Does anyone else have the 'What's Andy Cooking?' title sort of cut off on the top of the screen?
I gotta re-work the colors too.
I need more hours in a day.
Just a little while ago, Mark and I were walking across campus when our conversation was interrupted by loud rap coming from a shiny, olive-green, low-rider El Camino. This brought me to ponder the question: Why hasn't the tension that exists between the students of this campus and the local community ever erupted into violence?
For example: I was riding the bus to work on Saturday, and a large group of UPS students (Freshmen by their appearance) got on at the same stop as me heading downtown. One of them didn't have exact change, so the driver told him to forget it and let him ride the bus without paying. This angered an old lady sitting near me on the bus, who proceeded to tell me about it since I was obviously not a part of their group. In her raspy, cancerous voice, she spent the whole ride repeating things like, "Damn private school brats. If they have parents in high enough social circles to be going to that school, you think they'd have learned their damn manners. They should be ashamed. I hope you're embarassed by that. Like they can't afford five damn quarters."
But I digress. My point is that I've sometimes found a strong sense of resentment from the local population. There's also sometimes a strong disdain for the uneducated 'T-Locs' as we're called here on campus.
So why haven't these two sides broken down and started some brawls? There's opportunity for it: I've been to more than a few parties that local high schoolers have crashed; anytime I go down to E-9 for a drink, I invariably find a near fifty/fifty split of locals and students. Now, I'm not saying that I wish that old lady would have brought the ruckus to those 'punk kids,' old women fights, while quite entertaining, are not necessarily rowdy fights. I mean, real brawls spilling out onto streets or wrecking the shit out of some kids basement. There's the motive and the means, all I want to see is some action so I can choose sides and kick some ass!
A full weekend goes by and I feel like I did less homework than I do on most weeknights. How does this happen?
I had a great meal with my dad last night. I was on the verge of a breakdown I think when he came over to bring me my bike. He offered to take me to dinner, so we went and had an awesome pizza out on the deck of Katie Downs. It was a good way to release some tension and an especially nice surprise from my dad.
My new job at the Tacoma Art Museum started this weekend. This morning, two of the security ladies got stuck in the elevator for three hours. It's funny because the protocal for a situation like that is to call security . . .
And I'm spent.
My creative juices are tapped I'm afraid. I think I'm going to take a nap.
Tonight as Mark and I began our quiz studying oddysey, we stopped by the campus cafe for a little go-juice. Anna Price-Meter was working behind the till collecting change from students, and she began to complain to us about her Animal Behavior test that she was trying to study for. Mark, who was behind me, unleashed a witty retort under his breath about showing her some animal behavior, causing near uncontrollable spasms in the bottom of my throat. Fortunately she didn't hear the comment and blew the whole situation off, considering us 'physics snobs.'
This has become a game that Mark and I play. We try to create as awkward of situations as we can for each other. This includes making fun of a teacher during lecture to the point where he/she might notice the stiffled laughter, or sometimes doing goofy things while there's a serious conversation going with the person on the other end of the phone.
It's funny as hell, but sucks to be at the butt end of.
Mark and I were having a Hamburger Helper meal at our brand new dining table (new to us that is), when in walked Johnny. He then sat with us for a few minutes, when suddenly, #4 made a dramatic entrance through the front door of the house!!
It was a fleeting occurance though, as Tag dissapeared as quickly as he'd come.
In my attempt to be more like Eric, I've picked up one of his old stylesheets. Here you have it then, the New Look.
I'll be testing out different colors periodically, so don't worry, you're not going crazy.
I especially like the little callander off to the right.
Also, Eric attempted to be more like me with his little contest. It was pretty funny though.
With flying colors our own Johnny '5' Tribbia has won What IS Andy Cooking? !!
Although the handsome reward lured in lots of people initially, Johnny 5 had the will-power and the sanity to hold out and see it through to the finish. Furstie also held on to the last and came close with Oatmeal, while Bobby Bussmann was a distant third with Cockroaches.
The correct answer? Cream of Wheat!
The FANTASTIC SECRET PRIZE? A copy of Leon Redbone's 'Christmas Island' album!!!
Thanks to all of you who participated in What IS Andy Cooking? and keep checking the site out from time to time. Johnny, since you live downstairs, I'll bring you your prize by hand. Furst, since you deserve one also (though the couple of times you insulted me would beg to differ), email me your address and I'll send a copy on to you too.
Thanks again everyone!
With some stellar guesses, this contest is really heating up. It's only a matter of time before someone gets the right answer now. So unless you guys turn from the track you're headed on, I'll refrain from any hints for now.
This is it though, the home stretch. Just as soon as someone gets the right answer, I'll announce it and prepare the Secret Prize.
Keep 'em coming ladies.
Kudos to everyone who submited a guess in The Contest of the Millennium!! With some brilliant skills of observation, Kat guessed that the 'What' was 'Special' Brownies. Unfortunately, she was wrong. But a stellar guess nontheless.
In fact, there were no real correct guesses made. Therefore, What IS Andy Cooking? is being extended!!
This time, I'm ammending the rules a bit. You're welcome to make as many guesses as you like until someone hits the jackpot. Also, I'm giving you a hint: Although it does seem dark in the background (and it is), the food was made and consumed a matter of hours before the arduous job of cleaning was undertaken (in other words, long before it got dark). This picture was, in fact, taken just before cleaning commenced.
Hopefully that helps you guys out. Keep those great guesses coming!
Alright. Since I may be re-styling my site soon (I'll try to incorporate the eyebrow picture still, but it probably wont be as large as it is now anyway), I figure I should sponsor the Mother of All Internet Contests:
What IS Andy Cooking?
In an effort to gain more attention for my site, and to just be cool, I'm offering a prize to whoever can correctly guess what was in my pot here.
Here are the terms:
1) If you guess what I'm cooking by posting it as a comment, I'll mail you a surprise gift.
2) If you already know what I'm cooking then you're nullified from running. (That is, if I've told you previously, or you've heard the story from one of the other fellas who was there - or you were perhaps one of the fellas who was there. Make sense?) If you somehow give the answer away to someone else, I will know, and you will be punished severely.
3) You have 24 hours to make one (and only one) guess. If there are no correct guesses after 24 hours, the contest is reset and you have a second chance. (This will happen at approximately midnight)
4) There will be no hints.
5) All rules are subject to change.
I will, of course, post the name of the winner and what the winning answer was. If you win, I'll get in touch with you about claiming your surprise gift. Thanks for playing What IS Andy Cooking?, and good luck to you all!
If you're out there Elle, I'm pulling for you. You can SO do it, Babe!
I spent a little time today looking into how I can change the look of my site. Furstie was kind enough to loan me one of his stylesheets, then all I'd need to do is change the colors to have my own, unique background. What do you think Laurie, the eyebrows freaking you out enough by now?
When I woke up this morning, Johnny, Mark, and Tag were all perusing the kitchen. I unfortunately found this out as I stumbled into the bathroom for my wake-up shower, and when I got out, John and Tag had left.
Near miss number one.
Today, for the first time I think, all four of us that live at this house were here and conscious at the same time. There were quite a few comments about different people's mothers that went around (and not just that 'Your Mom' comment that seems to be so popular to some). It was an event to be remembered, I think I'm going to keep some stats going on how frequently that happens.
On a note that's not really related at all, I'm thinking of working up a plan to steal the next-door neighbors dog, Tobe. He's a pretty cool dog, though when he barks it really does sound like two dogs barking at each other, which is kinda freaky. When the neighbor yells at Tobe saying stuff like 'Shut up dog! You're going to have to learn how to stay dry in the rain before I'll let you in!' the urge to toilet-paper the place gets stronger and stronger. I just think Tobe is cool enough to not deserve the ass of an owner that he has.
And that's the news that's fit to print.
I was thinking about the fact that people who don't know me at all could be visiting this site. Already I got a comment from Laurie who liked my story about school karma.
Then I was looking at my picture on this site, and I realized that with this funky artsy thing that Eric did to it when he put it on there, it looks like my eyebrows are akin to, say, Richard Nixon's.
Now there are an increasing number of people out there who have this image of me with sasquatch eyebrows, which isn't so terrible, it's just a funny thought to me.
I wonder if anyone found this site and thought "Good God! That can't be the person who's responsible for this site. His ideas are way too intellectual to have come from a hairy beast like that!"
"Gentlemen! You can't fight in here - this is the War Room!!"
The Graham Cracker was an invention by a man named Sylvester Graham who hypothesized that spicy foods caused men to masturbate.
I once heard of this lady that had this funny birthmark/lump on her neck. Supposedly it was a large hairy mound just above her right shoulder. One day she went to the doctor to have it surgically removed, and when they did, they found little bits of hair, teeth, and fingernails. Supposedly it was her siamese twin that never developed quite right.
Tonight Lindsey and her housemates are going to the Busta Rhymes concert at the Puyallup Fair. Not only is that a funny image for me because they all went 'skanked out' as Steph Payne (the ringleader of the whole affair) deemed they should. But imagine these six, conservative college girls in the middle of a rap concert surrounded completely by sweaty Tacoma and Puyallup locals. When I say T-Locs and P-Locs, of course, I'm referring to the 'stereotypical' UPS label for those Tacoma youth wearing their wife beaters tucked in to their sweat pants and the right ankle rolled up. I just hope no one gets hurt or groped inappropriately.
On a totally different note, there's a kid in my religion class that I could swear is Cody Leary's 'Evil Twin.' He's like Wario is to Mario - right down to the mean looking eyebrows. All he needs is one of those evil moustaches. It's uncanny really.
Today in my humanities class, which I'm going to here on call Rome class, the prof discovered that I didn't have a copy of the reading. He's a pretty old british gentlemen, totally scatter-brained and nutty. When he asked us to do some in-class reading, he saw that I was reading off Laura Young's book who was sitting behind me. He promptly brought me his copy of the book, explaining that he'd read it already.
From another comment he made later on, I think he's assuming that I have my own copy of it here at home. The problem is that I still haven't bought about half my books. Mark and I are in religion together, so we're splitting the cost and just sharing the books (living across the hall makes that really easy). Then I have a couple of friends that have taken creative writing already, so I'm borrowing books from them. And then both Kat and Laura are in my Rome class, so I just haven't gotten anything yet. The only real book purchase I've made was the Griffiths Quantum.
I was just hoping that I could avoid that "Man, I totally didn't need to put money into this book" told-you-so moment at the end of the semester. Instead I get put in my place by the prof after a single week of classes.
Karma bites again.
Buck DeFore, a recently graduated UPS student, is well on his way around the world on his Watson Fellowship research: Lake Monsters and their effects on local culture. He's visiting spots in South America, Australia, Southern Africa and Western Europe, looking to find what sort of ways lake-side citizens get involved, whether the monters are real or not.
Nutty.
Whelp, another day, another few hundred dollars gone to the school and all I'm left with is the feeling that I'll never get this time back.
My big triumph for the day was when I got my dad a free ticket to the academic talk, normally a special price reserved for students. Once again my kniving ways win back a bit of that precious tuition. I'm like the Robin Hood of students. Only I steal just for myself.
Why do you want to hear about things I've done today? Isn't that boring?
I need to think of controversial issues to discuss. How about this: I say some off the wall statement like "Gays are all faking it to get attention from the opposite sex," and you guys write in and tell me how stupidly insensitive I am.
Or not.
I'll work on something better for tomorrow.
Mark and I just spent over an hour working on a Quantum problem that should have taken us about five minutes. I'm serious, this was major stupidity. I think I may switch majors soon . . .
The sense that school is looming over you is a hard one to ditch. Take for instance, the fact that not one bit of the homework I was complaining about on Friday has been started yet. This could be because I had some sort of emergency that needed my focused attention. Perhaps I had made previous plans to go away for the weekend, and didn't get home until just now. But no, it's very simply because I've put it all off.
So instead of getting on top of my game and taking care of the real work before going out to play, I managed to have fun, all the while the threat of a Sunday at home with a few dry reads cast over me like a thunderstorm ready to ignite my dry timber into a raging inferno of death.
I'm getting read for my creative writing homework . . .
This is just to let you know that I don't totally forget about my responsibility. I just lack inspiration.
Thanks for checking on me.
The first weekend of school is officially here. Why do I have a large-ish initial assignment for every class? Stupid liberal arts.
1) Already Quantum has been over my head. All this statistical stuff that I haven't done in two years or so. Yesterday, Greg the prof, asked me to give us (the entire class being only eight people) Schrödinger's Equation, but I couldn't.
2) On the positive side, creative writing seems like it will be good. Already I have a few ideas to get out of my head, and the prof seems pretty fun. Perhaps, like Wesley Crusher, I'll share some of my work.
3) Religion 101 seems like it could be interesting/thought provoking. The prof there is kind of a serious guy, and we already have a 1-2 page writing assignment on some reading for Monday (just assigned today). That alone isn't so bad, but given that I already have stuff for numbers 1) and 2), it was just a let down at the end of my day.
4) Comparative Values core. But how does 'looking at ancient Rome through the writings of 18th century writers and philosophers' fit into that category? This is such an arbitrary core. It's fitting that they're throwing out soon. Plus it's boring.
Sigh.
I've determined two major reasons why good grades are not essential this semester.
First of all is the fact that I'm taking three humanities classes that will not apply to my Physics GPA in any form. This means that I can work on convincing grad schools that these classes are not a real reflection on my ability as a scientist anyway.
Secondly, although poor grades in those classes would bring down my overall GPA, I won't be going to school here next year anyway, so no worries about losing scholarships on account of bad marks.
What have you been doing with the first few days of classes?