Operation Early Bird: Analysis of the Phenomenon of Mornings

I have officially acquired a job as a local paper boy for the Bangor Daily News. This brings me up to two independent contractor positions this summer on top of the ChaCha Expeditor position I hold. There I have assisted over 500 customers, meaning I've made almost ten dollars! (WOWIE!!!!1) When I was informed that I got the position with the BDN, I was told to meet my new manager at around four o'clock in "the morning". This puzzled me at the time, I agreed to his terms not knowing their full meaning. After doing some research I learned of this "morning" he spoke of.

Morning, which comes from the Middle English word morwening, is an early predecessor of the time I know as noon, or wake-up time. I have dealt with it before, but had cast it aside as a hallucination induced by sleep deprivation. Some kind of nirvana filled with bright light, the smell of buttered toast and surprisingly energetic elderly people. I always assumed that this was the light at the end of the tunnel they tell you about in the movie-films. I always promptly went to sleep as to avoid a certain and most painful death. But further research indicates that this is a legitimate time of day and that it is when a large segment of the population wakes up. Wikipedia tells me that,

The ability of a person to wake up effectively in the morning may be influenced by a gene called "Period 3". This gene comes in two forms, a "short" and a "long" variant. It seems to affect the person's preference for mornings or evenings. People who carry the long variant were over-represented as morning people, while the ones carrying the short variant were evening preference people.


So it would appear that I got the short end of the Period 3 stick. Amazing how a single gene in the human genome has gone on to successfully segregate mankind into two different classes that live in separate universes with separate cultures that only interact around dinner time. Neither knowing of the worlds and cultures that exist in each others independent realms. Both holding discriminatory views of the other. How many of you long-genes have been made fun of for your early bed time? How many of my fellow short-genes, for your inability to wake up? The long-genes live in a world where McDonald's doesn't serve McGangbangs or fries, but these strange sandwiches covered in the fried chicken albumen and soaked in the condensed blood of maple trees. There is a strange film on the landscape known as dew. In their world the police are relatively friendly, the coffee is always warm and most businesses are actually open.

This is in sharp contrast to the world I know and was raised in. See my fellow short genes may find the previous paragraph an informative anthropological piece, now my long-gened friends should take a listen. The Mad Max like landscape that is known as the night or darktime is in every way the opposite to the world of the morwening. The ancient Saxons referred to this dark realm as the death mist. At this time the only people over 50 you see out are working at the only two open businesses, and they don't like you. At this time there are only two vehicles on the road, cops who hate the night shift and teenagers about to be pulled over by these cranky cops.

My long-gened readers may find the previous paragraph shocking and disturbing. I'm sure they are quite happy with the genes they have been given. But let it be known that your world disturbs me as much as mine does you. I will continue to be a resident of your realm, for as long as I am paid to, and not a minute longer. I am a foreigner in your lands and I know that, I promise you that I will not overstay my welcome.

Good night.

Yeah

It is my twenty first birthday. Yop... bradd done got me drunk. That is all. If you have a problem with this post refer to the mission statement. Yop...
Ps. I can blog on my phone now. This is going to end badly.
Pps. Gibberish now: jcujdokfjreioheujiojideodjnfhrujeiuyrdsdghhgdzgjkihfdfihfjhfgkhfzgjgddgjhgdfhkjgdfhkihfdfhkljgdgjkhgfhpoutedriutdsdgouretoiyrwqwetuyrewetuteweyrweyrasjgdsdkufdsdgkjgdsdhjhfzkjcxcjhvkjgdsdjzzkhxxkhvckbcxcbmmnvccvkjgfdgjkjhdzjhgfiuteaqetoitsriydsdoitautewrtewyeqwyeqwruteasfkifsasfkjghkkhgdgjkhxzcvxjgdzhczFddguuydasfkihfzljgzXhjhfsdgihfdfdkhffhd

Edit: So I'm not taking this down as it is a testament not only to our almost creepily connected world but to the powerful human drive to attention whore ones self in a public forum. 

A House Divided Cannot Stand

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am tired. I am tired of the bickering and god damn it I am tired of this division. I am tired of hearing of another happy home divided over this very polarizing issue. Having a friendly discussion over a cooler just to have it fall apart when you claim allegiance to one side or another. The competitive and belligerent nature of this debate is ripping our country apart.

Let me share a personal story. I was raised in a blue home. My father and my fathers father had chosen their allegiance a while back. As I got older and became ingratiated by the opinions of those around me I found myself being swayed by the opposition. Then while I was attending school away from home I converted. This was fine while in high school, except when I found myself at home where I found myself in an environment that had become bitterly divided. Then I went to college and found myself once again an outsider. I had to travel off campus to find people who saw the world as I did. From a blue home, then to a blue school it is amazing that I ever became the red blooded American I am today.

But today I decided enough was enough. Today, I took a stand against the bipartisanship that is wreaking havoc on our society. Today, I looked this conflict in it's eyes and saw it for the bitter childish argument that it was. Today I realized that only together can we move forward and divided we will inevitably fall. Today, ladies and gentlemen, I mixed Coca-Cola and Pepsi, and I liked it.

If Only Life Were So Symple

I would like to open by saying that I like Alfred University, the faculty, the staff, the students. I'm very happy here. The village of Alfred reminds me of the County, this small little enclave of academia in the middle of the woods makes me happy.

That being said, if I had a nickel for every night I was kept up thinking very seriously about walking down to Residence Life or Dining Services and taking a dump on their porch, I would be able to buy a yacht so big that there is a god damned yacht in the pool. A yacht so big that it's gravitational pull in conjunction with the water displaced actually fucks up the tides of whatever ocean it is in. A yacht so unimaginably massive that geographers have to sit down and have a serious god damned discussion about the definition of a continent. A yacht so monstrously big, your mom could actually ride on it. Then, with the spare nickels in my Piggy Bank Death Star, hire SpaceX to divert their engineering talent to firing that Yacht to Saturn. There it would remain in orbit for my three year "Yachtin' 'round Saturn Festive Celabratory Extravaganzery Party". Why? Why do I think so often about defecating on their porch? Because, Fuck Those Guys.

Seriously, they are like one Whore of Babylon
away from being smoted to all fuck.

Now I'm not writing about dining services in this post, because I enjoyed my tuna sandwich today at lunch and as of this moment I am still stacked to be on the 77 meal plan next year. They have been spared this day. No, for this week, as it was this time last year, I have been enslaved by Residence Life. What does that mean? They got me jacked into Symplicity. It's like being jacked into the Matrix, if the Matrix replaced the dehumanizing corporate structure that Neo finds himself in during the intro with a 234-tentacled Japanese rape monster.

Mr. Wizard, get me the hell out of here.

Last year, we got our group together of six people a few weeks in advance like the responsible god damned students that we are. We did everything the damned system told us to, exchanged pass codes, had a little room sign up party at our alloted time, had a previously researched room lined up. The day came, we entered in the system and it had the nerve to look us straight in the eye and tell us no. So we literally lived in the Residential Life office for a week, it took a whole god damned week to figure out why the system had a vendetta against us. Meanwhile all the good rooms were filling up. Finally we got our stuff in and let out a sigh of relief that lasted until the summer when we got our confirmation emails that informed us that the system had placed us all in the wrong room, with the wrong roommate in the wrong god damned building, just as it was designed to do. They finally got their shit together and put us all with our right roommates in the wrong room in the wrong building.

So you can imagine how excited I am to be entering this season once again. Once again I have gotten my room together well in advance and yesterday awaited my 7:30 slot, the best of our group.At two hours left I noticed something funny, my countdown clock said one day and an hour left until two hours from now. I pulled out the nearest speedometer and made sure my computer and I were going the same fucking velocity, well relativity could not account for this bullshit. So after panicking, we finally located the aptly named "fuck you guys" loophole in the Resonomicon (location un-fucking-known) and found out that it's not your groups best time, but the average of all your groups credits class standings best time. Did you hear that? It was the drip drop of my brain melting out my ears.

Then the room we picked in advance had filled out. No problem, there are two left, we'll pick one of those. We have four people and they are four person apartments, nothing can go wrong here, 4 = 4, that much I believe a computer can figure out. So we select to change the room that is now occupied. We want to switch from Thor Floor 3 to Thor Floor 1, Thor Floor 1 is empty, we switch to it, the computer informs us that we can't Thor Floor 3 is full. Well we want to go to Floor 1, you can't, Floor 3 is full. Finally that glitch faded when I deleted all knowledge of our previous selection. Then it informed us that our 4 roommates did not meet the occupancy requirements of our 4 person apartment.

Well we've played your game, so we can finally agree with the others now that you are the world's worst web interface. We weren't sure before. Symplicity? Don't you think you should suffer for the harm you've done to the human race? Don't you think the world's worst web interface ought to be punished for the most effective deforming of reality? Death to sYmplicitY!

Obscure Jude Law reference ftw.

Den Haushalt

President Barack Obama, or as I will call him for the remainder of this post, Le Roi de l'Internet, hath decreed his budget proposal, and the people did say that it was meh. 

It's okay, I guess...

Several people think it doesn't go far enough, others think it could go farther, and still others question how these people measure distance of budgets. I don't know if anyones read it and I'm not 100% sure if a person wrote it. How many times in your life have you heard someone tell you that the bible must be true, because how could one person make all that up? This logic has been presented to me by several people on several occasions and if you haven't heard this argument before, God bless you. If that is good enough justification to believe in a supernatural deity than things like the healthcare bill and the federal register (622 pages have been written in the Federal Register in the time it took me to write this blog post) are irrefutable evidence that the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not only real, but types federal documents really fast.

The bureaucracy has been touched by his noodley appendage.

But I digress (majorly, that whole FSM bullshit was not part of the original outline). As I was saying, King Barry, Lord of Internet and Protector of Locomotives did decree-eth some budgets, it was decreed unto the media, and unto the Twitters and unto the Book of Face. It was there on the Book of Face that I saw the great King of the Interblags did hand some of his power unto the people. He wanted the opinion of the humble American citizen in this great fiscal debacle. I wondered what kind of stirring discussions and debates I would find on the other side of that link. The rousing Libertarian cry for the end of government intervention, or the impassioned liberal pleading for a government that will care for all it's citizens. I was excited to partake in this grand forum of true democracy. Then I clicked the link and this is what I found.

I guess at the end of the day democracy usually dissolves into multiple choice.

Uhm, okay, not what I had mine. But wait! I clicked the link on Facebook, so theoretically I can join the comments thread there! Lets see,

A fair point Ann. Let us hear the voice of the people, not in multiple choice, but short answer form! Now the Once and Future King of All That is Cyberspace is a very busy man, so I will offer myself and my sense of civic duty to sorting through and reading the opinions of everyday Americans! Lets see,

Uhm, I think most everyday Americans speak English, I'm gonna try again.

I don't think that those are words.

I'll hand it to you Shirley, at least you make a bold attempt at the English language. 

 You know Obama, I see why you didn't leave room for an "Other" option on your survey.

Someday. Someday...

I DON'T LIKE SPAM! Have you got anything without spam?

Truth. He speaks it.

God I hope he clicked the Education button.

Wait, what in the name of all that is fuck?! The Arch Angel Michael has a Facebook account! God damn Obama, when they say you got friends in high places, damn.

You know Noah? I'm just not sure if that's true anymore. 

So what has been the point of all this. First, Facebook needs a highest rated comment system like Youtube on fan pages. I think I have presented enough evidence of this. Second, you can totally give the president's budget a product review on Amazon. I demand all my readers to do so. So get to work, both of you!

Never can there come fog too thick

So one of my good friends recently bought a box full of Earl Grey tea for us to drink when everyones over. I ended up looking up the Wikipedia article on it while drinking some when a debate about what it's made of started up. There I found out about a brilliant invention known as London Fog. It's a combination of Earl Grey, steamed milk and vanilla that is just made out of awesome. Apparently after some Googling it's been a popular item at Starbucks, of course I wouldn't know that because fuck Starbucks.

But steaming milk was out of the question, for I did not have the expensive tools to do it. I wasn't going to go blow 500 bajillion pesos on a stupid thing to steam milk for me. Then I remembered that I have the greatest culinary tool since Tater Mitts, the Internet! So I Googled it and the very first thing that came up was an eHow on how to steam milk without an espresso machine! So we quickly stole vanilla from the school and got to work. The results were astounding. I then went on to make some Bustelocino. Overall, another glorious victory for the internet.

Rock Like An Egyptian

First Tunisia, now Egypt. The whole Middle East is up in arms. There isn't much I can add to this that isn't already said, so here is my response to both situations, to the tune of "London Bridge is Burning Down".

Tunisia is burning down, burning down, burning down.
Tunisia is burning down, run Ben Ali!


Mubarak is going down, going down, going down.
Mubarak is going down, so much for the army!

We Can Defeat the World and Win "The Future"

Last night was the State of the Union address and Barack Obama has laid the foundation for the next year in Washington. He called for a lot of fun things like fast trains to keep Joe happy and a nifty high score system so teachers can see how good they're doing. Competition always makes things more fun! (grumble grumble) So after listening to the speech, I picked up two major points.

1. There is a game, it is called "The Future", and apparently we need to win the hell out of it.

2. We are apparently playing this game against the ENTIRE GOD DAMNED PLANET EARTH.

"We need to out-innovate, out-educate, and out-build the rest of the world [...]  we need to win The Future."
-President Barack Obama

For those of you doing the math at home, we're talking 6583779486 players against our 311951347 or approximately 20 to 1. Well I've played my fair share of RTS games and I know that we have our work cut our for us. Luckily we have the resources to even the playing field, if only we could wean ourselves off of the Vespian Gas. I sat there, thinking about the big questions like how to defeat the world and whether to get chicken tenders or a wrap after the speech was done when Obama came to his thrilling conclusion.


We are a nation that says, "I might not have a lot of money, but I have this great idea for a new company. I might not come from a family of college graduates, but I will be the first to get my degree. I might not know those people in trouble, but I think I can help them, and I need to try. I'm not sure how we'll reach that better place beyond the horizon, but I know we'll get there. I know we will." We do big things.

"She told me her name was Billie Jean, as she caused a scene. Then every head turned with eyes that dreamed of being the one." -Michael Jackson

There it is. We do big things. I like it. It's how we roll. It made me think about a blog post I almost put up a few weeks ago about American awesomenessocity that was inspired, not by the leader of the free world, but by Richard Hammond, who while speeding along in a 1970 Pontiac GTO, said this,

The Germans will be remembered for their engineering. The French for their quirky brilliance. The Italians for passion. The British for the nimble roadster. But the Americans, they'll be remembered for giving us a laugh. I don't mean that spitefully. What I mean is they make cars like this that basically just say "Oh calm down, nobody died, it's just a bit of fun. Enjoy it!"

That ladies and gentlemen is the American spirit as outlined by a small British man. At least the former American spirit. We used to be a country that embraced stupidly hilarious ideas. We built cars that were just stupidly powerful. When we heard the Russians had sent a blippy box thingy into space, we decided "Fuck you guys, we'll play golf on the moon." We built a cities economy off of testing nuclear explosions that were stupidly close by. We even wanted to send men to Saturn using a giant nuclear machine gun strapped to a Hilton Hotel. Now we shut down major space programs faster than we eat Baconators, and we know how to eat some motherfuckin' Baconators. 

"No workers are more productive than ours."
-President Barack Obama

So yes, we have unlocked many achievements, we beat the fuck out of "The Past". I think today we take all of that stuff as a given and forget how hard some of them really tricky levels were. Now we have to beat "The Future". I'm sure it'll be a bitch. But we can beat it as long we continue our tradition of playing like a bunch of god damned mad men who create crazy awesome things for the fuck of it. As Steve Carrell once famously said, 


"The Wright Brothers decided to make themselves a flying machine. 'You fools, you idiots! What's your problem?' everyone shouted. 'That will never work because plywood weighs more than air.' To which the Wright Brothers responded, 'No, it doesn’t.'"


So get out there and unlock some achievements, for America.

"If you want to make a difference in the life of our nation [...] become a teacher. Your country needs you."
-President Barack Obama
"Alright, I'll do it. Just get off my back. Jeeeeeeeez."
-Moi