it's 5am, alicia and i are up late after a rousing random saturday. we began our day in shadyside at dean's, where alicia got a haircut. she may or may not have led the hairdresser to believe that i was her girlfriend, so that's good. we then waited for maybe forty minutes at the bus stop on craig street where we saw approx 9 billion couples enjoying late-afternoon dates. on the way there, a creepy man sidled up next to us as we walked down neville street and attempted to pick alicia up. however, he did not show the dedication to his endeavor that i think was necessary, as he mumbled most of his words. he asked us if we go bar hopping and if he could buy us a drink. then he asked if we wanted to go to a party -- but this invitation was after he already walked across the street away from us, so i'm surprised it made it the distance it did considering his volume problems.

we spent some time at barnes and noble (the highlight being the man we saw with a shirt that read "i am NOT a dinosaur") and ate dinner at eat n park. it was decided that i will attempt to get a job at the squirrel hill eat n park so i can hook alicia up with the hot waiter who checked her out at the salad bar and tossed her the skank eye while we waited to pay our check at the register. our next stop was alicia's apartment. as we walked through the parking lot, we stumbled upon my friend ian from high school. this is probably the weirdest oakland sighting i've ever had. i had not seen ian in about two years, so i was quite giddy. he doesn't even live in oakland so it's kinda weird to just run into him in the middle of a hospital parking lot. he invited us to his senior film showing at point park next weekend, which will probably be a ridiculously awkward high-school reunion. it was nice to see him, though.

spur of the momently we decided to go to buckhead's saloon with dan ruef and craig. it turned out to be horribly boring. we decided in the future to refer to this bar as "meathead's" because there were many meatheads in attendance, with their lack of necks and popped-collar shirts. the cover artist of the night played a bon jovi song and alicia got mad because she dislikes bon jovi. i drank two rolling rocks. mmm. we left, walked to downtown to catch a bus, but not before alicia called mark. he was at the matrix, and we would have gone in but the cover was $8 which is TRULY OUTRAGEOUS. so we came home. i passed out for maybe two hours, woke up, and here we are.

Alicia and i (clearly with nothing better to do) have decided to launch a myspace blog series of point-counterpoint arguments on various aspects of culture. the first in the series relates to the technology of tivo. alicia will take the affirmative position: why tivo is awesome; i will take the negative: why tivo is the worst.

I went home this weekend for Easter. Before arriving in Jeannette where we still enjoy the luxuries of extended basic cable, I stopped at my mom's house in Penn Hills. As we grilled hot dogs and drank Dr. Pepper, my mom's boyfriend Dale excitedly described to me the circumstances that led an English Premier League soccer player to do a series of backflips. He mimed the motion and then said -- "hey, i'll just show it to you." A series of water-drop sounding clicks through a menu later and we were watching the recording of the acrobatic feat of this spry young athlete from a week or so earlier. Dale then began reading off the values of the Tivo system: he could record any program he wanted, he could tell the Tivo which shows he liked and it would record them any time they played. The Tivo would even use its electronic brain to make educated guesses about shows you MIGHT like based on the ones that you tell it you like. Possibly most amazing of all, it enables you to stop and rewind up to a half hour back in a live tv show.

Sure, this seems convenient. I guess no one would rather fiddle with a VHS tape and make sure the TV is on the correct channel (the reason I have still never seen the final episode of Seinfeld). However, Tivo is essentially cheating. It blurs the lines between "sitting down to watch TV" and "sitting down to watch a movie or other form of entertainment not dependent on an outside schedule." Also, it can completely misalign your own schedule with that of the rest of the television-viewing public.

The whole point of watching on TV is the elusive quality the shows have. What's the point of releasing a tv series one week at a time? To get you to make it a point to sit down and watch that show. It keeps you coming back and in turn, keeps you seeing the commercials advertisers have paid to show. No one likes commericals, but without them, cable would be way more than $50 a month (which is outrageous anyway, but i digress). The point of Tv is telling yourself, "I'm going to sit down for a half an hour to watch One Tree Hill, and on the commercial breaks I am going to use my time wisely in such activities as walking to the kitchen to microwave some leftovers or go down to the washer to change the laundry, etc..." It is the existence of an external entertainment structure that you buy into. This is a different attitude than what one takes when they sit down to watch something pre-recorded. If I'm watching a movie, I've said to myself that I have two or so hours to kill. I do not watn to be bothered by commercials and if I desire to have a snack, I will hit pause. I will save the laundry for afterward because right now I am entertaining myself with the always lovable slapstick comedy of Jim Carrey. Tivo turns television into movies, which it is clearly not meant to be. If I am watching the Pirates game, I don't want to be able to stop and replay a questionable pitch. I will watch instant replays and/or suck it up because I missed it. Tivo sucks because it mixes these two separate entertainment options into a hodgepodge of viewer control.

And that gets me to what this hodgepodge creates: it throws the watcher off the schedule of everyone else's live TV viewing experience. For instance, I'm sitting here watching the Steelers AFC championship game. I'm waiting for Mike Vanderjagt to kick his field goal..he's lining up...he's doing that two step thing....the ball is snapped.... in the world without Tivo, I see the result of this kick with the rest of the world. However, in Tivoland, I stopped live action earlier to replay that awesome tackle made by Ben Roethlisberger. I said, I need to see that again! However, my live TV is now ten or fifteen seconds behind "real" live TV. So the ball is snapped.....it's in the air....and before I can tell if it's good, a car goes by outside, hootin' and hollerin. Unless it's the one Indianapolis fan in the tri-state area on this game day, the ending of this game has just been spoiled. Seconds later, after I already know the outcome, the ball flies wide right. This illustrates my second point: Tivo creates a viewer's own little entertainment world, misaligned from the schedule everyone else is on. It's like a little mini-version of time travel. After stopping for that one play, my live TV schedule is off for the rest of the night. Fifteen seconds doesn't seem like much but it adds up...ten here, five there and before you know it, shows are ending at five after like every channel is TBS or something. The essence of live TV is it creates a watching community: we're all seeing this as it happens. It may not seem like a big deal, but Tivo, my friends, Tivo = CHAOS. It's freakin me out, man. I don't believe in Tivo: it's cheating. Watch it with everyone else.

The end.

Did I mention I'm getting something like a B- in argument? And it's a comm class. Basically I suck.

plenty of things have happened since i last posted in this thing. i forget 80% of them. however, i will give you the cliffs notes version of what i can remember.

boston: best trip ever. some memories include: inventing the reverse birth sexual position, shooting the stink eye and tossing the skank eye, ordering a coors light at cheers because i am an idiot, dancing the "irish jig," throwing up after three yeunglings and a shot of southern comfort, peeing in the sand on the beach, hotel parties with kindhearted yet sleepy asians, mark's disappearing acts, moments of magical realism in boston commons (watching ice skaters in 70 degree weather), the doors as a motif, searching for an hour for wendy's, sitting outside a shady green door while the boys visited fenway park, riding the subway for the first time ever, alicia puking inside a bed, bath and beyond, nicknames nobody liked, and many other things i cannot remember but i wish i could.

it was pretty much the best time ever and i wish i could go back.

some other noteworthy events of march include: watching lots of basketball and mash while drinking PBR, a metaphysics test which i either failed miserably or aced but it's still up in the air, formal where i went from stone sober to puking drunk in record time (best tasting lethal punch ever), drinking on more weeknights than is really responsible and not feeling bad about it whatsoever.

i have become somewhat of a basketball fan recently, and i am very disappointed that LSU did not advance to the championship game. i have learned in life that the team i root for hardly ever wins. in fact, i can think of only one time that a team i like has won, and it was two months ago when the steelers won the superbowl. for instance, i always root for the "red team" on real world/road rules challenges. most of the time, this is the real world team. for the gauntlet II, it was the veterans team. the red team always loses. after pitt lost to bradley i resigned myself to feeling mostly unconcerned with the turnout of the rest of the tournament. then i caught some sort of interview on TV featuring LSU's team, and i decided glen davis is pretty much my favorite athletic personality in recent history. he just sat there with the dumbest look on his face. also, they showed clips of him dancing after a win wearing a yellow feather boa. he is more or less, as alicia said, an SNL character waiting to be born. anyone with a sense of humor should have rooted for LSU. unfortunately, that didn't pan out, and now we have florida and ucla. neither team has such potential for hilarity. all we have is ben howland and that guy that plays for florida with the hair. so when does baseball season start?

last wednesday i enacted a new "senior skip day" policy, which entails me shirking responsiblities in response to being denied for a job (probably because i spent four years shirking responsibilities). i went to work, but left at noon because "i had to write a sonnet." this "sonnet" ended up being a crappy poem in the style of yeats, which i turned in via email because instead of going to poetry class at three, i got on the 61C and spent a few hours walking around barnes and noble in squirrel hill. this is what i do when i get sad; i walk around bookstores, then i buy books i can't afford. alicia called, and we got some Dr Peppers and $1 slices of pieces from "the american deli," or really, "that deli next to cumpie's." if you haven't had this delightful treat yet, i suggest you do. they should probably rename atwood street "pizza street" or something more clever but equally indicative of the wide selection of pizza you can purchase on that street. antoon's, sorrento's and dollar slices. mmm.

while i was perusing the shelves of the barnes & noble reference section, i stumbled upon a book of lists. intrigued, i flipped through and was caught by this headline: "Sean Connery's Eleven Favorite Movies." among them were a bunch of titles that seem like movies you would pick as your favorite if you were purposely trying not be predictable and list obvious choices. and wouldn't you know it? number eleven on sean's list was "Finding Forrester." not only did he overlook some of the more likely choices for "best sean connery movie" (such as one of his bond appearances, the hunt for red october, that one with catherine zeta-jones...ok clearly i don't know anything about sean connery movies but you catch my drift), but he also chose to put the movie starring himself last on the list. obscure taste and modesty...what a guy.





ok clearly that didn't really happen. the list only had ten movies and finding forrester wasn't one of them. however, i like to imagine a world in which sean connery would make a list of his eleven favorite movies, not ten, and that list would include finding forrester.

boston in two days...i'm pumped. alicia and i watched elizabethtown, then decided we would try to find odd roadside attractions along the route from pittsburgh to boston. so far the most exciting one is the coffee-pot-shaped building, which is unfortunately too far out of the way. also of interest are the crayola factory and the world's largest glacial pothole. so we'll see how that turns out.

happy president's day!

all the proof you need that president's day is a useless holiday:

today there was an article in the post-gazette about this descendant of abraham lincoln that looks a lot like him. his name is ralph c. lincoln, he lives in johnstown, and he's THE ASSISTANT MANAGER OF VITAMIN WORLD.

he's really putting those presidential genes to good use.

today was magnificent. it was beautiful; 60 degrees and raining, but it was okay because a few weeks ago i found a red umbrella in the second floor cathedral bathroom.

some notable events of the day:

for lunch, alicia and i dined at the five star 7-eleven on the corner. alicia bought v8, which is by far the worst idea for a juice ever. i had never had v8 before, but i was against it in theory; vegetables in a blender doesn't even sound appealing. upon trying it, i hated it more. it is essentially cold tomato soup. tomato soup is not even good hot, or lukewarm, or whatever temperature you prefer your soup.

i had a hot dog and some turner's iced tea. usually i prefer this particular iced tea in the carton, but they didn't have that; so i opted for the quart-sized jug. this has become my new favorite way to enjoy beverages; it has enough capacity to last all day, and it is very convenient to carry (instead of using your whole hand, you need only curl one finger through the handle).

metaphysics was wonderful today. from 4-5:15, i could not have been happier to listen to cian dorr talk about the ship of theseus. if you are wondering if something can remain the same if some of its parts are changed, i implore you to ask yourself this question: is journey really still journey with that fake steve perry? the answer is no. steve perry is journey; they got another guy named steve, but it isn't the same.

the highlight of metaphysics, however, was when our professor cian dorr used the word "wonky." george and i nearly died, for this is the best word ever. cian dorr was cool before; he looks and acts a lot like mick jagger. but wonky! after that, i couldn't even concentrate.

matt participated in deepher dude tonight. he didn't place, but we all had a good time cheering for him. we also had a good time proving that being in an honors fraternity does not necessarily mean you have good morals by making fun of the other contestants loudly whenever possible. the volleyball boys behind us got real irritated.

for these reasons (and others), today was a GREAT DAY. woooo!

valentine's day! i figured out why valentine's day bothers the single folk. it's not really the day itself, or the not having a date thing. because i don't have a date any other day of the year soooo it wouldn't be rational to be sad on a singular day. honestly, if i had to, i could just ignore the fact that it is even february 14th. that was my plan -- until, ALL DAY, people were walking around with their instruments of love hangin out all over the place. a bunch of flowers, balloons (carried in a plastic shopping bag so as to avoid escape), stuffed animals, a rose in a plastic box (and, come one, who are you impressing with that? if i got that, all it would say to me is that you do the majority of your shopping at the ghetto eagle). it isn't not having a valentine that bother's me; it's reminders, every few minutes, all day long that everyone else is getting a special valentine's surprise and i'm not.

so around dinnertime tonight, i was waiting for alicia in mcdonalds (our classy hetero lifemate valentine's date). i'm sitting there without food at a restaurant, so i'm looking around awkwardly, trying not to stare at anyone. mission failed because this kid came in, tall, blonde hair, good looking...he caught my eye so i did that thing where you purposely don't look at someone and it makes it even more obvious that you were staring at them in the first place. unfortunately he had a valentine's balloon-in-a-bag in his hand, so oh well. he walks up to the counter and orders two double cheeseburgers to go. my first thought is some lucky girl is getting a balloon and a double cheeseburger for valentine's day. he collects his burgers and somehow our eyes meet again, and he has this "quit looking at me" look on his face, so now i feel real stupid. but, all of a sudden he's at my table. "there is a girl who goes to pitt who looks exactly like you." he proceeds to tell me that i look like a girl named ingrid, and that i should look her up on the facebook. "i almost came up and said 'hi ingrid!'" and that was that.

alicia arrived and we had our dollar menu meals. a crazy man with a green thermos came in and made a beeping noise. we thought he might be friends with the mcdonalds worker, but decided he wasn't when he started talking to his reflection in the window. later, a man wearing a shirt that read "gangsta as fuck" referred to green thermos man as a "band-aid smellin' mother fucker." we couldn't decide if he meant that the man smelled like band-aids or if he was fond of smelling band-aids.

mcdonald's is the best.

Aw man. it's 1:35 and I have to be at work at 9 tomorrow morning. too many things are weighing on my brain right now to sleep...such as, homework, doing my teach for america application, completing my myspace profile. priorities! i read a sweet little ditty by peter van ingwagen (yeah i probably spelled his name wrong but i don't feel like going in the living room, searching through my folder and correcting it) about fatalism -- which is different from determinsim, but i'm not quite sure how. also i read some crappy manuscripts of my fellow senior seminar classmates. not that i think i'm better, but that doesn't change the fact that some of them were painful to read. last but not least i read this essay by george orwell which made me feel like i abuse the english language daily. namely, he would discourage the use of the phrase "last but not least." so clearly, i learned something.

today we had pinning for the alpha deltas. the most exciting part of that was tossing the football in G24 with the andrews. also, i let alicia eat my chili from wendy's. she spilled some on her shirt and blamed it on the fact that i grabbed a fork instead of a spoon at the condiment counter. who says you can't eat chili with a fork? i submit that you can. the best part was alicia's ensuing date, which she now had to go to with a chili stain on her white shirt. the whole situation raises the question: does she go home and change the shirt, or wear the shirt on the date and make a joke out of it? i would opt for the joke. because if the date turns out to be awkward, it gives you maybe 30 seconds of automatic material. then maybe you could take the conversation towards times you've spilled things on yourself. obviously, i'd make a horrible date.

i'm finding it really hard to care this semester. maybe it's senioritis, i don't know. i'm ready for the "schooling" part of my life to wrap up. i came home and anthony was back. we ate some eggplant and vegetable concoction he made, which was pretty good (way better than cheesy chicken), and talked about going to see his sister and her husband in erie this weekend. it's odd, but it just occured to me that i've never been to erie. after all that excitement, alicia and i talked on the phone about boys for maybe a half an hour. my life is full of substance.

retrospectively, last week was maybe the best week ever. the steelers won the superbowl. i love the steelers, but it's hard to imagine what it would be like for the team you root for to win the superbowl (especially if they haven't in your lifetime). i believed it could happen, but i guess i didn't think it actually would. it's surreal. on thursday, my senior seminar professor complemented "my work thus far," allowing me to ignore for a few days the recurring feeling that i am a horrible writer. also, alicia and i peer pressured mark into having a party. he had one that included a keg of natty ice and you know what happens when natty ice is around. today we found out that alicia locked herself in the bathroom for twenty minutes. mark had to break in with a screwdriver. none of us had any idea about those events until today. the best memories are the ones you don't really remember.

ok that made no sense. peace!