Quote:
“Modern art is what happens when painters stop looking at girls and persuade themselves that they have a better idea.” -John Ciardi

You be the train, and I’ll be the tender.

Note: Right as I decided to submit this post, a car pulled up at the intersection outside my window blasting “Principles of Lust” by Enigma. Wow, I bet that person got laid a lot in MCMXC a.d.

I dedicate this post to Ling-Ling the spider monkey, who scholars will later attribute the success of this blog to. I also dedicate it to Leonard, the unicorn trainer. Yes, unicorn trainers can be named Leonard too. Or Bort.

The problem with arguments is that often people establish good points yet, forget to address the bigger problem. This is referred to as “re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” For example, take the pirate conversation I overheard the other day:

First Mate: “No, I be thinkin’ the ship be half full a water.”
Captain: “No, I be tellin’ ya that this here boat be half empty of water. That is an order, Arrrrrr.”

Often such arguments leave a person embarrassed, especially when blindly entered in to. Last night I suffered a humiliating moment. Never again will I jump head first in to a debate not knowing the “T” in LGBT doesn’t stand for “Transiberian.” I didn’t think “transiberian cross dressing” made much sense, but if people want to dress as locomotives that is fine by me. You have a Constitutional right to be a steamy Big Boy (4-8-8-4). There is an entire section of the Constitution dedicated to letting people “free, through locomotion, the confined passions of mans’ soul,” referred to as the “Soul Train” clause.

The word “Constitution” has the word “tit” in the middle of it (subtle joke). Why? Because, not only did the Founding Fathers own slaves, but they were immature. Overtime the document has lost its impact through its varying translations. Originally Thomas Jefferson wrote the Constitution in Wing Dings, which is a precursor to Egyptian Hieroglyphics. When he died no one knew what in the hell the document said.

Luckily, in 1799 French soldiers, in retreat from their military fort, discovered the Rosetta Stone. Engraved on the face of the stone was a translation of Wing Dings (12 point, underline) in to Ancient Egyptian in to Not-quite-as-Ancient-Egyptian and finally in to Braille. However, blind people hadn’t been invented yet. Then in the 1880’s, Thomas Edison invented Helen Keller, the first blind person. She and her life partner Anne “Anne Marie” Sullivan translated the Constitution in to Times New Roman (12 point). Later officials translated the Constitution in to Funk.

On October 2, 1971, the new Funk translation katie-coupled with the “Soul Train” clause inspired a TV dance show by the same name. And that is why Helen Keller is listed as a co-writer to the Commodore’s hit song “Brick House” and is also the reason why “Brick House” should be the new national anthem of our Great Nation.

Are you the gate keeper?

Last week marked the official end of the fall semester. Grades are in, and I’m pleased to report that I made a 4.0 gpa. Now I’ve entered the Christmas break and am not sure what to do with the excess of free time available to me. It is like stepping off a tread mill after you’ve been running solid for an hour. I do have creative plans lined up, and the knowledge that I can nap at any moment is empowering.

My cell phone has slowly gone nuts. Often when people call a child answers, or a man with a deep voice, or a Puerto Rican lady. Other times I receive random calls from the T-Mobile network from people who haven’t been using their phone. Occasionally, people are routed to voice mail that is not mine. I’m afraid that my cell phone, which I have named Louis Tully, has become a portal between the gates of Heaven and Hell.

I considered chaning my voice mail message to “Leave the name and number of an exorcist, and I’ll return your call.” Alas, in an effort to stifle the minions from crossing in to our world, I decided to call T-Mobile’s customer service. Within ten seconds of calling, an all too common event happened…

T-Mobile Guy: “And your first name, sir?”
Me: “Seth.”
T-MG: “How do you spell that?”
Me: “S-e-t-h.”

I hate to write about this phenomenon again, but is it that difficult to spell Seth? Seriously. It is almost as though the people in my life have arranged the world’s largest practical joke or conspiracy theory. Perhaps my response should be “You spell it, and I’ll tell you whether you are correct.”

Quote:
“I’ve got some Vicadin. Do you want to come over?”

Quote:
Randal: “Salsa shark. We’re gonna need a bigger boat. Man goes into cage, cage goes into salsa, shark is in the salsa.”

An Idle Encounter

Today I’ve decided to share my favorite story about running over an animal in my car. No, I am not mentally sick. I don’t normally get enjoyment or laughter out of running over an animal with my car, but on occassion it is funny. Since any presentation can be enhanced by a picture, I’ll start with an illustration of the situation:

In this story I played the Chinese government in a tank, a Ford Focus played the role of the tank, and a piegon played the pro democracy student standing in front of the tank. I had come to a stop sign and across the intersection in front of me, in line with my tank treads, stood a pigeon. Our eyes met and I knew something was awry. This particular Columba livia had a thanatos (death wish). Cars lined either side of the street ahead, which didn’t leave me room to maneuver left or right around him. So I lifted my foot off the brake and literally idled forward twenty feet, which gave him plenty of time to move his little cloaca. Then, in disbelief, I heard the sound of his grain filled belly squish below the treads. Not a quick squish, but a pro……lo……ng……ed squish sound. Like the pro democracy student, the bird probably had a stomach filled with rice.

That is right. The bird complacently stood there and let my car idly drive over him. I even got out of the car and checked because I didn’t believe it had committed comical suicide by stupidity.

Pancakes, Coffee, and other Religious Beliefs

At OSU it is finals week, which means the majority of us are reviewing class notes and then spending the evenings eating free pancakes at the Student Union. Not much is better than free friends, free pancakes, free drinks, and strawberry, syrup, or butter for toppings. Peanut butter, though offered alongside the other toppings, does not qualify as a quality pancake topping. That is like anchovies on pizza. Sure, you can do it, but you’re sick. Do you want anchovies on your pancakes? No, and you don’t want peanut butter either.

I will always be Mark’s pancake.

I believe in Jedis, snow, and fair trade coffee. I don’t drink coffee, but at work people drink my coffe. I have to make sure there is fresh coffee. Occassionally, someone peaks around a corner and says to me “The coffee is great.” I’m not sure why they are thanking me, because I didn’t plant, harvest, grind, or slow roast the Rubiaceae beans. But if they want to think I do, that is fine. Call me Juan Valdez or Ishmael. Or are they surprised I didn’t mess up coffee? “Glad you can count to two scoops of coffee grinds, Juan” or “Glad you didn’t fuck up counting to two, because I had my doubts, Ishmael.”

Mail Slut, n., The former resident of your apartment, who no longer lives there but still manages to get more mail than you ever do, even after a year of residence.

Just like in Ghostbusters, when you use a troph or wall urinal you should never cross the streams. I’ve never used a troph urinal, but if I did, I’d pee across it length wise just to creep everyone out.

Loss of an iCon

Alas, after four years of pleasure, my sweet Juliet of an iPod has performed her last read/write actions and bit the dust (no binary pun intended). The fatal moment came as I attempted to place my iPod into the special pouch on my backpack (an Phascolarctos-ipodious cinereus). However, I missed the pouch and juxtaposed the ipods existance with the concrete sidewalk. In retrospect, like my Pauly Shore tattoos, it was a bad decision. I’m coping well partially because not only did the ipod serve me loyaly, but it is easily replaced.

Like Humans, when computer gadgets fail do they lose control of their input/output?

Definitions:
Rubiaceae - Genus of coffee plants.
Columba livia - Genus and species of the common pigeon.
Phascolarctos cinereus - Genus and species of the Koala.

Quote:
“If you have to pee or you are hungry, your car is probably hungry too.” -
- Autumnbliss.

My Brain Scribbles a Lot

This wasn’t staged. I actually was on the phone with a real Geico customer.

At work we can’t put up “Merry Christmas” banners because we have to respect everyone’s religous rights. But then they told me I can’t answer the phone as “Merry Christmas! This is Seth, your protestant Arts and Sciences computer tech. How may I help you?”

I’ve found that when writing a paper, sometimes starting with the footnotes is the least productive thing you can do. I need a band, because I want to dance in my backyard. Screw design, I’m going to make my millions designing bumper stickers for Delorean’s.

I wouldn’t mind studying philosophy. Then I could tell people “I want to corner a Nietzsche Market.”

In my Foreign Relations class the professor gave us a choice. Write a ten page project or do a non-traditional project, such as design a board game. I of course chose to create a board game. It uses a Risk board, but the rules to this game are absolutely unique, and when I am finished (Monday @ 4:00pm), I’ll post it for all to enjoy.

Free Reign

Have you ever had to apologize for something? I no longer have to apologize for any action. Ever. Two drunk guys told me this and I have witnesses. At first, like you, I was skeptical of their ramblings, but then I realized the flawlessness of their logic. The advice of drunk people must be given due merit, because it comes from a ineberiated cerebral plane that one transcends before passing out on the sidewalk in front of Stonewalls.

I would aruge that being drunk is a state of Zen, except you don’t need meditation and you don’t have to take a vow of silence or quit eating meat (if you’re in NYC it just can’t be meat cooked in transfat though). If this isn’t true, then why do more people drink than practice Buddhism. Exactly.

The Story: After seeing James Bond on opening night (the best Bond Movie and the Best Bond ever) Tyler, Alan, Laura, and I headed for the bar. After the bar closes we head out and find two guys collapsed on the sidewalk. We can either help them or let the police find them and take them to detox.

Being the nice guys we are (Ladies, Alan is single and available… I think), we decided to help them call a cab.
Me: “Are you Okay?”
Dean (BAC .59): “Yes, I’m Gay.”
Me: “No, I asked if you’re okay. And it doesn’t bother us if you’re gay.”
BAC .59: “I’m gay and okay. And you shouldn’t be bothered. This is Stonewalls”

As we wait for the cab to arrive the guys go through a range of emotions. One has lost his Neman Marcus cigarettes, one only has one cigarette left, one has lost his cell phone, one has ruined an expensive sweater. The guy with one cigarette sees that I have matches, and asks me for a light just as I’ve ignited the entire book at once and put them out.

Me: “Sorry, if I’d known you needed a light, I wouldn’t have burned all the matches.”
Daluca (BAC .59): “Seth, never apologize. You’re too cute to ever apologize.”

Quote: The quote is the following illustration, provided by Broksmyhunny

Note: The jab at Jeff’s ego is meant as a humorous, non-harmful jab between brilliant websites.

One Snowball to Bind Them

Best.Damn.Snowman.Ever

Woot! Four day weekend! Thanks to the best Oklahoma snow storm (illustrated above) I can remember, OSU closed for two days! Finally President Schmidly did something popular with the students. And it only took an act of God to bring it about. Usually it takes large sums of cash in easy to carry bags of eminent domain. Of course, every student spent the extra time studying.

Snowmosexual

Friday morning Alan, Jeff, Tyler, Tracy, Laura, and I met on the library lawn. Of course, the library was closed. To protest the closing we built the Best.Damn.Snowman.Ever. The campus was dotted with weak, feeble, tiny, shriveled, snowmen. As though the local rest home had been let out to play and the residents had become frozen and covered with a fine dusting of snow. The snowman needed a deity to rule them. We created that deity for them.

We made our snowman big. Bigger than Jeff Clark’s ego. For eyes, Jeff Nielsen gathered pine cones. For arms, we wanted to get some off a little kid. Alas, we couldn’t find any little kids. Passer-byers brought tribute of two sticks for arms. A local trashcan donated the Awesome Hat. To make the snowman fierce, Tyler added a tail and spikes. For power, we gave him snowman minions to do his snevil (snow + evil = snevil) bidding. Around 12 people came by and photographed the construction or took photographs with B.D.S.E.

Fierce

We also went sledding by Boomer Lake. It was quite successful and included a ramp, which we have video of. However, Tyler hasn’t sent me the video. Once the video is up, you can witness why my rear is sore.

Hot ChocolatEnuendo

A few weeks ago folk (folk is already plural) at the Student Union distributed packets of hot chocolate. I wisely saved mine. With the impending doom of Cold Weather (which I LOVE - if a “global cooling” problem existed, I’d be promoting the advancement of it), I decided to prepare a cup of deliciousness. Inside the package I discovered evidence of the greatest instant hot chocolate ever - marshmallows in the powder mix. I didn’t need to purchase them to increase the pleasure.

Hot chocolate without marshmallows is like a woman without breasts. Sure, you can enjoy the hot chocolate, but something is missing. The size of the marshmallows, though too small in this case, at least signaled the manufacturer’s correct intentions. I feel marshmallows. Rather, I feel the perfect marshmallows aren’t the ultra tiny ones and aren’t the smores-making-jumbo ones either. They should be proportional to the mug.

Snap, Crackle, Mitch, and F*** You General Mills, and Pop

I have a vendetta against General Mills, because their rice krispy treat recipe sucks. If the recipe were a movie, it would be a combination of Gigi, Plan B from Outerspace, and something starring Tom Cruise. I’m pretty sure the recipe wasn’t entitled “Rice Krispy Boulder” but that was the end result. I wanted a malleable and delicious combination of rice krispies in a bed of marshmallow goo, but instead I got a rock to sharpen kitchen knives on.

As you can tell, we (Laura, Me) attempted to make rice krispy treats. How difficult can following the simple directions on the side of the box be? The melting marshmallows and butter on the stove turned in to a slowly charring mass of goo, which I decided to microwave. The microwaving worked. Next, Laura added the six cups of rice krispies (i.e. basically the entire box). I tried to mix it by hand and was quickly reminded how hot microwaved ooze gets. After suffering third degree burns to my ego, we let the creation cool and then threw it in the trash.

After a phone call to my female parental unit, we were told that “Oh, that recipe sucks. There is an easier way to make them. Damn that General Mills.” Perhaps my mom didn’t say “suck”, but she would have if she knew how bad the recipe sucks.

Instead we made egg drop soup from scratch.