Random Thoughts Showcase Spectacular

I saw a truck with "NOBAMA" stencilled on it in foot-tall letters the other day and I literally face-palmed.

Then on the night of the election, I popped on to Facebook for just a minute and saw a photoshop of Big Bird shitting on Romney's head. I responded simply with "Mature." When I looked the next day, the woman who posted it went OFF on me about it.

Come on, people.

@PE: I know you're a junior. I just chose to use sophomore because it was the first thing to came mind.


I watch Fox News a lot and while the bias does make me roll my eyes sometimes, I usually just find it funny. Because I'm aware of the bias, I just try to keep in mind that I might not be getting the entire story and will look into things on my own. I understand though that a lot of their viewers - like many MSNBC viewers, I imagine - don't bother to do that. I do think that the criticisms leveled at Fox are overblown though. People seem to think that they just make up the news or something and that's just not true. The bias tends to take the form of what they choose to cover (or beat into the ground). For instance, they're talking about the questions surrounding how the Libya situation was handled more than any other station, but it's not like they are just making up the facts.

Sheppard Smith's afternoon show on Fox is good for basic news coverage that isn't too biased. He's pretty reasonable and moderate and occasionally quite funny. I'm glad Glenn Beck is no longer on the network though. He was pretty reasonable too back when he was on CNBC and I actually was a bit of a fan, but when he got that show on Fox, he went full-tilt crazypants and he brought the whole network down with him. Bill O'Reilly is okay and I'll watch his show if I happen to be in front of the TV at the time but he can say some really frustratingly stupid things sometimes (and I don't mean his political viewpoints - I mean when he says stuff like [to paraphrase] "God must exist because there are mysteries all around us. Like the tides. Nobody knows how the tides work." Oh, Bill.) And Sean Hannity is awful. Can't stand that guy. He makes conservatives look bad.

PE wrote:

You call yourself a Yank? I guess I don't consider myself Southern or a Yank or anything really.

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No, I don't really call myself that XD. But I do have a strong "northerner" identity. Maybe it's because we have quite a few southerners in our family, so I'm pretty keen on our cultural differences. There are things that I love about the south (boiled peanuts, great sea food, warm weather), but then there are so many godawful things that I hate about the south that I would never move below the Dixie line. Ever.

Florida is kind of an exception, though. It doesn't feel like the deep south to me, probably because it's such a tourist destination and has a large Hispanic population.

Iska wrote:

I do think that the criticisms leveled at Fox are overblown though. People seem to think that they just make up the news or something and that's just not true. The bias tends to take the form of what they choose to cover (or beat into the ground). For instance, they're talking about the questions surrounding how the Libya situation was handled more than any other station, but it's not like they are just making up the facts.

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Yeah, that's definitely true. My dad voted against Obama almost solely on that Libyan embassy issue. I was wondering why he felt that was such a big issue in this election. The news sources I read only covered it the week that it happened and haven't said anything more about it since.

The thing about the accusations of FOX being horribly biased and "not news" is that most of their airtime is devoted to opinion shows and pundits rather than real reporting. FOX does have respectable journalists like Shep Smith and Megyn Kelly, but they're small fries in the ratings. Most of the airtime is taken up with very one-sided pundits like O'Reilly and Hannity who are treated like they're journalists when they're not. And then they use that byline "fair and balanced"--that's what kills me.

If you're going to have a point of view, own it.

And do you remember when Hannity's show used to be the Hannity and Colmes show? Hahahaha, talk about bias! The supposed "liberal" counterbalance of the show (who was the only liberal talking head on the whole network) just happened to be completely un-telegenic and mousy looking while the Conservative host looked like a boyscout. Then before the show was even canceled, Hannity got his own show in the slot right afterwards giving him more than double the airtime that Colmes got.

If FOX would just call a spade a spade and change their byline to "America's most trusted Conservative news source" or something, I think they'd get a lot less flak.

MSNBC needs to change their byline too. "Lean forward"? Until I learned that they were quoting some historic Progressive politician (I can't even remember who), I thought it was completely nonsensical. At least it kind of indicates their bias though.

I agree with all of that.

Berserk wrote:

Florida is kind of an exception, though. It doesn't feel like the deep south to me, probably because it's such a tourist destination and has a large Hispanic population.

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Not all of it is such a tourist destination though. That's mostly Orlando (which mostly has Disney World and Islands of Adventure/Universal Studios and other parks) and Miami, but once you go outside of those it starts getting whiter and/or more Southern. The more north you go from Miami the more uh "white" it gets.

Another joke told to me: "You should practice safe-snacking by using a condiment." ..........................

Anyways, after this make up session tonight one of my professors made, the guy who told that lame-o joke and I left and walked through the park for no reason, and we saw these giant wooden toy blocks in front of the arch. It was kind of surreal how they were just sitting there. We were like, "Why are there giant toy alphabet blocks in the park?" But we decided to be silly and spell out... the ~F WORD~ XD I felt so evil, I mean, it was in public! Well, I only contributed the "U", as in dropped the "U" block near the other letters. Totally. I totally lay the blame on him. (this is all so silly though XD)
Then this mother and her son were playing with the blocks and come over to us to look for a letter they were missing, she looked at us all surprised, and my friend pulled me away and we scurried off like nerds.

I felt like I had done some graffiti or something

ok now back to work @___@

So last night at 2AM my roommate and all his friends from they party he went to come and crash at our apartment. When one of his friends needs to hug the porcelain, of course he sends him to my bathroom. So for half an hour all I can hear is this asshole moaning like a dying cow and disgorging himself periodically.

And he locked himself in. He ended up sleeping the entire night on my bathroom floor.

If they hadn't left my bathroom as clean as they found it, I would be raging right now.

All things considering, you did pretty well then. At least, from what I've heard about roommates doing gross stuff.
My upstairs neighbors have parties every once in a while and are always loud and stupid about it. It doesn't help that they're a couple who remind me of the twins from The Shining but....

What's the big deal about Yohio? Seems big amongst the alternately oriented bandman crowd.
His lyrics and music suck and he looks like any other guy with 10 pounds of make up on his face.

faith wrote:

What's the big deal about Yohio?

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Who?

Berserk wrote:

So last night at 2AM my roommate and all his friends from they party he went to come and crash at our apartment. When one of his friends needs to hug the porcelain, of course he sends him to my bathroom. So for half an hour all I can hear is this asshole moaning like a dying cow and disgorging himself periodically.

And he locked himself in. He ended up sleeping the entire night on my bathroom floor.

If they hadn't left my bathroom as clean as they found it, I would be raging right now.

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This is so gross. I can't imagine it could be as clean as they had found it unless they had bleached everything. I mean, some guy just uses your toilet (that you use) to throw up in and then sleeps on your floor, I can't imagine how he can really thoroughly clean that up. And who knows where that guy has been.

I don't really get anything horrible here, only people yelling on the street at night or in the morning. At night there are sometimes drunks yelling madly or cursing repeatedly and in the morning the Indians are yelling. A couple of days ago I woke up because this Indian was seriously yelling, it was annoying. I managed to record the end of his rant because people don't get it when I say, "There are Indians yelling outside my window."

This weekend has been such a killer, I'm dying! But the people in my class seem pretty cool. I'm always surprised that I happen to be the youngest one in there though (I keep finding out after talking for a while with them XD), most of them already have things like masters, CPAs, or law degrees (in other countries) or already have businesses/careers and such. There's even a retired policeman. XD
MY NEW FRIENDS I like being in these situations though, being stuck with totally random people.
I befriended a girl from Nepal who moved here 7 years ago, and she seems very sincere and humble, always advising me. I liked how we roamed around the 56th and 6th avenue area looking for food. I didn't like the burrito I had, so today I had Subways with her and another girl (who said she's jealous of me, the jeebus XD) working in the state government. The political girl said I must miss the warm weather and how beautiful everything is in Miami, but I said that NY is beautiful in it's own way! Maybe after one of the classes I'll walk over to Central Park, which is super close by. What I really like though is walking early in the morning to the class and seeing all the old and new buildings and clear skies.
I'm going to have to find really something good to eat around there though or then I'll die from starvation and brain exhaustion XD...

PureElegance wrote:

This is so gross. I can't imagine it could be as clean as they had found it unless they had bleached everything. I mean, some guy just uses your toilet (that you use) to throw up in

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If you think that's bad, you wouldn't BELIEVE what some people do in their toilets!

Faith: if you need help with your translations, I can help you! I study translation from English and Spanish into French. So if you have any problem to translate the idea or with grammar, just send me an MP!

btw, I really don't understand the big deal with Yohio :/ I've tried to listen to some of his songs, but sincerely, it sucks IMO. The voice (distorted as much as it's humanly possible) isn't anything impressing and the guitar is far from being amazing...

PE wrote:

This is so gross. I can't imagine it could be as clean as they had found it unless they had bleached everything. I mean, some guy just uses your toilet (that you use) to throw up in and then sleeps on your floor, I can't imagine how he can really thoroughly clean that up. And who knows where that guy has been.

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I don't know, if I hadn't been there that night I wouldn't have even known it happened. The toilet looked perfectly clean because my other roommate had just cleaned it the night before. It's possible that the guy didn't really vomit that much and was mostly dry-heaving or something.

The only thing he left behind was his glass of water, which was sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

The thing that bothered me the most about that night was when one person was trying to get them to quiet down so they wouldn't wake me up, my roommate was just like "whatever, he won't say anything"

So far I haven't said anything because it's only been on the weekends and hasn't disrupted my life significantly, but he's really pushing it. And of course my other two roommates just love this guy, because they think it's so cool he plays ukelele, and they want to get into his social circle, and play club sports on his volleyball team, and other dumb-ass things that shouldn't matter to seniors in college. But then they're not really seniors, because they all plan on taking at least one victory lap. Not because they failed classes or anything (they're actually on the Dean's list), but because they want to get "the full college experience"

So yeah, if I confront this asshole about anything it will be three against one. And of course he's super polite to my face, so that makes it even harder.

I guess what I'm saying is, people are douchebags and I can't wait to get my own place. [/rant]

Berserk wrote:

because they think it's so cool he plays ukelele

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Seriously?

But yeah, the whole roommates thing is garbage. I had good ones for the first 2 years of college and it was still a pain, as these things go. Got a single room after that, mercifully.

I never heard of the "victory lap" before either XD *facepalm*

Berserk wrote:

The thing that bothered me the most about that night was when one person was trying to get them to quiet down so they wouldn't wake me up, my roommate was just like "whatever, he won't say anything"

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If it were me I would've bellowed, "WHAT, WHAT DID YOU SAY? SAY IT TO MY FACE. YEAH, YOU, COME HERE."

they think it's so cool he plays ukulele,

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Well of course, now he's like Tiny Tim. So of course he's cool. I think you should invite him back, let him know he's welcome any time and in any condition.

Not because they failed classes or anything (they're actually on the Dean's list), but because they want to get "the full college experience"

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OK this is the stupidest thing I've read in a while. What a waste of life and time because I'm sure they're not doing anything great.

Sorry about your roommate though, he sounds like an actual ogre. What I hate about what he's doing is that if you were to go off on him, people (if any were around) would go, "Omg but Roomate was so nice to Berserk, Berserk is such an ogre!"
But I think if he's really being a jerk and pushes you to the limit you should just do something already.

I donno what I'd say is the "full college experience," for me every experience is "another day in the life." I don't think I'd call my adventures, whether big or small, "college experiences" but "life experiences." I think my university by default isn't the usual thing because of its location and type of campus, which I love! TBH I feel like I'm back, in some way, in elementary school. I mean, I just feel like my old imagination is coming back, I'm always being myself with people (and being nerdy), and that whole "spirit of adventure" has returned. I hadn't felt that way in a while since elementary school. ^^

It's kind of funny that I was thinking about this yesterday and one of my elementary school friends tagged me on facebook, talking about how she's feeling nostalgic after bringing her little sister to our old church. We're such nerds, we still think those days were some of the best days of our lives! For me it's not just about the fun I had, but everything I learned about myself, the world, and life and I did it all along with my closest friends. /random

I just wanted to put this here, it's from Mama Elsa's website (she's the mother of one of the Housewives of Miami):

Born and raised in Havana, Cuba, Elsa lived la vida buena (AKA the good life). She grew up alongside two brothers and two sisters in a comfortable home where learning to cook and clean were obsolete.

Come college time, Elsa left the colorful island to study at the University of Miami. In the Magic City, she lived at the family’s vacation home while attending UM but eventually her parents and siblings moved in due to Cuba’s political turmoil.

Elsa eventually married a gringo (an American) where she was forced to — gasp — learn the nuances of domestic life. Soon after, she gave birth to daughter Marysol and son Tom. As a mother, Elsa found her true calling and thrived as a role model and giver of advice.

As a stay-at-home mother, Elsa reared the children and made sure life always remained carefree and fun. “I always remember her popping into her Porsche, going to the country club to play tennis or shopping,” her daughter Marysol says. From collecting jewelry to frequenting art auctions to traveling, Elsa always enjoyed the finer things in life.

Nowadays, she continues her life of leisure and stays spry — refusing to grow up (in a good way, of course!). Juvenile, joyous and wise, Elsa is everyone’s favorite mama — and now everyone’s favorite coffee queen.

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I just love the "gasp" when it comes to her learning about domestic life (gringo, lol, it's more like "white guy")

flowersofnight wrote:

faith wrote:

What's the big deal about Yohio?

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Who?

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Some Swedish Hizaki wannabe. Seems to be doing fairly well in Japan. He and his band Seremedy actually played at one of them huge VK festivals there

Listening to Yohio and he's got some skils, but I'm not really a fan of his guitar solos... He sounds like he's a very talented guitarist, but the solos and riffs sound really uninspired... Seremedy though... I don't know if I can take them seriously... As soon as the vocalist opened his mouth, it was just a generic punk rock voice...

(This is a bit long but I think it's worth it).

I got stuck with nearly the worst possible roommate Freshman year. She was a morbidly obese slob who kept her side of our super tiny dorm room filthy (with her mess often spilling into my side of the room), she smelled bad and talked constantly even when I was obviously trying to study and even sometimes when I was laying in bed with my eyes closed and clearly trying to fall asleep. If I asked her to be quiet because I was trying to sleep or study, she'd shut up for a couple minutes but then start right in again. The only thing I could do was ignore her completely and hope she'd take the hint when I failed to respond in any way for long stretches of time. Occasionally this would work, but usually not for very long.

Everyone on our floor hated her too because she would invite herself into their rooms and talk their ears off. She had no friends because of her terrible personality, so most of her time was spent watching TV until all hours of the night with a pizza box on her lap. I can't even begin to estimate how many times I walked into the room and saw her stuffing her face with pizza in front of the TV. If she wasn't talking, she was eating Papa John's (this didn't affect me personally but it just added to my disgust for her). Oh, and she was a pathological liar. She would make up the most ridiculous stories despite my frequently calling her on it and telling her straight up to her face that she was lying.

All of this was bad enough but the icing on the cake was that she audibly masturbated every night when she finally went to bed (at like 4 or 5 AM). At first I wasn't sure what the noise was and desperately tried to think of any other explanation for her sheets to be rustling rhythmically for 5-10 minutes every night, but eventually I had to face the reality of what was going on. After a while, I stopped caring about hurting her feelings, and would tell her off when she was being annoying, but this was the one thing that was too personal and embarrassing for me to bring up. Oh, and her body odor. I never brought that up either.

As soon as the year was over I moved into an apartment with my best friends because there was no way I was going to chance losing the roommate lottery so spectacularly a second time.

I swear to God I'm not exaggerating or making any of this up. She was the most disgusting and annoying human being I've ever had the misfortune to know. And I had to live with her in an 8'x8' room for 9 months. She all but ruined what should have been the most fun year of my life.

Edit: oh, and her favorite artists were Boyz II Men and Michael Jackson but she only listened to two songs by them (repeatedly): End of the Road and You Are Not Alone.

She was less a real human being and more like an SNL parody of the most annoying person alive.

flowers wrote:

I never heard of the "victory lap" before either XD *facepalm*

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That means you hung out with the right people

PE wrote:

Berserk wrote:

Not because they failed classes or anything (they're actually on the Dean's list), but because they want to get "the full college experience"

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OK this is the stupidest thing I've read in a while. What a waste of life and time because I'm sure they're not doing anything great.

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I know, right? I mean, they really think the government and their parents are fessing up tens of thousands of dollars every year so they can meet new people and party every week? Get real. And when they start applying to graduate school or for employment, people are going to ask: so why did you take five (or six) years to complete a four year program?

PE wrote:

I donno what I'd say is the "full college experience," for me every experience is "another day in the life." I don't think I'd call my adventures, whether big or small, "college experiences" but "life experiences."

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Thank you! I agree.

I wish our culture didn't hype up college to the point that everyone thinks they've crossed into fucking Narnia when they move into their dorms. Obviously your college years are going to be a distinct chapter in your life, but there is no sacred "college experience" and your campus is not some magical place where all the rules of life get thrown out the window.

@Iska: Oh man, I had a similar experience my Sophomore year except my roomie's personality wasn't so obnoxious. He basically only did laundry two or three times that entire year, showered rarely, and thought he could cover it all up by drenching himself in cologne. Somehow he still got girlfriends and had a sex life. The air in our room was so toxic. I would constantly open the window (even in the winter!) and spray febreeze every single day, often right in front of him, hoping he would get the hint. I should have confronted him, but somehow I just didn't have the nerve to tell a grown adult that he smells like ass and needs to learn how to do a load of laundry.

At least he didn't masturbate at night

And for all my complaints about my roommates this year, I'm actually pretty grateful. They're hygienic, they go to class, and they wait until Friday before they start acting completely stupid. It's just that when they start acting stupid, they get really stupid.

Berserk wrote:

I know, right? I mean, they really think the government and their parents are fessing up tens of thousands of dollars every year so they can meet new people and party every week? Get real. And when they start applying to graduate school or for employment, people are going to ask: so why did you take five (or six) years to complete a four year program?

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Because I wanted to take more intense classes and use my resources to further expand my mind.

Berserk wrote:

I wish our culture didn't hype up college to the point that everyone thinks they've crossed into fucking Narnia when they move into their dorms. Obviously your college years are going to be a distinct chapter in your life, but there is no sacred "college experience" and your campus is not some magical place where all the rules of life get thrown out the window.

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I basically agree with you that "your campus is not some magical place where all the rules of life get thrown out the window." I think college is (or can be) a great time, but I don't think it's this place separated from the rest of the world. Maybe it's because my college is "in and of the city" and not traditional with its campus or campus life, but I don't really see how college is separated from life. The way people talk about it, they make it seem like being in college is being in a bubble, or something. I think it's a bubble if you never do anything besides go to class or never leave your campus or just live life "just passing." But anyways, it's as if people just assume your "college experience" was some other-worldly thing, I don't understand that, I mean, life isn't always full of happiness or is easy, you know? Why are students in college different? Everyone has problems and internal struggles, even if we don't know it, and has to deal with what life and responsibilities bring them. I wouldn't dismiss their experiences the way I've seen so often only because they're college students.

I think what's special about college though, that makes it distinct, are the friends and classes. I've had some great times with friends I've made, and the classes are really thought-provoking and great, even if they're challenging. I really like talking to professors for hours about all sorts of things. I mean, I'm lucky enough to be taught by people who know so much about their field, I can't imagine not speaking to them. I think that's what I love about college, the conversations you have with people and the thoughts you have long after they're over. I think these things are all part of my life and definitely learning experiences.

And IMO college is what you make of it. I'm having an amazing time here, even with all the ups and downs, and I think it's partly because I really love my classes and professors and all the people I've met. I think it's because I'm a nerd, I love learning, and I really appreciate so much of what's going on. But these "college years" don't only include what's going on at the campus, but everything I do and experience outside of it, which is a large variety of experiences, both good and bad. So these years are more like "life" for me because it's not like I'm in some other mystical world by being in college. Everyone who goes to college has a different experience, I'm just saying this is mine and I basically agree with you.

He basically only did laundry two or three times that entire year, showered rarely, and thought he could cover it all up by drenching himself in cologne. Somehow he still got girlfriends and had a sex life.

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Hey, just because he had sex doesn't mean he's any better or anything! Can you imagine the people he's had sex with? Especially if he's drenched in cologne, rarely showered, and smelled awful. Whoever he was with must've not had any standards or their standards were super low (which says something about them). So it's not about the quantity, but the quality

EDIT: http://gawker.com/5959933/woman-blames- ... h-her-jeep
I would've totally done this as well. Totally.

Berserk wrote:

and your campus is not some magical place where all the rules of life get thrown out the window.

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It's not? Mine was. I lived on my parents' dime with no other responsibilities than going to class (if I felt like it) for a few hours a day, and generally wasting time and getting up to no good for the rest of the time XD Compared to high school I think I spent a lot less time in college having responsibilities.

... These days I have to get up to no good on my own dime. Way different

Hey I found this shirt in your closet, I think you should wear it to work one of these days.

I don't understand the whole not going to class thing. If your parents are paying for your education, why aren't you going to class? Isn't that wasting your parents money, that they've worked for years for to get to the position to be able to afford your education? I don't like any excuse for not going, especially if you didn't "feel like it." I hear that one all the time, along with the shrugs and the whole "but they don't teach anything new" thing. Yeah, I'm sure you know everything there is to know about a subject. Right now my family and my university is paying for my education, am I really just not going to go to class? I don't get it. I think that's the least you can do, even out of respect for the people putting money in for YOUR education, so that YOU can succeed and eventually be able to support yourself and do what you want with your life.

I've missed only one day so far in college, it was in freshman year and I had a bad fever so I really couldn't come.

EDIT: Sorry, I don't wanna seem like an ogre, but it's something that gets me annoyed because I don't understand it. I don't actually tell anyone anything about it, but internally I get frustrated for some reason. The ones that especially got to me were my friends who didn't attend our scholarship program's seminars. Usually they'd go 'oh I didn't want to wake up for that' or 'eh I didn't feel like it' -- nothing like "I had a huge project due the next day so I couldn't go oh man" or "I felt really sick." I don't know how you can't wake up and attend this thing that's practically giving you this chance to attend the university by paying a huge chunk of your tuition. And you can't attend a once a week seminar? Are you serious? I don't get it.