ITEC Adventures

I will soon be posting pictures of UNITUBA's time in Cincinnati, Ohio. Suffice to say it was draining, and I could have slept for 40 days upon my return. But it was...

FUCKING AWESOME.

Believe it.

Ruminations soon. Yes, I'm still alive.

Oh Dear

I was Facebook cruising and came across a wholesome group page called "You know you're a band geek when..." and one of the wall posts was someone trolling for their website in which they get too drunk to remember having sex but it's all on VIDEO!

Although titillating, I find this to be kind of absurd. Let me do these people a service: here's some groups you SHOULD have posted that message on, instead of a marching band page. Not to make the claim that band kids are asexual (NOTHING is further from the truth), but... well, yeah.

Anyway. Some suggestions:

• "Girls Gone Wild" Fans
• I Am An AIM Porn Bot
• I Have Jerked It In Public
• Males With Rape Fantasies
• Males With Fantasies About Being Raped
• If It's In Another Area Code, It's Not Cheating
• Bacardi 151: A Legal Roofie
• I Heart Soulja Boy
• Sperm Guards For Keyboards
• Fans of Nickelback
• I Hit On My Applebee's Waitress
• Natty Light: God's Nectar
• How Do YOU Spell Fun? A-D-D-E-R-A-L-L
• Go White Sox!
• You Know You Enjoy Videos of Drunk Girls Getting Plowed When...

This advice comes pro bono. You're welcome.

Surviving Moments of Unawesome

The human mind is a wonderful thing. A glorious, magical, insanely stupid thing. Your mind is the one and only tool in how you perceive the world. Your mind has absolute power over conceptions of reality, and you know what they say about absolute power corrupting absolutely.



In short: every single person on this planet is a befuddled douchebag of a human being.



I give you this man as proof.





I have no point to all of this other than to once again remind you all the Chad Kroeger and the rest of Nickelback should spend all of eternity listening to their own music and getting shocked with 400 volts of electricity every time it sucks.

Or perhaps I do. Wait, it's coming to me...


Oh yes, now I remember. As much I try to pass myself off as a decent human being, sometimes I'm confronted with actions that I myself don't approve of. This causes cognitive dissonance. Of you don't know what that means or are Chad Kroeger (or possibly both), go look it up. Anyway, I think I am awesome. Therein lies the problem. When I do things that are unawesome, this presents a conflict. Here's a briefing on how I can cope, using a recent example:


I asked a girl on a date who was already seeing someone. Some people will tell me I should have done more research before I asked such a question. I could have let this unawesome incident get to me, or let my friends (as well-meaning as they were) tell me I was a doofus. I did not. Instead, upon hearing this news, I dismissed it as in instance where 70% percent of all the cool chicks are taken. Sometimes you have to put your ass on the line and ask one of them out. You have a 30% chance of scoring a cool chick. The last I checked, batting .300 will get you far in baseball.


Do you see what I'm getting at here? When I was pursuing my Crush of the Week people always used to tell me "What's the worst she can say? No?" This is advice I've finally started taking to heart. It will reap benefits someday, rest assured of that. The funny thing is when I excersize this newfound philosophy, all my friends (especially those who have known me for a long time, back when I was explicitly insecure) are bewildered and ask me why the hell I did such a thing. The answer is simple:


BECAUSE I AM AWESOME.

testing

Truth Nuggets

• Lewis Black said it best when he said that the teachings of Jesus Christ may make you into a better person, but just because you follow the teachings of Jesus Christ doesn't mean that you're immediately a wonderful human being. KNOW THIS.
• People who make a joke about something on the internet and then follow it up with "LOL" are endlessly irritating. Stop laughing at your own joke, you dipshits.
• If music is the language of emotion, then bad music must be the equivalent of shitting yourself after straining too hard to fart.
• If you enjoy something, it doesn't automatically mean that its creator is a genius. The guy who invented the word "hyperbole..." now THAT guy is a fucking genius.
• Take a little bit of pride in everything that you do. If you aren't proud of something you're doing then stop doing it. That seems pretty simple, right?
• Biz Markie once said "If it's gonna be this kind of a party I'm gonna stick my dick in the mashed potatoes." One of these days I will find a party that is that kind of party with mashed potatoes. It's hard to find parties these days with mashed potatoes, but when I do, I will hump the bowl.
• I've said it before, and I will sure as hell say it again: thinking you are a fantastic person is not arrogance, cockiness, or anything of the like. You cross the line into arrogance when you hurt others around you with your actions. Otherwise, go nuts.
• Sidebar to the previous bullet: this is why you hear me say "You're damned right I am" a lot.
• The older you get, the less it seems you know. This is why teenagers really fucking piss me off.
• Philosophers might have a lot of profound things to say about the nature of life and loyalty the day that the Cubs finally win the World Series.

Amusements: The Running Diaries of A Madman

So as of right now, here's my situation: my computer monitor got fried in what I'm assuming to be a lightning storm, one of my summer jobs is quite literally a wash due to an ill-timed act of God and now my bills are piling up, and the most unacceptable and soul-crushing thing of all is that I haven't been on a date in forever.

See, it's all about perspective, people. Take notes. Get study groups together. You'll get in "A" in life if you know how to prioritize as I clearly have.

I suppose I could give you some musings or thoughts about the recent high-powered floods that have turned most of Eastern Iowa's municipalities into large, foul-smelling swimming pools, but I'll leave that to the experts. Guys like Bruce Aune who have done a stellar job in convincing us that we're all going to fucking die. A Roland Emmerich-style disaster movie called "Flood" and based on a true story can't be too far behind, right?

This was supposed to be the summer I got my life back in order, began going back to school full-time, and graduated with a bachelor's degree before the age of 30. Well, right now it's not looking so hot. I had a fairly lucrative gig set up running a taco stand (check that... THE Taco Stand) at Riverfront Stadium this summer. Well, that's not happening as of this moment. The lack of cash flow is now baring down on me in unprecendented ways, and this may mean that I might have to forego yet ANOTHER semester of not going to school in time to graduate before Trucker Movies become popular again.

Oh well. If anyone has anything to say that would help, think about it, and then contact me.

Cloverfield: A Lesson In Frustration

Let me start this whole thing out by saying that I enjoyed Cloverfield, but it's unlikely that I will watch it in the near future again. There is a lot about this movie to be questioned. No, I'm not talking about the fact that a monster is raging through Manhattan. I understand that there's a certain degree of forgiveness I have to muster when talking about monster movies. Here's a series of things that I have a hard time forgiving, though, and these are all things that could have made the movie better.

A 350-foot bipedal monster would crush itself. This is basically what the monster looked like. I've heard that it was 350 feet tall. I'm sorry, but gravity being what it is, and the structure that this creature has would mean that all that money and manpower spent trying to bring down this badass thing wouldn't be necessary. It would just buckle and fall since the center of gravity this thing would undoubtedly produce would kill it.

See, the largest living, mobile thing on earth right now is the blue whale. It is 110 feet long. It lives in the ocean. The largest land creature to have ever existed is believed to be a sauropod that was 89 feet long and 35 feet high. See what I'm getting at here? It just seems to me like J.J. Abrams was trying to make his creature as big as possible just to have insane shots of it moving around downtown Manhattan. Which brings me to the next thing that irritated me about this movie...

What the fuck? Why is this thing so God-damned infallible? I watched some of the special features after the film, and they say that this thing was a baby. A BABY. A 350-foot BABY. God only knows how big it was supposed to get when it was full grown.

That being said, since when do babies have the ability to reproduce? This thing sweats/flakes/poops out tiny little athropodic versions of itself that can bite and thereby infect hosts. When ready to make another sweat/flake/poop creature, it bursts out of the stomach of the host Alien-style.

I understand the purpose of all of this from a plot standpoint: it's fucking scary and we have no idea what the hell is going on and it's pretty hard to grasp watching a friend burst out a sweat/flake/poop creature from her stomach. But let's say that this thing is from another world, further lending creedence to this whole suspension-of-belief concept. What planet's ecosystem could possibly support a creature that may be up to 1,000 feet tall and reproduces by parasitic spores that need a host? It would likely take less than two years for the entire ecosystem to be obliterated by Cloverfield Monsters.

Finally, this thing can withstand the full brunt of an all-out military campaign, bombs and all. A desperate millitary has stopped caring about preserving the city of New York, and just want this thing dead. That means that everything and everyone is collateral damage. In other words, full-speed ahead, United States Military War Machine. I get that this thing is 350 feet, and a lot of effort would be required to bring it down. But throughout the film you watch this bastard absorb literally tons of firepower without so much as a stratch. WHY? I'm 6'4, and pretty big, but please don't call me a pussy if I eventually succumb to a guy repeatedly kicking me in the shins. Oh, and did I mention he has a small knife blade glued to his boot?

So there you have it. Cloverfield was a decent film, and a very clever high-concept idea. Maybe I should just concentrate on making my own monster movie with my own idea of what would happen if it destroyed Manhattan. I don't know. All I know is, this movie was very annoying.

Ain't That A Shame

It's official: I give up.

I am arrogant, I am a jerk, and now I'm apparently too nice.

Yes, you heard me correctly. In a delicious bit of irony, someone has recently told me that I am the kind of guy that seems so nice that he must have an ulterior motive. Then others agreed. Then I promptly grew a brain tumor. Maybe.

Is it really so hard to believe that I am just a guy? One regular dude who doesn't have an agenda? The only ulterior motive I have right now that I am aware of is that I'm constantly looking for female companionship. I don't think that makes me any different than anyone else (unless, of course, you are female, and sometimes even then...).

I am speechless for right now, but maybe I'll have something to say about this later. In the meantime, I recently watched Cloverfield, and I there's a few things I have to get off my chest. Expect an update soon.

Things My Roommate Taught Me

Basically, he's introduced me to The Office, a show I'd never watched before. This should be a physical impossibility. Consider the following:

• I love Steve Carrell's work.
• I was a big fan of Office Space.
• I am a big fan of clever TV shows.

The Office has all of this and more. What the hell was I waiting for? No more, my friends. I have now seen the entire first and second seasons, and will begin watching the third season sometime this weekend. I have my roommate to thank for that, since it was his idea, and he keeps dragging his DVDs out for me to watch.

For those of you who have not watched The Office, it is best described as a series of awkward moments interspersed with genuinely affecting moments. There are far too many for me to list here, but let me break down a few of them that were particularly affecting. Keep in mind I have not watched anything beyond the second season currently.

Michael Scott has to fire someone. It has been said that if you don't know a Michael Scott, you are a Michael Scott. Steve Carrell's character is the boss, and will not hesitate to tell you. When forced to do actual boss stuff, though, he balks because he tries very hard to be everyone's friend. He has no friends at work. When he actually has to fire someone, the look of dejection and heartbreak on his face is something that really hit hard for me.

See, it's like this: Michael Scott is an annoying, abrasive, obnoxious, and clueless boob. But he, just like anyone else has enough of a good person in him to find the thought of damaging someone's life unconscionable. Leadership is not always about resume-building. The biggest thing that people need to know about stepping up and making their mark on society is that inevitably you will have to do something that you don't want. Michael Scott fails as a manager because he wants to be everyone's friend. You cannot succeed without pissing someone off, though. Simply put: if you have made enemies, you have some semblance of professional success. Don't revel in it, though, you asshole.

Michael Scott comes alive entertaining the kids. The office decides to have Daughters at Work Day, and Michael tries to tell people that he doesn't like kids, and he's not good with them. This turns out to be untrue as kids are drawn to him. This seems natural to me since he's basically just a big juvenile. At one point he tells the kids that when he was a kid he was on a children's program. He shows them the footage, and 8-year-old Michael Scott tells the puppet interviewing him this when asked what he wanted when he was older:

"I want to have 100 kids so that I will have 100 friends because they'll have to
be my friends."

Again with the heartbreaking look, as he apparently forgot about this part of the show. He spends a great deal of the rest of the day in his office, dejected.

It's one thing to be young and have no friends because no one can stand you. My fellow nerds and I all understand this feeling. Fitting in as a child is hard, and can sometimes be the source of a lot of problems and therapy sessions. It's another thing entirely when you are a full-grown adult. Michael watched his childhood self tell him that he'd essentially failed at something as simple as having friends when he was older. The look on his face as he sees this says a lot. It means that Michael desperately wants someone to relate to. It also means that deep down, despite his endless clowning and vying for attention, he knows that no one there really likes him.

The lesson here is obvious: as an adult it is considerably more easy to make friends because adults are not kids and will give you a lot leeway to act like a dipshit. Hell, I go out with friends sometimes for the expressed purpose of acting like dipshits. If you look around you and realize that all your acquaintances you call "friend" find you disgusting, you need become a lot more likeable. People want to listen and be listened to. They want friends, not bad entertainers or makeshift professors.

Jim and Pam. Don't spoil the ending for me yet because I don't see how this ends up, but the characters of Jim the salesman and Pam the receptionist are some of the most relatable on television right now. I like Jim on The Office. He's self-aware, kind, and gets along with everyone without having to strain. He also has a huge crush on Pam, seeing her for the complicated and real person that she is. He loves her for it. She likes him back too. Oooh, DRAMA!

But she's getting engaged to a guy who is, for all intents and purposes, not an asshole in the strictest sense. Roy, her fiancee, is a good guy and likes Pam. He recognizes the person she is, but he doesn't get it. He is unaware that he is suffocating her. He's obtuse and clearly believes the best years of his life are behind him. He's accepted this, but in a way expects Pam to do the same. Jim has told Pam repeatedly to make her own life, and make herself happy. He also really wants to make out with her, eventually telling her he loves her.

Guys, we all have or have had a Pam. Screaming in your mind at Jim to take the initiative and tell her how he feels is essentially the same thing as doing it to yourself. I put it out there that if you don't know a Jim Halpert, you are a Jim Halpert. Or perhaps it's possible to know and be both. I don't know. I have a Pam. I'm a pussy about it just like he is. Therein lies the beauty of it all: I can distract myself by setting someone's stuff in Jell-O.

Independent Films

I have a penchant for movies. A lot of you know this. I have a bitter and pronounced hatred for certain films, and my favorite films are ones that I will love my entire life. I rarely go to the theatre because I find it hard to cough up nearly 10.00 these days on something that is likely going to leave me longing.

Here is a short list of the last few films I have seen in theatres:

• Juno
• Knocked Up

And that's pretty much as far back as I can remember. Don't get me wrong, there were a few films that recently came out that I would like to see in the theatre (Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Iron Man, There Will Be Blood, Across the Universe) but I never got around to it because going to the movies is fucking expensive these days.

If there were more independent films in theatres, I'd probably see more of those. Juno would technically qualify as an independent film, and it's something I would like to discuss here. Juno was, for all intents and purposes, a good film. I enjoyed it. It does, however, fall prey to a trend that I find particularly annoying in independent film: quirkiness.

Why does this happen? It started with Garden State, continued through The Royal Tennenbaums, Rushmore, and now Juno. For what it's worth I liked all of those films because their work rises above the self-imposed parameters of quirkiness they set for themselves. Here's a question, though: why do they have to do that?

My theory is that a lot of mainstream films have a tendency to almost always take themselves way too seriously. Independent films then feel that it's necessary to counter this by going the opposite direction: NEVER taking themselves too seriously. What is the end result?

The end result is best exemplified by the main character in Juno. Would you ever, EVER, in a million years, meet a 16-year-old girl this self-actualized and snarky? When a 16-year-old's water breaks, I'm thinking the utterance "Thundercats are go!" would be way, WAY down on the list of things they would say. Perhaps "oh, God!" or "The baby's coming!" would be the choice phrase. Everyone in the theatre laughed at this, but it took me out of the movie for a second. Quirkiness was a big detraction for this movie.

What is my point in all this? I'm not sure. Perhaps it's that I would love to see a movie sometime soon that throws out predispositions and just plays itself out. There is a time for spectacle, there is a time for quirkiness, even. But sometimes I just want to keep it low-key and do my own thinking for once. Is that so hard to ask?