The near future

I have 4 exams and 2 lab reports due in the next two weeks. Talk about piling it on before spring break. It's gonna be a rough stretch, but at least it will make COLORADO all the sweeter.

Please oh please oh please

I want a Big Friend. It will stay by my side through anything, and we will create memories that last forever. The only true friend. Big Friend.

Oh Hell

Have you ever walked into an exam, test, or whatever just knowing you were going to fail it? That is exactly how I feel about my biochemistry test in an hour. I prepared for all the wrong material, I have no idea how to use two equations that are of primary importance, and there is no way in hell I could identify 15 of the 20 natural amino acids. I'm completely fucked, and the worst part is that I consciously chose to prepare very little for this test and now I am going to pay. Severely.

Meanwhile, I did way worse on my first Immunology exam than I expected, my first two Organic Chemistry Lab Reports were veritable disasters, and I have absolutely no idea what we talked about in my Environmental Law class on Monday.

I think I should be more worried than I currently am.

Consider This

The University of North Carolina Men's Basketball Team is now 2-0 on days when Brett Favre retires.

Photoshop

Ok, so everyone can agree that Photoshop is a pretty awesome program. After all, it enables people to make things like this.

The problem is, it is one of the least intuitive programs ever invented. I don't mean with all the complicated features. After all, there is so much shit you can do in Photoshop, it's ridiculous to expect to be able to just jump in and do everything right away.

Unfortunately, even the simplest things are difficult to pull off without any problems. I can't just stick in a text box and type in it with an automatically sized font. I can't just drag and drop a picture on top of another one. I can't just make a gradient that goes from black to transparent. I know for a fact that all of these things are possible, but change one setting and there's no way it's gonna happen. There needs to be an easy way to do easy things.

The Magic Man

This morning, on the way to my biochemistry class, I witnessed magic. At least, that's the best explanation I have yet come up with for what happened. So, this dude is standing in front of me listening to his iPod, and a girl, relatively attractive, walks up next to him. He glances at her, takes out his headphones, and says something. They talk for a few seconds before introducing themselves (initiated by him). The light turns green, and we all start walking across University, me behind them as they continue talking. We reach the other side, and they stop, and SHE GIVES HIM HER NUMBER. WHAT!?!? In the time it took to cross University, this guy procures her phone number!?!?! That has got to be the fastest introduction to potential date turnover time I have ever seen. Magic. That's the only reasonable explanation.

Anyway, SO to that guy. Very impressive. Hope things work out so you can tell the story to your kids about how you two met and started dating under 30 seconds later.

How bout this weather we're having? Hm Hm Hm Hm?

It's 35 in Rice Lake, WI! The UW-Barron County gig won't be the coldest thing I've ever done this year! Alright!

25

From Facebook:

1. I hope that the people I tag in this note realize how much they really do mean to me. Sometimes I develop a dynamic with people that masks how important they really are to me. I am at least a bit embarrassed in saying that. There are plenty of people I didn't tag, for various reasons, that mean a lot to me as well.

2. I went to a different middle school than all my elementary school friends, and I felt like almost all of them abandoned me during that time, to the point that I wanted (and tried) to open-enroll at a different High School. Dombrock didn’t, and he remains one of my best friends.

3. College is really easy for me. I feel like if I really applied myself, I could get straight A’s. I just can’t get myself to do the work.

4. I used to compulsively lie a lot, and still do to some extent.

5. I have often wished I was born a year earlier than I was.

6. I feel like I have a much better relationship with my parents and extended family than most people. 

7. I usually feel very uncomfortable in nursing homes.

8. I hate funerals. I do not ever want to go to another funeral in my life, but I know I will.

9. I feel completely confident in my belief that there is no God, no afterlife, and no existential human soul. That being said, I have never held someone else’s beliefs against them.

10. I like dressing well, even if I don’t usually know how to do it.

11. Clay is probably the best match for my sense of humor, and can make me laugh better than anyone else.

12. I have always looked up to my cousin, no matter what he does.

13. I have always felt like somewhat of an outsider in the groups I belong to.

14. I am uncomfortable being around people who are making fun of others, and will often step in to stop it.

15. I can’t stay angry at people. I have never been able to. It’s hard enough for me to get angry at them in the first place.

16. I rarely cry. I have never been able to summon the emotion to do it, even in situations where it would be expected.

17. I think it is better to live humbly for a cause than die nobly for one (that’s one of my favorite quotes).

18. The MadHatters might be the greatest thing to ever happen to me.

19. There are a handful of moments in my life that I wish I could relive and change. These are moments in which I strongly believe I made a bad decision that cost me something great.

20. There are very few things I enjoy doing more than laying on a couch in front of a fire with a couple of friends talking about books, philosophy, movies, science (yes, science), and other stuff.

21. I don’t enjoy hearing about other peoples’ sexual conquests. Maybe it’s because I don’t have any such stories of my own. I feel (worry?) I won’t have such a story for some time, and it kind of disappoints me that I will likely be chastised for it.

22. I feel like I am more sensitive to being yelled at than most people. Guilt seems to hit me harder than most.

23. I legitimately enjoy writing in my blog, and wish more people would read it and write their own.

24. I am worried that I have made these points more personal than this thing is supposed to be. As such, I have revised a couple of them before publishing it.

25. I am a cat person.

The Almost Super Bowl

One of the best football games I've seen in a long time, and certainly the best Super Bowl I've ever seen. This game had so many great plays and turning points. The fourth quarter was potentially the best 15 minutes of football ever played. Larry Fitzgerald's 65-odd yard touchdown catch was pure excitement. Santonio Holmes's game-winning touchdown catch was perfect. Everything was fantastic.

Until the last 5 seconds.

The Cardinals's last play should have been reviewed. It should have been scrutinized at least as much as any of the other plays that had been challenged during the game. Not only that, but it should have been overturned. I think it was clear to anyone that Kurt Warner's arm was moving forward just before the ball was knocked loose. I don't think the ball would have taken the trajectory it did if he hadn't been in the act of throwing it.

It was such a good game, and the Cardinals did so much to stick it to everyone who thought they were hopelessly overmatched, that they deserved one last chance to shock the world. Just think of what an incredibly epic ending we could have had if the officials hadn't given it away! Kurt Warner, the old veteran quarterback, launches a ball from close to midfield into the endzone, where Larry Fitzgerald and probably the best recieving corps in the nation have one last chance to pull down the winning touchdown against the best defense in the nation. Can you imagine that? The play would have been incredible no matter what happened. It would have firmly cemented this as the greatest Super Bowl ever. We might have talked about the Cardinals two epic comebacks, including a hail-mary to eclipse even Flutie's, for years to come. We might have talked about Larry Fitzgerald, at the beginning of the 4th quarter, declaring that he'd had enough of Pittsburgh, and that this Super Bowl now belonged to him.

Or we might have talked about Ben's near flawless winning drive with only minutes remaining. We could have talked about his evasion of one Cardinal lineman after another before delivering a perfect throw downfield for a new set of downs. We could have talked about his receivers finding every hole in the Cardinals' defense and stretching every play the extra yard. And we could have talked about Santonio Holmes's mind-blowing fade route touchdown, his tip-toes, his hands, his LeBron-esque celebration. We could have talked about James Harrison's signature, record-setting interception return. Then we would have talked about how Pittsburgh's steel curtain of a defense pulled through for them one last time, when it mattered most, with a game-ending explosion of the Cardinals' hail-mary attempt.

But instead, we will talk about how Kurt Warner's arm might have been moving forward, how the ball might have come loose before the motion began, how the officals never undertook a formal review process on the play, how the game ended before anyone really realized what had happened, how the last thing to take place on the field in Tampa Bay was a lackluster victory-formation kneel-down by Ben Roethlisberger. 

It was still an incredible game, but in the last 5 seconds, when the knockout punch for the ages should have been delivered, we instead watched 11 relieved men kneel down in front of 11 incredulous men. And the kneelers won.