Andrew's Blog

Wasting Time is un-24th Century

2012-02-09T23:58:00.000-05:00

So I was reading this link I indirectly ended up at through Gizmodo: "Why Doesn't Anybody Use Social Media on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine?" -- and it's really interesting. It starts off kind of criticizing Star Trek for not predicting Facebook, Twitter, and social media to the accurate extent it predicted so much else and was ahead of it's time. And just when the argument seems complete, they pause and remember what characters on Star Trek do in their spare time: read and cook.

Hey, Star Trek predicted iPad's okay -- give them some credit!

The part I particularly like is that they point out: "You can tell a lot about a person by how they spend their spare time." Indeed, I have homework to do, lesson plans to write, school work to print, Key Club to research, CKI things to write, and sleep to get had; but I'm blogging. But on Star Trek, they don't seem to "waste time." I love that I have never quite imagined this concept to this level of thought before. Reading classic books is a popular use of spare time on Star Trek. Learning to cook, even though they have replicators that make food, is a popular for-show skill, yet it's something so simply taken for granted now.

One of my new years resolutions will be to be more like the characters of Star Trek, and not waste so much time. Everything they do, even for recreation, is fun but educational or self-bettering in some way. I have so much to do in my life already, if I can cut down on all the wasted time, I could get so much more done.


The United Federation of Planets: The UN of SPACE. Only Exciting, and effective.

I am, afterall, a product of Star Treks' day: it's interesting the other day at my student teaching assignment, the teacher was talking about ideology in the US and the USSR. The worksheet compared socialism and individualism in some way, and I would like to say now: I am not a socialist, or a commie. But the comparison he drew was an individualist works for the betterment of themselves, either through material wealth, working for pure happiness without regard for others outside their family, etc. Most students raised their hand when they said their goal in life was to find a job that brought them the most money in one way or another. I fell into the other category, my goal in life is to do what I can to help humanity move forward. One of my most sacred, core values comes from a line from a Star Trek movie:

Quote of the Day: Hm, long story short, Captain Picard is explaining the economy of the 24th century to a human from 2063.

"The economics of the future are somewhat different. ...You see, money doesn't exist in the twenty-fourth century." - Captain Picard
"No money! Does that mean you don't get paid?" - Lily
"The acquisition of wealth is no longer the driving force in our lives. ...We work to better ourselves ...and the rest of humanity."

Movie Analysis: "The Worst Witch: The Movie"

2012-01-28T15:32:00.000-05:00

Well the other day I signed up for some stupid Blockbuster program: which means I get even more free movies sent to me, more than I have time to watch as a matter of fact. Well, per my interest in movies about magic, I found this "The Worst Witch: The Movie" film that I had never heard of before so I decided to rent it and watch it this Saturday morning when I plan to catch up on my rough week's piling up of work to do.

First, the movie stars Fairuza Balk -- star of "Return to Oz", "The Craft," and other things. First, I'd like to note that I always confuse the names "Fairuza Balk" with "Veruca Salt" -- the bad egg from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I can't help but notice that her characters are all the same. Dorothy from Return to Oz could just as easily have been a witch - in fact, Glinda even asks her in the original Wizard of Oz if she's a good witch or a bad witch!

But let's take a moment to focus on the film in general. Take Return to Oz and combine with Harry Potter, take out any semblance of production value and you get this film. Lets look at some similarities: an old-English style boarding school filled with little witches (the movie is a girls only school.) Our star is an amateur witch with no real skills, social outcast, disliked by most of the school, she has her only real friend that's got her back, but then also has the hear of the head master/mistress. She tries to do well, but the evil second in command of the school is always out to get her. Don't forget the evil, rich, privileged and popular school bully. Throw in a "learn to fly" scene that ends badly, and a broomstick-game where our star's broom is cursed, and voila! Magically, you have cloned the same story line!

But if you add bad 1980s graphics, and a few more musical numbers than I think anyone expected, you have a movie that is identifiably "The Worst Witch."

Next up: "Cowboys & Aliens" as I work on CKI, ASG and Student Teaching stuff!

Video of the Day: "Anything Can Happen on Halloween" by... Tim Curry? This song is from the movie, and um, is very 1980s. Also, very bad. I just... I can't even describe it, I'm not sure why the universe decided it was necessary this happen/I see this. Per the comments on youtube: "I wonder if the effects guy put this video on his resume."

Song of the Day: "This is Aperture" by assorted Aperture Science Lab-bots. Alright, originally the Tim Curry thing was also the song of the day -- but since I've found this, this clearly out-does it! Parody of sorts of "This is Halloween" from Nightmare Before Christmas, only awesomer!

Appropriate Reactions

2012-01-27T21:44:00.000-05:00

I'm going to take a minute to bitch somewhere about the shit I have to deal with.

First, Monday I came home around 9 to find mom had quit her job. We had previously agreed that mom would tell me like two weeks before she quit. Yes, I have gotten the slack from friends that I am not her mother, she is an adult, and she should only have to give notice to her actual employer. And my reaction to that is I know my mother better than them, and she is prone to random inexplicable emotional outbursts where she does stupid things. On this particular day, for example, she did not recieve her paycheck in the mail on time - which I admit is a crappy thing that deserves follow up and even perhaps a bit of bitchiness.

Having lost lost her boss' cell phone number, Mom used Google to find said boss' family member's phone numbers and contacted them to get a hold of her. (Appropriate? I don't think so.) Eventually, and the details are vague here, she met up with the boss who "had the nerve to act like she didn't know there was a problem." Well, mom ended up throwing some keys and then quit. Then she spent the rest of the night yelling at me.

I also had an annoying experience in ASG, and another coming home tonight with mom -- but I don't even feel like blogging about it. I just want to relax. Unfortunately, getting my own place does not make much sense for a number of reasons at this point.

Darn, it's going to snow all weekend, otherwise I would totally take advantage of my brief two days of "lighter" weekend to (find) and explore an abandoned building. Just turned Ghost Adventurers on.

2012: The End is Near!

2012-01-16T23:22:00.001-05:00

I'm not talking about the Mayan calendar, rather the fact that I will be graduating soon and will need to find adult things to do with my time! Sometimes I really wonder what I will do without student organizations to eat up all my time. And then I stop thinking that, because I need to catch up on all the student organization-things I have to do :(

I'm not complaining! I am already starting my list of things to do upon graduation actually. First, Graduation party, obviously. Give my family a chance to see the new house -- as they probably haven't been here. And at Christmas we were talking about how rarely we all get together, especially with this last fail-of-a-Christmas when like no body showed up?!

My Governor-ship is winding down, thank goodness, and I look forward to the freetime that will afford me. I have already spoken with my heir-apparent about potentially offering up my services as On-to-International-Convention chair should he deem it necessary. Plus I myself am looking forward to going to International Convention this year in New Orleans -- so I plan to make that trip kinda awesome if I can! In fact, earlier today at the bookstore I was thinking about maybe spending more time than just the Circle K trip down there. Maybe I'll get there early or stay late and just enjoy the city without having to think about CKI.

Then next year, hopefully I will either join Kiwanis (of Stow or where I hope to get a job teaching -- Medina.) Maybe serve as "Young Professional Recruitment Chair" or something. But in the short-long term, I hope to get a teaching job at one school in particular, and be involved in their Key Club since their current adviser isn't even faculty as far as I can tell?

As for fun things, ever the materialist consumer, I really have almost all the "things" I want at this point in my life! My new bed, desk, my TV and cable is all I could want, more computer things than I need, and an outstanding phone, and car. I guess I could continue work on getting the hybrid car I hope to have some day. Then of course there's that Charmed Dictionary stand I am constantly in want of.

I want Silent Hill to be a larger part of my life, haha. Maybe I'll finally invest in a PS2 or 3 and play that again.

Finally, hobby-wise, I am considering "Book binding" as a hobby - haha, random, I know. But I love the books and props from my favorite shows that make them seem more realistic, and there are a bunch of shows' books that no one has really made replicas that are both 1. affordable and 2. live up to my standards. So clearly, it is my job. I would love to make replicas of Charmed, Sabrina, Harry Potter, Wizards of Waverly Place, etc. magic books! And other books in general.

Quote of the Day: *walking through the living room, mom watching TV*

Me: "....is that iCarly?!"
Mom: "Yup."
Me: "....do you even understand the concept of this show?"
Mom: "....well, it-.... no, not really."
Me: "Yeah... maybe you should go check out it's Wikipedia article..."

Song of the Day: "I Like It Like That" by Hot Chelle Rae. Oh good, the band that brought us such philosophical ballads as "laa laa laa, laaa laaa laa" is back with more music that really doesn't contribute anything to the greater good of our race. The lyric that sticks out in my head for this one though is "missed my ride home, lost my iPhone..." Once again, what are they singing? They like things. They're happy. Good for freakin them? The video is just them on their tour bus, or on their tour. They're making money off of this? Really? Catchiness, B+; Content, F; Creativity, F. So in other words, another successful Pop Hit!

Video of the Day: Stanley from "The Office" must have hired that firm that made Rebecca Black's video, because he is the star of a music video. Capital W-T-F???! It includes parodies of LMFAO (LMNOP) and a bunch of random other references to pop culture. W-T-F- seriously.

I- I- I- I work out!

2012-01-01T23:10:00.005-05:00

Happy New Year! Well, my new year's celebration was ridiculous - and was also likely attended by anyone who would read this blog and actually care about what I did. But on the off chance otherwise, Patsy, Jen, Panda and I had a blast down in the valley getting Otani's Hibachi and then partying it up all night. More funny quotes than I can remember were said, and at the end of the night we had a rather odd experience getting a taxi home. But we all made it back in once piece, that's pretty important!

Well, today was Craft Day part 2, where we all come over my house and do crafts! (Like a play date. For camp counselors and old ladies.) During which I worked on my family album, which I would really like to make actual progress on sometime... oh wellz. But it reminded me of a few things from my Dad's adventures that I have always wanted to search for on the goo-goo.

In the 70s, my dad went out to live on his own in California because he wanted to be a professional body builder. So he went to the guy everyone went to in those days, one Vince Gironda (other link) (third link), and ended up meeting Arnold Swartzenegger and Erik Estrada on more than one occasion!

Dad worked at and/or trained at Vince's Gym.

Dad eventually moved back to Ohio in the 80s. (I'm being as intentionally vague as I can so that creepers don't steal our identities through my blog!) But I've always wanted to delve into those details, more so than letters from my uncle in the scrap book do, but haven't gotten around to it yet. But the idea that my dad was brave and determined enough to be able to just randomly move to California and make it on his own, however briefly, is pretty inspiring. A positive message, I think, for the new year!

Happy Twenty Dozen everyone!

Quotes of the Day: Both refer to Panda, lol. We were at the bar discussing a friend of Jen's that got married and was uncomfortable around a balloon shaped like the male genitalia. Panda was quite comfortable screaming:

"Have fun being married! There's LOTS OF PENIS!"

Lol. I'm glad I tweeted that, I may have forgotten otherwise. Also: Patsy's new joke (not necessarily insulting Panda) but about her funny temper is that when Amanda was young, she always yelled and swore about things not being useful. (You have to hear it to understand.) Well we were joking about the story of how I met her, and Patsy faux-quoted:

"Who needs fuckin teeth anyway?! Who needs to chew!?"

xD I still find this hilarious.

Picture of the Day: Panda sent me this, and it made me crack up out loud.

Video of the Day: I know, with these links I'm makin ya work today, but this one won't embed and the picture is funnier with the shock of opening it in a new link. Cute Puppy Gets New Water Bowl. My next blog may be about what I want to name pets.

Shocking

2011-12-31T09:19:00.000-05:00

My first night in my new bed! :D So comfortable up here. First of all, my new bed is like crazy tall -- which is what I wanted, lol. I feel like I'm looking down on my kingdom from up here! But went to bed watching Kill Bill last night, and was able to go to bed before 11:00! And now I was up before 9:00! And got a full night's sleep! On my way to being prepared for Student Teaching n.n

But I wanted to log the crazy dreams I had. I've found when I get appropriate hours of sleep at the right time, I tend to have more interesting dreams I can remember easier.

The first of which had me and Hermione, Potter and Ron flying around on broomsticks around Hogwarts. Only Hogwarts was in Las Vegas. And for some reason we had to land early in the morning in the rain, and we were walking through the suburbs trying to find our way back and Hermione finds an abandoned house (not unlike the abandoned house I found for realz on my way to Noisy Oyster last night) and I said something like "Do you know for sure a witch lives here? Maybe they have floo powder!" But I remember thinking "Darn these heroes, they probably have to lead some adventure, when I really just want to explore these houses, but that probably doesn't fit into the plot..."

We continue onward, and navigate through rocky Nelsons Ledges place -- filled with ridiculous Harry Potter-y animals. There was a poisonous "origami frog" which looked like it was made of paper. And white stick-bugs that came in a box with a mirror? And some kind of beaded or paper owl that also looked strange. Eventually we get through, after I ask several times "Wait, the paper frog is poisonous?" so as to make sure I don't touch it.

But then, plot shift, and I'm walking across campus on the first day of school. And I run into my old supervisor, and say hi, after making some joke about "Wow! This campus sure is inviting..." but the campus is filled with freshman so I say you're probably busy and go off. But then a dorm looks like my condo, where there's an unopened scale in the middle of the dining room. I open it, weigh myself, and it jumps around 115-120 (I do NOT weigh anywhere near that, haha) then my cousin comes down the stairs and is not really mad but acknowledges that I opened her scale (note: I got mom a scale for Christmas. This is my first noteworthy dream SINCE Christmas, when I last saw my cousin.)

The end. What a weird dream!

So, to round out the blog, let me say that yesterday my new bed came! n.n and I love it, but Amanda reminded me the day before yesterday I still needed to buy sheets and stuff for the Queen size. So yesterday afternoon after grabbing Oysters with Jen (I wouldn't recommend it) I ran to Target, and wouldn't cha know, they had the EXACT bedset I'd been looking for for weeks! I found it ON the day I needed to sleep in the bed, but haven't until now. And it was Target-afordable rather than like, ridiculously expensive at Bed Bath and Beyonce. How lucky!

Alright, so I remembered wrong -- in my head I remembered black and gray.
But that's okay, I found what I wanted anyway.
(Yes, my inspiration for my bed set was Barney Stinson from How I Met Your Mother.)

Quote of the Day: I don't remember the exact wording, but Jen commented on how our mealtime discussion often "consists of constant wordplay instead of actual conversation."

Song of the Day: "Good Feeling" by Flo Rida. Well, the video is just Flo Rida (of "Right Round"-fame, having discovered Ke$ha) running around France, and then Europe in general (probably on tour), at one point running into Snoop Dog and falling into the Mediterranean. Playing with his iPad, and riding the Tron motorcycle (?) "Good Feeling" seems to be about really straightforward "sometimes he gets a good feeling" and sometimes he's happy, and sometimes things just go well and he's having a good time. That's it. Not really something to think too deeply into I guess, but sounds like a great song for New Years Eve!

Survivor: Andrew's Closet

2011-12-28T21:53:00.006-05:00

Well, just before Christmas the Am-Vets people came to take clothing donations -- so I went through my clothes to donate what I could, and what I don't wear, and anything that maybe just got so old I can't pull it off anymore. Well, to procrastinate getting anything done today - one of my last days of Break and before New Years, I thought it would be interesting to do a quick inventory of ALL OF my clothes, lol.

Shirts and Stuff

49 T-shirts
42 Free/CKI T-shirts
37 Button-up shirts (Casual)
10 Polos (Standard-collared)
7 Hoodies
5 Thermals
2 Sweaters
2 Polos (Henley-collared)

Dress Clothes
18 Ties
12 Dress Button-up shirts
7 Belts
6 Dress pants
2 Suit Jackets
2 Dress Shoes

Footwear

(These are not actually mine)

9 Flipflops
4 Shoes
1 "Slipper/shoes"
1 pair of Boots

Below the Belt
24 pairs of Boxers
8 Basketball/Mesh shorts
4 normal shorts
3 Swim Trunks
6 pants (Jeans)
3 pair pants (Non-Jean)

Weather-Specific Garments
1 Winter Coat
1 Jacket
1 hat
1 scarf
1 pair of gloves

...and assorted socks, undershirts, and white tees. And whatever else may be in the Washing Machine. (That comes out to a total of about 269 articles of clothing btw.)

Quote of the Day: So last night I FINALLY got around to watching Fight Club, which I've been meaning to do all of break. And WOW! That was a really good movie, lol. I like it. At one point, after getting into a fight (without spoiling much haha) a character is brushing his teeth or something when he pulls a tooth out. His friend walking by comments:

"Hey, Even the Mona Lisa's fallin apart..."

Song of the Day: "Young, Wild & Free" by Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa, ft. Bruno Mars. This was on the other night when I had to go rescue Panda from the freeway, and I really liked the radio (clean) version. It actually took me a long time to figure out what this song was, cause I couldn't remember anything about it being about "being young and partying" which as we all know is what all pop music is about x_x

But lol, on closer inspection, I have several comments: 1. Snoop Dogg do not reminisce about growing peach fuzz. You are like, a grand father. (He's actually only 40, but he looks older.) 2. Smoking weed is not cool. I would like to think that I am still living young, reserved and free -- but drugs are drugs. But regardless, part of what I like about this song is it makes me feel like I should relax a bit about judging my contemporary peers for their ill-actions. "That's how it's supposed to be..." It also makes me think how with 23 just around the corner, it's high time I enter the final phase of maturing. Parties gotta be a lot more conservative, going out, life, etc.

Video of the Day: Bahahaha, this is so much better than the Gingerbread House I made for craft day.

Season Preview: Return to New York

2011-12-19T11:22:00.001-05:00

Alright, my 30 Rock obsession week is almost over, but I have been thinking of a way to return to New York city for months. Amanda has even pointed out it's been too long since this show has gone on a road trip, and last time I went to New York I definitly didn't get to hit everything I wanted. So this time, I think I'll plan ahead a little bit better. And now that the Roosevelts are not a major target of my trip, I can try harder to find a hotel in Manhattan.

30 Rock & NBC Universal Store: Ha, I had the opportunity to see this place up close last time but time was short and interest was less than it is now -- definitely taking the opportunity to go back there and find some 30 Rock paraphernalia!! Maybe an NBC page will give me a tour like Kenneth does! :D
F.A.O. Schwarz: So I'm watching this travel channel thing about Christmas in New York, and they went to the oldest toy store in America! I first heard of this place during an SNL skit actually, and it turns out it's pretty awesome. They have a concierge!? A bunch of "toy demonstrator" who play with the toys to show you how cool they are (a trained Rubik's cube completer, and a guy flinging around a lightsaber.)
Filming of a New York TV Show: The Daily Show? Saturday Night Live?! Who Want's to be a Millionaire?! The People's Court!? Man, it would be outstanding to catch a live taping of a TV show!!! I could totally be a behaved audience person, lol.
Broadway Show: Mary Poppins, and anything Angela Lansbury is in are by far my top two interests.
Grand Central Station
Museum of Modern Art (MOMA):
A Cool New York Restaurant: When I got to NYC last time, I did not plan food out at all - and the first meal was "whatever pizza place I could find." Which was itself a different experience. But I'd like to go to some renowned, famous restaurant!
And finally, most generically: New York Shopping! New York has like, the largest concentration of people in the country -- surely there is some interesting guy's fashion options available.

Lets see, I've seen the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center site, Times Square, Central Park, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt's houses. I think that's most of the glitzy NYC landmarks.

Video of the Day: Hahahaha, 30 Rock week is almost at an end - but I've still got time to post some quotes and videos.

Quote of the Day: "...buy better clothes." (From video above) Haha, that reminds me of how I talk to Patsy. That is from Season 3, Episode 15: "The Bubble."

Observations on Curiosities in Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory

2011-12-18T02:53:00.001-05:00

So I'm watching Willy Wonka on ABC Family, and I have a number of questions or comments that I feel the need to share with someone, and I've already blown up twitter enough.

Let me just say that back in like, 1996 my Dad VHS recorded Willy Wonka on TV and he, David, and I watched it like a million times. He strongly, perhaps strangely, emphasized that I take away Wonka's message of "anything you want to do it, want to change the world, there's nothing to it..." But that's a story for another time.

My first observation: it is not Christmas at any point in this movie, why is it a 25 Days of Christmas movie???? I thought maybe he gets the candy bar for Christmas, but no, it's his Birthday.
Everything I learned about how candy is made comes from the opening credits of this movie.
Where does this movie take place??? I know the director intentionally wanted it to seem like it "could be anywhere" - Europe or America, but it kinda bothers me. It was filmed in Germany.
Grandpa comments on the brilliant marketing strategy Wonka uses: "He'll sell a million candy bars that way..." or something to that effect. Veruca Salt's father mentions that his factory workers had already opened 700,000+ candy bars, and were working at 19,000 bars an hour! Wonka sold almost a million candy bars to this guy alone!
"Charlie, there are 100 billion people in this world..." - Charlie's mom. Um, it's 1970: try 3.7 billion.
Woah: I totally forget the mom has a singing part, haha. Talk about your minor characters... Why does she focus so generically on "cheer[ing] up Charlie", he's not even there to be sung to!
"I bet those chocolate tickets make the chocolate taste terrible..." "Let him sleep, let him have one last dream..." Oh My God, this kid's life is so depressing!
The Queen bids 5,000 pounds for the last box of Wonka bars in the UK. That's approximately $7,000 in then-dollars, and between $89,000 and $164,000 in 2011 money.
Wow, the teacher guy in this movie sucks. As does the teacher from "Frosty Returns" which I was watching earlier. Why are teachers portrayed so meanly in movies? Is it cause kids associate us with School and winter has winter break? Cause let me tell you, we look forward to it just as much or more!
When they find out the last ticket was fake - there's a HUGE crowd around the newsstand, but the candy store a full 10 feet away is all but empty? Just think -- if one of these people chilling at the news stand ran straight to that candy store, they could have beat Charlie to that ticket!
Slugworth's classes are octagon shapes. The money he flashes to Charlie is blue, and he offers him "10,000 of these..."
It's definitely not Christmas time. The ticket says come on the "1st day of October", "but that's tomorrow!" -- presumably Charlie's birthday is sometime in September. Oh, and talk about cutting it close!
Grandpa Joe wobbles around (and almost smothers Charlie) like he literally hasn't gotten out of bed in 20 years, as they (presumably) exaggerate is the case. But if it were, he'd have all kinds of bedsores, and how does he buy tobacco? How did he buy Charlie that candy bar? How does he use the bathroom. (Though I do think there is a bedpan beneath the bed, ew.)
During the parade-thing outside Wonka's, the newscaster that does the most speaking to the Camera aims the microphone at the camera for some reason.
Despite how poor they are, the hat and coat Grandpa Joe wears during the dance sequence is not what he wears to the factory.
All the kids wave American, German, and UK flags. So it's unlikely Charlie's from anywhere else. My theory is that the movie takes place in Berlin, that explains why there is an inconsistent representation of British, American and German influences.
Why do the Oompa Loompa's listen when Mike T.V. says "Lights, Camera, Action." Btw: for years, the way Mike T.V.'s mom says "unharmed" has craaaacks me up, lol.
I want to challenge the fact that reading a book is inherently better than watching TV. There are a lot of educational TV shows, and I would say I've learned volumes from TV shows and educational books are often less condensed. I've read A Time Machine, The Odyssey, a few dozen Star Trek books, -- I've also seen every episode of The West Wing, Charmed and Veronica Mars. I would say they both have added to my character and knowledge set in their own way. Not to mention historical documentaries, etc. Top Chef made me want to cook things. Eh, I'm just tangenting now.

Website of the Day: The Urban Gentleman, a random fashion blog I came across accidentally.It's so hard to find good websites about straight men's fashion.

Video of the Day: That Guy with the Glasses (AKA: The Nostalgia Critic) reviews Moulin Rouge! Haha, Panda told me to check this out for some reason. I am pretty disappointed Critic doesn't like the movie, but it's still entertaining me, and gives me a reason to go watch the Nostalgia Critic again, and I may get around to watching Moulin Rouge soon too, lol.

Why is Jack Frost a Douchebag?

2011-12-17T17:46:00.000-05:00

Flipping through channels on this fine snow-filled Saturday morning, I accidentally found "Frosty's Winter Wonderland" (1976) on ABC Family. I'm only catching what I think may be the ending, but wow is this bad. There's a priest snowman? Frosty got married!? When did that happen? (Clearly, in 1976.) But before I could judge too harshly, a Jack Frost character made his required douchbagginess apparent.

Jack Frost from "Frosty's Winter Wonderland" (1976)

Here I guess he was causing mischief and mayhem or something, until Mrs. Crystal theSnowman (?) was nice to him and he became the best man at their wedding?? Riight.

His hair kinda looks like a combination of what I wanted mine to look like -- with that of an anime character from Yu-Gi-Oh! or Digimon or something.

Then a few days ago I caught The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, with the very annoying Martin Short playing Jack Frost - a mythical figure trying to steal control of the Christmas magic or something. He is also a douchebag, that vaguely resembles an elf.

You have 1996's Jack Frost the murderer douchebag. A serial killer being transported to his execution somehow mixes with genetic-altering chemicals, and becomes a snowman! Cult-classically bad, wikipedia claims it is a staple of frat parties. Guess not being a member of a fraternity, it's not that surprising I did not know that. Admittedly though, I haven't seen this movie in years.

Then of course, there's the 1998's Jack-Frost the negligent-father douchebag who drives himself off a cliff or something, turns into a snow man with a magic harmonica, and spends time with his son for the first time in his life while growing snow-boobs. This is clearly not as malicious as the other Jack Frosts, but he's also not implied to be the mythical figure in anyway.

Well, I'm going to go write some Christmas cards and finish watching Home Alone 2. I don't think I've ever seen this one start to finish? It's reminding me that I want to return to New York City sometimes soon.

Website of the Day: I have a whole blog about this one coming up, but the TVTropes wiki is Hilarious! It's a collection of random references to practically every TV show, brought together by cataloging every running TV cliche in history -- and naming them scientifically, lol. Many of us have heard of "breaking the fourth wall" and "Jumping the Shark" -- but what about Last Name Basis or Cassandra Truth?

Does Everybody Know What Time it is?

2011-12-16T11:08:00.000-05:00

Tool Time!

Well, I have two half written blogs in the que, but I'll make this one quick. Mom called to wake me up at 6 something x_x to remind me to do something I did before I went to bed. But then I couldn't go back to sleep for some reason. So I started doing house work, and then decided to go on the computer (as I often do) and Home Improvement was on TV!

Haha, googling the floor plan of Tim's house, and then Wilson's and not finding anything - OH Wait, before I could post this I accidentally did find it, pictured above, lol.

Website of the Day (for...tomorrow?): Okay, I already picked a website of the day, but this is too cool not to list. I found it by searching for the floor plan I put up above -- "The Home Improvement Archive" has a family tree of all the characters (including the Borlands and Wilsons!) and has a floor plan of the house, a list of all the Salute to-'s, and an indepth character history!!! This site is so cool, I wish I could create a site like this about every show I love, lol.

Website of the Day: "The 15 Most Awesome Fictional Kids' Bedrooms" -- from some website called Mary Sue. Which, if I remember correctly, is the TV term for a character meant to represent the fanboys/girls in a show. (IE: A Fanfic where a random new character is the focus and saves the heros is called a Mary Sue story I think.)

Video of the Day: "Cowboys & Pokemon" -- a College Humor-esque parody of Cowboy & Aliens, by the people who made that "Pokemon Live Action video." Hahaha, this isn't as directly funny, but it still has plenty of good moments.

Video Game - E3 2012

Christmas Break plans

2011-12-09T12:04:00.003-05:00

Hello Internet, and good morning. Wow, I gotta say Christmas break kinda sprung up on me faster than I was expecting -- I don't quite have it down packed what I need to take care of yet. It's like there are these non-corporeal ideas floating around that eventually condensate into actual plans. All I do know is thank god Finals are over! Two huge papers (11 and 12 pages) both due yesterday. Well, more accurately, one due Tuesday one due Yesterday at 6. I ended up turning them both in Yesterday because neither professor knows how to work Springboard. :/ procrastination, it's a problem.

But for realz: immediate future, buy my new Queen size mattress for my new queen size bed frame which looks awesome. (Right now I'm sleeping on my old mattress next to it... I didn't imagine buying a mattress would take this long for some weird reason.) Today, get in contact with student teaching supervisor about maybe sitting in on their class next week. Then I have a bajillion Circle K things to take care of now that the Treasurer and Secretary are resigning.

But good things will happen to. I have the Mayor's retirement party, Mayor D.'s swearing in is just around the corner, there is of course Christmas and New Years -- both of which I have to get down to planning. And as I found out yesterday while procrastinating my papers, I really want to watch more 30 Rock this break - haha, under appreciated show!

Also a road trip to Steubenville to visit with some ASG friends is on the table.

Video of the Day: Haha, avoiding finals recently I was playing with my Harry Potter replica wand -- and googled what people had done CGI-ically with these. This video I found particularly impressive!!!

The Power of One

2011-12-05T00:49:00.000-05:00

Song of the Day: Okay, I can't handle this: Herman Cain, a Republican presidential candidate (and former Pizza place-business man) has had a history of political gaffes, while at the same time being the front runner briefly (which basically describes every candidate in the Republican field this year...)

But it turns out that Mr. Cain had quoted a "poet" in one of the Republican debates that I haven't paid any attention to, and that poet was in fact Donna Summer. And by "poetry", he really meant a song she wrote for the movie Pokemon 2000 (the only place that song has ever been played.) Mr. Cain later admitted he got the quote from Pokemon. (Another youtube video here.)

WTF. Anyway, not remembering the song, I went to listen to it -- it's actually fairly unbearable. After like 6 seconds I can't stand any more of it at all whatsoever, but by all means, give it a try:

Oh wait, did I mention that Herman Cain dropped out of the race recently?

Quote of the day: Haha, found this as a comment on the youtube video...

"Cain used Pokémon song... but it failed!
Candidacy fled!"

Picture of the Day: Haha, while googling around and looking for new clothes as I so love to do, I found this on a new mens fashion blog I came across:

AAAhahahhahahaa! I see that shirt I wanted 2 and a half years ago is still in style!!!

Pause. Japanese break.

2011-12-01T11:15:00.003-05:00

For some reason, something last Saturday sparked my Pokemon senses. Which was quickly followed by my reading almost the entire website of "PokeMemes" a wonderful place with jokes that often only hardcore pokefanatics will understand.

That was quickly followed by the fact that I had two big papers to write, which of course meant Distraction via Pokemon time! I through this together, and used it as a scale by which to define how much my friends really were my friends, lol. It was as easy as download emulator, screen cap, and find the Pokemon font. I'm tempted to make a bunch of them.

But anyway. Lol, I'm too busy to let pokemon take over my life right now, funny though the site may be - and I'm never opposed to finding a reason to keep pokemon alive in our hearts and minds! Like these Bento boxes, a japanese art form of doing something cute (big surprise, I know) with your kid's school lunch box!

Who's that Pokemon?

It's Oddish!

Who's that Pokemon?

It's Snorlax, with a side of Dugtrio.

and then you have some that are entertaining even though they aren't Pokemon....

This looks delicous until I realize that whipped cream is actually cauliflower.

Major AWWWWz!

As Patsy often says, I wish I were Asian, everything they do is just so cute! Well anyway, soon I will be starting my maddening weekend of busy. Even though finals are far from my mind, my social calendar is packed with Birthday parties, Dem events, and Kiwanis things. Little rest until Sunday! But how I love it.

November News

2011-11-28T01:10:00.002-05:00

[Didn't finish this in time, so this should have been posted on Black Friday actually, before the previous post...]

Thanksgiving Day went fairly well actually and as we enter Black Friday it's time to acknowledge that November's stay is waning. We have less than 40 days until the year 2012: wow, what a year. There's still plenty of time to do the "Top Lists of 2011" blogs, and the new years resolutions blogs, and all that fun stuff.

But back to Thanksgiving! Aunt Betty and David came over, and the food was fine. Every year I worry if the turkey is just starting to reach room temperature or if mom cooked it properly; next year I'm thinking I may try to take more responsibility for cooking of the dinner. Ya know, cause taking responsibility is one of my pastimes. But it was nice to catch up with Aunt Betty because her connection to the family was Grandpa and she doesn't really have that now.

In other news: The creator of Paranormal Activity Oren Peli is creating a TV series: The River. I think I'll DVR the first episode of that, I imagine it'll be something like Lost but not as good.

Famed explorer Dr. Emmet Cole went looking for magic deep in the uncharted Amazon and never returned. The shocking truth about his disappearance is out there, somewhere, just waiting to be discovered. To the millions of kids who grew up watching his nature show, Dr. Cole was a hero. To his own son, Lincoln, he was more of an enigma.... At the urging of his mother, Tess, Lincoln reluctantly joins her on a search for his father. To fund the rescue, they agree to let Dr. Cole's cagey ex-producer, Clark, film the mission documentary-style....

I don't think I've mentioned it, but as I write this I'm watching "A Very Gaga Thanksgiving." Why the heck does this exist, lol? Oh well, it's actually been pretty entertaining. Her rendition of White Christmas, with her added lyrics weren't half bad. She mentioned how such a classic song only has one verse, so she added:

"I'm dreaming of a white snowman
With a carrot nose, and charcoal eyes
Oh, and when he cries, I'm gonna tell'm it's okay
Because santa's on his sleigh, and he's on his way..."

While checking out the iTunes store (curious what the last song I paid for was) and considering buying something off Lady Gaga's holiday special (I did not) -- I saw that Punk Goes Pop 4 is out! Based on the iTunes reviews, everyone seems pretty displeased that all the bands are too poppy and it's not really punk/rock versions of the songs. Some songs covered include "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)", "Rolling in the Deep", "We R Who We R", and "Super Bass."

Song of the Day: "Little Lion Man" covered by Tonight Alive. ...after listening to some of the songs on this CD, wow. 1. I agree that most of this is still pretty poppy. 2. Most of this is just generally bad. But this song is more tolerable, I think I would have to hear it a few more times to determine if I find it legit good or not though.

Quote of the Day: "You're not gay, you're just really really vain." - Dee, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

[Woah! I had no idea that was the first episode! Haha...wait, I thought I'd already seen the first episode? Wow, there's only like a dozen episodes per season.]

Is this Real Life?

2011-11-27T02:49:00.000-05:00

I cannot even describe the day I just had: except it is exactly the kind of day I love having! Started hanging out with Patsy most of the day, and ended meeting up with people from my internship for a night out in Stow and playing some Wii until 2 in the morning! Fantastic times, like no other.

Started my day getting lunch with Patsy at Max & Irma's, which I'd never been to. And wouldn't cha know: Sam was our host, but not waitress; she's our friend that works there that always talk about waitressing there. The food was delicious, and I certainly plan to return sometime soon! I got this delicious steak, in fact mmmmm, I am in the mood for steak.

This is not what it looked like at all, but now I'm hungry.

Patsy and I shopped, my second favorite thing, for a while at Summit Mall before going to the Tree Festival at the Knight Convention Center downtown: that was awesome! Bought more clothes than I needed too, of course. And the Tree Festival thing was so cool, we are eager to enter our own Christmas tree's next year. Some suggestions we're working on for themes include: "Don We Now Our Gay Apparel", "A Lady Gaga Christmas",...and I don't even remember the other ones, haha.

After that, it was already dark, but I got a wonderful phone call from campaign folks asking to join their night out and I absolutely took them up on that offer! I loved this internship so much, in a hectic time in my life, it was seriously one of the most happy-making parts of my life these past couples months.

Word of the Day: (I don't know if this is a thing I do already or not? But go with it.) "Granola." Apparently, a subculture that may have evolved in part into the modern day Hipsters.

"An adjective used to describe people who are environmentally aware (flower child, tree-hugger), open-minded, left-winged, socially aware and active, queer or queer-positive, anti-oppressive/discriminatory (racial, sexual, gender, class, age, etc.) with an organic and natural emphasis on living, who will usually refrain from consuming or using anything containing animals and animal by-products (for health and/or environmental reasons), as well as limit consumption of what he or she does consume, as granola people are usually concerned about wasting resources. Usually buy only fair-trade goods and refrain from buying from large corporations, as most exploit the environment as well as their workers, which goes against granola core values."

Steak and a tree hugger in the same blog? Ironic.

Website of the Day: PokéMemes.com (Okay, that's not their actual address -- but the information there will be entertaining none the less!) Tons and Tons of memes about Pokémon! lol

Upcoming Movie of the Day: Well, I just saw the Muppet Movie the other day and let me tell you nothin in the opening credits seemed all that appealing. (I don't plan to see Chipmunks 2: Chipwrecked in theaters, in fact I haven't even rented the first one yet.) But today, via Youtube's ads they make you watch before you can watch some movies -- they advertised "The Devil Inside" -- Your run of the mill exorcism movie.

I'm sorry, but all exorcism movies look exactly the same, and then I think "Maybe this one will be different" then it's not -- THEY'RE ALL EXACTLY THE SAME! Except for the Exorcism of Emily Rose -- which wasn't so much the same as all the other exorcism movies, as it just wasn't an exorcism movie and was an episode of Law & Order. Anyway, this may be upcoming movie of the day, but they're going to have to do a bit more convincing to make me see it at full price at the theater.

Song of the Day: "The Story of Us" by Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift is not all that awful, most of her country-y songs are really just poppy. But this song is interesting, I don't remember what I was watching but Youtube recommended I might like this so I tried it - and it's about Taylor at a prep school with this guy she's no longer with. Apparently their relationship went sour (no, I did not seek this out based on any situations that may resemble my life) well: I'll let you watch the video and make your own entertainment assessments, but I think it's pretty good. The Story of Us looks a lot like a tragedy now...

So Many White Women, So Little Time.

2011-11-23T17:03:00.000-05:00

So my day has been jumping whiplash-style from awful to awesome. My morning went well, I got up early to get a haircut, workout with Aubree from ASG (who, as a former ROTC member, had an intense workout routine!) Also went to American Eagle to get a new hoodie I wanted, but they took over half an hour in the back looking for it. I'm glad they were able to find it, and they were generally pretty nice about it, except I was kinda left just wandering around. But in the end I paid 10$ less than I was hoping, and 20$ less than I was expecting!

Anyway, did a bunch of ASG stuff, Circle K meeting which I was just annoyed with everyone at because I had to defend their behavior to Wooster which I really wasn't expecting to have to do, but then got Starbucks with Patsy and all was better because of an awesome phone call I had making political connections!

The rest of my night was spent relaxing, catching up on the DVDs I've been meaning to watch, and finally going back and watching The West Wing! Oh, how I miss this show. That's what I imagine politics to be, and what I want to do: fast walk and talks, clever banter, and comically historic references that 5% of people understand. Speaking of references, when I put the DVD in -- the file briefly flashed "So many white women, so little time..." and I thought "Um, is that the first chapter of the first episode? That seems a bit odd."

Only to google and find that it has nothing to do at all with The West Wing, and is in fact the title of a porn video -- and others on the internet have discovered this odd "easter egg" so to speak in the WW DVDs.

Video of the Day: Apparently LMFAO and the Kia Soul had some kind of shuffle-off competition, and a person won and to declare the winner they made this video with a light show on a house. Here is a different video from a person watching them film it. Pretty cool!

New Story of the Day: "Girl Blames DUI on Twilight."

Ugh, "Police in Illinois arrested an "extremely upset" 18-year-old girl on Saturday after she told authorities that she crashed her car because her boyfriend did not take her to see the new Twilight movie."

Who is Peabo Bryson?

2011-11-16T01:21:00.000-05:00

Well not much content today, mainly "of the day" kind of things: woke up early; had lunch with a political consultant for Jimmy Carter and the Campaign Manager for Jesse Jackson; ASG'ed for a few hours; class; attended an Honors Educators meeting, and LGBTU meeting (ASG has been trying to show a stronger solidarity with them since a recent unfortunate suicide), and finally of course the CKI meeting and dinner afterwards. It was nice to catch up with the CKI folk -- missed last week because of the campaign!

Quote of the Day: The other day in the office the center of conversation surprisingly shifted over to me. Apparently I've been nicer lately or something?

"You've been in a different mood these last few weeks. You're more expressive and happy, did you have like a life changing experience or something?" - Jackie S.

Based on the time period, I suggested my break up as the cause -- but I would have guessed I'd be described as sadder or quieter since then, but apparently not.

Picture of the Day: While checking out today's Gizmodo, I saw this ad for the new Yaris. xD And I just want to say that numerous times I feel I have encountered this sentiment...

Song of the Day: "Where Them Girls At" by David Guetta, ft. Nicki Minaj. This is kind of an older song, but as I find myself in a Nicki Minaj-mood I'm going back and trying to find all the songs that she is featured in but not the lead singer. Most of her earlier work is being featured on other people's songs I've found.

Video breakdown: We start in the city streets when these music-y Ghost Writer bubbles are roaming around, causing people to start dancing like they're possessed by the demon from Paranormal Activity. Turns out it's DJ David Guetta blasting music into the bubbles, while Nicki plays with her robot men and Flo Rida creeps on some pool girls. After that it's just a lot of dancing that's really not all that entertaining, I much prefer some of Nicki Minaj's lyrics:

"Peabe, Peabe, who's Peabo Bryson?
Two years ago I renewed my license.
Anyway; Why'd I start my verse like that?..."

"Coming through the club, all the girls in the back of me;
This ain't football, why the f*ck they tryna tackle me!?"

Well I don't know why he's relevant, but for those curious: Peabo Bryson is a R&B singer-songwriter who sang the album version of Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin's "A Whole New World", and also the non-Disney song "Missing You" (2007).

Video of the Day: Found this on Gizmodo too, of all places. Hillary Clinton at a photo op in Hawaii, a half naked guy with a torch runs across the background (being "photobombed.") She finds it hilarious.

Interests: Old People that Solve Mysteries!

2011-11-14T20:44:00.000-05:00

Four and a quarter years ago, in August 2007 - a younger, bright-eyed Andrew moved to his first University dorm room as a freshman with the help of a friend, and one of the first things he discovered was that cable had more marathons than he had ever dreamed. The Hallmark Channel, in particular. I remember thinking it was the coolest thing that Murder, She Wrote was on all the time! In fact, the next day when I ate at Rob's cafeteria for hte first time (I think?) I remember the hilarious commercial featuring Angela Landsbury -- "On next is an episode of Diagnosis Murder, and then Nine More Hours of Murder, She Wrote!"

Almost 5 years later, and I am still spending the night watching Murder, She Wrote episodes! I mean, honestly, think of how many murders she's solved in the last 4 and a quarter years! (I'm sure they've aired like every episode something like 6 or 7+ times.) I've seen one particular episode at least 3 times since we moved into the condo.

I've said before, I'll say it again: I love old people that solve mysteries. I can only hope to be so clever, and spry in my old age as Doctor Mark Sloan, Father Dowling, Jessica Fletcher and the others which I don't actually watch like Matlock.

BAhahahaa, I just had a hilarious thought: What if all the old people who solve mysteries, now pretty old themselves actually, all lived in the same retirement home for some kind of cross over special? Then I imagined that if they all lived in that retirement home, they'd probably deal with people dying pretty often - and they'd all be running around senile investigating every retirement home death like it was a murder!

Website of the Day: Wow. This is a lot of random to take in at once, but the person who wrote the theme song for Friends ("I'll be there for you..."), well here's her blog, talking about an actual Murder, She Wrote board game from the mid-80s. My favorite line is "Although this illustration kind of looks like a (Paint-By-Number) Angela Lansbury it also looks like 3 trillion other women who didn’t start using skin cream early enough and have always kept their hair in a convenient and generic bob."

Quote of the Day: At the end of a 2000 Murder, She Wrote TV-movie (that aired earlier tonight), "Jessica Fletcher" had a very inspiring, almost Star Trek-ian/utopian view answering a reporter's question about why she continues to try to catch murderers after all she's seen since she started writing. She gave a clearly-meant-to-be-an-inspiring-monologue response, but that only takes away some of it's niceness:

"...but because I'm a romantic, I still believe that we have the potential to be nobler than we know and better than we think. That the darkness I've seen is only a shadow on the potential of the human heart... So I urge you to keep your hearts' compass on the true North of your dreams. Be free to be romantics, to reject cynicism, to believe that good will prevail, and that those who do wrong will be punished. Because when the hour of the wolf comes, as it comes to all of us sooner or later, those are the things that sustain us."

I wanna see your Teapot, pot, pot, Your Teapot, pot...

2011-11-12T12:22:00.000-05:00

Song of the Day: "The One That Got Away" by Katy Perry. This is a sweet, if not horribly ground breaking music video for a good Katy Perry-y song. Katy Perry-y songs just have a certain kind of poppy/whiny to them, which I like. Anyway, so after some mild 'get excited' ads and trailers, The One That Got Away came out as a video on 11/11/11 (on which I made a total of 4 wishes.) Described by some as a "more forgettable Teenage Dream."

"I wrote (it) about when you promise someone forever, but you end up not being able to follow through. It's a bittersweet story. Hopefully, the listener learns from hearing it and never has to say they had 'The One' get away"

But as I've mentioned before, I love futuristic-looking things. Minority Report, I, Robot, even that vampire movie. Well one part of Future/Old Katy Perry's sleek and modern home caught my attention especially in this music video: her futuristic tea pot!

And I kind of picked this song of the day just to see if I could find it, because I imagine other people will google Katy Perry's futuristic Tea Pot The One That Got Away (as I did) and find nothing. Well look no further!

From a company called Sorapot by Joey Roth, these babies'll cost you a whopping 200-250$! I think Mike had something similar to this, that you put flowers in as the tea base, but not this classy. Even if you are interested in buying one right now, they appear to be sold out, and planning on further designs based on consumer feedback. I gotta say, from watching the video (embedded below) I'm not really a big fan of the needless difficulty. You need ANOTHER tea pot just to pour into this teapot!? Still, can't deny it looks sleek and cool. (Here's another site with it, not sure if it's a vendor of the same product or a copy.)

Rose Petals in Sorapot from Joey Roth on Vimeo.

A Poli Sci Nerd's Christmas

2011-11-10T10:21:00.001-05:00

As my one friend put it, poli sci nerds look forward to election day more than Christmas! Only it's like a Christmas where, between you and another person, only one of you gets gifts (and the other gets nothing.) Well this Christmas -- I got most of my gifts: the candidate my internship has been with WON the Mayoral election!!! :D

Let me tell you a little about how election day went down in my life. Woke up bright and early, like 6:15am (on a day I had class at 3.) Went to the polls looking dapper as I often do (you don't want to look like a crazy person at the polls, subconsciously I don't associate crazy people with supporting not-crazy candidates.) And just wished people entering the polling location "Good morning!" from more than 100 feet away, often accompanied by Council candidate Annie. We had a blast talking about all kinds of things, mainly local-politics related.

While she went to other polling locations, I stuck at this one: an elementary school, where I was soon making small talk with Annie's opposition and a school board candidate's husband (both of which I do not support.) Well, they had their interesting things to say, and felt like lecturing me because of my age for a lot of the time, but my Kiwanis-training helps me respectfully listen to opinions from old people I don't agree with. The husband grabs his lawn chair, and proceeds to tell me things I know are lies about the schools, unions, city workers, the city itself, President Clinton, etc.

Annie comes back, and my favorite part of the day arrives: a crazy old lady who is in love with the candidate's husband, and Annie's opponent. So I just respectfully keep my distance, safe to say I won't be winning her vote. Then she asks me: Quote of the Day: "Are you the live-in?!"

To which I politely responded, "I beg your pardon?" holding my candidate's sign up. "Her live-in boyfriend. I know she got one, I don't approve of that." To which Annie and I assure her, my candidate does not have a live in boyfriend (Certainly not myself, being ~20 years younger than the candidate.) That conversation kind of goes no where for a minute or two, as we are unable to convince her because "she knows!" and "she heard from someone." Oh well, another person we were never going to get the vote of anyway.

Still, for the rest of the day whenever it would get quite Annie and I would just laugh at that situation. Oh, but immediately after: the husband and the other candidate come up to me, and say that they had heard the same thing, "I was asked about it, and I don't know the answer, but I told'm 'Yeah, it's true' because I had heard it from 2 other people." WtF??? Dumb. People.

Anyway, had lunch with outgoing Mayor and some of the campaign people at a Chinese place which was fun. Lost track of time to the point where I would have been late for class because of parking, so decided to poll work for the rest of the day anyway. Then as the sunset, we decided to call it a night - and I went home to get ready for what was sure to be an exciting election night watch party!!!

Some attendees of the Watch Party.

This pic is actually from StowPatch!
Haha, I've made it into the background of a few of their pics.

My first job: get my laptop to show up on the TV set there. We reserved a room that fit about 28+ people (which turned out to be the perfect venue.) But my laptop was going to be the one we refreshed to get the election results! So I got to sit under the TV the whole night, guarding the Candidate's phone, and hitting refresh more often than not. A Bunch of people came in, the who's who of the campaign really, all people I have come to really respect and would like to call friends. The outgoing Mayor as always was a hoot, and a Councilman running for reelection was sure to constantly be over my shoulder reminding me to refresh (as if I could forget.) But it really was a blast!

Not all of our candidates won that night unfortunately, including Annie. But Sara did win Mayor! The school levy passed! And the Developmental Disability Department's renewal passed as well! And of course, Issue 2 failed miserably which is good!!! :D The bad parts are the council losses, and Issue 3. But election day is just the beginning: there is still a lot to work out, figure out, and be thankful for (how appropriate that Thanksgiving is right around the corner.) More great things to come I feel, as I enter the last chapter of my college life!

Song of the Day: "Fly" by Nicki Minaj ft. Rihanna. I have come, these past few weeks, to really like Nicki Minaj - who I once really hated. It really boiled down to slowing down and listening to the lyrics in her songs, and she's really not as annoying as she once was. Though she still is, in a funny way. Well anyway, this song is all about prospering in a time of defeat, seems Nicki's boyfriend or someone "abandoned" her -- and despite this or because of this her and Rihanna "win...fight...conquer...thrive...fight...prosper...rise," etc. Though my favorite line would be:

"Cry my eyes out for days upon days,
such a heavy burden placed upon me,
but when you go hard your nay's become yay's,
Yankee Stadium with Jay's and Kanye's...."

Dang, if I like any more Nicki songs I'm worried I may buy Pink Friday.

Picture of the Day: So College Dems have been kinda lagging this past semester, but I'm really glad we were able to paint the rock the night before election day!!! My fifth year, and this is the first time I've ever gotten to paint the rock actually - a tradition for student orgs at many colleges. (President Andrea, and Vice President me pictured. Our Treasurer's name is Al, our Secretary's name is Antoinette, and our most dedicated member is Angela: SO MANY A's!!!)

Halloween & IKEA

2011-10-29T10:40:00.000-04:00

Busy weekend ahead -- slept through the service project this morning, but I'm not sure I actually signed up for it, plus that playground has been cleaned at least twice in the last month and I don't use the McDonalds coupons they give us anyway.

Today I have to major food shop with mom, get lunch, go campaigning and to a Halloween party with the campaign, make my costume (Still not sure what I'm being at this point!) and somehow make it to Trick or Treat for UNICEF. Then after that it's off to a Halloween shindig with Jen and Patsy.

Then tomorrow afternoon: I have a Roman Republic report to write, and a Internship book report to write due Monday. Ugh, think I'm going to reserve myself for 'stay at home' work -- unless some campaign stuff comes up perhaps.

Song of the Day: "We Found Love" by Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris. Off the album Talk That Talk I believe. Hehe, okay, so first of all you need to know that the chorus of this song is "We fell in love in a hopeless place." But they repeat it so much in the song, that if you listen to it too intently, you start to hear other things. Such as yesterday, when I was stuck in rush hour traffic (the second time that day...) because of an accident on Route 8 (the second time that day!) this came on and I had to chuckle thinking of the lyrics as "We fell in love in a home display..." Which kind of reminds me of [500] Days of Summer when they frolic around an IKEA, or that Fireflies parody where he frolics around an IKEA, or ya know, just generally frolicing around an IKEA. If I were to write a parody of this song, it would definitly be about IKEA.

Hm, the nearest IKEA is in Pittsburgh... I wonder if we could get one in Garfield, Stow, or Akron/Cleveland? Economic Development!

Abandoned Sigma Nu House

2011-10-28T00:20:00.003-04:00

Baaah, crazy week. This has been a very ASG heavy week, weak on CKI and other things unfortunately. I think Monday alone I completed like, 8+ office hours -- while I am only paid for 4 a week. Got home from the Safety Walk tonight around 10:10 PM. On the bright side, the safety walk went were few others have gone before -- the Abandoned ΣΝ House on campus! It was nice to breathe in that moldy air, with bad lighting, I was completely in my element!

Above is the last rubber tree in Akron - the primary reason (apparently) the University hasn't torn the building down yet. Haha, there's something strange about being able to explore an abandoned building on official business! :D

Sigma Nu's logo on a wall inside. I found the minutes actually, where the Board of Trustee's bought the house for over $400,000.

Shady bathroom.

This is pretty awesome actually, the fireplaces in here were classy! I personally would like to see them convert the building into a residence hall or office space.

On the right is the front door to the building, boarded up; we had to get in another way.

Not even sure what this room was. But I think one thing is sure: I need go buy myself a new camera as soon as possible :( my phone does not cut it in the dark.

Website of the Day: Memegenerator.net -- Apparently this is where all of the internet's memes come from, lol. My personal favorite concept is the "Philosoraptor"...

Alright, as you can see, this blog is pretty content light. Hopefully I'll have more to talk about tomorrow!

Sleepin-up Service

2011-10-26T00:01:00.000-04:00

Bright and early Saturday morning in Akron was Make a Difference Day. Circle K, I don't even know how many years we've been doing this -- something like 3 to 5. Got to be a Transportation assistant again and once again had a lot of fun! Especially since my bus only had to transport 2 groups of 4, and both projects were relatively near the University. So this was actually a really easy project - and I may try to get a group of CKI alumni next year together to volunteer as a public group.

Lets see, what happened Saturday? Went over Patsy's and watched the first episode of the old animated X-Men! Talk about an awesome day! The theme song was stuck in my head for the rest of the weekend. We had a lot of fun mocking the various scripts, concepts and imagery of it.

Then I'm pretty sure we came back to the condo so I could change or something, and Panda joined us, and we went to a corn maze in Peninsula with Erin & Joe. I didn't know there was a corn maze there! It was really cool, and they had really good apple cider, and gigantic pumpkins the likes of which I'd never seen - but Erin being from farmland just called me "cityfolk." After that we went to Peninsula looking for a good time (cause on the way there, we passed what seemed to be a very active celebration - we figured a festival or something!) Turns out it was just a wedding, haha.

So we went to Fairlawn Winking Lizard for dinner, more good times were had, then went down to the Valley for more good times! New favorite drink: Rocket Pop! It's red at the bottom, clear/white in the middle, and blue on top! And so tasty too! Had a bit too many of those, some blue drinks, beers, and the lot of us went to bed at Erin's at like 3+ am?

Ugh, 2 hours later, we woke up to come to my place, where Jen and Panda waited while I showered and got ready for another day of CKI. This time, cleaning up a hotel at Cedar Point to fund-raise.

Quote of the Day: While exploring the Corn Maze, there were many Halloween decorations all over the place, including several of the same "haunted" looking scary black cats. While taking the picture above, one moved --
"AHHHH! That cat was real..." - Joe, Panda and everyone just kind jump scared out of their wits as an actual black cat runs off. WTF?! lolz....

Shoppin' pre-Exhaustion

2011-10-25T23:08:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm worried if I don't type this out now I'll end up forgetting and this past weekend will go unrecorded. So lets see, starting Friday I think -- Panda texted me "I need to go shopping, like now." So drove up to Garfield to hang with her after my morning of meetings and schoolwork.

Panda's headbands, becoming her new trademark (replacing the Panda theme)
Reminds me of me and my rainbow button-up shirts!

Yay for Shopping with Panda. That is like, one of my favorite things to do - thank you consumerism! Every time I go clothes shopping with Panda I think of Patsy's voice saying "Whenever I see Panda, she always looks so cuuute!" and it's not even with a particularly funny inflection but I just think its funnier than it really is - haha. But yeah, that took a couple of hours, I didn't really find that much that appealed to me unfortunately. Except: I finally found a new pair of dress shoes!!! My old ones were like, a size (or 2) too big, so my feet always felt (and looked) weird in them. But these are perfect! Usually, while I've been on the look out for new dress shoes, they are either too tight and uncomfortable, or far too expensive (most over a hundred dollars.) These were the perfect price, the perfect fit, and design, Love'm. Other than that, not much bought unfortunately.

"Bowties are cool."

But Panda wanted to come out to Akron for Dinner with Patsy for some reason, lol, so we went out to Johnny Malloy's and got drinks and had a good time! Went only a little later than expected, I still slept in until 6:30 the next morning when I wanted to wake up at 5am -- to be at Make a Difference Day by 6:30am. I managed to speed-shower and dress and get there pretty quickly though, and I was still fairly early I'd say. So started my EXHAUSTING weekend...

Quote of Friday: At the store I bought the shoes, I found a pair of gloves that you can operate a touch-screen phone through. I pointed it out to Panda while a sales associate was nearby...

"Hm, gloves you can use your touch screen with." -- Me.

"That's stupid. If I had to use my phone I'd just take my clothes off, er, glov--"
(We both start laughing)

Picture of the Day: Bahahaha, stole this from my cousin on Facebook.

Halloween Costume Time 2011

2011-10-18T23:01:00.000-04:00

Hm, I'm behind on coming up with a Halloween costume. I'm kind of leaning towards The Doctor from Doctor Who, but that's really just cause I want a reason to buy his tie.

If I was going to the 504 girls' party (which switched from Simpsons to Disney theme at some point), I think I would have tried a Army Guy from Toy Story. But as you can imagine, I don't plan on going to that. But still, I have Circle K Trick or Treat for UNICEF, maybe Boo at the Roo, and whatever me & the others do instead of said party.

While googling though, I have found a few other costumes I'm not considering -- but look awesome none the less.

Optimus Prime...out of Beer Boxes!

Alright, not gonna lie, this (and other coins) have not been ruled out...

OMG, I like this one! Only not these two characters. But a lego-version of something could be really awesome... I think I'll be investigating this tonight. Well, off to a Chamber of Commerce luncheon! Haha, love my life.

5 Things I learned at Lion King 3D

2011-10-18T10:15:00.000-04:00

(retroactive back-blogging)

Even though ~~it's been~~ [it was] my day to relax, I've been pretty stressed for a number of different reasons. Mom is a few of the reasons. And she insisted on asking me a dozen times to go see Lion King in 3D with her, and figuring this would be my last chance to see it in theaters -- I finally gave in. Annoying-ness aside, I haven't watched Lion King (paying attention) in like 15+ years - and I didn't really remember most of it, enough of it to appreciate seeing it again.

After the previews for bad upcoming movies, there were several things I learned:

1. Scar is Jafar. It's like the exact same character. I had to google to confirm they're not the same voice actor (their not - Scar is Jeremy Irons, Jafar is Jonathan Freeman.) The whole story is really just Aladdin had Jasmine been a boy.

2. James Earl Jones has the most epic voice in history. Seriously, he is like the best narrator in history. In fact, I think he is the voice of God in my head. He should narrate the bible. I asked around the ASG office, and most people said that Morgan Freeman was the voice of God in their head, interesting fact, lol. I love that the voice of God in most people is a black man.

3. Deforestation in Africa may not just be a result of human interference, but could be an effect of bad leadership on the part of the Lion-Government.

4. Monkey's can control the weather. Speaking of monkeys, is DisneyNature a real thing? Because they're making a movie called "Chimpanzees" which is the "real life story" of a chimpanzee left to be raised by some other chimpanzee and it looks ridiculous.

5. Hakuna Matata is not as awesome as people think it is. They make it sound like "no worries" is a great, easy way to live - and I think many members of our generation have lived their life by this. *Coughdavidcough* But as Nala points out, you can't just run away from your responsibilities. Go Nala! That's my life right there, wish I had more time for fun, but a bunch of responsibilities abound...

My Two Favorite Celebs!

2011-10-17T22:09:00.000-04:00

Remarkable Fact of the Day: Hillary Clinton attended a Lady Gaga concert yesterday!!! Granted, this was a concert in honor of Bill's birthday. Still!

Video of the Day: Amanda showed me this today, apparently when Sailor Moon first came to America they wanted to make it a part-Live Action/part-Animated show, with a number of differences from the original version. (African-American sailor, and moon-windsurfers for everyone! Even Sailor Jupiter, in a wheelchair!) It is comically 90's-looking, with it's large Blossom-hats, bad dancing and hair, and denim overalls. Needless to say, thankfully they just dubbed over the original animation...

Gamera Shopping

2011-10-16T23:44:00.000-04:00

Phew, after a busy weekend of Circle K's Fall Rally - had a fun day in Garfield shopping at Pat Katan's, Parma Town Mall and Best Buy. Started with a 10$ Best Buy gift certificate, and ended up buying a Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVD (The Gamera Collection of 5 movies), a double-Scooby Doo 1 & 2 Blu-ray and a tape measure. (Thinking of buying a PS3 since my laptop's bluray player is kinda annoying.)

So long story short, I spent a bit more than I'd hoped -- hehe. Got home around 10, now I'm watching a Gamera movie before bed and class in the morning at 8:50a.

Oh boy, Gamera is an old Japanese movie series... similar to Godzilla. Except he's a turtle... who's arms and legs can turn into jet rockets. And he seems to have a friendship with this kid, Kenny. In regards to MST3K history though, these 5 movies in the series represent a period when it went from a cheesy local TV show to a new level of better writing in the 1993 season. So I def look forward to watching them this week if I can find enough of time, haha. I'm thinking one a day or so.

This collectors set also stands out because it has 5 DVDs when all the other MST3K movie sets have four. It also comes with these little collectable MST3K posters that I have now a bunch of, and need to find a way to use or display.

Remarkable Info: Most Pirated films of all time

Avatar (21 million downloads)
The Dark Knight (19 million downloads)
Transformers (19 million downloads)
Inception (18 million downloads)
The Hangover (17 million downloads)
Star Trek (16 million downloads) [WooHoo!]
Kick-Ass (15 million downloads)
The Departed (14 million downloads)
The Incredible Hulk (14 million downloads)
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (14 million downloads)

Quote of the Day:
"Kenny, I know how much you love your turtle. But there are other things in life just as important, like having friends! You don't want to live alone do you? ....if you get rid of the turtle, Daddy will get you anything at all!" - Kenny's parents, Gamera (Mystery Science Theater 3000)

"Tibby? Tibby?" - Kenny (his turtle, now missing, is named "Tibby.")
"or not To-Be..." - MST3K Commentators.

Song of the Day: "You Make Me Feel..." by Cobra Starship, ft. Sabi. Meh, average song, but I'm glad Cobra Starship has not disapeared and is still making popular music after they appeared on the scene with Snakes on a Plane. Bahaha@Product Placement. "Bing for iPad" pretty much says it all... The music video's not really anything all that special, thought it does give me an idea for a way to bring Polaroid back from the brink of bankruptcy (or is that Kodak?) They should try to sell new mall-print machines, that have internet access and can get updates constantly like cellphones. And you can enter your cell number, or email or something, and it'll send the pic to you.

Responcibilities and a Hawaiian Fish

2011-10-10T23:24:00.000-04:00

So today wasn't hugely exciting. Woke up early for class (not early enough, arrived 10 minutes late) I just can't seem to adapt to classes that early! It's killin me I tell ya, don't know how I'll do real school someday.

Did some ASG stuff in the office, a lot of what I do this semester is responding to stuff on a never ending list of things to take care of. It's hard to get too motivated and excited. Worked on some research for saving a Rubber Tree, and safety concerns being the chair of that committee. Then it was off to lunch with Danielle and Brit actually and that was a lot of fun cause I haven't seen her in forever! We went all the way up to Macedonia, got Chipotle, discussed some aspects of her relationship -- and what trip to Macedonia with Danielle would be complete without the obligatory stop at Walmart!

After that meeting with the College of Education on Student Success; that is always interesting, and by far one of my favorite committee assignments. Then came back up here to watch a series of City Council committee meetings; that went from 5:30 until like 8. They're considering putting in a new retirement home right next to my house, so a bunch of people from my part of town were there complaining about one thing or another. Mom and I are fairly indifferent, and haven't really experienced the problems the other residents mentioned having. (Loud, noisy passers by; light pollution; speeding cars...)

The rest of my night, unfortunately, is bogged down in Circle K stuff and other assorted "responsibility" emails. I may whine because I'm whiny, but I am quite thankful for my responsibilities and must never run away from them. My responsibilities have allowed me to surpass those that have held me back. Even if that means I don't get to explore as many abandoned buildings, or road trip as often as I like, these last few years have been a journey of exponential personal betterment and it is because of the tasks I have been given and the jobs I have volunteered for.

Song of the Day: My favorite fish is the Humuhumunukunuku apua'a, the state fish of Hawaii. (Because it was briefly glimpsed as a joke in an episode of Star Trek.) I know there is an old '50s-era song about it, and I thought I heard it the other day watching Dirty Dancing but it wasn't it. Today I googled Humuhumunukunuku apua'a -- and what did I find?

Movie Sunday: Beyoncé's Revenge!

2011-10-09T15:10:00.001-04:00

So the list of movies I have to watch for one reason or another has been growing and the list of movies I've been watching has screeched to a halt - so since I have a last day to myself before hell week, I think I'm going to take most of today to watch some of these movies (and of course, critique them.)

Hm, interesting juxtaposition in the movie poster of white and black. Subtle racial themes!?

The first movie on my list is "Obsessed" starring Beyoncé and Ali Larter (who played Niki Sanders, and her various alter egos on Heroes.) They actually advertised it back when Heroes was on, and for some reason it stuck out in my head last time I was at Blockbuster trying to find a movie -which was um, a fair number of weeks ago. So I got to get this watched and returned.

The Plot: Beyoncé and this guy have a perfect marriage, newborn, and a new house - but there's this hot blonde temp at work (Ali Larter) who is clearly trying to seduce Mr. Beyoncé. And not normal seduce, like crazy stalker seduce. Right now she's thumbing through his CD collection in his work desk, bribing his gay assistant with cocktails to learn more about the office's personal life. (Mmm, meanwhile I'm enjoying some steak and cheesy-broccoli rice!)

Quote of the Day: "...alot of these single gals see the workplace as their hunting ground, and this one has got you in her crosshairs."
- co-worker to Mr. Beyoncé. Haha, this is similar to what I tell Patsy, Panda and the other single ladies (no pun intended) - once you graduate work is the only place to find eligible single-folk. Cause no one you meet at a bar is going to be all that high-quality.

During the DVD previews though, there was movie that seemed potentially interesting: The Stepfather (Welcometothefamily.com) -- which looks like they're using the same house (and plot) as Disturbia.

(Still watching the movie.) Oh shyt, Beyoncé is pissed now. This is where it gets good! Man, that is one dumb assistant. Omg, a Beyoncé fightscene is the most awesome thing ever. We need to get her in Kill Bill Vol. 3. Hm, maybe I'll watch that today. Wow, movies over-- this was actually a really good entertaining movie! I was worried it was going to be too-Tyler Perry, but it was great! Highly recommended. (Glad I can finally return this movie...)

But anyway, a recent conversation at my internship lead to the homework assignment of watching several 80's movies to bring me up to speed on quotes and references; including but not limited to: Pulp Fiction, Dirty Dancing, Footloose, 16 Candles, Pretty in Pink, "really any John Hughes films..." Wow, coincidentally -- Jen just notified me that Dirty Dancing is on ABC Family right now. How convenient!

Stow Jewelery/Gold Cat Burglar

2011-10-02T15:55:00.001-04:00

WWVMD? What would Veronica Mars do? There appears to be a series of cat burglaries in Stow, people breaking in and stealing jewels, gold, etc. A dead soldier's stolen cross has made major local news actually. If Veronica Mars was here, dare I say, she'd be out there solving these cases right now! And as one of my heroes, I thought I'd take a look at what the news said to see if I had any major epiphanies (that the officials had somehow missed)...

Man Pleads for Return of Fallen Soldier's Necklace

Gold military cross of soldier killed in Iraq stolen from dad; 'I just want it back'

Then there was another story in the Stow Sentry about $46,000 in jewelry going stolen! It's like something out of Batman, I tell ya. Hm, solving mysteries is hard.

In other news, I am loving my internship a lot and had a blast this weekend!

Song of the Day: Haha, after posting the "Video of the Day" below I found this -- so retroactivly putting in a Song of the Day as well. "PhotoShop Rap" by College Humor.

Quote of the Day: Haha, after a night out filled with "snarky comments" -- I was asked:
"Are you old enough to be drinking?" - D.
"Yes, I'm 22 actually. Are you old enough to be drinking D.?" (Eh hem, she was, lol)
"That was a pretty snarky comment!" - S.
"Actually, it was a pretty flattering comment." - T.
"It was a double entendre! Points for being both snarky and flattering at the same time." - S.

Video of the Day: Care of college humor, here's a funny clip parodying Jurassic Park featuring the real actor that played the Lawyer haha!

The Part Where Everything Changes...

2011-10-01T04:12:00.000-04:00

Phew, well, it's been a turbulent few weeks I gotta say. For those random international people who seem to follow my blog, and I greatly appreciate you, you should know that my girlfriend and I have split up after just over 2 years. While I'm sure I shouldn't expect her to follow this blog anymore, I still don't think it appropriate to go into the dirty details of that kind of thing in a public forum.

Star Trek (Original Series) Stage Plan for Sets

But The TV Show that is my Life seems to be having some kind of exciting arc or something. We've got characters leaving the show, old recurring characters having an increased role, and a whole bunch of sets that have been scrapped (hopefully to make way for new sets.) In addition to preferring not to go over Sarah's house anymore (to avoid the awkwardness of running into the guy I presume she'll be dating soon) - I have quit my job as a CA in the residence halls. That's two long standing sets, I'm hoping we're making room for new places and not just losing a warehouse due to low viewership!

Still haven't found our "How I Met Your Mother" bar setting... heck, now even our character set is in flux!

I dunno, I feel this air of change in my life isn't done yet. I'm hoping the next changes will be positive, however. I'm also feeling the urge to go on more adventures -- which have been increasingly difficult to fit in my time these past two years. But if I don't have time for adventure, what have I time for?

Stay tuned for new characters, plot twists, character arcs and hopefully permanent set pieces in my life!

Quote of the Day: After leaving my last CA shift today, my boss' boss (who I sent my letter of resignation to) ran into me outside the building - and we chatted briefly about my last CA shift.

"I hope I conveyed I didn't hate anyone in Honors or anything, it was just time for a life re-shuffling."
"No, you're fine! Tell me you want the job back, and I'd hire you back tomorrow."

I love ResLife! My boss and her boss are both awesome, and I could tell they had a really high opinion of me and were sad to see me go. In fact, the day I asked about resigning my boss was actually delivering me candy and pop because I was CA of the month -- heh :-/

Song of the Day: "Stereo Hearts" by Gym Class Heroes ft. Adam Levine (from Maroon 5). The video for this is pretty dull. The Maroon 5 guy doesn't quite look like what I would expect, but other than that no surprises. This song's pretty average too I gotta say. I like the idea of the metaphor thouhg, it reminds me of Beyonce's project!

Experiences You Should Have & Dinosaurs

2011-09-27T03:29:00.000-04:00

Site of the Day: "Five Jobs Everyone Should Experience" - a blog or something I found randomly googling. A conversation I had today, mixed with an episode of How I Met Your Mother, led me to think: where could I be in 5 years, if not teaching/in government? Well, I remember Hillary Clinton once saying she worked on a fishing ship: WTF? Random right? But like the census and American Eagle, I feel everyone should have a job in certain sectors... it teaches you interesting things.

Quote of the Day: Watching a documentary on the Smithsonian channel on the science of Jurassic Park. Mom mentioned she didn't see the value behind cloning Dinosaurs in real life like Jurassic Park, "I don't think Humans need any competition", and asked me for my opinion:

"Well I don't know if they should do what they did in Jurassic Park, but I think it'd be cool if there was like -- an island museum [zoo] people could go to... oh, well I guess that is the plot of Jurassic Park." - Me.

Sometimes

2011-09-25T01:42:00.000-04:00

Ello, readers. Well, It's been kind of a hectic semester, filled with things I am not quite at liberty to blog about all the time - so you'll have to forgive the lack of postings. But stay tuned! Never know what adventures are just around the corner.

Well, firstly: I finished that Magic School Bus/Pokemon drawing and even colored it in a way I was happy with. Submitted it on a DeviantArt contest.

But for those who don't keep track of my life, in ASG I've been working on quite a number of projects. As chair of the Facilities and Services Committee, I've been responsible for coordinating the Safety Walk (and all future ones); I'm trying to turn all the campus bathrooms "touch free" that means sinks, soap and paper-towel dispensers so you don't have to touch anything; I'm looking into green-ifying the University's building policy, which I have to say has been lacking -- but the Vice President of Capital Planning has said he's just waiting for the Trustee's to tell him "just do it..." so my goal is to make them do that; I've been nominated for Homecoming Court by them, so trying to best represent ASG there; there's a Handicap-accessibility version of the no-touch thing I'm working on; the College of Education has a number of things going on at once, and my adviser insists I look into getting undergrads conference funding - which is expensive x_X; oh, there's plenty of projects I'm working on right now. Combine this with being Governor, trying to pass classes, fill out my Spring student teaching application, my internship and it's various responsibilities, and additionally of course my family, it all really makes me want to cry at the end of the day. Here's hoping it's all worth it.

Song of the Day: "Someone Like You" by Adele.

Vulcan Medical Poster project

2011-09-04T20:36:00.001-04:00

Hello avid reader! Whether you care or not, I'm going to talk about: the fact that the Vulcan medical poster I've been working on is complete! I'm so excited :D

I'm sure you know by now that I love things that make fiction seem real -- and in line with this, I've always wanted my own Star Trek props!!! Since the actual ones can go for thousands of dollars, and I am a poor college student, I must be creative and make my own: and designing a poster is pretty easy, especially when I've been practicing with Inkscape and Vector art for the last year.

(To the right of the right-most Vulcan's head) Screen cap from "Stigma"

This idea started as a poster seen in the background of the ST: Enterprise episode "Stigma" at the Vulcan offices at an alien Medical Conference. It may have been reused again in a later episode, in the background of a Vulcan ship's sickbay. (Oh hey look, it was!)

(To the left of T'Pol's head on the wall.) Screen cap from "Impulse"

Well as you can see, it didn't get much screen time or detail on screen - but luckily, when a bunch of Star Trek props were sold at "Christie's Hollywood Auctions" -- these medical posters were among the items sold. In fact, these two listed below sold for $2,640. Another similar medical poster also used in these two episodes sold for a whopping $20,211.99, which was even more than most Trek prop-collector-experts expected!

(Picture of the prop, from the auction. Too low quality to print up :/)

For the sake of being thorough, even though most of my friends that read this probably won't care, the auction listing read:

"Two posters mounted on black sheet plastic, each depicting a stylized medical diagram featuring Vulcan script writing with paint oversprayed to simulate age, both -- 22x22in. -- designed by Timothy Earls and featured in the Vulcan medical center in "Stigma" in Star Trek: Enterprise and again in the doomed Vulcan ship in "Impulse" in Star Trek: Enterprise (2)"

Anyway, I think I'll print up my version (which is even higher resolution than I uploaded here) and put it on my wall! Lol

Video of the Day: Yellowtail Wine commercial: "Go To" -- haha, this was on TV the whole morning during Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It's very retro-modern art-sy. My favorite line would have to be "I just love that Kangaroo-- " Zips Pride baby!

Song of the Day: "Lighters" by Eminem ft. Bruno Mars. The song is kinda catchy, I can't help but think wow is Eminem old, and why did Bruno Mars have to be a crack addict. My favorite line is in direct violation of one of my petpeeves, which is songs that rhyme the same word with themselves: "Had a dream, I was king; I woke up, still king..." Haha, the video is pretty bland -- with the exception of that awesome underground abandoned tunnel/hidden passage in Eminems living room!? Metaphor or not, me wants.

Feelin' Artsy: Vulcan-style

2011-09-02T00:03:00.000-04:00

Haha, as you may remember -- like a year ago, I had the urge to try my hand at various digital art forms and bought a pen and tablet. Well, as you may have predicted, I don't really break that out nearly often enough. Especially since the day after I bought that, rather than "drawing" style art, I found a free program to do vector-style art -- which I gotta say I'm much more interested in. And lately, when taking a break from ASG, CKI, class and the stresses of my life -- I've been trying to do artsy things! Here are some completed stuff and works in progress.

First of all, this next image is NOT my creation. There is a book called the "Star Trek: Encyclopedia" last updated in like, 1997. In it are thousands of illustrations, some of them of uniforms/costumes.

I gotta say, my artistic attempts are not so often "creating new stuff" as imitating stuff I like. And I like these illustrations, they are just non-detailed enough for their purpose. So lately I've been trying to make pictures similar to this style for the Vulcan uniforms seen since 1997.

The two on the left are done, based on the uniforms seen here. The one of the right is I'm still working on. Below is my attempt to recreate a poster from the background of an episode, by making it in scalable vector graphics (SVG format) I can resize it all I want and it doesn't lose detail. So when I'm done with this one, I might get it printed up.

My next thing is complete. You may reconize in a recent blog I said something about how I like the "Eyewitness" books' style, and made the cover page? Well, later I completed a sample interior page.

And finally, a little something for those who don't care about Star Trek -- something I *did* create using my tablet: The Magic School Bus explores the world of Water Pokemon! This is also still a work in progress.

"What's your badge number?"

2011-09-01T11:58:00.000-04:00

I had the strangest dream last night, the night I got the most sleep all week!

It started here at the condo with mom and Sarah. The lights were weird, the walls dark and wood colored - it was night time, maybe raining, and there was this sense of "uh oh, something bad is happening" like a freak storm - but I don't think it was raining. It also had the sensation of being in like a 1930s noire train station, and I'm not sure how else to explain that. But for one reason or another, I go to check out my room -- and right as I turn around my doorway I see a giant crazy dog that jumps at me, bites the edge of my hand, but then lets go and I escape - shutting the door on him. I yell something along the lines of "Why and HOW is there a dog in my room!?" From there me and Sarah decide to leave and drive in the crazy weather, but mom does something and then tries to go into my room. And I yell at her "Hello, there's a crazy dog in there you'll get yourself killed!"

From there, it's suddenly daytime and I'm at this everglades-style park. Not sure exactly what it's a museum for, but apparently Brit, Sarah and Kenny went on ahead of me and I arrived late. So the tour guide lady is like "Follow me and I'll take you to them!" So suddenly we're crawling through a miniature version of the museum!? It's like just barely big enough to crawl through, but you can see miniature exhibits on both sides, kind of like being in a beavers dam. Well that being awkward, eventually I get through it, but then:

Kinda like this - only less cave, and more "Cleveland Museum of Natrual History."

I'm like in a metropark, and walking a trail that parallels an abandoned train track. Parts of the train track have grass growing all over it, and you can see that it's abandoned -- but it's not! In the distance I can see one-car trains riding on them. And I think, "Well that's not safe." But then I encounter a handful of abandoned trains - but don't explore them cause I have to catch up with Sarah and them.

Which leads me to the museum/park? gift Shop! Where I finally meet up with Brit, Sarah and Kenny. It kind of seemed like a Sea World kind of place, or the Zoo, but there weren't really any animals in the park part of this adventure. The three of them go make a joke about something, and I get distracted by something for a second and they disappear.

So hiking back to the abandoned train part, I finally catch them by one that looks like Thomas the Tank Engine -- and they say they're done at the park, they're going to head home and meet me at the party tonight. I say okay, and decide to stop hurrying around and see a bunch of litter by the abandoned trains. So I start picking the pop tabs off the aluminum cans! Some walkers past judge me, and I am thinking "There should be a recycling bin right here..."

So now I'm on the road, going to a party, and eventually I realize a cop is driving behind me so I drive extra careful. It's night time, in a different version of downtown Akron - more a combination with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. And I make a turn to turn around, and the cop flashes the lights to pull me over in a parking lot at the same time an SUV of late 20 somethings pulls over near me. The cop, in a curiously informal tone complains "Finally! I've been trying to pull you over for miles." I ask what was the problem, wallet out to show ID and all that, and he's like "You can put that away... just go to this hotel at 9:00. The door will be open. Pet the cat." I'm like "uhhhhhh...." thinking woah, what kinda crazy is this. So I say "Can I see your badge number?" And his expression turns to anger, and he fiddles for a second then doesn't get it - and I say "yeah, I'm not going to do that." And drive away quickly!

Except it was night time!

Then we're in a slow chase. The cop picked up a parter who is fixing his uniform in the passenger seat, and I'm racing to get to the party, before realizing they would just bust the party. So I try to think where I could go they couldn't get me.

Apparently, that was home - because I don't notice the inconsistency that suddenly I'm in my house during daylight. I wince when I see mom has decided to decorate the walls in a tacky fashion (no pun intended) by using thumb tacks to hang modern road atlases of France all over the place. I notice the staircase wall is still empty, somewhere we want to hang portraits of relatives, and mom reminds me that we just found out we're related to Kelly Clarkson! And I say, "Well that's good, lots more relatives to hang pictures of!"

The End.

Haha, if any of this can be explained easiest -- yesterday I was listening on the radio in the car to an interview with Kelly Clarkson about her new album Stronger to be out October 25, I believe. So lets make her first single, released the day before yesterday, the song of the day in honor of our new found cousinship! lol

Song of the Day: "Mr. Know It All" by Kelly Clarkson. Honestly? This song is pretty average, but I just like the idea of Kelly Clarkson not fading away into kinda-stardom.

Vulcan Comforter Discovered!

2011-08-11T16:51:00.000-04:00

ZOMG! So, in my spare time when I take a breather from CKI, I've been doing Star Trek stuff with what's left of my summer. Playing Star Trek Online, watching the DVDs I own, and making Star Trek digital art. (Remember the Eyewitness childrens books? Right now I'm making something similar to that.) Always love making things that make fiction seem real :D

Anyway, I don't know if I've mentioned it here before -- but something I've ALWAYS wanted from Star Trek? A Vulcan comforter! It's got Vulcan writing on it and it's awesome *u*

From the Enterprise episode "Home." Woken up at 4:00am is Commander Tucker.

Well, I've made a major discovery in what it's made of/looks like! A major contribution to my Eyewitness project I'm doing has been pictures from the Christie's Star Trek Auction that are still online. Alot of cool pictures for the Star Trek fan on there! Well, it turns out the comforter is actually a wall tapestry from another episode. And I've got a high enough quality picture finally that, eventually, I bet I could recreate it somehow. (Maybe fix the dimensions a bit.)

Seen as a wall decoration in the Enterprise episode "Stigma."

Song of the Day: "I am a Paleontologist" by the They Might be Giants. This song was on a comercial the other day, and I wanted to look into it to see if it was just custom written for the comercial or was a real song. Haha, I think it's a real song...

Backpack Across (Insert Country Here) in Style

2011-07-28T02:58:00.001-04:00

Checking out Gizmodo as I often do, after my long day of crazy -- had a morning filled with Circle K emails, mom insisting adamantly on getting our tags renewed because the world was ending or something (it ended up taking 15 minutes, she expected a long line. There was no line -.-) and also a bunch of Circle K stuff in the afternoon. Then, in the Cleveland area, hung out with Panda for a while and saw Captain America for 6 bucks a person. That was one bad movie.

But back to the present, I WANT THIS! The green in me combined with the adventurer in me combined with the couch potato that needs his cell phone wherever he may go -- a Solar-powered Cell Phone charging Backpack! Awesome Awesome Awesome!!!

News Article of the Day: White House rickrolls followers after person tweets at them complaining their briefing is boring. As you can imagine, the actual headline is shorter -- but is effectively the same thing. Bahaha, hilarious. I love this White House. Here is the actual tweet.

Song of the Day: Keep Your Head Up by Andy Grammer. I've heard this, not on 96.5, twice today while flipping through radio stations. And I gotta say, I kinda like it. It's one of those really generic "feel happy" songs -- but eh, one of those are nice every now and again. It definitely shows hints of Mrazian tone and rhythm I think, very similar to "I'm Yours." Andy Grammer made the January 2011 list of "Artists to Watch" -- this is his first single, and he's previously opened for the Plain White Tees. One of his producers are the same as Gym Class Heroes.

He's only 27, but I thought he looked a lot older in the video. Like a 38 year old they're letting have one pop hit because he's just singing about being happy then he can go do real things in peace. But nope, 27. And wtf -- Dwight's in it!?

Upcoming Movie of the Day: "Battleship" (2012) Hahahaha, I think I've mentioned this before sometime, but they are making a movie based on the old board game "Battleship." You know, the one with the little white and red pegs. I heard it was supposed to star Rihanna, but I don't see her in the preview which I've just seen for the first time (Thank You Gizmodo.) (Oh, but here she is in the official site's description - playing Petty Officer Raikes.) Wow. It's a lot different than I expected, I was imagining a lot of Rihanna in pseudo-army wear scantly clad (I'm not a pervert, it's what she wears!) but this looks more like the next Transformers trailer? But as Gizmodo points out, "Liam Neeson is pretty much always bad ass, even in bad movies."

Quotes to Live By

2011-07-26T01:03:00.006-04:00

Trying to do artsy things in the time I find by myself. I have so many interesting things at my disposal, I really want to use them all as much as they deserve. My drawing pad, my subscription go the Star Trek: Online game, etc. So I start to write this on Sunday morning (where I have plenty of time to myself at last) and I thought I'd throw in some quotes I found interesting.

Quote of the Day: "To keep your sanity and balance, break your own rule every great, long, once in a while." - Blog featuring the drawing program I like to use.

Another one comes from a Star Trek book I'm reading. (I bought 5 Star Trek books while I still have my Borders Rewards card. $60+ value for 10 bucks, free shipping! I'd say that wasn't too shabby.) Top left and top right have already arrived. I've actually owned two copies of the middle book already, one fell apart in like 2003, the other lost in the fire :( But this copy was a whopping 1.04 so yayz!

"The people most reluctant to use weapons are the ones who can best be trusted with them." - Stijen Yol, Weapons Instructor, Star Trek DTI: Watching the Clock (p. 66)

Pink Flamingos in the Pool

2011-07-25T01:00:00.001-04:00

As with every summer I don't spend in a foreign country, this year has been a dry one for blog posts. It's not even that I don't have the time, I just feel I don't have that much to blog about. I want to keep as much campaign and Circle K stuff off of here as possible for fear of it getting into the wrong hands. And those have pretty much been all the interesting things that have happened lately.

(This is an image from a Katy Perry music video, and not an actual picture from last night. I know in the past there has been some confusion.)

Last night Sarah had a summer party which was fun with some exceptions. A bunch of random people who don't normally come to their parties ended up coming (and a bunch of regulars were no shows, most of them "Andrew's friends.")

So I am crushed that Borders is closing :( I love book stores, I want them to always be around, and I don't want eBooks to take over! And I have a fierce sense of brand loyalty, I will argue with anyone why I like Borders better than Barnes and Noble even if there isn't a real reason. The same goes for why I don't want Blockbuster to fold and give in to Netflicks! But I have to admit, the blogs of Borders employee's I've stumbled across a time or two in the past week have been pretty entertaining and make me think twice about when the customer is right...

Site of the Day: Zug.com, apparently a collection of articles on pranks. The one that got my attention was the guy who signed his name something funny for years waiting for the credit card company to decline something (never did, and the only business to finally ask for his ID was... well, I won't spoil it.) Reminds me of the Txt From Last Night about the guy who signed his reciept Lady Gaga.

Upcoming Movie of the Day: Friends with Benefits.... oh wait, this came out Friday! Dang, this is what happens when I put off writing a blog for so long :-/

30 Truths (part III)

2011-07-24T12:57:00.001-04:00

Finally, the conclusion of a series you've all been waiting for! No, not Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows (Part Deux), the third installment of my 30 Truths-blog series! (Part I, Part II)

21. I follow all 4 of the Charmed Ones' actresses on Twitter. (Shannon Doerty as Prue Halliwell; Holly Marie Combs; as Piper Halliwell; Alyssa Milano as Phoebe Halliwell; and Rose McGowan as Paige Matthews)

22. My favorite febreeze/air freshener is always Apple Cinnamon!

23. My worst fear is sliding on ice in a car. It used to be driving over bridges, but one day I just decided to get over that and suddenly it became cool. But sliding on ice in a car freaks me out, for some reason I always imagine the car has alot more momentum than it really does and it's just going to crash really hard into something. The very few times this has actually happened and resulted in a collision of some kind - it's almost always been at like 2 miles an hour and no damage. Still, FREAKS ME OUT.

24. My least favorite food is probably spaghetti sauce. I don't know what it is about it, but it's just gross. Most forms of tomatoes are gross, except ketchup but that's not really tomato is it :-/ I suffer through pizza because it's so darn common, and usually they don't actually use all that much.

25. Mom says I was a politician as a baby -- I'd stand behind this box and look like I was giving speeches, and I'd shake everybody's hand when we would go out, lol.

26. My middle name, James, means "Protector of Light" or "He who Supplants" depending on your source. I'm pretty sure mom picked it for the first one, and also because it was a biblical name, and Dad liked it for it's masculinity.

27. When I was a kid, my favorite of the original Power Rangers was Tommy -- and for some reason I wanted to grow my hair like his, and that's how mom finally got me to like taking baths. (Because to have long hair, you need to bathe more often.) Regrettably (or not?), I have never styled my hair in this fashion. BTW: The actor who played him - Jason David Frank (He's got 3 first names!) is apparently now an MMA fighter.

28. My sideburns were inspired by a combination of Star Trek and Sabrina the Teenage Witch. (Sorry, two hair ones in a row.) Unfortunately, I don't know enough about hair styling for that to mean all that much.

29. One day I want an apartment that is a combination of 'futuristic-modern' (stainless steal, clean, and lots of glass surfaces) and Victorian antique (antique furniture looks so cool! I want a house like the Charmed or Sabrina house...) See also Truth #8.

30. Despite my progressive (read: liberal) political beliefs, I am in terms of social manners a conservative. I sometimes imagine if this were the '60s or '70s, I would be the not-hippie person that parents wished their hippie kids would just be. I don't say "screw the system!" because I know that you can get done by going through and working the system. I feel weird calling adults by their first names, say excuse me if I burp alone in a room, and can't wrap my head around the urge to streak. Despite how weird I am (as outlined in these last 29 truths) I often feel more normal (read: boring) than anyone I know.

Prepping for the 4th

2011-07-02T11:36:00.000-04:00

Dang, well June was a dry month for blog posts -- but only because I've been so busy with Circle K and campaign stuff! International Convention in Virginia Beach was a blast, with a million stories to tell another day - suffice it to say, our club came out of it with more than it's share of bruises and tickets.

So it's the weekend before the 4th of July, and I'm planning a barbecue for the 4th itself to meet the neighbors, invite some Stow friends over so that we know people, and invite my friends over to ensure we have a good time regardless of whether any Stow people actually show up! It's also given us a reason to speed along the 'making-the-house-presentable' process. For example, we may get a Patio table and Stereo today. It's under consideration.

I'm a bit stressed out: What if no one comes?! I'll be a party planning failure. And we'll have more bags of chips than we know what to do with.

Video of the Day: Haha, in my LSSP group in Virginia Beach, one of my projects was being handed a box of 60,000 Susan G. Komen paper ribbons to count into piles of 100. And someone in my group had this video on their phone, and it made us all laugh hahaa....

Song of the Day:

"Judas" by Lady Gaga. So this is probably my favorite song off the Born This Way album, there are definitely a few that stand out as awesome, and a few that kinda merge into "I don't really care"-dom... Judas is awesome. Patsy super-loves the levels of symbolism and intelligence Lady Gaga uses by referencing religion in the song, reminding those who actually look at the song that Lady Gaga is not satan - she's just a catholic school girl turned pop-star.

I will say that the movie to this is not the best. But after "Edge of Glory", it's not the worst it could be!

Left to Save the Hero

2011-06-16T07:16:00.000-04:00

Phew, busy busy busy summer. Between the campaign internship, College Dems Vice President, Circle K district Governor, Student Government Senator, working on my own Honors Project, and the intricacies of being mom's personal assistant and helping David run his life (not to mention my own various endeavors) - it's... been a busy summer.

Song of the Day: "Run the World (Girls)" by Beyonce. So I am of the opinion that Beyonce came away from the Telephone-Gaga music video changed. This video just doesn't seem like the old Beyonce, but that's not a bad thing (necessarily.) Haha, I think I saw someone post this video on Chad's wall and being a creeper I wanted to watch it and it's kinda interesting. Apparently it's "feminist" battle cry or something, as the Youtube commenters seem to be pretty unhappy. I for one welcome our new female overlords! Men have had control of the planet for like 3 millenia, and like Barack Obama said it's time for a change...

Make Your Own Pokemon Trainer

2011-05-30T11:50:00.000-04:00

Happy Memorial Day everyone! Wow, I only managed to find time to make like 2 blogs this whole month x_x sorry loyal readers! I will continually try to update even if they aren't long drawn out in-depth novels.

Today, for example, I'll keep it brief: with Sarah competing with her Engineering car-making team down in Joplin, Missouri (where that huge tornado hit) and not really being able to talk to her since she left almost a week ago- I am looking forward to her coming home tonight! :D

I'm in a artistic mood, but not a drawing mood, so I'm looking for inspiration on DeviantArt. And somehow I found my way to this AWESOME WEBSITE:

Website of the Day: Ubala.com/Games/Pokemon Trainer! This is awesome, you can make your own pokemon trainer -- which I just did! Alas, it doesn't look like they have a girls option - at least I don't see it. This is cool, I wish personally I had this pokemon trainers outfit actually. Always love black with yellow outline.

Zoomed In: Should we be seeing this?

2011-05-27T11:01:00.000-04:00

This one'll be brief, loyal blog-followers I appologize for being so absent lately! Been super busy between CKI and campaign stuff. But here's a short blog on some image I recently noticed...

As you all know from my last blog, we killed bin Ladin! w00t! Anyway, this image has become instantly "iconic" and historic, and I noticed that they kinda released a hugely high definition gigantic version of it. So big in fact, that blogs have taken to noting all the tiny things you can learn about the situation room/situation from it. I personally think being able to read Hillary Clinton's binder is kinda cool.

*TOP SECRET CODEWORD NOFORN*
For Use in White House Situation Room Only

Noforn means "No Foreign citizens" can look at it, even within the White House. Another image I found abnormally large, to the point where I could see more than the public maybe normally could see was the recent final Endeavour crew including shooting-victim Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' husband Mark Kelley.

I usually like these images because of the space patch, I love mission patches! I even have a small collection framed on my bedroom wall. I think I've mentioned before that there are a select group I would like as gifts if you're ever looking for something to buy me. But looking at the gigantic image, I noticed in astronaut Greg H. Johnson's helmet you can see the reflection of the room the picture's being taken in.

Haha, not exactly stellar. Still, kinda cool to see behind the scenes!

Song of the Day: "Tonight Tonight" by Hot Chelle Rae. Haha, this is one of those songs I think I like the first two times I heard it on the radio, but then no one else did (Pepsi Blue much?) so they got rid of it kinda quickly. (Lipgloss, and I Fell in Love with the DJ both suffered this fate if I recall...)

Video of the Day: Jersey Shore: The RPG -- an old style NES version of Jersey Shore as an RPG game, bahahahhaha this is funny... Embedding was disabled, alas. Speaking of old style games, I think I'll try to find room for Pokemon White in my day today.

It's a Tie

2011-05-27T02:14:00.002-04:00

(Retroactive Blogging: So I wrote this in May, and for reasons I don't remember haven't gotten around to posting it yet. So I apologize if any time sensitive topics don't make sense anymore...)

Ugh, I'm a bit on the broke side ~~as we start Summer~~. Add to that my time seems to be filled with non-paid work like 24 hours a day x_x That doesn't mean I can't build my online shopping list on my blog!

Haha, so I was perusing Gizmodo as I often do and I found this "eco-friendly" (just because something isn't made of stryofoam plastic should not necessarily make it eco-friendly...) tie. Made of recycled/reclaimed wood. Apparently it's fashionable, haha, I could imagine wearing it to ASG for the interesting looks - but it seems difficult to imagine being taken seriously. I wouldn't wear it to a meeting with the Dean for example. But I dunno, always good to have options, and one day I may feel braver than today...

On the website Gizmodo recommended they were 34$. I lost the website, and to write this had to search for it again -- low and behold, I found a classier shop for fashionable people selling something similar for 300-500+$ O.O;;; whaaaa? Who would pay hundreds of dollars for a wooden tie? You can't wear it to congress, to DCON, or to- well, maybe a wedding - if you want to upstage the important people. But really? 500$?

Googling around for something interesting clothes-wise, I actually found something else that's been my "obsession of the week": Doctor Who. I recorded a couple episodes I found on BBC:America, and that show is actually pretty good. I've heard about it for years, watched an episode or two back in the day with Panda and Comic Book Guy, but it's never really kept my attention for some reason. Now -- it has. The Doctor's quite the snazzy dresser, so much so this blogger devoted his blog to recreating his on-screen suit jacket. Dang, that's dedication. Which reminds me, I need more suits.

Quote of the Day: "There's simply nothing off the rack that is suitable for the young fashionable man in Ohio. " - Kurt, Glee

Mission Accomplished (Part 2)

2011-05-02T10:03:00.001-04:00

Oh jeeze, I am radically behind on studying for my Science & Technology in World History final at noon! I meant to wake up at 6am, ended up closer to 9... so I'm gonna hop in the shower, and then study non-stop.

But first - I want to say it's about time, US military forces killed Osama bin Laden this weekend. (If you somehow managed to miss that news.) I want to remind people we are not celebrating death or murder - but that death and murder of innocents does not go unpunished.

Some quotes from Twitter and elsewhere:
"It took killing Osama Bin Laden to get the news to stop playing highlights of the Royal Wedding... Thanks President Obama" - GloZell

"I see the world's longest game of hide and seek is finally over." - Amanda

Video of the Day: It's just Barack Obama weekend, isn't it! The other day was also the yearly-Correspondents Dinner, where Obama does a stand up routine making fun of himself and other political people. This year was heavily focused on Donald Trump, and it was pretty good I gotta say, lol.

Quote of the day: "Dust off the 'Mission Accomplished' banner, Mr. President!" -- College Democrats of Ohio, Facebook status.

Get Him to the Union

2011-04-30T00:55:00.002-04:00

Haha, interesting experience-filled day to add to the memoir of my life. Today I got to learn how to handle a "rock star."

As you may know, the ASG was charged (literally) with providing the bands for Springfest 2011: and while I made recommendations such as Bruno Mars, Travie McCoy, and the Far East Movement -- in the end we ended up with Shwayze, Cisco & Urban Crush. I wasn't too pleased, my main intention was to get someone with name recognition like Kent always manages to get (Bruno Mars, Drake, 3Oh!3...) but alas, we ended up having to go with someone approved by the University's student entertainment division or something? I dunno.

He's disappointed he didn't get to meet Zippy.

The story gets interesting when newly-appointed (for the last week) ASG Vice President Kenny was looking for someone to pick them up from the airport. Always eager to help, I volunteered. I had to find 5 pals (which ended up being 3 people from ASG, a housemate, and Angela) and a Roo Express driver would take us to Cleveland Hopkins, and then we picked them up, and took them back to the University. Simple enough.

The ride there was kind of fun actually, it reminded me of like a horror movie or the real world - we were a group I feel would not normally all be in the same place, whether-lone locked into this big box of a bus. But after some two-truths-and-a-lie, we got to the airport on time -- only to find out they hadn't even left Chicago yet due to the plane being delayed. So we chillaxed on the bus in the cell phone lot for like an hour, killing time. Then when they finally landed, we picked them up, and they (2/3 of them) told us that Shwayze himself had missed the plane. (This was his bandmember and manager/other band member?)

The people we picked up are Cisco (middle) and Mark Goodfeather (right.)

So I call command to figure things out, and in the mean time the Driver insists on heading back to the University, and the manager-guy insists on heading to the nearest Starbucks. Meanwhile, "command" was telling me to hold tight at the airport and await instructions. As you can imagine, drama ensued.

Eventually the driver got authorization to stop at a Starbucks along the route - after offering to stop at a McDonalds, to which Mark and Cisco noted they don't come within 5 miles of McDonalds, they wanted "a level up" from their coffee. Then it became take us to a Panera Bread. While authorization was working it's way through a dozen people, the manager decided "we were going straight to the hotel." Well, the driver was not under orders to do that - he was only able to go where his supervisor authorized him to go, which was Starbucks and the Student Union. (This band was legit angry about their Starbucks. Prompting Angela to text me: "They are more into starbucks than you are.")

(During all this, I'm trying to get things working, and the others in the group were small talking Cisco & Mark.) Their topics ranged from questions they get all the time in interviews "who is your inspiration", "what do you do when your not doing music" -- to "How do you hide the smell of weed in a college dorm" o.O; apparently a way that doesn't work would be to whip around a hot, wet towel.

Anyway, my least favorite part of the day was when I reminded the manager guy that we didn't have authorization to go to the hotel yet, and he said to the driver "Listen, I don't know about these kids -- but we're being paid to be here, and we're going to the hotel first." Oh Hell to the No. ASG is the one who footed your bill Mr. Bigshot-of-espresso. Mr. Bus driver, who has been kinda rude to them the whole time to be honest (but he was just doing his job) responded with a "Alright, well I'll drive you to the place I'm authorized to drive you. And I'm authorized to drive you to the Union." The rest of my group was pretty quiet for a few minutes after this, as the once fairly friendly (if caffeine-deprived) "rockstar" people had quickly decided to refer to us as minors. I'm 22 buddy, you're 26.

I don't remember the details exactly of what happened next, but when all the adults that were on my team were fairly silenced by the previous statement -- I said something about ASG having legit influence, and having been the one to pay for the band. I didn't say it in a bitchy-come-back way to the band people, I think I said it to someone else (with the intent of them over hearing it). The way I later heard it told, was I "put the band in their place and they were quiet after that." So I'm alright with that revisionist history - lol.

After the silence eventually broke -- one of the guys that went with us to pick them up exchanged numbers with them, to "kick it" later -- which I'm assuming will involve the illegal paraphernalia they were talking about with the wet towels.

Wiz Khalifa, probably not welcome in Quaker Hall.

Jump ahead a few hours, guess what -- Quaker Dorm had a fire alarm go off tonight! Bahahahahaha. Wonder how that happened. Well, now I'm working the desk. Rumor on campus though, is they announced on stage that there was going to be an afterparty in Quaker! Bahaha, Oh man this has been a fun night.

Shwayze's Twitter page's background. Oh jeeze...

I've googled the lot of them, and wouldn't cha know -- Shwayze has tweeted about landing in Ohio, (somehow I assume finding his way to the University) and having an after party at Pat's Irish Pub! Haha, oh Akron, I wonder how that will go.

Quote of the Day: As I write this, a group of residents walked past to see the Springfest fireworks saying: "Who's Shwayze? Why can't we get a band people have heard of, Kent got Bruno Mars..."

>:O I argued and pleaded for a big-name music artist. It's what the Students Want. Why will no one listen to me?

Judas Revealed

2011-04-18T09:32:00.000-04:00

Well, spent the weekend at Key Club DCON and the Hotel did not have free internet (and I wasn't gonna pay 9.45 a day) so delayed reaction a little. So Friday(-ish) Lady Gaga's next single "Judas" leaked. Patsy can't get over the fact that the biblical story of Judas is: Jesus predicted one of his 12 apostles would betray him - and it was Judas Iscariot that told the Romans how to arrest Jesus, in exchange for 30 pieces of silver. (Jesus was then of course crucified: hung on the cross. Only to rise 40 days later on Easter!)

I love this cover art. There's a video called Gagavision 42. that shows her debating if she wants the image she loves "of her taking it with her cell phone and doing it in word" because it may look like she "did it at the last minute and didn't put any thought into it." I think it's interesting!

In the song, Judas is someone who routinely betrays/harms Gaga but she loves him anyway. At least that's how I interpret it anyway. Perhaps symbolic of an abusive relationship? Well I'll go into detail after the music video comes out, I've learned my lesson from "California Gurls" not to analyze a song until it's at it's peak of popularity and has a music video.

But I did want to show this: The music video for Judas was filmed in April, and Norman Reedus will be playing Judas. He does look very demonic, and has previously played a skeezbag boyfriend on Charmed.

Song of the Day: "Price Tag" by Jessie J (ft. B.o.B.) Jessie J. sounds familiar, I know she's had some other hit -- here she kinda reminds me of a combination of Nicki Minaj, P!nk, and a combination of the British girls I can't differentiate (Lily Allen, Kate Nash.) Overall though, I like this song as a good "average/background" song - not necessarily a hit of Pre-Summer (which is HERE!) but good.

Eviction Convictions

2011-04-14T04:36:00.000-04:00

So you may or may not know about my mom's bankruptcy back in 2008. Grandpa hired a good lawyer, and for the most part all ended well. Except for this random eviction notice we got in the mail last week?

While I was at an important function in another state, mom insisted on telling me in a very very brief phone call. Talk about a mood wrecker... but when I returned, I marched to the condo, got the letter, did some googling and made some phone calls. The letter is not a court order, and in fact the Sheriff says we are still the owners of the house - so no one can evict us.

Mom, ever willing to give in to any passing conqueror, did not think to make any phone calls, and started moving David's entire life to the condo. I now have plans slowly setting into motion to get the house rightfully purchased and ours -- if mom would just LISTEN ALREADY ><;;;

Quote of the Day:

Q. At what point will I have absolutely no options left?
A. Never. You have not lost until you decide the fight is over. Even after a foreclosure, even after an eviction you still have as much right to buy your house back in the open market as anyone else....

Lazy, or just Tired?

2011-04-07T01:00:00.000-04:00

Well my day has gone pretty well! :D With the exception of being massivly sleep deprived on the eve of an important lunch meeting, and the eve-eve of a crazy long drive for Circle K, all and all it's balanced by the great things that've happened - including finally finding some interested people for District Positions and getting my PRAXIS II results back!

n.n AHHhhhH! I was worried I'd have to take this thing 3 times like the horror stories I've heard. A 200 is a perfect score, and a 157 is required to pass. I got a 182! That's the equivalent of a 91%! And look at that average - I got an above average, and when broken down into sections, I got like top of average score or higher in most categories! Ahhhh! What a good day!

Song of the Day: "The Lazy Song" by Bruno Mars. While this may not outline what I'm doing, it's sure what I'd like to do. This is a great, lazy, transition between Spring and Summer song. I can see playing this as summer rolls in, with the window down, driving to the mall on a warm afternoon...

Green Eggs in Court

2011-04-05T12:30:00.000-04:00

So I'm in White House class right now, and we're in a lecture on the First Lady - and the powerpoint included a pic of First Lady Michelle Obama reading to children. One kid noted the book in the image was Green Eggs and Ham, so I randomly googled it (love having my laptop in class.) Which led me to an interesting story...

This is not the picture.

My story concerns the case of Wolff v. New Hampshire Department of Corrections. Apparently, an inmate in New Hampshire sued the facility on the basis of the food they were serving him. One of his 'documents' he filed was a hard boiled egg. The judge was not happy about this, and had the egg stricken from the record. In so doing, he took a creative approach in issuing his ruling:

Quote of the Day:

"No fan I am
of the egg at hand.
Just like no ham
on the kosher plan.

This egg will rot
I kid you not.
And stink it can
this egg at hand.

There will be no eggs in court
to prove a clog in your aort.
There will be no eggs accepted
Objections all will be rejected.

From this day forth this court will ban
Hard boiled eggs of any brand
And if you should not understand
The meaning of this ban at hand
Than you should contact either Dan,
The Deputy Clerk, or my cleark Jan.

I do not like eggs in the file.
I do not like them in any style.
I will not take them fried or boiled.
I will not take them poached or broiled.
I will not take them soft or scrambled
Despite an argument well rambled.

No fan I am
of the Egg at Hand.
Destroy that egg!
Today! Today!
Today I say! Without Delay!"

- Judge James R. Muirhead
United States Magistrate Judge

Song of the Day: "Written in the Stars" by Tinie Tempah. I really like this song when I hear it on the radio, but when I hear it on my iTunes I think the rap part kinda goes on a little long - I bet they clip it down for the radio. This is probably my favorite song of the week. But the music video is pretty average, nothing too special, it does make me think that if I lived in a major city like New York where every building is a skyscraper - I would want to be playing on the roof like this kid ALL THE TIME! That's be so much fun, not a lot of skyscrapers in Akron, we have a few, but it's not the same.

What is Katy Perry's E.T. about?

2011-04-01T21:27:00.001-04:00

Ladies and folks, welcome to my analysis of Katy Perry's hot off the presses music video "E.T." ft. Kanye West. Are you ready for what "looks like a Motorola Xoom commercial combined with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Wall-E and animals humping?"

It was only a few weeks ago when I first heard Katy Perry's new single on the radio - "E.T." Well that's not really true, I've heard the whole album months ago - but on the album E.T. is by Katy alone. On the radio, I first heard the featuring Kanye West version. And I gotta say, Kanye does not add a whole lot to it :/ But after a few days/week of hype, today the music video was released: on E.T.: Entertainment Tonight no less!

Here, WATCH it first. We start in some alien hubcap junkyard, where 1940s-y music is playing as we find a 1940s-style robot that looks like something out of a cyberpunk magazine. Who's teardrop shaped heart longs for another! (Behind the scenes: apparently, Katy Perry originally intended for Three Six Mafia to drop a beat at this point in the song -- instead we find 1930s Jazz singer and California Gurl Midge Williams and her Jazz Jesters singing "Where in the World (Is My Lover).")

(Note the Penguin on the screen in the middle!)

Then we find Human Xenornithologist and "big headed" Astronaut Kanye West floating in his rocketship. (It means a scientist that studies alien birds, I may have just made it up...) Apparently Humans have perfected interplanetary travel, but artificial gravity still eludes them so they just said screw it and made a ship where you can float and operate it. Anyway, the S.S. Immaletyoufinish jets through a nebula... but one of the clouds is actually a humanoid alien with a flowy dress!

So you only see the aliens head on it's body briefly before the close up, but it looks to me like the Kaminoans from Star Wars Episode II.

I'm guessing this haircut started with: Katy: "Find me something, ANYTHING, Lady Gaga hasn't done yet!"

Floating around in space, the alien morphs into a different alien this time with "different... DNA"-shaped extensions in it! One funny review called this "a combination of Queens Amidala (of Star Wars) and 'of Sheeba..." You may find yourself asking "What does the song mean?" Well Katy has said in interviews it's about finding that one person you love that is so different from anyone you've ever met before it's almost like they're from another planet!

We see some shots of the screen on Kanye's spaceship... more birds?

So Alien-Katy flies around a bit more, changes outfits and make up to be a bit blue/whiter. Then there's the lyrics: "There is this Transcendental on another level..." Yay for smart words making it into pop music! (In this instance, the word means "surpassing all others" - and is obviously about someone's love I'm sure. Probably hers for Russel Brand.) Anyway, while landing on the hubcap planet with the robot - she transforms into yet another style of alien! (Kind of reminds me when Sarah played with Star Trek Online's "build-an-alien")

One reviewer actually thought this spotted-alien was reminiscent of my favorite aliens from Star Trek, the Trill. After a Wall-E style "come back to life!" sentiment, the robot starts to wake up. (Notice during Kanye's line "I'mma probe you" there are flashes of deer and baboons mating!? o.O) So the robot "turns" into an albino black guy, while Katy engages in some NOT AT ALL SUBTLE product placement for sunglasses. One thing I don't really get though is the screen from Kanye's ship, which may have crashed? It says: "pi.ge.on : A common bird, went extinct 2030."

Not sure if we're supposed to imagine that Kanye really looked like the robot the whole time, and that's him and his ship crashed? Maybe I'm over thinking it.

The sunglasses read: "Human Sunglasses Circa 2011." Katy Perry puts them on before revealing her legs... And the two walk off into the sunset, to live happily ever after! Overall, this was an interesting music video. It's hit the top of the charts, I hear. (Phew, making this blog took alot more than I expected - my computer has been freezing up alot lately! :( )

The Head, the Finger and the Flood

2011-03-31T03:01:00.000-04:00

Woah, BUSY night at work! (Which means I haven't been able to get much else done.) The residence hall I'm working at has had quite a night, I can't get too detailed because I take confidentiality pretty seriously, but I think it's safe to share that two of our residents went to the hospital (give or take), both from the second floor. Then a shower on the second floor started flooding, and two residents had to be temporarily relocated. Whaaaaaat is going on on the second floor? The RA's nicknamed the whole night's crisis: "The head, the finger and the flood."

But after that, I took care of some emails about the Garfield House for mom, and looked over an essay for Sarah, and did some Circle K work. Now I hope to get to catch up on some of the MOUNTAINS of homework due in April x_X

Website of the Day: Not so much a website, but a Twitter account. So a very poisonous snake is missing from/inside the Reptile House of the Bronx Zoo - and this somehow made national news for several days now. Well someone (presumably the snake) started a Twitter "Bronx Zoo's Cobra" - and it's fun to read, as he tours around New York enjoyin' some freedom! My favorite part of this story is that the national news has started reporting on the fact that someone made a twitter account. The first day I heard about it, they had 44,000 followers. Yesterday they had 150,000. Today, 184,000.

Song of the Day: "Howlin For You" by the Black Keys, this is my temporary favorite song of the week but I'm sure I'll be tired of it by Monday. My new FAVORITE movie is "Limitless" -- it was just awesomey awesomeness wrapped in awesome-bacon! And this song reminds me of it, because it is in it at two points (the end credits and when he first uses his powers to make himself over. If you haven't seen this movie, SEE IT!)

I didn't know this song was by the Black Keys, I hear Patsy talk about them breaking into her dads van all the time! They're supposed to be some big band from Akron I guess, but I've never really heard their music before now. Well, if I haven't said this yet, I really wish I had the productivity + intelligence pill from the movie! And now I just want to be like that all the time, crazy productive I mean. (And here I am blogging, Oh jeeze...) Oh well, making some of this song my ringtone is a good first step.... (not.)

Oh, and wtf with this song's music video being very Tarantino-like lol.

"We can rebuild her — We have the technology!"

2011-03-27T23:04:00.001-04:00

Oh, mother... a constant source of frustration and unequivocal support and faith at the same time. For weeks, I've been saying I'd take her to buy a new jacket - because the one she got was a hand-me-down from a family friend, and it just looks ridiculous to me -- it looks like it's got a little skirt attached to it :-(

One of the many areas I wish I could improve mom - is fashion. She wears the strangest clothes. Oh if I could get her to watch and learn from "What Not to Wear"... a show she would fit right into! She has no problem with wearing clothes that look dirty, stained, grungy, or really old (some shirts she admits having since I was born.) For as long as I can remember, she almost never buys clothes. She takes David and my hand-me-downs (mainly shirts and belts), or random packages from distant relatives. But for the past few years, when I get the time and hit the frustration level - I take her out shopping, give her my critical opinions, and she usually comes home with a few things she likes. (Sometimes she ends up wearing them, but often she thinks they look too nice so they end up living in the closet until some special occasion like family Christmas.)

We spent the afternoon watching Suze Orman, as mom's way of showing me she was serious about improving her financial future! I still wish she dressed more like Suze.

Today though -- shopping went well! I told her I wanted her to have clothes that were nice, informal, but formal enough that she could come to a campaign event for my upcoming internship and I would not be too embarrassed. A pantsuit-y kinda jacket, matching shirt, and a shirt or two else that looked good and airy for Summer, and off the clearance rack -- a Pea Coat! One that made her look not just like a normal person, but an almost fashionable woman of her age! I was so proud n.n

This afternoon, we went to Grandpa and My favorite Chinese Restaurant in the area - Tai Wah. I told the owner about Grandpa's passing (him and I went there almost every time I visited Stow) and she was pretty saddened, and mentioned how she'd seen me grow up and now I'm almost done with college! I just love it when restaurants remember you. She mentioned to mom that Grandpa and I did SO much talking over the years -- which is true, that restaurant holds special memories for me - I interrogated Grandpa about really everything he knew there trying to understand him, history, and our family.

But back on topic -- I had the special talk with mom trying to determine the color of her parachute. She knows I'm unhappy with her job at a cleaning company - cause I know she can do more, but now she's fine with mediocrity, and trying to convince her to not be fine and take initiative has been just as difficult as it has been with David. But she's willing to do stuff, return to school, learn Computers (she's going to a class at the Akron library coming up) - but the trick is finding a job she wants to get in the end, seeing what her ideal life would be!

We may have taken steps to that today. I got her to strongly think about it, and she might like getting a job with PBS or in the non-profit organization sector. So now it's just a matter of the two of us researching that (because as you know I have nothing but free time) and making it happen! I totally see potential in her, and it's really comforting. n.n David on the other hand, is still a challenge, but one thing at a time...

Website of the Day: "Damn You Auto Correct.com" -- ROFLMAO, this site is HILarious! Amanda told me about I think, it's a FML-style site of cellphones autocorrecting text messages and being annoying to the owner, Hilarious to us! Go check'm out, but like any FML/TFLN-style website, it is addicting. (So long, productivity!)

Song of the Day: "Fluorescent Adolescent" by Arctic Monkeys. Today I read an article that said Myspace had lost another 10 million users in just one month January - February 2011. The Wikinews article mentioned that at it's height, Myspace had discovered such musicians as "Lily Allen, Kate Nash, and the Arctic Monkeys." So since I'd heard of the first two (and liked them,) thought I'd look up the Monkeys...

Fun! Fun! Fun!

2011-03-22T11:33:00.000-04:00

Omg Blog, I miss you! It's been too long - but it's been a busy, busy spring break. First of all, as of the Sunday before last - I am the Circle K district Governor-elect (starting April 1.) Which means Circle K has become my priority for the next year+! And priority it has been. I've already traveled to Columbus and Marietta, and have plans to visit Baldwin Wallace, Cincinnati, and Dayton in the next two weeks. And I've been in contact with a bunch of the Presidents, trying to fill our board.

But I'm going to try to keep Circle K off this blog as that enters a politically-gray area. Rather, lets talk about the other awesome things that I encounter in life! Like how wonderful the weather has been these past few weeks! I don't know if I've ever mentioned, but mom bought me a mountain bike among other things for Christmas this past year. I put it together for the most part on Christmas, but had some trouble with the break lines and tires. Well yesterday I finally got around to fixing the breaks, and now I just have to get air in the tires. Unfortunately, my bike does not fit in my car - so I'll have to walk it up to the Circle K (Gas Station) in Stow, which fortunately is just up the street a few blocks.

Life at the Condo is finally evening out to normalcy, I think. Moms finding clubs and things to do in Stow, and I've even got her finally considering buying normal adult clothes and not wearing David and Mine's hand-me-downs. She's even watching her own shows on cable, using the DVR, she uses the internet (luckily she's not on Facebook or Twitter... yet...) , AND she's writing again! :D OMG! I forgot to mentioned, David FINALLY got his Drivers License! WOOOOO! So this Summer I'm hoping I've wittled away at the list of things I have to help my family out with.

Song of the Day: Well, not so much today - as last "Friday" - "by" Rebecca Black. The internet has been filled, over the last weekend, with criticisms and hair-pulling reviews of this song. Somewhere, parents paid $2,000 to have their 13 year-old daughter put into a 'professional-looking' music video with the company writing a song for her.

Wikipedia cites observers have called it "bizarre," "inept," and "hilariously dreadful." Rolling Stone's Perpetua stated, "When you see this video, you immediately notice everything that it does 'wrong', but it actually gets a lot of things about pop music right, if just by accident."

Also from Wikipedia: As of 22 March 2011, the "Friday" music video has been viewed more than 33 million times on YouTube and has reportedly sold more than two million downloads from iTunes, where it reached #19 among singles.^[11] Based on such data, Forbes estimated that Black and Ark Music had received "easily" more than $1 million from iTunes sales, and $20,000 more from YouTube's revenue-sharing program.^[40]

^{Lord help me, I can't get this song out of my head through much of the day :( IT'S SO AWFUL!!!}

Baby Steps to a Better World

2011-03-12T11:30:00.003-05:00

In student government, I have been called on occasion "Captain Planet." It's true, I love green things, and want the world to be as environmentally friendly as possible (though when I originally tried to join ASG, that wasn't particularly on my mind.) None the less, is this cool or is this cool!

A solar-powered wireless keyboard! It runs off of both solar and ambient lightbulb light! Fully charged, it can operate in complete darkness for 3 months! Less than a third of an inch thick, it doesn't even include paper instructions to be greener. (Not that I'd use them anyway.) At a wince-inducing cost of $79.99, it's not exactly the kind of fun extra spending I can do right now, but something to keep in mind next birthday/Christmas/lottery winning.

Song of the Day: "Him" by Lily Allen. So a few weeks ago Sarah mentioned I didn't have any Lily Allen on my iPod, so I remedied that situation and gotta say - she has alot more good songs than I'd expected! Well this one is about "capital H- I- M-" as Lady Gaga would say. It's an interesting song about what people might think God would be like if you walked into him on the street.

The lyrics I find most interesting:

"Ever since he can remember
people have died in his good name
Long before that September
long before hijacking planes
He's lost the will he can't decide
He doesn't know who's right or wrong
But there's one thing that he's sure of:
This has been going on too long..."

Religion of the Insecure

2011-03-10T00:36:00.000-05:00

Kudos to you, Pop music industry, for recognizing that the 2010 surge in Gay Teen Suicide was a serious issue to be addressed. As a bleeding-heart liberal, I am all for the promotion of gay rights as human rights and human equality everywhere, and no one should feel society hates them for who they are or who they love! But the actual subject of this blog is how pop music has been addressing this in recent months...

Lady Gaga has set the standard for embracing her LGBT following: this has included fighting for marriage and military equality, doing all kinds of things to fight "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." But her recent song and video - Born This Way - is the highlight. I mean, the video opens with sparkly rainbow Unicorns inside of a pink triangle: a combination of a bunch of LGBT insignia.

The Message of "Born This Way" is be proud of who you are, and if you face opposition it's because you were 'born to be brave!' And everyone is beautiful in their own way, an overall feel-good song that goes out of it's way to list EVERYONE so no one feels left out:

"Don't be a drag, just be a queen
Whether you're broke or evergreen [So if you poor, or you a tree...]

You're black, white, beige, chola descent
You're Lebanese, you're orient
Whether life's disabilities
Left you outcast, bullied or teased
Rejoice and love yourself today
'Cause baby, you were born this way

No matter gay, straight or bi
lesbian, transgendered life
I'm on the right track, baby
I was born to survive..."

But this doesn't stop with Gaga. Remember this past Fall's hit "We R Who We R" from Ke$ha? That song especially seems to be the language of 'your born that way, enjoy it, haha I like your beard.' But it's not until Ke$ha's more recent video "Blow" that the gay-pride symbols come literally blasting out at our faces! In this strange video, Ke$ha is kicking it back with a couple of Unicron's sipping martini's until a strange man sends her a piece of cheese. They then engage in crazy shoot-out fight scene with laser guns which make the Unicorns, well, here watch it:

A long time presence in the industry, I feel like Pink doesn't really get the credit she deserves. She has a lot of great songs, with many great messages but only a few end up performing any good on the radio. She's been making "love yourself for who you are" songs for years -- but the recen't "Fu**'n Perfect" seems to be intentionally aimed at the recent situation.

Then we've got Katy Perry's "Firework." Watching the Firework video is another feely-good, be who you are and dance around and don't be afraid to stand up to people or ideas.

Picture of the Day: Awww, so very soon after Gaga released "Born This Way" a young girl named Maria from Winnipeg, Canada put a video of her covering it on Youtube. As the magic of youtube often can, Maria was shot straight up to stardom! And wouldn't you know, before long it was Lady Gaga herself asking Maria to autograph a shirt with her face on it...

Later, Lady Gaga invited her to duet Born This Way on stage at one of her concerts! A fan's dream come true, I'm sure.

Despite the clouds, I'm Walkin on Sunshine!

2011-03-10T00:25:00.000-05:00

Wow! So I've been having an awesome couple of days/weeks recently! It's really frightening how good it's been, like, I'm worried it can really only go down from here.

I got contacts! And I'm getting the hang of them pretty darn quickly. It took like an hour and a half of training at the place to learn to put them in and take them out. Then the first day it took like an hour and a half to get them out, I felt kinda dumb. But today I was able to put them in in like 6 minutes which by far is a record for me and we'll see how quickly I manage to take them out tonight. I have two types of cleaning solutions I'm supposed to use, and one of them is much stronger, must be in for 6 full hours at a time, and some kind of carbon gear does some kind of chemistrial magic that makes it not sting me! it's really quite fascinating.

I got a new phone! FINALLY, after two long years with that awful Blackberry Storm -- now I've got the Droid X and it is wonderful! Oh the apps I can have, and the ease of use I've been able to... enjoy? It's just all around wonderful. No problems at all, some minor flukes I have to get used to, but no problems. The Droid X is pretty big -- so its kind of awkward to type sideways, but I'm okay typing vertical style and prefer it actually. Then the fact that there's no talk button is just something I have to get used to -- I keep looking for it, but you have to hit the number like twice. n.n Google Goggles, Angry Birds, and a Hiragana testing ap all make my day every time.

And 3 months later -- my reimbursement check from the University finally went through! So when I least expect it, waPOW! Money!!!! n.n Not to mention the surprise random deposits from my savings bonds' interest. I'm not rolling in dough, by far, but it's nice not to have to worry too much about money every week - and all my credit cards being at zero is on the clear and present horizon. The only problem with that is that my personal economics actually functions better slightly in debt than when I'm in the black, so hopefully that doesn't go sour.

Then there's Circle K and ASG. My work load next year is going to be pretty darn light, so I'll have plenty of time coasting to graduation to do student org things. My campaign to be reelected College of Education Senator in ASG is underway, and without opposition, I don't see the election being much stress. And Circle K: Oh, Circle K... so the district is facing a slight issue with who will be Governor, and other board positions with no one running at the AWESOMELY successful DCON. So I'm strongly considering applying for the position myself.

Quote of the Day: I'm stealing one of the Hillary Clinton blogs I follow's "Quote of the Day"s.

"Some take the view that, to encourage tolerance, some hateful ideas must be silenced by governments. We believe that efforts to curb the content of speech rarely succeed and often become an excuse to violate freedom of expression. Instead, as it has historically been proven time and time again, the better answer to offensive speech is more speech. People can and should speak out against intolerance and hatred. By exposing ideas to debate, those with merit tend to be strengthened, while weak and false ideas tend to fade away; perhaps not instantly, but eventually." - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during her February 15, 2011 speech on internet freedom at George Washington University.

What to do with an old-looking, blank Journal

2011-03-01T16:08:00.000-05:00

So if you are ever at a loss for what to get me as a gift, and you happen to be in the checkout line of a Borders, know this: I LOVE old-looking blank journals! Specifically, the ones that don't have lines; As I told Patsy's the other day, they just serve as prison bars to my thoughts. Well Sarah got me for Valentine's Day a blank antique-looking leather journal and it's awesome! What to write in it!?...

I think blank, old-looking journals are the coolest. I always imagine the movies or TV shows where the main character has to follow their great-grandfather's diary, or the maps hand drawn by some archeologist, or something cool like that! I've always wanted to find something like that in an attic or something. And if I can't find something like that in an attic for myself, by golly I'm going to leave something cool like that in an attic for my kids to find and have the fun I never had.

Like in "Indiana and the Last Crusade" (by far the best one), his father's Holy Grail diary collecting his life's work of research on finding the holy grail. The history of the real prop shows there were actually several, fetching as high as $18,000 (ah, to be a rich prop collector...) but there are countless fan replicas out there that feature far more creative inserts I'm sure.

Which reminds me, I've been trying to follow the stock market since starting my teaching experience at a local high school, and Border's Books' stock has plummeted as they seek bankruptcy assistance :(! Nooo, I love book stores, why are they closing. People will say it's the rise of the eReader, but I'm more inclined to believe we are moving towards an economy where you have to constantly produce super high profits to stay in the game - and nows not days where people are reading much. Sad, sad times we live in.

(This is actually from a Barnes and Noble, but I'm illustrating the blank journals in the background)

I met Patsy at one of the local Borders that has no plans to close just yet for coffee the other day. Support the businesses you enjoy! They may not be there forever...

Song of the Day: "F**kin Perfect" by Pink. I did not know the real name of this song, only the bowdlerized version played on the radio... it seems pretty clear this is in response to the recent suicides/bullying crisis that has been going on with America's youth in the past year.

Aww! This is so much sadder and in music-video form. Especially when I recognize the main character as Mac from Veronica Mars.

HATCHED: The Premier of 'Born This Way'!

2011-02-18T21:08:00.001-05:00

Sorry it's taken a week to blog about this, but it's been a busy week! That's right Little Monsters, last Friday morning Lady Gaga released her long awaited and much anticipated new single off her new album: "BORN THIS WAY." The radio (96.5 in particular) played it every hour on the hour all weekend! Which came as a pleasant surprise as I drove home from Sarah's at 6:59 Friday morning n.n

Then Sunday night, Lady Gaga performed her new song live at the Grammy's for the first time. Never to be out-dressed or out-staged, she arrived at the red carpet being carried "Roman-style" by her back-up dancers, having spent the entire weekend inside of a giant egg, which the egg's designer has labeled a "vessel."

During the Grammy's, I followed the Twitter chatter, watching live updates of things people posted about the Grammy's. It was actually really fun to watch so many people's opinions in real time, it was almost like a massive chat room but without speaking directly at people. WOAH, it was almost like a chatroom of thoughts for the world! Mindblowing! My *FAVORITE* tweet from that experience is my quote of the day below.

Haha, oh I almost forgot. Something that I feel will be elaborated on in the 'Born This Way' music video (due out sometime next week apparently) is the horns on her shoulders and face. (Exploring more, the video could be out as early as Monday or Tuesday actually! Another fun week ahead! :D)

They were present in her next two commercial-break-changed-outfits (lolz) and also the next night on The Jay Leno Show. OH! I watched the clips of Gaga on Jay, and she acted so bitchy to the other guest - but maybe it was just me. It seemed like she was kinda stealing the other lady's thunder. (Haha, watch the video at: The LA Times. They seem to suggest Gaga's got a bit of a girl crush on guest Sofia Vegara. I dunno, I don't see it...)

Quote of the Day: "Lady Gaga went to the VMA's dressed as meat, now she's at the Grammy's in a egg. Two more red carpets and she could be a Denny's Grand Slam." - Person on Twitter that I retweeted, Hahaaa, I laughed out loud at this.

Website of the Day: Haha, while exploring the other things above -- I found this: DrunkDiet.com -- apparently the project of on-again/off-again Lady Gaga boyfriend Luc. How to diet while getting drunk all the time like a rockstar!!? Snookie, something to look into. After I finish this I'll look into it, while I do want to loose some weight, I can't say I drink all that much.

Song of the Day: "Hold It Against Me" by Britney Spears. (WOAH! Surprise ending!) I kind of want the white and black pants the back-up dancers (that are guys...) are wearing. Spears continues the theme of 'slight chuckle-worthyly clever song titles" (remember "If You Seek Amy"?) with, "If I said I want your body now, would you Hold It Against Me." Note the double meaning. -_- Hm, a blog said seeing it a second time you pick up a bunch more stuff: true. I just noticed that later the back up dancers faces are freaky. Well, here, watch for yourself first:

What is with the "Plenty o Fish" product placement? The real life dating website was first in Telephone, then in another music video that escapes me... but seems more out of place and forced here. Admittedly, I had trouble understanding what this video "meant." Then I read this MTV article on it, realized it was directed by Jonas Åkerlund (who directed Gaga's Paparazzi and Telephone!) and they explained it in a way where at least the visuals made a ton more sense. I still don't quite get the connection to the lyrics...

"With lyrics about flirting with a cute guy in a club, the song's video could have been just a straightforward narrative, but instead Spears and Åkerlund gave an insider look at celebrity, abstractly hinting at a tale about a pop star who fell from space in a fiery red comment, to find fame here on Earth. Midway through the video, our pop star character becomes overwhelmed by the pressures of fame and, emitting neon paint from her hands, she breaks down. The scene of an exhausted Spears, lying face down, her huge white gown covered in paint, might be one of the most beautiful and artistic in this entire piece."

Roller Coaster Wednesday

2011-02-17T02:36:00.000-05:00

Well today has had it's ups and downs. At work, working midnight to 6 am trying desperately to stay awake even when I'm full of Redbull and bottled Starbucks.

This is made out of Redbull cans! WOW!

Lets see, stayed up til 2am last night somehow watching Star Wars IV with Sarah. (That was probably not so good a decision, but it was due today.) Woke up for class at like 6am this morning, had "Instructional Techniques" with the awesome bearded teacher; that class was boring. We're doing practice discussions so students can get experience leading a class discussion, even when it goes sour. We have to have 20 minutes of discussion. I talk a lot in that class, haha, sometimes I feel bad but no one else is talking and it's the point of the activity! I'm not going to leave the teacher-student hanging there. Especially when I have a valid opinion that hasn't been voiced yet.

Anyway, one of the problems was that all three group-discussion leaders used the same "Count off and move" method of dividing us into groups. I hate that. I'm going to research alternate methods of doing that now actually.

Anyway, from there Sociology with the crazy teacher who likes to pander to Freshman level humor. Especially in this unit on sexual deviancy. But he did make some interesting notes about people and how they percieve society's expected goals, and expected means of reaching those goals. I guess I'm very conformist; where as David is either a "Rebellionist" or one of the others: he rejects society's values, and also the means of prospering (ie: get a JOB, have dreams, etc.)

Then the fun. Got to have Lunch with Kayla! :D which was nice cause I never get to see her, but she was on campus for something. I was still feeling sick from last night's crazy all-you-can-eat Chicken wings dinner. Ugh. I'm going on chicken fast for the next week. Then had "Science and Technology in World History" class which is always a little interesting. Then ASG office hours, where I'm working on electric car charger legislation and trying to get people to support it which is proving difficult in these economically hard times. But had a couple hours of really interesting debate with various members, beneficial debate rather than the kind that leads to animosity. I really wish I could have been on a Debate team kind of thing in high school. Got a hold of the University budget for 2009, and we're going to start looking for ways to save the University money by cutting things.

If Best Buy can be cool, why can't we...

OH! Another good part of my day was that I got an email about subletting my room. I emailed her back, adn she emailed me back: Turns out it was Rob's friend Amanda that I met through Circle K last year! Haha. Small world. Oh man I wanna move into the Stow house already, though admittedly I'm avoiding mom to a degree after her craziness this weekend.

Well, worked 6-8, then didn't really want to work out because of the whole 4 hours of sleep and working 12-6 thing, and it just didn't really fit into my afternoon. Hoping tomorrow goes better, class and test at 10am, followed by College of Ed meetings until Senate, followed by a CA meeting that goes into the night -- but AT LAST, this CA training thing is PAID! woopwoop.

Song of the Day: "Stereo Love" by Edward Maya and Vika Jigulina. This random Romanian techno song somehow made it onto American charts, and I got to admit it's never really grown on me all that much. But other people seem to like it. It's too soothing for me. I honestly can't say I know any of the lyrics, and didn't really know the song's name until just now. Lets take a look at the lyrics and video shall we...

Well I can tell you know the video is boring. It's just a guy and girl walking around what looks like a city I would expect to find in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants very contemplatively. And the lyrics are very typical generic love song, I don't really see this standing out in anyway.

Fergalicious

2011-02-15T09:10:00.001-05:00

Haha, I should probably write a blog about my birthday, or Valentine's day, or 'Born This Way', but I'm going to skip those for now and come back to them -- and rather write about the Fergie song Fergalicious! While I was enjoying some light reading recently, I felt the need to check out an early Stacey Ferguson song, while she was a member of a '90s band: "The Wild Orchard" (which sounds like a fruit juice brand....)

Yeah, greatest song ever it isn't. But it did put me in the mood to hear good Fergie: ergo, "Fergalicious."

Again, greatest song ever it isn't. But who among us can say it isn't catchy! Few artists can turn themselves into an adjective quite so well as Fergie. (Though Lady Gaga certainly has succeeded, if you've seen the tweets about Nicki Minaj's Grammys hair.)

Something I've never noticed before: the background dancers in the beginning of the Fergalicious music video? They have cereals painted on their chest. "Trix" is the easiest to make out - another looks like it could be Fruity Pebbles, but it's not the right font, and I can't make out the other two.

My dear friend Patsy does not like this song as much, because she insists on being the reining "dirty girlscout" -- just ask the waitress at Brubaker's!

Birthday Wish List: 2011

2011-02-10T03:56:00.000-05:00

Phew, busy week. So I thought with my Birthday being this weekend, I would throw out a few really simple Birthday gifts people could get me ya know with their spare money lying around! :D

So with my move into the condo, I'm trying to organize the family's things, especially setting up an organized system for our DVDs. And I've realized recently, that I don't own many DVDs that aren't seasons of TV shows (because back in 2005 and earlier we went through a phase of buying lots of TV shows on DVD.) Well, there's a lot of movies you could probably find for like, 6$ that I also would like. As a rule, I do enjoy me some special edition DVDs or even Blu-Ray (even though my laptop is the only Blu-Ray player we got.) Still, why not prepare for the future! Especially since our house has 2 high def TVs. But, Here's a few!

1. "Minority Report". This is one of my favorite movies. I really love movies that display the future in a realistic way, especially technology. And this movie had some awesome technology, the computer screens with the gloves, the whole car system, and the "sound wave" gun-blasters! I have to admit, the rocket packs were a little over the top, but it's Tom Cruise, what isn't?

2. "The Men in Black"/ "The Men in Black II" - Both good movies, the second maybe not as much but still pretty darned good. You may quickly realize from my interests that I'm a big science fiction fan. But I remember growing up watching the Men in Black cartoon show even, so this is def one of my favorite movies: I love that in the second movie they imply Michael Jackson (who makes a cameo with speaking role!) and Martha Stewart are aliens, hahaha...

(This is a Japanese version of the boxed set. I don't expect this.)

Woah! While googling, I just found THIS:

The complete series of Men in Black The Series! No way! Eh, probably bootlegged :-/ Huh. I never noticed each episode title was "The ________ Syndrome". But I'm getting off track...

3. I Am Legend. Another movie set in the not too distant future, where the technology isn't anything special but the action and adventure is pretty good. Another Will Smith movie; if you haven't seen it go rent it, I don't feel like summarizing it, I'll just say my favorite parts are how the whole city is abandoned! *U*

4. Bicentennial Man: I love this movie. Robin Williams is kind of annoying, but aside from him the movies worth watching! It's got the doctor from Jurassic Park! It's set in like, 2005 I think? (Lol, cause we ALL had robots by then...) And one of my favorite actresses, Lynne Thigpen as PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD! The end of this movie is soooo sad, I may just tear up if I watch it not gonna lie. I like the scenes of the "World Congress" - yay Democracy in the future! Oh hey, I forgot his name was Andrew. Wow, the Internet HATES this movie!

5. The Matrix Trilogy -- That's right, all three Matrix movies, preferably in a set of some type. Maybe even on Blu-Ray. I love the Matrix movies, despite what people say - I really enjoyed the second and third one! The second one is probably my favorite. Seraph and Niobe are probably my favorite characters, and Niobe's Asian sidekick. Because you get to play as them in the video game - which I loved and came so close to beating this one time then we had to return it to Blockbuster :-( Now I own the game and can't get past the first level. I suck.

Ke$ha, what the %#*!@ you upto now?

2011-02-01T11:13:00.001-05:00

Firstly, YAY SNOW DAY! :D In addition to having UA off, the school I was supposed to meet my teacher also had a snow day. So some emails will be going on there. Which will be alot easier because as of this afternoon: Internet and Cable at the Condo! *U*

Song of the Day: Yesterday I came across this video parody: "Disney Princess Ke$ha"... but the parody stars the Real Ke$ha! Hahaha, it's kinda out there (but then what Ke$ha thing isn't?) but I kinda like it. I've played it as background music a few times definitely.

Haha, one part I especially like is that the "fairy godmother" at the end is the guy from the hilarious Key of Awesome videos, Mark Douglas!

Video of the Day: Apparently it's not even her first appearance there. Last November she gave a somber interview explaining the $ in her name.

Quote of the Day: "I'll sneek in your house, and I'll leave before dawn! Your daughters will be pregnant, and your cookies will be gone!" HAHhahaha... apparently Kanye West (ft. Nicki Minaj) has a song called "Monster".... well Key of Awesome has a parody of it, which includes cookie monster, and it was average -- accept for the parts with Cookie Monster, those were the funniest.

Fighting Terror, in Color!

2011-01-28T18:43:00.001-05:00

As I've said before, it's almost like President Obama is one by one tackling every campaign promise and really every political opinion I've ever had since day one. Admittedly, it took this pretty easy to fix one a while before it was addressed - but late is better than never.

Homeland Security Ditching "Color Threat System"

Or even better, here's the CNN blog of "Why the Color System never made any sense in the first place." I have personally on at least one occasion written to Secretary Napolitano asking the Department of Homeland Security remove the system, back in 2009. Lol, I occasionally get the urge to write to people or things like that. A few weeks ago I wrote to PayPal telling them I support their efforts to distance themselves from WikiLeaks, even if it got their website attacked a few times.

Picture of the Day: A news article called this the next product of "the Cult of Sarah Palin." A comic book called "Steampunk Palin" -- wtf? Really people? What is this personality cult around her? Haven't we proven she's not your "average, run of the mill hockey mom" -- have you seen her show?! They vacation every day and have a TV studio in their garage! And I'd like to hear one person comment on this blog that fishes for food they eat more often than once a month!

...did I mention the bad guy was "RObama"... (he's a robot.... I'm not making this up...)

"Comedians everywhere were understandably dismayed at the close of 2008’s presidential election, when it seemed that Sarah Palin and her nonsensical antics might fade from the spotlight. Jon Stewart wasn’t even afraid to admit it. After all, who else could provide such formidable and reliable comedic gems? Thankfully, Palin never strayed too far from the spotlight, and now the former vice presidential candidate, former Alaskan governor, and current reality show star is the subject of her own comic series Steampunk Palin..." - Black Book

A Once, and Future Author

2011-01-23T21:00:00.001-05:00

So I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on my blog before or not, but lately when I get REALLY bored (this started at the start of Winter Break) I'm making a Harry Potter textbook. The problem is writing a book takes a really long time, especially when your trying to use a non-fiction style of writing, and SUPER especially if you want a lot of pictures.

(Source for that image)

As I've mentioned before, I LOVE things that make my favorite fictions seem more realistic (a Lumiere replica candlestick? A wand from Harry Potter? The Charmed Book of Shadows? Star Trek props, you get the idea.) Well, I'd totally want a custom printed book made to look like a textbook from Harry Potter! That'd be so cool! And the easiest way to get one? Write one. PSH, not so much.

The real easiest way would probably be just design a custom dust cover and put if over a textbook. But that would be boring, I want to be able to flip through pages and read magic things from the POV of it being real! These pics, by the way, are of real props from the Harry Potter movies which I found awesome and inspirational in my endeavors.

So yeah, I'll keep you aprised on my efforts to write a magic book. Then, of course, in real life I want to write a few history books over the course of my life. Teddy Roosevelt wrote like 40 books! Several of which while he was Presidenting the United States! (He liked to keep busy.)

Some book titles I hope to author in the next 92 years:

A History of Garfield Heights, Ohio: The Decline of the Modern Subrub (2014)
The History of Theodore Roosevelt in Pictures (2017)
Primary Primary Sources in American History: Treaties and Speeches of Americana (2020)

Website of the Day: OMG! I just found this googling an image of Theodore Roosevelt writing something for above. A THEODORE ROOSEVELT PICTURE GALLERY ARCHIVE! Like, every photograph of Teddy, categorized!!! This is going to entertain me for like, an hour and 6 minutes at least!

Picture of the Day: Haha, found this while exploring the site mentioned above....

(From website below) "At an airshow at Aviation Field in St. Louis, Missouri on October 11, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt was offered a seat as a passenger in a plane for a demonstration flight. The pilot's name was Arch Hoxsey, who had just completed a record flight from Springfield, Illinois. The plane reached an altitude of about 50 feet, circled the field twice and stayed airborne for about four minutes. TR said he wished they could have stayed in the air for an hour. Arch Hoxsey was killed in a plane crash on December 31, 1910. This flight made TR the first President to fly in a plane. There is a picture of him strapping himself in that does look as though he was the pilot, but he was not. "

Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to ride in an Airplane (as you can see, this is one of the earliest airplanes - before "passenger" airplanes of today.) He was also the first President to be seen riding an Automobile, to own a car, to be submerged in a submarine, to travel outside of the US WHILE being President, and several other cool things. This guy's an inspiration!

Song of the Day: "Dance With Me" by 3Oh!3. For no specific reason.

Epic Awesomeness for the WIN

2011-01-22T08:00:00.001-05:00

What are, phrases that really annoy me?

So Angela put up a Facebook status about the Xbox going Redring, so I google/Wikipedia-ed it. I've determined Xbox 360s suck. I have never particularly wanted one, but now I for certainly don't want one. The studies Wikipedia cites (key word: CITES) says they screw up up to 60% of the time because of errors in construction. WTF? But I do want a Playstation... but not a PS3. They suck too. So I was wondering what the progress on making a PS4 was, and I found this beauty:

Aaaah, OMG I WANT IT! It is so very beautiful. Regrettably, I don't think Sony themselves actually designed it -- some Australian did. But if Sony knew what was good for them, they would come up with the technology to make this possible and sell it because I WAANT IT SO badly :'(

Song of the Day: "Secrets" by OneRepublic. I do love the strings at the start of this though. Watching the video now, I can't seem to figure out the plot. But I do notice this line I like: "When the situation rises just write it into an album!" He usually sings so fast I can only pick up some of what he says. Huh, yeah I really don't get this video, is he standing her up? Is she cheating on him? Who's secrets are being given away? Shared? Apparently there are 4 music videos for this song (this being the third, according to Wikipedia.)

Picture of the Day: Haha, while randomly googling I found this at a blog and thought it was funny.

Mornings & Blue Raspberries

2011-01-21T20:56:00.002-05:00

Good morning followers and random googlers, because I have a quota of about 10 blogs a month I like to hit (and I'm sadly failing) I thought I'd share some interesting tidbits about my mornings, and food.

My morning: shower, go to the normal websites to check for updates (Facebook, my Akron email) usually liking or commenting on one or two things; go to HGTV Dream Home.com and register for my Vermont ski lodge which I'm going to win -- because it has a guest "dorm" bedroom for 8 people, and a fireplace next to the hot tub, and "microwave oven drawers" in the Kitchen, and its pretty much all around awesome. Check Wikipedia and CNN news [Politics], gotta be aware of whats going on each morning. Check my blogs I follow - most of which come from "Secretary Clinton" (about the daily appointments of the Secretary) and "The Life Diplomatic" (a blog of a guy's first assignment in the Foreign Service.) Both incredibly interesting, I think. But a new one I found the other day was a local Restaurant reviewer that I'm def going to need to go and read the past posts of: "Exploring Food My Way."

Speaking of food, those who have read Patsy's wall (on Facebook) over the past couple months have likely discovered a shocking truth. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A BLUE RASPBERRY! I am shocked, that is like my favorite flavor--- but it turns out "Blue" is a flavor? What a strange world. You don't understand -- for years until I was 21 I was hoping for a non-alcoholic Blue drink at restaurants. Here is a list of similarly mistaken or weird colored foods that I thought was an interesting link, lol

But wouldn't cha know it didn't end there. This week in my "Science and Technology in World History" class we were learning about early agriculture and horticulture. And it turns out, what we think of as Corn, is NOT NATURAL! CORN ON THE COB DOESN'T EXIST!

On the far right, we have what we think of as "corn." But it turns out -- natural corn is on the far left, and is not really edible. It took years of genetic mutations and Frankenstein-ing to make the corn on the far right. In fact it's genetic code is so weak, if you put corn kernels in the ground they probably wouldn't grow. Corn is completely farmed by people and needs a lot of care, in fact I think my "The World after People" book mentioned corn as we know it would go extinct pretty quickly.

News Article of the Day: Apparently the cash-strapped state-Government of New York is selling crap from it's store rooms (what a great way to make money and clear space! A garage sale!) by selling Government stuff on eBay. Didn't Palin put a Governor's helicopter on eBay or something? Haha, I'm searching for it, I wanna see some cool stuff their selling.

Song of the Day: "Yeah x3" by Chris Brown. OH WAIT, I Hate Chris Brown! >( err. Oh well, the story makes it worth it. So this song is average, nothing special at all. Even the title is just very every urban poppy song. But last night we went to Cici's with Kayla and when the lyrics ("Yeah! Yeah, yeah...") came on -- Brittany sang "Yeah, Times, three...." (like how the title is spelled) and I cracked up. Thought it was HILARIOUS. Still think it's hilarious today, lolz @ Brit!

Haha, I think I might have considered using this as a song of the day in the past then didn't cause I remember watching this music video -- Hahaha, I like the way it starts with a bunch of little kids "Hey! It's Chris Brown!" which is ridiculous and not realistic, and that's really the best part of that... (Watching it again) Actually I take that back, the one part of this I do like it the kung fu moves... cause I kinda feel like repeating them when ever I hear the song in the car haha...The last 2/3rds of it are actually kinda on the odd/bad side. And his pink suit with white shorts is just awful...

MLK jr. => Hermes, the Poem

2011-01-17T11:44:00.000-05:00

Pffahahahaha, so I discovered this new searchbar tool that raises money every time you search for something for the Martin Luther King jr. memorial in Washington D.C. Downloaded it, and what better way to test it than to search for myself? A search for AJHalliwell obviously brought up this blog, and other websites, (you can't use google btw -- only Yahoo) but I found a poem I apparently wrote in 12th grade! Ahahaha.

We were studying the Odyssey, and poetry (or something) and apparently I'd submitted this to Quizzilla and forgotten about it COMPLETELY. (Hermes, you see, was one of my favorite of the ancient greek gods.)

Hermes

Created by AJHalliwell Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Before reading the Odyssey in English, we were given a worksheet to learn the important greek gods. To make this easier, we all picked a greek god and added our pictures. While looking for good things about Hermes, I randomly felt like rhyming!

With wing’ed sandals and staff in hand
I fly and deliver across the land
Wit sharp as knives, voice soft as fleece
Messenger, of the gods of Greece.

The patron saint of liars and thieves,
Still an ever constant force of good.
I guide and assist he who believes
As, I would think, any deity should.

Spearheader of invention, athletics, oration,
Brings me to note ‘Boxing’ was first my creation.
As such I watch over all matches and fighters,
While still patron of poetry, poets, and writers.

“Giant-killer Mercury,” they ask, “O who will prevail?”
I am he who is Hermes, and this is my tale.

The Final Countdown (to PRAXIS)

2011-01-14T10:59:00.000-05:00

Well Ladies and Gents, it's the first Friday of Spring semester - and do you know what that means? Tomorrow I take one of the final major-est tests of my college career. The Praxis II: PLT, I need to pass this and one other test to become a licensed teacher (not to mention student teach, take more classes, honors project, etc.) And it's this Saturday morning. o.o

I'm a little tense about it, I wouldn't say worried is the word - but as for any test, I could've studied more. This one is basically on the psychology of students, what-to-do in situations kind of things. I've heard its pretty easy but I'm not gonna let that lull me into a false sense of security.

But I'm not gonna let it bring my life to a halt either. The next Praxis (which is in my content area, Social Studies) is about a month from now. (Wish my luck on both!) I need to pass both to student teach, so I've alotted myself some time between now and Spring 2012.

Well, I've slept in a bit to make up for being up 24+ hours the other day to work 12a-6am. x_X (I don't know how I managed to make it through that without blogging?!) But now I'm gonna take care of some things, then class: "Science and Technology in World History." (It's modeled very similarly to how my Ohio History class was, tons of lecture, a few tests, and a GIANT research project.) Hm, I just had an idea to write my giant research project (on some technological development in history) on how Star Trek has inspired the Cell Phone!

Picture of the Day: Haha, Amanda found this one: What a Pokemon map would look like for gameboy -- SET IN AMERICA! Cleveland is on here I think? I joked that despite the fact the map has no direct route between Mexico and America, there's an underground Diglette drug tunnel near the border I'm sure.

Welcome, Twenty-Eleven!

2011-01-11T08:38:00.000-05:00

Well today was the first day of the new semester! I had to wake up at 6 AM!!! X_X let me remind the world that I am in no way a morning person, I am completely a night person, or like an afternoon person. But NOT a morning person. So waking up was kind of a pain, but eh.

My first class was "Inst. Tech (Social Studies)" with Larry, who's AWESOME. He is really the coolest guy ever and I absolutely wish I could teach like him, but I feel like part of it is the years of experience and his retiree-esque nature. My favorite part about his class was he mentioned he plans to use the survey I put together with the College of Education's Student Success Task Force with the class as an example of student civic involvement!

Next I had Freshmen-level Intro to Sociology x_x blah. That, was boring. The teacher was pretty entertaining for a professor, but it was all the kind of humor designed to keep a freshman's attention and to be honest I feel like I've advanced beyond the testicle and stripper jokes. Now I prefer clever references and witty retort. (Cue Veronica Mars!) But overall, for the first day of a 2-ish hour class where we actually did work, it wasn't that bad. He claims crack babies are a myth, something I plan to investigate.

(I googled "Crack baby")

Then there was "Science and Technology in World History" which was actually significantly more boring than I was expecting. For some reason I was expecting Ed Tech or a computer class, but in hindsight that was dumb. It's with the really difficult teacher I had for Ohio History freshman year, and the reader/potential adviser to my honors project. Our first day there was learning about how Science doesn't always lead to Technology, the differences between the two and the two's definitions. And how sometimes we do the technology then the science -- apparently we'd been using steam engines for a century before scientists knew how they worked! Then later Sarah showed me this article on Gizmodo: Apparently, we just now (after what, 15 years of use?) figured out how DVDs work! Haha, I'm sure my teacher would get a kick out of it, but I don't want to be a teacher's pet.

Lets see, then it was three hours (of what will usually be two hours) of work in the ASG office. Apparently, the rumor is that people are worried we're going to come to a complete standstill once elections start and get nothing done. To avoid this, I am still trying to push my environmental issues but they're being held up by a 'committee' that may or may not form some day. But despite personal dramas members may have, or ASG elections, I plan to keep submitting ideas and legislation to keep the organization productive! =D

Then it was 2.5 hours of "Smartboard class". It was actually not that boring, I definitely learned about the Smartboard a lot more, and it seems like almost every classroom will have a Smartboard in America soon enough with all the grants out for them. Its definitely something that being certified in will look good on a resume. Plus they're legit fun to play with.

Then it was 8:00pm! X_X My Mondays are ridiculous. Then Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I have one class each. Poorly spread out, I know. But what are ya gonna do? The classes I need to graduate are the classes I need :(

Quote of the Day: Lol, clearly my teachers have a thing for naming cats F-names.

"(Only be absent if you need to, emergencies, like a family death)...but not your cat, Fido" - Teacher 1.
"(Only be absent if you need to, emergencies, like a family death)...but not your cat, Fergie" - Teacher 3.
"(Only be absent if you need to, emergencies, like a family death)...but not your cat, Fluffy" - Teacher 4.

Website (and hence, Pictures) of the Day: Haha, this gallery of decals for your Apple computer are pretty entertaining. I found it through the Snow White Witch one, but Iron man and the Twilight one are my favorites.

Song of the Day: "Crack a Vanilla Coke" by K.Flay. Bahaha! Sarah introduced me to this while we were baking creme brulee and bisquick cookies the other day. Hahaha, it's about a girl... with an addiction... to, well just listen below. But my favorite lyric in the song is def below, because I love when random technical things like that make it into songs. Hilarious!

"Cloudy skies, they all just clear up...
got my High Fructose Corn Syrup..."

"Pour it into my red American Idol cup..."

Saturday News Flash

2011-01-08T15:56:00.001-05:00

Just got back from my ASG Winter retreat, where we went over what we did in Fall, what we hope to do in Spring, elections, and a bunch of other stuff. That was 10am - 3pm, so now I'm trying to figure out what I need to get done before school starts Monday. But first, Newsflash:

Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona has been shot in the head in a shooting at a constituent meeting in Tuscon. A Democrat representing Arizona's 8th district (which does not contain any major cities, but does border Mexico) in the U.S. House of Representative, she was narrowly named the winner in the 2010 election ahead of a uber-conservative Tea Partier named one of the Tea Bagger's top 10 people with a future or something (criticized Sarah Palin for not being conservative enough o.O)

One of Rep. Giffords' notable efforts is to increase solar power-usage, here with some University of Arizona students. If it turns out the Tea Baggers did this, that is so inhuman and pathetic I can't even put it into words. Political assassination, what is this Afghanistan!

At present, the news is getting conflicting information on whether she has died. CNN says she's in surgery when I write this. I sincerely hope and pray she survives, and am reminded of the only other time a member of the House has been killed in the line of duty: Congressman Leo Ryan of California (1925 - 1978) was killed while investigating the "People's Temple" cult lead by Jim Jones, where the phrase "drinking the kool aid" comes from.

Well I don't want to be joking when such serious news is headlining the internet. But expect more blogs on the simple, fun and interesting things soon. Especially with school starting Monday.

"...of the Year" (2010)

2010-12-30T23:55:00.000-05:00

"...hit call all you want, but there's no one home..."

Good News of the Day: According to a Gallup poll asking American who they admire most, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ranked "Most Admired Woman of the Year" for the 9th straight year! Woop Woop! 17% of Americans say they admire her most, with 12% saying Palin (who made second place for the second year in a row.) Third place was Oprah.

Bad-... well, I suppose this is also Good News of the Day actually: Sarah Palin on the other hand, has won the well-deserved "Misinformer of the Year" title for all her cockamamie lies and deceptions - ranging all over from her reality show to those imaginary "death panels." Haha, here's to another year of her crazy zaniness and annoying methods of insulting Democrats while making herself look like uneducated.

Best Selling Album of the Year: The Fame (Monster) by Lady Gaga! WoooOOOOO! Lady Gaga's next album, "Born This Way" will be released February 19th, 2011 -- and Lady Gaga has said she'll be releasing the cover art of her new album at midnight on New Years!

The Second Worst Movie of the Year: The Last Airbender. I didn't actually go to look at what the worst film was, but having sat through this one - omg, it was awful. Rushed, poorly written, badly acted... just a headache of a movie. The special effects were awesome, and as Sarah put it, the only thing that likely saved it from "WORST movie of the Year."

Song/Video of the Day: (Note: Not of the Year) "So Long to Ya 2010!" by JibJab. BAHAHAhahahaha! Another great video describing all the events of the year, though as some people somewhere noted: it doesn't really hit on many of the cultural events, and focuses primarily on the political. That would definitly be the ONE downside. To make up for that, I've found this AWESOME Blog the JibJab people keep of how they made the video!