Amongst the whole going back to school thing and the whole being on a schedule thing and the whole life thing, I've resubscribed to Netflix. If that doesn't explain why updates have been less than daily, I don't know what will.

Here is a video of George Harrison singing about pirates.

One of the big changes that I had discussed involves living on more of a schedule - aka no waking up at/a little after noon. So for the past few days, I've been waking up at 8 AM whether I have to or not, and I've gotta say that it's weirdly wonderful.

I am simultaneously entertained, fascinated, confused, and disturbed by this gameplay video of a Super Mario Bros. cartridge severely glitching out. It's like Super Mario Nightmare - in fact, I think I had nightmares like this as a child. Except they involved sharks.

To counteract the seriousness of the previous post and keep our delicate universe in balance:

YouTube Videos
(in order of weirdness going from least weird to most weird)

1. A standup comedian gives a few good reasons not to listen to the lyrics of pop songs.
2. What's the deal with corn nuts?
3. Or perhaps more thought-provoking: what's the deal with corn muffins?

I realize it's been a while since I've updated. Looking through the archives, the silence in between posts sometimes says a lot more than the posts themselves; however, this is likely of no assurance to you.

So I feel like I ought to tell you this: the depression that had been bothering me so much in Chicago (and a little bit over break) came back even worse. Thus I didn't attend my first classes of the semester. That time was instead spent in therapists' offices and later a multi-day treatment program at a nearby hospital, which I was (thankfully) discharged from today.

To answer your questions:

• I'm not physically hurt, nor did I attempt to put myself in harm's way.
  
• The treatment program was not fun. But it helped. A lot.
• I'm going to be cutting back the number of classes I'm taking. The alternative was taking the semester off, which didn't seem like a good idea.
• I'm not going to be living in the dorms. This means living at home until everything gets sorted out. (I know - this one is dripping with enthusiasm.)
  
• I'm also in the process of finding a job. This is partially for the money thing, partially for the getting-out-of-the-house thing.
  
• This is super preliminary, but: there's a very good chance I'll be transferring again. The problem I've made with my college choices thus far is that I haven't researched them very well. Keep in mind that this is preliminary; another reason I'm still attending classes at Drake is that maybe it's a good idea for me to stay there.

Though the treatment thing was not fun (the leader of the group described it as "like elementary school", which is true, though I'd like to propose an addendum: "like elementary school but more depressing") it certainly helped a lot. I had kind of an epiphanic moment while I was there.

The moment went like this: I felt like shit. Everyone else felt like shit, which in turn made me feel more like shit. Repeat cycle. And then a thought bubble popped up, and it said this: You can either try to work your way out of this - and it WILL be a lot of work and planning - or you can stay here.

You can guess which option was more appealing.

Anyway: I am working my way out of this. I've done a lot of reflection and talking about what comes next and I'm doing a hell of a lot better than earlier. It's going to take a while to work out of this, but what matters is that I have a plan and that I'm working hard on it. And that's good.

PS: One of the things that also sucked about the treatment program was the hyper-literal quality about it. In the treatment program environment, there is no place for irony - which makes sense, don't get me wrong; in an environment like that, everything that is said is best taken seriously. So the pragmatist in me understands, but the humor-lover in me bemoans that. Case in point: before I took a 500 question(!) personality test - which was more like a personality disorder test - the nurse looked at me straight in the eyes and said "Don't worry; you can't fail the personality test" without the slightest trace of irony. Again, I realize the importance of complete and utter sincerity in such an environment; however, when one sees a door labeled "ADULT STORAGE" and one asks "Where do you store the babies?" and receives nothing but concerned stares, one starts to seriously ponder what brought them there and how they would go about getting out of that place and never returning.

PSS: I hope this post didn't freak you out too much. I just feel like you deserve to know how I'm doing. If you have any questions for me about this, just call or text. Seriously. If you read this, it probably means I care about you and vice versa.

PSSS: After a series of really terrifying and hopeless moments where I hadn't even smiled for a couple of days, this video succeeded in bringing the biggest of huge ass-grins to my face.

In preparation for moving in to my new dorm, I've been looking over the list of "items to leave at home", which is hilarious in a vague "imagine the stories and situations that prompted the list-maker to add this to the list" sort of way¹. A lot of the no-nos are obvious, like candles, extension cords without surge protection, and hot plates, but a lot of the others must have interesting backstories behind their banning. Case in point:

• Pets, except fish (sort of obvious, but pets being listed as items has probably rased the ire of more than a few PETA-ish folks)
• George Foreman grills (interesting that they go out of their way to list this brand name specifically, because they go on to call out:)
• Burger cookers (which apparently are not the same things as George Foreman grills)
• Ceiling fans (I can't even begin to imagine what happened here)
• Drum sets (my theory is that if you can manage to fit one in your dorm, sure, whatever)
  
• Electric guitars
• Amplifiers (interesting, because an electric guitar without an amplifier is quieter than an acoustic guitar)
• Street signs (???)
  

¹ - Also hilarious is the somewhat pretentious language used throughout the webpage. For instance: "it is recommended that you discuss the acquisition of the telephone with your roommate."

I move into my new dorm tomorrow. Rather, today, I guess. The novelty of the whole midnight = a new day thing has worn off. Now it's more confusing than anything else.

Anyway, I'm excited to finally be moving out of here and in there, but I'm not particularly nervous or full of wonder like last time. Maybe this is because my "new" college being so close to home.¹ Or perhaps it's because I've already done the moving into a dorm song and dance once.

Reading the last paragraph, I realize it could be interpreted as being very very depressing, but that's not what I intend to convey. I'd rather you perceive a sense of excitement, calm, and contentment all at the same time. This is a very good thing. Most of the time I prefer my life to resemble a river rather than a chapter book, if you get what I mean.

¹ Though I do plan to stop by home every now and then, I don't intend to make a lot of stops there. I feel like that would be cheating.

"Hi, it's me. I'm not able to pick up the phone right now. Please leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Oh, by the way: if you can correctly guess why I'm not able to pick up the phone, I will give you a cookie."

BEEP

I saw The Curious Case of Benjamin Button last night. Thoughts - in bullet point form, of course:

• I was not at all surprised when I found out that the guy who wrote this movie was also responsible for Forrest Gump's screenplay. That's because Benjamin Button feels a lot like Forrest Gump. There are obvious similarities, sure: an epic story, a man ambles through major events in American history, a romance that begins at childhood and looks wobbly when the woman discovers the Big Big World (but all settles down after Unforseeable Events) - but the biggest similarity that Button has to Gump is its vibe, something I can't just explain to you in words. You'd have to see the film to understand.
• Yes, the film is nearly three hours long, but it almost feels irrelevant for me to mention its length. That's because it didn't feel like an almost-three hour film, unlike Titanic or Lord of the Rings.
• Speaking of the three-ish hour length: I really can't think of anything that could potentially be cut from this film. I guess there's one thing that could possibly be snipped from the film - a subplot involving a British woman in Russia - but even that would be a questionable edit.
• The special effects are so good that they're almost unnoticable. There's one exception, though, and those are the moments when Brad Pitt is playing a very old (young?) Benjamin. There's nothing particularly artificial about these special effects, however, there are a few moments in which the effects delve into the uncanny valley.
• Hurricane Katrina plays a significant role in the film, but the filmmakers do a good job of using it as a plot device without trivializing or politicizing it.
• This one comes from my friend Erin, so I'll just have to trust her on this one. Anyway, after watching the film, she mentioned that the movie had nothing to do with the short story except for the title. Which makes me kind of wonder: if it bears no resemblence to the short story, why not just give it a different title? You'd think that it'd be a lot cheaper for the movie studio.
• Overall: despite a few moments where I felt like I'd seen this movie before, it's well worth seeing. It's not Slumdog Millionare good, but it's still good. Go see it.
  

Throughout elementary school we had our fair share of bizarre district mandated tests - like the scissors test¹ - but the one I remember most was the Vocabulary Exercise.

For the Vocabulary Exercise, we all walked to the gym and spread ourselves out. The teacher would stop by every student and give them a pencil and a piece of paper with a bunch of numbered boxes in a grid shape. We were instructed to write down as many words as we could think of. Names and proper nouns were kosher. We had fifteen minutes. And BEGIN.

There was no penalty if we could only squeeze out one word and no reward if we could manage to write a hundred. Nevertheless, there was always an air of stress in that gym² when the Vocabulary Exercise took place.

You'd think that coming up with a bunch of words would be easy, right? Well, there was a caveat. Maybe you're like this, too, but whenever I'm pressured to do something ("Be funny!") I never fail to fuck up. Even with something as simple as coming up with whatever word popped in my head - especially as an elementary school kid who isn't so good at the spelling.

As a result of my mental block, I'd resort to taking inspiration from my surroundings. After my precious few drops of creativity were used up, the Vocabulary Exercise would look like this:

• floor
• wall
• flag
• Iowa
• hoop
• lights

And so on.

After the exercise (the least athletic exercise we ever did in that gymnasium), we'd try to compare scores with one another. This never lasted long. Our mandatory district testing was never meant to be fodder for competition, thus our teacher acted swiftly and efficiently in recollecting the papers. "It's not a game," she would say to us. Though it was true, it never reassured me. My friends, fairly bright for their age, would brag about word counts that doubled or tripled mine. I'd do anything I could to avoid sharing my score. This usually meant discussing my friends' word lists at great length, which did nothing to help me - sort of like offering a glass of water to someone who'd nearly drowned.

In retrospect, the test wasn't the best indicator of our vocabularies. The things that I think it measured were unintentional - our ability to work under pressure, for instance, or perhaps a jumbled glimpse of the inner workings of our pre-pubecent minds. Hell, maybe the tests weren't even really vocabulary tests. Maybe they were some sort of psychological experiment. Or maybe our teacher was just a Dadaist poet and used our word lists as entries for her poetry competitions.

¹ - The scissors test went like this: we were handed pieces of paper. Each piece of paper had a black line on it - one line was straight, one was zig-zaggedy, one was curvy - and then we were handed a pair of scissors. We were to cut across each line with the scissors. Thanks to a lack of coordination and a slight tremor that I inherited from my Dad's side of the family, I failed the scissors test. Even the straight line. Anyway, we took the test in kindergarten for the first and last time. Whenever I told a fellow student about this test, they'd just give me blank stares and make uncomfortable noises suggesting unfamiliarity with said test, which for the longest time lead me to believe that I had just made the whole damn thing up. As it turns out, I'm not (entirely) crazy; I came across the results of my scissors test in a box whilst cleaning out the basement.

² - At the time, I was never sure why we were taken to the gym for the writing exercise. Now, though, it makes sense. Not only did the gym allow us to spread out (and thus not cheat by looking at each other's papers), but it also lacked any sort of decor. No decor - no posters, no book covers, no chalkboard - also meant no words. There was only one word in sight throughout the whole gym, and that was "IOWA" on the flag, and if you couldn't spell "IOWA" on your own, you probably couldn't spell much else either.

Just wanted to link to a pretty damn entertaining sketch about Broadway that the guys from SNL were performing as I was writing last night's entry. It's one of those sketches that's not so funny on paper but hilarious in its execution.

"So what do you think about getting a condo?" my Mom asked.
"A salad!" I replied. I thought she said "What are you eating?"

Of course, seconds later, we quickly cleared the misunderstanding - and we both thought it was hilarious. That's when I realized something: two things that I often find absolutely hilarious ultimately frustrate me to no end in real life. These things are:

• Misunderstandings - They're ripe for comic potential, but when it comes to reality, I'd go out on a limb and venture that 85% of the problems on this planet are in some way rooted in a number of misunderstandings. I've found myself in quite a few arguments where either myself or the other party suddenly realizes that they failed to connect this end to that - but egos often come into play and then any chance of civility goes bye-bye.
• Recontextualization - The best comic example of recontextualization, I think, is this English "interpretation" of the Finnish DuckTales theme song. The best aggravating examples of recontextualization, I think, can be found in any political campaign - where one guy tries to intetionally misunderstand the other guy's rhetoric, and then spread that around.

I don't feel the need to justify why these two things piss me off, but for some reason I feel like I need to justify just why exactly I find these things funny. And that's where I run into difficulties - I can't. Come to think of it, I can't explain why I find anything that I laugh at is funny. I suppose I could go further and try to figure it out, but a quote by EB White comes to mind again: "Analyzing humor is like dissecting a frog. Few people are interested and the frog dies of it."

Just a brief update to let you know that the links in the sidebar have been cleaned out. A few inactive blogs have been removed and replaced with a few other links - specifically, Jane's blog, Josh's blog,¹ the a link to the Neo-Futurist blog (where interesting musings regarding theatre and such are to be found) and a link to my attempt to write down every dream I have had this year.

¹ Josh is a guy who also took the film class at Central. He updates his blog regularly and entertainingly. Tis well worth your read.

I've got a lot of respect for the guys who are in charge of Burger King's marketing. Perhaps what I admire most about them is that they manage to be edgy without being tasteless.

Case in point: a new viral ad making the rounds called Whopper Sacrifice. It works like this: delete ten of your Facebook friends and receive a coupon for a free Whopper. There's a catch, though. There's no way you can quietly sacrifice ten of your friends - the application sends a notification to your sacrificed friends letting them know of their fate.

Edgy? Yep.
Tasteless? Not quite.
Clever as hell? Most definitely.

It's been a while since I've done a post proper, and for that I'm sorry. But I just wanted to let you know about another blog I'm hoping to keep for at least a year. It is called Some Dreams I Have Had and hopefully the title speaks for itself.

Immediately after reading this article for a second time, I decided that it had to be linked to on this blog. Keyword in that last sentence: second time. There was a lot of disbelief running through my mind.

Before we begin: I rarely link to XKCD, as it's one of those things that I just assume you read regularly, but I feel like today's comic is worth making an exception. The reason? I've done the exact same thing more times than I'd care to admit. I had never considered that someone else might do the same thing. I'm now tempted to say "I know you're listening, Randall Munroe," to the empty living room.

As for the real post: around September or so, I bought a small notepad that I carried around with me in a vain attempt to keep track of ideas/phrases that I think are worth remembering. I say "vain attempt" because even though I'd always keep that notepad in my back pocket, I would consistently fail to remember to also have a pen or pencil.

The content of the notebook is largely inconsistent, save for one thing: hypothetical band names. A friend of mine inspired me to begin writing down almost every phrase that preceded the thought "that would be an awesome band name." There's only one rule: none of the names can be contrived - that is to say that sitting around and thinking up band names for the sake of thinking up band names is against the rules. As a result, these band names all stem from tidbits of conversations¹/strange signs/quotes by my philosophy professor/etc.

Warning: your definition of "amusement" could be very different from mine. Also: despite my best attempts, I sometimes couldn't determine what the hell exactly I was thinking when I wrote some of these down.

• Demon Waffles
• Little Tiny Black Holes
• Beastly Heat
• Boyfriends and Girl Scouts
• Handy Japanese
• Campus Transplant
• Electrical Closet
• Emergency Tire Service
• Impartial Pleasure Maximizer
• Big Bang of Souls
• Asprin Sandwich
• The Fisherbunnies
• Totally Boatless
• A Moment Away From The Scissors
• Toxic Bongwater
• Phantom Vibrations
• Legit Shit
• Expletive Power
• Frightened and Enlightened
• The Attaboys
• Dancing With Richard
• Walking on Jello
• A Mouthful of Jimmy
• Pious Asshole
• Hot Dissonance
• Bongology
• Europe's Anus
• Shiny Esophagus
• Butterknives at Dawn
• Firebomb the Zombies
• Bowlful of Mushrooms
• Ice Cream and Baklava
• Mountain of Taters
• Shady Mathematics
• A Mouthful of Consonants
• The Time of Arriving
• Flexing Out Of Fear
• The Vagina of Emptiness
  

¹ Now there's a band name.