GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME, MICKEY!!!!

For a long time, I've wanted to eventually leave New York and move back to Florida. But it seems in the ten years since we left the Sunshine State for the Big Apple, there have been some major changes.

Namely, a Bush has taken charge.

Now most people who read this thing know my political feelings towards our current administration. But seriously, even if you're a Republican, you HAVE to admit this is probably the stupidest law in the history of United States. I mean, even those weird laws you hear about that say its unlawful to put yellow pants on a duck while feeding him ice cream in March make more sense.

Attention: testy visitors risk being shot in Florida

Basically, this is what the law says:

A person under attack “has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force.”

Oh yeah, there's no ambiguity there. I can't see anything happening this Halloween, like, say, someone jumps out of the dark with a Dracula costume on and yells, "BOO!" and ends up getting stabbed or shot. But in Florida, they probably have a law stating that anyone who resembles a vampire must be killed on sight anyway, so I guess it wouldn't be a big deal. Big vampire problem down there, you know.

Does anyone remember that South Park episode where the kids went hunting with their uncle, and as long as they yelled "It's comin' right for us!", they could shoot any animal they saw in the forest? Pretty much you could do that in Florida now with humans.

Maybe I'll put off taking up residence in Florida for a while. I don't want to live in a state where they elected a Bush into higher office, they can't be too bright. Yeah, I'm lookin' at you too, Texas. You BOTH suck.




Florida's solution to overcrowded schools

Like Laverne and Shirley, Only With Penises

One of the perks to living off campus I was looking forward to most was being able to cook real food instead of eating the “food” on campus, which is so repetitive and unhealthy, it defies description. Just imagine taking a stick of butter, frying it, pouring maple syrup all over it, then adding a layer of vanilla frosting, and calling it a Garden Fresh Wrap; that’s pretty close to what was consumed five days a week eating in the dining halls.

So far this year, I’ve eaten teriyaki stir fry, tuna casserole, Hamburger Helper, and other things that I wasn’t able to cook on campus. However, I’ve realized that these things are usually prepackaged, and aren’t really what you define as cooking. However, the other day, Silva decided he wanted some seafood badly, went to the supermarket, and came back with a hundred clams in a big sack; the idea was to sauté them in a butter, oil, and white wine sauce and serve them over some angel hair pasta.

Since neither of us had much experience in preparing seafood, we tackled the task together: Silva’s got a huge pan with butter and white wine and a ton of garlic in it, I’m putting an entire shaker of salt into this huge pot to steam the clams in, he’s got clams in the skillet at some point, it was chaos. It looked a lot like those old Muppet shows with the cook with the big moustache and no eyes flinging fish all over the place.

Finally, we got the whole dinner prepared. We both sat down to a meal we cooked ourselves, which actually turned out pretty okay. Silva goes a little overboard with the garlic in everything, but it was still good. (He's got this thing for garlic and onions; he wants to put them on and in everything he eats. This kid eats the smelliest foods of anyone I know. Every time I go down to the station, he's stinking up the studio with some awful salad smothered in a disgusting dressing, or a sandwich that's soggy from all the vinegar and shit he gets on it. It's enough to gag a maggot. But I digress.)

We decided that every Sunday we are going to take turns cooking a meal from scratch. That’s such a college roommate thing to do: switching cooking duty every week and preparing a new dish for the both of you. Besides, I’ve always wanted to get a little more skill in the kitchen; I feel like if you’re at someone’s house one night and you just start whipping up a meal, people will think you’re some kind of successful Renaissance man.

I decided I wasn’t just going to wing it and make it up as I went along like Silva did, so I went online and looked for recipes for college students who have limited culinary knowledge and limited resources. The recipe I found is called Drunken Sausages with Peppers on Hero Rolls. I figure any dish with beer in it has to appeal to the college palette.

I’ll follow up with any disastrous meals we have. I’m figuring we’ll either poison each other or someone will be scalded severely before the year is out.

You don't know what I'd do to get my hands on one of those hats.

Ending the Hunt for a Teal October

I don't like sports anymore.

The Marlins.

Why?

Going into the last two weeks, they were right there in contention for the wild card. Hell, for a while, they even had sole possession of the thing. Then, in typical Marlins fashion, they go on an unbelievable skid, losing 10 of their last 12, or something close to that.

They do this every year. They eliminate themselves from contention. And this was going to be their year to do it. They didn't have a choice. Either this off-season or next, everyone's contracts are up. And they way many of the guys have been playing, they are going to be able to demand more money, and rightfully so: Cabrera is a hitting machine, Willis had an incredible 22 wins this year, and Pierre is always reliable. And that's not to mention the better than average performances of LoDuca, Delgado, Beckett, Jones, Vargas, and Lowell.

But with all this talent, they somehow manage to self-destruct. I'm not sure if I would have rather had them be out of playoff contention months ago, like the Mets. Because getting this close and not making it is really heartbreaking.

Then, I get to read about how AJ Burnett threw another temper tantrum. I'm glad this guy is out of here. He is overhyped. He had a good July/August, but he's inconsistent, and hasn't won a game in over a month. Go let the Yankees overpay you, you injury prone son of a bitch.

Poor Marlins. Poor me.

But I never lose hope. One day, we shall overcome.




Remembering the good old days...

The Alley

When I was deciding where to live last January, I took into account a variety of categories: rent price, distance to bus stop, proximity to downtown, parking, etc. The apartment I am currently living in successfully filled all the different necessities I was looking for.

However, there were a few unforeseen problems; one in particular dealing with the apartment's location. When I was thinking about renting this place, I was imagining how nice it would be to have a place so close to downtown: no more need for a designated driver, easy access to all the stores and restaurants on Main Street, and how convenient it would be to stumble 40 ft. on a Saturday night and be home. What I didn't think of was how often students in Oneonta go out and have wild nights. Which would be every night.

Every night of the week, around 2am, the bars close downtown, and the future of our country hits the streets of downtown Oneonta, screaming at the top of their lungs for absolutely no reason. You usually hear someone scream, then, as if to answer a primitive war cry, their friend match the scream with an even louder scream. This goes on all night. And the weekends are worse; people start getting "screaming drunk" around 11pm, and it continues almost until dawn.

Now, the apartment is situated a few feet from the central intersection of downtown Oneonta. There is an alley between the building I live in and the building on the corner. And, being in a high traffic area, this alley is frequented by drunk kids on the weekend. For what you may ask? Well, as any self-respecting college student knows, a dark alley in the middle of a downtown area is the perfect place to answer the call of nature.


I've done my fair share of public urination. I've also known many people who have been ticketed by the police for this offense; it is one of the biggest moneymakers for the cops in Oneonta. But the sheer number of people who use this alley as a place to release a golden shower amazes me: nearly ten people a night on average make this place their toilet. I've actually heard some interesting comments while people were letting it flow: guys talking about getting a chick's phone number, a girl crying about how she lost $50, even someone who said, and I quote, "Man, this is the best alley to piss in in Oneonta." I also have looked out my bedroom window to see girls completely pantsless, squatting down, and peeing in this alley like it was no big deal. I am shocked to realize how many girls actually pee in public; I was under the impression that the logistics of female anatomy made it difficult to pee in public.

Having this ritual go on under my bedroom window every night for the last month began to turn the wheels in my head. I had noticed that most people, when they went to pee, would ask a pal to act as a lookout for any police driving by, since they are very eager to write tickets. This gave me a great idea.

I went into the closet and dusted off a friend that gave me hours and hours of entertainment during my high school years: the megaphone. Not only does the megaphone let your voice blast out at 100 decibels, but it also has a siren on it, one that sounds eerily similar to a police siren.

The plan is for Silva to hang his video camera out the window, and when we hear the sound of liquid hitting pavement, I hit the siren on the megaphone, causing this person to panic, not be able to stop the flow, have to pull up their pants mid-stream, and run for their lives. This will be so effective because we are on the top floor of the building, and it is impossible to see into the windows on our floor from the alley. Besides, most people will be so drunk they won't be thinking and will just run out of pure instinct. We're planning on filming this stuff and putting it on the computer. So, once we get enough footage, you'll be able to find a link to it here.

Unfortunately, it is raining tonight, so I don't think we'll be getting many visitors to the alley. But I can't wait for this weekend. The camera and megaphone are waiting near the windows, ready to see guys piss all over themselves, and girls fall down from trying to run away with their pants around their ankles.



Right beside each row of garbage cans, that's everyone's favorite places to go.

Fun, Fighting, and Free Drinks: CMJ 2005

Day 1: Everyone gets to the Holland Motor Lodge of Jersey City with pretty much no problems, except that the other van somehow ended up in Manhattan, rather than going around the city as the directions said. Anyway, so we get into the rooms, and immediately head to Lincoln Center to get our badges. This is when I realized subways are continually 125 degrees. You walk down the steps, and literally begin sweating; you can't help it. Let alone all the other things wrong with the subways, the heat was the worst.

After the badges and the traditional CMJ purging of the free stuff tables (which this year included the now infamous Mountain Dew X,) we all as a group headed to Chipotle for some Mexican food. On the walk there, some guy walks up to Silva and says to him, "Let me look at your hair." Silva screams, "NOOOOOO-WAH!" like a seven year old boy. I'm still finding it funny a week later.

Now, I had never eaten at this place, and had only heard of it a few days before, but supposedly they are everywhere; it nothing, special, though, just a higher class, overhyped Taco Bell.

We then went to some place in some dirty part of the city to see some crybaby bands and whatnot. The reason almost all of us went was because of the free beer, Red Stripe to be exact. We sat, listened to Tim Fite and some other garbage, then left. Me, Silva, and Dustin went back to the hotel room to change and get ready to go out.

When we were ready to meet up with everyone, we asked the most experienced how to get to this new bar (where they had free beer and Sparks,) by subway. And since the people who were at the bar were apparently having too much fun and didn't want to be bothered to give us proper directions, we ended up walking about 30 blocks through the part of NYC that smells totally of urine. When we finally got there, not only did we miss the free drinks by 10 minutes, but when we asked why they didn't give us good directions, we were given a shrug as the reply. I was pretty pissed, since it was simply that no one could be bothered to be pulled away from their drinks for a few minutes to help us out. Then it started pouring rain. I was wet, sweaty, and had been up for twenty hours. I went to bed that night, pledging the next day would be better.

Day 2: Dustin, Feldman, Silva, and I woke up early, took advantage of the motel's continental breakfast, which consisted of some fruit and juice, and the Daily News. When Silva went out to go get some food, he came back with what I believe will be the #1 catchphrase to survive for years to come:

When he went out to go get some food, some thug black dude followed him in, and when Silva was filling up a cup of juice, the guy says: "Man, you gotta drink the juice, gotta keep it gangsta."

Now if you can't appreciate the humor in that, you have no sense of humor and should just end it now.

Anyway, we head out to catch reverend Run from Run-DMC give the keynote speech. It was decent, nothing to write home about. We hung out in Lincoln Center for a few hours. Me and Silva headed uptown later on to catch the Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line.

On the way there, we see a ton of black sedans with flashing lights inside. And a bunch of guards all around the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Some of the guys blatantly had Secret Service patches and badges, while others were plainclothes. Me and Silva stopped to take a look, and one of them walked right up next to us, and started to talk into his wrist and look high up into the skyscrapers, like you would see in the movies. Eventually, some diplomat came out, they scrambled the guy into a car, everyone started yelling "GO, GO, GO!" and they took off into the heavy traffic. I figured it was someone in town for the UN Summit.

After we walked down the street, I saw some street vendor with a suitcase full of silver chains. I did a double take when I saw one with a big Benz emblem on it, and talked the guy down from $25 to $10.

We then saw Walk the Line, which was really good. Joaquin Phoenix does a great job playing Cash, and even though I hate to say it, Reese Witherspoon did decent, too. Definitely something you should catch when it comes out in November.

After the movie, we tried to get into a hip-hop show starring Blackalicious and Aesop Rock. Unfortunately, Webster Hall wasn't letting in any more CMJ badges, and we were going to have to wait on line until more badges left. Instead, me and Silva found the greatest deal in New York City: 2 pitchers of draft beer (which included Yuengling) and a 10-inch pizza for $10. Instead of going to the show, we sat in Roll n' Roaster and got drunk, ate pizza, and talked to the Spanish girls in the place for about two and a half hours. We actually went back with everyone two more times, because we couldn't believe what a great deal it was. Next time you're in the city, go to Roll n' Roaster, you won't be disappointed.

We then headed this time to the same bar from the night before, this time using our own resources by figuring out the subway system by a matter of necessity. Yet, unfortunately, when we arrived, we again missed the free drinks. However, we decided to stop being cheap, and bought some drinks, and sat down in this ultra-trendy place in some modern art booth. Me, Meg, Miller, Shayne, Silva, Dustin, and Josh all hung out and had a good time, and even ordered a bottle of champagne.

When we left, everyone was pretty gone. And while we were trying to go back home, Josh and his girlfriend started having some dumb fight on the phone. While this was going on, we were hanging out in some dingy park occupied by no less than nine bums, one with a wheelchair that Dustin wanted to steal, and drinking Colt 45 out of a paper bag. After about an hour of sitting in this scummy park, me and Silva couldn't take the drama that was going on, and went back to the room.

Day 3: Saw the movie Domino, starring Keira Knightly. Eh. It was OK. Wait for video.

Anyway, we find out everyone is at Roll n' Roaster so we head down there. It turns out we got 7 tickets to a private Fuse party at Webster Hall that night, starring Coheed and Cambria and Thursday. Now neither of these bands I like too much, but I knew a few of their songs, and I thought it would be better than the typical CMJ fare of crybaby rock, so I went. Turns out the tickets we got from somebody were also VIP tickets, which meant we had OPEN BAR FOR THE ENTIRE CONCERT. This warrants caps because all we did was have mixed drinks for three hours for free. This made the concert much more enjoyable. I was getting smashed and singing along with the songs I knew, and had an awesome time. I enjoy the concerts much more when they're bands I know. Everyone was getting out of control and having an awesome time, and it was the best part of the entire trip. Plus, they filmed it for some Fuse special on Coheed and Cambria, so we are probably on that somewhere.

After the concert and about 9 drinks later, we stumbled into the pizza place again. This is where it gets hazy for me. I don't think I threw up, but I remember sitting on the bathroom floor of this place. I was seriously on the edge of losing control, and asked Silva to take me back, because if another drop of alcohol hit my tongue, I would have exploded.

So we're on the train to go back, and we see some girl wearing a shirt that said "I love..." and then had a lot of Arabic writing. Silva, being the suave individual he is when he's drunk, says to her, "What the FUCK does your shirt say?" We proceed to have a good half hour conversation with the girl about politics, the army, and the Utah desert. We all get off at the same stop, and she, for some inexplicable reason, asks us back to her apartment. There was no sex thing involved on our side, because she was fresh out the army and looked like a lesbo, which she probably was, and we were too messed up to really know what to do.

So we go to her apartment, and she tells us she was in art major in school. Then.........

I don't know if I could go on.




This really was the most disturbing thing to happen to me probably ever.




And from the people I've told and shown this to, they are sad I told them this tale.




Do you really want to know? Seriosuly, I'm warning you, if you like life and being happy, don't read further.



OK, so she pulls out this book and tells us it is her favorite artist. This book is called The Cremaster by Matthew Barney. The Cremaster is a 300+ page tool of Satan, that is supposed to be a metaphor for the descension of the male testicles, an act which is controlled by the cremaster, a muscle only used once in a male's life. This thing was by far the most fucked up object I've ever encountered. Page after page of seemingly nonsequitor photos which are really scary: and old lady wearing a super tiny corset, the Utah Salt Flats, a guy in a surgical room with his dick cut off and a flower put in its place, a lady with no legs and clear plastic prosthetic legs kicking a wall, a guy standing in a hotel lobby with all his teeth knocked out, a shot of the Chrysler Building. It was so fucking weird and scary, especially when you consider we're looking at it on the 7th floor of some stranger's apartment who we just met on a frickin' New York City subway train at 3am.

THEN....she busts out the Cremaster MOVIE!!!!!!

Yes, the guy made a movie with the same wild shit in it. We part we saw had a guy in a pink Scottish kilt, with a bloody mouth and a rag stuffed in it, climbing the walls of the Guggenheim Museum, while naked girls and Rockettes rise out the water and dance around the girl with no legs, who we were informed was his "archenemy."

At this point we said we had to go, backed out of the apartment slowly, smiled until the elevator doors shut, then screamed at the top of our lungs, "WHAT THE FUCK WAS THATTTTTTT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!"

I had nightmares that night. The next day, I felt kind of uneasy and depressed. This thing was so out of control.

I'm putting a link below if you want to see a brief sampling of what I saw. It gives a pretty concise idea of what it was. But just imagine it in the setting we were in. We could've been killed.

The Cremaster

Honestly, after that, there's really not much to tell. The fourth day was all right, I didn't drink that night and when we went out, everyone was bickering and fighting and generally pretty lame.

So that's it. Down below are some of the highlight pictures of the trip.

Headaches Are Forevaaaa

I've had a continuous headache since last Thursday. It sucks. I don' t know what's going on. But these things can't be helping:

• The Marlins have more or less eliminated themselves from the playoffs. They've won one game out of their last seven. They dropped two in a row to the METS. The fucking Mets. Bah. I hate sports now.
• I find out that a teacher in the Mass Comm. department has been telling his students that if they need help working equipment in the school's audio lab, to contact me. What the fuck?!?!? This dude never said a thing to me, never asked me, but has been writing my e-mail address on the board for his classes, telling them to come to ME if they have any questions. What the fuck am I? Do your fucking job, dickcheese. Or, if you need help, make me the TA for your class. I could use another 3 credits. Don't just assume since I TA for one guy in the audio lab that I'm just the mass comm. whore and will do anything for anyone's class.
• My monitor is all fucked up, so now there are like 4 large vertical areas on the screen where anything that appears in it is blurry. Wonderful. I've only had it for a year, so I guess I was due.

That's all I can think of at this moment. I have to go shower and get ready for my long day of classes tomorrow. I wrote about half of the CMJ post, and should have it done by Friday. It's pretty comprehensive, if you care. If you don't, then come back later and look at the embarrassing pictures we took from our week in the city.



For you headaches, I believe
You should take some Aleve.

Stay Tuned for Further Instructions

Catching up on massive amounts of reading and homework, CMJ post and pictures are coming soon.

CMJ 2005

I haven't posted anything in a few days because I have been preparing for the CMJ Music Marathon going on all over the island of Manhattan this weekend. I've been typing up papers, coordinating vans and hotels, etc. to make sure the ten other WONY members who will be accompanying me on this journey are ready for four straight days of debauchery and chaos.

Last year, we got free beer everywhere, saw some great bands, and had a party at a strip club, all on SUNY Oneonta's tab.

This year, however, I am predicting an even more insane experience, since there are about three or four confirmed alcoholics coming on the trip for their first time.

Now I'm not very much into the college music scene, in fact I find most of the bands a bit fruity, but there is a lot of shizzle to do at this thing: they're showing a preview screening of "Walk the Line," the bio-pic about Johnny Cash that is coming out in November, a movie called "Domino," a true story about a model who became a bounty hunter, Rev. Run from Run DMC is giving a speech, and at 1:30 in the morning somewhere, Big Boi from Outkast and Bubba Sparxxx (he's still around?) are performing.

There are a bunch of other things going on, but these are the ones I'm most excited about. Especially since it's free.

I'm sure I'll make some drunken audio posts while I'm there, so check back for those. I'm going to post the pictures we take on here, as well, so if you want to see eleven assholes drunk and doing some retarded stuff, we'll be back on Sunday.

Wish me luck--maybe I'll win a car this year.

The New Fashion Disaster of Fall 2005

Whenever I walk around on the Oneonta campus, usually every girl looks exactly alike, with a about two or three fashion variations between them: there's the sporty-looking, hyperactive soccer chick, which most likely is a dyke; there's the slut wearing some retarded Abercrombie shirt saying something like, "Sorority Ski Lodge - You Can Plow Into Us Anytime!" and wearing terrycloth sweatpants with sandals; or the girls who don't fit in with those other girls so they just wear big baggy Oneonta State hooded sweatshirts all the time.

But on my return to campus, I began to see a new trend that has so horrified and disgusted me that it has made me question yet again why I didn't just commit suicide right out of high school and avoid racking up so much student loan debt.

That new trend is - the coif.

Before anyone questions how I know this gay, slutty girl fashion lingo, let me say in my defense I was told by a group of girls what it was called. I had taken to calling it a pompadour, because it reminds me so much of how Vince McMahon wears his hair.

Basically, a coif (quaff), is when a girl takes all her hair and pulls it into one big line down the middle of her head. It's a really, really, REALLY stupid look. Honestly, every time a girl walks by me with this hair style, I hear in my head someone in a raspy, strained voice screaming, "YOU'RE FIRED!"

Also, and possibly even more annoying, is what usually complements this hair style. That would be the thing that makes people's "style" go from dumb-looking to ignorant; and that is the prevalence of gigantic sunglasses.

These things are without question the most ridiculous things I have ever seen in my life. Snap bracelets are better than these things. On every girl who wears them, the lenses go from the middle of their forehead all the way down to about the middle of their noses. They occupy about 60% of the surface area of the face. Plus, they have this really ugly 70s faded color in the lens, usually brown, the most despised of all colors. I think part of the allure of them is that they are a lot like the glasses people wore in the 70s, but what all of you don't remember is that the 70s was by far the most depressing, dirty, inhospitable decade of the 20th century. Just watch any movie taking place in the 70s--everyone is all fucked up on drugs, no one is happy, everyone looks like an asshole, and all the appliances were either baby puke green or baby shit yellow.

But that's besides the point. The point is that you have thousands of girls across the country suddenly taking up a look at is putting them in danger. I'm soon going to crack and just bite one of these girls in the face. I can't stand it. It really is dumb. Why do you think it's attractive? It's not; you just end up looking like a big fucking retard.

The coif and the glasses are bad enough on their own, but combined create a force so terrible one struggles to even comprehend the damage it is doing to people's lives.

If you have or have thought of dressing in such a manner, this is your wake-up call; DON'T DO IT. You really just end up looking like a dick who literally will just blindly follow any trend just because you saw a bunch of people doing it. Plus, if any pictures are taken of you looking like that, you are going to be really embarrassed in about two years.

Do everyone a favor--cut the bullshit. End the sunglasses/coif combo now.



Does anything really need to be said?
What a fucking jerk.

Inmates Running the Asylum

Life Likes to Kick My Ass

Sometimes I feel my life is controlled by the moon, like the tide; one minute the tide is coming in and things are going well, the next, the tide is going out and my life smells like rotten fish. Every time without fail. I never, ever have a good day without a bad one following right behind it. It's gotten to the point where DURING my good day I start to feel uneasy and sad, because I know it will not last and things will suck tomorrow. Today is a perfect example of a low tide day.

I was up at 8:45 in the morning to catch the 9:30 bus to campus. I had to wake up particularly early because I had to move the car from the 3rd level of the parking garage to the first, because of some scheme by the Oneonta police to give out more tickets and get more revenue. Anyway, so I get on the bus, and for some reason, only one bus was running this morning. Which meant that there were about 125 people on a bus meant for around 45. Plus, the ugliest girl alive was sitting in my line of sight, which made being cramped on a hot bus with an ass in my face even worse.

So I get to campus, rush over to Netzer to get an add/drop form to drop my Broadcast Announcing class, and try to swap it; the day before I had found a perfect class to replace it, which would not only release me from Madden's enunciation prison, but also allow me to have no classes on Fridays. So I get the form, and go to see if the teacher (Cunningham) I need to switch into is in his office to sign off on it. He isn't. Not only that, but he is teaching at Hartwick all day, and will only be on campus for his 2 o'clock class. SO I start to plan around catching him before his class begins.

I sit through Murphy's TA class. I spend the 45 minutes before my next class sitting outside. I go to class, then realize I have 45 minutes to kill before I can see Cunningham, so I decide to go to the radio station for a while.

Mistake. First off, there is a freshman roaming the hallway, who comes up to me and asks how do you "work" for the station. So not only do I have to go through the whole spiel about the station and training, but the kid also looks way too similar to Handsome Pete, which was definitely throwing me off while I was trying to talk to him. It was that bad. Then a few kids come down and ask me where the vinyl is so they could do their show. So I have to make a hundred calls to try and track down the vinyl. Finally, I get fed up and just leave. All I wanted to do was check my e-mail and sit on the computer for a few minutes.

It is now a few minutes before two, so I walk to the room he teaches the class in and wait. When he finally shows up, I say hi and ask him if I would be able to sign into his class. Cunningham looks at me and says:

"Nope. Sorry. Good-bye."

Complete and utter rejection. I couldn't believe he just so nonchalantly and matter-of-factly shot me down. I walk out of the room, stunned. I then realized I not only had a mere two hours left before add/drop ended, but also was late for my doctor's appointment. I call Kristin in a frenzy, telling her I didn't know what to do and find me any class where the teacher would be available to sign me in right away. She begrudgingly said, "Ehhh.....I don't know what to do." So I hung up on her.

I ran to the Health Center, signed in, and got set up in a room. (During the whole preliminary temperature/blood pressure phase of the visit, Kristin is incessantly calling me, and texting "You are an asshole" to my phone.)

Suddenly it hits me: I've been running around all over campus. I'm wearing jeans. It's hot out. My balls are really sweaty. I'm here for a abdomen/groin ache.

The doctor is going to have to touch my sweaty balls.

After I realized this, I waited for the nurse to leave the room and leave me to wait for the doctor to arrive. As soon as she shut the door, I jumped up, unzipped my pants, and started furiously wiping my sack with my boxers, in the hopes that I could wipe away most of the ball sweat before the doctor ventured down there.

The lady comes in, and in a first for getting a nut/hernia check, the doctor laid me down on the table, put a sheet over me, and started poking around what she phrased as my 'pubic region.' After poking around, making me cough, and 'checking for any masses' on my boys down there, she concluded I probably just strained a muscle in the area. A relief, but I still had the rest of my life to deal with.

Pretty much the rest of the afternoon consisted of me going to the registrar after Kristin found me another class, having to go find the teacher to sign off on the form, going to the top floor of the wrong building, going back down, going many floors up in the right building, and finding he wasn't there.

I screamed at Kristin for a good half hour, hung up on her several times because there's nothing I hate more than talking to a girl who is annoyed on the phone.

I walked into the apartment, realized I hadn't had anything to eat or drink all day, grabbed a green tea, and since I had to go BACK to campus an hour later for a radio station/SA meeting, sat down with a box of Triscuits, a slice of American cheese, and sat in the hot apartment with the blazing sun on my back eating Triscuits and American cheese. Silva takes one look at me and say, "Woah, you look like the most depressed person in the world right now."

I started laughing, because at that point things could not get much lower; I could do nothing else other than laugh at my whole situation.

Unfortunately, the week will not be easy from here; I've still got to try and attempt to fix this add/drop fiasco, have to go pay a parking ticket, plus Wednesdays are my long days and I don't get home until 9pm.

The only thing I hope is this means the tide will be coming in soon.

WONY: The Eternal Struggle

Running a radio station is tough.

Over the past two years, as I watched two different people at the helm of WONY, I thought I understood what went into keeping this place afloat; there were parts that were fun, and parts that really sucked. I was able to see from watching the other general managers all with different styles what to do and what not to do, when to let people do what they want and when to bring down the hammer. And so far, after only two weeks of being officially on the air, I'm already seeing that there is so much more to the job than would be visible to even the keen observer.

That's not to say I can't handle the job: running a college radio station is a lot easier than, say, being a surgeon or flying a fighter jet, or even working in the cafe at Barnes and Noble. But the fact is there have already been so many incidents that have caused me frustration to a high degree, and the frequency of these problems has been much higher than I anticipated.

One of the most annoying was the fact that, for some reason, many of the DJs access cards somehow were not activated to allow them access to the studio. This meant that for the first four days of classes, I was woken up at 7:30am to have someone tell me they couldn't get in. After the second day, this became quite annoying.

Also, I really thought I would be able to trust the DJs here to use basic manners and common sense. Everyday, Studio A is a pigsty; CDs everywhere, magazines half torn up and strewn all over the place, and remnants of food dug into the carpet. And everyday, I clean it up, ask people to keep it clean, but it never happens.

But those problems pale in comparison to the sheer number of little details that have to be taken care of on a daily basis. I have a problem remembering things anyway, so the fact that I have to remember to call this kid to make sure he knows about the meeting, ask that guy to get that thing done he was working on, return the phone call from the guy who is hounding me about an interview I do not want to do, respond to the e-mail from the teacher who wants to bring their classes down here and show them around, etc. becomes maddening. Not that these are huge issues, but it is a lot to keep track of, and I've always had a problem keeping tabs on a million little things like this. It does sometimes feel like babysitting, where you can't leave someone to do something on their own without having to check up on them every half-hour.

Luckily, we have a number of people down here who have been surprising helpful in sorting all this shit out, and making it easier to deal with. I don't know if the majority of people who read this blog are people I know from Oneonta, from home, or whatever, so references to specific people might get lost on some, but a few who have so far been a really big help have been Feldman, Dustin, and Lip Ring. Feldman I think lives down here (probably to escape his living situation), and Dustin and Lip Ring I feel confident in asking to do it and having it get done without needing to constantly check on them to make sure its being worked on. If you are a member of WONY and not mentioned on here, don't get pissed; these are the people that just first come to mind, and I don't feel like sitting here and doing a Stewie Griffin Compliment Sandwich.

I'm not sure if I need to lighten up and not be so anal and overbearing in my pursuit to getting things done, or if I am just overreacting; both are big possibilities. But my mentality to accomplishing things is to get them done right away, and not have the 'I'll do it tomorrow' mentality, and this can cause conflict with people who don't do things the way I do. I'm not scared of conflict, because I think its will help the WONY e-board to figuring out solutions. What I'm scared of is apathy. I want to make sure the e-board isn't overlooking responsibilities because of laziness.

But like I said, this is only two weeks into the semester. Things could get easier. Even though I feel overwhelmed with it sometimes, I think we're on track to have one of our best years in a while down here; we had a fantastic station meeting yesterday, without any sense of subordination that existed last year. Hell, people were actually laughing and listening to what we were saying. We've got the new computer for Studio A which will make our shows sound a thousand percent better, and everyone is making the effort to erase the clique-iness and elitist attitude that flowed through this place last year.

And if things don't get easier, whatever. I'll try to make the most of it and not turn into Rob for his last months here, with the personality of a cantankerous old geezer, like one of these people you see in the old civil rights videos screaming at the black kids to not go to their school.

Whatever happens, WONY will live on.

Check out the WONY Website:

WONY.com

Listen to us online (when we pay the bill and they turn us back on):

WONY Webcast

When Will This Blog Lighten Up?

Hopefully I'll be able to come up with something else to talk about other than the hurricane and gas soon, but I just keep watching it on TV and it keeps depressing me.

I read this on CNN.com, and thought it was something most people never hear about. You ever hear someone talk about how the US is always there to help OTHER countries when they are in need, but no one helps US? Here in an excerpt from the story, "Governments Pledge Aid After Katrina:"

The statement said offers of aid have been received from:

Australia, Austria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, China, Columbia, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Greece, Guyana, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Paraguay, Philippines, Portugal, South Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Slovakia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela.

Now I'm not so naive; many of these might just be empty pledges just to show the international community that they are willing to work with the US. But the fact is that they have said they would help us, the self-proclaimed sole superpower. Maybe we should remember this next time we want to criticize those countries for not agreeing with us on everything.

Surprise, Surprise

This comes from the Reuters story, Bush Warns Looters, Urges Americans to Conserve Gas:

"Asked in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" if U.S. oil companies should forfeit profits during the crisis, Bush said instead American corporations should contribute cash to hurricane relief funds."

How about both?

Impending Sense of Doom, Anyone?

I don't know what the hell is going on lately, but I have had this consistent sense of things being unsettled and chaotic lately.

I don't know what it is. I've felt so restless and not in control recently, and it's driving me insane.

• I'm still not used to being back in Oneonta yet
• I'm not used to living in the apartment yet
• I'm not used to the "teaching" styles of my professors
• Everyday something goes wrong at WONY that I have to deal with
• I have a pain in my lower abdomen/groin area that won't go away and is making me nervous
• I have to move my car every few hours to keep in line with the insane Oneonta parking laws
• Gas prices are spiraling out of control
• New Orleans is under water
• I've been trying to track down this mysterious financial aid I'm counting on
• I get to hear kids screaming on Main Street every night, pissing in the alley underneath my window
• I keep losing everything

I am a creature of routine. If I don't feel like I can anticipate that will happen next or that I am in control of what is going on, I get very tense. Right now I'm very tense.

Is this just me or is anyone else feel like this lately?

If I was a black businessman, this is what I would look like.