Will The Real Carl Please Stand Up

One of the best things about having friends is that they know things you don't. You can learn from their life experiences, they can tell you how to solve problems that are beyond you, and obviously vice versa.

They can also show you Youtube videos you haven't run into on Stumbleupon yet. In this instance, I'm going to credit the Andy with showing me Llamas With Hats.

To the psychos who gave us Carl and the effeminate Paul, I salute you. To the people who haven't yet watched the video, allow me to redirect you here.

As a heads up to those of you reading this, some cough "renowned individual" going by the name of Harold Camping has come out and informed the world that the world is going to end. Soon, in fact, so all of you who have been wondering will finally get to find out what that will be like. So, if you all manage to hold onto your hats until Saturday- yes, THIS saturday, as in May 21, 2011- then all your questions will be answered.

I am myself a little skeptical about the whole debacle, though. My first reason can be found in Matthew 24:36: "But about the day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." God flat out tells everyone that no one is going to know when the world is going to end. He also says that people are going to be proclaiming His arrival claiming to have been inspired, or something like that, but don't listen to them. It's true, he says that. Go check the chapter for yourselves.

My second big reason is that Camping has already bungled predicting the end of the world before.

That having been said, I suppose choosing to believe him or not is up to the individual. Although if for some reason you do decide to believe him, I would suggest not going out and selling all of your earthly possessions like so many other people have done... just, you know, on the off chance that he didn't quite do it right this time either.

It's Punny: You Will Disclose Everything

One of the requirements for having a well rounded education, according to Asbury, is taking three semesters of a world language.

Since the level of inadequacy in the Needham school system's french departments was incomprehensibly high, the 6 YEARS of French I had taken only managed to test me out of the first semester. So, I had to sign on for french once again.

One of the many forms of suffering inflicted by this obligation is a certain nefarious online testing application known as Tell Me More.

My first experience with TMM went a little like this:

It was miserable.

First, the program refused to let me sign in. Right off the bat, terrible first impression. It then proceeded to deny the authenticity of my school provided account number, and refused to let me check the assignments I was supposed to do, and the voice authentification didn't work properly, and the audio clips wouldn't play, and I was rapidly getting to the point where I was entirely ok with never having to see it again.

Hours of misery passed as I helplessly floundered against the onslaught of uncooperative programs.

My word of advice to everyone out there: no matter how awesome and fun you might have managed to convince yourself the french language is, there is nothing, I repeat: NOTHING in the whole of creation that would warrant taking it as a course (or God forbid a major) here at Asbury. Tell Me More has ruined foreign communication for me even more than Mme Mirabile, my high school french teacher, ever could have dreamed of.

And that's not even possible. Madame was terrible. But that's the only way to fully convey my distain for this.... this abomination.

Status Update

I had the weirdest dream last night.

Since I've never trained to be able to remember dreams, which apparently is something you can do, most of it was lost in my panic this morning when I remembered I had a meeting with one of my teachers. That having been said, there is still enough of it left for me to question the mental integrity of my subconscious.

Uh.. meaning I think I'm crazy when I sleep.

Basically, in my dream, there was this little girl getting attacked by a bunch of older people- they were probably in like their mid 20s. I can't recall most of what happened, but I remember that right at the very end of the dream the little girl had been cornered, and the other people were closing in all sinister like...

...so she pulled out a pistol and shot all of them. The end. Seriously.

Then a loud, disembodied voice proclaimed: "AND THAT'S WHY YOU HOLSTER YOUR GUN, IT SCARES AWAY THE TERRORISTS."

...

...what?

For starters, none of those people were terrorists. Sure, they were definitely creepy, but not terrorists- in fact, the closest thing to a terrorist would be the little girl who KILLED EVERYONE.

Secondly, nothing in this dream had anything to do with "holstering" your gun. In no way could that message apply to what happened.

None of this dream made any sense at all. I mean, falling-to-your-death dreams kind of make sense, they have something to do with fear and apprehension. Then flying dreams work too, since everyone secretly wants to be able to fly, and then there's your minds ability to ignore physics on a subconscious level and stuff like that...

But seriously, this one just baffles me.

OOO It's Mysterious

A bit of an update from when I last posted: I've embarked on Project VI with a friend of mine from back home. You could probably figure it out if you're extremely crafty (and good with the internet).

Speaking of the internet, I think if you're reading this then chances are you have been acquainted with it pretty well by now. If anything, the internet is an all-reaching, fascinating tool that helps prove once and for all that everyone is pretentious when talking about others behind their backs.

Since I try to not be too much of a terrible person, though (barring my flagrant disregard for consistent posting) I typically use the internets for more constructive purposes.

Namely, not getting any of my work done.

The easiest way for me to do that is pretty simple, actually-

- just spend dozens, if not hundreds of hours picking through the vast reaches of cyberspace, only looking at topics you decide you're interested in.

For example, I learned that out there is someone who made a laser gun. Think like a star wars blaster that looks like something the Apple company would make, and then point it at something and it burns a hole in it for you. A straight up LASER GUN.

The girls probably don't care, but guys... I mean, come on. That's cool.

The other main thing I've found stumbleupon is good for is finding web comics. A word to the wise: if you plan on getting any work done in the next, oh, 4-600 hours, I would legitimately skip this next paragraph.

I now have several web comics that I follow pretty religiously, and they are as follows in no particular order:

1. Dr. McNinja

2. Dinosaur Comics

3. Boxer Hockey (this one hasn't updated in a couple of weeks though- the author is working on an xbox game, or something)

4. Brawl in the Family

5. Surviving the World (not so much a comic, but it's comparably entertaining)

6. XKCD

7. Awkward Zombie

8. Hark! A Vagrant!

9. Super Effective

10. Chainsaw Suit

...and a couple of rather obscure ones, but I don't really follow them so I've left them off.

I'm confident in the fact that at least one of the people who read this (especially you, Andy) won't be able to sleep for a couple of days- seeing as you now have more or less 10,000 comics to go out and read.

The 12 Days of Christmas

Day 12: Something You Can't Leave Your House Without

For me, this one is really obvious. It can't be anything other than my glasses.

Without them, I can't see hardly at all, especially at night. I am effectively a useless object.

I'm on spring break though so that's all you get. It's kind of hard to elaborate more than that, anyway.

A Long and Difficult Journey

This is how the last two days of my life were: I had to stay in the back part of a box truck for several hours, which was freezing. Then I went to a film shoot where I was specifically told to "not touch anything" and to "just stay out of the way". That was immediately followed by another several hour truck ride (freezing compartment, again) where at pretty much the crack of dawn Presto, Ian, Daniel and I unloaded a bunch of filming gear for someone I don't know.

Get back in the truck. Still freezing. Drive to the place where Presto works over the summer to exchange the truck for his car. Get to meet someone he knows and hang out at their house for about an hour.

Get back into the car behind the drivers seat- feel incredibly cramped. Resign yourself to this fate since all of the other seats are filled with either peoples stuff, Ian, or Presto. Realize that both of the cars other occupants like driving with the windows down and the sun roof open.

Remain cold for the next 13 hours. Try to complain as little as possible about it. Change positions every 20 minutes or so because you're beginning to realize that no matter which way you sit, it doesn't work. You could be upside down in the car and you will still not fit in the space you have.

Arrive at Jordan's house in North Carolina at about 2:45 in the morning, technically day 3 of your trip. Almost fall out of the car. Get unpacked, brush your teeth, and get ready for bed in a room where both the air conditioning and the fan is running.

Fail to discern how to turn either off. Begin to resent all things with temperatures below 75 degrees. Decide that you're going to do Day Eleven because you're a terrible slacker.

Day 11: Favorite TV shows

I honestly don't have very many shows that I like. I just don't watch a whole lot of tv, that's just how I grew up.

That having been said,

I was introduced to Top Gear by the swim team here. It's essentially a show about cars, done by the three people in the image.

No one really knows who the Stig is. It's pointless trying to figure it out, the producers just lie in the credits anyway.

Some things I have learned from watching Top Gear:

1. America is good for almost nothing. We are also depressingly stupid in the eyes of British people.

2. Albania is also useless- in their case, however, they're also evil.

3. Reliant Robins are both hilarious and totally unreliable.

4. The Bugatti Veyron is, essentially, the best car ever made.

5. The way that Jeremy Clarkson says things are the best or worst "in the world" is excellent.

...and the list goes on.

I guess it's not much of a girl show, so most females should steer clear of it because they don't know how to really appreciate what the show is trying to do. If you're a guy, though, go for it- I recommend it highly.

Decaphobia

Day 10: Something You're Afraid Of

Apparently I'm afraid of deadlines. Clearly this is not actually day 10, that was like a week and a half ago. Check out the new poll, by the way.

Something I'm afraid of though? Hmm.

Oh, here's a good one: I'm afraid of cars sometimes.

I even know where the fear came from, it was my parents. They always taught me, perhaps a little bit more than absolutely necessary, that I should never get into the car with strangers. You know, kidnappers and rapists and all that.

See, they were right, it's important to not do that- but problems arose when I started to assume that every car I didn't immediately recognize was filled with murderous child-snatchers.

I managed to keep this whole mental ordeal under control, but even now if a car pulls up next to me on the sidewalk- even if it's parking, and even if it looks like this:

my mind will try to convince me that I'm actually seeing this-and I'm not kidding, I seriously do get tense and ready to fight anyone who comes out of the car if they start coming for me. It's an automatic response. I mean it when I say it could even be my parents in the car and until I see it's them I'm in standby/attack mode.

So there you have it. If you want to play sick mind games with me, pull up next to me in cars I don't recognize. It'll set me on edge.

Although I doubt it would be worth the trouble.