The Monstro Blog: New Summer Hours!

I'm forseeing some chaotic and horrible decline in summer readership, mainly because most of the faithful no longer have the drudgery of Whitman forcing them into the bleak entertainment that is The Monstro blog. You're all out there having life-changing summer experiences I'm sure. Take faithful reader number #223, Hans Percival Bengtson. He's going back to the summer camp that we worked at last summer, only with a few slight changes in the already strict rules for the counselors. Hans described it as "Fascist Italy circa 1940." Why Hans chose Italy and not the stock fascist state of Germany is anyone's guess, but I assume it is because the camp will still have plenty of spaghetti and breadsticks, and the perimeter of the camp is somewhat shaped like a boot.

On a more serious note; I have discovered the universal theory of existence that most closely aligns with my intrisic belief system. I won't detail it for you because it is somewhat complicated and requires the reading of a short story that outlines the theory in metaphor, but just feel elation in that I am now fully satisfied as a human being. While you may not embrace these ideas as I have, the system doesn't need to be accepted by the masses in order for its truth to be known. When I discovered this system I contemplated briefly becoming a sort of prophet, but I thought the idea of hordes of devoted followers a little too overwhelming. I chose instead the satisfied path of silence, since you are part of the system whether you know it or not.
So worry not about whether to get Domino's Pizza or Pizza Hut, for in fact they are both part of the same elaborate interstellar system. What is important is that you EAT the pizza, for the enjoyment is what brings fulfillment.

ayyeeeeueee

bugger off ye bastards, i'm gone and in absentia and i was just wee willy wonderin what exactly makes us all friends at the monstro, because i think during the school year i am definetly at my most stressed, usually at some point at my most depressed, and yet when i'm at near-ultimate peace and talking to ladybugs in the summer none of you are around me, I don't know whether to be sorry or what. Here is a list of everyone I live with and their traits, as an enemy infiltrative agency would want to gather them.

Aaron Mandel- short, hairy, /strengths: running long distances, bird identification/ weaknesses: table manners, personal hygience, seeing ice cream get eaten in the morning.

Lane Aikin- strengths: singing, baseball knowledge/ weaknesses: phonecalls from someone named "hey babe"

Garrett Stiles: strengths: alcohol tolerance, car knowledge, gun knowledge/ weaknesses: allure of hard drugs, artery clogging foods, passing out sharpie-backed cold.

Dan Baxter: strenths: knowledge of literature, chokeholds & neckbreaking moves, pierce pettis music collection/ weaknesses: tv show "24", bad calls in IM sports

Julian Trowbridge: strengths: chillin', marine biology, rollin doobies/ weaknesses: grip on english language when stoned, large sake bottles

Gus Gustafson- strengths: alcohol tolerance, cycling, midwest represent, indy car knowledge/ weaknesses: Jonny Walker black label whiskey, wine, AM classes

Matt Olmstead: strengths: problem solving, reasoning skills, star wars/lotr knowledge/ weaknessses: .314159 beers

Alex Carlson: strengths: Beatles knowledge, vocal talent, baseball skeelz/ weaknesses: WHAT ARE HIS WEAKNESSES, HELP ME,

Drew: strengths: brute strength, interstellar reasoning/ weaknesses: left knee, back hair, katamari


man why the fuck did i just compile that, that took me either a) 4 minutes, b) 48 minutes or c) 8 days,

THIS IS NOT AN SAT

think man, goat stampedes, tick bites, oceans, beaches, Bavaria, 1850's, how ancient is farming, holy shit i wanna learn to cook.

i thought it would be punny to tell dawe she was dawe-dling once, i thought that should be shared before the wind of time and memory takes that one forever away, more monstroblog this summer, and to those i couldn't say goodbye to officially, consider this your goodbye: bugger off

A Reunion!

It's 11:00 a.m. at the Monstro on Monday, May 23. Drew has just left for Spokane to pick up Kaylin. A semester of separation ends in a short few hours. I get to lay down a few thoughts with impunity, now, because I leave tomorrow and won't see Drew or Kaylin until September.

I've watched Drew pass through a number of stages of loss:

1. Depression - at the first of the semester, our hulk was a big sulk. I don't think it helped that his Valentine's gift to Kaylin was lost in the mail.

2. Acceptance - redeemed by good friends, Drew took up his bachelorhood with enduring spirit. As the days counted down, it was always "it's only a few more weeks 'til I see Kaylin."

3. Anxiety - the past few days, he's been on edge about Kaylin's return. Half-scared, half-unbearably excited, Drew counted down the last few hours. With several ideas to surprise Kaylin in the airport, romance has been on his mind (he's even been giving me ideas, specifically tailored to Danielle).

So after a semester, he's off to Spokane for a week at Kaylin's parents' house. Good luck to you man. I leave the rest of you with a picture that catches the magic between them.

Return to Greatness

The great Ricky Williams is looking at a return to the football field. Last season he retired abruptly from the Miami Dolphins, due in no small part to several marijuana violations. He proceeded to travel India to "find himself." Now Ricky wants to return amidst a lot of noise about the drug policies in the NFL. People are saying that the drug policy for steroids should also apply to all other drugs, including marijuana. Lets go over this step-by-step.

First you have anabolic steroids. Designed to increase muscle mass, the steroids pump your body full of testosterone and make you violent and tempermental. Ever seen a huge football jock pounding some guy's face into the ground because that guy was chewing his gum too loudly? That's steroids baby. I personally don't understand why men take steroids...they make your balls shrink to peas and destroy your sex drive. I can't see liking my own muscles more than sex, but that's just me. I see even less reason for women to take 'roids...they just turn women in to men. The fast track to a happy trail and a Hulk Hogan stash is steroids ladies, so help yourself.

Now, take marijuana. The least violent drug on the planet. The most violence you'll get out of a stoner is in video game form. If Ricky Williams walked onto the football field high as a kite, he would take a snap and go hand the other team the ball, because we should all share. If Ricky wants to smoke up to chill after a game, let the guy. So many people are headhunting for him every day its pretty chill to just sit back and watch Chappelle's Show for 6 hours straight and eat onion rings. The only excuse the NFL has for banning marijuana is that it's illegal...but personally they need to focus on all the wife-beating roid-raging linebackers rather than guys like Ricky who just want to chill out after a game by smoking a joint and finding a park with slides.

I'm not funny anymore

A lot of you regular readers out there have probably noticed that this has been the longest period of time that The Monstro has gone without an update. There is a really simple reason for that: I simply am not funny anymore. I sit at my computer for hours on end trying to think up some hilarious anecdotes, but they just aren't coming. Then I asked myself, "Drew, why the fuck are you worried that you are no longer able to entertain your blog readers? You toil for hours for the sake of their enjoyment and you get nothing in return." After I came to this realization, I developed a mindset much like that of Russell Crowe's character Maximus in Gladiator. Now I am just bitter about how all these people are entertained by my pastime, and the only reason I continue to do it is so that I may one day get the opportunity to murder my arch-nemesis. He didn't kill my family, but he did something much, much worse. What's worse than family-murdering? Not much, but when someone eats your last piece of pizza that you bought and then you go up to the box expecting a delicious slice of sausage pizza only to find greasy cardboard, you'd want to murder as well. I'm not sure who this person is yet, but I plan to draw them from the shadows by continuing my facade as "funny blog guy" while silently growing more embittered until revenge consumes me, much like in Batman & Robin(definitely the worst Batman movie and arguably one of the worst movies of all time period.)

Are you not entertained? ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?!?

Who Said What?

Here's something for you who really think you know the guys at the Monstro. Test your understanding of their individual and distinctive psychological makeups by matching the quotation with its respective Monstro-affiliated speaker!

1. Ahhhhhh! *big yawn* oh yeah *yawn* mmmmh mmhh. Oh hey, what's up mon?

2. I've been up 48 hours straight ... I feel like I have this bug in my skin .. *facial twitch* eek! ak! ook! pbbt! *twitch*

3. Chill out dude.

4. No, that's totally like this article I read about where they found this low frequency radio wave is being emitted from everyone's brain, but at exactly the same rate. They think it might be, like, a kind of alien dog collar to identify us as a project to other alien racies so they don't mistakenly attack us. Which is why, obviously, we've been left alone this long.

5. You're wrong. It's equidistant. No you're wrong. No. You're wrong.

6. *cell phone rings* Oh hey babe.

7. Man, I'm going to fucking punch the next person who looks at me funny.

8. That's nothing until you've been to Indiana man. Nothing. I had sex with three women while their husbands watched once; and what's more, they paid me I was so good.

9. Gus owes me 10.60, Drew owes me 10.60, Lane owes me 5.00, and Dan owes me 125.70. Pay me before the summer.

**Answers are posted in the 'comments' section**

Fuck Yeah

So there has been this recent trend at Whitman that started within the Beta Theta Pi fraternity and has since spread to a lot of the freshman class. It's pretty harmless in itself, just a hand gesture to signify that you're enjoying yourself, whether it be at a rousing game of tiddly-winks or a triple-kegger with strippers and gambling. It looks something like this:



You achieve the desired effect when you snap your hand back and forth, so as to mimic packing tobacco in the can so it is easier to dip. I don't do it personally, but there's plenty of other hand gestures that people use all the time, so I'm not going to split hairs. Here's some others you might see around campus on a regular basis:





Now, I'm not going to pull your leg here and say that there isn't one hand gesture that blows the rest out of the water. Now, all the previous three hand gestures are pretty "nice" and "sweet". They're meant to send feelings of good times. The best hand symbol doesn't even need an introduction, but needless to say it sends a much harsher message:



This isn't used nearly enough on campus, mainly because everyone wants to just be chill. But every once in a while, like if you're totally trying to mack some chick and some dude just comes up and totally just starts jockin' the chick you were tryin' to mack and he totally isn't smooth, sometimes you just gotta throw up the bird.

Dinner w/ Cronin and a Beer Mile (a story in two parts)

A while ago it occured to me that it would be worth the chance to invite Tom Cronin, President of Whitman College to have dinner at the Monstrosity. It would be really tight for us to say we had dinner with the prez at our place and it would be good PR for him, to socialize with the lower masses and put in an appearance. So finally a date was set and garrett julian and I prepared a feast of sausage (fitting I think for our house), guacomole (we'll get back to that) and chips, caesar salad and an apple crisp. In true monstro style garrett cooked the sausages in a combination of their own fatty juices and a pool of keystone light beer. they were fucking delicious. For the guacomole garrett decided to try an "old family recipe" and in addition to avocados bought some shit like serrano peppers, cilantro and limes. It turned out tasting like the bitter swill of defeat ale. The salad and apple crisp turned out quite well. We weren't really sure exactly what time Cronin would show up but we cleaned up our downstairs to the point where it looked better than it has all semester and we set the table all proper and shit and almost all of us had collars attached to our shirts, like not even by tape or anything. Cronin arrived and tried to roll in through the one door we keep locked downstairs off that porch. Once he entered all us brave monstro boys froze up and didn't know what to do so everyone came into the kitchen and asked me if i needed help. I didn't and told them to go socialize with the awkward fella standing like 6'4" in our living room. Cronin asked for a tour of the whole house which was funny because the downstairs looked so good because we moved all the shit (not the literal shit, that has been taken care of) upstairs. Cronin emerged from being led around through dark hallways and seeing rotting food and hundreds of beer bottles to proclaim the house "rustic" and "full of character." He then asked us if the house was "good for parties" to which garrett responded, "very." Then we sat down to eat and Cronin had brought four good bottles of wine which we began to pour. Conversation consisted mainly of him asking us personal questions about our lives at whitman and us asking him questions about life and graduate school and education like he was a genie, which might be true. At one point Cronin reached for the guacamole and we all gasped and told him to avoid it and that it tasted weird. But being the populist working class hero that he is, Cronin bravely dipped chip into green mass and chewed. He said nothing about it and conversation continued until about 90 seconds later when he said, "I'm actually going to have to agree with the original sentiments regarding the guacamole" or something hella diplomatic like that which caused us all to laugh heartily, mainly at Stiles expense. Otherwise it was a really pleasant meal that made at least me and probalby others feel insignificant as all hell. For example he asked dan, the resident english major whether he had anything published and he had to reference the back page of the pio and told us to get summer jobs that had meaning for our interests when i am working at a summer camp running around naked and on drugs for the 4th summer in a row. By age 25 he had worked for the fucking president and paid his son 100 per 10 page paper he wrote over the summer and gives everyone he knows reading lists, including george bridges. Upon examination of the wine situation at the end of the meal, the bottle that cronin and garrett were sharing had one glass left in it, garrett had had one glass himself meaning that cronin put back 4-5 himself. The man clearly is no lightweight though as he peeled his car out of our driveway without backing through the kitchen as some of us were worried about. He turned the corner and sped off to his home, out of our house, out of our lives, out of this college.




Beer Mile is a sweet Whitman event, the biggest "party", one of the only chances for acceptable nudity and the scene of a ridiculous mandel/julian adventure the other night. We had a few drinks at the monstro and then headed out to Ankeny where the wild atmosphere and lack of clothing causes me to go insane. Anyways, Julian and I got real naked and real drunk real quick what with the running and all. It was dark and there were lots of pockets of spectators and that pissed me off cuz I think you shouldn't get to watch and not participate. So I implored julian to chuck (interesting verb choice) beer in people's faces, I was also showing them my penis and imploring then to give me fellatio in less eloquent vernacular. I spotted a pack of people huddled in a dark shadow under some trees by Lyman. I ran right at them yelling (quote provided by Lyman RA the next day) "worship the beer god bitches and suck my fucking dick", I then threw almost an entire can of beer in their faces and all over them. Some of the people in that group included RD's from each dorm on campus, heads of reslife Jed Schwendiman and Nancy Tavelli, and dean of students Chuck Cleveland. I had no idea who any of them were at the time but apparently my name was brought up and besides nancy who got thoroughly they all thought it was funny, especially because just after running away from them Ben Reiber came out of nowhere and layed me out all over the field in a naked sprawling mass. Life is never boring.

The Goat Roast

A bunch of vegetarians and vegans at Whitman College are crapping their pants over the moral outrage that is the tradition of the Goat Roast. Each year, a few Whitman students buy a goat and have a little camp-out before finals and eat the goat. It is killed very humanely and the meat is fully cooked so as to not give anyone a belly ache. Then a huge debate exploded about the goat's "right to life." I'm not even going to delve into that area, because when you start trying to say "goat" and "right to life" in the same sentence, I just tune out and start imagining episodes of Wild Boyz. Anyway, I was thinking about ways to have a similar event like the Goat Roast without upsetting all the herbivores on campus. I figured that a good way would be to roast animals accidentally killed, like varmints killed by cars on the road...or "road-kill" as some people refer to it. There are many delcious types of varmints that could be roasted at Whitman's "Varmint Feed," a few of which can be seen below:
















All these varmints are found milling around the roadways, and it's only a matter of waiting until you can have a delicious roast varmint right before finals week. Enjoy!

The bitter taste of defeat

It was too good to be true. My rag-tag IM softball team lost in the first round of the playoffs today when we were routed by the basketball players. Basketball players playing SOFTBALL you ask? Yes, I said that correctly. These magnificent specimens of Whitman athleticism have an IM softball team, and don't get my wrong, those sons-of-bitches are good. The problem with that little equation is that they aren't good at what they're supposed to be good at. The mens basketball team is borderline awful AT BASKETBALL, and the girls manage to maintain a level of mediocrity that keeps harsher criticism at bay. What better way to overcome your feeling of failure in your varsity sport than to go spank a bunch of "regular kids" at a game that they are playing for fun? Like when that guy from Nigeria challenged me to a 100-mile marathon, I knew he was just trying to kick my ass and bolster his ego, so I told him to go to hell. Then he came back with a bottle of tequila and challenged me again, so I agreed to a bet of $100. I thought he wanted to have a drinking competition, but halfway through the bottle he started laughing and bolted down the street. So this Nigerian guy wasn't only a better runner than me, but he was smarter and craftier than me. I hope he enjoyed his shallow victory, because while his muscles were spasming on the finish line 100 miles later I was laying in a puddle of urine curled up around a mailbox with an empty bottle of tequila. Who's the winner now???

A Civil War

All of you adept readers out there who bother to check the comments have undoubtedly seen the "tit-for-tat" that has been going on between Aaron and recently-added contributor Dan Baxter. This most recent post was Dan's first attempt at providing his unique prose to The Monstro, so I encourage all of you out there to bask in the differences of the writing that you will be exposed to on this site rather than criticize it for not being similar.

As the founder and owner of The Monstro Blog, I must step in as a wisened grandfather and stop this in-fighting before it gets out of control. Much like in the days of the Civil War, we find two brothers on opposite sides of the Mason-Dixon line, though in this case the Mason-Dixon is more of a theoretical preference-based psycho-structure. (I dont' know what that string of words means either, I just made it up to sound like a wisened old grendpeppy.)

The army on Aaron's side of the line is rather hap-hazard; they specialize in guerilla tactics with a tendency to go without pantaloons so they don't make that "whooshing" noise when they try to sneak onto a farm and steal chickens. Morale is fairly high in Aaron's encampments, and he is pioneering a "rotating door" policy of enlistment that allows troops to come and go as they please. It makes it a little rough when any sort of organized attack needs to be made, but Aaron tends to go for a "descend from the hills in swarms" strategy anyway, so while training is lacking he gets a lot of numbers from providing plenty of grog. Aaron's units shun weapons and favor instead the longtime strategy of young children to bring their fathers to the ground by attaching to each leg and hanging on for dear life.

To the north are Dan's forces. Dan tends to run his army like a...well, army. Dan sacrifices the mobility of Aaron's "ant hill" style for a more orderly and strategic army. He tends to move his troops in an odd fashion that facilitate for the 8pm showing of 24 each week. Some question Dan's selection of uniform for his troops, but he insists that a fedora tilted over one eye strikes fear into the hearts of his enemies. Dan's secret weapon against Aaron's units is a classical guitar ballad, which tends to lull Aaron's beast-men into a slumber, at which point Dan's army can easily move in a draw penises on their faces.

As good as their armies may be, I have to say that this senseless bickering must stop. I can't run a tight blog-ship if my crew is constantly fighting over the last Squeeze-It. Never mind that I am more insane than Ahab, I must have things my way if this multi-blogger format is going to work. From now on, Aaron is only allowed to post diarrhea-free critiques of French social theories, and Dan can only do photo-blogs of Indonesian glass blowers. This is how it has to be, my friends.

Whitman's Good Samaritans

Here's a sample of the inane lost and found e-mails we suffer daily. I will include the student's name, and I'm still pondering on leaving his campus address so you can leave flaming sacks of cow shite (or hey, borrow some of ours) outside his door.

I've edited the following with parentheticals to better represent its asininity:

From: Nicholas J Denton-Brown

Lose an ipod? (trust me, it's safe in my hands. I wanted to make sure no other sketchy Whitman students might try to steal it, so I picked it up, probably right before you came running back looking for it). Let me know where you lost it (because, hey, I don't trust you) and what music is on it (enumerate to me your whole library, down to even the Andrew W.K. b-sides; because Britney Spears' "Toxic" isn't specific enough -- everyone has that gem), and it's yours again (but until then, I'm going to use it with wanton disregard, awesome!)

I see this type of e-mail every day. I was surprised not to read "I found an iPod, tell me the name and the e-mail address engraved permanently on the back and I'll send it back to you." The running protocol around campus is that each of us is trustworthy enough to take lost possessions into our security, but that our peers can't be trusted similarly. They, instead, must be run through all sorts of tests and secret fraternal grips and paternity tests before some cracked Frisbee or iodine-stained Nalgene can be returned.

I don't know how this specious return policy first evolved, or why each year's freshmen adopt it as quickly as any of our other ridiculous attitudes (read philosophies: "the best party is the one I haven't visited yet" or "cowboy costume = pink leopard print foam dome").

I apologize world, but here are your future philanthropists, a ruined batch of people who think their general benignity entrusts them with the care of other people's welfare. Here are your heads of Red Cross, those who sit on a Fort Knox of donations entrusted to them, but unwilling to put trust in the poor who need it. Each holding out the hope that, perhaps, the poor won't be able to navigate the bureaucratic labrynth to their money -- that the person who lost his iPod might just miss the e-mail you sent out.

on blind dates, sheep brains, and a war of attrition

well now that 24 hours of theater sports has come to a close I am slowly regaining my sanity and ready to once again post my thoughts for general consumption.

Sometime late last week I got an email from a girl I know who is an RA in Prentiss saying that one of her residents really wanted to go on a date with me. This was a pleasant surprise and her identity was kept secret until i met up with her on Friday night in Prentiss where she lives. She was a pleasant gal and we went in her car to baskin robbins to get some ice cream and chat it up. At baskin robbins the only table available is the kiddie table because a bunch of cool looking high schoolers were packed into the place. I had no problem with the kiddie table but she appeared to be a little more reserved. I told her I had worked with kids the last 3 summers and I had no problem lowering myself to their level and we sat down. Shortly thereafter I felt two hands cover my eyes from behind in that "guess who?" way. I clearly had no idea so i pryed them off and turned around to see some horror movie shit. A little 7ish year-old girl was grinning behind me and it was clear she was mentally retarded (actually) and she was filthy. My gut instinct was to punt her across the room because I am a horrible person and hate myself but I had just finished telling my date about how I work with children so I nixed that plan. We laughed off that really weird occurence and I cursed the gods because that kind of shit really only happens to me. A few minutes later the same fucking girl came back and dug her fingernails, which were filthy, into my eyes from behind so i stood up and gently moved her back to her mother who had her back turned. I tried to sit back down but I had dirt on my eyeballs so I started crying and getting really irritated eyes so I went to the bathroom to wash up. The rest of the date was really chill and the lady then came to like 8 hours of the t-sports show, mainly to hear me ranting about eating shit and other things like that so she is probably thanking her lucky stars I didn't cut her up into little pieces in a wheatfield or something. I thought that was that and maybe we'd hang out again UNTIL I checked my email this morning. There was a random email with no subject from someone who had the same last name as this girl so instead of deleting it as the spam I thought it was I opened it. I really wished I had saved the email so I could paste it in here but I didn't so I will do my best to summarize:

My name is patty parsons and my daughter goes to whitman. what is your connection with that school? I am going to come out there in may for a few days. I have a few friends (full names included) who live in a trailer park nearby. How is the snorkeling there?

WHAT THE FUCK!!! what the fuck piss shit, one day after i meet this girl for the first time her mom emails me the next day about travel plans and snorkeling in walla walla. I thought it was some joke so I emailed my date about the email and sure enough it was her real mom who had sent it, she had no idea how mama parsons had gotten my email but apparently another "aaron mandel" books travel trips or something. THAT STILL DOESN'T EXPLAIN THE SNORKELING! Why is my life so weird? so so weird.

I wouldn't mind having my brain implanted in a sheep. I think it would be pretty chill, instead of being a human of average intelligence and dashing good looks and boyish charm I would be the smartest fucking sheep on earth which would be pretty cool. Also, I could mess myself whenever I pleased and be naked and have sex in public without drawing social scorn.

I think we at the Monstrosity have always joked about living in our own filth, but now we really are, and have been for nearly A WEEK! Ever since our landlord installed a new washing machine the water pipes have been acting a little funny. And by a "little funny" I mean whenever a wash is run raw sewage containing our own shit and toilet paper seeps out of the downstairs bathroom near the kitchen onto the floor, leaving it smelling like....well...shit. We have all commented on how "gross" or "nasty" this is but none of us did anything except try to rent-a-dg to clean up the mess. I feel like situations like these really give me a chance to excel. Since I have a high threshold for nasty-ness I figured nothing would happen until someone got thoroughly grossed out enough to take action. The nice thing about living with 8 other people is that usually shit that you want to get done will take care of itself. But if you know everyone in the house is not going to help with something that you really want then you have to do it yourself. The first to crack will scrub up the shit but until then I'll go on pretending it's cool.