Finally, the snow has come BACK to New JEERRRRRRSEY

If you asked me who I thought were the most powerful and influential people in the country, people like THE PRESIDENT, Bill Gates, and Spongebob come to mind.  But when it comes to snow, everyone forgets that we are suddenly enslaved by weatherman Bob.  Despite the network’s transparent efforts to make news anchors ethnically diverse, the weatherman is invariably white with easy to pronounce names like Bob, Joe, or Bill.  Have you ever heard them say “and for the weather, let’s kick it to meteorologist Aladin Muhammad Abu Dahbi?” 

Anyway, if the weatherman says it’s gonna rain, people are carrying umbrellas.  If he says it’s gonna be really hot, people are inexplicably not wearing deodorant and fat people are showing off their navel-cellulite spectacula.  If he says it’s going to snow, people are flocking in droves to Raceway gas station and Costco.  How do I know this?  Well, there’s nothing like first hand experience. 

So my weatherman enslaved roommate comes into my room at 9:30am saying we should go to Costco and stock up on food because of the snow storm.  Since I live in a black hole that I call my bedroom for 80% of my living life, I hadn’t actually heard of these reports of impending doom.  So when I looked outside and saw it hadn’t even started snowing, my first thought was we live in freaking New Jersey.  People here do not get snowed in and die of hunger from the ensuing confinement like they do in Colorado (that’s where he’s from).

But since I needed to get gas and pick up a few things at Costco anyway, I said “ok fiiiiiine.”  Big mistake.  I can neatly sum up my overexaggeratedly bad experience in a concise 40 words: “Why are there so many people out here?  Can everyone please go home so that these lines will be shorter so I can go home and study.  Damn you all, have you never seen snow before?Charmander is my favorite pokemon.”

And if you’re thinking, hey, that’s forty-one words!  You should go grab a marker and write “winner” on a brown paper bag and put it over your head.  If not, then I guess I’ll be wearing the paper bag.  So what exactly happened on my errand run?  Hmmmmm. 

hOnK HoNK

I like standing on my apartment balcony looking out at the view of my shared backyard. Because we have a sizable creek that comes and goes with the rain, my backyard attracts a ton of defiant Canadian geese that refuse (or have forgotten how) to migrate. Well, I’m watching them chomp on the grass and decorate the field with their camouflage poo when I hear a “honK.” And then another “hOnk honK.”

Pretty soon there's a low level random honking that's intensifying with every second. You can just feel the tension in the air, like the time I asked my friend if the guy standing next to her was her boyfriend, when in fact her real boyfriend was standing on the other side of her. Then suddenly, there's an explosive “WHOOSH” and all the birds take off simultaneously and form that lopsided V (for once I’d like it to be symmetrical).

Their timing was actually quite impressive, because I remember back in
college, we tried filming a scene where everyone in a car opens the doors at the same time. Despite our sophisticated count down techniques, it took us like 5 tries to finally get it right. While here, in one try, these pea brained geese somehow synchronized their take-off using only their chaotic honking.
Impressive. Or maybe honking is superior to English.  I'm beginning to like the word honk. 

Anyway, as the birds fly away, I look back down and I see two geese just
standing there with their mouths half full of grass watching the other birds
disappear. They then turn to look at each other, and at that moment, I just
KNEW what they were thinking… “What the hell was that? Where did…? I thought it was grass eating time!” And of course they couldn’t chase after them NOW because they’d look stupid and they’d never catch up. So what
could they do? Just keep eating and pretend nothing happened? Well, they tried that, but I could tell they just weren’t into eating anymore. I mean, it was pretty obvious they missed the boat, and no amount of acting was going to hide that.

As I watched them in their confused states, I just wanted to tell them to stay strong. They didn’t need those other featherheads. All the birds except the apha bird at the apex of the V were followers anyway. They should carve their own path and keep eating the grass until they were good and ready to go…wherever it is they go when their not in my backyard.

But of course I couldn’t say any of that to them. So I threw rocks at them and
went back inside and watched TV while I munched on a bowl of grass wondering what everyone else was doing.

A December goodbye.  (warning: it's about my "pet" mouse.)

It was a dreary day.  My flight home was to leave in less than two hours.  The sky was overcast and the ground was wet from the light drizzle.  As I walked towards the window sill, I noticed the sun trying, in vain, to peak through the clouds.  The time was near.

I took the gatorade cap and scooped some of her food into it.  Actually, it's really my food cuz i paid for it.  This was going to be her last free meal, so I took extra time to fill it with her favorite: sunflower seeds.  Whenever I feed her, she goes for the sunflower seeds first; how she knew that there was a nut inside the shell the first time she saw it, I'll never know.

Anway, as I reached down to scoop her up in the cup, I took a moment to reflect on the first time I met her.  She was a spunky little girl, with shiny fur, running around in a freshly changed cage, consuming sterilized food and water.  Now she was huddled in the corner, with dull fur, living in a putrid sea of her own poopie.  How lucky she was to have been stolen from the lab by me.  Little did I know that she'd stink up her cage every three days and provide zero entertainment after the first week. 

I walked down the stairs with cap of food in one hand and the cup of her in the other.  I opened the door to the outside world and dumped her out.  Next to her, I placed the cap of food.  A meager amount, but perhaps enough to get her started for her new journey. 

I backed slowly to the door, fighting to hold back a tear.  "Bye bye" I said, "bye bye forever."  I quickly turned away, not wanting to show my true feelings.  She probably won't remember me, but I bet she dies in a week anyway. 

I'll always remember her though.  Who could forget how untouchable she was and how she desperately tried to escape the cage every single freaking day I had her.  It's probably more humane to break her neck and flush her down the toilet, but I couldn't do that to her.  Not this one. 

Anyway, I think I might steal another one next semester. 

Those crazy Texans.  That's what happens if you wear spurs.  Jersey's stupid "you can't pump your own gas law" prevents things like this.  It's ironically more convenient to pump your own gas though.

It rained one of those cold bleary icy rains today all day long.  Just miserable.  The mexicans on campus were spreading salt on the ground to melt the water. 

Anyway, it's impossible to get into the Christmas spirit (whatever that is) when it's freaking raining.  When I think of Christmas, I think of snow... but Lindsey told me she thinks of rain... hahaha, silly Hawiians. 

Kelly Clarkson of American Idol is a fraud.  I never liked her anyway.  The thing is, I hate the runner up (Justin something) even more.  I wonder if anything is gonna happen. 

I got a parking ticket for leaving my car at an expired meter for 2 min while I went to the atm machine to get money at Rubelmann.  I'm gonna try to have it overturned... chances are slim I know.  BUT I do have my ATM receipt that clearly shows the time and date to match the time and date on the parking ticket, but I'm not sure if thats gonna matter.  I guess I technically broke the rules, but thats booty.  It was like 3 seconds.

Reign of Fire is a horrible movie.  The dragons are kinda cool, but the story is awful.  Nothing makes sense.  Theres no babes.  And I waited the whole movie for the scene they show in the previews where Matt McConaughey (that took me 5 min. spell) jumps at a the dragon with an axe... only to be dissapointed at how stupid it was for him to do that cuz he just gets eaten in midair.  You don't even get to see the dragon eat him; you only assume so cuz right after he jumps, the dragon flys by his axe goes twirling away.  What a let down.

The lady at the drive through window for Jack in the Box didn't wait for me to give her some change I had, so I got a ton of change back instead.  I muttered under my breath that she was a Jack in the ass and angerilly (sp?) drove away... only to realize I hadn't gotten my food yet.  So I had to reverse back towards the window.  I felt so dumb.  Luckily, the person behind me hadn't moved up yet.  I pay and leave without getting my purchased good way more often than I should. 

I've only eaten 3 meals in the past 2 days.  I think I'm dying.

Campus is so dead.