I Never Want to Hear Anything Again

I recently came across the most unwanted song ever.

It's over twenty minutes.

I'm at seven minutes, and will update when I finally give up.

See if you can beat me here.

Shalom,
Drew

Edit: I got through all twenty-one minutes and fifty-eight seconds of it. I'm going to go listen to nails on a chalkboard to force this abomination from my memory.

Edit 2: The Sequel: The most wanted song ever is not much better. It is highly reminiscent of something you'd hear on Delilah.

The Ma-Cello Administration

For those who didn't hear, Stephen T. Colbert, D.F.A., announced that Yo-Yo Ma is officially the president of the United States of America.

His Stradivarius cello is now vice-president.

Which means we can look forward to four years of Hail to the Chief being played on cello. By the chief.

I'm OK with this.

Monday Graph Jam # 4 - I'm Finally On Time

Yeah, I know, I can hardly believe it.

On to the graphs.
If you don't know what a furry is, don't find out.My friend has an idea for units in which scientists can objectively rate human lives. Introducing - the Hilton (Hi). The Hilton is represented on this graph at the x value where the blue line reaches its lowest possible point, while the red line reaches its highest possible point.

Shalom.

Legal Notice and Disclaimer: I didn't make the graphs. I don't own Linux, nor do I hate people who like Linux. I just like laughing at Penguicon, which I don't own either. And if the word "Hilton" appears anywhere in your name, the similarity between you and the unit, Hi, is a complete coincidence.

Monday Graph Jam #3 - Ruby Tusedsay II - Now with 100% more Tuesday

I suck at getting posts up on time.

Make with the graphs....and we are all together.

Disclaimer: I don't own Graph Jam. I own neither Simon nor Garfunkel. And I especially don't own the Beatles, lest I earn the wrath of Yoko.

Monday Graph Jam #2 - Ruby Tuesday

Today's post doesn't have anything to do with the Rolling Stones. Or the restaurant. I was trying to make a pun about being a day late. Kind of like a bad action movie title. I know, I'm a dork.

Anyway, on to the graphs.
And for fans of Stuff Christians Like, don't be this guy.

Rock on.

*Disclaimer: Once again, I don't own Grap Jam. I didn't make the graphs. Or the movies mentioned in the graphs. Nor do I write the SCL blog. I'm not "that dude", Tyler Durden, or Steve McRoskey. I'm not Keyser Soze either, but that's a different story.

Monday Graph Jam #1

I started this summer with a goal. Even though my class doesn't start until 2:15 in the afternoons, I wanted to wake up around eight to start the day off well - coffee, bagels, Bible - the usual Christian college kid gig.

This plan was derailed by day one by the internet and a roommate who has a near-obsession with internet memes. Seriously, for a while he carried around pictures of his favorite lolcats. So one night a few weeks ago, when he found a lolcat-related blog called Graph Jam, he showed me. And given my love of The Princess Bride and music, the site was an instant hit. I stayed up for two more hours going through the archives. And saving pictures.

I've got...ten, I think.

Here are the first two.
Disclaimer: I don't own these images. GraphJam does. Please don't sue.

I'd Pay To See This Movie

Coming soon...

Cracked.com Presents a Burton/Schumacher/Nolan Film

My money's on BatBale.

Stuff I Liked on Stuff Christians Like

I tried to resist. I hadn't even heard of that silly website until this week, when all of sudden, it was mentioned on pretty much every blog I read. Being the Indie kid that I am (you happy, Jeremy, I finally admitted it?), I tried to keep from reading the list. And then, I decided I could read it, I just wouldn't reference it. But then it brought back memories of youth groups and life as a preacher's kid. So, here, I hope you're happy, blag-web-o-sphere. Here are my favorites. In groups!

Popular Christian Culture
#12 - Getting awesome in a certain number of steps
#25 - Jonah, Noah, and David
#26 - Songs that sound Christian, but aren't
#28 - Rob Bell - Rob Bell, if by some chance you're reading my blog, just know that I love you and what you have to say. But I also like paragraphs.
#58 - Calling people "Seekers"
#61 - Being "relevant" - To the publishers of Relevant Magazine - I love you guys, but you really are the indie kids of today's Christianity. Also, can I get a free subscription?
#75 Quoting from The Message when the normal Bible is being disagreeable

Devotionalism
#14 - Dating God instead of me
#31 - Occasionally swearing
#33 - Singing with our hands raised
#63 - Rededicating your life. Again.
# 96 - Using God's favorite word
#105 - Wishing your testimony was more exciting

Youth Group
#35 - Lock ins
#45 - Getting the money's worth out of youth group liability forms - Best example of this - rupturing my eardrum during a mudfight on a camping trip. Or that time my friend Cameron nearly died on the white water rafting retreat. Or the kid who got a concussion on the ski trip. Or...yeah...
#55 - Getting a precise definition of "virgin" from your youth minister
#64 - Fearing the rapture would come before you lost your virginity
#66 - Eating your bodyweight in goldfish in Sunday school - Or at youth group. Or vacation Bible school. Or pretty much anytime. I still do this. The goldfish cracker really is the perfect snack of our faith.
#74 - Youth group vehicles that break down, blow up, and in general, suck - I'm not entirely sure if I've been on a youth trip that didn't have at least one car problem
#93 - Riding on the cool van in youth group - If it's gonna break down, you don't want to be stuck with losers.

Grape Juice
#76 - Grape Juice - 'Nough said.

And now that I've wasted an hour and a half, I can get on with my life.

kthxbai

Rock on.
Wait...why aren't bad Christian rock bands on the list? Stryper's just the tip of the iceberg.

Edit: Ok, yeah, I missed a few. Or new ones came out. Either way, here they are:
#5 - Bootleg Cookies
#110 - Donald Miller - Mr. Miller, if you happen to be reading my blog, please hurry up with more books.
#115 - Kissing dating goodbye - Yeah. I tried it. And by tried it, I mean that I used it as an excuse for my singleness. I highly recommend I Gave Dating a Chance.

Oh, and I forgot this part. Hat-Tip - 'erbody

Leavenworth Made the Lark!

The town I graduated high school from made the Lark.

Huzzah?

It's Pronounced "Fronkenshteen".

Only during election season (What the crap? It's still 07!) do you get headlines like "McCain Names Mannequin". But still, I think this one takes the cake.

Stein Crosses Party Lines, Helps Franken

I just hope they run for president in 2012. I'd support the Franken/Stein ticket.

Also, if you have no clue what the title refers to, shame on you.

Colbert '08

For all of my readers (ha, like I have readers) in South Carolina (ha, like South Carolina's a state...it's not like I've ever lived there...oh, wait...), be sure to vote for Stephen Colbert in both the Democratic AND Republican primaries (yes, he's running on both tickets).

If you haven't heard, over the course of the past couple of days, Stephen Colbert has lead up to this announcement (seriously, like only three days; it took Obama and McCain, what, half a year to actually make a formal decision?) and announced on The Daily Show that he would make his official announcement on a more prestigious show - only to make the announcement fifteen minutes later on his own show. Full story here.

Wait, I think I've seen this movie before. With the help of Lewis Black and a flaw in the computer systems created by Jeff Goldblum's company, doesn't he actually win? And address congress dressed as George Washington?

Robin Williams movies aside, this is perhaps the funniest thing Colbert has done. Aside from his interview with Richard Branson.

BlendTec Presents: Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. He waits.
The chief export of Chuck Norris is pain.
Chuck Norris has two speeds: walk; and kill.
Chuck Norris doesn't go hunting. He goes killing.
Chuck Norris - the only force in the universe strong enough to survive a BlendTec Total Blender.

Catch the video here.

The best part is if you look closely enough, you can see him at the top of the blender roundhouse kicking everything else.

UGA Episode IV: A New HOPE

For those who don't know, Georgia has an amazing scholarship that I alluded to in my last post. It's for all Georgia residents who are attending a Georgia college and maintain above a 3.0.

What's so amazing about this is that it covers your tuition for up to 127 credit hours as long as you take a full schedule, which is 12 hours during Fall and Spring semesters. I think some of the exact requirements for hours vary from school to school, but the important thing is that this is a bloody amazing scholarship.

But it's called HOPE. So, especially at Georgia Tech, you will, most likely, lose HOPE during your four years. Many students around the state lose HOPE after just one year in school. While you can earn HOPE back, to do so is almost as soul-crushing as losing HOPE in the first place.

And while HOPE stands for Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally, nobody ever says the full name. No, you're not losing the Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally Scholarship, you're losing HOPE. And once you've lost HOPE, life has no meaning. It's almost as bad as losing coffee. College just isn't possible without it.

So I propose that we change the name of the HOPE. Let's call it Tuition Elimination Exemplified To Battle Overpriced Official Kolleges For Everybody Everywhere Scholarship, or TEXTBOOK FEES for short. In keeping with government tradition, the title has been sacrificed to make for a better acronym. I think that generally speaking, a student could make it through college without TEXTBOOK FEES. Heck, it might even make it more enjoyable. Without TEXTBOOK FEES, college could become a place of sunshine, puppies, and professors who know your name.

Here's hoping.
Shalom.

The Kraft Effect

I think I may have made a major sociological break through over dinner. I was looking in my pantry, wondering what I should have: the Ramen or the Mac and Cheese. Suddenly, I had flashbacks of my childhood (granted, it wasn't that long ago) and all of the great foods: Mac and Cheese, Ramen noodles, Pop Tarts, cereal, Chewy granola bars, chicken tenders, and the like.

Then I looked around my kitchen, and oh crap, it's the same food. But just last year, I was dinning on the finest dinning hall foods (ok, most college kids can't say this): Philly cheese steak, smoothies, cheese cake, chili, mixed field green salads, and wonderful sandwiches. And through my last two years of high school, I had stepped away from my childhood favorites, developing a taste for vegetables, cheeses, and things that don't come out of a box. What happened?

The Kraft Effect.

The Kraft Effect can be depicted quite simply by a negative quadratic equation: as you move from childhood to a "zero year", your choice in food becomes more diverse. After the zero year, you begin to regress, with your food choices becoming more limited.

The reasons for the trend towards zero year is quite obvious, with the brain becoming more mature and more open minded, willing to try new foods. But what about as we move away from the zero year? I propose the following causes:

1. Time - College/graduate students simply don't have the time to make anything more complicated than Easy Mac. The time buying the ingredients, cooking, and cleaning up? Ha. We have more important things. Like papers. And Facebook.
2. Effort - What student wants to add more to his plate? Now your telling me that being in college isn't enough, but we have to learn to cook and clean as well? Ha.*
3. Money - Easy Mac? Cheap. Store-brand Easy Mac? Cheaper. Ramen? Cheapest. Because, like with time, we have more important things to use money for, such as textbooks. And concert tickets.
4. Taste - Seriously, I'm a little disturbed that store-brand Easy Mac tastes that good. Any cheese-sauce product that doesn't even require milk cannot possibly be healthy. But, oh is it addictive. Kinda like uncooked Ramen.
   

Yes, I expect that this new principle may help the world understand the student better. Of course, this is mostly just a theory. No scientist has dared trek into the hazardous native environment of the college student, and I expect that they won't for quite some time.

*This factor also explains why the undistinguished palate is only present in the dorms/apartments of students. You will observe that at restaurants, students avoid simple noodle/pasta dishes at all costs.

Rock on.