Hey dad. I thought I should tell you something. When I was little, every now and then I would rummage through your desk drawers. I know this sort of behavior is dishonest, but I had to find some way to while away the time during those lazy summer days when I'd be home alone with Scott. Although, I don't think Scott would ever rummage through your things.
At any rate, the most interesting thing I had ever found was your lockbox of items which I presume to be dated from your college days. The contents of this box included your high school diploma, which had a crisp two dollar bill tucked away inside of it. There was also an old leather wallet with some old photos and the cards of businesses that are no longer extant. You also stowed away some poetry you once wrote on some torn out pages from a smallish stenographer's notebook. I have to admit that finding the poems was a surprise, even at such a young age, because I guess I never presumed you to be the sort to write anything. And then I actually read the poems. They look a lot like you dad. Silly. Dated. Yet to the point.
I don't remember the poems now, and I'm not going to go through the effort to dig them back up (even though I'm pretty sure of their exact location) because I want to remember just as I experienced it as a little kid. The only thing I remember though is that you inexplicably started a poem with the line, "On top of Ol' Smokey." This I consider to be a grave offense to the written word, but oh well. You then went on to describe some guy getting his head split open -- hardly the type of literature you would want your impressionable young son to come across.
I guess it occurred to me though that what I'm really doing is creating a longer, wordier, and more self-obsessed version of the short-lived literary effort that you once made, stowed away, and then blissfully forgot about. I bet you wrote those poems for a class you once took. That wouldn't surprise me because although I previously made clumsy attempts to write short fiction, not until I took a class on it at Wabash did I really get the process of it. Vonnegut once said that writing short fiction is the best way to help your soul grow, and that's why creative writing managed to spread to every university in the land, even though the prospects of making a career out of it are slim to none.
You were young once too, and you don't hesitate to remind me of that or to reassure me of the strange direction that I'm headed. So, thanks dad. But I have to ask, why did you stop?
21 December 2005
13 December 2005
A Fork and a Knife
Growing up, my brother Trevor and I were great competitors. We fought, played, and argued all the time. We were boys and were best of friends, living in a neighborhood populated mostly of older people who enjoyed wearing their pants all the way up to the waist and wore sweater vests with the leathery, old-time buttons. When you live in a neighborhood like that, you grow up feeling like some sort of curiosity. Everything smells old, and everyone has a critical remark to share with you. That's how Trevor and I grew up though, and we protected each other from all the old farts out of necessity.
Trevor is older by two years. He'd invent games in which he would innately be the better, but I couldn't do anything about it because I simply wasn't as creative. Other times, we'd simply play some one-on-one games of basketball in our driveway, or play a game of catch out on the street. Trever always seemed to be able to throw harder, and I resented him for it. But baseball was my favorite, and I could never begrudge him for wanting to play a game of catch -- even though it typically meant that I would go to sleep that night with a sore, red palm. I'd plead with him to let-up a bit, but secretly I wanted to show him that I could take all his stuff.
My favorite game though was when we'd sit out on the front porch swing and spin a long yarn about the Wednesdaq. It all started when I asked him if he'd always be my best friend. We were sitting out on the porch, drinking tall glasses of sweet tea that mama poured out for us, relaxing after a long game of "who can throw a stone closest to Old Mr. McGregor without waking him up." I was nine, and I felt it was a valid question to ask him. Summer was winding down to a close, and school was going to be starting up.
He said, "I will be your best friend every single day Sean-- even when we're old men and are begrudging little kids for playing the games that they play."
I thought that was a good idea, and I said as much to him. But I thought that I would push the issue further. "Everyday? Even the days that end in Q?"
"Especially those days. That's when we need each other more than ever. Don't you ever listen to Mrs. McGregor talk about Wednesdaq?"
He knew that I would never ever come close to stinky, old Mrs. McGregor. She smelled like rotten salami -- the kind that made me throw up all over the classroom the year before. I told Trevor as much, and I also said that if mama ever put rotten salami in my lunch again, that I'd probably pack up my things and walk right on out of the house with her big, red suitcase full of my stff. And I most certainly would not forget the fudgsicles in the freezer, because those belonged to me.
"Well her and Mrs. McGregor know that the only way to keep a Wednesdaq away is by keeping some rotten salami under the lettuce in the crisper. It's not her fault that she smells like that sometimes though. Their refrigerator is as old as their creaky old knees, and sometimes it lets out little rotten salami burps."
At that, we went behind the house towards the woods and the creek and began hunting for any Wednesdaqs that could possibly be lurking about. We figured that we'd need to go at least one hundred yards from the house since the refrigerator that mama kept our rotten salami in wasn't as old as the McGregor's refrigerator. The Wednesdaq's sense of smell is pretty good. We were able to reason that the refrigerator's ability to project the smell of rotton salami was proportional to a rate of about one hundred yards per ten years. Later in life, while considering such banal topics as transition amplitudes and ground state energy levels, I would stop to wonder about how that smell evolved over time.
A month later, we were out on the front porch spinning a yarn about the Wednesdaq. By that time, I was finally able to figure out that Trevor made the whole thing up. But when I told mama about it, she just told me that the best thing is to roll with the punches. And then she said something about baking an apple pie for pops because, "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."
Mama's wont for aphorisms and cliche inspired me to a height of creativity that I had not yet known during my young life. Trevor had a distinct way of putting me on my ass in laughter with a quick one-liner, and I envied him for that in a sort.
That day, I told Trevor that, "the way to a Wednesdaq's heart is through his stomach." I then showed him the knife and fork that I had carried in my pocket all day long and explained to him that if a Wednesdaq ever ate me whole, I'd be ready to eat out his heart.
Trevor must have thought that was the funniest thing he had heard all summer long, because he laughed and laughed until his face had turned red and he couldn't breathe anymore. He was a good older brother and maybe he was humoring me at the time, but I would never begrudge him for that.
A long, running inside joke was what typified our brotherhood.
Befor Trevor left for college, I asked him again if he'd always be my best friend. And of course, he said that he would be my best friend, even on the days that end in "Q" and especially on the days that end in "Q." And with that, we got out a sheet of paper and wrote down the worst of the worst about the Wednesdaqs.
The years following slowed the amount of correspondence between us. We went to different schools and had completely different lives. The occassional holidays, breaks, vactions, and getaways brought forays into the competitive world of excessive consumption -- be it food, drink or women. Turns out that nothing quite compares to binging on alcohol and White Castle cheeseburgers. I frequently seemed the lush in comparison to him, but I took solace from having the more attractive (albeit more vapid) girl by my side.
We became consumers in every sense of the word. Sleep was hard to come by. Alcohol was always a weekend away. Independently of each other, we found that life was meant to be lived in excess. Somewhere along the way, life became too short to accept moderation as an acceptable compromise. Girls, friends, and enemies found their way in and out, back and forth through the revolving door that campus life becomes.
The morning when I woke up to a father banging on my door vociferously while his daughter lay inexplicably naked next to me seemed to do little to knock me from the sweet reverie that comes from making life's choices from under a pile of winter coats. I told the story once to Trevor, who found it to be a hoot. Apparently, about the same time, he found himself ducking into and around window wells and tall hedges about campus and his fraternity in order to avoid the albatross of an angry parent that had come into his life.
And that's what our lives managed to become -- strangely and inexplicably independent of each other, a hodgepodge of ill-managed decisions and choices and drunken debauches. He called me up one night, and I traveled across the state to meet up with him. For the first time, we talked and really talked -- all inside jokes put aside for a moment in time. We thought about the Wednesdaq and noticed that it became real in ways that we never imagined solely because we stopped paying attention to it. The Wednesdaq marched incessantly forward and drove us towards old, dusty, and musty, sweater vests with leathery buttons and the smell of rotten salami.
"I think you're right," he said to me.
Months passed, and all of a sudden the time came for mama, pops and I to travel down and watch as Trevor made the solitary march towards commencement. The dark foreboding manifested itself in the heavy grey clouds that filled the sky and in the end of spring wind which gave life to an otherwise dreary exercise. I didn't go alone. I came with the girl that I thought I would marry, and I was anticipating the moment to let Trevor in on my secret.
I gave him a big hug at the end as he stood side by side with another girl dressed in cap and gown. He smiled at me, eyed me standing next to my girl and said, "Thursdaq already?" And we all laughed because in an oddly serendipitous way, we ended up all being in on the same joke.
Trevor is older by two years. He'd invent games in which he would innately be the better, but I couldn't do anything about it because I simply wasn't as creative. Other times, we'd simply play some one-on-one games of basketball in our driveway, or play a game of catch out on the street. Trever always seemed to be able to throw harder, and I resented him for it. But baseball was my favorite, and I could never begrudge him for wanting to play a game of catch -- even though it typically meant that I would go to sleep that night with a sore, red palm. I'd plead with him to let-up a bit, but secretly I wanted to show him that I could take all his stuff.
My favorite game though was when we'd sit out on the front porch swing and spin a long yarn about the Wednesdaq. It all started when I asked him if he'd always be my best friend. We were sitting out on the porch, drinking tall glasses of sweet tea that mama poured out for us, relaxing after a long game of "who can throw a stone closest to Old Mr. McGregor without waking him up." I was nine, and I felt it was a valid question to ask him. Summer was winding down to a close, and school was going to be starting up.
He said, "I will be your best friend every single day Sean-- even when we're old men and are begrudging little kids for playing the games that they play."
I thought that was a good idea, and I said as much to him. But I thought that I would push the issue further. "Everyday? Even the days that end in Q?"
"Especially those days. That's when we need each other more than ever. Don't you ever listen to Mrs. McGregor talk about Wednesdaq?"
He knew that I would never ever come close to stinky, old Mrs. McGregor. She smelled like rotten salami -- the kind that made me throw up all over the classroom the year before. I told Trevor as much, and I also said that if mama ever put rotten salami in my lunch again, that I'd probably pack up my things and walk right on out of the house with her big, red suitcase full of my stff. And I most certainly would not forget the fudgsicles in the freezer, because those belonged to me.
"Well her and Mrs. McGregor know that the only way to keep a Wednesdaq away is by keeping some rotten salami under the lettuce in the crisper. It's not her fault that she smells like that sometimes though. Their refrigerator is as old as their creaky old knees, and sometimes it lets out little rotten salami burps."
At that, we went behind the house towards the woods and the creek and began hunting for any Wednesdaqs that could possibly be lurking about. We figured that we'd need to go at least one hundred yards from the house since the refrigerator that mama kept our rotten salami in wasn't as old as the McGregor's refrigerator. The Wednesdaq's sense of smell is pretty good. We were able to reason that the refrigerator's ability to project the smell of rotton salami was proportional to a rate of about one hundred yards per ten years. Later in life, while considering such banal topics as transition amplitudes and ground state energy levels, I would stop to wonder about how that smell evolved over time.
A month later, we were out on the front porch spinning a yarn about the Wednesdaq. By that time, I was finally able to figure out that Trevor made the whole thing up. But when I told mama about it, she just told me that the best thing is to roll with the punches. And then she said something about baking an apple pie for pops because, "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."
Mama's wont for aphorisms and cliche inspired me to a height of creativity that I had not yet known during my young life. Trevor had a distinct way of putting me on my ass in laughter with a quick one-liner, and I envied him for that in a sort.
That day, I told Trevor that, "the way to a Wednesdaq's heart is through his stomach." I then showed him the knife and fork that I had carried in my pocket all day long and explained to him that if a Wednesdaq ever ate me whole, I'd be ready to eat out his heart.
Trevor must have thought that was the funniest thing he had heard all summer long, because he laughed and laughed until his face had turned red and he couldn't breathe anymore. He was a good older brother and maybe he was humoring me at the time, but I would never begrudge him for that.
A long, running inside joke was what typified our brotherhood.
Befor Trevor left for college, I asked him again if he'd always be my best friend. And of course, he said that he would be my best friend, even on the days that end in "Q" and especially on the days that end in "Q." And with that, we got out a sheet of paper and wrote down the worst of the worst about the Wednesdaqs.
1. If you call his name, he will get angry and will attack you.
2. He's big and hairy and foams at the mouth.
3. He is of no relation to NASDAQ.
4. Tuesdaq is no match for the Wednesdaq.
5. The way to the Wednesdaq's heart is through his stomach. If he eats you whole, wait until you reach his stomach and then stumble around until you find what looks to be a triangular opening. Go through the opening and eat his heart. It will take at least 15 days to finish eating his heart, but you will be rewarded the next time you move your bowels and find a BRAND NEW LEXUS, complete with red ribbon atop the roof. Collect the jade monkey and break it open to find the keys to the Lexus. Drive the Lexus right on out of the Wednesdaq's dead and rotting corpse.
6. When unmasked, the Wednesdaq is unidentifiable. If you find his mask on the ground, be wary of everyone...even your closest of kin...ESPECIALLY your closest of kin.
7. Seek the help of a koala for protection against the Wednesdaq.
8. The Wednesdaq abhors gelato pie but will consume the occassional one-day old whole.
9. He is powerless on "rotten salami and rotton salami alone day."
10. If cornered by the Wednesdaq, yell out the name, "Marilyn Manson" and take to the fetal position -- this is your last hope if caught in such a situation. If Marilyn Manson takes pity on your poor soul, he will emerge from the local sewage treatment plant and fight the Wednesdaq to the death.
The years following slowed the amount of correspondence between us. We went to different schools and had completely different lives. The occassional holidays, breaks, vactions, and getaways brought forays into the competitive world of excessive consumption -- be it food, drink or women. Turns out that nothing quite compares to binging on alcohol and White Castle cheeseburgers. I frequently seemed the lush in comparison to him, but I took solace from having the more attractive (albeit more vapid) girl by my side.
We became consumers in every sense of the word. Sleep was hard to come by. Alcohol was always a weekend away. Independently of each other, we found that life was meant to be lived in excess. Somewhere along the way, life became too short to accept moderation as an acceptable compromise. Girls, friends, and enemies found their way in and out, back and forth through the revolving door that campus life becomes.
The morning when I woke up to a father banging on my door vociferously while his daughter lay inexplicably naked next to me seemed to do little to knock me from the sweet reverie that comes from making life's choices from under a pile of winter coats. I told the story once to Trevor, who found it to be a hoot. Apparently, about the same time, he found himself ducking into and around window wells and tall hedges about campus and his fraternity in order to avoid the albatross of an angry parent that had come into his life.
And that's what our lives managed to become -- strangely and inexplicably independent of each other, a hodgepodge of ill-managed decisions and choices and drunken debauches. He called me up one night, and I traveled across the state to meet up with him. For the first time, we talked and really talked -- all inside jokes put aside for a moment in time. We thought about the Wednesdaq and noticed that it became real in ways that we never imagined solely because we stopped paying attention to it. The Wednesdaq marched incessantly forward and drove us towards old, dusty, and musty, sweater vests with leathery buttons and the smell of rotten salami.
"I think you're right," he said to me.
Months passed, and all of a sudden the time came for mama, pops and I to travel down and watch as Trevor made the solitary march towards commencement. The dark foreboding manifested itself in the heavy grey clouds that filled the sky and in the end of spring wind which gave life to an otherwise dreary exercise. I didn't go alone. I came with the girl that I thought I would marry, and I was anticipating the moment to let Trevor in on my secret.
I gave him a big hug at the end as he stood side by side with another girl dressed in cap and gown. He smiled at me, eyed me standing next to my girl and said, "Thursdaq already?" And we all laughed because in an oddly serendipitous way, we ended up all being in on the same joke.
Alright...Just Do It Already
Oops, it's the middle of December, and I think it was like 64 degrees outside yesterday.
Beth was here for the past week and a half, and that was absolutely wonderful. She was excited about doing karaoke with the other physics grads, but the guy that runs it at the bar we go to did not show up, sadly.
I think we've been giving each other the same form of snyphyllus: congestion, runny nose, persistent sneezing, headache, body pain. Back and forth. Forever.
If you don't want to fuck around with having a stuffed-up nose (and I'm sure you don't), there's only one medicine to turn to: Tylenol Severe Cold and Congestion with Cool Mint Afterburst Freshness. That shit stops a cold dead in its tracks, providing relief for 8 hours straight.
If you're surprised that I can find amusement from talking in a made-up accent (in this case, arbitrarily adding r's after mostly every vowel...such as in, "It's ther Fartin' Tarxas Arggies!!") and through expressing laughter in a closed-mouth cackle, then you must hardly know me at all.
The trailer for the M. Night Shyamalan movie, Lady in the Water, starts with, "There once was a man named Cleveland Heep(Steamer)..."
Now for something completely unrelated to everything else:
Everyday? Even the days that end in "Q?"
Yes.
Good, because signs of an imminent Wednesdaq are all around.
Oh no! We should seek shelter immediately.
De-bunking myths about the Wednesdaq:
1. If you call his name, he will get angry and will attack you.
2. He's big and hairy and foams at the mouth.
3. He is of no relation to NASDAQ.
4. Tuesdaq is no match for the Wednesdaq.
5. The way to the Wednesdaq's heart is through his stomach. If he eats you whole, wait until you reach his stomach and then stumble around until you find what looks to be a triangular opening. Go through the opening and eat his heart. It will take at least 15 days to finish eating his heart, but you will be rewarded the next time you move your bowels and find a BRAND NEW LEXUS, complete with red ribbon atop the roof. Collect the jade monkey and break it open to find the keys to the Lexus. Drive the Lexus right on out of the Wednesdaq's dead and rotting corpse.
6. When unmasked, the Wednesdaq is unidentifiable. If you find his mask on the ground, be wary of everyone...even your closest of kin...ESPECIALLY your closest of kin.
7. Seek the help of a koala for protection against the Wednesdaq.
8. The Wednesdaq abhors gelato pie but will consume the occassional one-day old whole.
Some things to consider:
1. Would you rather be Toby Keith or have a boot stuck in your ass?
2. Would you rather have a koala infestation or a beagle infestation?
3. Would you rather be a hot, young astrophysicst (a la Kelly McGillis) or do Maverick (a la Kelly McGillis again)?
4. Would you rather be George W. Bush or Dan Quayle?
Beth was here for the past week and a half, and that was absolutely wonderful. She was excited about doing karaoke with the other physics grads, but the guy that runs it at the bar we go to did not show up, sadly.
I think we've been giving each other the same form of snyphyllus: congestion, runny nose, persistent sneezing, headache, body pain. Back and forth. Forever.
If you don't want to fuck around with having a stuffed-up nose (and I'm sure you don't), there's only one medicine to turn to: Tylenol Severe Cold and Congestion with Cool Mint Afterburst Freshness. That shit stops a cold dead in its tracks, providing relief for 8 hours straight.
If you're surprised that I can find amusement from talking in a made-up accent (in this case, arbitrarily adding r's after mostly every vowel...such as in, "It's ther Fartin' Tarxas Arggies!!") and through expressing laughter in a closed-mouth cackle, then you must hardly know me at all.
The trailer for the M. Night Shyamalan movie, Lady in the Water, starts with, "There once was a man named Cleveland Heep(Steamer)..."
Now for something completely unrelated to everything else:
Everyday? Even the days that end in "Q?"
Yes.
Good, because signs of an imminent Wednesdaq are all around.
Oh no! We should seek shelter immediately.
De-bunking myths about the Wednesdaq:
1. If you call his name, he will get angry and will attack you.
2. He's big and hairy and foams at the mouth.
3. He is of no relation to NASDAQ.
4. Tuesdaq is no match for the Wednesdaq.
5. The way to the Wednesdaq's heart is through his stomach. If he eats you whole, wait until you reach his stomach and then stumble around until you find what looks to be a triangular opening. Go through the opening and eat his heart. It will take at least 15 days to finish eating his heart, but you will be rewarded the next time you move your bowels and find a BRAND NEW LEXUS, complete with red ribbon atop the roof. Collect the jade monkey and break it open to find the keys to the Lexus. Drive the Lexus right on out of the Wednesdaq's dead and rotting corpse.
6. When unmasked, the Wednesdaq is unidentifiable. If you find his mask on the ground, be wary of everyone...even your closest of kin...ESPECIALLY your closest of kin.
7. Seek the help of a koala for protection against the Wednesdaq.
8. The Wednesdaq abhors gelato pie but will consume the occassional one-day old whole.
Some things to consider:
1. Would you rather be Toby Keith or have a boot stuck in your ass?
2. Would you rather have a koala infestation or a beagle infestation?
3. Would you rather be a hot, young astrophysicst (a la Kelly McGillis) or do Maverick (a la Kelly McGillis again)?
4. Would you rather be George W. Bush or Dan Quayle?
30 November 2005
Thanksgiving
1. My brother looks, self-admittedly, goofy in all pictures because of the way he smiles. With a little coaching from his much wiser older brother though, I think we nailed down the secret to making fake-o looking smiles appear genuine. 
I mean, look how happy he looks. Someone must have told a really funny joke.
Truly, the hallmarks of the Button Family Smile is to simply squint your eyes and smile really big. I never realized it before, but everyone in my family (with the notable exception of Scott, until now at least) smiles like that.
Also, note the new winter fashion everyone: horizontally-striped polo shirt over vertically-stripped, button-down dress shirt.
2. I had no idea that driving through Ohio during a holiday weekend could be so rough. Considering the traffic going north and south down I-71 (which basically runs the length of the state), I would have to assume that the entire state population was on the move.
3. As if everyone in my family wore this stupid, curly-hair, Magnum P.I. wig this past weekend...
I guess it is a good look though. I can't complain.
4. Facts about Kurt Vonnegut that only interest me (Taken from a collection of his short stories entitled, Bagombo Snuff Box):
a. He once told Joseph Heller that if it hadn't been for World War II, he would have been garden editor of The Indianapolis Star.
b. In an early short story that he wrote titled, Hal Irwin's Magic Lamp, he references Crawfordsville, Indiana.
c. In the fifties, Vonnegut quit his job doing PR for GE and moved his family to Cape Cod to begin writing full-time.
d. These are his 8 rules of creative writing:
5. I would like to give thanks to the following relationship sponsors:
a. The Greater Main Street Association
b. The Koala Foundation of America
c. The Track Pants Twins, stars of the "Rock Your Bod" series (written and directed by Elisabeth Sugrue)
d. S.O.B (Save Our Beagles)
e. Lewis Black
f. Ben Folds
g. The letter, Q
h. Things that make you go, "Mmmmmm"
i. Continental Airlines
j. The Neon Cactus
k. The Parking Garage Preservation Society of Cincinnati
l. Chimney Rock
m. Friends and family
6. The thought of eating another White Castle cheeseburger makes my stomach turn, but I know someday, somewhere I'll try to share an entire Crave Case (that's 30 White Castles folks) with someone who is as much a glutton for punishment (and ungodly, awful food product) as I am.
I mean, look how happy he looks. Someone must have told a really funny joke.
Truly, the hallmarks of the Button Family Smile is to simply squint your eyes and smile really big. I never realized it before, but everyone in my family (with the notable exception of Scott, until now at least) smiles like that.
Also, note the new winter fashion everyone: horizontally-striped polo shirt over vertically-stripped, button-down dress shirt.
2. I had no idea that driving through Ohio during a holiday weekend could be so rough. Considering the traffic going north and south down I-71 (which basically runs the length of the state), I would have to assume that the entire state population was on the move.
3. As if everyone in my family wore this stupid, curly-hair, Magnum P.I. wig this past weekend...
I guess it is a good look though. I can't complain.
4. Facts about Kurt Vonnegut that only interest me (Taken from a collection of his short stories entitled, Bagombo Snuff Box):
a. He once told Joseph Heller that if it hadn't been for World War II, he would have been garden editor of The Indianapolis Star.
b. In an early short story that he wrote titled, Hal Irwin's Magic Lamp, he references Crawfordsville, Indiana.
c. In the fifties, Vonnegut quit his job doing PR for GE and moved his family to Cape Cod to begin writing full-time.
d. These are his 8 rules of creative writing:
1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things -- reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them -- in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.
5. I would like to give thanks to the following relationship sponsors:
a. The Greater Main Street Association
b. The Koala Foundation of America
c. The Track Pants Twins, stars of the "Rock Your Bod" series (written and directed by Elisabeth Sugrue)
d. S.O.B (Save Our Beagles)
e. Lewis Black
f. Ben Folds
g. The letter, Q
h. Things that make you go, "Mmmmmm"
i. Continental Airlines
j. The Neon Cactus
k. The Parking Garage Preservation Society of Cincinnati
l. Chimney Rock
m. Friends and family
6. The thought of eating another White Castle cheeseburger makes my stomach turn, but I know someday, somewhere I'll try to share an entire Crave Case (that's 30 White Castles folks) with someone who is as much a glutton for punishment (and ungodly, awful food product) as I am.
28 November 2005
What's in a Name?
In the town of White Settlement (an unforunately named suburb of Fort Worth), during the most recent election, a measure to have the name of the town changed to something more politically correct was struck down in a hotly contested vote by inhabitants. Proponents of the measure argued that the town of some 15,000 was being hurt economically by the less-than-appealing name. Recently, Home Depot and Wal-Mart have packed up and left (and judging by the number of these hardware and retail behemoths that are scattered about the country, I would say that this is a major warning sign concerning a town's economic health), and the local chamber of commerce has been up-in-arms over its struggles to attract new businesses.
The name "White Settlement" comes from the fact that a large contingent of white folk built a settlement amid a large number of Native American settlements in the 1840s. The town, which is 80% white as of the 2000 census, claims to have no real trace of a racist past. Thus, the so-called "heritage" that the slight majority of the townfolk have (for the time) preserved is based largely in a desire to re-affirm their ancestors' uncreative choice of a name.
I think that if these people were really serious about keeping the name, they would have at least had the decency to make some cute alterations to the name's past. For instance, a town named after a person is particularly delightful. In this case, let's call our quiant hero Ichabod White. And if they really wanted to strengthen their argument for keeping the name of "White Settlement," they would have our Ichabod, dashing hero and founder, fighting off hordes and hordes of vicious, man-eating Native American savages. Not only does this point give the name historical fullness, but it also preserves some of the original (yet hardly creative) irony that, at the time of its founding, the most distinguishing feature of this town was the fact that it was a bastion of white-ness in a heavily Native American populated region.
One of the arguments for maintaining the name "White Settlement" was the fact that the city would have to spend over $25,000 to have all official-type uniforms, signs, and letterheads changed. Without knowing the extent of the city's dire financial situation, I would have to say that this point is out-and-out stupid -- given, of course, that the major cause for the flight of big business in this simple burgh is indeed due to the politically incorrect name. I also think that changing a really unattractive name to one with a bit more pizzaz is simply a smart business decision that any sober-minded capitalist could appreciate. The monetary price to have the name changed is a small one if it can at least give the town a fighting chance in the battle to stave off its unfortunate economic doldrums.
Since the name is really the city's first line of attack when trying to sell itself to prospective businesses and residents, having an unoffensive name makes good business sense. And as such, I propose a compromise: Give the town a slogan and have that slogan added to all official documents and signs. States have slogans, and they proudly display them everywhere. Ohio is both, "The Heart of it All!" and "The Birthplace of Aviation." Illinois is the "Land of Lincoln." And Alabama, curiously, has "Stars Fell on Alabama." (Not to be out-done, Texas has a whole fucking song, but I'm not even going to get into that one right now.) Any good ad man would agree, "Slogans are slog-tastic!!"
So, the good people of White Settlement should try the following on for size:
1. White Settlement: "We may, in fact, be 80% white and our name IS White Settlement, but we seriously love you colored folk."
2. White Settlement: "We're white, and we're right. So get used to it!"
3. White Settlement: "The 'I' of Ichabod."
4. White Settlement: "Look how low our crime rate is?!"
All in all, I think a lot of people have missed the boat on this issue. The primary concern here should be, "How far should a town go to sell itself out to corporate America?" The hulaballoo that this is an example of political correctness running amok in our society is but a red herring. The fact of the matter is, this is really an example of how much sway outsiders such as Home Depot and Wal-Mart have in the day-to-day operation of small communities across the country. Rather than being accepting of the unique idiosyncracies of small towns, with their quaint toy shops and hardware stores (which are true measures of a town's heritage), these aggressors come into town and immediately stamp their way of doing things as the right way to do things (with the corporate paradigm of political correctness dragging in tow).
At any rate, White Settlement has a stupid name and a stupid story behind the name.
A news report prior to the election can be found here.
Also, the poorly thought-out opinion piece in the A&M school paper that prompted me to write this cynical diatribe can be found here.
The name "White Settlement" comes from the fact that a large contingent of white folk built a settlement amid a large number of Native American settlements in the 1840s. The town, which is 80% white as of the 2000 census, claims to have no real trace of a racist past. Thus, the so-called "heritage" that the slight majority of the townfolk have (for the time) preserved is based largely in a desire to re-affirm their ancestors' uncreative choice of a name.
I think that if these people were really serious about keeping the name, they would have at least had the decency to make some cute alterations to the name's past. For instance, a town named after a person is particularly delightful. In this case, let's call our quiant hero Ichabod White. And if they really wanted to strengthen their argument for keeping the name of "White Settlement," they would have our Ichabod, dashing hero and founder, fighting off hordes and hordes of vicious, man-eating Native American savages. Not only does this point give the name historical fullness, but it also preserves some of the original (yet hardly creative) irony that, at the time of its founding, the most distinguishing feature of this town was the fact that it was a bastion of white-ness in a heavily Native American populated region.
One of the arguments for maintaining the name "White Settlement" was the fact that the city would have to spend over $25,000 to have all official-type uniforms, signs, and letterheads changed. Without knowing the extent of the city's dire financial situation, I would have to say that this point is out-and-out stupid -- given, of course, that the major cause for the flight of big business in this simple burgh is indeed due to the politically incorrect name. I also think that changing a really unattractive name to one with a bit more pizzaz is simply a smart business decision that any sober-minded capitalist could appreciate. The monetary price to have the name changed is a small one if it can at least give the town a fighting chance in the battle to stave off its unfortunate economic doldrums.
Since the name is really the city's first line of attack when trying to sell itself to prospective businesses and residents, having an unoffensive name makes good business sense. And as such, I propose a compromise: Give the town a slogan and have that slogan added to all official documents and signs. States have slogans, and they proudly display them everywhere. Ohio is both, "The Heart of it All!" and "The Birthplace of Aviation." Illinois is the "Land of Lincoln." And Alabama, curiously, has "Stars Fell on Alabama." (Not to be out-done, Texas has a whole fucking song, but I'm not even going to get into that one right now.) Any good ad man would agree, "Slogans are slog-tastic!!"
So, the good people of White Settlement should try the following on for size:
1. White Settlement: "We may, in fact, be 80% white and our name IS White Settlement, but we seriously love you colored folk."
2. White Settlement: "We're white, and we're right. So get used to it!"
3. White Settlement: "The 'I' of Ichabod."
4. White Settlement: "Look how low our crime rate is?!"
All in all, I think a lot of people have missed the boat on this issue. The primary concern here should be, "How far should a town go to sell itself out to corporate America?" The hulaballoo that this is an example of political correctness running amok in our society is but a red herring. The fact of the matter is, this is really an example of how much sway outsiders such as Home Depot and Wal-Mart have in the day-to-day operation of small communities across the country. Rather than being accepting of the unique idiosyncracies of small towns, with their quaint toy shops and hardware stores (which are true measures of a town's heritage), these aggressors come into town and immediately stamp their way of doing things as the right way to do things (with the corporate paradigm of political correctness dragging in tow).
At any rate, White Settlement has a stupid name and a stupid story behind the name.
A news report prior to the election can be found here.
Also, the poorly thought-out opinion piece in the A&M school paper that prompted me to write this cynical diatribe can be found here.
21 November 2005
...And You Can Count on It
I don't get to be in Cleveland very often throughout the year. In fact, being home for most of this past summer was the longest amount of time that I've spent at home since after my freshman year at Wabash. At any rate, when I am at home, my brother and I typically spend most of our time between working out at FitWorks or playing video games into the early hours of the morning.
Marc Brown is the owner of Norton Furniture, a store located in downtown Cleveland which offers credit to just about everyone and even leaves out fresh baked bread for any homeless individuals who pass by. Another interesting aspect about this particular furniture store is the costumed mannequins which decorate the showroom.
Between the hours of midnight and 5 AM, Marc Brown's off-beat, homemade commercials frequently air on local television. The first time I saw one of his commercials, I honestly thought it was the freakiest commercial I had ever seen -- predominantly because of Marc Brown's raspy, wheezy voice. The audio from this particular commercial can be heard here.
After making fun of the commercial at length, my cousin's boyfriend alerted me as to why his voice sounds like that...
Marc Brown is the owner of Norton Furniture, a store located in downtown Cleveland which offers credit to just about everyone and even leaves out fresh baked bread for any homeless individuals who pass by. Another interesting aspect about this particular furniture store is the costumed mannequins which decorate the showroom.
Between the hours of midnight and 5 AM, Marc Brown's off-beat, homemade commercials frequently air on local television. The first time I saw one of his commercials, I honestly thought it was the freakiest commercial I had ever seen -- predominantly because of Marc Brown's raspy, wheezy voice. The audio from this particular commercial can be heard here.
After making fun of the commercial at length, my cousin's boyfriend alerted me as to why his voice sounds like that...
As it turns out, Brown was kicked in the throat by another kid as a child, injuring his vocal cords. Yet behind his peculiar presentation is an uncommonly astute merchant who's managed to become the king of the urban-furniture business.
Cleveland Scene, 1/19/05
20 November 2005
Bonfire
I went to Bonfire last night.
I don't want to misrepresent the tradition, but as far as I know, every year before the t.u. game, a large stack of logs is erected and then razed to the ground as a symbol of Aggieland's "burning desire to beat t.u."
The largest stack was erected in 1969. It holds the world record for largest bonfire erected at 109 feet, 10 inches. This tidbit of information comes from a scathingly critical, yet interesting article written by a former member of the cadet corps.
When 12 students were killed by collapsing logs from the 60 ft. tall stack in 1999, the tradition of having Bonfire on-campus was stopped. In fact, ligation involving the university is still on-going today. Nevertheless, students have taken it upon themselves to move Bonfire off-campus and hold it without any university involvement. For more information on this organization (which, in despite of a recent controversial vote by the student government remains unrecognized by the university), I refer you to the Student Bonfire website.
At any rate, in despite of all the controversy surrounding the continuation of this 90-some year old tradition, I went to Bonfire with two of the other physics grad students. This year, it was held in Bryan, which is in close proximity to College Station, on a dirt race track called Hot Rod Hill. I was ecstatic to see signs posted for demolition derbies and the such. How this little piece of paradise has remained hidden from the A&M student body writ large is beyond my reasoning. The fact that there is a dirt track within ten minutes of me where cars slam into each other with tremendous violent force is equally tremendously pleasing. The facility had ample parking. We parked in a grass field and had to traverse a great amount of cow plop in order to get to the race track. We arrived quite early, so not very many people were in attendance as of yet (the girl at the gate said that they were expecting approximately fifteen thousand). But we were pretty excited to see a tall stack of logs ready to be set on fire with a small-ish burnt orange outhouse on top with the words, "t.u. frat house," inscribed on the side -- a skull with the longhorns sawed-off was fixed to the outhouse directly above those words.
Since we were there awfully early, about four hours until burn, the three of us found some Aggies with a glow-in-the-dark football to play a friendly 4-on-4 game with. The most notable thing that happened during this time was when I deflected a potential touchdown pass and then tripped and tore up jeans while doing a little victory dance. Clearly, this was an incident of karma coming to bite me in the ass for committing the veritable sin of excessive celebration in the endzone.
During the middle of our contest, the crew working on Bonfire began hosing the 50-some foot tall stack of logs with kerosene (although Peter would claim it to be jet fuel). They did this for a good half of an hour.
Eventually the lights went down, we all did some yells, sang some songs, and witnessed some pageantry before the Bonfire was finally lit.
The picture here shows approximately the top twenty feet of the stack. You can make out the burnt-orange outhouse amid the fiery, intense blaze.
For whatever reason, the logs had trouble catching fire. The crew managed to keep the fire going though. After some time, someone made the questionable decision to hose more kerosene (or jet fuel?) onto the stack. At this point, the three of us took many, many steps backward and viewed this insanity under curious protest. After about three minutes, the blaze was going very strong again, and the hose was turned off without any incident (thank God).
Soon thereafter, we left because of the cold and because we were getting pretty hungry.
Part of the tradition around Bonfire is that if the stack collapses before midnight, then A&M will lose to t.u. I think, this year at least, that A&M can consider it a victory if they keep the score within three touchdowns.
I don't want to misrepresent the tradition, but as far as I know, every year before the t.u. game, a large stack of logs is erected and then razed to the ground as a symbol of Aggieland's "burning desire to beat t.u."
The largest stack was erected in 1969. It holds the world record for largest bonfire erected at 109 feet, 10 inches. This tidbit of information comes from a scathingly critical, yet interesting article written by a former member of the cadet corps.
When 12 students were killed by collapsing logs from the 60 ft. tall stack in 1999, the tradition of having Bonfire on-campus was stopped. In fact, ligation involving the university is still on-going today. Nevertheless, students have taken it upon themselves to move Bonfire off-campus and hold it without any university involvement. For more information on this organization (which, in despite of a recent controversial vote by the student government remains unrecognized by the university), I refer you to the Student Bonfire website.
At any rate, in despite of all the controversy surrounding the continuation of this 90-some year old tradition, I went to Bonfire with two of the other physics grad students. This year, it was held in Bryan, which is in close proximity to College Station, on a dirt race track called Hot Rod Hill. I was ecstatic to see signs posted for demolition derbies and the such. How this little piece of paradise has remained hidden from the A&M student body writ large is beyond my reasoning. The fact that there is a dirt track within ten minutes of me where cars slam into each other with tremendous violent force is equally tremendously pleasing. The facility had ample parking. We parked in a grass field and had to traverse a great amount of cow plop in order to get to the race track. We arrived quite early, so not very many people were in attendance as of yet (the girl at the gate said that they were expecting approximately fifteen thousand). But we were pretty excited to see a tall stack of logs ready to be set on fire with a small-ish burnt orange outhouse on top with the words, "t.u. frat house," inscribed on the side -- a skull with the longhorns sawed-off was fixed to the outhouse directly above those words.
Since we were there awfully early, about four hours until burn, the three of us found some Aggies with a glow-in-the-dark football to play a friendly 4-on-4 game with. The most notable thing that happened during this time was when I deflected a potential touchdown pass and then tripped and tore up jeans while doing a little victory dance. Clearly, this was an incident of karma coming to bite me in the ass for committing the veritable sin of excessive celebration in the endzone.
During the middle of our contest, the crew working on Bonfire began hosing the 50-some foot tall stack of logs with kerosene (although Peter would claim it to be jet fuel). They did this for a good half of an hour.
Eventually the lights went down, we all did some yells, sang some songs, and witnessed some pageantry before the Bonfire was finally lit.
The picture here shows approximately the top twenty feet of the stack. You can make out the burnt-orange outhouse amid the fiery, intense blaze.For whatever reason, the logs had trouble catching fire. The crew managed to keep the fire going though. After some time, someone made the questionable decision to hose more kerosene (or jet fuel?) onto the stack. At this point, the three of us took many, many steps backward and viewed this insanity under curious protest. After about three minutes, the blaze was going very strong again, and the hose was turned off without any incident (thank God).
Soon thereafter, we left because of the cold and because we were getting pretty hungry.
Part of the tradition around Bonfire is that if the stack collapses before midnight, then A&M will lose to t.u. I think, this year at least, that A&M can consider it a victory if they keep the score within three touchdowns.
19 November 2005
A Terrible Font of Light
I was sitting at dinner across from my lovely girlfriend Sissy. We were eating out at a trendy bistro on the opposite side of town before leaving for Paris. Sissy was having the sicilian chicken, and I ordered the beef flank steak. We got our usual corner booth near the back of the darkly lit restaurant.
The gentlemen that were sitting at this particular table before us seemed to have left some of their files behind. I notified the waitress, and she said that they were due to come back soon for them. Apparently the two gentlemen gave strict orders to leave the files at the table and that they would pick them up themselves. I thought that was an extremely odd request, but admittedly, I didn't even think twice about it. I had a lot on my mind, we were going to Paris, after all. Much had to be done before leaving that night, the last flight of the day.
Two sharply dressed men approached the table. The one was asiatic in his features and skin color. The other gentleman was a white man with an eye patch over his left eye. He had scars which looked to be the result of cigarette burns on his right hand. I counted five of them at least. They approached us and made a simple request. "May we sit down at your table for a moment. I need to enter some information into my computer before we leave."
Before I could reply, the white gentleman was sitting next to me in the booth. The asian gentleman remained standing. I asked him who he was and what he was doing, but he simply replied that he was in quite a hurry and that there was no time for this sort of hub-bub right now. I thought this gentleman to be quite rude, indeed. I was about to call the waitress over. Before I could though, the gentleman pulled out his laptop. I was mesmerized by it. It seemed to be strangely above what technology is. There was a certain mystical quality to it. The display looked advanced, and the screenshots that seemed to be popping off the display were hypnotic. I don't even remember what I was looking at. The gentleman was furiously typing. The sound and the colors made me instantly lose my mind, and I was sucked into a different world.
When I came to, everything was just as it was before. Sissy was eating her dinner and drinking her wine. The asian gentleman was still standing. And the white man was by my side. The two gentlemen were talking. I looked at the laptop again and noticed the wireless card that was jutting out the side of the computer. For some reason, I wanted to put it in my mouth. I wanted to taste it. I was sure it had a distinct taste. I thought maybe that's where the magic was coming from. I was going to consume it whole, and it would be a part of me forever.
The two were clearly distracted. Sissy didn't notice. I pulled the card out and begin chewing on it. It was fragile, delicate...it broke into a million pieces upon first contact with my molars. I was disappointed though -- it was just plastic. It tasted distinctly like technology. I didn't feel any magic.
Instantly though, I was frightened out of my mind. Worry crept over me like a disease. We were going to be late, I knew that. The men were going to realize what I just did. I was scared. I turned to Sissy. "We need to leave. Now." She didn't understand why though. She looked at me, absolutely puzzled. I whispered in her ear, "I'm going to be in a lot of trouble with these men. Let's leave now." She didn't want to because we weren't finished with our meal yet. I guess that's completely understandable. I told her to just trust me and that I'd explain after we had left. We got up. They didn't notice.
I found our waitress, slipped thirty bucks into her hand, and said to her that we had to leave in a hurry. "Sorry for the inconvenience."
We went back to the house and gathered together our luggage. We had plenty of time before the shuttle would arrive to take us to the airport -- about twenty minutes. Sissy's father would be meeting us at the airport. He's a technician for the airline and got us seats as stand-by passengers for the flight to Paris. The shuttle arrived. The driver retrieved our luggage and put it on the luggage racks near the front of the shuttle. We sat in the back. I fell asleep, my head resting on her shoulder. We arrived at the airport with an hour before board-time.
When pressed to describe Sissy's father, I normally reply that he looks strikingly like an older George Clooney. No one ever seemed to see the resemblance but me. People think I'm crazy. So pops met us out in front of the ticketing and check-in area of the airport. I noticed that my luggage was missing. An undescribable fear crept over me once again. I felt panic all around me. My heart raced.
My cell phone rang.
"Esteban, we have your luggage here on the shuttle. I'll be driving back. I seem to be stuck though. There's a slight situation here, and traffic is at a standstill. It may be 20 more minutes before I can pull back around near where you are."
I was very confused. Ten stressful minutes passed. Sissy's father told me everything would be fine, that we'd just be in a slight hurry is all. Sissy gave me a worried expression. She said I was turning pale. I thought maybe I shouldn't have eaten the gentleman's wireless card.
I called the shuttle number back. This time a man with a Nigerian accent answered. He said one thing to me.
"I can see you and your girlfriend."
A terrible vision befell me. So I walked over to the nearest police officer and punched him in the face. I broke his nose. I sucker punched him. Hit him in the kidneys. Kicked him while he was down. Two officers came from behind and tackled me. Led me off in cuffs.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
In the newspaper it would say that a crazy man assaulted a uniformed police officer for no apparent reason. I did it out of desperation though, because I could not be on that plane. I don't know for certain, but I have an inkling that if I reach a certain altitude that I'll blow up into a million pieces. I imagined that plastic wireless card in mouth falling apart and radiating light with an awful power.
"Likely story," they told me. "We've heard of your kind before."
The gentlemen that were sitting at this particular table before us seemed to have left some of their files behind. I notified the waitress, and she said that they were due to come back soon for them. Apparently the two gentlemen gave strict orders to leave the files at the table and that they would pick them up themselves. I thought that was an extremely odd request, but admittedly, I didn't even think twice about it. I had a lot on my mind, we were going to Paris, after all. Much had to be done before leaving that night, the last flight of the day.
Two sharply dressed men approached the table. The one was asiatic in his features and skin color. The other gentleman was a white man with an eye patch over his left eye. He had scars which looked to be the result of cigarette burns on his right hand. I counted five of them at least. They approached us and made a simple request. "May we sit down at your table for a moment. I need to enter some information into my computer before we leave."
Before I could reply, the white gentleman was sitting next to me in the booth. The asian gentleman remained standing. I asked him who he was and what he was doing, but he simply replied that he was in quite a hurry and that there was no time for this sort of hub-bub right now. I thought this gentleman to be quite rude, indeed. I was about to call the waitress over. Before I could though, the gentleman pulled out his laptop. I was mesmerized by it. It seemed to be strangely above what technology is. There was a certain mystical quality to it. The display looked advanced, and the screenshots that seemed to be popping off the display were hypnotic. I don't even remember what I was looking at. The gentleman was furiously typing. The sound and the colors made me instantly lose my mind, and I was sucked into a different world.
When I came to, everything was just as it was before. Sissy was eating her dinner and drinking her wine. The asian gentleman was still standing. And the white man was by my side. The two gentlemen were talking. I looked at the laptop again and noticed the wireless card that was jutting out the side of the computer. For some reason, I wanted to put it in my mouth. I wanted to taste it. I was sure it had a distinct taste. I thought maybe that's where the magic was coming from. I was going to consume it whole, and it would be a part of me forever.
The two were clearly distracted. Sissy didn't notice. I pulled the card out and begin chewing on it. It was fragile, delicate...it broke into a million pieces upon first contact with my molars. I was disappointed though -- it was just plastic. It tasted distinctly like technology. I didn't feel any magic.
Instantly though, I was frightened out of my mind. Worry crept over me like a disease. We were going to be late, I knew that. The men were going to realize what I just did. I was scared. I turned to Sissy. "We need to leave. Now." She didn't understand why though. She looked at me, absolutely puzzled. I whispered in her ear, "I'm going to be in a lot of trouble with these men. Let's leave now." She didn't want to because we weren't finished with our meal yet. I guess that's completely understandable. I told her to just trust me and that I'd explain after we had left. We got up. They didn't notice.
I found our waitress, slipped thirty bucks into her hand, and said to her that we had to leave in a hurry. "Sorry for the inconvenience."
We went back to the house and gathered together our luggage. We had plenty of time before the shuttle would arrive to take us to the airport -- about twenty minutes. Sissy's father would be meeting us at the airport. He's a technician for the airline and got us seats as stand-by passengers for the flight to Paris. The shuttle arrived. The driver retrieved our luggage and put it on the luggage racks near the front of the shuttle. We sat in the back. I fell asleep, my head resting on her shoulder. We arrived at the airport with an hour before board-time.
When pressed to describe Sissy's father, I normally reply that he looks strikingly like an older George Clooney. No one ever seemed to see the resemblance but me. People think I'm crazy. So pops met us out in front of the ticketing and check-in area of the airport. I noticed that my luggage was missing. An undescribable fear crept over me once again. I felt panic all around me. My heart raced.
My cell phone rang.
"Esteban, we have your luggage here on the shuttle. I'll be driving back. I seem to be stuck though. There's a slight situation here, and traffic is at a standstill. It may be 20 more minutes before I can pull back around near where you are."
I was very confused. Ten stressful minutes passed. Sissy's father told me everything would be fine, that we'd just be in a slight hurry is all. Sissy gave me a worried expression. She said I was turning pale. I thought maybe I shouldn't have eaten the gentleman's wireless card.
I called the shuttle number back. This time a man with a Nigerian accent answered. He said one thing to me.
"I can see you and your girlfriend."
A terrible vision befell me. So I walked over to the nearest police officer and punched him in the face. I broke his nose. I sucker punched him. Hit him in the kidneys. Kicked him while he was down. Two officers came from behind and tackled me. Led me off in cuffs.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?"
In the newspaper it would say that a crazy man assaulted a uniformed police officer for no apparent reason. I did it out of desperation though, because I could not be on that plane. I don't know for certain, but I have an inkling that if I reach a certain altitude that I'll blow up into a million pieces. I imagined that plastic wireless card in mouth falling apart and radiating light with an awful power.
"Likely story," they told me. "We've heard of your kind before."
18 November 2005
Memories of Monon
After a semester of watching some almost-high quality Division I NCAA football here at Texas A&M, the size, scope, pageantry of the Monon Bell game seems to differ greatly from the way I remember it while an undergraduate at the estimable Wabash College. But regardless of the seemingly diminishing quality of my memory, the strength of the intoxication associated with the game remains with me, and the joy of the exploits are as strong as ever.
As a freshman, the Monon Bell game was at DePauw. The morning of the game, I awoke to the pleasant sensation of orange juice and vodka screwdrivers and biscuits and gravy. As an unwitting freshman, I got severely inebriated at the Kappa Sig house without thinking of the consequence. I got on one of the many charter busses leaving Wabash College for DePauw. The realities of having to endure such a long trip while drunk on screwdrivers did not really set in, ever. The crisp fall air and nearly cloudless sky -- I did not notice these things as a result of the alcohol. It was cold, but pleasant nevertheless.
I got on the bus. Hunyadi took a plastic bottle filled with straight vodka -- that crazy bastard.
I got off the bus having to piss like a racehorse, as the expression goes. I was neatly bundled up with winter coat and a hat atop my head. I noticed that several of the upperclassmen were urinating in some bushes. The bushes were in the front yard of some poor sap's home. Not fully realizing what was going on, I went to relieve myself in said person's bushes as well. I remember that Mr. Jason Huggins was there at the bushes with me. He gleefully acknowledged my presence. When I finished, the seemingly large number (read: maybe 6?) of Wabash upperclassmen had already finished and were well on their way up the hill leading to Blackstock Stadium. I started chasing after them. My hat fell off my poor and overwhelmed head. I had to go back to retrieve it. I was severely behind the other Wabash men.
I made it back up the hill only to find some of Greencastle's uniformed finest. I'm sure that they looked at my youthful, punk ass with great amusement. They were set to give me a hard time. I radiated the essence of underage alcoholic, and I'm sure they saw it like a great beacon of light from afar, with the noticeable exception that I was right in front of them, of course.
"How old are you, son?"
"Well, I'm 21 sir."
"Is that so? Where is your I.D.?"
"Oh, I don't have it."
"That's unfortunate. You know, you sure don't look 21, boy. Where are you from?"
"I'm from Wabash College. I'm 21."
"I don't think so. Why don't you head back to those busses? You're not getting into this game. That's for certain."
"Alright sir."
I went back to the busses and saw one of the seniors from my house. Wormser told me to just hide out behind the busses until the coast was clear, and then we'd go up into the stadium. I thought that was a fantastic idea. (As if I were in any position to disagree with anyone) We went up the hill again towards Blackstock Stadium, and I enetered. The great necessity to urinate struck me again after showing my ticket and passing through the entrance to the stadium. I went into a port-a-potty and upon exiting ran into the same sheriff who stopped me atop the hill previously.
"I thought I told you that you were not allowed in here, boy."
"Uh, yah, sir."
"Don't let me catch you again."
He let me on my way, and I took a seat in the bleachers by my pledge father and his girlfriend. A lot of my fraternity brothers were in that area. Pledge Gary and his girlfriend were standing in the bleachers directly in front of me. I really don't remember much from that game. Whenever Pledge Gary would leave his seat though, I hit on his girlfriend. I didn't even say anything. I just merely massaged her shoulders. She would smile back at me. Very strange indeed.
During halftime, a sophomore in my house, Andrew Roy, was playing the role of Wally Wabash, the Wabash mascot. He got tackled pretty hard but managed to steal the head of the DePauw Tiger. The head passed through the Wabash stands before being returned.
I was sitting near the endzone where "The Catch" happened. With almost no time remaining in the game and Wabash tied with DePauw, that Jake Knott pass floated in the air before my eyes, glanced through the hands of Ryan Short and landed in the hands of Kurt Casper.
I rushed onto the field in a seeming instant, only moderately less-intoxicated from when the game began. It's weird to think that a freshman, Elisabeth Sugrue, was with the DePauw side, playing in the band, near the endzone when that play happened.
I drank from the Bell that night, a truly glorious experience.
As a freshman, the Monon Bell game was at DePauw. The morning of the game, I awoke to the pleasant sensation of orange juice and vodka screwdrivers and biscuits and gravy. As an unwitting freshman, I got severely inebriated at the Kappa Sig house without thinking of the consequence. I got on one of the many charter busses leaving Wabash College for DePauw. The realities of having to endure such a long trip while drunk on screwdrivers did not really set in, ever. The crisp fall air and nearly cloudless sky -- I did not notice these things as a result of the alcohol. It was cold, but pleasant nevertheless.
I got on the bus. Hunyadi took a plastic bottle filled with straight vodka -- that crazy bastard.
I got off the bus having to piss like a racehorse, as the expression goes. I was neatly bundled up with winter coat and a hat atop my head. I noticed that several of the upperclassmen were urinating in some bushes. The bushes were in the front yard of some poor sap's home. Not fully realizing what was going on, I went to relieve myself in said person's bushes as well. I remember that Mr. Jason Huggins was there at the bushes with me. He gleefully acknowledged my presence. When I finished, the seemingly large number (read: maybe 6?) of Wabash upperclassmen had already finished and were well on their way up the hill leading to Blackstock Stadium. I started chasing after them. My hat fell off my poor and overwhelmed head. I had to go back to retrieve it. I was severely behind the other Wabash men.
I made it back up the hill only to find some of Greencastle's uniformed finest. I'm sure that they looked at my youthful, punk ass with great amusement. They were set to give me a hard time. I radiated the essence of underage alcoholic, and I'm sure they saw it like a great beacon of light from afar, with the noticeable exception that I was right in front of them, of course.
"How old are you, son?"
"Well, I'm 21 sir."
"Is that so? Where is your I.D.?"
"Oh, I don't have it."
"That's unfortunate. You know, you sure don't look 21, boy. Where are you from?"
"I'm from Wabash College. I'm 21."
"I don't think so. Why don't you head back to those busses? You're not getting into this game. That's for certain."
"Alright sir."
I went back to the busses and saw one of the seniors from my house. Wormser told me to just hide out behind the busses until the coast was clear, and then we'd go up into the stadium. I thought that was a fantastic idea. (As if I were in any position to disagree with anyone) We went up the hill again towards Blackstock Stadium, and I enetered. The great necessity to urinate struck me again after showing my ticket and passing through the entrance to the stadium. I went into a port-a-potty and upon exiting ran into the same sheriff who stopped me atop the hill previously.
"I thought I told you that you were not allowed in here, boy."
"Uh, yah, sir."
"Don't let me catch you again."
He let me on my way, and I took a seat in the bleachers by my pledge father and his girlfriend. A lot of my fraternity brothers were in that area. Pledge Gary and his girlfriend were standing in the bleachers directly in front of me. I really don't remember much from that game. Whenever Pledge Gary would leave his seat though, I hit on his girlfriend. I didn't even say anything. I just merely massaged her shoulders. She would smile back at me. Very strange indeed.
During halftime, a sophomore in my house, Andrew Roy, was playing the role of Wally Wabash, the Wabash mascot. He got tackled pretty hard but managed to steal the head of the DePauw Tiger. The head passed through the Wabash stands before being returned.
I was sitting near the endzone where "The Catch" happened. With almost no time remaining in the game and Wabash tied with DePauw, that Jake Knott pass floated in the air before my eyes, glanced through the hands of Ryan Short and landed in the hands of Kurt Casper.
I rushed onto the field in a seeming instant, only moderately less-intoxicated from when the game began. It's weird to think that a freshman, Elisabeth Sugrue, was with the DePauw side, playing in the band, near the endzone when that play happened.
I drank from the Bell that night, a truly glorious experience.
15 November 2005
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
My dad is oftentimes short on fatherly advice but can run long when it comes to fatherly directives and/or ordinances. But, when he isn't telling me what to do, telling me when to have it done by, calling me a putz, or telling me that I'm strange; he's been known to tell me to think before opening my mouth.
With that in my mind, I think I've come up with a dandy list of stupid things which have managed to fall out of my mouth before getting filtered back by any form of conscious thought.
1. "I think I need a little Jon time." I think this phrase was said with an extreme amount of exaggeration around, "Jon time." I don't think I know what "Jon time" really is. I don't think anyone does. Saying that you need to spend time with yourself and invoking the third person in order to do so is and has always been a capital offense.
When someone drops a statement like the above, and does so during a rather tense situation, it's very easy to lose your bearings. In fact, you may find yourself being completely taken aback and surprised. This sort of statement calls for a swift and direct slap to the face.
2. "My heart is a cold and lonely place." Well, I was a little intoxicated when I said this little gem. The thing is though, talking about your relationship while intoxicated is a generally unforgiveable offense in and of itself.
3. "There's a hole in my closet where my heart used to be." Sophomore year, I had a roommate for about 30 seconds before he moved over to Phi Delt.
4. "How many of you are there?" Mike was wearing a sweatshirt that said, "Einterz & Einterz."
5. Person on phone from Pizza Hut: "Cash or check?"
Me: "Yes"
6. Phone rings during my recitation period. I get distracted from what I'm doing. Inexplicably, I turn back around towards the board and say, "I'm sorry."
7. My math professor is going over a difficult integral with little time left in the period. He says that the only way to do this in a short amount of time is by going over it carefully. He then says it's like the saying, "A man tells his butler, 'Dress me slowly, I'm in a hurry." He says the statement doesn't make much sense. I immediately reply with the question, "Is the butler's name slowly?"
8. "It doesn't matter who I'm with, as long as I'm with someone."
The above are generally all thoughtless, but some are clearly more offensive than the others. Like most people though, when pressed to give a good, thoughtful answer, my mind generally goes blank -- perhaps that's why I genuinely like to write. In a written medium I have all day to compile a thoughtful answer and regardless of the end product, at least I'm more comfortable doing it.
Not putting thought into what you do, as it turns out, is far more offensive than not putting thought into what you say.
Walking towards quantum mechanics yesterday, I was caught in a bad rain storm. I sat through the class soaked down to the quick, feeling cold and absolutely miserable. At the end of the hour-long class period, I walked outside towards the bus stop. The rain had stopped, but the wind was putting up a good fight in the battle to break my spirits.
When the bus finally came, I was glad to get out of the wind. For some reason, I thought the bus would be a good place to do a proper examination of my conscience. I have not received the rite of reconciliation in well over a year, but I think the examination of conscience part must be engrained deep within me as a relic from my Catholic grade school and high school days. I think you can go through the actions of loving someone, saying and doing the right things, without being honest about it. I also think that it's difficult to know whether or not you're being honest about love until after making that mistake repeatedly. As it turns out, the pain sticks with you far longer than when you're little and you accidentally put your hand on a hot stove top or put your chewing gum in your brother's hair. The mistake of not being honest about love is one that I don't ever intend to make again.
I was sitting on the bus, letting a wave of sentimentality hit me, when the person sitting next to me shoves a small booklet in my hand and asks me, "Have you gotten one of these today?" The cover of the booklet says, "Are you a good person?" I tell him that I haven't seen this ever. I tell him that I am a good person. He asks me if I'm a christian, and I tell him that I'm Catholic. For whatever reason, I guess he felt that he still had to convince me to believe in God. I'm going to count this as the first of many thoughtless things he said to me. He asks me, "Have you ever lied?" And I answer that I have. He asks me, "What do you call someone who has lied?" And I tell him that you call him a liar. He asks me if I have ever stolen something. I tell him that I haven't. He then asks me if I've ever downloaded music. I then tell him that in that case, I have indeed stolen something during the course of my life. He asks, "What do you call someone who steals?" And I tell him that you call that person a thief. So far, I'm not doing horribly bad at this quiz, I suppose.
At this point though, I'm failing to see the relevance of this line of questioning. Although I may not be the best Catholic, I genuinely believe in the rites and sacraments of the Church. And so, he continues going through his pre-programmed spiel. "You cannot rely on your own goodness to be saved. You need to have Jesus in your life." I take offense to this because I suppose that he is assuming that Jesus is not present in the life of a Catholic. "If you are guilty of murder, a justice will not let you off from serving your time if you present a case of good works that you have done. Justice must be served, and God is just." At this point, I realize that he must not really care what I have to say. So I tune out. If I had more time, maybe I would have tried telling him that the severity of the sin is judged not by the deed alone, but by thought also. A father understands that his eldest son may not realize how difficult it will be to get that gum out of the youngest's hair. No matter how much we grow up, we'll still be little kids.
At any rate, although I would never buy what that guy was selling me, I may go receive the rite of reconciliation. I guess sometimes God can speak to you through someone who isn't even thinking about what he's saying.
With that in my mind, I think I've come up with a dandy list of stupid things which have managed to fall out of my mouth before getting filtered back by any form of conscious thought.
1. "I think I need a little Jon time." I think this phrase was said with an extreme amount of exaggeration around, "Jon time." I don't think I know what "Jon time" really is. I don't think anyone does. Saying that you need to spend time with yourself and invoking the third person in order to do so is and has always been a capital offense.
When someone drops a statement like the above, and does so during a rather tense situation, it's very easy to lose your bearings. In fact, you may find yourself being completely taken aback and surprised. This sort of statement calls for a swift and direct slap to the face.
2. "My heart is a cold and lonely place." Well, I was a little intoxicated when I said this little gem. The thing is though, talking about your relationship while intoxicated is a generally unforgiveable offense in and of itself.
3. "There's a hole in my closet where my heart used to be." Sophomore year, I had a roommate for about 30 seconds before he moved over to Phi Delt.
4. "How many of you are there?" Mike was wearing a sweatshirt that said, "Einterz & Einterz."
5. Person on phone from Pizza Hut: "Cash or check?"
Me: "Yes"
6. Phone rings during my recitation period. I get distracted from what I'm doing. Inexplicably, I turn back around towards the board and say, "I'm sorry."
7. My math professor is going over a difficult integral with little time left in the period. He says that the only way to do this in a short amount of time is by going over it carefully. He then says it's like the saying, "A man tells his butler, 'Dress me slowly, I'm in a hurry." He says the statement doesn't make much sense. I immediately reply with the question, "Is the butler's name slowly?"
8. "It doesn't matter who I'm with, as long as I'm with someone."
The above are generally all thoughtless, but some are clearly more offensive than the others. Like most people though, when pressed to give a good, thoughtful answer, my mind generally goes blank -- perhaps that's why I genuinely like to write. In a written medium I have all day to compile a thoughtful answer and regardless of the end product, at least I'm more comfortable doing it.
Not putting thought into what you do, as it turns out, is far more offensive than not putting thought into what you say.
Walking towards quantum mechanics yesterday, I was caught in a bad rain storm. I sat through the class soaked down to the quick, feeling cold and absolutely miserable. At the end of the hour-long class period, I walked outside towards the bus stop. The rain had stopped, but the wind was putting up a good fight in the battle to break my spirits.
When the bus finally came, I was glad to get out of the wind. For some reason, I thought the bus would be a good place to do a proper examination of my conscience. I have not received the rite of reconciliation in well over a year, but I think the examination of conscience part must be engrained deep within me as a relic from my Catholic grade school and high school days. I think you can go through the actions of loving someone, saying and doing the right things, without being honest about it. I also think that it's difficult to know whether or not you're being honest about love until after making that mistake repeatedly. As it turns out, the pain sticks with you far longer than when you're little and you accidentally put your hand on a hot stove top or put your chewing gum in your brother's hair. The mistake of not being honest about love is one that I don't ever intend to make again.
I was sitting on the bus, letting a wave of sentimentality hit me, when the person sitting next to me shoves a small booklet in my hand and asks me, "Have you gotten one of these today?" The cover of the booklet says, "Are you a good person?" I tell him that I haven't seen this ever. I tell him that I am a good person. He asks me if I'm a christian, and I tell him that I'm Catholic. For whatever reason, I guess he felt that he still had to convince me to believe in God. I'm going to count this as the first of many thoughtless things he said to me. He asks me, "Have you ever lied?" And I answer that I have. He asks me, "What do you call someone who has lied?" And I tell him that you call him a liar. He asks me if I have ever stolen something. I tell him that I haven't. He then asks me if I've ever downloaded music. I then tell him that in that case, I have indeed stolen something during the course of my life. He asks, "What do you call someone who steals?" And I tell him that you call that person a thief. So far, I'm not doing horribly bad at this quiz, I suppose.
At this point though, I'm failing to see the relevance of this line of questioning. Although I may not be the best Catholic, I genuinely believe in the rites and sacraments of the Church. And so, he continues going through his pre-programmed spiel. "You cannot rely on your own goodness to be saved. You need to have Jesus in your life." I take offense to this because I suppose that he is assuming that Jesus is not present in the life of a Catholic. "If you are guilty of murder, a justice will not let you off from serving your time if you present a case of good works that you have done. Justice must be served, and God is just." At this point, I realize that he must not really care what I have to say. So I tune out. If I had more time, maybe I would have tried telling him that the severity of the sin is judged not by the deed alone, but by thought also. A father understands that his eldest son may not realize how difficult it will be to get that gum out of the youngest's hair. No matter how much we grow up, we'll still be little kids.
At any rate, although I would never buy what that guy was selling me, I may go receive the rite of reconciliation. I guess sometimes God can speak to you through someone who isn't even thinking about what he's saying.
09 November 2005
Safety Town
I tell this story quite a bit, probably because it speaks to my gullibility or remains a testament to the quaint obliviousness that resides deep within me. I told this story to one of the other physics grads while sitting around, drinking coffee, and wasting time -- having a casual conversation about how the media and government are particularly adept at instilling abject fear and paranoia in the populace at large. For some reason, this came to mind.
At any rate, when I was a pre-schooler, my mom enrolled me in this summer program designed to teach little children like myself how to be safety conscious and aware of the dangers lurking behind every corner. Safety Town was a veritable safety wonderland. During this program, we'd sit and listen to boring grown-up types tell us how to be safe. I'm sure there was dumb craftsy things that we had to do also. This portion of our safety-rific day was an absolute snooze fest, but I learned very important lessons such as never talk to strangers and always look both ways before crossing the street. Perils of wisdom were handed down to us, giving us the understanding that accepting candy from someone that we don't know is a very unsafe and unwise thing to do. From that time on, I wouldn't think twice about playing in the street or attempting to operate heavy machinery. If I found a gun or some other lethal weapon or any suspect object in general, I would be the first one to alert the nearest adult. Contrary to popular belief, huffing toxic fumes in the garage is not a good time in the least bit. Pull the green wire to defuse a ticking time bomb. If you're trying to escape from evil terrorists, a very rudimentary but effective bomb can be made out of chewing gum, a paper clip, and a plastic straw. The very important advice went on ad nauseum.
The aspect of this program which remains indelible in my memory was the safety playground in the parking lot of the school where all this safety-extravaganza went down. It was a fenced in enclosure that mimicked city conditions, just on a miniature (read: AWESOME!!!) scale. It had scaled-down buildings and accurately marked streets. Miniature street signs were at every street corner. Working traffic signals hung over the streets and alerted pedestrians to when it was safe to cross. During the course of the day, we would all get to learn and play in this miniature city and would take turns at being pedestrians or at riding big wheel tricycles down the city streets. Whoever thought to let us pre-schoolers ride big wheel tricycles down scaled-down city streets is an absolute genius. (Petulant Pre-schooler Me + Me-sized City = Most Incredible Fun Ever)
On the very last day of the program, I very much eagerly anticipated my last opportunity to ride the big wheels around the little, enclosed town. All went well, and it was a joyous occassion. Before I knew it, we were being told that it was time to head back inside the school. I was sad. At that instant, a strange man approached me from the other side of the fence, outside the school property. He offered me a piece of candy from his plastic bag. I almost took it, thinking that there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with a simple piece of candy. But I quickly remembered how important it is to never trust strangers. And this guy was most certainly a stranger, in every sense of the word. He was wearing the stereotypical bad guy, black winter hat (in the middle of the summertime, mind you) and was wearing a dark and creepy trenchcoat. I told him, "Thanks, but no thanks sir."
The fools behind me though were quick to take candy from this monster. I was absolutely perplexed. How could these kids be so stupid? Weren't they paying any attention? Some of the others smartly refused this strange man's offer of sweet, sugary goodness -- effectively reassuring my faith in humanity but not erasing the disappointment that I had in my peers who had sat with me and learned such valuable nuggets of safety wisdom yet still failed to recognize the most obvious looking of strangers.
I remember this next part quite vividly. Once we got back inside the school a bunch of us (the smart ones, that is) ran up to the officer who helped instruct the program. We told him about the stranger and the candy and the fools who had brought themselves to a quick and untimely demise by taking this candy (obviously laced with strychnine or maybe LSD). He went out into the parking lot to assess the situation further. Before we knew what was happening, he was chasing down the candy-pusher out in the parking lot and tackled him down to the ground, giving him violent blows to the head before finally placing him under arrest. That was the most exciting thing I had ever seen up to that point in my life, by far. It was a very surreal experience to have, and I was only a pre-schooler, so there's no way that I would have been able to identify the surrealness of the occassion. We all clapped and cheered for the heroic officer who had saved us from imminent doom and went back inside for more safety-themed arts and crafts, followed by a fun awards ceremony to commemorate the successful completion of the Safety Town Program.
The sight made quite the impact on my young mind. First they told us about the dangers of strangers, and then I actually saw it with my own two eyes. What a coincidence! Amazing! It's all true! Strangers are bad, and the rest of the things that we had been told must be true also. I was committed to being the most ardent follower of being safe.
Not until high school did I realize that the whole thing must have been staged.
At any rate, when I was a pre-schooler, my mom enrolled me in this summer program designed to teach little children like myself how to be safety conscious and aware of the dangers lurking behind every corner. Safety Town was a veritable safety wonderland. During this program, we'd sit and listen to boring grown-up types tell us how to be safe. I'm sure there was dumb craftsy things that we had to do also. This portion of our safety-rific day was an absolute snooze fest, but I learned very important lessons such as never talk to strangers and always look both ways before crossing the street. Perils of wisdom were handed down to us, giving us the understanding that accepting candy from someone that we don't know is a very unsafe and unwise thing to do. From that time on, I wouldn't think twice about playing in the street or attempting to operate heavy machinery. If I found a gun or some other lethal weapon or any suspect object in general, I would be the first one to alert the nearest adult. Contrary to popular belief, huffing toxic fumes in the garage is not a good time in the least bit. Pull the green wire to defuse a ticking time bomb. If you're trying to escape from evil terrorists, a very rudimentary but effective bomb can be made out of chewing gum, a paper clip, and a plastic straw. The very important advice went on ad nauseum.
The aspect of this program which remains indelible in my memory was the safety playground in the parking lot of the school where all this safety-extravaganza went down. It was a fenced in enclosure that mimicked city conditions, just on a miniature (read: AWESOME!!!) scale. It had scaled-down buildings and accurately marked streets. Miniature street signs were at every street corner. Working traffic signals hung over the streets and alerted pedestrians to when it was safe to cross. During the course of the day, we would all get to learn and play in this miniature city and would take turns at being pedestrians or at riding big wheel tricycles down the city streets. Whoever thought to let us pre-schoolers ride big wheel tricycles down scaled-down city streets is an absolute genius. (Petulant Pre-schooler Me + Me-sized City = Most Incredible Fun Ever)
On the very last day of the program, I very much eagerly anticipated my last opportunity to ride the big wheels around the little, enclosed town. All went well, and it was a joyous occassion. Before I knew it, we were being told that it was time to head back inside the school. I was sad. At that instant, a strange man approached me from the other side of the fence, outside the school property. He offered me a piece of candy from his plastic bag. I almost took it, thinking that there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with a simple piece of candy. But I quickly remembered how important it is to never trust strangers. And this guy was most certainly a stranger, in every sense of the word. He was wearing the stereotypical bad guy, black winter hat (in the middle of the summertime, mind you) and was wearing a dark and creepy trenchcoat. I told him, "Thanks, but no thanks sir."
The fools behind me though were quick to take candy from this monster. I was absolutely perplexed. How could these kids be so stupid? Weren't they paying any attention? Some of the others smartly refused this strange man's offer of sweet, sugary goodness -- effectively reassuring my faith in humanity but not erasing the disappointment that I had in my peers who had sat with me and learned such valuable nuggets of safety wisdom yet still failed to recognize the most obvious looking of strangers.
I remember this next part quite vividly. Once we got back inside the school a bunch of us (the smart ones, that is) ran up to the officer who helped instruct the program. We told him about the stranger and the candy and the fools who had brought themselves to a quick and untimely demise by taking this candy (obviously laced with strychnine or maybe LSD). He went out into the parking lot to assess the situation further. Before we knew what was happening, he was chasing down the candy-pusher out in the parking lot and tackled him down to the ground, giving him violent blows to the head before finally placing him under arrest. That was the most exciting thing I had ever seen up to that point in my life, by far. It was a very surreal experience to have, and I was only a pre-schooler, so there's no way that I would have been able to identify the surrealness of the occassion. We all clapped and cheered for the heroic officer who had saved us from imminent doom and went back inside for more safety-themed arts and crafts, followed by a fun awards ceremony to commemorate the successful completion of the Safety Town Program.
The sight made quite the impact on my young mind. First they told us about the dangers of strangers, and then I actually saw it with my own two eyes. What a coincidence! Amazing! It's all true! Strangers are bad, and the rest of the things that we had been told must be true also. I was committed to being the most ardent follower of being safe.
Not until high school did I realize that the whole thing must have been staged.
07 November 2005
The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act (or Ten Things that I am Partial Towards)
1. "...put a little boogie in it."
2. The Great Koala Infestation of '05 (pronounced 'aught-five')
3. Oversized hats, sunglasses, scarves, or mittens on undersized people or animals
4. Very bad puns
5. Cheese
6. I miss summers filled with basketball and baseball all day followed by hide-and-seek, ghosts in the graveyard, and video games all night.
7. Mannequins that wear nothing but their underpants and making them anatomically correct by snuggly fitting a large bouncey ball in the crotchular region
8. The way reading a good novel makes you feel after you finish and close it. It feels as though you are filled with an immutable wisdom -- not a transmuted sense of knowledge, but an intimacy of experiences that are now your own.
9. The comedic stylings of Lewis Black, Family Guy, and The Simpsons and the people that can reference them cold
10. "...To fight and not to heed the wounds..."
2. The Great Koala Infestation of '05 (pronounced 'aught-five')
a) My koala wristband
b) My koala shot glasses that seem to be constantly misplaced
c) My faux-beanie baby koala friend
d) SudaCare Shower Soothers
e) Those Koala-Kare fold-out tables in bathrooms for changing smelly-diaper babies
3. Oversized hats, sunglasses, scarves, or mittens on undersized people or animals
a. Beagles
b. Babies
c. Bagles
d. Bugles
e. The Cincinnati "Bungles"
f. The Bangles and their amazing hit, "Walk Like an Egyptian"
g. Babies who root for the Bungles while listening to The Bangles and riding Beagles who play Bugles for Bagles (and any permutation thereof).
h. I don't know if that last sentence works so much any longer because Carson Palmer and the Bengles are pretty good this year.
4. Very bad puns
5. Cheese
a) Literal cheese, like the kind you can eat
b) Bad music, as in the cheesiest techno with the most vapid, banal lyrics and the out of control music videos that go along with them
c) Dressing and acting like a big chach (pronounced (CH-otch), completely irreverantly and out of spite
d) Bad infomercials: There's one on TV nowadays for a urine remover. It's called "Urine Gone!" I think it would be more aptly named "Urine Luck!" or even "Urine Trouble (No Longer)!" The best thing about "Urine Gone!" is that it comes with a blacklight. I presume this is so you can play the MTV Room Raiders game at home and at your own leisure.
At any rate, this product would have come in handy at Wabash. I have a long and colorful relationship with public urination.
6. I miss summers filled with basketball and baseball all day followed by hide-and-seek, ghosts in the graveyard, and video games all night.
7. Mannequins that wear nothing but their underpants and making them anatomically correct by snuggly fitting a large bouncey ball in the crotchular region
8. The way reading a good novel makes you feel after you finish and close it. It feels as though you are filled with an immutable wisdom -- not a transmuted sense of knowledge, but an intimacy of experiences that are now your own.
"The idea is not to get caught up in the minutae and all the details but to have a wild sense of what the time was like."-- The Fr. Ober, S.J.
9. The comedic stylings of Lewis Black, Family Guy, and The Simpsons and the people that can reference them cold
10. "...To fight and not to heed the wounds..."
AMDG
AEKDB
TAMU
IHOP
BFF LOL
TCY HI5
05 November 2005
Solitude
Alastair thought of his mother. The lonely, aging widow needed him to be around and that's why he did not go far when the time came for him to go to college. Before dying, his father had taught there briefly, uprooting the small family from their home in New York to accept a tenure-track position as a professor of physics at the small, midwestern University of O.
Alastair thought about when he was in grade school and how every Friday, after school, Alastair and his mother would go shopping at the smallish mall that was thirty minutes down the road. He didn't altogether enjoying shopping with his mother, especially when she would go to try on clothes for a seemingly interminable amount of time. Making the most of the opportunity of being beyond the watchful gaze of his mother though, Alastair would frequently hide behind the dresses on the clothes rack and peer out with that inimitable impish grin of his. For Alastair, this exercise was all about getting caught and being an annoyance to his mother. As he got older, his exercises in trying poor Chelsea's patience would become more complex and subtle.
One day, Alastair was flippantly making some remarks about his sixth grade classmates. Joanna was unable to finish the last arithmetic quiz as fast as he did. They would race to finish, and this meant that the both of them would frequently make little, careless mistakes. Alastair began picking up little tricks that confused Joanna, and she could not understand how he could finish so fast and do the work so well. Of course he would never let her in on his secrets because that would be giving up a great edge that he had on her.
His other nemesis was Jose. Jose's mother worked in the school as an algebra teacher for the junior high. Alastair and Jose were matching each other on the Accelerated Reader chart, book for book. The program was simple. You picked a book from a list, read it, and then took the corresponding quiz on the correct floppy disk. The computer recorded your score, you printed out the certificate which gave the quiz score and showed it to the teacher, and then the teacher would put some stars up on her chart next to your name. Each book had a number next to it, indicating level of difficulty and the number of points earned for successful completion of the book's quiz. The teacher, Mrs. Williams, would put up a number of stars that equaled the percent correct times the number of points earned for a perfectly done quiz. Of course, Alastair was excellent at this game. He was always an avid reader, and now he was finally getting some reward out of it. At the beginning of the program, Alastair was off to a maddening start, and then all of a sudden he slowed down. His large lead was slowly diminishing by Alastair's over-acheiving match Jose, who was largely disinterested until the accolades began pouring down on Alastair by Mrs. Williams.
Alastair, of course, was just biding his time. He let his mother in on the secret finally. For the past two weeks, he had been reading Charles Dicken's David Copperfield. He should be finished with the work by that evening. Alastair went on and on about how this would be his crowning achievement, how the class would be dazzled by his remarkable performance, and how poor Jose would be disheartened and defeated by this altogether, well-executed knock-out blow. Eighty-four points were up for the taking if Alastair managed a perfect score on the quiz. Alastair admitted that the depth and bredth of the work made it hard to discern how many points he would walk away with, but he was excited nevertheless. And of course he would do well on it. There was no question in his mind about that trivial fact. Upon examining the chart, Alastair realized that only twenty spots remained after his name on the Accelerated Reader chart hanging at the back of the classroom. He was not sure what Mrs. Williams would do, but Alastair was certain that whatever measure she took to recognize his feat would make obvious to any stranger who enetered the classroom that the boy known simply as Alastair Templeton was more than just your ordinary student. Alastair's former teachers and the teachers from the upper grades would come by and heap more accolades upon Alastair. They would rave about how they absolutely adored having him in class. The teachers he did not have class with yet would remark on how they looked forward to doing their part in molding his clearly brilliant mind.
Maybe Mrs. Williams would make a big ceremony over it. After all, his feat was worthy of some celebration, no matter how small. Alastair liked the idea of a great, big trophy -- one made of cheap plastic with a plastic, golden book resting at the top of a plastic, golden pedestal. There would be a little plaque on the fake marble base bearing his name, and it would be in recognition of his remarkable aptitude in literature. Alastair, of course, would act surprised by all the adoration heaped upon him. After all, feigning humility in front of his peers would better serve him in the long run, he reasoned. And then he could go home and bask in the warm glow of the cheaply made trophy and his copy of the quiz certificate. Maybe he could gain some points with his classmates if he brought in some cupcakes the next day.
His mother cut him off there while she was fiddling with some panties strewn about a table in the department store they were in.
"Oh honey, I love to listen to you brag," was all she said.
Alastair was a bit puzzled. Only later would he realize that she always knew more than she would let on. At the time, Alastair wasn't worried -- they would be going out for ice cream in about ten minutes.
...Some More
Alastair thought about when he was in grade school and how every Friday, after school, Alastair and his mother would go shopping at the smallish mall that was thirty minutes down the road. He didn't altogether enjoying shopping with his mother, especially when she would go to try on clothes for a seemingly interminable amount of time. Making the most of the opportunity of being beyond the watchful gaze of his mother though, Alastair would frequently hide behind the dresses on the clothes rack and peer out with that inimitable impish grin of his. For Alastair, this exercise was all about getting caught and being an annoyance to his mother. As he got older, his exercises in trying poor Chelsea's patience would become more complex and subtle.
One day, Alastair was flippantly making some remarks about his sixth grade classmates. Joanna was unable to finish the last arithmetic quiz as fast as he did. They would race to finish, and this meant that the both of them would frequently make little, careless mistakes. Alastair began picking up little tricks that confused Joanna, and she could not understand how he could finish so fast and do the work so well. Of course he would never let her in on his secrets because that would be giving up a great edge that he had on her.
His other nemesis was Jose. Jose's mother worked in the school as an algebra teacher for the junior high. Alastair and Jose were matching each other on the Accelerated Reader chart, book for book. The program was simple. You picked a book from a list, read it, and then took the corresponding quiz on the correct floppy disk. The computer recorded your score, you printed out the certificate which gave the quiz score and showed it to the teacher, and then the teacher would put some stars up on her chart next to your name. Each book had a number next to it, indicating level of difficulty and the number of points earned for successful completion of the book's quiz. The teacher, Mrs. Williams, would put up a number of stars that equaled the percent correct times the number of points earned for a perfectly done quiz. Of course, Alastair was excellent at this game. He was always an avid reader, and now he was finally getting some reward out of it. At the beginning of the program, Alastair was off to a maddening start, and then all of a sudden he slowed down. His large lead was slowly diminishing by Alastair's over-acheiving match Jose, who was largely disinterested until the accolades began pouring down on Alastair by Mrs. Williams.
Alastair, of course, was just biding his time. He let his mother in on the secret finally. For the past two weeks, he had been reading Charles Dicken's David Copperfield. He should be finished with the work by that evening. Alastair went on and on about how this would be his crowning achievement, how the class would be dazzled by his remarkable performance, and how poor Jose would be disheartened and defeated by this altogether, well-executed knock-out blow. Eighty-four points were up for the taking if Alastair managed a perfect score on the quiz. Alastair admitted that the depth and bredth of the work made it hard to discern how many points he would walk away with, but he was excited nevertheless. And of course he would do well on it. There was no question in his mind about that trivial fact. Upon examining the chart, Alastair realized that only twenty spots remained after his name on the Accelerated Reader chart hanging at the back of the classroom. He was not sure what Mrs. Williams would do, but Alastair was certain that whatever measure she took to recognize his feat would make obvious to any stranger who enetered the classroom that the boy known simply as Alastair Templeton was more than just your ordinary student. Alastair's former teachers and the teachers from the upper grades would come by and heap more accolades upon Alastair. They would rave about how they absolutely adored having him in class. The teachers he did not have class with yet would remark on how they looked forward to doing their part in molding his clearly brilliant mind.
Maybe Mrs. Williams would make a big ceremony over it. After all, his feat was worthy of some celebration, no matter how small. Alastair liked the idea of a great, big trophy -- one made of cheap plastic with a plastic, golden book resting at the top of a plastic, golden pedestal. There would be a little plaque on the fake marble base bearing his name, and it would be in recognition of his remarkable aptitude in literature. Alastair, of course, would act surprised by all the adoration heaped upon him. After all, feigning humility in front of his peers would better serve him in the long run, he reasoned. And then he could go home and bask in the warm glow of the cheaply made trophy and his copy of the quiz certificate. Maybe he could gain some points with his classmates if he brought in some cupcakes the next day.
His mother cut him off there while she was fiddling with some panties strewn about a table in the department store they were in.
"Oh honey, I love to listen to you brag," was all she said.
Alastair was a bit puzzled. Only later would he realize that she always knew more than she would let on. At the time, Alastair wasn't worried -- they would be going out for ice cream in about ten minutes.
...Some More
04 November 2005
UH OH...(I think I Crapped my Pants)
1. A convicted murderer and rapist who had escaped from an Oklahoma prison was captured last weekend on the A&M campus. He had been hiding out on one of the upper floors of an academic building which stands right in the middle of campus. The news though didn't make the front page of The Batallion, the school newspaper here at Texas A&M. One can only suppose that not making a big, hairy deal of the situation is in the best interests of the campus as a whole and that maybe sensationalism serves no great purpose, but perhaps the story should have gotten more attention.
I'll give The Batallion the benefit of the doubt because of some of the other pressing issues on campus, such as international students getting assaulted or discriminated against in the popular Northgate area (a strip of bars directly across from campus). A graduate student from India was assaulted by four A&M students. Two other incidents, that I can think of, have occurred in the past several months as well.
2. Hiding out amongst forty-thousand some-odd students is fairly easy.
I've already heard of two other instances of students living out of a non-residential building on campus. I'm not sure if these students were doing this out of spite or for the purpose of not paying rent. One involved an undergraduate who supposedly was sleeping at the MSC (the student center here) and showering at the rec center. The other involved a physics student who supposedly was living out of the physics building. But, those stories are all hearsay, I suppose.
3. Pi-Curious: A pun, a play on words, possibly meaning an intense desire to have an irrational amount of sexual relations with an irrational number of members belonging to any set of gender/sexual orientations; it could also refer to an intimate understanding of the number PI or engaging in passioned study of the number PI.
Matt, a fellow physics grad, came into class earlier this week with the word written on his hand (he claims it's the first original thought he's ever had). The community of physics grads, writ large, have been in an uproar ever since over it's meaning. The above is what I'm sticking with though.
4. Shotgunning Keystone Light: A fine Kappa Sigma tradition dating back to 1400.
I've come to this conclusion largely based on the following facts:
And thus, the status of this fine tradition is confirmed.
5. Karaoke Night: a fine physics graduate student tradition dating back to three weeks ago.
After the first quantum mechanics exam (which happened one week after our first math methods exam), several of us went to Fitzwilly's to celebrate not dying (I suppose). Peter, Matt, and I stayed late into the night to sing karaoke to a rather empty bar audience. News of the hilarity spurred much interest among the other grad students, and now karaoke has become a much anticipated weekly event.
This past Tuesday, two of the Chinese international students came with us. They didn't sing, but the fact that they came out was wonderful.
My song selections from the most recent karaoke night:
I sound awful when I sing, just awful. No karaoke song should ever go past two minutes, because that's precisely when you become extremely self-conscious about how bad you sound.
I'll give The Batallion the benefit of the doubt because of some of the other pressing issues on campus, such as international students getting assaulted or discriminated against in the popular Northgate area (a strip of bars directly across from campus). A graduate student from India was assaulted by four A&M students. Two other incidents, that I can think of, have occurred in the past several months as well.
2. Hiding out amongst forty-thousand some-odd students is fairly easy.
I've already heard of two other instances of students living out of a non-residential building on campus. I'm not sure if these students were doing this out of spite or for the purpose of not paying rent. One involved an undergraduate who supposedly was sleeping at the MSC (the student center here) and showering at the rec center. The other involved a physics student who supposedly was living out of the physics building. But, those stories are all hearsay, I suppose.
3. Pi-Curious: A pun, a play on words, possibly meaning an intense desire to have an irrational amount of sexual relations with an irrational number of members belonging to any set of gender/sexual orientations; it could also refer to an intimate understanding of the number PI or engaging in passioned study of the number PI.
Matt, a fellow physics grad, came into class earlier this week with the word written on his hand (he claims it's the first original thought he's ever had). The community of physics grads, writ large, have been in an uproar ever since over it's meaning. The above is what I'm sticking with though.
4. Shotgunning Keystone Light: A fine Kappa Sigma tradition dating back to 1400.
I've come to this conclusion largely based on the following facts:
a. We met some Kappa Sigs, randomly, on a beach while on spring break in Destin, FL. We had noticed earlier in the day that they were shotgunning Keystone Light. We joined them and shotgunned three out of spite or maybe out of brotherhood -- I'm not certain, the memory is hazy at best.
b. We shotgunned a lot of Keystones my senior year. Although the memory of that is not very clear either, I have the digital video evidence to prove it.
c. "Tweeder drank beer, because, well, Tweeder drinks beer."
d. I have a student who facebook-ed me. She's dating a Kappa Sig here at A&M, and I noticed in her Facebook photo album that she is indeed shotgunning a Keystone Light at a Kappa Sig party of some sort.
And thus, the status of this fine tradition is confirmed.
5. Karaoke Night: a fine physics graduate student tradition dating back to three weeks ago.
After the first quantum mechanics exam (which happened one week after our first math methods exam), several of us went to Fitzwilly's to celebrate not dying (I suppose). Peter, Matt, and I stayed late into the night to sing karaoke to a rather empty bar audience. News of the hilarity spurred much interest among the other grad students, and now karaoke has become a much anticipated weekly event.
This past Tuesday, two of the Chinese international students came with us. They didn't sing, but the fact that they came out was wonderful.
My song selections from the most recent karaoke night:
Domino -- Van Morrison
Wheel in the Sky -- Journey
I sound awful when I sing, just awful. No karaoke song should ever go past two minutes, because that's precisely when you become extremely self-conscious about how bad you sound.
02 November 2005
Regional Transit Authority
Amelia was a superstitious person. Her comfort level rose as her habits became more engrained into her daily life. While in high school, her day was seemingly compartmentalized and organized with an utmost, complete lack of temerity or spontaneity. She woke up every morning at 5:30 AM with her stereo blaring the song, "There's Always Someone Cooler than You," by Ben Folds. And the song was fitting and uplifiting in that ironic sort of way that fit Amelia to a tee and that never failed to bring a smile to her face -- like clockwork. Amelia would walk over to her "Far Side Day-to-Day Calendar," and tear one day off, discarding it forever in the trashcan and effectively removing all the concerns and worries from the past day along with it -- a ritualistic cleansing of the soul. She would go downstairs, sit on the large couch in the living room and turn the big-screen television onto MTV. Her breakfast consisted of one Toaster Strudel breakfast pastry with icing and a glass of orange juice. At exactly 5:55 every morning she would start running the water for her shower. She would wake up her father at about 6:30, giving him about 15 minutes to wake-up and drive her to the bus stop, which was located in the mall parking lot. There they would listen to the radio until the bus would arrive and take her away for another day of school.
These innocuous idiosyncracies though became much more significant as the date approached for her to leave home for the University of O. and begin her freshman year of college. The very neat correspondence between her academic day and her morning routine suddenly registered in Amelia's head, and she worried that maybe there was more to her seeming luck and successes than met the eye. As that last summer wore on and quickened toward her imminent departure, the smells of the morning bus ride became real to her and she carried it with her through the day, always thinking about it and focusing on it. When night came around, she would plop herself down in the front of the television and concentrate on the morning bus rides that she would never have again once she was at the University of O. She would sit and think about it until falling asleep, not even aware of what she had been watching. Her parents would come down the next morning and see her positioned strangely, not even making the connection that she looked like a sleeping bus-rider. They would ask her about it, but Amelia would just shrug it off and say that she must have been exhausted from a rough day of working at the fast food place down the street.
Amelia never realized before that summer that her best sleep came while on the bus. She didn't know if it was the smells that she experienced during the bus ride every morning, but she reasoned that this must have been the case because it was strong in her memory. Amelia was puzzled by this because the smell was what she hated the most when she first started riding the municipal buses every morning. At first she had trouble pigeonholing the smell, but it soon became identified with urban decay and decrepitude, of poverty and sickness, and of hard-times and exhaustion. Oftentimes, in the morning, she would sit on the bus while listening to her favorite CD for that month and think about exhaust, waste, and the abject tiredness that seemed to surround her on the faces of those sitting on the bus and on the building facades that lined the well-worn path to school.
One morning during that last summer, she woke up early and walked herself out to the bus stop in the mall parking lot. She got on the bus and quickly realized that this was nothing like as she remembered it. Sitting on the bus and thinking about her disappointment and misplaced expectation, she soon realized that the weather was too warm and the sun too bright. A proper morning bus ride was cold and filled with grey skies, dreary thoughts, and the occassional nap to escape all the tiredness that surrounded her.
Her motivation, the secret to her success, what turned her onto academics in the first place all those years ago was the fear that the smell would catch up to her and consume her whole. Life in the city was hard, and she saw its affects every morning. The city's hardness lived in that smell. Her early morning routine was merely to steel herself against its effects.
Her classmates were wrong to joke that she was blowing members of the faculty. Sometimes there are forces at work that are greater than the sum of your worth.
...Some More
These innocuous idiosyncracies though became much more significant as the date approached for her to leave home for the University of O. and begin her freshman year of college. The very neat correspondence between her academic day and her morning routine suddenly registered in Amelia's head, and she worried that maybe there was more to her seeming luck and successes than met the eye. As that last summer wore on and quickened toward her imminent departure, the smells of the morning bus ride became real to her and she carried it with her through the day, always thinking about it and focusing on it. When night came around, she would plop herself down in the front of the television and concentrate on the morning bus rides that she would never have again once she was at the University of O. She would sit and think about it until falling asleep, not even aware of what she had been watching. Her parents would come down the next morning and see her positioned strangely, not even making the connection that she looked like a sleeping bus-rider. They would ask her about it, but Amelia would just shrug it off and say that she must have been exhausted from a rough day of working at the fast food place down the street.
Amelia never realized before that summer that her best sleep came while on the bus. She didn't know if it was the smells that she experienced during the bus ride every morning, but she reasoned that this must have been the case because it was strong in her memory. Amelia was puzzled by this because the smell was what she hated the most when she first started riding the municipal buses every morning. At first she had trouble pigeonholing the smell, but it soon became identified with urban decay and decrepitude, of poverty and sickness, and of hard-times and exhaustion. Oftentimes, in the morning, she would sit on the bus while listening to her favorite CD for that month and think about exhaust, waste, and the abject tiredness that seemed to surround her on the faces of those sitting on the bus and on the building facades that lined the well-worn path to school.
One morning during that last summer, she woke up early and walked herself out to the bus stop in the mall parking lot. She got on the bus and quickly realized that this was nothing like as she remembered it. Sitting on the bus and thinking about her disappointment and misplaced expectation, she soon realized that the weather was too warm and the sun too bright. A proper morning bus ride was cold and filled with grey skies, dreary thoughts, and the occassional nap to escape all the tiredness that surrounded her.
Her motivation, the secret to her success, what turned her onto academics in the first place all those years ago was the fear that the smell would catch up to her and consume her whole. Life in the city was hard, and she saw its affects every morning. The city's hardness lived in that smell. Her early morning routine was merely to steel herself against its effects.
Her classmates were wrong to joke that she was blowing members of the faculty. Sometimes there are forces at work that are greater than the sum of your worth.
...Some More
31 October 2005
A SCARY Halloween Story
There once were two plasma-laser carrying robots named Jonathan and Scott. The two brother robots were from outer space and were on their first weekend away from home. Their Ma and Pa robots gave them cute, little backpacks and sent them on their merry way towards the planet Earth. Little Jonathan and Scott did not want to go though. They liked to play video games when they had days off from school. But Ma and Pa argued with them all the way home from soccer practice earlier that week and told them that they had to visit their Aunt and Uncle.
Their Aunt's name was Heavy-Duty 12" single-bevel compound miter saw, and their Uncle's name was iRobot Scooba Floor Washing Robot. On their home planet, a BILLION light years from Earth, Uncle iRobot Scooba Floor Washing Robot was always seen as a tad too effeminate. Aunt Heavy-Duty 12" single-bevel compound miter saw was always seen as a bit too masculine. They made the perfect pair and made a very nice home for themselves on Earth, where they found gainful, lucrative employment in the Button household of Parma, Ohio.
Aunt Miter Saw and Uncle Washing Robot welcomed little Jonathan and Scott into their homes; they lived in a toolshed in the backyard of the Button residence. Auntie Saw told Jonathan and Scott that there were two little boys in the Button house named Jonathan and Scott also. What a coincidence!
Robot Jonathan and Scott were really curious to see these two people brothers, especially since they all had the same names! Robot Jon and Scott had plasma-laser rifles, fusion hyper rockets, and ultra cool platinum casings around their robot feet. But they had never seen people with hair, hands, and toes before. "How primitive these people must be," the older brother robot Jon told little robot Scott.
Uncle Floor Washing Robot was inside the house washing the floors like usual when he ran into people Jon and Scott. He told them that he had a very special surprise for them and that they should get dressed up in their Halloween costumes early. Uncle Floor Washing Robot had helped people Jon and Scott build their very own robot costumes. In fact, they looked a lot like the robot Jon and Scott when they put the costumes on. Oh boy, the two robot kids are going to be in for quite a treat!
Auntie Miter Saw helped robot Jon and Scott to make nice, little drawings of themselves and their house on their home planet to give to people Jon and Scott. The drawing looked very professionally done, because their robots!
When people Jon and Scott were done dressing up in their costumes, they came downstairs to meet with Uncle Floor Washing Robot, and then they all went into the backyard for the highly anticipated meeting. They sat down at the picnic table and waited for robot Jon and Scott to come out of the toolshed.
Robot Jon and Scott were very well-versed in doing grand entrances. All robots learn how to do this when they reach the second grade. A laser light show started and fog began coming out of the bottom of the toolshed. Then there was a very, very loud explosion, and the toolshed seemed to go up into the air fifty feet! When the toolshed exploded into the air and the fog cleared, the laser light show came to a stop and all that remained were robot Jon and Scott.
They looked incredible, like nothing people Jon and Scott had ever seen before. They had shiny, well-polished platinum casings on their feet! Real, live plasma laser rifles! And the coolest fusion rocket packs anyone has ever seen ever! They showed people Jon and Scott their drawing of their home on their unnamed planet, almost a BILLION light years away; and then gave them their very own quantum oscillators to play with and keep forever.
At that moment, people Jon was so scared that he farted really loud, right then and there. Robot Jon looked at his people counterpart and gave him a very curious look indeed. People Jon was unaware that flatulence is the most offensive sound that you can make at a robot. And so, robot Jon raised up his plasma laser rifle and blew away people Jon's head. People Scott started crying a LOT, so robot Scott blew off his head too.
That's how the robots from a BILLION light years away enacted their horrible plot to enslave the human race for all time, and that's why you should never, ever trust robots with anything. THE END.
Their Aunt's name was Heavy-Duty 12" single-bevel compound miter saw, and their Uncle's name was iRobot Scooba Floor Washing Robot. On their home planet, a BILLION light years from Earth, Uncle iRobot Scooba Floor Washing Robot was always seen as a tad too effeminate. Aunt Heavy-Duty 12" single-bevel compound miter saw was always seen as a bit too masculine. They made the perfect pair and made a very nice home for themselves on Earth, where they found gainful, lucrative employment in the Button household of Parma, Ohio.
Aunt Miter Saw and Uncle Washing Robot welcomed little Jonathan and Scott into their homes; they lived in a toolshed in the backyard of the Button residence. Auntie Saw told Jonathan and Scott that there were two little boys in the Button house named Jonathan and Scott also. What a coincidence!
Robot Jonathan and Scott were really curious to see these two people brothers, especially since they all had the same names! Robot Jon and Scott had plasma-laser rifles, fusion hyper rockets, and ultra cool platinum casings around their robot feet. But they had never seen people with hair, hands, and toes before. "How primitive these people must be," the older brother robot Jon told little robot Scott.
Uncle Floor Washing Robot was inside the house washing the floors like usual when he ran into people Jon and Scott. He told them that he had a very special surprise for them and that they should get dressed up in their Halloween costumes early. Uncle Floor Washing Robot had helped people Jon and Scott build their very own robot costumes. In fact, they looked a lot like the robot Jon and Scott when they put the costumes on. Oh boy, the two robot kids are going to be in for quite a treat!
Auntie Miter Saw helped robot Jon and Scott to make nice, little drawings of themselves and their house on their home planet to give to people Jon and Scott. The drawing looked very professionally done, because their robots!
When people Jon and Scott were done dressing up in their costumes, they came downstairs to meet with Uncle Floor Washing Robot, and then they all went into the backyard for the highly anticipated meeting. They sat down at the picnic table and waited for robot Jon and Scott to come out of the toolshed.
Robot Jon and Scott were very well-versed in doing grand entrances. All robots learn how to do this when they reach the second grade. A laser light show started and fog began coming out of the bottom of the toolshed. Then there was a very, very loud explosion, and the toolshed seemed to go up into the air fifty feet! When the toolshed exploded into the air and the fog cleared, the laser light show came to a stop and all that remained were robot Jon and Scott.
They looked incredible, like nothing people Jon and Scott had ever seen before. They had shiny, well-polished platinum casings on their feet! Real, live plasma laser rifles! And the coolest fusion rocket packs anyone has ever seen ever! They showed people Jon and Scott their drawing of their home on their unnamed planet, almost a BILLION light years away; and then gave them their very own quantum oscillators to play with and keep forever.
At that moment, people Jon was so scared that he farted really loud, right then and there. Robot Jon looked at his people counterpart and gave him a very curious look indeed. People Jon was unaware that flatulence is the most offensive sound that you can make at a robot. And so, robot Jon raised up his plasma laser rifle and blew away people Jon's head. People Scott started crying a LOT, so robot Scott blew off his head too.
That's how the robots from a BILLION light years away enacted their horrible plot to enslave the human race for all time, and that's why you should never, ever trust robots with anything. THE END.
29 October 2005
Amelia Buendia
Amelia came to the University of O. on a seeming whim. The good grades and plus standardized test scores could have gotten her anywhere, but she settled on the smallish, Midwestern school based on the obscurity and comfortable atmosphere. Her parents didn't quite understand her decision and were a bit uncomfortable over the large distance she was putting between them. The oldest of their two daughters, Amelia was always quiet, pensive, almost brooding at times. High school taught her the value of humility and living in seeming mediocrity when amidst excellence.
St. Joseph's was run by the Sisters of the Incarnate Word. The Congregation of the Incarnate Word and the Blessed Sacrament was founded by Jeanne Chezard de Matel in France and confirmed by Innocent X as a pontifical institute in the year 1644. To Amelia, the nuns were a relic indicative of a different time. The academic influence of the largely layperson faculty was naturally imbued by the humility, simplicity and charity stressed by the Catholic sisters, yet those virtues did not seem to translate into how the students at the all-girls school treated each other on a day to day basis.
Amelia lived on the other side of town and commuted to school every morning on the municipal transit system. Riding the city buses every morning fortified her against the filth and aggravation that comes with urban living, and she felt steeled against the seeming loneliness of it all. She enjoyed her mornings to herself and would frequently take little naps during the nearly forty minute commute. Somehow she managed to know when to wake up from her slumber, pull the cord to alert the driver that she would be getting off soon, and then step off of the bus and cross the street towards the St. Joe's campus.
Once she crossed over from the urban, outside world onto the bricked walkways of the prestigious academy, the warm feelings from the morning bus ride vanished and were replaced by the foreboding gauntlet that her academic day threatened. Her quiet personality and homely appearance made her an easy target for her seemingly infinitely more intelligent and wealthy classmates.
To her credit though, Amelia did very well for herself. After starting slow as a freshman, her study habits improved greatly in response to her growing interest in her courses and in the teachers that taught them.
Calculus seemingly became quickly accessible under the inspired teaching of Mr. Thompson. Thompson sang little ditties throughout the course period and drew funny pictures to accompany the multitude of transparencies explaining such thrilling concepts as differentiation and variational methods. He was also very serious about his mathematics and very demanding of his students. In despite of the fact that Amelia was seen as nothing more than a middling student, she somehow managed to excel under the course structure that Thompson laid out for his students. Amelia was encouraged to participate in the various math competitions and whatnot and quickly became a favorite of the esteemed Mr. Thompson.
The improvements she made in her sophomore year parlayed into success in her other courses as well, and her classmates began to notice the change. All the girls somehow managed to know exactly where they stood in comparison to the others. Secrets were naturally ill-kept. And as such, when someone manages to step outside of the status quo and challenge the established order of things, the rumors and question marks begin to fly. Amelia, though, managed to live in obscurity from the harsh opinions being tossed about. She was, after all, an outsider in many senses. Amelia never prescribed to the accepted notion of what it took to be successful at the academy. Her family did not have a luxury sedan, and she was not driven to school by a parent or by an upperclassman friend. The city buses always stopped in front of St. Joe's, but the only person that anyone would ever see getting off or on was Amelia. She didn't dress the part of a student of the academy, and up until now, she didn't have the grades to be considered worthy of any consideration whatsoever. Regardless of the facts, Amelia was labelled a phony and a blight upon the student body by her peers. For a long time, Amelia was unaware.
That was how she spent her years in high school. She was always intrigued and amazed by the magnitude of prestige and tradition that highlighted the St. Joseph's experience, but she was always on the outside and felt as a stranger mistaken for a long, lost friend would when the time came for Amelia to accept her diploma.
Amelia was convinced that her enrollment at the University of O. would change all that.
...Some More
St. Joseph's was run by the Sisters of the Incarnate Word. The Congregation of the Incarnate Word and the Blessed Sacrament was founded by Jeanne Chezard de Matel in France and confirmed by Innocent X as a pontifical institute in the year 1644. To Amelia, the nuns were a relic indicative of a different time. The academic influence of the largely layperson faculty was naturally imbued by the humility, simplicity and charity stressed by the Catholic sisters, yet those virtues did not seem to translate into how the students at the all-girls school treated each other on a day to day basis.
Amelia lived on the other side of town and commuted to school every morning on the municipal transit system. Riding the city buses every morning fortified her against the filth and aggravation that comes with urban living, and she felt steeled against the seeming loneliness of it all. She enjoyed her mornings to herself and would frequently take little naps during the nearly forty minute commute. Somehow she managed to know when to wake up from her slumber, pull the cord to alert the driver that she would be getting off soon, and then step off of the bus and cross the street towards the St. Joe's campus.
Once she crossed over from the urban, outside world onto the bricked walkways of the prestigious academy, the warm feelings from the morning bus ride vanished and were replaced by the foreboding gauntlet that her academic day threatened. Her quiet personality and homely appearance made her an easy target for her seemingly infinitely more intelligent and wealthy classmates.
To her credit though, Amelia did very well for herself. After starting slow as a freshman, her study habits improved greatly in response to her growing interest in her courses and in the teachers that taught them.
Calculus seemingly became quickly accessible under the inspired teaching of Mr. Thompson. Thompson sang little ditties throughout the course period and drew funny pictures to accompany the multitude of transparencies explaining such thrilling concepts as differentiation and variational methods. He was also very serious about his mathematics and very demanding of his students. In despite of the fact that Amelia was seen as nothing more than a middling student, she somehow managed to excel under the course structure that Thompson laid out for his students. Amelia was encouraged to participate in the various math competitions and whatnot and quickly became a favorite of the esteemed Mr. Thompson.
The improvements she made in her sophomore year parlayed into success in her other courses as well, and her classmates began to notice the change. All the girls somehow managed to know exactly where they stood in comparison to the others. Secrets were naturally ill-kept. And as such, when someone manages to step outside of the status quo and challenge the established order of things, the rumors and question marks begin to fly. Amelia, though, managed to live in obscurity from the harsh opinions being tossed about. She was, after all, an outsider in many senses. Amelia never prescribed to the accepted notion of what it took to be successful at the academy. Her family did not have a luxury sedan, and she was not driven to school by a parent or by an upperclassman friend. The city buses always stopped in front of St. Joe's, but the only person that anyone would ever see getting off or on was Amelia. She didn't dress the part of a student of the academy, and up until now, she didn't have the grades to be considered worthy of any consideration whatsoever. Regardless of the facts, Amelia was labelled a phony and a blight upon the student body by her peers. For a long time, Amelia was unaware.
That was how she spent her years in high school. She was always intrigued and amazed by the magnitude of prestige and tradition that highlighted the St. Joseph's experience, but she was always on the outside and felt as a stranger mistaken for a long, lost friend would when the time came for Amelia to accept her diploma.
Amelia was convinced that her enrollment at the University of O. would change all that.
...Some More
28 October 2005
I Love the Smell of Fresh Raw Sewage in the Morning
Thanks to the satellite maps on Google, I can bring you a crystal clear, crisp photo of the duplex I live at in College Station. Make no mistake about it, I really do live right on top of a sewage treatment plant. There is nothing more invigorating than waking up on a fine Texas morning with a fresh cup of coffee in your hand and standing in your backyard, taking in the full, rich aroma of raw sewage. If you had any doubts about how much I love raw sewage, note how my duplex seems to be recessed further back off the street than the rest of the duplexes on April Bloom.
To quote my roommate Jon, "It's almost like living on a beach, except it smells a lot worse and there's no ocean nearby."
Truer words have never been spoken.
There must be some benefits to living next to the sewage treatment facility. For one, it can act as a type of "friend filter" because someone is going to have to like you a lot to put up with the stench. Furthermore, I think it can help to keep crime down, because I'm fairly certain that the naked black guy that likes to terrorize college girls by staring at them while they sleep does not like the scent of raw sewage. I could be wrong though, but I hope not. Also, if I were to stop showering and people started criticizing me for it, I could try blaming it on the sewage. I'm not exactly sure how that would work. I suppose that I could say that raw sewage is getting into my shower or something along that line. Then I could use all that free time that I have from not showering to learn how to make a better potato salad or write a better physics quiz. I just hope that I don't get really drunk one night and then try to break into that place. I'm not exactly sure what I would do once I got over the fence though. Maybe I could take some raw sewage home with me, put it in a nice little jar, and try to grow something in there. I don't know if raw sewage has any value on the black market, but I think it may be worth looking into.
The duplex that Jon and I share is pretty nice, for the price anyway. For awhile, whenever I came in through the front door, my first reaction upon viewing the living room was along the lines of, "Hey, I think we got robbed." Needless to say, we were a bit sparse on the furniture side of things. I didn't play any role in picking out or even purchasing the furniture that we share, but I'm fairly certain that even if I had done the interior decorating in here, the room would still look the same, right down to the shoddy, old couch straight from the Goodwill. We have a very stereotypical college male's place, for certain.
Of course, over on the other side of the duplex, where Jon's girlfriend and her friend live, the standard of living is much higher and the furniture is much nicer.
Regardless of the interior design work though, we all live amidst the same raw sewage. How's that for gender equality?
27 October 2005
That's Baseball
Despite his dressing-down from the Colonel, E.A. got drunk again the next Saturday after beating Sherbrooke, and he stayed over with Earl and Moonface at the Jolie Blon with a woman who didn't speak two words of English. Gypsy was waiting for him in the kitchen when Earl slowed down just enough for E.A. to stumble out his car and stand shakily in the dooryard in the sunrise.
The 6:05 whistled at the railway crossing, reminding E.A. of Teddy. He felt bad. He felt like crying. Something was wrong, and it was more than just being hung over. He remembered learning how to read from the names on the sides of the boxcars, but he couldn't remember exactly ho he'd gotten to the Jolie Blon or when they'd left. He vaguely recalled Earl and Moonface helping him into the car.
He stood in the dooryard, watching the freight pass like a ghost train in the mist. Gypsy sat at the kitchen table, watching E.A. out the window, Grandpa Gleason Allen's deer rifle in her hands, pointed at the door. Gran sat in her old-fashioned wicker wheelchair by the table. For the first time in years, she'd gotten up before ten A.M.-- Waiting for Teddy Williams by Howard Frank Mosher
In baseball and life you get a lot of days like this while growing-up, and I'm not referring specifically to the drunkeness (although that is significant in its own right). The stumbles and pitfalls along the way do not occur infrequently, regardless of how mature and responsible one may seem. Clearly, a child, adolescent, college student will test the patience of everyone around him or her -- that's baseball, that's life.
In the book I refer to above, Teddy helps E.A. grow-up through baseball. He wisely keeps E.A. from getting down on himself by telling him that his mistakes in the field are a part of the game. After making a mistake, Teddy thinks simply pointing out the error is enough. The responsibility to learn and keep it from happening again is up to E.A.
The part where the reader sees a drunken, teenage E.A. is the first real mistake made off of the diamond. This is also the first divergent path that E.A. seemingly takes which leads him away from his dream of baseball immortality.
Wating for Teddy Williams is a great piece of fiction that reminds the reader of Mark Twain. I give it plusses for humor, baseball, and outlandish scenarios and personalities.
Being away from home and at Wabash, I was able to keep all the big mistakes away from the attention of my parents; a situation that was much easier with respect to the situation that E.A. found himself.
Not surprisingly, most of those mistakes involved some situation that included alcohol, girls, and my own outlandish personality.
Some Valuable Life Lessons:
Do not urinate in a public place in front of Greencastle's finest before a Monon Bell game. In fact, do not urinate in any public place.
Do not invite more than one girl to a party without making it very clear whether or not you want or will have a date to the party. The best (and consequently only) way out of this sort of predicament is to black-out as fast as you possibly can and let the proverbial chips fall where they may.
More than two pieces of flair are necessary to drink.
Do not drink so much that you vomit on the local constable, get to ride in a little ambulance, and then spend the next six months wondering how you're going to take care of outstanding medical bills.
Do not slap the bartender on the ass after getting her to give you her cowboy hat. She only gave it to you because you were probably being really annoying and because you bought all those jager shots that she foisted upon you.
Do not take shots consisting of one part the cheapest vodka you've ever laid eyes on and one part the cheapest rum you've ever laid eyes on.
If you walk into a room and see that your friends are in the middle of century club, most certainly do not, under any circumstances, start from twenty shots down and catch up when everyone is starting shot number 35 or thereabouts. You may finish this insane endeavor of drinking stupidity, but you sure don't feel like a winner afterwards.
Do not slip n' slide in the buff. You'll find bruises and marks in all sorts of fun spots.
Do not try sliding across the dance floor of a nearly empty Neon Cactus. When the bar hasn't filled up yet and you start doing stunts like that, you are essentially marking yourself as a clear and open target between the bouncer, his foot, and the door.
Do not dance with women over 40 while out on spring break.
Do not drink so much that you fall asleep with your eyes wide open...that's just creepy and really sends the wrong message.
Do laugh and be as loud as you can all the time.
Baseball, drinking, life -- they all seem to blur together quite nicely after all.
Word of the Day
Word of the Day for Thursday October 27, 2005
mawkish \MOCK-ish\, adjective:
1. Sickly or excessively sentimental.
2. Insipid in taste; nauseous; disgusting.
The movie's attempts to connect these out-of-body experiences with the '60s ethos of consciousness expansion are so forced that the transcendent, feel-good leaps of faith with which the story culminates seem mawkish and unearned.
--Stephen Holden, " 'Eden': Out of Step at a Prep School as a New Age Dawns." New York Times, April 3, 1998
Philadelphia Inquirer dismissed it as "a terrible play, a hopeless jumble of juvenile humor and mawkish sentimentality."
--Peter Applebome, "Blasphemy? Again? Somebody's Praying for a Hit." New York Times, October 18, 1998
Joe DiMaggio, who died this year to often mawkish eulogies and overwrought sociology, was an ancestor of the current four: driven, selfish, unidimensional in his playing days.
--Robert Lipsyte, "Time for Sports Heroes to Start Acting in a Heroic Way." New York Times, August 22, 1999
Mawkish originally meant "maggoty" (from Middle English mawke, maggot), hence squeamish, nauseating, hence tending to render squeamish or make nauseated, especially because of excessive sentimentality.
...as in, this blog is exceedingly mawkish.
25 October 2005
Little Coincidences
1. SudaCare Shower Soothers. Warning: This product will cause koala infestations in your home and shower.
2. According to an unidentified source, the "relationship clock" starts ticking the first time you make-out (licit, illicit, or otherwise) with someone. Although that assertion sounds rather arbitrary and dubious, I suppose it will have to suffice since it seems to me that most benchmarks of a relationship involve the exchange of gifts (Have personalized "baller bands" or decoder rings reached mainstream society yet?). Custom Wristbands.
3. I flew first class for the first time. Before serving you a meal, the steward or stewardess comes around with hot washrags that you use for hand-washing and face-steaming purposes (come back next week for my intellectual discourse entitled, "Cleveland Steamer vs. Fresh Vegetable Steamer: Who Really has the Upper Hand?"). I think the sight of some poor schmuck physics graduate student sitting in first class would be quite unnerving to your average paying coach customer. To my credit, I put on my best smug, pretentious face while sitting in the lap of luxury as the grovelling members of the middle classes boarded the plane and walked past my reclined, self-satisfied self. That was the easiest, most comfortable two hours of flying I've ever experienced. Awesome.
I've been very lucky and privileged as of late. Hopefully some of that luck will rub off on my performance in quantum mechanics this semester.
4. While driving around with Beth this past weekend, two Simon & Garfunkel (or Art & Paul, as they were originally titled) songs from the soundtrack for The Graduate played on the radio. I personally took that as a sign that we should go rent the movie in question and do so in a hurry. After driving all around West Lafayette though, we found out that the movie rental places either didn't have the movie available or didn't even bother carrying it in their store.
I was led to believe that The Graduate was one of the "Movies that Shook the World." Who is AMC to argue with the likes of Blockbuster or Family Video though? That's all I have to ask. Furthermore, can a business refer to itself as "family' oriented when it has a rather expansive adult section? Admittedly, in light of the fact that I took part in proposition "let's rent the porno bloopers tape from Family Video" as a pledge, I guess it would be hypocritical for me to criticize...although, the particular tape we rented sucked a lot and was not funny, so that has to be worth something.
5. I love beagles. I also like going to the pet store in the mall and disturbing some poor, sad beagle's slumber just so that I can play and dote over it while entertaining the notion of trying to own and care for a puppy for the fourth time. Barry Manilow wrote a song about his beagle, Mandy.
6. Wabash does NOT love sheep. No, I'm not upset about the time I was turned down by a sheep. And yes, I'm well aware that, "Baa means Baa."
Wabash beat the hell outta Wittenberg this past weekend to put them at a perfect 7-0. Mount Union was upset this past weekend by Ohio Northern, giving Wabash an outside chance at being #1 in the NCAA North regional rankings.
7. The men's department in the average department store is a lot more fun than I had ever envisioned. A wide world of funny hats, techno underwear, tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbow, and old man shoes await those of you who are inexperienced in the fine art of dressing like a stodgy, old, pretentious prick.
8. I like ice cream.
9. "...so many buttons, you could make a shirt!" -- random quote taken extremely out of context
10. Steve Perry of Journey fame vs. Ashlee Simpson of Ill-repute
"The resemblance is uncanny..." -- famous koala bear.
2. According to an unidentified source, the "relationship clock" starts ticking the first time you make-out (licit, illicit, or otherwise) with someone. Although that assertion sounds rather arbitrary and dubious, I suppose it will have to suffice since it seems to me that most benchmarks of a relationship involve the exchange of gifts (Have personalized "baller bands" or decoder rings reached mainstream society yet?). Custom Wristbands.
...I believe in long, slow, deep, soft, wet kisses that last three days.-- Crash Davis
3. I flew first class for the first time. Before serving you a meal, the steward or stewardess comes around with hot washrags that you use for hand-washing and face-steaming purposes (come back next week for my intellectual discourse entitled, "Cleveland Steamer vs. Fresh Vegetable Steamer: Who Really has the Upper Hand?"). I think the sight of some poor schmuck physics graduate student sitting in first class would be quite unnerving to your average paying coach customer. To my credit, I put on my best smug, pretentious face while sitting in the lap of luxury as the grovelling members of the middle classes boarded the plane and walked past my reclined, self-satisfied self. That was the easiest, most comfortable two hours of flying I've ever experienced. Awesome.
I've been very lucky and privileged as of late. Hopefully some of that luck will rub off on my performance in quantum mechanics this semester.
4. While driving around with Beth this past weekend, two Simon & Garfunkel (or Art & Paul, as they were originally titled) songs from the soundtrack for The Graduate played on the radio. I personally took that as a sign that we should go rent the movie in question and do so in a hurry. After driving all around West Lafayette though, we found out that the movie rental places either didn't have the movie available or didn't even bother carrying it in their store.
I was led to believe that The Graduate was one of the "Movies that Shook the World." Who is AMC to argue with the likes of Blockbuster or Family Video though? That's all I have to ask. Furthermore, can a business refer to itself as "family' oriented when it has a rather expansive adult section? Admittedly, in light of the fact that I took part in proposition "let's rent the porno bloopers tape from Family Video" as a pledge, I guess it would be hypocritical for me to criticize...although, the particular tape we rented sucked a lot and was not funny, so that has to be worth something.
5. I love beagles. I also like going to the pet store in the mall and disturbing some poor, sad beagle's slumber just so that I can play and dote over it while entertaining the notion of trying to own and care for a puppy for the fourth time. Barry Manilow wrote a song about his beagle, Mandy.
6. Wabash does NOT love sheep. No, I'm not upset about the time I was turned down by a sheep. And yes, I'm well aware that, "Baa means Baa."
Wabash beat the hell outta Wittenberg this past weekend to put them at a perfect 7-0. Mount Union was upset this past weekend by Ohio Northern, giving Wabash an outside chance at being #1 in the NCAA North regional rankings.
7. The men's department in the average department store is a lot more fun than I had ever envisioned. A wide world of funny hats, techno underwear, tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbow, and old man shoes await those of you who are inexperienced in the fine art of dressing like a stodgy, old, pretentious prick.
8. I like ice cream.
9. "...so many buttons, you could make a shirt!" -- random quote taken extremely out of context
10. Steve Perry of Journey fame vs. Ashlee Simpson of Ill-repute
"The resemblance is uncanny..." -- famous koala bear.
19 October 2005
Bicycles and Such
Alaistair bought a bicycle during his first week at the University of O. and rode it to the large academic building on the western side of campus. He was running late per his usual manner but managed to deftly lock his bicycle to the rack near the parking lot and across from the building. Realizing that he would be awfully sweaty after making the fairly lengthy ride, he brought an extra shirt. Alastair stode with the early afternoon sun beating down upon him. At that moment, a girl rode up and thought it extremely odd to be greeted with such an anomalous sight. Alastiar was aware that this stranger was looking at him, but he tried not to act as if anything were amiss. He merely continued fumbling with his dry, button-down shirt, maybe trying to appear stoic and as though he were trying to see something that was not there and existed off beyond the horizon.
Once he finished with his own arduous task, Alastair turned abruptly towards the entrance to the academic building and walked with an air of purpose.
The girl, Amelia, was a bit perplexed. This was hardly the situation she envisioned once she realized that she was running almost ten minutes late. Rushing towards the orientation and peddling harder and harder, she didn't think she would be rewarded with the sight of a lean, male, nearly post-adolescent body. She followed the boy into the academic building, stood behind him in line as they collected all the necessary folders and packets, and took a seat positioned diagonally behind him.
A lady was speaking. She turned the floor over to a portly, grey beard of a professor standing off in the corner of the lecture hall. He had a great, big smile on his face and introduced himself as Dr. R of the psychology department at the prestigious University of O. He related to his audience his long association with the yearly orientations, and a tinge of sadness entered his voice as he remarked that this would be his last.
Retirement seemed like a rather odd concept. The irony of the old man's imminent departure being coupled with his anticipated, yet silent emergence into this locale of higher education was not lost upon Alastair. He was momentarily bemused by the thought but managed rapt attention to the retiring professor's active speech and gesticulations.
Amelia saw the old man talking but found herself distracted by the boy's constant fidgeting. It suddently drove her mad. She tried to concentrate elsewhere, but her efforts proved futile. Suddenly the motion stopped, and she realized that the boy was introducing himself to her. Amelia was confused, and her look of bewilderment amused the boy. He started to giggle, said, "My name is Alastair," and then said that he oftentimes found himself daydreaming during class as well. Amelia blushed and let out a soft murmur. Alastair was barely aware that she had spoken aloud, and the concept of having conversation would have been lost on him if he had not seen her lips move slightly during the middle of his discourse on absent-mindedness and the such. Alastair gave his winning smile and apologized for not hearing correctly.
"My name is Amelia."
...Some More
Once he finished with his own arduous task, Alastair turned abruptly towards the entrance to the academic building and walked with an air of purpose.
The girl, Amelia, was a bit perplexed. This was hardly the situation she envisioned once she realized that she was running almost ten minutes late. Rushing towards the orientation and peddling harder and harder, she didn't think she would be rewarded with the sight of a lean, male, nearly post-adolescent body. She followed the boy into the academic building, stood behind him in line as they collected all the necessary folders and packets, and took a seat positioned diagonally behind him.
A lady was speaking. She turned the floor over to a portly, grey beard of a professor standing off in the corner of the lecture hall. He had a great, big smile on his face and introduced himself as Dr. R of the psychology department at the prestigious University of O. He related to his audience his long association with the yearly orientations, and a tinge of sadness entered his voice as he remarked that this would be his last.
Retirement seemed like a rather odd concept. The irony of the old man's imminent departure being coupled with his anticipated, yet silent emergence into this locale of higher education was not lost upon Alastair. He was momentarily bemused by the thought but managed rapt attention to the retiring professor's active speech and gesticulations.
Amelia saw the old man talking but found herself distracted by the boy's constant fidgeting. It suddently drove her mad. She tried to concentrate elsewhere, but her efforts proved futile. Suddenly the motion stopped, and she realized that the boy was introducing himself to her. Amelia was confused, and her look of bewilderment amused the boy. He started to giggle, said, "My name is Alastair," and then said that he oftentimes found himself daydreaming during class as well. Amelia blushed and let out a soft murmur. Alastair was barely aware that she had spoken aloud, and the concept of having conversation would have been lost on him if he had not seen her lips move slightly during the middle of his discourse on absent-mindedness and the such. Alastair gave his winning smile and apologized for not hearing correctly.
"My name is Amelia."
...Some More
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