Stuff I do instead of homework: 5 Songs that make me happy.

When I'm doing homework, I need a pick me up so that I feel good enough about myself so I can stop doing my homework. Everything by Tokyo Police Club fills me with hope, which is weird but I can't really complain because I like hope, I feed on it... You may be saying now, "Corin, you told me you were going to give me five SONGS that made you love life again, not entire BANDS. How am I going to listen to what you listen to!?" and you'd be right in saying so, my bad. The Wombats "Let's Dance to Joy Division" is one of the best songs to listen to while speeding on back roads late at night. I Downloaded this song or free off of Facebook when it kept telling me I'd like it and that it was free so why was I being such a pussy and not downloading it, this was the middle of last year. I listened to it once, thought it was okay and watched it disappear from the forefront of my iTunes library. Then I gave all of my music to my friend Joseph and he found (and liked) the song in question, I gave it another listen this time perplexed by it's exsistance because I forgot where it came from. Now I was hooked, it pumped constantly from my iPhone as both a ringtone and a guest song for every playlist. In short buy/illegally download The Wombats "Let's Dance to Joy Division". Well that took longer then I expected so I'm going to break this up into more posts, I hope you all don't mind but I'll tell you the next song on the list William Shatner's - "Common People". 

Student Profile: Aged Hippy who now realizes the importance of education.

My Civil War class meets once a week, and every week I am pleased to find that my favorite classmate is still alive and in attendance. Like most people I stalk from afar, I don't know a lot about this man who, although being old enough to have fought in the civil war, still attends class to learn about the civil war regularly. Besides being the student who the professor will always reminisce about the old days when schools were "segregated" and people "knew their place", aged Hippy can also remember quotes that no one from my generation cares about, like "Go west young lad" and "A man is not finished when he is defeated, he is finished when he quits". Aged Hippy has a bald head with the exception of a  snowy ponytail that is a remnant of a past long forgotten (due to drug use). Every week I see him with a new and unique Hawaiian shirt. How does an old Hippy in community college afford a new hawaiian shirt every week? Who knows but it is certainly entertaining. It's been a while since I've posted anything and I'd like to apologize to my three readers, just blame it on the philosophy I now share with aged hippy, lazapathy.

Late Nights

I missed my ethics class today because I overslept, something that should never happen because I have Ethics at 5 pm on a Wednesday. Sleeping past 5 pm is the kind of event that makes you stop and think about how you are living, so I'm going to go over what I did the night before so I can piece together what needs to be fixed. I got off of work early so I was home by 8, my roommate was yet to be seen so I played a popular football franchise "Madden 09" and won two games, so it was about 9 when my roommate came home, at this point I turned off the video games and turned on what every political(ish) college student watches to get their witty remarks, the daily show. I think this is when the problems started, one online TV show lead to another and before I knew it, it was midnight and I was 6 episodes deep in season three of Monk. I thought I'd call it quits and head for bed, but Tony Shalhoub's one of a kind performance kept me up, I was back at my computer in no time. I only watched one more episode but was now wide awake. I needed to quell the beast that is my stomach and had no food of my own, so I stole my roommates. His nephew had just celebrated his second birthday and had a lot of left over cake, I ate the cake, the last four slices anyway. So wired on sugar and looking to kill time I surfed the internet for the perfect distraction, what I found was ideal a mini series that was SO complex that'd I'd HAVE to fall asleep trying to watch it, Dune. Frank Herbert's Dune was a 6 hour mini series broken into three parts in the year 2000, I ended up watching all three and could now in detail describe the rituals of the freemen of the desert. As I watched the seconds tick away off of my iPhones timer, I knew I wouldn't be getting any sleep, I was to hard wired, my new goal was to stay awake for the rest of the day, so I could return to a "Day Walkers" schedule and no longer stalk the night. I called for reinforcements , at 7 am I called my brother Sean and invited him to breakfast. Getting out of the house and drinking 5 gallons of coffee is what would get me through my wednesday, I had new comic books to look forward to (Spider-Man's "New Ways to Die" had it's conclusion) and a class I could not miss again, everything depended on my ability to stay awake. After breakfast I stopped at the bank, I  found out when banks open (9:30 am) which I thought was pretty cool, and I called my parents to let them know that I didn't die while they were on vacation. I had the makings of a productive day after no sleep. When I got home I began to read a text book, "Shattering of the Union" although I did find out that a senator from Alabama had the nick name "Miss Nancy" which was cruel, hysterical, and historical, the book also put me to sleep. Before I knew it I was immobilized by lazapathy, a concoction of sleep and not giving a fuck, I'd wake up every hour only to tell myself I still had time to get to class. By 1 pm I was actually sleeping. When I awoke at 4:58 I knew I wouldn't show up to class late, I hate showing up to class late, Instead I ate a sandwich at Subway and saw Burn after Reading with Justin. Now it's 4:30 in the morning and I'm still up because I found another slice of cake in the freezer and Venom merged with the scorpion armor so that he could kill Anti-Venom, I guess some things are just more important then a full education and a good nights sleep.

Student Profile: Bald teenager / The man who hates snack time

Today was the first time I heard bald teenager speak, he entered the class late and instead of going quietly to his seat while the professor was talking he decided to change the focus of classroom discussion to what he had been doing for the past 15 minutes. "I've been ripped off" Bald teenager exclaimed as he opened the door, "Roscoe Bartlett (a republican congressman from our district) spoke an HOUR ago from 4-5 not 5-6, I was lied to!". Ok? Who cares Bald teenager? Do we even know you?  He then proceeded to laugh about the mishap like it was tragically comic, I didn't get it, and he made sure to repeat himself so I would. Someone I had never even noticed before today had become the bane of my existence in no time flat. During the profs lecture he made it clear he hated nerds, in all forms, something I thought was a bully stereotype was actually uttered by a real person, not a cartoon. He blathered on and on about how people who talk in class make him sick with rage, I understood his feelings because he was making me feel the same way. For someone who had been silent every class up until now, his debut was excruciating. Bald teenager had a pointed goatee that made him look like Satan's understudy. All of Bald teenagers traits may be annoying to me, but none of them caused my hatred of him, my spite brewed in a darker place, a place called, mid class break. In a 150 minute classes a 15 minute break is given half way through so people don't go crazy. I love snack time. Bald teenager hates the fact that we get break time, this made us enemies. Why did he hate delicious treats? Did his mom hit him with a candy cane? No one can say for sure.  But when 6:15 roles around and the class holds it's breath waiting for the professor to release us, Bald teenager decides to speak against it, and in so doing, against me. "I'm so hungry, I'm going to buy a sandwich" I whisper almost silently to my neighbor in row three and yet BT gets wind of my plot and to sway me from my decision makes sure everyone knows his hatred of break. "I don't understand why we need to stop class just so some people" as he glares at me " who can't pay attention get a timeout, I just want this class to be over, not prolonged for an extra 15 minutes." This lead to the group discussing the pros and cons of snack time DURING snack time but before we were allowed to exit the class. Bald teenager wasted 4 minutes and 27 seconds of snack time. 4 minutes I could have used to buy a sandwich. The late release from class put us at the end of the line, I spent 10 min waiting for my turn to pay and receive my roast beef sandwich, only leaving me with 33 seconds to eat it. When I returned to class I dug in and two bites into the saving grace of an other wise dull day, Bald teenager taps me on the shoulder, "could you please stop eating that, I mean your making a lot of fucking noise." Fuck you bald teenager, and fuck you wax paper, may you both enjoy your stays in hell.

Ryan Taylor's Random Rants

With Mid-September finally upon us I thought it would be a good idea to write my first piece about the Great Frederick Fair. The marvelous and sultry event we wait for all year...Ok fine, maybe more like all...week? Yeah, that sounds about right. The week or so of hot weather combined with Frederick's classiest (or was it classless?) citizens, what could be better? Carnies with ring worms, old shirtless men, Appalachia's finest Italian sausages, and of course, that self-righteous clown who is probably drunk. I mean, the average Frederick Fair goer isn't what Darwin would call a "Survivor", but come on, you're a clown...at the Frederick Fair. That is one step below the select few who feel it necessary to wear a wife beater as a shirt. Seriously, think about this, when you see a person wearing a wife beater as a shirt is your first thought, "Oh he looks like a productive and informed member of society", no, you think, "Oh wow is that guy wearing just a wife beater? His dad probably beat him, or maybe he doesn't have a dad? Whatever went on in his childhood, it did not yield a net gain". The only demographic I can think of that out-scums the clown at the Frederick Fair is the Nightfall Walmart goer. Honestly, have you ever been in a Walmart after dark? it's ridiculous. There's always the guy with 9 arms and a sideways head roaming the electronics department. The pregnant woman who could just be fat, you can't tell, but she's smoking, so you're thinking, "Is she pregnant? Oh god I hope not, smoking could hurt the baby, and then we'll have even more Nightfall Marters on our hands!". And let's not forget the 12 midgets of assorted races scurrying about, you never know if they are together, but then you think to yourself, "Why would 12 midgets come to Walmart together? They don't have conventions for that do they? Conventions for being short? No, that's stupid. But wait, what are the odds of 12 individual midgets being at one Walmart at the same time?". Then there's the old, maybe late 60's early 70's, couple who seem normal enough. But boy do their looks deceive, when not having a shouting match with each other, the cashier, or a sliding glass door they are snapping at you for pushing your cart too quickly, slipping Heath bars (I mean come on, Heath bars, really? Couldn't go for a Three Musketeers or even a Twix?) into their coats, and being generally douchie. Ok, so I got a little sidetracked, but the point is, Walt Whitman was 72 stories tall and a raging Anti-Semite.

Snack Review: "tizer"

I left early for work today because I  thought I might need some time to mentally prepare  before it got busy, I work at a restaurant in downtown Frederick that is open late and is busy often. When I arrived at work I found myself parched and with 50 min before my shift started, I wandered across the street to the British Import Store. I searched the aisles for anything that looked kooky and foreign, what I came across was tizer, a harmless enough looking soda with the slogan "itz red, it even TASTES red". I also grabbed a "Curly Wurly" a candy bar similar to the Scrumdidly-umptious in Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory. The Curly Wurly was wonderful, but tizer was exactly like the advertisement had warned, it tasted like red, and red tastes bad. With an uneasy feeling in my stomach I had to start to work, and then stop 5 min later. I found out that "itz red" is when it's going in and "shitz red" when it's coming out. tizer gave me one horrible night of constant worry and running to the bathroom every hour. tizer... burn in hell. Your "fruit flavoring" is sub par, like a combination of strawberry and suck, or strawberry and blow. In short only drink tizer if you hate your asshole.

Student Profile: Girl with a mole on her lower lip

The Girl with a mole on her lip, or Gwamohll (Gwam-ole) is someone who is hard NOT to notice in class. What do I know about her? Gwamohll is nerdier then she looks. She plays World of Warcraft, innocent enough I mean almost 6 million people play world of warcraft so odds are some of them are girls, but add that together with the fact that she speaks elvish and you have your self one bona fide  nerdess. Did I mention Gwamohll jousts, like actually jousts... jousts with armor and a horse. You might be thinking, oh that's kind of unique and cool, but wait there is more. She has leathery dragon wings. Ok she doesn't have leathery dragon wings but I KNOW she wants them. Gwamohll has a tendency to pick up on nerdy conversations or nerdversations.  This is an incredibly embarrassing habit, because I like to have nerdversations with friends and don't like other people to know that I enjoy killing aliens from scaarr with my plasma uzi. Gwamohll will then proceed to try to get involved in your conversation by talking loudly about it so everyone hears your personal dilemma about the space spider in level 3. Other then that she seems nice enough, why she cares about the civil war, I have no idea.

Haiku Poems from Civil War class

Slaves were treated fine.

Did my professor say that?

oh shit, he's racist.

Pull your pants up dude

revenge of the pimple crack

he needs ass tic-tacs

You've made me so bored

I wish we had a window

so I could jump out

Confederacy

How does no one here get it

States control the Gov.