The Matt Attack Is Goin Back Jack

That would go better if my name was Mack. Actually that would give a whole new meaning to it I suppose. Alas.

Two tips of the day for the computer savvy to make our lives a little easier... The first I yoinked off a friend's site. Yoinked, isn't that the coolest word ever? Jacked is good, but wears out its welcome eventually. Yoinked is new and different, gonna have to stick with it for a while. Anyway, the tip... If you type a word in Internet Explorer in the address bar for example blogger, and then hit ctrl and enter, it will automatically put in the http://www. and the .com for you! Just a bit of a time saver.

The second I figured out by accident, for a while now I've been using ctrl and 1 2 or 3 to do the first few smilies in AIM, but I'm not sure whether I just never noticed or its a new thing with the latest version, if you use ctrl and the numbers 1-8, or ctrl + shift and the numbers 1-8, you can actually do all 16 of the smilies without straying your hands from the keyboard. This is helpful for those of us who use the ctrl shift 5 sideways face an obscene amount, and before had to put up with incessant clicking to get to it.

So my dream monitor is for some reason at only 2 grand in an auction. Still a horribly high amount unfortunately, but quite a bit less than the 3.5 grand it goes for retail. So for all those of you people out in the world with millions of dollars to throw away, its still on my wish list... :)

Turns out I actually am making the trek out to Magic Mountain tomorrow, found a friend from school to go with, and since its sort of "on the way" back to UCSB and I'm not in any particular hurry to get back there and do nothing (classes don't start until Monday) might as well live it up another day. Will have to buy books on Monday I guess, but only have two classes that day anyway other than the one I'm trying to crash. Taking the last two GE classes of my life next quarter, another Classics this time Greek Mythology, and a Black Studies course that cleans out the last of my requirements. Between those and two Econ classes that are just the next in the series I took this quarter, grades should be good. Here's hopin. :)

Weather looks good for tomorrow, which is in a way a shame, the most fun I ever had at an amusement park was when I went to Magic Mountain and it just poured all day long. It was deserted, we went on all the rides like ten times, and had an absolute BLAST. Nothing like hurtling two hundred feet down a steep hill while being pummelled by thirty mile an hour winds driving horizontal rain into your face like thousands of tiny needles. :) Guess ya kinda gotta be in the mood. Park closes at 8, but we'll probably employ the "get in line for the ride with the longest wait right as it closes so they close off the line behind you and you get to stay that amount of time later than park closing to ride that last ride" strategy. I remember for Batman when it first opened we did that and even though it closed at 10pm we didn't actually leave the park until after midnight... Being able to drive home without falling asleep is always helpful though, we'll see how it goes. :)

Slightly Overestimated...

So the predictions were B's in everything cept a B+ in Econ 1.

Well, I got two B-'s and a C in the B predictions, but an A- in the B+ prediction. Overall I was off by .23 grade points. :/

Classics and Pstat were the B-'s, pretty close to what I predicted, Econ 3A was the unfortunate C, was really hoping for better than that there. Probably missed some nit picky things on the final or something, that was the lower end of the expected possible range. So I ended up not hitting the predicted 3.0, and there's plenty more room for improvement this quarter. I figure I have 4 more quarters here, and I wouldn't mind increasing my quarterly GPA for each one capping it with a 4.0 during my final quarter here. Well, wouldn't mind a 4.0 every quarter, but you gotta start somewhere. :)

Most recent search engine query that brought someone to my page was "ex-girlfriend awesome pics." Heh. Again, pretty sure they didn't find what they were looking for.

Trying to decide what to do with the full day tomorrow, might end up at a theme park, or someplace else fun, nothing really planned, that usually means spontaneity. Will be back at UCSB sometime around 1pm when the dorms open on Sunday, probably leave here at 11.

Non-Stop Entertainment...

I've been told by various friends that watching the Wilson family interact is a lot like a comedy television series in that there's always something to be laughing about. For some reason or another the five active members were informed of a "family dinner" last night scheduled for 6pm. At times this means someone got a raise or bonus and money is going to be "trickled down" to the masses, but last night we were warned in advance that was not the case. I still managed to squeeze in some time between running out of a movie and zipping off to Universal City to head over to the South Bay Grill fashionably late. The three children of the family were given the gift of humor, although depending on which of my friends you talk to there might be some disagreement there. Regardless, anyone one of them by themselves in a room is generally entertaining, but having all three firing off rounds at once is just non stop hilarity. Its a good thing they put us way back in the corner of the restaurant, because at times we can be pretty obnoxious. Highlights were the various comments about my brother's new earring (don't ask) and random digs towards my parents degenerative hearing. Come to think of it I'm pretty sure an outside onlooker wouldn't understand half the humor. We sure have a grand ol time during these rare entire family get togethers though.

Later that night I ended up heading out to the Universal City Hilton, where I hung out with a friend who had been put up there by a company she had an all day job interview with the next day. Pretty nice place, still never been to Universal Studios, going to have to get on that one of these days. It was just like old times, ended up jabberin away well into the morning even though she had to be up at 6. I think things are finally to the point that I can stop saying "most recent ex" and start saying "friend", like I do with everyone else. Its a good feeling, after the years we spent together she still knows more about me than anyone, and its nice to have her be a phone call away if I ever need someone who knows. I think vice versa is also true, its going to be quite a while before she can say she's had a longer relationship than ours. I've always said that a man and a woman can only be truly platonic if there is no physical attraction whatsoever, or if there is they've already tried things out and found out it didn't work. Everyone else is just pretending the feelings aren't there, and that might come out to bite them at some point. So I'd say Project "Regain a Friend" is now over, up next is Project "Find The One." Think the timing on that one is gonna be a bit more lengthy. :)

Was watching tennis just now (hey, its past midnight, what else is on) and checking out the new computerized "ShotSpot" as they call it. Its basically a computer recreation of the shot that just happened, showing exactly where the ball hit on the court including the complete skid mark caused by the compression of the ball, and where it falls in relation to the line. They say its accurate to less than a millimeter. Yet they still have several line judges making the calls. Its just another example of a computer that will eventually replace a biped when it comes to a specific task or job. In the long run I guess it will be better to be positive that the correct call was made every time, but isn't half the fun blaming the ref for your mistake? :)

Three's A Crowd...

So I'm behind on movie reviews, watched two last night and another tonight, alas this is what I busy myself with while at home most of the time.

Tuesday night I went down to the AMC 20 and amazingly enough they let me use one of my free movie passes I got through my Moviewatcher card back in 7/99 which had been sitting in my wallet ever since then... The trick with those is the movie has to have been out at least two weeks and I never see stuff that late, but finally I went to go see A Beautiful Mind which had been out for much longer than that. I don't know if I would vote it Best Picture of the year, but it was pretty good. Better I think if you don't know the story behind the real person going in, otherwise you're sort of cheating when it comes to certain plot elements. We'll go 4 M's out of 7.

I then theater hopped over to Ice Age since getting one movie for free just isn't enough... As expected the little furball guy from the preview was the funniest part, although he had a pretty minor part in the movie. There were some pretty funny sections, but nothing that had me rolling on the ground or anything. Typical animation fare, although not as good as some. We'll go 4 M's here too.

Then tonight I met up with a couple friends from the high school days and after major miscommunication regarding times, well not really just the fact that everyone was late, we ended up seeing Showtime, the new comedy with Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy. This I found quite funny, with some cool shoot em up scenes and car chases to boot, boosting this one up into the 5 M range. They even had the bloopers during the credits, but they weren't as funny as some movies such as Exit Wounds or A Bug's Life. Overall pretty decent movies and judging from the previews its going to be a busy spring and summer.

More later I was out late tonight and am thus tired.

DONT TELL ME! Too late.

Since I got home later Sunday evening, I had my mom tape the Oscars for me. I figured I'd be able to watch them the next day without risking finding out who won. Well, I was stupid enough to check my e-mail and see the major award winners of the front page... Then while toasting myself up some waffles I glanced the wrong way and saw the front page of the Calendar section my mom had left out... Then just in case I had managed to block it out of my mind, while walking by Starbucks later my "always wanting to read something" eyes spied even more results in the newspaper on the table to my left as I passed by. I was the kid who read about pyrodoxine hydrochloride on the cereal box during breakfasts, but man does that get annoying sometimes.

I eventually watched the ceremony, although knowing the end results always makes it somewhat anti climactic. If there's one guy I think is pure genius, its John Williams. That guy has done just everything. I can't imagine what it must take to create a powerful and unforgettable theme to a movie such as Jaws, Star Wars, or E.T., from thin air. I read later he's been nominated for an Oscar forty times. FORTY. Geez. Amazing.

I thought the show overall was pretty good, its length drastically reduced by fast forwarding through commercials. Don't think they really needed to squeeze in Halle Berry thanking her lawyer, but John Williams is too nice a guy to cut anyone off, that was obvious throughout.

The other abnormal event from yesterday was getting an invitation from the latest ex now friend to go out to lunch and run some errands... Ordinarily this wouldn't be very significant except for the fact I hadn't seen her at all since oh, a year ago or so... Actually not counting a quick run in up north at that time, I hadn't seen her since the break about a year and a half ago... So yeah, the weirdness level at first was kind of like, well, high.

I did my best to act normal, and I'm pretty sure that's the way it came off. Just same ol same ol, wandering around, cracking jokes, exchanging barbs, ripping on each other's other significant others. Other three times in four words looks a bit strange. It did seem more like a uh, business meeting than a couple of friends hanging out at times, but just the fact that she was willing to take the initial step was huge for her, I think. I think the fact that she's locked up in trying to get over and avoid the latest ex is helping her take baby steps in learning to communicate with me again.

I don't have anything to gain from pushing the envelope, so I've been letting her move at her own speed. My only goal with her is to regain the level of friendship we once had, nothing more than that. It's slow going, but I think in the long run things will work out.

Cruise Control, A Blessing...

I must say, whoever invented cruise is now on my "world's coolest people" list, as it made the journey across most of California and back much easier on the body and the brain this weekend.

The trip up was relatively uneventful, except me realizing how beautiful it can be just to be driving through the Central Valley, with mountain ranges far in the distance in both directions, and endless land all around you. I guess I've always lived near the mountains and the ocean, so being completely inland, seeing nothing but the greens and yellows of the land, is quite a new experience. I actually later saw a scene out my window that looked exactly like the default Windows XP background, with the beautiful green hill, the blue sky and clouds, the mountains in the background. By the time I grabbed a camera it was gone though. One of those fleeting moments that lasts only in memory. Rereading that it sounds pretty pathetic that a random hill would excite me that much.

So I eventually made it up to witness the California State Academic Decathlon in Modesto in which my alumnus was competing. That was a blast, I got to not only see some old faces I hadn't run into since high school including one of my teammates, but continue to cheer on and get to know this year's team, including one of the members who is probably attending UCSB next year. Always cool to find out people headed in my direction, enjoy showin the newbies the ropes. They ended up doing well in the competition, including the star of the team who took home multiple medals including a bronze for the 3rd highest score in the entire state. As usual she seemed like she was glad to do well but had visions and dreams of doing better. Striving for perfection, always. Sometimes people just have to take a look back and realize what they've accomplished, and be proud of it. Went out to lunch with the team after the awards banquet, I always have a blast at long tables with groups of a variety of personalities, and great comedians. Just saw a commercial that said "Here's to growing up, but still wanting to be at the kid's table." That's pretty appropriate, even though I've got four years on most of the decathletes this year, I still feel like we share a bond, and since they're much more mature than your typical 17 or 18 year olds, I tend to forget about the whole age thing when in a conversation.

Ended up not really having plans for where to spend Saturday night, and I figured out once up there that most of my friends going to school in the Bay Area were all at home for break... Luckily got a hold of a friend of mine so we hung out for a while, I got to meet her parents who seemed really great, and see her house, which was really cool. Ended up falling asleep on the couch after the really long day, and cleverly locking my car keys in her house when I left early the next morning when they were all asleep. Eventually got that figured out after a few hours and got back to Modesto in time for the awards ceremony. The trip back was pretty boring, as trips back tend to be, luckily I eventually caught up to the caravan of cars from my high school after getting gas and stuck with them the rest of the way, nothing like trying to keep multiple cars in a line on major freeways to keep one paying attention and awake. :)

I ended up surviving the driving though, which is testament than an eight hour shift between here and Texas should be tough, but not horribly impossible. :) More later, been an interesting day since then as well.

The Matt Attack Is Back Jack.

A thousand miles later, I've arrived back at home. Managed to see much of the Bay Area and Central California while I was gone over the last 36 hours, and I'm pretty beat. Stories later. However, must say thanks to the friend of mine who put me up for the night on a moment's notice, these deeds do get remembered in the great book of "people Matt owes."

Home Ugly Home...

So I got bored of hanging around and decided to clean up the pigsty I live in at school and head on home. Managed to get stuck behind three trains for a total of about an hour, including the same train TWICE while in Oxnard (I know, I counted the cars both times) due to it making a stop in between the two times I crossed it and therefore allowing me to catch up and wait... Also managed to pick the most congested way home, or so I thought, until I heard on the radio the amount of accidents and SUV flippings that took place on the alternate routes. Ended up taking me over 3 hours when a quick trip is less than 2. Gr.

There are rumors of me heading up north tomorrow for the weekend, but there are some issues that need to be worked out there so who really knows. Had a lot of mail when I came home which was nice, always fun to feel popular, even if 90% of it is junk. :)

Happy to see familiar faces and some not so familiar popping up in the guestbook, neat to not have to tap the mic saying "Is this thing on?" and wonder if anyone is listening. Although even if I knew no one was, I'd still do this. Helps me somehow, haven't quite figured it out, but it does.

Update...

They threw up the key to the Stat Final, and according to my calculations I managed a slightly better percentage than my second midterm, although not by much. Could have been better, could have been much worse. So it ends up replacing it for the final score, and after doing all the calculations it appears that I was right on the nose with my prediction of a B in that class. Its funny how they tend to surprise you though somehow... At least I'll know to go complain if I end up with something lower than that. So, after one grade I have a 3.0 GPA! Woo! For those who aren't impressed you must realize that a different statistics course was one of the ones I took on three separate occasions trying to raise my grade during my previous life on the CS path... Nothing like being done with Statistics, FOREVER, and get a not so bad grade in it too! Too bad I'll have to wait like 10 days for the other grades. :/

DUN, DUN DUN DUNT, DUN, DUN DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNN...

Anyone watch Square One when they were kids? How about 3-2-1 Contact? I think they were on KCET. Mathnet was a segment of one of them, Square One I think, and the above is an attempt at the riff they play at the end of each episode... Yeah, guess you have to know what I'm talking about to get it. :/

So, eeeets all ooooova ladies and gents. There were a couple hiccups during the Econ test, one of which was when I decided I hadn't the foggiest idea what I was talking about as I was writing the essay, so I switched to the second prompt, and it went muuuuch smoother. Basically out of the 30 questions I was positive on a bunch, pretty durned sure on a bunch more, and then there were the "well yeah, this must be right.... right?" ones where you never really know. Unfortunately there's a huge difference between a 20/30 and a 29/30 when it comes to percentages, so we'll have to see where this takes us. A little luck is always nice. Actually compared to my other classes, this one was my highest "going into the final" grade, so worst comes to worst it still should be pretty good.

So, its time for the ever fun GRADE PREDICTIONS:

Classics 102: A lot changed today, and after an A on the paper and what appeared to be a good grade on the final, I'm going to have to go with a B in the class. Higher than that would be pleasantly surprising, but since this one doesn't count towards the major or anything important, that's just for overall GPA help.

Econ 3A: I knew more going into the final of this one than most of the others since it was only worth 20% of the final grade. My range of possibilities uncurved was somewhere between about a 75 (50% on the final) and 85 (do good) percent overall in the class. Given how I felt I did on the final, I'm going to go with a B here too. A curve here would be most helpful though, and its quite possible there will be one (the final wasn't easy), which could bump that up a notch or two.

Pstat 5E: Aced the first midterm here, but scored lower on the second. Catch there being that if you do better on the final than one of the midterms, it replaces that score as well as counting for the final itself. So a whole lot of movement possible there depending on final results. As with my others, I felt pretty good, but the downside to multiple choice is you miss a couple here and there and it adds up. However there's curve possibilities there as well. Possible ranges in there are about the same as Econ 3A uncurved. Guess I'll go with a B.

Econ 1: Well, here I actually had a B+/A- going into the final, but its really a wild card. Just to continue the conservative theme with every grade, I'll go with a B+ here.

I guess those are pretty much middle of the road numbers. Some of them are pretty much guaranteed that good IE Classics, and some have it more in the middle of their range. However, given my GPA performance over the last four quarters before the major change, just about anything even remotely close to these grades will significantly and positively affect my GPA. Ya gotta start somewhere, and possibly more than doubling my GPA from one of the quarters last year would be a pretty impressive place to start the upward swing.

Okay just for kicks, the best case scenario. We'll say A in Classics if he for some reason decides to ignore the Midterm given excellent performance on the paper and the final. We'll say A- in Econ 3A if I managed to rule the final and there's any sort of curve. We'll say A in Pstat too, again if the final gods enjoyed my worship and the focus is placed on the latter parts of the class. Actually if I aced the final there then that cancels out the second midterm giving me basically 100% in the class. Obviously the final score will be key, and that's the one I'll get to see within a day or two. Econ 1 there's definitely A possibilities with an excellent score on the final. So looking at it that way, there's the possibility of an outright fabulous GPA this quarter. I won't wory about the "worst case" because there's always possibilities that the Scantron machine will eat my test. [knocks on wood]

Anyway, grades are posted online sometime late next week or early the following one.

Meanwhile, its SPRING BREAK BABY! Now the question is, what in the heck to do with myself? :)

High, High Into The Sky...

Nope, didn't have my first experience with marijuana.

I did however just get out of a Classics final, which I now feel MUCH better about. Going in I was pretty worried about my grade in the class, having absolutely eaten it hard on the midterm, and written a relatively crappy paper, and having gotten neither back yet with the only other grade being the final. Turns out after a marathon reading session last night and finding some awesome online classics study sources with summarys, analysis, quizzes to test yourself, and character evaluations, I managed to know a huge portion of the multiple choice section, and actually knew what I was talking about in the essay, with a full on thesis with three main points, body paragraphs, conclusion, witty ending, the whole bit.

So I turn in all the paperwork and Scantron thinking well, hopefully the final was worth a large percentage... Then I notice he has the stack of essays to pass back... I walk out of the class thinking, well shit, hope this doesn't totally ruin my high, hoping to see maybe a B- if he was in the right mood...

Basically clocked this guy as I bounced out around the corner pumping my fist having seen that I got an A. If I knew how to make that letter bigger I would. BOOYAH! No idea how it happened, but no reason to complain. I think it was my witty ending. "As far as I know, I was actually born the Prince of Wales."

...

Okay I'm a dork. But I guess you have to read the whole paragraph to understand. Yeah, that's it.

So anyway, we've gone from man it would be nice to get some kind of a C to not totally kill my GPA, to holy junk I might actually get something higher than a B! Phew. One more to go, and I've studied more for this next one than any test in my college career strangely enough. Only thirty multiple choice on it though as well as the essay, so a few booboos and your grade falls in a hurry. Nice thing is the essay is scored either a 1 or a 0 and multiplied by the multiple choice percentage, so as long as you pretend to know what kind of concentrated stuff you're smoking while you write it you'll get the 1 with no problem. Pretty sure if I get an A on that final I'll get an A in the class. In fact given the only other two grades were the midterm I got a 13/15 on and quizzes and I got an even higher percentage, my grade on the final will probably be my grade in the class unless its horrible.

I vote I not screw up this high, and go kick butt on Econ too! Yeahhhh! More later, we'll see what the aftermath looks like.

Halfway Home...

Oh how I love multiple choice exams. Oh how I love them Sam I am. There's nothing like having absolutely NO CLUE what the correct answer would be, but since the next question is based off the answer to the previous, figuring it out from there, or working backwards with each of the choices, or guess and checking, and eventually getting it right. Luckily there was only a few of those on the Stat final that I was boggled about, other than that it went pretty well. They let us keep the test and they're going to post the key online, so I should know within a day or two what my final grade is and be able to work out my grade in the class, something most classes usually don't allow you to do. Always nice to know ahead of time what you're getting before the two week period before the grades actually show up on your transcript.

Two more chapters of Econ as well as the review and four plays to read by tomorrow for Classics, those are from 12-3 and 4-7, and then, I'm free!

(ignore the time on this, its actually 6:30pm I'm just using a post I accidentally duplicated earlier, oopsie)

Cheerful, For Some Reason or Another.

This one goes out to all my friends, especially the ones who've made me smile in times when in seemed impossible.

"Thought I'd seen everything
There was to see in this world
Now I'm not so sure
I've really seen anything at all.
I thought life could show me no surprises
And then you came and showed me I was wrong.

I have seen the bluest skies
Ranibows that would make you cry.
I have seen miracles
That moved my soul
Days that changed my life.
I have seen the brightest stars
Shine like diamonds in the dark.
Seen all the wonders of the world
But I've never seen a smile as beautiful as yours..

I thought I'd been everywhere.
I'd climbed the mountains so high
Sailed the sea, crossed the sky
And still I was nowhere at all.
Until that day
You came to my senses
And you smiled and made sense out of it all.

I have seen the bluest skies
Rainbows that would make you cry.
I have seen miracles that moved my soul
Days that changed my life.
I have seen the brightest stars
Shine like diamonds in the dark.
Seen all the wonders of the world
But I've never seen a smile as beautiful as yours.

Things so beautiful comes one time in a lifetime
A smile this beautiful I never dreamed I'd ever see.

I have seen the bluest sies
Rainbows that would make you cry.
I have seen miracles that moved my soul
and days that changed my life.
I have seen the brightest stars
Shine like diamonds in the dark.
I've seen all the wonders of this world
But I've never seen a smile as beautiful as yours."

Awwww wat a pwetty song.

Its All A Haze...

Okay so I tried putting the alarm clock down on the desk instead of up where I can reach it for the first time last night. My theory was I'd have to get down to turn it off, and its so much work to get all the way back up there I'd stay up, important given I had a final at 8am.

I vaguely remember trying to reach down to turn off the alarm even though it was all the way down on the desk (bout a four foot drop) and eventually getting it, after sliding out of bed and crashing onto the floor, hand still on the clock. Interesting thing being I was so tired I managed to climb back into bed and fall asleep without the thought of the final occurring to me at any time. Even more bizarre is the fact that I managed to wake up unaided at 7:46, and even managed to avoid faceplanting the ceiling as I leaned forward with the classic "OHMYGAWD PLEASE SAY ITS NOT PAST 8." Eh, I always manage to make things interesting.

Good news is I nailed the final pretty good (I always think that) and should have locked down a decent grade in that class (I always predict that too). Bad news is somehow I managed to slice across my middle and pinky fingers last night, just a paper cut style wound across the tips, while the finger between them was untouched. Weird. Very weird.

Anyway, tomorrow's is at 4pm, should be able to wake up easier for that one. ;)

Think Of A Restaurant That Rhymes with Sparrows...

And you'll know where I've been for the last few hours. Nothing like setting a personal record downing four strawberry lemonades while spreading all types of paraphernalia around a booth and working your way through a prolonged study session. Got a lot done, and am feeling much better heading into my 8am final tomorrow.

Damn, 8am? That means up at 7, well, should probably study a bit more and look over things, so 6:30. Hm, 3:15 now, sounds like after the test I'll be comin home for a wil nappie. :)

Oh and on a totally irrelevant subject, we had an argumnet today about whether cereal without milk could be referred to as "naked," much in the same manner as toast without butter, toes without polish, and other random objects that tend to generate usage of the word. To me it seemed like quite the logical placement in a sentence, but my lunch buddy vehemently disagreed this afternoon. There's must be some grains or carbohydrates rights group on campus I don't know about.

One More Blurb...

For those who get a kick out of what random searches bring people to my page:

"Searching Brunette Girlfriend"
"Millionaires Searching Dates"
"Scary D-Day Pics"

Something tells me they didn't find what they were looking for. Alas. :)

A Slight Miscalculation...

So I finally made it over to the actual track today. Since it was Sunday I was pretty sure the track team wouldn't be invading the place, and I was right. Unfortunately it started to rain shortly after I got there, and so it ended up a pretty damp workout. I'm sure I can blame the wetness for part of it, but my lap times ended up a good 15 or 20 seconds per lap over my average for the previous two running workouts for the entirety, which put me a good minute plus over my target two mile time even though I maintained a steady pace throughout. :( I was confused at first until I decided to pace out the track and see how "off" my little wanna be lap setup over at the Rec Cen was, and it turned out that every 120 paces of mine end up 100 yards, not 100/100 as I expected. This made me feel better, because after adding 1/5 of the total time at the Rec Cen onto itself a time appeared that was basically identical to what I ran today. The bad news being that means I'm not in the shape I thought I was. This actually doesn't hurt too bad, given I just started seriously working out within the last week or two, and it makes sense I shouldn't instantly be able to run at the speed I'm shooting for. More important is trying to keep the mental focus necessary to keep the workout schedule going and not slack off. I figure there are a lot of people here who can't even run the two miles without stopping, so nyah nyah to them! :)

Feels good to come home tired though, after a good series of stretching, slowly I'm becoming slightly more flexible than a two by four.

First final is Tuesday at 8am, then I've got a 4pm Wednesday, and a 12pm and 4pm Thursday.

It was Mr. Plum, In The Dining Commons, With the Fork.

Not sure what I ate tonight, but it was something baaaaaaad. Probably the sausage calzone. Felt a lot better after it came up than I did while it was stuck after going down. Always a colorful thought. Posts over the next couple days will probably be really random, Finals start Tuesday so I'll be having study sessions of decent length, sleeping at weird hours, the typical finals week fare.

Six Months Later, Feels Like Six Days

Downloaded the CBS documentary 9|11 That aired six months after that horrific day, and watched it for the first time this afternoon. It was a two hour commercial free special, consisting of edited footage from the events of the day, mostly as seen through one firehouse's eyes. I'd never before seen footage from inside the towers as it happened, or witnessed the amazing acts of courage and bravery that took place all around the World Trade Center that day.

Everyone deals with things in different ways, for some the best way to heal is attempt to forget, as impossible as it may seem. For those others though who want to learn more about what happened, and how it happened, and pay tribute to those involved, I highly recommend watching this film. I'm sure there will be more like it, for years to come, as this event goes down in history as the worst terrorist attack this country has ever seen to this day.

My feelings while watching the destruction were much as they were that morning, as I awoke to a world that was no longer innocent. Some sadness, mostly disbelief, complete and utter amazement, dumbfounded that something like this actually happened. Some scenes were as powerful as they come, striking a chord in I'm sure everyone who witnessed them. One specific one affected me personally the most, as the clean up process began during the days and weeks following. All the rescue workers still had hope of finding people alive, as hundreds, probably thousands of them converged on the scene to do anything they possibly could to help. The digging through the rubble was non-stop, the sound of heavy machinery and iron workers, fireman radios and loud communication filled the air. Every once in a while though, the shout for silence would come across the pile, and be passed along to everyone present. Suddenly, all the sound would stop. Other than a rare distant siren or a random two-way radio, silence. Everyone listening, waiting, hoping. The camera panned across the rubble, and the emotions of the people were clearly written on their faces. Eventually, everyone going back to work, even as they realized the task was becoming more and more fruitless. Only a few people ended up being pulled from the rubble after the first day, but still the work continues.

I've heard that one of the plans for a memorial at the site is to have several extremely powerful spotlights put in the place the towers once stood, and have them shine directly upwards into the sky, such that it would give the impression the towers were still there, strong as ever. Who knows what will actually end up in their place, or how long the clean up process will continue, but I think we all agree that something should be done to help us remember what happened.

A few summers ago I stood on the World Trade Center's Tower 2, looking out over all of New York. The view was one I won't forget.

March Madness...

The College Basketball tournament opened tonight with some amazing upsets, including an "almost" upset in which UCSB (mah school) took a lead into the half even as a double digit underdog, eventually losing a close one in the final seconds. The lady Gauchos play tomorrow night, good luck to them against Virginia Tech, and thumbs up to the men for putting up a great effort.

Couple guys who lived on this hall last year stopped by to say hi and snag a movie, we spent some time reminiscing about past excursions and escapades, always hilarious. In terms of variety of personalities, I think last year's hall has this one beat pretty handily, but this one has certainly earned its share of writeups, and then some.

Picked up my Krispy Kremes today, yummiest things ever. Probably not the healthiest but hey, I did my workout for the day. Managed to keep to this running one day arm workout the next strategy for lets see, three days now, so we'll see where that takes us. :)

Caught up on some episode downloading and snagged a few more movies, I'd been stuck on 420 for a while after a massive burning spree, time to get some new stuff. Gonna make an effort this summer to watch a large chunk of the ones I haven't seen, one per day or something like that. Bout four months later I'll have gotten through all of them, heh.

Getting a multitude of random IMs lately from visitors to this page whom i've never met, something I really enjoy. Keep em comin people, or feel free to sign the guestbook if you just have a quick message about something. :)

Two Miles. Two Minutes By Car, Or Not.

Managed to get off my ass long enough today to head over to the track, to see what the ol two mile time would be. I was a track star during my first couple years of high school in the distance events, but in college I haven't done much of anything by way of running. Turns out track practice was hoggin the place, so I set up some cones I found over by Rob Field at the Reccen into a 100yd by 100yd square, so I could do some somewhat accurate laps. Actually had a much lower time than I expected, possibly because the laps weren't as accurate as I thought, but then again maybe I'm just not as out of shape as I expected. :) That's not to say I didn't feel like I was gonna die, though.

Watched the new season of Amazing Race tonight, I thoroughly enjoyed the first and so far this is no different. I've always been into reality series, probably because I enjoy analyzing other people. Of all of them though I think that one would be the neatest one to be on personally, since they get to see amazing places all around the world and do incredible things the general publics just won't get a chance to do.

Apparently the Marines called my house over the weekend, about "amazing opportunities." Interestingly enough I never got to hear the message, I was informed later that the message was deleted before I even knew about it. That kind of irritated me, even if its a solicitor, I like getting messages on my tape, makes me feel special. :) Anyway, so that combined with all the military in the news lately got me thinkin and I did some research online into the different branches and what they have to offer, just because I'd never even really considered it as an option before. There are some obvious negative aspects to the military, but not too many of them affect me personally. I always said if I ever got drafted or something I'd want to head into the Air Force, maybe because I'm not your textbook front line infantryman, maybe because its less risky, who knows. I guess the reason I never thought about it in high school was physically, I just wouldn't have been able to perform to the levels required to even get your foot in the door. When it came to push ups, or anything involving the upper body, I just basically, stunk. That is no longer true, and I see no reason why I shouldn't leave all options open. The two mile and the running aspect was something I was questioning, but I guess my background even after "taking a few years off" so to speak allows me to do pretty well there too, to the point I'm still under the limit for the different branches by a minute or two with no training whatsoever. So physically, there's isn't really anything that would disqualify me immediately like I used to think.

I had a few conversations about it with various people I know, and there tend to be two responses when the words Matt and Military are used in the same sentence. High school friends response: "AHAHAHA UR KIDDING RITE?" College friends response: "Yeah, that would be neat, I can see you doing that, living that lifestyle." I think its because of the ways I've changed over the past few years. I'm not exactly your takes practice SAT tests all day nerd anymore, nor your runs 40 miles a week cuz he's insane stick figure anymore. In my family the world was always high school first, then college, then job. Yeah, I took the ASVAB, and saw a bunch of other people get carted off to Boot Camp after their senior year of high school, but I basically just never even considered that as an option, because of the way I was brought up. I totally agree with my parents though when it comes to putting a college degree first. It turns out that by doing so and then deciding to spent some time in the military, you can enter directly into an Officer's position, whereas if you'd enlisted out of high school it will probably take much longer than four years to attain that level of promotion. Once you've served your four or six or whatever amount of years as an Officer depending on the position, you can always return to the civilian world once you've fulfullied your duties.

I don't think my family thinks negatively of the Military, I have cousins who have gone into various branches who have been looked upon with respect, and I had a conversation with my father about my grandpa , who served many years in the Navy. I've always instantly had a level of respect for someone with a ranking before their name, especially after watching various documentaries and movies about what some of them have to go through.

Just food for thought, not like anything will be different regardless of what goes on afterward until I get my degree.

Ew

Some fun facts you probably didn't know:

"In the course of an average lifetime you will, while sleeping, eat 70 assorted insects and 10 spiders."
"23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their buttocks."
"In average, a human being will have sex more than 3,000 times and spend two weeks kissing in their lifetime."

That last one seems most impressive to me. Not necessarily the two weeks, that doesn't seem like that long given the amount of time people spend mackin away in high school, but three THOUSAND? Ya gotta figure some of us are a bit behind. Maybe married life is more interesting than once thought.

So I had my racquetball playoff game tonight, and managed to lose. Not that it was surprising, I was playing like a complete jackass, the two weeks between games was part of the problem, the fact that I've been working on my arms and am stronger than I was two weeks ago was the rest of it. Just couldn't really find the rhythmn, kept overpowering shots instead of using finesse. Still managed to drag it out to the third game before I lost that one 11-9. Sigh. Quite irritating, but only because I hate to lose, especially when I know I was supposed to win.

Found an interesting site called the High IQ Society or something or other, the IQ tests they have posted are basically impossibly hard. Supposedly they help weed out the 130s and 140s from the 150s and 160s, or something. Took me quite some time, but I get my kicks from doing that kind of thing, so go figure.

Got one week til finals start, going to start scheduling my studying time since once they start they're pretty rapid fire until they're done. Still not sure of my plans for Spring Break, I'd like to go North for various reasons, but not sure how the transportation issues will work out, or whether I should just drive, or whatnot.

Got a haircut today. Wish I could get a haircut without everyone and their puppy saying something about it, but alas. Generally its not bad, but the "HOLY JUNK MATT WHERE'D ALL THE HAIR GO" gets old. I think I'm just irritated because I lost. Gr.

Rocks, Rocks, Whoops, and More Rocks

Got off my arse and headed out into the mountains with the hall yesterday for a hiking trip... Just finished watching the video with everyone in the lounge. Headed up the Seven Falls trail north of Santa Barbara mission, had a blast. I'd forgotten how fun hiking is, it had been a while. Think I'm gonna go for many more excursions during upcoming weekends to see what there is to see around here. Passing by the mission was actually more interesting than most would think due to the fact that the last time I'd seen it I was in 4th grade... Obviously seemed WAY smaller than previous, going to have to stop by and take another look around there sometime too. Kind of sad how little of this area I've seen given I've lived here for three years.

So anyway, about twenty of us ended up gettin up to Inspiration Point, with a view of all of Santa Barbara, Goleta, and UCSB. Was quite worth the hike in my mind. On the way back we tried hiking up this creek bed on this supposed trail, which ended up causing various bouts with cliff faces and helping people climb them, and some occasional interesting scenarios with ppl slipping into pools or sliding down rocks. I managed the lengthiest fall of the day after climbing up a 60 degree or so pebble water runoff kind of trail thing to see if it would gain us any ground, and on the way down slipping and sliding about sixty feet before coming to a stop near the bottom. Got some decent skin taken off my side but alas, its part of the fun. Did manage to get one incident caught on camera when I was balanced on the side of one of the faces laughing at the antics of someone else, and leaned back a little bit too far and almost managed to end up in the rocky pool ten feet or so below. That got the legs a shakin for a while and I made strong attempts to not do anything else stupid for the remainder of the trip. :) Another classic shot was the ten of us lined up at this dam type thing and on the count of three seeing who could explactorate furthest. Heh.

Overall a fun bonding experience, especially with some of the 3rd floor people I don't see much, enjoyed it thoroughly.

An Attempt At Imitation

I really enjoy a particular blog by a woman living in New York City, called Encounters Witnessed and Conversations Overheard. She takes random but later significant encounters with people from her everyday life, and reproduces the conversation for everyone to see. They say imitation is a form of flattery, so I'm going to attempt to do just that.

It's late Sunday night, past one. The young man walks from his car home towards his dorm, passing betwen buildings. He twirls his keys in his hand. He spots a cute young woman hovering outside the door of another dorm. She seems lost, afraid, perhaps locked out. He decides to see if she's alright, as his path approaches the building. As he nears the door opens, another young man walks out. The sparkle of their immediate smiles can be seen from a distance. They kiss, and embrace, before walking slowly down the hallway, arm in arm, as the door swings shut behind them. Out in the cold night, the man sighs, and shivers. He puts his keys back into his pocket, and continues home.

I decided to italicize it and future attempts of this sort so its clear when I randomly start talking in the third person what's going on. Seeing the way such simple things affect people in such a multitude of different ways is amazing to me. I guess these types of entries will help show another glimpse into the world that only I see.

A War By Any Other Name, Still Kills.

Just arrived home from a theater excursion, where a friend and I witnessed the power that is We Were Soldiers the latest in a string of recent war movies, this one starring Mel Gibson. Going in I'd heard it compared to Black Hawk Down, but frankly I didn't see many similarities at all other than the obvious fighting factor, and the fact they were both true stories. However on the gruesome/violence scale, if you the previous one made you queasy, I highly suggest you avoid this one. The opening scene is an excellent litmus test, within about thirty seconds of the movie start you've seen a good sampling of what will take place for the remainder of the movie. Easily the most graphic film I've ever seen, and that's saying something. The only thing I can compare it to is the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan. That said, I felt it was a very well done and extremely powerful movie. I guess advances in technology is what causes this one to go even further than previous gorefests when it comes to graphic realism. Plenty of slow motion deaths in this one, there were many a gasp in the theater from the soft hearted. This one didn't cause me to shed any tears, but I think that was mostly due to me being agape with awe at what was going on, amazed that someone experienced it in real life. As for a rating, I'm going to have to go with 6+ M's out of 7. Pretty hard to make it better than it was, or any more powerful, thought provoking, or mind boggling. It made an attempt to show the major battle involved from both sides, allowing us to get to know characters from the other side of the lines as well, largely the general of the opposing forces. This allowed for pivotal scenes when known characters from both sides would clash, causing the audience to feel the pain of whichever one came out on the short end, regardless of whether they were "good" or "bad." The acting was superior to most, I've always like Gibson in movies such as Braveheart and The Patriot, and this one is no different. Also some amazing supporting performances, that just contributed to the overall horror of the situation. Little tiny men making an effort to change the great big world, and not knowing whether they're treading water in quicksand.

Floatin In The Clouds...

Sometimes saying somethig nice goes a long way. Its one thing to get a compliment from your family or a close friend, that tends to be a common occurrence, or even something they feel they "should" do from time to time. Its a completely different thing to me when I receive a compliment from a total stranger, or someone I know but not very well.

Last night I was just walking down the hall when someone pulled me aside to tell me that I was an excellent writer, something I really don't hear too often. During most of my life and especially high school, I've been surrounding by amazing writers, and was always considered by them as a mediocre one, occasionally entertaining. A certain event in the Academic Decathlon managed to kill my confidence for quite some time that I would ever be able to write something worth a decent grade. Still have to get around to telling that story. Some day when I'm already depressed. Anyway, apparently the person had made it to this page at one time or another and thoroughly enjoyed it. The person was adamant to the point they thought I should drop Business Econ and pursue a writing career. Usually I'd shrug off the random comment from someone as B.S., or them trying to kiss my ass for some reason or another, but something about the way the person said it made it seem sincere. They weren't looking me in the eye, as if they were almost embarrassed to give such a bold and random compliment. Who knows, maybe I got all excited over a joke, but regardless, it made me feel really good inside.

Those types of random acts of kindness always tend to keep me up in the clouds for days at a time. People don't realize how much it means to me, especially when I'm down in the dumps for some reason or another.

There have been many arguments about the purpose of an online journal, and I've seen many a personal attack towards someone suggesting they're just doing it for "the attention." I suppose that has to be a little part of it for everyone who keeps one, otherwise there's no real rational reason to make it public. Some people are more concerned than others when it comes to counting their hits and regular readers, but I don't think I'm one of those people.

I write for me, myself and I. If I didn't think I had anything to gain from expressing my feelings through words, I wouldn't. I really enjoy reading back into random entries and seeing how I felt at that time in my life. I tend to bust through each entry in five minutes or so depending on the length, so within a couple days I've forgotten most of what I wrote. When reading through it again, its like reading a book I've never read, by an author I've never met. I don't think I posses the creativeness to actually write a novel out of my head at this point in my life. Maybe its proof of self-centeredness that I'm only able to write hundreds of pages about myself on a daily basis. Then again maybe that's the subject I'm the most intelligent expert on. Yeah, I enjoy hearing that people were entertained by this journal. I am even more excited to hear that they thought something I said was profound, or something that happened to me has changed the way they go about doing something in their own lives. It's the personal closure though that sits me down at the computer every day or two to "blab at the world." Basically speaking out, without knowing whether or not its being heard, or even if it is, by whom.

My initial reason for writing was the concept that if the "perfect person" ever ran into me in real life and wanted to know more, they could read through these pages and basically get my life story, the whole thing, and decide from the get go whether or not I was quite so perfect for them. I figure it would save a lot of time. Maybe that sounds weird, but if I was interested in someone I would totally read all about them regardless of length, to see what there is to see. So, for those who read this regularly, I can only guarantee more of the same. Mostly boring, occasionally intelligent. Mostly random, occasionally exciting. Mostly unimportant, but most importantly, honest.

Strawberry Passion Awareness...

Yeah, its sugar water, but can't say anything tastes better after a hard bit of exercise than sugar water, be it Fruitopia, Powerade, or any other manner of juice. Finally got down to the weight room for the first time in a week or two due to the flu I picked up last week and random headaches and irritation this week, and it felt good. Going to try to make it out to the pool tomorrow depending on the weather, see if I can get a good string of workouts going again. Got a big hike with the hall planned for Saturday, should be fun, I've never been up in the area of the mountains we're heading to.

Finished up my last paper for the quarter, so there's some down time up until Finals in a couple weeks. Then comes Spring Break and most likely a trip to the Bay Area since I haven't been up yet this year and I know of several people headed that way who wouldn't mind company. After that comes Vegas at some point in the vicinity of my birthday in May, and then Texas come August. Things to look forward to, but I have a whole lot of studying to get done before now and then.

Also want to say hi to some of the kind souls blessing me with guestbook entries, and to the rest of you, what are you waitin for? Click away! :)

Rain Rain Go Away...

There won't be any other comments on the events of Sunday night, its now in the past, and nothing of the sort will occur again in the future. No reason to continue repeating myself when everything I could say has already been said.

Two nights ago a group of us were sitting in Ortega enjoying the usual dinner fare when a woman came to our table to introduce herself, and talk about how we should vote in the election the next day. The rest of the guys at my table assumed she was running locally, for some unimportant position. I'm pretty sure I was the only one who heard the name "Lois Capps" and was aware that she is a US House of Representative Congresswoman from our area. So anyway, Mike, immortalized by name here, proceeds to ask Ms. Capps what her opinion on the legalization of marijuana is, mainly because he's a fan of its recreational use. She gives a little schpeal about it without saying whether she was for or against, but after further questioning she admitted the federal government is "not a fan" and "that's who she works for" however she "can be persuaded." Mike follows up with "Well, want to go smoke a bowl?"

And so, UCSB is again represented to the world as having the intelligence of a marijuana plant. Classic.

The Day After.

So, last night's post has generated some response. Some being an understatement.

Apparently it was forwarded around the building somehow, because people who were never before interested in this page have become interested based on last nights events. I'd like to clarify some of that with the addtion of results from today.

First of all I'd like to make the point that I don't use names for a reason, and that its REALLY irksome for people to come to me in order to lambast me for saying something that they felt was directed at them, when it was totally unrelated. If you want the facts, talk to me personally, don't become all irritated over something you have completely wrong anwyay.

So I got to make an appointment with the RD for Wednesday, and fill out an IR on the incident. Later today my R/A came into my room to talk to me about the issues of the hall as a whole, and how he can better improve the way he is dealing with things. I ran down a list of basically everything that had been irritating me about the hall, with the main issue being a complete lack of respect shown by some people on the hall. The maturity level of the hall as a whole has just dropped in the last few weeks, as people get used to be on their own and get away with greater and greater incidents.

What most surprised me about tonight was that shortly thereafter the two guys a couple doors down who have tended in the past to be a source for a lot of the complaints came to me personally to discuss how they can better improve the situation on the hall. I'm pretty sure the R/A had a talk with them about it prior, but they did seem to be genuinely interested in improving the living situation and respect level for everyone here. I mentioned a few of the things that had bothered me personally about them, such as one of them lighting up cigarettes in our hallway sending me into coughing spasms and making the whole hall smell like ass, and the humor of the other one which is just sometimes misplaced, such as the concept of flashing other people on the hall, something not enjoyed by everyone participating. They seemed to seriously take to heart the fact that they've been at an unacceptable maturity level lately and now that someone is finally having to take some of the heat for it they're going to "mend their ways" so that it doesn't happen to them. They assured me it wasn't all talk, and I sincerely hope that it isn't. We came to an understanding that I personally have no problem with the ways they choose to have their fun as freshmen, but when it begins to affect me or others personally negatively, and they receive a complaint, they should make the correct judgement.

The remaining issue is the seemingly twelve year old boy who was on the tail end of the punch last night, who appears to have no intention of changing his ways at all. Last night is far from being the only issue, previously there have been situations where up to six people would be studying in the lounge (adjacent) and helping each other out to study for a midterm and he's shown a total disrespect for all of them buy yelling and carrying on right outside the door, or playing his music at an obscene volume, even after REPEATED attempts by both everyone in the room and the R/A to lower the noise. He is the only one on the hall who feels the need to pump his speakers up to a volume where everyone can hear it clearly, and isn't concerned with it when people ask him to shut it off, regardless of how politely. He's been written up on multiple occasions due to his stupidity, such as smoking weed by himself in his room with the door open, and getting caught after the smell has wafted over the entire hall. Even today, he continued to talk trash, referring to how "girly" my punch was, and telling friends how many "gangsters" he knew up in King City where he dug ditches all summer (yeah, I know, that explains a lot) who are willing to drive hundreds of miles to "do his dirty work." I find it humorous. The one time he could have actually fought back and used his "mad guns" to "beat the shit out of me" and claimed self defense, his solution was to cry. The phrase "all talk" is most appropriately used here. He just recently started smoking cigarettes again, so if nothing else, that will do him in eventually. He goes out of his way to cause problems in other people's lives, I guess I should just say what goes around comes around. (edit: That's not a threat, don't read it as such, I wouldn't waste my time. I'm done with the situation with him, he'll get what's coming to him regardless of whether I'm involved.)

Luckily it would appear that the situation with everyone else has resolved itself to the point that they're more concerned with him than with anyone else, and a general understanding has been reached among those of us intelligent enough to hold a coherent conversation. So basically, everyone on the hall is now going to thoroughly enjoy the next time he gets caught, and gets to deal with the same situation I'm going through, except to a fuller extent, because it will be his 3rd writeup, grounds for removal from the dorms. The amount of slack he's been cut will be eliminated completely, and he'll have to be very careful if he does want to finish out the year here. I won't be sorry to see him go, and I'm not the only one.

So, resolution, major strides have been taken today to improve the situation on the hall by its various members, our R/A has pledged to deal with future occurances appropriately before it reaches this extent, and one little boy cowers in his room waiting for the walls to close in on him.

In other news, the nickname "Muhammad" has been coined in reference to me, I found that to be quite clever.

Not Your Typical Run Of The Mill Sunday Night.

Everything was normal until oh say, 1am last night. That was when I decided to use the restroom, heading halfway down the hall to where they're located on this floor. While I'm in there, I hear the door open and soon after I see a camera appear above the top of my stall and the flash goes off. Immediately I hear two people crack up and go running out of there. At first I was relatively cool about the situation, acknowledging that freshmen will be freshmen, and this is the kind of crap that they'll pull.

Unfortunately I was not in the best of moods last night, and that's not how it went over. Especially lately, there have been a string of issues regarding disrespect involving some of the people on my hall. I've had to remove everything off my door, because anything I put up such as a sign to show people where I am when I'm out, or various posters, are either lit aflame, or just defaced/damaged or ripped off. I figured with nothing on my door there was no way I'd run into an issue with the people again, until this happened. My R/A this year is only a sophomore, and when it comes to responding to complaints he basically doesn't do much of anything. So tonight I go into his room immediately following the incident and explain what happened, and he proceeds to tell me that he's heard of it happening to other people, and there have been no complaints, and there's not much he can do about it. Frustrated and pissed off, I then run into one of the ringleaders generally leading the charge in causing problems, recently he's been seen both with a keg in his room doling it out to anyone wanting to get trashed, or smoking in the actual hallway, making the whole place smell like shit. He proceeds to claim he had nothing to do with it, but names two people who he thinks did. Further down the hall the door of one of the two's room opens, and out leans one of the aforementioned people. Quite pissed off, I asked him if he had anything to do with it, and he immediately starts laughing and giggling before I even mention what the incident was and saying that "he heard."

So I clocked him. Those of you who know me are aware that its been a VERY long time since I've dealt with things in a physical manner. Generally I go by the "ignore and it'll pass" or "what goes around comes around" rule, but that just didn't happen this time. Its the same time every year that the freshmen decide to come up with new ways to generally disrespect people, and find new ways to show their immaturity at the expense of others. The R/A generally is powerless to stop them, and gives me the usual "freshmen will be freshmen" defense. Unfortunately each year at about this time I've had to make a point that I'm not amused by any of it, and that if they feel like fucking with someone, it had better be with someone else. So this year I made the mistake of resorting to physical retaliation.

Don't get me wrong, its not like I hammered on some innocent schoolgirl, this guy was a high school wrestler, wears nothing but wife beaters to show off his "mad guns" and is supposedly one of the "toughest" guys on the hall. I've had to deal with him having many a "friendly" wrestling match in the middle of the hall, as he and his buddies slam each other around "all in good fun." Apparently though, one hand can cause half his face to swell up. I'm not even a lefty, and I was holding my bathkit with my right at the time. Personally, I think he went in and hit himself again eight times harder afterward to cause a greater effect before he immediately went to the R/A to complain. So of course, the one time I'm on the other side of the issue, all of a sudden the powers at be know exactly how to deal with the situation.

Unbelievably, within a half hour I'm downstairs with the ARD and two police officers, explaining my side of the story as the stupid boy decides whether or not he wants to press charges or not. Apparently two people beating each other up in the hall is fine, body slamming is fine, smoking in the hall, kegs in the room, these are all examples of upstanding young citizens, but someone getting what was coming to them is grounds for immediate reprimand.

So anyway, law enforcement resources were wasted for about an hour as I calmly described the recent events, and basically eventually made it quite clear to the officers that not only had their time been wasted, but the little boy who can't form a coherent sentence whether intoxicated or not is someone they should keep an eye on. I made no attempt to deny that I gave him what he deserved though, so apparently I get to have a meeting with the RD and possibly go before the student judiciary committee or something or other to decide if "further action" needs to be taken.

I'm not worried, this isn't something I can't handle. Three years in the dorms with a perfect record will stand up a lot better than someone who's been written up twice for marijuana and various other delinquent activities. Just not something I needed to deal with, and gladly, it appears I won't ever have to deal with it again for the remainder of the year. Everyone's been giving me a wide berth this morning, it appears the word is out.

Comments? Other than hitting people is bad, I don't feel there's much for other people to say. The world is not a perfect place, pretending like you're going to be able to get through life without ever defending yourself is a pathetic fantasy.

Come Sail Away, Come Sail Away...

Wow, absolutely beautiful day. You could see the islands more clearly than any day in recent memory, and the mountains seemed much more prominent than usual. Managed to get out to enjoy the scenery today and had no regrets.

There's something in the wind, a whole lot of my friends are telling me stories about recent breakups and how they're dealing with them, its really weird hearing various stages of the same overall scenario from different people, as the process goes through initial bitterness/denial, anger/revenge, jealousy, and eventually acceptance and acknowledgement of the actuality of the present situation (that being the fact that he/she is not coming back). I don't get too excited though, just when the singles pool seems to be getting larger they all seem to pair off again. :/

Hm, LCDs are getting cheaper, but still not cheap enough. The VP230MB is down to a whoppingly cheap $3400. Heh. Spare change anyone?

A Light In The Dark

The internet came back up a few minutes ago, for the moment. Was down all evening. Apparenlty the resnet guy has most of comm services working on the problem now, and they've narrowed it down to something between the switch and the port in my room, if not one of the two. Lovely. This being Friday I'll get to deal with it for a few more days until Monday when people go to work again.

I'm becoming qutie confused by the concept of an internet search. One of the services I use to track traffic through this page spits out a list of all the things people have searched for and ended up being linked to it. Some make sense: "searching something" "ucsb blog" or some movie or book titles. Others however, like "Pictures of 5th grade girls tied up and gagged"? Um, I BEG your pardon? There's obviously some sort of issue there. I'm pretty sure I've been coherent enough while typing that those words have never appeared anywhere near that order in here. Sheesh. How pathetic are people today that they're looking for something like that. I guess there's no real way for search engines to block that kind of search that obviously isn't productive. Then again I suppose that's most of the business a search engine gets. Pathetic.

The cat died.

Was over 10 years old, didn't seem that long. Poor cat. Those looking for a eulogy should head for the sisters page, she's always more vocal about these types of things. I tend to be more of an introvert.

I would link her, but I think the corporate demigods would immediately have her tarred, feathered, chained, whipped, beaten, fired, and publicly farted on if they managed to put a name to the "horrible" things she says on her page. Strange how I can go from a tragedy to a joke in two sentences. Guess its just my way of doing things. Always makes things easier, unfortunately not always appropriate.

March? Is it really?

The Clock Is Ticking.

Added something to chase the cursor around the page and entertain the masses. Quite cool I think. I'm a dork, though.

The Week That Wasn't

So the Grammy's sucked. They just weren't very entertaining. All stuff I'd heard before, no one really did anything significantly different. The people who were supposed to win basically did, and the host wasn't very funny. Luckily, I taped them, and instead spent the time going to another a cappella concert in IV theater where the UCSB group Naked Voices performed with the Michigan group Dicks and Janes. Had a much more enjoyable time there, even though I had to sit way in the back to avoid infecting everyone with the flu. Nothing like going from 102 degrees to 60 degrees (seemingly) every 30 seconds. Been atrocious all this week, luckily haven't missed anything important, I'm in the lull before important stuff is due and then finals.

Decided to rearrange my room the other day, to allow myself more space. The bed is now bunked to within about a foot and a half of the ceiling, making not faceplanting when waking up a challenge. However, this allows for a lot to be moved underneath it (like my chair/desk/monitor) and leaves the rest of the room pretty open. I'd say my room is maybe fourteen feet by eight feet, not exactly the hugest room I've ever been in. This new arrangement allows plenty of space for everything though, so I don't really complain.

The new survivor was even more entertaining than the Grammys. Sad.

A Family Affair

So the sister has finally got her act together and gotten her blog working. Alas, the third member of the family to join the revolution. I always knew I was a trendsetter. People have amazing dreams of following in my footsteps. Alas, I have big feet.

The brother for once managed to crack a smile on this hunk of a face, as he referred to the sister's blog as execessively paranoid and representative of someone working for "big tobacco." Not everyone in my family is as blindingly trusting of the internet as I, it would seem. I guess I'm not worried about large angry men lusting for me in prison. Hm. Maybe if I put up pics...

Sigh, Cough, Sneeze.

Another night without internet last night, the resnet guy said he was coming over either between 3 and 5 or after 10 so I sat around, but no dice. Hasn't called yet today either. Gr. Argharghargh. Getting over the flu that I've had for the last few days, had the highest fever of my life I'm pretty sure a couple nights ago, finally decided to take something, that helped me at least get a couple hours of sleep a night, but for the most part its been pretty miserable. Being stuck in my room is bad enough but compounding that with no internet is just REALLY irritating.

Only because I was insanely bored I decide to do various stupid things you shouldn't do with the flu yesterday. Went to play my last intramural racquetball match which I narrowly won after blowing several leads and being down 11-14 in the first and 13-14 in the second and saving game points before winning them both. Literally felt like collapsing after that one, but combined with the hard swimming workout I did Monday and being sick for most of this week I've managed to gain some muscle while losing around 5 pounds. Most noticable is my stomach, which feels like I've been doing hardcore ab workouts for weeks because of all the coughing, any time I try to lean forward or cough I can feel the twinge of pain. A good thing in the long run I guess.

Rolled out of bed this morning to go get a midterm back and get more details for the financial analysis project due Tuesday, turns out I did significantly better than the first midterm, so that's always a good sign. Going to have to work pretty hard for that final, probably the most amount of material to study for of any of my classes.

Heh, let out a big sigh just now and randomly this little furball of a stuffed animal fell off its place of prominence on top of my monitor and let out a loud "I LOVE YOU! I LOVE YOU!" Got it for Valentine's day, its one of those things that says something when you squeeze it, quite cute. Quite random the way that happened. Maybe its a sign. Hm.

!@#^&%!@#& INTERNET!!

Okay so I'm in someone else's room slammin away on their kb, thanks to my puter bein on the fritz again. >( Havin the guy come to test the port sometime tomorrow or the next day, but I'll probably jack someone else's cable to make doubly sure that isn't the problem before then. So posts will be sparse for a bit.

Took my final midterm today, think I managed to do better than I thought I would. I have a paper and a financial project due next week, but other than that I'm made in the shade until finals. I also got one back, 13 out of 15, gotta love multiple choice when you at least partly know what you're doing, gotta hate multiple choice when there's a very small number of questions. Things are still on track for a better than ever GPA this quarter, but I always seem to say that and there always tends to be hiccups. The Grammys are on Wednesday, but I'll probably end up taping them so I can head to the acapela, er, acapella, er, a capela, er au capealksdfja, er, yeah anyway, that THING over in IV Theater. Other than that not much gonig on this week, besides me fixing my *&@#$^*&^@#$ connection. Gr.

ALKDJALFKJ

Sorry for the large gap, I've been getting intermittant errors with my network connection, consisting of XP telling me that my network cable isn't plugged in randomly, and cutting off my connect for hours at a time. Pretty sure its a problem with the resnet connect to my room and not the cable or my ethernet card, since both are working now and have been for the last six months. Quite strange, and incredibly annoying.

Aaaaaaack

Where'd the weekend go? Midterm tomorrow, must study study. Finally got around to watching The Godfather, the first part anyway. Excellent movie, although I was a bit disappointed I think based on the fact that a lot of people feel its the greatest movie of all time, that was a lot to live up to. 6M's out of 7, managed to generate an interesting dream based on one of the stronger murder scenes. No need for details there... More later, gotta tune in to the Closing Ceremonies. :)

Picatures. Lots of Picatures.

Finally went through the ol shoebox and busted out some picatures (pronounced pick-a-choors) from times long past, and started makin a little collage up on my wall, I figure it'll get bigger as time goes by. My thumbs are owie from all the pushpinning though.

Alas its time to also bust out some other lyrics I particularly enjoy, here's a couple phrases from Linkin Park. The first is from one of their older songs "One Step Closer".

"I can not take this anymore
Sayin everything I've said before
All these words they make no sense
I found bliss in ignorance
The less I hear the less you say
You'll find that out anyway..."

Ooh, disss. Also enjoy their more recent song "In the End..".

It starts with one
One thing I don't know why
It doesn't even matter how hard you try
Keep that in mind
I designed this rhyme to explain in due time
All I know
Time is a valuable thing
Watch it fly by as the pendulum swings
Watch it count down to the end of the day
The clock ticks life away
Its so unreal
Didn't look out below
Watch the time go right out the window
Tryin to hold on but didn't even know
I wasted it all just to watch you go
I kept everything inside
And even though I tried
It all fell apart
What it meant to me
Will eventually
Be a memory
Of a time I tried so hard

I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter
I had to fall to lose it all
But in the end it doesn't even matter"

Again the disclaimer, I choose lyrics to post based on how good, creative, or powerful I think they are, and unless otherwise stated, they don't reflect upon my mood of the moment, or anything else going in with me personally. I particularly like the alliteration towards the end of In The End leading into the chorus, and the line in One Step Closer "the less I hear the less you say." I sooo feel like saying that to people sometimes. ;)

Night's Are Days...

Managed to stay up most of last night studying hard for an Econ 3A midterm this morning, think I did pretty well. Course I always think that, the results are generally different. Maybe I'll be right for once.

More exciting Olympic action tonight, watched the US narrowly lose the Gold in Women's hockey, and Michelle take home the Bronze in figure skating, as well as young-un Sarah Hughes walking away with the Gold. Looks like the Closing Ceremony on Sunday is going to be a pretty amazing night as well, looking forward to it. That tape they tracked down of Hughes at age like 5 saying "I want to grow up and be in the Olympics and win a gold medal" was pretty amazing. Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.

Also had some uplifting conversations today, when I wasn't asleep. Always nice to chat with old friends.

Burnin The Midnight Oil...

Lots of good tube watchin tonight, had the usual Olympics section of the evening with some pretty cool events on... Managed to watch a world record in speed skating, some pretty incredible aerial manuevers, and witness another great performance by hometown hero Michelle to take the lead in women's figure skating. Guys on the hall walking by who see that I'm watching figure skating always make sure to announce it to anyone in earshot and try to give me a hard time, but hey, gotta support the ppl representin my hometown. :)

Midterm Thursday, going to have to do some serious studying for that one, its the second in a set of three tests for that class for which the scores are all weighted equally (the final being the third) so going to need to perform well. Managed to win my racquetball match tonight even after losing the first game and landing pretty hard on my ankle during the second, causing me to hobble around a bit. My right knee for some reason can never seem to keep the skin on it, every time it heals I tend to screw it up doing something else, or the next week when I play. Go figure.

Also have been getting to know someone I'd known "of" previously but never really gotten the chance to sit down and chat with, she thus far seems like quite the kind and gentle person. She's from my area so we had a good time talking about old times as if we'd known each other in high school. At the very least its nice to know someone else to carpool with when headed southward. Appears I'm finally going to get around to watching the Godfather series after all, she hasn't seen any of them either. Go figure.

Go figure. Go figure. I don't think I say that much in real life. Just a good place filler online I suppose.

Oh, and still no luck in finding the perfect name. Keep those ideas comin! (scroll down for info)

Yaaaaaaaaaawn

Curling. Exciting sport to watch, strangely enough. Showed both men's and women's on CNBC tonight, quite entertaining.

Too tired. Long day. Very exciting. IM me for details, although I'm pretty sure I've already bragged to everyone I know.

Toooooooo Much Chooooooocolate

Ended up basically making myself sick last night from late Valentine's day candy, quite pathetic. Did manage to get a movie watched today, The Score with Robert Deniro and Ed Norton, two of my favorite actors. Norton does an absolutely superb job, and Deniro is his usual self. Very fun robbery plot where you end up cheering for the bad guys, reminded me a lot of Ocean's 11. I'll have to go with 6M's on this one, very entertaining all around, cool gadgets, good action, some clever plot twists, and great acting. Also picked up part of Quigley Down Under on TNT tonight, one of my alltime favorites.

Basically mopin around this weekend, got plans to head out tomorrow, and signed up for a hike into the local mountains that'll take place in a couple weeks, bout time to get out and enjoy the scenery around here.

The Title That Wasn't

Try as I might I could not come up with anything clever for the heading tonight. Alas.

I ended up going to the movie in Campbell after all. I'd give it about an 11 on a sappy scale of 5. :) Quite appropriate for the occasion anyway, from my estimate about 99.9% of the audience were with their significant others. Alas. It was called The Road Home, a Chinese movie that was subtitled. It starred Zhang Ziyi (shot in the dark at the spelling) more popularly known as "that chick in Crouching Tiger." Basically your classic girl meets boy and there's this instant "the one" connection. I wouldn't recommend seeing this one by your lonesome, unless you're in the mood for kind of a tear jerker and don't want anyone else to see. :) All sorts of scenes that generated "awwwwwwww"'s from the audience followed by mass smooches. Apparently it won the audience award at the Sundance Film Festival or something, I personally would give it 5M's, although part of that is probably due a combination of jealousy and bitterness. So check it out if you have someone to cuddle up with, one of the better foreign films I've seen.

Three day weekend comin up, not really sure what I'm gonna do with it. Probably catch up on my movie watching. The Godfather series, or the Lethal Weapon series, both of which I've been getting around to. Maybe even some Band of Brothers episodes, still have about nine more of those to see as well.

And for all those of you single people out there:
Young caucasian male seeks young anything to share romantic conversations with.
Heh. It'll pass, just a case of "national single awareness" day.

Merry Cupid Day, All.

I've received a few clever ideas regarding the below contest, involving how to save myself from saying "I made it up" when asked what the random jumble of letters in my new nickname means... One was to take a translation of a word I like from another language. Although this wouldn't actually be a made up word it is much more likely to never be used by anyone else, if its a random enough language. Another was to take the letters and come up with a clever acronym for them, that hopefully won't cause me to appear too self-centered (I create enough of that already). Both good ideas, but so far still hasn't generated the perfect ideas. By the way, I didn't win the lotto. :( However the offer still stands if I EVER win it. Heehee.

Also finished up the housing application online, I went to the site describing the new Manzanita Village area that's going to be completed at the beginning of next year, and it looks quite impressive. Right on the ocean/lagoon, right next to the brand new dining commons, and with plenty of singles for those of us who are picky about our living space. :) Been in this hall for three years, I figure its time for a change of scenery. I'm sure it will be quite impacted with everyone wanting to get a piece of the new pie, but my class level is pretty high, and even if I get shafted i'll just end up over here again, not a horrible thing in itself.

Going to see what looks like a sappy drama chick flick in Campbell Hall tonight, looks like the perfect V Day movie, anyone wanting to join me in wallowing in self-pity feel free to come along. :)

When is a Name Not Just a Name?

So for a while now (what is with me and starting entries with "so." makes me sound like a valley girl. let me try this again.)

Something has caused me to try to be creative for a while now, I've been trying to come up with a cool sounding made up word. In the online world, and just about everything that requires a nickname, I've been known as THUNDER, the nickname that originally stemmed from the soccer field in about 6th grade, when the coach's wife referred to me as "thunderfoot" after a powerful shot. (not that 6th graders can kick that hard, but hey)

The problem with this nickname is it is altogether too common, just about anywhere you go if you do a search for the word you'll come up with a few hundred matches or variations of the word. It also causes problems when it comes to registering for things that require a unique name that has never been picked before by one of the millions of users. So my goal is to come up with something completely made up and unique, that will be instantly recognizable as me, and not me or 800 other imitations.

So, I lay this challenge to all of you, come up with the perfect nickname for me.

Rules:
1. Completely and Totally Unique. (no names from books, movies, or anything, no dictionary words, must be completely non-existant in the real world)
2. The nick must be easily pronouncable by anyone. (THYKER is better than ALSDKJSALJDF. The first is one I've been using for a few things, but I think a better one is out there)
3. Length is limited to 6, 7, or 8 letters. (this is so that I can use it for literally everything, a lot of programs or sites require a minimum of 6, or a maximum of 8)
4. No numbers or strange symbols. (again, different symbols are allowed at different places, this must be universal)

Some other information you should know, I'll be attempting to stick with this one nick for as long as I need a nick, so make sure its a good one that will still be good in 10 years. :) Also given the thumbs up are names that include strange letters like Y and Z or X. (again, must still be pronouncable) To respond to the people who think nicknames are retarded, imagine trying to use my real name for everything. As if there aren't any other "Matt"'s out there.

Now the most important part of the challenge, the PRIZE FOR THE WINNER:

Eternal love and affection, and constant praise of your greatness. (okay, and a grand if I win the lotto tomorrow)
Disclaimer: Family members although encouraged to participate are not eligible for the grand prize.

To submit an entry feel free to post in my guestbook, or just IM me at thndrMATT.

Let the games begin.

Changes in the Wind?

So like, I'm out last night on my way someplace plowing past Campbell Hall doing like 30 and this black cat comes darting out of the bushes giving its best effort to try to get under my tires. Amazingly enough I manage to brake to avoid it and it goes flying into the bushes on the other side of the street. Not that I believe any retarded superstitions. Nope. Not me.

So like, I'm on my way back to my place last night passing through an area somewhat near the first and I see something lying in the road. A black cat. Dead. Pretty sure it was the same one. Must have tried to change someone else's luck too, and failed. :/ How interesting.

A Lucky Day.

So, today is a nice warm sunny day, so I decide to head out to Lake Cachuma to see what its like, and hang out in the sun in nature for a while with some reading material, and eventually cash in the change jar I've been collecting for quite some time and see where it might take me at Chumash. Little did I know the day would be a lot more interesting than that.

I barely got off of 217 before the most scary thing that's happened to me in a while took place. I was parked at the red light in the left arrow lane to turn left onto Patterson from the 217 offramp that merges with the one from the 101. I randomly glance in my rear view and immediately notice a large car barrelling towards me at I'd estimate 50 mph. He was about 30 yards away at that point, and my mind went a million miles a minute, trying to find a rational way to escape the situation. I realize there was nowhere to go, and I just braced myself as best I could. The last thing I thought before he was upon me was "well, this sucks." By some miracle, he decides to swerve just before he hits me, and skids around me to the right, missing my car by less than 6 inches. I was still waiting for the impact after he was past. The next thing I saw and realized was that he was going through the red light without losing any speed. Right as he hit the intersection he started braking, I think realizing his error, or perhaps seeing the small SUV coming in from the left at about the same speed. They both floored the brake but it was too late, and he broadsided her doing at least 40 mph. Debris was sprayed all over the intersection, and both cars were basically totalled. Luckily for her he hit her on the passenger side and there was no one else in the car. After I'd pulled over and hopped out I ran over to see what I could do, and I noticed her passenger side window was right next to her head. She was basically in shock, but appeared to be uninjured short of some bruises. Her car was another story, the whole right side was just crushed in to the point that anything that was in the middle was sprayed all over the ground and intersection. He ended up a bit more shook up, I'm pretty sure he ended up with some sort of internal injury based on the way he was moving minimally after he was taken out of the car. Luckily they both had airbags, including those side impact ones, so that probably helped a great deal. After flagging down one of the witnesses who had a cell phone and pointing out this of all times was a good time to use it, I ended up helping direct traffic for about a half hour while paramedics and police were arriving at the scene. The whole intersection was just a mess of twisted metal and pieces of engine, amazingly enough my car was basically untouched.

So, a lot of it was based on luck, but apparently it was on my side.

I eventually made it onto 154, and am heading up into the mountains, when I get passed on the left in opposing traffic by a car moving at least 40 mph faster than me (theme of the day apparently). Luckily this one appeared to know what he was doing, and I soon noticed it was a jet black Lamborghini, only about 2 feet tall off the road it seemed. This was pretty cool, and made doubly cool when I noticed another car was passing me, this time a ruby red identical car. So I'm confused by now, and that's only doubled when two more pass by, silver and yellow. It was a convention or something. Eventually on the other side of the mountain I saw them all circled up in a turnaround, and then after I passed watched them pull out and go back from whence we came. Just cool to drive those cars through the mountains, or something.

So yeah, eventually I have a really peaceful time at the lake pondering life's questions, and then eventually head home a hundred bucks richer than I started. Luck carried over I suppose. Rereading that last paragraph again from down below. Guess it goes along with my whole theme for this journal. Searching for something, who knows who's in charge of deciding whether or not I'll find it, or whether anyone is really in charge at all.

Is there a time limit on life? Is the clock running? Anyone know where the pause button is? :) I'm in no hurry.

We Are We Are...

Disclaimer: This doesn't reflect anything about my current mood or anything of the sort, I just felt these were powerful lyrics worth reflecting upon here. I've been reading various other journals where people reproduce song lyrics and some of them I find quite interesting. Especially for songs such as this one where the vocalist is whizzing right through everything or is dominated by the rhythm and I might not have even noticed what he was saying.

"The Youth of a Nation"

"Last day of the rest of my life
I wish I woulda known cuz I'da kissed mah momma goodbye
I didn't tell her that I loved her, how much I cared
and thank mah pops for all the talks and all the wisdom he shared
Unware I just did what I always do
Every day the same routine before I skate off to school
But who knew that this day wasn't like the rest
Instead of takin the tests I took two to the chest
Call me blind but I didn't see it comin
Everybody was runnin but I couldn't hear nothin except
Gun blast it happened so fast
I didn't really know this kid though I sit by him in class
Maybe this kid was reachin out for love
Or maybe for a moment he forgot who he was
Or maybe this kid just wanted to be hugged
Whatever it was, I know its because

We are we are, the Youth of a Nation.
We are we are, the Youth of a Nation.
We are we are, the Youth of a Nation.
We are we are, the Youth of a Nation.

Little Susie she was only twelve
She was given the world with every chance to excel
Hang with the boys and hear the stories they tell
She might act kinda proper with no respect for herself
She finds love in all the wrong places
The same situations, just different faces
Changed off her face since her daddy left her
Too bad he never told her she deserved much better
Johnny boy always played the fool
He broke all the rules so you would think he was cool
He was never really one of the guys
No mater how hard he tried or the thought of suicide
Its kinda hard when you aint got no friends
He put his life to an end they might remember him then
You cross the line and there's no turning back
Told the world how he felt with the sound of a crack

We are we are, the Youth of a Nation.
We are we are, the Youth of a Nation.
We are we are, the Youth of a Nation.
We are we are, the Youth of a Nation.

[instrumental]

Whose to blame for the life the tragedies claim
No matter what you say it don't take away the pain
That I feel inside I'm tired of all the lies
Don't nobody know why its the blind leadin the blind
Guess that's the way that the story goes
Will it ever make sense, somebody's gotta know
There's gotta be more to life than this
There's gotta be more to everything I thought exists..."

That last paragraph is the one that made me think the most. Had quite the interesting day today, its quite a story, will give the full details later on tonight. Who knows, at this rate before then something else strange or amazing might have happened.

Animals In Cages...

There's really nothing quite as entertaining as hanging out in the floor lounge on any given Friday or Saturday night past midnight, and watching the spectacle that is freshman upon their return from IV generally as drunk as humanly possible. The exchanges make no sense, the motor skills and coordination are at an all time low, and generally something hilarious happens every five minutes, if not even more frequent.

Last night was no exception, managed to stay up until the wee hours of the morning laughing hysterically at the various impersonations by one guy who is a hilarious comedian, the antics of another guy who couldn't seem to keep any kind of liquid in any kind of container without accidentally dumping it on himself at some point, the list goes on. Why go out and pay to see live entertainment when you can just clump a few freshman together and see it for free, eh?