If you can't be kind, at least have the decency to be vague.

Everybody likes vague.

You know what else everybody likes?  The excitement when turning on your phone after a long time of having it off and waiting for it to ring like a spastic, tourette-stricken mobile device for eight minutes while you're showered with text messages, missed calls, voicemails, tweets, and emails.  At least that's how it is for me.  There is a contrary side though, which happened to me a month or so ago, and that's when you turn it on after a while and nothing happens.  Nothing at all.   NOT A SINGLE DAMN NOTIFICATION.  It is the most demeaning let down ever.  I thought I had friends, but apparently when I disappear and they can't get a hold of me they just give up and assume I’m dead.  Some friends they are.  You know what y'all are getting for Christmas?  Anthrax.  And a dead raccoon, because apparently that's what I'm worth to you.  Jerks.

So a little over a year ago I wrote a blog about carpooling.  Holy Balls I've been doing this for a YEAR.  Anyway, I not-so-briefly presented an example dialogue between the driver and passenger of some new carpoolers.  Here's the link if you haven't read it, or need to refresh your memory.  Yea, so I covered most of the panic and general terror that comes with carpooling with strangers, but I just recently was thrown into the same situation again.  This time was a little different, as it wasn't a stranger, but it was a new friend, new enough to where you're still a little nervous about what they think of you.  And it wouldn't have been that big of a deal if they weren't obsessed with music, and if I didn't listen to the crappiest music on this planet (except Nicki Minaj, I at least have the wherewithal to hate her).  So basically my friend hops in my car, and it hits me, "Holy shit, this is my car, I'm supposed to supply the music."  Instant panic.  It ended up being okay because I realized that I had recently made some playlists to avoid this exact situation, but to fully grasp my alarm you have to realize that the music on my phone has ability to make me seem like a completely normal guy with pretty good taste in music, but at the same time it can make me look like a cross dressing twelve year old.  (Let your imagination take you wherever on that one, I don't have a clue what a cross-dressing twelve year old would listen to.)  Moving on.

I recently tweeted about how I judge guys on how they react when they walk through an unexpected spider web.  It is a wonderful tool of judgment because it really reveals their true manliness, such as my rugby-playing friend who would probably start openly weeping and having seizures because he's deathly afraid that Daddy Longlegs are going to learn to fly and take over the world.  Anyway, since then I've added to that statement a few more practical, even deep, ways.  I believe that the three things you can judge a person's character on are how they handle lost luggage, a rainy day, and tangled Christmas lights.  If you think about it, it really makes sense.  That being said, I personally handle all of those things terribly.  Lost luggage is cause enough for me to burn down an airport.  Rainy days, if too cold for a slip-n-slide, result in me sitting inside watching TV and complaining for the entirety of the rainstorm and probably several hours after that.  And tangled Christmas lights?  Fuck it, throw em away.  They're like $1.15 at Walgreens for 100, stop being cheap and make your life infinitely easier.  Chances are once you finally get them untangled you'll have broken at least one of them in an irreparable way and you'll have to buy new ones anyway.  (Side Note:  I once mentioned arson as a solution when American Airlines lost my luggage, and that went over about as well as a condom in a collection plate.  I wouldn't recommend it.)

The other day I saw one of the most surprisingly cool things I've seen in a while.  Whilst walking out of my summer class, a guy in downtown Atlanta went flying by riding a wheelie on a moped.  Besides being about as useful as being able to juggle scarves, it was cool just because I didn’t expect it at all.  Then again, he was on a moped, so that's working against him, but hey, props for being unique.  It also got me thinking about mopeds, and I realized that mopeds are one of those things that are never hugely popular, but they're always hanging around, kind of like Brisk Iced Tea or Matthew McConaughey.  

Fact of the Day:  The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.

Shout out to Norris Clay.

There is a fine line between a numerator and a denominator.

Nerd humor, it never gets old.  I’m sorry for those of you who are terrified of anything related to math.

Speaking of terrying things, a while back I went to the grocery store after recently hanging out with a nurse friend, I'll call her Mrs Green.  Of course, being a nurse she is a very healthy person, and therefore my worst enemy.  Don't get me wrong, she's a perfectly decent person, wonderful company, and even occasionally funny, but she "eats right" and as a result is as evil as it gets.  It's not that I'm angry with healthy people for not eating junk food (though personally I just do not understand it), it's that whenever I spend time around only healthy people, they tend to rub off on me.  I know what you're thinking, "Tab Hirschey!  HOW COULD YOU PARTICIPATE IN SUCH HERESY?!?!?"  I am weak-willed, and personally do not care much for being judged by someone I hardly know, so you can go swallow a grenade.  I'll let you know when I need your opinion.  Anyway, after spending several days around Mrs Green, I noticed she was drinking the same green-colored smoothie-ish thing every morning.  I didn't try it, but was curious as to its origin and ingredients, so I inquired.  She told me it was just a healthy mix of [good for you] and that was the end of that conversation.  Once I returned to my side of the country, I texted her and got the recipe, figuring, in my corrupted state of mind, that I would like to give this so called "smoothie" a try.  So I went to the grocery store, got the list of required items and set about making it.  The first ingredient was Kale, which should have been a building-sized red flag saying, "DON'T DO THIS.  RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!"   However, I ignored that flag, Googled what Kale was, purchased it, and continued making the smoothie.  Now let's pause here for a second.  At this particular point in my life I like to think that I am beginning to break into the adult world.  I am not in any way saying I'm there, but I'm at least peering over the gates.  That being said, I am beginning to accumulate some pretty decent kitchenware.  My blender, in particular, was no shabby piece of equipment.  But when I started making this horrible, life-ruining drink, everything went to hell in a hand basket.  I turned on the blender, following the instructions perfectly, left it on low, and went into my room for no more than a minute as it blended.  When I got back into my kitchen, it smelled like an entire factory of computers was on fire and sounded like some mixture of Gollum and Optimus Prime was screaming bloody murder.  I dove towards what was left of my blender and frantically yanked out the power in chord in what I can only assume was seconds before the entire apartment building imploded.  Somehow the drink was blended enough to look somewhat edible, so after cleaning out the shards of metal and hatred, I gave it a try.   To be completely honest it wasn't that bad, once you got past the consistency of damp sawdust and flavor of grass with a hint of lemon.  That first batch lasted a couple mornings, and by the next week I had forgotten about the horrid experience that occurred when I attempted to make what we had by then named "Hulk Drink", which was extremely appropriate considering the damage done to Blender #1.   Anyway so we went to the store, got the ingredients along with a blender that was adamant that it could handle blending everything short of uranium.  Guess what?  It lied.  Two batches of Hulk Drink, two blenders down.  Not a bad ratio if you're into blender destruction.  A terrible ratio if you're a college student that's now down a good bit of money just because you were attempting to be slightly considerate of your body.  Long story short, the moral of this story is there is no point at all in trying to be good to yourself, because something large, green, and probably smelling like grass will come along and completely ruin you.

WARNING: Parts of this next paragraph could be considered insensitive, offensive, and all around mean.  If you wish not to participate, please feel free to go whimper in the corner like a little bitch, then skip to the next paragraph.

If you're like me, and God I hope you aren't, then you think about crazy shit.  And that's not a broad category.  I'm talking about like actually going crazy.  I've spent many an hour thinking about how if I went crazy, what type of crazy would I go?  Me and my roommate had a brief chat about this one time and based on that I’ve come up with a couple different kinds of crazy:

- The first is what I call “Meth Crazy”.  People that have gone Meth Crazy are there by...I don't know...say, doing too much meth?  These people usually don't know what time, day, month, year, or even season it is, and probably not even what planet they're on.  They usually have messed up faces that look like they're trying to eat their own nose, and they're often talking to themselves.  Really unsettling if you’re not into that sort of thing.  (Side Note:  If you’re into that sort of thing, you’re probably Meth Crazy.)

- There are also “The Kinks”.  No, not the band.  People that are Kink Crazy are the mildest of the group, and usually can pass as sane, or at least eccentric.  They are mild-tempered, never really completely out of it, and can see, hear, and respond to normal stuff, but they interpret the world completely in their own way.  Just gengerally quirky.  Also, they usually are panicking about an inevitable attack of the aliens, or ranting about being abducted, but that;s as bad as it gets.  Needless to say, these are the pansies of the crazy world.

- Then there are “The Batties”.  Batty Crazy, short for Bat-Shit Crazy, is what I would hope to be if I had to sign out of the rational world.  When you meet one of these people, it is as terrifyingly uncomfortable as it can possibly get.  On the up side, chances are they won't really notice you because they are horribly busy screaming at an imaginary person across the street about how they need to borrow a nickel to end the Holocaust.  The imaginations on these people are legendary.

- Of course there's also the category of crazy that includes people like Lindsay Lohan, Tracy Jordan, and any character John C Reilly has every played, but I figure it's best just let those slide.

Sadly I haven't gone completely lunatic-status yet, and it's kind of a let down.

Speaking of let downs, most of my friends have been serious disappointments lately.  I will admit that my perception of being a Debby Down-Syndrome is slightly ridiculous, because for me if you're not willing to drop what you're doing at 3am Eastern Time and fly to Russia to drink vodka and build a life-size Vladimir Putin snowman then you might as well not be my friend.  That being said, many of my friends have been slacking on even the simplest of tasks, such as cross-country visits and skydiving.  I'm looking at you specifically, Wondertwins.

Fact of the Day:  Gustav Eiffel, designer of the Eiffel Tower, had both dyslexia and a paralyzing fear of heights.

Shout out to Jenny DuFour.

People want you for your looks. Zombies want you for you brains.

Zombies are people too.  Scarred, mutilated, slightly bloodthirsty people that haven't showered in a while.

Speaking of blood, I'm taking a three-week summer class, Calculus II to be specific.  Needless to say, I have been in a perpetual state of misery for the past couple weeks, and have another week and a half left.  All joking aside, 2 hours of calculus at 8am and then again at 2pm everyday during your summer is roughly as fun as playing hide-and-go-seek in a mostly abandoned insane asylum.  My professor, some French guy, chose an opening lecture that only made things worse.  The very first words he said to us were "If I'm going to be honest, it is a complete mistake for any of you to be here.  If you make it through, you are going to hate me and all calculus by the end."  Okay first off, unless the class involves bacon and/or waterslides, I'm going to hate it regardless.  Secondly, you're French, of course I'm going to hate you.  Basically what I've discovered is that no matter what, a summer class, like Chinese food at the mall, is always a mistake.  Anyway, of course there are several of the stereotypical nerds in the class, but there's one in particular that is almost too much.  The kid is always wearing a tucked in collard shirt, several of which have had shoulder pads, with elastic banded pants, very thick glasses, and K Swiss.  I'm not making fun of him, I'm just laughing at him.  Yes, there’s a difference, but I’m not going to tell you what it is.  Anyway, today was different.  Today, instead of the Steve Urkel-esque outfit, the kid walks in about five minutes late in full MMA gear, even holding the gloves, sweating and breathing hard with what I'm pretty sure was dried blood on his shirt.  Didn’t see that one coming.  I didn't even recognize him at first, but now it's comforting to know that if terrorists for some reason decide to take over Georgia State University's Classroom South Building, I have a mixture of a Rocket scientist and Jason Bourne sitting two rows down from me.

On the subject of classes, I've come to realize that my subconscious really does hate me.  I will never sleep through a class, but my subconscious will wake me up three minutes before it starts.  Not soon enough to actually get there in time for it to matter, but early enough to make you hate yourself for being worthless.  Granted I also have to admit that my logic for the afternoon class is severely flawed.  Here's the breakdown:

2 hours til class starts:  “I have time to watch a 2.5 hour movie…”

40 minutes til:  "I should eat something before class."

20 mins til:  "I'll check Facebook real quick."

15 mins til:  "Wait what books do I need again?"

10 mins til:  "Crap, where is my book?"

5 mins til:  "WHERE THE FUCK ARE MY KEYS???"

1 minute late:  "Well they’ve probably already covered the important stuff..."

What's even worse is when I see classmates outside of class.  Not like at a bar or anything, cause I can handle that, I just mean like in the library or common area on campus.  Just to clarify, if I'm in class and we weren't friends before this class began, chances are I'm never going to speak a single word to you.  I probably won't even acknowledge that you exist.  It's not that I think I'm better than you*, I just like to keep my social life and school life very separate.  Anyway, so as I was saying, I absolutely hate seeing classmates outside of class on campus, especially when it's a small class, cause then you both know that you recognize each other and someone always makes the awkward half-move to say something.  Here's a tip:  Don't effing do that.  Just move on with your life.  Sadly it's almost inevitable, which sucks because literally the ONLY thing you have in common at this point is whatever class you're taking, and everyone knows how great and long-lasting of a topic that is.  (Just in case you didn’t pick up on the sarcasm there, I’m trying to say it’s a terrible, terrible, possibly even the worst topic ever conversed.)  So this happens to me outside of the library last week, where he asks me if I'm ready for the test and if I know how to do a certain part of calculus.  Of course I do, but I don't say that, because this situation, for me at least, is exactly like when someone asks you what your favorite movie is and you instantly forget every single movie you've ever fucking seen.  So that's where the conversation dies, at which point I usually turn and run.  When it comes to awkward first conversations that I really don't want to be a part of, I'm about as reliable as a homemade elevator.

*I am definitely better than you.

So I know all of you have been affected at least a tiny bit by this "You Only Live Once (YOLO)" madness.  I think it's 97% annoying as hell.  There are exceptions, as always, but in this case they are few and far between.  Basically I am only okay with this YOLO nonsense when it's used in a snide, ironic, or sarcastic manner such as in this picture.  Basically if you're not base-jumping off the Burj Khalifa wearing nothing but a 4-year-old picnic blanket and a banana hammock, you should never ever utter that phrase.  Even then you still just sound like a douche.  By the way, the Burj Khalifa is a building in Dubai, not a rapper.  Stop being an idiot.  Anyway, of course as soon as I heard the phrase, I immediately began thinking of contradictions to the statement.  Here's what I came up with:

YOLO- Unless you are Jesus Christ, Harry Potter, a zombie, a cat, or believe in reincarnation.

Let me know if you come up with any more.  I love shooting people down.

Well I have a ton more to write about, including my personal list of Tips For Summer, but this is getting to be a long blog, and if your like me, your attention span is so short we probably lost you back at Steve Urkel.  You'll just have to wait a few days for the next one.  Try and survive until then.

Fact of the Day: A Strawberry is not technically a berry, but a Banana is.

Shout out to Liz Hobafcovich.

Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.

In that regard, I am incredibly successful.  And incredibly broke.

Hello my loyal Tablets.  I have a story for you.  About an hour ago, I was unfortunate enough to have to go to one of my least favorite places in the entire world: the dentist's office, or as I like to call it: Hell.  There are SO many things wrong with dentist trips that I honestly don't even know where to begin.  First off, the only reason we go to the dentist is because we're told to.  Yea, healthy teeth and mouths are good things to have, but who's to say we couldn't go to the dentist once ever three years and be fine?  I'll tell you who says that.  Dentists.  You know exactly what I'm talking about.  You're all finished up, thanking God that you've made it out of that death trap with your life, and they hurriedly usher you to the front counter where they schedule you for another trip in six months, while the only words you have time to sheepishly mutter are "Sure, I guess an appointment Saturday the 23rd at 3:16 am works for me."  Monsters.  

But let's get back to the beginning of the adventure.  I'm 90% positive everyone does the same thing on the day of a dental appointment.  You wake up, eat, shower, and start thinking about what you have to do today, when all of a sudden SHIT!!  Today you go to the dentist!  Quick, brush your teeth for forty five minutes while cursing through the toothpaste and wishing you didn't just eating syrup-covered Starbursts for breakfast, then floss for the first time since the last trip to the dentist, and try to stop the blood from gushing from your gums as you rush out the door to this "health" appointment.  You too?  Good, I'm not the only one.  Anyway, after I made it through that little morning debacle, I drove down to the office.  Aside from the fact that it smells like a combination of an old folks home, bleach, and sadness, I managed to sign in at the front desk, sit down, and begin reading the Sports Illustrated from eleven months ago.  Anything to take my mind off the demonic sadists behind those pearly white doors.  The people around me are called one by one, and I start wondering if there's a back door they shovel the customers out of, because nobody comes back out once they go in.  Then the moment arrives.  That stark white door slowly creaks open, and a name is called, "Tav Hiskey?"  That must be me, they probably couldn't read my name because I was having a fear-induced seizure while signing in.  Close enough.  I got up with all the confidence of a middle school boy at a dance and walked through the door into the completely featureless hallway, where they directed me into a room that looks like a slightly cleaner version of the set for Saw IV.  

At that point, the hygienist starts up some casual conversation, asking how I've been since the last visit, etc.  Why does she always know so much about me?  Do they stalk me in between visits?  Anyway, it'd actually be pretty soothing if while she was chatting she wasn't slowly unboxing a set of tools that would make an evil butcher nervous.  S I sit down and accept my fate, and she begins her work.  There's the usual conversation where they ask questions that I have no way of answering, because currently I have both of her hands entirely in my mouth, but that doesn't stop her from continuing the talk.  That's pretty universal.  At one point she even paused to tell me that I had impressively healthy gums.  Really?  Then please stop stabbing it.  That'd be just great.  Then she pulls out the tool that "polishes" your teeth.  "What flavor would you like?  We have mint, grape, cherry...." Cut the shit, woman, I know what happens here.  I don't care what flavor you use.  You're grinding it into my teeth so hard it doesn't matter.  I'm not thinking, "Ooh cinnamon!"  I'm thinking, "Holy Tap-dancing Moses my teeth are being dissolved!"  Maybe it would help if you used something less abrasive than a belt sander.  My teeth aren’t made of weapons grade steel, they're made of enamel and whatever the hell everyone else's teeth are made from.  

And of course to add on to all of the pain and life-threatening situations, when I went in at the beginning, I was already exhausted.  Now that doesn't sound like a big deal and you might be thinking to yourself, "Nut up, dammit.  So you're tired, stop being a little girl."  First off, go swallow a knife, I hate you.  Second, I'm not whining about being tired, I'm whining about how amazingly awkward it made the entire experience on top of everything else.  How, you ask?  Let me answer that question with another question:  What do you do when you're tired but can't sleep?  You yawn.  Yawning by itself is an innocent enough action.  Your mouth opens wide, a very strange noise comes out vaguely reminiscent of a muffled foghorn, and people know you're either tired or bored.  However, I'm in a dentist's office.  My mouth is already pried open as far as it can go.  So basically it looks like during her one-sided conversation, my mouth is completely open and I am randomly moaning loudly, making a noise that sounds like I'm either trying to imitate a dying seal or signaling my nomad band of mountain men.  Needless to say it caught her off guard.  

Then, after all that, after all the blood sweat and tears, the actual dentist decides to grace you with his presence.  Except instead of actually trying to convince you that he knows what he's doing, he cruises into the room, glances in your mouth, says a couple things like "Make a note of number 30, the lateral incisor, and the fractiongiggle," and flies out of the room, never to be seen again.  Thank you for your time, sir.  I'll be back in six months for some more quality bonding time.

Long story short, I hate the dentist.

This was weird.  I don't think I've ever written an entire post about one topic.  Thoughts?  Opinions?  Recipes?  Let me know.

Fact of the Day:  The first toothbrush with bristles was manufactured in China in 1498. The bristles were from hogs, horses and badgers.

Shout out to Allison Hatasaki.

If life gives you melons, you may be dislexic.

Hello again.  Honestly I forgot The Daily Tablet existed for the past couple weeks, but I found a note with a bunch of shit to write about and now we're back.  Yay.

I don't know about you, but I feel like classrooms are getting more and more like prisons.  I mean, yea that comparison has been around forever, but now it's getting out of hand.  There's no such thing as carpet in classrooms anymore, the temperature is preprogrammed to either roughly negative 26 degrees or somewhere around the average temperature in the Sahara Desert during a midsummer heat wave.  And there is absolutely no connection to the outside world.  I'm surprised windows are even still put into the buildings.  Cell service is complete shit too, but only in the classroom.  Everywhere else in the building you feel like your actually inside of a cell tower, with perfect reception and as many bars as a college town.  Inside the room though, it's like you're in the 1920's.  You couldn't complete a call to save your life and it's like the teacher is so astounded they might have an aneurism when they realize one of the students has a cell phone.  End Rant.

I recently was on a plane flying from California to Atlanta, and as usual, the flight was about as much fun as French kissing a food processor.  There were two very unhappy babies, a little bitch dog that wouldn't shut up, and a British guy.  The Brit was by far the worst.  It's not that I hate British people, it’s just that I hate British people.  (Side note:  This was the first and only British man I've ever come in contact with.)  This particular foreigner was the worst kind of person.  Annoying, pretentious, incessantly talkative, and smelly.  He starts off with the normal greeting, which is still a feat on an airplane, where most people equate conversation to Chinese water torture.  I answer kindly because I'm a good person, but I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  We go through sports, books and movies before we even took off.  Of course when I say "we" I mean him.  The ONLY words that came out of my mouth were "Yea," "Oh," and "Uh-huh."  I even put in headphones at one point and he didn't get the hint, just started talking about music.  And so you get the whole picture, imagine a chubby white blonde guy with slightly worse teeth than this man.  Eventually he just started asking me random questions in an attempt at finding a new topic and he gets to exercise.  So now the fat, disproportionate, smelly man next to me is telling me how he usually runs three to four miles every other day.  Then he starts talking about the gym, and as I'm starting to realize this guy just might be lying, he goes back to talking about running, only this time he's saying he runs eight to nine miles every couple of days.  You, sir, are full of all kinds of shit.  I finally get the point across that I am moving on, preferably something more enjoyable than talking to him, like slamming my head against the window.  Now he's talking to the middle-aged black woman from Atlanta on his other side.  They start off with casual conversation again, and eventually get into his opinion on the "beautiful and erotic" plays that he's seen on Broadway etc.  HOLY LORD, PLEASE STOP.  And somewhere in between these "simply marvelous exhibitions" (yes, he actually said that) and his life advice, he asks the woman "What University did you attend?"  Her response: "I didn't."   BOOM.  ROASTED.  Welcome to Atlanta bitch.  Now shut the hell up, get some braces, and lay off the crumpets you pretentious asshole.

As a bonus, the lady behind me was one of those incredibly over paranoid people that feel the need to enforce every rule she hears.  Now call me a terrorist, but I don't think listening to music as we take off is going to result in the spontaneous combustion of the plane, but then again I'm no expert on the matter.  This lady, however, apparently was.  I've gotten very good at managing to hide my headphones by weaving them from my pocket through my shirt/jacket, hat, etc.  Is it worth all this for an extra 15 minutes of tunage?  Absolutely.  Especially if you have Yaptrap the British Loudmouth sitting next to you.  Somehow the woman behind me notices that I have my headphones still in, and proceeds to forcefully remind me that all electronic devices are supposed to be stowed at this point in time.  When I wave her off, she punches me in the face and yells "WHAT?  DO YOU WANT THIS PLANE TO CRASH?!?!"  Okay, she may not have yelled, and the punch may have just been a tap, but it was a very aggressive tap.  I should have just played along and put away my headphones, but I elected to politely inform her that if we were going down, I wanted to do it while listening to music.  Then she hit the flight attendant call button and I very quickly stowed my electronics and faked like I was asleep.  Real mature actions on both our parts.

While we're talking about planes, have any of you seen the bridges that planes take to cross over roads?  Those are not okay.  I don't care if Superman himself was hold one of those bridges up, I still don't trust a little bit of rock to hold a Boeing 747 twenty feet over my very fragile and valuable skull.

As I take a second to shamelessly plug myself, over the past few months I have become helplessly addicted to Twitter.  I know it's gotten bad, because I rarely use Facebook anymore.  (At least compared to the past.) Anyway, I started to think about it, and I’m convinced Twitter was created by the government as a back alley branch of the Patriot Act.  Think about it, for people addicted to Twitter, your first instinct when you do anything interesting is to tweet about it.  Like if, hypothetically of course, I was murdering someone, I don't know.... let's say Snooki*, I'm pretty sure out of habit I'd take her down and immediately take a picture and tweet about it.

*Somebody really needs to kill her.  Seriously.

In case you haven't noticed, I have a burning hatred for anybody associated with the Jersey Shore.  Snooki and The Situation in particular, but mostly because I don't know the names of any of the other ones.  I was told it was entertaining and I gave it a shot, but after about 14 minutes I discovered I'd rather be mauled by a bear than listen to any of those sorry excuses for human beings.  The Situation?  Really?  That's your nickname of choice?  I'm not calling him an idiot, but if brains were dynamite he couldn't ruffle his hair.  And as far as I'm concerned, Snooki could make a freight train take a dirt road.  Honestly that show is just another piece of evidence supporting my stance that New Jersey should just be blown up.

Fact of the Day:  There are 1 million ants for every 1 human on earth.

Shout out to Sarah LaSalle.

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made.

Let's start off with something nice.  You know those people that stand on the corners with the sign up boards, trying to convince you to join their group?  Those people are so nice I want to beat them with a crowbar.  Of course by "nice" I mean "ridiculously obnoxious."  Let's be honest, it is for a good cause, but you're not gonna save the world by pestering complete strangers who are just trying to go about their day.  I'm all for saving the Earth, but when I'm already five minutes late to a Calculus test I don't need you to go into linebacker mode to stop and berate me with some reason to make a small donation of $462 a day to your "Save the Ferns" Movement.  Honestly, the only reason I put up with plants is because they're quiet, and you people are successfully ruining that.  It's like those damn animal shelter commercials.  I love pets.  All of them*.  But I want to see happy little cats and dog.  You're not gonna make me up and buy an animal by showing me the most depressing 10 minute commercial ever aired on television consisting of horribly beaten and dejected animals with a soundtrack that makes me want to jump off a bridge.  Show me those same animals playing in a park and being awesome while Crazy Train is playing in the background and I'll be down there before the commercial's over.  Nobody wants a pet that's gonna make you feel like you're a horrible human being.  Now back to those corner people.  (Not prostitutes, dammit, get your mind out of the gutter.)  For now I'm content with donning sunglasses and headphones and acting like I'm dead to the world as I walk past them, but they're getting bolder, and I don't like it.  I wouldn't be surprised to find them with Nerf guns and Super Soakers in the near future, abusing those who don't stop for the cause.  Stop badgering me dammit!  I'm just trying to be a good student.  Sometimes they'll even mutter mean things if you just walk by.  "So much for decent people in this city, huh?"  Oh fuck off you pretentious douche.  I hope you step on a Lego.

*When I say I love all pets, I of course mean all pets except for dogs that are small enough to fit in a microwave.  For more on my opinion of small "dogs," click here and read the second paragraph.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I'd like to reveal to you my newest model of life:  The game of Golf.  Well, not life so much, but family.  Family is basically a game of golf, which between you, me, and anyone who's ever seen me play, is proof that I will be single all my life.  So here goes:

-Marriage is the reservation or "Tee Time."  The reason behind all of it and the commitment.

-The first child, the oldest, is the initial drive.  Your first go at really playing the game.

-The second child is the Mulligan; a chance to try again at what you initially butchered and fine-tune the mistakes.

-The third child is a shot the fairway.  You've basically got it down and now you're really into it.

-The fourth kid is the putt.  95% of the time it's very easy and very spoiled, sometimes it doesn't follow the rules but you just call it "close enough".

-Any more kids past that and your probably just drunk on the driving range with no clue what you're doing.

-The Club Bar at the end is the retirement home, because you're so physically and mentally exhausted that you can't even change out of your attire so you go through the rest of life wearing a single golf shoe and a golf glove.  The up side is nobody questions you cause there's a broken club beside you and you smell drunk.

I really really need to travel some place.  Like an out-of-the-country place.  I'm starting to feel worthless, contained, and very uncultured.  A ton of my friends are/have been out of the country for study abroad sessions in Italy, Costa Rica, Spain, Germany, etc, and now I've even got two friends playing soccer in Norway and Sweden, or as I like to call it:  IKEA.  All I'm saying is I need somebody to go with or I'm going to get lost in the streets of Latvia with absolutely zero bilingual abilities or geographical knowledge.  Who's in?

Today I went to grocery store very hungry.  Now everybody knows that’s a bad idea because when you go to the grocery store hungry you tend to severely overbuy.  Like preparing-for-the-nuclear-holocaust-overbuying.  "Yea, it's practical to buy 7 gallons of milk, I’ll definitely finish those before the expiration date.  Oooh those bran and dog shit muffins sure sound tasty!"  Then you get home, have a snack and realize you don't want 90% of what you just purchased.  If it hasn't happened to you yet, then you have more willpower than anyone I've ever met.  Also, this is an open invitation to anyone who wants one of the 19 artichokes that I just bought.  They're taking up space and I don't even know how to cook them.*  Anyway, what makes this trip interesting is how I personally respond to hunger.  (Hint:  Like a four year old.)  When normal people get hungry, their stomachs growl, they get food, end of story.  When I get hungry, the world stars ending.  I turn into a rage machine with no value for anyone’s life.  That being said, you who follow me on Twitter generally know how the trip went.  In my mind, everybody was personally trying to annoy the shit out of me.  Whether it was the couple walking excruciatingly slow down the aisle in front of me, or the Nazi trying to force-feed me samples of tofu, everyone was out to get me.  I think the worst part was while I was in line and there were two college-aged girls in front of me, one of which apparently had less-than-ideal cellular service.  This is what got me, and these were her exact words: "Oh my GOSH.  I hate this stupid phone!!  I should have gotten the new iPhone instead of this stupid Droid.  If I lived in Africa I would die so fast with out a working cell phone."  ARE YOU KIDDING ME KALNFAIOEBFADLIBNFAOSBVXCVWB???!??  Okay, keep breathing.  Count to ten.  Come ON woman!  Your ruining life for me.  And let’s be honest, you wouldn't die because you didn't have a phone, you'd die because of a lack of survival training and a surplus of lions.  Also probably because you have an amazingly obnoxious voice that would probably convince the locals you were a demon.

*I'm not an idiot, I do actually know how to cook an artichoke.

Fact of the Day: 101 Dalmatians, Peter Pan, Lady and the Tramp, and Mulan are the only Disney movies where both parents are present and don't die throughout the movie.

Slightly Less Depressing fact of the Day:  When ants wake, they stretch & yawn in a human manner before taking up the tasks of the day.

Shout out to Matt Mullarkey.

I don't hit rock bottom, I high-five it.

And lately I've been giving a lot of high-fives.

So I know that reading about other people's gym adventures is usually about as fun as head butting a golf cart, but trust me, this one's worth it.  Last Friday I went in to do a casual workout and I knew it was going to be a special day as soon as I walked in.  Upon entering the locker room, I nearly ran into a fellow gym-goer as I rounded the corner.  Normally you both just side step, awkwardly mumble something about your directional authority and possibly an apology, and move on with life.  This guy apparently didn’t know that.  I could instantly tell that he was a whole different breed of weird.  I'm talking about the kind of person that you walk in on and find him yelling obscenities at a jar of Marshmallow Fluff.  Anyway, instead of moving on, Mr. Fluff takes a large step back, cocks his head at the kind of angle that girls do when they're taking a picture at a bar after one to many drinks (you know, the girl-from-the-horror-movie angle), and just stares at me.  It wasn't an intimidating or angry stare, it was more like he was just mind blown that I even existed.  I stood there awkwardly for a second, waiting to see what would happen, and when nothing did I slowly side stepped and kept walking.  It was weird, but it wasn't over.  I changed and went out into the work out area and after a little while I noticed he was there too, on the opposite side of the room on an elliptical.  Side Note: As far as I'm concerned the elliptical is by far the most ridiculous "workout machine" ever created.  It's like the snuggie of the gym.  Just stupid.  Anyway, so he's over there looking slightly off balance but decently normal.  I go about my routine and eventually reach the part where I'm using the equipment on his side, and this is where things get amazing.  I'm off to the side of him when he apparently hit the part of his workout where he was supposed to speed up to Mach 3, and he is chuggin.  By that I don't mean that he's only going fast, I mean he's also breathing in such forceful ragged patterns that he sounds like a freight train with Asthma.  At this point there are a few other people around me glancing in his direction, slightly worried and a little scared.  I don't blame them.  He goes on like this for about three or four minutes, and I am now completely still, just watching him.  Then it happens.  All at once, he reaches for his water bottle, never slowing down at all, loses his balance, launches himself up off of the pedals onto the screen of the machine, emits an incredibly uncharacteristic yelp, and topples the entire machine onto its side.  Nobody moved.  It was amazing.  After a few moments the gym staff came to his rescue, at which point he was just slowly rolling towards the far wall like an awkward beached whale, but when they reached him he got up, tried to explain what happened, then just jogged off the locker room.  I had absolutely no clue what to do.  I gave up trying to continue my workout, and sat there for a few minutes trying to decide whether to feel embarrassed for him or to laugh it off.   Spoiler Alert: I laughed it off.  And don't judge me for that.  If you can't laugh at that, then either you misread the story, lack imagination, have no sense of humor, or all of the above.  Also, you're probably an accountant with bad breath.

If you're anything like me, you have three addresses permanently embedded in your memory:

1)  Yours.

2)  Your parents.

3)  P Sherman, 42 Wallabe Way, Sydney, Australia.

I don't know about you, but when I find a song that I really enjoy, like obsession status, I play it an absurd amount of times.  I realize that’s pretty common but for me it's a serious problem.  And nothing good comes from it either.  It's not like after a few days of hearing it I can wean myself off and go back to normal.  No, it's much worse.  In short, I listen to the song on repeat for a minimum three weeks.  There are absolutely no breaks.  Just that song back to back.  When I'm not listening to it, I'm whistling, humming, or singing it.  At the end of that three-week period, I promptly wake up in the morning, delete the song from my phone and computer, and send hate mail to the artist.  Nobody wins.

The other day I was zoned out whilst walking in downtown Atlanta, and began thinking about some really weird shit.  Most of it revolved around the outcome of a potential battle royal between WD40 and Duct Tape.  After much thought, I decided it would be a dead even fight, and the victor solely depends on who had the first move.  It's the only logical outcome.  If WD40 struck first, Duct Tape would never be able to stick to anything and thus would probably succumb to defeat.  However if Duct Tape had the first blow, it could tape shut WD40's opening, rendering it defenseless.  Trust me, I have thought out nearly every possible scenario.  Those are the simplified versions.  I need a hobby.

Of all the people in the world, I think I am most bewildered by the people who choose crunchy peanut butter over creamy peanut butter.  I just don't understand them.  Creamy is infinitely better.  Why would you want little chunks of nuts in any sandwich??  And don't even get me started on the Extra Crunchy people.  It's just whole peanuts in there.  What's the point of even having the butter part?  "I like the texture."  No, you like murdering peanuts.  The crunches are just little tiny peanut screams.  "Hey, use extra crunchy on mine.  And while you're at it, find out if the peanuts had any nicknames or family."   You disgust me.

Fact of the Day:  It only takes 7 pounds of pressure to rip your ear off.

Shout out to Rob Stiff.