Last night Evan and I decided to go cougar hunting on Main Street. It's a Tuesday night but whatever. So we head over to Melange, a basement "bistro wine bar". The place is dead, but they do have a DJ. We stay for a few drinks and try to break into a bachelorette party. Sidenote: Who has a bachelorette party on a Tuesday? So that doesn't go to well, and by not going to well, I mean the entire party leaves. We're guessing (trying to convince ourselves) that they were leaving anyways, so we leave too.
We try to head over to Live at Pj's but it, Cavern Club and Circus are all closed. The only bar that is open over there is 8 Ball. I'm in jeans and a buttondown, Evan is in a shirt and tie. We don't really fit in, but we do slam a couple of 1$ PBR's bottles. We've still only spent probably 2 minutes talking to girls. But we leave for Monkey Bar and sit at the bar. I'm now drunk. Evan makes his move on 2 girls in their mid twenty's at the end of the bar. We move down and learn a little bit about them. I spend 45 talking to this girl, realizing that she has a 3 year old son, and a DUI, and isn't drinking and lives in Jackson. She's a real winner. The other girl though had a BF. Now I'm really drunk. At some point she mentions Iowa. I say "Iowa's fucking awesome." She says, "Iowa sucks". I say "Fuck You! Iowa Rules." Then they leave.
Evan and I head over to Fleetwood for some food and then grab a cab home, with no trophy's to mount from our hunt, only a bad case of the greasy Fleetwood Hippie Hash farts.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Time Zones
Ya know what really dunks my donut? When times zones are unrepresentative of people sleep habits. I mean really. It's like the bane of my existence.
It's like this, people don't go to bed when the sun sets, and they don't get up when the sun rises. Without Daylight Savings Time, the sun would rise at 5am and set at 8:15pm in June. In January the sun rises at 8 am and sets at 5:30 pm. Sure maybe half the population is awake at 8am but no one goes to bed at 5:30. That's dumb.
This is a chart of the percent of people awake at any given time of day for Ann Arbor Michigan. I made it using my best estimate of when people go to bed and wake up. The blue box is the sunlight times in summer with DST, so it is shifted over an hour.
My point is that the box should be put in the center of people's day. The boxes should be centered around 2pm. And why don't we observe DST all year round? Does anyone really like the sun setting at 5pm? Why not have the sun rise at like 9am and set at 6pm.
Furthermore, I live on the western edge of my time zone so people on the east coast have the sun rise at 7:15 am and set at 4:30 pm in the winter. Even with daylight savings time the sun rises at 5:30 am in June.
I feel like I'm the only person who cares about this. Everyone I try to explain this to doesn't think it's a big deal. But even Venezuela decided to change it's time zones by 30 minutes to fit peoples lives better, and if Chavez can do it why can't we?
It's like this, people don't go to bed when the sun sets, and they don't get up when the sun rises. Without Daylight Savings Time, the sun would rise at 5am and set at 8:15pm in June. In January the sun rises at 8 am and sets at 5:30 pm. Sure maybe half the population is awake at 8am but no one goes to bed at 5:30. That's dumb.
This is a chart of the percent of people awake at any given time of day for Ann Arbor Michigan. I made it using my best estimate of when people go to bed and wake up. The blue box is the sunlight times in summer with DST, so it is shifted over an hour.My point is that the box should be put in the center of people's day. The boxes should be centered around 2pm. And why don't we observe DST all year round? Does anyone really like the sun setting at 5pm? Why not have the sun rise at like 9am and set at 6pm.
Furthermore, I live on the western edge of my time zone so people on the east coast have the sun rise at 7:15 am and set at 4:30 pm in the winter. Even with daylight savings time the sun rises at 5:30 am in June.
I feel like I'm the only person who cares about this. Everyone I try to explain this to doesn't think it's a big deal. But even Venezuela decided to change it's time zones by 30 minutes to fit peoples lives better, and if Chavez can do it why can't we?
Monday, December 22, 2008
Dutch > Belgian
The Dutch have given so much to our lexicon:
Going Dutch
Double Dutch
Dutch Oven
Dutch Rudder
Dutch Wife
Flying Dutchman
Belgium not so much:
Belgian Waffles
Going Dutch
Double Dutch
Dutch Oven
Dutch Rudder
Dutch Wife
Flying Dutchman
Belgium not so much:
Belgian Waffles
Monday, December 15, 2008
Brian Writes an E-mail
A couple of weeks ago I got an email urging student to pass on things about North Campus that bother them. They had some sort of feedback committee that would review them or something. Well, there are many things that annoy me about North Campus so I decided to email him back with one of my complaints.
Subject: Climbing stairs really ticks my clock!
Hi,
You know what really gets my goat about north campus? When you walk between the Laurie building and the north campus diag you have to walk down a flight of stairs and then almost immediately up another flight of stairs, talk about busting my butt! And what really frosts my balls about the whole situation is that it looks like such a straight shot over to the walkway on the other side. There should be a bridge, fallen timber or zipline so that I don't have to walk down the stairs and then right back up.
It's just something that really grinds my gears. I've attached a picture to illustrate how much this chaps my ass.
Brian
He then actually responded that they would discuss it at their next meeting. I'm not holding out much hope for any improvement though.
Subject: Climbing stairs really ticks my clock!
Hi,
You know what really gets my goat about north campus? When you walk between the Laurie building and the north campus diag you have to walk down a flight of stairs and then almost immediately up another flight of stairs, talk about busting my butt! And what really frosts my balls about the whole situation is that it looks like such a straight shot over to the walkway on the other side. There should be a bridge, fallen timber or zipline so that I don't have to walk down the stairs and then right back up.
It's just something that really grinds my gears. I've attached a picture to illustrate how much this chaps my ass.
Brian
He then actually responded that they would discuss it at their next meeting. I'm not holding out much hope for any improvement though.
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Brian Slams Poetry
This morning I was on the bus to North Campus for a class I didn't realize was optional, when I saw an advertisement for a Poetry Slam in the Union that was taking place tonight. Something about the words Poetry Slam just make me laugh. I had to go.
I floated the idea to my roommates over a CIAYCELB (Cottage Inn All You Can Eat Lunch Buffet). They sounded intrigued. The plan was to slam some beers, slam some poetry, and then come home and slam some poetry girls. When I got home at 5 they had already started part one. They were three hours into part 1, and it was 4 hours before the slam. I went to my room to write my words. Writing poetry is hard, especially when words only seem to rhyme with dirty words.
When we got there we were surprised by a $3 cover charge. I actually paid for my roommates to watch me slam. We were there about a half hour early. My roommate Brick was ridiculously intoxicated. People were pointing at him, most likely because he kept pulling a flask out of his pajama pants and doing straight pulls. With the impending doom of him getting kicked out of a poetry slam we sent him home.
Finally my time came. People would hear my song. I got on stage and just let the flow take me over. But I didn't have my poem memorized and I stuttered a lot. But this is what came out.
I was supposed to say "Respect" and walk off stage, but I was as little to nervous. I don't think anyone quite got how my love of the McRib was like that of a returning ex-girlfriend, most thought it was about rape or something. Needless to say there was no slamming of poetry girls. Whatever, now I've slammed poetry and you can never take that away from me.
I floated the idea to my roommates over a CIAYCELB (Cottage Inn All You Can Eat Lunch Buffet). They sounded intrigued. The plan was to slam some beers, slam some poetry, and then come home and slam some poetry girls. When I got home at 5 they had already started part one. They were three hours into part 1, and it was 4 hours before the slam. I went to my room to write my words. Writing poetry is hard, especially when words only seem to rhyme with dirty words.
When we got there we were surprised by a $3 cover charge. I actually paid for my roommates to watch me slam. We were there about a half hour early. My roommate Brick was ridiculously intoxicated. People were pointing at him, most likely because he kept pulling a flask out of his pajama pants and doing straight pulls. With the impending doom of him getting kicked out of a poetry slam we sent him home.
Finally my time came. People would hear my song. I got on stage and just let the flow take me over. But I didn't have my poem memorized and I stuttered a lot. But this is what came out.
A Farewell Tour? Hardly
You're just back for a short time
for how long you won't say
Just a ploy to get my dollar
Trick me into falling for you again
I spent so long loving you
But you just left a hickory taste in my mouth
You've done this before
You've toyed with me
You've led me on
I don't care that you said you were a limited time offer
What you did left me hungry
And that hurt the most
I've waited for your smell
I've longed for you taste
Your soft outsides and meaty insides
This time I won't lose you
I'll make the most of our time together
You will always have a place in my stomach
The third and final McRib farewell tour.
I was supposed to say "Respect" and walk off stage, but I was as little to nervous. I don't think anyone quite got how my love of the McRib was like that of a returning ex-girlfriend, most thought it was about rape or something. Needless to say there was no slamming of poetry girls. Whatever, now I've slammed poetry and you can never take that away from me.
Monday, December 1, 2008
The Greatest College Football Tour Ever
Together Mark and I did the the greatest college football tour for two broke college kids. It took us to 11 games in 5 states. We saw 15 teams, a Heisman winner, a #1 team, and 3 interstate rivals. We went 4,300 miles and drove through 9 different states. We saw teams from 5 different conferences. We watched games in the 3 biggest stadiums in the country (and number 10). There were nine weekends in a row that I was at a football game. The games weren't always memorable, in fact they were mostly terrible, but the trips I will never forget.
This weekend was the end of the tour. We drove down to Tuscaloosa, AL for the Iron Bowl. Alabama-Auburn is widely considered the second best rivalry in the nation after Michigan-Ohio State. Mark used to worked with a kid named Josh who goes to Bama, and he managed to find us tickets. Mark came home with me for Thanksgiving and the morning after we left at 6:30 to drive all day. Since gas in so cheap right now the entire drive down cost $60.
We made it to Tuscaloosa early that night and Josh had some of his friends up from Auburn. We got to the drinking early and he had a room entirely decked out in Bama gear, it was pretty crazy. We sat around for a few hours with long necks of Bud Light and told stories. One of the kids from Auburn told some hilarious stories. We decided to go out around 10:30. We went to a house to pre-game, it was the usual $5 a cup deal that always catches me a little by surprise because I'm so not used to it. We then went over to a frat. All the frats at Alabama look exactly the same which kinda sucks because it is usually cool to the different types of frat houses but theirs are all brick with white columns and black shutters. The frat we went to was U-shaped and had a courtyard in the middle. One thing I've picked up on from the SEC is that there is always live music. They had a room about the size of a volleyball court that had the band in it, and about 250 people inside. We had to schmooze some of the brosefs to get a beer because everything is BYOB down there. The band was a cover band that played mostly Van Halen, AC/DC, Bon Jovi and rock. Mark climbed up on the rafters, hung upside down from his knees and chugged a beer. That was very cool, and it got ever more awesome when the band played Sweet Home Alabama.
The next morning we woke up and got ready for game day. The weather was 60 and drizzling, so of course Mark and I wore shorts and a T-Shirt. Thankfully the light rain kept us cool. We both got some Bama gear because like normal, I brought 5 Michigan shirts for a 3 day trip. It's always lame to wear a shirt of a school that isn't playing that day, and we let the guy in the Ohio State gear know it. We got some southern Bar-B-Que sammiches and went to the stadium. It should be noted that like most SEC schools tailgating is limited to food and not chugging as much beer as humanly possible. I've been told that it is because of tradition or the football teams being good enough that people actually want to watch them but I think I finally figured part of it out, at least for Alabama, the student seating is done by first come first serve general admission. So the students all arrive to the game a few hours before kickoff. Since Josh is a huge fan, and by huge I mean that he hasn't missed a home or away game in over 3 years, we got there when the gates opened. But it is also tradition for Mark and I to tailgate before the game, so on the way we bought a 10 pack of Jim Beam single shots and snuck them into the game. We bought a couple of cokes and did the bulk of our tailgating at our seats in row 15 on the ten yard line.
The student section is mostly full by the about an hour before kickoff. Also, all the Greeks sit together separate from the rest of the student body, which is weird.
The stadium rocked. It only furthered my belief that every college football stadium should have a sound system. Now I've never heard Jump Around at Camp Randall, but I have heard Hey Baby in Beaver Stadium, Dixieland Delight in Neyland and Sweet Home Alabama in Jordan-Hare and although I like the band, you can't beat a sound system to pump up the fans. The entire lower bowl stood for the entire game alumni included. I was kinda hoping that Auburn would make a game out of it, but 'Bama just stomped them to end a 6 games losing streak to Auburn. Surprisingly the Auburn fan that we sat with didn't get as much shit as I would have expected, and once it got really bad in the 4th one of the Alabama fans gave him his flask because, well, he needed it. With about a minute left in the game I got to participate in the Rammer-Jammer cheer, which was tits. Even thought the game was over around the middle of the third quarter no one left the stadium for at least 20 minutes after the game.
We finally left and got some beer before going over to a house to watch the late games. Mark and I decided to split a case of Miller Lite. We grabbed some food along the way at a greasy dive pizza place. I tried to keep up with mark but he somehow got ahead of me. When we left to drive to downtown Tuscaloosa bars he was up 12-10. But we finished off the last two while riding in the back of a truck to bars that was being driven by a man who looked like he could have starred in 70's pornos. We got the the bars and the previous 11 beers didn't prevent me from taking Jaeger, Tequila and Soco + Lime shots. Of course the bar had a band, but I don't really remember a whole lot. I did manage to get down another beer before things got spotty. But my next memory is of me in the back of a cab covered in my own upchuck. Then I remember spewing chunks out the window of a cab. I think Mark payed him 3 times the meter price. We got home and Mark says I was throwing Haymakers at him as he was trying to get me to bed. But at least I didn't pee myself like I did in Knoxville.
Our goal was to leave at 7 or 8 the next morning for the drive back to Ann Arbor but we didn't wake up until 10. Thankfully Mark somehow was able to drive for 500 miles before I took over. The ride home took us 13 hours, and the entire trip was 23 hours of driving for 40 hours in Tuscaloosa. My only regret is that we didn't get to stop at Big Jim's Boobie Bungalow, I don't know the next time I will have that opportunity.
This weekend was the end of the tour. We drove down to Tuscaloosa, AL for the Iron Bowl. Alabama-Auburn is widely considered the second best rivalry in the nation after Michigan-Ohio State. Mark used to worked with a kid named Josh who goes to Bama, and he managed to find us tickets. Mark came home with me for Thanksgiving and the morning after we left at 6:30 to drive all day. Since gas in so cheap right now the entire drive down cost $60.
We made it to Tuscaloosa early that night and Josh had some of his friends up from Auburn. We got to the drinking early and he had a room entirely decked out in Bama gear, it was pretty crazy. We sat around for a few hours with long necks of Bud Light and told stories. One of the kids from Auburn told some hilarious stories. We decided to go out around 10:30. We went to a house to pre-game, it was the usual $5 a cup deal that always catches me a little by surprise because I'm so not used to it. We then went over to a frat. All the frats at Alabama look exactly the same which kinda sucks because it is usually cool to the different types of frat houses but theirs are all brick with white columns and black shutters. The frat we went to was U-shaped and had a courtyard in the middle. One thing I've picked up on from the SEC is that there is always live music. They had a room about the size of a volleyball court that had the band in it, and about 250 people inside. We had to schmooze some of the brosefs to get a beer because everything is BYOB down there. The band was a cover band that played mostly Van Halen, AC/DC, Bon Jovi and rock. Mark climbed up on the rafters, hung upside down from his knees and chugged a beer. That was very cool, and it got ever more awesome when the band played Sweet Home Alabama.
The next morning we woke up and got ready for game day. The weather was 60 and drizzling, so of course Mark and I wore shorts and a T-Shirt. Thankfully the light rain kept us cool. We both got some Bama gear because like normal, I brought 5 Michigan shirts for a 3 day trip. It's always lame to wear a shirt of a school that isn't playing that day, and we let the guy in the Ohio State gear know it. We got some southern Bar-B-Que sammiches and went to the stadium. It should be noted that like most SEC schools tailgating is limited to food and not chugging as much beer as humanly possible. I've been told that it is because of tradition or the football teams being good enough that people actually want to watch them but I think I finally figured part of it out, at least for Alabama, the student seating is done by first come first serve general admission. So the students all arrive to the game a few hours before kickoff. Since Josh is a huge fan, and by huge I mean that he hasn't missed a home or away game in over 3 years, we got there when the gates opened. But it is also tradition for Mark and I to tailgate before the game, so on the way we bought a 10 pack of Jim Beam single shots and snuck them into the game. We bought a couple of cokes and did the bulk of our tailgating at our seats in row 15 on the ten yard line.
The student section is mostly full by the about an hour before kickoff. Also, all the Greeks sit together separate from the rest of the student body, which is weird.The stadium rocked. It only furthered my belief that every college football stadium should have a sound system. Now I've never heard Jump Around at Camp Randall, but I have heard Hey Baby in Beaver Stadium, Dixieland Delight in Neyland and Sweet Home Alabama in Jordan-Hare and although I like the band, you can't beat a sound system to pump up the fans. The entire lower bowl stood for the entire game alumni included. I was kinda hoping that Auburn would make a game out of it, but 'Bama just stomped them to end a 6 games losing streak to Auburn. Surprisingly the Auburn fan that we sat with didn't get as much shit as I would have expected, and once it got really bad in the 4th one of the Alabama fans gave him his flask because, well, he needed it. With about a minute left in the game I got to participate in the Rammer-Jammer cheer, which was tits. Even thought the game was over around the middle of the third quarter no one left the stadium for at least 20 minutes after the game.
We finally left and got some beer before going over to a house to watch the late games. Mark and I decided to split a case of Miller Lite. We grabbed some food along the way at a greasy dive pizza place. I tried to keep up with mark but he somehow got ahead of me. When we left to drive to downtown Tuscaloosa bars he was up 12-10. But we finished off the last two while riding in the back of a truck to bars that was being driven by a man who looked like he could have starred in 70's pornos. We got the the bars and the previous 11 beers didn't prevent me from taking Jaeger, Tequila and Soco + Lime shots. Of course the bar had a band, but I don't really remember a whole lot. I did manage to get down another beer before things got spotty. But my next memory is of me in the back of a cab covered in my own upchuck. Then I remember spewing chunks out the window of a cab. I think Mark payed him 3 times the meter price. We got home and Mark says I was throwing Haymakers at him as he was trying to get me to bed. But at least I didn't pee myself like I did in Knoxville.
Our goal was to leave at 7 or 8 the next morning for the drive back to Ann Arbor but we didn't wake up until 10. Thankfully Mark somehow was able to drive for 500 miles before I took over. The ride home took us 13 hours, and the entire trip was 23 hours of driving for 40 hours in Tuscaloosa. My only regret is that we didn't get to stop at Big Jim's Boobie Bungalow, I don't know the next time I will have that opportunity.
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