Black Gold, Texas Tea

This will be quick, since I have to get ready to go to class.

Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm going to fill up my tank tonight in preparation for the forecasted $3 a gallon which will be entering Oneonta by Friday.

I'm going to try to drive around a little as possible for the next few weeks, taking the bus to campus and things like that. I almost genuinely cannot afford to drive anymore. I shouldn't be paying $30 to fill up the tank of my STATION WAGON.

I can't imagine what you rich snobs in SUVs are paying; what's an SUVs tank? 20, 25 gallon tanks? I hope you don't like money, because $75 to fill up on gas is fucking unbelievable.

But that will be nothing when a gallon of gas costs $4 in a few weeks. Don't believe me?

Expert: $4 a Gallon Gasoline Coming Soon

And make sure you give big thanks to Bush for all of this. Now, Bush supporters, I know what you're saying: "The president has nothing to do with this. It's because of Hurricane Katrina." Wrong.

According to OilOnline, which appears to be actually run by the oil industry, quote:

"Twenty-four major U.S. energy companies reported overall net income (excluding unusual items) of $16.7 billion on revenues of $213 billion during the second quarter of 2004 (2Q04). This level of net income represented a 67% increase relative to the second quarter of 2003 (2Q03)"

So pretty much Bush and his gay ass pals keep making MORE money every year. Hmmm, seems to me that if it truly was things like foreign oil dependence and natural disasters like Katrina and Ivan in 2004 that were keeping prices so high, the oil industry's profits wouldn't be JUMPING 67% IN A YEAR!!! 67%?!?!?! WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?!

But that's fine. $100 to fill up a tank of gas? Great. As long as I can drive my kids to soccer practice in a car designed by the military for heavy duty transport and not have to see two guys married or kissing. That's gross.

David v. The San Francisco Treat

Tonight I come home from a long e-board meeting at the station, chop meat and hamburger rolls in hand, anticipating a nice meal of some sloppy joe's with a side or two. I decide that I would like a change of pace from the usual Lipton bag of noodles, and will have some of the Rice-a-Roni we have in the cabinet.

I get everything ready without really reading the instructions; some butter, a pan to cook it in, etc. When I'm finally ready to cook it is the first time I truly get to inspect the directions.

Step one says to mix the rice and butter in a skillet. So I do this; I let the butter melt a little bit, then poured the rice in. About a minute into the prep, I think something has to be wrong; all the rice is sticking to the pan, and the butter is no longer melting because its been overwhelmed by the rice, like a big buttery rice ball. Someone tell me: is this truly the way it is to be prepared? I have huge mounds of rice sitting in the thing that I have to keep moving constantly, because otherwise it'll all burn onto the bottom of the pan and I'll be scraping it off for ten hours.

Finally, I decide this has to be wrong, and pour a little bit of the water from step two into the skillet. After stirring this for about a minute, the rice starts to resemble gruel; it took on a thick, oatmeal texture. To combat this, I just poured the rest of the water in. This did no good. So I got a pan of hard, uncooked gruel rice simmering in front of me, and I figure if I'm going to screw it up, I might as well go all the way with it, and pour in the seasoning. So now I have yellow gruel. I just cover it with the lid on low heat for about seven minutes, until I realize all the rice is fusing onto the bottom with no chance of ever coming off. So I just turned it off and put it into a serving bowl and actually ate some of it with the rest of the meal, which turned out fine.

Now, I don't contend that there's a chance I have some low level of retardation. Rice-a-Roni has been around a long time. They have to know how to cook their own product. But I don't understand how those directions could be accurate. You're supposed to stir dry rice around in the pan? What? And the rest of the directions, they're too vague. Everything else you cook usually has precise times on how long something should sit and cook. Not Rice-a-Roni. They just assume you have cooked rice all your life and know what to do.

I'm never cooking this crap again. I should have known better than to break from routine.

On a side note, if you know what the hell I did wrong, leave a comment. I have another box of this stuff that I don't just want to throw out. Although, it could make a great gift for someone I don't like.

Me Fail English? That's Unpossible

The person who wrote this sentence attends an accredited four-year college:

Auto response from CulliganMan (6:33:54 PM): making some spaggetti and braciole in sauce with pork pieces...it guini night

About 60% of the sentence is spelled wrong.

We're, Like, Totally Self-Absorbed!

With the arrival of the fall semester, one annual tradition inevitably follows: Rush Week. Now from what I understand, this is the time of year when fraternities and sororities try to find the most impressionable students who crave the acceptance of their peers at any cost, and recruit them to basically treat them like dirt for four months so they will be friends with them. There's nothing like calling someone a fat ugly slut and making them binge drink to truly earn a person's friendship.

It doesn't take a detective to see my stance on the whole Greek Life phenomena, but I noticed one thing today that I felt I had to comment on. Why do sororities come up with the most obnoxious, pompous slogans to put on the back of their shirts? The logic of this really perplexes me; a sorority wants people to join their house/club/whatever,
so they write phrases on their backs that would make even the most pliable person have nothing to do with them?

Today I was out in the Quad, and I saw some of these sorority people out trying to get people to come to their little party or whatever it was. They all had new shirts made for Rush '05, and all of them had some outlandish saying on the back. Here are the most audacious:

"You take them because you need them. We take them because we want them."

"Fulfilling our dreams, living your fantasies."

"We might be bitches, but you still want to be us."

And so on and so forth. How is that supposed to draw someone to your organization? Why would any person with a shred of self-respect be associated with such a group? Still want to be you? Who the fuck do you think you are? Nobody wants to be you. YOU want people to be you; you like to think people want to be you, that's how you define yourself. You think because you can have those million dollar handbags and cars and shit, and go tanning four times a week, that you are living some sort of posh, luxurious lifestyle. But anyone who's got half a brain knows that in a few years when you graduate, you'll have focused too much of your time in college on being a legend in your own mind, and won't be able to take care of yourself. Once the trust fund money runs out, you'll either have to learn to suck dick really, really good, or you will end up as that 45-year-old woman working at Banana Republic in the mall, wondering what the hell you're going to do now that you've got cellulite on your thighs and crow's feet in the corners of your eyes.

I'd love to hear an explanation from somebody in one of these spoiled brat sororities about why they write shit like that on their backs. Oh, man. I would get so much pleasure out of that argument.

Anyone reading this, I implore you: if you have a friend in a sorority who has shirts with something like this on it, stop being their friend. They are too fargone to be saved and will just drag you down with them.

I hate sororities so much.


Kappa Phi Sigma: We Have Less Visible Herpes Than You

Quiet As A Train Accident

So last night about 1:30am I'm in bed, awaiting the coming of the first day of school. Silva, for some demented reason and compulsion, was out drinking. The night before classes start. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but that seems a little ridiculous.

Anyway, so its 1:30, and all of a sudden I hear a tremendous slam, followed by what sounded like a girl crying. I figured one of the girls downstairs fell down coming back from the bars. So I open the front door, and there are a few people standing outside Silva's bedroom door, the one that opens directly into the hallway. I see two people who I've never seen in my life standing in the doorway, I hear a girl laughing, and Silva, in a drunken stupor, saying something along the lines of, "MY room, look at this, it's my room. There's this, and those."

So I go back into my room and wait for the people to leave. When they do, Silva comes in my room. I asked him where the noise from before came from. He said:

"I had to kick my door down to get into my room. The front door was locked."

"Why did you kick the door down? Why didn't you just knock on the front door?"

"Well, I didn't want to make any noise and wake you up.....Hey look, King of the Hill. I love Hank Hill."

That makes sense.

PS - He also left the oven on for five hours yesterday.



This man, when drunk, doesn't realize sound travels.

Round 4

By some fancy trick pulled on me by the forces of the universe, I am somehow starting my fourth year of college tomorrow.

Today was spent prepping the radio station for our return to the airwaves, installing a new computer in the studio, and then wanting to smash the computer when it refused to work.

Also, another fun activity was when my dad called me, asking why I was getting a bill for $105 from Bank of America, the institution I left more than a month ago. I had the joy of going through their automated phone service, having to wait until the very last option to talk to a real person (you ever notice that? every single phone menu has 'Speak to a Representative' as the last possible option, so you end up hearing about all the languages and other shit for five minutes?), and find out why they were sending me bills for no reason.

It turns out for some reason they created a new checking account in my name and never told me. When I went to the bank and asked them I wanted to close my account, my real one was ended, but not this imaginary one. Since BoA charges at least $5 a month in fees, and since there was no money in this phantom account, they had to use overdraft to pay the fees. And when the end of month came, and I hadn't paid for the overdraft cash, they had to overdraft to pay the new bill. They continued doing this until it came to $105 and sent a letter home. When I asked the lady 1) why I had two accounts when I was only supposed to have one, and 2) why this second one wasn't closed when I left the bank, she made kind of a drooling noise and articulated the equivalent of a shrug of the shoulders.

I also checked out a book from the library that hadn't been checked out since January 16, 1969. When this book was checked out last, man still hadn't been on the moon.

Silva is out buying taco meat for a little taco dinner we're having together. Yes, we ARE a couple now.

Holy shit I don't want to sit in a classroom tomorrow.



I wish the first day of school was still like this. I could totally kick all of those kids asses.

Snapple Fact # 98

Beware of a girl who has the exact same pose and face in every single picture. You know you've seen 'em, that girl who has sat in front of her mirror, trying to find her best side, and has practiced enough so as to have the same look in every single photo.

Seriously, think about how vain a person you have to be to have down a "picture face." And some might shrug it off, saying "Oh, it just happens that way." Wrong. There is no way that in every picture taken of you from the age of 18 on just by coincidence you look the exact same; same smile, same tilt of the head, same angle at the camera.

Which, by the way, is the most usual pose these girls take. Face tilted down, slightly looking up at the camera, showing the majority of either their right or left. I think the goal is to try and look sexy/hot (and not in the way guys think of hot, the girl "hot" mentality)/elegant.

It's not working, bitch. Get over yourself.

Place Bets Here on the Date of Kodi's Return

Anyone know anything about setting up odds? Because I think I could make a quick buck making odds for when Kodi will return to Oneonta.

For any of you who have his screen name, I'm sure you have seen this in recent days:

not only am i leaving so many friends at oneonta, but now i find out that two more of them are comming back to school there....life is so fantastically shitty




lake...wakeboarding or something

Two things about this are classic Kodi: his yearning to be back in his natural environment, a college town. But notice how he deals with this pain and strife; "Wakeboarding or something." Fucking Kodi. I've got you down pat.

But that's not all. I would just write about what his profile says, but it has to be seen to get the proper experience. Here are some of the highlights.

Emotional Breakdown: T minus 6 days

its gonna take a lot to pull me away from you ... <3>

The emotional breakdown is counting down to when classes start here at school. Yes, it struck me as gay, too. Not to mention all the other sayings.

Now Kodi is a great guy, and I'm no psychology major, but Kodi seems to be having some serious separation anxiety. And I don't think its from being away from Oneonta per se, but from the "college life" in general. Kodi's whole lifestyle and personality were designed for the college experience. In no other environment on earth could you be like Kodi and be successful, but at Oneonta he was like king of the castle. Someone who will light themselves on fire or jump out of trees, hitting every branch, for no good reason, they're bound to do well at college.

But what Kodi doesn't know is he is still making waves here in Oneonta. Literally every station person I have seen has said to me, "Have you seen Kodi's away message?" People are fascinated by his metal problem.

I know I've written about Kodi's away message before, but it seems to be such a hot topic lately.

I'm going to say that his ugly mug will be making an appearance here within two weeks. Anyone like to take that bet?

Back in Black, Back to the Future, My Boyfriend's Back, Men in Back? And Any Other Phrase Containing the Word 'Back'

Unless you are retarded, you might be able to deduce that I am once again living in the old stomping grounds of Oneonta.

My life for the last three days has consisted of the assembly of furniture and violent scrubbing. The second action is because my landlord, who seemed like a nice enough guy and claimed he was going to paint and clean up before we got here, couldn't find the time. Maybe that's because every time I called him, he wasn't available and/or was on vacation. So I came back to find everything dirty, and Lisa K. and her roommate's hair all over the place.

The bathroom was horrendous; the toilet looked like it hadn't been cleaned in years, the tub had more streaks than the Yankees this year, and the shower curtain looked like it had bread mold growing on it. Unfortunately, I had to shower in it once before I got to clean it, and stood there like a little girl on my tiptoes, scared to touch anything. Although that and the kitchen have been pretty thoroughly cleaned, they still need to be mopped. But I don't mop. I have my maid do that for me. My maid's name is Kristin.

The even more joyous activity has been putting together every stick of furniture together by myself. Since Captain Silva is in Maryland sitting on a yacht in one of those sea captain hats playing shuffleboard, having caviar fights, and living in the lap of luxury, I'm the only one here for five days. So that bum gets to have everything ready for him when he gets here. I told him he owes me a night of hardcore drinking when he gets back, but he peed his little pants and said no he doesn't. He's at the very least buying us a communal bottle. Fucking mooch.

But back to the point. The last 48 hours of my life has revolved around diagrams such as the one here on the left. I bought a dresser at Target before I left, and figured I'd be able to put it together no sweat. This started bets at my house about how long it would take me to either: A) Shatter the pieces of the dresser in frustration, or B) call my dad and ask him when he could come up and do it for me.

I started to believe it, too, since I'm not too mechanically inclined. But guess what? That shit is standing up next to me as I type this. Granted, it did take a while for it to be completed, but that was because it threw me the unseen curveball of having to glue pieces together, which I wasn't prepared for, and had to give that shit time to dry. But other than that, it was no sweat. Booyakasha.

My bed and dresser also had to be assembled, but with no directions. They too took a while to become what one would consider furniture, but all's well that ends well.

This weekend will be dedicated to setting up the station for our Wednesday on-air premiere. We've got to clean down there, open about 11 tons of mail, and just make sure everything is in working order.

The first WONY-ites to be in town, Miller, Matt, Dante, Mabb, and myself (I would say Lisa P., but SHE'S NOT A MEMBER ANYMORE!!!! PPPH!!! SCHOOL HASN'T EVEN STARTED YET, AND YOU'RE BACK ALREADY?!?!? PATHETIC!) went out last night for just a regular, relaxing time. Other than when we were walking to General Clinton's Pub and saw some guy kicking the shit out of the passenger of a car, then the car tried to go in reverse really fast to get the guy off the car, but he hung onto the door and kept kicking until the car screeched away. I still can't believe we witnessed that, it was so surreal.

Well, time to stop jerking around on the computer, and get down to the station.

You Call That A Summer Recap?!?!?!

Since my summer is drawing closer to an end with every day, I have decided to do a recap much like Silva's, only mine won't suck.

David's Summer 2005

• Moved furniture up to Oneonta two weekends in a row
• Got a new cellphone
• Interned at News Twizzle
• Worked at Barnes and Noble when not at N12
• Survived Harry Potter night at B&N
• Played Human Beer Pong 2.0 @ Dane's on the 4th of July
• Saw two car accidents within a twenty-four hour period
• Wrote a five page paper at the end of the internship
• Watched the Marlins be good one day, shitty the next
• Barely hung out in Joe's basement
• Never changed my bedsheets
  
• Changed financial institutions (Take that, Bank of America with your out of control fees!)
• Took a drug test, which by the way, was the most elaborate, careful, fool-proof thing I've ever witnessed
• Spent $4 million on gas
• Discovered the genius that is the Crunchwrap Supreme
• Sold my CMJ South Park guitar on eBay
• Beat Prince of Persia: Warrior Within
• Came upon the awesomeness of Da Ali G Show
• Drove around town looking for lost dogs
• Only got talked into going into Huntington one night (more on this later)
• Finished the USA trilogy
• Had the worst overall movie experience of my life at the Commack movie theater when watching the literally 60 minute movie Madagascar, where I spent $20 on movie tickets alone, and got a tray of nachos that had I shit you not about 11 chips on it for $4.50. So for an HOUR'S worth of "entertainment," I spent in total about $30. I'm not bitter about it.
  
• Read All the King's Men, Portnoy's Complaint, and The Adventures of Augie March
• Forgot my keys to get into the house one night when I had been drinking, and crawled through a window 6 ft. above the ground without anyone waking up and confronting me
• Had a giraffe drool all over my hand
• Got into a political debate with about seven drunk 19-year olds who have no idea what the hell they are talking about
• Bought stuff for the apartment
• Tried to get stuff for the radio station done over the phone, which would have been more productive by carrier pigeon
  
• Got my bank card stolen
• Got a job at News 12
  
• Got a haircut that would probably rank in the top three of the worst I've ever had in my life (the guy started the fade about 7/8 of the way up my head. I looked like the top of a crayon for about 2 weeks)
• UPDATE 8/13: And lest I forget, I also performed surgery on a Playstation 2, got the thing to play games again, saving $100+. YOU ever seen the inside of a Playstation? Didn't think so.
  

But overall, really not an eventful summer by any stretch. I was too busy splitting my time between News 12 and Barnes and Noble. But it paid off with having a "real" job, so I don't care. Plus, now I'll have a lot more money to burn up at school. I have decided that I'm going to grab this year by the horns and try to enjoy myself more this year rather then focus everything on my grades. But who knows, old habits die hard.

I'm sure I'll be updating this on a nearly daily basis again once I get back up to school, that is if I have internet in the apartment. Or electricity.

Booyakasha.

As Local As Local News Gets, Mothafucka

As of today, I am officially an employee of News 12 Long Island. With my internship ending last week, I was able to get a job in the editing department. I'm going to be able to work this week, and then go back to school, but luckily, I'll be able to come back and work during the vacations from school, and when I graduate next year, I'll have a place to come back to.

What's so great about this is that its actually in the industry. Judging from the track record of people I know who graduated, it's not easy to find a job in the mass communications field. That's why I went in three times a week for the entire summer and busted my ass for free. It's the kind of job where when I'm at work, it's really not work at all. When it really comes down to it, I'm playing with a video machine, sitting on my ass in an air conditioned/heated place, "working" for like two hours, then have the rest of the time to sit and jerk around. I love it. I've never had a job that when I leave after an eight hour shift, I don't feel like I've been working.

You should be proud of me.