Post-Graduation Boredom.

Seriously, I thought this whole, “WOOO NOT HAVING TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL EVAAARRRR” thing would be fun.  It’s not.  It’s boring and lame.  Also still looking for a real job.  Freelance writing isn’t really cutting it right now.  The economy does seem to be improving, so that’s a plus.  However, I doubt I’ll be able to move up to Northern Virginia as I wanted to, at least until I can afford it.  Housing up there is fucking expensive.  So I’m thinking of going back to Fred Vegas, because it’s a bit cheaper and at least it’s closer to NoVA than I am here.  Again though, a job is needed.  FFFFFFUUUUU adulthood is lame.

My Bachelor of Arts is pretty awesome though.  I mean, it’s just sitting in a box right now, but some day I’ll display it or something.  Even if a history degree is borderline worthless.

I went on this quest to listen to every song in my iTunes library and I sort of hate myself for being such a music nerd now.  Seriously, I have over 12,000 songs.  On the other hand, I previously had 14,000 and this exercise is helping me to clean out my iTunes.  I had a lot of shit that people gave me, I listened to once, and then promptly forgot about it.  Honestly, if it doesn’t hold my attention enough for me to listen to it at least a few times or even simply remembering what the hell it is, there’s really no point in me keeping it.  I’m like a music hoarder, damn.

I really need to get back into playing guitar, because I sort of miss it.  As of right now XBox and job hunting are sort of ruling my life.  However there was something really pleasing about playing random Radiohead songs and the Super Mario Bros. theme.  Yeah, definitely need to pick one of my 3 guitars that are just sitting there back up.  Seriously even just typing that makes me sad.

Anyway.  Time to go back to doing…nothing.

Good News, Bad News

Good News: I graduate in about a month.

Bad News: WTF am I going to do after that?  I have to go out and be a real person now.  I’m not sure I can handle that.

Good News: Finished my thesis.

Bad News: My advisor hates it.  My meeting with him on Friday may end in tears for me.  Dread central.

Good News: Things with Potential Love Interest appear to be moving in the right direction.

Bad News: Suddenly everyone else has a crush on me, too.  Dammit you guys, why do you wait until there’s someone I’m interested in?  Seriously.

Good News/Bad News: Donovan McNabb was traded to my beloved Redskins.  Seriously, WTF.  I spent years hating this guy, and now I’ll be rooting for him.  I was pissed for a while, but after watching McNabb’s press conference yesterday, I feel much better about the situation.  I think we may start looking like a team instead of perplexed five-year-olds.  Who knows though; the Redskins never fail at being the Offseason Champions, so we’ll have to see what happens in the fall.

Good News: Summer seems to have arrived.  It’s 90 degrees outside.  It’s also April 7.  WHAT.

Bad News: I’ve had a fever yesterday and part of today, so I haven’t even been able to enjoy it.

Good News: Have weened myself off of caffeine, so I can actually function without coffee or Pepsi.

Bad News: I am now addicted to Gatorade, which probably isn’t much better.

Good News: REC 2 is out somewhere.  I need to hunt it down and watch it.  The first REC is easily one of my favorite horror movies ever.

Bad News: Watched Paranormal Activity.  Did people really find it that scary?  All I got out of it was a lot of time watching people sleeping, listening to a woman drop f-bombs on her dumbass boyfriend who keeps saying “dude,” listening to random banging that was probably supposed to make me jump, and failing to feel any sympathy for the absolutely stupid and arrogant assholes who were the main characters.  TL;DR Very underwhelming for all the hype that surrounded it.

Good News: Started getting frighteningly good at Modern Warfare 2 multiplayer.  Like, my kill-death ratio was actually going positive.  Once I had the most kills on my team.  WHAT.

Bad News: Now all I want to do is play MW2.

Good News: I’ll probably be keeping the rats after graduation.  SWEET.

Bad News: It would be sweeter if I had a job and a place to live.

Good News: Looking into freelance writing and blogging as a career option.  It sounds like something I would absolutely love doing.

Bad News: I have to look at options like that because there’s absolutely nothing out there for history majors.  Worst major ever.  I should’ve stuck to something practical instead of something I just “liked.”

Good News: I’ve made some new friends.

Bad News: One of said “friends” is my ex’s new girlfriend.  I’m pretty sure she’s trying to validate that she is the better option for him.  She’s probably also threatened because he still talks to me and IMs me a lot.  I always try to blow him off, because A) half the shit he says is ridiculous conspiracy theory bullshit, and B) I stopped caring about him quite a while ago.  She should be concerned with him, not me.  Potential Love Interest >>>> Conspiracy Theorist Ex.

So yeah, that’s my life in a nutshell right now.  Pretty average, yet aggravating.  Growing up sucks, I’m going back to 3rd grade.

OKCupid.com: An Experiment in Hilarity

Why oh why do I listen to dares?  This time it has landed me into OKCupid.com, one of those online dating sites.  While I have met one guy who seems somewhat cool (I’m not going to say anything about him, though, because 1. he’s a cool kid, 2. he has since deleted his OKC profile and we talk on AIM now so he doesn’t count anymore, and 3. there’s nothing to make fun of about him), the vast majority of dudes I’ve run into have been a bit weird.

Literally 30 minutes after I signed up, some guy IMed me.  He was quite odd.  He seemed cool at first, he lives in Fred Vegas, Redskins fan, personal trainer…but after a while the constant “watre u doing” got really annoying and creepy.  I wish I were joking.  I am glad he seemed to get the hint I was no longer interested and stopped contacting me the next day.

Next guy has family in Greece.  I should mention that on my profile I talk about how ancient Greece is my focus in my history degree.  For some reason, people with Greek heritage think I will throw myself at them because of that simple fact.  No.  Also, that was pretty much the only thing I had in common with this kid.  Plus he started getting creepy.  That was the end of that.

Next Greek guy was actually from Greece.  I saved his message for future giggles.  The subject line is, “DiD YOU EVER COME GREECE?”  Instant lulz.  The actual message reads, “HELLO,I AM [deleted] FROM ATHENS.DO YOU EVER VISIT GREECE?”  This guy is also 46. I didn’t even reply.

After that comes Strange Broken Hearted Guy.  This is his message: “Hello.. I hope I'm not bothering u at this time.. My name is [deleted] and after looking at your profile.. It would be an honor to chat with you sometime.. I'm 22 and I'm an aspiring artist. I like games (board, card, video, and sports of course lol) I've had much bad experiences with women and I think I deserve someone sensible. So I hope you consider this note and reply as soon as you can. Take care :)”  Honestly, this doesn’t seem like a bad kid but you shouldn’t just come right out and mention your past relationship issues.  Or maybe that’s just something that bothers me.  Anyway.

Facepalm Guy 1: “I had to actually google your religious view lol "Agnosticism" very interesting but I totally get it.
What are the qualifications for being a nerd ?”  First of all, this has to be the only person I’ve ever met in my life that didn’t at least know the basic idea of agnosticism, and I’m including a couple of 12 year olds in that pool.  Secondly, if you have to ask about nerd qualifications, you are not one, sorry.

HOLY SHIT WHAT THE FUCK Guy: I saw that this guy had viewed my profile one day, but I couldn’t tell what the hell was going on in his profile picture.  So I looked at his profile, and lo and behold, it’s a 45 year old guy wearing a banana hammock, a collar and a leash.  Then he imed me.  I panicked and not only closed Firefox, but shut down my entire computer.  Just……no.

Facepalm Guy 2: (Sidenote: I mention my hydrophobia somewhere on my profile just for lulz) “are you seriously afraid of water? Out of everything there is you are afraid of water? or is it just large bodies of water...”  After I stopped laughing, I had to reply to this guy.  As with my religious beliefs or lack thereof, I usually don’t have to explain it to people; it’s pretty obvious what I mean by it.  I love chugging water and soaking in bath tubs, I’m not going to run screaming in the other direction because someone’s holding a bottle of Aquafina.  I mean, honestly, guy.

Those are all the funny ones so far.  I have learned some shit about myself in the process, which I guess makes this a worthwhile experiment.  Firstly, I have some ridiculously high standards.  I mean, goddamn.  I seriously need to chill out.  It is next to impossible that I will find a guy who is like Thom Yorke, Joel Hodgson, and Eli Manning all wrapped up into one person.  Secondly, I have a severe aversion to replying to people unless I really have something to talk about with them.  I’m fine in real life, which is strange because you’d think talking over the Interwebs would be easier.  Not for this weirdo, apparently.  I suck.  Also, I should be less self-deprecating.  Actually, fuck that, it’s fun and I will never, ever be accused of having a huge ego.

So anyway.  I was totally going to delete this shit after a month or so but I’m receiving so much entertainment from it that I’ll hang around a little longer.  There doesn’t seem to be too many creepers on there, and the matching system seems pretty decent, so why the hell not?  Though I’m not really concerned about relationships at this point (especially because I’m preoccupied with graduating college and actually becoming an adult and shit) I figure what the hell, it’s there.  Hopefully I’ll get some more funny shit soon.

An Open Letter to Justin Bieber Fans

Dear Bielebers or whatever you kids call yourselves,

You know, one day I was just like you guys.  Except back in my day, we had *NSYNC, the Backstreet Boys, 98 Degrees, BBMak and O-Town. 

Yes, back 13 years ago, when many of you were still but a wee infant, or even a fetus or a zygote, I was a squealing fan girl.  I had t-shirts, posters, CDs, the fucking *NSYNC marionettes and fruit snacks (oh yeah, they existed, my friends), everything.  I fought tooth and nail with bitches who dared to make fun of them.  Shit got real more than once, let me tell you.  Sure, I enjoyed some Radiohead or Incubus, but at that age I was far too young to fully appreciate their musicianship and it was usually placed in the “things I’ll put in my 3-CD stereo whilst I sleep” category.  Besides, did Thom Yorke or Brandon Boyd ever bust out some slick dance moves?  Well, Thom does some crazy ass dancing but that is beside my point.

I even had an *NSYNC fan site!  Friends, I’m telling you, it was fucking LEGIT.  Number 8 on a fan site listing on Geocities.  I was on like 5 webrings (do those even exist anymore?).  I learned guitar so I could learn to play these boy band songs and tabbed them out to put onto my website.  INTENSITY.  I breathed, ate, pissed, spat, cried boy bands, *NSYNC in particular.

Now you may ask, “But what did you do about the jerks on the Internet who were mean to them?”  Oh, I flamed.  I ranted.  I unleashed the fury of caps lock.  I compared them to the great men of decades and centuries past.  If I had known about my senior thesis topic back then, I would have compared them to Leonidas and his 300 Spartans without hesitation.

Then, something strange happened.  Radiohead and Incubus and others started to sound more appealing to me.  Perhaps I was turning into an emo kid (read: I was) or my music lessons were allowing me to hear the more intricate aspects of musicians who played actual instruments (not to diss people who don’t, because I listen to plenty who use primarily computer generated music).  I started listening to less and less boy band music until one day it appealed to me no more.  The marionettes were packed away into a box, the shirts were jammed into a far corner of my closet, posters were taken down, Geocities account was deleted (BTW, RIP Geocities, you were a great friend).

Looking back, it was strange to recall myself arguing that I would love *NSYNC “4EVA” and that I’d never stop liking their music.  I remembered talking about how they were the greatest people ever and how talented they were, and was a bit surprised that I had changed.  Now I was one of those people making fun of them, rolling my eyes at my past exploits or pretending that it had never happened at all.

So what does this have to do with Justin Bieber and you?  Well, I’m telling you all this because it will  happen to you.  Believe it or not, 97% of you will cease to care about Justin in 5 years.  I say this as someone who has been there.  All of these attempts to keep Justin on Twitter’s trending topics, to flame anyone who insults him, to declare yourself as his #1 fan will all be completely forgotten.

Am I saying you should stop being Justin Bieber fans?  Hell no, go and have your fun, be young and enjoy whatever you enjoy, and don’t let people take that away from you.  However, if you can, learn to not take everything so seriously.  Honestly, life is much more fun when you can poke fun at yourself and the things you enjoy.  I mean, I told my friend Em we should have a Radiohead party since we’re both big fans.  She replied, “Yeah!  We’ll sit in opposite corners of the room, and avoid making eye contact while Thom Yorke moans about how unloved he is.”  That’s fucking brilliant, my friends, brilliant.  I laughed so hard my ribs ached.  Poking fun at everyone and everything, particularly yourself and things that pertain to yourself, is so much less stressful than fighting everyone.  If you like it, fuck what everyone else thinks.

Hell, I still have my boy band albums on my iPod.  I still listen to it occasionally, mostly to reminisce and to laugh.  BBMak’s CD is still really good, in my opinion.  I mean, you can’t devote a good chunk of your adolescence to something and not still have a soft spot for it later on in life.  But understand that these pop star phenomena happen seemingly every 10 years.  Before *NSYNC and BSB, it was New Kids on the Block.  Before them, it was New Edition.  Before them, Jackson 5.  Before them, The Beatles.  Anyone who was an intense fan girl over these pop stars can probably attest to most of what I write in this post. 

However, don’t become like the Claymates or Glamberts (Clay Aiken and Adam Lambert fans, respectively).  These groups harm the object of their affection far more than they help.  The difference between them and you guys is that you guys are mostly young girls, and therefore it’s much more acceptable for you to lose your shit over a pop star.  No offense, but at the age most of you are it’s not like you have a hell of a lot of other stuff you have to think about and take care of.  You can afford to spend your time on it.  However, if you’re over 30 and dressing up like your favorite star, making t-shirts, arguing over the Internet about them, etc., that’s when it becomes very troublesome.  Please don’t become Frau fans.

Seriously, friends, enjoy it while it lasts.  Just don’t go overboard with it.

 

Yours,

Tinnerz

Sims 3 - World Adventures EP

I broke down and bought the Sims 3 expansion pack, even I didn’t think it looked all that great and, as previously demonstrated, I’m not crazy about the base game.  However, I am the master of impulse buys and later deep regrets.  The deep regret of this purchase hasn’t quite hit, or at least not yet.

Basically, if you’ve played Sims 1 or 2 and know of Bon Voyage and Vacation/On Holiday, you know what to expect with World Adventures.  You can take your pixel dolls to China, France, or Egypt and immerse them into a very watered down version of the actual countries.  It would have been sweet if your sims had to learn the languages and were standing there holding a translation book mispronouncing everything with the sims who live there just stand there and laugh, but hey, I’m a history major, not a game designer.  Whilst there, the sims can go on these crazy adventures that lead them into tombs and such.  They can also steal precious artifacts so they won’t be taken care of properly and future generations will not understand past cultures and humans and therefore will be doomed to make similar mistakes or just being rock stupid in general.  /historymajor

I actually found these little quests quite fucking tedious.  Maybe I’m just lazy (80% possibility), but it’s not like Fallout 3 or Borderlands where you just point the analogue stick/mouse while holding down WASD to get through one area.  You have to click around each maze to keep the sims from killing themselves.

Like Jimbob McGee here.  First time he was going through a tomb in China I was like, “Oh, he’s probably smart enough not to walk through fucking fire.”  When the Grim Reaper showed up to take away the now toasty Jimbob, I realized I was putting too much faith in the programming.  Sorry, Jimbob.  Again though, tons of clicking.  And if you want more than one person to go through a tomb, expect even more.
The visa system is an interesting new twist, though.  All sims start off with a level 1 visa for each location, and must acquire points through adventuring in order to gain a higher visa level.  On visa level 1, they can only spend three days on location before getting booted into a loading screen regardless of what they were previously doing.  Because I’ve been playing an epic amount of Red Faction:Guerrilla and I’m now back at school, I haven’t managed to get anyone past level 1 yet.  I’m also not trying very hard, so there’s that.

Sims can also enjoy the new hobbies photography and martial arts.  Martial arts is hilarious because they start off fighting with the sissiest half-hearted slapping you’ve ever seen.  Photography is sort of silly because the challenges are pretty weird.  One of them is to take a picture of a tissue box.  Yeah.

With every expansion, of course, there’s new shit to pimp your sims out with.  Such as this hairstyle, and this eyeliner that looks like an earthquake hit in the middle of the application process.

 
Seriously, what the fuck.

There isn’t a ton of new shit, which is understandable given that there are basically 3 more neighborhoods instead.  In general, it’s a few new Create-A-Sim shit like hair and clothing (men are once again largely overlooked unless you want like 12 new hats), as well as some nice Chinese, French, and Egyptian styled furniture and decor.  There’s also a totally bitching moped that made me giggle furiously.  Other than that, gameplay back in the normal neighborhood is pretty much untouched.

Of course, because this is EAxis we’re talking about, there’s some pretty gnarly bugs in this expansion.  The biggest one is the fact that the launcher refuses to install a bunch of custom content, even if it’s content from the Sims Store.  That’s right, if you were willing to pay money for some little pixel furniture, guess what?  You can’t even use it unless you use some insane fix that involves converting files or sacrificing to Odin or something ludicrous.  Great job, EAxis!  Further, I personally have had weird shit like sims not going to school or work and therefore performance slips to ridiculously bad levels, an issue that I’ve only been able to solve by using the Awesomemod’s “backtowork” command at 9 AM, 3 PM, and 8 PM.  That or just letting everyone fail and then sitting back and laughing, but usually I actually want to play the game as they meant for it to be played.  Another weird glitch is that sometimes inventory objects will just vanish.  Shit sucks if it’s an adventuring item that you need in order to get more visa points.  I never thought I would ever actually say “FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUU…” in real life, but I did that day.

Honestly I don’t understand EAxis’ bug fixing policy.  Some of the issues people have been having have been around since the base game.  Half the bugs EAxis doesn’t fix are fixed by fan-made mods like the Awesomemod.  I understand the economy sucks and they may not want to hire a whole bunch of testers, but if some regular guy can fix this shit for free and do it within a couple of days, what’s EAxis doing?
I feel like I rant about EAxis every time, but sweet Jesus, I don’t think I’ve ever played a game this buggy that doesn’t get a patch within a few days.  Hell, wasn’t Modern Warfare 2 patched like the day after it was released because there were issues with multiplayer?  Infinity Ward, go help EAxis or something.  Damn.

Anyway.  It’s hard for me to recommend this expansion pack, but I feel like that’s probably because of who I am.  Currently I’m having a ton of fun beating dudes with a sledgehammer in Red Faction.  World Adventures, by comparison, is kinda boring.  If you enjoyed the other “journey to another land” expansion packs of Sims 1 and 2, you’ll probably enjoy this one.  It’s a good expansion, but I wouldn’t have used it as the first one.  I think they should’ve done something like Nightlife/Hot Date and mix up everyday gameplay a bit.  Again though, I study ancient Greece so my opinion is moot, really.

Final verdict: meh.  Hold your money until a patch is released.

Why Can’t We All Get Along?

I started another (YES ANOTHER) blog.  This is the first post on it.  I really just can’t sit still anymore.  Also, behold the first blog post I’ve ever written that contains no profanity.  Now you know I mean serious business.

*********

I guess the reason I started this blog comes from the news that Rush Limbaugh was rushed to the hospital tonight with chest pains.  I  found this out on Twitter, which as you can imagine, is an infestation of everything wrong with the way we as humans think.  I was rather horrified to see people actually hopeful that this man would die.  Further, those who label themselves as conservatives or right-wing are taking the opportunity to generalize all those who may consider themselves liberals or left-wing.  WHY?

Because human beings, I have determined from 21 years of first hand research, are disgusting.

Seriously, let's all take a look at ourselves.  First we must categorize ourselves into completely ridiculous and arbitrary groups (conservative, liberal, religious, atheist, gay, straight, poor, rich).  Next, hate everyone who does not have the same views, ideas, and/or experiences as we do.  Bash the "other side" relentlessly.  And what does this accomplish?  Absolutely nothing.  This "us-against-them" game never ends.  Neither side will ever be able to get ahead, which in turn makes nothing change.

This is why I created this new blog.  I may only be 21, but I'm already sick of the way we think, particularly in America.  Seriously, try watching Congress or even one of the 24 hour news networks.  It's so reminiscent of high school it's not even funny.  Some of these people are 3 times older than I am and yet act less than half my age.  What happened to calmly discussing things like adults?  Cooperation?  Compromise?  Working together?  Respecting everyone around you just for being human, even if you didn't quite see eye to eye?  Maybe this never happened and I'm just ridiculously optimistic.

I honestly think we could change though.  With work and patience maybe we can start fixing things.  At this point, it's just me and a blog I've started out of anguish and frustration with the world, but I do hope there are others out there just as optimistic as I am.

The world just sucks right now.  I just see all of this fighting and bickering...and for what?  Nothing gets accomplished with screaming contests, insults, and violence.  At least, that's what I was taught in third grade. However, I don't see why that wouldn't work in the real world as well.  I have hope that we humans still have enough good in us to start viewing things in a different way.  Perhaps we'll learn that what we're doing isn't  working.  Perhaps not.

For now, all I can change is myself.  I'll be taking on the world though, one person at a time.  It's my 2010 resolution.  Game on.

I am ridiculously sick of papers, so I’m writing about AI fans.

No seriously.  I feel like I’ve done nothing but write papers for the past two weeks.  I’m burned out.  My Anglo-Saxon art paper is total shit right now just because I cannot get it going, or get myself to care.  This is terrible.  Luckily these are only supposed to be rough drafts, because this shit is certainly rough.

Also, the posts on TopIdol about this woman named Holly (latest post here) are really fucking disturbing.  I know people, including myself, enjoy learning about the insane things people do and getting a good laugh out of it (because if I didn’t laugh I’d probably curl up into a ball in a corner and cry that people like this exist).  However, when you think about it, and read about women like this who are even more unstable than most, it really is cause for concern. 

For instance, this Holly stalks every woman seen with David Cook, calling them a bitch, whore, skank, etc.  Just because they are seen with him and happen to have a vagina.  Seriously, what the fuck.  Furthermore, this woman uses a shit ton of sockpuppet accounts to make it seem like there are more people involved in these shenanigans other than just her.  It’s obvious that they’re sockpuppets too, because the writing style is the same, the same spelling errors are made, and when she posts of TopIdol she doesn’t bother to change her IP address.  So basically it’s a woman, a ton of accounts on a message board she started, and a helluva lot of free time.

BUT WHY?  Does she think she’s trying to protect David Cook?  This is what it sounds like from one of her comments on TopIdol.  Can’t remember the exact quote, but it was something to the extent of “we’re trying to protect him from himself.”  That just raises more questions for me.  Why does this woman think that David Cook needs protection? (She’s probably insane.)  What is he doing that is hurting himself?  (Nothing.)  Does she really think there’s a “we” involved in this?  (I wouldn’t be surprised.)

This brings up more points about rabid fans, not just Holly.  Why do so many people get so emotionally attached to celebrities?  They don’t know them personally.  Do they just need something to latch onto, and something about a particular person appeals to them?  Are there issues in their own lives that they’re trying to escape from, and therefore try to live their lives vicariously through these stars?  I really just don’t understand.  Hell, even at my lowest point I was never like, “I MUST MAKE SURE RADIOHEAD IS SUCCESSFUL IN EVERYTHING THEY ARE REMOTELY INVOLVED IN.”  (Nevermind the fact that they’ve been successful for like, 17 years now with little help from me.)  Fuck, the only Radiohead merch I have other than their music is a poster.  I see pictures of women with every magazine Adam Lambert or Clay Aiken or David Cook ever appeared on, dolls they’ve made, t-shirts they’ve bought or made themselves, etc.  You can be a legit fan without completely losing your shit and dignity, people.

And another thing: why come the really off the wall people seem to be older women attached to American Idol contestants?  WTF.  In high school, and even now as a college senior, I only know a few people who actually give a shit about this show.  And those few usually forget about the show once it’s over, though they may still enjoy the music of one or two of the contestants.  Is it the personal light that the show puts on the contestants?  Does that make them more relatable to people who may need a connection such as that?  Still though, it’s not healthy.  This phenomenon also seems to have become more rampant in the past few years, with the exception of Clay Aiken.  Or maybe I just haven’t been paying attention.  I mean, I do feel like there is something happening culturally that affects this, because you can find insane fans of about anyone, but those that stick out the most seem to be AI fans.

But the age thing.  Completely baffling to me.  Why the fuck are so many of these women grown and often with families of their own?  And why are they spending so much time and energy on a celebrity instead of their families, who are right there and may actually need them?  I remember reading on VFTW or Idletard about a woman whose son who was becoming an alcoholic among other problems, blew up at her over her intense Clay Aiken fandom.  She seemed baffled as to why in her post.  It makes me wonder if his problems could have been amplified by the fact that she wasn’t paying much attention to him because she was busy scouring the Internet about Clay.  And many of the husbands have to feel like shit if they don’t like the same person or want to join the fandom.  How many more families are screwed up by this?  I tend to give younger fans a break, because we do tend to latch onto things more as we’re younger, but these obsessive like states usually don’t last too long.  Also, many of them become busy with school or other activities.  They don’t have families to support.  These older women should know better.

If I were a psychology major, this would be the most epic senior thesis ever.  There’s so much weird shit within these fandoms that it’s just mind-boggling.  I’ll probably never be able to understand.  I’ve never known anyone to be so obsessed with something (except maybe Ben and Halo, but he grew out of that 2 years ago because he finally realized that there are much better FPSs out there, thank God).  It’s like a whole different dimension of people for whom these activities are normal, and they cross over into whatever the fuck dimension I’m living in like some Stargate shit and give me epic mind fucks.  That is the only explanation I can come up with.  Stargate. 

Damn my mom completely ruined me for life with the Star Trek/Stargate/MST3K triforce.  Time for class.

Ah fuck.

Eye strain. Fuck.

Yeah, and I'm blogging. It's seriously from my laptop though. I was reading that monitor refresh rates below 70 Hertz or so causes a lot of eye strain. So I'm like, oh great, I'll just change it to 70 or 75 or something. BUT NO. My laptop does not allow me to change it to anything other than 60. FFFFFFFFUUUU... Hence, I am on my desktop with my 75 Hertz of refreshment. I hadn't booted this shit up in a good 3 weeks, and I forgot how awesome desktops are. It's over 3 yrs old now, but good ol' Spartacus has done well. Other than sometimes refusing to communicate with the monitor properly, but even then it will reboot itself and start functioning again. I know, weird.

I know there's got to be a way to tweak my refresh rate on the laptop. The problem is, I really don't want to fuck it up. It's already been through some shit (HP's shitty hard drive exploding randomly one day. I'd only had it for 2 months, too). Plus that's $1200 of beastly hardware and if I somehow screw it up (which is inevitable if I try something like this) I will probably cry a bit.

Also, I'm sick. Not swine flu though, which is always a plus. It's a head cold, basically. Actually it's starting to feel like a sinus infection. Lovely, but I'll take it over any flu variant anyday. My head sort of feels like a balloon right now.

I'm also keeping track on Ghost Adventures Live. My mom always watches shit like this because she's a sci-fi nerd like that, and passed along that trait to her kids. One of my roommates and I were watching one of the episodes before the live one, and basically just making fun of it. Not because we're skeptics, but because the guys on the show are such bros. Seriously, they are just a few popped collars away from true bro-dom. We are now going to call each other "bro" all the time, and utilize phrases such as "Dude, bro...." "Oh, bro...dude..." "BRO...DUDE, BRO!" Excellent.

I love how my parents still hone in on every health issue of mine. I can't really blame them, with all the shit that happened a few years ago, but the amazing speed at which they respond to Facebook status changes is legendary.

Speaking of which, I've never really understood why some people are so afraid of their parents on Facebook. I think it's a combination of 1) my mom's fuckin cool and wouldn't really give a shit, 2) my sisters and I don't do anything that would be embarrassing, 3) I don't have to worry about friends putting up anything stupid. I just don't do stupid shit. Hell, I can't get drunk for medical reasons (1 oz. of wine every week really doesn't do anything, lol), and it's not like I'm sleeping around with tons of dudes. There's really nothing I need to keep secret from my parents. And hell, a good chunk of my family is on Facebook as well. Again though, I think it's just the situation I'm in. I'm sure if I were in someone else's shoes I'd feel much differently.

Sleepytime tea fuckin rules, too. Just throwing that out there.

So I found this website, King.com, through StumbleUpon (which is my new addiction, BTW). I don't know if it was intentional, but if you say "king-dot-com" out loud it sort of sounds like "kingdom come." This is the sort of thing I figure out when I can't sleep at 3 AM. Anyway, it's actually pretty shitty, but oddly addictive. As a free member you pretty much are just doomed to mediocrity, because they only let you play a few levels/minutes of each game, therefore there's only so many points you can get. Excellent strategy though: have addicting games like BeJeweled, give incentives to play such as "building a castle" and "earning jewels," tell people they have to pay for moar awsum features, ????, PROFIT!!! I refuse to give in, though, because I'm already paying $50 a year for XBox Live and that's way cooler.

My other roommate is on a night hike. My maternal instincts are freaking. Especially because there are only four people, apparently. I am not okay with this. I probably won't be able to sleep until she gets back.

I am still highly confused about Adam Lambert. Do people really freak out over him? I don't know anyone who actually knows who he is. The few friends who do watch American Idol are like, "which one is he?" Then I go online and see all these women going apeshit over him. I do not understand. He's not bad, but he seriously sounds like a million other artists out there. And he has a ridiculous album cover that reminds me of the Lisa Frank backpack I had in Kindergarten. It had baby seals on it, along with rainbows and stars and other Lisa Frank goodness. I digress. His "glam" also fails pretty hard. He should get lessons from Dir En Grey or one of those other Japanese visual kei bands. That right there is some serious modern glam. The lead singer of Dir en Grey also mutilates himself onstage, and I can't decide whether that's fucking awesome or fucking worrisome. Adam can leave that aspect to him.

But seriously, it's like there's an entirely different world out there of pop stars and actors and whatever, along with their rabid fanbases. Actually, now that I've mentioned Adam Lambert, I wonder if some random fan is going to come here. Then again, why the fuck would they, because like, this is a clearly insignificant blog and probably more of a waste of bandwidth than a lot of things. YET I KEEP TYPING.

Also, I have gotten so many messages about the Sims 3 blog post I did in June. This is another thing I don't understand. How are these people finding my blog? Why are they all Sims 3 fans? Honestly I forget the game even exists sometimes. Pretty sure I haven't played it since July at the latest. Console gaming is just way more fun. I like talking to and playing with my friends. And I've become an achievements whore. Maybe Sims 3 people are looking for stuff on the expansion that's supposed to come out and looks sort of lame. No seriously, I used to get so fucking excited about Sims expansion packs, but now it just feels like they're pumping out the same shit. What is this one, "World Adventures" or something like that? I liked it better when it was called Bon Voyage/Vacation. I'm sure there's something that differentiates it from the other two but I still just can't get excited over it. They should've made a Nightlife/Hot Date type expansion instead. I'd much rather they give you more options in the current neighborhood.

Odd as it sounds, I think I'm going to do some homework. I AM THAT BORED. And hell, might as well utilize this time.

Random thoughts of the day.

• Some guy was singing Bel Biv DeVoe's "Poison" outside of my window five minutes ago. And very well, I have to add. I am confused, intrigued, and a bit in love. Thank you, neighbor.
• Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 on Legendary was not nearly as difficult as I thought it would be. I feel slightly disappointed. Or maybe I'm just intensely skilled. Doubtful.
• John Winthrop made me want to pull my eyes out. I had to read a biography of him for one of my classes and holy sweet Moses, that was the most dry, grating thing I've ever experienced. Now the next time I hear someone say "a city on a hill" I'm going to become blind with rage.
• Took a test for my American South class. My test had 40 questions. There were supposed to be 50. My awesome professor, who I've had for 3 classes now, just graded what I had, so I got an A anyway. BOOSH.
• Found that everything is better if you listen to Dethklok whilst doing it. "Duncan Hills Coffee Jingle" is my normal coffee run song, but I didn't recognize the power of the Dethklok. Took the most brutal shower ever last night. Sort of hard to headbang while shaving my legs, and I can't recommend that part.
  
• A friend from high school committed suicide on Monday. Very, very strange. Definitely the last person I'd expect to do that. Hadn't talked to him in at least 3 years, but apparently it went downhill pretty fast. I've not been feeling very well for the past few days, and the emotions that it brought up just made it much worse. Right now I'm just depressed and ill. So many questions that no one can answer. Way too many emotions right now.
• Fall break starts tomorrow, which is good. However, I will be spending most of my time working on assignments so I don't even consider it a break. More like, "extended weekend."
• Reading around Idletard/Vote for the Worst, astounded that fantards still care about any of these contestants, especially Adam Lambert. I never hear a thing about American Idol anymore except when I go on those sites. It's a relief, but it's weird that people think he's a household name and going to be super successful or something. He probably has a better chance than most, but I wouldn't hold my breath. His rabidly insane fans will ruin whatever success he has anyway. The one person I know that actually keeps up with that shit was turned off of Lambert because some frauen kept harassing her about not being a "real fan" because she can maintain an objective view whilst liking someone. A slow clap to you, ladies.
• Apple tech support is awesome and it makes me angry that more companies do not have the same emphasis on customer service.
• Redskins didn't lose on Sunday. I wouldn't call what they did "winning." Jason Campbell made me sad that I own his jersey. Very close to selling it, because he looked fucking terrible. They apparently hired someone to help out the offense, but this guy also calls bingo, so I don't even know. Dan Snyder, I'm looking for employment opportunities when I graduate in May...
• Attempting to watch the news makes me angry and depressed. Already have clinical depression and a short temper, so I read HappyNews.com instead. Because fuck you, mass media.
• Speaking of which, I tried to take a survey about television the other day. It asked me what shows I'd watched in the past week. The only time I turned on the TV was to play video games. The 'x' in the corner of the window was clicked. I don't know if I've watched any TV in the past month.
  
• Trying to catch up with my friend Ben in Xbox Live gamerscore. Gamerscore gets you nothing, but I like swinging my e-penis around. Speaking of Ben, I need a power hug, stat.
  
• About to make myself filet mignon for dinner. Because fuck you, campus dining service. I actually eat healthier now that I make most of my own meals because I know that the meat will be properly cooked and the vegetables won't be smothered in fucking lard. Only in the south...
• Didn't realize how happy MST3K makes me until I watched it for the first time in a few weeks yesterday. Instantly brought my mood up. Thanks guys.
• iTunes is getting a major cleanup over break. I have 13,994 songs. This is a bit insane, and I bet a good bit of those are duplicates. Also I need to stop being a music whore.
• Dear God I really want that filet mignon. Bye.
  

Hail to the Redskins? No, go fuck yourselves you guys.

Someone on the official message board had the best response to someone who was bitching at all of us Redskins who are fed up with this franchise: "I didn't leave the Redskins, they left me."

It's strange for me to get so emotionally invested in football, though it has been a major part of my life. However, when your team plays that badly against a team who hadn't won a game in nearly two years, it's upsetting. Yes, the Redskins haven't been that good since the 80s, but at least they tried, and at least it was still entertaining, even if in a MST3K-way. Right now it's just painful to watch. Seriously, save for a few players, they gave up in the 2nd quarter, and I followed suit soon after.

Skins fans are all trying to point fingers right now. It's not a clear-cut issue, but it's quite clear that there are some major issues up at the top. Dan Snyder has no fucking idea how to manage a football team, and needs a general manager who actually knows football to make the big decisions like drafting players and picking coaches. Snyder runs this shit like a Madden 2010 fanboy and just buys the most expensive players because he can, regardless of whether or not they are actually worth that (I'm looking at you, Haynesworth). It'd be a dream come true if Snyder sold the team, but it's his cash cow so I sort of doubt he will unless something drastic happens.

It's pretty clear that Jim Zorn is not head coach material, and I figured that when they first announced that he'd gotten the job. Again, his hiring goes back to Snyder. Why hire someone who has had never been a head coach or even had experience as a coordinator? Who fucking does that, other than a goddamned idiot? Zorn also has had a lobotomy or something, because he runs the same play every fucking time they get near the endzone. Run the ball to the left. Unfortunately the other teams aren't as fucking retarded and know that we're going to that side, thus they defend accordingly. Yet in the post-game conference Zorn said, "It was a very solid play." Fuck you in the neck, sir.

There's also some guy named Vinny Cerrato who has the completely bullshit title of "Executive Vice President of Football Operations." He was hired because he was one of Snyder's racquetball buddies. I'm only semi-joking. He was also the star of some 1994 movie called "Kindergarten Ninja." Basically, dude is a fucking joke. After yesterday's shitfest , a journalist wrote: "As soon as we made eye contact, Cerrato said, 'No comment.' It was the first time in 20 years as a journalist someone declined to answer a question before I even had the opportunity to ask one." He's a useless bitch who should go do something he'd actually be good at, like flipping burgers.

Player wise it's a bit better, but there are some clear weak links. A good chunk of the defense needs to GTFO. London Fletcher is actually my favorite person right now (other than Hunter Smith, who is actually the punter but scored the first touchdown with a fake field goal that made everyone shit bricks and gave me some faith). Fletcher brusied his rib, yet continued playing and played harder than fucking anyone else even when the rest of his team gave up. He is the top player in the NFL for tackles right now. He also just admitted this morning on TV that they're a shit team and haven't been since the late 80s. So yay, Fletcher, for acknowledging that fact (though it's obvious, it's nice to see that they recognize it so they'll hopefully get their shit together) and for being awesome.

Jason Campbell is looking steadily worse as a quarterback, dropping the ball and taking way too fucking long to throw the damn thing. I have a jersey of his, but it's at my parents house in a box somewhere, so that tells you how I feel about him at this point. I also have Clinton Portis' jersey, but he's looking totally worn out these days. They run him entirely too much, and it's showing now. Chris Cooley is another bright spot on the team, but amidst the sea of suck that is the offense he can't really shine like he should. Everyone else just ranges from shit to mediocrity and don't stand out in any way.

It's clear that the team has completely lost heart. They've had some low points, but this is probably the lowest ever. Redskins used to be one of the best and most respected teams out there, now they're a laughing stock and an embarrassment to those of us who still root for them. They play like they don't care anymore. Whatever is happening behind the scenes, in the locker room, or at practice is really doing a number on these guys and it's rather disturbing and upsetting to watch. They have as much ability as other teams, and if they don't want to give it their all...what can you do? I don't want to root for a team that just goes through the motions. I've always been a self-deprecating fan (and person in general), but even I have my limits. They're not even a football team right now, as I see it.

At least I'll have 3 more hours on Sundays to get things done now.

Show Choir: Part of a Series on Bad Ideas

No, I'm not in a show choir. And if I had any desire to be in one, it would have died quickly tonight.

It's Family Weekend here, which means a bunch of performances and exhibitions of "OH LOOK, WE'RE TOTALLY NOT WASTING YOUR MONEY." My roomie from last year and another friend of ours are in orchestra and jazz band, respectively, and both were part of the big musical shindig tonight. I always go to these things because I am a former band geek, I support my friends, and I enjoy live music and I've never seen a bad concert from these guys. So I call up some more of our friends and we get ready to go.

"You realize that between the two, you'll have to sit through show choir, right?" I was told as we headed out into the rain.

A bit of background here: Last year, near the beginning of the term and when my roomie and I were still somewhat awkward around each other, she came in totally ROFL (she was actually on the floor at one point) about show choir. Whatever event she had gone to, she had experienced show choir and it was totally horrendous. According to eyewitness reports the men had on bright blue sparkly shirts and were trying to act ridiculously cool. Roomie and her friend had made the mistake of sitting in the front row and had to hide their faces in their programs because they were laughing so hard.

This year they're supposedly better than the trainwreck last year, but seeing how bad they were tonight I can't imagine it being worse. There were no bright blue sparkly shirts, which was thoroughly disappointing. The ladies had on shirts that had a bit of sequin action around the collar, but nothing completely absurd. The men were boring and just wearing all black. Wardrobe aside, the singing and dancing was absolutely god-awful.

First they did "I Believe" from Spring Awakening. The program said the song was written by Duncan Sheik and as a result I have "Barely Breathing" stuck in my head. Spring Awakening is actually supposed to be a pretty good show, but you wouldn't know it from this performance. It began with them just walking out, but doing what I call the Dance Walk where you step toe-first instead of heel-first. This went on for an entire minute. Then they stood there, with some people in the front sitting down and totally rocking some arm-shelves. Then a jazz box. Then some rainbow arm movements. What I'm getting at is that visually they might as well have just sat the fuck down because watching them wander around seemingly aimlessly was not doing it for me. It would have been nice if, since the dance aspect wasn't there, the singing was good, but it was not. The ladies weren't too bad, and only had a few times when they sounded off. The men, however, were a hot mess. I kept wishing they'd find a key and stick to it, because it sounded like a bunch of cows in a field. But the key was never found, to my bemusement. Finally the song was over, which was good because my ribs were aching already.

Next, "Sing, Sing, Sing." They tried to do swing moves. I was sitting with other swing kids. We cried together. It was an affront to all that is swing. Swing is supposed to be goofy, I know, but goddamn there's a difference between hamming it up and throwing away your dignity. Fuck, you guys. I cut them a bit of slack on the singing, seeing as to how they actually were moving in this song. They of course sounded winded and were dropping out all over the place, which I sort of expect, but you would think that with practice they'd get a bit more used to it. Again, I was too dismayed at the dancing to really pay attention to the singing.

Finally, "I Move On" from Chicago. Oddly enough I've never seen Chicago, and I've done two routines to music from it. Probably should fix that at some point. Anyway, the solo girl was clearly the glue that held this whole thing together. She was this tiny little black girl that had a surprisingly good voice. It was clear why she got the solo. However, some guy also got a solo, but it took me quite some time to figure out who the fuck was singing, since he wasn't prominently displayed like she was. Bad choreography, I think. He sounded like shit compared to her. The dancing was still terrible, so I started looking at the individual performers.

There were a few people who were seriously fucking into it, and then others who looked like they lost a bet and as a result had to join show choir. There was this really tall girl who already stood out, but insisted on making her moves really fucking huge. Close to her was this really short guy who looked like a creeper and threw his whole body into the routine like it was a life or death situation. Looking totally bored was a really tall, lanky black guy, and several brunette girls. Oddly enough, most of the people who were really into it were guys. You'd think that they'd be really concerned about their masculinity with something like this, because there is no way you can look cool doing this shit. I respect that they are comfortable with themselves enough to do this, because I am not.

I half expected some of the older people in the audience to enjoy some cheesy shit like this. However, the group of parents in front of me were laughing as hard as I was. Looking around I saw a healthy mixture of facial expressions: bemused confusion, straight up confusion, incredulous, horrified, totally bemused, laughter, and blank stares. I have never experienced that in any audience before. So I didn't feel so bad giggling uncontrollably, but I still tried to suppress it, just out of respect.

This being my first experience with a show choir of any sort, I had no idea what I was about to watch. I really cannot believe how haughty and arrogant they sounded after the show when we were waiting for our friends to meet up with us. I don't think it's possible to look good while doing that shit. Hell, in swing we know we look retarded and don't even try to pretend that shit is cool. And for the first time ever I honestly have to say that someone else is worse than us. Show choir is just a terrible idea in general. It's awkward to take songs that belong in the context of a full-blown theater show and just throwing in some random choreography. It's also pretty clear that the majority of these people are not dancers, and a good many aren't doing so great as singers either. Putting all of it together, it's only entertaining to the audience for all the wrong reasons.

Random thoughts that I have, and thinking doesn't occur too often for me.

• Writing a screening report for the film "Double Indemnity." Good movie, but I had to watch it about 4 times just now to analyze the mise en scene, cinematography, editing, etc. for my film studies course. Fun class because my friends Tommy, Brian and I just sit in a row and MST3K everything. I am Tom Servo, albeit less red and my head isn't transparent. But it does take the fun out of film watching, because I was watching Kill Bill this weekend and I was like, "HOLY SHIT MEDIUM CLOSE UP REVERSE SHOT."
• Chris Sligh's blog post that people are losing their shit about right now is totally the truth and people just want to see everything with rose-colored lenses. Unfortunately, the world sucks and when you accept that fact things seem easier. What I'm trying to say is, if you're offended by anything that he says you should probably just kill yourself.
• Fuck. I've spent too much time on the Internet. Don't kill yourself. However, do feel free to sit down and shut the fuck up, or at least read the entire thing and understand it before you launch into a half-informed fury.
• The dance we are doing for my modern dance class is fucking ridiculous. It's set to Owl City's "Fireflies," which is a totally shitty yet fucking addictive song (I've listened to it way more than I'd like to admit). At one point I have to pick another girl up and swing her around. I'm glad I worked out this summer and thus have some upper body strength, otherwise it'd be bad for her. We also have to run around with our arms stretched out like we're catching fireflies. I feel so retarded.
• In other dance news, swing dance is fucking retarded too. I'm the treasurer this year, but it's shitty when no one else does what they need to so I can beg for money from the school for it. The president wants a budget tomorrow but no one else has given me figures, which they were supposed to give me by Saturday. Thanks, guys. Also, the president is pissing me off, from general disorganization and fucktardery. I mean, she acts like the newbies are in kindergarten and can barely walk. Basic swing dancing is not fucking hard, I taught my dance-retarded roommate swing in about 45 minutes and my bitch looks pro (not really, but still pretty fucking good.) Yet the prez goes through about 3 dance moves in each hour-long lesson and the kids get fucking bored. I'm doubly bored because I've been doing this shit for 3-4 years. And they've all got the moves down, it's just that the prez has no fucking idea what she's doing. I've brought this up to her, and she gave me some half-ass answer. I figure I'm the treasurer so I should focus on money-grabbing/managing and just let the shit fly, but if she doesn't pick up the pace people aren't going to stick around long.
• We got pet rats for our apartment. BITCHES ARE CRAZY. Mine is fucking out of control. She must see everything up close, and learn what it is and if she can eat it. We let them out last night, and while her two sisters wandered around but stayed close to the cage and us, she was all over the living room. I do not know what is wrong with her, but I guess that's a rat for you. I'm so used to reptiles (I haven't had a mammal as a pet since I was six) that I'm like "WHAT IS THIS WARM BLOODED CONTRAPTION WITH FUR?" I really do prefer my reptiles, I have learned that about myself.
• I've also learned that I am a total fucktard. I mean, I had my suspicions before, but now it's just fact. I seriously just do shit that screws myself over all the fucking time. And I never hurt anyone else, because if anyone else is involved it'll be done right. If it's just me, I will fuck myself over. I think I have deeprooted loathing of myself.
• I walked to my Medieval Europe class listening to "Flashdance" the other day. Felt so badass, yet really fucking strange. "What a FEEEELIIINNG...to talk about the Lombard laws!"
• There's a new place in downtown called University Cafe that's sort of an offcampus dining place for students. The first time I walked in I was like, "HOLY SHIT THEY'RE PLAYING RADIOHEAD!" Radiohead played the entire time I was there. I was so fucking happy. A+++ will dine again.
• I think I've just consumed half my body weight in M&Ms. Wait that'd be like 60 pounds of chocolate. Okay, no.
• Speaking of my weight, I lost 10 pounds this summer due to switching my medication. Shitsux because I don't really have that much weight to begin with, and now a good bit of my clothing doesn't fit anymore. Fuck. And I've probably lost more because I haven't weighed myself in a while, and I eat considerably less when I'm at college than at home. I don't look anorexic but I am apparently noticeably thinner. FFFFFFUUUUU...
• I hate being a Redskins fan. Why am I such a diehard fan/masochist? Bitches suck right now.
• And I really, really need to go to bed. My eyes are starting to cross.
  

So. New pets.

I don't know if I mentioned this, but my gecko Draco died in May. Infection. He was badass about everything, but was finally brought down. My entire family was sad. I fucking cried for two days straight. Over a gecko. But I'd had him for seven years, so we'd all gotten pretty attached.

So. Here at MDub. My roommates and I were like, we should really get something, pet-wise. And I mentioned how my best friend owns three, and how awesome they are. Their reactions were "HOLY SHIT YESSSS." And this was all yesterday.

Today, we actually went out and bought them, one for each of them. Talk about an impulse buy. We spent the afternoon reading up on care, and the lady at the store was very knowledgeable and helpful in answering the rest of our questions, and picking out necessities.

So yeah. In less than 24 hours, the population of our apartment doubled.

Mine is named Chryseis. Because, fuck yeah, Homer's Iliad. There's no other reason, really, I just wanted to be really fucking nerdy, as a wanna-be Ancient Greek historian. She is ridiculously curious about fucking everything. My laptop just got a full scan: every key was examined. I too received a very thorough look over. Her little nose goes crazy sniffing everything. It's hilarious to watch. Chryseis also enjoys crawling under my hair and licking my neck, which is awful because I'm am ridiculously ticklish on my neck. She must like me as much as I like her, because when I tried to put her back into the cage she fucking freaked. Like, clinging to me and squeaking. I felt bad, but I wanted to fucking eat and she needs to be with her sisters anyway. I finally got her in, but she gave me this look like, "You bitch."

Pictures coming tomorrow, I suppose. I have a fairly busy day, with our first swing dance meeting of the year (and there are always tons of people for the first couple of weeks, until we weed out the ones that aren't as serious). I also need to go to the lady in charge of club finances to beg for money, and fill out a fuckload of forms. The joy of being treasurer.

More shit later.

Senior Year Already?

Fuck this shit.

Seriously, I feel like I should still be a sophomore. What the fuck, where did my life go, Mary Wash? I just turned 21, and I cannot believe it.

With the economy like it is, I'm probably fucking screwed out of a job, or one that's any good. FFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUU...

Anyway.

It's the second week of senior year (ugggghhh). It shouldn't be a lot of work, which is good. I just have a shitton of papers to write. It's what I get for being a history major. No labs or equations to memorize, just tons of writing and reading. I don't mind it too much, depending on the topic.

I'm also in an apartment this year. It's a complex owned by the school, so I just pay standard room and board. My roomie from last year and our friends live across the hall from me, and it's really nice. I'm happy with my roommates, even if they 'sploded the dishwasher.

No seriously, second night here, we had just cooked a meal and were starting to clean up. I have my Film Studies class at 6, so I was heading out of the door. I saw Leila putting stuff in the dishwasher, and I fleetingly thought about the fact that we didn't have detergent for the dishwasher, but it didn't really register in my mind until the damage was done. So I come back to a kitchen full of suds and water.

"What the fuck. Did you guys put dish soap in there?" I asked.

"...Oh, you're not supposed to?" Leila replied.

I literally facepalmed.

"Oh fuck, that didn't even register that she put it in there," Kristen moaned.

So basically, we all failed hard that evening. Kristen and I failed twice, because not only did our brains not catch the impending doom, but we later suggested, "Let's run it again and clear out the soap!"

THIS DOES NOT WORK.

It's great though, because if I'm going to fail, I want to fail so gloriously that I win. And we totally achieved that, according to my main dudes Chris and Matt. So shit, I'm happy. We learned an important lesson and definitely won the Fail of the Month award. Possibly Fail of the Year.

The apartment is sweet though. I will have to post pictures one day. For some reason ours is much, much nicer than some that my other friends live in. It's really odd, and you really wouldn't think that they'd all be so much different. For instance, our living room, bedrooms, and kitchen are way bigger than all the other ones I've been in. Considering the fact that Kristen and I just chose something random and close to my old roomie, that's fucking luck.

School is otherwise fine. The workload doesn't seem like it will be too bad. I'm sad that my academic building is renovated, so I get to spend my senior year classes in the old health center, the drama building, and a trailer. Then again, the building was the oldest on campus (which makes it 101 years old), and when you walked through the halls it felt like you were about to crash through. Also it still had asbestos. So maybe this is a good thing, but still, I loved my historical history building. Bitches.

All in all, I think this will be a good year.

OWWIE.

Dance shit is going to kill me over the next few weeks. In addition to my modern jazz class, which leaves my body aching like I got hit by a truck and my knees looking like this:

swing dance is getting fucking dangerous. Seriously, there are about 30 ways for me to die in this next routine we're doing. First I'm flying through the air, then I'm fucking plummeting to the floor and hoping my partner catches me by the hands or--in one really scary instance--my fucking neck. OH GOD. I may be agnostic but I have prayed more times this week to not die just yet.

So, Ben Folds concert next monday, the 30th. Expect my full review/fantardgasm sometime soon after. I gave roomie a few songs of his so that she'd get a feel for what to expect, and like I thought she would, she didn't get half of his lyrics. When I explained them, she was like "HOLY SHIT THAT'S CLEVER." Pretty much. Ben Folds is a clever motherfucker.

In Greek we're translating Homer's Iliad from the original Greek and SHIT'S SO FUCKING COOL. I don't think I've ever gotten this excited to do work. What can I say, it's a classic fucking text and I get to do my own translation. Goddamn it's so awesome. Except that Achilles and Agammemnon just need to stop bitching at each other and get shit done. Like some goddamn middle schoolers. And the gods fucking suck. Besides the storyline, the Greek language is just so fucking cool. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't translate well into English, so reading the original text is sometimes just mindblowing.

Enough of my nerdism. It's 1:30 AM and I'm getting silly-minded. Or even more so than usual.

----------------
Now playing: Motörhead - Damage Case

The Most TMI Post You'll Ever See From Me.

No seriously.

If you're a guy, you probably don't want to read about this. Actually, some chicks may want to avoid this post too.

I'm writing to throw in my outstanding review of the Diva Cup. It's a menstrual cup.

*Waits for people to get grossed out and stop reading*

I heard about it a few weeks ago from my roomie, who saw someone gloating about their DC on Ye Ole Book of Faces. We were like, "WTF" and immediately did intensive Internet research. The more we read about it and the glowing reviews, the more we both wanted them. I mean, eco-friendly, reusable, money saving, and AWESOME? It's like win molded into a cup.

So last week roomie got her dot and traversed 45 minutes to the nearest Whole Foods store (nearer to her home in Northern Virginia) to get hers. We oohed and ahhed. Roomie ran to the bathroom to try it out. 20 minutes later she came back looking rather bleak. "I got it in, but then I freaked out while pulling it out and IT FEELS LIKE I JUST GAVE BIRTH," she told me, curling up onto her bed in anguish. This did not dampen either of our spirits, and I went ahead and ordered mine, along with the Diva Wash, from southcoastshopping.com. Later, roomie was successful and there was much rejoicing.

Today, my DC came. I nearly ran to the post office in excitement, cursing Tampax and Always on the way. Back in my room I read through the directions with glee, giggling like a fool. When I was ready, I went into the bathroom and tried the folding technique in the handy instruction sheet. Except that MOTHERFUCKER, it hurt like a bitch. After nearly destroying my vagina I went back onto the Internets to get some better folding techniques. Success! The 7-fold is definitely doable, and my vagina isn't as angry at me. Best of all, that fucker popped right open with little turning.

So I'm quite pleased. The only thing that confuses me is why the DC has measuring lines on it. I really don't need to know how many ounces of old uterine wall comes out of me.

And there it is. My new love, the awesome Diva Cup. Oh, and you get a kickass lapel pin too. Like wtf that shit's badass.

Music Quest!

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Now playing: Animal Collective - Hey LightSo this summer I decided that I didn't like the fact that one band I listened to, The Receiving End of Sirens, had over 6,000 plays, far beyond the #2 Radiohead with about 3,000. (This was because TREOS' first album was the only thing that calmed me down in my 5-panic-attack-a-day era, and I listened to it anytime I had one and while I slept.) So I deleted all the play counts in my iTunage and my last.fm and just started the fuck over.

Well, a couple of weeks ago, my iTunes library file decided to suicide by corrupting its data. Thus I had to start it over AGAIN, but this time all my quirkily-named playlists were gone as well. I stared blankly at the lifeless library, with over 8,000 songs, and realized I had to listen to EVERY SINGLE TRACK. Well, I didn't have to, but I'm going to. Also because some shit just got lost and I didn't realize I still had it, so it was a nice surprise. I've deleted some stuff, so I'm down to 7773 tracks, but I've got folders of stuff I haven't added yet because I want to get through some of the older shit first.

How much older shit? 6567 tracks, 21.7 days, 45.58 GB.

Ah, fuck.

Right now I'm getting through all my Animal Collective because I'm in that mood. Then maybe I'll tackle the 181 Radiohead songs. Or 198 Bjork songs. I also just go through shit by shuffling. But goddamn, this sucks. Why did my file have to annhilate itself? I had everything laid out so perfectly! At least my last.fm didn't die too, but shit still sucks.

If this happened to my OCD friend Ben, I can't even imagine the hilarity. He absolutely will not let me change tags on his iTunes, even if it's something like adding the second 'r' to "Blurry." He has a playlist for fucking everything. It is the most intense thing I've experienced, second only to Mark Gormley. THAT'S FUCKING INTENSE.

As I sit here thinking (and procrastinating from reading) I probably should go ahead and add all of that music just sitting there waiting for me and deal with it. I need to stop fucking downloading everything that peaks my interest anyway. It's what I get for being an elitist musical bastard, I suppose.

Good fucking night.


EDIT: Only added about 300 songs. I was expecting much worse.
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Now playing: animal collective - banshee beat

Party central...not.

College parties. HOW I LOATHE THEM. Awful music, drunk people that I already don't like to begin with, sketchy houses. So I was glad that I had the opportunity to back out of the party I'd promised my roomie I'd go to. It was a kegger to help orphans in Honduras. I mean, I'm all about helping kids, but a fucking kegger? I just gave my roomie money, she's the club treasurer anyway, I mean goddamn. And she sent me a text that said the party got busted 5 minutes after she got there. Seriously, Fredericksburg po-po don't fuck around. Especially when you advertise your damn kegger on Facebook, you fucktards. I stayed in my dorm and watched Shawshank Redemption with Ben, which was much more fun for me. Morgan Freeman >>>>>>keggers.

Classes are going well so far. The only class that's really giving me trouble is my dance class, amazingly, and that's just because I'm not used to that style of dance. Ballroom, latin, swing? I got that shit in the bag. Flailing around on the floor to Justin Timberlake? My body hates me, especially my knees. Poor things, which are already bad to begin with, had huge fucking bruises on them last night like I'd been repeatedly beat in the kneecaps with hockey sticks. I'm probably going to have to start wrapping them or something, just so I can fucking walk the next day.

Friend Who Acts Weird and Seemingly Hates Everyone For No Apparent Reason (FWAWSHEFNAR) asked Christine and I to go downtown with her last weekend. We agreed, it had been ages since the three of us, who used to be quite close in freshman and sophmore years, had gotten together. The day started out fine with brunch, but as we went downtown she got weird again. Christine and I wanted to look in the bridal shop just for shits and giggles and she adamantly refused like Satan was in the window ready to take our measurements. The rest of the day she just got quieter and quieter. Christine and I kept what little conversation we had going, and chose what stores we went into because FWAWSHEFNAR didn't seem to care. I was like, "WTF, you arranged this, have some input." Of course, I didn't say this out loud because this inevitably would have been misconstrued.

When we got back to campus, she just said, "See you guys later" and walked back into her dorm. Christine and I had no idea what had just happened. Neither of us said or did anything wrong, at least not intentionally. Even as I sit here thinking about it I can't remember anything that would have upset her. Hell, Christine and I enjoyed ourselves. It was just weird and awkward. Again, it's weird things that I just can't deal with at this point in my life. There's something wrong, but until she's willing to stop bottling it up inside her and deal with what's bothering her, I can't do anything.

I feel like she creates a lot of drama in her mind that doesn't actually exist. For instance, she told Christine that she thought I hated her because she saw me on campus and all I said was "hi." LIEK WTF M8, I was going to fucking class. If I stopped and talked to everyone I wanted to I'd never actually get to class. If I hadn't had said anything at all, then I could see how she'd think something was up. But I acknowledge her and THAT'S weird?

But what can you do?

Other than that, social life is good. Got asked out a second time by Awkward Kid. He asked me out last semester, but me being a complete idiot, didn't realize that it was a serious date until the day of. Then I flipped a shit. I went anyway, but it was by far the strangest experience I've ever gone through. It was like a job interview. "What are your hobbies?" "What do your parents do?" "I saw on your Facebook..." There was no actual conversation, just Q&A. So when he asked me out this time, I was careful to construct a vague "no." It's a fun date horror story to tell to friends over a cup of coffee, but not something I'd want to go through again. If I can't hold a convo with you, it's not going to work, because I'm a chatty fucker.

So Valentine's Day will come and go. And who fucking cares, it's a stupid fakey holiday constructed by money-hungry fucktards at Hallmark. Fuck that shit. My ex boyfriend exchanged MST3K and the video game F.E.A.R. for VD. THAT'S how you rock that shit. Blowin' bitches' heads off and making fun of godawful movies. So fuck you Valentine's/Aw Fuck I'm Still Single Awareness Day. I'm out.

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Now playing: Mute Math - Noticed

COFFEE OVERLOAD.

I just consumed four cups of coffee. Holy shit I think I might explode. Especially since I'm not supposed to drink a lot of caffeine because of my anxiety disorder. I'm twitching uncontrollably. On the bright side, I've gotten almost all my homework for Monday done because I'm so fucking wired. And now I'm listening to SOIL&"PIMP"SESSIONS so there's no way I'm going to stop bouncing my head. FWEEE.

I'm currently knitting a nice t-shirt, which can be found HERE. I've run out of yarn though, so I need to get to Michael's at some point. I should probably actually start buying enough yarn at one time when I start a project, but that would make too much sense for me. I enjoy making things difficult for myself.

It also occurred to me that I need to post my altered pattern of Knitty's Roam, which I've been wearing for the past 3 months. The jacket looks sort of retarded in some areas, but since it was my first foray into something above the beginner level of knitting, I think I did pretty good for myself. My friends say "ZOMG IT LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING YOU COULD BUY IN A STORE!!1!!1!!" but I know they are exaggerating greatly. Love them, but I know it's not that great. So that will be a separate post sometime soon.

In other fuckawesome news, I now own every episode of MST3K, other than the Minneapolis public television episodes, on my computer or DVD. MST3K WIN. Took ages to rip shit from 10+ year old VHS tapes. BUT SO WORTH IT. Tomorrow before the Super Bowl we are having a Super Awesome MST3K Pajama Party at my friend's house. I expect copious amounts of win and good times.

My dance class is fucking awesome too. My core kills me, but I feel great. Plus it's a shitton of fun and my teacher's awesome. Definitely my favorite class this semester.

But in sadder news, I'm sad that Smartie's Idletard Flat Idol contest has to be "Idol" related. Flat Thom Yorke was so primed and ready to go. This is what I get for not paying attention to Idletard for about a month. I can't even remember half of the Idols because I simply don't care that much. Oh well.

Anyway. It is time for me to embark on my quest to watch all of the movies nominated for the best picture Oscar. Thoughts on that later.

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Now playing: SOIL&"PIMP"SESSIONS - AVALANCHE

Animal Collective. Or as I know them, Holy Shit, This Is Awesome.

On this day of a new political era in the U.S., one needs the perfect new music to set the mood. My audio drug of choice? The new Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavillion. Just stare at the artwork.


Have your eyes melted yet?

Regardless, I'm already calling this one of the best albums of 2009. Because I mean, who else is putting out an album that I care about? No one that I know of off the top of my head. And it's a proven fact* that the vast majority of the mainstream music is utter shit.

Anyway. "Brothersport," "My Girls," and "Summertime Clothes" are early favorites. This album also seems more accessible, and by that I mean it's not as far out there as some of the others. Sung Tongs is still my favorite album by Animal Collective, but I'd say MPP is a close second at the moment. Also, I will be playing nothing but these dudes all week. They just put a smile on my face everytime I hear them.

Work time. It's only the second week of school, I can't slack off this early in the semester.


*Fact proven by ME. Suck on it, fuckers.

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Now playing: Animal Collective - Slippi