A Shakespearean Sonnet to Facebook

Farewell my dearest friend and crutch Facebook,
I spent too much time browsing your web page.
No longer at your news feeds will I look.
So long tags of me not acting my age.

The way I stalked girls I don’t know was sly.
Every tagged photo album I would scan,
I come across her picture with some guy,
How could she betray me with that lame man?

We had some good times and some bad times too.
From the beginning a long way you came
but with updates apart we simply grew,
we’re at a crossroads and we’re not the same

On your news feed you may post this my friend,
that our relationship is at an end.



So I'm no longer on Facebook. The initial idea was to stop wasting time stalking and start being more productive, but it turns out now I have much more time to write sonnets and to follow Twitter.
http://twitter.com/kevinsroberts

THANKS

A Move Foward

http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20090403/NEWS/90403010/1001

"As Iowa goes, so goes the Nation!"

A Test of Grit

Kid Rock wrote a song and made a music video for the Army National Guard, "Warrior." It reminds me a lot of something from "Team American World Police." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0OQXI8lvqY If you can make it through the full Kid Rock video without saying "what the F!?" then you win. There are plenty of WTF moments, for instance any one of the NASCAR racing scenes, any time Kid Rock goes into the chorus, or when you hear lyrics like "freedom ain't so free when you breath red white and blue, I'm giving all of myself how about you?"
Though in then end I must say it is pretty inspiring. I'll be shipping out in June.
THANKS
Here's the link to Kid Rock, "Warrior"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57Njivd_emQ

A Thing to Follow

In 2008 the Supreme Court ruled that alien detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay had the right to challenge their detention.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/washington/13scotus.html?scp=1&sq=Boumediene%20v%20bush&st=cse
In the dissenting opinion, Justice Scalia wrote that "The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today," and that the decision would "almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed." He backed his hysteria by referencing news paper articles, a move which is quite rare in the Supreme Court.
Well, today a Federal Court held that detainees in an Afghanistan air base have the same right.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/02/AR2009040201796.html?hpid=topnews

The 2008 decision focused on, among other things, the United State's "jurisdictional sovereignty" over Guantanamo Bay. Today the Federal Court stated that the situation in Afghanistan is analogous to that in Gitmo. I suspect an interesting Supreme Court decision. Hopefully we're not all dead by then.
THANKS

A Scam

Something is foul in the state of Iowa. Specifically the city of Cedar Falls. I love the town. I was raised there, but let me tell you, City Hall is pulling the wool over us all. Current Mayor John Crews announced that he intends to run for his 13th term this fall. Here's my problem: no body votes and that's the way the system likes it. We all know that voter turn out is low in this country. It gets even lower during a mid term election. It reaches its all time low at a mid-mid term election. In 2010 some of you may go out and vote for a Representitive but no one is going to vote in 2009. You're still all thinking, "didn't we just have an election?" So Crews will walk away with another election by getting a dozen or two senior citizens to vote for him while rest of us stay at home and watch re-runs of "Chuck."
In 2007, Crews won the election, uncontested, with 93% of the total vote (7% going to write-ins). He recieved 2,651 votes, roughly 13% of the total populatoin of Cedar Falls. Apparently "Chuck" was so good that season, not only did no one vote, no one cared to run agasint the guy.
Fight the power.
THANKS

A List of Bests

The Best Show on WFMU:
http://www.friendsoftom.com/
You can download the podcasts on Thursdays on iTunes or listen to live streaming audio on Tuesdays from 7-10 at http://wfmu.org/. It really is a great radio show but I know what you're thinking, "I don't have 3 hours to spend listening to the radio!" Come here, listen to me, once you start you will not want to stop. It takes a while to get into it and to catch on to the inside jokes and recurring guests but once you do it will knock your socks off. You will start to make time to listen to the show and when it's done you'll want more. Personally, I download the podcasts to my iPod and go on bike rides just so I can listen and when I get home I have to plug it in to my stereo and finish. Check it out.
If you want a shortened version you can download the Best Show Gems Podcast. It's a 10 minute recap of the show and might give you a taste of what it's like.

Best Accidental Quote of the Day:
"JAG Off...icers were involved... JAG of...ten get a bad rap..."
- Prof. Schantz
When discussing Judge Advocate Generals, Professor Shantz's may not have put that dramatic of a pause between the "off's" and the rest of the word but to me it seemed like an eternity. This Beavis and Butthead clip helps shed some light on the situation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtIT0DwIIHs

Best Week of the Semester:
Towards the end of February I became horribly ill. I went to bed each night at 7 p.m. and got more than 12 hours of sleep a night. That was my best week this semester.

Best Movie Clip that I have not Seen:
Apparently there is a scene in John Travolta/Christian Slater movie where Howie Long rips the doors off of a Hummer. He does this, of course, to make the Hummer go faster. I have never seen this clip but I can only imagine how awesome it is. If anyone can find a link to that specific clip be kind and share.

Best Album I have not Fully Listened to:
"Ram" by Sir Paul McCartney. So far I've only listened to a couple tracks but I am ready to crown this a great album.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlpREBxy1s4&feature=PlayList&p=0BC99BBDBFDEB8FE&index=1

Best Opening Credits Scene:
"The Graduate." Simon and Garfunkel bring it home.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxWkCHt8owc

Best Flavor:
The white shark from the "Shark Bites" fruit snacks. I don't know what it is supposed to be, but I would be completely satisfied if that were the only flavor I could experience for the rest of my life.

Best Profession:
Artsy Photographer. I have a confession to make. I'm jealous of anyone who can call themselves a photographer and make money from it. The other day I was listening to guest lecturer on campus. There were a lot of people taking pictures of the speaker but I noticed one guy pointing his camera at the ceiling. I'm not exactly sure, but it looked as if he was aiming his lens at a heating duct. I can guarantee this picture was cool. How do they do it? How do they take pictures of absolutely normal things and make them look so awesome?


Black and white photos.
Twenty-two college credits,
You are an artist.

That's a Haiku.

Best Form of Communication:
Haiku.

THANKS

UPDATE!

Best Album Cover:
So sick... So much hair... Kris Kristofferson Barbra Streisand, "A Star is Born". When I meet that special someone we will remake this photo for our wedding announcement. Any takers?

A Creepy Similarity

My father pointed out this strange similarity between my cat, Mo, and an owl. Like Sam Neill from Jurassic Park, I too have a theory of animal evolution. Cats evolved from owls. Or the other way around, it doesn't really matter. Think about it. They both meander around at night and they both eat mice. According to this theory snakes may too be a distant relative. More to come. Keep your eyes on the skies.
THANKS

Over millions of years some animals loose their feathers and wings and replace them with fur and, let's say, whiskers. BAM! SCIENCE!

March 28th, 2009

"Dylan grew up in Hibbing, MN, we’re told here, and while this wasn’t the kind of place that would likely breed major cultural figures, it was still no doubt the sort of locale that might force a restless soul to venture off for someplace better. In Dylan’s case, that “someplace better” was New York City. Dylan describes Hibbing as an unbearably cold and dull region. It was so chilly, in fact, that Dylan believed its weather helped keep the crime rate down. He humorously comments that it was just too cold to commit crime. Instead, this place’s hard existence revolved around just surviving its harsh elements. Survivor minds, not criminal minds, prevailed."
Dan Macintosh on Bob Dylan

A Drake Equation for Lovers

The Drake Equation is used to estimate the possible number of planets in the Milky Way Galaxy with civilized life forms on them. Here is a cool video of Carl Sagan doing a great job explaining it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ztl8CG3Sys
Basically, the equation starts with the total number of stars in the Galaxy. From there you determine which ones have planets, and narrow down which planets are capable of sustaining life. You eliminate prospective planets by multiplying the total number of remaining planets by the fraction of planets that meet specific requirements for sustaining life.
For example, say there are 100 stars in a galaxy. 1/2 of the stars have planets (50 stars left). 1/2 of those planets are the proper distance from their sun in order to sustain life (25 stars). About 1/2 of those planets have the right mixture of elements in their atmosphere (about 12 stars). Only 1/2 of those planets have developed life capable of communication (6 planets). And so on and so on. I by no means understand what it takes to develop life on a planet but I think I have a basic grip on the equation. You start with a large number, apply specific criteria, narrowing the number down over and over again.
The other night I applied the Drake Equation to a more pertinent question: How many possible "loves" are there out there for one person?
You can substitute a variety of words for "loves": "soul mates," "suitors," "partners," etc...
What I did was start with the population of Iowa - Roughly 3,000,000
About 1/2 of those people are women - 1,500,000
I estimate that about 7% (about 1/14) of those women are in the age range of 20-27 - 105,000
About 1/2 have or will have a college degree - 52,500
I'll estimate that 1/4 of those women are single - 13,125
I'm attracted to 1/3 of those women - 4,375
I find 1/3 of those women's personalities pleasant- 1,458
I share common interests with 1/2 of those women - 729
Without going into any other factors yet we've estimated that about .02% of the population is suitable as a possible girlfriend. (more than 7 girls per county)
Now...
Let's say that 1/3 of our remaining population doesn’t mind looking at me too much - 243
1/3 find my personality interesting - 81
We now have estimated that I am compatible with about .002% of the population.
If you believe that we each have just one soul mate then the odds are even more daunting.
We're looking at 1/6,700,000,000 - Not quite bailout numbers but still pretty high.
It's amazing that people beat these odds everyday and fall in love.
THANKS

An Open Letter

Dear Car Full of Dudes who yell out "Faggot" while driving by on Riverside,
I'm not sure what compels you to yell at a complete stranger. As I innocently walk back from the library I simply let my mind wander. I harbor no feelings of hostility towards anyone. In fact, I consider myself a peaceful person. When you drive by and yell at me, I am not personally offended, but I am troubled for the rest of the walk home. It bothers me that there are people like you, Car Full of Dudes, in the world. It bothers me that you get some kind of entertainment from shouting insults at random strangers on the sidewalks. My friends, there is a time and place for that: sporting events.
I don't have much else to say, Car Full of Dudes, but I would like to you think about this: While you yell out "Faggot", consider which activity is more latently homosexual, a lonely man walking down the sidewalk reflecting on his past decisions, or a compact car full of dudes piercingly shouting out cat calls to a moderately attractive male passerby?
THANKS

A Modest Proposal

It’s good to be back. For the past several weeks all my energy has been focused on FoxNews, but now I’m more open minded than ever and ready to share my thoughts.
After watching the past couple of elections closely I get the sense that Ohio and Florida think they’re better than they really are. Each election cycle all eyes turn to these two over privileged states. Other than their population they really don’t deserve this attention. We can be honest here, no one really cares about Ohio, and Florida has proved time and time again that they are grossly incompetent in anything that doesn’t involve singing animatronic midget children from all across the world.
It’s time for a change, Iowa. We can be one of those pampered states on the receiving end of all that undeserved political attention. Last January we got a taste of it during the caucus, but even the star power that came from being the first caucus is beginning to fade. Candidates opt out of campaigning here in order to spend more time in New Hampshire. Tell me one good thing New Hampshire has ever done. Iowa, we can do better. You better believe that if Ohio held the first primary politicians would flock to that state, performing the political equivalent of fellatio on all those buckeyes.
What do we lack? What would it take for Iowa to become a political juggernaut? People. We need sheer numbers. Multitudes of people. Bumbling, slobbering, idiotic people. That’s all it takes. Every so often the United States redistributes the number of representatives per state. There are only 435 to go around and the allocation is based proportionately on state population. Our voice in this election was limited to 7 lousy electoral votes, and it’s about time we get our grubby paws on some more. Ohio has 20 total electoral votes, Florida with 27. My friends it is time to have our voices heard.
What comes next? I’m not sure how to put this politely… It’s time to get dirty Iowa. If we want to be pampered like divas we’ve got to screw like Paris Hilton. We need to start pumping out colossal numbers of babies. Tonight we can start on our path to the top. In nine months we can increase our population by roughly 30%. Every nine months, repeat. The next time those census takers are released onto our state they’ll be knee deep in toddlers. Iowa’s population in 2006 was 2,982,085. In 2012 we could be up to 8 million, just a couple million away from Ohio. Don’t worry we’ll be there by 2018, and ladies it will only get easier.
Some of us who start out on this journey may not live to see the day when Iowa truly gets the representation we deserve. Don’t get discouraged. I assure you we will overcome, and please, think of the children. The millions upon millions of children. The multitudes of starving children out in the streets all crawling on top of each other. They deserve to have their voices heard.

THANKS!

A Belated Tribute

Yes, this blog is a day late, but it is no less important. Yesterday a great American hero celebrated his 23rd birthday. A man who, at the age of 19, had already earned the reputation of “old balls” and “fun hater” is now one year older. It’s hard to describe such a complicated individual but I’ll give it a try.
First and foremost I think most people would call Tim an “ass hole.” This label is not fully accurate. Sure Tim hate’s most people, and sure he can’t stand being in a romantic relationship for more than four days, and yeah he’ll give the cold shoulder to a girl who is infatuated with him, pretending like he doesn’t even know her, but… Ok so maybe he’s an ass hole, but with good reason.
Tim has been involved with more crazy people in 23 years than most of us will encounter in our entire life. Girls escape from the Mental Health Hospital in Independence just to show up at his door step the next day. Some of the most cunning and scandalous girls I’ve ever met have used their wily tactics on him only to leave him in a suicidal stupor for months on end.
The thing about Tim is that he bounces back. Most people would seek professional help after an entire winter break spent sleeping all day, going on long dark night runs, and coming down with frost bite, but all it took Tim to shake himself out of his depression was a swift wall punch and one famous quote, “F*** this I’ve got B****es I can get on!” And so he did, of course they all ended up being crazy too, but he was used to it by then.
Some of the best dates I’ve ever had, have been with Tim. I consider him a heterosexual life partner. Whether we’re going to SoHo to practice ordering sushi so we can take a real girl there someday and impress them with our “worldliness” or just staying in and watching a Matthew McConaughey romantic-comedy, it’s always time well spent.
Tim is a guy who lives by his own rules. For instance, this year he decided to swear off girls and focus entirely on track and school. Odds are he’ll end up in a couple week long affairs, study minimally, and come down with some kind of chronic illness that keeps him from running. But really I hope the best for him this year. He’s a great friend and deserves to come out on top.
Happy Birthday

A List of Grievances

There are a few things that I don’t like about Wal-Mart. Don’t get me wrong. The place isn’t entirely bad. If I want to feel as rich as a filthy Rockefeller I go to Wal-Mart, where I can buy 1000 Christmas bulbs for 99 cents just so I can smash them with a baseball bat out in an empty parking lot somewhere. If I want to ride around in an electric shopping cart, I go to Wal-Mart, where all it takes is a couple of my roommates walking casts, and in no time I’m jetting around at 3 miles per hour and beeping when I back up. But there are some things that really cheese me when I go to Wal-Mart.

Old people in the express checkout line:
I go to the express checkout line because I want to get the hell out of Wal-Mart as fast as I possibly can. It never fails though. As I step up to the e.c. (express checkout) to buy my candy cigarettes and triple A batteries, the crypt keepers wife has beat me there. I don’t know how she did it, but I’m pretty sure she was there the last time too, maybe still working on the same order. This lady has 400 things in her cart. Apparently none of these items have a bar code because each item needs to be rung up separately by the one cashier who already hates his life, but does so even more now because he has to walk 10 feet over to the express c. to help this lady, who is still working on that same order since he started his shift 3 hours ago. Finally she finishes her order. She just has to pay and then I’m up. Swipe, Swipe, Debit, pin pin pin pin, no cash back, ok, receipt, gone! This shouldn’t be too hard right? Wrong! Old Mother Hubbard here starts writing out a flippin’ check. First she has to dig through her purse to find her check writing glasses. She finds those, but now she has to dig through her purse to find the case for her grocery shopping glasses. She finds that. Ok, so she writes her check. The next step for any normal person would be to rip it up and use your debit card, but this is not a normal person. As of last week, this lady purchased her first dial phone. For fifty years she had been using a classic rotary and now, on top of the understandable level of anxiety she is already experiencing from switching phones, she’s trying to conquer the express check out. I do feel a bit sorry for her. Things were simpler in her time. The grocers smiled. The bag boy was that nice young man from down the block, you know, the Thompson boy. Cigarettes didn’t cause cancer. Simpler times. Anyway, the disgruntled teenage cashier makes his way over to our checkout for the 80th time and sees that she wants to pay with a check. He consults the employee hand book then process the check. She’s done. I realize I left my wallet at home and curse the day I was born.

Employees complaining about working/ telling me they “only have 30 more minutes” then they’re out of here:
Dude I don’t want to hear it. I know you’re not proud of your job. I don’t care. I need you to do this job, and get paid crap for it, so I can buy my candy cigarettes and triple A batteries for 35 cents. And besides, making fake conversation with the Wal-Mart employees is hard enough, now you’ve gone ahead and made it even more awkward by getting all emotional on me. What do you want me to say? “Thirty minutes huh? When you get off we should totally hang out?” No. What I feel like saying is “Thirty minutes huh? You know, I would be just as happy if you never had to work and you were all replaced by express checkouts. At least then I would never have to talk to you.” It’s not that I don’t like them. It’s that I absolutely hate trying to carry on a fake conversation. I’m not really interested. There just isn’t much to say when you run into someone at Wal-Mart. Everyone is there for the same reason: cheap junk. The couple times I’ve run into people at Wal-Mart and maybe actually had something to say to them, (when I was driving around in a electric cart with walking casts on both of my legs, or when I was buying a puzzle at 2:30 on a Thursday morning) I still didn’t want to talk. Something about Wal-Mart just sucks the life out of you. I understand you, complaining employee. You hate this place and just want to get out of here as fast as you can, me too, that’s why I don’t want to talk to you.

Boxes that are mangled beyond recognition:
It never fails. If I need to buy something “important” from Wal-Mart, a fan, maybe a small camping grill, or a waffle iron, every box on the shelf appears to have been torn apart by wolverines then tapped back together by a troop of chimpanzees. You can never trust these packages. There’s always a crucial piece of the innards missing. It’s too easy to steal from Wal-Mart, that’s way. They don’t care. You can buy a waffle iron, take it home, rip apart the box, take out the waffle iron, stuff all the foam and plastic back into the box, take back the box filled with just foam and plastic, and they’ll give you your money back. Then I come along, wanting a waffle iron and what I end up getting is an empty box. I buy the mangled box because a) it’s the only choice I have and b) the guy up front tells me some lie about how this wasn’t a returned item it’s just shipped in a special way. It really flips my switch because now I have to make another trip back to Wal-Mart just to return this thing which means I’ll end up buying 25 dollars worth of crap because that’s what you do when you go to Wal-Mart. You intend on getting one little thing and you end up seeing the 5 dollar DVD section. You buy Rambo II. Then you buy some air freshener for your car. It’s only 87 cents. Then you sniff the scented candles for about a half an hour. After that you’re so high you can’t remember what you did, but when you get home the roof of your mouth is torn up from eating a box of sour IceBreakers and you’ve got a 3-pack of thong underwear you’re afraid to open.

The parking lots:
Parking lots are normally like a jungle; only the strong survive, but that sense of danger is heightened tenfold when you realize that 90% of the people in a Wal-Mart parking lot are NASCAR fans. So I’m driving down a lane. I know I’m going the right way because the “car butts” are point towards me. Then all of a sudden I’ve got Jeff Gordon in a Ford Windstar coming out of nowhere. He’s cutting through lanes, swerving around abandoned shopping carts. He doesn’t care which way the car butts are pointing. All J Gordon in a Ford Windstar sees is the white taillights of a car in slot meaning someone is about to pull out. And why is that all he sees? Because every inch of his rear and side windows are covered with NASCAR decals. He’s got a huge American flag flying from his antenna, he has a couple of those fake bullet holes slapped on the doors, and he’s even got gold ol’ Calvin pissin’ on a Chevy symbol too. So he slingshots off a Toyota Camry, clips the back tire of an Oldsmobile Auroa, sending it crashing into side wall, and takes the lead in the lane I’m in. What happens after all this excitement? We sit. Jeff Gordon in a Ford Windstar isn’t going anywhere until that car he saw, the car that started this all, backs out. But apparently someone in that car forgot to pick something up inside so the driver sits in the slot, geared in reverse, doesn’t take his foot off the break, and waits that way until that person gets back. We wait there 20 minutes. The person we’ve been waiting for finally returns with their waffle iron. I know what they’re plan for that waffle iron is. Bastards. Jeff Gordon in a Ford Windstar gets his precious spot. I circle around for a while. As I’m circling I come across another delay, same guy, different way of causing havoc in the parking lot. Jeff Gordon is no longer in a Ford Windstar now it’s Jeff Gordon walking down the middle of the lane. I pull up behind him. He has to know I’m there. He doesn’t stray from his set path down the middle of the lane. His wife is walking right next to him. I think she even looks back at me but she doesn’t budge. She doesn’t even tug on the sleeve of his 1985 letterman’s jacket to move him over. They eventually get inside and I eventually get my spot, but it’s back home, where I don’t have to deal with this mess.

THANKS

On Being Sick

When I become sick I suffer from more than the common physical symptoms (i.e. body aches, fever, runny nose, and congestion). I suffer from symptoms that affect the way I function and in ways these symptoms can become far more dangerous. While I am sick there is a separation of my mind from my physical surroundings. I am no longer an active participant in the world, rather a distanced observer, from my own little planet. On this planet, the normal rules of society do not apply and every day little things are mesmerizing. Spoken words are heard without comprehension, written word is seen without understanding, and the motions of my body are performed without thought.
Let’s discuss some of the situations I found myself in yesterday in order to shed more light on these non-physical symptoms. During class my professor spoke to a room full of nearly 100 students. All I could do to keep from falling out of my chair and curling up into the fetal position on the floor was to stare at the yellow words and the purple background that was projected onto the professor’s face as he passed in front of the screen which displayed his power point presentation. There were brief glimpses of reality as I would, after long periods of zoning out, realize that I hadn’t listened to single word the professor said and if I were to be called on I would have nothing to say. As this horrific possibility passed through my head I came to believe that what would happen if I were to be called on would be a swift projectile vomit followed by a collapse to the ground on which I would then violently seize. These thoughts passed as I eventually slipped back into my detached state, staring, without comprehension, at the words on my professor’s face.
As I said before, when I’m sick my actions are performed without thought. It is amazing how much of a day I can get through without trouble solely based on 23 years of muscle memory. And even if things don’t fully work out there is usually little consequence, like when I spent about a minute turning my key in the wrong mail box without realizing why it wouldn’t open. All of that is fine and dandy, but things become more dangerous during this “distanced observer” phase when crucial rules are not processed. I mean here, the rules of the road.
Driving home from Hy-Vee, where I purchased a gallon of Tropicana orange juice, two boxes of Kleenex tissue with lotion, and some Alka-Seltzer cold tabs, determined to beat this cold, I noticed a bug on the inside of my driver’s side window. I became very concerned for this bug so I rolled down my window a crack as to free it from my stuffy truck. The bug crawled up the window, up over the top of the window, and sat there, just barely over the edge of the window. He was in a position that would surely cause him to be crushed if I rolled the window back up, something I wanted to do in order to stop the cold air from blowing against my chapped nose and sore throat. I couldn’t role it up though because of my overwhelming concern for this bug’s happiness. I started to think that rolling the window down was a bad idea. As I began to pick up speed I could see the wind blowing his tiny little wings back while he struggled to hold on. It worried me that he could blow away and become lost, so far from his home, which I had now decided was my truck. I talked to the bug, telling him to hold on. “All we have to do is make it to a stop light and I’ll pull you back in,” I said. That wouldn’t work. He was losing strength, I could tell. I stuck my finger out the crack, wrapping it down the other side of the window. He was supposed to climb onto my finger and I would pull him back in the truck to safety. Instead, I knocked him loose and he blew away. I felt like pulling over the truck and crying. Pull over. Truck. I was driving. For the first time in about three quarters of a mile, I realized that I had been driving. No one was yelling at me from the other lanes and I saw no flashing lights. Apparently I snuck by without causing a serious accident. Still, that bug was gone, and for the first time that day, I felt truly sick.
THANKS

A Jackass Move

When I’m at a bar or in any other crowded situation I always feel as if I’m in the way of everyone there. I try to make myself as small as possible by concaving my chest, sucking in my stomach, and keeping my arms pinned flat either to my sides or, by dropping my shoulders, in front of me. It’s really a depressing position to be in, and despite my intentions of avoiding contact with others, allowing them to freely move about, I end up getting bounced around like a pin ball. To further demonstrate this phenomenon, let me describe a reoccurring situation. I am walking through a crowed bar with my friends. Because space is limited, we are walking in a single file line, trying to stay as close as possible. Sooner or later we come across another group of friends doing the same thing. If their group is trying to cross the bar, and our group is in the way, creating a sort of T-bone situation, their group will inevitably cross in front of me, separating me from the rest of the group. I can only assume that they choose to cut in front me because of the essence of total submissiveness that I exuberate through my body language. These situations and others like it make me feel very uncomfortable in bars, but I have recently come to terms with that. I decided that crowed bars are just not the place for me, and that is ok. But despite this enlightenment I still find myself at these bars on occasion. This is when things can go bad, as they did this last Saturday.
I was hanging out with some friends at a local bar. As the bar began to pick up business I began to grow increasingly uncomfortable. Eventually I heard the bouncer tell the bartender that they had reached “one-in-one-out,” the pinnacle of crowed bar scenarios. I knew the night was about to take a turn for the worse. I could sense it in the air. All it would take was a simple twist of fate, and like a Greek tragedy things would feel just right before they all came crashing down. So it happened. I see a friend of mine, who I hadn’t seen since high school, come in the bar, I caught her eye and we were both surprised to see each other. We exchanged a quick hug and began to go into small talk. It couldn’t have been more than 10 seconds of conversation before it all came crashing down. I’m still not sure how it happened, but it did and that’s really all that matters. Maybe I didn’t have full control of my body because of the anxiety I was feeling in the bar, or maybe I was just excited to talk with her, but somehow, while moving my arms around when I was talking, I managed to elbow her in the face. Hard. A solid swing that connected my pointy elbow squarely to her mouth. I didn’t know what to do and she was not impressed. I’m not sure if her lip swelled up, but I would assume it did. That was it. Now I’d be surprised if she’d be happy to see me in another four years.
THANKS

A YouTube Link

Here's a link to a video I made and put up on the greatest webpage ever made. The "Typical Day" post was nice, I'll be the first to admit that, but it lacked something... visuals. So here you go:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVrA6XathS8

So You Think You Can Dance?

For those of you who know me now as Kevin the man, I would like to share with you a bit of my dark and chilling past, a part of my life I call Kevin the Junior High-teen. It may shock many of you who have recently met me and have been swept off your feet by my charm and grace, but I, like many of you, was once an awkward pimply confidence lacking teenager. Before I could drive, I would stomp through the snow with my two left feet to the local junior high school where my voice cracked when called on in class and where talking to girls without sweating was harder than physical education. One experience in particular has seared a memory so troubling into my brain that I am just now, nearly 10 years later, overcoming its effects.
My first Junior High dance was going to be the most amazing night of my life. Nate and I prepared for this night since 6th grade when we had heard that “junior high chicks were hot and would put out”. (At this time we didn’t know what “put out” meant but we had heard older kids say it and thought it was cool.) This attitude and hope would carry with us throughout our educational years. As 9th graders we were eager to meet all the hot high school ladies who were no doubt just as excited to meet us, and as seniors we couldn’t wait to peruse about the scandalous college women we were bound to run into at all kinds of “Animal House-esq” parities the next year. So, the night of our first junior high dance I pulled out all the stops. Wearing my buttoned up short sleeved plaid shirt that my mom bought me from American Eagle and my best and lightest colored khaki shorts I made my way over to Nate’s. There we would cover every inch of ourselves with Tommy Hilfiger cologne. The ladies would love us. After Nate’s mom dropped us off at the school and she was out of site, I unbuttoned my American Eagle shirt and exposed the cutoff-t I had underneath. Sorry girls, resistance is futile. As the event progressed we saw some of the older kids dancing in a rather provocative manner. Now I had heard rumors of something called “grinding” but had never imagined it would look so awesome. A mess of hips and legs swirled around me. In my head I could hear Patrick Swayze telling me not to be afraid and to try this new kind of “dirty dancing”, but I was too scared. This was all too new and I had to wait it out. Slowly, one by one, my more outgoing friends found themselves on the dance floor with girls, grinding, and eventually it was just me, against the wall drowning my sorrows in a paper cup of Mt. Dew. I never wanted anything more in my whole life than to dance with someone like the 9th graders were. Finally, a girl friend of mine approached me, my heart raced along with the fast beat of the song. She asked me if I wanted to dance. It didn’t take much thinking; Swayze rang out in my mind. “Nobody buts baby in a corner”, and I walked onto the floor with her. With interlocking legs we began to dance, like the 9th graders were. I was so proud of myself for getting out on that floor and glad that I could help make the night of this special girl a little brighter by sharing some good old fashion dirty dancing with her. It was not me that was controlling my body, it was the music. My friend and I danced for what was apparently no more than 10 seconds before she stopped, took a step back and said to me, “you’re joking right?” Now it dawned on me what I had been doing during our short dance together. I was, to put it nicely, humping her leg, just moving my pelvis back and forth to the beat. I learned that night that that is not how you dance. I told her that I was joking. I wasn’t. I forced a laugh and walked away. Watching the older kids dance was a mess. I couldn’t tell what the hell they were doing and I was just trying my best. After that night I refused to dance for about 5 years. Even in college I would pass up opportunities to hang out with my friends and to spend time with crushes if I knew there was a chance that a dance floor would be involved.
This is not a tragedy though. This is a triumph. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, over the past couple years I have learned to overcome my fear of dancing only to share with the world some of the sickest moves ever seen. I now can dance in a crowded bar without fear of being laughed at, not just because I am confident that I am one of the best dancers this side of the muddy Miss but more importantly because I don’t care what the others think. All I need is a hot track and 2 square feet of floor and I will teach you a valuable lesson: Don’t take yourself so seriously.
THANKS.

Please enjoy:

A Typical Day

This is my typical day. In no way is this intended to be funny as my typical days are typically not funny.

8:20 - My phone alarm goes off. A piercing sound called "single tone 8". I reach out from the covers and hit some button that makes the sound go away. I roll over and shut my eyes.

8:22 - I wake up to the sensation of sand paper rubbing against my face. My first reaction is anger because I realize that this is Mo, my cat, who disrupted my sleep throughout the previous night by laying on my head or biting my back. As my thoughts become more clear I understand that I have slept past my alarm and that Mo has saved me from oversleeping my class. I thank Mo and feel proud to have a cat as smart as Lassie.

8:28 - I start to make breakfast. This morning it's a cheese omelet with hash browns, an apple and coffee. Mo claws at my leg during the whole process. The hash browns burn as I'm digging around in the refrigerator for the sliced ham which I decide is no longer fresh. (I had previously made a ham and cheese omelet with ham that was past it's expiration date. It tasted like alcohol. Now I am very paranoid about the freshness of my ham.) I throw out the ham.

8:35 - Breakfast is served. With enough pepper and ketchup I can make the hash browns taste good. I turn on the t.v. and watch MSNBC. Some jagoff is telling me about what Hilliry Clinton has to talk about at the Democratic National Convention. I hope she was watching.

8:43 - I wash the dishes and pans. Mo falls out of the window by pressing on the screen which is apparently not secured. I rush outside and find him sitting below the window, stunned. It was only a two foot fall, so he's fine.

9:00 - Shower, brush my teeth... shave? No, not today, or for the next 5 days.

9:24 - Getting dressed is an important part of my day now that I'm at law school. What I wear sends a message which can distinguish me from my fellow students. A gray t-shirt and jeans will do.

9:26 - Sit on the couch and relax. Mo chews on my toes.

9:30 - I leave for my first day of 9:40 class. It's about a three minute walk so I'll be there with plenty of time to get a good seat.

9:35 - I walk into class. There has to be a seat in there somewhere. Not paying attention to faces, only looking for that last empty spot I head to the back row and find it.

9:40-11:00 - Class begins. I'm the guy with the runny nose and no kleenex.

11:10 - I get home and watch some T.V. This is my first experience of watching John Hagee. He tells me that "Jesus wasn't no limp wristed peace lover," to make a point that he would support the war in Iraq. I don't know if it's his words or the thousands of people in his mega church nodding along with a smile, but I think I hate John Hagee.

11:25 - I make a turkey sandwich. The turkey is still fresh.

11:30-12:20 - T.V.

12:21 - I leave for class. This time I'm not making the same mistake. This time I'm getting a good spot.

12:30 - I get a good spot

12:40-3:10 - Class. I get to tell my story of how Evan and I went to a Bob Dylan concert with Richard the Hobo.

3:15-6:33 - Reading in the library. I'm pretty sure that the squeaks and rumbles coming from my stomach as it is still trying to digest my turkey sandwich are annoying everyone on the same floor.

6:45 - Supper. Mac a Roni and Cheese with peanut butter bread. Delicious.

7:07 - Surf the tubes. Mindlessly refresh and flip through facebook pages. I listen to the Johnny Cash "At Folsom Prison" album. He was pretty bad ass. I track my package. It's in Lexington.

7:55 - I play with Mo. He could chase that feathery yellow thing on the end of a stick all day. But I can't shake it as long. My arm gets tired.

8:06 - I watch some speeches on C-SPAN. No one actually present at the speech is paying attention. Some dude is taking pictures of his surroundings with a camera phone. Others are gathered in circles talking amongst themselves. I don't blame them. This lady sucks.

9:01 - I receive/send a text from/to Tim. Everything is running smoothly back home.

10:00 - The Daily Show

10:30 - The Colbert Report

10:35 - Not feeling it. I go to bed
THANKS

A Tireless Search

What makes the perfect campus bathroom? There are many factors that must be considered and only an expert on the issue, one who has dedicated a majority of their energies during their four years of college in pursuit of such an elusive, often believed to be mythical, entity, to properly answer this important question. Luckily for you I am that expert. For three years and one semester I scoured the campus of my institution for that illusive bathroom, and after three years and one semester I found such a bathroom, giving myself one full semester of blissful excretion. This is an issue that means a great deal to me. Having respectable stomach and digestive problems, it is of grave importance for me to find a quiet and peaceful place to call home for 10 minutes after lunch on campus. But, as grateful as I am to have found the perfect bathroom at my previous school I can’t emphasize enough how important the journey is. In everything you do, whether it’s paint a picture, run a marathon, or find the perfect public bathroom, the journey, the opportunity for growth and revelation should never be forgotten. It’s so easy to get lost in the search and to focus solely on the end product that you lose sight of what truly matters. I can’t tell you exactly what you’ll find on your quest, for no one path is the same, but I can tell you that if you keep an open mind along the way you’ll be rewarded with more than just a nice place to sit and pass the time. For me, a better understanding of human nature lay ahead of me. While experiencing as many bathrooms as I could it occurred to me that no matter what bathroom you use, whether it is the 1st floor library, 3rd floor library, basement of the Union, or the law building in another city, people will write stupid things on the walls. The random swear word is typical. Sometimes we get more creative and write a raunchy poem. We may get political stating that a particular candidate is a “fag”. I’m almost positive that if I were to visit a bathroom outside the court room of the United State Supreme Court I would be delighted to find that, “Sandra Day O’Connor was here”. This journey is so important to me that I have only shared with a select few the location of that special bathroom I had found at my previous institution.
But I digress. What makes a perfect restroom? For me traffic must be minimal, meaning that the chances of someone walking into the bathroom while I use it are low. I would say that if someone walks in on me 1 out of 30 times I happen to be using that bathroom then there is too much traffic and I must advance my search. The issue of automatic hand sanitation is a complicated one but one that can weigh quite heavily on my attitude towards a bathroom. Automatic sinks, a negative, automatic foam soap dispensers, a huge positive, automatic air dyers, huge negative, automatic paper towel dispensers, big positive, if, with one pass of my hand I am given an amount of paper that equals one and a half normal paper towels. Location is vital. A good centralized location, one which I can access easily in my ten minute break between class, can make all the difference. All of these things though can be just right and it still may not be the bathroom for you. You cannot underestimate the power of the “it” factor when selecting a washroom. If you don’t feel comfortable, if you don’t feel at home in this bathroom, then this is not a place where you will want to invest a large portion day. But after all is said and done, if your stomach is like mine and is the primary reason you embarked on this long and arduous search for the perfect bathroom, if the noises that come from your stall can be heard from even the most remote location, then the words “there’s no place like home” may ring truer than any phrase ever uttered before.
THANKS

A Predictable Disappointment

I, like many others, consider myself to be an amateur Big Foot hunter. I keep an eye out for him. Last week I was ecstatic to hear that a Big Foot had been found. If you hadn’t heard about this yet here is the short New York Times article dealing with this controversial issue:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/us/15bigfoot.html?scp=4&sq=big%20foot&st=cse
and here is a FoxNews report giving this story the time and recognition it truly deserves:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z76h6ltDh2c

The story goes that two Georgians (the American kind) who run a part time Big Foot tour through the woods of Georgia, found a Big Foot carcass and while removing the body from the woods they saw a couple more living Sasquatches closing in on them. This spotting was not rare as the two men have said to have seen hundreds of Big Foots while walking the Georgian woods. The picture that had been circulating around the internet was of the hairy carcass in a cooler on ice. Although the picture itself was not conclusive the two men along with Tom Biscard, a respectable scientist and world renowned Big Foot hunter, agreed to hold a press conference in which DNA evidence would be presented and once and for all prove the existence of a missing link between man and ape. Only a couple days were needed to prep the body.
Now, as a friend of mine put it, “how hard can it be to prove if it’s real? Cut it open and if it’s not full of packing peanuts then you’ve got an animal.” I agreed, it shouldn’t have been so hard to get to the bottom of this issue. Why was I putting my hopes and dreams into the hands of these backwoods crackpots?
Like all other Big Foot discoveries this too turned out to be a hoax:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/us/16brfs-BIGFOOTREMAI_BRF.html?scp=3&sq=big%20foot&st=cse
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/20/us/20brfs-001.html?_r=1&sq=big%20foot&st=cse&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&scp=1&adxnnlx=1219421109-CS9AuFlTakCaZydHBcMLnw

The body was mostly a mixture of rubber and animal parts. The DNA was a mixture of human and opossum. My heart was a mixture of broken and sadness. My life was a mixture of spiral and downward. I had wanted this so bad. If Big Foots were real it would have been so awesome to just punch one in the stomach or something. Now my only relief was that these fools, who were only interested in their own financial gain and not the radical scientific ramifications of such a creature, will not be ultimately credit for the biggest discovery since the polio vaccination. There were plenty of truly scientific things that could have been done with this body. The DNA could have been used to clone these hairy monsters which then could be hunted for fun, or because of their subpar human intelligence but exceptional animal intelligence, used as household servants. A Sasquatch in an apron baking cookies and tucking children into bed, haha, science is silly.
THANKS