Senoritis

Despite being a senior I still have some work, even for my blow-off classes.

This is the final slide of my team's presentation for our Inter-Group Dialog project about gender stereotypes in children's media. I like to spice things up.

Also I designed the background. Pretty sweet eh?

Second Spring Break

Second Spring Break. Week long Bender. 10 day weekend. College.
Call it what you will.

One week ago I crowded into Crisler Arena to watch where I would spend my next weekend. If the Michigan Basketball team was going to the NCAA tournament I was going to follow them. After 11 years without a bid, I was prepared to make the trip. With the fifth to last announced selection Michigan was placed in the Kansas City for the first two rounds.


I spent most of Monday getting work done for St. Patty's Day and this trip. I had to get out of work, reschedule some group meetings and get all of my homework done for the next 4 days.

Tuesday I got up, did Irish Car Bombs, snuck into Charlies, ate at Dominic's, turned in homework, chugged a forty, watched Beauty and the Beast and put a couch on my roof.

Wednesday we left for KC. The 7 of us that went split up into two cars. The car I was in drove out to Iowa City and went out for a night in the IC, the girls we stayed with had gone on our cruise during our spring break so it was only fair that we visited them during their spring break. There weren't too many people in town because it was their spring break but we still had a good time.

Thursday we got up early and drove to Kansas City. We stopped at the hotel and went down to the arena to tailgate for a few hours before the game. We got a spot that was about 100 meters from the Sprint Center where the games are and broke into a case of beer. We met up with our other friends and went down to see the Marching Band in a sort of pep rally. Right next to the Sprint Center in KC is the Power and Light district, which is basically an outdoor plaza that is surrounded by bars and restaurants and takes up a city block. Given that Missouri has some of the most lax alcohol laws in the nation, you can walk around inside with booze. It was a pretty cool place. I took/found some pictures.


I went to 10 basketball games this year. I paid to get into Duke, Illinois and Ohio State. I didn't buy season tickets because I knew they would make most of the games free. My 4 years of fandom was rewarded from the Athletic Department by refusing to sell me a ticket to the opening round game of the NCAA tournament because I didn't buy season tickets. I understand giving those who bought season tickets first dibs on tourney tickets, but then there should at least be a lottery among the student body for the remaining tickets. They didn't sell all of the tickets they received. Also, I love how the Athletic Department punishes the fans - who are willing to make the trip and follow their team - by charging a $10 surcharge on the ticket, and automatically making you purchase a second round ticket if they win. I guess Bill Martin has to make his cut. Enough ranting.

So we got good seats off of the internets and went berserk as Michigan won it's opening round game. The Sprint Center is a really nice place to watch a game and is 1,234 times better than Crisler Arena.

Since Michigan's second game wasn't until Saturday we had all day Friday off. We decided to grab some Pizza Hut Lunch Buffet and then go to a movie. The movie theater was in a Casino so after laughing our asses off to I Love you Man we went a gambled for a bit. Saturday night for dinner we went to Arthur Bryant's barbecue. It was in the ghetto, but it was delicious. We then went down to a country bar in the Power and Light District. They had a mechanical bull and was billed as "cowboy cool meets urban chic". Some drunk dude started talking shit about Michigan, and I was about ready to fight him when his sister (who I found out later had a 11 year old son) came over to calm him down. He apologized and bought me a shot of Patron, and then the sister decided to take my bottle of Miller Light and deepthroat it. I'm still not quite sure what to make of that series of events. We got conned into meeting ugly girls, saw a drunk girl lift her shirt up for a bead necklace, watched a dude get the shit kicked out of him by a guy twice his size and made friends with a bachelorette party. It was a pretty awesome night.

Saturday we woke up at 8:30 AM for a game that tipped off at 4:50 PM. The day before the 7 of us had bought 3 cases of beer for pre-gaming the bars and the tailgate on Saturday. We had put it in the tub in the hotel.

When debating our beer purchase the 30 pack of 'Stones and rack of Silver Bullet was pretty default, but we weren't sure what to get for the last case. Then we saw some packaging for a case of Bud Dry. None of us had ever heard of it, so we invested in a case of it. I though it was pretty good, tasted like a good mix between Bud Diesel (Bud Ice to you) and Bud Light.

We got downtown around 10am and started the tailgate on the roof of the parking structure across from the sprint center. We were just about to drop a bouncy ball off the side of the structure when a lady on a Segway told us we couldn't tailgate there, and that we need to find a new place to "squat". We would get kicked out of 2 more places before settling on the same parking lot we had tailgated in for the first game. We met up with some other Michigan fans that we knew were in Kansas city.

We made friends with the parking attendants and eventually our rowdyness lead to the cops showing up.

We drank well into the afternoon when we left our spot to go watch another pep rally of sorts. Three of us without tickets had planned on scalping tickets but had a hard time finding tickets at a reasonable price so instead we watched the game in the Power and Light District with about 400 Oklahoma fans and maybe 3 other Michigan fans. We spent the money we saved by not getting tickets on beer, and snuck in some pints of Vodka. About halfway through the second half one of our brethren who had gotten kicked out of the game for his inebriation stumbled across the street to our location. He looked like he was in bad shape, and the thousand or so people watching the game there all seemed to think that because I was also a Michigan fan that I would take care of him. I have known him since freshmen year, so I got him a water and a complementary towel. As everyone around him moved to a safe distance he got up, walked under the screen towards one of the exits and vommed all over without breaking stride. He then kept walking into the sunset. There was a collective groan from about 700 people. Then two other Michigan fans got removed by security for their own drunkenness. While I was pretty plastered, I wasn't exactly too proud at this point. I managed to keep my composure as we bogusly fouled the game away.

After the game, we got in our cars, didn't pay for parking and drove off to Iowa City for the night. We got into IC kinda late, but still went out and had a decent time. Then this morning we got up and drove back to Ann Arbor.

After eating trash meals, drinking large quantities of beer, and consuming lots of fast food and Red Bull I spent most of today feeling like the inside of a garbage truck. I want to eat nothing but vegetables for a week. But I'll probably end up grabbing a CIAYCELB (figure it out) tomorrow.

With this trip I have road tripped over 8,000 miles in the last 6 months (according to The Google). That is roughly the same distance as the diameter of the Earth. I've traveled by car a distance that is equal to the distance from New York to Hong Kong or about 1/30 of the distance to the moon. Also according to The Google, I've spent about 124 hours in a car just on road trips. Which is over five full days, or 15.5 working days. But the things I've seen and done have made it all worth it.

Brian Vastly Improves his Blog

I've added my Twitter feed to my blog. It is on the left information bar. It shows all of my Twits(?) Tweets(?) Twats(?). This now gives you a reason to check my blog everyday. These will be the humorous morsels that normally don't deserve a full blog post but still are awesome. I am excited about this, and you should be too.

A series of unfortunate events

A series of unfortunate events:
1. Go out drinking, and get hamsauced
2. Wake up and don't shower
3. Go to the Police Station to get fingerprints for your job
4. Not have enough change to put into the parking meter
5. Spend all your money on the fingerprints
6. Have a detective think you're plastered drunk
7. Get a parking ticket
8. Go to the bank to get money to pay for the parking ticket
9. En route to the bank make a wrong turn down a one way street, and get pulled over
10. Have the officer realized that you smell like booze
11. Get arrested at 2pm on a Thursday
12. Get fingerprints taken again

Luckily not all of those happened. Around event 10, I thought the officer was surely going to smell my hangover, but instead I got out of the ticket and wasn't arrested, even though I definitely wasn't still drunk. Just goes to show how Peter not having a quarter could have really changed my life for the worse. What a bad friend.

The Top 5 Pranks I Never Pulled off at Michigan

While I wasn't making art in Microsoft Paint, I spent most of the last 4 years coming up with master pranks to pull on the University. I have long forgotten many of them, but there are a few that I should still pull off in my last 6 weeks of college. Here are the top 5.

5.The Horrendous Video Homepage

Plot: Many of the classrooms have a built in computer system that can be operated by anyone without login. The prank involves changing the set homepage to one of the most disgusting shock videos on the interwebs. When one of the professors attempts to access the internet during class everyone vomits on the person in front of them.

Havoc Level: Pretty high for whomever was teaching the class, and all of their students.

Worst Case Consequences if Caught: Infraction of some computer code. Probably a harsh reprimand and written apology. Possible expulsion.


4. Men's Final Four Banner Theft


Plot: Simply put I always wanted to steal the 1992 and 1993 Michigan Men's final four banners that were taken down from Crisler. Maybe this isn't very much of a prank as it is downright theft.

Havoc Level: Low to medium. People would want to know where they are, but would anyone really notice they were missing from the basement of the Bently Historical Library.

Worst Case Consequences if Caught: Charges of B+E along with theft of University Property. Probably not expelled.

3. Michigan Sign Graffiti

Plot: Ever since freshmen year Paul and I were planning on doing a little mock up to the current sign for the "Harry Vaughn School of Public Health". Our plan was to change it to the "Harry Wang School of Pubic Health". It is actually pretty easy and only would take a few changes to the current sign. This one was probably the most feasible.

Havoc Level: Minimal. I really doubt the campus would be up in arms about the hilarious name change.

Worst Case Consequences if Caught: Destruction of University Property. Possible graffiti tickets.

2. Bus System Disruption

Plot: Each bus has a microchip that control the start up processes for the bus. If this microchip were to be removed it would yield the buses totally unusable. Sneaking in to the bus depot late at night and stealing all of these chips would be a very good prank.

Havoc Level: Huge. This would prevent most engineers from getting to north campus, the residents of North Campus wouldn't be able to get to central and would leave a lot of people stranded at bus stops waiting a long time for buses that aren't coming. This would also affect the hospital staff who park in off campus lots. The entire university could come to a screeching halt.

Worst Case Consequences if Caught: Expulsion, as well as multiple counts of destruction of property, Theft and B+E. This would be a very bad prank to pull.

1. Lecture Hall RickRoll

Plot: There are a few lecture halls that inexplicably have a telephone in the front of them. This prank would involve getting into the projection room of a lecture hall and then calling that phone. When the professor answers, you would ask him if is a "stranger to love" and if he knows the rules, cause so do I. Then fade in with a RickRoll on the lecture halls main speakers. Then proceed to put the music video on the screen.

Havoc Level: I imagine most of the class would get the joke and enjoy a unique RickRoll.

Worst Case Consequences if Caught: Infraction of some computer code. Probably a harsh reprimand.

I've just stopped caring

Stereotypes in the media with a focus on Home Improvement

The media plays a large role in creating and reinforcing gender stereotypes. This is evident in almost all forms of media from the news to cartoons. Actually cartoons are especially to blame for stereotypes in the media. In cartoons it is always the ugly character that is credited as the brainiac (think Thelma in Scooby Doo). Cartoons also portray people from the south as dimwitted, and all Asians as knowing kung-fu. The media is great at subtly continuing stereotypes through sheer reinforcement. It always assumes that politicians are evil, you hate your mother-in-law and your wife’s cooking is despicable. It is the joke made in every sitcom since Al Gore invented the television. Even the surprise hero’s are almost a stereotype. It’s always the underdogs from the wrong side of the tracks. Or the character that runs into the supposedly unwholesome character who turns out to be honest and trustworthy, a hooker with a heart of gold so to speak.

These media stereotypes also include gender stereotypes. Every woman has a gay friend; all men hate shopping; guys are dumb, and have dumber friends; your wife is always way hotter than you, at least in the King of Queens, According to Jim, 8 Simple Rules, Everybody Loves Raymond and all those other shows that people watch as they are deciding how to end their life. It is so easy to pick on sitcoms because their entire existence is to play these dumb stereotypes against each other.

Lets take a look at a sitcom that was set in Detroit and starred a guy who was once arrested with a kilo of cocaine and who’s title is a pun; Home Improvement. This show is all built on gender stereotypes. Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor was a macho man who loved to grunt and talk about Binford Tools on his mainly T.V. show. His sidekick, Al, was a guy who despite being a total lamer, was actually a good person but we couldn’t root for him. All we could do was hurl fat mom jokes at him. His wife of course was a smart, loving, caring and questionably hot mom who tried to have a career but whom we lost respect for after she crashed her husband’s classic car even though it brought them closer in the end. Then there were the children. Three rambunctious boys who the mom couldn’t keep under control because they were constantly looking up to their oaf of a dad. Eventually the youngest son went goth, as would anyone who had to follow in the footsteps of Jonathon Taylor Thomas and Zachary Ty Bryant, but we will save that for a different dialog class. Of course the neighbor Wilson was always the voice of reason ala Mr. Feeny. There was even a “Tool Girl” that was played by a budding Pamela Anderson. Her role was to Vienna White the new Binford 6100. The “Tool Girl” just had to be a total babe. There was one episode where - as normal - Tim was making a fool of himself trying to install a new toilet and a female member of his studio audience was brought on stage so he could show her what he was doing, and explain it to a dumb girl. But as it super ironically turned out, she was the one who actually knew how to fix it. This plotline would not have worked if he had brought a man onstage, because all men know how to fix toilets, and all women don’t. Ahh, the classic gender stereotypes, and the humor surrounding role reversals!

Post College Plan 7

In 2 months I will graduate college and become a productive member of the work force.

I know this, because I have accepted a real job. I am moving to Seattle to start working as a civilian for the Navy. I will be working at the Navy's Strategic Weapons Facility. The downside to this job is that I will be far away from Ann Arbor. This means that I might only be able to make it back one weekend next year. On the other hand, this also means that I will have a real job that pays very real money, so I can now drink my PBR out of a bottle.

I think it beats out my other PCP7 which was to make to scale replica's of the Aggrocrag and sell them on Ebay.

Ouch

I drank 184 ounces of beer last night.

That is 1.44 gallons of beer.

I don't even know why.