In Good Company

Tom Selleck, Oprah, John D. Rockefeller Jr, Heather Graham, Johnny Lang, Thomas Paine, William McKinley, and myself. What do we have in common? Well besides varying degress of awesome-ness, with myself at one extreme (the good one), and Jonny "I look like a girl, but play white-blues on my acoustic guitar" Lang at the other, not much. To be fair, we're all pretty influential people... again except for Jonny Lang. But the real cosmic bond we all share is that we're born on the same day in the Age of Aquarius, which dawned in the 70's. It's sometime around brunch at this point.

Anyway, the day: January 29th, such a nice looking date. That's my birthday. And this one was the 21st. Much happened that I could expound on for hours. But I think I'll keep this quick and dirty. The way I likes it. Without further B.S. here is the annotated account of my night:

6:30: Go out to Dos Reales. Heavy Mexican food is always the best when there's a chance you might see it again later. I had a burrito the size of my thigh. Mistake #1. However Stephen made a bigger mistake. The Mexican waiter who was serving us didn't really speak English. He offered Steve his choice of beer sizes that sounded like "Tweeelve ounzez, twendy four ounzez, or sisteen ounzez." So, being reasonable, Steve went with the last option. Sixteen ounces sounded pretty good he thought, right in the middle. Cut to the waiter comming back with a brimming 60 ounce pitcher of Dos Equis and Stephen mustering up the courage to tackle it. It was pretty hilarious and he left fairly buzzed. (I too helped with this... but mostly I let Steve take care of himself.)

Also at the restaurant was Britney, the second girl eliminated from the current season of Beauty and the Geek. I ended up sitting at the table right next to her. A pretty entertaining, yet dumb girl dealing with the 14th of her 15 minutes of fame.

7:25: Some idiot, possibly me, suggested a power hour to start the night.

7:45: Seriously debate the merit of continuing the power hour.

7:46: Throw caution to the wind, the power hour continues. Remark on how good I look.

8:01: See old friend I know from Stevo's frat. Insult him by calling him the wrong name, then Mexican. Recall that he's actually Italian. Mention that he should have a more Italian name than Tony. Finally, drunkenly call him Andy Capp because of the hat he was wearing and demand that he bring me hot fries. Observe Tony's reaction of simply turning around and leaving the room. Remember to send him fan club application.

8:30: Remember that I'm still doing a power hour here and I'm about 10 shots behind.

8:31: Caught back up.

8:53: Join an equally buzzed Stephen in third round of "America, FUCK YEAH!"

9:15: Remember that there's a posh soirée in the basement of a certain residence I was supposed to attend.

9:20: Show up. Have beer. Question sexuality of man drinking Zima.

9:25: Announce to the room that I cannot feel my face. Duck under the arc of the slap aimed at my face by random drunk guy as he slurs: "I caaan feelst it."

9:30 to 11:45: Reply hazy. Ask again later.

11:45: Leave for bars. Note ridiculous lines from all the people out celebrating my birthday.

12:01: Give finger to clouds for raining on me during my long walk to the bar.

12:04: "Holy crap, I'm 21!"

12:05: Begin long drawn out argument with Legends' doorman about whether or not I'm actually 21. His claim is that it's the fiscal day that matters, not whether or not it's 12:00.

12:07: Give finger to Legend's.

12:07 and 30 seconds: Give dollar to the girl I slammed with the door as I was exiting and giving finger to Legend's. On seeing how happy one dollar made her, ponder what I could have gotten for five.

12:23: Arrive at Kam's. Demand and receive the "I'm 21, so now I can buy all my underaged friends a beer" wristband. Explain I was kidding about the underaged thing.

12:24: Buy underaged friend a beer.

Note underaged friend on left. Post hoc beer. Note Stevo and myself post hoct many beers.

12:55: Get asked by skeevy top-three-buttons-open-to-no-undershirt, gold-chain-around-neck, sunglasses-at-night guy if I'm Dee Brown. Let him down gently and explain that it happens all the time.

Before leaving take picture with girl.

1:05: Leave Kams for the Illini Inn. Join the illustrious mug club. In the past three years it has accrued well over 45,000 members. Pretty good for a bar smaller than my living room. I'm number 45570.

Enjoying a brew with #45137

2:01: Leave because of this "last call" garbage. Go upstairs from the Illini Club to Bonnie Jean's and enjoy delicious beer absorbing pizza.

2:05 to 3:45: Compensate for beer absorbed by pizza. Make fun of people and things, dry hair, pass out.

"I have good hair!"

9:00 AM: Wake up in foreign apartment unable to tell time. Panic about brain damage from so much beer possibly destroying my ability to use a wristwatch. Remember I just suck at telling time. Quickly scout out surroundings and discover that I'm at Nathan Rice's apartment. As evidenced by Nathan Rice.

THE END!

Ok not really. I went home to Springfield and received a lovely Adigo gift set of Diggnation Tea and also the backpack for Europe I really wanted. I'll end things with the note that came with the tea set. It's really the sentiment I take away from all of this.

Scott, you are the greatest. We love you far more than your brother. It's true. We wrote this. - Mom and Dad

What a great family I have.

- Scott

Step Right Up...

Apparently the circus sideshow act isn't dead, it's just on cable. Has anyone else been watching The Learning Channel lately? More like The Damn Freak Channel. A short list of what's been on:

• The Half Ton Man
• Dwarf Family
  
• The 750 Pound Man
• The Girl Who Turned to Stone
• The Woman With Half A Body
• The 200 Pound Tumor
• The 627lb Woman
• Face Eating Tumor
• Born Without A Face
• The World's Strongest Boy
• The Boy Whose Skin Fell Off
• Born With Two Heads
• Archie: The 84 Pound Baby
  

What's sick, other than some of these people, is that having watched all of them means more than twelve hours of my life was devoted to this crap. And I've watched a few of them twice. The thing is I always want them to be about two seconds long. Like we cut to the boy and he's like "Well... daggum it, one day ma skin just fell'd off." Because if your skin fell off, you'd talk like a toothless old southerner too. I also think they should play ironic music in the background instead of the stock "sympathetic orchestral piece" they use at the moment. For instance there happens to be a song by Boy Hits Car called "Man Without Skin." Here's a lyrical excerpt:

You're like a man without skin.
Everything that touches seems to hurt him .
And he says maybe I'm just a person.
But I'll be for you if you let me.

It sells itself really. And another thing, what's with the super imaginative names? For instance The 627lb Woman, happened to be about... that's right a woman who weighed 627 pounds. They didn't even bother smoothing out the numbers on that one. In the past they at least rounded to the nearest half ton. But you know women... so vein. "I won't have people thinking I weigh 630 pounds. I'm no FATASS!" Sure honey, lots of people mesasure their BMI in scientific notation.

The Woman With Half a Body? Yep. Half a body. She wasn't all there, of course as her husband notes not all of her has to be. It's a shame they couldn't have sculpted something for her out of the 200 pound tumor they took of that other chick. And what a great cameo Arnold Schwarzenegger could have made there. "IT'S NOT A TUMOR! You are just a fat non-girly girl! Let me introduce you to the 627 pound woman... your twin! BECAUSE YOU ARE FAAAT!" Obviously the Arnold in my head is pretty belligerent.

Another another thing. The Dwarf Family: why weren't they wrestlers? That's a pretty great schtick there. Can you imagine a whole family of dwarves just laying into some wrestler? All in different colored costumes so you can tell them apart. Norm MacDonald would probably explode with delight. (He references midgets and hookers alot, so if one of them was a hooker too that'd probably be good.)

In the end I've come to a conclusion. Two actually. First is that these people should probably get more money from TLC. Come on, they ain't going from town to town here, they've got to make all their cash in one shot. And secondly, they should form some kind of Sideshow Justice League, SJL, and fight crime with their combined powers of distraction. I can see the criminals now. "I was going to suicide bomb this place, but these people... I just could not look away. That one does not have a face! Swear to Allah! No face! I must have watched for an hour, the next thing I knew I was in cuffs. Damn you Sideshow Justice League!" That's like, if they caught a terrorist. It would vary from crime to crime, but I think that's just semantics.

Anyway my point is... way to kick ass TLC!

- Scott

P.S. The Girl Who Turned to Stone reminds me of the aptly named boneitis from Futurama.

At least SOMEBODY can launch a rocket

I'm already an international sensation, that's not news. More interesting however, is the fact that NASA is now in the business of launching probes with my name on them into the outer reaches of our galaxy. That's right kids, the rocket launch that's supposed (EDIT: It did in fact, happen but this post was written before the launch and I didn't send it up because I liked the responses to my Synthesia post so much) to happen today, will bear a disc with my full name on it. Of course this means that aliens, equipped with CD-ROMS, will be able to get my name and track me down through Google. But this does not concern me too much. There's a few thing I want to ask them like, "Guys, what's with the anal probes? Can't you just scan us or something? I mean, you can travel light years, semi-successfully veil yourselves in secrecy, but you can't build an MRI? What the hell E.T.?"

The best/most futuristic part however is that it's not powered by normal rocket fuel. Or gas. Regular or unleaded. It needs something with a little more kick... plutonium. That's right, I'm telling you that this sucker's nuclear*. It'll pass the moon 9 hours after launch. That's pretty blindingly fast. Japan also recently launched a probe to Pluto. From what I've learned from the NASA channel we've already passed it too. Apparently it's flying at about half the speed of anything else and has been inexplicably flying with its turn signal on for the last 45,000 miles, almost as inexplicable as having a turn signal . Oh those crazy stereotypes.

Not that we're doing much better. The Ugly American tourist cliche now extends to the stars in the form of the ridiculous names that got put on the disc along with mine. Unfortunately no amount of money, asking nicely, or promising to be NASA's friend would get them to just paint my name on the side of the probe along with "Don't f*ck with Earth!" So, they took other names as well. A few thousand actually. Among the gems are Hugh Jass, Mike Grotch, and Heywood Jablome. Classy Earth, really classy.

**(Floating asterisks)

- Scott

* I'm hoping Nathan Harry caught the blatant Back to the Future reference here.
** Thanks for reminding me Josh.

Oh thank GOD

I just wanted to give you all a progress report on 2006. I can sum it up pretty succinctly; it kicks ass. The year's been off to a good start from day one. There's alot to be happy about, graduation, turning 21, touring Europe with my friends. But I think the thing I'm currently the most happy about is pretty freaking awesome. I just realized it today when I was writing a note. There's no 5 in the year.

That's right. No stupid hard to write number for this entire year. My percentage of checks I can write correctly, first try just went up enormously. More than once it looked like I was trying to fake a date because my fives are just horrible. If I slow down I can pull off a nice looking five, but it's a debilitating disorder. I should probably get a special parking spot for it. My God, I'm so brave...

But this year? 2 0 0 6. Easiest one since 2003. I've got some pretty awesome three's. By far the most personality of any of my numbers. I've got one pretty gangster looking three. Like 1930's gangster. He's constricted in the top curve, then all loosey goosey in the bottom. The most art deco of all my numbers. He just pops up out of nowhere sometimes. Very cocky that one. Then I have my ernest three. Just a hard working number doing his part to form a math problem, or a date, or some other number usage not specifically mentioned here... but I digress.

In short 2006 is shaping up to be a good year; one I can write.

- Scott

P.S. Does anyone else think of letters/numbers as male or female? For instance three is male. Kind of a rapscallion tyke. Am I the only one with Synthesia?

P.P.S. Photos of number writing available on request.

They Should Teach This Blog At College

I've always thought that. This blog is far more relevant to today's college student than statistics. I think just for reading it you should get some kind of college credit. In fact you could probably test out of Slang just for this blog. Your school doesn't have Slang 101? Pfft. What kind of fly-by-night B.J.U. do you go to? I damn near majored in slang. Would have been tight too, that ish is straight hyphy.

Anyway, this blog. And how it should be required reading. Well my friends, that day has already come. A few weeks back Robert Morris College's own Professor Hager decided to include my blog in her lesson plan. That's right. There are people who literally have to read this. To those people I say: hi. I also say: Be glad I'm not Joyce, or Kafka, or anyone else who was pissed off at their father and as a result force you to suss out paragraph after paragraph of symbolism, to finally come to the conclusion that, "Oh hey, they were pissed at their father." Although come to think of it, most great writers were. That and alcoholic. Unless the old man spends all of my inheritance I think I can only manage half of that equation.

So the reading, apparently the kids (for they were mere freshmen) had to read the greatness that is the Wonder Blog and then evaulate its worth as a source for a paper. Of course there were also a few other sites mixed in as well... but really those were a waste of time compared to the shining jewel they found here. La professora hasn't let me see what they wrote about it just yet, but I plan to post the responses they had in the comments after I find out (probably tomorrow). I think we can expect nothing short of utter adoration. Although, now that I think about it a large number of people now have a ridiculous amount of information about me. Price of fame, baby.

But if I'm going to be taught alongside Plato, Aristotle, and most likey Hip-hop-crates I think I should condense an idea down to an easily quoted mantra for living. In this spirit I bequeath to future generations the following aphorism... in pirate's map form.

- Scott

Misuse of Skills + Free Time = Crazy Devious

Man, that was a rough week. Thanks for the condolences. What do you mean how were you supposed to know? I didn't post for almost five week days! Where were the search parties? I could be lying dead surrounded by women. Hot women. In mourning. That killed me through "exhaustion." Fortunately for all of you (and the women) I'm still alive and, like Principal Skinner, was merely trapped under an avalanche of school work. It took me two weeks to get out of the holiday funk and back into doing awe inspiringly great work in classes.

For instance, I'd been putting off a 7 page research paper since the first day of the class. It was due today; yesterday I had nothing. Today I spent the morning cutting the paper back to seven pages rather than the roughly 15 it was going to be if I didn't. And that's just one day of work! I think I was just hungry to write. Really write something good. I can't remember the last time I had the chance to. (Phantom Waldorf: Neither can we!) Shut-up voice in my head!

Anyway, two things happened this week that warrant discussion. The first I'll let speak for itself. (So technically it warrants monologue.)

For the visually impaired it says: Mr. Pibb + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious.

Who knew that those crazy kids from The 'Bu would make it so big on SNL. And by making it big on SNL I mean they illicited a laugh from me without resorting to something completely worthless. Of course, that it wasn't actually live might be worth some debate... but I digress. Awesome shirt. And in fact, it was in this apparel of the counterculture that I went out into the neighborhood with the other thing that's kept me so busy this week: my senior project.

My senior project is kind of in the vein of Tim's trickery. While other kids are going for the gold(en paper of their diploma) with legitimate projects based on databases, and accountant spreadsheets, I decided to forge for myself and my partner a slightly more interesting project. A little bit on the 1337 side of things. The project, the quest, the goal: a cantenna. The ultimate in wireless network extension. Take a look:

I can't believe I'm allowed to have a drill.

Clearly visible are the aviator "safety" glasses, drill bits, lengths of wire, connectors, and the can Bailey's Irish Cream came in. Oh Lordy, how I loves me some Bailey's. All mad scientists need their alcohol of choice. There wasn't any around or I'd do the real mad scientist thing and chug moonshine. Anyway, much like Captain Planet, when those elements combine you get yourself a cantenna. And a license to wreak havoc.

Justin: the Igor to my Dr. Hornstien.

See the green? See how it's so high all of a sudden? That's the result of pointing a powerful cantenna at the computer. The amount of gain that I get out of it borders on what's considered illegal by the FCC. So that's cool. It's also a MacGyver'd together $12 dollar solution to what would cost about $250 to buy professionally. Anyway, with all of this software and technology we started to pick up networks in my neighborhood. Like mad. So we decided to look around.

Cleverly armed with an arsenal of... armorment, I set out to reap digital desctruction on the landscape. This took the form of getting into the router configurations of unsecured routers and politely advising them that security was very important. Such messages generally read "You've been TAGGED... SUCKA!" and "I pity the fool don't use WPA encryption."

Such is the power of a devious geek. I'm Reginald Hornstien, and that's one to think about.

- Scott

Vo-Nage.

Hi kids. I've been as swamped as New Orleans (what, is this also too soon?) lately so I haven't had time to post. Hurricane "Blowing off a week of school before break" came and bit me in the ass. So now that the majority of my back homework is made up (as far as I know) and now that I've had a bit o' rest since the violent transition back to the world of scheduals and due dates, I'm ready to drop a few trains on you. I can only hope you're ready to receive them.

Recently something has been seriously inciting my ranting wrath. This something: utter mis-use of computer jargon, and mispronunciation of common tech company names. The biggest offender: a local advertisement for Vonage, the broadband phone company. It's pronounced Von-age. In fact the vice president of the company once addressed this matter stating, " The name Vonage... is meant to imply "the age of VON" (Voice over Net)." Yes I know, she too is ridiculous. However, dumbass local guy always leads into the commercial break with "Sponsorship of this program provided by "Vo-Nage." And he does so in the most annoying-self-assured-but-wrong manner imaginable.

To the announcer I say this: if I ever catch you around town, confidently striding about and telling people about your Vo-Nage endorsements I think I'll kick you in the nuts. Just so you know.

Feel free to add to this list similar offenders.

- Scott

Trail of Bastards

I was recently having lunch with two lovely ladies and Nathan Rice, and one of the LL's broached an interesting topic. Near her school is a state park for the Trail of Tears. I was unaware that there were any commerative Trail of Tears tourist attractions. This led me to wonder just what kind of exhibits they might have at this park? Maybe a guided audio tour from the perspective of one of the Indians? "How. My name is Farting Cat. I died near this tree from starvation. Just beyond that turn is a great scenic overlook where a good twenty of my tribe died. Be sure to get a picture. Thank you for comming to the Trail of Tears State Park where my people's suffering is finally expressed. Please stop at the gift shop and make sure to pick out your very own 'I went to the Trail of Tears State Park and all I got was this crappy t-shirt. But at least I didn't die of starvation and cruelty like the thousands of Indians who came here before me.' t-shirt."

It's gotta be like having a gift shop at Auschwitz. What do they sell there? Dustbusters? (Oh my Lord am I sorry, but as I was typing and trying to think of a funny/horrible object that sprang, unbidden, into my head.) It's almost as horrible as the new Greyhound bus tours of the New Orelands debacle. That's right. Now you too can observe half drowned residents from the comfort of a chartered bus. Thought it was only for the president*? Not anymore. Don't care to actually go? No problem. Feel free to play a guitar at the depot while your friends and family check out the destruction.

So, after the relative success of these endeavours, I've decided to capitalize on tragedies of my own. I was thinking of selling glow in the dark clothing and fake Geiger counters at Nagasaki. And maybe some fun things for the kids, like Fat Man shaped firecrackers. Why not? It seems to be the new hawtness.

- Scott

* Though periodic month-long vacations to your "ranch", the ability to blow off work and do whatever the hell you'd like while a team of experts claim that people who point this out are unamerican, that's still just for the president.