Being a member of Pizza Services (two tours), I am daily put in the line of fire, exposed to some of societies most leprous and foul inhabitants. I’m all for the Jesus thing of washing their feet, but my repeated attempts at courtesy are met with douchbaggery to the utmost degree. All I’m asking is that niceties be returned as such, but people apparently find it difficult to accept me as a human being, obviously since I’m wearing a goofy ass hat and khaki pants to match I’m devoid of feelings. The hardest thing to repress is simply the fact that I could lecture these people on a variety of educational subjects and everything spilling from my mouth would be new information to their brains. I feel like Charleton Heston trying to make my way in a world of monkeys, “Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty apes!”
The following is a series of lists I’ve composed dealing with all different aspects of the pizza business, I admit that I got carried away, but whatever.
First of all,
Please don’t call me a hypocrite. Don’t accuse me of biting the hand that feeds me. I’m honestly grateful for your apparent allegiance to aortic plaque; it keeps me employed. But really, is pizza that good? Lets take a look:
Dough: Its flour, water and yeast, get over it.
Sauce: Processed tomato junk, water and spices. If you’re really attached to a certain establishment’s ‘recipe’ you need not look further than the ingredients on the can they opened to get it; no one makes it fresh, no one makes it better than anyone else.
Cheese: Frozen or fresh, its just fermented mold derived from bovine glandular discharge; I doubt if its even from California Happy Cows half the time.
Assorted Toppings: Unlike bologna or hot dogs, pepperoni somehow retains its dignity even after belonging to a family of foodstuffs considered trash by upper class Americans and orthodox Jews alike. Raw Italian sausage sits in room temperature containers all day, none of the vegetables are properly cared for thanks to the “ it all looks the same once you cut it” mantra and absolutely everything is held within containers that may or may not have been washed properly the night before by a poorly paid, disgruntled college student. To be completely honest, everything you order on a pizza is bad for you; may I suggest our salad bar?
Now, I understand that despite the above list one may still want a pie, and if that is the case I have some suggestions regarding phone etiquette:
1) You as the customer are always right. Always.
2) Because of this, you are hereby encouraged to treat me like absolute shit, because it’s ok to do that when your not actually standing in front of a person, but I have just few tips for everyone:
1) Know what it is you want before you pick up your phone and dial my number. It’s so inconsiderate to make me wait while you attempt to contemplate the deep recesses of our menu. All you have to do is pick a size and a few toppings and then we can both go our separate ways, a few moments of forethought could have prevented the tragic loss of minutes of my time that ill never get back.
2) Don’t try to act as middleman between me and the person who actually decides what to order. Yes, I will hold on a second while you ask some invisible entity behind you if original crust is o.k. or if Pepsi is alright due to the unavailability of Coke, but honest to god it would be quicker if you just handed the lazy asshole the phone so we could get the whole thing over with quicker.
3) Don’t try to haggle me for lower prices, I’m not a Mexican child trying to sell chicklets, this is America and the price of our pizza is patriotically high. If you want to have change after your purchase than I hope you voted for Obama.
4) Once I say, “is that going to be it?” followed by a “have a good day”, it is officially too late to change your order, this is not fucking pre-school, there are no do-over’s in the real world. Its not that hard to order anything on the menu and NOT change your mind, I don’t want to have to talk to you again 4 minutes later because you decided that it wasn’t a good idea to go with olives.
5) Since when can “Is this going to be for here or to-go?” be answered with: “I want a large pepperoni, with mushrooms and salami.”? I’m supposed to lead you with prompts, so just fucking follow them. You called me, I call the shots, do not be affronted when I change the course of the conversation from your inane rambling to what can only be considered as my job.
6) Don’t even think of yelling at me…just don’t.
Now, surprisingly, its not just customers that cause me grief; fellow employees can also be a pain in the ass.
- When taking orders for a delivery, know the difference between North and South Fresno. I mean, how hard is it? One side drives Escalades the other side steals them.
- When you dirty a dish, wash it! Honestly, I spend hours a night washing dishes that have been sitting around since the store opened that day. This isn’t Tetris, I don’t want to see how well you can stack them, because inevitably I’m going to be the one yelling Janga! when they all fall down.
- Don’t recommend other pizza restaurants to customers who call our store:
Customer: “Are you guys running any specials tonight?”
Employee“…um, none that I know of…wait, there is one but… never mind, no, no specials, we do have coupons though.”
Customer: “…and where would I find these coupons.”
Employee: “I have no idea, but I hear Round Table is offering some great deals, the home of the last Honest Pizza you know.”
---Seriously, that happened.
- Don’t smoke weed in the parking lot
- Don’t lie and tell people that the delivery driver’s car is broken down just because you don’t want to make a pizza, I don’t know if you know this or not but that’s how I make my money.
- Don't show up to work hung-over and complain to the boss when i call you a bitch.
- Don’t take delivery orders 5 minutes before we close, that is just really really stupid.
Etiquette notes specific to people who are actually too lazy to get their food themselves, and instead rely upon the services of a friendly, neighborhood delivery boy…
-Turn on your porch light; I can’t see shit without it.
-Say ‘Hi’ to me when you answer your door, not ‘how much?’, I’m not a hooker.
-I don’t carry change for a hundred, but I’d love to be that much more of a target for your convenience.
-If you live in the ghetto, I’m not going; arguing is futile. I only want to go where allegiance to a gang isn’t required to walk through the streets---and don’t tell me I have nothing to be scared of because of my size, shanks hurt everybody.
-I know I’m tall, as a matter of fact, I’m as large as your door frame. Oddly enough, you’re not the first person to notice, so feel free to keep your stupid ass comments to yourself, especially if your going to act upset when I make blatantly obvious comments in return like, ‘Wow, you’re really Pilipino’ or ‘Damn, this house is shitty’.
-If it is not over a dollar than it isn’t a tip, I’m not the Salvation Army begging for your change. For Christ’s sake its 30 degrees outside, dark, sometimes raining, and I’m driving my own car, so help a brother out. Please know that if gratuity isn’t included then you can count on your pizza being late next time because I have an excellent memory.
-Don’t leave your little kids at the door while you go find your wallets or checkbooks. It's like, I don’t want to talk to a child, its not cute, just sign your goddamn check---don’t stiff me---and put clothes on your kid because honestly its 42 degrees outside. Next time a kid ask me a dumb question, like whether or not I’m the pizza guy, I’m just going to do my worst: "no, im the stripper."
-Sometimes, like if you pay with your credit card, I’m required to see your identification. Don’t get mad at me, this is the first preemptive step in preventing identity theft. Despite this fact though, I literally had one guy accuse me of working for “that Obama fellow” because I asked to see his driver’s license. If your going to be a dick about it, then I’m going to make an insensitive joke either about a) how bad your picture is or b) how obviously false your weight is listed as.
-Answer your door in a timely fashion. Just because you know its the pizza boy and theres no surprise in it for you doesnt mean you need to keep me waiting while you take your damned time.
-If you plan on paying with a check, write the damn check before I get there, I don’t have 5 minutes to wait around while you practice your cursive.
-If you have animals, deal with them before I get there. I’m not responsible to catch your dog if it runs out the door, I’m not going to pet your dog if you introduce us, and I will kick the fuck out of your dog the moment it becomes a threat to me. Also, I think its really funny to ring a doorbell, hear the dogs go absolutely CRAZY on the other side of the door, and then ring the door bell three more times to produce the same effect; I know it makes your life difficult, that’s exactly why I did it, lolzzzzz.
…in closing, I make my living serving people I can’t stand and I do it for meager wages and no dental . What could make me expose myself to things like 500 degree ovens, sharp spinning blades, and airborne grease the likes of which make Proactive Acne Care products run for their lives? Eight dollars an hour with the added benefit of absolutely nothing. It’s the best a part-time college student can get and because I don’t consider unemployment, welfare or any other type of federal aide an alternative as long as I’m at least able bodied enough to do this work, my hands will remain flour-dusted, my pants greased-stained and my will power ever lessening…I cant wait until I’m through with this college shit.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Lord of the Rings: A Defense
Part I: Identification of problem and steps to improve it.
So, it is my personal belief that Lord of the Rings is under-appreciated by the population as a whole. As an individual with feelings, I find the disgusted stares and incredulous comments that seem to accompany any obscure ‘lotr’ reference I make to be insensitive and quite simply the greatest sign of ignorance one could display. Everyone hates what they don’t understand, my brothers Martin and Mahatma can attest to that, they’d dig what I’m throwing down. Yes, Lord of the Rings is a subculture, yes, Lord of the Rings fans are people with rights, and yes, Gandalf could have just asked a Great Eagle to drop the One Ring into Mount Doom and save everybody a lot of hassle, but God could have just not allowed AIDS and a lot of people wouldn’t be dead, so maybe some questions don’t have answers you assholes…. anyways, the greatest weapon against naivety is knowledge, so I’m going to throw some facts at you, a short bio is also in store, and for any auditory learners out there, this lecture is available on iTunes… but not really.
Part II: Re-education
Tolkien in Hebrew means “God” or roughly “the greatest guy ever” (that’s not true, the rest is though, I promise). Born to British parents in South Africa, John Ronald Reul Tolkien became an orphan very early in life and came to depend on relatives in England to support him. He attended English boarding school where he and a number of middle school friends formed the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, a group of astounding intellectual prowess, despite its members being 14. It’s probably pertinent to tell that Tolkien lost all of these friends but one in WWI - It was in war ravaged Europe that Tolkien created his first completely original elven language while occupying the muddy trenches of France, most notably in the Battle of the Somme.
After the war Tolkein would go on to receive his degree in Linguistics and become an educator at Oxford University. He invented and refined many more languages, a few for every culture in Middle Earth, and then proceeded to write the history of the languages, that is, where in Middle Earth it originated, who spoke it, with what dialect; he then intertwined these histories, each belonging to a people, a race, a culture. That’s essentially how Lord of the Rings began, as whispers of unknown tongues in an old man’s head, released and slowly typed out with two fingers until finally they came alive with depth and color and majesty to rival even the most original tales passed down through time. Aragorn could kick Arthur’s ass, Excalibur is no match for the blade that was broken…its ok if that last part didn’t make sense to you.
Part III: Some bullshit
I was in at The Burlington Coat Factory one day when this little kid came up to me and said the Lord of the Rings was boring. I quickly found this little boys mother, told her what her child had just said, and then slapped her in the face, which was the best thing I could think of doing short of calling Child Services. I can’t name all the social repercussions our society experiences today due to Lord of the Rings under education. Imagine a world fluent in Quenya, drenched in mythology and inhabited by things and beings so much cooler than real life---or don’t. I’ve constructed a list of aspects people seem to miss in this ‘boring’ 500,000 word journey.
Part IV: Aforementioned ‘list of aspects’
Adventure- epic journeys, cloaks, campfire talk, ambushes, ring wraith chases, elven paradises, hobbit feet, the Mines of Moria. They walk from the Bag End to Moria, does that sound like anything but adventure???
Action- Swords, soldiers, sieges, trebuchets, orcs, magic, descriptive/graphic battle sequences, the Battle of Pelannor Fields, giant spider, elven assassins, I think the encounter between Gandalf and the Balrog on the bridge of Khazad-dum speaks for itself.
Romance- Aragorn and Arwen have the hots for eachother, but wait, it’s a forbidden love, they’re distantly related and Arwen is scheduled to leave for the Grey Havens with her people, can Aragorn end the war before she leaves??? Also note that neither of these lovers are vampires, which I’m afraid makes it---ahem---way better than any ‘contemporaries’ (which don’t actually exist).
Comedy- Tolkein is a Brit, enough said.
Originality- It really was the first fantasy novel of its kind. It has so many intricacies and ‘ancient’ history and ‘famous’ battles and epic warriors and, in Tolkiens opinion, provides a mythology the English culture never had due to a French takeover at the Battle of Hastings, which Tolkien thought would never had happened had England a cavalry, hence the fictitious culture of Rohan, which translates into ‘horse land’ in its original Rohirric.
Social Significance- Tolkien was a veteran of the great war, a man of many passions, and a man who encompasses all of these passions into his work. The books touch on things such as mechanized warfare, something Tolkein (and the world) was introduced to and abhorred in WWI. There are environmental themes, the scorching of Fangorn Forest by Saruman that began the Siege of Isengard by the Ents, a story that tells of the trees having the last word. Tolkein esteemed chivalry, a concept he thought the current generation of Englishman lacked completely. Tolkein had the names of ‘Beren’ and ‘Luthien’ put on his tombstone and his wife’s tombstone respectively, the story behind which is too long to go into here, but is assuredly full of beautiful imagery of forests and dancing and water (which we all know metaphorically means sex).
Part V: Masterful Conclusion
I guess what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t knock it till you try it, a motto I suggest you take to heart (except maybe in reference to suicide). I laugh when people tell me that I should be happy to live in a free America, but I suppose Sitting Bull was laughing when Custer charged, maybe even Dred Scott when he found out that he was in fact just property. I laugh because I see an America where Lord of the Rings fans are ostracized, criticized and socially susceptible to lessened sex lives. I see Lord of the Rings compared to Dungeons and Dragons, which let me assure you is for faggots and the weak-minded. I see a long road ahead until our fellowship of members and sympathizers reaches its destination of equality, throwing the one ring of intolerance into the fiery depths of cultural enlightenment, but I also see the ACLU coming to our rescue, so that’s cool at least.
So, it is my personal belief that Lord of the Rings is under-appreciated by the population as a whole. As an individual with feelings, I find the disgusted stares and incredulous comments that seem to accompany any obscure ‘lotr’ reference I make to be insensitive and quite simply the greatest sign of ignorance one could display. Everyone hates what they don’t understand, my brothers Martin and Mahatma can attest to that, they’d dig what I’m throwing down. Yes, Lord of the Rings is a subculture, yes, Lord of the Rings fans are people with rights, and yes, Gandalf could have just asked a Great Eagle to drop the One Ring into Mount Doom and save everybody a lot of hassle, but God could have just not allowed AIDS and a lot of people wouldn’t be dead, so maybe some questions don’t have answers you assholes…. anyways, the greatest weapon against naivety is knowledge, so I’m going to throw some facts at you, a short bio is also in store, and for any auditory learners out there, this lecture is available on iTunes… but not really.
Part II: Re-education
Tolkien in Hebrew means “God” or roughly “the greatest guy ever” (that’s not true, the rest is though, I promise). Born to British parents in South Africa, John Ronald Reul Tolkien became an orphan very early in life and came to depend on relatives in England to support him. He attended English boarding school where he and a number of middle school friends formed the Tea Club and Barrovian Society, a group of astounding intellectual prowess, despite its members being 14. It’s probably pertinent to tell that Tolkien lost all of these friends but one in WWI - It was in war ravaged Europe that Tolkien created his first completely original elven language while occupying the muddy trenches of France, most notably in the Battle of the Somme.
After the war Tolkein would go on to receive his degree in Linguistics and become an educator at Oxford University. He invented and refined many more languages, a few for every culture in Middle Earth, and then proceeded to write the history of the languages, that is, where in Middle Earth it originated, who spoke it, with what dialect; he then intertwined these histories, each belonging to a people, a race, a culture. That’s essentially how Lord of the Rings began, as whispers of unknown tongues in an old man’s head, released and slowly typed out with two fingers until finally they came alive with depth and color and majesty to rival even the most original tales passed down through time. Aragorn could kick Arthur’s ass, Excalibur is no match for the blade that was broken…its ok if that last part didn’t make sense to you.
Part III: Some bullshit
I was in at The Burlington Coat Factory one day when this little kid came up to me and said the Lord of the Rings was boring. I quickly found this little boys mother, told her what her child had just said, and then slapped her in the face, which was the best thing I could think of doing short of calling Child Services. I can’t name all the social repercussions our society experiences today due to Lord of the Rings under education. Imagine a world fluent in Quenya, drenched in mythology and inhabited by things and beings so much cooler than real life---or don’t. I’ve constructed a list of aspects people seem to miss in this ‘boring’ 500,000 word journey.
Part IV: Aforementioned ‘list of aspects’
Adventure- epic journeys, cloaks, campfire talk, ambushes, ring wraith chases, elven paradises, hobbit feet, the Mines of Moria. They walk from the Bag End to Moria, does that sound like anything but adventure???
Action- Swords, soldiers, sieges, trebuchets, orcs, magic, descriptive/graphic battle sequences, the Battle of Pelannor Fields, giant spider, elven assassins, I think the encounter between Gandalf and the Balrog on the bridge of Khazad-dum speaks for itself.
Romance- Aragorn and Arwen have the hots for eachother, but wait, it’s a forbidden love, they’re distantly related and Arwen is scheduled to leave for the Grey Havens with her people, can Aragorn end the war before she leaves??? Also note that neither of these lovers are vampires, which I’m afraid makes it---ahem---way better than any ‘contemporaries’ (which don’t actually exist).
Comedy- Tolkein is a Brit, enough said.
Originality- It really was the first fantasy novel of its kind. It has so many intricacies and ‘ancient’ history and ‘famous’ battles and epic warriors and, in Tolkiens opinion, provides a mythology the English culture never had due to a French takeover at the Battle of Hastings, which Tolkien thought would never had happened had England a cavalry, hence the fictitious culture of Rohan, which translates into ‘horse land’ in its original Rohirric.
Social Significance- Tolkien was a veteran of the great war, a man of many passions, and a man who encompasses all of these passions into his work. The books touch on things such as mechanized warfare, something Tolkein (and the world) was introduced to and abhorred in WWI. There are environmental themes, the scorching of Fangorn Forest by Saruman that began the Siege of Isengard by the Ents, a story that tells of the trees having the last word. Tolkein esteemed chivalry, a concept he thought the current generation of Englishman lacked completely. Tolkein had the names of ‘Beren’ and ‘Luthien’ put on his tombstone and his wife’s tombstone respectively, the story behind which is too long to go into here, but is assuredly full of beautiful imagery of forests and dancing and water (which we all know metaphorically means sex).
Part V: Masterful Conclusion
I guess what I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t knock it till you try it, a motto I suggest you take to heart (except maybe in reference to suicide). I laugh when people tell me that I should be happy to live in a free America, but I suppose Sitting Bull was laughing when Custer charged, maybe even Dred Scott when he found out that he was in fact just property. I laugh because I see an America where Lord of the Rings fans are ostracized, criticized and socially susceptible to lessened sex lives. I see Lord of the Rings compared to Dungeons and Dragons, which let me assure you is for faggots and the weak-minded. I see a long road ahead until our fellowship of members and sympathizers reaches its destination of equality, throwing the one ring of intolerance into the fiery depths of cultural enlightenment, but I also see the ACLU coming to our rescue, so that’s cool at least.
complaints i have with community college.
I’ve decided to compose a list of all the reasons I hate community college. I know that this will fall upon a majority of deaf ears, but I hope that someone, somewhere will completely agree with everything I say, maybe even come to revere me as some sort of a cosmic force armed with lightening bolts of wit and a chariot used to make the sun rise every morning, but if I want to be realistic you’ll all probably just call me dramatic and way off base. I do feel that I have extensive experience dealing with the trials and tribulations of community college though, and since I’m bored and don’t find any of my worthless assignments worth doing right now, I thought I’d write this instead, holla back if you agree son.
Dearest Professor (insert name here),
-The classroom is not a comedy club, the whiteboard behind you isn’t a faux brick wall with a blinking neon sign, and your audience did not pay to hear you crack jokes about shit that happened in the 80’s. Maybe you do find Far Side cartoons funny, but sharing seven of them before each power point is ridiculous; your cat doesn’t look cute, not even when dressed up like a “wittle princess”, and if you ever try to relate geology to Lord of the Rings again I’ll fucking kill you.
-Stop showing favoritism towards the baby boomers taking up space in your class. Stop allowing their random stories about art museums and color blindness, no one cares, please believe me.
-Learn to speak English.
-I have a life existing independently outside your class. Even though your syllabus clearly states that work-scheduling conflicts aren’t a valid excuse for not attending class I still have rent and a cigarette addiction, not to mention tuition and the $120 in books you assigned me, and they don’t exactly pay for themselves. I’ve noted several occasions upon which my approach to your door was met with a note declaring class cancelled. Now, I don’t know who told you that you could have the day off, especially for such an unimportant thing like a funeral, but it wasn’t me, and since I’m using my income to compensate you for a service you tell me you can deliver, I expect a written apology on my desk by Monday morning and a note from the coroner verify that your mother is in fact dead… although I’m sure that she was a beautiful women and I’m sorry for your loss…
-When I ask you a question, I don’t want my intelligence insulted along with the answer. I’m sorry for asking you if the rock in my hand is mafic rhyolite with angular rounding or polyphoritic schist, but it is your job, I asked you with good intentions and I expect your answer to follow suite. I’ll admit that you know more than me in any given subject, your seven doctorates and lack of a marriage clearly indicate that to me, but you do have to remember that you’re class is titled “Intro-“ for a reason. Talking to me like an idiot does nothing but make me hate you, and during your worthless lectures I’ll be daydreaming about a situation in which we both find ourselves on a football field; you look slightly like a pit bull and I’m wearing a Ravens jersey. Eventually I will cease to ask questions, flunk your class and with enough students following trend you’ll find yourself without employment…except if you have tenure, then you can go on doing a shitty job.
-Maybe hire counselors with a normal chromosome count. I don’t like to use the word but you folks are retarded. Numbers following a class’s title don’t indicate order; Bio 1 is harder than 3, Polsci 24 is much more challenging than Polsci 174 and as the Art classes are seemingly at random don’t even try to explain them to me. Don’t tell me that a class meets a requirement if it doesn’t, and I didn’t want the form read back to me I wanted it explained to me. Maybe I’d have more time to voice these complaints to you but unfortunately your two hour lunch brake cut into our appointment, you might not remember that time I missed class waiting for you only to be blatantly lied to, but I can’t hold it against you because you were really busy putting up those pictures of kids who go nowhere in life because they count the office staff like yourself as friends and spend all their time microwaving cup-of-noodles for you. Do I get priority registration if I sit and listen to you talk about how ungrateful your spouse is? My high school counselor told me more about college than you did.
-You are not an English teacher, do not correct my grammar. Do not mark me down on a test because you couldn’t read my writing, even though my answers were right and you could clearly tell the difference between a scribbled “Subvergent” and “Convergent”, my S’s don’t look like C’s you spiteful temptress, holding that passing grade in front of me like that. If, as a professor, you ever hear yourself tell a class on the first day that you have never had someone pass with an A, feel free to slap yourself in the face repeatedly until the blood is allowed passage back into your brain. If you threaten to drop me a whole letter grade for my phone going off in class I’ll take the liberty of slapping you myself.
-And, to every terrible college professor out there, just because you have audiences in varying fifty minute periods throughout the day does not enable you to walk on water, heal leprosy or rise from the dead, but do feel free to ascend into hell. Only a striking 20% of the individuals taking your class will ever see a degree at the end of the road so please take your time, maybe during that huge vacation you get every summer you could teach yourself how to use Blackboard, or pry the soapbox off the bottom of your feet, or---and I know this is crazy---but maybe you could become a normal human being and teach me something.
Dearest Professor (insert name here),
-The classroom is not a comedy club, the whiteboard behind you isn’t a faux brick wall with a blinking neon sign, and your audience did not pay to hear you crack jokes about shit that happened in the 80’s. Maybe you do find Far Side cartoons funny, but sharing seven of them before each power point is ridiculous; your cat doesn’t look cute, not even when dressed up like a “wittle princess”, and if you ever try to relate geology to Lord of the Rings again I’ll fucking kill you.
-Stop showing favoritism towards the baby boomers taking up space in your class. Stop allowing their random stories about art museums and color blindness, no one cares, please believe me.
-Learn to speak English.
-I have a life existing independently outside your class. Even though your syllabus clearly states that work-scheduling conflicts aren’t a valid excuse for not attending class I still have rent and a cigarette addiction, not to mention tuition and the $120 in books you assigned me, and they don’t exactly pay for themselves. I’ve noted several occasions upon which my approach to your door was met with a note declaring class cancelled. Now, I don’t know who told you that you could have the day off, especially for such an unimportant thing like a funeral, but it wasn’t me, and since I’m using my income to compensate you for a service you tell me you can deliver, I expect a written apology on my desk by Monday morning and a note from the coroner verify that your mother is in fact dead… although I’m sure that she was a beautiful women and I’m sorry for your loss…
-When I ask you a question, I don’t want my intelligence insulted along with the answer. I’m sorry for asking you if the rock in my hand is mafic rhyolite with angular rounding or polyphoritic schist, but it is your job, I asked you with good intentions and I expect your answer to follow suite. I’ll admit that you know more than me in any given subject, your seven doctorates and lack of a marriage clearly indicate that to me, but you do have to remember that you’re class is titled “Intro-“ for a reason. Talking to me like an idiot does nothing but make me hate you, and during your worthless lectures I’ll be daydreaming about a situation in which we both find ourselves on a football field; you look slightly like a pit bull and I’m wearing a Ravens jersey. Eventually I will cease to ask questions, flunk your class and with enough students following trend you’ll find yourself without employment…except if you have tenure, then you can go on doing a shitty job.
-Maybe hire counselors with a normal chromosome count. I don’t like to use the word but you folks are retarded. Numbers following a class’s title don’t indicate order; Bio 1 is harder than 3, Polsci 24 is much more challenging than Polsci 174 and as the Art classes are seemingly at random don’t even try to explain them to me. Don’t tell me that a class meets a requirement if it doesn’t, and I didn’t want the form read back to me I wanted it explained to me. Maybe I’d have more time to voice these complaints to you but unfortunately your two hour lunch brake cut into our appointment, you might not remember that time I missed class waiting for you only to be blatantly lied to, but I can’t hold it against you because you were really busy putting up those pictures of kids who go nowhere in life because they count the office staff like yourself as friends and spend all their time microwaving cup-of-noodles for you. Do I get priority registration if I sit and listen to you talk about how ungrateful your spouse is? My high school counselor told me more about college than you did.
-You are not an English teacher, do not correct my grammar. Do not mark me down on a test because you couldn’t read my writing, even though my answers were right and you could clearly tell the difference between a scribbled “Subvergent” and “Convergent”, my S’s don’t look like C’s you spiteful temptress, holding that passing grade in front of me like that. If, as a professor, you ever hear yourself tell a class on the first day that you have never had someone pass with an A, feel free to slap yourself in the face repeatedly until the blood is allowed passage back into your brain. If you threaten to drop me a whole letter grade for my phone going off in class I’ll take the liberty of slapping you myself.
-And, to every terrible college professor out there, just because you have audiences in varying fifty minute periods throughout the day does not enable you to walk on water, heal leprosy or rise from the dead, but do feel free to ascend into hell. Only a striking 20% of the individuals taking your class will ever see a degree at the end of the road so please take your time, maybe during that huge vacation you get every summer you could teach yourself how to use Blackboard, or pry the soapbox off the bottom of your feet, or---and I know this is crazy---but maybe you could become a normal human being and teach me something.
polsci paper i wrote concerning multipolar power distribution
Assigment:
Based on previous lectures, your knowledge, handouts, and your opinion, what explains the outcome of the first bipolar era (World War II) and the result of the second bipolar era (the “Cold” War). That is, one ended in conflict, one in “peace.”
My response:
The era if 1919-1939 and the events leading up to WWII can best be described as such: terrible economic conditions, Western appeasement towards German expansion, and growing tensions between particular ideologies. The two polar powers were the United States and Great Britain, the first being on good economic footing, and the latter a leading military and political power. With German nationalism on the rise, as well as exhibiting a complete disregard for previous agreements (particularly restrictions placed upon them prior to WWI meant to limit their power) Great Britain and her allies felt threatened. Global powers aligned with one another, the Allies vs. the Axis, and a bloody war ensued causing the lives of 60 million people to be lost. Following the war we see the formation of the United Nations, but also the continued trend of not respecting borderlines and rearranging the actual number of states on the continent. We see Great Britain fall from her polar power throne due to over extension from the power that was Germany, we see America strengthen itself thanks to a continued favorable economic standing, and we also see Russia align itself with a Bolshevik agenda, consequently things got a bit mixed up.
While the era of 1919-1939 can be called a bipolar era, and while that is mostly accurate, there were also a lot of rising minor powers to be contended with. After the war, the vast majority of Europe was in ruins, all powers, major and minor alike were weakened, while the newly formed U.S.S.R. was rising and spreading.
At this point in history, the span of 1947-1989, we truly do have a bipolar system and the two players possessing the most power so far surpass other states so as to almost render them insignificant. Germany, now a duet, no longer contends, and depressed Italy, France, Austria-Hungary, and Japan all gladly sit out this inning. Truly the only signature on the Warsaw pact that mattered was the Soviet Union’s, just as the United States put the vast majority of power behind NATO. But this ‘Cold War’, that is, the conflict that subsequently happened at the close of this era, has a completely different resolution than its predecessor, so why is this?
First we must take a look at leadership. America under Truman was devoted to preventing a domino effect from tainting the world with communism, while the Soviets complained of capitalism and the degradation of the proletariat. What was once confined to a battle of ideologies quickly turned into the Korean and Vietnam Wars, both technically police actions. It was under the banner of brinksmanship that lead Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and oppositely Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev into increasing states of animosity towards one another. What was different between this era and its predecessor? In my opinion it was the increasing price of technological advancement. It cost both powers a lot of money to participate in the space race and also to build up nuclear arms. Neither could go on at the current pace and both knew it, subsequently boats were turned around, a certain American missile base was taken down in Turkey, and various S.A.L.T. treatise were signed enabling a slackening of arms manufacturing. Instead of full out military involvement (as Korea and Vietnam were vicariously carried out graciously by other parties) both powers decided it was in their best interest to back down, an action that was possible in this setting but not necessarily in the prior era. Since 1947-1989 proved to be more of a bipolar situation, that is two main powers, as opposed to two main powers and several growing states, the number of players was greatly reduced, thereby making it a simpler procedure.
In closing, it is a realist’s opinion that humans will always experience conflict, and it just so happens that growing technology, budding in an environment of hostility, produces bigger and better ways to kill one another. In the first bipolar era that meant machine guns, long distance artillery, and armored cavalry, but approaching 1947 and continuing on to 1989 it meant Sputnik, Oppenheimer, and this crazy little idea called Star Wars. Fortunately national coffers ran red before any prospective battlefields got the chance too (once again not counting our police actions), and the globe’s two powers took a step back into a space of tensioned peace which the previous generations' leaders didn’t have access to, already being too far involved with Poland disappearing from the map and the Rhineland beginning to fill with bodies. Different circumstance caused different outcomes for two similarly distributed generations, I conclude that it wasn’t the advancement of human intellectualism and improved political dealings that are at the cause, but rather the human dislike of empty wallets and genetically mutated children
Based on previous lectures, your knowledge, handouts, and your opinion, what explains the outcome of the first bipolar era (World War II) and the result of the second bipolar era (the “Cold” War). That is, one ended in conflict, one in “peace.”
My response:
The era if 1919-1939 and the events leading up to WWII can best be described as such: terrible economic conditions, Western appeasement towards German expansion, and growing tensions between particular ideologies. The two polar powers were the United States and Great Britain, the first being on good economic footing, and the latter a leading military and political power. With German nationalism on the rise, as well as exhibiting a complete disregard for previous agreements (particularly restrictions placed upon them prior to WWI meant to limit their power) Great Britain and her allies felt threatened. Global powers aligned with one another, the Allies vs. the Axis, and a bloody war ensued causing the lives of 60 million people to be lost. Following the war we see the formation of the United Nations, but also the continued trend of not respecting borderlines and rearranging the actual number of states on the continent. We see Great Britain fall from her polar power throne due to over extension from the power that was Germany, we see America strengthen itself thanks to a continued favorable economic standing, and we also see Russia align itself with a Bolshevik agenda, consequently things got a bit mixed up.
While the era of 1919-1939 can be called a bipolar era, and while that is mostly accurate, there were also a lot of rising minor powers to be contended with. After the war, the vast majority of Europe was in ruins, all powers, major and minor alike were weakened, while the newly formed U.S.S.R. was rising and spreading.
At this point in history, the span of 1947-1989, we truly do have a bipolar system and the two players possessing the most power so far surpass other states so as to almost render them insignificant. Germany, now a duet, no longer contends, and depressed Italy, France, Austria-Hungary, and Japan all gladly sit out this inning. Truly the only signature on the Warsaw pact that mattered was the Soviet Union’s, just as the United States put the vast majority of power behind NATO. But this ‘Cold War’, that is, the conflict that subsequently happened at the close of this era, has a completely different resolution than its predecessor, so why is this?
First we must take a look at leadership. America under Truman was devoted to preventing a domino effect from tainting the world with communism, while the Soviets complained of capitalism and the degradation of the proletariat. What was once confined to a battle of ideologies quickly turned into the Korean and Vietnam Wars, both technically police actions. It was under the banner of brinksmanship that lead Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and oppositely Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev into increasing states of animosity towards one another. What was different between this era and its predecessor? In my opinion it was the increasing price of technological advancement. It cost both powers a lot of money to participate in the space race and also to build up nuclear arms. Neither could go on at the current pace and both knew it, subsequently boats were turned around, a certain American missile base was taken down in Turkey, and various S.A.L.T. treatise were signed enabling a slackening of arms manufacturing. Instead of full out military involvement (as Korea and Vietnam were vicariously carried out graciously by other parties) both powers decided it was in their best interest to back down, an action that was possible in this setting but not necessarily in the prior era. Since 1947-1989 proved to be more of a bipolar situation, that is two main powers, as opposed to two main powers and several growing states, the number of players was greatly reduced, thereby making it a simpler procedure.
In closing, it is a realist’s opinion that humans will always experience conflict, and it just so happens that growing technology, budding in an environment of hostility, produces bigger and better ways to kill one another. In the first bipolar era that meant machine guns, long distance artillery, and armored cavalry, but approaching 1947 and continuing on to 1989 it meant Sputnik, Oppenheimer, and this crazy little idea called Star Wars. Fortunately national coffers ran red before any prospective battlefields got the chance too (once again not counting our police actions), and the globe’s two powers took a step back into a space of tensioned peace which the previous generations' leaders didn’t have access to, already being too far involved with Poland disappearing from the map and the Rhineland beginning to fill with bodies. Different circumstance caused different outcomes for two similarly distributed generations, I conclude that it wasn’t the advancement of human intellectualism and improved political dealings that are at the cause, but rather the human dislike of empty wallets and genetically mutated children
religion...
WARNING: The following contains a complete lack of transition between topics, my apologies.
Epicurus said, and this isn’t an exact quote: If God cannot prevent pain and suffering, then he isn’t omnipotent; If He can prevent it and doesn’t, then he’s malevolent. So if he's malevolent and not omnipitant, why call him god?
I’m having trouble getting past this little ‘speed bump’
I honestly cant believe that the answers to all my questions are waiting for me in the afterlife, or more specifically Heaven. If I’m competent enough to develop the question then I should be qualified to hear the answer. If I can think it then I should also be able to answer it, none of this “ask God when you see him” bullshit. These answers are essential to make any sort of a logical decision, why deprive me of them?
Another question I can’t answer is how remarkably different God seems between the old and new testaments, its almost like he converted to a much less orthodox denomination of himself. I find that the old testament shares some similarities with the coulture of the time; stern, violent, threatening, tyrannical. The New Testament almost seems like someone found the old stuff and toned it down a bit, didn’t make you castrate your enemies or wander the desert.
As a matter of fact, the Bible we all know and love TODAY was in fact constructed and organized not by the religious devout or Hebrew scholars but by Romans under Constantine in the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. Is it possible that God really took over the minds of these men to construct the one true book that would lead his chosen? We can totally trust that everything in there is all God, absolutely everything?
…And the hypothetical that God influenced the thoughts or actions of an individual I find hard to believe because we as human beings are completely free-willed, made so by God (accordingly). They told me in church that the reason God made us free-willed is because any worship received otherwise didn’t count, where’s the glory in being the idol of a robot after all? So in order for God to influence our actions he’d have to be crossing the boundary, right?
There’s a verse in exodus: “ Although Moses and Aaron did these miracles in Pharaoh’s presence, the LORD hardened his heart so he wouldn’t let the Israelites leave the country.” (Exodus 11:10 NLV) In this single act of meddling, God’s hand was “forced” to kill all the newborn sons of Egypt. Pharaoh should have just let those people go, wait…did he even have a choice?
I also find the need for a savior sorta far-fetched and somewhat masochistic on the creators part. Why would he purposefully create an entire planet full of people that weren’t good enough to get into heaven on their own and instead must depend on the blood of a sacrifice? Why wouldn’t he just design things to work differently, maybe prevent the death of your son so much? It’s just not efficient.
I also find Jesus’ prerequisites for being messiah unoriginal and completely similar to every other messiah prospect from before and after his time. Virgin birth? Walk on water? The ability to bring the dead back to life? There were so many individuals that claimed the exact same properties. I understand that if you believe Jesus was God then he really could do these things, but why would he do these certain things if they were so not out of the ordinary? It would be like Steve Jobs releasing the iPod after every competitor already had. His product wouldn’t make a ripple, so why did Jesus’?
Im really not trying to be blasphemous, but its kinda insulting to think you believe in the one true religion when its shares so many qualities and characteristics with other 'heathenish' ones.
I’m sorry, these are just some questions that have been bugging me, feel free to answer them ☺
i also apologize for the sloppy writing, call it a rough draft
Epicurus said, and this isn’t an exact quote: If God cannot prevent pain and suffering, then he isn’t omnipotent; If He can prevent it and doesn’t, then he’s malevolent. So if he's malevolent and not omnipitant, why call him god?
I’m having trouble getting past this little ‘speed bump’
I honestly cant believe that the answers to all my questions are waiting for me in the afterlife, or more specifically Heaven. If I’m competent enough to develop the question then I should be qualified to hear the answer. If I can think it then I should also be able to answer it, none of this “ask God when you see him” bullshit. These answers are essential to make any sort of a logical decision, why deprive me of them?
Another question I can’t answer is how remarkably different God seems between the old and new testaments, its almost like he converted to a much less orthodox denomination of himself. I find that the old testament shares some similarities with the coulture of the time; stern, violent, threatening, tyrannical. The New Testament almost seems like someone found the old stuff and toned it down a bit, didn’t make you castrate your enemies or wander the desert.
As a matter of fact, the Bible we all know and love TODAY was in fact constructed and organized not by the religious devout or Hebrew scholars but by Romans under Constantine in the Council of Nicaea in AD 325. Is it possible that God really took over the minds of these men to construct the one true book that would lead his chosen? We can totally trust that everything in there is all God, absolutely everything?
…And the hypothetical that God influenced the thoughts or actions of an individual I find hard to believe because we as human beings are completely free-willed, made so by God (accordingly). They told me in church that the reason God made us free-willed is because any worship received otherwise didn’t count, where’s the glory in being the idol of a robot after all? So in order for God to influence our actions he’d have to be crossing the boundary, right?
There’s a verse in exodus: “ Although Moses and Aaron did these miracles in Pharaoh’s presence, the LORD hardened his heart so he wouldn’t let the Israelites leave the country.” (Exodus 11:10 NLV) In this single act of meddling, God’s hand was “forced” to kill all the newborn sons of Egypt. Pharaoh should have just let those people go, wait…did he even have a choice?
I also find the need for a savior sorta far-fetched and somewhat masochistic on the creators part. Why would he purposefully create an entire planet full of people that weren’t good enough to get into heaven on their own and instead must depend on the blood of a sacrifice? Why wouldn’t he just design things to work differently, maybe prevent the death of your son so much? It’s just not efficient.
I also find Jesus’ prerequisites for being messiah unoriginal and completely similar to every other messiah prospect from before and after his time. Virgin birth? Walk on water? The ability to bring the dead back to life? There were so many individuals that claimed the exact same properties. I understand that if you believe Jesus was God then he really could do these things, but why would he do these certain things if they were so not out of the ordinary? It would be like Steve Jobs releasing the iPod after every competitor already had. His product wouldn’t make a ripple, so why did Jesus’?
Im really not trying to be blasphemous, but its kinda insulting to think you believe in the one true religion when its shares so many qualities and characteristics with other 'heathenish' ones.
I’m sorry, these are just some questions that have been bugging me, feel free to answer them ☺
i also apologize for the sloppy writing, call it a rough draft
some really really old stuff...
Andrew Head (and-rew) (1989-forever) was born on a dark stormy night in late October in the very early hours of the morning. Born to Melanie and William Head, Andrew excelled at a very young age at almost everything he attempted to do. He was once quoted saying: "Sometimes I even amaze myself."
----
Early Life
Andrew attended many schools at a young age due to his parents indecisiveness on where to take up permanent residence. Being born on a street called Balch, Andrew was seen by neighbors playing in the streets while his parents planned how much better they would raise their second child. For unknown reasons, Andrews parents then moved in to the house of William's father, where Andrew played inside a fenced region as their was nobody to watch him. Again the family almost single-handedly paid for U-Haul's rent that month and moved their belongings, Andrew was left in the cage until he was needed at the new house for tax purposes. Speculation has been made that Melanie was distantly related to several families in ancient Eastern Europe, and ties to clans of Gypsies have been made, this is one reason why specialist think Andrew moved so much.
Anyway, the family moved to a street called Terrace, where McLane High School was constantly in sight, leaving residents of the area in a constant state of dread. Andrew attended preschool here, but when it came to kindergarten and first grade, his parents shipped him to a private school, where he soon learned that not everybody at a Christian school was going to heaven. Back at the ranch, Andrew grew up and made friends with the neighbor girl who he really wanted nothing to do with. In order to avoid her he joined a Hmong gang and would hunt with them at night for any sort of domesticated animal that could be consumed on the banks of the nearby canal. In short, the neighborhood was, as some scholars call it, "shitty". Andrew, being the survivor that he is, thrived in this community and the residents soon came to endearingly call him 'Massa'. This was soon to change when, once again, his parents moved him.
This new region that Andrew now called home cannot be called anything close to Terrace, since bullets didn't come through Andrew's window on a daily basis. Some would even stretch that this new community could be called effluent. Andrew was once again at a new school, with no friends and a principal that fancied himself a counselor and constantly called Andrew to the office to try to psychoanalyze him. True story. Anyway, Andrew soon learned the trick to the psycho tests given by said administrator, in short to blame everything on his mother, and soon those trips to the office stopped. Andrew waited it out till summer, when school stopped and he earned his money walking dogs.
Andrew's occupation can't actually be called dog walking, since all he did was collect said mutt, walk out of sight of the owner, double back and wait in the back yard until it was reasonable to bring the dog back. This system worked fine until one owner got suspicious and had Andrew tailed, this ended Andrew's financial canine venture.
During this time in the rich hood, Andrew developed a taste for comic books, baseball and coin collecting. Then his grandmother, who owned the house, died and the family was forced to move back to Terrace. The parents, not wanting to inhibit the education of their obviously brilliant son, continued to drive him to the rich school day after day, where his flamboyantly gay fourth grade teacher read the class excerpts from various Narnia Novels. True story. It was at this point that Andrew's parents moved him to Burrough Valley, so as to completely separate him from the known world.
----
Life In The Mountains
At this point in the narrative, Andrew's life becomes droll, and only people who are true followers take interest in this period. For the sake of insomniacs everywhere, this author will skip to after Andrew gets his drivers license.
So Andrew gets his drivers license but realizes he needs a job in order to have a car. After masterfully acquiring a job, Andrew soon begins to make payments on a truck that would periodically break down on him whenever it damn well pleased. Again, the five months spent paying for said truck is extremely uninteresting and will be skipped.
He has a car, he has a myspace, Andrew has officially become a man in the eyes of everyone who doesn't believe that in fact, one must have a bar mitzvah before he can become a man, so in short, to everyone non-Semitic, Andrew was a man. This is the point where the past meets the present, so the rest of this will be speculation, you dig?
----
Speculated Future
Andrew scores a rare 2300 on his SATs and is accepted to Oxford on a full ride scholarship. Since he's in England, he gets knighted just for fun. On weekdays, Andrew fills the niche left by C.S. Lewis and teaches his class at Oxford, while on weekends he excepts the English way of life and ignores his dental hygiene. On a bimonthly basis he has tea with the royal family and he occasionally jams with sir Elton John. Sometimes Andrew will frequent the pubs with everybody's favorite prince William, and each of them dress up as their favorite fascist leader of Germany. All in all, Andrew becomes king of England.
After he becomes king, Andrew sees it as his duty to conquer all of Europe. Starting with France and slowly moving his way down the Iberian peninsula, the world starts to recognize Andrew as the next Napoleon, or say Alexander the Great. He does make one mistake and that was to leave the oven on, subsequently Buckingham Palace burns down, so Andrew takes up residence in the Eifel tower.
After conquering all of Europe, including the lost island of Atlantis, which he discovered on a weekend scuba diving trip with the reincarnated Juac Costou, Andrew is made honorary president of the United State.
----
Presidential Years
Since their was no preliminaries, Andrew didn't have to lie about any issue to further his campaign, therefore he is the first president to not go back on his word. Andrew funds several low budget housing projects across America and adpots a teenager from the wrong side of the tracts and raises him in Newport Beach. After that he retires to a life of tranquility, taking up residence in his new home, all of South America, which he endearingly calls 'the ranch'.
----
The retired Years
As of today Andrew is the biggest exporter of county fair ride operators.
----
Authors Note
I thought this was going a little long to I stopped.
sorry for typos and bad grammar, i was young...16 i think, which is weird to say.
"I remember when i was 16, i used to write these terrible excuses of literary expression for the enjoyment of my friends, they were laughing with me, not at me of course."
----
Early Life
Andrew attended many schools at a young age due to his parents indecisiveness on where to take up permanent residence. Being born on a street called Balch, Andrew was seen by neighbors playing in the streets while his parents planned how much better they would raise their second child. For unknown reasons, Andrews parents then moved in to the house of William's father, where Andrew played inside a fenced region as their was nobody to watch him. Again the family almost single-handedly paid for U-Haul's rent that month and moved their belongings, Andrew was left in the cage until he was needed at the new house for tax purposes. Speculation has been made that Melanie was distantly related to several families in ancient Eastern Europe, and ties to clans of Gypsies have been made, this is one reason why specialist think Andrew moved so much.
Anyway, the family moved to a street called Terrace, where McLane High School was constantly in sight, leaving residents of the area in a constant state of dread. Andrew attended preschool here, but when it came to kindergarten and first grade, his parents shipped him to a private school, where he soon learned that not everybody at a Christian school was going to heaven. Back at the ranch, Andrew grew up and made friends with the neighbor girl who he really wanted nothing to do with. In order to avoid her he joined a Hmong gang and would hunt with them at night for any sort of domesticated animal that could be consumed on the banks of the nearby canal. In short, the neighborhood was, as some scholars call it, "shitty". Andrew, being the survivor that he is, thrived in this community and the residents soon came to endearingly call him 'Massa'. This was soon to change when, once again, his parents moved him.
This new region that Andrew now called home cannot be called anything close to Terrace, since bullets didn't come through Andrew's window on a daily basis. Some would even stretch that this new community could be called effluent. Andrew was once again at a new school, with no friends and a principal that fancied himself a counselor and constantly called Andrew to the office to try to psychoanalyze him. True story. Anyway, Andrew soon learned the trick to the psycho tests given by said administrator, in short to blame everything on his mother, and soon those trips to the office stopped. Andrew waited it out till summer, when school stopped and he earned his money walking dogs.
Andrew's occupation can't actually be called dog walking, since all he did was collect said mutt, walk out of sight of the owner, double back and wait in the back yard until it was reasonable to bring the dog back. This system worked fine until one owner got suspicious and had Andrew tailed, this ended Andrew's financial canine venture.
During this time in the rich hood, Andrew developed a taste for comic books, baseball and coin collecting. Then his grandmother, who owned the house, died and the family was forced to move back to Terrace. The parents, not wanting to inhibit the education of their obviously brilliant son, continued to drive him to the rich school day after day, where his flamboyantly gay fourth grade teacher read the class excerpts from various Narnia Novels. True story. It was at this point that Andrew's parents moved him to Burrough Valley, so as to completely separate him from the known world.
----
Life In The Mountains
At this point in the narrative, Andrew's life becomes droll, and only people who are true followers take interest in this period. For the sake of insomniacs everywhere, this author will skip to after Andrew gets his drivers license.
So Andrew gets his drivers license but realizes he needs a job in order to have a car. After masterfully acquiring a job, Andrew soon begins to make payments on a truck that would periodically break down on him whenever it damn well pleased. Again, the five months spent paying for said truck is extremely uninteresting and will be skipped.
He has a car, he has a myspace, Andrew has officially become a man in the eyes of everyone who doesn't believe that in fact, one must have a bar mitzvah before he can become a man, so in short, to everyone non-Semitic, Andrew was a man. This is the point where the past meets the present, so the rest of this will be speculation, you dig?
----
Speculated Future
Andrew scores a rare 2300 on his SATs and is accepted to Oxford on a full ride scholarship. Since he's in England, he gets knighted just for fun. On weekdays, Andrew fills the niche left by C.S. Lewis and teaches his class at Oxford, while on weekends he excepts the English way of life and ignores his dental hygiene. On a bimonthly basis he has tea with the royal family and he occasionally jams with sir Elton John. Sometimes Andrew will frequent the pubs with everybody's favorite prince William, and each of them dress up as their favorite fascist leader of Germany. All in all, Andrew becomes king of England.
After he becomes king, Andrew sees it as his duty to conquer all of Europe. Starting with France and slowly moving his way down the Iberian peninsula, the world starts to recognize Andrew as the next Napoleon, or say Alexander the Great. He does make one mistake and that was to leave the oven on, subsequently Buckingham Palace burns down, so Andrew takes up residence in the Eifel tower.
After conquering all of Europe, including the lost island of Atlantis, which he discovered on a weekend scuba diving trip with the reincarnated Juac Costou, Andrew is made honorary president of the United State.
----
Presidential Years
Since their was no preliminaries, Andrew didn't have to lie about any issue to further his campaign, therefore he is the first president to not go back on his word. Andrew funds several low budget housing projects across America and adpots a teenager from the wrong side of the tracts and raises him in Newport Beach. After that he retires to a life of tranquility, taking up residence in his new home, all of South America, which he endearingly calls 'the ranch'.
----
The retired Years
As of today Andrew is the biggest exporter of county fair ride operators.
----
Authors Note
I thought this was going a little long to I stopped.
sorry for typos and bad grammar, i was young...16 i think, which is weird to say.
"I remember when i was 16, i used to write these terrible excuses of literary expression for the enjoyment of my friends, they were laughing with me, not at me of course."
"I have no gift for oratory." - Jefferson
Star Date:
05-06-09
7:58 am
Speech Presentation Day
(hypothesized)
I survey the room, a surprising amount of people have shown up today. I inhale. Its all about breathe control. Exhale. I take my seat, last row to the left; second seat back. I practice my eye contact, first to the left, then in front, then to the right, never focusing on anybodies eyes in particular but at the same time not looking cross-eyed. Its all about eye contact. I slowly start moving my jaw up and down, slowly because im trying to prevent myself from talking fast later, something about muscle memory I read somewhere. Its all about pace, and rhythm. I’ve been practicing these things over and over, in front of my parents, at work on breaks, in the shower with laminated index cards; my speech, my beautiful speech.
Why did I choose documentary films as a topic? I don’t know, it sounded interesting at the time, but as I found out, not really interesting enough to fill a nine minute speech. Since Im a master of both procrastination and bull shitting, I waited till the last minute and cited wikipedia quotes as belonging to such institutions as ‘The Journal of Neuroscience” and “Documentary Films Weekly”. Am I regretful? No, its one of my finest works, but still, it was really unwise; especially considering the theme of my paper was one of persuasion. How do I persuade people to documentary film? I don’t know, but my paper somehow explains it, and that’s all I can ask.
It’s suddenly my turn. I’ve only been able to read my speech seven times, I’m not sure I’m prepared, I was aiming for twenty. I slowly walk up to the podium with note cards in hand, numbered and highlighted in varying shades of green depending on relevance and content. As I grab the podium by both ends I think to myself that this is the podium upon which I am to set my speech, the speech that will deliver me into the fantastic world of passing… sorry, that’s my best attempt at optimism.
I set my cards down on the cold Formica and start blindly searching for the height adjustment knob, trying not to look awkward as I make weird facial expressions when my fingers come in contact with gum. I make a joke in passing, “I don’t think I can give this speech, your podium doesn’t go high enough,” which is followed by encouraging laughter from my audience, I mentally pat myself on the back. My professor however didn’t find this funny. “Feel free to take your seat then.”
Taken aback I hold my hands up in defense, “Just kidding.”
He stands up, “Kidding huh? So your in the mood for jokes? Well I’ve got a joke; Your Entire Educational Career!.”
End of story, community college is for losers and bros.
05-06-09
7:58 am
Speech Presentation Day
(hypothesized)
I survey the room, a surprising amount of people have shown up today. I inhale. Its all about breathe control. Exhale. I take my seat, last row to the left; second seat back. I practice my eye contact, first to the left, then in front, then to the right, never focusing on anybodies eyes in particular but at the same time not looking cross-eyed. Its all about eye contact. I slowly start moving my jaw up and down, slowly because im trying to prevent myself from talking fast later, something about muscle memory I read somewhere. Its all about pace, and rhythm. I’ve been practicing these things over and over, in front of my parents, at work on breaks, in the shower with laminated index cards; my speech, my beautiful speech.
Why did I choose documentary films as a topic? I don’t know, it sounded interesting at the time, but as I found out, not really interesting enough to fill a nine minute speech. Since Im a master of both procrastination and bull shitting, I waited till the last minute and cited wikipedia quotes as belonging to such institutions as ‘The Journal of Neuroscience” and “Documentary Films Weekly”. Am I regretful? No, its one of my finest works, but still, it was really unwise; especially considering the theme of my paper was one of persuasion. How do I persuade people to documentary film? I don’t know, but my paper somehow explains it, and that’s all I can ask.
It’s suddenly my turn. I’ve only been able to read my speech seven times, I’m not sure I’m prepared, I was aiming for twenty. I slowly walk up to the podium with note cards in hand, numbered and highlighted in varying shades of green depending on relevance and content. As I grab the podium by both ends I think to myself that this is the podium upon which I am to set my speech, the speech that will deliver me into the fantastic world of passing… sorry, that’s my best attempt at optimism.
I set my cards down on the cold Formica and start blindly searching for the height adjustment knob, trying not to look awkward as I make weird facial expressions when my fingers come in contact with gum. I make a joke in passing, “I don’t think I can give this speech, your podium doesn’t go high enough,” which is followed by encouraging laughter from my audience, I mentally pat myself on the back. My professor however didn’t find this funny. “Feel free to take your seat then.”
Taken aback I hold my hands up in defense, “Just kidding.”
He stands up, “Kidding huh? So your in the mood for jokes? Well I’ve got a joke; Your Entire Educational Career!.”
End of story, community college is for losers and bros.
somtimes i get nostalgic...
Growing up on cheesy spaghetti westerns staring Sam Elliot and Robert Duvall made me relish the thought of moving to the mountains. In no time I’d master a sawed-off, settle on my favorite brothel and procure a tolerance for warm whiskey poured by a man whose been hearing my drunken woes since before the war, but upon arriving in Burrough Valley and realizing that it wasn’t quite Dodge City, I had to make due with what I had.
By the summer of ‘00 I was an ardent Kenny Chesney fan whose only dream was to someday find a girl who would appreciate me for my tractor. I began riding horses with a group of old men up and down an array of back trails that run through the mountains like veins. We talked about our ex-wives and our failing immune systems, and I was almost to the point of full posse member when my horse ran me into a branch on one of our excursions and I fell off. I felt like a badass, despite the tears, but never again mounted up, and horses have since gone on my long list of irrational yet explicit fears (ranking after midgets but before antique furniture).
Although discouraged and humiliated that I couldn’t live up to the mantra of ‘Get back up on that horse’, there were other cowboy stereotypes to be fulfilled that wouldn’t cause me pain. The rest of the summer i sported a cowboy hat, armed myself with a wrist rocket and began to spit alot. One of my football coaches was a direct descendant of Wyatt Earp, i felt surrounded by authenticity. Unfortunetly it was all in my own head, the result of isolation i suppose. I was forced to stop shooting shit with old men and start on summer school assignments.
Sierra Elementary, my fourth school since kindergarten, brought the real world crashing down. Kids my own age were a lot less anxious to befriend me than senior citizens and it wasn’t long before I broke down and put away the Nascar outer ware. A blink 182 shirt proved to be more effective than a giant belt buckle when it came to advertising myself as one to be befriended. I shed myself of any redneck paraphernalia on the double. I considered it a waste, throwing away somebody that I spent the last three months building, although not all of it was completely discarded, for instance I still don’t consider women equal. At the time it felt like selling out; unadulterated conformity, but with that many schools under my belt I knew things had to be sacrificed.
I don’t regret it. It wasn’t until a little while later that I learned that this was to be my final school, and that these friends were to actually last and not be asked to keep in touch after I moved away. 5th grade was the first time anyone ever perceived me as sarcastic, a title I grow weary of hearing now but was fascinated with back then. Ive also come away with a different view of the mountain life, one of fun, freedom and disorderly conduct. No one parties like a mountain kid, and who else can say that they’ve actually passed a pipe with a real Indian?
San Diego Itinerary:
12/30/08
-bought a GPS…which cost WAY too much.
-cleaned my windshield, bought gum; spearmint.
-hit the freeway at 12:00 pm, which was very dumb.
-stopped in Tulare for Gatorade.
-entered L.A., suddenly realized how shitty it was, felt bad for nick
-got forced off on wrong exit, rolled up windows, locked doors, hid ipod.
-got back on freeway with difficulty, almost got run over by huge truck.
-got stuck in the heaviest traffic EVER!
-traffic stopped, no hope of finding a bathroom anytime soon.
-tried to use a bottle but failed because I felt watched
-silently suffered
-finally got to San Diego.
-couldn’t get off on right exit
-drove aimlessly around La Jolla yelling at my GPS
-flipped off my GPS
-finally found Jessi’s apartment
-apologized to GPS.
-went to dinner with Jessi, possibly the best Italian food ever!
-waiter kissed us on both cheeks when we left, felt like I was in the old country.
-watched ‘Tommy Boy’ with Jess and Bree, laughed my ass off.
-slept on their couch.
12/31/08
-woke up to empty house, watched the Racheal Ray Show…*sigh*
-awkward intoduction to Jessi’s third roommate, who came home to find a 6’6’’ man in her house watching cooking shows.
-met Jessi and got lunch, appetizers sucked.
-went to PartyWorks for new years stuff, for some reason I almost bought a menorah.
-went to Jeff’s, stole a bunch of music off his laptop
-Party started, ate chili and mingled with much older people.
-they talked about marriage and drank red wine
-I melted party decorations out of boredom
-played ‘scene-it’ and ‘catchphrase’, absolutely dominated at both.
-watched ball drop, popped champagne corks at on-coming traffic
-found where they hid the vodka
-consumed a massive amount of the vodka
-proceeded to play ‘scene-it’ with Bree and James until four in the morning, despite the fact that i was in no condition to play board games
-remarkably won 5 of 6 rounds (because im that good)...(or because they too were drunk)
1/01/09
-didn’t enjoy waking up in the morning.
-showered, experimented with various facial cleansers and conditioners that I normally wouldn’t have interacted with because im not a girl
-went to a café in Pacific Beach, had some damn good tacos.
-met with an aunt, went on a walk to the shore, had drinks, still hung-over
-went to a resurant with Jessi, had a much needed conversation concering life in general
-felt better concerning life in general
-ordered the halibut, left a huge tip
-saw ‘Marley and Me’, fought back tears, reaffirmed my obsession with Jennifer Aniston.
-back to Jeff’s condo
-watched television, drank beer that required a bottle opener, smoked on his balcony
-received phone call from mother, inquiring as to why she wasn’t informed of my trip.
-informed mother that I was an adult
-mother proceeded to scold me
-we made plans to get lunch when I got back
-slept on another couch, couldn’t find a blanket long enough, fell asleep with socks on, which was weird for some reason
1/02/08
-woke up, drank coffee, said my goodbyes, hit the road.
-was mislead towards a dead-end the opposite direction of the on-ramp.
-began to wonder if my GPS was faulty.
-finally found the 5
-narrowly avoided running over a surfboard
-got back to Fresno and got food with Travis
-had a party at my house, broke in my new beer pong table
-realized I wasn’t really all that good at beer pong
-passed out after a very long, drunken religious conversation
-woke up with a cold, realized God had punished me
-wrote this.
12/30/08
-bought a GPS…which cost WAY too much.
-cleaned my windshield, bought gum; spearmint.
-hit the freeway at 12:00 pm, which was very dumb.
-stopped in Tulare for Gatorade.
-entered L.A., suddenly realized how shitty it was, felt bad for nick
-got forced off on wrong exit, rolled up windows, locked doors, hid ipod.
-got back on freeway with difficulty, almost got run over by huge truck.
-got stuck in the heaviest traffic EVER!
-traffic stopped, no hope of finding a bathroom anytime soon.
-tried to use a bottle but failed because I felt watched
-silently suffered
-finally got to San Diego.
-couldn’t get off on right exit
-drove aimlessly around La Jolla yelling at my GPS
-flipped off my GPS
-finally found Jessi’s apartment
-apologized to GPS.
-went to dinner with Jessi, possibly the best Italian food ever!
-waiter kissed us on both cheeks when we left, felt like I was in the old country.
-watched ‘Tommy Boy’ with Jess and Bree, laughed my ass off.
-slept on their couch.
12/31/08
-woke up to empty house, watched the Racheal Ray Show…*sigh*
-awkward intoduction to Jessi’s third roommate, who came home to find a 6’6’’ man in her house watching cooking shows.
-met Jessi and got lunch, appetizers sucked.
-went to PartyWorks for new years stuff, for some reason I almost bought a menorah.
-went to Jeff’s, stole a bunch of music off his laptop
-Party started, ate chili and mingled with much older people.
-they talked about marriage and drank red wine
-I melted party decorations out of boredom
-played ‘scene-it’ and ‘catchphrase’, absolutely dominated at both.
-watched ball drop, popped champagne corks at on-coming traffic
-found where they hid the vodka
-consumed a massive amount of the vodka
-proceeded to play ‘scene-it’ with Bree and James until four in the morning, despite the fact that i was in no condition to play board games
-remarkably won 5 of 6 rounds (because im that good)...(or because they too were drunk)
1/01/09
-didn’t enjoy waking up in the morning.
-showered, experimented with various facial cleansers and conditioners that I normally wouldn’t have interacted with because im not a girl
-went to a café in Pacific Beach, had some damn good tacos.
-met with an aunt, went on a walk to the shore, had drinks, still hung-over
-went to a resurant with Jessi, had a much needed conversation concering life in general
-felt better concerning life in general
-ordered the halibut, left a huge tip
-saw ‘Marley and Me’, fought back tears, reaffirmed my obsession with Jennifer Aniston.
-back to Jeff’s condo
-watched television, drank beer that required a bottle opener, smoked on his balcony
-received phone call from mother, inquiring as to why she wasn’t informed of my trip.
-informed mother that I was an adult
-mother proceeded to scold me
-we made plans to get lunch when I got back
-slept on another couch, couldn’t find a blanket long enough, fell asleep with socks on, which was weird for some reason
1/02/08
-woke up, drank coffee, said my goodbyes, hit the road.
-was mislead towards a dead-end the opposite direction of the on-ramp.
-began to wonder if my GPS was faulty.
-finally found the 5
-narrowly avoided running over a surfboard
-got back to Fresno and got food with Travis
-had a party at my house, broke in my new beer pong table
-realized I wasn’t really all that good at beer pong
-passed out after a very long, drunken religious conversation
-woke up with a cold, realized God had punished me
-wrote this.
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