My last trip before I am homeward bound was nearly a disaster. Like a crash and burn disaster. Or like a "MAYDAY MAYDAY" disaster. Or like this guy's marriage. All of these are good analogies. Between sleeping through my 6am alarm, almost puking on the ferry from Denmark to Germany, and missing the Bundesliga game I had tickets for, I really dropped the ball. First of all, whomever thought it was a good idea to plan on getting on a 7:45am train on a Saturday morning was an acceptable idea is a real oblivious son of a gun (yeah, that one was on me). Secondly, I was never made aware of the ferry between Denmark and Germany. Being hungover on a small ship in the open ocean is a recipe for a seasick disaster. Thirdly, how did I manage to screw up a chance to go to a game between two of the top teams in Germany?
Oh well, I guess. I made it to Damme either way. I've been doing nothing but playing video games, drinking beer, and sleeping all week. I've literally played NHL with Jens (my friend and host) for 12+ hours the last three days. This has been the perfect way to relax and recover before my long journey home. Tomorrow, it's back on the railway to Copenhagen for one last night in Europe before I get on a long flight back home. It's really bitter sweet, and I'm getting all sentimental about now. I've gotta stop myself before I get all sappy like my last post.
I looked at all my classes for next semester, and when you get deep into your major classes, it's pretty awesome that you get most of the same people in your classes. There is friends in every class, and you know pretty much everyone. This semester is the first time that I basically have the same general group in all of my classes, it's gonna make studying a lot easier, Bart Scott. Plus, I only have three real classes + choir, badminton, and yoga. Spring semester has some potential to be pretty awesome this year.
Anyway, this is my last post in Europe. My next one will be written state-side, and hopefully they will stop being me bragging about cool adventures I'm having and more about what I intended this blog to be originally. I have been pretty bad at posting this semester, and hopefully I can increase my output soon. That being said, I plan on starting another project or two in the near future, so my activity on here may not see the surge I am hoping for. Here is some music. All of these are awesome songs off a few of my favorite new albums (and mixtapes) of 2011. Enjoy and see you soon.
Run Right Back - The Black Keys (El Camino)
Rigamortis - Kendrick Lamar (Section.80)
Homeboy - Eric Church (Chief)
Outside - Childish Gambino (CAMP)
HAM - Kanye West & Jay-Z (Watch The Throne)
Mind of Logic - Logic (Young Sinatra)
Strawberry Swing - Frank Ocean (Nostalgia, Ultra)
The Wilhelm Scream - James Blake (James Blake)
American Rapstar - Big K.R.I.T. (Return of 4eva)
Song For An Actress - Hoodie Allen (Leap Year)
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Homeward bound. Soonly at least.
Well, I'm leaving Europe in eleven days. Time really flies. After every semester I always think "Damn, thought this just started", but this time I'm convinced it did just start. I've done so much the past four months, yet so little. I've been places and lived on my own in a foreign country, but this semester was quite easy academically. I've mastered the art of figuring out public transportation in any country, but the art of studying is long removed from my memory. It's about time to start preparing myself for some reverse culture shock. Back to a country where every woman isn't pretty, where the weather will be colder, and where I can't legally drink. I'm gonna miss Europe a lot, especially Copenhagen. That being said, at home there is family, my dog, the Cloudians, GAC, driving, Taco Bell, real Mountain Dew, video games, and having my god damn groceries bagged for me. And I can't wait to go to McDonalds and get a McDouble for a dollar rather than a single cheeseburger for two.
Leaving is going to be bitter sweet. It's going to be incredibly bitter upon my departure and incredibly sweet when I land in Minnesota. It may even be sweeter when I get Taco Bell on the way home. But I came up with a plan to avoid the stress and sadness of leaving that I know will build up as the week goes on, since basically everything from here on out it "the last ______ in Denmark". I am just gonna take a few hours, sit around in a circle with all my friends and talk about all the fun shit we did this semester and all the memories we are going to take with us. Instead of panicking about having not done enough in my limited time abroad, remembering all the things I did do will be therapeutic.
When one chapter ends, another begins.
/endsappyshit
In more important news, I'm officially hooked on The Wire. I urge you, no I implore you, not to start it if you have anything important that needs to get done in the next 3+ weeks. It is only something that should be picked up if you literally don't have a thing to do, which is why I picked it up last week. While most people struggle over finals, I sit back, put my feet up, and throw one back for all my fallen comrades (or just mentally defeated) around the Midwest. You folk ought not to start it. It's more of a J-Term activity.
Anyway, I'm going to Germany to hang out with an old high school foreign exchange friend of mine, Jens the Germ. We're gonna check out a Bundesliga game, and hopefully I can learn how to drive a stick and hit the autobon because if there is one more thing I need to do before I go home it is to recklessly driving a car at dangerous speeds in a car I will not be familiar with in a country where I cannot read the signs. It's the responsible play. I only have one final before I am completely free of work and only have to worry about relaxing for my last 10 days in Europe. Twill be glorious. Tuesday night will not be a cozy night in, that's for sure.
I will chime in before I depart. Peace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsIqEq9OFxE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx1ee_6fH60
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa4wR4G-5eE&ob=av2e
Leaving is going to be bitter sweet. It's going to be incredibly bitter upon my departure and incredibly sweet when I land in Minnesota. It may even be sweeter when I get Taco Bell on the way home. But I came up with a plan to avoid the stress and sadness of leaving that I know will build up as the week goes on, since basically everything from here on out it "the last ______ in Denmark". I am just gonna take a few hours, sit around in a circle with all my friends and talk about all the fun shit we did this semester and all the memories we are going to take with us. Instead of panicking about having not done enough in my limited time abroad, remembering all the things I did do will be therapeutic.
When one chapter ends, another begins.
/endsappyshit
In more important news, I'm officially hooked on The Wire. I urge you, no I implore you, not to start it if you have anything important that needs to get done in the next 3+ weeks. It is only something that should be picked up if you literally don't have a thing to do, which is why I picked it up last week. While most people struggle over finals, I sit back, put my feet up, and throw one back for all my fallen comrades (or just mentally defeated) around the Midwest. You folk ought not to start it. It's more of a J-Term activity.
Anyway, I'm going to Germany to hang out with an old high school foreign exchange friend of mine, Jens the Germ. We're gonna check out a Bundesliga game, and hopefully I can learn how to drive a stick and hit the autobon because if there is one more thing I need to do before I go home it is to recklessly driving a car at dangerous speeds in a car I will not be familiar with in a country where I cannot read the signs. It's the responsible play. I only have one final before I am completely free of work and only have to worry about relaxing for my last 10 days in Europe. Twill be glorious. Tuesday night will not be a cozy night in, that's for sure.
I will chime in before I depart. Peace.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsIqEq9OFxE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nx1ee_6fH60
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wa4wR4G-5eE&ob=av2e
Monday, November 28, 2011
Been awhile...
Been awhile since I've written anything, I have been a combination of real busy and real lazy. I had friends from GAC here for eight nights to host, then I had a crazy busy academic week, then I went to Sweden this weekend for fun. Been quite the stretch, but that isn't to say I haven't had half an hour to bang out a post, I've just been too busy wasting time watching Community during downtime. Here it goes.
There is a time and place for everything. This belief trumps my deep-seated hatred for trashy television and magazines, I just always believed that the time and place for this was at a slumber party for junior high school girls. I've never seen an episode of Jersey Shore, I have never opened a Cosmo, and I would rather watch that new shit they put on Nickelodeon and call cartoons than MTV. I am very proud of all of these accomplishments. But, with all this being said, I just spent an hour reading a GQ and regrettably enjoyed it. It's not easy for me to admit this, but I am trying to be honest. In my defense, they put Mila Kunis on the cover, and that's just not fair. I didn't buy it myself, it was a gift, so it would have been very much rude to not.
I was going to tie this whole thing into some nice feel good story about trying new things, but I realized I don't have a story. Just this intro and a conclusion, so that isn't happening. I'm gonna have to reroute here.
I had kind of a break through today. In class today, we were talking about multi-tasking, essentially people saying they can or can't. It got me thinking that I am only good at doing things when I am multi-tasking. In fact, I can't single task. My mind is always running through so many different things that I am not capable of doing one thing at a time. In fact, I've been writing this blog while on Facebook, Twitter, ESPN, Draft Countdown, email, Forum, GMAD, the Economist, and iTunes. I've been home for 30 minutes and have signed up for laundry, unpacked clothes from the weekend, unpacked groceries, gone to the bathroom, made a bacon-wrapped toasty dog, checked in through all of those websites, emailed my professor a paper, and written this paragraph. I am incapable of doing one thing at a time. I wrote a six page paper last week in an hour and a half with six tabs open and a house playlist on. I guarantee if I had to do it without the internet to distract me it would have taken me twice as long. I figure that the reason for this is that my attention span is so short that in order to keep my mind occupied and not bored, I need to bounce around between a million things with short bursts of 100% focus. I can't sit down and read a book for an hour. I can read a magazine for an hour because there are different articles, but I still guarantee that the magazine will get set down at least three times in that hour. I'm not sure why I will set it down, but I will probably just think of something and not be able to concentrate on anything else until I satisfy whatever is on my mind. I'm not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing yet. I will have to decide about that later.
I took two brief breaks in writing that last paragraph alone. Anyway, that is just kind of a psychological breakthrough I had with myself today. And I have no more motivation to write anymore. I will check in later.
Anyway, here is some music. This is my friend Darren, aka DefSeed. He is a kid studying abroad with me from Bucknell, and it turns out he is a pretty dope rapper. Download his mixtape, I give it my endorsement.
http://www.mediafire.com/?2oc4ftb2t7es2uv
There is a time and place for everything. This belief trumps my deep-seated hatred for trashy television and magazines, I just always believed that the time and place for this was at a slumber party for junior high school girls. I've never seen an episode of Jersey Shore, I have never opened a Cosmo, and I would rather watch that new shit they put on Nickelodeon and call cartoons than MTV. I am very proud of all of these accomplishments. But, with all this being said, I just spent an hour reading a GQ and regrettably enjoyed it. It's not easy for me to admit this, but I am trying to be honest. In my defense, they put Mila Kunis on the cover, and that's just not fair. I didn't buy it myself, it was a gift, so it would have been very much rude to not.
I was going to tie this whole thing into some nice feel good story about trying new things, but I realized I don't have a story. Just this intro and a conclusion, so that isn't happening. I'm gonna have to reroute here.
I had kind of a break through today. In class today, we were talking about multi-tasking, essentially people saying they can or can't. It got me thinking that I am only good at doing things when I am multi-tasking. In fact, I can't single task. My mind is always running through so many different things that I am not capable of doing one thing at a time. In fact, I've been writing this blog while on Facebook, Twitter, ESPN, Draft Countdown, email, Forum, GMAD, the Economist, and iTunes. I've been home for 30 minutes and have signed up for laundry, unpacked clothes from the weekend, unpacked groceries, gone to the bathroom, made a bacon-wrapped toasty dog, checked in through all of those websites, emailed my professor a paper, and written this paragraph. I am incapable of doing one thing at a time. I wrote a six page paper last week in an hour and a half with six tabs open and a house playlist on. I guarantee if I had to do it without the internet to distract me it would have taken me twice as long. I figure that the reason for this is that my attention span is so short that in order to keep my mind occupied and not bored, I need to bounce around between a million things with short bursts of 100% focus. I can't sit down and read a book for an hour. I can read a magazine for an hour because there are different articles, but I still guarantee that the magazine will get set down at least three times in that hour. I'm not sure why I will set it down, but I will probably just think of something and not be able to concentrate on anything else until I satisfy whatever is on my mind. I'm not sure if it is a good thing or a bad thing yet. I will have to decide about that later.
I took two brief breaks in writing that last paragraph alone. Anyway, that is just kind of a psychological breakthrough I had with myself today. And I have no more motivation to write anymore. I will check in later.
Anyway, here is some music. This is my friend Darren, aka DefSeed. He is a kid studying abroad with me from Bucknell, and it turns out he is a pretty dope rapper. Download his mixtape, I give it my endorsement.
http://www.mediafire.com/?2oc4ftb2t7es2uv
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Oh to be young and free..
I was planning on taking a few days to reflect on my trip before I blogged about it, but when I looked at the extraordinary amount of stuff I have to do this week before my friends come visit me, I realized that this needs to get done sooner rather than later. Another option was to just start homework right now and do this later. That was just a fleeting thought, homework isn't happening tonight. So without further ado, I present the craziest weeks I ever have or ever will experience.
Part I - Amsterdam
OK, maybe a little bit more ado... I am annoyed with myself for the absurd amount of cliche-ness I'm about to drop right here, but I believe life is 1% what happens and 99% how you react to it. Luckily it isn't the other way around, or my life would be a whole lot different right now. As awesome as Amsterdam was, it did not go well. In fact, shit started going array from the moment I arrived. I had a wonderful night train ride in, as I was roomed with an old Aussie guy who bought me beer all night, but the downward slide started the next day. From accidentally choosing a hostel 45 minutes out of the city to being homeless for a night to having to stay an extra night because the train from Amsterdam to Paris was booked one day, our trip could have more smoothly. The worst part was probably having to move hostels every single day. Never being able to settle in one spot is pretty terrible actually. The city of Amsterdam itself was awesome though. Anyone who thinks it is just about weed is completely ignorant, there are so many cool things to do in the city. It is incredibly beautiful. I could sit on a bench on a canal forever and not be bored. I was there for five nights and I still didn't feel like I had enough time to do everything I wanted to. A lot of this had to do with the fact the first three days were loaded with stress and figuring out places to sleep, but there is so much more to the city than sex and drugs, and the negative connotations associated with the city actually make me upset. That being said, those are two prominent components, and this is exemplified in the (in)famous red light district. Let me start off by saying that place makes me really quite uncomfortable. I mean it is definitely an awesome experience to see something to incredibly outlandish, but more than an hour walking around got to be real weird. You can't walk for more than five minutes without some clown offering you just about every drug in the spectrum, and you can't walk for more than twenty seconds without some girl dressed in lingerie behind tapping on the glass trying to get your money. Both are entertaining for awhile, but unless you are going there with the intentions of utilizing the variety of services offered in this Mecca of sin, it isn't a place to just hang out. It is one of the best places in the world to people watch, though. It is really funny how easy it is to tell who is there as a tourist and who is there for indulgence. In fact, let's play a game. Guess what the people described are at the Amsterdam Red Light District for!! Here we go.
So while Amsterdam was unreal, five nights there was plenty of time, and I was ready to move on to Paris.
Part II - Paris
How was that for a flawless segway? OK fine, it was terrible. But anyway, I took a train to Paris because it was only supposed to be three hours, which definitely makes it worth it to not have to get on a plane. I hate flying. My legs don't fit in seats. There is always a god damn baby crying. I never feel good on the decent. A train is a much better alternative, especially for such a short trip. Plus, this way I got to get off the train for 10 seconds in Brussels so I can say I've been there, and no I don't count that as cheating.
We were on the train, about half way through, and I saw these two big bald dudes in all black with a German shepherd walking towards me. Obviously this made me uncomfortable. I turn around, and there were two more big dudes walking from the other direction. It's pretty obvious at this point that some shit's about to go down, and being that we were coming from Amsterdam, it's a safe bet that it's a drug bust. They started talking to the African woman behind me. She was a big, loud woman decked out in traditional African attire, not your typical smuggler. They brought her out and talked to her between the cars for awhile. I just tuned back into my Hardcore History podcast and forgot about the whole thing until five minutes later I hear screaming from behind me. This lady is swinging away, and I was fortunate enough to see these dudes give her a solid body slam and handcuff her. When we got to the next station, they take her off the train, and I saw a dude walking off the train with a big cardboard box covered in packaging tape that was opened up just enough to see that the box was filled with bags of white powder. This confused me because I don't know why anyone would need to smuggle artificial sweetener. I know Europe is hardcore about junk foods, but damn, it seemed a little excessive to me. Poor lady.
Besides that my trip went smoothly into Paris. My friends were waiting for me at the train station and escorted me to the hostel safely. What wonderful friends I have, huh? Overall I wasn't a huge fan of Paris though. The sites and touristy stuff is cool, but the city itself I didn't find to be anything special. We went to the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Versailles, and all those obvious destinations and had fun, but the French suck a lot. That is, of course, unless you speak their language. But I'm an arrogant, monolingual American asshole, so I don't speak your Frenchy language, Pierre! Maybe I will have more respect for your country when Germany doesn't take over your whole country in five days. Boom.
On to Barca before I say anything that will make a Frenchman fart in my general direction or taunt me a second time.
Part III - Barcalona
Ahhhh, sunny Barcelona, where it only rains 25 days a year. What a wonderful change up this will be from cold, rainy Denmark. Well, luckily for Catalonians, there will only be 22 days of rain left after I left their city. Beaches and clubs are normally a lot more fun when it doesn't rain. And who would have thunk it would have been warmer in Amsterdam than Barcelona? Screw you, Weather, I didn't deserve this.
Actually the worst part about Barca wasn't the rain. That title goes to the pick pockets. One of my travel partners got her shit jacked by some sneaky, soulless bastard. That really put quite the damper on the vacation. The city of Barcelona is actually really beautiful when it's nice out though. We were able to fit a Camp Nou tour in our short trip, so I was content.
Believe it or not, there are probably more drug dealers and prostitutes in Barcelona than in Amsterdam, only here they are so much more annoying. In a three block walk, you will be talked to by at least five drug dealers and at least three prostitutes, that's a conservative estimate. It's kind of unfair for me to judge Barcelona based on this one experience considering how wrong everything went. I will have to be back again before I slap a real negative review on such a wonderful (allegedly) place.
Part IV - Prague
In life, there are little lessons that you pick up casually throughout you're journey. They seem lots like common sense retrospectively. Disregarding hindsight, if you have never encountered such an experience before you wouldn't have ever needed to even think of it at a common sense level. It is in this that experience makes you wiser. Most of the time these things don't really have consequences, like if you had never been to a beach or pool before you might forget a towel. Oh well, you're friends probably have one, and if not, evaporation will be your friend. But, sometimes they get a little dangerous, like when you take a day trip to a tiny undeveloped Czech town with no cash and assume they take cards or have ATMs, with not enough to even buy a trip back. There are some things that are best to learn the hard way, but this is one of those things that it would be nice to just be told instead of exposed to. I mean it all worked out fine, as there happened to be one ATM in some random corner of the town that took about 20+ minutes of walking to stumble across, but I wouldn't be an honest man if I said I wasn't pretty nervous.
Besides this, literally the entire stay went smooth as Ryan Schmidtman's skin after he spends three hours getting ready to go to a bar. We had a wonderful place to stay with wonderful hosts (shout out to Sioux Falls), ate wonderful food, and the city itself is wonderful. Prague is absolutely my favorite city I have ever been in my entire life. I have lots and lots of pictures somewhere on someone's camera that I would love to post, but the amount of uncertainty in the beginning of this sentence disallows that. So unless you have ever been there (or know how to use Google Image), you are gonna have to take my word for it.
There were so many great activities we undertook during our stay, such as the Prague Castle, a giant hill over looking the city, a club in an old church, the Communism museum, etc, but there was one place that really stood out for me. It stood out more as an awesome business model that could never exist in America, especially not a big city, but was such a cool concept that it would be an fun experiment for a business man with some spare cash. The joint was called Big Lebowski's, which would normally be enough for me to give it a try even without the stellar recommendations. It's this tiny, off the beaten path hookah bar. This small little establishment serves food, has a full bar, and hookah in any flavor you could think of. There's tables as well as cushions to sit on, and it's always playing relaxing, not-shitty-club-music. Ryan and I went here to indulge in some hookah and throw a few back, but what I wasn't expecting was that this bar is name-your-own-price. The entire model is based off trusting in people's good faith. I asked the guy on the way out if 100 krone would cover us, and he replied with "Uh yeah sure, I mean we don't even know what you ordered." How cool is that? Could imagine this working in a big metropolitan in America? Hell no. It could in a smaller town I believe, but I think this would be an awesome project for someone with some spare change to throw around. I have no idea if this exists anywhere in the States, but if it doesn't, I will be opening something like this in ten years when I am a multi-millionaire, retired thirty year old who needs a hobby. OK, I will be more realistic, make it twenty years. But either way, this needs to be implemented. Immediately.
I guess that was my trip summary. The only thing left to mention is the 10 hour layover in a Warsaw airport over night, but I don't need to delve deeper into that since it's pretty clear that that was absolutely terrible without me having to bitch and moan about it for a paragraph. I cut out a lot of details to avoid writing a novella, but there were lots of other notable events. Maybe I will come back and write about them later. In fact, I should write about the concentration camp later... Oh, better idea! I'll just force Ryan to write about it in the comment section. I hope he doesn't let me down. Here are some neat tunes. Enjoy!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu2gxZDquzA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XD4EjeXe1A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEN9ZcrN76k
Part I - Amsterdam
OK, maybe a little bit more ado... I am annoyed with myself for the absurd amount of cliche-ness I'm about to drop right here, but I believe life is 1% what happens and 99% how you react to it. Luckily it isn't the other way around, or my life would be a whole lot different right now. As awesome as Amsterdam was, it did not go well. In fact, shit started going array from the moment I arrived. I had a wonderful night train ride in, as I was roomed with an old Aussie guy who bought me beer all night, but the downward slide started the next day. From accidentally choosing a hostel 45 minutes out of the city to being homeless for a night to having to stay an extra night because the train from Amsterdam to Paris was booked one day, our trip could have more smoothly. The worst part was probably having to move hostels every single day. Never being able to settle in one spot is pretty terrible actually. The city of Amsterdam itself was awesome though. Anyone who thinks it is just about weed is completely ignorant, there are so many cool things to do in the city. It is incredibly beautiful. I could sit on a bench on a canal forever and not be bored. I was there for five nights and I still didn't feel like I had enough time to do everything I wanted to. A lot of this had to do with the fact the first three days were loaded with stress and figuring out places to sleep, but there is so much more to the city than sex and drugs, and the negative connotations associated with the city actually make me upset. That being said, those are two prominent components, and this is exemplified in the (in)famous red light district. Let me start off by saying that place makes me really quite uncomfortable. I mean it is definitely an awesome experience to see something to incredibly outlandish, but more than an hour walking around got to be real weird. You can't walk for more than five minutes without some clown offering you just about every drug in the spectrum, and you can't walk for more than twenty seconds without some girl dressed in lingerie behind tapping on the glass trying to get your money. Both are entertaining for awhile, but unless you are going there with the intentions of utilizing the variety of services offered in this Mecca of sin, it isn't a place to just hang out. It is one of the best places in the world to people watch, though. It is really funny how easy it is to tell who is there as a tourist and who is there for indulgence. In fact, let's play a game. Guess what the people described are at the Amsterdam Red Light District for!! Here we go.
- A group of five 20-something girls linking arms and laughing (answer: NOT buying drugs or whores)
- Four middle aged Asian men dressed in fly ass suits (answer: Buying drugs and whores)
- Old couple with an appalled look on their face the whole time (answer: regretting their choice of vacation spots)
- A lone dude inspecting every girl in the window closely (answer: hand selecting his dream girl)
- Dude on the corner in a hood, smoking a joint (answer: entrepreneur of sorts)
So while Amsterdam was unreal, five nights there was plenty of time, and I was ready to move on to Paris.
Part II - Paris
How was that for a flawless segway? OK fine, it was terrible. But anyway, I took a train to Paris because it was only supposed to be three hours, which definitely makes it worth it to not have to get on a plane. I hate flying. My legs don't fit in seats. There is always a god damn baby crying. I never feel good on the decent. A train is a much better alternative, especially for such a short trip. Plus, this way I got to get off the train for 10 seconds in Brussels so I can say I've been there, and no I don't count that as cheating.
We were on the train, about half way through, and I saw these two big bald dudes in all black with a German shepherd walking towards me. Obviously this made me uncomfortable. I turn around, and there were two more big dudes walking from the other direction. It's pretty obvious at this point that some shit's about to go down, and being that we were coming from Amsterdam, it's a safe bet that it's a drug bust. They started talking to the African woman behind me. She was a big, loud woman decked out in traditional African attire, not your typical smuggler. They brought her out and talked to her between the cars for awhile. I just tuned back into my Hardcore History podcast and forgot about the whole thing until five minutes later I hear screaming from behind me. This lady is swinging away, and I was fortunate enough to see these dudes give her a solid body slam and handcuff her. When we got to the next station, they take her off the train, and I saw a dude walking off the train with a big cardboard box covered in packaging tape that was opened up just enough to see that the box was filled with bags of white powder. This confused me because I don't know why anyone would need to smuggle artificial sweetener. I know Europe is hardcore about junk foods, but damn, it seemed a little excessive to me. Poor lady.
Besides that my trip went smoothly into Paris. My friends were waiting for me at the train station and escorted me to the hostel safely. What wonderful friends I have, huh? Overall I wasn't a huge fan of Paris though. The sites and touristy stuff is cool, but the city itself I didn't find to be anything special. We went to the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Versailles, and all those obvious destinations and had fun, but the French suck a lot. That is, of course, unless you speak their language. But I'm an arrogant, monolingual American asshole, so I don't speak your Frenchy language, Pierre! Maybe I will have more respect for your country when Germany doesn't take over your whole country in five days. Boom.
On to Barca before I say anything that will make a Frenchman fart in my general direction or taunt me a second time.
Part III - Barcalona
Ahhhh, sunny Barcelona, where it only rains 25 days a year. What a wonderful change up this will be from cold, rainy Denmark. Well, luckily for Catalonians, there will only be 22 days of rain left after I left their city. Beaches and clubs are normally a lot more fun when it doesn't rain. And who would have thunk it would have been warmer in Amsterdam than Barcelona? Screw you, Weather, I didn't deserve this.
Actually the worst part about Barca wasn't the rain. That title goes to the pick pockets. One of my travel partners got her shit jacked by some sneaky, soulless bastard. That really put quite the damper on the vacation. The city of Barcelona is actually really beautiful when it's nice out though. We were able to fit a Camp Nou tour in our short trip, so I was content.
Believe it or not, there are probably more drug dealers and prostitutes in Barcelona than in Amsterdam, only here they are so much more annoying. In a three block walk, you will be talked to by at least five drug dealers and at least three prostitutes, that's a conservative estimate. It's kind of unfair for me to judge Barcelona based on this one experience considering how wrong everything went. I will have to be back again before I slap a real negative review on such a wonderful (allegedly) place.
Part IV - Prague
In life, there are little lessons that you pick up casually throughout you're journey. They seem lots like common sense retrospectively. Disregarding hindsight, if you have never encountered such an experience before you wouldn't have ever needed to even think of it at a common sense level. It is in this that experience makes you wiser. Most of the time these things don't really have consequences, like if you had never been to a beach or pool before you might forget a towel. Oh well, you're friends probably have one, and if not, evaporation will be your friend. But, sometimes they get a little dangerous, like when you take a day trip to a tiny undeveloped Czech town with no cash and assume they take cards or have ATMs, with not enough to even buy a trip back. There are some things that are best to learn the hard way, but this is one of those things that it would be nice to just be told instead of exposed to. I mean it all worked out fine, as there happened to be one ATM in some random corner of the town that took about 20+ minutes of walking to stumble across, but I wouldn't be an honest man if I said I wasn't pretty nervous.
Besides this, literally the entire stay went smooth as Ryan Schmidtman's skin after he spends three hours getting ready to go to a bar. We had a wonderful place to stay with wonderful hosts (shout out to Sioux Falls), ate wonderful food, and the city itself is wonderful. Prague is absolutely my favorite city I have ever been in my entire life. I have lots and lots of pictures somewhere on someone's camera that I would love to post, but the amount of uncertainty in the beginning of this sentence disallows that. So unless you have ever been there (or know how to use Google Image), you are gonna have to take my word for it.
There were so many great activities we undertook during our stay, such as the Prague Castle, a giant hill over looking the city, a club in an old church, the Communism museum, etc, but there was one place that really stood out for me. It stood out more as an awesome business model that could never exist in America, especially not a big city, but was such a cool concept that it would be an fun experiment for a business man with some spare cash. The joint was called Big Lebowski's, which would normally be enough for me to give it a try even without the stellar recommendations. It's this tiny, off the beaten path hookah bar. This small little establishment serves food, has a full bar, and hookah in any flavor you could think of. There's tables as well as cushions to sit on, and it's always playing relaxing, not-shitty-club-music. Ryan and I went here to indulge in some hookah and throw a few back, but what I wasn't expecting was that this bar is name-your-own-price. The entire model is based off trusting in people's good faith. I asked the guy on the way out if 100 krone would cover us, and he replied with "Uh yeah sure, I mean we don't even know what you ordered." How cool is that? Could imagine this working in a big metropolitan in America? Hell no. It could in a smaller town I believe, but I think this would be an awesome project for someone with some spare change to throw around. I have no idea if this exists anywhere in the States, but if it doesn't, I will be opening something like this in ten years when I am a multi-millionaire, retired thirty year old who needs a hobby. OK, I will be more realistic, make it twenty years. But either way, this needs to be implemented. Immediately.
I guess that was my trip summary. The only thing left to mention is the 10 hour layover in a Warsaw airport over night, but I don't need to delve deeper into that since it's pretty clear that that was absolutely terrible without me having to bitch and moan about it for a paragraph. I cut out a lot of details to avoid writing a novella, but there were lots of other notable events. Maybe I will come back and write about them later. In fact, I should write about the concentration camp later... Oh, better idea! I'll just force Ryan to write about it in the comment section. I hope he doesn't let me down. Here are some neat tunes. Enjoy!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu2gxZDquzA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XD4EjeXe1A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEN9ZcrN76k
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Getting a hair cut shouldn't be this difficult.
Alright, this is embarrassing, but definitely more frustrating. I spent two hours today writing the longest blog post I've ever written. It was great, I was real happy with it. I go to click publish and it sends me to a screen that says Error 404 and my post is gone. I cursed loudly. I slammed my desk. I punched my bed (walls are too hard, I like punching soft things). Over 1500 words gone forever, into the wind. But I still need to write today, because it's the last time I likely will for a few weeks. So here is my effort to try and recreate what I had written, and it will be shorter. Here goes nothing...
Ever since I've had hair, there's been one constant in my life. There was one woman that stuck by my side through thick and thin, fads, trends, and phases of all sorts. Her name is Claudia. Her hands are thin and delicate, yet strong. Claudia has been the only lady cutting my hair my whole life, except for a few flings with other women that were all one night stands and never brought the same satisfaction. She was always willing to look over these brief lapses of loyalty and always serviced my hair needs. But I can't go four months without a haircut. Some people can, I can't. Others can just buzz their head and it looks good, I can't. Something about having large ears and a very prominent widow's peak that makes a buzz a last resort option. By now, I've been in Denmark for two months, and my hair was getting to be pretty ridiculous. My hair doesn't grow long really, get a little curly, and get a nice flow. My hair is ultra thick, and just gets big. It's like a straight haired afro. To sum this all up, I can't have real short hair or real long hair, so I need to actually get pretty frequent haircuts. It was about that time last week. Friday was the day I decided to make it happen. I had been scouting places to go for awhile, trying to find the right combination of cost and quality. There was the Copenhagen school of hair and shit (that's just the technical term, the kids call it CSHS). It was real cheap, even by American standards. But do I really want to put something as important as my striking good looks in the hands of a high school drop out who was sick of working at Burger King and decided "Hey, I like hair and make up and stuff, I'll go to cosmetology school!" The answer is an obvious no. There was a real nice place down the street from CSHS, it looked like some real pros working the scissors in this joint. But this place cost like 300 kroner, and I was not paying over $50 for a haircut. I found this other place which seemed like a pretty good in between. It was just a Middle Eastern, middle aged couple running it. It was real small and cheap, but they seemed like they could give a good cut. I wasn't quite sure though. You need a certain element of trust with your hair dresser. There has to be chemistry. Claudia and I had that, so trying to find a decent hair cut in Denmark proved to be an arduous task. I decided on the last option. They spoke basically no English. I didn't think of this at the time, but maybe it wasn't a great idea to get a hair cut at a place where your only methods of communication are hand signals and the few mutually understood words that they possess in their very limited. Once in the chair we were able to settle on what they were gonna do to me. "Machine side, scissors top, just make it look good." That last part was my downfall. I didn't want to watch. I was borderline sweating, just real nervous. The end result was essentially a crew cut with really long flared bangs. It looks incredibly Danish, but terrible on me. I Skyped my mom tonight and was immediately told to cut my bans. I look kind of ridiculous. Claudia would have done me better. Claudia would have done me perfect. Random Middle Eastern lady in Roskilde, Denmark did me poorly. My hair might have a date with the clippers soon. All pictures have been confiscated and burned.
This weekend, most of my friends in my kollegium went on the booze cruise to Oslo. I already did this, so I was back in Denmark with a few friends. Saturday we decided to go into Malmo in southern Sweden. It's only like a 20 minute train ride from Copenhagen, so it's real easy. This 20 minute train ride wasn't smooth though. We forgot (OK, it was my fault) to buy tickets since we have all zones passes, so we just got on the train without a ticket. We narrowly avoided that 750 kroner ticket on the train by playing the ignorant American students card. That works a lot in Europe I've noticed. Upon our arrival into Sweden, my leg was starting to feel a little cramped. I didn't think anything of it, so we just kept on walking for about two miles. We ate lunch around noon, and when we got up, my lower leg completely locked up and I couldn't walk. I got to a park bench to check out my leg. I could barely even pull my pant leg up since my leg was so swollen. My entire lower leg is hot, swollen, and red, and there's a bite mark looking thing in the middle of my calf. The only diagnosis I could think of is a spider bite, especially because it actually looks like a bite. Luckily one of my friends had Benedryl, so I popped one of those and chilled for an hour or so. After this wait, my leg loosened up a bit and we were able to walk back to the train station to call the day early on account of a mystery leg wound. I've been taking Benedryl today to keep my leg loose, but I am absolutely going to the doctor tomorrow to get this checked out. I feel like that would definitely be the medically advisable reaction to this situation. Maybe if I'm lucky I will have to get it amputated, then I can get prosthetic limb and people could call me Peg Leg Pete! That would be the best result of this predicament.
I watched the entire first season of Community in 26 hours this weekend, and that includes sleeping, eating, and time spent out drinking. It is a fantastic show, I haven't been this hooked on a show since Weeds. I was more hooked after one episode of Community than I was after one episode of Breaking Bad, and that's saying something. But I literally did nothing by lay in my bed and watch this show all weekend. I was a bonafide couch potato, and it was awesome. I mean, I could have been productive and done homework, read, or file a police report about my stolen pink lady's model bike, but none of those options are funny. Community is so hilarious, yet incredibly deep and emotional. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it 8.94 spankings.
This is going to be my last post for a few weeks unfortunately. I leave for a two week vacation from heaven on Thursday night. Four nights in Amsterdam for Halloween weekend, four nights in Paris, three in Barcelona, and four more in Prague may be the craziest/most expensive two weeks of my life, but I won't ever be able to do this again in my life in all likelihood, so I will definitely be living in all senses of the word. But it is going to get in the way of me blogging for that period. I probably won't write one before Thursday either, as I got lots and lots of shit to take care of before I go. I got ducks on ducks on ducks to get in a row. Hopefully I'll write a giant report of my trip when I get back, the only problem will be determining what is appropriate for this forum. But it's about time to watch the Vikes get slaughtered. But I'm gonna man up anyway and watch. The Minnesota sports scene is sad to have allegiances with this day and age. So instead of posting music this time around, I'm gonna cheer up all those Vikings fans out there with a little reminiscence. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE8sJI7PxQU
I'll talk to ya later.
Ever since I've had hair, there's been one constant in my life. There was one woman that stuck by my side through thick and thin, fads, trends, and phases of all sorts. Her name is Claudia. Her hands are thin and delicate, yet strong. Claudia has been the only lady cutting my hair my whole life, except for a few flings with other women that were all one night stands and never brought the same satisfaction. She was always willing to look over these brief lapses of loyalty and always serviced my hair needs. But I can't go four months without a haircut. Some people can, I can't. Others can just buzz their head and it looks good, I can't. Something about having large ears and a very prominent widow's peak that makes a buzz a last resort option. By now, I've been in Denmark for two months, and my hair was getting to be pretty ridiculous. My hair doesn't grow long really, get a little curly, and get a nice flow. My hair is ultra thick, and just gets big. It's like a straight haired afro. To sum this all up, I can't have real short hair or real long hair, so I need to actually get pretty frequent haircuts. It was about that time last week. Friday was the day I decided to make it happen. I had been scouting places to go for awhile, trying to find the right combination of cost and quality. There was the Copenhagen school of hair and shit (that's just the technical term, the kids call it CSHS). It was real cheap, even by American standards. But do I really want to put something as important as my striking good looks in the hands of a high school drop out who was sick of working at Burger King and decided "Hey, I like hair and make up and stuff, I'll go to cosmetology school!" The answer is an obvious no. There was a real nice place down the street from CSHS, it looked like some real pros working the scissors in this joint. But this place cost like 300 kroner, and I was not paying over $50 for a haircut. I found this other place which seemed like a pretty good in between. It was just a Middle Eastern, middle aged couple running it. It was real small and cheap, but they seemed like they could give a good cut. I wasn't quite sure though. You need a certain element of trust with your hair dresser. There has to be chemistry. Claudia and I had that, so trying to find a decent hair cut in Denmark proved to be an arduous task. I decided on the last option. They spoke basically no English. I didn't think of this at the time, but maybe it wasn't a great idea to get a hair cut at a place where your only methods of communication are hand signals and the few mutually understood words that they possess in their very limited. Once in the chair we were able to settle on what they were gonna do to me. "Machine side, scissors top, just make it look good." That last part was my downfall. I didn't want to watch. I was borderline sweating, just real nervous. The end result was essentially a crew cut with really long flared bangs. It looks incredibly Danish, but terrible on me. I Skyped my mom tonight and was immediately told to cut my bans. I look kind of ridiculous. Claudia would have done me better. Claudia would have done me perfect. Random Middle Eastern lady in Roskilde, Denmark did me poorly. My hair might have a date with the clippers soon. All pictures have been confiscated and burned.
This weekend, most of my friends in my kollegium went on the booze cruise to Oslo. I already did this, so I was back in Denmark with a few friends. Saturday we decided to go into Malmo in southern Sweden. It's only like a 20 minute train ride from Copenhagen, so it's real easy. This 20 minute train ride wasn't smooth though. We forgot (OK, it was my fault) to buy tickets since we have all zones passes, so we just got on the train without a ticket. We narrowly avoided that 750 kroner ticket on the train by playing the ignorant American students card. That works a lot in Europe I've noticed. Upon our arrival into Sweden, my leg was starting to feel a little cramped. I didn't think anything of it, so we just kept on walking for about two miles. We ate lunch around noon, and when we got up, my lower leg completely locked up and I couldn't walk. I got to a park bench to check out my leg. I could barely even pull my pant leg up since my leg was so swollen. My entire lower leg is hot, swollen, and red, and there's a bite mark looking thing in the middle of my calf. The only diagnosis I could think of is a spider bite, especially because it actually looks like a bite. Luckily one of my friends had Benedryl, so I popped one of those and chilled for an hour or so. After this wait, my leg loosened up a bit and we were able to walk back to the train station to call the day early on account of a mystery leg wound. I've been taking Benedryl today to keep my leg loose, but I am absolutely going to the doctor tomorrow to get this checked out. I feel like that would definitely be the medically advisable reaction to this situation. Maybe if I'm lucky I will have to get it amputated, then I can get prosthetic limb and people could call me Peg Leg Pete! That would be the best result of this predicament.
I watched the entire first season of Community in 26 hours this weekend, and that includes sleeping, eating, and time spent out drinking. It is a fantastic show, I haven't been this hooked on a show since Weeds. I was more hooked after one episode of Community than I was after one episode of Breaking Bad, and that's saying something. But I literally did nothing by lay in my bed and watch this show all weekend. I was a bonafide couch potato, and it was awesome. I mean, I could have been productive and done homework, read, or file a police report about my stolen pink lady's model bike, but none of those options are funny. Community is so hilarious, yet incredibly deep and emotional. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it 8.94 spankings.
This is going to be my last post for a few weeks unfortunately. I leave for a two week vacation from heaven on Thursday night. Four nights in Amsterdam for Halloween weekend, four nights in Paris, three in Barcelona, and four more in Prague may be the craziest/most expensive two weeks of my life, but I won't ever be able to do this again in my life in all likelihood, so I will definitely be living in all senses of the word. But it is going to get in the way of me blogging for that period. I probably won't write one before Thursday either, as I got lots and lots of shit to take care of before I go. I got ducks on ducks on ducks to get in a row. Hopefully I'll write a giant report of my trip when I get back, the only problem will be determining what is appropriate for this forum. But it's about time to watch the Vikes get slaughtered. But I'm gonna man up anyway and watch. The Minnesota sports scene is sad to have allegiances with this day and age. So instead of posting music this time around, I'm gonna cheer up all those Vikings fans out there with a little reminiscence. Enjoy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bE8sJI7PxQU
I'll talk to ya later.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Not sure why I'm up and chipper and 7:30am on a Saturday morning, but ain't nothin wrong with starting the day with a run, a cup of coffee, and a post
The creative world can sometimes be a cruel mistress. You gotta draw the line between trying to please the public and staying true to your art. While I am not an artist myself (except when I'm trying to stay awake during a lecture), I do get attached to work that a group member produces. I always have ideas, but the physical display of the idea isn't my strong suit. Luckily for minds like me, there are artists in the world. To give a little background, we have a project in my Creative Industries class where we have to design the t-shirt for DIS (our study abroad program). It has to say DIS on it somewhere and has to be symbolic of Copenhagen. We got lucky and got a very talented photoshop guy in our group, and through a little brain storm sesh this is the design that came ou
t in the end. Pretty sick, right? Jeff (the artist) did an awesome job on the design if you ask me. Got the hip, urban hat on the very contemporary portrayal of a Danish elephant with a Danish flag (elephants are big here, not sure why but they are everywhere). But we had a focus group anyway to discuss our design to see if we could make any tweaks to make it better. To put it bluntly, we got roasted in this group. They all hated the design. The hat is dumb, the elephant looks stupid, why would you make a black t-shirt, rabblerabblerabble. There wasn't much positive feedback on our work. We talked about improving it for awhile afterwards, and we came to the conclusion that we can make a few adjustments to make it more popular, but we are sticking with what design we like and not selling out our design because a small sample size didn't like it. Outside of the focus group, we have gotten nothing but positive feedback for the design, and we feel pretty confident that our design is going to win just because it's so cool (in my ever so humble opinion). I'm not sure if this strategy is going to pay off, but we are going to take the Punk Royal route here and stick with what we think is best. Hopefully this doesn't crash and burn like that route sometimes tends to do, and maybe the mistress will be kind this time.
If anyone has any feedback on the design, I would love to hear it. We still have a few days before it has to be finalized. Afterwards I need to find another project I can work on that will keep me working, since as you can imagine, a study abroad workload isn't really enough to keep me busy. I'll take any suggestions. Otherwise I'm going to spend the next two weeks applying for internships and writing an incessant amount of cover letters, and that doesn't sound quite as much fun.
On a completely unrelated note, I have wasted approximately an entire week (give or take) listening to Stuff You Should Know podcasts. "Wasted" probably isn't the best word to use, but I feel like "spent" wasn't strong enough. There's gotta be a middle ground between there. But I can proudly say I know everything there is to know about the Underground Railroad, Amelia Earhart, memory, parallel evolution, quantum suicide, Ponzi schemes, moonshine, Friday the 13th, scientists who use themselves as guinea pigs, microloans, and Jack the Ripper. What better way to spend your time than learning? Besides learning about things that are actually relevant, I mean. I highly recommend checking it out, it's got my stamp of approval.
If you don't like being sad, don't click this link. The state of popular music is depressing.
When shuffle treats you right: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOXG8wtxx_w. Thank you, iTunes.
That is all.
t in the end. Pretty sick, right? Jeff (the artist) did an awesome job on the design if you ask me. Got the hip, urban hat on the very contemporary portrayal of a Danish elephant with a Danish flag (elephants are big here, not sure why but they are everywhere). But we had a focus group anyway to discuss our design to see if we could make any tweaks to make it better. To put it bluntly, we got roasted in this group. They all hated the design. The hat is dumb, the elephant looks stupid, why would you make a black t-shirt, rabblerabblerabble. There wasn't much positive feedback on our work. We talked about improving it for awhile afterwards, and we came to the conclusion that we can make a few adjustments to make it more popular, but we are sticking with what design we like and not selling out our design because a small sample size didn't like it. Outside of the focus group, we have gotten nothing but positive feedback for the design, and we feel pretty confident that our design is going to win just because it's so cool (in my ever so humble opinion). I'm not sure if this strategy is going to pay off, but we are going to take the Punk Royal route here and stick with what we think is best. Hopefully this doesn't crash and burn like that route sometimes tends to do, and maybe the mistress will be kind this time.If anyone has any feedback on the design, I would love to hear it. We still have a few days before it has to be finalized. Afterwards I need to find another project I can work on that will keep me working, since as you can imagine, a study abroad workload isn't really enough to keep me busy. I'll take any suggestions. Otherwise I'm going to spend the next two weeks applying for internships and writing an incessant amount of cover letters, and that doesn't sound quite as much fun.
On a completely unrelated note, I have wasted approximately an entire week (give or take) listening to Stuff You Should Know podcasts. "Wasted" probably isn't the best word to use, but I feel like "spent" wasn't strong enough. There's gotta be a middle ground between there. But I can proudly say I know everything there is to know about the Underground Railroad, Amelia Earhart, memory, parallel evolution, quantum suicide, Ponzi schemes, moonshine, Friday the 13th, scientists who use themselves as guinea pigs, microloans, and Jack the Ripper. What better way to spend your time than learning? Besides learning about things that are actually relevant, I mean. I highly recommend checking it out, it's got my stamp of approval.
If you don't like being sad, don't click this link. The state of popular music is depressing.
When shuffle treats you right: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOXG8wtxx_w. Thank you, iTunes.
That is all.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
London Part II
I've had a few days to reflect on my week and get some perspective on it. I wrote down a list of things I wanted to talk about in this blog awhile back, but I may have lost the booklet, so I'm going to have to go off my memory here, which is notoriously unreliable. I will do what I can.
So picking up where I left off, I woke up the next morning after the adventure at like 8am, which was nice because I got a whole 6 hours of sleep. This was my most eventful story of the week. Most of the rest of it consisted of getting up really early to do academic/tourist visits after a night out on the town. The cumulative exhaustion from five consecutive nights of no sleep definitely KO-ed me when I got back Friday at 3am. It was a real deep recovery slumber. But there were a few other notable points from my trip.
I hadn't had a real high fructose corn syrup Mountain Dew in like two months, so when I saw they had them in London, I went a little bananas. Oh sweet syrupy goodness, how I missed thee. Not only did they have real Dew, they had Chipotle. One of like two non-US Chipotles in the entire world, and it was in my city. Needless to say I ate five burritos in five days. I want to say phenomenal, but it might not do it justice. It was identical in flavor, but the satisfaction of eating that first burrito in months was not comparable to most other pleasures I've had in my lifetime. It was a surreal moment. As you can see, I'm a big proponent of burritos.
This leads me to another point. England is the exact same as America. They speak the language, they have all same fast food, they do high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar like the rest of Europe does, they aren't on the Euro (other countries aren't either, but the pound isn't even linked to the Euro like other country's currencies are like the Danish kroner and the Polish zloty), and they are all fat. The only thing that is different is there awesome accents (which are actually 100% sexy) and they drive on the wrong side of the road, which caused many near death experiences crossing the roads. But when you go to London, everything seems so American. We took a train to Wimbledon for an academic visit, and I thought I was in north side Chicago. Unless you go to a super British futbol pub, which I never went to because they are actually rather intimidating, the place is America. In my eyes, it reaffirmed the choice to study in Copenhagen rather than London. The cultural differences between home and London isn't significant at all, and I am really happy I am
getting exposure to such a different culture.
But even a better affirmation tool of choice of home abroad is the SCIENTIFIC FACT that British people are ugly and Scandinavians are gorgeous. It is so noticeable in even a casual walk down a street. The beautiful women in London were few and far between, whereas in Denmark they are everywhere.
As I said, I lost my notes, so this is all I can remember for now. I feel much dissonance, I know I had lots more to say. Oh well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c6KeQmXnEw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcjoGn6FLwI
So picking up where I left off, I woke up the next morning after the adventure at like 8am, which was nice because I got a whole 6 hours of sleep. This was my most eventful story of the week. Most of the rest of it consisted of getting up really early to do academic/tourist visits after a night out on the town. The cumulative exhaustion from five consecutive nights of no sleep definitely KO-ed me when I got back Friday at 3am. It was a real deep recovery slumber. But there were a few other notable points from my trip.
I hadn't had a real high fructose corn syrup Mountain Dew in like two months, so when I saw they had them in London, I went a little bananas. Oh sweet syrupy goodness, how I missed thee. Not only did they have real Dew, they had Chipotle. One of like two non-US Chipotles in the entire world, and it was in my city. Needless to say I ate five burritos in five days. I want to say phenomenal, but it might not do it justice. It was identical in flavor, but the satisfaction of eating that first burrito in months was not comparable to most other pleasures I've had in my lifetime. It was a surreal moment. As you can see, I'm a big proponent of burritos.
This leads me to another point. England is the exact same as America. They speak the language, they have all same fast food, they do high fructose corn syrup instead of sugar like the rest of Europe does, they aren't on the Euro (other countries aren't either, but the pound isn't even linked to the Euro like other country's currencies are like the Danish kroner and the Polish zloty), and they are all fat. The only thing that is different is there awesome accents (which are actually 100% sexy) and they drive on the wrong side of the road, which caused many near death experiences crossing the roads. But when you go to London, everything seems so American. We took a train to Wimbledon for an academic visit, and I thought I was in north side Chicago. Unless you go to a super British futbol pub, which I never went to because they are actually rather intimidating, the place is America. In my eyes, it reaffirmed the choice to study in Copenhagen rather than London. The cultural differences between home and London isn't significant at all, and I am really happy I am
getting exposure to such a different culture.But even a better affirmation tool of choice of home abroad is the SCIENTIFIC FACT that British people are ugly and Scandinavians are gorgeous. It is so noticeable in even a casual walk down a street. The beautiful women in London were few and far between, whereas in Denmark they are everywhere.
As I said, I lost my notes, so this is all I can remember for now. I feel much dissonance, I know I had lots more to say. Oh well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c6KeQmXnEw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcjoGn6FLwI
Thursday, October 6, 2011
London Part Uno
Alright, I'm not done with my London trip yet, but I feel like I am gonna have a lot of shit to write, so I'm doing a two part entry about this. I've been jotting down reminders about topics to write about while not paying attention in boring business meetings at various bank headquarters, so this oughta be a pretty detailed summary of my trip.
Let me start out by saying London is a gigantic city. It's overwhelmingly large. It's crowded, loud, and everyone is always in a hurry. I can feel myself becoming more of an impatient asshole every day. It's not good for me. That being said, it is beautiful and quite fun. There is just so much history. This town is 2000 years old (holy smokes!). The London Eye is incredible, especially at night. I got pictures, so you can check Facebook if you care at all.
The first night we were here was low key. We had to spend 2 hours in customs, so we were late to dinner. Everyone was shot so we just hit the hay pretty early. The next day we had some boring business obligations in the morning before going to the British Museum. That museum is so cool. I could have spent a week in there. In fact, if I ever come back I might bring a tent and a sleeping bag and just camp inside. After the museum, a nap was definitely in order, so I took a mini coma for a few hours. We reconvened after nap time to start hanging out as a group. As we were leaving to go out, and I saw this girl running back up the stairs. I asked her what she was doing and she told me she was going to grab something from her room quick and check on some other girls. Obviously, being the chivalrous stallion that I am (I got jokes), I offered to wait for her. Apparently when girls say two minutes it often means that they aren't actually coming out at all and are going to bed. So after 10 minutes of waiting I just said screw it, I'm catching up with the group. So I needed to jog to find my group. Oh, quick disclaimer, I'm not 100% sober. So I jog to the tube station, but obviously I took a wrong turn. One wrong turn leads to another wrong turn which leads to another wrong turn which leads to "holy shit, I am completely and utterly lost in London alone with no map". I decide to try and figure this out myself to avoid a costly cab fare or expensive international phone rates. This gets me even more lost, and I find myself in some sketchy neighborhood. A car driving by was rare, and a passerby even harder to come by. This propels me to decided to suck it up and give some girls a call to help me out, which is a big step for me. They grabbed a map and told me to find my cross streets. When telling someone where you are, "how the hell did you get that far away?" isn't a very reassuring thing to hear as a first reaction. So they pinpointed my location and we started walking towards each other, or at least trying. After I hang up, I hear some British guys behind me.
"Hey American!"
I turn around and just respond with a "Yo, what's up?"
"Hey come here and talk to us!"
"Nah, I'm good, what's up?"
"No, come here and talk to us!"
"Nah, what's up?"
"Just come here!"
So I keep walking, but a bit more briskly. They start walking with a bit more pace as well. I get to a corner and just turn around the corner. Once out of there sight, I just run. I get to the next corner, get around it and peak back. They legitimately ran after me. They looked around the corner trying to find me. So at this point I am frantic, I just book it. I dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge around a few more corners and then wait to see if they are still following, phone in hand ready to call the cops. After a few minutes, there was no sign of them, so I figured I would be OK. I'm real rattled at this point, because not only am I afraid, alone, and map-less, but I just presumably almost got mugged. I don't even want to go out anymore, I just want to be back in my hotel, plugged into Miles Davis, and doing some real slumberin'. After wandering around for another hour or so, I am finally able to meet up with my search & rescue party. It took about 20 more minutes to get back to the hotel. I pass out immediately. The worst thing is that not only did I get lost in London and have an absolutely terrible night, but I still didn't get any sleep because I was out in the London wilderness so late. I had a 3 hour bike tour that started at 9am. Then I had to sit in a bank meeting, and as much as I love scumbag investment bankers preaching me basics about the global economy (/sarcasm), it was really not what I was trying be doing at this particular point in time. So that is my story of my first night out in London. I have lots more to come, but I have to run to dinner right now and go to the Lion King musical. And then I'm going out, with a group this time. I've had a my fill of flying solo. Adios, friends, I will write more on Saturday.
Let me start out by saying London is a gigantic city. It's overwhelmingly large. It's crowded, loud, and everyone is always in a hurry. I can feel myself becoming more of an impatient asshole every day. It's not good for me. That being said, it is beautiful and quite fun. There is just so much history. This town is 2000 years old (holy smokes!). The London Eye is incredible, especially at night. I got pictures, so you can check Facebook if you care at all.
The first night we were here was low key. We had to spend 2 hours in customs, so we were late to dinner. Everyone was shot so we just hit the hay pretty early. The next day we had some boring business obligations in the morning before going to the British Museum. That museum is so cool. I could have spent a week in there. In fact, if I ever come back I might bring a tent and a sleeping bag and just camp inside. After the museum, a nap was definitely in order, so I took a mini coma for a few hours. We reconvened after nap time to start hanging out as a group. As we were leaving to go out, and I saw this girl running back up the stairs. I asked her what she was doing and she told me she was going to grab something from her room quick and check on some other girls. Obviously, being the chivalrous stallion that I am (I got jokes), I offered to wait for her. Apparently when girls say two minutes it often means that they aren't actually coming out at all and are going to bed. So after 10 minutes of waiting I just said screw it, I'm catching up with the group. So I needed to jog to find my group. Oh, quick disclaimer, I'm not 100% sober. So I jog to the tube station, but obviously I took a wrong turn. One wrong turn leads to another wrong turn which leads to another wrong turn which leads to "holy shit, I am completely and utterly lost in London alone with no map". I decide to try and figure this out myself to avoid a costly cab fare or expensive international phone rates. This gets me even more lost, and I find myself in some sketchy neighborhood. A car driving by was rare, and a passerby even harder to come by. This propels me to decided to suck it up and give some girls a call to help me out, which is a big step for me. They grabbed a map and told me to find my cross streets. When telling someone where you are, "how the hell did you get that far away?" isn't a very reassuring thing to hear as a first reaction. So they pinpointed my location and we started walking towards each other, or at least trying. After I hang up, I hear some British guys behind me.
"Hey American!"
I turn around and just respond with a "Yo, what's up?"
"Hey come here and talk to us!"
"Nah, I'm good, what's up?"
"No, come here and talk to us!"
"Nah, what's up?"
"Just come here!"
So I keep walking, but a bit more briskly. They start walking with a bit more pace as well. I get to a corner and just turn around the corner. Once out of there sight, I just run. I get to the next corner, get around it and peak back. They legitimately ran after me. They looked around the corner trying to find me. So at this point I am frantic, I just book it. I dodge, duck, dip, dive, and dodge around a few more corners and then wait to see if they are still following, phone in hand ready to call the cops. After a few minutes, there was no sign of them, so I figured I would be OK. I'm real rattled at this point, because not only am I afraid, alone, and map-less, but I just presumably almost got mugged. I don't even want to go out anymore, I just want to be back in my hotel, plugged into Miles Davis, and doing some real slumberin'. After wandering around for another hour or so, I am finally able to meet up with my search & rescue party. It took about 20 more minutes to get back to the hotel. I pass out immediately. The worst thing is that not only did I get lost in London and have an absolutely terrible night, but I still didn't get any sleep because I was out in the London wilderness so late. I had a 3 hour bike tour that started at 9am. Then I had to sit in a bank meeting, and as much as I love scumbag investment bankers preaching me basics about the global economy (/sarcasm), it was really not what I was trying be doing at this particular point in time. So that is my story of my first night out in London. I have lots more to come, but I have to run to dinner right now and go to the Lion King musical. And then I'm going out, with a group this time. I've had a my fill of flying solo. Adios, friends, I will write more on Saturday.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Norway yah!
I'm gonna start off by saying Norway is the most beautiful country in the world. Everywhere you look there are trees and hills. It's phenomenal. A cruise through some fjords was one of the coolest things I've ever done.
On top of the awesome site seeing, we gotta party with a bunch of cool Swedes we met on the boat. Hopefully we can have a little reunion in southern Sweden. This potential awesome party in southern Sweden completely makes up for the broken/dislocated/sprained/I-don't-want-to-go-to-the-doctor-to-find-out thumb. All-in-all, it was an exciting weekend. It was so fun I forgot that I was actually supposed to be at Oktoberfest with the Ryan Schmidtman.
So anyway, Friends is an absolutely awesome TV show. I never really watched it before tonight, I might have picked up an episode or two here and there. But I was never into it. I just randomly hopped into the beginning of one of those apparently classic Friends marathons in the middle of season two. I planned on just sitting down for an episode while I waited for my chicken Parmesan to bake, but I went through six and ended up missing almost the entire Vikings game, which was probably for the better. When I first started watching, the group was arguing about money and how half of them could afford shit and the others couldn't, Ross was with Julie the Asian chick, and Joey and Matthew Perry were losing a baby on the public bus. I went through the whole Rachel-Ross fiasco and I was hooked. I am absolutely watching this show from now on. I want to cry for Ross right now. I will no longer be productive ever.
/endrant
Anyway, here are three of my favorite albums of all time:
Kind of Blue
Cracked Rear View
More Than You Think You Are
Peace.
On top of the awesome site seeing, we gotta party with a bunch of cool Swedes we met on the boat. Hopefully we can have a little reunion in southern Sweden. This potential awesome party in southern Sweden completely makes up for the broken/dislocated/sprained/I-don't-want-to-go-to-the-doctor-to-find-out thumb. All-in-all, it was an exciting weekend. It was so fun I forgot that I was actually supposed to be at Oktoberfest with the Ryan Schmidtman.
So anyway, Friends is an absolutely awesome TV show. I never really watched it before tonight, I might have picked up an episode or two here and there. But I was never into it. I just randomly hopped into the beginning of one of those apparently classic Friends marathons in the middle of season two. I planned on just sitting down for an episode while I waited for my chicken Parmesan to bake, but I went through six and ended up missing almost the entire Vikings game, which was probably for the better. When I first started watching, the group was arguing about money and how half of them could afford shit and the others couldn't, Ross was with Julie the Asian chick, and Joey and Matthew Perry were losing a baby on the public bus. I went through the whole Rachel-Ross fiasco and I was hooked. I am absolutely watching this show from now on. I want to cry for Ross right now. I will no longer be productive ever.
/endrant
Anyway, here are three of my favorite albums of all time:
Kind of Blue
Cracked Rear View
More Than You Think You Are
Peace.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
FM Belfast plug. And other stories.
So I've been working on travel plans and things of that sort, and it's actually really quite the pain to get all the details hammered out. I really am understanding the purpose of travel agents. Trying to book two weeks of travel, with planes, trains, places to stay, and things to do is kind of an overwhelming task. Luckily, we have a group together, and we were able to break it down. Britt, Emily, Ryan (perhaps???????????????), and I are gonna have an unreal two week break. Amsterdam, Brussels, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Florence, Venice, and Prague is a pretty solid goal at this point. The first few spots are still a point of contention, but this is basically what's going down. Before I even go on this trip, I have a week in London, and weekends to Oslo and either Stockholm or Krakow. I've been in Denmark for a month, it's bout time to do some serious exploring. That's all I got on this front.
But last night.. Last night I have things to discuss about. Alright, so it was a Thursday, and on Thursdays I have seven hours of class. I know, it's hell, because I can't even skip one or two like I would normally back at GAC. So Thursdays are incredibly long typically, but this week it was even longer. We had a field study for a class where we went to VEGA Concert Hall and watched a free concert and got free beer. Maybe field study isn't the best word they could have used to describe this. But anyway, we saw FM Belfast. To put it bluntly, it was probably a top three show that I have ever seen. I've never seen any band this energetic on stage, and I've never seen a concert where literally every person standing at any spot in the room was 100% all into it. The point of this paragraph was entirely to shamelessly plug this awesome band, whom everyone needs to get on. There music is almost misleading, because they sound kind of trippy on their CD, but live they just rock so hard. It is quite the change up, and it is definitely for the better.
Other than this, I still had a noteworthy Thursday. This week, Thursday was election day. Denmark was getting a new prime minister and a new parliament. I have a political rhetoric class on Friday mornings at 8:30am (my only class of the day). My professor for this class works as the campaign manager for the Social Democrat Party, whose candidate was leading the polls for new prime minister. As soon as it looked like the SDP had locked it up, he sent out an email saying that we won't have class tomorrow morning because he is going to be too drunk from the victory cele (much paraphrasing of course). So in one day, I had a professor bring us to a night club for class and another cancel class on account of him partying too hard. Reasons #123897 and #123898 why I love Denmark.
That being said, it's the weekend. Time for some brewery tours. Peace out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xf_GTbcSlc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km2iAAxb9is&feature=related
But last night.. Last night I have things to discuss about. Alright, so it was a Thursday, and on Thursdays I have seven hours of class. I know, it's hell, because I can't even skip one or two like I would normally back at GAC. So Thursdays are incredibly long typically, but this week it was even longer. We had a field study for a class where we went to VEGA Concert Hall and watched a free concert and got free beer. Maybe field study isn't the best word they could have used to describe this. But anyway, we saw FM Belfast. To put it bluntly, it was probably a top three show that I have ever seen. I've never seen any band this energetic on stage, and I've never seen a concert where literally every person standing at any spot in the room was 100% all into it. The point of this paragraph was entirely to shamelessly plug this awesome band, whom everyone needs to get on. There music is almost misleading, because they sound kind of trippy on their CD, but live they just rock so hard. It is quite the change up, and it is definitely for the better.
Other than this, I still had a noteworthy Thursday. This week, Thursday was election day. Denmark was getting a new prime minister and a new parliament. I have a political rhetoric class on Friday mornings at 8:30am (my only class of the day). My professor for this class works as the campaign manager for the Social Democrat Party, whose candidate was leading the polls for new prime minister. As soon as it looked like the SDP had locked it up, he sent out an email saying that we won't have class tomorrow morning because he is going to be too drunk from the victory cele (much paraphrasing of course). So in one day, I had a professor bring us to a night club for class and another cancel class on account of him partying too hard. Reasons #123897 and #123898 why I love Denmark.
That being said, it's the weekend. Time for some brewery tours. Peace out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xf_GTbcSlc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km2iAAxb9is&feature=related
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Everybody loves a good field trip.
I just returned from a few nights away from internet and Copenhagen. We had this study tour thingy where we visited businesses and banks, and while it was great fun and involved lots of alcohol, I learned lots! First, we went to Nordea Markets, which is some big investment bank. The main thing I took from this is that investment bankers are scum. The presentation consisted of the guy bitching about hating his job and how everyone he works with is an asshole who competes with everyone else to see who can have the hottest wife and nicest car (I might have paraphrased/took a few artistic liberties for the sake of storytelling). That was before he told us about all his early twenties co-workers who all got 2000% bonuses last year. You are the root of all financial evil, presenter man.
After we went to SaxoBank, which is some giant bank as well. I don't remember the last time I've been so bored. That place sucked. I don't even want to write about it.
Then we went canoeing and got to our hostel. We drank lots. On a related note, going to Europe was the greatest thing that has ever happened to my beer drinking ability.
We got up at 6am the next day to go to Bang & Olufsen, which if you don't know about it, look it up. It's rated the 5th coolest company in the entire world, ahead of Apple. I saw a 103-inch TV. It was nuts. After this trip, we went to the cheese caves. Yes, it is as awesome as it sounds. The entire situation of it is pure comedy to me. We spent all morning at the headquarters of some super high end company, all wearing business attire (which means girls wearing heels), and went straight to a cave, where we walked around on incredibly janky paths for like two hours on the way to this theater in the cave that plays movies on the walls of the cave over an underground lake and a storage room containing 300 TONS of cheese. So just to reiterate to preemptively combat any potential miscommunication, we had 30 Americans in formal attire in a cave in Western bumfuck Denmark trying to climb around a giant limestone cave on our way to a room filled with hundreds of tons of cheese. I personally find that entire scenario to be completely hilarious. I hope I'm not alone. But then we went to a hostel, out to some bars, and sang karaoke with Danes all night.
You know you are taking a great class when you get to go on a field trip to a brewery to do some major beer tasting with your professors. Just another part of my weekend.
So anyway, now that the whole boring story part of the weekend is out of the way, I want to share a list of lessons learned, in a randomly assigned order. So for those of you who braved through all that rabblerabblerabble, here we go.
1. Always take the scenic route.
2. Sleep is a waste of time that could be spent on seeing awesome things and meeting cool people. Starting my bare minimum sleep cycle immediately.
3. Beer is great. Cheap beer is greater. These two elements united is greater than the sum of its parts.
4. Since they don't really have Mountain Dew in Denmark (whenever you can find it it isn't real good), I initially felt bad about replacing my regular every day Dew consumption with beer, but after some deep thinking, it is definitely more healthy.
5. The financial industry is full of scum bags who would ruin the world for an extra bonus (apologies to anyone's family if this is directed at them, I generalize).
6. I had a professor tell me today that when he goes to bars he leaves his drink open when he goes to the bathroom because he has a twisted dream of getting roofied. I don't ever want to get roofied obviously, but someone I was able to derive a lesson from this, and that is to live life on the wild side. It is super cliche, but I am gonna extrapolate this from the roofie story and apply it here.
7. If you aren't good at Sudoku, you probably won't be good at them after you've been drinking.
8. I hope whoever karaoke is sitting on their own private beach in the Caribbean with a cold beer and a beautiful woman right now, because they deserve it.
9. I wish the exact same for whomever decided to put a 3rd and 4th wheels on the rolling suitcase.
10. If you have karaoke and don't have "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen, the Miller High Life guy should confiscate your machine.
I might add more later if I can remember all the others I meant to write. Peace out. Tunes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH6Chrd6QPo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EEW-9NDM5k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM&ob=av3e
After we went to SaxoBank, which is some giant bank as well. I don't remember the last time I've been so bored. That place sucked. I don't even want to write about it.
Then we went canoeing and got to our hostel. We drank lots. On a related note, going to Europe was the greatest thing that has ever happened to my beer drinking ability.
We got up at 6am the next day to go to Bang & Olufsen, which if you don't know about it, look it up. It's rated the 5th coolest company in the entire world, ahead of Apple. I saw a 103-inch TV. It was nuts. After this trip, we went to the cheese caves. Yes, it is as awesome as it sounds. The entire situation of it is pure comedy to me. We spent all morning at the headquarters of some super high end company, all wearing business attire (which means girls wearing heels), and went straight to a cave, where we walked around on incredibly janky paths for like two hours on the way to this theater in the cave that plays movies on the walls of the cave over an underground lake and a storage room containing 300 TONS of cheese. So just to reiterate to preemptively combat any potential miscommunication, we had 30 Americans in formal attire in a cave in Western bumfuck Denmark trying to climb around a giant limestone cave on our way to a room filled with hundreds of tons of cheese. I personally find that entire scenario to be completely hilarious. I hope I'm not alone. But then we went to a hostel, out to some bars, and sang karaoke with Danes all night.
You know you are taking a great class when you get to go on a field trip to a brewery to do some major beer tasting with your professors. Just another part of my weekend.
So anyway, now that the whole boring story part of the weekend is out of the way, I want to share a list of lessons learned, in a randomly assigned order. So for those of you who braved through all that rabblerabblerabble, here we go.
1. Always take the scenic route.
2. Sleep is a waste of time that could be spent on seeing awesome things and meeting cool people. Starting my bare minimum sleep cycle immediately.
3. Beer is great. Cheap beer is greater. These two elements united is greater than the sum of its parts.
4. Since they don't really have Mountain Dew in Denmark (whenever you can find it it isn't real good), I initially felt bad about replacing my regular every day Dew consumption with beer, but after some deep thinking, it is definitely more healthy.
5. The financial industry is full of scum bags who would ruin the world for an extra bonus (apologies to anyone's family if this is directed at them, I generalize).
6. I had a professor tell me today that when he goes to bars he leaves his drink open when he goes to the bathroom because he has a twisted dream of getting roofied. I don't ever want to get roofied obviously, but someone I was able to derive a lesson from this, and that is to live life on the wild side. It is super cliche, but I am gonna extrapolate this from the roofie story and apply it here.
7. If you aren't good at Sudoku, you probably won't be good at them after you've been drinking.
8. I hope whoever karaoke is sitting on their own private beach in the Caribbean with a cold beer and a beautiful woman right now, because they deserve it.
9. I wish the exact same for whomever decided to put a 3rd and 4th wheels on the rolling suitcase.
10. If you have karaoke and don't have "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen, the Miller High Life guy should confiscate your machine.
I might add more later if I can remember all the others I meant to write. Peace out. Tunes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH6Chrd6QPo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EEW-9NDM5k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgzGwKwLmgM&ob=av3e
Monday, September 5, 2011
Just a check in
I haven't written anything in awhile, as I've been pretty busy doing Denmark things, like going cod fishing in the Baltic, going to futbol games, and drinking. It's all good fun. Again, I might not come home, just gonna invite all my friends out to live with me here. That would probably be best for all parties involved. I just wanted to check in so everyone knows I'm alive. Very much surviving and thriving. I figured I would share some of my gourmet meal recipes that I have developed with my culinary genius while over here. The first one is called a grilled sloppy cheese sandwich.
- One pound hamburger
- A bunch of ketchup
- A little less barbeque sauce than ketchup
- A plop or two or three of mustard
- 6 slices of cheese
- Two slices of bread
- Butta
Cook the hamburger then mix in your sauces into the meat to make sloppy joes. Then wrap up a whole bunch of the meat inside the 6 slices of cheese. Butter the outside of your bread, put the cheese ball of goodness between the slices, and grill it. Let cool. Dip in Sriracha..
The second is the grilled hot dog cheese.
- 3 hot dogs
- 4 slices of cheese
- 2 slices of bread
- Butta
Figure it out. And then dip it in Sriracha.
The third is stir fry.
- Rice
- Chicken
- An assortment of veggies
- Soy sauce
Cook the rice. Cook the chicken. Cook the veggies. Smother in soy sauce. Smother in Sriracha.
So that's about the extent of my cooking. It's a work in progress. As my skill increases, which it will rapidly, I will share the best. Even thought they will all be awesome.
And my tunes for the day are the last three songs that came up on iTunes shuffle. Deal wit it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqAvR5epLeI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei3tyzbS0aw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJXv2qBuLIk
- One pound hamburger
- A bunch of ketchup
- A little less barbeque sauce than ketchup
- A plop or two or three of mustard
- 6 slices of cheese
- Two slices of bread
- Butta
Cook the hamburger then mix in your sauces into the meat to make sloppy joes. Then wrap up a whole bunch of the meat inside the 6 slices of cheese. Butter the outside of your bread, put the cheese ball of goodness between the slices, and grill it. Let cool. Dip in Sriracha..
The second is the grilled hot dog cheese.
- 3 hot dogs
- 4 slices of cheese
- 2 slices of bread
- Butta
Figure it out. And then dip it in Sriracha.
The third is stir fry.
- Rice
- Chicken
- An assortment of veggies
- Soy sauce
Cook the rice. Cook the chicken. Cook the veggies. Smother in soy sauce. Smother in Sriracha.
So that's about the extent of my cooking. It's a work in progress. As my skill increases, which it will rapidly, I will share the best. Even thought they will all be awesome.
And my tunes for the day are the last three songs that came up on iTunes shuffle. Deal wit it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqAvR5epLeI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ei3tyzbS0aw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJXv2qBuLIk
Friday, September 2, 2011
The places you will go, the people you will meet.
So I had class this morning, so I made the responsible decision and went out and didn't party. Instead, me and some dudes opted to hit some local microbreweries and check out the best taps Copenhagen has to offer. After a few hours of doing this, we decided to get back home at a decent hour to get a decent night's sleep, because we are just oh so dedicated to our academics. But we missed our train by like 30 seconds and had to wait an hour for the next train, que horrible! The greatest thing about Denmark is the lack of open container laws, so we just grabbed a few beers and parked outside the train station and chilled for awhile. That is all fairly irrelevant build up to what I actually wanted to talk about, but now you get the context.
The phrase "nothing good ever happens after midnight" is normally true. But sometimes the people you meet after midnight are the coolest. We were sitting on some steps drinking beer and some random homeless African dude came up to us preachin the Lord's word, "Brothers, God will save you, as you remember the most important thing in life, and that is brotherhood! Will you, my brothers, join me in a prayer?" And how are you gonna not join this dude in prayer? He went into this super deep prayer about the stars and the rising sun and your shadow, it was pretty neat. Then some dude we were with had a fifth of vodka and offered him a pull. He goes "The Good Lord knows I would never say no to such a thing!" So he drinks it, asks for money, and walks away. That is sketch dude #1 (the homeless African priest).
The second guy we randomly started talking to was some weird looking Finnish guy. After talking for a minute or two and him drinking most of my friend's vodka, he mentions something about how he hopes the cops don't see him there. Obviously sketched, we asked him what the hell he was talking about. Well, apparently he used to be a hitman, like ya know, the kind that gets paid to kill people. He was running from the cops because sometime within the last 48 hours, this dude stabbed a guy, but he wasn't sure if he killed him or not. I didn't want to believe him, because he was a super nice guy so whodathunkit? But this dude had a hood up, and was constantly looking over his shoulder, kind of bugging out watching out for cops. Then he finished my friend's vodka and speedily walked away. And this is sketch dude #2 (the Finnish hitman fugitive).
So this is why I might start hanging out around the train station late at night. Actually, this is probably why I won't. That might be the safer option.
Tune.
The phrase "nothing good ever happens after midnight" is normally true. But sometimes the people you meet after midnight are the coolest. We were sitting on some steps drinking beer and some random homeless African dude came up to us preachin the Lord's word, "Brothers, God will save you, as you remember the most important thing in life, and that is brotherhood! Will you, my brothers, join me in a prayer?" And how are you gonna not join this dude in prayer? He went into this super deep prayer about the stars and the rising sun and your shadow, it was pretty neat. Then some dude we were with had a fifth of vodka and offered him a pull. He goes "The Good Lord knows I would never say no to such a thing!" So he drinks it, asks for money, and walks away. That is sketch dude #1 (the homeless African priest).
The second guy we randomly started talking to was some weird looking Finnish guy. After talking for a minute or two and him drinking most of my friend's vodka, he mentions something about how he hopes the cops don't see him there. Obviously sketched, we asked him what the hell he was talking about. Well, apparently he used to be a hitman, like ya know, the kind that gets paid to kill people. He was running from the cops because sometime within the last 48 hours, this dude stabbed a guy, but he wasn't sure if he killed him or not. I didn't want to believe him, because he was a super nice guy so whodathunkit? But this dude had a hood up, and was constantly looking over his shoulder, kind of bugging out watching out for cops. Then he finished my friend's vodka and speedily walked away. And this is sketch dude #2 (the Finnish hitman fugitive).
So this is why I might start hanging out around the train station late at night. Actually, this is probably why I won't. That might be the safer option.
Tune.
Friday, August 26, 2011
Denmark is the best.. Come.
Typically I'm not a very lucky guy. My friends will testify this point. I don't really win much at the casinos. I've never won a game of bingo. You know how when you break up into groups in class and there is that one absolute dime in the room that every guy in the room is praying that they get put into a group with? I'm never in that group. I'm just not lucky. But, sometimes I feel much luck, like when I get attacked by goats in a prairie in Denmark at 6am on a Saturday morning. A goat almost ate my hand off, but rather instead, I just have a solid bite mark and a sweet story. I would consider that to be lucky. Anyway, come to Denmark. If only it had good weather.... Come now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1IEtzDpLUg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1IEtzDpLUg
Monday, August 22, 2011
Copenhagen is the best of all cities.
Well the first day in Copenhagen was an eventful one. I got up at 7:28am to get on a train that leaves around 7:45am, so needless to say I got there 5 minutes early. I sat forever in an orientation. I walked forever around the city in a small group. I drank beer on a beautiful patio in the sunset. I love this city.
I'm not gonna say the first night in Copenhagen was eventful though, because that word does not do it justice. My semantic ability can do better than that, so I'm gonna go with frickin NUTS! The details aren't really necessary to get the picture (actually they just aren't suitable for public knowledge), but I'll give a reader's digest version. We went out to some bars, played some games, met some friends, and walked around the city for an hour. We lost track of time and missed the last train home til the morning trains started at 4:45am. It was almost a blessing in disguise, because we just bought a bunch of Red Bull and walked around town and hung out with random Danes we met on the street. We got to venture out way over to Christiania and still made it back for the 4:45am train. I didn't get into bed until 5:30am, but I wasn't concerned since I didn't have to be back in Copenhagen til 3:15pm. It's nearly needless to say, but obviously I overslept and missed the one mandatory thing I had to do all day. So I effectively wasted an entire day, but it was more than worth it.
Now I just gotta get a decent night's sleep so I can wake up at 7am and get my visa. But as soon as that's over, I'm going to IKEA. It's gonna be awesome. So good afternoon, America, I'll see you later.
PS - Instead of saying hold the star key to unlock the phone, it says "long press". I love literal translations.
I'm not gonna say the first night in Copenhagen was eventful though, because that word does not do it justice. My semantic ability can do better than that, so I'm gonna go with frickin NUTS! The details aren't really necessary to get the picture (actually they just aren't suitable for public knowledge), but I'll give a reader's digest version. We went out to some bars, played some games, met some friends, and walked around the city for an hour. We lost track of time and missed the last train home til the morning trains started at 4:45am. It was almost a blessing in disguise, because we just bought a bunch of Red Bull and walked around town and hung out with random Danes we met on the street. We got to venture out way over to Christiania and still made it back for the 4:45am train. I didn't get into bed until 5:30am, but I wasn't concerned since I didn't have to be back in Copenhagen til 3:15pm. It's nearly needless to say, but obviously I overslept and missed the one mandatory thing I had to do all day. So I effectively wasted an entire day, but it was more than worth it.
Now I just gotta get a decent night's sleep so I can wake up at 7am and get my visa. But as soon as that's over, I'm going to IKEA. It's gonna be awesome. So good afternoon, America, I'll see you later.
PS - Instead of saying hold the star key to unlock the phone, it says "long press". I love literal translations.
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Why hello, Denmark, nice to meet you.
So I kinda am moved in into Denmark. My bags are still full with all my clothes sitting open on the floor, but I guess that's no different from how I live at home, so I can deal with that. There isn't a dresser in my room either. I will have to figure out how to best store my clothes. I have a closet with a few hangers, but there aren't drawers in a closet. But no worries, my Future Problem Solvers background will guide me through this predicament. The bed is tiny and not comfortable, and there is only one pillow. Luckily, I'm in Scandinavia so I can just hop on over to the greatest store of all time (IKEA) and invest in a pillow or two and some silk sheets - boom! I could also use a poster, my walls are depressingly white. Overall, it's definitely tolerable, I just need to add a little personal touch to make it seem like I'm not living in a hotel for four months.
I am kind of regretting not living with a host family, though. I'm glad I get to live with other students and stuff, but there is that whole providing my own food aspect. I have to shop and cook or buy all my meals. I got here on a Sunday, and the grocery stores weren't open so I never got to shop so I have nothing to cook for myself. So it's almost 5am and I haven't eaten since lunch time and there is no means of me feeding myself. Woe is me, right? The guy spending four months in Europe has problems, everyone feel pity.
Why am I up at this hour you ask? Great question. I'm all sorts of jet lagged. I have no sense of time right now. I got here at like 3pm, had a few beers, and passed out before 8pm because I hadn't slept in over 40 hours. I woke up at 10pm to find a party out in my living room. I tried to join them, but within 10 minutes I found myself zonked out on my bed again. So I woke up at 3am again, still exhausted but couldn't really sleep. So I've just putzin' around my room trying to clean and stuff for awhile, and just wasting time on the internet. I'm really good at wasting time on the internet.
So after I cross off food, IKEA, and sleeping off my to-do list, there will be really only one thing left that I need to do, make friends! I don't have any yet, but that's OK. I met some cool people on the flight over, but they don't live near me. There are two girls from GAC here, but they don't live near me. I don't have a cell phone yet, so I just need to solve that problem and then I can start keeping the friends I make! Hip hip!
Tunes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-44JK8moSzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBAd6I4nfDk
I am kind of regretting not living with a host family, though. I'm glad I get to live with other students and stuff, but there is that whole providing my own food aspect. I have to shop and cook or buy all my meals. I got here on a Sunday, and the grocery stores weren't open so I never got to shop so I have nothing to cook for myself. So it's almost 5am and I haven't eaten since lunch time and there is no means of me feeding myself. Woe is me, right? The guy spending four months in Europe has problems, everyone feel pity.
Why am I up at this hour you ask? Great question. I'm all sorts of jet lagged. I have no sense of time right now. I got here at like 3pm, had a few beers, and passed out before 8pm because I hadn't slept in over 40 hours. I woke up at 10pm to find a party out in my living room. I tried to join them, but within 10 minutes I found myself zonked out on my bed again. So I woke up at 3am again, still exhausted but couldn't really sleep. So I've just putzin' around my room trying to clean and stuff for awhile, and just wasting time on the internet. I'm really good at wasting time on the internet.
So after I cross off food, IKEA, and sleeping off my to-do list, there will be really only one thing left that I need to do, make friends! I don't have any yet, but that's OK. I met some cool people on the flight over, but they don't live near me. There are two girls from GAC here, but they don't live near me. I don't have a cell phone yet, so I just need to solve that problem and then I can start keeping the friends I make! Hip hip!
Tunes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-44JK8moSzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBAd6I4nfDk
Thursday, August 18, 2011
It's not summer anymore.
It's the middle of August, and it's almost time to usher in a new season. It's time to quit your shitty summer job that you hate and get back to school. And before I pounce across the pond for a semester, I gotta take care of unfinished business stateside. You know, paying that last bill, cleaning your room, collecting that $20 your little brother owes you, buying your friend a hat because your dumbass lost it almost two years ago and paid him back, etc. Just the typical stuff. So now that my business is settled around these parts, it's time for an adventure. An adventure filled with unknown places, new friends to be made, and plenty of academics (the most important one, duh)! But while these new beginnings are exciting and all, there is plenty to miss back in good ol' Minnesota. So I'm gonna pour one out for all the homies that won't be with me right here, the GAC crew, the Cloudians, the family, and all the miscellaneous friends who don't fit into those big three categories. I'm gonna miss all. I will still be writing as much as I can, so don't forget to check back for updates. We will be in touch, America.
iTunes update: 2600 on da nose. Almost half way back to normalcy.
Tunes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wGVACiASMU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43vzifZbPMo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxJPU_ssn_s
iTunes update: 2600 on da nose. Almost half way back to normalcy.
Tunes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wGVACiASMU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43vzifZbPMo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxJPU_ssn_s
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Dogz iz better than catz!
Consider the life of a human. What are your goals? You want to be successful. You want to have money. You want to be happy and healthy. You want to be liked. You want to be loved. You want a family, yada yada bullshit etc. Your life is complicated, you gotta a lot of things to worry about.
Consider the life of a dog. The dog only has one goal in life, and that's to get his back scratched. They don't need anything else, the only things a dog's limited brain can grasp comes with getting their back scratched. Nothing else even matters to them. My dog gets up at 3:00am when I get home, out of bed, and down the stairs because he knows he will get his back scratched. I personally don't know if I have enough passion for anything in life that would get me out of bed at 3:00am and down some stairs. Maybe if you told me Chris Kluwe wanted to play DOTA with me I'd get up. But that's it.
Dogs are the coolest.
Just think about that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_kse5Tn8WE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myvRZd-KOME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53hindKbUyI
Consider the life of a dog. The dog only has one goal in life, and that's to get his back scratched. They don't need anything else, the only things a dog's limited brain can grasp comes with getting their back scratched. Nothing else even matters to them. My dog gets up at 3:00am when I get home, out of bed, and down the stairs because he knows he will get his back scratched. I personally don't know if I have enough passion for anything in life that would get me out of bed at 3:00am and down some stairs. Maybe if you told me Chris Kluwe wanted to play DOTA with me I'd get up. But that's it.
Dogs are the coolest.
Just think about that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_kse5Tn8WE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myvRZd-KOME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53hindKbUyI
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Summer fun
This summer, I have gotten a pretty sufficient tour of bumfuck no where Minnesota, and in typical rural fashion, they were all accompanied with plenty of beer. I've been to Mantorville. I've been to Spicer. I've been to Zimmerman. I've been to St. James (dangerously close to the Iowa border). I'm going to Bay Lake. This list is has some pretty awesome drinking destinations, accompanied with some pretty awesome friends and family. But I'm blastin off across the pond in 9 days, away from small town Minnesota and off to big city Europe. It's gonna be frickin sweet, I can't wait. But I just want to take this time to reflect on and give a shout out to not only the best small town in the world, but the best college in the world: THE Gustavus Adolphus College.
I would love to leave my Gusties with a few words of wisdom for when I'm gone (for self-esteem reasons, I will pretend people will notice my absence), so pardon my schpeel.
I feel like being in a fraternity or sorority at Gustavus is almost redundant, since we are that great of a community already. I hope the young Gusties are this way as well. Help them along this path.
Arborview is a long ass way from campus. Definitely bringing a bicycle.
On a related note, Kevin Bonnema and I are started a bicycle gang (like the ones with peddles) in the spring. Recruiting starts immediately. All interested parties, text one of us with the codeword for more information.
I know the Princeton Review came out with that whole Stone-Cold sober thing about Gusties. I know we belong no where near that list. But let's not go overboard trying to prove them wrong. I want my college to stay in tact. And what is even more important, DON'T make any stupid jokes about that review trying to be clever, because it's already hammered into the ground. Anytime I see it mentioned in a Facebook status from now on, I will punch something soft as to not hurt my hand, yet still express my anger in a physical outburst. It's about as cliche as a Biggie remix/mashup.
I have more things to write about, but I'm really tired and need to sleep. I got distracted by reruns of X Games BMX street competition. This stuff is nuts. I'll edit this later with my other shtuff.
OVER A WEEK LATER EDIT - I completely forgot about this and forgot what I was gonna write about. This will have to do.
I would love to leave my Gusties with a few words of wisdom for when I'm gone (for self-esteem reasons, I will pretend people will notice my absence), so pardon my schpeel.
I feel like being in a fraternity or sorority at Gustavus is almost redundant, since we are that great of a community already. I hope the young Gusties are this way as well. Help them along this path.
Arborview is a long ass way from campus. Definitely bringing a bicycle.
On a related note, Kevin Bonnema and I are started a bicycle gang (like the ones with peddles) in the spring. Recruiting starts immediately. All interested parties, text one of us with the codeword for more information.
I know the Princeton Review came out with that whole Stone-Cold sober thing about Gusties. I know we belong no where near that list. But let's not go overboard trying to prove them wrong. I want my college to stay in tact. And what is even more important, DON'T make any stupid jokes about that review trying to be clever, because it's already hammered into the ground. Anytime I see it mentioned in a Facebook status from now on, I will punch something soft as to not hurt my hand, yet still express my anger in a physical outburst. It's about as cliche as a Biggie remix/mashup.
I have more things to write about, but I'm really tired and need to sleep. I got distracted by reruns of X Games BMX street competition. This stuff is nuts. I'll edit this later with my other shtuff.
OVER A WEEK LATER EDIT - I completely forgot about this and forgot what I was gonna write about. This will have to do.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Inception! (OK, not really)
I started off this post by writing a few paragraphs about the debt crisis, filled to the brim with griping about partisan politics, scumbag banks, and corrupt governments. I was about to hit "publish post", but I decided to read through it. It was whiny and I hated it. So I scratched 45 minutes of writing and decided I would rather just talk about something cooler, dreams.
There are two kinds of dreams. The first are your goals and aspirations. When I was a kid, I dreamed of growing up to be Randy Moss. When I was a young high schooler, I dreamed of getting laid. When I was a senior, I dreamed of living on my own and being in college. In college, I dream of making money, traveling, and life after college (not that I am looking forward to it, just dreaming). These are important at all, but for this article, I don't care about em.
The second kind of dreams are the actual dreams you have every night. Everyone has them, and you mostly forget the details, if not forget them entirely. These are your standard medieval duel dreams, the "I'm a penguin" dreams, or dreaming Chad Ochocino retweeted you. All equally awesome.
But last night, I dreamed something that actually altered my life today. It changed what I did, and may have a prolonged effect on my personal health. I know, dramatic.
I had an appointment with my physical therapist today at 1:00pm. This is normally earlier than I would get up, as my sleep cycle is all sorts of abnormal thanks to my awesome second shift warehouse job. I didn't set an alarm, because whenever I set an alarm I have a terrible time sleeping, waking up constantly throughout the night because I know I am going to be startled at some point by my alarm. Typically just knowing I have to get up for something is enough to get me up for it, alarm be damned. So, as always, I woke up on time. I got dressed, drove to the office, checked in, sat in the waiting room, talked to my PT, went through all my treatments, left the office, scheduled another appointment, drove home, and went back to bed for a catnap. I got up from my catnap what seemed like about an hour later. I went downstairs to the bathroom and then went back to bed. It seemed like another half an hour later or so before I woke up again, this time actually looking at the clock. At first it seemed that 1:30pm didn't make much sense, since I had a 1pm appointment and had taken a nap after it, but I was pretty much half asleep still so it didn't quite click. It was time to clean up and start my day. The instant water hit my face, I had the craziest snap back into reality I have ever experienced. As you can pretty clearly deduct from my little anecdote here, I didn't go to my appointment. Apparently, dreaming you were there doesn't count as actually being there. I fell victim to a real life "And it was all just a dream!" trope. Dreaming is awesome.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I wrote the majority of this with my chin firmly rested on my right collar bone in order to hold the Kleenex over the gash I gave myself shaving. Not to boast or anything, but I play through pain.
EDITOR'S SECOND NOTE: I say awesome too much. I need a new awesome word to replace my incessant use of awesome.
There are two kinds of dreams. The first are your goals and aspirations. When I was a kid, I dreamed of growing up to be Randy Moss. When I was a young high schooler, I dreamed of getting laid. When I was a senior, I dreamed of living on my own and being in college. In college, I dream of making money, traveling, and life after college (not that I am looking forward to it, just dreaming). These are important at all, but for this article, I don't care about em.
The second kind of dreams are the actual dreams you have every night. Everyone has them, and you mostly forget the details, if not forget them entirely. These are your standard medieval duel dreams, the "I'm a penguin" dreams, or dreaming Chad Ochocino retweeted you. All equally awesome.
But last night, I dreamed something that actually altered my life today. It changed what I did, and may have a prolonged effect on my personal health. I know, dramatic.
I had an appointment with my physical therapist today at 1:00pm. This is normally earlier than I would get up, as my sleep cycle is all sorts of abnormal thanks to my awesome second shift warehouse job. I didn't set an alarm, because whenever I set an alarm I have a terrible time sleeping, waking up constantly throughout the night because I know I am going to be startled at some point by my alarm. Typically just knowing I have to get up for something is enough to get me up for it, alarm be damned. So, as always, I woke up on time. I got dressed, drove to the office, checked in, sat in the waiting room, talked to my PT, went through all my treatments, left the office, scheduled another appointment, drove home, and went back to bed for a catnap. I got up from my catnap what seemed like about an hour later. I went downstairs to the bathroom and then went back to bed. It seemed like another half an hour later or so before I woke up again, this time actually looking at the clock. At first it seemed that 1:30pm didn't make much sense, since I had a 1pm appointment and had taken a nap after it, but I was pretty much half asleep still so it didn't quite click. It was time to clean up and start my day. The instant water hit my face, I had the craziest snap back into reality I have ever experienced. As you can pretty clearly deduct from my little anecdote here, I didn't go to my appointment. Apparently, dreaming you were there doesn't count as actually being there. I fell victim to a real life "And it was all just a dream!" trope. Dreaming is awesome.
EDITOR'S NOTE: I wrote the majority of this with my chin firmly rested on my right collar bone in order to hold the Kleenex over the gash I gave myself shaving. Not to boast or anything, but I play through pain.
EDITOR'S SECOND NOTE: I say awesome too much. I need a new awesome word to replace my incessant use of awesome.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Cool things.
I'm bored, so here is a list of things that I think in a completely random, non-topical list. Warning, there will be a lot of links, click them, they have candy.
- Alright, I don't mean to hate on anyone I know or may be friends with, but I definitely mean to hate on some people. I hate photography. I love pictures, but what I really hate is that every asshole with a nice camera thinks they're a photographer. "Here is a pretty sunset" *click*. "Here is a dog and I shot it diagonally!) *click* "Here is an up close picture of a flower" *click* Dude, you aren't a photographer. You are a button clicker. You aren't artsy. You have a nice camera. That being said, if you are a good photographer, you are awesome. This is awesome. This person is an artist. This graph is awesome.
- Sorry guys, but you know this is true. Annddddddd, now I stop talking about gender on a public forum before I say anything on the record that will be held against me at a later date.
- Beer is obviously awesome, but innovation is even awesomer.
- Pranks are awesome.
- Kickers. Well, specifically Chris Kluwe, who is my hero. The dude is a bonafide nerd making millions to kick a football. For example, this Twitter is @chriswarcraft. He plays Warcraft. He reads crime novels. He punts a football. He roasts internet douche bags. I want to be this man. In fact, this is his most recent tweet "I give Cowboys vs. Aliens 5 totally random hummingbirds out of 10 offensively racist Harrison Fords. #iwillnevergetthosetwohoursback"
- I'm not sure if I have posted this before, but this is really, really funny.
- I like cats. Some people don't. Some people feel like they need to hate on cats in order to show how much they love dogs. But I like both cats and dogs. I especially like long cats. The longer the cat the better. Needless to say, I like this cat (you might need to click on it to zoom).
- But coolest of all are people who follow my blog! /end shameless plug
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Random observations from a wild weekend
A weekend in Minneapolis with Coby Rowley and Ryan Schmidtman, you can't not have fun (well, unless Ryan flakes last minute, but luckily he didn't this time around). I would give a play-by-play of what happened, but if I were the reader, I would find that incredibly droll, so I'm just gonna write up some random observations from the weekend.
DISCLAIMER: Take all fashion tips with a grain of salt, as I know dick about fashion.
- What's better than 3rd row Twins tickets behind home plate? Free 3rd row Twins tickets behind home plate.
- Maybe it's just because I'm a major sports nerd, but what is it about Twins apparel that makes a girl so much hotter? You put a Joe Mauer jersey on a girl and she is automatically a full point hotter. Yeah, low cut shirts and tanks are attractive, they show more skin. But give a girl a Kubel jersey shirt and a pair of shorts and she is instantly more attractive. And then you add in a baseball hat and I be like DAYUM! Twins gear girls, get at it.
- Incredibly tall high heels at any time when not modeling are a no. Yes this applies to situations such as walking alone in the mall. You'd like to think this would be obvious. You'd like to think...
- Fedoras are annoying. Just because you wear a fedora, it doesn't mean you're artsier than everyone.
- I'm not a U2 fan, but sitting outside of TCF Bank Stadium during his concert, with a torrent of rain starting in the middle of "Beautiful Day" was one of the coolest musical experiences of my life.
- Striped v-neck t-shirts shouldn't be worn by anyone who doesn't sail a ship for a living.
- Nike is the coolest brand eva.
- I may have only watched like six episodes, but Entourage is awesome. I have been converted.
- I hate casinos.
- I saw a beautiful woman at MOA, but she was with the most jacked black guy I have ever seen, which quickly reverted my wandering eyes back to the road ahead. Was that racist of me? Nope, staying alive > beautiful women.
- Lastly, I'm gonna go with something obvious, but if you know Coby, he DEFINITELY spits the most game. No doubt.
DISCLAIMER: Take all fashion tips with a grain of salt, as I know dick about fashion.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
rantrantrant
I was gonna write a "pet peeves" type thingy here, but I decided that would be really lame. What's more boring than reading a list of complaints that some random dude on the internet has? Cool bro, no one cares. So instead of that, I'm going to focus on one thing that annoys me, and that is complainers. More specifically, people when people start conversations just so they can complain. I understand the reason behind it, everyone likes when people give them attention and feel some pity for them, whether or not the ego allows them to admit it. Sometimes people need to vent, and that's alright. But when you go out and fish for pity and attention, you are just being annoying and it makes any real pity hard to muster when you are too busy thinking to yourself, "Just shut up, no one cares about your problems." But the absolute worst part is when I do it, because I am guilty. In fact I caught myself doing it twice in a short span today. Both of them were via text message, which possibly makes them worse. If I were on the other end of those conversations, I would have thought "It would be difficult for this guy to be any whinier", so I really can't blame them for any negative cognitions. (Not sure why spell check says that's not a word...) So if those friends of mine are reading this, please accept my whole-hearted apology, as I am always on the path of self-betterment, this is a focal point of my improvement. And to those who do this all the time, stop, because you're annoying.
No worries readers, the irony/hypocrisy of me complaining about complainers like me is not lost upon me.
iTunes update: 2322 songs. I've gotten to the stage where I want to start remaking my playlists, but I don't have enough music to make any ones with any real substance. I have four 10 song playlists. It's really depressing.
TUNES!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCPkgAIANys
While this guy may have an awful stage name (really, the Weeknd? That's the best you could come up with?), he's makes some smooooooth music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKx6CvLKKRA&feature=fvst
No worries readers, the irony/hypocrisy of me complaining about complainers like me is not lost upon me.
iTunes update: 2322 songs. I've gotten to the stage where I want to start remaking my playlists, but I don't have enough music to make any ones with any real substance. I have four 10 song playlists. It's really depressing.
TUNES!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCPkgAIANys
While this guy may have an awful stage name (really, the Weeknd? That's the best you could come up with?), he's makes some smooooooth music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKx6CvLKKRA&feature=fvst
Monday, July 18, 2011
This is what happens when I stay up late watching educational television
So I was talking to one of the three people who actually read my blog tonight and they were wondering why I don't update my blog as much anymore. My initial reaction was that I just haven't really been inspired lately, and from inspiration I derive my motivation. It was a seemingly legit excuse, I mean you can't write if you don't have anything to write about, right? I mean, I have essentially done that for my last few posts, but you get the point. So I kind of put that conversation behind me and went back to the national young male adult past time - bullshitting for countless hours on the internet. I got bored of this a short time later and my mind drifted back to this blog and the loyal reader who asked why there isn't as much to read. As a man with an admittedly above average ego, I don't like to be wrong in any circumstance, but I do try and call myself when I'm being arrogant or ignorant to my flaws. This took some doing to realize the real reason behind my lack of posting. After some soul searching, it turns out I just got lazy. When I saw the topics of my older posts, I really didn't have much of an idea what I was going to write about when I started, I just decided that I felt like writing something, so I came up with a quick premise of something that came to mind. I did that for three weeks pretty consistently. What happened to that consistency? I dunno, I guess I just got lazy. The lack of inspiration was simply justification that my ego subconsciously came up with to defend myself. It's not because I just stopped finding inspiration, it's because I stopped trying.
So from here the question is will I get back to my consistent ways? The answer is quite anti-climatic. Nah, I probably won't. I ain't no writer, I'm a bored college kid who needed a hobby! I'll write when I god damn well please to! I don't really do that whole artificial motivation thing.
But while I'm here, I actually want to write about something.
How cool is Egypt? The place is just loaded with history. They built pyramids so awesome that they are standing millenniums later and we still don't know how they were able to build it. Why do I bring this up? To talk about mummies. I'm watching this documentary on the final secrets of King Tut, and my mind is blown. They spent a million dollars to get Tut out of his tomb and into a CAT scan that they put right outside it, hoping that it would provide evidence of how he was killed. Dude was all fudged up. He's got a coin sized hole in his head, fractures all over his body, a severely impacted wisdom tooth, and my favorite part, no rib cage or sternum. How did he die? So many possibilities! Turns out he probably just wrecked his leg in either a battle or a crash and then died from fever a few days later. It's not quite the awesome murder mystery that some people believe, but either way, it's pretty neat that they can figure out how someone died three thousand years ago with forensics.
They can use CAT scan imaging to show what he would have looked like. They gave the images to two different artists, one of which didn't even know it was King Tut, and had them reconstruct his face. I can't get over this stuff. So cool.
History is da bomb. If only the History channel still showed history shows...
TUNES!!! Today is a special day. This is a tribute to female rockers. The chicks of class rock.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7JVxE2SYxo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP5mhBsTURo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhNrrrCCTdA
So from here the question is will I get back to my consistent ways? The answer is quite anti-climatic. Nah, I probably won't. I ain't no writer, I'm a bored college kid who needed a hobby! I'll write when I god damn well please to! I don't really do that whole artificial motivation thing.
But while I'm here, I actually want to write about something.
How cool is Egypt? The place is just loaded with history. They built pyramids so awesome that they are standing millenniums later and we still don't know how they were able to build it. Why do I bring this up? To talk about mummies. I'm watching this documentary on the final secrets of King Tut, and my mind is blown. They spent a million dollars to get Tut out of his tomb and into a CAT scan that they put right outside it, hoping that it would provide evidence of how he was killed. Dude was all fudged up. He's got a coin sized hole in his head, fractures all over his body, a severely impacted wisdom tooth, and my favorite part, no rib cage or sternum. How did he die? So many possibilities! Turns out he probably just wrecked his leg in either a battle or a crash and then died from fever a few days later. It's not quite the awesome murder mystery that some people believe, but either way, it's pretty neat that they can figure out how someone died three thousand years ago with forensics.
They can use CAT scan imaging to show what he would have looked like. They gave the images to two different artists, one of which didn't even know it was King Tut, and had them reconstruct his face. I can't get over this stuff. So cool.
History is da bomb. If only the History channel still showed history shows...
TUNES!!! Today is a special day. This is a tribute to female rockers. The chicks of class rock.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7JVxE2SYxo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iP5mhBsTURo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhNrrrCCTdA
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Black and Yellow
So Shaq is retired. The Big Diesel is done on the court. Yeah, it's sad and all, but there is so much potential for this guy in his post-retirement years. He is gonna join TNT in the booth, but I have bigger ideas for this bigger man. I was chillin at Jeff's last night and we were talking about this, and this is what we came up with.
Via Tweet, Shaq has thrown the Yao/Shaq vacation idea. So let's put these two giants in a car and travel them across country. Have some cameras following them. Have em pop in unexpected at random hotels, motels, campgrounds, restaurants, zoos, theaters, museums, etc. How awesome would this be? Shaq is hilarious, and Yao is a giant Chinese man which would provide it's own hilarity even if Yao isn't funny himself.
The best part is the title. It'd be called "Black & Yellow". I'm not quite sure about the PC level of this, but it's gotta happen. It's such a simple idea, but this day and age of "Ex-Wives Club", "America's Got Talent", "Happily Divorced", as well as plethora of other absolute shit, there is no way people wouldn't watch this. It wouldn't have staying power, but it would have a very successful first season, I guarantee it.
Tunes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_0Y25cXPRI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_W_x3nclY
Edited random thought: I've never seen a movie on TV with more bleeped out words than Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.
Another edit - It has been brought to my attention that Oprah and an alleged she-lover already came up with this idea, which instantly makes this idea suck. But "Black & Yellow" is still a funny ass name for it.
Via Tweet, Shaq has thrown the Yao/Shaq vacation idea. So let's put these two giants in a car and travel them across country. Have some cameras following them. Have em pop in unexpected at random hotels, motels, campgrounds, restaurants, zoos, theaters, museums, etc. How awesome would this be? Shaq is hilarious, and Yao is a giant Chinese man which would provide it's own hilarity even if Yao isn't funny himself.
The best part is the title. It'd be called "Black & Yellow". I'm not quite sure about the PC level of this, but it's gotta happen. It's such a simple idea, but this day and age of "Ex-Wives Club", "America's Got Talent", "Happily Divorced", as well as plethora of other absolute shit, there is no way people wouldn't watch this. It wouldn't have staying power, but it would have a very successful first season, I guarantee it.
Tunes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_0Y25cXPRI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dd_W_x3nclY
Edited random thought: I've never seen a movie on TV with more bleeped out words than Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo.
Another edit - It has been brought to my attention that Oprah and an alleged she-lover already came up with this idea, which instantly makes this idea suck. But "Black & Yellow" is still a funny ass name for it.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Inspired paragraph.
No one will ever have a better late night meal than the one I am currently eating. You may think you are having something great, but you're wrong. No chance is it better than this. If you think you can top a plate full of mashed potatoes, covered in a layer of corn, a pile of cut up roast beef, and SMOTHERED in gravy with a Shiner brew to wash it down, I would civilly engage you in a round of discourse, highlighting the pros and the cons of each meal, while still remaining a firm stance on the fact that my meal is better. No one will ever eat anything better than this at 3am, I'm convinced of it. I dare anyone to have a better meal at 3am. No, I double dog dare you. Come at my meal, bro.
That is all.
That is all.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Where's all the Grapeade?
So amidst my night of hiding from storms and chauffeuring Tu Tran around to find an extra set of keys for her car that wasn't locked, I had a Grapeade craving. Who doesn't get those right?
I mean everyone loves Arizona's. It's not only a great value with it's unbelievable volume, but it tastes oh so good. They are all good in their own way, but I don't think any sane person would ever argue anything but Grapeade be the best flavor. And I wanted one a lot. So I went to get one.
The first gas station on highway 15 was closed. At 9:58pm. What kind of gas station is closed this early? How annoying. The second gas station was Little Dukes connected to Coborns. The grocery store didn't have it, the gas station didn't have it. They had lots of Arizonas, but there were no Grapeades.
Two more gas stations and a grocery store later, there was no Grapeades to be found.
How do four gas stations and two grocery stores not have the greatest convenience store beverage of all time? The world may never know. From now on, any place without Grapeade will not be getting my business. I'm mad bro.
At least Forrest Gump is on. You can't be crabby and watch Forrest Gump.
On a different note, I have been all over country. As a former self-admitted country hater, I feel much shame for backtracking like this. It's bruising my ego.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55GAUgjpDQA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVGw7FbohY4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx-dUsh6OT8
Ugh. I hate myself for this post. All this dissonance is making me uncomfortable.
I mean everyone loves Arizona's. It's not only a great value with it's unbelievable volume, but it tastes oh so good. They are all good in their own way, but I don't think any sane person would ever argue anything but Grapeade be the best flavor. And I wanted one a lot. So I went to get one.
The first gas station on highway 15 was closed. At 9:58pm. What kind of gas station is closed this early? How annoying. The second gas station was Little Dukes connected to Coborns. The grocery store didn't have it, the gas station didn't have it. They had lots of Arizonas, but there were no Grapeades.
Two more gas stations and a grocery store later, there was no Grapeades to be found.
How do four gas stations and two grocery stores not have the greatest convenience store beverage of all time? The world may never know. From now on, any place without Grapeade will not be getting my business. I'm mad bro.
At least Forrest Gump is on. You can't be crabby and watch Forrest Gump.
On a different note, I have been all over country. As a former self-admitted country hater, I feel much shame for backtracking like this. It's bruising my ego.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55GAUgjpDQA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVGw7FbohY4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx-dUsh6OT8
Ugh. I hate myself for this post. All this dissonance is making me uncomfortable.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Not to be a downer, but fireworks aren't that cool
Independence Day, it's Amurica's birthday. This year we are 235 years old. That is quite the accomplishment. A whole bunch of guys were chillin' in the Colonies 230 years ago and decided they didn't want to pay taxes anymore, so they got together and had this crazy idea that they were going to fight their way to independence. To some, it was a batshit crazy idea, and to others, it was brilliant. But without it, we wouldn't be the just, rich, economic stalwart we are today. God bless America.
But what's the buzz about fireworks?
Yeah, they shoot up high and go boom, cool. That was really awesome when I was a kid. Once in awhile you see a cool one. But what is so awesome about the exact same show every year? When is the last time they did something new? Like a billion years ago, they did those smiley face fireworks, and those were awesome. Sometimes they do janky looking hearts. But relative to the progression of technology, fireworks don't get better. I have yet to notice something much cooler from year to year. What, did they stop funding the Research & Development department of the Indian fireworks sweatshops? Next year better impress me, because I am not entertained.
It isn't even just the fireworks show that I'm not a fan of. I don't even really like having personal fireworks. Bottle rockets are fun for like five minutes. Firecrackers are quite annoying and don't do anything cool. In order to get something cool, you gotta spend some serious money, and to me, forty bucks to buy a roman candle shoot fireballs for 30 seconds isn't my idea of fun. Maybe it's my lack of the pyro-gene. Maybe it's just that I'm a frugal son of a bitch. Either way, I'm just not a firework guy.
I digress...
So, about the part of the 4th I actually do really love. The weekend of the 4th! Wanna know why? There's two reasons: being on a lake and your elders getting drunk.
My original plan for the weekend only included one of those, but I ended up satisfying both of my criteria.
My trip to GAC this weekend went seemingly array. A massive storm that put a 100ft pine tree within 10ft of my house managed to put a tree on our gracious hosts' house. Given this series of unfortunate events, our host decided to spend the weekend at home to remove a tree from her house. We can only hope all is well.
But a storm wasn't getting in the way of having an awesome weekend. We just changed our destination from St. Peter to Spicer, where the Meder family made promises of plenty of free cold beer. Those three words are all I needed to hear. Consider me convinced.
Two days later, we are all exhausted and hung over. We done well. While I would normally write a detailed summary of the weekend activities, I think a brief synopsis will be better.
Saturday: drank beer and sat on the lake.
Sunday: drank beer and sat on the lake.
You can fill in the gaps with imagination.
In conclusion, I had an awesome weekend, and I hope you all did too. Happy birthday, America.
Oh, and I'm watching "My Wife and Kids". Am I a bad person because I am really enjoying this show? My initial answer is yes, but I'm gonna sleep on it.
Tunes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLmTJpnqxj4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6IctuA69Q4
But what's the buzz about fireworks?
Yeah, they shoot up high and go boom, cool. That was really awesome when I was a kid. Once in awhile you see a cool one. But what is so awesome about the exact same show every year? When is the last time they did something new? Like a billion years ago, they did those smiley face fireworks, and those were awesome. Sometimes they do janky looking hearts. But relative to the progression of technology, fireworks don't get better. I have yet to notice something much cooler from year to year. What, did they stop funding the Research & Development department of the Indian fireworks sweatshops? Next year better impress me, because I am not entertained.
It isn't even just the fireworks show that I'm not a fan of. I don't even really like having personal fireworks. Bottle rockets are fun for like five minutes. Firecrackers are quite annoying and don't do anything cool. In order to get something cool, you gotta spend some serious money, and to me, forty bucks to buy a roman candle shoot fireballs for 30 seconds isn't my idea of fun. Maybe it's my lack of the pyro-gene. Maybe it's just that I'm a frugal son of a bitch. Either way, I'm just not a firework guy.
I digress...
So, about the part of the 4th I actually do really love. The weekend of the 4th! Wanna know why? There's two reasons: being on a lake and your elders getting drunk.
My original plan for the weekend only included one of those, but I ended up satisfying both of my criteria.
My trip to GAC this weekend went seemingly array. A massive storm that put a 100ft pine tree within 10ft of my house managed to put a tree on our gracious hosts' house. Given this series of unfortunate events, our host decided to spend the weekend at home to remove a tree from her house. We can only hope all is well.
But a storm wasn't getting in the way of having an awesome weekend. We just changed our destination from St. Peter to Spicer, where the Meder family made promises of plenty of free cold beer. Those three words are all I needed to hear. Consider me convinced.
Two days later, we are all exhausted and hung over. We done well. While I would normally write a detailed summary of the weekend activities, I think a brief synopsis will be better.
Saturday: drank beer and sat on the lake.
Sunday: drank beer and sat on the lake.
You can fill in the gaps with imagination.
In conclusion, I had an awesome weekend, and I hope you all did too. Happy birthday, America.
Oh, and I'm watching "My Wife and Kids". Am I a bad person because I am really enjoying this show? My initial answer is yes, but I'm gonna sleep on it.
Tunes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLmTJpnqxj4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6IctuA69Q4
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Minnesota nice.
Today at work, I was talking to two guys who grew up elsewhere. One guy was born and lived right outside New York City til he was in his early teens, and at this point he moved to just outside Miami. He resided there for a decade before migrating to Minnesota (he let a woman take him off the beach and into the Minnesota winters, this guy deserves a medal or something). The other dude is from Boston, and lived there the majority of his life. He spent time in Texas after he got out of basic training as well. His girlfriend also dragged him to our wonderful state. We talked for almost an hour about how we each grew up, the climate, prices, things to do, etc. The general consensus was that Minnesota is awesome because it's a slower life, everything is cheaper, and everyone is nice (I'll get back to this). They also hate it because it is cold as something that's really, really cold, and there really isn't much to do.
Besides incessant bitching about how their vaginas can't handle the winters, the most brought up point was how people are all so nice. In NYC and Bawston, everyone is always in a hurry, they say, and they never slow down enough to think about others.
Hearing things like this make me happy I grew up in Minnesota. I never really realized how nice everyone here is, I guess because I've never been anywhere else for an extended period of time. But hearing first-hand accounts of the inter-state difference of niceness is enough confirmation of the stereotype to tap into my thankful-reserves.
Yesterday, I was on my way to work plenty early. I work at 5pm, and I was in my car at 4:35pm for the approximately 12 minute drive to SpeeDee. I had just picked my car up from the shop that afternoon so I assumed all would be in ship shape. Well, my battery was dead, and I don't want to point fingers, but the dumbass mechanic had my lights on (not saying it's completely his fault, but he killed my battery). So I'm home alone with a dead battery and was very late to work twice just last week, meaning one more tardy in such a short span would land me on the tippity-top of the shitlist. We'll call this a pickle.
The first thing that comes to my head is to go to my neighbors. No one home. I run to the next-next-door neighbors. No one home. I run to the next-next-next-door neighbors. No one home. At this point, I am freaking out. I call my mother to check her ETA. She's in Clearwater, so that isn't an option.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
My driveway (we don't have a garage), with a significant hill in the back half, and between two granite walls bordering the sidewalk. The only way to get a jump is to get the car out of the driveway, and no one is around to help me, so I had to make a bold move. I put the car in neutral, gave it a good running start, sprinted to the door, jumped in, closed the door (just barely scrapping the door against the granite wall), and slammed on the break with the end of my vehicle in the street. Executed to perfection.
Now I just needed someone to jump my car. Luckily, my accident-prone self has jumper cables in my trunk. Quickly I grabbed em and ran into the street, jumping around and waving for a jump. The second car that passes stops. It is a very elderly couple who offer to jump me. Well, their battery is behind the back seat of their car (wtf!?!?!), and being the automotive savant that I am, I can't figure out how to open it. The wonderful old couple offers me a ride to work since they can tell I'm in a major hurry. I politely declined since I need to get to the exact opposite side of town, and this senior isn't going to drive fast enough for me to get there.
So now I gotta find another person to jump me. I go back to my jump/raindance in the road, hoping for another good Samaritan to pull over. Two cars later, a 20-some year old guy in a big truck slams on the breaks to come to my rescue. The guy is just a blue-collared, average joe, farmer-type guy. He pulls up over the curb and onto the boulevard, and saves the day. He refuses payment and drives away after I showered him in praises (I snuck up as he pulled away and dropped a 10-spot in his window, no worries, I always tip).
At this point, it's 4:51pm, and I have a 12 minute drive to the parking lot, with about 70 yards and two gates from there to the clock-in thingy. It was time to channel my inner N.Gin (yes, I just made a Crash Team Racing reference). Like a bat out of hell I raced across town. Eight stressful minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot. The mechanics out on their smoke break laugh as they watch some lanky ass kid sprinting as fast as possible across the parking lot and through the gates. I reach the machine, swipe my card, and I'm on the clock. Literally three seconds after I clock in, it strikes 5:01.
This was the most epic-est of scrambles of my life, bar none. Narrowly dodging the shitlist, I felt like an absolute champion. Remember in Hercules (the awesome cartoon Disney version) when Hercules is swimming after Meg's soul in the Underworld, while the Fates are about to clip the string? Every child in the audience is on the edge of their seat ready to burst into tears as the scissors are about to end his life. But it doesn't cut! Hercules entered god-mode. That was me, in a less theatrical sense. I made fate my bitch and entered god-mode.
But what really matters about this story is the case-and-point encounter with Minnesota nice. It just seemed so normal for me for people to be so eager to help. I mean, how cool do you have to be to be willing to take time out of your day to give a stranger a ride to work? I asked the guys at work from out east if that would have worked out so well for me over there, and they weren't optimistic about it. In fact, my question was met with a resounding "hell no".
So that's my first hand account with how Minnesota nice saved my life. Tunes!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn6iU_c2cM0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg7K-5BHnGY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGQvKU8Iaz4
iTunes update: 2286 songs.
Besides incessant bitching about how their vaginas can't handle the winters, the most brought up point was how people are all so nice. In NYC and Bawston, everyone is always in a hurry, they say, and they never slow down enough to think about others.
Hearing things like this make me happy I grew up in Minnesota. I never really realized how nice everyone here is, I guess because I've never been anywhere else for an extended period of time. But hearing first-hand accounts of the inter-state difference of niceness is enough confirmation of the stereotype to tap into my thankful-reserves.
Yesterday, I was on my way to work plenty early. I work at 5pm, and I was in my car at 4:35pm for the approximately 12 minute drive to SpeeDee. I had just picked my car up from the shop that afternoon so I assumed all would be in ship shape. Well, my battery was dead, and I don't want to point fingers, but the dumbass mechanic had my lights on (not saying it's completely his fault, but he killed my battery). So I'm home alone with a dead battery and was very late to work twice just last week, meaning one more tardy in such a short span would land me on the tippity-top of the shitlist. We'll call this a pickle.
The first thing that comes to my head is to go to my neighbors. No one home. I run to the next-next-door neighbors. No one home. I run to the next-next-next-door neighbors. No one home. At this point, I am freaking out. I call my mother to check her ETA. She's in Clearwater, so that isn't an option.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
My driveway (we don't have a garage), with a significant hill in the back half, and between two granite walls bordering the sidewalk. The only way to get a jump is to get the car out of the driveway, and no one is around to help me, so I had to make a bold move. I put the car in neutral, gave it a good running start, sprinted to the door, jumped in, closed the door (just barely scrapping the door against the granite wall), and slammed on the break with the end of my vehicle in the street. Executed to perfection.
Now I just needed someone to jump my car. Luckily, my accident-prone self has jumper cables in my trunk. Quickly I grabbed em and ran into the street, jumping around and waving for a jump. The second car that passes stops. It is a very elderly couple who offer to jump me. Well, their battery is behind the back seat of their car (wtf!?!?!), and being the automotive savant that I am, I can't figure out how to open it. The wonderful old couple offers me a ride to work since they can tell I'm in a major hurry. I politely declined since I need to get to the exact opposite side of town, and this senior isn't going to drive fast enough for me to get there.
So now I gotta find another person to jump me. I go back to my jump/raindance in the road, hoping for another good Samaritan to pull over. Two cars later, a 20-some year old guy in a big truck slams on the breaks to come to my rescue. The guy is just a blue-collared, average joe, farmer-type guy. He pulls up over the curb and onto the boulevard, and saves the day. He refuses payment and drives away after I showered him in praises (I snuck up as he pulled away and dropped a 10-spot in his window, no worries, I always tip).
At this point, it's 4:51pm, and I have a 12 minute drive to the parking lot, with about 70 yards and two gates from there to the clock-in thingy. It was time to channel my inner N.Gin (yes, I just made a Crash Team Racing reference). Like a bat out of hell I raced across town. Eight stressful minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot. The mechanics out on their smoke break laugh as they watch some lanky ass kid sprinting as fast as possible across the parking lot and through the gates. I reach the machine, swipe my card, and I'm on the clock. Literally three seconds after I clock in, it strikes 5:01.
This was the most epic-est of scrambles of my life, bar none. Narrowly dodging the shitlist, I felt like an absolute champion. Remember in Hercules (the awesome cartoon Disney version) when Hercules is swimming after Meg's soul in the Underworld, while the Fates are about to clip the string? Every child in the audience is on the edge of their seat ready to burst into tears as the scissors are about to end his life. But it doesn't cut! Hercules entered god-mode. That was me, in a less theatrical sense. I made fate my bitch and entered god-mode.
But what really matters about this story is the case-and-point encounter with Minnesota nice. It just seemed so normal for me for people to be so eager to help. I mean, how cool do you have to be to be willing to take time out of your day to give a stranger a ride to work? I asked the guys at work from out east if that would have worked out so well for me over there, and they weren't optimistic about it. In fact, my question was met with a resounding "hell no".
So that's my first hand account with how Minnesota nice saved my life. Tunes!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn6iU_c2cM0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg7K-5BHnGY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGQvKU8Iaz4
iTunes update: 2286 songs.
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