Thursday Night's Alright For Not Learning Anything

Thursday nights almost guarantee a post. Thursday nights find me sitting in the back of a classroom full of people who I'm sure also don't want to be taking Biology. Tonight we're learning about photosynthesis and I have a pulled muscle in my back that's making it difficult to breathe enough to annoy me, but not enough to skip class for. (I can only miss this class twice and I plan on making both times worthwhile.)

At two hours and forty minutes, this is without a doubt my most difficult class to sit through, but so far, our assignments and quizzes have not enticed me to pay any attention whatsoever. We usually spend the last hour or so in the lab. The remaining hour and forty minutes usually gets broken down as follows:
35% Writing Haikus and doodling on the powerpoint notes conveniently provided
30% Staring towards the front, expressionless
15% Planning the ideal music festival
10% Watching Bigg Dawg play Age of Empires II or Civilization III or whatever it is he's playing on his laptop
9% Wishing I had brought a book
1% Paying attention

At least I manage to stay productive for 50% of the time.

Oh, and by the way, tonight's ideal music festival would be an all day event at Verizon Wireless Music Center co-headlined by Sigur Ros and Radiohead featuring performances by The Arcade Fire, The Flaming Lips, Everything, Now!, Placebo, Doves, VHS or Beta, Beck, The Cold War Kids, as well as solo sets by Sarah Asher, Chad Serhal, and Jeff Tweedy.

Enjoy your rabbit.

I Only Recognize One OAR Song, And That's Enough

I was sitting in a pub tonight, drinking an ale while Shawn and Jake smoked cigars. Having been crippled by asthma since birth, I have never experienced the joys of smoking which is something that has never really bothered me past the annoyance that comes from smelling like a smoker without being able to participate. It was noisy in the pub; noisy to the point where the only discernible part of the music playing was the bass line. (The only song I can remember recognizing is (I think) "Every Breath You Take" by The Police.) It was noisy because it was crowded. Shortly after arriving, either Shawn or Jake noticed that Wednesday nights there was a Texas Hold 'Em Tournament. We all wondered where it would be taking place because there wasn't a whole lot of room in the place. But as the night wore on it became clear that the tournament did not require any extra room because it was a video poker tournament. Seven or eight anonymous players scattered throughout the room would spend the next two hours pressing buttons on a keypad in hopes of winning... well I don't know what the hell they were playing for. It wasn't money as far as I know, and I couldn't even tell who the players were, so it probably wasn't for fame either. I just don't quite get it. I enjoy a good game of cards as much as the next guy, but it seems that a large handful of America has become absolutely obsessed with poker in the past four years. I don't know why. It's everywhere though: celebrity poker, The World Series of Poker on ESPN, my freshman and sophomore year roommate going to bed at 5 am, and Casino Royale (the 2nd greatest poker movie of all time). Do people just want to indulge in fantasies of being secret agents or con men, or do they just want to make money (and if that's the case, playing video poker for no money is not the best way to go.) I guess it's just another one of those things I'll never understand, like competitive paintball and monster trucks.

And bolo ties.

Beginnings

I've been meaning to do this for awhile now, but I suppose I take these things too seriously. Starting a blog, in my mind, always brings a number of questions that must be considered. What should this blog be about? How often should I post? Should I use my picture in my profile, or use someone who looks smarter? The main question that is being dealt with right now is "when starting a blog, do you begin posting as if you have always done so, or do you provide some kind of introduction?" And it seems to me that I have unintentionally chosen the latter. Therefore, this is an introduction to my blog. It is more for my benefit than for anybody else's seeing as no one knows it is here yet, and if they did there is little to no chance that they would find this particular post interesting. But now that the formalities are out of the way I suppose I can begin to post in the usual fashion.

I'm hoping that this does not become some random account of my day's events that only I will care about. I suppose if something incredible happens to me at some point, for instance if I rescue a kitten from a well or fight off a group of ninjas, I might mention it. These kind of posts are unlikely however for two reasons: a) there aren't many wells in Cincinnati, and 2) everyone knows that ninjas aren't real. No, I'm hoping this blog will become more of a commentary on my life. Not the events so much as the thoughts that surround them. For instance, at the moment I am sitting in front of my computer drinking a bottle of water and listening to Bjork. Currently I don't have any thoughts on bottled water or sitting or even Bjork, so usually I would not be posting right now. However, if I had a discussion of the impact of the Bush administration on modern literature, that might be worth posting. Of course all of this is being done in the hopes that I come to find that I am intelligent and insightful with a sharp wit that makes my thoughts more enjoyable to read than a Cosmo article. (This is an assumption considering I've never read a Cosmo article.) Of course it is possible to discover that I am none of those things. In that case, this won't last long, and I'll go back to storing my thoughts in my head instead of on "the net". And so, hoping that no one reads this first entry, here's to the beginning.

Cheers.