The Sandlot

I do not consider myself to be a picky eater. At present time I will eat just about any sort of food you could name. Nevermind the fact that i eat most everything plain and I'm not big on condiments or things of that nature.

At work, as you could imagine, we prepare literally hundreds of different dishes in a given day/week. One thing we serve that I have never tasted for myself is liver(beef) and onions. For whatever reason, just never sounded appealing. So lastnight said order comes through, Ruebz cooks it up. Now it comes with 2 pieces of liver. Little did we know the lady who ordered it only wanted 1 piece, so there was an extra. Ruebz, who absolutely despises cooking that dish(even though hes never had liver) tells me to try some. So I said I will if you will. So we both cut off a piece of it and consume.

Grossest shit ever. If anyone reading this actually enjoys liver I have to say you're pretty fucked up. Its not too awful when you first bite into it. Then you start to notice the texture, which is just freaky cuz its kind of soft and rubbery. Then you notice the taste, which only gets worse the more you chew. By the time i spit it out it was too late. Pretty much ruined my night.

However. I do love chicken liver when wrapped in bacon with a water-chestnut. Now that shit is delish.

So today I'm in my public speaking class. We had to prepare these 2 minute informal speeches about ourselves. I did not get picked to go today. That's not the point however. One particular speaker today nearly made me drop to the ground laughing; not because he said anything really funny, but because I'm immature in the sense words like rectum, poop and anus make me giggle.

So this kid stands up at the podium and launches into his speil. He's like the 6th person speaking so I'm expecting more of the same "hi my name is so and so I'm from such and such a place, I like to do this in my spare time" type speech. And it starts out like that. Then he goes, "you can tell a lot about a person by who their hero is. My hero is my dad because he fought and beat cancer."

Kind of a serious topic and much deeper than anything anyone else in the class had discussed previously. Then he says, "My dad had rectum cancer, giving a whole new meaning to the joke, rectum, damn near killed him." At this I start giggling to myself because lets face it, ass cancer just has that certain humorous element to it that other cancer's like lung or skin cancer lack, not to mention the rectum joke.

So I say to myself, come on his dad had cancer stop laughing, he's standing right there it's inappropriate. So I do. But the kid doesn't let up. He goes on to describe the intricate details about rectum cancer and his first hand experience in dealing with a family member having it. All these quotes are as accurate as I can recall them and in most cases are word for word.

"So they operated on my dads rectum and had to remove part of it. They disconnect it from the anus. So then, with no rectum he couldn't poop. So they put a bag in there he could poop in it, and he couldn't control his rectum either. It was the weirdest thing. I'd be sitting there carrying on a conversation with him when all of a sudden you'd just here 'plop'."

Now by the time I heard rectum for the 4th time, the inclusion of anus, the bag and poop, I was pretty much a lost cause. I couldn't look at the kid because I was failing miserably at keeping a straight face. I had my head turned to my right, tears in my eyes as he kept going on and on. I don't think I heard the last 30 seconds of his speech after the "plop" line. Jeff, who was to my left, was also having the same reaction as me. I suspect others were to but I dared not look anyone or I would have just started laughing really loud. I don't think our professor knew what to do either. I mean I was sitting in the second row and the classroom is the size of a high school classroom but half as full. So its not like he couldn't see me just bursting at the seams.

So dude, I'm sorry I laughed at your tale of your father's bout with ass cancer, but come on.

I will never understand why a movie ticket costs upwards of 8 dollars. When we first started going to the regal tickets were 6.50 i believe. Now they run 8.50. And...AND... like the case tonight 9.50. All because they have to show the movie on the Imax screen. Even though the film is not an Imax film. Meaning they're just projecting the regular movie onto a larger screen, distorting it and charging an extra dollar on top of it.

Why am i so upset you might be wondering. Its only 1 more dollar afterall. Its the principle. The cost of going to the movies is already way over-inflated. You want a small popcorn? thats 5 bucks, 6 something for the large. Drink? Theres another 4-5 dollars. It costs 1 person nearly 20 dollars to go to the movies if they get a drink and snack. That's like 2-3 hours of work for most of us. It's a ripoff i tell you! The media industry wonders why "illegal" file sharing is so rampant. A guy can find a brand new movie online for free and rip it onto a dvd in 30 minutes and all it costs is like a dollar for the blank disc (provided you have a burner and intranet connection.)

I might look into doing this and boycotting the movies all together or limit it to the drive-in. That might also cost 8 bucks but you get 2 movies and can bring your own food.

First week of class is over. It sucks. Compared to last semester, this semester is one big kick in the pants. Last semester I didnt do shit; I even downright had fun. The next 3 months are gonna be hell. I can feel it.

Com 223 Principles and Methods of Interviewing- Seems like maybe the best class i have. Teacher is this younger dude, seems ok. Not to mention its a practical and useful course (rare these days) The only problem is that its an 8am class.

Com326 Public Speaking- Not overly involved, no papers or tests per se. Just gotta make a bunch of speeches. 9am. My teacher sounds like Tommy Lee Jones, big texas drawl. And he loves to hear himself talk.

Com 481 Technical Writing- I added this class tuesday night in light of a terrible class i had attended earlier in the day which i felt the need to drop. Same guy who teaches my public speaking teaches this one. Gonna be a lot of work i think. Like 6 lengthy papers. But i kinda prefer that to tests anyways.

Com 460 World Media Systems- Unfortunatly, the guy who teaches this class is the same Japanese guy i had last semester for Mass Comm. The class where there was the riot and the people storming out and the fighting. So its gonna blow.

Com 493 Seminal Readings in Comm- My teacher is literally an 80 year old lady. That said she seems fiesty and is kind of funny. Jury is still out on this class.

Com 489 Computer Applications- I dropped this sucker like a bad habit. It just sounded awful after the first day what with talk about programming and some huge ass shitty project. Not to mention it ran from 330-5pm, which is way later than i want to be up there.

Unfortunatly this semester i dont have any friends or people i know in any of my classes. Meaning i wont have any fun like i did in the fall.

So tuesday i go back to UB for my final semester, ever. Its been a long time in the making but in a little over 3 months, i will be free of the education system. I'm anticipating a fairly easy and stress free semester given the fact im taking 5 com electives, instead of last semester where i had 6 required courses and fucking up would have meant extending my stay (i finished with C-, B-, B,B,B, A for a 3.0 gpa, right in that meaty part of the curve). This also means i might actually have interesting shit to post about again, like classroom riots and such. For whatever the reason, winter break was very low key with nothing extraordinary going on.

Went to Slicks last night. Pretty good time, minus the whole Tobey fiasco. Me n bf did ok at darts, until jake and burt threw a 3.88 on us in cricket. Its like, a near perfect game. Pretty much sapped all the life out of me. There was almost a big fight too. Some white dude punched some guy in the chest or something. They proceeded to shit talk for a bit, then the guy disappeared in the back. We figured he was calling in back up, since some people never can fight fairly. Sadly though, nothing ever materialized. Finished off with some Bermuda triangle. I beat burt the first game, then brett challenged us to a 3 way dance. It came down to bulls like usual. We all missed single bull. Brett was leading in points, burt 2nd, me third. Brett missed on the double bull, so did burt. The only way i could win was to hit a double bull. Brett, confident he had the game wrapped up, began patting himself on the back and writing me off. And lets face it, it was with good cause. Double bulls are near impossible to hit when you're actually aiming for them and I didnt play all that well the whole night. So i missed the first two dart. Brett had his arms raised in victory, burt was accepting his second place finish. Wouldn't you know it i shithoused the third dart in the double bull and won the game.

One final thing of note for anyone who cares. I changed around my AIM shared folder set up. Added in all the videos i have, yes even porn. Ive also been adding new tunes at a pretty steady rate. Including my newest prize, Autum Thunder: 40 years of NFL films music, a 10 cd collection. Epic.

I consider myself an experienced man-crusher. So, allow me, a professional, to explain the true meaning of a man crush.

Let me first assert a fact. I am not gay. I have never been gay nor felt the urge to be gay. I will not realize I am gay at any point in my life. However, I do man crush.

First of all, man crushes are, by definition, only from one heterosexual man to another heterosexual man. Any other type of crush is a “normal” crush. I personally have had a man crush on Ryan Reynolds for about two years now, and the feeling works as follows: A man crush does not imply that I have sexual intentions for my relationship with Ryan. I would never kiss him. However, if he asked me to snuggle under a blanket (i.e. spooning) I would definitely have to at least think twice. (And let’s not kid around, I would joyfully comply). This is a necessary and sufficient definition of a man crush.

It's just when men are able to bond with each other, let their defenses down and show their feeling and even crush on each other's power and creditability without worrying what people are going to say about it.

I just never "got" the whole myspace thing. Posting how you felt, songs that you liked, and links of your friends is something I did when I was 14 back in 1997. Its like a slightly less terrible version of hot or not but without the whole rating gimmick. which incidentally, made hot or not hilarious and awsome.


Anyways. I finally got around to dowloading that My Chemical Romace CD, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, out of curiosity and a couple positive reviews. Aside from what i think were the 2 or 3 singles, its pretty sub-par. All the songs clock in around 3 minutes and change. They all sound pretty much the same. Verse, chorus, verse, solo, chorus end. They all have basically the same tempo. Helena, I'm not OK and Ghost of You are easily the best 3 songs on the cd, even though they too are guilty of all the faults i listed above. They're a poor substitute for Billy Talent essentially. 5.5/10.



The Marble Index- Self Titled. This band opened up for lowest of the low last week. Unbeknowest to me, I'd already saw them before. They opened for 54-40 over the summer at My Cottage. They sound a little bit like Jet on a couple of the songs, though they hail from Hamilton and not Australia, but thats not an accurate comparison on the whole. The first song on their cd, I Believe, is probably the best one. The rest of the cd is pretty standard can-rock. By that i mean its better than say, My Chemical Romance or whatever "It" band is out at the moment. Different song lenghts, tempos structures and rhythms. They get a slight boost in the overall rating since they acually are a good live band. 7/10.


Lowest of the Low- Nothing Short of a Bullet. Its a live cd they recorded in 2000, most of it at the Tralf in Buffalo. Despite the fact it has no songs from their latest cd (Sordid Fiction) I think it accuratly catches and represents their concert experience. It weighs in at over and hour and has 17 tracks. Which seems like a lot but considering they played for just over 2 hours last week and probably played close to 30 songs it really isnt. The low's tunes translate well from cd to live and this cd has pretty much the best songs from their first 2 albums. 9/10

So let's see here. First a final 2005 memory.

The lowest of the low concert. Stunningly awsome. They played for over 2 hours and their set had 4 encores. Truly amazing. I think I developed a slight man crush for Ron Hawkins.

New Year's Eve was pretty lame. Worked till 11, went to Tos, then Cakes. Home in bed by 130. Though i was up till 4am watching the Goonies on the superstation.

New Year's Day was no better as i turned in a solid 8 hour shift at the office, while missing out on playing football. Good thing is i have the next 2 days off and Monday is our work christmas party.

So 2006, thus far off to a not so good start. Heres hoping it turns out better than '05.