The Winter Break Woes

God, I hate winter break.

What did I do?

• Watched an entire season of Chuck and Heroes.  I’m starting Mad Men tomorrow.  I’ve given Hulu its most traffic since “Dick in a Box.”
• Looked over my resume probably thirty times, and didn’t change a single thing on any of those revisits.  I still have more white space than a segregated diner in the 50′s.  Not good (both the joke and the situation).
• Listened to country music.  COUNTRY MUSIC.  I’m absolutely ashamed at myself, and I can’t believe I just wrote that, but seriously.  Dolly Parton.  9 to 5.  LEGIT.
• Organized ________.  Lots of things can fill in this blank, such as my iTunes library, my computer documents, and the old high school stuff that’s been in my room since Senior Ditch Day ’07.
• Began rereading Harry Potter 7.  And I’m JUST AS THRILLED AS WHEN I READ IT THE FIRST TIME.  I’m a nerd.

And then of course, internship stuff and Seussical stuff and SAE stuff and socializing and friends and everything.

But seriously…

Winter break?

Not so fantastic.

I want to marry Dorota.

i found my calling

Course Description of a class called “Cross-Examining Forensic Science“:

“Fingerprinting, forensic anthropology, polygraphs, DNA identification, criminal biobanking—an increasing number of technologies characterize the contemporary practice of police investigation and criminal prosecution. With them they bring not only important questions about reliability and “good” science, but also ethical and social debates about the practice of justice. In this course, we bring together an exploration of the science of forensics with a critical examination of its history, practice, and portrayal in popular culture. “

 

INCREDIBLE.  I’m such a nerd, but still.  INCREDIBLE.

oh the weather outside is frightful…

Crap.

The snow is falling now, and although it’s been that way on and off every once in a while for the last few weeks, it’s finally starting to stick.  Unfortunately.

As much as I love snow, and as much as I feel completely cool being in a snowy environment that my friends back in LA don’t get to enjoy, I HATE when the snow starts to stick.

No longer do I get to ride my bike and not worry about a sudden fall and immediate death.  No longer do I get to enjoy a pleasant walk in any given direction, because the snow has the tendency to fly in ANY GIVEN DIRECTION.  No longer do I get to wear less than three coats or a shoe thinner than a snow boot or go gloveless as the day I was born.  It’s all over.

This isn’t the worst thing in the world.  There are far worse things to happen on a college campus than an unfortunate snowfall.  But the problem is that the snow has started, and it’s not going to stop until, like, March.  Or April.  The snow here has a tendency to fall constantly during peak months (Peak?  Snow?  Get it?  Ahhhhh.) and then stop just long enough for the snow to melt, and the sidewalk becomes almost entirely clear until Mother Nature shows her bitch side and lets it snow once more.

All that isn’t until the spring, though, or pseudospring, actually.  Until then, it’s just going to be constant snow that’s not enjoyable nor winter-wonderlandesque.

Whatever you like

I, along with a vast majority of the college population at Northwestern it seems, love T.I.’s new song “Whatever You Like” an inordinate amount.  

Granted, there is one ridiculous line in the song that gets me every time:

“Brain so good coulda swore you went to college”

come on t.i.  that makes you sound so stupid. :’(

check it out.  it’s around the 1:33 mark in this video

Hide and Seek

I am an Imogen Heap fan, and like many fans, my favorite song is Hide and Seek.  The bridge in the song about 2:50 into the song is just perfect for any dramatic scene.  The OC initially did this, but I don’t give a fuck about that show.  The SNL spoof – called “Dear Sister” – of that scene in the OC was hilarious.  But it doesn’t stop there.  I have fallen in love with other Youtube spoofs of this scene. 

First here’s the SNL spoof, followed by some of my favorite youtube spoofs.

 

 

The best part of how people look over their shoulders.  ha.

-dike

damn!

so i’ve learned these past few weeks that it is SO insanely hard to keep up a blog when real life starts again.

we’ll try, but man… it’s damn hard.

Prank Musicals

When two things that I like are mixed together, it becomes instant love.  Well, maybe love isn’t the word for it – more like something that I like that will keep me occupied for a while.

Seeing that I really like musicals, and I love good prank videos on youtube almost as much, I have had a love affair with some of these videos on youtube. 

The first video is from a group called “ImprovEverywhere.”  This is the group that did the frozen grand central prank, which is pretty ballin’ in itself.  This scene takes place in a mall food court:

This video is from a group called “Prangstgrup” who stage their musical in a Columbia University lecture hall – looks like a intro chemistry class.

But you shouldn’t just stop there.  I’m a big fan of almost all the videos that ImprovEverywhere makes, while the Prangstgrup video about computer startup sounds is awesome.

-dike

apparently i sleep through beeps

So I bought this thing called “Jimi” at Brookstone a few months ago, and I was really excited because I finally had an alarm clock that might actually wake me up. Turns out the piece of crap does nothing more than beep quietly once every, like, three seconds. And what’s worse is that the snooze function is achieved by TAPPING THE CLOCK ONCE. The slightest touch does it. It’s probably the worst invention I’ve ever seen, because tapping the clock is so insanely easy. Even when I put the clock across the room, I ended up throwing a sock and hitting it, and buying myself another ten minutes. That’s also the worst… the snooze goes for 10 minutes. That’s far longer than I should give myself.

And hooray that Brookstone doesn’t even feature it in their store anymore. This is another piece of crap to add to my long list of things I bought that ended up screwing me over. (First on the list? The iHome alarm clock that, in all honesty, really does work, but because I once accidentally shut the alarm instead of snoozed, I missed class, and so I blame it on the clock, not me.)

Any suggestions?

the flakiness of kanye west

Thank you, Kanye West, for flaking out on me at the last minute and denying me the two tickets I was promised to the VMAs. You’re really cool.

Now, I’m not a spoiled person. I chose to work abysmal office jobs and spend two years of my life in the dusty hellhole that is Hollister. I could have been spoiled, because my parents never made me do any of those things, but I chose to, and thus, I don’t think I’m that spoiled. But COME ON, KANYE. One of the few times I let my spoiled nature kick in, and you cancel!? What’s up with that, man!? GIVE ME MY TICKETS!!

Kanye’s people said that I could have had two tickets, but refused to hand them over just yet because “Kanye was still debating if he had others to invite.” Please. That’s absolute bull. Give me my tickets, and I’ll stop thinking that you’re a pompous, arrogant, cocky asshole. Ok, maybe I’ll never stop thinking that, but giving me my promised tickets wouldn’t have hurt.

Kanye has caused my heart to shrink. I bared my soul to him and got shafted.

If George Bush hates black people, then Kanye West equally hates white people. Bitch.

Conan > Ferguson

Ok so I’m sitting here watching the late shows, after Letterman/Leno of course. All I can think about is what I’m going to do when Conan O’Brien goes to commercial.  I could change channels and watch the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, until I realize that Craig Ferguson boring.  So boring that I may rather watch paint dry than watch his show.

I think the only funny thing about Ferguson is that he speaks in a British accent.  It’s not even like he has a funny accent either, it’s just pathetic watching him attempt to make a joke, only to end up just speaking in British and trying to smile while his audience weakly responds to the “Applause” sign flashing violently.

Ahh, such is the life of a young man looking for intellectual stimulation while only being able to see 7 network channels.  Yeah, I don’t have cable, but that’s probably a good thing, and I hope to raise my children without cable – but that’s another story.

Because of this absolute lack of humor, save Conan O’Brien, I started reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, which has been really good so far.  You should all read it.

-dike