Can't Get More American that That

Yesterday I was driving down I-75 in a Ford, windows down sunroof open, drinking a Coke, eating McDonalds double cheeseburgers and listening to Bruce Springsteen.

Bert's Cafe, that was my idea

Yesterday a coffee shop opened inside of the UGLi. It looks pretty cool. This is the only picture I could find, its from the Daily:

Its Mary Sue and Bert

Anyways, when I was a freshmen Daida forced us to design a coffee shop for the Ugli. Our design was way sweet and the library director said there would be a Coffee shop in the Ugli by May of 2006. Well it took an extra year and a half, but they finally put one in. I think it looks pretty nice, and will definitely make the library a better place to study, even though Expresso Royale is just down the street.

We spent an entire semester planning out a Ugli Coffee shop. Here is what our final design looked like:

This is what our team looked like:

Yes I am eating a picture of my own face. What of it?

Thats us in Paris. Thats what I spent most of my time freshmen year doing, shitty colleges. I even made one for our math homework team. Check out my mad Microsoft Paint Skillz.

Blogging from Iowa

I have 3 midterms and a final next week so I decided to go to Iowa this weekend with Mark and John. To understand why I go to Iowa so much read this. A few notes.

After a successful trip to Western last weekend, and now Iowa I must ask where are all the hot girls at Michigan? I mean people always say the girls at Western are half as smart and twice as likely to fellache you, but seriously. I can't walk to class at Michigan without tripping over a stumpy girl in rain boots with the face of a cabbage patch kid. Its cliche I know but its really true. I can't wait to see the girls at University of Florida in Gainesville when I go there next week. I've created a chart of the quality of girls at each of these schools.


Michigan is totally bimodal with max points at like 5 and 9. It's because most of the girls are fat and ugly but then there is the small percentage of girls that are really hot but at the same time very smart. Thats the bump around nine. Another thing I can't stand is being in bars at other colleges and seeing these really hot girls being picked up by complete garbage. At Michigan those guys would have absolutely no shot. Is it just me or do the girls at Michigan have super high standards? These are just general opinions, I'm sure there are hot and easy girls at Michigan but I don't like to pay the cover at Rick's, or wear pants.

Also, whenever I'm at a different school I feel the need to always wear Michigan apparel. For a 3 day trip I brought 4 Michigan Shirts. Some sort of need to constantly let people know that I don't go there and I can read. I think that would work as a pretty good pickup line at some of these bars. "Hey Baby, I can read."

People who don't go to Michigan don't have to study very much. I'm in the main computing room of the main library at a Big Ten school and its sparsely populated. I can guarantee that the fishbowl is packed with panicking kids right now. I know that its still college, but these kids don't spend all day at the library or hours upon hours working on homework assignments like I've seen kids at Michigan do.

Sometimes I wished I had gone to an easy school in a warm climate with loads of hot chicks. Oh yeah, and near a Sonic.

Scientology vs The Internet

If you only use the internet for Gmail and Facebook you are probably missing one of the largest internet uprising ever. Anonymous and Project Chanology are raging an all out war against the Church of Scientology, everything from DDOS attacks to actual protest outside Scientology headquarters. The number of people involved could be in the tens of thousands. I am rooting for the internet in this one.

Scientology is not - to say the least - a traditional religion. If you want to believe that aliens came to earth 75 million years ago aboard DC-8's and laid the groundwork for our civilization, go ahead. I wasn't here, maybe they did. I don't care if you believe that psychology is evil, whatever. But I think its dangerous that the "Church" of Scientology charges people money with false promises of making their life better. It certainly didn't make it better for Noah Lottick or Lisa McPherson. I think that to any reasonable person, they would see that the Church of Scientology is less of a church based to help people and more of a money making scheme.

I am impartial to peoples personal religious practices most of the time. The only time I take issue is when people try to force religion or use rhetoric to advance their view and when religions try to silence debate about their practices.

Scientology uses legal means to silence critics of their religion. They attempted to shut down a early internet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology which was hosting a healthy debate about the practices and beliefs. They have sued numerous other critics was lawsuits that amount to nothing more that harassment. They have threatened action against Viacom using Tom Cruise as leverage against a South Park episode that made fun of their religion. It was the vary same episode that caused Issac Hayes to quit the show. Albeit 10 months later, and in my opinion at the urging of Scientologists. I guess it's fine to mock Christianity and Judaism, but once they turn to your religion then its over the line.

Its possible that this war could be waged for a long time. In addition to raising awareness about the danger of what in my mind is a cult, they will hopefully be able to challenge the Co$'s non profit standing. Anonymous's main goal is to have people decide for themselves their view, and to have both sides available, not taken offline because of lawsuits and bullying by the Church of Scientology.

The Bet

In elementary school there was this terribly funny joke that went like this:

A old lady had a house she called butt, and a cat she called crack. One day she couldn't find her cat so she called the police and they came to look for it. Afterwards they told her, "I've looked all over your butt and I can't find your crack!"

That Joke:Funny::Mark's basketball predictions:Realistic

Mark Assborn honestly believes that within the next two seasons Michigan Basketball will be a top 4 seed in the NCAA tournament. Since this has no chance of happening (1-9 in Big Ten play, 10th in the conference) I am willing to put my name on the line. Yep, you guessed it. If Michigan gets a top 4 seed, I will legally change my name to Dumpster Baby.

So I drafted up an email to myself using the site FutureMe.org which lets you send emails to yourself IN THE FUTURE! So at the end of February 2 years from now I will get an email reminding me of the bet.

I will do all the requisite name change stuff, get business cards printed up that say "Dumpster Baby" and a new drivers license, the whole shebang (whatever the fuck shebang means). I'm not to worried about it though. It's Michigan basketball.

Google save the queen?

Good news, the Ads have returned. I had to move them, and I lost my super upgraded template. Now I am back to making money. But Google wont pay me anyways because they need to confirm my address which might be a problem, because for some reason beyond me Google thinks that I am computing from the UK. All of my news results are about England and rugby. Every time I do a search all the results are .co.uk I am asked if I only want to search pages from the UK. The worst part is that I have no idea how to change it. They know that I am in eastern time zone and I have given them my address, why do they think that I'm from the UK?!?

When I search colour It doesn't even ask me "Did you mean color?"

This blows.

Brian Gets a Job

I started a new job on Friday, but I still drive the bus. I am now the official voice of Michigan Mens Tennis. I do the PA announcements, and not much else. Before the match I read the lineups and at intermission I read the winner of the superfan raffle. At the end of the match I read the score. I get paid $30 per game but only spend about 3 minutes doing actual work. The rest of the time I get to watch the games or do whatever I want. It's further away then the bus depot and I get paid about half as much per hour, but I like it. I was even invited to join the tennis team at Pizza House on Friday night. I also now understand tennis a little bit better, and get to support Michigan athletics. I've noticed two things about the game of tennis though:

1) It is the one sport where your performance only matters on the end result. If you lose a set in a tie-break or lose a set 6-0 it is still a loss and means the same exact thing. It's like if a baseball game were decided based on who won the most innings. You could give up 18 runs in the 1st, but as long as you score one more run than your opponent in every other inning you would win. It doesn't matter how much you score overall, it only matters that you score more in any given round. The only comparable sport would be a skins match in golf. It only matters who wins the hole. If you lose a hole by 4 strokes but then win the next two by one stroke your still up 2-1. It makes every part of the game really important.

2) Being a tennis referee is the hardest officiating job in sports. In most sports there are multiple officials and very few tough calls. But in tennis every call is really hard. You have to tell where a ball traveling 90 mph exactly landed. I was amazed at how anyone could call a ball in or out. Also, since it is a sport where the players get to make calls, sometimes players will make a call in their self interest. It is a gentleman's sport, but some players get a little upset when they think a call should go the other way. I've also noticed that it is a sport where in some cases they allow do-overs. If something is debated heavily the ref will have they play the point over again. I can't think of any other sport that has do-overs.

I really like this job, and so for I have gotten free pizza and a free T-shirt. Although sometimes it is a bitch to get there, I think this is one of the better campus jobs.