Untied States of America

It's sort of funny how America, perhaps the only nation to be founded on the extermination of one race and the enslavement of another, fails to recognize the irony of making its creed "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

Peace out.

Gingerbread Wat

Edit: Ginger Wat was JULIA's idea. JULIA's.

There was a gingerbread house study break recently in the dorm. Jen had asked me to go as part of our night of exciting things (!), plus I kind of wanted to go anyway, so I said I’d see her there. Since I actually had time to think about the fact that I was going to it, I had time to think of ways to “do it wrong.” In the early evening I had thought about building a replica of F. L. Wright’s “Falling Water” (Waters?), but upon inspecting the plans of that, decided it would be nigh on impossible to make a recognizable facsimile from the materials at hand. I think because of the painting Julia had made for me, I thought of making a gingerbread model of Angkor Wat instead. I got a few nice pictures of it up on my computer, and we went upstairs when it was time.

The crew consisted of Jen, Haley, Julia, Matt, Nick M, and myself. Matt and Nick both have engineering backgrounds, so that was nice. We were given a paper plate as a foundation, but we immediately knew that was NOT good enough. So I went to my room and got the base piece of cardboard from the pizza box Tarik and I had used last night. The person running the program thought we were kind of crazy, but we knew it was worth it.

We worked on the border first, using the graham crackers they provided. Jen and Haley worked on the inside square pagoda, which we realized was not going to be sufficiently tall at some point, so they needed to work on yet another base for it, and then a support column, which Matt and Nick also helped with. I worked on the spires with Julia, which were made out of Dots, and when that was finished, Julia used my Pokey Sticks to make the columns, and a candy cane to make the gate.

We were the last ones there. When we were done, it actually did look somewhat convincingly like Angkor Wat. Julia made a banner/plaque for it, two graham crackers next to each other, covered with white frosting, with “ANGKOR WAT” written in red, and a line of nerds at the top.

When we were done…

We decided we were the coolest.

Peace out.

Hits and Mrs.

Shortly after the second creeper-peeper incident occurred in Simmons Hall, the police decided it was time to start taking this thing seriously. Papers with descriptions of the suspects and crimes were posted all throughout Simmons Hall, people went in to discuss leads, and cops and RAs roamed the halls frequently.

I, being my normal self, continued to visit friends at night. At this point in the year – possibly October? – that meant a mix of going to see Julia/HK, Hortense/Haley, and Kerry. I forget exactly why on this particular night, but it was around 1AM and I felt like saying hey to either of the last two rooms. Perhaps I had already seen Julia/HK.

So I ran up the stairs to the second floor and popped out of the stairwell to see two police officers walking past. Surprising, to say the least, and I was immediately sure that they would suspect something was going on. “Hey,” I said to them, trying my best to be not-inconspicuous, before continuing down the hall to see Hortense/Haley. I saw that the lights were dim in their room, but figured I’d knock softly anyway. No response. Knocked again a few times. No response. No big deal, hadn’t seen Kerry in a while, so I went down the two hallways to see her.

As I approached her room, the two cops saw me again as they walked their way back from the wing of the building. Definitely suspicious by now. “Do you live here?” they asked me. I didn’t really understand the question. “Yeah – I mean, on the ground floor yes, but not on this floor.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m visiting my friend Kerry, so…” I looked at Kerry’s door. It had her name on it (score! Eat that, cops!), and she always stays up late, and the lights were still on. I knocked, and she came to the door quickly and opened it. I was standing there, with two cops behind me, looking in.

“Oh, uh… hey,” she said. She was clearly thrown off by the situation. I asked her how it was going and stepped in to close the door behind me, letting the officers go on their way and explaining this strange situation to Kerry.

Peace out.

Multiplication Fables

A lot of times when I go to cafeterias, I think about the tables. Yes, I’m aware this is weird. But I think it’s strange how an object can just sit there and have so many things happen on top of it and remain totally unchanged in their wake. People break up, people fight, people fall in love, people tell secrets, people become friends, people scream and shout, and nothing ever happens to the surface, you could never even tell. It almost seems unfair. I feel like everyone’s life is made worse by the fact that when you look at the tables, you can’t see the stories that have happened on them.

Peace out.

AAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYY!!

My friend from the Third Floor Girls named Emily W had this thing she always did. Whenever anyone made a sex joke or sexual innuendo, so we would a circle with one hand and then put vigorously put her other index finger in and out of it while shouting, “AAAAAYYYY!!!!” If it was a gay joke, she would do it with her two index fingers, or sometimes one index finger coming in “from behind.” If it was lesbian, sometimes she would make two circles, or sometimes two pairs of legs.

At Ceci’s party, I had been sitting with Chloe for most of the night, on the opposite side of the room from Matt. At one point I decided it was time for some horrible jokes, so I got up from where I was seated to join Matt on the table he was sitting on. And the rest is history. Terrible, terrible history.

I forget exactly what the first joke was, but me and Matt both did the Emily move. Then there was one more bad innuendo immediately following, and we did it again. Keep in mind that everyone laughed both times, quite heartily. Then I said to Matt, “Get it? It was an innuendo,” to which he dutifully responded, “You mean, an in your end-o!” And then we both did the AAAAAYYYYY again, and everyone laughed. I’m glad that he picked up on my telekinetic signals. Otherwise we wouldn’t have been funny at all.

Peace out.

YouTube Piano Sensation

So I found my way to become a Youtube phenomenon.

I was in Best Buy on December 23rd or so, and my sister and Sam were off looking at presents or games or whatever else, and failing to find a foreign film section where I could buy Three Idiots, I decided to play the pianos instead. I noticed that there were five pianos. And a lightbulb went off.

I played some chords on the first one while recording – Ab, Eb, Fm, Db… I played them a number of times in a row and in as steady a beat as I could. With my right hand on the “Play” button and my left hand stretched between the “Record” button and the first note of the melody, I started the first piano while playing the melody on the second piano. Then I played the first piano again and added in some strings with a third keyboard. I moved to the fourth and fifth keyboards to add some drums or guitar, only to realize that their power chords were missing! Melissa D had joined me by this point, and I asked a worker if he could turn them on so I could try them, but he said he couldn’t because the cords were missing. Well how would you try them to buy them?

Whatever. I still had three pianos going at the same time. And yes, the song – for those of you who played the chords at home! – was Paparazzi by Lady Gaga.

I’m going to do this again with a video camera. And like 7 pianos. And then I’ll be famous.

Not that I care.

Also I will never be famous.

Peace out.