It all started with an Oberon...

It all started with an Oberon in Bar Louie at 5pm last night. It all ended with me waking up on the floor of a kitchen in a house at MSU. I thought the exciting part of my night was over after throwing the TBP elections. (see below) But that was just the start. I went over to my buddy Rob's house and a few of us were sitting around drinking PBR's when at 11:30 we decided to go to State for the night, on a Tuesday, on a whim. By 11:45 we were on the road, and we were drinking at Bdubs by 12:45. A case of Bud Light Tall Boys later we were all passed out.

I can cross off spur of the moment, weekday, bad decision road trip from the list of things to do before I graduate college.

Brian Drinks Oberon, Throws TBP Elections

In keeping with the Boozeday Tuesday tradition of going to Bar Louie for beers and burgers I met Paul there today. Today was the first Oberon of the year for me, and my first legal Oberon. Actually it was my first and second Oberon. After a few burgers, a few beers, and a few laughs Paul talked me into going with him to the Tau Beta Pi meeting.

Tau Beta Pi is an engineering honor society which I clearly have no business being in. But they were having Chinese food and I had nothing better to do, so I went. It is surprisingly easy to get into a Tau Beta Pi meeting even on officer election night. Once I got comfortable I even started joining the discussion about candidates. I commented "I really like the way the website looks right now and I think Charles is doing a great job!" He won because of my comment. There were a few people there that knew me and knew that I wasn't in TBP. The highlight of the evening was when there was a tie and the person I voted for went on to win the second vote. She wouldn't have won if it hadn't been for me. After about an hour I got bored and left. I could have won the Graduate Coordinator position if I had stayed.

GEO Strikes! Wire the Pinkertons!

The GEO haven't chosen to strike, only to hold a 2 day walkout in order to show how the University cannot function without them. This comes as GEO is asking for a 9 percent wage increase. I personally feel that giving graduate students free tuition in exchange for teaching a class seems reasonably fair. The University couldn't function without the relatively low cost work that GSI's do. I don't know how much GSI's have to work in a given week or what they make per hour. Whether or not they deserve a pay increase is not the point. The point is that the entire walkout only hurts students. I don't know the details of how the GSI system works or what their payment is like but I'll just pretend I do. I could be very wrong.

Although I have never taken a class, I consider game theory a hobby of mine. I have produced a payoff matrix for both sides. The numbers are arbitrary but show how each outcome might be perceived by each side (I think). Each side is really only interested in themselves. The first number is the University's score, the second is the GEO score. The higher the number the better.

		GEO
		Soft	Medium	Hard
U of M	Soft	Not Probable	GEO gets what it wants 2,8	GEO really gets what it wants 0,10
	Medium	Not Probable	Compromise 5,5	GEO walks out, Michigan Caves; 2, 7
	Hard	Not Probable	GEO walks out then caves; 6,2	Strike -3, -3

The GEO appears to have come hard to the table by demanding a 9% increase, it is clear that they won't play soft. The University countered with 3% which leads me to believe that they are playing medium to hard ball. If the University knows that GEO is playing hardball they should play medium ball for the best results.

The point is that if the GEO really wants these raises and is willing to strike for them, eventually the University will have to cave because - and I love this - when GEO strikes they still get to go to class. The University doesn't stop teaching grad courses even when the GEO is on strike. So, in essence since they get paid with tuition they are still getting paid, in a way. There is one aspect of this that isn't included in the chart, the University won't lose any revenue during a walk out. I am not getting a tuition reimbursement during this. There state and federal funding will continue. This is one of the things that really bothers me about this.

GSI's don't have to go to work, the University runs as normal, and who loses? The students. An out of state student taking 16 credit hours pays $130 per credit hour per week [33,500$/(16 weeks * 16 hours per week)]. Yeah, every time an out of state student misses a 2 hour lecture they are throwing away $260 of knowledge in a roundabout kind of way. So when my classes are canceled I am getting less education but still paying the same amount. It bothers me that I am going to learn less because the GSI feel they aren't being paid enough.

When GSI's take away from class time to explain why they are striking I get so angry. I don't care about their problems. Every one has problems, they shouldn't waste my time because they feel they deserve more money. I don't pay tuition to listen to them complain. Plus, if they do get the pay increases guess who subsidizes it. The students tuition. I cannot stand a GSI taking away from class time to try to get me to support the idea that they should get paid more at my expense.

From the Archives

I was going through some of my old Gmail's and came across the paper I had to write to Mike "Webcam" Schryer for when I got caught drinking in the dorms freshmen year. It looks like I didn't want to indite any of my friends by naming them. It's a bit of a throwback to freshmen year but I really like the last paragraph.

My Alcohol Experience

The weekend of January 24^th was one of the defining weekends of this semester, so far at least. I made some bad decisions and as a result faced punishments. But that same weekend I made new friends and got closer to people I had barely known. Almost a month later looking back on that weekend, the amount I regret is far smaller then the amount I am glad I experienced.

The weekend started out like any other weekend. I was done with class at 11:30 on Friday and had no plans for the weekend. This left me with 2 and a half days to screw around, and after a hard week that was exactly what I planned to do. My neighbor told me that he was having some high school girls up for Friday night and we were supposed to show them a good time. So my neighbor, his friends, his roommate and I start drinking in dorms early that evening before we headed out to a fraternity. On the way we ran into one of my friends and convinced him to join us. It was a great night, just hanging out and drinking free beer paid for by frat boys. We came back all better friends then when we had left. It was late and I decided to retire back to my room to go to bed after I realized that a hookup chance was remote. I was in my room and decided to clean up a little before I went bed. So I went to the bathroom to empty out a nearly full beer that had been in my room. As I went into the bathroom I was caught by a DPS officer and was cited. Because of my fascination with the police show COPS I managed to get myself out of a MIP.

The next day was spent lounging around the dorms until around 5 PM when I got a call from one of my friends who I am living with next year. He told me that most of my future roommates were going out and invited me to come with him. He also had a girl from home up for the weekend. We planned on going to a house party but on the way we decided to stop by West Quad to pick up some people. We went to a room and I saw two people I had classes with last semester. I hadn’t really talked to them much, but I started to, and I now know them much better. I also met the owner of the room, who I now see quite a bit and hadn’t known before this night. We had only been in the room for a few minutes when we heard a knock on the door, and outside was an RA and a DPS officer. So for the second time in less then 24 hours I surrendered my Mcard to a DPS officer’s notebook. So with that incident behind us, we went out to a party down the street. Although I didn’t know whose house it was, I saw so many people that I knew there, I could have sworn it was my own party. I saw people from my calculus math group from the previous term and people that I hadn’t seen in months. It was one of the best parties I have been to. My friend and I then decided to head down the street to another party, and realized that the party we were going to was at the house that we had leased for next year. We went inside and actually got to meet the people that were currently living in the house. I was really cool to see our house and the people that reside there. As the party was winding down, we left and went to the BOX house where we know the people that live there. They were having a few people over and we hung out there and eventually passed out there. Then next morning we woke up and had to take the long walk back to Markley. As we taking our walk of shame we discussed all the events of the previous night, and how much fun we had. The write up by DPS was only a small negative to the great night just happened.

Of course the inevitable happened, I receive a letter and an e-mail about my two run-ins with DPS. I figured it would be a small price to pay for the great weekend I had just had. I wasn’t quite sure the sort of trouble I would be in for two write ups in less then 24 hours, but I didn’t think it would be good. I showed up for the meeting and was punished in the manner that I was expected. I had been told that I would probably have to do an online course and maybe make a poster. I wasn’t to keen on the poster idea and was relieved when I found out that I only had to do a two page paper and an online course.

I took the course and thought that it was a good course on alcohol awareness. I found I learned things about alcohol that I didn’t know, or I thought were only myth. Although the program was educational it didn’t make me feel like what I had done was wrong. I had already known most of the facts that they threw at me and so I didn’t have too much trouble taking the test to pass the course. It seemed like a bit of a waste of time, but if it was necessary to get this over with I was willing to do it.

That left only this paper, which is great because it gave me a chance to reflect on the events, and to look at them from a hindsight perspective. I was able to see how these write ups affected my actions and behaviors. What I realized is that these experiences really haven’t changed behavior. I am smarter when I drink in the dorms, but I still drink just as frequently. Now when I drink I am always sure my door in closed and that there aren’t DPS officers in the hallway when I am outside my room with alcohol. These write ups showed that there are consequences for my actions but the consequences are sometimes worth the rewards. The rewards of going out and making friends are in my opinion what college is all about. I could stay in every night and never drink, but I can barely imagine what my college experience would be like without going out to parties and meeting new people. In the words of the great South Park character Chef “There is a time and a place for everything, it's called college.”

Brian starts another blog!

I have started a second blog dedicated to two of my favorite things.

You can check it out here.

I could probably add Ad's to it to generate some monies but you jerks don't click the ads on this site so its probably useless.

Enjoy!

Brian Writes A Letter to the Editor

Today was my first communication with The Daily since the crossword war of 2007. I wrote the editor in response to this article in The Daily. Surprisingly it wasn't The Daily I took issue with, it was the landlords off Ann Arbor. They only allow three hundred words but I would have liked to have put in more. Here it is:

I would like to respond to yesterday’s article on the planned apartment building at S. University and S. Forest. It appears that most of the “more than a dozen” people that spoke against it were landlords. Of course they are against it, as long as they can get away with charging exorbitant amounts of money for sub-standard housing why wouldn’t they be?

Why should they care if there is enough demand to fill the proposed apartment complex? All that would equate to is cheaper rent and the more affordable housing they themselves seem to falsely desire. The notion that “The University is not adding 1,400 people to enrollment just so these people can fill up University Village, It will come from rental properties that constitute the neighborhoods stretching down State and Hill and other streets.” What, supply and demand? Competition? By the way, enrollment for Fall07 was up over a thousand students from Fall06. While at the same time no new large-scale housing projects were completed.

Personally from the large number of BMW’s I see around campus and the parents paying $50,000 a year to send their kids to school I think there is a demand for nice housing close to campus.

Last year residents were complaining that students were moving too far south down State Street and now when a practical solution comes along they call it “absurd.” What is absurd is that one of their major concerns is the pizza delivery. Yeah, cancel the project because of the unsolvable pizza delivery problem.

This building would only make Ann Arbor a better place. Perhaps if built, this project would give landlords incentive to improve their properties or stop charging such heinous rent.

Brian Russell
Engineering Junior

P.S. There are 3 pizza places within 2 blocks of the site.

Brian Plays IM Volleyball, Loses

I got the chance to play IM volleyball tonight for a friends team. I had just gotten back from Bar Louie (yes I am making it a weekly thing) when she asked me to play. So I went to show them what 2 Lahser High School Independent Sports Volleyball Unit Championships looked like. Apparently the skill level of the other team was beyond the LHSISVUC level of play because we got smoked. Maybe it was because the other team was made up of members of the Women's Basketball Team. They had Krista Phillips on their team. She plays center for the Wolverines and is listed at 6'6. She easily weighs 2 bills. The highlight of the night was me going up for a play at the net against Krista Phillips and coming out on top. I out powered Krista Phillips.

Brian Fights Cancer/is an Asshole

I was walking through the Dude yesterday and Students Against Cancer were selling cookies to fight cancer. You know an Anti-Cancer Bake Sale, that old bag. The person selling cookies was asking people if they would like to buy one. The person in front of me said "Sorry I gave up cookies for lent". The seller then turned to me. Before they could ask I stuttered "Sorry, I gave up charity for lent". I won't forget the look on that kid's face as long as I live.

I told that story to James Paulson when I got to my next class and I guess a girl overheard it because when I was walking back through the Dude she turns to me and says - this is the only thing she has ever said to me - "So are you going to buy a cookie?" Of course I obliged and it was delicious. But don't tell those kids in University Student For Cancer, they still think I'm on their side.

March Mustache Madness

Tonight is the beginning of the first annual March Mustache Madness NCAA Tournament. The rules are fair, the regulations are fair, the competitive balance is fair. It is a 10 dollar buy in between the menfolk of our house and a few friends. Half of the buy in will go to the person with the best overall bracket. The other half will go to the winner of the mustache competition. Each person will have to pick a mustache team and will not be able to shave as long as their team is still in the tournament. The person with the mustache the longest will win the other half the bet. Some rules:

-Your last shave should be Selection Sunday.
-You must shave all non-stache facial hair at least every other day
-$10 entrance fee
-Winner take all in each category ($50 for the Stache, $50 for the Bracket)

Feel free to start your own mustache brackets.

Stadium Renvations, they really are that bad.

Earlier in the year I wrote a post called "Stadium Renovations, are they really that Bad?". Don't bother looking for it, it somehow got deleted before I could publish it. The gist of it was that while imperfect, the renovations would be good for the stadium, and look pretty cool.

Well a few thing have come up since then and I am not so sure that the goodness of the future outweighs the shittyness of right now. READ, READ. This isn't cool. This comes right after the fiasco of planning graduation at EMU because the administration didn't realize that the stadium would be under construction when they approved for the stadium to undergo construction.

I might be a whiny bastard, but I don't want to be part of the second largest crowd watching a football game anywhere in America. I was never informed of why the stadium needed to undergo renovations in the first place. Sure the women had to wait to pee, be it had been that way for a long time (and the way it should be). I don't know why the university would need to spend 226 million to put in luxury boxes while there are over 10,000 people on the waiting list for season tickets.

Here is my real issue. I don't know why the wheelchair bound can't sit in the bleachers with everyone else. I would never imagine someone who has to sit all day complaining about the lack of seating in a stadium with 107 thousand seats. I don't expect to drive my car into the stadium because I can't be bothered to get out and sit with everyone else. (Probably because I don't have a car, otherwise that would be a great idea) From a utilitarianism point of view, Michigan is morally obligated to maximize the happiness of the most people. So telling 12 or 13 people they can't watch the game because 1 handicapped person wants to see it would have John Stuart Mill rolling in his grave. I don't know why they think they deserve there own seating space, super fat people don't get their own sections of the stadium. They should amend prop 2 so that preferential treatment isn't given to people just because they take up the space of 12 people.



If they had never decided to renovate the stadium in the first place, graduation would still be at the Big House and Michigan would still be home to the largest single sport stadium in the world. I wonder if the regents had foreseen all of this if they still would have voted for it.

Meet me at Bar Louie?

It is still the first week that I am 21, so today I decided to check out Bar Louie. The chain opened up shop in the McKinley Towne Centre (NOT town center that's too proletariat not bourgeoisie enough) at the corner of Division and Liberty last July.

It was Boozeday Tuesday and I had heard they have great specials. I called my buddy Evan when I got out of class at 4:30 and got there right in time for happy hour. It's a pretty cool place, 40 beers on tap, plasma tv's and decent music. There were a few college kids, a few young professionals and a few townies. I was really right about the specials too. $2 pints of almost everything on tap and $1 hamburgers. They're big burgers but its pretty much 50 cents for everything past meat, bread and lettuce. For under $9 I had a Newcastle, Stella, Abita Purple Haze (first time I had ever had it) and a bacon-cheeseburger.

I'm thinking about making this a weekly event. See you next Tuesday.

Thank God I'm Alive

I saw Mike Barwis on State Street. It was the scariest thing that has happened to me since I got between Jibba Jabba and an empty beer can.

For those who don't know, Mike Barwis is the new strength and conditioning coach at Michigan and he has the ability to scare the shit out of me. I was looking to see if it was really him, but your never supposed to look directly into Mike Barwis' eyes, he sees it as a sign of aggression. This man is pure terror. Apparently in addition to calling every male athlete "Stallion" he fights MMA. It would be a toss up between him and Kimbo Slice. This is what a former Wrestler for WVU said about him:

My first interaction with Barwis was on the first day of wrestling practice when he called all the freshman and first-year wrestlers into the training room, locked the door, and gave us a 20 minute tongue-lashing. The most memorable part: "I'm not your friend. If you see me on campus, don't smile at me. Don't nod at me. You're meat. You exist for the upperclassmen to beat on." After his "motivational speech," he walked out, slammed the door, and left a room full of silent athletes wondering What did I just get myself into? I think one kid was crying. We went from there to our first workout. No less than 5 kids quit during warm-ups that day.

He was even able to keep Pacman Jones out of trouble at WVU. He got in the face of some kid at open tryouts:

What I can vouch for is that Barwis is amazing. His presence is absolutely terrifying, he's so incredibly motivating that even in the brief time I was there I would have done absolutely any drill he made me do as hard as I could. He's a very, very special coach - you want to do exactly as he says because you're so very sure that it'll make you better. During the suicides that we did at the end, he singled me out because I was lagging and screamed at me; I've never willed my body to go faster ever in my life. Awesome.

Not awesome. So there I was, looking directly at Mike Barwis, too scared to move, knowing there was no place to flee. I immediately took a left and walked right into the street preferring to get hit by a car than by Mike Barwis. I then ran three blocks home, knowing at any second I could be dead. I have no doubt that I am lucky to be alive right now, and even luckier to have gotten so close and escaped.

3 Worst Uniqnames

ANAL@umich.edu - Ana Licerda
Don't need to explain why having your uniquename be anal could be taken the wrong way.

BROHEAT@umich.edu - Heather Bromand
I work with her and every time she sends an email I think it's from the furnace at ADPhi.

BJAMESS@umich.edu - Brendon J Schwartz
Its clear B-James-S. It's his first initial followed by his middle name, and the first initial of his last name. But not when you read it BJ-A-Mess. Every time this shows up in my inbox I crack up about the messy BJ.

Quickie Burger: Outlook Good

Without the competent workforce of Dlowe, Tubbys closed down at the end of fall semester. It was probably for the best, seeing as there are 7 other places that sell subs at the Hill-State-Packard area. It is being replaced by this:


Yes, it's a cleavage laden blond holding a stein of beer while her other hand grasps the reins to the burger she is riding bareback while condiments spew out the rear. That is awesome.

P.S. It looks like she has the boots with the *Spur*
I kill myself sometimes.

I've decided to Blog More

I think I am going to start posting multi-day posts. This means that post might be shorter, quicker and not so much content based. Think more zwarlick. Only not so much with the non sequiturs.

In my horrendous effort to spell non-sequitur I typed seqwitier, and the built in spell checkers first suggestion was "frontiersman". That's terrible.

You only turn 21 twice

Over the roughly 26 hours that I was turning 21

I can't believe I remember this...
1 Busch
2 Natty Lite
3 Busch
4 Natty Lite
5 Jagerbomb
6 Bacardi 151
7 Sam Adams
8 SoCo and Lime
9 Mystery Shot
10 Miller Light
11 Wild Turkey
12-13 Labatts Deuce Deuce
14 Natty Light
15-16 Rouge Pilsner Deuce Deuce
17 Acid Rain
18 Hairy Gorilla Fart
19 Liquid Cocaine
20 Green Beret
21 Honey Brown
22 Muff Diver
23 Cement Mixer
24 Honey Brown
25 Tequila Shot
26 Dos Equis

I am all that is man/all that is very hungover and in explicitly awake at 7 am.