a similar shirt, they will instantly strike up conversation. Peer to peer conversation is paramount in building unity.

The Home High Jumper:
Now I know some of you are saying, "Woa woah wooaahhh...I went to private school and girls had to wear jumpers. Why would you voluntarily make a Home High jumper for homeschoolers?" That's a valid question, and it has an easy answer: because we cater to our niche market. Homeschooled students have been spotted donning many fashion 'fuax pas'-esque clothing items of their own free will. If students are willingly wearing jumpers, why not make a jumper that tells the world "I'm homeschooled and I love it!!"? Exactly. So if we make a jumper with two big overlapping H's on them, I think it would be a great idea. Jumpers are great for reading, frolicking, riding bikes, and going on field trips to your church. When we take this necessary fashion item and make it accessible as Home School High apparel, we again reinforce unity amongst homeschoolers.

The Home High Denim Dress
In what may be called "The Staple of the Homeschool Revolution", i.e. the denim dress, we present the pinnacle of the HH collection. You know you've seen homeschoolers wearing these dresses. You know you've commented on them. But NOW we're turning another homeschooler fashion statement into a homeschool UNITY statement. This item is also great because mothers, and even grandmothers can wear these dresses, thus setting up their children for what might be some of the most cripplingly akward social situations ever (and they won't even know it! hee hee).

Regular Girl: My mom is so sweet, she got me a Ralph Lauren sweater for Christmas
Homeschooled Girl: That's so materialistic
Regular Girl: Huh? Materia-what?
Homeschooled Girl: My mother purchased me a homeschool high denim dress...
Regular Girl: That sounds vomitocious
Homeschooled Girl:...AND she got herself one too. We are going to be mommy daughter twins!
Regular Girl: That sounds like the stupidest present ever, and I bet it looks horrible
Homeschooled Girl: Définir vous par votre vêtement est si peu profond.
Regular Girl: Whatdidyoujustsay?
Homeschooled Girl: That's right, I speak French, and 5 other languages. Hmmpphh.

SEE! That girl feels empowered by her new apparel!!

Home High Ties
I see you guys sitting over there, all green with envy that the ladies get the lions share of the hip clothing. Well pay attention!! As a homeschooler you can also get a Home High Tie (it rhymes). When you show up for your college interview in your HH short sleeve button down shirt and HH tie, you're sure to be a knockout. But the tie isn't just for impressing admissions counselors (...no comment...), it's also for impressing...the ladies. When you're homeschooled, you gotta look fly and be unified with other homeschoolers at the same time. When you swagger down the street in your HH ties, everyone knows that you've got confidence out the wazoo (albeit misplaced) and charisma to boot. Don't be caught dead without one of these bad boys.

So as you can see, homeschooled students need to be unified. Whereas people may have different homeschool styles, they all share a common school...their own house. You want to try to boost confidence amongst homeschoolers? You want to improve feelings of unity amongst homeschoolers? You want to bring down those stereotypes about homeschooling your kids? Go out and get some Home High apparel. You'll be glad that you did, kids.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Getting a Slurpee is not a legitimate field trip...part 1

2005-12-16T11:15:00.000-05:00

When I was younger, there were two things that I absolutely despized: 1) lima beans and 2) going to school. I don't mind school so much now, but when I was young I absolutely despised going to school. There were times in elementary school when I would actually wake up in the morning, spin around in cirlces in my room before my mom came to wake me up, and then when she came in I would inform her that 'I felt nauseous, dizzy, and my face was burning up!' For some reasons mom never bought my ridiculous schemes, but it tells you how much I hated school I used to sit in class and dream of what it would be like to go to school...but at my own house! I could sleep in, wear PJ's all day, eat lunch whenever I wanted, or even watch TV when the stresses of Mathematics were too much to bear. You name it, if I went to school in my own house, the world would be MY oyster! Heck, I could even get mom to take me to 7-11 to get a Slurpee as a form of field trip. Yep...life would be good if I could just take classes in the living room.

This revolutionary thinking continued well into my high school years. But upon my high school graduation, and thereafter my entrance into college, I made a profound discovery: THERE WERE PEOPLE WHO TOOK CLASSES IN THEIR LIVING ROOM... AND SOMEHOW THIS WAS A LEGITIMATE FORM OF EDUCATION!!!! This rare breed of individual was called (oddly enough) a home schooler , and their entire schooling was done by their mother and father. I couldn't believe my ears! How on earth could someone spend their entire pre-college schooling career in the living room and have it be recognized as a legitimate form of education? Well, ladies and gentlemen, it turns our that homeschooling isn't all that it's cracked up to be, and actually has a number of serious risks. Some of these risks are as follows:

1) Risk of, what I like to call, prolonged mammo-obsessive behavior (don't try to look it up on wikipedia.com, it's not there).
2) Risk of, what I like to call, doucheyism
3) Risk of, what I like to call, academic barbarianism
4) Risk of, what the French like to call, la jupe longue de jean, or le jeans effilé. This is a very serious condition.
5) Risk of, what I like to call, pseudolegimatizing semiacademic pursuits.

Let me explain some of the pitfalls of homeschooling, then propose a solution (which will have to be continued next article) to correct some of these downfalls.

Let's take a look at prolonged mammo-obsessive behavior first. PMOB is behavior that, while appropriate for infants and young toddlers, is not appropriate for adolescents and teenagers. PMOB most directly stems from the fact that homeschoolers most often interact with their mommies (hey, it's true)...not real people. I feel that this close interaction, NAY coddling, of the young child with an overly protective or jealous mother makes some home schooled kids crazy! In many instances, this uber dependency on mother stunts the emergence of complex behavioral schemata like: dressing oneself, feeding oneself, getting hair cuts, interacting with peers, interacting with men, picking up sticks and pretending that they are guns, etc. I've seen many a homeschooled young man crippled by an inability to engage in meaningful conversation with me, even though I'm their peer and I'm also very easy to talk to (and I'm also very handsome...just as an aside). So sometimes this mammo-obsessive behavior stunts the growth of young homeschoolers.

We're going to skip over douchyism for now (take a stab about what douchyism is...it's a new word that I just made up, but chances are you can figure out what it means). Academic Barbarianism is sadly not a phrase that I made up, but one that a very smart man who is not me made up. Picture in your mind a picture of Conan the Barbarian ...or just click on the link and look at a picture. Now imagine that you possessed all of that power and might and strength...but only in your brain. That's kind of what an academic barbarian is like. They have crushing intellects, but terrible social and emotional coping skills. They are like the severed head...they look though but all their toughness is in their head. AB's are wicked smart, but socially retarded. Ok go!

The french stuff...go here , clik on French to English, and you should see what I'm talking about. Ha ha haaaaa it's funny because it's true.

Pseudolegitimizing semiacademic pursuits...what does that mean? It means going to 7-11 to get a Slurpee as a 'field trip'. I see this kind of crap all the time with homeschoolers. They make up names for their school (for their kitchen tables, essentially), for their activities (doll making is not a legitimate social club), their sports (no there's no such thing as One-Person-Soccer as a varsity sport), their interests (who has heard of political campaining anyway? Not THIS kid!). Home schooled kids are great at making up stuff that sounds important, but really isn't. They make up classes to take, they make up math problems to solve, they make up transcipts, they make elf languages (true story, I met a kid doing this). If you go out and ask any homeschooler what interests them, chances are it's something that is fake or made up. Trust me.

SO! This is the plight of the homeschooler: they eschew conentional education, but long for social acceptance and for a society to think their educational system is legitimate. What I once thought was a dream is actually a nightmare, in need of a PR facelift. What is to be done? What can be done to help these hapless, denim-jumper-loving little creatures?

Homeschoolers need acceptance into the mainstream...they need to feel connected to mainstreak academia without embracing mainstream academia. How can we help these people?

I'll tell you how...one sweatshirt at a time!!!!!!!

to be continued!

mi espanol es muy malo!!!

2005-12-13T09:43:00.000-05:00

ANOTHER BLOG IN THE SAME DAY!!!!??? GET OUT!!

Author's Note: Seriously people I'm on fire. I know that by the time you get halfway through this gem of internet pedantry, you're going to want to light your head on fire. But bear with me, this will be fun.

Many of you know I'm a native of Miami, Florida (hush Carly, I am still a native ok??). Many of you may also know that when people say the word 'Miami', it is synonymous with 'Cuba'. Lots of people speakeh the spanish down there, but I never learnt the language well enough. SO! In an effort to better myself, I'm trying to improve my Spanish skills by reading articles from El Nuevo Herald . Below, you will find part of an article that I myself transcribed from Spanish into English. Keep in mind...I have no idea what I'm doing.

An interpretation of an article from the Dec. 13 edition of El Nuevo Herald:

"Miss Island, Unnur Birna Vihjalmsdottir (that's actually her name), a brown haired gal of 21 years who studies anthropology was crowned yesterday as the most beautiful girl in the world on the Chinese island of Hainan, in the sunrises of the representatives of Mexico and Puerto Rico, that won first and second finalists.

The New Queen of the world ball received the crown of hands of the Peruvian Maria Julia Mantilla Garcia, who won the certificated in the 2004.

The triumphant of this edition, who rang with such force and during the summer worked with police in an airport, completed a family dream already by her mother, Unnur Steinsson, who won in the 5th finalist 22 years ago, in 1983.

...

'It's Marvellous, so marvellous! An incredible night. I didn't think I'd win, it's a grand surprise' declared the islander with a brown hair and 1.73 meters in height! The new queen is impassioned of dance and piano and considers that in the life of every person is the result of what it is"

That's about all I got for your right now. I promise that I'll try to read more Spanish articles and tell you all about them in broken Spanish. But until then, buene suerte leyendo mis bloggos en espanol!! MUUWAHAHAH!

It's the little things that count

2005-12-13T08:15:00.000-05:00

I know everyone has heard this phrase at some point in their life. But honestly little things that you do for people, or that people do for you can make a big impact on how your day goes. Take today for example. I've been awake for roughly an hour and 15 minutes as of right now (8:15AM). For most of that one hour and 15 minutes, I've been thinking about how great it would be to go back to bed. But when push comes to shove, I can't go back to bed because I'm an adult now, and I'm responsible and blah blah etc. However one great alternative to going back to bed is having a nice, warm cup of coffee.

Mmmmmmm coffee.

When I get to work every morning, I love to throw a pot of coffee on for the office. Usually only Courtney and Katherine, and maybe Becca have a cup of coffee...so that means that there's more for me!! Anyway coming to work and making coffee isn't too much of a hassle and all told it usually takes only about 2 minutes to get that pot o' joe started. But today, upon entering the office, Courtney comes bounding out (ok that's a lie, if there's anyone who 'bounds' less than I do in the morning...it's Courtney) of her office with a freshly brewed pot of Starbucks (TM) coffee that she brought from her own house! It may seem like already having a pot of fresh coffee at the office when you walk in (as opposed to having a fresh pot 10 minutes after you walk in) isn't that big of a deal. But because of how I was dragging this morning, the already brewed coffee was a godsend.

It's not like Courtney did anything extreme or over the top, but opening the office door and seeing that shiny Starbucks (TM) pot o' goodness definitely made my morning a little brighter. You should go try make someone's day a little brighter, people. Just do it with the little things.

Get your Wednesday on!

2005-12-07T14:30:00.000-05:00

I'm not going to lie to you, people, I don't have a whole lot to talk about (this is rare for me). So I was sitting in my office talking out loud to myself, trying to elicit some semi interesting conversation out of the depths of my mind. As I was musing to myelf, Katherine blurts out across this office, "Do a blog on Wednesdays!!!!" I of course was taken aback, because Wednesdays aren't inherently interesting.

That is, they aren't interesting until I TAKE THE HELM AND TELL YOU ABOUT WEEEDDDNNNESSDDAAAYYYYYYYY!!!!!

Here are some Wednesday facts:

1) El Miercoles, Mercredi, 星期三, and В среду

2) Courtney used to work with a girl who would sing about Wednesday. If you know Courtney, I would ask her to sing the song for you. I guarantee you that after you hear it, you won't look at the word 'wednesday' without singing the song under your breath. I know I do!

3) There are roughly 52 weeks in a year. Within a week there are 7 days, one of which is Wednesday. Therefore in any given year, you experience about 52 Wednesdays (give or take one). Therefore, since my birth, I have experienced 1,248 Wednesdays (give or take 10). That may seem a little preposterous. Also take into consideration that 1,248 Wednesdays is also equivalent to about 3.42 years worth of Wednesdays. That means about roughly 14.1% of my life is Wednesday. If you think about it for 2 seconds you know that there's no revoltionary concepts there. But how often do you think of your life in terms of Wednesdays gone by? Not often.

4) Wednesday? or Weeeeheeheeheeednesdayyyyy!

5) You didn't think Wednesday could help you cook did you? Well cheer up my friends, if Wednesday can cook, so can you!

6) Popular Wednesday aphorisms:
-Wednesday is hump day (usually said by an unsuspecting elementary school teacher to a chorus of chuckling little boys)
-Wednesday's child is full of woe (I think I was born on Tuesday, in case you were wondering)
-Anything can happen day (thanks to the Mickey Mouse Club)
-'Spy Wednesday' is a name given to the Wednesday post-Easter, as an allusion to the betrayal of Jesus by Judas. I have no idea why they came up with the name SPY Wednesday as opposed to BETRAYAL Wednesday.

7) The popular Nursery Rhyme by mother goose that goes "Rain, rain, go away! Come again another day" was origincally written to say "Rain, rain go away! Come again on Wed-nes-day!'*

8) This fact should have come first, but here is a brief history of Wednesday (as adapted from Wikipedia.com):

"Wednesday is considered either the third or the fourth day of the week, between Tuesday and Thursday. The name comes from the Old English Wodnesdæg meaning the day of the Germanic god Woden who was a god of the Anglo-Saxons in England until about the 7th C. AD....

...Quakers traditionally refer to Wednesday as "Fourth Day", eschewing the "pagan" origin of the name "Wednesday". Most eastern languages also use a name with this meaning, for much the same reason. Faithful Orthodox Christians observe a vegetarian / fish-only fast on Wednesdays (and Fridays) in some countries."

Those dang Quakers, they are so righteous. So those are some facts about Wednesday. I hope you all enjoy being over the hump, and I'll talk to you all MIERCOLES!!!

*author's note: I can't verify this statement.

Keith is back ... with a brand new edition

2005-11-30T14:11:00.000-05:00

So my last post happened somewhere around October 12th. I think that's the date, but frankly I'm a little lazy to open up my own blog and look. Approximately two months have flown by in the life of Keith and Andrew and I know you're all wondering the same thing, "What the crap is going on with those clowns?!?!" My utmost apologies to our loyal readers who had literally no idea if I was dead or alive. Andrew carried the blog up until today. I'm back folks.

So how exactly has Keith spent the last two months of his life? Get ready to be jealous fools as I'm about to share in a helpful outline format. I save the best effort for our readers. My interview writeups for my job don't even get this much attention ... ok that's false, but you felt good for a second didn't you.

1.) I spent the last two months driving up and down Interstate-79 North and South, North and South. Back and forth. That's it ................... of course that's not it. I was recruiting for the college. They switched me this year to Western PA. So while Andrew was off traipsing around in New York I was driving anywhere from the crappy Souf Hills to the furthest, coldest, and darkest regiions of Erie, PA. It was not horrible, but fairly sucky. I did get to know all the nooks and crannies of the state that I had previously not known despite growing up here.

2.) Looking for American flags and not just because they're sweet although they are. Anyone who visits Public and Christian schools for a living often knows that the American Flag marks the front entrance and thus your destination as you have to visit there to get your hall pass to visit the guidance office. I've seen many American flags, but none that but none that looked like this one. It's cracked out

3.) Compiling a list of my top 100 songs. My good friend Josh and I have been working over the last two months of e-mailing one another our favorite songs back in forth. She started the list and sent me 20, and he can't add until I send him my next installment. And we let it sit in our inbox and simmer for a while so we don't forget any songs. I'm at 90 approximately. So you can look forward to my unveiling of number one here on the blog - that's web log for those of you keeping score at home - soon. It just might be by ...

4.) U2 as I saw them in concert in Pittsburgh. Freaking ... sweet ... amazing ... astounding ... ok that's enough to describe it. It was a great show. Longer than any other U2 show I've seen and had a lot of improvisation and rare songs to hear live. It was so sweet to see Bono and I had seats that were like 15 rows back. I could have spit on Bono. I think it was the highlight of my fall.

5.) Saw the Grand Canyon and boy is it grand. Slightly gay sentence, that's my bad, you're a little rusty after two months away. You have to use a gay list blog to get back in the swing of things. Grand Canyon - I'm sure you think it's sweet right? Well imagine it, and then think three times as sweet. I think I was moved, and I'm a bit of a cold person if you know what I mean. Grand Canyon = slamtastic.

6.) Saw a Phoenix Suns NBA game 10 rows back in $120 tickets that I got for basically free from some people before the game. I was right on the free throw line. Why you ask? Cause I'm the luckiest SOB. I stumbled upon guys getting rid of tickets and got them for cheap. It was wicked sweet. After the game I got to meet Kevin Harlan, easily my favorite sports announcer. Killer sweet. Then I drove back to my hotel in my Chrysler Sebring since I was upgraded for free. Basically points four and five go to illustrate that my trip to Arizona was sweet and I had tons of luck.

7.) Saw Washington DC and the new WWII memorial. Everyone should check it out. It's awesome. Very sobering, beautiful, and moving.

8.) Minor point but saw Rent and Walk the Line. Walk the Line = good acting but who cares about Johnny Cash. Rent = awesome music, great choreography, good movie but who cares about the immoral lives of horrible people. Not this kid. It's a good movie/musical though. You really should go see it.

Well kids that's all for now. But you can expect to see me on the blog here a little more often. In the future I hope to educate you all on why Starbucks blows, Best Buy rules, the NFL is the king of sports. Until then though leave a comment and let me know what the heck you're up to. I've been traveling so much I haven't kept up with most of y'inz ... woops I picked that one up in the South Hills.

legal matters

2005-11-27T18:03:00.000-05:00

Keith, you are officially being subpoenaed to make a blog again! GO!

That must be in the new, hipper version of the Bible.

2005-11-15T01:57:00.000-05:00

I need to take a break from my Hawaiian paradise to talk about something that I feel is important

Christians seriously need a makeover. Honestly. Sometimes I wonder how Christians get labeled as stupid, imbisilic, do gooders. Then I turn on TBN and catch snippets of the Paula White morning show . The circumstances which placed me in front of a TV which was showing 'Paula White' are irrelevant at this point...I watched the show ok? Good Lord this woman is a retard. Now when you sort out all of the details, this lunatic and I share the same faith and so let it be said first off that every comment I have to say is ultimately based in a love for her, and out of a desire to help her try to see why I am upset with her. So Paula if you are reading this (I know you are, you silly crackpot), take it all with a grain of salt. But my blood is boiling so I better get started here.

As I watched the train wreck of the Paula White show commence in slow motion, this is what I saw:

1) Unlocking the Secrets of Communion! Yes Oh Christian, the sacrament of the eucharist isn't just something that Christ told us to do to remember his sacrifice on the cross. Oh no it's more than that. If you do communion the right way (every day, in your house, with Paula's home communion kit), then not only will your life be enriched, but in fact you might be rich!! That's right, communion is actually a secret sacrament that, when taken in the right way, unlocks the secret temporal treasures that Christ has laid in store for you here on earth. Need an answer for an enigmatic malaise? Take communion. Need a few bucks to throw around? Take communion. Need God to come down on high and reveal His will to you so that you don't actually have to have 'faith like a child'? Take communion, and all the mysteries of God plans for your life will be laid out in easy to follow, mortal transcription.

Get freaking real. Did this woman even consult the New Testament before thrusting herself in front of a TV camera? I highly doubt it. No mention of Christ's sacrifice stumbles from Paula's lips. No mention of confession, meditation, contemplation is broadcast to the eager listener. I don't even think she quoted Matthew, Mark, Luke, Corinthians, etc. to shed any light on the history of communion, nor on it's eternal significance as a covenant. Through the Gospel of Paula, she declares that Communion is a time for you to unlock earthly happiness and contentment. Anyone who's picked up a Bible and at least flipped through it could probably tell you communion isn't about what more God will do for you, but about what He has already done. I think I remember reading somewhere that he who takes the sacrament lightly, and for improper reasons eats and drinks to his own judgment? That must have been somewhere in I Cor. 11 though...not on Paula's reading list.

2)Poverty is a Sin!! Yes from the mouth of Paula White, poverty is equated to sin. At one point she was droning on and on about how you, yes you, can break the cycle of iniquity in your life. See, iniquity is not just sin, but continual sin. Uhh ...I'll take your word for it. But anyway she goes on to say that just because the punishment for iniquity was wrought on your ancestors ('the sins of the father are passed down from generation to generation') does not mean that YOU have to be punished! Just because your mom was a drunk does not mean that you have to be a drunk. And I kid you not, this is a near quote "Just because your mother was poor, does not mean that you have to be poor!". Woah there. Did Paula just equate poverty with sin? I'm not here to get into a debate about how one becomes poor, because certainly you could be poor because of your sin. But from what I see from Paula, being poor is the sin, and you shouldn't have to wrestle with that 'sin' like your mommy and daddy did.

Get real. This is so idiotic, I'm not even going to touch it.

3) and last off (because I'm getting progressively more pissed as I write this), you'll need to see this travesty for yourself. Yeah, you're seeing things right...JCPositive. Just read the drivel that explains how a moment of clarity helped Paula come up with this future winner of the "Terrible Christian Stocking Stuffer" award. How stupid is this crap? I can just see a student in the hallway giving the 'skinny' on his JC+ rhinestone dogtag to a classmate:

Christian: Hey man what's up
Other student: Dude what's that fake-ass looking bling you've got going on?
Christian: Hey man stop swearing, maybe you didn't know I'm JC+!
Other student: That's stupid, what does that even mean?
Christian: You know, it's kind of like supposed to be my blood type, but better because I'm a Christian.
other student: That doesn't make much sense, and you look like an idiot.
Christian: At least I'm a JC+ idiot!
Other student: Man, Christians are so lame

Yup, Christians are lame. Honestly how are you supposed to win people over to Christ with a stupid looking dogtag with an even stupider story behind it? What happened to just telling people you love the Lord? What happened to just being bold enough to tell your friends "Hey guys I'm a Christian"? Why do you have to wear a chinsy looking piece of Sino-crap that you know will be in a trashcan within 6 months (if you can withstand a beating for that long)?

If any of you have that chain, I hope that you are not offended at me expressing my opinion. Maybe it's because I was watching Paula early in the morning and I was grumpy. Maybe it's because I'm out here trying to sell my Christian college to students who need to be at a Christian school. And maybe it's because I've been getting heaping doses of G.K. Chesterton as of late. But Christians can be so lame. We've been given intellect. We've been given the ability by a divine creator to explore our faith and our freedom, and all we can come up with to symbolize our exhilerating gracious freedom is a plastic dog tag and some borderline heresies on Communion? This is ridiculous! It's time that Christians stop living behind their mail order Christianity. It's time that Christians stop giving into the stereotype of being narrowminded, one dimensional thinkers. We of all people have the ability, nay the divine obligation, to be excellent in our thoughts, in our philosophies, in our engagement with a watching world. I'm so sick of seeing pop-culture Christians fleeing the battle field of the culture wars, only to huddle together on the sideline and yell really loudly "We don't agree with your postmodern culture!" Stop your huddling! Stop your cross clutching. Pick up a book (and Paula, pick up a Bible) and run headlong into conflict.

You have a divine obligation to be effective, O Christian, not to be disaffected. Use your intellect and use your freedom. Stop feeding into your self-perpetuating stereotypes. Rant over.

"We're more than static and dial tone, we're emblematic of the unknown. So raise the banner, bend back your bows! Remove the cancer, take back your soul! We are the image of the Invisible!" -Thrice

Actually James...

2005-11-13T01:12:00.000-05:00

Some of your tuition dollars are in fact sending me to and around Hawaii...but let's remember I'm working here. Really hard, too.

So at work today I went to Waimea Canyon (affectionately dubbed the "Grand Canyon of the Pacific Rim" by money hungry cultural sellout tourist groups). If you've never been to Waimea Canyon I would highly recommend that you start saving up your pennies now to make a trip out to Kauai so that you can behold the splendour and majesty that is the Canyon. Check it:

That was earlier on in the morning while it was still a little foggy from the rain. But as the day went onward it was a lot easier to take pictures of the Canyon. Once again...Hawaii makes you Ansel Adams

Taking pictures of the Canyon is all well and good. But if you are like me, and your red American, Republican blood is always pulsing for a good adventure, then you know what you have to do to make this situation a lot more interesting...go find some obscure hiking trails and walk out onto the canyon face in order to take some slammin' pictures!!! And when I say obscure, I mean like fall-and-break-your-leg-and-no-one-finds-you-for-a-week-so-you-have-to-chew-through-it obscure.

You may or may not be able to tell from these pictures, but the Waimea Canyon is so many different colors. Blues, reds, oranges, yellows, and even seafoam colors make up the collage of different clay soils that make up the canyon. And also most of the canyone is all clay...not a whole lot of solid rock to stand on. The combination of bright colors, fun soil, and the opportunity to have 'an adventure' allured me to one particular side of the canyon.

If you know me, then you know it doesn't take a whole lot to distract my eye. So when I saw stuff like this...

...all of my available faculties were consumed with the thought of taking a picture of the beautiful parts of the canyon sand-with me in it. But for some reason blogger.com isn't letting me upload any more pictures, so you don't get to see what happens just yet. Maybe tomorrow.

But in lieu of not having pictures to show you, I'm never lacking in thoughts to share with you (much to you all's chagrin I know). I'm out here on Kauai right? All I see everywhere I go are advertisements for 2 things: helicopter rides and luau's. Now there's nothing wrong with a helicopter ride over the Waimea Canyon, or some other natural attraction. But luau's? I know that's a staple of the Hawaiian experience...but should it be? A luau is a celebratory feast to commemorate key events in the lives of the native Hawaiian people: coronations, birthdays, marriages, etc. So why is it that an event that's supposed to be reserved for special occasions has been whored out by the pimp of modern tourism? I think I'm kind of offended by the fact that the people of hawaii would so quickly sell out a rich part of their culture to make a quick buck off the tourists and mainlanders. The fact that I see billboards proclaiming that "So and So has the BEST Hawaiian luau...all for only $59 a person!!" makes me honestly upset. Luau's aren't for me, they are for special occasions. As much as I love myself and think myself deserving of a party, I would never expect a luau on my behalf just because I happen to be in Kauai. If I do something sweet, like slay a hundred dragons with narry the hindquarters of a gelding, then throw me a luau. Until then, though, I'm going to keep my money in my pocket and let the luau commence rather for a legitimate occasion. That's what I think.

Ok more pics later!

Wow...freaking wow.

2005-11-12T02:16:00.000-05:00

Ok...I'm in Hawai'i people. I'm in Hawai'i! Right now I'm in Kauai, but I thought that you all should see some of the places that I've been. Hawai'i is so sweet because everything is so stinking beautiful, that it makes you (and me) magically into Ansel Adams! Check it out!

This is the sunset in Honolulu, on Waikiki beach...mmm drinking beer and watching sunsets, it doesn't get much better than that!

Diamond Head!! That's a mountain back there people, and that's a beach right in front of it!! Amazing!

I feel like a brontosaurus is going to come lumbering out from behind the trees. Maybe it's because parts of Jurassic Park were filmed in Hawai'i? Wait...yeah I think it is. I think you-sawr-us- Rex! Matt McQuaiq, let go of that fence!!

Wow...freaking wow. Wow. This is Honolulu from Pauli's Lookout. It's said that it's actually so windy up here that people have tried to jump off this summit to kill themselves, and because the wind is so intense it blows them back onto the precipace...

...fortunately for me this was the case.

Hawai'i has this rainbow on their license plate. I know that none of you knew that because, well, Hawai'ian cars don't always make it onto the mainland. But anyway, I felt ULTRA gay driving around Hawai'i with this big rainbow splattered across the front of my car. But then I hap'ed to walk out onto the balcony of my hotel. OH! so THAT'S why they put rainbows on their license plates! It's not because everyone's gayyyyyyyy but because on just about any given day you can see a rainbow right in you backyard. It was unreal.

So those are some of my pics from Honolulu and the surrounding area. I'm on Kauai, "The Garden Island" right now. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have about a thousand more pictures to put up on my blog, but right now John Stossel is doing a great special on Greed right now, so I gotta run. Hang loose, people.

Get thee behind me Satan...or at least out of ear's reach

2005-10-25T15:44:00.000-05:00

Alright I'm back 'atcha with another telling tale about the awful lunch from lucifer himself.

Before that though, I must tell you all that I'm sitting in my poshy McPosherton hotel in downtown Phila working on the lobby computer. I went upstairs to the privacy of my very modern hotel room to publish this article, and I got slapped with the blue screen of ALL bluescreens. This one covered the whole screen, had a ton of binary code on it, and at the very bottom read something like this

"Commence memory dump..........
.....physical memory dump completed
Consult your technical advisor or re-install Windows XP"

Sounds really bad, so in lieu of privacy I'm going to klak klak klak away here on the computer of the Club Quarters.

OK GO! As I mentioned last time, I was sitting in the olive garden trying to enjoy a good meal, all the while feeling the sweet sting of shrieking in my ear because some kid was making a ruckus (and a mother was doing NOTHING to stop it). That was nothing, though, compared to "Siam" the two year old version of Rosemary's Baby. Stap yourselves in for this one and get ready to git-git-git-git fired up!

I know that this young lady's name was Sian (Or Cyan, or Syan, or SAI-ANN!!) because her lame duck parents kept on repeating "Sian! What are you doing? Sian! No! Sian, plllleeaaaasseeeee be quiet pleeeaasseeee Sian we are at your mercy oh boo hoo hooo hooooo" or something like that. This creature kept running around the restaurant because, in her words (which were very much audible all over the restaurant) "I want sit myself, not with you!!" So you know what Sian wanted...you know what mom and dad wanted, and now without further ado I give you...

A Conversation with Sian and her Idiot Parents:

Sian: I want sit myself...not with you!"

Dad: "mMmpphh"

Sian "I sit here" (points to another separate table)

Mom: "Sian...no"

Sian: "YES!!!"

Mom: (walking over to pick up demon child) "Sian you need to sit here" (picks up child)

Sian: "NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!"

Dad: (sigh) "mmphh hmmm uhhhh"

Now take that conversation, multiply it by three, include two bathroom "talking-to" intermissions, and you have the drama that was created by this horrible, horrible young girl. I kid you not, when the mom picked her up (hey dad, way to be a role model...douche!!) that girl screamed like you were trying to saw her legs off. And as the mom carried this writing, wailing little creature to the bathroom, she continued to scream and howl and cry and make a huge fuss. And when she got to the bathroom, yeah, I could hear her sreaming still. What a horrible kid. She completely terrorized the parents, the patrons of the restaurant, and any unfortunate woman who was having a delicate moment in the ladies room.

2 things came to my mind as I tried to wolf down my pasta as fast as I could: 1) I should have heard a lot more slapping and spanking coming from the restroom, and 2) How on earth do you fail so badly at parenthood that you cannot even tell a 2 year old what to do? Granted I have never had (legitimate) kids before, but you can be dang sure that unless my kid is a cherub, I'm not going to take him/her out in a public restaurant. You can also bet I will not have any qualms about walking to the car, and paddling the crap out of my own flesh and blood. I mean honestly, how do you let a 2 year old rule your life? If you can't even go out in public without your kid prompting the staff at Olive Garden to declar martial law in the restaurant, then you in my mind are not fit to bear offspring. I'll take your kids dang it! And I've also got a sure fire way to help hellion-spawning parents to un-Huff themselves. It involves 3 steps:

1) Go to the corner
2) Think about what you've done
3) You've in time-out until I get ready to paddle you.

Geez people, it's not rocket science here. Are you all feeling me on this one? Rant over!!

For once I wished I was sterile...

2005-10-24T14:47:00.000-05:00

Yeah you heard me right...I said sterile, as in cannot procreate and make little Andrews. "Andrew! Good Lord I always took you for such a verile, rambunxious young man!!" you might be saying to yourself, and rest assured I still am...some of you know more than others. But innuendo aside, I was out to lunch today and had not one, but TWO encounters with what I would call hellions...but you might also call them toddlers. Sit back and start gritting your teeth, because listening to this story is akin to listening to Flo Jo scratch her nails across a chalkboard.

This morning, I was hungry. So instead of going out for the breakfast that I missed, I decided that hearty Italian cuisine would have to fill the void in my stomach. So when I rolled up to Olive Garden at 10:59, I was the only one in the parking lot, and subsequently the only patron in the restaurant. I state that I was there before opening hours for one reason alone. I went in expressly to have a 1) fast meal and have a 2) quiet meal. I had just picked up the new Thrice album Vheissu, and was geeked to start reading the liner notes (I know...I'm a tool). Not more than 2 and a half minutes after I had sought refuge from the day in the Italian haven, the gates of Hell opened up right in front of me and out spewed the most ghastly little imp I've ever seen. The imp was about 24" tall, had blonde hair, and had a voicebox that would put Mariah Carey to shame, so loud was his Banshee canticle! I whipped around in my seat hoping to avoid a meeting with the imp (ok it was a toddler) only to see him writhing and flailing about in his helpless mother's arms. Loud piercing screams that would curdle your blood came out of his cerubic mouth, and the face of an angel that beset his countenance was only a facade to hide the demon that lay beneath his exterior. This kid was awful. All 3 other parties in the restaurant at this point just kind of stared at this grown woman who had no control over her own flesh and blood; we all shook our heads in a collective gesture of disdain, and we tried to keep eating amidst the torrent of yelps.

I found myself literally saying, "Man I hate kids"!! In all reality my fury was directed at this deadbeat mom who just sat there and didn't say a thing to her kid! What's he going to do, talk back? Slap him in his face! You're the mom!! I swear the Age of Niceness that we live in has realyl cramped my ability to enjoy a fine meal. Eventually the kid stopped screaming and started eating his kiddie size spaghetti, but the damage had been done. Everyone was pissed, I hated kids (normally I love children more than dogs), and what's worse...my reading was severely disrupted.

That was hellion number one, but hellion number two put him to shame. This hellion came straight from the belly of Old Scratch himself, and to retell the chronicle of my frustration with this hellspawn will have to wait for another blog...I'm off to have a (hopefully) hellion free dinner with my old Roomate!! WOOOO!!!

I might have to revisit this

2005-10-16T22:33:00.000-05:00

For a number of reasons
1) We see here a principal with a shred of moral conscience
2)...and in a Blue state nonetheless
3) We see a man standing up to spit in the face of a sensationalized youth culture which prides itself on baseless bravado and debaucherous excess
4) And MOST OF ALL...because I visited this high school last spring! I should have picked up a tshirt from there

My hat is off to this Principal, seriously.

Priorities, people

2005-10-16T21:54:00.000-05:00

I was browing on the internet today and I found an article that was very interesting. In these days where gas price gouging is fashionable, and you can't fill up your car with gas for less than the price of your own soul, it's nice to see that other crucial markets are suffering an economic blow as well.

UNICEF is Horrible

2005-10-12T21:10:00.000-05:00

I officially hate huge government run organizations. As a republican, and a capitalist, I tend to believe the more power you can give to people or small businesses the better. Local authorities, people, or businesses know how to run things better than large committees who take numerous unnecessary steps and are run unefficiently.

So UNICEF, United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (from here on known as horrible) runs a commercial ad / PSA utilizing the Smurfs. This commercial has war planes flying overhead, bombing the Smurfs, killing Smurfette, and leaving the rest of the smurfs crying in their "war torn" village. Of course it's first run was in Belgium, a country located right next to France. It's supposed to tell children to, "not let war destroy their world."

Thanks for the slap to the face horrible. Thanks for giving America a big middle finger. Just know that this American is giving one right back. I can't wait till the UN is somehow dismantled and shown to be the horrible beuracratic cesspool that it is. A wasteland of corruption, inefficiency, inaction, greed, selfishness, weakness, and horribly appointed world power. The UN is a picture of all that is wrong with the world and the mere mention of it makes me want to vomit. The next time the UN needs our help, or Belgium and France in particular, I will call on all of my senators, representatives, and the president to not give it. It's time we got our own house into order instead of helping only to be ridiculed and spit on continuosly.

Here are some links:

1. A CBS article about the UNICEF (horrible) advertisement

2.) Some crazy wacked out site I found that has the commercial ... in Belgian

I hate the UN and now you can join me too guys.

Political Time

2005-10-01T19:50:00.000-05:00

So I'm in DC and it's inspired me to write about politics again. Not really just some quick links. I will write about my awesome trip down here soon enough but for now a couple of things that are hacking me off.

1.) This horrible ad campaign I can't stand this. If you've been following my blog you know how I feel about WMD. Everyone thought Iraq had them ... Everyone! You can see for yourself here again. Read just a few of these One more link You can blast these homos here for there horrible advertisements and hiding of the facts.

2.) I'm so mad at Gwyneth Paltrow. She came out and said America is horrible and she's glad she lives in Europe. Fine go ahead and say that it's your opinion. BUT DON'T EXPECT MY AMERICAN DOLLAR FOR YOUR NEW MOVIE PROOF! I'm so mad at people for bashing us. I refuse to see it and would have otherwise. If you're extra angry you can mail Disney to complain at The Walt Disney Company 500 S. Buena Vista Street Burbank, CA 91521. Miramax is a subsidary of Disney. I hate Gwyneth.

3.) Last one for now I promise. I'm really mad at Green Day. If you haven't seen the video for "Wake Me Up When September Ends" it's of course awful. It basically portrays the military as a heartless killing machine that breaks up relationships and has no good purpose at all. The guy is blasted in everyway possible for wanting to join, they make it look selfish, and there is not one redeeming value such as SERVING OUR GREAT NATION AND FREEDOM portrayed at all. For one you can contact Green Day at Idiotclub@aol.com or you can contact Reprise Records at Reprise@RepriseRec.com It's one of their e-mail addresses. Write them like I'm going to and tell them you won't buy Green Days next CD if they continue to offend you. It takes a second and might make a difference. Just a thought guys.

I'm off to go relax a bit and thank the Good Lord that I live in a nation that's free and allows me to express my opinion.

Joe Klapheke and WMD

2005-10-01T19:43:00.000-05:00

The life of Joe is one part truth, on part falsehood, and three parts snowball. My friend Joe Klapheke is a weapon of mass destruction. This guy is a good friend of mine and has asked me, nay, lived such a fabulous and unselfish life that I have to blog about him. Friends since 6th grade I was initially drawn to Joe due to the fact that he has a large head ... filled with tons of knowledge of course. His soccer skills were not to be believed and his Mom gave away money to all who came to visit her (possibly since she worked at a bank). His Dad built our middle school science project and the knife at the end cut the piece of tissue paper well enough to give us an A. Throughout high school Joe was no less impressive. His locker was the total hang out spot at the high school and all the cool kids hung out there including myself and my posse of women. I often had to tell my ladies to come back later as Joe was swamped with them. Joe has siblings but who cares really because he's the only one that matters. He multiplies food, rules all that he does, and has a job. One time Joe even put out a fire that was engulfing an entire city block. How is this you ask? He dumped Mountain Dew on the entire fire ... granted it was passed through his kidneys first. I don't even know what else to say other than if Joe Klapheke was not my friend I'd either be in juvi or in the woods being raised by wolves. I'd also be a heck of a lot less cool. So Joe this Bud's for you and all you've done. Now will you quit e-mailing me and telling me to blog about you. Just kidding ... not really ... Joe also had some otherwordly batting average in the work softball league this summer like he went 85 - 87 ... although those two were strikeouts I believe.

Joe rules!

You show me yours, I'll show you mine

2005-09-28T14:46:00.000-05:00

This is another traffic story (James I'm only doing this because you harassed me into working on my blog in Rochester):

So twice in about as many weeks, I was privvy to some road rage! And people in blog land, for what mayhaps be the first time, I was not the agitated one in the driving situation, but rather I was the agitator! Let me explain..

See, twice in about as many weeks I was given a good view of the back of someone's hand, namely their hand with middle finger extended upward in a mock 'We're #1" gesture. However, I was not being told I was awesome, I was receiving the inflammatory gesture because in someone's eyes I was a horrible person! Imagine that if you can!!!!

I live and drive primarily around Western PA. Here are some common road habits of Western Pennsylvanians:

1) Yield sign=stop sign
2) Green Light=take several deep breaths, center your chi, and press the gas pedal after 7 seconds
3)35MPH Speed limit=25MPH Speed limit
4) A honk well deserved= an excuse to have a heart attack

I'm sure some of you have read my blog about traffic in Western PA so my point here is not to gripe about the traffic again, but rather relay to you all that I got what was coming to me! I'm sure that in reading my blog (or in sitting in traffic with me...and I do apologize if you've had to deal with that) you've thought to yourself, "Dang it Smith! One day someone's going to do something terrible to you if you keep driving all crazy like!" And people, you are right...twice!

1) I was driving out to play golf (my new pastime) and was behind someone doing their typical 10 mph under the speed limit. Let me say on my behalf that I didn't even think twice about this; as of late I've been trying to be much more calm behind the wheel, and you'll all be glad to hear that I've been a lot more chilled out (you'll also be safer when you're driving on the road with me now). But the person in front of me apparently felt that I was driving too close to them. SO! Instead of speeding up to the optimum driving speed, this person slammed on their brakes. I followed suit, and kind of gave them a "Pardon me, why did you do that sir?" gesture with my hands. They responded in kind with pumping their fist out their driver side window...birdie blazing! POW take that Smith!

2) The second instance is very similar to the first...actually it's the exact same! Some slow dude thought that my driving behind him was a personal insult, so he returned in kind a more pointed insult...pointed like a middle finger!! Take that AGAIN Smith!!

What's the point of this blog? There really is none...I have no exciting travel stories yet. But just so you all know...even though I get fired up behind the wheel there is always someone who is more fired up than I am. So JUDGE NOT lest YE be JUDGED.

As an addendum to this blog I would like to add this: you might see me in the streets, man, but you don't know me!

Keep your hands off my Malm, or I'll Flarke you up!

2005-09-22T08:24:00.000-05:00

**Author's note...I don't feel very creative today**

If you've said one of the following phrases...

"Ohhhh I TREBENS with fearrr at that lamp!"
"Dude take a seat a re- LACKs ok?"
"No, you go FLARKE yourself!"
"Man, I don't think big BENNO is going to catch many passes like that"
"We're going to have to reposition your MALM in order to fit it in the trunk"

...then you my friend have been sucked into the particle board mecca that we Americans call an Ikea retail megalopolis! Aside from the punny non-sequiters and inside jokes, a trip to Ikea can be a wholistically fun experience. Let me tell you about how my last trip to Ikea went, and why my entire apartment is virtually sponsored by Ikea now.

Someone once told me that to take a trip to Ikea is to take a trip to the mythological Labyrinth ! Except in this labyrinth, not only are you trapped in the store with thousands of other lemmings looking for cheap furniture, but you have to fight TWO Minotauri once you get to the center!!!! Ok I made that last part up, but the store is like a cracked out Lowe's. For those of you who have never been to Ikea, let me give you the skinny on how to 1), find what you need, and then 2) make it out alive.

Step ONE: FOLLOW THE DOTS!! Throughout Ikea they have these dang dots and arrows all over the floor to tell you where to go, and what to look at. I don't know about you all out there in blog land, but when someone or something points me in a direction with colorful arrows or dots in an attempt to hold my attention (much like you would do for a kindergartner), I do what every red blooded dude in America does...I refuse to pay attention, and I figure things out myself!! Take THAT Ikea, I'll find a GRRDLE myself!

Ikea, however, has other plans for me.

See many people don't know this, but before Ikea started making stores, they actually pulled in an organizational consultant to design the layout of the store. Because I am a networking genius, I actually have a transcript of this conversation, circa 1977:

IKEA: We need a floor plan that will resemble a labyrinth, but with two Minotaurii at the center to kill people!

Consultant: I cannot ethically agree to having a Minotaur in the center of the store, but what I can agree to is designing a store that aggravates men!

IKEA: Ok we're listening

Consultant: Yes, what we will do is lay out childish dots and arrows all over the floor so that man think that they don't have to follow them...but in actuality, we will make the store so large and so confusing that if they refuse to follow the dots, they will get lost forever!

IKEA: That's a great idea! That way women can drag their male lovers along with them, and there's no way that they would be able to escape the shopping excursion!

Consultant: And actually, now that I think about it, I realize that you people at IKEA are Dutch! I just realized that you have little to no moral standards in the Netherlands...

IKEA: What are you saying (becoming giddy)?

Consultant: Well, the more I think about it...the more a Minotaur sounds like a perfectly good idea for your store!

IKEA: Hooray!!

Ok but seriously, the store is a mess. I happened to be going to Ikea with two wonderful women (Jess and Emily, you are the reason why I'm not still in Ikea) and I kid you not, they had to keep pulling me back on the path. I would wander off, trying to find a end table, and I would wind up with lamps and pillows. I would try to find a dresser and I would wind up finding TV stands and coffee tables. I would have surely been lost to the Minotaur if Emily and Jess hadn't kept me on the right path. IKEA blatantly flies in the face of a man's need to be an independent rugged individual. So that brings me to point two...

STEP TWO: GO WITH A GIRL!!!! That's all I have to say about that...dudes you need a chick there, for real.

STEP THREE: LEARN HOW TO PALATE SURF! While I couldn't find a Minotar in the bowels of IKEA, what I DID find was the biggest little warehouse I've ever seen. See at IKEA, when you walk around the store you just look at examples of furniture. You don't actually pick out the furniture until you get to the proverbial belly of the IKEA whale. At that point you have to go pick up your (disassembled) furniture, load it onto a huge palate cart, and go check out. But while you may be tempted to toss your stuff on the cart and head out into daylight as soon as possible, take a minute to relish your victory! You've beaten IKEA! Now let loose, hop on that 4'x6' long cart and have someone push you as fast as you can go! While you may get a number of condescending looks from the hired help, there's nothing as liberating as soaring through the narrow warehouse isles at IKEA on a cart that is incredible close to careening out of control. But all jokes aside, it's a blast and it's about the only redeeming thing about going to IKEA other than...

STEP FOUR: ASSEMBLING YOUR FURNITURE!! This is arguably the worst part of IKEA. When I left the store, I had furniture for my entire house. I paid virtually pennies for all of it. And what was even better, I fit it all in my car! I fit: 1 bookshelf, one entertainment center, 2 end tables, one dresser, 2 TV carts, 1 computer stand, 2 lamps, and some bags in my car with room to spare. I felt like the king of the world!

That feeling lasted for about the entire ride home, until I got all the boxes of disassembled furniture in my apartment and was faced with what would be 5 solid hours of furniture construction. To get you through your assembly process, I would recommend having the following utensils:

and what might be yur most important tool ...

Now I'm not one to advocate the abuse af substances, because on many levels it just ain't right. But when your eyes are bloodshot from looking at instructions with no words, your fingers are raw from twisting in screw after screw, and you've put the doors on Benno backwards, a little relief is not a bad thing. Just don't use Andrew as your excuse to be a lush.

So that, ladies and germs, is a little about my last trip to IKEA, and how it radically impacted my life. Now granted the experience was novel, and my apartment looks pretty slammin'...but it's not something I'd like to do more than once a decade. Good luck and Godspeed!!

Watch out for these bad boys when you get lost.

"Look! They're Breakdance Fighting!"

2005-09-13T14:30:00.000-05:00

Word up er'body!?

Hey everyone. This blog is essentially to sate the thirst of those bloggers out there hungry for a meaty chunk of what I would like to call...my life. Just to keep you up to speed, Joel and I have been battling on facebook with a spat of verbaige that I would like to call "Free Style Rapping". Joel and I are masters of this lyrical form, and so to showcase my talent, and Joel's, I'll clue you all into our lastest torrent of fancy rap songs. GO!!

Joel :

yo, aight, yo feel me. Well it's been a little while since I wrote on ya wall, but you ain't gotta worry cause I'm back on the ball you been lettin' in girls and they ain't bad maaaaan, but you better recognize the guys that will soon be Pans--we're gonna show 'em how its done and we don't need no assistance, we're gonna take a lotta chomps and we don't need your resistance, 'cause we're CRUNK!

(crowd cheers)

Andrew:

Alright I see how it is...alright listen

You said you think you're a man cause you tear up my wall, but watch yourself brillo face before yo' ace takes a fall, you try to tear up my street cred and put me in diapers, but I'll have you ace expelled because I'm your advissoooorrrrrrr

(crowd roars, hollers)

Andrew (out of turn):

Yo check this watch this right here:

Joel says he's all tough and he likes to front big but arms are about as big as a whithering twig, mane you just aint tough so I got to say I could wrestle you to def like every day when I'M CRUUUUNNNKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!

Now flow this, flow this:

You write on my wall like a juvee delinquent but it ain't no secret that you roam the pavement, lookin for some hotties so you can up an honk at 'em, but your girlfriend's gonna punch you in your protruding Adam's...apple...

(questionable murmurs, some some spotty laughter)

Joel: (visibly angered by being skipped out of turn)

aight aight...
Feel me...
So you like to write sht all over my wall, but anyone can see through yer attempts ta ball
Makin' funna my guns, now what's that all about--it's humorous to hear scrawny people runnin' they mouth
Talkin' bout my adam's apple? 'least I got one maaaan
Tell me how's it feel to be the first female Pan--and get CRUNK!!!!

(crowd OHHHH's a lot)

Joel:

OH no! Let me tell ya bout the feelings I felt, when ya sorry ace self tried to get me expelt
I started laughin out loud and ya had me in stitches
When I get expulsion threats from some skinny ace b--s (oh)!
You belong in '95 just playin with pogs, cuz we all know I've got way more fans on my blog--because I'm CRUNK!!!

Andrew:

(really serious music comes on, probably like Nelly's "Heart of a Champion", with some serious talking to preface what will likely be a malicious rap)

Alright...I see how it is...see a lot of people be hating on me because they too scared to realize the truth that I bring...but you better recognize that the truth hurts sometimes...and you about to get a faceful of pain

(talk over, rap starts!)

Alright stop all your talking bout stuff you don't know, cause this skinny sophic brother thinks you's a trick ho. You turn turn tricks and hoes and are generally rude, but we know that all yo business be coming straight from dudes (ohhh!) Look at you, main pointing at your friend's junk thinking 'can I cop a feel and use the escuse that I'm crunk?' No you cain't my man cause I know your true colors, they ain't on blue and white shirts, main they on rainbow rubbers (ohhhhh)

music fadeout

treating commences

(its like that scene in 8 Mile where everyone goes crazy for the white guy! it's insanity in here!)

Rap fighting is so sweet!

"If I didn't have money...that would suck"

2005-09-02T21:52:00.000-05:00

Alright people, here's what's up. I know that Keith just posted about a serious issue...i.e. how Wal Mart is destroying our society. That's huge. Go read that. Then read this. It's about a destructive force in our society, that everyone passes over and no one really takes the time to stand up against. What I'm talking about here is the degeneracy of...you guessed it...

MTV

I just spent the past half hour watching "My Super Sweet 16" and I have something to say. Let's talk about MTV for a second. Music aside, what do we all know about MTV? There are some things that everyone can agree MTV attempts to purport on its endless broadcast of senselessness. Let's make a list:
1) MTV Sucks
2) MTV, though a network supposedly committed to bringing you up to date on the world of music, more often than not takes up social causes like dealing with unpopularity, social injustice and how to correct it, free speech, equal rights for all people, protesting our Republican president, and just generally towing the Democratic party line right? Come on Democrats, feel me here.
3) Be true to yourself
4) Commercials
5) Reality TV, which showcases the uncanny relationship between scripted Television and 'real life'

Everyone agrees MTV shows less, and less music. That's why we have MTV2, MTV online, and MTV On Demand, or whatever button you push on MTV online that shows you music videos you should be seeing during the waking hours of your life (but doesn't).

While I was watching 'My Super Sweet 16' on MTV, I was struck at how MTV consistently shows conflicting messages to it's maleable, and impressionable audience of 16-25 year olds. This show is soley dedicated to showing you how spoiled little girls can be when their dad's have cash, and their friends' dad's don't. This one episode I was watching showcased a 15 year old girl, spoiled beyond belief, who felt that she 'deserved all the money that she got from her dad because she was a good girl'. What's worse than that, this show went on to showcase how this incredibly immature, self absored, and generally unintelligent girl discriminated against her classmates based on age, sex, what type of clothing they wore, where they grew up, how much money their parent's made, and whether or not inviting certain people to her party would convey to a watchin world how popular she was.

Let's, for a minute, assume that MTV was actually SATV, which stands for Social Activism Tele-Vision. Let's assume that MTV wasn't in the business of talking about music (which it clearly isn;t) and asuume that it was a network dedicated to ensnaring the minds of young Americans into believing their version of what amounts to social justice. By all accounts, the 'Music Television Network' has sent numerous conflicting messages antithetical to its design and purpose. While on the one hand it shows shows like 'Made' and 'Take a Stand: fight for your rights against X social malady', on the other it shows programs which were specifically meant to highlight how awesome it is to exploit other people, unearth their weaknesses, and denegrate others based on a temporal, fleeting period of 'status'. Shows like Cribs, My Sweet..., Laguna Beach, and others flly in the face of all of MTV's activist stances against discrimination, hate, and intolerance. What MTV is effectively saying is 'sell out to whatever gets you to where you need to be, whether your cause be just or malicious'.

Honestly people. You put some 15 year old ho on TV, dress her up like she's 25 and working the Red Light District, and tell the world that 'All that matters now is that I'm the most popular girl in school'. Then you're going to turn around and in the next half hour segment tell women to respect themselves, and that beauty is not defined by what you put on or who you know? Give me a break! It's when MTV puts public awareness spots against teen drinking and unprotected sex, then follows them up with shows dedicated to exposing how you can get away with underage drinking and a life of licensciousness that we know MTV is a network for the sellout, for the selfish, for the vain, for the uncontrolled.

I vomit on MTV. I vomit on everything about MTV. And I know that most of you reading this blog will echo my sentiments. But it bears repeating that this network is garbage. Look at what's going on in New Orleans. Look at the people stealing TV's, DVD players, car stereos, Rolexes, and other assorted bling and tell me that's not influenced by the garbage foisted upon them by MTV. You look at the people making gang signs when their house has been destoyed, because they're so tuned into the mentality of 'get yours or die trying'. You look at the people waving their guns in the air and shooting their relatives for a bag of ice. You look at the chaos, and how it mirrors the programming showcased on the Music Television Network and tell me there's no correlation. Look me straight in the face and tell me there's no correlation!! I vomit this network and the commercialization that it sells out to. I vomit on this network that tells you money is the key to happiness and success. I vomit on this network for telling people that the government owes you something, that you sit tight and 'know how you do' and the government will be right along to cure all your social ills. I vomit on this network for creating a senseless, desensitized mob ready and willing to snuff out the life of their own kin for a chance at making it big. In the most pure, and unadulturated sense I say...I vomit on it all.

Communist-Mart

2005-08-31T20:01:00.000-05:00

For quite some time now I have been promising a blog about my opinion on Wal-Mart. I've had to gather my thoughts and frankly they're so scattered and many I'm not sure I can put them all down coherently. I tend to try and make my blogs humorous in nature, but this one is entirely serious. I hate Wal-Mart. I know I know. I'm a raging conservative which should mean that I LOVE Wal-Mart. I just want you to know that I've researched the facts and I fall down on the side of democrats and unions on this one. It kills me to type it, but Wal-Mart must be stopped for the good of America.

I will try to keep my points simple and to the point without rambling. There really are three reasons that Wal-Mart must be stopped. First they're killing our economy. Second they're not saving us money like they think they are, but are in fact costing us more money than we realize and lowering our quality of life. Finally, they treat employees unfairly. For a company that makes $6.6 billion dollars a year in profit they pay their people precious little. Without any more delay let's get this party started.

1.) Wal-Mart is slowly killing our economy. Wal-Mart (here after known WM or Communist-Mart) claims to buy American. They only buy American when it's convenient for them though, or in fact the cheapest product they can buy. It plays itself out a couple of different ways in the store. Clothing at WM is sold at the cheapest price possible and here's why. Let's say that WM wants to do business with Bugle Boy jeans. WM offers to use 100% of Bugle Boys factories at 100% ouput for 3 years. They will carry everything that Bugle Boy can make. Bugle Boy jumps at the bit on this one. Because 7.5 cents of every dollar spent in America will end up at WM. A pretty impressive stat and a pretty impressive slice of business.

So Bugle Boy agrees. They sign the deal and WM then tells them they have to use 70% dye instead of 100 and then go with a 100 thread count instead of 200 in order to save some money. They also must take only 6% of the profit instead of 10% Bugle Boy is reluctant and agrees as it's 100% of their factories for 3 years. 3 years goes by and what happens? Two things. 1.) Bugle Boy gets a bad name for making crappy jeans that rip and fade thanks to WM. 2.) In order to make jeans cheaply and make some profit still they close the majority, or all, of their American factories and begin making jeans overseas in China where there are no labor laws and kids can work 130 hours a week. So now it's time for Bugle Boy to renew with WM and they say instead of making 6% of the profit they have to give all but .2% to WM. Bugle Boy says no way we won't make any money, but if Bugle Boy leaves their product will die since it now has such a crappy name. WM wins and keeps getting all the profit or Bugle Boy dies ... just like Arizona jeans, Route 51 jeans, and many others before. They kill the company. And that's just clothing.

For example recently Levi jeans has been under contract with WM. They had to create a whole new line of jeans to actually sell them there. As these were horrible jeans it ruined their brand name effectively. What happens to be a more crushing blow is that in the last year they announced the closing of their last two factories in the States. A company that had sixty factories in the country before now has none. 2,500 more Americans lost their job. So yes a WM opens more jobs when a store opens, but over the course of 10 years Levi has closed 60 factories eliminating 75,000 jobs. Where do these jobs go? Only to the fastest growing economy in the world - China. Communist China were Levi can go and and have someone work 130 hours a week to make jeans. WM imports $15 billion a year in goods from China. So reason number one is they close American factories and give money to what could be eventually our biggest competitor. This doesn't even explore the fact that they force the hands of other companies to do as they wish. Vlasic pickles for example which make the least profit off whole pickles are asked only to sell those at WM ... in gallon jars making one cent profit per jar. Eventually this kind of hand forcing by WM drove Vlasic pickles into bankruptcy. But as mentioned Vlasic and others can't afford to not use WM as WM makes in two months what Home Depot and other stores do in a year. They are the largest company in the world right now. You can read it for yourself here if you like

2.) That was my longest point so bear with me. Point two is that WM is costing you much more money than you think. The average hourly worker at WM makes only $18,000 a year, and many more in fact are part time employees. This means they don't qualify for WM's poor health care benefits and often times have to mooch off medicaid. Not only that, but many of WM's employees make so little they qualify for welfare. Granted everyone qualifies for welfare these days since the system is horrible. But if you're saving 20 cents on toothpaste because you shop at WM, you really aren't. Your tax dollars are also going to help pay these employees eat and generally live. Now granted if WM disappeared tomorrow we wouldn't have lower taxes, but we can fight that fight after this one. I'm tired of my money paying people that could be making enough money if their employer wasn't greedy. For a company that makes roughly $6.6 billion a year in profit their employees should not be qualifying for welfare. That's just poor leadership and management and frankly I'm tired of them taking my money at the register and on April 15th. Call me crazy but I like having my money spent the way I want to spend it. Not paying the employees of a company that provides low end products for me. It's a long report but feel free to read it on your own time

3.) Lastly and briefly since this blog is already getting a little long. WM treats it's employees unfairly. I hate unions. I hate them with every fiber in my body because they make things run inefficiently. But WM fires anyone who tries to even talk of starting a union. This is a little unfair. They shouldn't act like a communist nation or company run by a dictator. If employees want to raise new ideas or discuss things then they should be able to. I believe if WM is running things well people will decide a union is a poor idea. Also WM on average pays women employees with the same qualifications and in the same position as men an average of 6.4 percent less. I have the newspaper with this fact in it if you'd like to see it. They treat their women poorly. Now you know I don't discriminate against women. I think they should have the nicest kitchens money can buy ... just a joke ... but this is poor. They don't allow discourse amongst their employees and they treat women unfairly. The company doesn't give good health benefits, if any at all, and when they do employees often have to give 60% of their salary in order to qualify for said "benefits." Not the type of treatment you should expect from your "All-American" company. Not to mention the people they drive out of business like Mom and Pop stores and other companies like K-Mart. WM has effectively squashed all the other competition by strong arming businesses.

It's a great idea, but one that has been executed poorly. Don't get me wrong, I'm all about low priced goods. But I also like freedom of choice. I want to be able to choose if I want my rap CD censored or not. You don't get this choice at WM. I want to be able to choose whether my tax dollars go to a certain store or not. I want to be able to choose the high end jeans over the low end jeans. This is not possible at WM. I don't want to walk into WM and see it enabling people to continue being poor. I want to see people make smart choices and save money. It's not always easy and WM tries to portray the image that it is. They're slowly not only sending all of our jobs overseas, but they're also strengthening a potentially dangerous economy for the US in years to come. All these combined has helped me make the decision not to give my dollar to Wal-Mart. I choose to shop at Target, Giant Eagle, or even Marshalls or Best Buy. It's ok if my life is not the most convenient life possible.

I will say two things. This was a long blog so take your time and read it over. If you have more questions feel free to ask me. I can go into more detail, but this one is too long as is already. Secondly WM has done some good. They've run an efficient, timely, and large business. They are almost the poster child of capitalism and have done some good things. For my taste though they've done too many bad things along the way. That's why I'm taking a stand and this time it means not shopping at Communist-Mart ... even if it is the liberal thing to do.

It's a jungle out there!!!

2005-08-26T15:20:00.000-05:00

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen, it's a jungle out there. Regardless of whether you live in the city, or in rural, horrible, downtrodden Western PA the world is becoming a much more violent place! Even the most docile of creatures are having to pursue a path of violence and destruction to make a decent way in the wild, wild world. Take for example...me! Yep...there I am, bright and chipper, ready to take on any task that the world could possibly throw at me! I've got that defiant, "Come on world! Give me what you got, because I'm going to slap you in your gap toothed mouth!" How am I so supremely confident in a world teetering on the edge of self-destruction? I will tell you me friends that I have a few secrets. The secrets of my bottled bravado are detailed in this photograph, if ye have eyes to see! Come with me, and find the secrets to making your own destiny!

Step 1: Have a good friend with you. As you can see, part of my unbridled confidence stems from the fact that I have a good friend by my side. Through thick or thin good friends will stand by you, and help you conquer the 'lions' and 'bears' of life's jungle experience. Frengel and I are good friends. Keith and I are good friends, though there was a time when I contemplated suffocating him with the underside of my posturepedic pillow! You all should really ask about it sometimes. It's a story that underscores how the trivial aspects of life should not drive friends apart! It's also a story for another day because after a good friend, you need...

Step 2: A Solid Haircut! Call it the faux-hawk, call it the 'rhino', call it the 'reverse Alphalpha'...call it what you will but don't call it ridiculous! In times of trouble, a good haircut will help you feel better about yours standing in life. Reflect with me children!! Who all of you has not at one point stood in front of a mirror, eagerly searching the crevaces and nuances of one's facial canvas looking for one clue as to how to engage a situation looming on the horizon? I know you all have!! If in searching your exterior frame for an internal pathway of enlightenment you have a solid haircut, it makes it a little easier to keep searching for the answer somewhere on your face. Plus, a solid haircut will make you more aerodynamic should you need to run away fro life's problems.

Step 3: Be Supremely Confident! "Who of you by worrying can add even a day to your existence"? It's a question asked to us by the Christ, and it is a question that still stands today...why worry so much! Pump that fist in the air, pull those lips back in a gnarled grin, and charge ahead into the jungle of life! Remember, predators can't eat what can't be eaten, so don't sit still long enough to worry about getting eaten...because you will be. Eaten that is...or consumed by life's problems if you will. Just run with the metaphor here people. Finally, in order to clear a pathway through the underbrush and jaggers of the jungle of life, you will need...

Step 4: An Awesome Headband! As you can see from my defiant stance, I've got a killer headband on. Now I can really take the world on, and do it with authority!! Hiya, World! You got nothing!!!

So those are 4 steps to fighting your way through the jungle of life. I wish you all the best on the start of the school year (you students), and the best to you working folk who are starting to lament the fast approaching end of summer. GO!

Andrew reacts and then blames Satan

2005-08-20T10:18:00.000-05:00

So by now you've all read Andrew's blog. And if you've ever played Street Fighter 2 for Super Nintendo you probably laughed pretty hard. It paints a perfect picture of the game. A game that drives you to play better so you can hear the voice say, "PERFECT!" when you secure a flawless victory. The game does breed competitiveness. I used to be a product of it's competition. One time I lost to Andrew and our roommate Jordan so many times that I let out a tirade of "f-bombs" so fierce and so horrible that Andrew and Jordan just looked at me and started laughing. I had offended so much that it went past shock and disgust level and went straight towards laughter. After this Andrew and I created a system to help keep each other from swearing. Every time one of us swears we owed a dollar to the other person. Seeing as how money never changed hands, we then resorted to punching one another. This system is working much better. Although the last time we were together we spent a large amount of time spelling swear words instead. "Oh c'mon son of a b-i-t-c-h-!" Hmmmmm ....

I digress. After playing my friend Joe who isn't very good at Street Fighter 2 and getting creamed, I decided it was time to put down the controller. I needed to go deep within myself and find the source of the problem, or at least a temporary cure. I decided that perhaps I was not as good at Street Fighter as I had originally determined, but at times got lucky or hit hot runs. How could this be possible? Video games are designed to put people on an even playing field. Take away the fact that I am fatter than Andrew. Take away the fact that he's faster than me. It creates people who have strengths that offset the fact they're fat (E. Honda hurling himself across the screen and yelling Doof Gooey) or the fact that they may be smaller (Dhalsim being able to stretch across the screen or throw fire). All things in Video Game Land are even. There is no room in video games for luck I thought. This my friends is not true.

It still happens today on your X-Box or your PS2, but it happens WAAAAAAY more often in Super Nintendo. You hit the block button for Ryu and somehow, SOMEHOW, Ken's foot gets through your hand it kicks you in the head dropping your health some 25%. You cry out, as Andrew often does, "No way. NO FU$&*#G WAY! I BLOCKED THAT!!" This is usually followed by Andrew chucking the controller at say our sliding glass door. What we don't know, but what usually happens I'm sure, is the 2nd grade kid next door hears this and goes crying to his mother out of fear. Fear that this man might bust through the wall and inflict harm on him or start hurting his ears with curse words again. But the point is Super Nintendo is an inexact science. If you're in the general vicinity it's going to count as a hit. Even if the fire barely touches your ankle, your whole body is ENGULFED in flames causing MASSIVE damage. This dawned on me. That's how you can get lucky. You get the other person frustrated. They begin mashing buttons even more. Next thing you know things aren't as precise with them, in an already inexact game, and you have a couple wins come rolling your way.

This is probably how I beat Andrew 4 or 5 straight times with Zangief. I'll let that sink in.

I beat him with Zangief ... multiple times.

Zangief, or the Big Red Machine as I like to think of him as, is just that, a huge communist. He can shoot no projectiles, he has zero speed, and he has the hops of a white kid with a disability. This guy is bad. But as Andrew kept running at me I'd just keep throwing kicks at him hoping that they'd land in the area and count. Which is exactly what happened. My demons had been exorcised. I didn't blame my fault on Satan and now rarely get extremely pissed while playing. Even though I lost more than I won that night, I was alright with it for the most part.

Andrew has yet to find this out. He still takes losses personally, and allows the competitive spirit within to begin shouting many a profane word and he starts physically throwing stuff. I've actually seen him expectorate on the floor in anger. Yes on our carpet. After he lost once he turned to the left, chucked the controller, and I had to put my foot up to keep it from shattering our sliding glass door. My foot instantly welled up red. You would think this injury incurred in real life, not on the video game screen would have curbed Andrew's real life anger. No. After some other loss later that evening he began to throw his controller like a baby, let out some unmentionable "You gotta be fu%^&ng kidding me. This game is complete bull s@#t.", and began throwing things. He threw pillows, the threw our little round chair over, he threw couch cushions, soft foam coolers, and other items such as magazines. It was a baby tirade to end all baby tirades.

So Andrew says Street Fighter 2 was invented by the devil. I disagree. I think Andrew just hasn't been man enough to look inside himself and realize it's a game. He hasn't seen the inexact program that Super Nintendo is. Sometime you should ask Andrew about how fiercely competitive he is in one-on-one sports. Ask him about his pitching wedge in golf. Or that time in racquetball what happened to his racquet? It's only a matter of time before I can add to that list, "Andrew what happened to the sliding glass door? or Andrew what happened to that shattered SNES controller?"

Just thought you'd like to know the real truth about Street Fighter. It's not that it was invented by Satan. It's that Andrew has a fiercely horrible and diabolical competitive streak. That said I'm off to play Madden on my Playstation. Have a good one guys.

Satan Made Street Fighter 2 to Foil the Plans of the Upright and Righteous

2005-08-11T14:07:00.000-05:00

You may laugh my friends, but this is in fact the case. See here if you don't believe me. The writing on the devil is actually an ancient satanic language and it says, "I and I alone made Street Fighter 2!". So there you have it people, you heard it right from the horse's mouth...Satan was the creative developer behind Street Fighter 2.

"Woah woah woah, Smith" you're telling me, "I know for a fact that CAPCOM made Street Fighter! You're a liar!"

I, you anonymous, ignorant nay-sayer, am not a liar! Journey with me, if you dare, into a place of hatred and bitterness...a place where otherworldly weeping and nashing of teeth takes the form of "You lose!", "Perfect!" "SHOORRYYUUKEENNN!!" sounds...a world that incites men and women alike and awakens the inner demon of anger deep within their souls! Come with me to the devil's dance floor ! Come with me to the land of my misery! Come to the land of Street Fighter 2!!!

I know for a fact that Street Figher 2 was constructed by Satan to destroy the otherwise mild manneredness of individuals like myself. I like to think of myself as an even keeled guy: not much upsets me, I'm not overly competitive, and as you all know, I'm pretty awesome. With that as my background, I am not one given to immediate provocation. When confronted with a disappointment, or with a loss, or with a defeated dream, I take it in stride.

HOWEVER!!!

Street Fighter 2 brings out the worst in me! It's like the devil is actually extracting the worst characteristics of Andrew and putting them on full display for a watching world to see. And when I say watching world I mean Keith, and the neighbors across the hall in apartments 19, 20, and 21...that's how thunderous my rage is when playing Street Fighter 2. So this is what happens when I lose at Street Fighter:

FIRST! I seem calm, starting blankly at the television and the hideous image of E.Honda, or Blanka, or Dhalsim and his stupid elephants telling me that I, in fact, have just lost. "YOU LOSE!"

SECOND! This can go two directions here. What I usually do is, with the controller in my hand, turn and throw the controller at the wall as hard as I can. No joke. I suddenly become as powerful as Samson and I try to throw the controller through the wall. If that doesn't happen, I pump fake like I'm going to throw thw controller, but then pause...only long enough to contrive the most elaborate list of profanity that you've ever heard. And there I usually with, with controller raised in fury, wishing many ill wishes on E.Honda and his stupid 'Doof Gooey' move (in no uncertain terms).

THIRD! Regardless of what happens in phase 2 of my eventual metamorphosis into hell-spawn, step 3 is again, a rapid fire bout of profanity and I usually pick up the controller and actually try to break something with it, like the nintento, or a glass, or a beer bottle, or a sliding glass door, or the TV, or Keith, or something.

FOURTH! In addition to those antics, I'm also paralyzed by an inability to write in concise sentences. That's a more chronic condition, and you can go through the blog and see where that nasty demon pokes its little head up all throughout my writing (that's a joke, people).

FIFTH: I storm out of the room like a baby, mother effing everything and everyone who I've ever known. I know it doesn't make sense, but by its nonsensical nature it belies the poison that the devil puts into my otherwise rational brain. The climax of my maelstrom usually hits when I start picking up couch cushions and throwing them around the apartment with little care or concern for what I break, or who I injure.

I know by now most of you are probably looking at the computer with self righteous disgust, and rightfully so! This is ridiculous! If you doubt any single bit how deeply depraved I have become because of Street Fighter 2, you can drop a comment and ask Keith to corroborate. He will give a sheepish 'yes', and BETTER HOPE THAT I DON'T FIND OUT THAT HE'S TALKING TRASH ON ME BEHIND MY BACK OR ELSE...HHAARRRYUUUUKEEENNNN!!!!

Your field slave is my CEO

2005-08-08T16:41:00.000-05:00

The Civil War is over. I'm not sure if you caught that headline on Fox News last night. Or maybe you didn't get the forward from your mother who thinks e-mail forwards rule. But General Lee did surrender his cause and the war ended at Appomattox Court House. Here see for yourself For the majority of you reading this blog, this will not come as a surprise. You have most likely taken a history course at some point in the last ... I don't know ... 15 years of your life!!!! So why am I making a big point out of this you ask? Allow me to explain myself.

For those of you who aren't Andrew, you may not know that on my last vacation I headed in the general direction of south looking at law schools and playing golf along the way. We hit up Dickinson Law School in Carlisle, PA. Unfortunately not as sweet as I thought it would be. It's nice to be central to several things, but there is one huge problem. We stopped by the Taco Bell because in case you didn't know, anything you want to learn about an area you can learn at a Taco Bell. We saw a plethora of low rent people and the burritos and crunch wrap supremes are 10 cents more there than in Western PA! How do you charge an average of 10 cents more for everything in an area of the state that's almost identical to another with lower prices. I was baffled. Therefore no Carlisle for me.

Then down to Virginia and all over. Went to Colonial Williamsburg to see some stuff as well as William and Mary. Went to Virginia Beach. Played some golf and saw Regent. What needs to be said here is if you hate golf one of two things applies to you most likely. 1.) You're a baby who can't hit the ball after you made fun of the game for years. So you're so upset you just say you hate golf. 2.) You have never played or hit the perfect shot. Because when that ball travels some 230 yards and lands four feet from the pin - all is right in the world. I love that game. It would be nice if I lived somewhere I could play more than say three months of the year.

Then down through NC to Columbia, SC to see University of South Carolina. Now I had heard it was hot and found that easy to believe. I had heard the people were nice and maintained a slower pace of life and found that easy to believe. I had also heard there were restaurants known as Waffle House that were slightly sketchy but AWESOME and I found that easy to believe. (I can verify that last one, dang do they make a killer waffle and some hashbrowns that took approximately 4 years off my life.) I had also heard stories of people who referred to the Civil War as "The Waaaaar of Northern Aggression." I heard these people still hung some confederate flages and if given the chance to secede would still do so today. This I found hard to believe. But you know what ....

It's true ...

This is someone's kid! I had found a picture of someone flying a Confederate flag right over a John Kerry poster, but it wouldn't let me post it. Stupid Democrats. Anyway, these are the type of people that still hold onto these archaic and asinine beliefs. I walked into a Maurice's BBQ place for some good Southern BBQ and there were confederate flags falling everywhere. Quotes saying things similar to, "If General Lee was a rebel than George Washington too was a rebel. Lee was just fighting for things he deemed to be correct and the ability to practice them in his state. Washington is as much as rebel as Lee." George Washington ... George Freaking Washington!?! He's the Father of our free and independent country for God's sake! Look I like Robert E. Lee as much as the next person, but there's no way he's on the same planet as George Washington. These people think they were right.

And you know the scary part sort of? I side politically with a lot of these people. I have to slow down to realize this and agree with them on a small level. They wanted state rights. And for the large part I'm down with that. I think that states should have the ability to decide some things that the federal government has no jurisdiction over. It cuts down red tape and makes things way more efficient. But there are certain things even states shouldn't allow. These generally include, but are not limited to by no means: killing people, owning people, and mutating people. There are others, but for the sake of brevity I think this covers the vast majority of them. So I have them on state's rights, but c'mon now guys. Let it go. They're selling little Confederate flags with their BBQ dinners at this place. Kind of scary. By no means is it the prevailing belief down there, but it is there. And I'm baffled. Do these people not see how awesome people from all walks of life are? Do they not realize that women, African Americans, and Hispanic people are CEOs these days? I'm baffled. I'm going to say it a third time - I am baffled.

If any of you have stories you'd like to share or advice to help me cope. Let me know. I'm dying here knowing this is the case. By the way, fun fact for you all out there. I learned that the county Myrtle Beach is in has the second most golf course per square mile in the country. You know where number one is? Good old home! Allegheny County in Western PA. Bow down PA haters!!! I'm out for now. Later honkies!

The Final Countdown

2005-08-05T14:46:00.000-05:00

Alright kids in a brilliant stroke of creativity I've decided to give you the countdown to the last 10 minutes of my work day. Get pumped to hear about what I do in preparation for the weekend. I'm going to attempt to honestly blog for 10 minutes so you can get a stream on consciousness blog from Andrew! Hold up...wait for it...ok go!

10 MINUTES!!

Survey the scene..I still need to fill out some small paperwork before leaving for the weekend. I swear that in my old age I'm developing adult ADHD. I can't concentrate on one thing for more than 2 minutes at a time...

9 MINUTES!

Hence, the 10 minute blog. If I tried to type consistently about one thing for 10 minutes, I couldn't do it. Typically my blogs take about 20-25 minutes to do. Why? Because I can't focus on just writnig for that long. Dang it I misspelled some stuff...this is going to take away from minute 9

8 MINUTES!

I have to take so long because I
1) misspell a ton of crap
2) forget what I'm talking about half the time
3) check Joel and Katy's blog to see if they are giving me a shout out for my awesomeness.
4) re-read my entries like 2 times each. I am really particular about how

7 MINUTES

...I come across on the internet. In the absence of personal facial expressions, correct grammar and diction is paramount! Speaking of paramount, you guys should see my boss, Jeff. The dude is a solid 50 years old, and a towering obelisk of a man. I bet if there was a train traveling at 140mph on a southbound track

6 MINUTES

...Jeff could spear tackle it and make it derail! Never mind the countless lives that would be lost and the amount of destruction that he would cause, that's so freaking hard!! The Boss is tough, and I wouldn't want to be on the broadside of a baseball bat when Jeff is wielding it

5 MINUTES!

So typing the words "X MINUTES" takes about 4 seconds to do. I don't know why I'm typing it. Crap phone...yeah that too...crap phone...too long. Here we go

4 MINUTES

The phone ringing is not something I anticipated factoring into my blog. What I'm more focused on is getting the crap out of work and going down to see the horrible Pittsburgh Pirates play 'baseball' tonight. Watching the Pirates play is, I think, equivalent to watching

3 MINUTES

...a bunch of retards running around trying tocatch each other in burlap sacks. It's utterly pointless because nothing productive ever comes of the Pirates playing baseball. But tnoight is fireworks night, so it should be a good time, I think

2 MINUTES

Ok kids it's about ready to head out. I'm being hampered down by these work clothes...and yes I did coordinate my outfit today and I look slammin'. Joel you shut your mouth. Dang phone...one minute of work and the phone rings.

freestyle with joel

2005-08-02T11:02:00.000-05:00

Hey go to Joel's website and ask him to freestyle. He does it all the time! Seriously!

Resident Alien

2005-08-02T08:57:00.000-05:00

No, no, no this blog isn't about Spacehog , that great band from the mid 90's. As an aside, however, I do feel that 'Resident Alien' was one of the most underrated songs of the 1994-1996 era in alternative music. With that said, however, I must tell you that the term 'Resident Alien' actually refers to my former landlord, Judy C*** Red**** . I censor her name out only because once you hear about how horrible she is, you're going to want to find her and run her over with you car.

By the way...this is going to be a long blog so go get some Coke and some food. Ready? Get ready to get pissed.

SO! As you all know, Keith and I have moved to a new apartment because:
1) Chaney left, and an ancillary 3 bedroom would be superfluous
2) Because of shoddy construction, a leaky basement, and copious amounts of insulation (wait, that's a lie) our apartment is, for all intents and purposes, a dung heap. The place isn't fit to relieve yourself in, on, or near.
3) The sound of mice running around at night was a little tiresome
4) It killed my A-game sometimes
5) Judy, our landlord, is a space cadet, or resident alien if you will.

In the tumult that was our move, I had left something very valuable to myself in the old apartment:

my killer machete!!

So I stopped by the apartment just to pick up the machete, and that worked out well. As I began to make my departrue, Judy starts talking to me. What ensued was about to be the catalyst for the destruction of 'cordial relations' with Judy:

Me: Ok, well here's my machete...I best be on my way

Judy : Ok I'm glad that worked out. Hey I need you to move some filing cabinets from the basement up here to the living room.

Me: Well call Keith and I next week and we can work out a time to...

Judy : : Yeahhhhh I didn't want to call you and Keith beacuse I didn't want to bother you. I thought that when you guys left you were gone for good and didn't want to bother you with a call (red flag #1: that makes no sense at all).

Me (feeling a dull pain in my head): Ok, well, we do have cell phones and it's not a problem if you call...

Judy : : And ok, beacuse I wanted to give you your security deposit back, and when I cashed Keith's check (red flag #2: Keith had written Judy a check for our last month's rent strictly as collateral. What was supposed to happen we she was going to take our initial security deposit=1 month's rent and use that as our last month's rent instead of giving it back. Make sense? Yes it probably does, because you have a brain in your head)

Me:...wait Judy. Why did you cash Keith's check? (red flag #3: Keith wrote the check with little to no money in his checking account. Why? Because the check was supposed to be ripped up. Now that Judy had cashed his check...)

Judy : : Keith's account was overdrawn! I couldn't believe it! I was so scared that it would affect my credit and it would look bad on my record and blah blah idocy idocy...

Me (throbbing pain in head): Ok Judy you cashed his check, over drew his account, put him in danger of bouncing checks, and you didn't want to call he or I???!!

Judy : (absent mindedly):...yeah!

Me: Why did you do that?!?!?!?!

Judy : Well, because I wanted to give you cash for your security deposit!

Me: (no words come out, just stupification)

From there on out the details of the conversation get sketchy, but I'm pretty sure I told this oaf of a woman to sit her Ay Ess Ess down and wait for Keith to come over, so that she could give him back his money, he could pay his bank, and we could pay our bills. She looked at me like I was speaking Chinese, people. None of the things that I were saying even made a blip on her radar. This woman is so dead to the world of common sense and rational thinking that she didn't even know that when you take a check to a bank to 'cash' it, they don't just give you an equivalent amount of cash for free. That cash has to come from somewhere Judy, and in this instance, it was out of Keith's depleted bank. What a ho face.

So anyway she makes us move all of this stuff out of her house just so that we can get the security deposit back that we should never have had to be given back to us. After tromping through the already cluttered apartment (this woman has about 78 pieces of furniture in the house), and over stacks of un-forwarded mail (thanks, Judy) we finally get her crap moved up from the basement. She then proceeds to give Keith back his money that should not have been taken from him, yet fails to concede that maybe she should pay for his overdraft fees since she violated out implicit agreement. What followed from that point on was not pretty, because it involves me yelling at a 50+ year old woman. BUT SHE DESERVED IT SO HERE'S WHAT HAPPENED!!

Me: I hate you Judy (paraphrased)

Judy : Well, I'm just glad that things ended on a positive note! (smiling)

Me: Judy, things didn't end well. You cashed a check you weren't supposed to, overdrew Keith's

account which he has to pay for, didn't deliver our mail, and didn't even have the common decency to call Keith and tell him you messed up his account

Judy : (imagine cricket noises)

Me: If you do something like that, Judy, you need to call someone and tell them. You are the landlord. You need to be in touch with us.

Judy : Well I was just concerned about my credit and...

Me: That's dumb it was not your money that you were messing with. You were ruining someone else's credit and didn't tell them. That's irresponsible and FFR, you need to call people

Judy : (imagine cricket noises) Well I tell ya I've been doing this for about 20 years now and have never had a problem ever!

Me: Well this is a problem and you need to call people

Judy : Everyone seems to have a good time here and I love having students come to stay here!

Me: (resolved that nothing I say to Judy will hit a commonsensical chord within her brain, I give up). Ok well bye, Judy. I wish things could have ended on a better note

What a freaking nightmare of a woman. I swear, if you are ever in Grove City and think that it might be a good idea to rent from Judy C*** Red*****, I will punch you in your mouth really hard. That's it, rant over. I'm so pissed now.

David Letterman has got it right

2005-07-28T10:48:00.000-05:00

In regards to Keith's blog, let me put some CYA statements up to detract from his future blogs...he always appreciates that:

1) When I play Street Fighter 2, Satan actually takes over my body and I cannot be held responsible for whatever happens to controllers, Nintendoes, glass windows, cabinets, lamps, beer bottles, the ears of young innocent children in the next room. I cannot help it...stay tuned for the gritty details
2) Ikea is really sweet
3) Whatever Keith says about hating my pics on the blog, know that he's going to do something equally dubious and dastardly when I'm on vacation. So just remember to look at the speck in your own eye...

Ok with that said, I did have a real point to this blog. One of my favourite (British spelling) tele (british slang) programmes (British spelling) is the Late Show, with David Letterman. Few people have mastered the art of dry, redundant humor like Dave has. Hence, he is one of the few television icons that I actually attach some respect and/or admiration to. One of my favorite segments on Dave's show is "Is This Anything": the segment where Dave and Paul debate the inherent value and worth of some person, or thing, or performance right in front of the audience! They then wrap up their conversation and either agree that, indeed, the actual thing before them is something, or that is isn't anything. It's quite funny, and the elitist underpinnings of such a segment have to make you laugh.

So now that you know one of the reasons why I want to be Dave Letterman, take a second to play a little round of "Is This Anything" with yourself. Honestly, people... is this anything ? I still can't figure it out.

Who else you know can take 2 months off ...

2005-07-28T08:15:00.000-05:00

Come back cold turkey and fly lids off. No, it's not Ma$e, one of the greatet rappers ever, but in fact it's me. It's official - I'm back. I haven't blogged since June 8th. It's a good thing Andrew has been here to carry the load and quite admirably might I add. But I digress. Things have been a little hectic around the old office lately. I've been putting in some killer long hours. Working past 4, whew that's tough now. I've had a lot of things happen during the two months away and plan to take them on one at a time. Mostly because it's good stuff, but also because it's a good way to keep me from blogging about politics.

So here are some quick hit points of what I'm going to blog about in the near future:

1.) Various lessons learned on my vacation / law school visit trip. I started in Pittsburgh, went to the middle of the state, down to Virginia Beach, and then ultimately to the city of Columbia, South Carolina.

2.) A whole blog dedicated to states that still fly the Confederate flag. What the crap is up with that?

3.) Andrew and I shopping/losing our manhood at Ikea, but furnishing our entire apartment at the same time.

4.) Nasa and space exploration in general.

5.) Andrew's anger and general demeanor while playing Street Fighter 2 Turbo.

6.) Why I hate Andrew for calling me a baby and the pictures he posted.

7.) Why Walmart is so horrible. Quit giving your money to communist China.

I think those are the high points I'm going to cover. But while I'm on it I'm going to rant for a brief moment. I'm going to take on Nasa for just a second. So Nasa sent another shuttle into space to repair the space station right? I ask you two questions:

1.) Who cares that it went? Virtually no one. Space travel has lost its luster and shine. Mostly because it happens more frequently. All people really want to know is did the shuttle get off the ground and did it return safely. We're doing the same old stuff. Fixing things going to the moon etc.

2.) Why then are we spending tons of money on things that don't work? We spend millions and billions of dollars for them to repair the space station and what do we get? We get this kind of garbage It makes me so angry. We spend all this money and we NEVER fix anything. How mad would you be if you went to Nissan, gave them a billion dollars, and asked them to make you a car. But then when they roll the car out something hits the bumper and the car catches on fire. They assure you that it can be fixed with another large sum of money, maybe a million dollars. So you say, ok it's so worth it to explore and see stuff, and I need to drive. But when they roll the car out again the same thing happens. The car catches on fire. It's absurd. And still NO ONE GETS ANGRY. People flip out when you cut taxes, or take $24,000 from an educational scholarship, but when you give a million dollars to something that fails no one cares.

Why does no one care? Is it that space travel is so worthless now? Is it that no one reads the articles anymore and has no clue what's going on? Why don't we let other people try to go to space and do a better job than NASA? Put out a memo and say, "Anyone who can put up a functioning satellite go for it." Or how about we do something cool like send PEOPLE to Mars. We send all these little roving probes there and people EAT IT UP. Maybe we can live on Mars. Maybe there is something cool there also. So we need to do one of two things. Scrap the space program. Which of course everyone doesn't want. Because it's soooooo cool to explore and see stuff. Or we go ahead and do stuff that matters. Let's inject a little life into the space program. At the same time let's quit sucking and wasting millions of dollars to fix nothing and on broken things. I'm not impressed enough by a rock from the moon to forget about the million dollars we just wasted.

Rant over. So that takes care of one of my topics. But for now NASA joins my boycott list just like Walmart, McDonalds, Budweiser, and Coors. I'm off to get some Sheetz. So good right now.

I'm on a roll!!!

2005-07-25T09:39:00.000-05:00

NOW I'VE GOT TWO MENTEES!! BECCAS HAS DEFECTED!!

INN YAAAA FAACCCCEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

While the cat's away...

2005-07-20T08:50:00.000-05:00

THE MICE WILL PLAY! IN YA FACE!!!!

The 3 minute blog

2005-07-19T08:54:00.000-05:00

Ok I have an appointment in 3 minutes so this is going to be a fast blog to satiate all you blog fans who have been DYING to see a new article on the table.

Well kids it looks like Keith isn't going to be blogging for a while. He is on vacation doing some heavy duty fishing and golfing. Somewhere in there I think he's going to go look at law schools, but who knows. Fishing sounds more fun than looking at law schools to me.

Also, in the past month or so, I found out something very important about Keith. He HATES it when you call him a baby! You can call him a baby about anything and he gets really pissed and starts to turn red. Here look:

typical conversation

Keith: Hey man I think I'm gonna crash
Andrew: What?
Keith: Yeah man, I'm tired and my head hurts
Andrew: Awwwww
Keith: Hey, you shut your mouth
Andrew: Hey, why don't you not be such a BABY!
Keith: I hate you, I hate you so much right now
Andrew: Hate me like a baby..

and so on and so forth the conversation goes until Keith just leaves the room. Granted it is a little immature, but you should see how pissed he gets!

Ok an appointment awaits. Here are some future blogs coming your way.

Ikea Death
Street Fighter 2 Can Eat Me
Har-Yu-Ken!!

"Highway to the..." where?!

2005-07-05T10:48:00.000-05:00

This post is to drudge up an old feud that my ex-roomate Ryan McCracken and I had back in college. Ryan, as many of you know, is a Top Gun geek. The dude probably knows every line in the movie backwards and forwards. McCracken has even been seen occasionally moonlighting as call sign Maverick at social functions. It is because of McCracken's superious knowledge of Top Gun that we butt heads over one cryptic part of the movie. He maintains he has more in depth knowledge of one particular aspect of the movie, whereas I believe all his Top Gun knowledge has blinded him to the truth. I present to you now the debate over...

THE HIGHWAY TO THE DANGER ZONE!!
Maverick: Yeah...I always wondered where the danger zone is!

Goose: Here let me draw you a picture!

Now pay attention, kids, because this is where you get to submit your feedback. McCracken and I have long debated the story behind the Kenny Loggins song "Highway to the Danger Zone". What's obvious about the song is the fact that it's a rockin' 80's pseudo-metal hit that makes you want to play air guitar really badly. Actually, if you have never played Air Guitar while listening to "Highway to the Danger Zone", I question your ability to appreciate good music. So the Danger Zone, quite obviously, is a rock n roll classic.

What is more nebulous about "Highway" , however, is whether it's about flying a jet...or having SEX! Sounds pretty preposterous right? McCracken has long maintained that the song is an allegory for coital relations. I maintain what most rational human beings maintain...that it's just a rockin' guitar classic that makes you want to stand on your desk at work and pretend you're rockin' Wembley Arena with your fierce guitar wielding skills . Let's break down the song and I'll let you all side with me on this one:

"Highway to the Danger Zone"
Kenny Loggins

(verse 1)
"Revvin' up your engine
Listen to her howlin' roar
Metal under tension
Beggin' you to touch and go

(chorus 1)
Highway to the Danger Zone
Ride into the Danger Zone

(verse 2)
Headin' into twilight
Spreadin' out her wings tonight
She got you jumpin' off the deck
And shovin' into overdrive

(chorus 2)
Highway to the Danger Zone
I'll take youRight into the Danger Zone

(bridge)
You'll never say hello to you
Until you get it on the red line overload
You'll never know what you can do
Until you get it up as high as you can go

(air guitar solo!!)

(verse 3)
Out along the edges
Always where I burn to be
The further on the edge
The hotter the intensity

(last refrain)
Highway to the Danger Zone
Gonna take you
Right into the Danger Zone
Highway to the Danger Zone"

So there's the song. There are all the lyrcs, thanks to 365 lyrics and a few other places. And at this point, I will concede that there are some images that might contain slight sexual innuendo. HOWEVER! The overwhelming gyst of the song is about flying a plane. When was the last time a chick made you jump off a deck? Metal under tension? I don't think this song is about having sex with a robot woman. And "Highway to the Danger Zone"? Come on, McCracken. I don't get the innuendo there. I think there is clearly enough evidence (on top of the fact that the movie is about jet planes) to suggest that the song is not suggestive in any way. Highway to the Danger Zone? It's about flying a jet really fast. "Hanging with the Boys" (another slightly less rockin' Kenny Loggins Top Gun hit), however? Come on Kenny...

Who else you know can take 5 years off...

2005-06-30T13:08:00.000-05:00

Come back cold turkey to fly lids off ? No no it's not Ma$e it's ANDREW!!! And for those of you who are indeed math wizards I have not been gone for 5 years, though to the blogosphere I'm sure it seems like it's been as many. Here's a recap of what you missed in the past week when neither myself nor Keith was blogging:

1) Turns out Sassy killed a chipmunk last night. You would think that the cat would learn something from experiences in her past (i.e. killing=bad) but she hasn't. This only further fuels suspicions that cats, and animals in general, are not nearly as intelligent as humans are.

2) Wait hold up...humans kill other humans too. This only further fans the flames of the rumours that the 'guns don't kill people, I kill people' philosophy is alive and kicking in America.

3) Ok hold on again...that's right, we can find an excuse for everyone. Turns out guns are the real problem and that the people who use them against others are not to blame. If that dang gun wouldn't have told me to kill those people...

4) I moved into a new apartment. If you forget how horrible the old apartment was, go back to the blog archives frommmmm March, and re-read the one about my white trashy neighborhood. This new apartment is much cooler. More on this later.

So there's your week, I mean 5 years, in review. Keep in touch kids!!

...but everyone loves a happy ending

2005-06-23T12:02:00.000-05:00

Epilogue:

After a brief reprieve from the breezeway, Sassy safely moved all of her kittens to the garage. Ain't no tomcat out there going to come tearing through a steel garage door, just to eat some kitten meat. After talking it over with her kids, Sassy decided that it would be best if they went out to find loving families of their own. Within a few days all of Sassy's little ones found safe homes and loving parents to help them mature into well rounded cats. Sassy herself seems to be adjusting well enough to life as an 'empty nester'. Shaquanda assures me that Sassy wanted to pass on her thanks for your support and prayers throughout her ordeal with Tom. She is getting lots of rest, and will be back to her spunky old self soon.

The SPCA isn't going to like this one, either

2005-06-16T09:42:00.000-05:00

The other day I heard a story from a woman that I work with-a story which happens to be one of the greatest stories I've heard in a long time. It's a story about love, about betrayal, about jealousy and revenge. It's a story about an unforgivable sin and the retribution exacted for such a sin. And what's most important about the story is that it is about cats. Yeah that's right, kitty cats. Here we go.

So "Saquanda"* comes in to work and starts to tell this story. She starts to tell the sordid story of her lovely cat Sassy and her baby kittens. At Shaquanda's house they have a little breezeway where Sassy and her lovely little kittens sleep. They keep the door open to the outside so that Sassy can go out for a jaunt around town when the kids are asleep (sometimes the pressures of being a mother can be a little overwhelming, you know). Well a few days ago they left the door propped open a little bit, as usual. While Sassy was out and about, her kittens were hanging out in the breezeway and having quality kitten bonding time; it was at that point that a malicious predator crept into the breezeway. The predator's name was Tom, and he was a tomcat with no home and no family. One might be able to chalk his salty disposition up to the fact that he had no home, no lovely wife like Sassy, and no kids to call his own. But on that evening, whatever caused his saltiness also fed his bloodlust and desire to kill! When Tom saw Sassy's kittens cavorting about in the breezeway of love, he was blinded by jealousy! He pounced on one baby kitten, attacking it ferociously and ultimately delivering a mortal neck wound to the helpless infant. In the heat of the moment, Tom also shut the door to the breezeway by slamming up against it.

Sassy, as you recall, was out for a night on the town thinking that her little babies were all safe and sound. As Sassy was roaming around town, her motherly instincts warned her that her little babies were in trouble!! She left the singles bar she was having a glass of milk, and flew home just in time to see one of her babies kil't right in front of her own eyes! Fueled now by a desire to ensure her other babies' safety, Sassy lurched forward trying to squeeze into the breezeway. However Tom had shut the door to the breezeway and all that Sassy could do was yell, and scream and howl with anguish that only a mother's broken heart can know. Things were not looking good for Sassy's little babies.

This is the stage that is set for one of the most awe-inspiring, gut wrenching, and just plain old tough-ace interventions that Western PA has ever witnessed. As the melee is unfolding in Shaquanda's house, both she and her husband are watching from the house to see what will happen. Shaquanda was obviously upset, knowing full well that one of her little kitties had been annihilated, and that the rest of the littler would likely meet the same demise. As both Shaquanda and her husband "Rambo" watch from the sidelines, something clicks within Rambo. He turns to his wife, and with a chin set like flint and with the resolution of a thousand patriots says "Honey, I'm going to take care of this. But it is going to be really...really...bloody." Rambo, as crafty and deft as the most skillful of thieves steals into his young son's room and lifts one of his toy baseball bats. He turns to leave his sleeping son's room, when he cathes a glimpse of his son...sleeping so peacefully. As he ponders the thought of having to tell his son why his favorite cat, and her kittens are all dead, he clutches the toy baseball bat close to his chest and mutters under his breath, "Don't worry son. I'll make this situation right."

As Rambo darts through the house, he hears his wife whipser "Honey, what are you going to do with that 12" wooden toy baseball bat??" . But Rambo has no time to respond. In the breezeway he hears Tom screaching and howling at the other kittens-a bloody howl that only the bloodthirsty know! Rambo jumps into the breezeway, scattering kittens and killer alike. He positions himself between the attacker and the quiering kittens. As Tom wipes the blood from his horrible cat mouth, he starts to size up this new foe who has entered the arena (i.e. the breezeway). As Tom strafes around this tower of a man, Rambo cooly looks over his shoulder at the frightened kittens, then his wife. "Sweetheart, I want you to take these kittens...I don't want them to see any more killing tonight."

As the two enemies stare each other down, Tom breaks the stare and leaps at Rambo. With the force of a mighty wind, and the hand eye coordination of a professional baseball player, Rambo sidesteps to avert what would be a vicious cat bite. As he slips to the side of Tom, he lets fly with the baseball bat and cracks the attacker in mid-flight right across his cat face. Stunned, Tom lets out a yelp of pain, put the yelp is cut short by another swift blow to his abdomen by a mini-Louisville Slugger. Now clearly outmatched by an opponent who will not relent, Tom realizes that this night could be his last night on planet earth. He forsakes his plan of attacking Rambo, and makes a bee line for the breezeway door. Unfortunately for himself, however, Tom had shut the door to the breezeway when he first came in to stalk his prey. Without opposable thumbs, that door would be next to impossible to open again! This is a fact that Rambo had counted on, and with a knowing grin and a reluctant sigh, he raised the baseball bat above his head.

Raise.

Swing.

Crush.

As the blood crept out of every conceivable crevace of Tom's now lifeless body, Rambo knew that his killing was not in vain. Though he had prevented the death of at least 3 small kittens, he still had reservations about killing an animal...that he wasn't going to eat. As his wife now held the other kittens and cajoled their mother Sassy, Rambo quietly buried the small kitten who had had his life stolen from him just a few moments prior. Never again would a jealous male cat attack Sassy's children...not in Rambo's house. After talking with Sassy and the kittens, Shaquanda and Rambo decided that they should relocate for a few days. With the decision made, Sassy and Shaquanda and Rambo all said a tearful "We'll see you soon" and parted ways. Hopefully they will return again one day soon, a little bit older, a little bit wiser.

The End

So that's the story that "Shaquanda" told us about "Rambo" her husband killing this cat that was attaching their cat. How freaking hard is that?!

*names changed to protect the innocent...and sweet!

"No! YOUR shirt is gay!"

2005-06-14T08:14:00.000-05:00

Yeah, you guessed it, it's time for a fundamentalist rant against the abhorred homosexuals! Yeaaahhhhh!!!

Ok that's not true I'm not here to dog on homosexuals (sorry Anon), but I am here to tell them one very forceful, and heartful message:

STOP MAKING MY CLOTHES GAY!

Yeah, you heard me right homosexual-land, I told you to stop making my clothes 'gay'. Some of you might be baffled, but I'm going to explain what I'm talking about here. This all came about a few weeks ago when Chaney still lived with me and we were talking about something really important (probably about how he hates Americans). So we're talking, and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to wear to work. After staring at the same clothes in my closet for a good 10 minutes, I finally come to the conclusion that I'm going to wear these black pants and this white and black embroidered Calvin Klein shirt.

So I've got my shirt on, and I'm feeling pretty fly. Chaney however looks at me and kind of smirks at me. Thus went our conversation:

Me: "What?"
Chaney: "Nothing man, nothing"
Me: "What on earth are you smirking about?!"
Chaney: Nothing man, I'm just glad that you're not gay.
Me: "You're dang right I'm not gay! What the heck are you talking about??"

I could go on and on like this but as you all can probably guess, Chaney was referencing my apprently 'homosexual looking' shirt which heterosexual Andrew thought was sweet. That's when it finally dawned on me:

GAY MEN ALL OVER AMERICA ARE MAKING MY CLOTHES STEREOTYPABLY GAY!

When I go out to buy clothes, I go out and I find something that I think looks good, and that fits well. Pretty basic right? I also work at Brooks Brothers, so you have to know what clothes look at least semi-decent together in order to sell the clothes that the store purveys! Well somewhere over the course of the past 10 years or so, when you get clothes that fit right and look great (and I do reiterate, I look great) everyone is like "Man that looks like a gay person's ensemble." I'm sorry, I didn't realize that homosexual men had the corner on the market of pink and purple shirts, embroidered dress shirts, American Eagle tshirts , Express Khakis, and PaulFrederick.com! Not to digress into a philosophical conversation here (and I'm not going to run too far with this) but it really seems close (close, not clothes) minded to stereotype gay men into the category of 'dressing gay'. For all the talk of 'treat me equally' and 'I'm not different than you!' that you hear from countless homosexual advocacy groups in America, they will readily stereotype one another by their clothing and be happy to indulge in the fact that they seem to have a corner on the market on styles of clothes that are 'theirs'. It's like they need a mouthpiece to declare their sexual preference, and then when you call them on it they'll say things like 'don't judge me like that'.

I'm not here to judge, and this is not a blog about lifestyle choices...save about the clothes that you wear. But let it be known, people of America, that from this point forward, I am here to break the stereotype of the gay man's clothing! I'll wear my purple shirt with my matching purple tie! I'll wear that pair of pants that I got from Express that might be a little snug against my junk! I'll wear my Peal Leather Co. shoes and I'll even polish them up to be sparkly and shiny and very attractive looking! And if anyone says to me "Dude that outfit looks gay", I will calmly remind them that 1) they are stereotyping a subset of the American population which is wrong!! and that 2) I, in fact, am crazy about chicks. I just happen to think that these clothes are suitable for ANY man to wear, so throw off that stereotype and WEAR WHATEVER YOU WANT (except that gay pirate looking shirt, Joel) WITHOUT FEAR OF RETRIBUTION!

That's what I'd say, and you should say it too. On a more exciting note, however, my friends Jeremy and Colin made a video game. They just made one! I think it's pretty slammin and if you go to the Mercury Effects website you can download a demo and play it. This is gonna be a hot one, kids!

Tough Decisions...

2005-06-10T20:52:00.000-05:00

Alright kids, here is the scenario. I asked you a few months back a very thought provoking question: Is it a greater flaw to be too compassionate, or too competitive? If I recall correctly, your answers...failed to answer the question (though we did have some solid dialogue). We were talking about another quandry in the office a few weeks back, and now I want to pose the moral dilemma to you. Your feedback, as usual, will probably be great.

Here's the question: If you had to punch either your 10 year old brother in the face, or your own mother in the face, who would you punch and why?

I know, I know it's a morbid question and dimes to dollars says that Heidi, Jen, and Amanda all say "Oh my WORD Andrew that's HORRIBLE!!!" with that exact same inflection. But keep in mind it's JUST hypothetical. So what's the verdict, people?

(Anon I know you're still out there and whether or not this validates your comments a few posts back, you still need to answer this one too. And answers like "Whichever one I can't convince to be a closet socialist and clinical cynical finger pointer" are not really answering the question)

One more Link

2005-06-08T14:32:00.000-05:00

So I was thinking of blogging today about the cons of media these days. I'm tired of all news networks. Whether it's CNN, Fox News, or ESPN News - there really just isn't enough stuff that needs to be said constantly 24 hours a day. The result is a glut of information, and emphasizing stories that really have no need to be so public. Take Jennifer Wilbanks for instance. Yeah it totally stinks that she lied and hurt everyone. But do I need to be bombarded with it? In times past that story doesn't even make the hour, it hits the cutting floor with a loud thud, or at best gets mentioned for 30 seconds after the donkey who won the spelling bee, everyone chuckles, end news.

But no, now we hear all about Jennifer, all about Michael Jackson, and everytime a Republican or Democrat takes a dump. I'm sick of all news all the time. It just keeps watering down product. Now ESPN has to fill its flag station with things like dramas about poker, when it would be running the stuff that's on ESPN News or ESPN 2. We don't need this much coverage please make it stop!

This was proven even more when I received an e-mail from my sister. It's about a site called EatMJ. The site is unbelievable. It's a review of all the eateries around where the trial is taking place and it's done by some journalist. This way all the reporters who have basically lived there for two months can find other places to eat. MAYBE IF WE DIDN'T NEED SO MUCH COVERAGE OF NEWS WE WOULDN'T NEED WEBSITES LIKE THIS WASTING THE PRECIOUS TIME OF PEOPLE MAKING THEM OR THEM TAKING UP SPACE ON THE INFINITE WORLD WIDE WEB!!!!! It's awful. I just want the insanity to end and my normal life of occasional news back. Here's the site make sure you read the reviews about certain restaurants. They really are quite humorous Not humorous enough to warrant an entire website though.

Booooooo!

Thank you Howard Dean

2005-06-08T08:50:00.000-05:00

Head of the DNC Howard Dean made an idiot of himself once again. Way to further alienate an already alienated party. You can read about it here but not on CNN or MSNBC ... hmmmm go figure

If not for yourself, then do it for America!

2005-06-06T12:53:00.000-05:00

Alright here's something I can't understand, and I want you to put yourself in my shoes so you too can be perplexed. And by the way, I do my best to be the best driver I can. So with that in mind, step into the insanity that is...

Grove City, Pennsylvania!!!!

Picture this. You are sitting at a stop light, and you are the first car in line to go once the light turns green. All of a sudden, without warning, the light changes from red to green. What do you do?

a) Slam your foot on the gas, peel out, and wave a killer 'hang loose' to the people behind you who are eating your dust
b) Quickly put your foot on the gas and accelerate to meet, or exceed the speed limit quickly
c) Look in your rearview mirror, side mirrors, take your foot off the brake, wait a couple of seconds, put your foot on the gas, and leisurely press the gas so as to move as slowly as possible out of the intersection
d) Let the car who is across the intersection from you make their left turn before you dare enter the intersection, even though you clearly have the right of way
e) C and D

Take this test with me. If you love America, your fellow Americans, or at least have a respect for the irreplacability of their time, you would probably pick B right? Sure! Now transport yourselves into the shoes of a GC resident. Your answer would likely be C and D. Yes you, the Grove City driver, could care less about the rules of the road and/or about your fellow drivers who actually want to go somewhere in some modicum of timliness.

I was baffled today driving through town about how clueless people are about the other drivers behind them. I was driving back from the police station, and my lunch break was almost up. I had to get to work rather quickly, but no one wanted to help me along in my quest to be a good employee. I used my horn 3 times in a one mile stretch. Let me assure you it wasn't an angry honk like

but more in the vein of

It was more of a "Pull your head out of your crotch and drive!!!!" honk. Here's what happened. FIRST! I was at a red light by the old Wal-Mart, and some dude decided that green meant sleep. This dude sat there as the green light apparently coaxed him into losing all sense of where he was. I was coaxed into honking at him, at which point he looked up at me alllllll pissed off-like. What baffles me more than the apparent lack of driver's education in this part of the country is the reaction of people when you call them out on being complete incompetent drivers. So this dude is all looking pissed at me, big deal at least he went.

SECOND! You have to understand Main St. Grove City. There is an eastbound lane, a Westbound lane, and that's it. When your light turns green, you have about 6.8 seconds to go because the light turns red again for another 5 minutes. Hence, you need to seize the opportunity to go when the light turns green-and you need to go quickly. Well about 500 yards down the road, I'm at a red light in front of McDonald's. As the light turns green, the few cars in front of me start to drive. The few cars, except the car in front of me, who wants to let the McFatterton in the McDonald's parking lot try to make a left turn across our eastbound lane of traffic into an equally slow westbound lane of traffic. Of course the person couldn't make a left becaure we're all Gridlock'd in traffic. Since I was apparently the only person in traffic who realized the ridiculosity of what was happening, I politely honked my horn at the dude in front of me. And do you know what? He actually went! He gave up his futile quest to let a greasy-mcnugget hungry townie across traffic and motored through the green light. Success!

THIRDLY! Ok I know this is getting long so essentially what happened was that I needed to make a left turn into work. The person in front of me, and I, both got to the now yellow light at the same time. The person in front of me needed to make a right turn, which, as some of you know, is wont on a yellow, NAY a red light! Person-in-front-of-me, however, didn't know this do they came to a complete stop WITH their right turn blinker on underneath the yellow light THUS preventing a last minute left hand turn by Andrew, and a good 2 minute wait at said now red light. I honked, but the person making their slow right turn was so old that I doubt the even heard me. So I hated them in my heart for a little while.

What am I trying to say here? People, when you go out driving you are not the only person on teh road. There are a ton of people on the road with you who have drives (no pun intended), motives, and reasons for being on the road. You, too, have reasons to be on the road. Usually people get in cars and get on the road to go from one place to another, and quite often, it's to get to said place quickly. I put a challenge to you people in Grove City, Pennsylvania, and all of America: Think about the people in front, behind, and to the sides of you on the road and drive in a safe, yet quick manner; if indeed someone does need to get somewhere quickly, you will be doing them a favor by taking their needs into consideration and I will love you as well.

Go figure

2005-06-03T08:54:00.000-05:00

Just go read the first two paragraphs of this story that I found on the website for Fox News. It's about Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq Go figure that I didn't find the story on cnn.com. What a shocker. This is case number one of liberal media bias. I hate the UN too just to let you know. So I can't believe I'm posting this.

Papa was a kidney stone

2005-06-01T09:22:00.000-05:00

Ok, so my title is a slight lyrical reference althought slightly adapted. I'm here today to play the role of Public Service Announcement, Father, Doctor, or whatever you call someone who gives wise and sage-like advice.

While in Cincinnati this weekend, trying to see the Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, my friend Josh experienced a small slice of Hell on earth. We went to the ballpark on Saturday night and saw a lovely Pirate win, while scratching another ballpark off the list of parks left to see in America. Anyway, somewhere in the middle of the night Josh awakened. He was in excruciating pain and was uanble to perform any of the following actions: sit, stand, lay down, remain quiet, or not throw up. Really all he was able to do was: groan, ache, stand up either walking or bent over at the waist, and throw up. Imagine Satan is trapped in your side ... that's how much it hurt.

After thinking for a while this pain might go away, stupid guy reaction, we realized Josh needed to hit up the lovely ER. So we drove to The Jewish Hospital in Blue Ash, Ohio. They diagnosed him with a lovely kidney stone and a sizable one at that. I won't go into details, but it was big enough to make our poor friend Josh have to spend the night at the aforementioned Jeiwsh Hospital. The doctor said and I quote: "Your friend is on a lot of pain killers. We have him on Morphine and percocet (that's right I just looked it up) and he's still in pain and throwing up. I think we're going to have to keep him overnight."

So I decide that we have to get rid of our Sunday game tickets, as the first pitch is in about an hour and a half. So I go find the dirtiest guy possible downtown, assuming he's not a cop, and sell them. Go back to the hospital and move Josh into another room. I had a nurse say, "I've given birth to two children and I've had a kidney stone. I'm willing to say the pain is comparible." I felt for him. It's been my number one fear in life. I hear it hurts so much that it makes grown men cry and double over in pain. I want everyone to be aware of how bad these kidney stones from the netherland can be.

A few quick notes about stones. A kidnesy stone is a stone formed of some things, but mostly calcium buildups, with some junk thrown in that your kidney didn't filter correctly. So don't throw too much junk down there. It's kind of like a burr, sharp on the end, which scratches on the way out. Most people can pass stones just by ... you know ... peeing them out. But if they're big enough they have to be blasted and broken up or even surgically removed. That's a bad stone though. Some people are more genetically likely to get them than others. Not everyone is going to get them and you may not be at risk. But you can still do things to prevent them. It's similar to the fact that not everyone who steps out in the street will get hit by a car. But if you can try to not get hit by a bus steamrolling towards you at 45 mph you want to. Right? Look both ways you dolt! So here's what you can do in short:

1.) Eat better food. Less meat (boooo) is a good thing.
2.) Drink lots of water.
3.) Pee often. I know I know, it's totally tough and manly to hold it, but holding it also might lead to the most worstest experience in your life ever ... a kidney stone.
4.) Drink less caffeine.
5.) Read the prevention part of this site

So Josh is waiting to pass his kidney stone. They let him go on Monday and he's now home with his family safe and sound. He's also double fisting percocet's until he passes the sucker. So when you go to bed tonight, or sit down to a meal, please do say a prayer for Josh. Pray for peace and healing. And if you think I'm even kidding ... think again.

Girls talking about hair

2005-05-31T08:37:00.000-05:00

Right now, as we speak, I'm sitting in my office as usual. I have the distinct pleasure of working with some awesome ladies in my office, as well. Usually when working in the office we have lots of stuff to do, people to call, kids to interview, hearts to break, moms and dads to coddle, etc. So you can see, I'm a very busy/important person. And usually the demographic of the office is such that most everyone I work with is of the female persuasion, sans Keith and the El Jefe. This usually makes for a great work environment.

However!

There are certain days where planets align in just such a way, and events of the world coincide to make the office environment a little more...skewed. The events come together almost like a perfect storm and the events look like this.

1) Keith is out of the office and the Boss is in a meeting
2) No one wants to come in and interview
3) The ladies in the office have had very estrous weekends (trust me it makes sense)

At this point the sole male in the office finds himself lost in a storm of estrogen! The perfect storm of estrogen where he can find no paddle to get himself to shore. Now don't get me wrong I'm not saying I don't love the ladies that I work with; they really are great gals. But the onslaught of wedding/past haircut appointments/shoe/potential haircut appointments/in-law/cute outfit conversations, at times, do get a little overwhelming. So as we speak I'm sitting in my office-as a safehaven for the girly chatter going out outside my office. Since I'm, for the present moment, sheltered from the waves of estrogen that beat at my office door I'm going to write you dudes out there some helpful tips on how you can still assert your dudeness in the midst of a torrent of chick-ness:

1) Go to your office and write a blog

2) Depending on the conversation which is going on, make some 'typical male statement' to let the ladies know that yes, you are a dude and no, you are not going to be sucked into their conversation! Take an example:

Girl: Man and then they played 'Foolish Games' by Jewel at the wedding while the bride was processing and it was so touching that even the little ring-boy started crying. It was precious!

Guy: Psshh...you know that kid is in for a life of ridicule and hardship.

Girl: Ohhhh stop it. It was precious!

Guy: Yeah and so is getting pummeled in junior high for being a baby.

See it's really easy, and actually doesn't involve too much thought. Just do it.

3) If you are drinking coffee while said conversation is ongoing, stare very intently into your coffee cup. If you don't want to be as brash as to openly ridicule the ladies' stories, this will make you look like you are paying attention. Well...sort of paying attention. And plus water is the most maleable of all the 4 elements. Maybe you could try to move it with your mind? Just try it.

4) Patronize and leave. This is a great tactic because not only does it convey feigned interest in the conversation, it also lets you leave fairly gracefully and without upsetting anybody. Let's see how it works!

Girl: ...and I was so bummed because they were my favorite pair of shoes! I was walking and then the heel just snapped off in the sewer grate! Arrgghh!

Guy: Yeah, I have just ruined my favorite pair of shoes too. It's such a drag to get them re-soled, you know!

Girl: I totally do know! What a pain...

Guy: And you know what, I'm don't really know where to get them resoled. While I'm thinking about it, I actually should probably go look up some place right now. I'll let you know what I find.

Unless you are a good liar, though, this conversation will probably only work if you have some kind of story that's related to what the lady is talking about. If she starts talking about breaking her shoe, and you clearly don't have ruined shoes, you're going to look like a douche trying to stumble and mumble through a fake story that, for all intents and purposes, is stupid.

So those are some helpful hints, kids. And you ladies out there, be sensitive when you outnumber your male coworkers or friends in conversation. And if you, ladies, are good enough friends with said dudes, maybe you can give them some more helpful hints about how to avoid a potential drowning in the sea of estrogen. That's all for now!