My Enchanted Party

The Hangy Ball

2006-11-19T22:03:00.000-05:00

See that guy right there? The Uvula. That little guy is pretty harmless. It doesn't look like it does much of anything. Just hangs there. You never actually think about it. Unless you want it pierced, and thats just weird. Wikipedia however, says that it is, in fact, useful.

And regardless of the great all-knowing Wikipedia says, my uvula gave me more trouble than it is worth. On a Friday night full of harmless, responsible 22 year old fun, I had no idea what was in store for me. After much festivities we retired from downtown Portsmouth to a friends apartment, where much crashing on aero-beds was to be had. The next morning, however, was pretty much the worst morning I've ever had.

You are all thinking right now, "oh, you had too much to drink and had a shitty hangover. Dumb move on your part." However, you are sadly mistaken. While I did experience some of common side effects of good times, they were no where near as heinous as what I or anyone else may have experienced. It felt as if I had a soar throat. But most of my throat felt fine. It did however, feel like something was occasionally closing up my air passages. And it was moving around in the back of my throat. After feeling it move up towards the roof of my mouth, I felt it with my tongue and determined it to be my uvula. It was inflamed, or extra long that morning, or something. I don't know what or why, but something was fucking with my uvula.

I figured that this would subside soon, as I had taken some ibuprofen, and I thought that maybe that would act as an anti-inflammatory. Well I was wrong. That son of a bitch stayed inflamed, and the whole ride back to Durham was horrible because of my damned uvula. It was moving around all over the place in the back of my throat and making me feel like puking.

Things only got worse as I decided that, after spending the night in a dirty hippie's apartment on an air mattress in all the clothes I wore the night before, I should take a shower. As I was rinsing my hair, I leaned my head back and then BAM!! The uvula was in a strange position, and it was sending my gag-reflex into a frenzy. Before I knew it I was dry heaving on the floor of the shower gagging non stop. After about 45 seconds of misery I finally was able to stick my finger in the back of my throat and reposition the uvula and cease the convulsions.

I'm not sure what caused that to happen, and quite frankly, I don't want to know. I have a feeling that something strange and terrible was done to me over night.

Double Exclamation Point!!

2006-08-29T23:06:00.000-04:00

The title of that really has nothing to do with the rest of the post, but I was just watching Seinfeld and they were arguing over exclamation points. And I thought it was funny.

AAAAAAaaanyways...The last update came on the exact day before I moved up to Durham to commence training to be a Resident Assistant. For those of you who are quick to judge, let me get this out of the way. I AM NOT A COP HERE TO BUST KIDS FOR DRINKING. That being said, the most training intensive topic that we covered was not anything on communication with residents, hall councils, counseling, problem solving, peer mediation, or anything else. It was Conduct Training, which mostly covered alcohol related things. It covered two days. Everything else covered a couple hours of a day. This covered two days. Remember...I am not a cop.

The training was actually pretty intense, with several 12 hour days. It was quite exhausting. But I enjoyed it, mostly because I grew to loathe Joe's Pizza. I don't think I've ever been as miserable as I was at Joes that last two weeks.

Freshmen moved in on last Friday. I met pretty much all of them. I helped them move their shit in. I cut my finger on some kid's fridge. I wore myself out. I even tried to find something for them to do that night so they wouldn't do that thing that freshmen do. That thing that I did all too many times in my freshmen year. That thing that resulted in a busted tooth and severely damaged pride.

But most of my freshmen have been fairly engaging with me. I'm not stupid, I'm pretty sure some of them are going out drinking or whatever. But I haven't had any issues to confront yet, so it has been easy so far. And the freshies have been surprisingly engaging lately. I remember not even meeting my RA until about one month after move in, and I avoided him like the plague....until I realized he was actually a really awesome guy.....

you know what, this post really isn't going anywhere. Its not funny. At all. Paris Hilton's album flop is funnier than this. This is pathetic. Like, most of you need Stow-and-go seating more than you need this. I can't write about my residents, because that would be like a privacy thing. But it's not like they have done anything stupid anyways. Which provides little fodder for the blogger. Fuck this. I quit.

I Love Parties

2006-08-15T11:58:00.000-04:00

The American political scene these days is very homogenized. You have your choice of really only choosing two different candidates for any public office position. The problem is, the candidates essentially run under the same political party, the Republocrats. Because lets face it, the only difference between Dems and Reps is that the Reps want to make the rich richer and the poor poorer, and the Dems merely want to keep the status quo. Choosing between them is like choosing between two bowls of shit. I mean, you can register as an "independent" but you always end up voting for one of the two main parties. And there are other smaller parties out there, like the Green Party, but nobody takes this guy seriously anymore.

Too drunk to be scared.

So I've decided it's time to broaden the political landscape of America. I mean, in the Afghan elections they had about 50 political parties, we can come up with at least a few more for us.

The Bull Moose Party - We should resurrect this once great party headed by the former President Teddy Roosevelt. They were progressive, environmentally conscious, and had an excellent foreign policy motto "Speak Softly, and carry a big stick." If Teddy were president today it would look a little something like this.

USA- *whispers* "hey Iran you shouldn't make nuclear weapons"
Iran - "What?"
USA- *WHAP* ...Problem solved.

And every time you vote you get 20 points on your Freakin' Buyer's Card.

Party Headquarters - Portland, ME with satellite offices in Salem and Portsmouth, NH

The Birthday Party - This is the most fun party ever. It's all balloons and presents and pony rides. And the halls of Congress are packed full of clowns and balloon animals. In fact, it wouldn't be much different that Congress right now. And everyday you get to eat cake. The President would always be dressed like a ringmaster, and the Presidential Palace (aka the White House) would be moved from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to wherever there happens to be a circus. Republicans will be happy because elephants will still be prominently displayed.

"And for my next trick, I'll need two volunteers. How about Israel and Lebanon. As you can see, nothing up my sleeve....And, wait, what's this? Is that a shiny new peace treaty behind Israel's ear??"

The Cocktail Party - Everyone is always dressed up in nice clothes, but always looks slightly disheveled. Stumbling is a must. Congressional Sessions have a 4 drink minimum. And more than likely everybody carries a bootflask with whiskey in it. Ted Kennedy has been rumored to be switching party lines as I write this. Everything is all well and good in this party until every starts making out with their secretaries. And then it is nothing but shame and cover ups.

The Frat Party - Bluto makes his triumphant foray into politics with this one. Things are a little sticky though as the party will be fractured into several smaller sects. And instead of voting for president, we hold a pseudo Greek Games, to determine who gets to head the government. The Tri Lambdas are heavy favorites. The White House will become The Animal House, and everything will be a blast until Ann Weaver Hart decides it's time to "clean up this little unpleasantness."

She ruined UNH and now she will ruin Temple. Better hope you don't get any snow.

My Enchanted Party - This would probably be the smallest of all the parties. Because it would mostly consist of me, and the like 15 people who read this blog. All party rhetoric would be dispensed through this site. And if I got elected president, I'd only get around to doing things once every few weeks, because that's how this site operates now and I'm not about to mess with a winning formula.

John Hancocks

2006-07-13T23:53:00.000-04:00

At around 7:00 PM on Monday at work, an order popped up out of the ticket printer. But this wasn't just any order it was special.

"Dunn, Jim." That is what it read at the top. We all gathered around the ticket. Could it be? Is THE Jimmy Dunn coming back to Joe's Pizza for a second day in a row? I was skeptical. I mean, Jim is a very common name. And Dunn, well, we are in New England, so theres plenty 'o' irishmen kickin' round these parts. But Budd and Joe both were sure that Jimmy has come back to enjoy our fine pizzas. Joe was then dispatched back to my house to pick up a copy of Funnyball, the one that Jimmy had so graciously given to me on the previous day. I had brought it home simply so I could refer to it for the forthcoming post that resulted from his first visit. I didn't realize he'd be coming back the very next day.

Joe arrives just minutes before Jimmy Dunn, with Funnyball in hand. We place it aside. Soon, Jimmy comes in, with children in tow. Who mated with this guy? He seems like kind of a goon.

I feel as though this is an accurate representation of Jimmy Dunn.

Anyways. He immediately singles me out. "Hey, its the yankees fan. Whats up?" I say, well, seeing how was was such a nice guy, and giving me a free copy of his book the previous day and all, I was wondering if it would be possible to get an autograph from the author. He's more than willing to oblige.

A classy move from a classy guy.

I shouldn't have expected anything better than that from a sox fan. Later while he's with his kids, trying to look all cool by trying to put down a Yankees fan, he asks me why theres no Yanks in the Home Run Derby. My reply was that there was only one or two bonafide candidates from the Yankees and that they probably decided to pass. Giambi is someone who is definitely a little more deserving than say, Lance Berkman, but the HR Derby is also a place for young guys to showcase their stuff. The oldest player in the Derby, Lance Berkman, just turned 30 this year, and most of the contestants were under 26. He then says something about Sox all-stars. Please. Mark Loretta? A whopping .306 avg? Unremarkable RBI numbers? 3 freakin HRs? As you can plainly see, according to my fantasy baseball league's scoring methods, Loretta isn't even top 10. And there are clearly 2 AL candidates that are ranked better than him that are everyday players (Ian Kinsler and Robinson Cano).

I own the guys with the yellow highlights.

And don't even get me started on Jason Varitek's paltry .233 average. Joe Mauer is better. Especially since he's batting almost .400. And while I will admit that your beloved Big Papi is an excellent hitter, he doesn't actually play a position. Seeing how there was no DH in this year's all star event, they should have picked the best FIRST BASEMAN, not DH who occasionally plays first only in interleague games. Justin Morneau should have started over Ortiz.

Ok, my rant is done. Point being, I didn't allow good old JD to try and put me in my place so he could impress his kids.

On a side note, I've been reading his book on the can. And I use the term "book" quite loosely here. Its not so much a book as it is a collection of random thoughts scribbled down on that yellow smelly paper thats really cheap to buy. There is no plot. No action. No protagonist. No insight. Just a bunch of pages of him trying to tell a Yankees suck joke in a different way. I'm gonna give this book my lowest rating ever. Seven thumbs up.

Star Struck

2006-07-09T22:32:00.000-04:00

Today, July 9th, 2006, a minor celebrity of some notoriety in New England came to Joe's Pizza today. And it was pretty much the highlight of my day. Until I had another visitor. Which was also very nice, but not nearly as humorous as the first one.

It was just after opening time, roundabouts 11:15 AM, when a man wearing Oakley Thumps rolled into Joes.

Pretty sweet.....I know.

This fellow ordered a slice or two of some pizza, sat down, and proceeded to eat it while watching World Cup Live on TV. As he was getting ready to leave, Myself, my brother, and Hickey were just kinda hanging around the counter, being lazy, as always. It's pretty much the standard protocol for Joe's. Anyways, as I customarily do, I was wearing a very old, grey colored Yankees Hat.

It was very similar to this hat, but not so much brown as it was grey.

The man then asks, "What are you doing with that Yankee's Hat on?" It's a question I often receive, being a Yankees fan in Red Sox country.
"Wearin' it." I smugly reply. I'm trying to be a little condescending. Because quite frankly, with asshole Sox fans, you have to be. He asks if it bothers either my brother or Hickey, both of which reply, "no, not really." It should be noted here that Joe, while not explicitly a Yankees fan, absolutely hates the Red Sox and their fans. Hickey doesn't know anything about baseball. He thinks he does, but he doesn't. If I wanted to have a conversation about Post-Punk music, or Wrasslin, then Hickey is my Go 2 Guy. But when it comes to baseball, he's just friggin' retahded.

That's wrestling? I'm gonna let you draw your own conclusions here....

The man in the Thumps then says that he's got something for me, and that he'll be right back. He then goes out to his car, and comes back with a book. "Turn to page 50," he says with a grin, as he leaves the building. I'm thinkin to myself here, "is this nut job really just giving me this little book?" We open the book to Page 50. This is what we find.

Click to view a larger Image. It's pretty much just this guy pissing on Yankee Stadium.

We look out the window, and see him still sitting in his car, watching us through the window and laughing at us. He drives off. We then look at the cover of the book.

We realize that that guy was this guy. Jimmy Dunn. National comedian and Local television personality (for one paltry year) on NESN. Jimmy Dunn. I was a bit star struck once I found out who he was. Turns out he's so local that he's from the seacoast NH area. He use to pal around with local legend Chris Collins, a Joe's employee, and was a regular at the Hampton location. His book was published in Portsmouth. But I still have no idea who he really is. I've never seen any of his comedy, and chances are, I probably wont like it. You may have got me on this one Jimmy Dunn, but just you wait. You will get your comuppance. I have friends in high places. And by high places, I mean in the mountains. And they might be crazy. Or hippies. Or both.

Who Would Have Thunk it?

2006-06-12T00:00:00.000-04:00

A few nights ago I made my first adventure into Newmarket for a legal night of drinking. I had been drinking there once or twice before, but it was always at a sketchy apartment that I never felt very comfortable at. And that prevented me from having a good time.

This time around me and a few buddies decided to go out for a little adventure at the bars. We had quite the motley crue. Included in this crew was Budd, who insisted on popping his collar, Johnny the Hippie, Stickey Hickey, the world's foremost authority on wrasslin', and The Tiny Man.

Yeah, we pretty much looked like that.

The night started at the Stone Church. The Stone Church is a somewhat-pseudo-legendary bar and music place thing that has been a popular hang out for both UNH students and hippies a like. And often those UNH students are hippies. My first impression of the place was that this place wasn't actually a bar at all. It's pretty much in the middle of the woods. And the only other bar that I know of that was pretty much in the middle of the woods wasn't so much a bar, as it was a shed that was sort of turned into a bar by two guys and they called it Momma Megs. And to make a long story short, because of Momma Megs, people lost their jobs and divorces were had. So this place kinda had one strike against it.

When we arrived at the front door, the decor actually seemed pretty cool, but there were hippies hawking handmade jewelry at us. That kinda freaked me out. The only thing I want sold to me at a bar is booze. And lots of it. They should really leave their crappy jewelry in their smelly communes. Better yet, they should leave their crappy selves at their smelly communes. Except Johnny the Hippy, he's OK in my book.

So I did a Google Image Search for "hippies selling stuff" and this is what came up.

We listened to a local band play a little blue grass then cover (poorly) something by The Police and some other stuff and left. Next on the tour was a place called Chugger's Palace. With a name like Chuggers Palace you know the place had to be sweet. It was about the size of two dorm rooms. The television took up about 1/3 of the place. The rest was taken up by 1 small table and a Golden Tee and pinball machine. They also had enormous beers. They might as well have been pitchers. I got a pitcher of Longtrail Ale, and it was sweeter than the nectar of the gods. Needless to say, as the night wore on, a good time was being had by all.

This is Hickey and Satan rocking out. For real-real.

Johnny and I have the same camera phone so we thought it would be sweet if we took pictures of each other at the same time. FYI- it totally was!

After polishing off our too large beers, we got to talking about New Hampshire native son, one who I am proud to call that, G.G. Allin. If you don't know who GG is, I implore you to explore his Wikipedia site in more detail. But here is a short synopsis. He was born in NH. His parents were nut jobs. He lived in log cabin with no heat, electricity or water. When he finally moved out he got heavily involved in the underground punk rock scene in NYC. He fronted for bands like The Jabbers, The Scumfucs, The Murder Junkies, The AIDS Brigade, and a host of other bands where the offensiveness of the name is just the beginning (The Fuckin Shitbiscuits was a real good one). GG was known for his over-the-top stage antics and horrendous lyrics (if you could really call what he did music). He often severely injured himself onstage and ate laxatives before concerts so he could defecate on stage and eat it and throw it in the crowd. He was arrested for sexual assault, and for kicking a girl in the mouth on stage. And we from Joe's Pizza fuckin love him. He was a musical Da Vinci, centuries before his time.

The Man. The Myth. The Legend. GG Allin was pretty much the scum of the earth, and we love him for it.

Whilst raising our glasses to GG, a large meat head turned around from his engrossing Golden Tee game and said, nay, shouted, "GG ALLIN IS A PIECE OF SHIT. I FUCKING HATE HIM." Naturally we had to defend our boy, so we told him how awesome he was. "GG ALLIN FUCKIN RAPED HIS SISTER AND CUT OFF HIS PENIS!!" was his rebuttle. If he knew anything about GG, he would know that GG did not cut off his dick, and he did not even have a sister. We tried explaining to him that he's wrong, but drunk meatheads don't listen, they just yell and threaten to kick your ass. And he threatened to kick our asses if we kept talking about GG Allin. Now, who would have thought that an incredibly obscure (most of you probably never even heard of GG until now) person like GG would trigger such a hateful response from this ignoramus. As we were leaving he continued to yell at us, and threatened to kick our asses some more. Satan was the last to leave Chuggers and as he was leaving, apparently the meathead said that, after having a shouting match at the door with Budd, he will "fucking kill us" if we bring that shit back up in his grill again. Whatever. We've basically resolved to hold a GG Allin Fan Club meeting every thursday at Chugger's from now on. Screw him.

What? Fuck GG Allin! He fuckin sucks! Fuck You!! I'll fuckin kill you!! My dick isn't that small! It's at least 4 inches!! Look at my sweet biceps!! I'm not compensating for anything, I swear!

Internet Licensing

2006-05-23T12:47:00.000-04:00

I've been an avid web surfer now since I was in 5th grade, when we got our first Internet capable computer. So I guess you could say that I've been around the block. One of the great things about the net is the freedom of information that is flowing around the globe. But with this freedom comes some responsibility. For example, you shouldn't be looking for kiddy porn on the Internet, because thats illegal...and kind of disturbing. You shouldn't be conspiring terrorist plots (dirka dirka mohammed jihad osama bin laden), not because terrorism is bad, but mostly because its really easy to get caught over the internet. You shouldn't also use the Internet to track people and spy on them. And lastly, you shouldn't use incoherent jibberish when posting on the net. Because you make yourself, and every other American on the internet look foolish.

Here is a link to a classic post from My Blog is Poop on Home Field Advantage. The post is short and sweet. I like it, until I saw this.

You're like, brilliant and shit, yo. Well Fear of a Ted Planet, whomever you may be, congratulations, you've made an ass out of yourself. That little blurb ranks right up there with great works of the English language by Shakespeare.

But wait, theres more. This is hardly an isolated incident. Maddox has had a history of people making fools of themselves to him in email form, and then he delightfully makes them public for the rest of us.

As you can see, morons have a habit of getting behind a piece of plastic with a bunch of letters on it and just start hen-pecking away, not realizing they don't make sense and looking quite foolish.

And if you want people who can't put together a sentence, look no further than my fantasy baseball league. I may be 0-8 on the year, but at least I can put forth a valid argument why a trade should not go through. And then there was this gem put out there on the message board.

I don't think that any one of those alleged sentences are actually sentences. The first "sentence" maybe, because it does have a subject, predicate, and a direct object, but apparently Sam doesn't have the time to type out "versus." The next sentence is actually a fragment, with no indication of why or what he's giving up. The third sentence isn't even a sentence. It's more like something you shout. But you can't shout over the internet, unless you have an internet phone. Oh, and this guy supposedly has a college degree.

Now enough bashing, it is time to establish some guidelines for using the Internet. Every person who signs up with an ISP should have to take a test that looks something like this.
If they answer "Yes" to any of these questions, then they should be immediately stamped on the forehead with a giant red stamp that says "retarded." And then they should be sodomized. Because all of lifes problems can be solved by sodomy. Especially sodomy by a large gorilla.

R. Kelly Got a Bum Rap

2006-04-25T23:17:00.000-04:00

And, R. Kelly's raps is wack. But this ain't what that be spittin' bout.

Mr. Kelly has been recently recognized for his "critically acclaimed" Hip-Hopera, Trapped in the Closet. The best line in that whole thing is when he says "And I was trapped in my closet/And I pulled out my Barretta!" because why the fuck would R. Kelly have a Barretta in his closet. I guess a better question would be why don't you have a baretta in your closet?

And while as hilarious and preposterous the whole DVD may have been, its not the subject matter of todays story. This one relates to R. Kelly's more infamous episode in his life...in which he pees on a girl. Heres the thing. R Kelly peed on a girl, who was allegedly underage. Now, I didn't see that video he made of it, but I'm going to pretend that I did. And that girl didn't look like she was a day under 20. So I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that he got in trouble not because the girl was "under age" but because it's considered indecent to urinate on women.

Now how is the relevant you ask? Well I'll tell you. I know that this all went down a couple years ago, so it makes no sense to right strictly about R Kelly and his urination fetish at this juncture. But go with me on this one.

The other night I was at a group meeting for Marketing class. (on a side note, its not relevant but hilarious. my marketing professor is an old man who chains smokes, is an alcoholic, and may or may not have groped a faculty member in WSBE. great guy. love ya chuck!) Back to this meeting. It was a Sunday night in the Library at UNH. Now, the last place I want to be on a Sunday night is the Library that is a 30 minute drive from where I live and work. So while we are all there, not only do we try to make it worth our time and get some work done, we have a little fun too. Something that has come up now several times, is something that is very interesting. This girl in the group, lets just call her Britt (name may or may not have been changed to protect or not protect the innocent) has this reoccurring problem of getting pissed on by her boyfriend whenever she goes to visit him at ZooMass. Apparently, he gets really drunk, and then feels its OK to just piss on her, and his bed in the middle of the night. Now, I don't know about the rest of you guys, but when I feel the need to piss, no matter how drunk I am, I can say with about a 110% confidence interval (its possible, shut up) that I am going to wake up in the middle of the night, no matter how drunk I am, and make it to a bathroom to relieve myself. So we all ridiculed her, made fun of her, and even offered to buy some Depends for him next time she goes to visit him.

A good investment for Ms. "Britt Bevan"

Now we go to the next day. I was having a conversation with a one Tricia, when I explained that the only thing I brought away from that meeting was the fact that Britt keeps getting peed on. She then went on to tell me that this strange occurance, which I have never heard of until meeting Britt, happens all the time. All four of her roommates have been peed on by drunk boyfriends/random hookups.

"dude i'm so fuckin wasted! lets go find some girls to piss on!!"

I then decided some more investigation was necessary...for you guys. I then asked the lovely and talented Kristen at work that night if she could corraborate Tricia's claims. Not only has it happened to Kristen, but its happened SEVERAL times to her. From more than one person. This blew my mind. How can something that is taught to us from the earliest stages of life be so difficult to do when we are drunk? I then reported my findings later to my marketing group. Now, they were surprised that I had conducted this research (which is for you, my readers). And then one of the people most responsible for making fun of Britt, a one Mr. David Andrew Ross, was guilty himself of perpetrating this act. How dare he, after doing something like that himself, make fun of Britt and her boyfriend for that. Now, I on the other hand, have never done that, so I have every right in the world to. In fact, it's my civic duty to do it.

Ok, I lied, I have peed on a girl. Just once though. And I wasn't drunk. I was completely sober, and I knew exactly what I was doing. I was peeing on a girl, because it was fun. Might I add though, that I was only 5 years old. I had to go, and I decided to just whip it out and let it fly. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It really did. Honest. I still stand by my decision to do it. Its better she knows what humiliation feels like early on in life so it doesn't crush her later. So, I'm just gonna stay up here on my high horse.

But after learning how widespread this whole pissin on girls thing is, (there is a whole niche in the porn industry dedicated to it) I think its time we finally exhonerate R. Kelly. He didn't do anything out of the ordinary. He just peed on a girl.

*Names were not changed to protect the innocent. Screw the innocent

**leave a comment, i fixed it so everyone, not just blogger.com users can comment

***mp3 du jour is back working

Throwin' Money Down the Toilet

2006-03-31T21:33:00.000-05:00

I know it's been a while, and Spring Break did pass between my last post and now, but all in all, nothing too hilarious or odd has happened to me in the past month or so. Strange as it sounds, I've just been too busy between my newfound responsibilities at work and the rigors that are a WSBE education for entertaining things. All this until Tuesday (3/28/06) of this week...

About a month ago I decided to use some of my supremely generous tax return to purchase a gift for Me. I felt as though I earned it, as I was kicking ass this semester in school and I got a promotion at work. Sometimes you just gotta spoil yourself.

"Sometimes you just gotta spoil yourself...spoil yourself...spoil yourself..." stupid sexy Flanders!

Right at the same time my wonderful car broke down, so I was bussing it to UNH and requiring headphones and music to carry with me. But I always had a large collection of CDs and an CD player which ended up making my carrying load for school excedingly bulky and unmanagable.

No not Balky, BULKY!!

So I decided to invest my hardly earned, and illgotten government money into a new MP3 player. But not just any old trendy iPod or anything, but a really sweet Creative Zen Vision:M player. It also plays movies and stuff. It was sleek, it was easy to use, it had a really nice interface, wonderful sound, and best of all, it wasn't a stupid iPod...god I hate those things.

Well I loved my Zen player. It was my best friend on my trip to San Diego, and kept me entertained between classes or when I had to walk the dogs. Everything was great....until Black Tuesday.

After getting out of my car (it got fixed) I threw on the old Zen buddy and waited for the bus to take me from the parking lot thats in another county to the UNH campus. Everything seemed normal, even that rumbling I got in my gut telling me I had to drop the Cosby kids off at the pool. It happens every morning at that time like clockwork. I went into the mens lavatory, or loo for my British friends, to "take care of business." I sat their happily listening to my music, reading The Wire, and droppin a 2. When everything was all said and done, I went to go pull up the shorts, and as that was happening the Zen, which was in a shallow sweatshirt pocket, fell out of the pocket and IN TO THE TOILET. It immediately shut off when it hit the shit. My first instinct was to pull it out by its headphone cord, and as I held it up, I looked at my three hundred bills....covered in shit. I could have just dropped trow' over the thing and let loose, it would have had the same effect. I was devestated. And in my desperation, I even grabbed a bunch of paper towels to try and wipe off some of the mess and see if it would work, as the screen was still lit. But it was to no avail. I had just ruined my gift for me.

+

=

Damn Those Hessians!

2006-02-11T02:05:00.000-05:00

The Hessians, for those of you who don't know, were German mercenary soldiers who fought on the side of the British during the Revolutionary War. Why would I curse them? because they almost cost me my country!! Lousy soldiers who've been dead for 220 years.

Now for the modern day Hessians who've been upsetting me lately. Unfortunately its not a group of German mercenaries....if only it were that simple. Its actually the Hess gas station in Hampton. What's wrong with them you ask? If you'll allow me to rip off Comic Book Guy for a second....

WORST. GAS STATION. EVER.

There I said it.

This photo is of a typical Hess station, though this one appears to be a little older than the one in Hampton. Luckily gas never got that expensive around here...but it was close. But thats not the gripe. The story starts last year during the summer...

Before we had the Hess station it was called US Gas. This was a no-name petroleum company that offered good gasoline for me and my mighty, gas guzzling SUV. And it was relatively cheap too. Lowest within an 8 mile radius. And it always had gas. And as an added bonus, you could pay at the pump with CASH, like a vending machine. It was a thing of beauty. Brian wanted cheap gas. Brian drives to US Gas. US Gas promises cheap and readily available gas. US Gas delivers on promise of cheap, readily available gas. A business transaction takes place, and both parties are satisfied.

Then all of the sudden US gas is closed, and two days later its now a gaudy green and white Hess station. Now let us revisit the above scenario, inserting Hess where once stood US Gas. Brian wants cheap gas. Brian Drives to Hess station. Hess station promises cheap, readily available gas. Hess does not deliver cheap readily available gas as promised. No business transaction takes place, and Brian leaves the gas station angry.

We could do a case analysis of the above problem, but this isn't a college classroom, its a crappy website. I wanted gas, I tried getting gas. First, they took away the pay with cash option at the pumps. No worries, I had my trusty debit card. After activating the pumps, I wait, and wait, and wait, and wait a sec, there is no gas. Its not working. I am told the pumps don't work. I'm understandably T.O'd. I take my business elsewhere.

But the story doesn't quite end there. I figure since they just opened that there is a higher likelihood of problems. So I return later. Same thing. I try again a few months later. Again I leave with an empty gas tank. The final straw was just a week ago. I tried getting some gas for my mother's car, and what do you know, NO GAS FOR ME. They didn't run out. They just couldn't serve me because of some stupid reason I didn't care to hear about. I gave them 4 chances to give me gas. FOUR FREAKIN CHANCES. Usually after one bad experience you will be lucky to get that customers business ever again. But I am very forgiving. But four times?! You gotta be shittin me. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, (which is never), but isn't the first rule of business to make sure you can sell your goods to the consumer? Apparently Hess slept through their Intro to Business class (I can't really blame them, its a very boring class). But I am never going to a Hess station anywhere ever again. And nor should you. I don't care if its the only gas station for the next 200 miles and I'm riding on E. I don't care if they only charge me $.05 per gallon when the price of oil skyrockets to $250/barrel (which equates to about $7.75 per gallon in today's dollahs). I am never going to any Hess anywhere ever again. I am calling an all out boycott of them. Because they don't know how to do what businesses do....which is sell your shit to me.

The Guy Who Sponsors "The Total Gym" is NOT COOL!

2006-02-11T01:05:00.000-05:00

There has been a recent epidemic....actually more of a plague, if you will, amongst the college community. It's not the threat of binge drinking, drug use, irresponsible and unrestrained sex, syphilis, or bird flu (though I totally wish it was bird flu). You will not find this disease in any medical dictionary or encyclopedia, and if you went to a doctor or med student asking them about this disease, they'd probably laugh at you and either give you a roundhouse to the face, or make a quick remark about a B-List celebrity roundhousing you or someone else to the face.

This disease is what I call ChuckNorritis. What it boils down to in laymans terms is an unhealthy, and irrational obsession with Chuck Norris. Yes. The Chuck Norris. This stupid guy right here....

Look at that guy! He looks gayer than Christopher Lowell. Does a man in a singlet really deserve to be as venerated as this guy? YOU CAN'T TAKE THIS GUY SERIOUSLY! Whatever this man in the singlet is offering for a private lesson, I'm pretty sure I don't want it.

I'll give you a brief, fairly accurate depiction of his life, none of which includes kicking a pope, extinguishing the dinosaurs, or filling the oceans.

Chuck Norris was born in Oklahoma in 1940. Yes, 1940, he is now eligible to collect social security checks from the government. Since he was young he trained and competed in martial arts, specifically Tae Kwon Do. He was the first man in the western hemisphere to achieve an 8th level black belt, which I will tip my cap to. But his actual fighting career ended in 1974. He retired from professional fighting undefeated. Again, impressive. He soon began acting in action movies, as kung fu movies were starting to gather a real following in America. He then proceeded to star in such action classics, and I use that term as loose as a 50 year old hooker, The Octogon, Silent Rage, Lone Wolf McQuade, and Invasion U.S.A. But he didn't get his real break until 1986 in Delta Force. I guess he was sort of a star now.

Afterwards, America soon realized that while Mr. Norris posesses amazing martial arts abilities, he is actually a pretty terrible actor. Most of us really know him from two places. Walker Texas Ranger (which is false, because he's not Texan, he's Oklahoman) and from his numerous infomercials with fellow 80s inconoclast Christie Brinkley, who also seems to never age. She still looks like she did back in the 80s, when she was in her 30's, and you'd think to yourself, "Yeah, she's pretty much as old as my mom, if not older, but i'd still do her." Now you think to yourself, "Well, she's probably old enough to be my grandmother, but under the right circumstances, I'd still throw it in her." Sickos. They are both hocking this strange piece of crap.

I mean look at that, its just a padded board on a steel frame with some pulleys. I think I may have accidently built that in 6th grade science class when we were studying simple machines. Not to mention that Chuck Norris is giving off the pedosmile in the photo....

Walker was cancelled on CBS, which for some reason had a long standing tradition of having shows that just totally sucked. I mean, who really got excited at night to see Walker Texas Ranger and JAG. Please, somebody at CBS, tell me what you were smoking for those years that those shows were on the air, and share it with me. Because if it made you think that you could actually attract an audience with those shows, then who knows what it could do for me. After being syndicated on the USA network, Walker enjoyed, little, if any success. It certainly didn't get the Family Guy treatment when it got cancelled. But then something magical happened. When NBC bought the USA Networks, they had full, unlimited rights to their video libraries. This included WTR. So Conan O'Brien, being the comic genius that he is, started assimilating random clips into his show. It was funny, in fact, it was hilarious. It soon caught on and Chucky made a cameo spot in Dodgeball. That was it. ChuckNorritis was offically starting to spread.

But the thing is, Chuck Norris, despite all his martial arts prowess, isn't that cool. You want a cool martial artist turned action star, you will bask in the glory of this man. DO IT!! DIDDY MOW!!!

Bruce Lee is one Bad Muthafucka!! Did you ever see Enter the Dragon? Its like the greatest martial arts movie of all time. He is so fucking awesome. And if he were alive today, and he took on Chuck Norris, Bruce Lee would kill Chuck Norris seven times before he hit the ground. I bet Bruce Lee's corpse right now could at least kill Chuck twice. And as far as 80's badasses go, you can't beat these guys....

The A-Team was the greatest tag team of crime fighters this planet has ever seen, real or imaginary. And then there was this guy....

MacGuyver was SO badass that he carries bombs around on his shoulder without thinking twice. Did Chuck Norris do that? I don't think so. (No, the shoulder fired bazookas from Delta Force don't count because those were obviously Hollywood props, and that missile is obviously a real deadly explosive waiting to detonate on an unsuspecting baddie.) And besides, I bet MacGuyver could beat Norris by using some dental floss and Chuck's 8th degree blackbelt and making a bomb to blow Chuck Norris in half.

So let me put everything in perspective. Chuck Norris Sucks. He's from the 80s, where everything sucked. His shows suck. His acting sucks. His stupid beard sucks. He's not as tough as you think he is, since he is a member of the AARP and all. None of the things that are on the Chuck Norris List, or any other list for that matter, actually apply to Chuck Norris. And if it weren't for stupid college kids who have nothing to do, his current elevated status as a celebrity wouldn't exist, as he'd be back down in the ranks of Steven Segal and Jean-Claude Van Dam where he belongs.

STOP VENERATING CHUCK NORRIS....NOT FOR YOUR SAKE, BUT FOR THE SAKE OF HUMANITY.

Karma

2006-01-17T17:33:00.000-05:00

Before you read on, I am going to ask you to please reference this or you will not understand the following...

I was at Tricia's apartment last week enjoying the little time we had left on our winter break. Because my shitty truck was in the shop I had to hitch a ride with Matt and his buddies from Fitchburg on their way up to Dover. And seeing how I was dependant on them for a ride, I was doing something that was really out of the norm for me, and that was drinking a lot and spending the night.

After losing a few games of beirut really fast and then some more general drinking, we were settling down to do what I've done every time I've been to Tricia's this year, and thats play Taboo. But thats not the funny part. Well, actually, when Tricia was trying to describe the word "cling" she said "its something that Ashley (her roommate) does with all her boyfriends." Then Matt shouted BUTT SEX. That was really funny. And then when I was trying to describe "poison" (the general thing you use to kill rats with) to someone, and I described it as a crappy heavy metal band from the 80s, the kid got it right immediately. That amused me as well. But thats not what this story is about. Recall this picture.
Now doesn't this look familiar? Oh yeah, that the futon at Tricia's place, with all the wine bottles perched precariously above it. Seems rather unassuming, rather harmless, a nice comfy little spot for an intoxicated fellow to lie down for a spot and gather his thoughts or stop the room from spinning....

Now recall this picture. But now substitute the "girls head" with my head. Yep, you guessed it. Tricia was whilin' out, and she knocked a whine bottle off of the ledge...And what happened to Brian? HE GOT HIT IN THE FACE WITH A WINE BOTTLE!! Luckily it wasn't that massive Grey Goose bottle or I would have been in some serious trouble...

Its still soooo big!!

For your information, the Grey Goose bottle is still there. So I ended the night with a bruised lip. Before I slinked away to bed (ps- thanks Kristin, if you read this, for letting me use your bed while you were away) Tricia gave me a consolitory hug. It was nice, but I kinda like the Larry David School of Consolation a little better. (In this episode, larry keeps trying to turn consolation into sex, first with a friends secretary, then with his wife) I wasn't really angry though, because I think I deserved it. The odd thing is that like 2 hours before the incident re-happened, we were talking about both the original incident and my subsequent story, and how funny they were. But the Universe has a funny way of coming back to get you....

Blow'Hare

2006-01-12T11:48:00.000-05:00

As promised, the second update about the vacation that ended over a week ago is here!!

When we left off, our hero (me) was chucking grapefruits at his little sister, and being unecessarily destructive. But it was at this point the twilight of the trip, as departure was scheduled for later that night.

We pull into SkyHarbor airport a little before 5:00 PM MST. (7:00 PM EST) Our flight leaves at about 6:11 PM, departing for the city that starts with a 'C', ends with an 'O' and has 'HICAG' in the middle. We arrive at the second busiest airport in the country, Chicago O'Hare (the airport had recently lost its crown of busiest airport to Atlanta) at about 11:10 CST. None of us had any dinner so we are understandably hungry. We walk by all these little restaraunts and shops, but they are all closed. I can understand when the Duty Free shop (which has the largest carton of cigarettes I've ever seen) doesn't want to be open 24 hours, but you'd expect something to be open right? They do have at least one 24 hours Dunkin Donuts in Logan, so I just assumed there would be one in every airport (or even a Starbucks). But get this....

Not even the well respected airport establishment Hudson News was open. I couldn't buy a pack of gum if I wanted. I walked around the area (terminal 3) for a while looking for something, but everything was closed.

Even Montblanc was closed, and I don't even know what they sold. It looked like it was just overpriced pens and watches, but I may be wrong.

We did however find a soda fountain that someone had neglected to turn off before they closed up so my father and I helped ourselves to some of their finer Coca-Cola....

This was the scene at all 5 Starbucks that were in terminal 3. All the sandwiches and things were behind these little cage things. But as you can clearly see at the top, anybody with girly little hands and slender wrists could just reach in and take one. (Actually, even I, with my bear paws for hands and wrists like tree trunks, because I'm so manly, could have reached in there and taken one. And if you are thinking, "If you are so manly, why not do it, or even just rip off the cage with your 28" pythons?" Well the answer is quite obvious. I didn't want to sit in an airport jail for attempted theft while my family flew back to Boston.)

After finally talking to somebody who really reminded me of this guy....

We asked them where to get some food. He proceeded to hike up his toolbelt and said "Oh you're askin the right gise" He told us all the open foodcourts were in Terminal 5. It was just a short train ride over. But heres the problem....

As I have clearly marked in red Arial 10pt font, I was there, and food was there. And then in yellow 10pt arial font, security was in between us. And they wouldn't let us go back through if we went to terminal 5. So if we left Terminal 3, we couldn't get back in. But we needed to stay in terminal 3 because thats where our flight was leaving from later that morning (6:41 AM CST). So I did some more walking around.....

I found this fun little playplace that I played in for about 10 minutes. It really was a blast pretending I was a captain of that Jumbo Jet!!

This magical little toilet here solves all your problems you may have with shitting in public. You just press a button and it magically puts down a fresh plastic lining on the seat for going number two. Its not very comfortable though, because the seat kinda feels like trying to take a dump while sitting on the toilet with the toilet seat up. And if your irrational fear of using public restrooms stems not from the unsanitary toilets but of crazy patrons jumping over the stall and looking at you....well then you have a whole other set of problems....

This was the leftover holiday display in the airport, as it was still only January 4th. And it was quite pretty to walk down that concourse and look up and see that, but it wasn't food, and it didn't help me pass time any quicker by looking at it. Maybe if I had taken some mushrooms....

This was my "final resting place" so to speak. I chose it because it was dark and hidden, and didn't invlove me having to contort my body in seven different ways to try and lay down on those uncomfortable airport benches. I fashioned a makeshift pillow out of my shoes and my jacket and was able to grab about 45 minutes of sleep...that is...once the insanity started to wear down.

Eventually everything opened back up at like 5:30, and I finally got some food. And then I sat there and people watched for about an hour. My plane had an invasion of girls in Red Sweaters, as some sort of ice dancing team from Chicago was heading to Boston. They were like all 16, and most of them were kinda hot, but then they opened there mouths......but I digress

All in all my short experience with Chicago left me confused and enraged. Maybe I will one day again return to the Windy City and actually leave the airport....

nawwwwwwwwwwww

If you were so glad I was there, why didn't you try to be a gracious host and SERVE ME SOME FUCKING FOOD WHEN I WAS FUCKING HUNGRY!! FUCK YOU SHITCAGO, I'M NEVER COMING BACK AGAIN!!!

Cover Your Shame

2006-01-10T11:14:00.000-05:00

It has been a while...

Seeing how I haven't updated in so long I'm going to treat you kiddies to two consecutive days of updates!! Look at it as a way of trying to atone for my laziness, seeing how I have been home from Arizona since January 4th, and it is now January 10th. You wanna fight about it?

Most of the vacation was actually quite relaxing, and I got to go on a little hike up a small mountain. But on the way down i fell on a cactus and I'm still picking the needles out of my hand. It would be cool if I liked having cactus needles in my hand, but I don't so its not.

The only real "highlight" is New Years. And not because it was super fun or I got beligerently drunk or anything, but because some funny things happened. I was with my family, because Smitty and his buddy RP decided that they'd go away from the area for NYE, while I went to the Phoenix area.

We went to the New Years Eve Fiesta Bowl Block Party in Tempe, held every year prior to the Fiesta Bowl.

--I'm gonna digress here for a minute... As you probably know, Ohio State played Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl. The resort that I stayed at was filled with Buckeye Faithful. I was inundated with red shirts and old people dressed in Ohio St. track suits. I mean seriously, these people only wore OSU gear. All the time. Golf shirts, track suits, plain t-shirts, hats, you name it, they wore it. It made me hate OSU supporters even more than I already do. They are so fucking pretentious, calling it THE Ohio State University, like its the only fucking school in the entire state. Yes, I go to THE University of New Hampshire, but i'm not a prick like them. Yes, you have a football team that is competitive every year, and occasionally your other sports teams are competitive too, but all your constituents are stupid punks (See Maurice Clarett). And until the NCAA fixes its flawed football post season, college basketball will always trump college football in my mind, because March Madness is where its at. Yeah thats right, all you dumbass OSU fans flew a few thousand miles to support your team in what basically amounts to an overhyped, money generated exhibition game, because the only game that really counts is the National Championship game. But, I digress....

When I first heard about this, I was told that there was just a huge block party that night near Arizona State University. I was hoping that this would be on par with the legendary Fox Hills/Ashby block parties that kick off the school year at JMU. I haven't been to a good block party in a while, mostly because the off campus housing in and around Durham is not really conducive to block parties. But my hopes were high....then summarily crushed when I learned that the party was sponsored by the town of Tempe. No public alcohol consumption except at overly crowded bars and in "Beer Gardens." It was kinda lame at first, but then I wandered into one of the beer gardens and found a little live music....and this....

Who does this? I mean seriously?

This is a picture of a man with a video camera, filming the live music. Ok, that occasionally happens, and often small bands encourage it to help get their name out there. But this small band, The Zoo Station, isn't just any ordinary small band, they are a U2 cover band. Now, it would be one thing if this was an original band, or he was actually filming U2, but its not. I wonder if he got up that morning and said to himself "don't forget your camera to the block party tonight to film the U2 cover band." I'd like to know what he was thinking. On a side note, they were pretty good at exactly replicating the U2 sound, and I only got upset when they played "Vertigo" because new U2 sucks and old U2 is kinda good.

I later found this man.

That is supposed to be "Ozzy Osbourne" wearing a giant foam novelty cowboy hat. (Its actually CrazyTrain, [ultimate tribute to Ozzy Osbourne]) Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but last time I checked, giant foam cowboy hats were NOT metal. So this guy is kinda disrespecting Ozzy. They also had a guy in a blond wig (you can kinda see him on the left) who had on a black leather vest with NO SHIRT on underneath it. Now thats metal. And that guy was actually a pretty talented guitarist, as their rendition of War Pigs was pretty good. But since he doesn't do anything original that I know of he loses a little credibility with me.

After the ultimate tribute to Ozzy Osbourne got off the stage on came TNT (as AC/DC). These guys were the "headliners" of this particular stage. (The overall headliner of the event was Blues Traveller, but I had no interest in them). At first, the guy in the leather vest came out, only this time he was dressed as Angus Young from AC/DC, and again, did a pretty damned good job of emulating him. Then out came the singer, and instead of a man trying to be Bon Scott, there was a man trying to be Brian Johnson trying to be Bon Scott, and he got many boos. But the area in front of the stage was so crowded I still couldn't get close enough for a picture, thats how loved these guys were. Unfortunately earlier while I was watching the U2 coverband, I missed Metal Gods (super tribute to Judas Priest). Oh well

I came to the conclusion that night Tempe, AZ is only known for 2 things, the first being Arizona State. The second is being the location of the greatest cover bands in the world. Because as I looked over the schedule of events, there were maybe 3 original acts there, one of them was Blues Traveller, one of them was Kinch (who oddly enough covered "I'll tell my ma" an old irish folk song covered by both The Cheiftans and The Pogues), and another called Blue Fur, which I neglected to see. And my night actually ended pretty early because I was on east coast time, so when midnight hit out west, it was like 2 AM back home and I was kinda wiped.

The rest of the vacation was pretty uneventful with the exception of the trip home (covered tomorrow) and the fact that we changed hotel rooms like 3 times. On the third time, we got a suite with a grapefruit tree in the yard. And my brother and I proceeded to throw grapefruits at anything and everything....but mostly our little sister, which was hilarious. We wasted so many unripe grapefruit in a span of 2 days that it was almost sickening.

That is just a small fraction of the wasted fruits, as many went over the surrounding fences on to the tennis courts, into the maintenence area, into the road, any direction i felt like, and many towards my sister. But some we just grabbed and whipped at that stucco wall right there, and thats what those are.

Ok, so I got bored on my last couple days there....

tomorrow will be the conclusion of the vacation

ps-i know this post isn't as good as it should be, but i was actually working on it yesterday, and it was damned funny, but the were two power outages localized entirely within my room and i lost my update twice. i have since forgotten the best parts of it, and i tried my best to resurrect it, but i don't think i did the old one any justice. i'm sorry

Mind Boggling

2005-12-23T16:32:00.000-05:00

Most of you...ok well mostly me, live pretty uninteresting lives. Most of the banalities of our everyday adventures aren't anything too humorous. (Except for Satan's, his are hilarious) But every once in a while we are treated to little nuggets interesting things. As December 25th approaches at an ever increasing rate (so fast that I'm not really ready for it to be Christmas yet) people start to lose their minds and do stupid things. My firts example is as follows...

The other night at Joe's two people came in for some slices. No big deal right? Well there is a catch to it: They don't look like they belong together. No, it wasn't an interracial couple, but an interweight-class couple. See, the chick was this fine ass little honey. Well, actually she was kinda tall, but she was just smokin'. Many shallow men would start a relationship with her based entirely on looks alone and totally disregard the fact that she may be a total bitch. And the dude she was with was absolutely gigantic. Not in the sense that like Shaquille O'Neil is huge, but more like Ralphie May gigantic.

Supperman's fat ass is here to save the freakin' day

In fact, he even had the same kind of face as Ralphie. And the thing that really got us at work was the fact that this girl was absolutely fawning over Tons of Fun in the dining room. All sorts of petting and cute little kisses, except they weren't cute, it was more like visual ipecac. I swear, this guy couldn't even see his own penis, I don't know how he expects her to find it in between the mountains of gelatinous skin and flesh. We at Joe's pizza, being as vapid and shallow as we are were still talking about it the next day. Just typing this I threw up in my mouth a little bit so I'm going to move on...

The other mind boggling thing I saw recently happened while I was out one day in Portsmouth. Every year around the holidays the city graciously stops charging for parking downtown. All the meters are covered up with little red baggies that say something along the lines of "Free Parking! Season Greetings!" But some people look at this and they get a little thought running around their heads. And since this is the only thought in their head because the rest is just empty space, this rogue thought starts running around like a little madman screaming. This confuses the person and instead of thinking "How nice, I can park for free at designated parking areas around town," they think "I can park wherever the fuck I want because I rock!" So they do things like this:

As you can clearly see, there are white lines under the van in question denoting that this is NOT a parking space. But Mr. Mysterious Van Driver felt compelled to park here. The man in the yellow jacket is the lone meter maid out on this day, and he found the only jackass in the city who flagrantly disobeyed the parking laws. Now I parked in this very lot that day and there were plenty of free spots when I got there, and the Van was not there when I arrived. It was however there when I left, but so were a bunch of other empty spots. So either this guy is a total jackass, or a total idiot. And if he has the audacity to do this when there is plentiful free parking, I'm sure he's a repeat offender and his bitch ass ugly van is soooooooo going to get booted.

And that isn't enough for you, here is some more flagrant malparkage. And this one is even worse. I mean, how lazy and afraid of the rain can you be so you'd pull off this. Link courtesy of wwtdd.com.

Birthday Blues

2005-12-13T23:31:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, December 13th, was my birthday. And as it has been for the past 4 years, it was incredibly depressing. See the past four years, I've had absolutely miserable birthdays. And actually, my 18th, 17th, and 16th birthdays weren't anything to get all excited about either. Most people outside of my family forget my birthday, because its obviously not memorable. For my 19th and 20th birthdays I was stressing out for finals, and finished just before the 13th hit. But I ended up having to spend about 12 hours in a car riding from JMU to New Hampshire. Then the past two instances, the big 21 included, I spent the whole time just studying. My nose in a stupid book all day and night. And then when I actually got to go out for my birthday last year I threw up like 8 times....including once on my brand new leather jacket, and once on the side of Tricia's brand new car while I leaned out the window. No puking this year though....although after the massive amounts of food I ate this evening I wouldn't totally rule it out. To help myself feel better I'm going to take a trip down memory lane at highlight all the best stuff about birthdays from the first to the present. And then steer you down your future birthdays so you all get as depressed as me.

1 year old: Well isn't it obvious? You didn't die in your first year of existence so you don't suck at life that hard!! I also remember on my brothers first birthday he didn't quite understand you were supposed to blow the candles out. So he put the flame out with his little baby hand. I laughed for hours. Even at 4 1/2 years old I was still a jackass.

2 years old: Holy Crap! Your age doubles at this point, relative to years that is. Good thing that trend didn't keep up or I'd actually be 2,097,152 years old....which would make me about as old as the human race.

7 years old: I don't know about anyone else, but this is when I really started getting cool presents and having fun parties. Sweet ninja turtles, maybe a new video game if I was lucky, and for me, it was birthday parties at The Dream Machine, a crappy little arcade at the mall.

10 years old: double digits, and always a new pair of basketball kicks. Life was good. I remember on this birthday we had a massive snowstorm and it knocked the power out at my house. We were supposed to make ninja turtle pizzas, but instead we had to go to pizza hut. and then to the dream machine. again.

13 years old: In some circles, mostly jewish ones, you are considered a man at this point. Some even more bizarre circles arrange marriages for the kids at this point. But in the good old US of A it simply marks the time when you become a teenager. Now you think you hot shit, but you're not. You are still a fucking kid. Only now you can't go to the dream machine for your parties anymore. This one was special to me because I turned 13 on Friday the 13th. Fortunately nobody died.

16 years old: Awwww...the sweet 16. Well, actually if you are a guy, 16 just means its time to get your drivers license. And maybe you can almost look old enough to buy cigarettes without needing to show ID. Not me though. I decided I didn't want my license until about 8 months later because I didn't want to get a job, and the stipulation was get a job, get a license. I was being kinda lazy back then. Come to think of it...I'm still kinda lazy...

18 years old: Lotto tickets!! Cigarettes!! PORN!!! w00t! You are now officially a man in the eyes of the government. You can pick which candidate you think is least likely to screw up the country as president and die at his command overseas. But you can't be trusted with beer yet. You only need to be 18 to shoot up Iraqis, but 21 to take shots from the Iraqi bartender.

21 years old: Ok, now you can legally ruin your liver. Often times people have already partied out by the time they are 21, and now that the allure of drinking illegally is passed, excessive binge drinking is a thing of a past. For most anyways. Well...for me anyways. Theres only one more real privilage you get as you get older....

25 years old: Now you are wicked responsible!! You can rent cars and your car insurance goes down because you are no longer in that "high risk" group of 16-24 year old males. I'll drink to that!!

40 years old: Time for a midlife crisis. If you are married, get a divorce, buy a convertible, and runaway with a girl half your age and use her for sex like she uses you for money. If you aren't married, start freakin out because you have yet to leave your legacy to the world behind. And if you haven't gotten married by this point, you are never going to meet anyone, because if you were perceived as women to be creepy by women leading up to this point, you just get creepier as you get older.

65 years old: Its time to retire and collect that social security check you've been paying the government for your whole life. Now you can move down to Hell's waiting room and buy a nice little condo in Del Boca Vista condos, Phase III, become condo president, then get impeached because your well-to-do child bought you a new cadillac and community gets suspicious. If you are in my generation and you didn't invest your money wisely, which most of you wont....but I will, you aren't allowed to retire yet. Sorry.

75 years old: Ok, now my contemporaries can retire. You just better hope you don't have to suffer through the humiliation of crapping yourself at work and asking one of your younger, better looking coworkers to change your adult diapers at the Koala Kare changing station.

85 years old: I AIN'T DEAD YET MOTHERFUCKERS!! Now you are just a curmudgeonly old man, and nobody likes you. You retell old war stories from wars you never served in...because every old man is a war hero.

100 years old: This may be a common occurance once I reach this age, but its still so old. I probably wouldn't be able to move around on my own. Hopefully I will have become president of Cheif Justice of the Supreme Court during my life making assisted suicide legal, because existence as a 100 year old smelly waste of space is the last thing I want to do.

Internet Soapbox

2005-12-09T17:01:00.000-05:00

I know that for the most part this has been a "humorous" blog. That is, I write what I may think is funny and then you guys read it and mildly chuckle at something, while every once in a while a gem like The Tiny Man comes about. But I feel as though it is my civic duty to help improve this country, as well as make it laugh. Today, I'm going to get up on my Internet Soapbox and put forth a radical new idea that may very well improve the nation. More than likely it will be completely ignored by anyone with any real power. But I can pretend that what I have to say is a good idea and important right?

My idea today concerns the Federal Budget...somewhat anyways. I've obtained a copy of the Mid-Session Review of the Federal Budget, available here. Now, Its about 46 pages of tables, balance sheets, and accounting jargon that most of you are probably not trained in at all, and some of you only minimally. I personally can only scratch the surface. But a-scratched' I will go.

First off, for all you economic naysayers. Look at pages 11 and 12. These are the economic assumptions made by the Federal Government, Federal Reserve, and leading national economists. Gross domestic product has in fact grown by a robust 3.4% from last year, based on year 2000 dollars. That's a very healthy clip. And although that may lead to a higher inflation rate, the Fed Reserve is going to do everything within their power to curb that. Which basically means they will raise interest rates. The economy is good. Quit your bitching.

Now the budget on a whole is at 2.472 trillion dollars. That's an astronomical number. That is a number comparable to the number of stars in the milky way galaxy. But it still only represents about 20.1% of our 12.271 trillion dollar GDP. The net deficit runs at about $333 billion in the red, or about 2.7% of GDP. While that may seem like an impressive number, its really not. The government projects to be at a 1.1% deficit by 2008, so once again, things aren't as bad as they seem.

But there does seem to be a big stink raised lately of the "inflating" government budget. Mind you, its only inflating in inflationary terms, at a pace slower than GDP.

But everybody loves it when there are surpluses...or at least less negative defects. And I have an idea that might help reduce the deficit. You see, the government is notorious for approving Pork barrel Projects, projects that require huge sums of money to be given out to various states for things they may or may not need. These projects are usually championed by Senators and representatives as something that will provide an economic boon to the state, which means more tax dollars to the federal government as a whole. One that many people don't know about is how the US Government keeps the price of corn, milk, and other agricultural products artificially high by buying up huge surpluses left behind by the free market. If they didn't do that, then the market clearing price of such farm commodities would be much lower to your average consumer, AND our tax dollars wouldn't be wasted on buying up unsold milk so it can be destroyed. But the most famous of these projects is the fabled Bridge to Nowhere.

Visualize a double span, rising to 200 feet above ocean level, going from Ketchikan, Alaska (pop. 14,500) to Gravina Island (pop. 50 on a good day). The only thing of note on the island is Ketchikan's airport, which has six passenger flights most days. Maybe a few more during the summer. The ferries between Ketchikan and the airport run half-filled. And Ketchikan isn't even connected to the North American road system; if you go more than 10 miles from town, you run out of road.

This bridge, was earmarked for federal funds. A project that was estimated to be between 200 and 300 million dollars. Thats a lot of money for just 50 people to get to the mainland and not have any road access to the rest of the state. That's about $4-6 million per person. Now the only place in the country where you can find 50 people worth more than $6 million dollars on one small island is Manhattan. And they have several bridges that cost considerably less to build. Now recently the government, probably out of embarrassment, dropped the Bridge from its budget, but allowed Alaska to keep the money they got for it and spend it as they wished. And the Alaskan Governor is deciding to keep the bridge going. This got me thinking. Alaska only has a population of 626,932 people. And they get large sums of money for those people. Now I bet a state like California: pop 33,871,648, gets a lot of money. Probably more than Alaska. But I bet per person, Alaska actually gets more. And it probably gets more money per person than either New York or Texas too. And that is where the problem lies.

My proposition is to rework how the government gives the states money. No longer should the government earmark funds from its own federal budget for state projects just so Senators can serve another 6 years. I believe that the total amount of money that is doled out to states should be examined, and several of these pork projects cut. Then take the remaining total dollar value and divide it by the total population. Each state would then get a certain amount of money per person that they have living there. A sort of per-capita distribution of the money. It is then up to the states to judiciously decide how to responsibly manage their monies. And unlike the social security debacle that we've had, where its only slightly been adjusted for inflation every so often, these funds would be adjusted for each successive budget. Say inflation ran at about 2% from 2005 to 2006. Then the states as a whole would about 2% more nominal dollars per person. And since a census is done every 10 years, it wouldn't be any more of a cost burden to collect population data than it already is.

Of course, this plan would never pass. There are too many special interest groups who help put the congressmen and women in office and expect those government kickbacks in return. And then there are the people of the states who get more than their fair share, they will be upset too. But maybe some of that 200 million that is being spent on a bridge for 50 people and the money spent on a few million gallons of unsold milk could have been earmarked for something like....I don't know, DISASTER RELIEF?

If you think this is a good idea, then write to your local congressperson or senator, or at the very least leave me a nice comment to make me feel like I'm not a total crackpot for thinkin up this harebrained scheme.

Project Snowblind

2005-12-09T16:13:00.000-05:00

12/9/05 - 8:15 AM -- The alarm goes off. It sounds like a perverted beep hellbent on ruining your slumber. I slap at it a few times and it shuts off. In 15 minutes I'll be shocked out of bed by Mozart's Symphony No. 40. Knowing that this is not the way I want to kick off the last day of classes I hurriedly find the cell phone and disable its alarm. I then realize that there was the acute possibility of snow for early in the morning and during the day. After a few minutes of holding the phone and collecting my drowsy thoughts (there were only two of them), I make a phone call.

8:18 AM -- 862-0000. The UNH Storm line. I dial and wait for the automated voice....because it costs too much money to pay someone to pick up the phone. (They really should adopt what JMU does, and put the announcment on their homepage). "There are no scheduled curtailed operations at this time." So the snow isn't that bad. I get out of bed and proceed with normal morning protocol.

9:05 AM -- I pull out of the driveway. I have to make it to UNH in time for a 10:10 class, and seeing that there are questionable road conditions, I decide it wouldn't be prudent to stop off for coffee and bagels on my way in. My neighborhood isn't plowed yet, though it rarely is at this juncture of a storm.

9:06 AM -- I reach the end of Glendale Ave, where it connects to Lafayette Road (US Rte. 1). Lafayette is plowed either, and there is a steady stream of snow coming down, with no signs of letting up. But surely UNH wouldn't put me, along with the couple other thousand commuters (both faculty, staff, and students) in any sort of real peril just so we could go to school today. But wait, Winnacunnet (my local school district) along with Portsmouth, Dover, Newmarket, Exeter, and Oyster River (Durham) are all cancelled for the day, along with UNH-Manchvegas. They must have over reacted right? I mean there is barely 2 or 3 inches on the ground, and they were saying all week, they being those asshole weathermen that I have such high esteem for, were telling us that we were going to get 3-5 inches max. The storm is almost over and I can finish my learning for the semester!!

9:30 AM -- I reach the Portsmouth Traffic Circle. Still a good 15-20 minutes away from UNH on a clear day. I took Route 1 because I figured there was no way in hell Route 108 (the alternate UNH route) would have been cleared. Well, Route 1, and the subsequent roads Spaulding Turnpike and Route 4 weren't cleared either. And the snow has actually INTENSIFIED at this point. But no, I have infallable believe that my higher learning institution wouldn't try and kill me. Otherwise, how would they collect those large sums of money from me if I was dead.

9:55 AM -- I reach A lot. Usually A-lot is full by this time, and I have to park at East Bumfuck lot and ride a bus to campus. But it looks like most weren't as foolish as me. They didn't trust President Anne Weaver Hart like I did. It is at this point that I remember a similar style of snowstorm occuring last school year, in which UNH did not cancel class. And a professor died on her way to work. Let me repeat that for you all. A PROFESSOR DIED ON HER WAY TO WORK. AND THE UNIVERSITY ADMINISTRATION DIDN'T EVEN FLINCH. Such is the way of living in New England I suppose...

"Oh I'm Anne Weaver Hart! I don't care I risked hundreds of lives today by not cancelling school. I'm a super ice bitch!!"

10:10 AM -- Chemistry....i'll spare you those hideous details...

11:10 AM -- Managerial Accounting....I don't want to put you guys to sleep. At this point I didn't realize that the snowfall rate was increasing while I listened to Meng Yuan stammer her way through the last part of Chapter 13.

12:30 PM -- After taking a pretty long shit, I make the looooooooooong hike back to A lot. (At this point I would have rather taken the bus to nowhere) Might I add, Durham is a mess. There was no reason for anybody to be out at all today...walking or driving.

12:50 PM -- I've left downtown Durham, and I'm driving along Route 4 in WHITEOUT conditions. I can't see more than 50 feet in front of me. My Chevy Blazer, which really sucks, sucks even worse in the snow. I'm fishtailin' left and right, chuggin along at about 25 mph. When I reach the Spaulding Turnpike, I have massive ice buildup on my wipers so they aren't clearing anything off the windshield. Its pretty scary now as cars are disappearing a mere 20 feet ahead of me. This is scary shit.

1:30 PM -- I finally get home, and I can't even make it up the driveway. I turn on the assholes at the weather channel. Oops, they got it wrong. They said, for apparently the 3rd or 4th time today, that they were going to have to upgrade their snowfall totals to a whopping 12"+. More than a foot of snow. Wow. Thats at least twice as much snow as you said we were originally going to get. Thanks for lying to me. Again.

As I was shoveling my very large driveway, the snow continues to fall. It ends...eventually, and by my best estimates, we got about 15 or 16 inches of snow at my house. Thats a lot more than a foot of snow even. Yup...

So basically what it boils down to is this.
1) Do not trust The Weather Channel. They are asshole douchebag losers. They lie to you all the time. And when the shit really hits the fan, all they can tell you is what you can already figure out by looking out your window. Fuck you Weather Channel.

And then one of two things: either...
a. UNH watches the weather channel. If so, then their actions today were somewhat understandable, as TWC tried to fool all of us into thinking it wouldn't be so bad. But UNH should be slapped in the head and reprimanded. No More Weather Channel for you.

or

b. UNH Wants To Kill Its Constituents. This is what I'm leaning towards. They probably already knew it was going to be a large storm, and didn't care. So what if it's the last day of classes. We need to put as many people at risk as humanly possible. Those fuckers couldn't give two shits if I slid off the bridge and into Great Bay today. But they might give two shits when my family sues them for gross negligence, or negligent homocide, or something. Fuck you too UNH, I hope you and the Weather Channel both just burn in hell someday.

An Open Letter to Saginaw

2005-12-05T23:20:00.000-05:00

Dear Loyal Reader(s) in Saginaw,

I greatly appreciate your enthusiastic following of my infantile blog. And though it may be in its infancy, it already has a few fans, you being among them. But one thing sets You apart from the rest of my readers.

Ah, beautiful Saginaw, MI, where the Saginaw River cuts through its heart

I can't quite put my finger on it. There's just something different about you that makes you special. Now, I may or may not personally know you. Regardless of this, I would like to know you're identity. You see, I have approximately 19 hits from you over the past 19 days. Some days You actually hit The Party twice. I can't blame you, its a pretty chill party. I have a few friends stop by for a little bit and enjoy themselves. My brother has a few friends over, they chill and have a bit of a laugh. Even a few people randomly off the internet street stop by, from as far away as The UK, Germany, France and Argentina. (I'm an international sensation) For the most part, I can discern from the stats I collect who or what is reading my material. Virginia? I have an idea of who it might be. New Hampshire? Its where the majority of my hits come from (via UNH). Delaware? I got a few peeps holdin' it down in the 302. NYC? Yes, I am pretty sure I know who you are and what you are doing, as you are really the only person that I know in NYC.

I admit, I've gotten a few random hits I didn't expect, like Los Angeles, Dallas, Pennsylvania....and for the most part, Saginaw, MI. It was only until recently that I realized that I had at least one hit a day from this town, specifically one IP address. I don't know who it is, who it might be, if I know this person, or whether or not this is some sort of fluke. (It happens sometimes, as my own IP address shows up as Boston, not North Hampton) What it all boils down to is, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?

Is it you Mayor Caroll Cottrell? Are you my secret admirer?

I don't mean to be so rude, but I'm really just curious as to who you might be. I'd really appreciate an answer. You can contact me by leaving a comment down below. Or you can email me at bjd3@cisunix.unh.edu, or you can hit me up on AIM at Bronx Bomberz 41. Anyway you contact me, just do it, because I want to find out who you are. And I also want to know what the hell this might be...

I mean seriously, is that some sort of weird church? Who's designing your city anyways, 12th century Russian Architects?

Sincerely,

Brian Harvey,
Enchanted Party Thrower

Conspiracy Theories

2005-11-30T22:54:00.000-05:00

Many people dismiss conspiracy theories as just crackpot ideas from people who either smoke too much weed....or not enough weed. We all know the typical ones like "9/11 is a government conspiracy to launch a war/kill its own citizens for no reason" or "The Iraq war was a tool to distract voters from the ailing economy/install a pro-western puppet regime to get cheap oil" (ps- the the economy isn't really ailing, as its experienced a growth rate of over 3% for 10 consecutive quarters. That hasn't happened since the 1986 boom. And during the time that Katrina, Rita, and Wilma were slamming the Gulf Region, there was a growth rate of approximately 4.2%. Take THAT you ultra-liberal negative nellies!)

The following is a list of what you may call "conspiracies," but what I call cold, real truths. If you sit back and think about it, you too will realize that I'm not at all crazy and you were previously just an imbicile for being able to see the truth with your own two eyes.

I. The Haircare Industry and the Water Companies are in collusion:

It really doesn't take much thought here to realize this one. Just pick up any old shampoo bottle. Instructions are always "Lather, Rinse, Repeat." Sometimes they add on "as necessary" on the end of the instructions to conceal their true motives. And then the conditioner bottles always tell you to leave it in your hair for at least 1 to 2 minutes. That can add up to an extra 4 minutes in the shower everyday. In an average household of 4 people, 21% of all water usage is consumed during showers. I tried looking up water usage rates for my local service provider Aquarion, but the rate structure is just about as confusing as that of a cell phone bill. Needless to say, the water companies are giving kick-backs to the hair care industry to encourage increased water consumption. This will make good, clean water less readily available, essentially scarce. And as any Introductory Economics student can tell you, "Too many dollars chasing too few goods results in inflation." In this case, the price of water will sky rocket as thousands suffer from acute dehydration, and possibly less showering. Which will affect countless more who have to put up with their smelly asses.

II. Only One Person Controls the Internet

Whether or not most of you know, it is assumed to be a widely known fact that the US controls the Internet. Whats less well known is that a small, non-profit agency claims to be its sole supreme master. The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann), based in California is supposedly in charge of this. There was recently a huge stink raised by the international community citing that if the US controls the Internet, then they control the world. (is that a bad thing?) Now, back in 1995 Icann probably was in control of the Internet, but since then one God among men has utilized his powers of Eminent Domain Name (its a play on words fools) and has seized control of the worlds commerce. I'll give you one guess as to who it is.

If you guessed George W Bush then you are an asshole retard. Its this guy. He wields more Internet clout than McDonalds, Pepsi, Coke, and Wal-Mart combined. There are droves and droves of loyal followers of this leader of men. Maddox is the only one who says what stays and what goes (I'm kissing his ass because he knows I know that he owns everything, therefore reads the whole Internet everyday...he has those powers. Hopefully he doesn't have me deleted from the Earth's hard drive for exposing him). Ever wonder why it sometimes takes 3 to 4 months to update his site? Its because he's way too busy dominating us through the Net. (Rumor has it a secret project at UC-Berkley called Internet 2 is under production to rival Maddox's Internet, but a lunch date hasn't been set. Neither has a launch date)

III. Janitors are our Overlords

"What? You mean those people we see roaming around the MUB cleaning the bathrooms and can barely speak any English are our rulers? But they have brown skin!! " Believe it bigots, those "inferior" janitors are actually the kings of this world. George Bush? HAH! He's merely the head of a puppet regime that resides in Nicoragua, controlling all the worlds government. All the worlds political strife is merely an illusion used to dissuade you from the truth. The only thing is, in their strange culture, the highest class of people serve the morons by doing all of the menial tasks you don't want to do to make you feel better about yourself. But at the drop of a hat they could end your life and the life of your family while they put you to work in their gulags (which happen to be what you and I call office buildings). This is so they can keep an eye on you and me. I also believe that they are actually a coalition of Vampires and Reverse Vampires. As the vampires are the "night janitors" and the reverse vampires taking care of daytime duties....but i have yet to confirm these theories.

IV. The Jews do not control Hollywood

Infact, it is the Muslims who control Hollywood. We all know how much the muslims hate the Jews. So why would they give them what looks like a position of power? Easy. They are tired of the mainstream world secretly disliking the Jews but for the most part showing sympathy for the Children of Abraham as they have "suffered" for thousands of years. They make the Christians hate the Jews and try to make them jealous, then put out a film like Passion to stir up more Jew hate. Then they put out films like "Kingdom of Heaven" which, despite being told from the Christians POV during the Crusades, it portrays men like Saladin in a wonderful pink spotlight. They also know that Americans will laugh at any poop/fart/dick joke, watch naked women, and laugh at anything that has CG animation (see: Shrek), because we are a depraved and perverse society. They use our capitalistic ways against us, all because they don't like the Jewish people. But of course, this conflicts with my previous "theory" as I previously stated that it was the Nicoraguans who controlled everything. Well, the Nicoraguans put up a sham of faith in catholicism (like every other catholic) and actually believe in the ancient Sumerian god Enki. They use all these religious factions as pawns to conceal their true motives.

V. The Iraq War isn't real

I mean, seriously, how could somebody really mess something up that bad. If you watch the news and here the reports, its like watching a Die Hard movie and going "yeah, right that could never happen!" Same thing. I am convinced that the president is fooling everyone with this "war." But he's doing it not because he wanted that second term or to push through a religious conservative agenda, but because he wanted to test out his creative writing skills. Take a minute to sit back and ponder this one out. Here's a man who was accused of being an idiot by the American public. He wanted to prove them wrong. So he sat down at his desk at the Oval Office and began to let the words flow from his pen like a gushing stream. He then presented the rough draft to his Nicoraguan overlords, and after they made a few constructive criticisms, Dubya put together his final draft and handed it in. Then the Janitors and Reverse Vampires and the regular vampires set to work in motion, with their strings in Hollywood, to put together the greatest blockbuster the world has ever seen. And people are eating it up, spending countless dollars on prowar/antiwar paraphenalia, and dominating the evening and primetime news everynight in almost every country. I'm going to nominate the man for the Nobel Prize for Literature, because that story is just that damned good.

disclaimer: if you think i actually believe any of this shit, or you believe this shit, seek professional help immediately

Too bad the title of Lameking is already taken...

2005-11-28T00:02:00.000-05:00

The Crowned Prince of Lame perhaps? Or maybe the First Regent of Lametude? How about just...Loser. Either way, my life isn't exactly what one would call "exciting." (At least the real lameking's life is starting to take off in sunny San Diego)

It is actually quite sad how pathetic my life is. In fact, there is only one other real person that I know that has a sorrier life than me, and thats because he spends his days off at work, and is excited to be at work, and loves to do extra shit around work without being paid for it. I don't think he has any friends....none that I know of anyways....but I digress.

Since I came back from JMU (almost 2 years ago now) I have had a pretty sorry social life. (This isn't a knock on my friends, they are actually great.) For about 8 or 9 months, I was merely a college dropout who lived in my parents basement, without any real social liberties. (Sounds kinda like the tiny man) Most of my coworkers, which was actually at a pizza hut in Portsmouth, were lowlifes, and I tried to avoid hanging out with them for fear of developing bad habits. So my only social moments came when my friends would come back from school for whatever break. Few and far between.

But last year college came back into my life at good old UNH. But after really fucking up at JMU, I decided to forego any real fun and focus on good grades, while working a little on the side, now at Joe's Pizza (its been over a year now?). After a stellar first semester at UNH, and subsequently becoming of legal age to enjoy libations at certain late night gathering places, I decided to "kick it up a notch." I went out a bit more, but nothing major.

However, not living in a dormatory freshman year at UNH really put a crimp my my social circle. Most of my UNH friends are people that I knew in high school and just became better friends with in college. (Again, nothing wrong with these people.) I have very few nonWHSers as facebook friends. (ps- if you read this and you are not a facebook friend, add me you bitches) And the fact that I'm on facebook kinda upsets me, since I swore it off forever.

But now as my third semester at UNH is coming to a close, I realize nothing over the past 2 years has changed, except my status in school. I still work too much for my own good, and I still have a social network two sizes too small. I haven't had a girlfriend in a very long time, and its too embarassing to mention the last time I had relations with a girl, so I'm not even going to mention it.

My life has actually been so depressing as of late, most of you would probably have killed yourselves if you were me. Here's the top developments in my life lately:

Moving out of the basement into an actual room.
building my own brand new computer (its really sweet)
Buying/playing World of Warcraft for said computer
completing a really hard quest in WoW with my lvl 12 rogue troll character (seriously?)
Playing Fable: Lost Chapters and Civilization IV (these three games have caused me to not sleep at all lately)
Not failing managerial accounting
Starting this website

Yes. Thats it. Those have really been like my top 6 things of the past 3+ months. I am pretty sure somebody just started tying up a noose with their computer cords after reading that. No where in that do you see getting laid, getting a new girlfriend, getting a raise at work, kicking azz in school, winning the lottery, meeting Keeley Hazell, or flying in an F-16 while drinking straight tequila and harassing the pilot.

So to sum it up, I'm a loser, and my life sucks. I'm now stuck at mediocrity in school, I hate my job, I'm a nerd. In order to spice up my life, I'm considering joining the Vacuum Cleaners Collectors Club so I can meet some new interesting, probably cooler than me people like RJ Vanik, prez of the VCCC.

And if that doesn't work, maybe I can at least take solace in the fact that I don't have a gay lip ring.

Pinnacle of Stupidity

2005-11-21T07:13:00.000-05:00

I am sofa king wee tahded. (Now say that really fast)

As I am writing this, its about 7:15 Am on monday morning, november 21st. After getting ready for school and cleaning up a lot of puppy shit this morning, I am just about ready to get the hell out of the house. Not that I'm particularly excited about school today, but I really needed a coffee.

I was also supposed to drop off my step-mom in Porstmouth on my way to school today, and she agreed to purchase said coffee for me. Things were looking sort of ok for now.

While she took the puppies out real quick, I said, "I'll go warm up the car real quick." I walked out, turned on the car, and closed the doors. Then I went to grab something out of the back real quick, and its locked. I started trying all the other doors and even the rear hatch frantically to find a way back in this now impenetrable fortress that is my car.

No. Dice.

I guess it would also be prudent to mention at this point that we haven't had a spare key for the Blazer for years.

I'm locked out. I just did something that I once condemned to only females and total morons. Last time I checked, I still had a penis, so I guess it boils down to I'm just a total and complete moron.

To make matters worse, AAA was giving us shit about having someone come to open it for us because even though that car, along with all the others, belongs to my dad and his name is on the AAA policy. But since it wasn't him that actually commited this atrocity to all that is intelligent and manly, they didn't want to get off their dead asses. Thankfully after a few little white lies, and a little hemming and hawing, and possibly the promise of sexual favors upon completion of the job, they decided to come help us and are enroute as I type this.

It doesn't really get much stupider than this. (For those of you who may have missed that, its an intentional use of the word stupider, which isn't really a word)

The Tiny Man

2005-11-14T23:00:00.000-05:00

Of all my fellow employees of Joe's Pizza (Hampton) there are several true characters. One is a former alcoholic/drug addict who has probably a year left to live while he runs numbers for his bookee uncle. One is a giant, total douchebag whose douchbaggery knows no bounds. One of them is a kid who burns and cuts himself. One is an extremely large individual who can't seem to find clothes large enough for his double ecks ell frame, and there's myself (I may appear normal to most people who think they really know me, but deep down I really think that I am absolutely, without a doubt, 100% crazy, and I probably have sort of psychological issue.) But this lovely little tale isn't about me or any of the others previously mentioned...its about a Tiny Little Man whom goes by the name of Satan.

Satan, or, Chris Maclean, is a long time Joe's Pizza employee. His time of service has been estimated from anywhere between 5 and 7 years (he's not too sure, his memory has gotten a little hazy in his old age...coupled with his excessive pot smoking). He's 31, and he lives in his mother's basement.

He acquired his nickname of Satan because:

1. He absolutely loves death metal, and almost all of its subgenres
2. He hates christianity, and he has many-a-time spoken of desecrating a Bible.
3. He despises the Jews
4. He has his own death metal (officially its New Hampshire Holocaust Assault Metal) band called Martyrvore (a eater or consumer of the martyrs)
5. When he used to work at Ronaldo's (an italian restaurant in North Hampton) he was a prep cook (as was I). One of the jobs was to prepare lobsters for the line cooks. The procedure consisted of chopping a live lobster in half (lengthwise) and cleaning out the guts. But he used to like to torture the lobsters by either stabbing them in the tail and watching the squirm, or just cut them down the head real slowly...to make them suffer. He would also throw the guts at all the waitresses when they came back to the kitchen. (on a sidenote, I used to do this all the time as well, because apparently I have a sadistic side, go figure, but maybe because I was a 15 year old kid at the time they just thought I was playing instead of being really sick)

Another thing you should know about Satan is that he is very tiny. I mean very tiny. I would be surprised if he topped out over 5'6"...and that is real generous. And now the new, ongoing joke is to make fun of his tinyness. Observe...

Hey Satan, where'd you get that cigar? Oh wait, thats not a cigar, its a cigarette....and you're just really tiny.

One day I asked Satan to make me a sauce, but then I realized that our normal sauce container was just too big for the guy.

Because of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, we have to accomadate Satan's...."condition."

Its a tiny little sauce container just for Satan!! Its so tiny!!

Also on the agenda to bring Joe's Pizza up to code is our new ovens that are due in any time now (although Joe has been really dragging his feet on this one.) Our current ovens cook a little on the slow side, are prone to frequent malfunction, and are probably older than me. Satan is our usual oven guy (or hotbox attendant, or oven monkey). The ovens are almost as tall as I am, and well, shucks, they're just too darn big for our little guy.

Our new ovens will be a bit better suited for our little vertically challenged friend.

Everybody Loves Provo!!

2005-11-08T21:58:00.000-05:00

Brian Provencal (sp?)...or "Provo" as he is more affectionately called, is a crazy young getabout who lives and works in Hampton. Wait....what I really meant to say is that he's a stupid fucking townie who lives on Hampton Beach and does a shitty job as a handyman because he's a fucking hack.

Some of you may know Provo, but I'm sure that many of you do not. He's probably a shade under six feet tall, and has really blonde, short hair. And whenever you see him, you just get the feeling that he's a douchebag, and his douchebaggery knows no bounds.

He works as Joe's Pizza's defacto handyman and does whatever oddjobs need to be taken care of. And he charges us less because Joe the Owner allows him to use the vacant garage thats in back of the restaurant as his "workshop"

My first experience with his handywork was when I was cleaning the pizza table. It has a shelf that you set the pizza on to top it, and it folds up so you can clean under it. But the hinges were kinda broken, and instead of going to get new hinges and screws to fix it, he just took what appeared to be a little knob that you screw into a bathroom drawer, and used THAT as his screw on a busted hinge. Needless to say....it didn't work out too well.

There were other various minor things that he "repaired" that pissed me off, and he never did a good job at it. (He was supposed to fix one of our walls so it didn't leak during the rain, and after 11 hours of work, it leaks more now) But his coup de gras one summer night when it was decided that one of the ceiling beams needed to be removed to make room for a new soda machine. At about 7:45 PM (an hour and fifteen minutes before closing time) he walks in with a sledge hammer and just starts pounding away at the ceiling beam. Said ceiling beam is right above the pizza counter, where the customers would come to order and receive pizza. It appears to be a well built beam, but he just continues to pound away at it. I'd like to add at this point that there are in fact customers in the dining room trying to eat and hold a conversation. The asked him if he could wait until they were finished and he plainly said no and continued on. The sledgehammer was proving fruitless so then he breaks out a saw and just starts sawing away on the beam (meanwhile getting sawdust everywhere) Eventurntually the beam does come down, but so does a good chunk of the ceiling.

He then does a shitty job of patching up the holes and then leaves, leaving me to clean up all the shit he left behind.

I decided that revenge was a dish best served cold. A few weeks later I grabbed all the rotten tomatoes from the veggie order (there are usually about 8 per box, but this one was surprisingly laden with bad tomatoes, almost 20) . Provo also uses Joe's Parking lot as his own little personal boat yard when he's not out playing sea captain. So decided to take the 20 rotten tom's and just chuck them at his boat, making a huge freakin mess. Two days later (after the tomatoes baked onto the boat in the hot summer sun) he was out there cursing and cleaning it up, vowing to kill whoever did it. (he's just crazy enough to do it, because he killed this rat with a samurai sword one day)

But apparently that wasn't enough for him, and he has since come back in while i'm working (which usually means I'm in charge too, and I have to deal with complaints about him) and tried to "support the floor" which meant just a whole lot of banging on the floor from the basement. And then fix what he didn't finish fixing in the first place....the holes in the ceiling. Leaving me to clean up after him....again.

For my next performance, I think I'll take our used fryolator oil (that we just leave in buckets until the grease guy comes), and I'll pour it all over his new hovercraft. (Yes he has a hovercraft, he put it together in his workshop, then crashed it in the marshes in Hampton and had to be rescued like a dumbass) It probably wont work after that, and I don't think he'll appreciate it too much, but I really don't care, because Provo sucks llama dick.

This Just In: The Music Companies are figuring out MORE ways to piss you off

2005-11-06T00:26:00.000-05:00

Back around 1999, this wonderful little program called Napster, not sure if you heard about it, decided to grace cyberspace with its presence. For all us poor kids who couldn't afford to pay $15 for a subpar album started to dance with joy. We could now (along with the advent of the CD-R) make our own CD's for our listening pleasure with the songs that we wanted to hear instead of what the radio or MTV told us to listen to. (Invariably, most of the songs on this new breed of "mixtape" consisted mostly of top 40 songs)

As our generation passed from high school to college, many of us, myself included were getting a taste of high speed internet for the first time. Oh glory days! I downloaded song after song after song, and it seemed like the good times would never end. (Once you hit 1000 on your downloaded playlist you because really cool)

However, since the beginning the record companies were very displeased by this phenomenon. Spearheaded by former bad boys-turned company schills, Metallica, there was a massive campaign by the industry to do away with this illegal swapping of songs.

OK, unless you been in a cave or on a ranch in montana where "The Internet" is the mesh lining that comes inside your swimsuit, you already know this.

For the most part, the record companies have been somewhat successful at cracking down on the illegal trading. Towards the beginning of 2004, I personally made the switch from downloading music back to original way of going to Bullmoose Records in downtown Portsmouth and selecting a CD to purchase, and then getting mocked by the uber-cool kids that work in said record shop because they know way more about what music I think is good than I know. And I was actually quite happy with this (in some respects i'm quite old fashioned). I liked supporting artists that don't have as much publicity as MTV bands do. I like looking at the album art on the cover and inside, and I like the fact that the commercial CDs are way more durable that copied ones. But then the good old folks at the record company pulled a fast one on me....

As a way to try and "lure" consumers back to hard CD's instead of MP3s, they started coming up with some new "innovative" ideas. They offer special editions that come with special access to fan sites you can only get through CDs, and sometimes bonus little DVDs were added. But I didn't care about that stuff, I just wanted the music. Then some dumbass motherfucker decided "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we put the CD and DVD on the SAME DISC?" And of course the other retard executives in the room said "Oh Johnson, then we'd have to make all the consumers switch from CD players to DVD players for all their audio stuff. Not even we, the all powerful record company can do that." And to this the first idiot replied, "Well how about we put a CD on one side, and a DVD on the other, and call it DualDisc."

Actually...not an entirely bad idea. However, it turns out that it's a terrible idea. Here's the problem. THEY ARE TOO FREAKIN WIDE. Your average CD is very slim, and it's receptacle in the CD player is usually just a tad wider. Now the DualDisc has both CD and DVD on it and this makes it jus a little bit wider. The FAQ site provided in the link states that it will work in all but a few players. However, I have never gotten it to work in anything other than a computer or a CD player built after fall 2004. They screwed me over again. SOMETIMES, I can get my new Franz Ferdinand or Oasis dualdisc to work in my car, but often times I just get incredibly frustrated with it. I usually put it in the player, it tries to read it, then spits it back out wither a little error message on the player. One time I drove all the way from North Hampton to Durham, about 30 minutes, give or take, just putting it in, getting the error and then trying again. They refuse to work. You might say "HAHA STUPID YOU ARE PUTTING IT IN WITH THE WRONG SIDE, DVD'S WONT PLAY IN A CAR STEREO" but no, I am putting it in the right way. And another gripe about this stupid things is that they get all scratched when you look at them the wrong way. Now my DualDiscs wont even copy right in my computer because they are all scratched and nearly unreadable. With this latest "development" I truly think that the industry is trying to think of as many ways as humanly possible to frustrate what few remaining people are left buying albums. Hey....record companies and recording industry.....

GO FUCK YOURSELF!!!

I Should Invest in Apples...

2005-11-02T23:28:00.000-05:00

On Tuesday (Nov. 1st) I was reminded of why I don't like going to the doctors at all. Back in September I went to go see them because I had a weird rash, later diagnosed as eczema, that needed attention. Everything went as planned, and I was about to leave with prescription in hand, they said, "Oh, you're new to the office, we should schedule an appointment for a physical."

Bastards.

My dad changed the family PCP during my brief stint at JMU, and since I came home, I hadn't need a doctor visit. But now they suckered me in, since the last time I had seen a doctor I was 18.

Back to Tuesday. As stated earlier, I hadn't been to a doctor in over 3 years, so I kinda, sorta, almost forgot what it was like. First the nurse does the height, weight, blood pressure and pulse. Pretty standard. At this point I figure that the doctor will come in, ask a few questions, examine my ears, throat, eyes, etc., and then I could be on my happy way to dominate my managerial accounting exam.

No.

The nurse goes to the cabinet and pulls out a hospital gown, told me to undress (I was allowed to leave my boxers on) and then just sit and wait. In the cold examination room. Alone. Uncomfortable. Scared.

Luckily the esteemed Dr. Micheal Pangan didn't keep me waiting too long. He first plugs in a little laptop and asks some questions. Do I smoke? No. Do I drink? Only a little bit on weekends (I am 21 afterall). Drug use? Some reefer in high school, maybe 5 times since i turned 18 though. Seuxally active within the past 5 years? Of course. Guys or Girls? Ok, this one caught me off guard. I mean, I've only enjoyed relations with the fairer sex (not that theres anything wrong with the other way, but I'm not into it). But the sheer nature of the question, accompanied by the utter nonchalance that he posed it with really threw me off and I had to think about it. After asking me about 20 questions, he determines I lead a fairly clean life, and judging by my height and weight, I'm just about as healthy as they come without being slaves to the gym or god-like atheletes. He then proceeds with all the aformentioned standard examinations.

He then turns around for a second and grabs a rubber glove. He snaps it on and says "drop your drawers." Again, this is a part I forgot about. At this point the only thing racing through my frightened mind is PROSTATE EXAMINATION. Am I too young for that stuff? I don't want a lubed finger exploring me! Thankfully its not that, but he had me incredibly worried.

But the next thing I know he's latched on to my, as Peter Griffin so elegantly calls it, flesh balloon. He's just feeling around, and he seems to be really enjoying himself. Imagine my discomfort as I stand in the middle of a cold room, with a short asian man groping my balls, while my ass is hanging out of the back of a hospital gown. Ok....on second thought don't imagine that because the next time I see any of you you'll probably give me a weird look or ignore me entirely.

But he has his hands on me, and he's really feeling around, all the while explaining something about testicular cancer, and monthly examinations, and lumps. I was way too uncomfortable to really get it all. He then wants me to feel around with him, and thats where I drew the line. Its one thing if you're going to fondle me like that, but I refuse to play along with you, you crazy sick doctor. There was no way he was going to get me to feel my balls while he's holding them....because that just screams homosexual. When he finally concludes the examination, I hastily redress and he directs me to another small room. Now I need blood drawn for a cholesterol test. Probably because I told him my diet consists of about 70% pizza, 20% coffee, and 9% crap in my house, and 1% Dos Amigos Burritos (they are sooooo good). Anything to ruin my day I suppose.

I left the doctors office feeling humiliated, violated, and light headed. Kind of like if you were in the ocean and your swimsuit came off, and then you were drugged and molested. In front of a bunch of people you know. And you had to pay $20 for it.

He's SO NOT THE MVP!!

2005-10-30T01:43:00.000-05:00

David Ortiz is not the MVP. He doesn't deserve it. PERIOD! EXCLAMATION POINT!! ANGRY EMOTICONS!!!!1@!

Granted, David Ortiz does indeed warrant consideration for the MVP this year, he had a tremendous year. He hit 148 RBI's, many of them in the late innings, and a large portion of them either tied the game or put the Red Sox ahead in the late innings. He definitely helped carry the Red Sox into the post season as his clutch hitting can not be argued. His average with RISP was highest in the AL and in "pressure situations" he has a better average than the other guy who happens to be in this conversation...Alex Rodriguez. For more on these ridiculous stats that will never show up in a box score, check out Baseball Prospectus. He only hit .300 for the season, (yeah...only) and finished 2nd in HR to Arod (only one shy).

Looking at Rodriguez, its clear that he as well had a fabulous year. he hit .321 (21 points higher than Ortiz), led the AL in homers, was a top 5 RBI man, and he stole 21 bases. Not only could he drive in runs, but he could help manufacture them. Ortiz stole only one bag this season, and I'm pretty sure I saw that game on NESN, and they just gave him second base. Stolen bases may be somewhat of an arcane measure of a player, but teams and players that can move runners into scoring position without even swinging the bat can usually win a few ballgames. Look at Chicago this year, or even the Devil Rays, who posted one of the best records after the All-Star break in all of baseball. But for some reason, everyone ignores stolen bases and doesn't think they are worth anything real. (Even though a SB is just as many points as a HR in many fantasy baseball circles)

Detractors on Alex say that he's not even the MVP on his own team, or even the most feared hitter on his own team. This is 100% true. Gary Sheffield swings the angriest bat in the history of baseball and he will send the ball over the fence faster than it got to the plate. And without Mo Rivera, the Yankees wouldn't have even sniffed the playoffs (pitchers, however, rarely win the MVP award.) However, the same arguments could be made about Ortiz. Many view Johnny Damon as the MVP of the team, both emotionally and on the field. As much as I dislike the guy, he gets it done, and was a catalyst on more than one occasion for the Sox offense (but he throws like a girl, and we all know that girls can't win the MVP). And the only reason David saw as many pitches as he did was because of a little guy named Manny Ortez...*ahem* Ramirez. (Probably one of the best pure hitters in the game right now) So we have to throw that argument out.

So on WEEI I have heard guys say that Ortiz is more valuable because you are getting more production per dollar spent on the player (Ortiz made made between 1 and 3 million, as opposed to Arod's bazillion dollars). Now, as an economics student, I appreciate the attempt put a dollar value on baseball skills. But as a baseball fan and a realist, Baseball and Economics just don't mix, as the economy in baseball is just so far out of whack that you can't make any arguments about anything except who spends more money. (somebody please explain to me how Eric Milton made $5.33 mil for that pathetic season last year?!?!)

So with offensive numbers (standard offensive numbers, i'm not going into the whole sabrmetrics thing) very similar that its too close to call, comparisons to ones own teammates drawing similar conclusions, Stolen bases getting (wrongfully) ignored, and player cost verse player production being the most ignorant argument for MVP status on the planet, we have only one more real area to cover....

Alex Rodriguez Plays Defense. He's actually a Gold Glove calibur 3rd baseman, who converted from Short Stop (his natural position) on his arrival in New York. Now lets assume that on offense, each player is involved in between 7 and 10 plays per game. And on defense, seeing how the ball can be played anywhere at anytime, you are involved in all 27 outs made. Your average AL team will get between 27 and 40 ABs per game. Now lets say that we only count the defensive plays where a player actually has to make a play. We'll say that at 3rd base Alex is involved in 9 plays a game, whether he's fielding a ground ball, catching a pop fly...whatever. (thats a fairly conservative estimate, because they don't call it the 'hot corner' for nothing) Now Ortiz had 601 ABs. He also played about 6 games at 1B during interleage play. So thats maybe 620 plays all season that you have to judge him on. Alex Rodriguez had 605 ABs, a negligable difference. But if we factor in the 9 plays a game that he could potentially be involved in, times 162 games, thats an additional 1458 plays to be judged on. Over 2000 plays. And over 2000 plays, Alex Rodriguez was a first class player. Thats not to say on any one play he didn't stink like yesterday's garbage, but on the aggregate, he was great. And his aggregate is much larger than David Ortiz. Now if Alex Rodriguez was the worst fielding 3B in the league, and he hurt his team in the field more than he helped (much like Ortiz or Jason Giambi would) then I would just as soon hand the award over to Ortiz. But the fact of the matter is, Alex Rodriguez is a great all around player, all year, while Ortiz was just a great hitter. You win ballgames with sticks AND gloves people.

These arguments aren't about Red Sox or Yankees, so don't even start to get all in a fit, because it is well known that I am a Yankees fan. But I'm also a purist. I long for the days when a CG was a normality, not an anomoly, and when the DH didn't even exist. Maybe I'm just old fashioned though...

What happened to Mary? SHE GOT HIT IN THE FACE WITH A TIRE!!!

2005-10-26T15:02:00.000-04:00

Ok, not so much a tire, but a really large, empty Grey Goose Vodka bottle. And I don't think the girls name was Mary...but thats not too relevant right now.

It was Friday night (October 21st) and I was enjoying the company of my friends at Tricia's apartment in Dover. There was a little bit of beirut going on with the girl's brand new, custom designed beirut table. (courtesy of Matt Maes, he's such a swell guy) I was sitting along the side of the table pretty much at half court. To my right was a fellow spectator Kristin....I think. To my left was Mike Collins, participating in the game. I was sitting directly underneath an opening that goes between the kitchen and living room, sitting in that long opening were several empty wine bottles, and one particularly large empty grey goose bottle. I mean, it was freakin huge, everybody commented on its enormity at least once throughout the night.

It is sitting next to your standard, everyday, 750 mL wine bottles. As you can see by comparison, it is significantly bigger....and heavier. Directly underneath this little setup is the futon.

Photo Courtesy of Tricia Barry

Now if you can utilize the spatial side of your brain and picture the setup, me, directly in the middle on the other side of that opening, Kristin on my right, Mikey on the left. Got it? Good, because I'm moving on.

At this juncture, Mikey proceeds to sink a cup (if you are not familiar with beirut or the rules, then you need some serious education). Sinking the cup, as always, provokes much celebration, including, but not limited to, high-fives, secret handshakes, hugs, girls screaming, fist pumping and pound-outs. The pound-out is of our primary concern during this discussion. Kristin acknowledges Mikey's amazing beirut abilities and offers the obligatory pound-out. Not so fast. As I sit in the middle, block the pound-out, and catch Mikey's fist. He goes for the second hand, and I catch his fist again. He begins to struggle slightly as I hold on to his fists. (At this point I should let you know that Micheal Collins his like an Nth degree blackbelt or something at Tae Kwon Do, so he could kill me seven times before I the ground.) Refusing to let go, I struggle with Mike. He then pulls pretty hard and inadvertantly hits the afformentioned Grey Goose bottle. It should also be known that at this point, there was a girl whom is somewhat related to someone who lives in that house, lying down with her head directly under the location of the Grey Goose bottle.

You can see where this one is going.....

The long and short of it, Mikey knocks a very heavy bottle onto an unsuspecting girls head. I shouted out "Nice work Mikey!" and everybody instantly believed it to be his fault. When in truth, it was completely and without a doubt my fault. And thats what makes this so funny to me. I completely shifted the blame entirely off myself, and entirely on to Mikey Collins. I'm such an ass.

Now I just hope Mike doesn't hunt me down and eliminate me with his martial arts prowess.

Take Satire for What It Is

2005-10-19T12:32:00.000-04:00

TNH didn't publish my rant that I wrote earlier this week, but i intend on sharing it with the masses regardless of what the publishing community thinks of my obviously right opinion. I guess i'm just too real for them . . . And now I present to you, my esteemed audience, the piece I wrote in full, enhanced with hyperlinks and a neat little photo of the building in question.

In the Oct. 18 edition of TNH Commentary, there is a response to the satire column done by Tom Olson entitled, “Definitely Not Satire,” in which he used a real persons name with fictional quotes. If the column were an actual report than this would most certainly be in conflict with established journalistic ethics (even though some professional journalists do not seem to think so). But this was a fictional, satirical column meant for entertainment purposes, at the expense of the people who designed and built Kingsbury Hall [at UNH].

Kingsbuy Hall - looks kinda gay if you ask me.......

And although written to appear as if it were in fact legitimate, the title of the column, “Definitely Not Satire” should give the reader a hint that it’s 100% fake. I find it hard to believe that, with sarcasm more prevalent as ever in our modern English, more so in the Northeast than anywhere else I’ve been, that a reader would not pick up on this. Having said that, knowing this is a fake article, one should not be too upset if they end up being the “butt” of the joke. This brand of humor is wildly popular, as television shows like The Daily Show and South Park do this every night. This isn’t so much a case of a breach of journalistic integrity for TNH, but a clear display of the over-sensitiveness of our society as a whole. No longer are our feelings allowed to be hurt, that’s not politically correct. If you upset anyone even the slightest bit you are subject to punishment, whether it’s a stern lecture and revocation of your written pieces from a publication, or large-scale litigation from the offended party. It is completely ridiculous, and I for one, am tired of coddling everyone who might feel upset by something. OK, so a satirical columnist in a college newspaper used your name with a fake quote for a fake story. After you are done crying yourself to sleep at night over this, do us a favor and keep your complaints to yourself, because we don’t care. Or better yet, take it in stride, laugh it off, ignore it, or at least acknowledge the fact that you know its fake. And at the very least, whatever happened to that old childhood motto our parents taught us, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me?”