Ego-inflating week!

I've been basking in the stench of my own petard for the past ten days. It's pretty ridiculous, really. Starting with that Standard parody and followed by my campus-uniting Thresher article, I've been getting five times the daily recommended dosage of positive hippie vibes. Random-ish people around campus are stopping to shake my hand and congratulate me on a job well done. Not-so-random people are even taking the time to berate me for being a total jerk on the Internet. Couple that with a hearty serving of, oh, INTERPOL last Tuesday and you've got a Big Kid's Ego Meal, complete with fries, a soft drink, and a little toy that tells me that I'm special.

I mean, I'm still lethargic and sarcastic and all those other, darker things you love about me. I'm just smiling ear to ear on the inside. And now I'm synonymous with Waffle House. Who could honestly ask for more?

I could and I will. I need a new laptop.

Look, I know my laptop works fine. But two years is a long time; everyone knows that after two years everything dies, including children and relationships and weblogs. My laptop is starting to spew and sputter. Nothing that a good memory replacement and maybe a new hard drive couldn't fix but, honestly, that's really not the only problem I'm having with it. The problem is that when I bought my laptop two years ago, I wasn't thinking about practical considerations such as, oh, size. My mindset has shifted from "I bet I can watch movies on this thing with COLLEGE GIRLS with BOOBS and FRUITY LIPGLOSS," to "I really wish I could take this thing to class and play on FACEBOOK so I can waste time until SUBSTANCE ABUSE." So the really bright, fifteen-inch screen isn't really necessary anymore.

And such is the story of growing up-- worrying more about practical considerations than how Secretary will look from the foot of your single-sized bed. This is why everyone over forty is sexless and hateful.

So what I need is a little thirteen-inch sumbitch. I was thinking that the newer generation of Asus W7S laptops look pretty fucking stellar. Something that will fool my friends into thinking I bought a Macbook Pro until I open it up and it's running some backfucked version of Vista. Something in glossy black. Or glossy white. I'm sort of up in the air on that issue.

Or I could tough it out. BE A MAN.

I had my entire way of life summarized as being "morally reprehensible" the other day. I better run to my blog and complain about it! Quick, someone, tell me I'm special!

Oh, wait, I have a button for that. It's called "Publish Post."

Standard Procedure: Fun with the Code of Conduct

In case you've ever looked at me and wondered why I don't just buy t-shirts, it's because I like to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty. I prefer to force my hands deep into the muck of popular neo-libertarian culture and hope that nothing bites my hairy knuckles before I find some truth. And you can't do that real proper without the exaggerated action of rolling your sleeves up. That's why I'm in love with the Rice Standard-- it's basically a commune of people who would weave a throw for Ron Paul made out of their parents' skin, put in print and ready for my special brand of satire. You know, the kind puts my sleeves at elbow-level and forces me into heavy alcohol abuse.

So anyways, I didn't have to delve far into this month's (week's? semi-bi-quarterly's?) issue to find a real gem of a feature on the Rice University Code of Conduct. By gem, of course, I'm talking about that sound that gems make when you smash them into a chalkboard and pull downward with all your might. It's not so much an article, or story, or even really a piece of writing as much as something you might see on the message boards of FARK.com. Seriously. It's actually a set of bullet points, attempting to shred the wording of the Code of Conduct into barbacoa. Luckily, I eat barbacoa for dinner.

If you want to subject yourself to the entire magazine of bullet points, check it here. It's an unsigned piece, which means I can only assume that the entire staff of the Standard sat around for a week making guttural noises and drinking Vitamin Water while they poured through the CoC and tried to find misspelled words and forcibly injected chunks of asphalt from Fifth Avenue into the base of their necks.

But let's make this clear right off the bat: I'm not a puppet of the Rice Administration. I've had my own share of run-ins, as well as wincing in pain every time my roommate my friends people I may or may not know find themselves in the office of the big Don-O. But if you're going to attack a piece of legalese, please realize that attacking word choice and intentionally vague wording makes you sound more like the editor of a neo-libertarian literotica than a concerned citizen.

Crap. I made fun of bullet points. Now I can't pick the Standard apart like they picked apart the CoC. Or maybe I will. I think that's called... satire. Or being too lazy to delve into the deeper flaws of the piece.

I play reading the Standard sort of like I listen to music-- on random, with the fun stuff first. Check this out, for example.

“Possession of weapons, including all firearms (including legally registered ones), compressed air-guns, pellet guns, BB guns, or illegal knives, dangerous chemicals, or explosive devices (including fireworks) of any description.” Taking into account the “on or off campus” clause, this means possession of a toy pellet gun at your parents' house in a different state could be a Class I violation.

Okay, seventh-grade English time. Let's talk hyperbole. Hyperbole is where you take a completely rational thought and pump it with enough PCP and meth to destroy a a small town, then throw it back in everyone's face like you're a genius. Fans of hyperbole include girlfriends and politicians. But the Standard takes hyperbole and puts it on mushrooms, turning logic into a purple goo that breathes and drips down the wall and tells you to buy stock options. Thank God my brother owns the BB gun back in Florida and not me, or else I'd be an interstate criminal. I might even get U-Court. That sounds like something that would really happen.

Did you know our Constitution is worded such that we can set up concentration camps that imprison dumb people for eternity? It's true, but that doesn't mean that it's going to happen anytime soon.

Let's look at another piece of logical refuse.

“The Assistant Dean of Student Judicial Programs may modify the procedures in a particular matter in order to reach a timely and just decision.” “Timely and just” are fine, but defined by whom?

Wow, what a rhetorical question! It's not like this rule is purposefully vague to your advantage or anything. It must be because the evil vampires that run the university want to fuck the rules and throw kids in lockup the minute the case hits DO's desk. It couldn't be because the Office of Judicial Affairs sees a thousand ridiculous, frivolous cases a day a needs a legal route to throw them out to expedite the bureaucratic process. And defined by whom, you ask? God. Super-scientist Dr. Reed Richards. Me. Anyone but you, because you don't have enough common sense to realize that "timely and just" is just that-- common sense.

Let's grab one more. I'm sure you can make the rest of my predictable jokes on your own.

“All enrolled students are also subject to Rice University policies, rules and regulations whether they are on or off campus.” Most of the violations described do not distinguish as to where the violation took place.

What? You mean I can't cheat, lie, steal, and masturbate in the library while I'm off campus? You mean EVERYONE has to follow the rules?

Fuck this, I'm transferring to NYU. At least they got street vendors.

FUD in the bathroom.

Protect myself? From what? DISEASE?

Bring me a latte and a healthy dose of cynicism

So I wrapped up a column for the Thresher, watched the National play live from ACL over the little AT&T webcast thingy, and had my traditional Chipotle brunch. I love how Sundays default to being the most productive days of my week. I mean, it's because I spend my Saturdays face-down in my jersey sheets just like every other party-thirsty, off-campus hipster at Rice.

Ah, the party-thirsty hipsters. My friends.

This is one of those really cryptic, strange and lofty sort of posts. The kind that will piss off the three people who get it and confuse the other two people who read my blog.

If you bitch about your friends on your blog, but no one reads it except your friends, does anyone but your girlfriend yell at you? A question for the ages indeed.

They built a house made of empty beer cans on a rounded foundation of keg shells and now it's falling down around them. I'm watching all of this from my single perched high above the museum district. I hold my hands folded behind my back, wincing as the bombs planted over two years ago explode in the faces of the people I hold nearer than anyone else on this Earth. And it hurts to know I'm not immune. The most apt people in this country-- the top one percent of the population-- are just as susceptible to life's dramatics as the stupidest one percent.

I've seen this before.

Not only are they just as susceptible but, honestly, they behave just the same. Because your conscious mind can only go so far in protecting you from all those other body parts that completely fuck your life up. You know, mainly the genitals and the heart, or some twisted combination of the two, or mistaking one for the other. We're all stupid and guilty, and that doesn't fix a thing.

"Never trust your party friends. Your party friends are the least loyal, most selfish people you'll ever meet."
-Allen

Now would be the time to grow some character instead of defining it through the obscurity of the music you listen to, or the size of your boobs, or how many shots you can down in less than ten minutes, or money, or anything. Character is just actions convolved with situations.

I guess that's all I really had to say. I'll leave you with this applicable stanza from my favorite non-war-related poem, with apologies to Elliot.

Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men