Insomnia

I'm afflicted with the good kind of human condition - it's not that I'm not TIRED, so much as I'm so busy enjoying my time that sleep doesn't fit in my schedule. Next week school should kick my time management-skills in the crotch, but until then I'm gonna spin some Hum and embrace these states of transcendence, exhaustion, euphoria and slight-inebriation.

Life is fuckin' perfect right now in just about every way. I mean, I'm still addicted to cigarettes and am feeling the health effects AND I'm broke as hell. But the essentials are in place, and I'm happier than ever. I wish I could be more specific, but since school isn't in session, I forget almost every reason I'm happy. Yes, a liquor reference, nice catch!

Yeah, so since I don't have anything of any real pertinence to discuss, I'm going to rant. Cause I aim to please. AHEM:

Justin Bieber is like, what, 16? I watched an interview with him. I feel like if I was on a daytime TV show when I was 16, EVEN IF I WAS RICH AND FAMOUS, all I would have to talk about is: sweat, baseball, Pokemon, and how icky girls are. This fuckin' guy is talking, looking, acting, and wearing the clothes of a successful 50 year-old celebrity. I'm the kind of person who can't comdemn anyone without realizing why they are the way they are, so rather than vindicate him, I'm going to extend my sympathy towards him. I'm sorry you never got to roll in mud. I'm sorry you didn't get to fall head over heels for every popular girl just to have them turn you down. I'm sorry you're going to get divorced 6 times before you sink into an alcoholic depression. I'm sorry you never got to have a childhood.

I don't mean to sound pretentious, but I'm really fucking smart. I have a, although somewhat disproportionately large, very handsome and good head supported upon my shoulders (with a distinct, chiseled mandible, might I add). Nonetheless, my brilliance took until around 18-19 to truly accept what life is and my role. There is no conceivable way that Justin Bieber realizes that life is anything but hormonal 14-year-old girls throwing themselves at him and counting his money-stacks. It's a shame. Society should advocate for happiness before money and fame.

Uh, what else. I'm done ranting, but I do have a cool story! So anyone familiar with West Lafayette probably knows that a smattering of middle-aged and unemployed men wander the streets of campus, occasionally asking politely (more politely than the Chicago destitute) for a quarter. So I was TOTALLY on Salisbury about to turn onto State en route home when a homely and unshaven black man waved me down about 10 feet away. I was about to have an opportunity to turn so I gave him a reserved wave (the kind that exercises a double meaning: "Hi, your wave was awkward" and "No, I don't have a quarter"). I missed my opportunity to turn because he slammed into the front side-panel of my car. Then, to my complete surprise, he came up to my window and said "You're listening to Bad Old Days by Tom Paxton, this is my all-time favorite song. God Bless." I was completely taken aback. He doesn't know it, but he brightened my day more than I did his.

God Bless. Well, atheistic equivalent.

Tax Carryback Refund Provision

...is what Prof. Hatcher is lecturing on. It's so intellectually stimulating that I think I intellectually creamed myself.

Tomorrow is the Chili for Chile (chi-lee for chi-LAY) Fundraiser sponsored exclusively by the Purdue Accounting Association. It is featuring about a ton of my dad's famous chili and many volunteers, PAA and non. Eight hours of spicy, turkey or beef, cheddar cheese-laden philanthropy. Fun stuff! This is my first time giving back to the community in a measurable way (not littering my cigarette butts excluded), and it feels very good. I hope our efforts are felt by the people of Chile.

Spring break starts Thursday after I turn in my tax memo at 5 p.m. I'm extremely excited. I'm seeing Pelican on Friday with Bri-Bri and Dan-Dan; I haven't seen Pelican in a couple years, but I'm positive they're going to kick fucking ass like they always do. Their new material is still great sludge/post-rock/whatever-you-wanna-call-it, and they replicate it well - similar to studio recordings, but with a lot of soul. Check them out if you haven't.

Uh, passive losses cannot offset portfolio income for a corporation, but it CAN offset active income. Oh yeah, give it to me, just like that...

p.s. I can't wait for Spring Break HoN LAN parties Max...

Good Ol' '90's Alt-Rock

...always puts one in a great mood, regardless of whether or not you're runnin' on empty and have a looming 75 minute OBHR 426 (should be formally titled "Strategic Bullshit"). High praise, and really, really, really, reeeeeeeeeeeeeally mean it. Gin Blossoms and Barenaked Ladies, you earned it.

So I received mid 80's on all of the exams I took last week. That's about what I deserved (above-average testtaking skills + [.3]focused and effective studying - 6 hours of computer games a day - lots of alcohol and uppers = my test grades). College is teaching me to build statistical models of life, impressive huh? That equation has a .92 R-squared; pretty correlative if you ask me.

So the week before last I was burdened with studying for Exam Hell Week, last week I was burdened with the Plague, and this week I'm burdened with every freakin' life chore I would have been burdened with the last two weeks had I not been overly-overburdened to perform said freakin' life chores. Freak. I gotta find an apartment, do some various other odds and ends, and all this inbetween getting fuckin' hammered Wednesday night. That's right! It's my birthday! The big.. 2.. 2...... awesome. I don't have big plans - getting fucked up with people I like the night of, and havin' dinner with the besties Thursday. Should be fucking sweet. Exciting.

Uhhhhhh, played a Vienna open mic the Friday before last, and performed alright (Belated Promise Ring/Angeles/Sunset Soon Forgotten, respectively). Was sloppy at times, but then again I haven't played an open mic in months. In fact, I haven't played guitar regularly for months either. School ruins all my fun.

Happy birthday to my mom yesterday. The big 56. I love her very much. Everyone have a lovely February 23rd. :)

You might prefer an astronaut

Hum is what's currently on my playlist, with Yonder Mountain making a couple brief appearances. I think Hum's "You'd Prefer an Astronaut" and "Downward is Heavenward" are good reasons to lose interest in exploring new music; they're that perfect.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. The weather was perfect (40's and rain isn't perfect, but it's better than an inch-thick sheet of ice on everything). I spent time with the immediate family and got to see almost my entire dad's side, which was pleasant. I played "Belated Promise Ring" on geetar for them, and they were all impressed and appreciative of the live entertainment. I was more nervous performing in front of them than friends and stranger-packed audiences at bars, but I knocked it outta the park. Feels great to spread the gift of music on such an intimate holiday. Found out parakeets emulate not only human language, but low-battery smoke detector language as well. Neat!

I got all "A"'s, a deserving compensation for the time and effort I put in. Well, the time, anyway. Considering I attended at least half of my exam's drunk and ended up putting forth 15% of the effort I desired to preparing for most of my exams, I'm pretty lucky. And brilliant and perfect. But I digress.

Christmas Break has been wonderful. My uncle Matt taught me some neat scales on guitar, so I have been practicing those. They literally go to everything written in major/minor scales, which is essentially everything in the genre of rock. Been playing a lot of Heroes of Newerth, a computer game which is remarkably similar to Heroes of M&M 3. That's awesome, because HoMM3 is my all-time favorite forever, a winning formula.

If you average the times I've waken up over break, I'm a pretty typical guy. If you don't, I probably need therapy or drugs. Either way, life is suh-weeeeeet right now. If you hover around me long enough, you'll probably get some contact-ecstacy. :) Love you all, happy holidays, get blasted for the new year and I'll catch ya next decade!

Time to give some thanks...

I've been on hiatus (hiatus = drinking a lot, delegating my homework to other people, and generally speaking being pathetically awesome), but a long-awaited update is forthcoming. Like right now.

First off, I want to participate in our wonderful Indian-slaughtering, tryptophan-consuming tradition of giving thanks for the things in my life thanks-worthy. First, I'd like to thank my mother, sister, Don and Will for being the only things in my life that unequivocally make sense. You are all beautiful people, and I'd take many bullets for all of you. I'd also like to thank my many other great friends, acquaintances, jam buddies, and everything inbetween for giving my life meaning and purpose. I love every moment with you all. My Sooner-friends also deserve some loving; to you guys I am eternally in debt, but know I love ya. I appreciate my personal capacity for learning and physical dexterity; sounds conceded, but...yeah. Also, thanks for cranberry sauce. And everything else.

Life has been different, to say the least. I haven't woken up before 3 p.m. in so long that I don't remember how long it has been. A couple Adderall-fueled homework sessions have me caught up aside from a lot of reading (I'm addicted to crosswords, and completely non-addicted to listening in lecture). I've been jamming with some cool cats, and some seriously awesome music has resulted, which makes me very happy. Moments like these renew my passions. Also, everyone has been telling me how handsome/sexy/I-wanna-hit-that I am recently, which has naturally sky-rocketed my self-esteem. As if I don't love myself publicly enough. Despite that, I've been more terse than usual; my best psychological analysis is that there is less pressure to perform socially being as happy as I am with life right now. I feel that undeniable urge to grin stupidly (that one you get from psilocybin.. oh, you know..) almost every moment of the day, which is great. Note: to possible future employers, mushrooms are against my religion, or something, I swear.

Dead week this week, followed by the Armageddon, followed by home-cookin' and Scrabble marathons. I can't fuckin' wait. That's all, folks. Til' next time, stay safe, wear a hat and gloves, and god-damn-it I hope my car doors don't freeze this winter.

I don't know where I'm goin', but I'm goin' nowhere in a hurry blues!

So I just watched the Thursday night game, Carolina vs. Miami, and I've concluded that I could be Carolina's offensive coordinator, and I'd charge a much more reasonable rate. Here's my plan: run. Delhomme isn't the entire problem. When you aren't stuffing the box against DeAngelo Williams and Jonny Stewart, the offensive playcalling is fucked up. RUN THE BALL. EVERY DOWN. DeAngelo averaged more than 10 yards a carry, on 11 carries. What the fuck?

...but I digress. Today is wonderful, like every other day. My roommate just went home for like, the next 10 days, so I'm blasting Steve Goodman's "The Easter Tapes", sippin' some Robert the Bruce (awesome), and smoking cigarettes in the house (our little secret..). This reinvention of my Chicago folk appreciation has led me to a major life decision: I'm living in Old Town once I graduate. It's close enough to the business district, where I'll ultimately end up suiting up for work, to make the commute reasonable. It is also the part of Chicago where the Old Town School of Folk and Earl of Old Town are located. OTSoF is a music institution where Steve Goodman and John Prine, among others, grounded their roots. EoOT is a music venue that was instrumental in the success of many of Chicago's finest folk musicians. That'll be me one day. I wouldn't mind going that route; I may never achieve commercial success, but maybe they'll spread my ashes on Wrigley Field like Mr. Goodman.

I wish I had something worldly to enlighten you all with, but unfortunately, anything I picked up the past few days was definitively obliterated by whiskey and quantitative probability models. I'm psyched to go home from Monday until next Sunday, 6 day weekends make me giddy. I hope everyone is enjoying this fine night as much as I am. End transmission!

Backwards Day

First entry, cool.

Strange day. Adderall didn't crash me today, alcohol didn't affect me. I noticed that Routes 126 and 231, which intersect at the light north of Stadium/Northwestern (this intersection everyone in West Lafayette must abhor; stagnant traffic on game days, and that dreaded left-turn-yield! Sigh..) are both divisible by 21. Cool, huh? Oh yeah, and Routes 52 and 65, which intersect north of 52/Northwestern, are both divisible by 13. I'm ain't makin' this stuff up, folks!

Generally a good day. Lots of good introspective knowledge acquired today, thanks to Tricia introducing me to Tough Love 2 as well as a required submission of some stupid Meyer's-Briggs-Type-Indicator assessment thing-y. Firstly, Tough Love 2 is cool because, despite all of those women being excellent actresses, the writer compiled somewhat-legitimate personality complexes. It's cool that it isn't "the gay guy", "the black guy", or "the chick that makes out with every guy". A refreshing take on the same awful reality-television phenomenon. Nextly?, that MBTI thing made me angry because I dislike confining my personality/mind to rote assessments; I feel like, as a human being, I'm constantly growing, changing and improving. That stupid test made me feel like my perceived shortcomings are "me", and that I should accept them. I will never watch Canadian Football, and I'm still growing, so stop pickin' on me, type indicators. Nevertheless, my brain absorbed some useful information, which is better than binge drinking destroying it. I'm puttin' this one in the win column.

If you're a woman, stop reading now, I've said all you're going to care about.

My fantasy football team is sick, unreal, just plain juggernaut. CJ, DeAngelo, and a stable 4-man platoon of Sims-Walker, Randy Moss, V-Jax and Roddy White. I've laid the smack-fuckin-down the last three weeks, and have a vicegrip on 1st place at the moment. Pick-ups for next week? Chris Wells playoff schedule: St. Louis and Detroit, cakewalk! Westbrook got a-NOTHER! concussion, McCoy should have some value down the stretch in that offense.

In conclusion, I'm going to blog outloud my itinerary tomorrow, lest I forget; class (get case book), do case report at 3, ...thought I had more. Over and out...