Completely legal speed.

My version of speed is drinking a coffee really fast and using the resulting energy to be productive for about an hour or so. So, by that lame ass definition, I'll be getting completely hopped up on speed tonight to finish a report I've been working on.

If, by pure chance, I end up being strung out and addicted to the legal stimulant that is white chocolate mocha w/o whipped cream, you will be seeing a nonsensical rant of a post tomorrow or late tonight. Who knows, maybe it will be insightful, maybe it will be a video (because I'm lazy), or maybe it will be a complete waste of space.

In the best interest of time and energy, I'll let this post end short and go purchase my coffee/crack and go write a paper. I would like to add that the easiest tip for filling space in said paper is to explain the "basics" or essentials to understanding the topic. You may think that the basics are self explanatory, but it looks as if you have a greater understanding of the topic if you do so.

Long live coffee drinks at late hours, and I wish you all luck in finding your own personal completely legal speed.
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Your teacher's full of snot!

It's a Wonderful Life.

To explain the title, in the 90's animated show Rocko's Modern Life, they ended an episode with a young girl saying, "Daddy, teacher says, 'every time someone finds a gas cap, an angel gets it's wings.'" Her father replies with, "Your teacher's full of snot!"

Now obviously, Frank Capra's classic is high on many christmas movie lists. This one for me didn't enter the conversation until I was old enough to understand what was going on. Not only is this a good christmas movie, it's a great movie involving the depression and the stock market collapse in 1929.

It's not often people my age watch black and white films, let alone enjoy it, but I would put this movie in my top 10.

I give this one 5 drunken pharmacists out of 5. I highly recommend this one if you haven't seen it. And if you haven't... where have you been?
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Arnold Schwarzenegger's Holiday Classic

..Jingle all the Way!

This week I'm reviewing my favorite holiday films. No particular order here, just mentioning some of the great ones.

Now of course Arnold is no oscar winning actor, but my god is this film hilarious. The fact that he beats up Sinbad (who wears a postal uniform the whole time) over an action figure in the mall of america really just warms the christmas spirit for me.

Favorite scene for me might be Jim Belushi and a warehouse full of santa claus impersonators laying the smackdown on Arnold while midget santas do somersalts to avoid the police raid.

I give it 7 bulging forehead veins out of 10.

Well check it out and have a good outrageously long "holiday season".
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Leftovers

Another thanksgiving, another day of re heated turkey and mashed potatos.

Leftovers in general are awesome. For me, and probably everyone else, cold pizza takes the cake. Cake is good too though. And chinese food.

Today it was sweet potatos, stuffing, turkey, mashed potatos, a biscuit, and of course gravy. Pumpkin pie to top it off.

Hope everyone had a good holiday and if you went shopping, let's hope it was after sunrise.
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Thanksgiving

No post today, just wanted to say go eat food and have fun.

Oh yea and enjoy this video: NSFW and NSFgrandmas.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

A greater appreciation for concept albums.

I've written about music quite a lot on this blog, and tonight is no exception. Can you blame me? Music kicks ass.

Specifically I'd like to talk about concept albums. You may or may not know what that is so let me explain. A concept album is an album released by a single band or singer or musical act that entirely has one theme. It could be love, loss, celebration, fear, or any other combination of or one single emotion or thought provocation.

Some of the more popular concept albums were released over 30 years ago by Pink Floyd or The Beatles. This would suggest that the popularity and frequency of concept albums have declined since then, which is partially true, but I believe this was intentional for several reasons.

Today, concept albums aren't as obvious as previously produced. This may be because a lot of music produced in the last ten years is planned more with singles in mind and the rest as filler. A good album, in my opinion, is solid throughout, all songs on the album are great. It's a shame that this view has changed, but thankfully not all albums have strayed away.

An example? Well there are too many to name all. Given the vast number of genres out there (many of which I do not enjoy), it's hard to say who falls under the "good" and the "not so good" categories.

If I were to give any example, it would be in my narrow view of music. Transatlanticism by Death Cab for Cutie (released 2003) would be one example. This album may not be your preferred type of music, but it is mine.

One important thing that many albums need to stress is song transition. It is my belief that concept albums have nailed this trait pretty well. If you listen to Dark Side of the Moon from start to finish, you often don't know where one song ends, and another begins. So when listening to an album, like Transatlanticism or Dark Side of the Moon, I hear the transitions, and they're somewhat seamless. I'm almost positive any album Lady Gaga has released does not have this characteristic. This is what I mean by having a "greater appreciation" for concept albums.

I guess this all stems from the main purpose of music for me; being able to have background noise for mundane tasks; doing homework, driving, walking to class, sitting in a boring lecture, writing a proposal for research, etc. Sure all of these tasks are important, but not really entertaining. You may argue that not everything has to be entertaining and you'd be right, but the important thing to remember is what's the point of life if not to enjoy your time here?

So as not to move towards a too serious of a discussion, I'll leave with one thought. Music is a great background noise. It's a great foreground noise, but sometimes that's not feasible. Enjoy the things you have to do, and you'll have a greater appreciation for the things you want to enjoy.
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Going Home

Got to talking with a good friend last night over hot wings, he had just gotten home this weekend from WVU. Eric was telling me that coming home for him is weird in that it's so different from everything in Morgantown, but it's exactly the same as he remembers it when he left. Sure the shopping centers have changed stores, there's a new restaurant next to Wal-Mart, and that intersection looks like it has new traffic lights, but it feels the same.

From what I gather of our discussion, it's like coming home to not only a place, but a memory of a feelings. You remember what that gas station smells like on the inside, you remember the glares on your windshield when you drive down the parkway at a particular time of day. It's the familiar things that make it home, not so much the locale.

Eric's story becomes even more interesting when he mentions that his family recently moved. So driving home for Thanksgiving, he has to use map-quest to find his house. An interesting twist to the story if you ask me. That familiarity is gone, yet everything else to him feels the same. A new bedroom, a new driveway, a new mailbox. Any of these things on their own is nothing but to have all of it, and a new address kind of brings it all to perspective.

Then I got to thinking of when myself and those my age begin shopping for a new home of their own. Already there are plenty people I know living in apartments but knowing that these residencies will last for only the next 18 months kind of cheapens that "home" image. I'm talking about after college. After med school and grad school. All of my friends will be buying furniture and paying electric bills. Their mail will be sent to their new permanent address in states far away from "home" and they may live the rest of their lives at that address.

Stuff like that interests me. Who knows where I'll be in 10 years. Will that be my last home or my 10th home? or Both?

Back to the Future

First, I must say it is one of my favorite movies. The whole series, not just the first or the third, I like all three together. I feel leaving even the third out cheapens the entire story arch, so the full thing is just great. But after a case of beverages and a really fun game of watching the movies later, we began wondering how the hell all of this is going on simultaneously. How many timelines are there in this thing? I've come up with a brief but precise image of what we may be dealing with here.
Now obviously we have a lot going on here at once, so let me attempt to explain.

Here, we have Einstein's trip to 2 minutes into the future. Soon after, Doc leaves Marty with the car and Marty goes to 30 years in the past while trying to escape Libyan terrorists. While there, he creates an alternate time line (the dashed line) and after fixing the events in the first movie, he travels back to 1985.



As Marty returns home, the 2015 Doc comes back to tell him that he has seen the future, and Marty's kids must be helped. It's at this time that Marty, Doc, and Jennifer go to 30 years into the future. While there, Biff takes the Delorean and goes 60 years in the past to help himself become rich. This creates an alternate timeline that Marty sees when he returns to Hill Valley, 1985. He realizes what he did when he talks to alternate rich 1985 Biff, and goes 30 more years back to the past in 1955. This time, he avoids running into himself and fixes the issue. While here unfortunately, 1985 Doc gets sent to 1885.



Now moments later, Marty is approached by a Western Union Man, who was told to give Marty a letter at that exact moment. The letter was from Doc, from the year 1885. Marty then takes the Delorean that was left in a cave since 1885 and meets with 1955 Doc to try and fix it. By the time Marty gets to 1885, he sees Doc has made a name for himself as a black smith, and by saving the school teacher, and pissing off Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (or old west Biff, as I call him) has created an alternate timeline. By allowing the Delorean to be pushed by a train, Marty reaches 1985, as it should be.



Then Doc comes from nowhere and appears on the train tracks in a big ass train with a wife and two kids.



My god that's a lot of time warp mind-screwing going on.



Update from last week's post:
New addition to the E(x)hausted rule. Apparently, adding "d" to the end also adds to the amount of tiredness, as seen here.

A Bit of Stephen & Hugh

I don't believe i've mentioned it here before, but an absolutely fantastic show that I've been catching up on in between boring and interesting lectures is this show from BBC in the 80's, A Bit of Fry & Laurie. Starring, of course, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. It has great wit and a young Laurie that everyone now knows as Dr. Gregory House. This sketch comedy show was brilliantly written and quite enjoyable.

I came across this show from a Netflix suggestion close to 4 years ago, and I've enjoyed it ever since. Some of it is terribly dated and to Americans, culturally irrelevant. However most of it (80 % or more) is stunningly hilarious. I'd recommend checking it out. If you have time, a link to the series pilot is here. Be patient as it is a long load, but the video is worth the look.

exhausted

Does the amount of x's after the letter e in the word "exhausted" determine the degree at which you are tired? If that's the case I'd say I'm about two x's. not too tired, but certainly more than normal. After running the circle and watching Mason blow it in the last 15 seconds of our game today, I was kinda worn out. Then I saw this on facebook.
I wonder what they did that made them tired. Or is she just misusing the x's?

Snag a video camera on Black Friday

Two things I believe I "need" in this upcoming shopping season; a camera, and a video camera. Hopefully I can kill two birds with one stone, but I don't mind shelling out the big bucks for two pretty good items as opposed to one item that does a task really well and the other really poorly.

The problem here, apart from my lack of self control when it comes to a personal budget, is the fact that I have NEVER shopped on black friday. never. I don't know what it's like, I don't know the secrets, I'm completely unprepared. Maybe I should think about these things before throwing myself into the throngs of madness next week.

Another thing I should consider is what I'm going to end up getting. Maybe I should figure out which is more important to me and go ahead and get a really good camera or video camera, not both. I just don't want to have to fight tooth and nail with some wily grandma in target.



[EDIT] -- 3:00 am 11/20

I'm going to start defriending those who have anything relating to twilight in their facebook status for the next 24 hours.

Final Exam Schedule

I found out that my final exam schedule looks like this:

(click to enlarge)

I've already asked my Marketing professor if I can take the exam on another day, even the week before if necessary. Hopefully I can get that changed, otherwise it will be the worst day of my life so far.

Funeral for an inanimate object.

Yesterday was a sad, silent day for me; I lost a dear inanimate object that I take with me everywhere. My headphones. Sometime between the end of my Business Communications lecture and walking past the adjoining apartment buildings in my complex, the headphones stopped playing the sounds of Ben Folds.

So let me take a moment of silence while I throw away my old friend and take a week off of listening to the music on my phone in the memory of a fallen soldier. I'll wait until next week to buy replacements in the bookstore.

George Lopez and Wanda Sykes

Why on earth has Fox and TBS given these two "celebrities" a second chance at a primetime TV show? I was listening to Pandora today (if you haven't tried it, I would highly recommend) when the Sound of George's voice filled my headphones. I clicked over to that tab to see a large ad featuring his smirking mug and plugging his new show on TBS.
But why does he deserve another shot at a show? I mean, I personally never saw what was so funny about his first show. Did he sleep with a producer or something? Yea that was a bad image burned into my mind.. sorry about that one.

But what is worse? George Lopez, or the ever so POPULAR Wanda Sykes? Yea I am being sarcastic. I have yet to meet anyone that has ever thought she was funny. Yet here we see ads of her on TV!!
I think the best part about these ads is when she's seen kicking away the "Cleveland Show", or "Brothers" saying, "get your own ad!" How perfect, place ads for terrible shows within an ad for a terrible show. Fox is guilty of marketing towards anyone watching any of these three shows as 3 parts retarded, 1 part easily brainwashed, and 1 part horribly underdeveloped. I challenge you to attempt to watch any of these shows and tell me what you think.

I won't even give George Lopez (and when I hear that name in my head, I think of how Cartman prounced this name in this clip, see around 0:53.) the benefit of the doubt because TBS shows are typically not great and as Chris Griffin says, his show only furthers the stereotype that George Lopez is funny.

Dirty Dishes

Problem with living in an apartment with three other guys is that no one wants to do the dishes. I haven't been here in three days and the sink is full. I'm not doing them, but I really want to eat a bowl of cereal. Can't dirty up any of my dishes unless I expect to clean the kitchen!

Settle for toast and jelly/butter. Cheers for waking up before noon.

Overpriced candles and hand-warmers

Getting ready for cold weather with pine tree scented candles from Giant (way overpriced) and free hand warmers to go along with a heavy jacket. Now I'd love to enjoy these things, but It was 70 degrees out today! I enjoyed wearing shorts and shades, but It's the middle of November? What is going on?

Good day today for football, Eagles are getting thumped and the Cowboys are down 10 as I write this, and the 'skins played like they are actually aware of how to play this strange sport everyone is calling "football" and won for once. Not that it matters, I've expected very little out of this team over the last three weeks!

Mid term exams coming up, as well as the trimester break for my brother! JD comes home this week. Christmas tree shopping for the apartment next week, then Thanksgiving with the family!

See ya tomorrow.

Thinking about a few DIY Projects

First, a RARE link to a pre 2009 post on this blog here. I'd like to actually follow through on this. So far so good; I have a long sleeve shirt with BAUGH 33 printed on the back and 33 on either sleeve, much like the jersey here. All I need now is the stripes on the shoulder. The best option would be to screen print it, but I don't know how to do it very well. The next option is to sew strips of burgundy fabric on to the shirt. Hopefully more details to follow; but in the mean time, I will continue to enjoy my Baugh jersey/shirt.

Next, we have this. No I don't want to build a basketball arena in Denver and diabolically name it the Coca Cola Center, but rather I'd like to paint the 8 foot by 4 foot piece of ply wood in my basement like the McNichols Arena from the mid 80's and use it as my beer pong table. The unfinished Home Depot slab of tree bark is a nice look, but it could use a little more paint. You might be asking, "why the mid 80's Denver Nuggets?" My answer to that would be a simple, "why the hell not?" It's one of the ugliest uniforms in the NBA (not the worst, by a long shot) and the most colorful in the past 20 years. The first project is much more likely to happen, but it's nice to think about.

This has got to stop.

Another douche sitting in the back row

At the risk of sounding fashion focused, I have to mention a few things that I've noticed over the last few weeks

Leaving class, I found myself facing a different kind of douche sitting in the back row than I have previously described on this blog.

This time, it wasn't the pink wearing sweat banded sideways fashion capped frat boy douche, no no. This time it was the P-coat rocking vampire looking skinny black jeans with chucks and a knit cap douche.

It was like these three had a coke addicted love baby and their failed attempt to abort it left my Managerial Accounting classmate to sulk in the back of the room.

...It's not just me is it? I mean, I realize everyone has their own style but when given the option to choose said style, what made these people go that route?

Another thing I'd like to point out is the strikingly obvious similarities of 80% of the female student population's outfit this time of year.

Black north face
skinny jeans
big sunglasses
ugg boots

Again, when given the option to wear ANYTHING YOU WANT (we are all adults don't you know), these people choose to wear, on a daily basis, the same thing that every other girl is wearing on campus.

I'm not saying any of these looks, or ANY look for that matter is right or wrong, I'm merely stating that people need to find a sense of individuality. The problem with individuality though, is that you might end up looking like this fucking hipster.

Big thanks to Look at This Fucking Hipster for the images.

11/11

Of course I HAVE to mention that today is 11/11. There's really no significance to it except for you're supposed to make a wish when the clock says 11:11.

I never make a wish, but I do think it's a little special to see the clock all one number like that.

The Invisible Hook (continued)

Las we left you (Here)

So if you're interested in further discussion of Pirate Economics, here we go! If you are not interested in reading an economic discussion of pirates, I would skip this post. See you tomorrow!

Essentially, we can assume that everyone is self interested, and this self interest is subjective. To one completely selfish person, this would only include themselves and maybe one or two close relationships. To a more widely interested person, "self" interest would include themselves as well as their family and friends. This is a general assumption of economics.
Secondly, we can assume that all people act rationally in that they use the most efficient means to reach their ends or goals. Example being if I want to graduate with a degree in Marketing and a concentration in Economics, I will study Marketing and Economics. Third, incentives matter. People respond positively to incentives and negatively to disincentives or taxes.

So according to Peter Leeson in his text The Invisible Hook, pirates are not benefiting society by creating wealth like a rational human being would, but rather they are siphoning off existing wealth to benefit themselves and their Piratical society.

This society can exist only if people cooperate. Obvious obstacles to cooperation among crew members become apparent, such as the fact that they are pirates and therefore criminals. They have no property rights and they are incredibly violent. So, to offset these obstacles (amongst other things) they devise a set of rules or a "code."

So given the above assumptions, and given the piratical society was (and it was, this isn't theoretical) efficient, why would you choose to be a pirate? Because it is more profitable than the alternatives.

Let's look at the alternatives: a Merchant Ship was, at the time, the alternative to pirating. It was a legal use of the skills required to do both pirating and being a sailor. The problems with merchant shipping we're weighed against the costs of becoming a pirate for people at the time like people would weigh the problems with being a banker against the costs of becoming a bank robber. Sure one is much more beneficial, but it is a lot harder to do and get away with. The costs are hard to except for a rational person.

Other problems, from an economic standpoint, would be the hierarchy arrangement of a merchant ship. An absentee owner owns the ship, but a captain runs it. This disconnect created an incentive for the captain to shirk his responsibilities and slack off. Owners attempted to correct this problem by giving captains equity or stock in the ship and it's earnings. Kind of like commission based salary.

However the relationship between the captain and the crew would be strained much like the captain and owner relationship. In this situation, much like above, the crew would have an incentive to shirk their duties and slack off. To solve this, the captain is given higher authority. This absolute authority would lead to captain predation, or an abuse of power. Naturally, the captain abuses his powers and treats his sailors like crap because he can. He can keep more wealth for himself as well as keep rations and other benefits for himself. This led to conflict which ultimately means that this system of a Merchant Ship is flawed.

This power abuse brings up Madison's Paradox. James Madison wrote that a power strong enough to protect is a strong power. A strong power is strong enough to predate, or hurt, what it is protecting. The solution to this problem was realized by pirates long before the founding fathers amended the US Constitution that we all hold so dear today. The solution is constrained power. They devised a constitutional democracy that, at the time, was more liberal than our first constitution. By having a separation of powers, unanimous consent by members, and credible commitment and constraint on captains, pirates could successfully live amongst each other.

First, we have separation of powers. In pirate society, there are Captains and Quarter Masters. Captain decisions were restricted to battle decisions. Quarter Masters were trusted with the decisions to divide booty and rations for crew members, as well as acting as a human resources manager, only with a gun and a violent attitude. This separation of powers is much like the system of checks and balances we have now where there are three branches of government.

So, Peter Leeson writes that there were three keys to pirate success. First, pirates wanted to prevent conflict. Why? Because conflict was costly for everyone involved. How they prevented this was their constitution, their unanimous consent to rules, and most importantly, the fact that people could voluntarily enter or leave the piratical society. They did this because of "Tiebout competition". This states that there is competition within rules. If you have two conflicted ideas of governance, the "better" set of rules wins out. Naturally, people gravitate towards the place with the best rules. People preferred pirating to merchant shipping partly because of the rules of the pirate society versus the latter.

The second key to success was that pirates wanted to prevent negative externalities. A negative externality is a situation in which the private cost of an action does not outweigh the social costs of an action. An example would be pollution, the costs for me to dump oil into a lake is very little, but the costs for that action to the fisherman and the environmental committee are higher even though they had nothing to do with the action. So, on a pirate ship; drinking, fighting, having women on board, being loud, and smoking are all negative externalities. All of these actions may be very low cost for one person, but ultimately it is a high cost for the entire ship. All of them result to conflict within the crew which, in turn, result in bad voodoo for everyone, even if you aren't involved with the original action.

The third and final key to success is that Pirates could provide public goods when you could not do so on the market. A public good is a good that is non-rival and non-excludable in consumption. Non-rival means that one person using the goods does not reduce another persons use of the goods, like knowledge or national defense or listening to the radio. Non-excludable means you can't produce a good and keep other people from getting it, like air, listening to music or again national defense. So providing these goods in a market would produce a "free-rider" problem leading again to mutual gains from cooperation.
A few examples of public goods on a pirate ship would be the overall cleanliness of a ship, and having workman's comp. Also, to deter the "free-rider" problem, pirates implemented the policy that if you are caught free-riding, you get killed or left for dead.

The final point of discussion I'll go into here is how pirates used the Jolly Roger as a signal. The Jolly Roger, for those of you who don't know, is the pirate flag. It's many variations I will mention below.

So in using the Jolly Roger, pirates we're attempting to signal two things. One, they needed to approach their prey without the merchants knowing pirates were coming their way. Pirates would signal good intentions by raising a merchant flag (not the jolly roger), hiding their cannons, and by sailing slowly toward the vessel of choice.

Second, they needed to attack the merchant ship. The goal than becomes to minimize the costs (conflict) while maximizing profit (the booty). To do this, they raise the Jolly Roger. Now you may ask that just raising a flag is pretty easy to imitate. However, there was a separating equilibrium for flying the Jolly Roger. If any ship was found with the flag on board, the punishment was death by hanging. So obviously, if you had the balls to fly the flag, you had the balls to be a pirate and would probably hurt the merchants if it came to it.

The different variations of flags is how pirates differentiated between being weak and strong. Some pirate crews may have been too nice or too aggressive. The best pirates were the ones that struck a good balance between those, as the outcomes for being too nice or aggressive was that merchant ships would fight back. So, one crew would fly this flag and merchant ships would no how to react, as opposed to seeing this flag and pissing their pants. This is an early way of branding. One flag would be the coke brand and another the pepsi brand. Kinda cool huh?

Well that's all I wanted to say about the Invisible Hook. I hoped you enjoyed just a little bit of this. Please ask questions if you don't understand! I like to explain things so I would take great pleasure in talking to you if you're not sure about any of this or if you found it the least bit interesting.

Potato Chips

I love snack foods. Gold fish, cheese balls, really anything to snack on. I even have a box of raisins in my bedroom for midnight snacking.

Most of all, I like potato chips. There are several types and varieties to speak of:

Potato Chips
Flavored Potato Chips
Cheese Curls/Balls
Corn Chips

Now the best kinds of chips, in my opinion, are the kinds that dip. Immediately you can erase flavored and cheese from this conversation. As much as I like Salt and Vinegar (so good) and Crab Chips, they can't be dipped. Too thin and it wouldn't go with anything. Cheese curls and balls don't dip well because of their density and, like flavored chips, don't match well with many dips.

But Potato Chips.. It depends on the brand and the density. Ruffles for one make FANTASTIC dipping chips. Just look at sour cream and onion dip. It's like it was made for ruffles. I have it every sunday in the fall, the perfect football snack food in my book. However the regular Lays potato chips, they don't work so well in this category.

Corn chips however are the king of the dipping world. You have tortilla chips which are salsa and queso compatible and you have Fritos that are also perfect for that sour cream and onion dip that I drool over.

Of course any conversation with Chips must include a mention of the dipping rules. There really are only two.
1) You do not double dip in a communal bowl. No exceptions. Break the chip into smaller pieces if you have to before dipping it in to begin with.
2) No cross dipping. If you have Salsa in one bowl and Sour Cream and Onion in another bowl, don't dip one chip into both bowls before eating. Again, this only applies to communal bowls. Not everyone wants your weird flavor combo.

If I was absolutely forced to come up with a perfect snack food for me? One that I had to eat if a gun was put to my head... It would undoubtedly be Lays Salt and Vinegar (not Utz, they pack too much air in their bags) with a Cherry Coke. Healthy option? Cottege Cheese and fruit. Yea I'd rather have the chips too.

The Box

The Box

Sigh...

Well I didn't realize the story took place in 1976 Richmond, VA. So that's cool...

But let me start by saying that this movie was based off a short story called "Button, Button" which was later made into a Twilight Zone Episode.
That being said, this movie ran about an hour and 55 minutes. Now if you try and make a short story into a feature length film, you run into a few problems.

First, you need to expand the story to fill the time. Usually, this can be a good opportunity to learn more about the characters and the back story. Also, you can become repetitive with development, as in showing the same basic concept over and over again. This may have been an attempt to drive the point home, but it becomes a farce after seeing it occur.

Now if you wish to see this movie, don't read the blocked spoiler section below. All I can tell you without spoilers is that it's a waste of $10.25 and I feel it's a sad experience when the audience breaks out into a fit of giggling during a serious scene AND it's opening weekend and their were literally (I COUNTED) 10 people in the 300 person auditorium.

SPOILER

When faced with the opportunity from a fucking burn victim to have $1,000,000.00 and kill somebody, or $100 and nothing happens, which would you do? Take the damn $100 bill and walk away. Don't ever trust a stranger with the opportunity to kill somebody. Duh.

Now, if you DO push the button, what do you do? Well you were given a briefcase with cash and told that the next person will be a complete stranger to you, and you might be the next victim. Hmm... What do you do... Well for one, get on a god damn plane and get the hell out of Richmond, VA !!! You don't just sit around and wait for weird shit to happen!

and Why the fuck is it always about Aliens? Every god damn time that something "unknown" happens in movies these days, it's because it's fucking aliens. Why can't it be just a psycho? Why? I found myself asking "why" throughout this movie. and Now I ask "why" I even went in the first place.

At the end, the family is faced with a decision. Their son is stricken deaf and blind (why? I don't know. They never really say why). To save him, they have two options. The husband can shoot his wife in the heart, the kid gets his vision and hearing back, and they get the million when the son turns 18 (about 7 years from now) after it has gained interest in the bank. Option two, they don't shoot the wife, and the son stays deaf and blind and they keep the million. Why wouldn't you go with option two??

The film's main theme is a moral question, do you sacrifice personal gain for the greater good, or do you sacrifice the greater good for the personal gain? It works, but probably 1000 times better as a SHORT story. This film was so ridiculous that I already have a really good idea of how to turn into a drinking game.

END SPOILER

I've left the funniest parts out, so I'd recommend you see it only if you expect to make fun of it. No it's not scary, nothing jumps out at you or anything. It's a Sci Fi film that really could have been kept as an obscure Twilight Zone episode.

Good luck!

In Friday's "Express"

The amount of dissent in this town is astounding to me. There are mixed messages from people within the organization and mostly negative reaction to the team from the outside.

"Dear Dan Snyder,
We would like to thank you for completely destroying our football team.
Happy Holidays!
Duffy's Irish Pub"

OH Danny boy...

After School

It's weird to imagine it, but I, like my classmates and friends, are on the verge of graduating college. I've got a little over a year left. I registered for classes yesterday morning, and as I looked over the piece of notebook paper that lists my remaining courses, I got nervous of how close it all is. I'm down to my last fifteen classes. Three semesters left, or if I get complacent, three and one summer class.

You know when I was growing up, and my parent's ever said "back when i was in college" I always thought of being so old. The pictures in the yearbooks were these adults with futures, that and black and white photos with bad clothes, worse hairdos, and quotes about the bicentennial and the end of disco. But I don't see that today.

Today, I see a bunch of kids walking around campus. I kinda see myself from an outer perspective having these adult conversations with professors and I wonder who the hell that is and what happened to that kid with the bowl cut and braces that couldn't run hurdles for shit at Parkside Middle. What happened to borrowing Mom's car to go out and riding bikes around the neighborhood with my cousins and JD? What happened to playing "guns" JD?

I'm looking forward to growing up. Everyday someone in this apartment will say, "I can't wait to graduate and get out of this place!" For me, I'm stuck. Growing up means moving on and accepting that I can't claim ignorance, as much as it may be true.

So here's to the next 18 months. Because after that, well I won't be any different. I'll just have a piece of paper saying that I'm not irresponsible.

(It's all a lie)

Strange Idea for a Terrible Super Hero

Ok so this guy has the power to aim his finger nail clippings when he trims his finger nails.

I know, it's genius.

The drawbacks are obvious, it wouldn't be able to do any actual damage to the foe, and on top of that, he runs out of ammo after about 10 clicks of the clipper.

Needless to say, I hope no one steals this idea out from under my feet, Kevin Smith has already contacted me regarding the rights to finger nail clipper man (the name is a work in progress, I thought of The Nailer but it was shot down). A movie deal is in the works. It's gonna be huge.


Also note the updated playlist, Highly recommended as always.

After Movie Weirdness

I've talked about this with someone before, years ago I guess it was, but I really don't know if we're alone in this thought. You ever watched a movie and then feel emotionally different afterward? I'm trying to explain this as well as possible, but it's proving difficult.

Hypothetical situation, you see a movie and within that movie there is a character written so that the audience empathizes with them. Have you ever, after watching the movie and feeling this empathy, been unable to knock yourself out of that mood for some amount of time? I'm kind of in that state now. It's hard to describe, kind of like a different personality or mood but at the same time you're just feeling different.

I don't know, maybe I'm just not articulating it well. A good example of this is when I was young, say around 7 or 8, I saw a movie and the main character had a learning disability. Now I'm not saying I felt like I had a learning disability, but I certainly felt "ill" for some time after the movie. Another example is seeing a movie that you can describe as "bad ass" and all you want to do after is get in a fight or break something. It's a strange sensation and I'm sure I'm not alone.

Well tomorrow I have registration for classes, I'm looking forward to it as I've just recently declared a minor to go along with my Marketing Degree. Economics. Let's hope all the classes I want are still available!

People who don't know what they're talking about.

By no means am I an expert at ANYTHING. There are few things that I can confidently say I'm really good at. By definition; an expert is someone with a high degree of skill or knowledge in a particular subject. So maybe I can say I'm an expert of bullshitting, but in reality, that is a stretch.

Last night a friend and I we're at the bar on campus, The Rat, and I overheard the bartender talking to some of the guys down the way. Given the Phils and Yanks we're on simultaneous to the Saints and Falcons, the conversation was sports. Lately, the main topic of discussion in the Washington D.C. area is how sucky the Redskins organization is. This particular conversation ranged from the quality of players on the roster, as well as the flaws in the team and with salary caps.

Now, obviously there's no "right" or "wrong" opinion, even on this matter. But when his opinion is, "If there we're no salary cap, they should just buy everyone. That's what they did the last time they won the Super Bowl."

First, my thoughts on this are pretty simple, and hopefully you can agree with me, but the ideas that he stated are flawed. If there is no salary cap, any team can buy any player ON FREE AGENCY. If every player we're available on free agency, then every team would be bidding on these players and inevitably, the market would be flooded with overplayed employees OR collusion by teams to underpay the players. There is no possible way any one team could conceivably "buy" all good players on the market, as no team would be able to afford this inflation.

Second, if you can believe that a team would be able to afford this, than you must face the obstacle of having a roster limited to 53 active players as well as 8 players on the practice squad. With this as well as various rules each team must follow concerning what type of players each team must have (offense, defense, and special teams) there is NO possible way that ANY team can even consider buying up all the "good" players. This is the beauty of the rules the NFL has set up.

And the final part of this guy's argument I'd like to pick apart is his belief that the Redskins did this in the early 90's when they won the Super Bowl. No they didn't. It's as simple as that. They had some old ass players on their team as well as some younger guys that they had to settle for. At this time of the NFL history, they're we're a lot of new rules that restricted how a team could pay for and acquire players. Not going to get into it here, but this guy was wrong.

So, without getting into what the team is doing today with their current roster and management, I will end it here.

In closing, to all the bartenders at student run bars in universities around the country, shut your mouth unless you know what you're talking about. I welcome discussions about this stuff, I'm really interested in this stuff and I'd love to hear what other people have to say about it, but if you just don't know anything, don't talk about it. This is part of the reason that I rarely discuss politics; I don't know enough to hold up my end of the discussion.

Have a good Tuesday!

Mushy Talk

I have a friend who has been dating the same girl since high school. Whenever he's on the phone with her, he adopts this voice. The only way I can describe it is "mushy" or "whiny". I mean, I don't understand why he does it. Granted, it's obviously worked for him so far, he's still dating her. But it's weird.

For me, I've always just talked for the conversation. If I enjoy talking to this person, then I don't need to change how I normally talk.

This is an actual conversation: "Hey. Aw what's wrong? Aw... do you want me to come home? Aw... oook... You want me to buy you a hamburger? Aw..." I just don't get how anyone can listen to that let alone say it to somebody else.

I'm not perfect, but I could definitely not do that.

Ten down, two to go.

Well it's been ten months since I started this shin dig. Only 61 more days in 2009!

Glad you guys have stayed with me this long, I'm sure they're aren't a whole lot of you out there, but it is appreciated!

Not to disappoint, I'll try and continue my month long streak of consistent posting.

I'll see you tomorrow!

Also, this video is from Douglas, because everyone loves turtles. Happy day after Halloween!