Something for the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy

I got my copy of Harry Potter (shut up, you know you liked it too) in the mail yesterday, and I was looking at the invoice today to make sure my credit card got charged right. The abbreviation Columbia House uses for this movie?

HARRY POT STONE.

I'm sure these people would absolutely have a field day with that.

Hey, Bo Diddley!

I went to the Chicago Blues Festival tonight and saw Bo Diddley play. He was great. For some reason, that wasn't what stuck with me.

The thing that struck me more is how much I love Chicago. I bitch and whine about the weather, but tonight it was absolutely perfect. Not too hot, not too cold. Not humid, but not that nice skin-cracking dryness you get in mid-winter here.

It was an absolutely cloudless night, and the skyline just felt staggering. I grew up in a city (not a in a state, just a city) where the maximum height of buildings is capped at 13 stories, so I'm still somewhat in awe of how big every building here in Chicago is, but also how varied the skyline is.

At home, the skyline is just blandness pierced by the occasional monument, but here, it's this great jumble of heights, everything coming together to form an utterly gorgeous line along the lake.

Everyone there was really nice (well, except the idiot who decided that Bo Diddley wasn't good enough for him and started banging on his conga drum), and reminded me why I just like Chicago. The people are cool and laid-back, they seem to have a better appreciation for good music than most of the rest of the country, and some days it can just be breathtaking.

Now I just have to remind myself about this post when I'm trying to dig my car out of 3 feet of snow this winter...

Always a fun surprise

It's so great when you're IMing with someone and you suddenly find out they're drunk. Example (which I swear I'm not making up, but I will keep the person making an ass of himself anonymous so he is not quite as publicly shamed):

anonymous: ellen i wanna fuck you
anonymous: i'm sorry, i'm very tired (drink)
anonymous: drunk
anonymous: drink drunk drink
me: hhahahahahahahahaha
anonymous: i will fuck you later

Anonymous, by the way, is a gay man.

Red light, green light

For the benefit of the universe: I am dense.

I cannot read minds, and I am extremely bad at picking up signals. If you have something you'd like to tell me, do me a favor and just fucking tell me.

Everyone loves leaving subtextual clues for everyone else (and it's not like I'm not guilty of this), but nobody ever just comes out and says something, for fear of looking like a fucking idiot. Which you will temporarily, but it'll save you a lot of pain in the neck, ass, and/or heart in the long run.

So give me a red light or a green light. Because I may be smart, but I'm not too good at picking up clues. I'm not a goddamn detective. And I haven't slept right in a month, so picking up subtlety is not currently my strong suit.

Then again, when you're as tired, overworked, and overheated (current temp: 81 degrees with moderate humidity) as I am, it basically takes a whack in the head to get your point across.

And even that may not be too effective, as I may already be asleep.

Hot hot hot

I love Chicago. Butt cold in the winter, sauna-like in the summer. Yay for fuckin' that.

It's actually not that hot yet, it just kinda feels like it because it's been cold for so long, and because there's no air conditioning in my apartment. A barbaric way to live, i know, but included a/c will bump your apartment up to at least 600/person/month where I live.

I don't particularly have that to spend, especially after I graduate in December and have to start making up creative variations on "Will Work For Food" to put on my resume.

Buy a window unit, you say? First off, they're hard to find used, and bloody expensive new. Secondly, you need one per room, and that adds up, both in terms of the cost of the actual units and electric bills, when you have 3 bedrooms, a living room, and a kitchen.

We could probably get away with 1 each for the bedrooms and 1 for the living room. The bathroom is kind of out of the question since the window's not wide enough to shove an AC unit into, but the cost would be ridiculous. The electric bill would at least double.

And at this point in my life, it's better to be hot than broke.

Besides, sweating it off is a much easier way to lose weight than, you know, eating less.

Sex vs. Relationships

Studying for my Gender and Society final (which is largely about sex and sex-related topics) got me thinking: there is a natural cycle of sex vs. relationships that everyone seems to go through.

At first, you want something. Anything will do, though having the stable, long-term relationship before the sex is generally considered a good idea.

When you're in a stable, long term relationship, novelty can wear off and sometimes you get left just wanting sex. Then you get dumped and all you want is the comfort of the relationship, you don't even care about the sex.

For a while after that, you just say "fuck this whole relationship thing, I'm fine!" but you're so depressed about the breakup that you don't want either sex or another relationship. And then, slowly but surely, you start to want sex again. Not a relationship, because dear god, you just saw what that can do.

Maybe you have a couple of unfulfilling flings, or more likely you just kind of sit around like a blob, doing your homework and having Liz Phair on a continuous loop in your head singing "I can feel it in my bones, I'm gonna spend another year alone."

And after a couple of months of that, you are prepared to heartily lust after anyone that even gives the most minor indication that they might possibly like you. This generally leads to falling flat on your face, which in turn leads to swearing off both lust and relationships "forever."

And then, just when you've finally moved on with your life, you meet somebody fantastic, and the whole ridiculous cycle starts all over again.

Coming soon to your inbox

I think I've found a way to combine two of the most popular internet scams (Diets and College Diplomas) into one undefeatable scam: The Soul-Crushing Stress Of College Diet.

Yes, in this scam, er..program, you get sent to a top-flight school for a year. You live on your own, so you don't feel bad if you waste meals. In fact, you actually save money.

You're doing so much work that you don't have time to sleep, let alone eat. And when you do eat, anything you eat gets burned off much easier because you're constantly awake and burning a great deal more energy than you otherwise would. Hence, you lose weight.

You also, after all of this work, earn a college diploma! Don't expect it to get you far, though, since employers will want you to have some sort of useable skills, and all you're going to remember is a pile of statistics about how badly women are getting screwed, paywise.

If you act now, we'll throw in the extra-special bonus Soul-Crushing Stress, which you can mix and match among the following types:

Romantic Problems

Backstabbing "Friends"

Job Searching

Poor Health

Theft or Damage of Property, and of course,

Parental Psychoticness

Yes, for only $19.95 a day, you too can earn your college diploma and lose weight at the same time with the Soul-Crushing Stress of College Diet!

If you're one of the first 10,000 callers, we'll even throw in 12 free sessions of mental help from Counseling And Psychological Services! If you've got a problem, we're committed to you! Or we'll at least commit you!

Order Now! 1-666-FUCK-U-NU.

Ah, logic

I love that in order to better prepare for finals, we participate in an activity that is guaranteed to kill brain cells by the millions.