Halloween Dinner @ Phillips Hall

The Justice League by Clampett Studio Collections

The much-anticipated Halloween dinner was tonight. Snyder Hall was decorated in a haunted mansion/Texas Chainsaw Massacre style. Phillips Hall went with a superheroes theme.

Last night I helped out the decorating, mostly in Snyder. Since Snyder is not normally opened for service, we had to put out the condiments and ice—the basic requirements for food service. We were pretty much done by nine. Adam K. had a great idea with his moving ghost. It was set up in such a way with a mirror that it was supposed to give a more realistic feel.

Phillips was more difficult to decorate that night because it still had to seat patrons for dinner. When they cleared out, we were able to bring in some of the bigger sets such as the wooden models of buildings, the snow cone machine, and a tank. I went home about an hour earlier to find some pics of superheroes and villains and then email those to Britt. She printed them off today and used them in some of the decorations.

The dinner was nothing special to talk about. But everything went well. My only complaint was this damn cannon that made one helluva bang. They were just inviting a lawsuit with that thing. Imagine someone choking because of the shock they got from it. Brian got himself an Incredible Hulk costume and passed out cotton candy from his cage. Liz decided to go as a “One Night Stand.” Her costume being a table and lamp set with a rolled out condom and alarm clock. As for myself, I only stayed for dinner and stocked up on some candy.

I probably could have stayed for cleanup, but after the last one… I think not.

Long Live the Republic of China!

From Yahoo! News

"Taiwan is absolutely a sovereign, independent nation. It's a great nation, and it absolutely does not belong to the People's Republic of China. That is the present situation, that is the reality," Chen said.
Using the island's official name, Republic of China, Chen said no country had the right to tell Taiwan it isn't independent.

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Finally. Kick the PRC in the nuts!!

Ashlee Simpson Does a Jig!

When I came into the office, Chris was reading through an article discussing Ashlee Simpson's preformance on Saturday Night Live. Like Milli Vanilli (sp?), she was outed as a lip-syncher. And as she realized that the song that was playing was not the song that she was supposed to be preforming, she did her own little dance move. And just like Chris exclaimed, she was doing the jig! Although, if you ask her, she'll claim it was a hoe-down.

I can't find the video anymore. But here's a .gif of it. I hope it stays. Click here.

Asians with OCD

This actually has to deal with an issue that me and a couple neighbors had to deal with in the summer. It was then, that two Asians came to our attention with weird behavior. I didn't have any thought to bringing this up but something happened this morning that compelled me to vent.

In the summer, there was a Japanese student who lived at the other end of the hall from us. That placed him next to the public water fountain, near the uni-sex bathroom, and around the corner from the community bathroom. On the day that I moved in, I saw him gargling tea and then spitting it out in the botany basin. That put me off right there. He gargled constantly. Sometimes, it felt that every other time we passed by we would see him with his head thrown back doing his stuff. It continued throughout the summer. My neighbors and I found that he also washed his dishes and put his garbage in the unisex. Also, when he wasn't gargling, he was washing his hands and brushing his teeth for long periods of time.

When fall semester rolled around, the Japanese guy moved out and a Chinese one moved in. Now I noticed the Chinese guy during the summer, but he didn't attract our disgust because he lived in the other hall, Abbot. During the dinner periods he would come up to the line, get his food and sit down. He would eat the majority of it, and came back for seconds. But unlike all other people, he would bring his tray and dirty dishes with him. Then he would go and sit in a totally different place. Darcy, the cook saw this and can only laugh now about him. I don't see him in the cafeteria much anymore but I do see him pacing around the halls. He just walks up and down the halls for a while. He also paces in the bathroom. It was this that caused this post to be written. While I was at the urinal, he was pacing back and forth behind me. If I didn't need to go so bad, I probably would have gotten stage fright.

Downloading Music

Okay, I admit... I used to be a big time illegal downloader. I probably wasn't as music hungry as some people I know. My music collection just barely made it over 1gig by the time I virtually quite. Since the RIAA started suing people, I haven't downloaded any of the recent and popular songs. At the beginning of the year, I installed Napster and started downloading song legally. That was soon followed by iTunes when Pepsi started giving out free songs in the spring.

Normally, I'm not into songs that are a fad right now. My interest in a song usually comes when it is used as a soundtrack to something. Which is how we get to this posting. I watched a movie recently and went looking for a song that I had heard before but now liked. I didn't know the name of the song so I went to Amazon and looked up the soundtrack for the movie. Once I found it, I had every intention of going to iTunes and Napster to buy it. Except they didn't have it. There's the problem with these legal music sites. They just don't have songs that I would like to download. Their selection is limited in regards to what I want to listen to. The only way that I can listen to this song is to buy the soundtrack for $15 and get one song, listen to a 30 sec sound bite of it on Amazon, or download it illegally. There's just one problem. My downloading program doesn't work! Again... damn Service Pack 2!!!

Enterprise

Enterprise NX-01

Since I took some time with Desperate Housewives, I wanted to add something about Star Trek: Enterprise.

When they started the third season with the Xindi plot, I thought that they were going to make a major mistake by abandoning the Temporal Cold War plot. Then they tried to blend the two and it has left me highly confused. From the Shadow Guy, to the Temporal Beings, to the humanoid amphibians with the red eyes, I don't know which one I should concentrate on. Now that the season finale and opener are done, it appears that the temporal cold war has been dropped completely. After completing their latest mission, I presume that Captain Archer has stopped the Temporal Cold War from even starting.

In hopes of boosting their lagging viewership, they are going to be intruding a multi-episode story arch. Much like Doctor Who, a story will go through multiple episodes. If the stories manage to keep me interested and on my toes, I think this idea will work well.

Desperate Housewives

The Desperate Housewives

I had thought that this year's new series premiers were pretty uninteresting. I gave Joey a shot but I think that one is going to fall through. A couple weeks ago, because nothing else was on, I gave it a shot. Now that I've seen three episodes of it, I will keep going with it. It is certainly different than any of the other shows that I'm watching or have watched.

"Overrated!"

All hail Drew Stanton!

MSU: 51; MN: 17

Today's weather: cold, windy, and rainy. "What a beautiful day for football!" Was the announcer insane? The game hadn't already started and my ass was already numb. Now I came in pessimistic about our chance against Minnesota but today certainly turned my frown upside down. We scored early in the game and just kept running it up. In some sort of devine inspiration, the sun broke out while MSU scored two of their touchdowns. The rest of the time, it was raining, and in the last few minutes of the game, it was freezing rain. But we stayed through it yelling over and over again, "Overrated!" towards Minnessota who is ranked at 20. It tasted so sweet to bring this team down a peg.

So who's the man? Drew Stanton is the man! This guy really knows when to run the ball himself. He does it so well that today he broke the school record for total offense-- 410 yards. His predecessor, Jeff Smoker, held the record for 393 yards set in 2001. MSU is lucky so far to have this guy. I hope that he stays and improves for two more seasons and perhaps MSU will become a big Big Ten team.

*Photo from the State News. For the original picture and article click here.

Hotmail Again

Well, a few days has passed and Hotmail hasn't been upgraded. Damn Japanese get all the good stuff first.

Hotmail

A guy that I know in Japan wrote on his blog that when he opened his email, he noticed that Hotmail upped its storage to 250Mb. I've been expecting this since spring when Yahoo increased their storage to 100Mb. Now it has begun. Or has it? As soon as I saw that message, I checked my account and saw that it was still at 2Mb. But at that time it was 14 Oct. in Japan. It is was 13 Oct. here. So I am anticipating that my account will upgrade tomorrow EST.

Laundry Etiquette

I was asleep Sunday morning which is when I normally do my laundry. No one else gets up at that time so I always have the washers and dryers to myself and can do all my loads at the same time. Monday wasn't possible because I was busy all day. So I did it this afternoon. What a pain! Half the washers and all the dryers were being used. I had calculated that I would have to wait for the ones in the dryers to stop, and then wait after the girl who was waiting to use them as well.

Now nothing irritates me more that people who do not attend their clothes. Their time will be up and they are not there to retrieve their clothes. So it would happen to me again! So I was there debating what I should do this time. Should I take out their clothes and leave them in a pile? Should I at least fold them? Maybe give them a time limit. Luckily one showed up after a few minutes and got her clothes.

So what kind of rules would you think are acceptable?

I say you don't touch another person's laundry for at least 15 minutes. If they aren't back by them, just take their clothes and pile them on the table.

The New Florida Ballot

Almost time to vote!

I got this image by email way back after the 2000 election debacle. As I was going through some of my old picture files I came across this one again. I wanted to throw it out on the net once more because I know that I will forget about it by November.

Thumbs Up to Genetic Cleansing

Ethnic cleansing is bad. Genetic cleansing? That may not be such a bad idea after all. From the news of WNDU Channel 16, South Bend, IN:

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Man who faked his own death in St. Joseph found dead of drug overdose

A man accused of faking his own death on a pier in St. Joseph, Michigan has actually died.

Joel Johnson, of Jackson, Tennessee, died on September 26^th of a possible drug overdose. Jackson Police say they found him dead on his kitchen floor with empty pill bottles scattered around him.

Back in January, Johnson faked his death. While visiting relatives in St. Joseph, Johnson's wife called police saying her husband fell off the pier into Lake Michigan.

Rescue crews searched for his body for days only to discover the whole thing was a hoax. Johnson was found alive in Tennessee a few months later.

He allegedly faked his death to collect insurance money. Now, he has died and while police suspect suicide, they're considering the death suspicious. Johnson was to stand trial for insurance fraud, later this month.

10 October 2004

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I really hope that this guy and his wife did not have children.

MSU Wins!!

MSU: 38; Illinois: 25

I was able to get out of the dishroom a few minutes early to go to the football game with Brian. Brian brought his friends Sara and Anna whom I've met at the previous game. This time two other girls and a guy joined us who were new to me. But we left and tried to get into the student section closes to the 50 yard line. But we ran into Maria and Kris who are also cafe workers so we sat behind them.

With MSU's less-than-stellar preformance so far this season, I'm was just hoping that I would see my team whin one game before I graduated. It happend! That game was great. The cheering and hanging with people I know. Next time I got to remember to bring my camera.

Apparently "1, 2, 3, first down, BITCH!" is being frowned upon. Go figure! The "bitch" part I first heard this year. Apparently it started sometime last year while I was in the Philippines but only recently gained mass popularity. Nate, who has "Corner Blitz" seats was given a flyer that says those students can't say "bitch." How is that going to be enforced when the rest of the student body can't be policed? Personally, I found it hillarious when I heard it. It's hardly any more rude than the other stuff we shout out.

Door to Door

A few days ago (Thursday), I went with my supervisor, Derek, on a door to door campaign. Rep. DeRossette's term ends in January. Because he is term limited, a man named Joe Yekulis is running for his seat. So six us from the House Office Building went and campaigned for him in some neighborhoods outside Ann Arbor.

I am hesitant to get into people's faces and solicit them for anything, much less votes. Not only that, what would I do if someone started asking "intelligent" questions. Who is Joe Yekulis? What is his position on this or that? What is his opponents platform? These are questions that I wouldn't know. But it turned out to be relatively painless. I only got rebuffed twice. Save for four households, no one was home. But I'm not surprised because this was a high middle-class neighborhood. They would need to work as much as possible to keep these houses I'm sure.

I think that being able to talk a little with my supervisor was great. We got done with our section early so we got to talk for a little bit. One thing in particular stood out: I figured that perhaps I can really get a job with just my bachelors.

Military Blogs

I was scanning the papers today for the office looking for any articles about Biodiesel, anniversaries, and events. In the Herald Palladium, there was an article called "Soldiers' blogs revealing: New details emerge on war in Iraq." The article talked about the blogs that soldiers in the military write. Basically it's just pointing out that there are real, raw, and heartfelt stories that people can read that won't be shown in the regular media. I quickly browsed a couple of them and found it interesting. Try them out at http://cbftw.blogspot.com and http://docinthebox.blogspot.com.

VP debate

I just want to comment quickly on the Vice Presidential debate.

Vice President Cheney and Senator Edwards did a good job in the debate. Each were able to bring forth real points and leave most of the campaign rhetoric out. Although I am not willing to say one did better than the other there is one thing that VP Cheney did that I think gives him an edge in the context of the campaign. Given that President Bush unfortunately did horrbily in the first debate, VP Cheney was able to stem the leak in the ticket. It seems that preventing Kerry/Edwards from gaining ground is becoming more and more important.

Moronic constituents

Usually, I don't mind the consituent letters that I deal with in my internship. However, about 1/3 of the time I run into writers that I think the world would be better off without. There was one in particular whose case I opened on Friday. This guy claimed that while he and his wife were walking though their property, they were shot at by a negligent hunter. So he writes us complaining that hunters trespassing on private property is all to easy. He also claims that the police are so sympathetic towards hunters that they can not enforce the laws. In his letter he demanded three things:

1.) Make it illegal for a person to park along side a road for the purpose of hunting. Also make it possible for a person to "safely" tow a violator of this proposed "law."
2.) Impose stiffer penalties for police officers who go on private property for hunting.
3.) Make it illegal for land owners to charge for hunting on private property.

As I read his letter, I was just shaking my head. So I wrote back saying more or less:

1.) It is illegal for a person to park along side a road unless it's an emergency. Call the police and have them ticket it! The person is not required to stand by the damn car. Go home and report the license plate number by phone--which is completely safe!
2.) Moron! Cops can't go on your property without a warrant or just cause and they definately can't do it while they are off duty. If they do, they are guilty of trespassing no matter what their intent. Additionally, the legistlature can't pass laws that target only a specific group of people such as cops... it would be challenged in court and declared invalid.
3.) You can't make a law for that! First of all, there would not be enough support in the legislature and residents of the district wouldn't approve either. How can you just say that people can't charge for use of private property. That's not right!

Basically, he wanted new laws that would be self-enforcing because he doesn't believe the police can enforce laws. Maybe it doesn't occur to him that laws are just words on paper. Letters of the law aren't going to sit on the property line and prevent people from trespassing. No matter what laws the representative and the legislature pass, in the final analysis... it is still going to fall to the police. Perhaps this moron can't grasp that. If he wants to solve the problem, he's going to have to talk to them. We make the laws; police enforce them.

Cowtipping

So I was talking to this girl, Kaitlin today. We were chatting about where we lived, went to school, what we did, yadda yadda. You know the "get to know you dance." I found out that Kaitlin lived in Ann Arbor and apparently did all the cool city type activities like clubbing and all that. She asked me where I was from and I said Galien. Of course I immediately told her that it was near South Bend, IN. Afterall, no one knows where Galien is. I explained to her that there really wasn't much I did. Riding around in cars, watching movies at someone's house, occassionally doing something exciting like swimming or rollerblading. As a joke I mentioned cowtipping. Well everyone cowtips in Galien, right? So she was laughing about some of my stories and then, it got serious... "Cowtipping? You did that?" Well... to tell you the truth... no. I never cowtipped. Mainly... because I don't know what it is. So we moved on.

Later, as I was walking back to my dorm, I got to thinking. I might as well find out what it means. So I tried to contact some of my high school buddies that I still talk to. First up, Kacey who I see on the AOL IM quite a bit. She didn't know. Okay-- Season... she didn't know. Sara? She never answers her phone. So, so far no one knows. My next hope lies with Dusty and Jessica, and maybe Adam if I see them online.

Do you know what cowtipping is? Please answer! I'm to lazy to google it.