Adventure Time

I have chosen to abandon all my previous goals for my life. I no longer wish to become an astronaut or dance in the Russian ballet. I have to chosen to become a professional adventurer. This came to me today at lunch when I was discussing a plan I concocted a few years ago when I was visiting Europe with my friends. We were in Nice, which is at the southern part of France that touches the Mediterranean Sea. Some random French guy told us that Africa was only 500 miles away (I can't remember the real distance) as we faced the ocean. I decided that this wasn't that daunting, and I saw that I could rent a jet-ski for about 30 Euro nearby. I thought it would be pretty cool to hop on the jet-ski with my backpack and an extra tank of gas and just head to Africa. People commented on the various threats involved in such an adventure; the possibility of storms and running out of water was among the most logical. A little bit of preparation is all that is required to make sure the adventure isn't hindered by those threats.
I quickly became excited at the prospect of adventuring as a full time job. If I pulled off the trip on the jet-ski, I could easily pull off more difficult trips. My grandest plan to date is to go around the world in a hovercraft. I would have to plan a fairly flat route, and crossing the Pacific would be a bitch, but it could be done. The next adventure would be to hike up one side of Mt. Everest, down the other side, and then raft into China until I came out in the Sea of Japan. The most deadly of my planned adventures has to be ice-sailing across Antarctica.
Since getting sponsors for these various adventures would be pretty difficult, I have decided to either 1) become a billionaire or 2) get a billionaire to finance me. I admit that 1 is much harder than 2, so I decided to pursue 2. I'm sure I could find some British billionaire who doesn't have anything better to do with his time than hunt in Africa, and it wouldn't be that hard for me to convince him to contribute his hunting expertise and fat wallet to adventuring around the world.
Since I could never abandon my passion for film, I would have a small film crew with me on all adventures, much like Steve Zissou from Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic. I would then make a feature-length non-fictional film (rather than a documentary) about every single one of my adventures. They will be widely accepted by the critics but the public will find them a little too gritty.

Old People, Pt. 2

When I get really bored my mind tends to wander to topics that other people might not normally delve into. I was walking around my house today trying to find a reason not to start on my homework, and I started thinking about text messaging. Not really text messaging alone, but the whole phenomenon of twenty-four hour communication. Every day I can keep in touch with many of my friends who are thousands and thousands of miles away. I can have a casual conversation with someone I never met who lives in Myanmar. Not only is the communication boundless, but its free. Ever since I downloaded AIM at the end of middle school I have become accustomed to having long, pointless chats with people I see every single day. The art of creating a fine away message is a coveted skill. Anyway, I got thinking about how much I use text messaging and email right now, while I'm young, and the more I thought about it the more I realized that just because I got older doesn't mean I would suddenly stop using this stuff. I envisioned myself 60 years from now sitting with a laptop in a recliner and chatting with a friend down the street who is doing the exact same thing. Maybe I'll even type messages to my wife in the next room because talking is a little too taxing for my old body. Loneliness is only a problem when you're old if you don't have an AIM screenname, if you don't subscribe to an email mailing list, or you aren't a member of an online chat forum. When my generation gets to be elderly, we'll still be zipping around the information superhighway like we are 20 years old. We'll be ordering our groceries and keeping up with old friends, all while staring at a computer screen with our failing eyes and pecking away at a keyboard with gnarled fingers. People will be found dead in front of computer screens, and it won't be that surprising. The downside of being able to access everything in the world from the click of a button means you don't have to go anywhere, do anything, or talk to real, live people. It's okay now while we're young, because the draws of life outside of the internet are still lucrative enough that game of frisbee still sounds more fun than a Teen Talk chat room. Problem is, when we get old and the active stuff gets harder and harder to do, what's going to stop some people from never leaving their keyboards?

The Vagina Monologues

Every year some people at my school perform the Vagina Monologues, and every year I end up thinking about it way too much. I never actually go to the performances, but I have heard it read a few times by random people. It never ceases to amaze me how women are able to write so much about their vaginas. It's actually a book, with pages and everything. I can't image Robert Frost being able to write more than one sentence about his penis. I sit here, thinking about being able to write a long intelligent-sounding essay about my penis, and I can't think of anything. I could describe its location, and describe what it does, but that's it. I could prove to you that my penis does indeed exist, but beyond that I would lose all creative inspiration in trying to describe what my penis would say if it could talk or anything like that. I think this is because men don't spend their time thinking about hypotheticals like that, much less take the time to write it down, edit it, and send it to other men who are also writing similar articles. It baffles me that these women were able to sit down and think up everything in the Vagina Monologues and then get together and make a marketable product of it. It baffles me because I know these women aren't that unique, they were just the first ones who managed to make anything of it. I'm not only talking about vaginas either. I have no doubt that some women somewhere have actually contemplated the essence of existence for various other body parts. This is because women, at least the women from the Vagina Monologues, see their vaginas as somewhat of an independent entity that needs to be figured out and described because it is misunderstood. Men are of the opinion that if you don't have one then you won't get it.
I will simplify my previous statement: If you were to ask a woman what it is like to have a vagina, she would undoubtedly give you a very descriptive and in-depth personal analysis much like the Vagina Monologues. If you were to ask a man what it is like to have a penis, he would unzip his pants and take it out, and then say "like that."

Hardly workin'

Sarah Dawe sent me this picture today. I'm glad she's working so hard in London.



Despite my initial impression, that is NOT a jar she is drinking out of, it's actually a pint. It's chill to drink beer out of a large jar-shaped glass, but if you clean out a peanut-butter container and drink beer out if it, you're just poor.





Shit's fucked up

I read this news article today about a baby in Eqypt being born with two heads. I read the article, and it said that the baby's other head could blink and smile, but wasn't capable of independent life. After I read the article I kind of looked around my room and then bit through my Nalgene and had a nervous breakdown. I mean, everyone knows that life is fucked up. You just look around and see genocide and racism and gender bias and whatever, and I when I was having my nervous breakdown I was thinking that these are all fucked up things that humans do to themselves. We do all this shit TO OURSELVES when life itself, just the simple act of being born, can fuck you over. What about cancer? You can't do shit about that! They tell you not to eat pork or something, but you can't really do anything about it. What if one day you just spontaneously combust? You can't just carry around a fire extinguisher and when you combust hand it to the dude next to you and say "This is embarassing, but I'm on fire. Would you put me out?" We have that shit to worry about, and all some people do is dedicate their time to making sure gay people can't get married.
This rant is mainly a plea to stop doing fucked up things to each other. Babies are being born with two heads and people get cancer every day. Direct that negative hate energy into positive life energy. Or something. Just stop hating on the guy next to you, he might be the doctor that cures your fucked up case of spine parasites.

Click the ads. Everyone wins.

Okay, so I'm a sellout and I've put up Google's AdSense on my page. What's really sweet is that after you're done enjoying my blog, if you just click on an ad that interests you, and then just close the window, I GET PAID REAL MONEY. Not Rupees or Gil, but real, green pieces of paper with an ex-president on it. I get like 2 cents per click, so help a brother out and click.

Also, check out Amerie's new single "1 Thing," it's shit-hot out of NYC and started gettin' major play time on MTV in the last few days. If you click on the link you can hear a short sample or go to iTunes and check it out. It'll get your ass moving while you sit and read my blog.

The Newest Member of the Monstro

So around Super Bowl time we decided it would be pretty chill to rent a big-screen TV. We went down to the local Rent-A-Center and ended up getting the TV for the weekend for $50. Since then, they've called us a couple of times telling us they were going to come pick it up, but that baby has been sitting in our living room for almost 2 weeks, and we paid the event fee for 3 days. The people at Rent-A-Center are probably just being smart about their labor; it costs money for gas and wages to send employees out to pick up the TV just so it can sit in the showroom and take up space. I can't imagine there is any real demand for big-screen TV anytime soon...maybe for the college basketball championship but that really isn't that exciting. So it seems that for the time being we will keep our fingers crossed and adopt this homeless television. It's become an integral part of this house, and that old 19" just won't do whenver that overweight wheezy guy from RAC decides that he's given us enough freebies.

Here's some pics of the tube just chillin', and then a pic of us chillin' with the tube. For those of you with a sharp eye: yes, that is indeed Knight's Tale playing on the TV, but it was on cable, no one in this house actually owns that piece of dog crap.










**I actually kind of like Knight's Tale, but being a film student I have to act all stuck-up about that kind of thing. Also, scroll down and name my car.**

Auction Time

My good friend Andrew Poole has inspired me today. This guy loves his car, and since his girlfriend is studying abroad he has dedicated Valentine's Day to his car, named Greta. I realized that while I don't like my car nearly as much as Andrew likes his, he has inspired me to name my ride. Since I've developed a little community of friends who read my blog, and maybe even some people who I don't even know, I'd like a little input on the name. I'm thinking about going all the way and putting it up for auction on eBay, but until then just post a comment as to what you think I should name my car. You can post as anonymous if you aren't a member, but I'd like to know who the winner is so sign your name if you don't have a Blogger.com account.

The Brick Testament

The Brick Testament

Holy crap! The whole Bible translated with hilarious Lego characters. I especially like the sections in The Law about "Proof of Virginity" and "Bestiality."

Old People

Last week I was walking to class with Gus and we saw an old man jogging as best he could with some freakishly huge old-person sunglasses on, and he totally ran across the street when he didn't have the walk signal and slowed traffic, but it was heartwarming to see that even though he was really out of it he had something to dedicate his time to. Then we walked about 100 more feet and saw another old guy washing his crappy hatchback car from like 1970. Gus made a comment along the lines of "look at these old people, just taking pride in their lives." At first I agreed with him, I was happy that these old people weren't just sitting around feeling sorry for themselves and watching FOX News or Andy Griffith reruns. But then I realized that I was proud of an old man for washing his car. He could have spent the rest of the day sitting in his own filth eating peanuts, and I still would have thought he was the greatest. For whatever reason, age causes us to lose our standards for people. If that old man was 30 years younger, people would have thought he was a lazy piece of shit, because he doesn't have a job and washes his shitty car all day. When he's 70? people react like he was walking on the god-damned moon.
To be honest, my aspirations for old age aren't much bigger than washing a shitty car, but at least I have a plan. I'm going to plant a huge peach tree in the middle of my front yard, and put HOURS of work into making it grow the most delicious peaches in town. Then I'm going to sit on my porch in stained underwear and a pair of boots with a shotgun full of salt rock. When the neighborhood kids come and try to steal my delicious peaches, they'll get a painful surprise. Then as their running away I'll yell "Git off my prop'ty!" in a crazy old-man voice.

Liberal Arts students selfish.

I am taking a break from typing the title of my paper to make a brief remark about an email I just read on the student listserv. Some girl sent out an email saying she really needed to get the Vagina Monologues, and she had seen it had just been checked out of the library, but she "REALLY NEEDED IT." I have seen this many times before, with people saying that they absolutely had to get a book that was checked out because they had a paper to write. "African Post-Colonialism" or something like that. My point is, why the hell else would someone check out a book like that if they didn't need it as much as you do, asshole? I don't go to the library at 9:00 at night and check out "Mayan Lesbian Art from 1200-800 B.C." for a casual read by the fireside. I'm probably procrastinating more than you are, I just had the common sense to beat the after-O.C. rush to the library to check my book out. That being said, I don't check books out of the library because I don't take classes that require research outside of the class readings. I could be more critical about these students' sloppy registration skills, but it's self-evident in the fact that I get to blog all day and they are in the library surrounded by "Civil War Era Poets" and "The Evolution of the Senses."

What kind of party is this?!?

Last night a few of us in the Monstrosity went out to some other off-campus houses to party. It was funny because we determined that the popularity of our parties grants us admission to even the most private parties simply because it is more likely than not that the people throwing this private party have attended at least one bash at the Monstro, and probably met their girlfriend/boyfriend there by hooking up on our balcony. With our newly discovered Golden Party Ticket, we headed over to another creatively named house called the Hotel California. They chose the exact opposite route of the Monstro in terms of throwing their party; they had one keg of nice beer and a well-lit dance floor. The Monstro tends to buy lots of kegs of cheap beer and make the dancefloor as dark as possible...you know, for the sex to happen. This party we attended also had a theme, though it was a fairly traditional "Jocks and Cheerleaders" theme. Nothing special there. What WAS special is when we left that party and headed across the street to another house that was having a private party. Their party theme was babies. They just left it at that too. Their theme was babies, and they walked around with a stamp and stamped "babies" on people. I am now intrigued by this new style of party theme. Just theme your party after anything...the more confusing the better. Throw a party with the theme "Choo-Choo Trains" and see what people come up with. You can really mess with people if they come to the door and you tell them "Why are you dressed like that? This is a choo-choo train party, not a staple gun party. Go change." and then slam the door in their face. You can literally do so much with these alternative themes. If you would like some help in this category, just pick one off this brief list, or just open a dictionary and put your finger down. There's your theme!

Alternative Theme Ideas:
1) Recycled Paper
2) Pagers
3) The Republic of Congo
4) Coniferous Forests
5) Ugly Babies
6) August
7) Ghengis Khan

I could continue this list forever, but I have to start prepping for the Super Bowl. I hope I gave someone out there a good start in planning your next bash.

The Wookie Roar

My roommate Matt is famous around the Monstrosity (and most of Whitman's campus) for his extremely accurate impersonation of the roar of a wookie from the Star Wars movies. This is Matt's trademark and you can often hear him roar across campus as a way of greeting his friends. This is a tribute to him and his one true love, Star Wars.



Roar Matt, roar.

**click on the picture to watch the movie**

Pear Video

Aaron was high the other night and I filmed him talking about a pear for about five minutes. When I get that online I will share it with everyone.

Townies

I know most of you should be familiar with the above term. For those of you that aren't, a townie is technically any person who is born and raised in the town you attend college. Usually this doesn't apply to big cities since "townie" is almost always synonymous with "redneck." Anyway, let me expand a bit upon the brief definition I have just given. A townie, to me, is not only a person who was born and raised in the town you attend college, but they actually take pride in NOT attending your college. I'd wager to say they take pride in not attending any form of higher education whatsoever. They take pride in the subwoofers in their car or the number of times they have been to prison. Townies would proclaim that they don't need your damn liberal arts degree; just because they aren't "book smart" doesn't mean they can't make it in life. A lot of people need their mufflers repaired...hell, I need someone to tell me where my muffler is. Anyway, whenever you hear someone say "he/she just isn't book smart" (you hear parents say this a lot about their kids) what they really mean to say is "He nailed a board to his own forehead yesterday." "He isn't book smart" is the biggest understatement of all time. That's like saying "That's too bad" after someone relates the horrors of the Holocaust to you.

In recent news, the Pope is sick. I am therefore nominating myself for the new Popery(?) pending John Paul II's death. I believe I would make an excellent Pope. I enjoy wearing bathrobes and funny hats. I enjoy standing before millons of people and basking in my own glory. Everyone on the planet has at least heard of the Pope, whether they think he's really all that or not. In America, the Pope is kind of like a celebrity for the dorky senior citizens of our country. I can't think of anyone besides the Pope and George W. that my grandma absolutely adores. All I would have to do as Pope is travel around in bullet proof everything and just wave at people. Every once in a while I'd have to write a letter that was like "Stop molesting kids and don't use condoms." Other than that, you just play Playstation2 (or Xbox) all day long and chill with your homies(cardinals and bishops.) I feel like being the Pope is probably the easiest job on the planet aside from the Prophet of the Mormon Church. If you're Pope you have to maintain some veil of sanity; if you manage to work your way up to Prophet you can say random shit like "Cheese tastes like purple" and elect a crocodile as chancellor and no one will as much as blink. If news comes of the LDS Prophet becoming ill, expect me to announce my nomination for that job as well.