two zero zero six

Time on the X-Axis, Fortune on the Y-Axis

Before we all go panties-on-our-head about what's going to be in this post, let me sum it up like this:

January-May: Don't remember.
June-August 25: Bored.
August 25-26: Dis-O!
August 27-September 16: Happy!
September 17-December 21: Fuck!
December 22-December 31: Not So Fuck!

There should be something really, really awful about summing my year up in six lines. After all: I'm a complex human being with feelings. But the gist of it is true. I actually don't remember much before the summer, except that it was the second semester at Rice and it was probably fun. And there was Beer Bike, which it just an enormous positive blur in my head. I remember the summer, because I spent a good amount of it doing circles in a nice office chair while working diligently for the US Government. I remember coming back to Rice, and how fun that was. And then it seemed like things just sort of went downhill from there.

The positive thing is that I'm ending this year on an upbeat feeling. My grades are better than they've ever been, my life feels like it's headed in the right direction, and I finally feel like I've earned (or re-earned) the respect of everyone around me. Go me. HAPPY FEELINGS.

Enough about me. Let's break down a few Top 10's.

Top Ten New Artists of Kyle's Life in 2006
Not necessarily music that came out in 2006, but music that came (or rather, came back in the case of Muse) to me in 2006.

1. Muse
2. Explosions in the Sky
3. Gang of Four
4. Editors
5. Spoon
   
6. She Wants Revenge
7. Gnarls Barkley
8. Massive Attack
9. The National
   
10. Hard-fi

Top 10 Songs of 2006
Self-explanatory.

1. Beck - Elevator Music
2. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy
3. Muse - Knights of Cydonia
4. Jurassic 5 - Work It Out
5. The Killers - Sam's Town
6. Muse - Starlight
7. Elefant - Sirens
8. T.I. - What You Know
9. OK Go - Here It Goes Again
10. Tool - 10,000 Days

Best movie I saw this year: The Fountain
I almost cried. Yeah, it was moving. And I'm man enough to admit it. Let's see if you're man enough to call me a pussy over the Internet, uhuhuhuhuh. Runner-ups: The Departed, Casino Royale.

Favorite Party: Beer Bike
Come on. It's an all-day drunkfest from 7ish in the morning until pass-out time around 4 or 5 in the morning the next day. Beer Bike is also my best memory of the Long Hall seniors and running crew. Nothing like starting with a box of Franzia and ending by watching Happiness. Runner-up: Festivus Party 2006, because we got everyone laid.

Person of the Year: Me
Like every year. Runner-ups: Louis Warner, because he's the badass-est.

Pet of the Year: Lil Turrl
The resident snapping turtle of the WRC 90's. He's fucking boss.

New Years Resolution: No Smoking
Okay, that might be an embellishment. Like I've said before, there's hardly ever anything besides my willpower and concern for my own will and respect for my mommy that keeps me from smoking. I might allow myself the weekly slip, but smoking on the weekdays is over.

If This Year Could Talk, It Would Say:
"I hope you were paying attention."

And I Would Say:
"Don't worry, I was."

YAYAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAY!!!!

Subject	Course					Course Title	Final Grade	GPA Hours
ECON	211					PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS I	P	0.000
ELEC	241					FUNDAMENTALS OF ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING I	B	4.000
ELEC	261					ELECTRONIC MATERIALS AND QUANTUM DEVICES	B	3.000
MATH	212					MULTIVARIABLE CALCULUS	B+	3.000
SOCI	321					CRIMINOLOGY	A	3.000

First semester I haven't gotten a C.

HAHAHAHAA! I GOT A B IN 241! A B+ IN MULTI! TAKE THAT MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!

Again, it's too late for this shit

Before I pass the fuck out:

• Finished Bright Lights, Big City. Best book I've read in quite a long time
• Facebook won't import posts that are bigger than your mama's caboose. Good to know.
• I'm busy writing a lengthy year-in-review post, but it's hard to discern what should be written about on the Internet and what shouldn't. The entire year, beginning and end, has been quite a big one for me. Some of the more profound events in my life probably shouldn't be danced around on the Internet but, fuck, it's my journal! Oy, vey.

Top 10 Tracks since I got Last.fm:

Makes sense to me.

Adam Adam West West.

I'll find yooooooouuuuuu!

Hola, Caped Crusader!

This is great! The place is already decorated!

First things first:

• Doom House
• Ransom
• Muse - Starlight
• ...he was delicious (apologies to Gerald Ford)
• And speaking of Muse, ...bleh.
  

Now, let's talk about how much I'm enjoying this break. I woke up at 3PM today but only because my mommy made me. Without a doubt, I am seriously pissing off the rest of my family that has to get up and be places by 9AM every day. I could reverse my sleep schedule completely at this point if anyone was willing to let me try. It's really great that I did one productive things today-- filling my car with washer fluid-- and yet I feel like the most accomplished person on the planet Earth.

Oh, you know what? I don't suppose I posted anything about what I got for Christmas. See, usually I'm in the boat that everyone else is in. You know the boat: no Christmas list, 20 gift cards under the tree, none of them ever spent by the time the next Christmas rolls around. I seriously have roughly $50 in Starbucks money that's been building up over the past three years. I guess people buy me Starbucks because they figure I'm trendy and I like chai tea lattes, in which case they would be right. But gift cards are about as practical for me as leaving your wallet on Jupiter. I just don't use them, or I forget, or I leave them in the asscrack of my desk for six months.

This year, I had a dream. And a list. A Christmas list. And because I think I floored my family with the gesture of even making a list, it was fulfilled as follows:

Figure (a)Figure (b)Figure (c)Figure (d)

As you can see, I did all right. There are a few semantic issues, though. I'm going to have to de-loft my bed back at Rice to put those two awesome prints up. I was planning on doing that anyway, especially since Louie said I could take the desk that's in there for my own use and throw out the other one.

But where will Louie put his computer? And where will my STUFF go? It's a quandary is what it is. Maybe me and Louie will push our beds together and do something extremely homo with our room. It's the only way I can put up my new favorite things.

Brent got my that there Wonder Showzen on DVD, as noted in (c). You know, that was a big item on this year's list because I've found that Wonder Showzen isn't really all that useful if it isn't portable and easy to use. Hooking my laptop up to the big TV every time I want to watch it is time consuming and not spontaneous and generally very, very difficult to do.

Yes, by the way, that IS Pokemon Emerald and a Game Boy Micro. The way I figure it, I forfeited all of my cool points somewhere months ago and I really have nothing to lose. So hey, why not play some daggum video games? The GBM is tiny, and will take the place of the cigarette packs I used to carry in my pocket come Jan. 1. Yeah, I'm trying to quit, but I'm not going to be all uppity about it.

Yes, I also got a fedora and some sweaters. Anyone who would peer into my wardrobe would comment that I have way too many shirts and not enough sweaters, but not anymore. Let's pray it dips below 80 in Houston sometime before the winter is over.

Pez is a staple of any holiday, if you ask me. They put heroin in it.

Too late for Pokemon, too early for sleep

My fucking god, it's six AM. Addictive children's games, I swear. I really was doing good and almost had a human sleep schedule just a couple of days ago. Anyways, I was digging around el computer and my old Xanga journal and found a few tidbits that really set me in a nostalgic mood.

Hey, it's my room during O-week! No posters, no nothing. Just my gay O-week shirt and a computer and a really not comfy Old Dorm ladder.



Me, all flipped out on Ambien I think. I don't remember any of it, of course, but that's sort of how Ambien works.



This was quickly Photoshopped and printed in time for Dis-O. In retrospect, I guess my sideburns should probably go under my hair.



Duct Tape our doors in anticipation of Hurricane Rita, eh? This was the window that started the sensation we've all come to know as Choke Sex. Stayed like that until midway second semester when Caitlin what's-her-face (started with a W, old President of WRC) told us we had to take it down or Housing and Dining was going to pull some FBI-esque raid shit on 216.

With titles so long you'd think Panic! at this Disco came up with them

Louie asked me to post more of my story bits from over the years, so here you go. This one's for him, because we're both from tourist towns and we can both relate to this. I'm actually more proud of this story than any other and I'll keep posting what I have if the demand exists.

I guess you could call me a bartender of sorts. I'm the enabler. I make people fat tourists fatter.

I'm a snow-cone vendor in front of Wal-Mart. Dollar-fifty for a medium, two-fifty for a large. We don't have a small. Watermelon is the most popular flavor. On a typical six-hour day I sell about $250 worth of ice and syrup. I wear an apron that has a picture of the Earth in a frozen martini glass and SnoGlobe written across the bottom in electric blue.

When most people think of a Wal-Mart, they think of an electronics department and toys and brand-less clothes and, if it's a Wal-Mart Supercenter, groceries also come to mind. But the Wal-Mart in Panama City Beach has a deal with vendors that peddle wears outside the store. I work for SnoGlobe, a national corporation that operates thirty snow cone stands outside department stores across the country. Roughly eighty percent of their revenue comes from Panama City Beach, Daytona Beach, Galveston, and Beverly Hills.

Snow cones are big business.

There is one other vendor outside of the Panama City Beach Wal-Mart Supercenter: an American flag vendor by the name of Eddie Crow. Eddie sells five-foot display flags, license plates, miniature flags, wall posters, and just about anything that can legally feature the likeness of America's glory. Above his modest stand is a neon red and blue sign that flashes:

BE A PATRIOT

So on that overcast Saturday in June I stood behind my freezer-on-wheels and counted all the Confederate flags I could spot in the parking lot. I was up to seventy-seven when I noticed that Eddie was hobbling his obese self over towards me. It's not that I hated talking to Eddie but I'm pretty sure the guy was trying to re-live his youth through me. And that's just creepy.

"How's is goin', hoss?"

Oh, and he called me hoss all the time. I really liked that. I told him that I had sold around forty-five larges in the past three hours.

"No, I mean ha' are you doin'?"

I guessed that I was doing fine.

"Weh, that's good t'ear. Yah have a good head on yah shoulders, Steve. So many fine youn'people these days lookin' for happiness in all the wrong places. With all the drugs and gangs and that sheeeeit."

I was going to tell him about my theories that drugs are the only fun thing to do in this town and that gangs only exist in cities with sidewalks, but I just agreed with him. Then I asked him how business was going. He took a bite of the corndog gripped between his fat fingers, thought for a second, then pointed the greasy stick at me.

"Oh well, you know. It's got its ups and downs. I only took in $475 yesterday. Last week I think I took in..." Little pieces of sausage and fried batter flew in my direction as he spoke, hurtling towards my apron and landing on Sri Lanka and Montreal and Belize. I imagined Canadians screaming in French terror as giant pieces of Eddie's spittle landed on their fair city. My continence didn't change while I let him drone on about profit margins. I made the occasional ah and oh and shook my head to give the illusion that I actually cared.

"... but I've gotta shooooow you somethin'! Hold on jus’a secon’." He turned around with the grace of a Mack truck on a two-lane bridge and stumbled back to his booth and grabbed some papers. I wondered if he had printed out some touching e-mail forwarded to him by a church friend, or if he had some pornographic photos for me, or maybe it was a picture of a really nice car. It didn't matter. It could have been the secret to eternal happiness and I wouldn't have cared: not because I wasn't interested but because it was Eddie.

"Check this out," he wheezed when he returned to my snow cone stand. There were two graphs: one of the Homeland Security Thread Advisory code over the past six months, and the other represented his revenue over the same amount of time. They were nearly identical.

"Isn't that crazy? Every time the Advisory goes up, my profits go up! And same with goin' down, too. So I got me one of these." He pulled a little stopwatch-looking device out of his pocket. A ticker ran across the front:

THREAT LEVEL: ORANGE

"I tell yah hoss, I'll be on top of business with this thing. Updates every minute and only costs me fifteen bucks a month!"

Suddenly: "What's it take to get some damn service around here?"

It was an obese, greasy man with a handlebar mustache and several tattoos and his hair wrapped in a Confederate flag bandanna. The fat fuck hadn't been standing there for longer than seven seconds but I turned around, greeted him with a smile, and swirled watermelon and strawberry in five large cups for his five fat fuck kids. Eddie hobbled back to his patriotic post and sold fifteen flags to a tour bus full of seniors.

When the sun finally fell beneath the condominiums on the horizon, I packed all of the flavored syrups and cups and spoons back into my aluminum cart, locked it up, and walked back to my busted-ass car.

Midway through the parking lot, a black Oldsmobile caught the corner of my eye. I turned around only to catch a glimpse of some Hummer's headlights. By the time I was re-focused the mysterious car had disappeared into the night.

Confessions of a 19-year-old taxi driver

Sitting in a blue box under Louie's bed in room 191 A at Will Rice College, 633o Main St., Houston, TX is a bag containing my entire family's Christmas gifts. All together now, children:

Fuck.

So I was catapulted out of deep sleep at around 9AM. Frantically, I plunged things my sleepy brain deemed important into a black satchel, threw my dirty clothes hamper over my shoulder, flung my backpack over the other shoulder, and proceeded to drive twelve hours back home. Lea rode shotgun. We talked about a variety of things, most of them too delicate and personal to stand the test of publication on the Internet. I will, however, give you a little tidbit.

Lea: Tell me something about Louie.
Kyle: I've never caught him jerking off. Not for the 12 months I've lived with him.

I got home at around 11:30 and said hello to my dear sweet brother and his dear sweet friend. Now I'm toiling on the Internet, thinking about how I'm going to tell my mom THERE WON'T BE A CHRISTMAS THIS YEAR. You know, among other things I have to think about.

My little guest room was completely how I left it, barring a few Christmas cards that were spread out like a dinner platter on my desk. The confirmation code for my flight back to Houston after Thanksgiving is still sitting on the floor in the middle of the room. Mom made oatmeal cookies and her trademark Santa Fe Soup in anticipation of my arrival. I have several doctor's appointments over the break that have all been written down on a piece of paper in the kitchen.

I am, as expected, not really compelled to do anything for the next two weeks except go out to dinner with anyone who will join me and watch all the trash I can on HBO. And sleep. God, let me make a dent in the sleep deficiency I amassed over the past few months.

Between "I'm From Rolling Stone," which debuts on MTV sometime in WHO THE FUCK CARES and Rolling Stone's list of the 50 best albums and songs of the year, I'm ready to wake up Hunter Thompson and tell him how his former employer is completely fucking the image of the magazine in ways that weren't fathom-able 30 years ago.

Here's a snippet from a story I started writing two or three years ago and never developed past page 15.

"Well, ohh-kay. You know that AP classes involve a lot of homework, don't you?" She's still not looking at me.

"Yes."

"And that AP classes involve--" and I cut her off by clearing my throat.

"Look, uh, Miss Armstrong." I scratch the back of my head in an attempt to look coy. "How long have you been counseling?" Oh, she's looking at me now. I can't tell whether she's surprised at my tenacity or just honestly trying to think of an answer. I give her two seconds before I keep on talking.

"Well, it doesn't really matter, because the minute I walked in here I realized you were a racist. You called me Alberto by accident. Alberto is a Hispanic name and I am primarily American Indian and Israeli and part German for christsakes. You didn't look at me when you were talking. You didn't even think I was apt enough to fill out the goddamn fucking course request form."

Her eyes are huge and something--maybe anger or maybe fear--is making her eyebrows slowly ascend. She's also making some sort of guttural noise, akin to trying to flush a toilet with a leaky, vibrating flush valve.

"I mean, Ms. Stein never looked at me either but hey, I doubt she could see that far in front of her with her shitty vision and all. Look, you probably have a ton of appointments today with students a lot dumber than me, and let me just assure you that I know I'm on track to graduate and I know what Advanced Placement means and I know that when this is all over, you're going to get up and clean out your adult diaper in the women's restroom because no seventeen-year-old has ever talked to you like this before, especially one that looks Hispanic."

Tick.

So I think I just blew some gasket in her brain. I stand up, tell her that she should try harder next time, and leave the room. From there, I gun it as fast as I can to the end of the hall. I peek my head around the corner to see Miss Armstrong, legs clinched, and making small steps to the women's restroom across the hall from her office.


Rock and roll.

Down to the wire

Two days and one hour. That's how long I have to finish the last three take-home exams that are all due Tuesday at 5PM. Somehow, I've known all along that it would come to this-- a semi-mad dash at the end of the exam period to get all my shit done. And, of course, a week ago I had the best intentions of getting everything finished early. Maybe there's some part of me that figures I'd get the same grade no matter how early I completed the exam. Maybe I'm trying to become one of those people that can successfully do everything at the last minute. I like to think I'm already that kind of person.

I remember back in 9th grade I wrote a research paper for the National History Fair on weapons proliferation that I was up at 5AM editing and revising when the paper was due at 7. My mom told me after that point that I would learn my lesson about doing things at the last minute because the paper would go nowhere. But instead it went to the state fair. Not bad for a high school freshman. I think that was the pivotal point that instilled this nasty monster of a bad habit in my work ethic.

If you can bend far enough without breaking, it seems like the payoff is always greater.

Maybe all the last-minute stress is bad for my heart. I think I have a good understanding of my potential on assignments and exams and I attempt to scale my studying accordingly. Or I'm just an idiot and I could be doing a lot better right now. Pshaw.

My mom has been sending me quite a few excited e-mails about me driving back on Wednesday. I've already voiced my opinion about how I'm not entirely excited to be back in Panama City Beach. Rice is my home, Panama City is where my family lives. I really wish my family would go to rural Italy or Colorado or Japan or something for Christmas. If I had to be bored somewhere for 9/10ths of my break, I'd rather it be somewhere new and cool and exciting doing things that were stimulating. Instead, here's how it's gonna go.

21-24th: Bored.
25th-26th: Playing with presents.
27th-31st: Bored

Then, New Years. I can see it now. Because of the giant rift in my friends that's been developing ever since I left town, I'm going to have to make a big decision about where I'm going to be when the clock strikes midnight. Either I can be at some debauched party somewhere in a sketchy part of town with two people who know who I am, or at a reputably tamer party somewhere in a nice, gated neighborhood where more people know me. The second one would be better if it didn't involve a great deal of people that I haven't talked to in years yet feel the need to pretend to be my friend.

Thirty brain-dead slackers I don't know, or thirty yuppie children all asking me how Houston is going. It's not even a choice. It's a lesser of two evils. Why does partying on New Years have to involve selling some important part of my soul? Either I wake up feeling shame for the degenerates I pretend to like or I wake up feeing shame for acting like I'm thirty already.

It might just be me and Dick Clark on that fateful Sunday night.

When I think about where my life is right now, several literary characters come to mind-- honest guys who are just trying to have fun and yet find themselves in a world they don't feel bisects them in the right place. Nick Carraway from the Great Gatsby comes to mind. "You" from Bright Lights, Big City also comes to mind. Making important choices about friendships, relationships. Questioning ethical and rational values. A pause in the midst of fast-paced life. They're are all recurring literary themes. Seems like life draws from art all the time.

The only thing that reassures me is that it seems everywhere I look, every blog I read, it's a similar story. Apparently young people feel disillusioned and confused in the midst of all these choices that now have to be made. Who would have thought? The problem is that no one talks about it. They just write about it on the Internet. I guess that's where the smart people hang out, because I can't for one minute picture myself walking up to any one of my suitemates and being like "I don't know where my life is headed, wanna talk about it?"

Actually, that's kind of a funny idea. But it just reminds me of how few people I know would give meaningful insight into it.

I would recruit any able-bodied women willing and able to clean to come to my common room immediately. Mikey got FUCKING CRAB CLAWS for his birthday and it smells like he rubbed them all over the floor and walls a few nights ago. It smells like crab claw orgy down at the docks. Why crab claws? Why in my common room? Why did he have to be drunk while he ate them? The urge to puke is certainly there.

Investing in my future, X-mas, my gut, bad grades, etc.

I got all my Christmas shopping done yesterday afternoon. The highlight of the day... well, there were two highlights of the day. First off, I had a Big Mac for the first time in years. Years. Despite the fact that this guy says they're bad for me, there is definitely a reason why America eats 400 trillion every year. Yeah, that's right. There's more Big Macs produced every year than there are slices of available cow in the world. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

The other highlight was sitting in Brookstone with Louie and deciding, simultaneously, that we would buy the same gift for one another. I'll show you what we got sometime, but first I have to wrap his.

Today's as good a day as any to make a semi-bi-monthly report on how my stocks are doing. As you might or might not remember me gloating about in a blanket of smug, I threw about $3800 in the stock market back in late July. I'm happy to report that both of my investments (the 2900 in mutual funds and the 900 in Raytheon) are both up over 10% since July, meaning I have netted about $450 in five months.

Yeah, put that in your pipe and smoke it. I'm making money for no good reason.

The problem is that now the money is tied up in stocks and funds. When I first threw my bowler into the market I was under the impression that in, oh, six months or so I would pull the money back out and reap a nice little $500. But that's totally not the plan anymore. I don't want it to stop growing. In fact, after I make a little more scratch this upcoming summer I'm sure I'll be throwing even more money.

I guess in my quest of greed and my get rich quick mentality, I actually did a good thing for myself and started planning for my future. If I could get out of college like, a few thousand dollars richer through the market it would be a good way towards paying my mom off for all this tuition nonsense. Or buying an apartment. The possibilities are endless, but it's so damn easy that I don't understand why everyone else doesn't invest their money.

On the other hand, though, I'm never going to learn my lesson about putting things off until the last minute. I have an economics exam tomorrow that will probably pull my pants over my head, but that's not the worst part of it. The worst part is that I have three other exams to take on my own time.

See, Rice has these wonderful things called take-home exams where the administration & co. trusts us to take our exams home, find a quiet spot, and spend the time allotted without using outside sources. It's a pretty noble concept but it sure as hell doesn't help me. I need things scheduled for me.

I haven't been studying for anything all week. Criminology isn't going to be hard and multi is open book and open note for (get this) four hours. But I should have been studying for intro to EE this entire time because that test is going to fuck me in ways banned by the Geneva convention-- a real waterboard of a test.

So I'm fucked. But at least I have great ways to waste my time. If you don't already have one, I suggest everyone reading this sign up for last.fm and start using it to track their tunes. It's seriously my favorite way to waste time besides Facebook. So yeah, get last.fm then FRIEND ME. I need more people to track using this thing, and you all need to realize how great my taste in music is.

Oh no! Teh gayz!

So I'm sitting up in my room with Augusta and Louie, just sort of kickin' it. Augusta asks to grab some music from my computer, namely the Chronic and all of my Explosions in the Sky. When I pop in my Memory Stick, though, I notice a little tidbit of a video sitting on there that I had never noticed before.

watchme.wmv

Curious, I double-click and am immediately horrified by some of the rauchiest German gay porn you can possibly conjure into your brain without needed therapy later. I remember they were on a couch but some good part of me has blocked out the rest.

No one knows who put watchme.wmv on my Memory Stick. Was it Joe Halbouty? Was it Louie? We'll never know, but my money is on Joe.

The best news of the day is that Bret Easton Ellis is making a TV show. The best videos of the day are here and here.

Good evening, gang.

The equivalent of Internet knuckle children

Damn son, this is some spicy tuna.

I've decided that some of my favorite times here at Rice are those walks alone to the RMC to pick up a late lunch. I can't quite describe why. It's almost always overcast and I'm usually hungover, seeing as I wasn't awake to grab a normal lunch. But I make the short walk over to the RMC and just take in everything around me. There's always people just like me walking to the same place. There's always an Asian girl who passes me who could be cute if she wasn't so skinny. There's always a professor who looks down on me as he zips by because he knows where I'm going and why.

And when I finally get to the RMC, I get my sadly expensive but oddly appetizing post-hangover meal: the first $5 sushi platter I lay my eyes on and a Monster energy drink. Most people would probably cringe at the thought of sushi after a night of drinking. To you people I say give it a try. It's actually really good.

I'm currently in the process of trying to set up a blog on the temporary APC site that I had set up at the beginning of the year. The problem is that either Blogger or RiceMail is being a total bitch and not sending out the invite e-mails to everyone in the 90's. And this is sufficiently pissing me off.

Does anyone know anything about budgeting time? I have like four take-home tests that need to be finished by the 20th and it's really, really hard to push myself to even start studying. I need a planner. Or a new brain. Mine's pickled.

More random thoughts:

• Kudos to Russ and Mikey for filling my water jug full of Powerade. They don't make an industrial solvent thick or harsh enough to pull the blue tint and strange taste out of Rubbermaid plastic.
• I woke up this morning, took in a big gulp of air from the common room, and wondered where we're hiding the dead body. Maids, please come and rescue me. I need a hero.
• I can't decide if my insisting that 90's & Co. hang out with the freshman class is creepy or truly noble. They don't have the awesome seniors on the hall that we had last year, so I feel at least some compulsion to show them how fun Long Hall can really be. But sometimes I feel like I'm the only one who feels this way, and in the end I'm just going to come off as that creepy guy who hangs out with the kids who don't know better.
• But the freshmen ARE fun people. And witty.
• My room is really really really really really clean.
• Eric is in the common room talking about "Sunday" and I totally lost track of the fact that it's Monday. If you needed more reasons as to why I'm not studying for my take-home finals yet... well, there you go.
• I reached twenty-something pokes on my Facebook main page. It's getting a little re-god-damn-diculous but I only have myself to blame. If you haven't been poked yet, well, consider yourself lucky.
• GOTTA POOP.
  

Nothing like being full of meat!

Today, I woke up around 3PM with a good-sized hangover and a hunger that could perform miracles. I'm talking Israel-Palestine ceasefire miracles. Cravings that would drive a pregnant woman to hold up your local Kroger. Within moments my brain was half functioning and started taking orders from my stomach to summon food. Problem is that all nearby food sources were already done serving lunch, so my brain resorted to Plan B.

No, my brain wasn't telling me to eat emergency contraceptive. My brain was telling me to commandeer a car and drive it down Montrose at ludicrous speed to Katz's deli. Katz's is, of course, this 24-hour Jewish-ish deli-style restaurant that makes some of the biggest goddamn Reubens that you can imagine. And I wanted one.

So I slung Allee in my trick-ass Accord and raced there as fast as I could. I needed meat. Staring at the menu not less than ten minutes after I left campus, I suddenly shrank back in fear. There were so many choices. My brain certainly didn't want to disappoint my stomach but I'll be damned if there weren't hundreds of appetite-whetting choices on that menu. My brain quickly narrowed it down to two possibilities: the Reuben I had been craving so badly and the equally-stacked Philly Cheese Steak.

It was a battle of sauerkraut versus skillet-sautéed onions and peppers. Corn beef versus steak. Russian dressing versus cheese. But there could be only one winner...

...me.

All I knew for sure was that I was getting my sandwich New York Sized, which probably refers to the size of a typical New Yorker's pious ego. It means big. I wanted big sandwich.

When the waiter finally returned to take my order, my brain once again recoiled at the thought that I would need to actually make a decision. It left the decision-making to my colon, which decided that it could probably process all that dressing easier than it could pump all that cheese through my system. The Reuben it was!

In the middle of the downright excruciating wait, Allee looked across at me from the table and said "I bet you can't finish your sandwich." Now girls, I know you can't read, but if you can have your boyfriends read this little post to you then realize that there's one thing you should never, ever do to a guy: Never test a guy's man-i-tude through eating, because there can never be a winner.

Men will go to stupid lengths to prove themselves. I was about to eat a square foot of corned beef. Under any normal circumstance that's just a dumb thing to do. But now it was a bet-- a challenge! And who am I to refuse such a challenge? So I bet one back massage that I could eat that Reuben.

When we got the order, I cringed a little bit. Steaming in front of me was half a gallon of dressing sitting upon some sizable chunk of a cow and smothered in an acre of fermented cabbage. As I stared into this meal, I tried to imagine how I was going to fit all of that into the available space in my body. I reckoned that if my entire small and large intestine and stomach could fit half the sandwich, then maybe my heart and lungs and blood vessels and liver and kidneys would somehow find a way to take in the other half. The body can do miraculous things when your virility is on the line.

The dynamics of eating the sandwich were kind of boring, so I won't go into each bite. I will tell you, however, that I did eat three quarters of the beast before something broke inside me. I suddenly hated corned beef. The idea of putting one more bite of that monstrosity in my gullet made me want to blow chunks left and right. I sighed, looked at Allee in shame, and conceited that while I wasn't full, I sure as hell wasn't going to eat any more of that Reuben.

Around this time, the waiter came to see if I needed use of the Automated Defibrillator. Just to prove that I was man and that I was not full, I instead asked for the dessert menu. Five minutes later, I proceeded to down a chocolate malt for the hell of it. In my mind, I was vindicated because I proved that my stomach slash body can do what I want it to when the time comes to prove my eating ability. But I didn't finish the sandwich so, sadly, I lost the bet.

I'm so full.

Oh, Rat!

I should be doing laundry but...

...instead I'm going to dump my brain on the Internet. Here's a random assortment of thoughts that have jumped the neurons in my noggin over the past few days.

If someone doesn't break my junk before the time comes, one day I'm going to have a kid. And one day I'm going to have to look that kid straight in the eye and tell 'em that I never did drugs, that drinking excessively is dangerous and not fun, that there is a higher power that beats down on us and causes the cogs of the world to spin. I'm going to put forth my super seed in order to help make my genius baby, then I'm going to lie to it like no one's business just like all parents lie to their kids. Because lying is the secret to raising a kid who isn't a dysfunctional monster.

Just think of anyone who was raised on absolute truth about all things, then think about how fucked up they are. Of all the people I can think of-- my close friends and people I knew growing up-- the kids who were raised on facts and truth on the part of their parents are the ones who are now in a very dismal condition. Most are depressed, very few of them have any ambition, and they're all real selfish buggers.

That's because parenting is a race to see if you can keep your kid innocent long enough for them to comprehend the true nature of the world. Twelve-year-olds can't comprehend the dangers of drug use; six year olds can't fully grasp the concept of death. You have to wait until they've taken in enough of the world on their own to reveal the truth from a parent's perspective. And that's that.

So meanwhile, I'm really enjoying these new playlists I made. I made three the other day. One of them has a good mix of early post-punk and generic Britishness called "the darker 80's." It's chocked full of Joy Division and Gang of Four and Chameleons and Echo and Wire. Then I have one called "the lighter 80's" with fair amounts of classic 80's fare. Blondie, Huey Lewis, Elvis Costello, Michael Jackson, etc. Then I made a good little "post-punk revival" playlist with basically every band worth listening to since 2000 on it. Yeah, I know. I'm in a very post-punk mood lately. Throbbing bass and all those dark undertones.

Allee asked me if Ian Curtis kind of looked like the lead singer from Muse. I just told her that every British lead singer from the past 30 years has that whole sunken-in cheeks AIDS look going on. I think they aren't feeding those Manchester boys very well, or something.

I made a YTMND. Check it.

I absolutely hate doing laundry. I'm starting to wonder if maybe, just maybe, I can put it off until Christmas break. I figure by then someone very close to me, either Louie or Allee, will just do it for me.

I really shouldn't post my genius plans on the Internet.

Today at dinner I realized that if it weren't for my family, there really wouldn't be a whole lot of reason for me to go home for Christmas. I think a Christmas with my Rice pals would be something interesting if nothing else. And fuck me if I haven't purchased one paltry present for anyone yet. I'm going to get my ass beat when all my friends and family get a donation to the Human Fund from yours truly.

Finally, I'm four pages into a story I started writing a week or two ago. Delicious, single-spaced pages. It's the second time I've been able to get more than two pages into anything written of my own volition. The first time was this really great story about life in Panama City Beach written about three years ago that I might post one day. I don't know. I used to impress girls with it.

I'm outtie.

Festivus? Nice, niiiice.

This past weekend stands out in my mind as one of the best weekends of the semester.

1. Simple
2. Debauched
3. Free of Cops

The Festivus party, of course, went off without a hitch. Started with the good ol' airing of grievances at dinner. It was us--that is, the 90's crew--sitting around smushed-together circular tables with the other daring members of Will Rice. In the middle was the glorious Festivus pole. Interestingly enough, most of the grievances came from girls complaining about guys leaving the seats down.

Louie may have given the dining staff beers to enjoy (after work).

The wait from, like, 6:30 until 10 was a painful one. It's always a bummer to get into the spirit of an occasion and then have to wait three and a half hours for the REAL party to begin. But whatever. We managed somehow and I'd contend it was the best party we've thrown all year. There was lots of random hooking up on the dance floor, lots of otherwise calm people getting crazy, and a lot of great stories. I am the great enabler! And at no point in the night did I feel depraved.

I woke up on Saturday to find that someone had kicked green paint all over the basement walkway under the 90's. You know, where the bums and bag ladies hang out. That has yet to be cleaned up.

Last night was Club Willy, an event I would have otherwise thrown out of the night's possibilities if I hadn't been so messed up for the entire night. Somehow, though, I overcame an affliction that has secretly haunted me since I got to Rice: I hate drinking at pub. Call it unjust paranoia but whenever there's a remote chance that I could be caught drinking/etc. underage, I tend to enjoy myself a little less. So I never end up drinking at Pub and thus never have a great time. Last night I drank at pub, had a great night, and I think a little part of me either died or grew a little bigger.

So I hear there's a week of classes left. Three days of actual work until I have to grab my ankles and pray that the proctologist can put my ass back together when it's all over.