College Culture Bothers Me Sometimes

"Monday nights starting at 7 PM everyone you know is invited to our weekly open house/discussion group over tea and hookah.

Holy smokes is a community of contemporary thinkers dedicated to seeking truth in our world.
We believe in the importance of open-minded thinking and the wisdom found in diversity as we discuss social issues and philosophy

We seek to ask the difficult questions and to find the answers to them.

We meet every Monday night @ Grace House in the basement... Bring a hookah! Bring a beverage! Bring an opinion! Bring an open mind and most of all bring a friend!!"

Okay. I know I'm ragging on a group of people who are almost certainly discussing more important and pertinent issues than I do on an average Monday, but...come off it. I'm fine with twentysomethings grappling with big questions - college is the time to do that. People won't think you're an idiot, and most importantly you won't feel too embarrassed for saying stuff like "if the universe were a salad, Earth wouldn't even make up a grain of pepper." And I love those late-night conversations about the "deep issues" as much as the next person, I really do.

But Christ almighty does it bug me that people consciously refer to themselves as "contemporary thinkers." Because that term implies two things - one is that being a contemporary thinker is a good, worthy cause and not just "lazy, but I make good conversation," and by extension, that you are awesome for being one. What does that even mean? "So what do you do?" "Oh, well, you know, I THINK. I mean, the world is full of people who DO, but I, see, I really stop and take the time to think about what's going on out there, you know?"

(and trust me, i do get the irony here, because i myself am incredibly lazy and spend most of my time thinking about and discussing useless stuff, but to my credit, i acknowledge this and have never tried to pass myself off as more than i am, though terms like "cultural columnist" have floated through my head at one point or another)

And don't get me started on hookah, perhaps the lamest trend since Pokemon cards. I can't tell you how many times I've had to explain to people that "some dude" is probably not a good authority on how harmful the effects of smoking are. "But I heard that the water absorbs the nicotine!" Argh. You can always sell things to hippies by making sure to mention that it's "Eastern" or "herbal" though...preferably both. "This isn't like those Western cigarettes...this tastes like cherry."

And I'm not even anti-smoker. If you're dumb enough to smoke, God bless. Just don't do it around me (I have enough things trying to kill me on any given day), and don't try to pass it off as something that makes you cooler or more cultured than you are - you only sound dumber.

Sorry for the rant, it's already a long day and I still have a ten-pager due for Tuesday that I'm avoiding getting started on. I did bowl a 144 last night though, and I haven't been since last summer, if we even bowled then...I can't remember.

Pizza Update

So yeah, that place I tried on Friday was fantastic. It's no It's a Beautiful Pizza, but it's one of the finest delivery pizzas I've ever had, if not the finest.

P.S. There's an exclamation point at the end of "Your blog post published successfully!" It's almost as if they can't believe it themselves.

P.P.S. Maggie, I don't know what "felt the dome" means. Do I want to?

Another Gem Featured on Yahoo!

My brother and I are strangely obsessed with Yahoo!'s front page stories, mostly because they're so rarely...you know, stories. But in this case it just doesn't make any sense.

"Everybody realizes gas prices are skyrocketing, but you may not know these facts about the pope."

What does that sentence even MEAN? I mean, grammatically it adds up, but what in the world could it possibly even mean? Turns out it was just a rundown of things happening in the news, and they were trying to relate two unrelated stories. The most disappointing bit is the third bit in this piece was about Jimmy Carter meeting with Hamas leader Khaled Mashal, which I feel really should've been tied into that sentence somehow.

Close Enough to Look in My Eyes, Sharona

So here's something that sucks. I had like...way over a full post written for today, and I had intended to add to it during this shift, but I left my computer at home yesterday, open and unplugged. So the battery got drained and it shut down and I hadn't saved this file.

Balls.

I can't even remember what I had been talking about, but it was good, solid stuff. So I'm starting again from the top.

I was doing some research on space (it's sort of convoluted to explain why), and I found out that just last year they discovered twenty-eight new planets in the Milky Way, leading them to believe there are billions of planets in the galaxy. Doesn't that just blow your mind? Space still kinda fascinates me in a way.

We watched Super Size Me in my documentary class yesterday, a film I had managed to avoid since its 2004 release. I enjoyed watching it more than I thought, though I agree with the criticisms that Morgan Spurlock is attacking an obvious, easy target, and there are some really glaring flaws in his experiment in eating McDonald's for a month straight. Notably, he eats about 5,000 calories a day. If you eat 5,000 calories of anything, it'll probably do some serious damage too.

We have a three-day weekend this weekend. That makes me happier than you can imagine.

In a week and five hours, I'll be twenty-two. This will make me exactly the same age as Dante and Randal in Clerks, and by association, the same age as Kevin Smith when he made Clerks. I doubt this will make me relate to it more...maybe in about three years when my lifestyle and economic position more closely resembles theirs. Although I won't be living with my parents. When people ask me where I see myself in five years, I find it difficult to answer, but that's pretty much the one thing I know. I think once you start getting into your late twenties, the five-year question becomes easier to answer, but at our age, five years is a long friggin' time. Huge changes can and often do take place. I mean, I'll be out of college in a year, and I have no idea what I'm going to do once I move out of Somerville (well, I guess I know I'll move out of Somerville).

That European Cinema test I was uncertain about? The one for the class in which I lost all my notes and only studied for in the two hours prior to it? A+. 100%. I swear to God.

I dressed for much warmer weather today. It's going to be 70 tomorrow though. Although they said it'd be 77 today, and that didn't happen either.

I'm trying a new pizza place tonight in my quest to find a pizza in Boston as good as It's a Beautiful Pizza. Julie said this place is pretty damn good. We'll see.

Finally sent my tax return in today. Hopefully they'll still give me money.

Ben, I lied. I got no homework done on my shift today, at all. Instead I read a 10-page profile on George Clooney and wrote this post.

I just wanna use your love tonight
I don't wanna lose your love tonight

That song's been stuck in my head all day.

This was a disappointing post, I know and I'm sorry. I just did not have the energy tonight. Here's something to cheer you up:

Bof Fry Flew

Bank with the most complaints in 2007...Bank of America! Always glad when my choice in banking is more or less rated the worst.

I've decided the worst way to live is to have a set day to clean your room. It just gives me all the more reason to let it go to hell the rest of the week (or two weeks, as it ended up being this time) - "who cares? I'm gonna clean it in a few days anyway!"

I swear to God, I have an article to read called "Online Communication Between Australians and Koreans." Oh man, and it's from 1999, and I don't know if you've ever had to read technology articles from the past, but that stuff does not date well.

April 29th
10-page paper about The War Room

April 30th
First act of a screenplay; 8-10 page outline of last two acts
30-minute group presentation on the movie Hitch

May 1st
8-page paper on European cinema, topic to be decided

Status: All uncompleted, all unstarted. Argh. At least it's all in one week. I guess. It is the week right after my birthday, but, you know...whatever.

Tom Petty, I could listen to you all day.

This Actually Exists

Steak Delivery

So over the last two weeks I've noticed a new ad on the subway system here in Boston - GrubHub.com. GrubHub.com provides a simple service - they tell you what restaurants in your area deliver*. They're slogan is "Discover Who Delivers," which led me to believe the delivery service may extend beyond the typical choice of Chinese food (which I hate) and pizza (which I love, but is rarely enough for a meal).

And wouldn't you know, it does! There are a whopping 89 restaurants in my vicinity that deliver. If you think that's impressive, Julie has 176! But c'mon now, that's downtown (and, being downtown, most of them use a delivery service, which charges you (on average) an extra $5); I live in Somerville, and there's a reason you haven't heard of it. I was shocked when I discovered we HAD restaurants around here**, but these delivery options...

Anyway, so I've discovered I could spend hours on this site, but it only took me a few minutes to come across the holy grail...

The Cheesecake Factory delivers.

I could get steak delivered right to my door.

Never let anyone tell you you're not living in the greatest country in the world. For truly, no country that delivers steak to your door is anything less than Great.

*Unfortunately, their incredible service is only available in San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston...for now.

**Besides the Pizzeria Uno, whose burgers have disappointed me for the last time.

P.S. My test went pretty spectacularly, save for one question that actually had me staring at the page, asking myself, "what IS this film she's asking us about?" But I clinched every extra credit question, and absolutely slaughtered the sections on Poetic Realism and Neorealism, so I felt pretty good about myself.

I have a test in about a half an hour that I've barely studied for, and honestly I hardly know where to begin. But I got an A on a paper that barely existed in that same class, and the test is entirely essay questions, so I feel pretty good about the whole ordeal.

I don't start 'til 2 on Thursdays (but I got 'til 10!), so I have a lot of time to just kinda mill about.

For the first hour and a half I was awake today, I was torn between French Toast and Pancakes for breakfast.

Ended up going with French Toast.

Such a good call.

I twice dropped my computer in the last twelve hours.

Twice?

Two times.

When I wash MY clothes...I use the Super Cycle.