Random Thoughts VI

- I'm always a little confused when companies or nonprofit organizations send me free stuff in the mail, like some return address labels or a nice pen, and then ask for a donation afterward. Shouldn't you send me stuff after I send you money? Do they know that they're doing it backwards? Or are they trying to guilt me into sending money, like "Oh, they sent me a sweet pen, I really should donate". If they continue to run this backwards form of capitalism, I'm never gonna donate. I'm just not.

- I've mentioned before the lack of protocol when it comes to textversations (conversations via texting, pretty self-explanatory I'd say). We need to create a word for a person who, to put it simply, doesn't "ask back". This is when you're texting someone, but the entire textversation consists of you asking questions ("How are you?") and them, answers ("good") BUT without them asking questions in return. It's less of a textversation, and more of a text interview. Texterview? We need to do something about all these texterviewees in our society.

- While we're creating new names for things, I figure this is a good place to put my thoughts regarding what I call "3 Star Restaurants". You all know what I'm talking about. The best way to think about a 3 Star Restaurant is this: They all have different names, different styles, and different menu's, but are essentially the same place. Another way to think about it is that 3 Star Restaurants are the restaurants that 15-20 year olds hit after going to a movie when you have $16 left, but not really a place your parents would go by themselves. I broke down 3 Star Restaurants into the following list:

• Chili's
• Uno's
• T.G.I. Friday's
• Ruby Tuesday's
• Outback
• Applebee's
• The 99
• Ground Round

So there you have it. 3 Star Restaurants. I'm gonna copyright that name.

- Strange phenomenon: When you're at, like, a Bertucci's, and you go into the bathroom and suddenly you realize that Michael Buble is playing and you realize that it has been on in the entire restaurant the whole time, but you didn't notice it until you got to the bathroom where it was quiet, and then you wonder for a second if it's actually only playing in the bathroom and how weird that would be. Am I the only one who thinks of these things? Maybe I should stop typing...

Childhood Games, Stupidity Of

I had a thought today (Go ahead, get it out of your system, "Yay Matt!" "How did that feel?", etc.). The thought was this: Do you remember the game "Mother May I"? Well, it was one of those games kind of like "Simon Says" or "Red Light, Green Light", and, if my memory serves me correctly, it went something kind of like this:

One person was the "Mother". "Mother" stood some distance away from everyone else. Now, the objective of this game is to reach "Mother" and thereby become the new "Mother". One at a time, someone would ask "Mother" if they may come closer, asking in a variety of ways. For example, "Mother may I take 3 baby steps?" or "Mother, may I take 2 giant steps?", etc., at which point "Mother" may reply 'Yes' or 'No'.

Read that last sentence again.



IS THIS NOT THE STUPIDEST THING YOU'VE EVER HEARD?!?! Holy shit, this blew my mind. Each person needs to ASK the "Mother" if they may come closer and win the game and steal the position of power and "Mother" can just say 'No'!? Are ya' kidding me?! How is this a game?

I feel like this game was totally created by an older sibling as a trick. It's kind of like "The Quiet Game" that parents play with their kids. I can totally see an older sibling saying something like:

"HEY! I have an idea! Let's play a game! You go over there and ask me if you can come closer. If you touch me, you win."
"OK! Can I come closer?"
"No"

Somehow this "game" caught on with other people. I can only imagine that it was passed on from the older sibling to his older sibling buddies, and, through them, it was passed down to the younger sibling, and over time it became a "part of everyone's childhood". But when you think about it...

It's just stupid.

College, Questions Concerning, Vol. III

- Is it weird that 3 of my 5 professors told us to call them by their first names? I mean, I know I'm an adult now too but you're still my teacher. I'd much rather just call you "Professor" than I would "Ellen", even though calling you "Professor" makes me feel like a character from Harry Potter.

-Is it weird that the girls enjoy the thrill of playing Rock Band on Easy way more than the guys enjoy it on Expert? Granted, some of them have graduated to Medium, but still.....

(Note: To those of you who did graduate to Medium, congratulations! I'm very proud of you! Keep on rockin! And Nicole...you'll get there...)

-How could I possibly lose a sock in the wash while at college? There aren't that many places that I find myself taking my socks off.

-This one has been bugging me for a while so I figure that this is as good a place as any to finally ask: When did North Faces become popular and how did I miss it?

-With the amount of time I find myself bored, how is it possible that I never put any of that time towards my blog?

-If your recycling bin is literally overflowing with soda (and lemonade) cans, isn't it only natural to take them all and build an enormous tower of cans on your roommate's dresser? Okay, good, I thought so too.

-Does it make any sense to say that the more hours of sleep I get, the more tired I am the next day? I wouldn't think so but hey, what do I know?

-Is there anything better than secret handshakes? Anything at all?

-If you got hooked by "The Bachelor"...actually, let's not mention this one.

-You know you're at college when you can spend a weekend like this: take the bus to eat at Five Guys, spend $15 at Target on lemonade, root beer, and Fritos, watch 'Young Frankenstein', watch 5 episodes of "The Office", take the bus to eat at Qdoba Mexican Grill, watch 'Back to the Future', and then watch 30 (THIRTY) episodes of "How I Met Your Mother". Yes, 30. That's 622 minutes worth, or 10.4 hours. I'm so proud.

-If you find a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the ground outside your building... 1. How did that get there? and 2. You have to pick it up for your door, right?

-What should you do if your nicknames from the beginning of the year are slipping away or already dead? It's really hard to resurrect a dead nickname. Should we create new ones? Should we, God forbid, call each other by our actual names?! Perish the thought.

Random Thoughts V

- Ever feel like working out in your own home with an electronic yet still sarcastic and snappy personal trainer? Then Wii Fit is for you!!! My brother plays Wii Fit a lot, I'm not sure why, it looks extremely boring. The most interesting feature in the Wii Fit is that it comes fully equipped with, well...an attitude. When you start it up after not playing for a while, it says things like "Hey, looks like someone's been slacking off". Woah! Back off, Wii Fit! The Wii Fit is really big on balance, for some reason (not sure what having good balance has to do with anything). When analyzing your balance, the Wii Fit really takes the opportunity to mock you with things like "Do you trip over the sidewalk when you walk?". After a conversation about this, my brother and I tried to think of the meanest and funniest thing to hear from the Wii Fit. Best we came up with: "Someone should think about putting the fork down between bites".

- In my kitchen, we have a stainless steel refridgerator. It looks nice and all, and works fine as far as I know. Only problem: It's not magnetic. I didn't know they made non-magnetic fridges! Why would you buy something like that? Where else do you put your magnets? Seriously...name one other place you put magnets.

- How do they make bubble wrap? Don't just read this point and blow past it. Stop. Think about it.........weird, huh?

- In my opinion, there are two kinds of people in this world: Those who sit and watch the credits after a movie and those who don't. I do. I feel like that is a great moment to think about, like, where are all these people going? It's not like they all have to be somewhere. What's the rush? Sit down, relax, life is too short to rush out of movie theaters.

-Married people wear rings. Tradition says that they do this to signify the bond between the husband and wife, but it's really just so someone who's checking them out can know ahead of time whether they're single or not. Well, in that sense, I think that everyone in a relationship should have some sort of physical evidence. Like, if I see an attractive girl, I'd want to know if they were single or not before I talked to them. Is this a ridiculous idea?

- Last semester, I had an 8:30 class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They were absolute hell. Each Tuesday and Thursday came with the experience of waking up at 7:40, trying to wake up my still sleeping roommate, meeting my buddy for coffee, and heading to class, all the while wondering how it is that I'm awake at such an ungodly hour. Then I remembered that, in high school, I woke up at 6:30 every day and was at school by 7:30. How is that possible? Why don't I remember that sucking so much?

- I have to bring this one up. There has been lots of talk of decades lately. Summing up the past decade, best this and worst that of the decade, first day of a new decade, etc. But I'm getting mixed signals, I'm being told by some that the new decade doesn't start until 2011, yet everyone else is acting like a new decade started yesterday. How can we get an official ruling on this? Is there one that everyone is ignoring? I need to know these things.

- A few more New Year's notes: Firstly, everyone sits around at midnight and watches The Ball drop. Does The Ball have a name? It's just "The Ball". How has it not been bought yet? How has it not become, say, sitting around and watching the Comcast New Year's Ball drop? This just seems too obvious to me. The Ball. So weird. Also, after midnight, they showed on TV the celebrations from around the world. Other countries had lots of fireworks, Hong Kong shot fireworks off of every skyscraper, London had an enormous fireworks show, things like that. In America....we watch a shiny ball slowly descend down a pole. How exciting. Well done, America.

College, Questions Concerning, Vol II

OK, so I posted some Questions Concerning College as my first post of the semester, and now I guess it's time for another bunch:

If one of your friends went to dinner but left his door unlocked, is it OK to go in there and turn all of his stuff around?

Also, if said friend returns and finds you turning his stuff around, and this friend happens to be twice the size of you, is it cowardly to run for your life and leave one of your friends there to die?

In a similar vein, if you are downstairs hanging on the girls floor but your roommate wants you to come upstairs and watch TV, is it fair for him to turn everything in your room upside down, including your mattress and some of your posters?

Continuing the Roommate Pranks questions, how many times is it funny to edit the information on someone's Facebook because they left it up? 5? You can only change it to "Interested in: 'Men'" so many times.

Is it gross that we only empty our trash by turning it upside-down over the big trash can? The girls informed us that we are supposed to throw out and replace the bag. I never even thought about this.

If you and your friend are showering at the same time and also singing together, and you mention how awkward it would be if another kid you know was standing silently in the bathroom listening to you sing, and then 5 minutes later that same kid's voice says "That sounds great, guys".....i mean, really now. WTF?

Do you participate in No Shave November if the consequences include looking like a high school sophomore from Honduras?

If, when finally shaving on December 1st, your electric razor dies and needs to be charged, how long can you go around your dorm with only half a mustache?

If you play a 2 and 1/2 hour poker game and then, at the end, the other people decide to change the rules because it's getting late and these new rules cost you the game, do you have a right to be pissed? You do, right!?

When teachers assign papers, why do they continue to assign homework between then and the paper's due date? This question isn't even a joke. It just bugs the shit out of me.

Is it bad that I throw away 90% of my mail before I even leave the mailboxes? Send me something other than take-out menus for a change, why don't ya.

Why do teachers always make us buy textbooks that we don't use?

Seriously though...why do we have this landline phone?

If one of your friends gives you an Oreo that he has actually taken apart and convincingly filled with toothpaste, and you take a bite, note its considerably disgusting mintiness, and then take another bite.....actually no question here. Just know that this happened.

If your roommate still has no posters on his side of the room, how long should I wait before I buy him a really girly one? "Twilight", anyone?

How many straight days can you wear a pair of jeans without washing them? Is 3 weeks too long? No one would even notice if I didn't say anything.

Should I be blogging when I have a paper due tomorrow that I need to start and a Philosophy final in 2 hours? Probably not, right? Whatever.

What should you do if your ethernet jack fell out of its socket and into the wall, and you called IT and they never got back to you, so you called again 2 weeks later and they still never got back to you? I have been running on the shitty wireless network for about a month now. Can I get someone fired for this?

Whose blue flip-flops are in my room? They have been here for about 2 months now, just chillin' in the corner. No one has any idea who they belong to. Same goes for the bright blue tank-top that has been hanging on our inside door knob for the entire semester.

How do you get the smell of wet clothes out of your room? We played in the snow the other day and just dumped our soggy clothes in a pile and now the room smells funny. Bummer.

If you tell your friend to meet in the hallway to go to breakfast at 7:45, so you set your alarm, naturally, to 7:43, and he calls you and bangs on your door to wake you up at 7:32, should you pretend that it's totally normal for him to be 15 whole minutes early or should you kick him in the shins and go back to bed? I need to know these things.

Things I've Already Done at College for a Free T-Shirt

I have never been a huge fan of cheap t-shirts, but something about college has awoken a hidden desire. I will do anything for a free t-shirt. For example, after one semester of college, I have:

-Driven a golf cart through a course of orange cones while wearing beer goggles. I could then pick between a free t-shirt or a free flash drive. No contest.

-Attended a "Midnight Breakfast", which really started at 9:00 PM and ended at midnight, so the name was confusing. That's like having Midnight Mass at 11:00. Anyway...there were too many people so I didn't get a shirt. Shucks.

-Been one of the first 150 people to the dining hall one day. Not sure what that one was all about.

-Wrote addresses on 35 fundraiser forms for St. Jude's Children's Hospital. Of course, of the 35 forms I was required to address, 4 went to my own house, 4 to my aunts, 5 to my other aunts, one to my grandma, one to my other grandma, one to my next door neighbor, and the rest to teachers at my high school, addressed with their name and "c/o Bishop Guertin High School". Then I gave the shirt to Jenna though because they told her that they didn't accept multiples to the same address. Ah, irony.

-Given a pint of my own blood. Really.

Random Thoughts IV

- You know those moments when you're walking somewhere and you see someone you only sort of know walking towards you, but they are still pretty far away, and you don't want to say anything yet because you only sort of know them and don't really have enough to say to make a full conversation, but you know that they already saw you too, so you both sort of look away and mutually pretend not to have seen the other until you get right up close so you only have to exchange a little "oh, hey man". Well...those moments are weird. How many moments are there like that where two people can, without exchanging any words, mutually agree to lie to each other and just totally accept it?

- You know how when you're at a restaurant, and they give you bread or rolls and butter, and the butter comes in those little cube packages? And you try to spread the butter on the bread and it just rips the bread to pieces? You know what I'm talking about. That butter that restaurants give you that is totally unspreadable. Well, here's my question: Who the hell makes that butter and why do restaurants keep giving it to me? Knock it off, you know better.

- I can't think of many situations more awkward then going to a sit-down restaurant and requesting a "table for one".

- You know how if your name or picture are in the newspaper or something, you cut it out and keep it (or at least your mom does)? Well, at what point does that end if you're a celebrity? If you're Britney Spears, do you own every magazine that you've been on the cover of? Does Jon Gosselin's mom have a box in the attic full of tabloids that feature him? That would seem weird, no?

- Who was the first person to create a fake plant? My mom always has fake tulips in the kitchen, and even next to me right now is a big....just...plant. It's not really a bush, and it's certainly not a tree or flower, it's just a mass of leaves, kind of. Who started this? Who's brilliant idea was it to create a plastic plant to put in living rooms and libraries, etc.?