Sway with the breeze

I never noticed before, but from my windows in the distance you can see two very tall, very skinny pine trees. They have no needles until you get about 150 feet in the air. They’re swaying kind of violently now. My across the street neighbors are pretty lucky that we don’t get hurricanes very often here in Gainesville, because I could literally knock down those trees with an oscillating table fan. I would just need a pretty long extension cord.

Don't be a chicken

Once upon a time, I was away from home and living with my brother, so I thought it would be a prudent idea to mosey on down to the local Publix and buy some food we could eat.

Oh, I filled my cart to the brim with all sorts of fantastic treats: Pop Tarts, Chef Boyardee, Hot Pockets, and frozen pizza.

I tried to balance that complete lack of consideration for my health with some not-so-awful things: bagels (with extra cream cheese!), bottled water, and, last but not least – the crème de la crème of my sojourn to the grocery – real honest-to-goodness chicken breast.

This was in August. All of these things have gone by the wayside (read: spoiled or into my stomach). However, to this day, if you come to my humble abode, meander into the kitchen, make your way to the icebox, yank on the freezer door, move the half-empty bag of ice towards the bottom, and rummage into our meat storage bin, you will find a couple of chicken breasts as hard as rocks and as inedible as, well, rocks.

All right. Lesson learned. Only buy food that can be cooked and done away with in 30 seconds. Thanks, college!

Teacher's Pets

Holy God. I can’t take it any more. Listen to me, political science majors. Listen well.

NOBODY CARES WHAT YOU THINK ABOUT ANYTHING.

Okay, perhaps a bit harsh. But well-founded. Let me explain.

I am, for some reason, a political science major. I hold no fervent opinions either way on the political spectrum, nor do I engage in hardcore analytical thinking outside of copying notes that some overly-paid professor puts on a PowerPoint slide during lecture. For the other 165 hours each week, I’m a normal person: I sleep, I eat, I watch cartoons. I do not care about the woeful state of international relations, and I do not care about the world around me. As long as I have my Chef Boyardee, my Cartoon Network, and no place to go, I’m content.

But political science majors, they’re a different breed. While other kids go to the movies, they stay at home and watch their Tivoed copy of the State of the Union address. While other kids eat pizza, they refuse to stoop to such a level of ignorance while they munch on their ever-delicious tofu and meatless meat loaf. And while other kids just want to leave a class that has been held over for five minutes due to a long-winded professor who just wants to enlighten folks on the troubles of the country of Latvia, they all raise their hands in unison to make a myriad of “relevant” statements that do nothing more than show all of the normal-minded folks in the world of their intellect and superiority.

Seriously. Let me leave. I have some hedonism to get to.

Merry Christmas 2006

So, I was in line to purchase a Honeybaked Ham with my mother for our festival of Yuletide joy, and as we checked out, the girl said, “Merry Christmas!”

I got to thinking. I guess they don’t have to worry about any of that “Happy Holidays” hogwash. I mean, they serve ham, after all.

Maybe…

Every morning, I wake up and consider the possibilities that await me.

“Maybe today is the day the Devil Rays spend some money on a good closer.”
“Maybe today is the day I have sexual intercourse with a woman.”
“Maybe today I won’t have to park on the other side of the world when I go to school.”

Well, my friends, it’s happened. No, not the first two. We know that these things may not ever happen. However, yesterday as I drove onto campus, I found a wonderful parking space on the north side of the Hume Parking Garage.

So to savor the moment, I backed in, put up my illegitimately-obtained Red 3 parking pass, and went on my way.

I think yesterday was the greatest day I’ve had in Gainesville yet, all because of the wonderful person who thought it necessary to leave the best parking space on campus open for me.

John Q. Law is a CRIMINAL

Look, I know I’m a stickler. But isn’t it logical that policemen should have to follow the same traffic laws as everyone else if their siren is not sounding?

Creep Out!

During my long and wholly unnecessary absence from the wonderful world of the Internet, I have been acclimating myself to the strange and new world we call college: new people, new experiences, and best of all, a football team upon which I can fall back now that my beloved Buccaneers are officially worse at football than my dead grandmother.

But I digress.

There is a certain order in which people enter into one of my lectures every day. Now, this is a lecture of over 300 students, so you can probably consider it creepy that I single out these three girls. And so be it; if you don’t know by now that I am a creepy individual, there’s something wrong with you.

First, there’s Blonde Girl Who Waddles. She gives me Paris Hilton vibes. She comes in the door closest to me and literally waddles down the aisle like a penguin. She sits in about the third row. I only mention her first because she came in first last class. When she comes in, I’ve noticed, is largely a product of how much she cared to use makeup before class. If she comes in early, she is weathered, sleepy, and grumpy. If she decides to use makeup, she comes in about 10 minutes after class has started, much to the chagrin of the professor. Either way, I’ll still always love BGWW.

Next comes Girl Who Enunciates. She sits one row ahead of me and to my left. I have never actually heard her speak, but the way she trims her eyebrows and what I gather from lip reading tells me that she needn’t ever repeat herself because she takes special care to pronounce each syllable with as much accuracy and definition as possible. I respect her for this.

And last but certainly not least is Sport. I call her Sport because she has lips that resemble Gregory Smith’s in his role as Sport in Harriet the Spy. I’m not saying that she looks like a boy or anything – in fact, she is a good looking girl. Her lips just stick out like that. She computes on her iBook every day in class, mostly using Facebook. She recently changed her desktop wallpaper, which is a good thing because I’ve been of the opinion for about two months prior that she should change it.

Anyhow, now that I’ve completely mortified any girls with whom I might ever come into contact for fear of such opinions, I will leave the final judgment of my creepiness to you, the benevolent public.

Note to self…

So, after not updating my Web site for a month or so, I also stopped getting emails.

Turns out I forgot to pay the bill. Whoops.

I don't dig his digs

I know. I know. I haven’t been markedly ambitious in the writing department during the last month. But look: I’m a busy man. Of course, by “busy” I mean “lazy.” And by “man” I mean “college student.” But hey, tom-ay-to, tom-ah-to.

However, jammed between days of simply fantastic college football and absolutely putrid professional football are days where the unthinkable happens: I go to class.

Now, I’m a Political Science major this week. As such, I get to go to such wonderfully interesting classes as State and Local Government (taught by a professor that I think I could beat up) and American Federal Government. Now, the guy who teaches the latter is really, really smart. And I respect that. But what I don’t appreciate is his attire.

Every day, this professor shows up in shorts, sandals, and a t-shirt which customarily boasts clever little sayings about his (extremely rightist) views on politics. Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that if I were given the opportunity to make a copious amount of money each year for enlightening more future politicians (because, as everyone knows, we need more politicians), I would take the time to, you know, put on a tie. Or at least a collared shirt.

I would not eat it on a plane

I have to admit that I have been rather lax in the field of making note of my rambling, quasi coherent thoughts for the past couple of weeks. It could be because of the newfound academia that college is presenting to me. But it’s probably because I’m on campus eating all of the time.

Let me tell you about college, my brethren: there is food everywhere. I’m not talking about a dining hall here and a fast food joint there; there is literally some way to get food at every point on campus. Yesterday, I almost got in line for free Krishna Lunch outside of Library West. But then I smelled it. And looked at it. No thanks.