Happy Endings and Such Topics

Recently I've been reading the Sandman comic series by Neil Gaiman, which I've given my personal seal of approval to.  Yet, with all the questions the series arises along the lines or morality, responsibility, life, death and religion, there is one line that is seemingly insignificant that stood out to me.  Issue #6 (of 75) tells the story of a group of people in a diner who had the misfortune of running into our current villain when they did. The waitress, Bette, is a writer in her spare time and pleases herself with her ability to give all of her stories happy endings.  While discussing this, the following line appeared "All Bette's stories have happy endings.  That's because she knows where to stop."  This line stuck with me, and in a short time I found myself in a position to put it to use.  So lets once again step in our telephone booth (graciously supplied to us by Rufus a.k.a. George Carlin) and go back to the beginning of my current semester for the purpose of constructing a story!

As has been stated before, and will surely be stated again, I am a graduate student who serves as a TA to get paid.  For this semester I was appointed to be the TA for a senior level course.  It was to be a project-driven course so I was looking forward to getting to know and help each of my students as the semester goes on.  I was also required to attend the classes since I did not know some of the materials taught in the class, and what help would I be otherwise?  Being the man that I am, I took to looking around at the students during the first couple of classes in an attempt to remember faces in the cases I would have to meet with them at a later date.  I do not find it weird to point out that while looking at these faces, I noticed that some of them were aesthetically pleasing, and most of them were very close in age to me.  Students are people and one notices when people are attractive, don't read too far into it.

Anyways, one day on the way to class, I found myself in the elevator with one of these noted students and as I tend to do in elevators, I made conversation with her.  Despite not remembering much about this meeting at all, I do remember that it was pleasant and she made nice conversation.  This sentiment was expanded when a few months later she showed up to my office hours (as many students did the day before a homework was due) but what many other students didn't do was take me up on my offer, "If anybody has any extra questions, I'll be in my office a little bit longer."  She had a few questions that were answered easily enough, but then I felt obligated to ask her about her project, in which we proceeded to chat about all kinds of things.  The next thing I knew an hour or so had passed, and I left my office shortly after her thinking to myself, "what a nice girl."

Welcome to my lair!

So at this point I was delighted by her, but didn't think much more about it.  But without any delay my mind decided that it would be fun to play tricks on me.  That very same night I fell asleep and found myself dreaming about her.  For the record it was not a sex dream by any stretch of the imagination, but it was a dream where the two of us were together and more than friendly.  That made the next day's class a little awkward in my own mind as I kept looking at her and remembering how inappropriate the last night's dream was.  This feeling faded slowly as the semester went on and I had time to wonder whether or not it really was weird.  In general I decided it wasn't weird at all that I found her to be both attractive and endearing, but if I was to ever make a move, it would have to be after the semester was over and I was no longer her instructor of sorts.  There were two things that made this difficult, first she was to be graduating.  Second, her group for the class project was the only one that had gone to get help and I worked with them a few times.

 After speaking the situation over with a few friends and spending a moderate amount of time thinking it over, I decided the proper plan of action was to send a friendly email after the semester ended.  Well the semester ended, and I deliberated for a short time before actually sending the email, in which time I tried to distract myself from waiting as much as possible.  To distract myself I went out to the local bars with a friend who happened to be in the area for the weekend.  Finding ourselves at a bar we don't typically frequent and dancing, which we typically don't do, my friend and I navigated the crowds searching for fun.  Instead, I heard my name from behind and turned to find this newly-graduated former student standing in front of me.  I respect my readers enough to think they can tell exactly who it was.

It was clearly Alfred

I stood in shock over seeing her for what could have been up to 5 seconds before coming to my senses and talking with her like a regular human being.  I told her of the email I sent, and congratulated her on graduating and said if she were ever in the area again I would like to have a drink or coffee with her.  To each of these she responded with "that's so sweet" and finally gave me a hug for all my sweetness.  I enjoyed the gesture of the hug and proceeded to talk to her about various odds and ends, the whole time nothing going through my mind other than the urge to tell her she was beautiful, that I loved the fact she laughs at all my jokes and all these other grand acts of professing the fact I was attracted to her.  But I didn't do that, and I said goodbye to her and tried as hard as I could to not follow my friends pushes for me to ask her to dance.  The next thing I knew, she was gone and I couldn't find her again, its more than likely I will never see her again.

So why did I take the time to make my intro about happy endings and then follow with this story of how I had a crush on one of my students, especially since nothing came of it?  The truth is that this was a happy ending as far as I was concerned.  Every story can have a happy ending if you know when to end it.  In this case it didn't feel right to me to have made a move on her, especially in a situation where it would be hard to get a relationship started, not to mention maintained.  So I swallowed my pride, held back whatever I wanted to say and settled to make this a story about the most perfect goodbye I have ever said.  And she will never have to know about what I was really thinking...

Happy endings everywhere!!!

Back on the Horse!

Hold on to your hats ladies and gentlemen because it is finally that time of the month, and by that I mean the good one that involves me updating you all on my life.  To put this plainly, this month passed can only be described succinctly as a shitshow.  I probably throw that term around a lot more loosely than most people, and I'll translate that to clusterfuck.  I've likely experienced an example of every emotion that I've ever known as well as being in all kinds of different mindsets.  It is almost frightening how I had the most variation in my life from day to day in the shortest month of the year.  Glossing over things that I would preferably keep away from the blogosphere, lets talk about some ideas of the month.

What a beautiful image!!

First of all it was the first full month of classes this semester, and I have found that although I have found myself more busy than last semester, I am enjoying this semester a lot more.  I am taking the second semester of a two semester series in numerical methods (using computers as decked-out badass calculators) and am enjoying this semester's class more because the homework thus far has been much more centered on implementing algorithms rather than analyzing them on pen and paper.  I am also taking a second semester of statistics, and am also enjoying this semester's version more in this as well for two reasons.  First is that I am finally starting to get a grasp on the material so the homework isn't as arbitrary to me as it used to be.  Second, the professor has seemed to take what I'm guessing were scathing reviews on her performance last semester to heart, and while she still isn't a good teacher, she has improved.  The other class I'm taking is in Partial Differential Equations, I really like this class because it is an honors undergraduate course rather than a graduate course.  I didn't realize how much I missed undergraduate classes until I took this class and realized I could do the entire problem sets in as long as it takes to do a single problem in my other classes.  I've also been upgraded to being a Teaching Assistant for a senior level mathematical modeling class, it's been much more work for me than when I did Calculus, but the students are good people and I am learning things myself.  Having said that I may be slightly underpaid.

I can analyze this show way too well...

Anyways since nobody cares about my education lets explain where the title of this post is coming from.  I am getting back on the horse as far as trying to recover what remains of my inner irrational-confidence guy.  I am deciding that after what has been over a year of being a lump in the dating game, that I am instead going to start being more proactive in searching for prospective romantic interest, or at the very least someone to entertain me.  Now I know what your thinking, "Chase, you are obviously going to think you are underpaid if you spend so much of your free time at the brothels and strip clubs!"  That's not what I mean by being proactive!  By that I mean I'm going to attempt to be more approachable and talkative in my regular life, and if the situation arises I'm going to ask amicable strangers for their numbers or even dates.  As an overly analytic person, I am led to ask myself "Whats the worst that can happen?"  The answer to that is always going to be instant apocalypse, but that is completely unrelated to the issue at hand, in which the worst case as far as that goes is that they say no and walk away rather than me not asking and them walking away.  It's curious how the word "no" can be such a deterrent despite only being two letters long.

This shirt would save breath

The results of this change of mindset in the short time have been interesting.  The first case was a little more than a month ago, it wasn't anything too aggressive but it was the first time in about a year and a half that I had developed a crush (I hate that fucking word, is there a word that makes me sound like I'm post-puberty?)  Even then I admittedly played the situation like an amateur, so even if there was a chance she was going to have a mutual interest in partaking in activities with each other I probably wasn't helping my own cause.  The second case was a spur of the moment decision to ask the cashier at a coffee place for her number.  This one was a lot more well played, the girl looked a lot like the leading female role in Mike Birbiglia's movie Sleepwalk With Me so I was attracted to her.  Indie chicks dude...  Anyways I went to order my coffee and she was playful and talkative with me so I told her she reminded me of the actress mentioned above, she took the compliment and showed interest in the movie and (seemingly) myself.  It was then that the decisive question came, "Do you want your receipt?" she asked, naturally my response was "Only if it has your number on it."  The third case is ongoing, I was introduced to a friend of a friend on the basis that she and I would get along well.  I will admit it isn't hard to get along with people who are aesthetically pleasing no matter what their personalities are like, but this girl was easy to get along with for me anyways.  Having said that, we possibly got along too well...

Can't get that for the price of a coffee (or two)

As you may have noticed, I have built up these situations without any mention of the results.  Well they all were failed endeavors.  The first one is currently dating the housemate I share a wall with, rumors have it that the second one is potentially a lesbian (would be the first time that's happened) and the third one thought I was gay (sadly not the first time that's happened.)  That sequence of events is like the Gordie Howe hat trick of depression.  But oddly I'm not bothered by it and actually am more encouraged to keep trying by these.  It's like in Dave Chappelle's interview on Inside the Actor's Studio, he talked about his first big show at the Apollo he was booed hard, and that was when he realized he was going to make it.  He was in the midst of what is possibly the worst thing that can happen to a stand-up comedian, and still stood up there thinking that it was still pretty good.  I've had the three worst possible results I can think of of flirting, and its still encouraging because I'm showing progress and getting more comfortable with things.  I wouldn't hold my breath, but maybe my next post written on the topic will be in a completely different light.

Anyways, its getting late and while I'm sure I have more to say, the words are seeming to be escaping me at this moment.  Anyways here's what I feel to be a very underrated scene (mainly due to the way Bruce Campbell responds to the end of the fight) and I'll see y'all next time of the month.

On the Topic of My Character

I'm not going to lie to you, I am a really interesting person.  I find myself to be an extremely interesting person with all kinds of different aspects and layers.  I'm sure everybody out there thinks the exact same thing about themselves as they are all "individuals" or whatever they claim to be but seriously I find myself to be much more interesting to analyze than most of people I've met.  It's largely due to the fact that I am always intrigued by people that I'm not completely sure if I like or not cause then I don't know whether or not to concentrate on their good or their bad traits (so I can compliment or criticize them) so I instead pay attention to both sides, so enough about you and more about me.

First of all, I am mostly incapable of hate.  There are people I don't enjoy being in the company of, as well as some that I have the tendency to disagree with on a large range of topics.  Yet, there are no people in the world that I have personally spoken with that I can say the word hate even begins to be applicable, and that even includes this random dude I met once who angered me and then popped back up in my life in what I momentarily thought to be an inopportune time, as friends of friends you don't connect with seem to be oddly likely to do.  Sometimes I wish I had a rival or someone I could hate that I keep running into, it seems like it would be a nice thing to have going on in the background.  Instead I give people the benefit of the doubt and like to think they are doing things I don't like for perfectly rational reasons.

GET IT!?!?!?!?!?

With the previous paragraph taken into account, it shouldn't be a surprise that I tend to get along with people on a personal level.  I was always an awkward kid who had problems maintaining friends during my early years in school as I have pointed out, having what I consider to be only one real friend in the first decade of my life.  This friend transferred schools after a year and I maintained contact with him for a little bit after that but we slowly fell apart, and haven't knowingly seen each other since.  I made my first current friend when I was 12, and proceeded to grow into a moderately sized group of friends.  During most of High School I had what I consider to be 4 good friends.  I currently believe that I hold at least 4 separate groups of friends that I still see and communicate with often (home friends, undergrad school friends, grad school friends, department friends, etc.)  If you had told me I would have this number of friends at my age a decade ago, I surely would have foamed at the mouth and spent days feverishly looking for a time machine to get here quicker, but first I'd have to visit this future.
It is also amazing that with the amount of friends I have been able to amass over the years that I have never been in a real adult relationship.  This probably would dampen the good mood of decade-ago me after being told how many friends I have.  It is an interesting thing to wonder, because I have so many people who care for me, but there is no proof that they really care about me.  It is a strange kind of loneliness that even though I am rarely lonely in the physical sense, I can't shake the feeling for my life at large.  I think some of my friends will argue that this has something to do with how picky I am with girls.  I understand that I often go for girls that are difficult to date, either being much more attractive than I, being of a personality that is not conducive to dating people like myself, or even finding myself being hung up on girls who are in long term relationships that everyone knows aren't going to end anytime soon.  My answer to that is that it isn't always about quantity, it is sometimes about quality, and I don't believe in doing things for the sake of it in general.  I intentionally put myself in positions to fail when it comes to my personal life, because some situations aren't worth risking to fail on, but the ones that are pay off that much more when you don't fail.  If I learned anything from growing up in my family it is that sometimes one stroke of luck is all you need.

I also think that my system of beliefs is interesting.  I study Applied Mathematics, and that is a type of science.  As you would expect to see from scientists, a lot of the people I spend time with in class and doing work, the prevailing attitude is to be counter-cultural and at odds with the concept of a God.  I diverge with my peers in these respects.  I have a great fondness for popular culture (paragraph 2 implicitly explains why,) it is one of the reasons that I am able to get along with a vast range of people.  I have a lot of interests in all facets of pop culture, and while I obviously give personal preference to some of them (sports), I am well-versed in almost anything you can talk about.  I am also a scientist, so I am also an intellectual to the point where even if you think you are above discussing things that can be seen on a screen and want to talk about concepts or ideas I am also able to hold a great conversation there as well.  As for the religious side, growing older is causing me to see the merits in the systems in place rather than trying to debase them as I would have tried to do in my younger days, and a lot of people I know are still trying to do.  I am still not sure what I believe in, but I certainly believe there is something, not for any rational reasoning but because it is comforting to me.  I think the world is more interesting when there is a greater power choosing to intervene when they feel it suitable, or things like "luck" follow you around and affect the way your life unfolds.  I could also say that these things should arise if you subscribe to the idea of multiple universes that diverge at every decision point or point that could change the world around you.

Am I the only one who likes he plays for a team that has a horseshoe as their logo?

Mix all of these amicable traits with the fact that I am in that perfect range where I am an attractive human being without being particularly threatening to anybody and that is a very great person.  All I need to do is improve my work ethic a little bit and start molding my body into a statuesque form and I may be a model human being.  And there might be my motivation toward the little self-improvement I have left to do.  Thanks everybody who sat around reading this piece of rhetoric masturbation, best wishes for all of you, especially now that you know you are inferior.

Things About My Life That Entertain Me

Hello all, once again I have gone quite a long time without gracing you with some insight into my mind, and for that I am actually a little sad.  I have gotten some writing done due to the MLB playoffs and Penultimate Round Pick, but what is the point of writing if you can't bitch and moan about things you don't like in your life?  Also, not much has happened in the last two months for me to have felt the need to report it to this blog, instead I will write about trends in my life that I find to be somewhat interesting.  They are not all good things, I would be surprised if any of them actually were good things but you need to learn how to take annoyances in stride.  I have learned this, so here are some trends in my life that I find to be entertaining.

One of which is the fact I can get people to confide in me quite easily.  The result of this is that I have a lot of useless information about people that I would rather not know.  The worst part of this is that this information is largely sexual, I have no reason to know a general estimate of how "endowed" you think you are nor would I ever want to know anything about all the chicks or dudes you have plowed through in your time.  I certainly will act like I enjoy what you are saying and will smile politely and nod my head, but for the most part I haven't asked you about any of this information, I don't have a reason to know it and I usually would rather not know it.  Juxtapose this stance with the fact that I often open myself up to people I barely know and love to say things to people for the sole purpose of seeing how they react, I could possibly be the least well-rounded person I've ever met.

Where does Asshole go?

Next - because it is always a topic of great interest to me - lets talk about chicks man, especially ones who are physically more well-rounded than I am metaphorically.  I have noticed a great trend among the girls that I have met over my life.  As I said earlier, people trust in me quite quickly, and I truly have no idea why, they are probably all idiots.  Some of these people are female, I actually think in recent times I get along better with females once I actually get to the point of talking to them.  The only problem with this is that I get along with many of them too well, which I know isn't a typically bad thing since some of them can be good people.  The bad thing is that with every one of them I know they want to see good things happen for me, and more than a few of them get excited any time I bring up the idea of me finding a girl that I am interested in.  The thing is, if I get along with a girl well enough at that point there is usually a better than odds chance that I wouldn't mind them being a girl I am interested in, and there is also a better than odds chance that they would prefer that not be the case.  Fuck that situation, complete rubbish, been in it too many times that it's starting to get old.  Now I guess I should spare myself the extreme finger fatigue that would come with airing all my grievances about my love life and move onto a new topic.  

Something to avoid.

I guess its not a completely new topic, but lets talk about elevators!  Out of the last few conversations with female strangers that I have found to be enlightening, more than half of them have been inside of an elevator, and I am sad to say I am not the courageous man I need to be to ask a girl on a date because of a 10 story climb or descent.  Maybe next time I will need to show some testicular fortitude and get those digits, but in all likelihood, I will make great conversation then let those cold metal doors close in my face locking out any potential.  I also wonder what it is about elevators that cause me to be so much more personable than nearly every other social situation I have found myself in.  My theory is that it is the only situation in which I have a ready-made comment to start a conversation, what is this line you ask?  Could it possibly be better than my "icebreaker for the hall of fame" mentioned in this previous article?  Probably not, but here it is.  I wait on the elevator and mind my own business until the elevator does something funny (in my building there is always something funny happening in the elevators), it is usually a strange sound but sometimes can be erratic doors, if there is a girl I find particularly compelling who might enjoy my wit I think out loud, "I've seen way too many bad movies to feel safe in an elevator."  Any girl who would chuckle at that comment is usually the kind of girl for me so then I know to try to say something more.  Otherwise, I made a fool out of myself to a stiff.

Well there it is, some of the things I find entertaining in my everyday life.  I'm sure this list is not exhaustive (especially since if only 3 things in my life entertained me I would be a sorry sad person) so maybe one day you all will see a sequel to this.  Until then, enjoy the little bit that I have given you and make sure to put more posts from me on all your Christmas lists, maybe Santa will come a little early!

The People I Have Been

This is a piece I have meant to write for quite some time so I think I'll write it now for no better reason than because I want to write and this is the only piece I can think to write.  I understand at this point that by writing this that it may point out some potential social issues I may have, but for now I'm going to assume this is a normal way to act.  Throughout the years of my life I have found myself in many different situations that have caused me to have to tweak my personality to fit some supposed role I have determined for myself.  Every now and then I look back and think to myself about how I behaved in some roles, and wonder what the hell I was thinking.  So without further interruption, here are the roles I of today believe I tried to play in past years.

Role #1 Child (Birth-7th Grade)
This one is self-explanatory, until I turned 13 I didn't really have the mental abilities to understand cause and effects of culture so I existed as is.  During these times I didn't find myself with many long lasting friends, which probably suggests something about who I am naturally.

I really had no choice!

Role #2 Mr, Irrational Confidence Guy! (7th Grade- 10th Grade)
I became this person too early, it would probably be beneficial if I hadn't become Mr. Irrational Confidence Guy until this day and age.  By that I mean I was extremely ballsy in talking to girls, and had absolutely no reason to have been (hence the irrational confidence part), but now that I believe there is an outside chance that I have something to give a woman there is no confidence to be found.  During this time I told a popular girl she was a tall glass of water and I was thirsty (note I was far from popular, likely because of comments like that), bet that I could date a girl only to brag about it semi-publicly like a complete asshat and have that be the reason she didn't date me and even at one point I was very close to dating a popular girl from the grade below me despite my lack of popularity.  What made me feel I was a person who was able to do those things successfully is beyond me, but I simultaneously envy and hate that little prick.  This role mostly coincided with kid who wanted to be popular because I felt a little inferiority complex from having a popular older brother in the grade above me.  I have long since gotten over that inferiority complex and consider it a great lesson toward becoming the man I am today.

I thought I could be cool like Fonzie...

Role #3 Intentional Outsider/Nerd (11th Grade-High School Graduation)
Entering my Junior year of high school I found myself embracing my natural nerdiness/ unpopularity and decided that I should live with it.  I think this is partially because I started taking AP classes so I was separated from the less intelligent cool kids, and thrown into a setting with a lot more people who were more like me.  I found that in these situations I preferred the company of the less popular kids because I didn't seem to have to act as much.  This led me to a renaissance of playing video games (usually spent my weekends playing, including typical 11-3 shifts on Xbox Live with friends) and discovering new music (birthing my love for 90s music.)  During these years I found my number of friends grow exponentially as I found that there was another group of kids in my own grade (including Toninho!) who were a lot similar to my usual group that I hung out with at that time.  Along with that, there were still some residual effects from Mr. Irrational Confidence Guy as I was still much more aggressive in the dating world than I am now, even though that included barking up the tree of the bet girl previously mentioned for a whole year, honk if you are surprised that was a fruitless endeavor!

...But I was always much more Urkell

Role #4 The Kinda Crazy/ Weird Kid (Freshman Year of College)
I was actually called out on acting this role out once, a friend of mine said he hated me when he first met me because I made it out like I did all these crazy things and was a wild person, but never actually did anything.  It was completely true, but I was in a completely new environment and am kind of an introvert, so I needed to adopt this kind of personality to meet people.  And you know what, it was successful!  I met most of my friends in college one fateful day Freshman year when some kids in my hall that my roommate knew found a box and pranked our room by having someone hide in the box and jump out of it to scare me when I answered the door.  I don't remember how (possibly because nobody else wanted to do this prank to people they didn't know) I ended up being the guy in the box as we repeated this prank on other doors across the hall.  I ended up hanging out with these kids a lot over the next few weeks and this became some of the best friendships I've had in my life.  Say what you want, but this was a turning point in my life as this was a month into school and I was already considering getting a transfer due to the environment.  I never followed through with it and am very happy about that in retrospect.  This is the time when Mr. Irrational Confidence Guy completely died out as I was finally able to appreciate how stupid and contrived a lot of my attempts to woo women were, leaving your name and room number with "(insert name here) is cute" on the whiteboard on someone's door is only going to get erased, not responded to.

Chase in the Box!

Role #5 The Playful Older Guy? (Sophomore Year)
I really don't know what to call this guy, a lot of weird stuff happened over the course of that year, and I found it to be an emotional roller coaster.  Before the school year started I spent a lot of my time flirting with girls at the grocery store I worked at to slight success at best (I've written about this in multiple posts before so I'm not elaborating).  This year I spent a large amount of my social energy on trying to meet Freshman girls at school, I was older and that had an effect on girls at that age.  I can't remember how I spent my first semester of that year, but it was the first semester I had ever spent as an undergraduate TA for a class, and I had a student start making moves on me as the semester came to a close.  I thought that was going to be a great thing for me, but somehow before coming back to school for Spring she ran into her ex-boyfriend, and needed time to "think" apparently texting "what's up?" fortnightly, is pressuring so she decided to make me aware of this by never speaking to me again.  I don't get subtle messages born of idiocy very well so I asked her about it and she told me so.  It was dumb, and she transferred out of the school at the end of the semester due to said idiocy (yes, I'm bitter.)  Later a girl I knew and her boyfriend broke up and she talked to me to get over it.  I started to become fond of this girl because of this (guys are made to be attracted to emotional vulnerability I suppose) and followed through with this feeling.  I even got blessing from the ex-boyfriend whom she completely hated at this point (a former student of mine and a damn fine kid at that.)  She was apparently never that interested and nothing panned out save for a date.

I also watched the Prisoner!

Role #6 The Random Information Guy (Junior Year)
I had a weird housing designation for this year, I was living in a single a mile or so from the rest of my friends, and often found that leaving my room was burdensome.  Needless to say I spent a larger chunk of that year than usual by myself, and even created this blog during this time.  I'm sure my personality in my writing is different if you contrast then with now (2 years strong), and back then I was definitely more spontaneous and weird than I am now.  When I was around people I was typically getting dinner with my friends and one of their girlfriends and sometimes some of her friends.  For some reason since she was the only new person I was getting used to I found the part of my personality that she enjoyed was the part that came out the most (because I apparently can't deal with being disliked) and that part happened to be the part of me that comes off as a weird sexual deviant.  You mention one too many things you read on Urban Dictionary, and some people will actually think you do this stuff.  As time went on I'm fairly sure she got to know the more mundane me, but the weird kid kind of took precedence for over the course of that year.  Overall, the year was pretty uneventful save for the death of my car, which I still need to blog about at some point.

Foolproof way to make friends!

Role #7 The Laid Back Senior (Fall Semester Senior Year)
This semester was a great time of my life, I wasn't taking overly difficult courses, I was graduating at the end of the semester, I was over 21 for the first time in my life and I was living off campus with some awesome guys.  I didn't go out nearly as much this semester as I had in other years because I had no reason to, I could have all the fun I wanted to have in my house with my friends.  In this semester I played a lot of video games and drank a lot of beer.  There really isn't much else to say about this person, he had his fun and did what he wanted to do, except for the fact I didn't really try to date anybody at this time due to the short window of time.

Role #8 The Manchild (January 2012-Now)
This was a trying time for me, I was unemployed, graduated and had no idea what I was doing going forward.  I also had no car, and had no friends nearby that weren't consistently busy.  I spent nearly all my time bouncing between my Xbox and computer.  It was probably one of the worst times of my life for the first month or two, but eventually I got used to it and managed to pass the time (Mass Effect, Arkham City and Fifa helped) and after a short time, a few failed job searches, I got my Grad School acceptances in and decided I was going to continue to be a manchild for a few more months and then go back to school.  During these months I reinvigorated my love for Spongebob, watched a lot of cult and B-movies and then went back to my house at my old school for a month before the graduation ceremony.  This phase is directly responsible for my recent shift in movie and music tastes, gaining a taste for "so bad it's good" films and indie rock.

If you Insist!

Role #9 To Be Determined Dude (Now)
I'm in a new setting and, as I always have, I am going to have to assume a new role.  Usually these roles come organically and I don't need to consciously decide what person I'm going to be next, so lets give it time and see what I will think of current me next year.  This probably sheds a decent amount of light to people what it is like to be me, I still don't know if this is normal, but it's my normal and I'm just trying to be myself.

Tangents With a Purpose!

I noticed the other day that despite the fact that we basically build our blogs off of each other's, Toninho and myself write our blogs in very different styles.  I tend to write my posts with a purpose in mind that I have previously planned on talking about, where he seems to sit down and write anything that comes to his mind.  I admire how when I read his posts I never know where it is going to do next as he always goes on entertaining tangents that sometimes I don't even know where they came from.  I don't go on tangents as often (and when I do they are usually single sentences thrown in parentheses like this one now) and maybe I should start doing that more often, just writing whatever comes to mind and only finishing my posts when I decide they are finished.  So lets go off to lovely Tangentland!

Not to be confused with tangent planes.

I was browsing my blog the other day and realized that it has been a while since I have spoken anything about my personal life, according to my label "dating" other than my one about interactions with people I haven't really posted anything that was even remotely about my personal life since my personal favorite post where I compared my relationship with being a baseball fan to a real world relationship because of Ryan Braun's positive test for PEDs.  I am happy that for one reason or another he didn't have to serve the suspension and is responding to the nay-sayers by having another fine season thus far.  But back to my personal life, my lack of writing about it has simply been because I have no current prospects and haven't for nearly a year and that saddens me.  But it is hard to meet people when you spend a few months living home alone in what Toninho and myself have referred to as a "wasteland for young adults," so since not many strangers (male or female) stumble into my bedroom I didn't meet many people over that span of time.  Then I went back to school for a month before my graduation ceremony to see my college friends again before we all go away to our respective places, and since my main focus was to give my friends proper goodbyes, I didn't concentrate on meeting new people for a month-long fling.  Then after graduation I started working the night shift at my family's shop so it would be creepy if I met anybody there since it is a family business and even if it wasn't, it's an industrial setting so anybody there is a total yuckfest.

My sentiments exactly

Since loneliness kinda sucks, I gotta find out what I am going to do going forward.  I am going to be going to a new school in the Fall, one that doesn't have a male dominated student body!  So for now I'm going to hold out and hope that people there are more compelling than the ones I've already met, but that doesn't mean there aren't people I have already met.  My sister mentioned that someone she knew that just graduated was going to the same school and doing math, but there are multiple things massively wrong with that.  First, the age difference is way too large at this point in life.  When I was just entering college I was a much different person than I am today, I wanted to do different things, had a very limited set of opinions and intelligent thoughts, was just starting what I want to call my second childhood (currently starting what is probably my third childhood) and my lifestyle was a lot most improvised since it was my first taste of independence.  Second, it is very possible that that girl would be in one of the classes that I am going to be a TA for, and that is just wrong on multiple levels that I don't even have to explain (or I've tried dating a former student before and it wasn't a great experience.)  There are other reasons but I really don't want to keep listing them and keep going on.

I know how she can get an A!

 I've also had two people tell me that the girl I went to junior prom with transferred into the school as well.  I don't know why they felt the need to tell me that since I haven't spoken to her in over 4 years, and I wonder if people are telling her that I'm doing grad school, but I think that is unlikely.  I hadn't thought of trying to rekindle that in those 4 years since I last spoke with her, but I guess it wouldn't be a terrible idea if it came about naturally.  Speaking of girls I have had vague romantic interest in over my life, when I think back on who they were there are a few that I can't recall what I saw in them which makes me feel bad because it suggest that I am not at all sentimental about the people I've met (which I am) and that I have no consistent desires in my life.  So right on cue I reach the part of the Childish Gambino album when this song plays (Editor's note: This used to be a link to the song "Heartbeat").


I think that is probably the best song on an album that I found to be surprisingly good, especially as it takes a certain type of hip hop for me to like it.  But the best part of the album is that it is made completely by Donald Glover, who I always knew of through his work with Derrick Comedy, and knew for a little bit that he was an actor on the show Community (which I've never seen) and a writer for 30 Rock (which I have watched an like a lot), but just discovered his stand-up a few months ago.  After seeing two of his stand-up specials I was convinced he is the first comic that I have really liked since Dave Chappelle.  For the most part, even though I love the craft of stand-up comedy, I have not liked any of the popular ones in recent days.  I know that he has started to get popular recently, but I hope he blows up because he is a talented individual to be able to do all these things successfully.  I would really like to try doing stand-up someday but I don't think any of the bits I have thought of so far are too funny, especially since when I try to tell people them they don't seem to laugh much more than just a chuckle, but in reality most of what stand-ups say isn't much more than a chuckle if you took them out of the pressure situation of being on a stage in front of strangers.  So since I have never had any problems talking in front of a lot of people, maybe I would be good at it.

Speak for yourself.

Since no natural tangents came to mind I'll talk about baseball, this was my response to hearing the Mariners traded Ichiro to the Yankees.  It saddens me to see him leave the team he has spent his entire MLB career with and I can only wonder what is going to become of him now, is he going to be a starter after this year?  Is he going to get 3000 hits?  Is he going to get the World Series ring he left Seattle for?  Is he going to use this change of scenery to get his OBP back above .300?  Only time can tell what is going to become of him, but this has been an entertaining baseball season, and maybe I will be able to get back to writing for Penultimate Round Pick soon to talk about some of my favorite stories of the season.  I am not very good at tangenting, I have the urge to revisit all of the topics I just talked about in a lot more detail, it is just the way I write.  So I'm going to leave it at that, expect to see me return to form next time and keep on a set topic the whole time.  Here's a video to celebrate my attempt at writing in tangents.

Interactions With People

Once again I am here trying to create a post on my fancy smartphone, this time while I'm sitting by myself on break. For some reason I am interested in writing about some strange interactions I have had with other people in my life. I have often had a habit of being a little socially awkward in front of new people and have had a long history of making terrible first impressions, in fact I've had multiple friends tell me that they hated me when they first met me but grew to like me when they actually met me. I find this to be an interesting phenomenon in my life and especially strange given the fact I am a pretty good public speaker. But anyways here are some interesting instances that come to mind.

Here's another thing I did at work!

When I was a freshman in college I lived across the hall from some lax bros. They mostly kept to themselves in the building and you would only see them either bringing some slut back or going out to smoke. But one time I saw one of them in a much different circumstance, he was pacing the hall talking on the phone. From the short bit that I heard he was complaining about the people at the school, saying most of the students are socially awkward nerds and complaining about how nobody ever seems to acknowledge other people as they walk by. I remembered this and thought that maybe I could help him feel better about the school so the next time I saw him I was sure to give him a head did and say hello, simply trying to be friendly. The damn kid ignored me completely and kept walking! What kind of douchebag complains about people ignoring each other then proceeds to ignore the kid who tries to remedy the situation. Maybe the kid really just missed ignoring people he thought he was cooler than like back in high school, no matter what his problem was he is an asshole in my book.

Not sure if that is him or not.. Same thing conceptually.

Another time I found funny was when I was in my phase of coming up with fake names and background stories to tell people, or as my friends know it, before I learned to exile Chase Robertson to the internet. I was at a party with two friends, one of which just came off of a long relationship and we were trying to cheer him up. The other friend decided to not care who he was dancing with so he started dancing with a sumo. When he noticed the gargantuan proportions of hiatus dance partner he tried to change his situation the best he could, by dishing her off on us. The recently single friend didn't see it coming so he was forced into a dance but spent the whole time giving me the most sad looks that just said "save me." Next would have been my turn but somehow I managed to get her to sit and talk as she wanted to dance with the first friend again, who I claimed to have never met before. I then proceeded to introduce myself as Patrick McGoohan (a spy fiction actor from the 60s) and said I could not dance with her due to my relationship with a girl back home in Vermont (not where I'm from at all but it wasn't a total lie as I was involved slightly with another girl at school.) My intentions hereto get everybody out of this situation with their dignity intact, but it took a strange turn when this girl started to tell me her life story, and I heard at least one story I had no interest in hearing. Eventually I found a way to get out of it myself and left the party to play Starfox.

Then there was an entire semester with a lab partner that shared my intentions of not mentioning the elephant in the room. I had only met her once before through a mutual friend, once again at a party, and even though I really didn't try to talk to her much her eyes were piercing through my for a little while. She had nice eyes so we danced and eventually started doing the most two people can do in a public area without anybody finding it lewd or offensive. The problem with this situation was that it took me until then to come to the realization that she was also the same girl one of my friends met at a party two weeks earlier and they left to enjoy each other's company. Not only that but she had been trying to get him to commit to a relationship since then and my job was likely to unknowingly get his attention. Months later we found ourselves in the same class and he only two people without a lab partner for the semester, so we partnered up and made believe we knew the other from elsewhere. In the end I got to know her and she was pretty cool, and nothing like you would think from just hearing that story. 

Fortunately I'm not that awkward

Since the last two stories have been about parties I'll switch to a decidedly different setting, the grocery store I used to work at (and blogged about last year.) One day I was minding my own business mopping up something some moron spilled when two of my friends.came over to me. I could tell by their expressions that they had something odd on their mind but nothing could have prepares me for the exchange that was to come. The first one came over and proceeded to ask if she could ask me a question, which always means something is going to happen. On my reply of yes she proceeded with her question, "can you pee with an erection?" Even I was caught off guard by that question and after a second told her my honest response and she then turned to the other friend and said "I told ya so!" And that was just a typical moment with those two.

One of many great images when your Google Image search "morning wood pee"

Since I seem to be going on too long I'll tell one more story, the story of the first class I had to teach. Granted I wasn't actually the instructor of the course but I was a teaching assistant with my own one hour block once a week. During the class I did the normal introduction and ice breakers that I was taught to do, then I went over the course syllabus but those didn't fill the time so I asked the class for general questions. One student's hand shot up almost instantly. He asked me how you get a suitemate to move out. My only response was to redirect him to the people who have the power to change housing assignments. Nevertheless of my lack of power in that situation he felt the need to tell myself and the rest of the class that his reasoning for wanting the guy to move out was that his suitemate had a habit of spending most of his days watching adult cartoons featuring characters from Naruto. I found the situation to be genuinely funny so the only thing I could do was hide behind my desk and laugh until I was straight faced enough to change the topic. Since then I've been fairly certain I can take anything a student tries to throw at me.

Most exhausting foreplay ever.. Also, right side, dude?

Welcome to my life..

Baseball, We Need to Talk... It's Not You, It's Me.

I wanted baseball to be innocent again.  I needed baseball to be innocent again.  I hoped that baseball was innocent again.  And eventually, I believed that baseball was innocent again.  But this week went and showed me that I had been naive and gullible once again.  I felt a small pang of the loss of innocence coming from Pujols leaving the World Series Champion St. Louis Cardinals, a franchise he played his entire career with (including minors), to pursue greener (get it?) pastures in Los Angeles with the Angels.  But that wasn't too much pain for me, because I had already come to the conclusion before that players are not fans, their job is to play baseball and make the most money while they are at it, they are human beings and as we all know, everybody has their selling price.  Pujols happened to find an offer that he felt was best for himself and his future, and human nature would not allow him to give up his personal happiness for the happiness of others.  While I don't want to condemn Pujols for being a human, cases like this show us how precious players like Craig Biggio, Chipper Jones and Joe Mauer are playing their entire careers with a single team, and even going as far to giving their career franchises a hometown discount.  That's not what a player would do, its what a fan would do.

Human nature at it's purest.

But once I got over this and maintained a large proportion of my baseball innocence, last night dropped a megaton bomb on everything I wanted to believe, and the irony of No Doubt's song Ex-Girlfriend playing on my shuffle right now is the perfect analogy of what being a modern baseball fan is.  Being a baseball fan is the same as being a single person in the dating world, you try to keep your hopes high that the worst parts are behind you and that only happiness awaits you, but you can never be completely sure.  Let me explain.   I was a child during the steroid era, an eight year old watching what seemed to be one of the greatest baseball seasons in history as Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire battled for home run dominance over Roger Maris, I remember that summer very well and my naivety believing that the players of my time are truly some of the greatest ever.  I was 14 years old when Barry Bonds broke the home run record once again, once again sitting on the couch praying that I could witness history repeating itself, even though the allegations of PED use were starting to seep to the surface of baseball, and I was well aware of the potential artificiality of what I was seeing.  But there is also one moment of my life that I will remember forever, on my 17th birthday, I sat on my couch watching the San Francisco Giants play, I argued with myself after all my family had gone to bed about how I was going to respond when Barry Bonds broke yet another home run record, his PED use was just about as well documented as it ever would be, yet he hit his 755th home run off of Clay Hensley (who was formerly suspended for PED use in the minors) which made me feel maybe there was a level playing field.  That night I got a birthday present I will never forget, as Barry Bonds hit 756 and my reaction was to run and jump around my living room at 1 A.M.  I woke my parents, I told my father what had just happened, and in the moment it was one of the best things I'd ever seen in baseball (which included the entire 2004 postseason from the perspective of a Red Sox fan).  

Its still a powerful image to me.

When the luster of those moments wore away, I realized that what I had experienced was not completely genuine and I just didn't have enough trust to continue this relationship at the level I was currently at.  This was my first time being alone and without a sport to share my time and life with.  The end of my high school years, I had problems trusting baseball again and while I was able to still like it as a friend, I couldn't find it in my heart to commit myself again, but I was able to dabble around and try all sorts of different things out.  Following soccer for the Euro 2008 tournament was a real good diversion, but it was a hoax, not meant to be real.  I had experienced the equivalent of the first bad breakup through baseball, all the symptoms were there.  But eventually I moved off to college, I was away from home, I was alone, and baseball was there to comfort me. 

I don't want to know which one I was.

I jumped in head first, learning all the new names that I missed the last two years, and remembering all of the good times I had had with baseball in the past.  I couldn't hide it, being a baseball fan is an integral part of who I am.  I was a little hesitant to commit to any specific players again, and was able to get through the PED suspension of Manny Ramirez relatively unhurt.  As the years went on and no notable players were even suspected of PED use anymore, I learned to trust baseball once again, and more importantly the feats of individual players once again.  I was ready to dig as deep into baseball as I ever had before, learning entire team's rosters, tracking standings and league leaders by the day, subscribing to MLB.tvPED use would be regarded for the Hall of Fame as my senior thesis.  Yes, in my mind the Steroid Era was officially over.  

No image could possibly better represent innocence in baseball.

Before this season, I had never been a particularly big fan of Ryan Braun, my best memory of his existence being my disapproval of his being elected 2007 NL Rookie of the Year over Troy Tulowitzki (I really disagreed with the 2007 awards voting).  But I had looked at his statistics over his years and marveled at his consistency, and was starting to be convinced that he was the real deal.  The season went on and Braun continued to show extreme talent and I began to be very impressed with him.  Then came the playoffs, which was the first time I had been able to consistently see Braun play.  He didn't disappoint, in the two series I was able to see him play, he showed me that he had more talent than I had ever imagined, hitting homers that soared distances I would not believe by seeing him, and getting on base at an inhuman rate.  I was completely drawn onto the Ryan Braun bandwagon, I was thinking about buying a t-shirt online, I was researching the periodicity of great Jewish baseball players and I was arguing that he deserved to win NL MVP despite the fact that Matt Kemp's stats were better (but only slightly).  Braun went on to win that MVP award, and I was proud, even though I still had to argue he was deserving a few more times.  Being a baseball fan was great for me, I was identifying talent correctly, I was enjoying the subtle shifts in gameplay since my childhood and the sport was clean.  In other words, I could trust baseball.

I don't understand...

Then, yesterday happened.  It was a textbook time for a breakup to happen, I finally shed my shell protecting me and my feelings to avoid them from being hurt again, I was vulnerable.  Here is how yesterday happened, in play-by-play form.  I received a text message from a friend telling me not to look at anything about baseball on the Internet for a while, so I naturally looked immediately.  Seeing the headline caused me to fall to the ground, stunned.  I didn't know how to respond, so I told all the important people who I felt needed to know so they could soothe me and help me get over it.  I called my brother and told him the news, which was followed by no less than 30 seconds of disbelieving silence, which was then followed by a series of one word sentences.  The next few people who I talked to who had found out on their own brought it up and tried to console me.  The night ended with myself trying to drink it off with some close friends, and myself trying to avoid any analogies to what I had just experienced.  The worst part is that I still don't know how to respond, I'm holding on to hope that it was a false positive, and he will win his appeal and all will be normal again.  I want to defend Braun, I want it to work out and I want this to be a slight speed bump on the road of life.  But in reality, I know I have to acknowledge that it happened and move on with my life.  The part that bothers me the most is how I am having this strong of a reaction to the misfortune of someone I only know of because they are talented at a game.  I guess that is what being a true fan is about, and I wouldn't sell it for all the money the New York Yankees, Miami Marlins or Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim are willing to throw at me.  I'll be fine, but I just have to get used to slight distrust of every player in the league again.

If I need to post this picture in a Steroids column again, its over...

Project Yancey: Doug and Patti Sittin' in a Tree

Breaking News!  I'm breaking my rules, my life does not seem exciting enough to warrant me to be able to use every Doug episode (and some episodes are kind of boring), so instead of going in line I will just find episodes I feel like doing, and will do them in this order.  So I'm going to start on a high note, with the episode where Doug and Patti may have gone on a date.  Enjoy.

You know it!

The episode starts with Doug eating his lunch alone, and Patti sitting next to him and asking him if he would like to go see a movie with her this Friday.  As it takes a while to get the point across to Doug that the movie will just be with the two of them, everybody around them seems to notice and watch the pivotal moment at hand.  And all these people call attention to Doug that it just may be a date no later than Patti takes her leave, and since we know Doug quite well, he doesn't like the attention.  Curious about the fact Patti never specifically said it was a date (even though it obviously was) Doug turns to his good buddies Chaulky and Skeeter for what signs to look for to see if it is a date.  The criteria they come by are the following, does she dress up to meet him, does she let him buy her ticket, and if all else fails, does she let him hold her hand (cue the Beatles)?  After learning how to tell if it is a date, Doug's next issue is what is he to do on this date?  Since Doug has an awesome taste in movies, all of the dates in the movies he owns either end in kung fu, or are completely unrealistic.  This is when Doug decides he was going to get his ideas from asking about and then stalking Judy on her date that night.  By doing this Doug learns a couple things every man should know, you should speak with a goofy accent, use big words, and and lastly you need to steal your kisses (optional).  Now is the time to put this new knowledge to work, and by that the obvious conclusion is that he invited Skeeter over to help him simulate the date using a dating book and Porkchop as Patti.  He shouldn't have chosen to do this at his house though, because its not long before his entire family finds out about it and makes a huge deal about it.  Eventually, Doug goes on his (potential) date, and his walk is met with a lot of his acquaintances lining the streets with comments to him.  No more than 10 seconds after seeing Patti, he already starts to get conflicting signals about the date, first he sees Patti dressed up, good sign, but then she ignores the fact he bought two tickets and buys her own.  So it all comes down to the hand holding.  Unfortunately only paying half-attention to the masterpiece on screen in which a crocodile is in love with a rich lady, Doug fails to find a chance to try to hold Patti's hand.  So now the night is nearly over and Doug starts walking Patti home and they discuss the movie.  During this Doug accidentally(?) grabs her hand and they both clearly like it but continue to walk back to her house in awkward silence.  Doug decides to find out once and for all, and asks Patti if it was a "whatever" and she really doesn't know if it was a "you know", but it clearly was.  And then they start slowly moving towards each other and it looks like they are gonna kiss!  But then Patti goes inside and keeps Doug wondering, but with a good feeling that it was a date.  A little down the road Doug gets confronted by all the boys from his school, it seems they are going to make fun of him, but they instead ask for a few pointers.  They want girls, and Doug's got girls, kids money.

Word spreads fast I see!

First allow me to link to this video if you did not grasp how awkward Doug's walk back to Patti's house was.  If this episode has a moral, and that I'm getting it right, it must be that the dating game sucks and is vague and you just need to suck it up and get used to it.  Right?  I've never been a fan of the whole dating scene in high school and college, I don't think I've ever got the hang of it completely, and likely never will.  I've tried to do everything under the sun, I've been the nice guy, I've been the crazy guy, I've been the shy guy, I've been the straight forward guy, I've been the former-friend-turned-romantic-interest, I've been Mr. Right Now, but I've never been anything of any note.  This may be that I haven't particularly played any of these roles very well, because I haven't been dealing with the right girls, or maybe it is just because I am not a lucky person.  But you know what, to hell with it.  One day my bad luck will run out and by some miracle, I will find some girl who is just as strange and messed up as I am, or maybe she won't be anything like that and she will be incredibly well adjusted (unlike me) and it will somehow work out, or maybe she will just be a regular person like the rest of us and everything will be moderately exciting but go well.  See, this is where I probably go wrong, I don't know or care what I want, I just want it.  I also want to waste your time by having all you readers out there read this.  So I am going to go watch some British teen dramas or something ridiculous of that sort to see if I can have an epiphany (I wont), meanwhile you guys can realize you would have saved a lot of time if I just linked to this video at the beginning.  End unnecessary rant, cue REH!

Project Yancey: Episode 30: Doug's Secret Admirer

Ladies and Gentlemen, we are about to hear the story of a truly remarkable moment in the life of Doug Funnie, this is the story of Doug's first kiss.  It begins one morning at school when Doug finds a mysterious pink note in his locker.  If the note is to believed two things are true, first that Doug is cute (debatable) and secondly, that Doug has a secret admirer.  Due to the excitement Doug could not pay attention to whatever nonsense Mrs. Wingo was spewing that day (you can hear it in the background and it legitimately is verbal diarrhea), and he instead opted to check out every girl in the class and weigh whether or not she was capable of writing him the note.  The first people he considers are these two formerly unknown chicks who apparently would be working in tandem, or at least that's how Doug imagined it.  But that fantasy was disrupted when they noticed him staring at them and they gave him the good ol' "why don't you take a picture, It'll last longer" routine (a routine which has been tragically cut out of the American lexicon since the 90s).  Next on Doug's list of usual suspects is Patti Mayonnaise, but he figures theres no way he could be so lucky, he figured it would be more likely Roger would put on a wig and skirt and put the notes in his locker to humiliate him.  But eventually class ends and Doug finds a new note in his locker, this time arranging a meeting at the Honker Burger, and she will be the one in the Bluffington School sweatshirt.  We get a quick meaningless scene where Doug is preparing for his blind date and can't think of what to say (for the record, no more than a week ago I made an icebreaker on the bus for the hall of fame, stay tuned) and in the end he talks to Judy who advises him well.  Later that night Doug arrives at the Honker Burger and the first thing he sees is Patti out front wearing her Bluffington School sweatshirt!  Its only after Doug makes a moderately awkward fool of himself that he notices everybody else at the Honker Burger is wearing the same sweater, and he proceeds to wait alone the whole night for his secret admirer.  The next morning Doug explains the situation to Skeeter, and that is when they catch Bee Bee Bluff putting a new note in Doug's locker, and shortly after Doug realizes that he doesn't like Bee Bee at all, so the two of them go into sabotage mode.  After pushing aside the idea of slugging her, they decide instead to make Doug act like Roger, but even though they set up an elaborate scene with terrible acting at the basketball game, Bee Bee keeps on leaving notes.  This latest note is the be-all end-all of notes, in which she sets up a meeting at the big parade that night.  Doug decides the only way combat this is to put "Plan C" into action, where Doug runs away from Bee Bee as soon as she is spotted.  Things aren't that easy in practice as Doug sees her at the parade and while hiding remembers how much it sucks to be stood up (like he was the night before) so he approaches her and tries to let her down easy.  After a short and confusing conversation, both of them find out the notes were in the wrong locker, to which Bee Bee was so excited she jumped on and kissed Doug (theres the first kiss!)  It turns out that the notes were for Skeeter (which was a well established semi-relationship by that point anyways), and the two of them marched in the parade together and Doug marched alongside Patti!  Another day, another crisis averted.

How did they get a picture of my room!?!?

First I guess I have to acknowledge the fact I'm writing this two days after Valentine's Day, so I would like to hope all you readers out there had a good one!  Now on to my own life, its pretty obvious to point out I've never had a secret admirer before (I've already said in a previous article that I look like Tobey Maguire, and theres no way anybody is that attracted by Tobey.)  But this does remind me of the days leading up to getting my first girlfriend (which seems to be a recurring topic despite being incredibly underwhelming and short).  The talks were initiated when one day I received an email from her which more or less amounted to "hey, you are there, you aren't incredibly unbearable, lets date" which was enough for me.  There was no cool secrecy to it, or any interesting meetings.  To tell the truth, the lead in was quite boring and not very notable, and neither was the result, but it was worth it since I was able to relate it to this Doug episode.  But now for something interesting!  As mentioned earlier, I made an "icebreaker for the hall of fame" which I shall now tell you.  It was on the bus, and I made eye contact with this one girl twice, she was good looking so I said the first thing that came to mind (here it comes!!!), which was "the awkward silence sure beats walking in this weather."  This prompted some conversation, but nothing else really panned out of it, but if you can say anything, it is that that is a pretty good icebreaker.  Confidence men, that is the key.

The french mime version of my bus encounter.

Project Yancey: Episode 28: Doug's Got No Gift

Being the classy guy Doug is, he knows that Patti has a birthday coming up and he saved up his money for a few weeks to buy her gift.  He found himself at the mall and still didn't know what he was going to get her, that is until he chanced by the sports store and saw the Official Multi-Ultra-Maxi-Pro Tournament Beetball!  And he had enough money for it!  But this is when Doug shows that he is a regular guy after all, Skeeter, the true buddy that he is, spots Doug from the arcade and he just had to make sure Doug tried this new game Bag the Neematoad.  Doug shows himself to be quite skilled at this game (well he does have real life experience), add in a few words by Skeeter and Doug was instantly hooked on playing the game until he was able to get his name on the high score list.  I would like to thank the writers for this reference coming up because no child would ever be able to pick up on it, but Doug goes into a daydream where he is getting out of a limo to go into a concert hall to play Bag the Neematoad, which would seem really weird until you notice the background music is slightly reminiscent of Pinball Wizard by The Who, and it turns out the daydream is a direct homage/spoof of the Pinball Wizard scene from The Who's rock opera Tommy.  With a vision like that and a crowd cheering him on, it is no surprise that next thing he knows Doug has no money to pay for Patti's gift anymore (but he did get DF at number 49 on the high score list.)  Dejected by his idiocy, Doug sits on the side of the street like a goon, and the Dink's hear his plight and invite him to Mr. Dink's workshop to build a gift for Patti.  Although Doug's original idea to build a glider seems to hit a snag when he doesn't have neither the material nor the expertise to build it, he ends up deciding that he would be able to find a suitable gift in making a towel rack.  After the long night of work, Doug shows Skeeter his towel rack, and I don't know which got him more confused, trying to figure out what it was when he saw it, or why Doug would give Patti a towel rack.  It's fine for skeeter because it seems everyone else at the party shared the sentiment, with Roger even referring to it directly as a "monstrosity".  Per the norm life decides to throw some salt on Doug's wounds before his moment of judgement comes, as Patti opens everyone else's gifts to find she had received some cool beetball (for the record Chaulky got her the Official Multi-Ultra-Maxi-Pro Tournament Beetball so one of the two would have looked stupid anyways getting her the same gift).  After a few beetballs have been opened and Doug decides he would rather look like the ass who didn't give a present than the kid who gave a bad present, Patti opens the present and to everyone's surprise thinks it is great as she doesn't see it as a towel rack, but as a beetball caddy!  Oddly, Roger was the only one who did see it as the towel rack it was.  As the party is starting to clear out Patti takes Doug aside for a heartfelt moment as she tells him that his gift was her favorite, by some strange irony she asks him to initial it, I bet that was better than 49th on the Bag the Neematoad high scores.  So as Borat would say "Great Success!"

Hes a Pinball Wizard Bag the Neematoad Master

I sure have quite an experience with playing too much video games, but I have never let it get that out of hand.  When you are as dedicated to something as Doug is to making Patti his girl, you do not let anything get in your way, and if I was in Doug's position I sure as hell wouldn't have spent all my money on a game (I have too many as it is.)  But I will admit that Doug buying Patti a gift for her birthday like that would have been really ambitious, and perhaps making the gift was even more ambitious, so I probably wouldn't have done what he did for even more reasons than the fact that I probably am selfish.  But to get away from any weaknesses in my persona, I would like to point out more good parts of myself for those readers that are so inclined to know.  I guess what I'm trying to say was that Doug came dangerously close to breaking one of the major laws of being a gentleman, but did manage to save himself by doing something much more gentlemanly.  I sure as hell will use this episode as an example to myself if I shall ever find myself in the position where I do not have enough money to be a proper gentleman for the lovely lady that is accompanying me at that time.  But I find that highly unlikely, as even in the life of a broke college student spending a large majority of the year with no income, I have never found myself in a time where I would not be able to pay on a date or anything of that sort.  There have been times where I know I wouldn't have made a frivolous purchase for myself, but I sure as hell had enough money to pay for two people's dinners.  I guess to put a cap on this incoherent rant of mine I will make a declaration of my own.  They say a gentleman pays on the first date, I say only a total scrub doesn't pay on any date (there's always the golden arches, just kidding.)    

The Oriental version of a date with me... Except not really

Extra thought, I'm overdue in using this video so I'm gonna do it now.  If you didn't understand any part of my rambling earlier, please do not hesitate to let out a nice big "REH!"  Allow Super Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV: Turtles in Time to demonstrate.