Devi and I did a solid TV interview with Joe Cutbirth, who rocks, and we were able to avert harsh words from Williston, something that we had come to expect.

Tonight's all class lecture was a somewhat silly and mildly amusing one. It took three people to introduce the first speaker. It sounded a little like the following:

Bill: hi, my name is Bill. I work for a newspaper and write books. I spend time with my dog and I have a wife and two wonderful children. Here's Jane, who also has a dog. By the way, buy my book.

Jane: hi, my name is Jane. I write books about stuff. I work in Texas. When I woke up this morning, I couldn't decide whether I should wear my red socks or my blue socks. Now here's John by the way, buy my book too.

John: my name is John. I also write books about things. I had several cups of coffee this morning, read the newspaper, and then brushed my teeth. I think you all should buy my book as well. They're selling copies in the back. Now here's our first speaker, Sam.

I couldn't make this shit up. The lecture was pretty much about how we should network with people, come up with ideas for articles, and do several other things that might help us pursue a career in freelancing. This was not the most enlightening Tuesday night lecture, and was one of the first lectures I have actually deleted from my MiniDisc (keeping in mind that a MiniDisc costs something like $.25, and this lecture only takes up about a fifth of the space on one... it still wasn't worth it.)

We all following it up with a happy hour at Nacho Mammas.

I went out reporting today and had two key interviews.

In the early evening there was a radio panel discussion called "Radio Renaissance: The Revival of Radio as a Top Career in Journalism," featuring:

MADELEINE BRAND ('92)-- Correspondent, NPR
LIZ DRIBBEN -- Cultural Commentator, XM Satellite Radio; former CBS News Producer
JAY KERNIS -- Senior Vice President, Programming, NPR
BOB MOON -- NY Bureau Chief, "Marketplace", PRI
TANDELAYA WILDER -- News Director, WSHU, Fairfield, Connecticut; Executive Producer, "She Got Game"
ALICIA ZUCKERMAN ('00) -- Reporter, WNYC, New York
Moderator: JOHN DINGES, former managing editor, NPR (Director of Radio, CSJ)

John Dinges, the moderator, seemed to have little patience for Liz Dribben. At several points when she was talking for a while and not really going anywhere, Dinges would cut her off either by saying something, or simply by pressing play on one of the radio pieces that we were going to listen to. It was actually quite hilarious.

Also on a side note, John Dinges totally reminds me of Jack O'Halloran, who plays Emil Muzz in Dragnet (with Hanks and Akroyd). It's just funny to think of that whenever I see him ;-)

Later that night, Lane and I tried to play some basketball in the gym, but the court was scheduled for use then. So instead we sat outside on the steps and vented about journalism school and how frustrating our assignments and articles were. It was nice to hear someone else who could bitch almost as much as I could. The problem is we're not quite sure what to do -- what's the story? It's hard, I understand, but it feels like they're not really teaching us how to think like a journalist, and simply throwing us in the middle of the war without a gun, a helmet, and any basic training. Fortunately, when we get shot we don't really die, but the point is it might be a little more helpful if we were taught certain things when going into the field. I guess we'll see how things pan out.

This weekend was actually a lot of fun. I went home to Westchester to celebrate the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, and party like it's 5764. Of course all I could really manage Saturday morning was sleeping until 1:30 p.m. instead of going to Synagogue. I've been warned that this is probably not the best idea since this week is a pretty significant week in terms of getting your name listed in the Book of Life and basically asking God to let you live for another year. I'll take my chances.

So on Saturday, after I woke up and did very little for several hours, my friend Zak and I went out to see a Matchstick Men. It is worth noting here that the theater that I see movies in whenever I come home is an 18 theater multiplex in New Rochelle. Ever since it opened when I was a junior in high school, I don't think I've ever gone and only saw one movie. It's just too easy to sneak into other movies that every single time my friends and I would plan an itinerary and see at least two and usually three movies on a ticket, usually a matinée ticket. We tend to plan in advance, but this time it was more spur of the moment.

Afterwards, we snuck into the 1230 showing of Cabin Fever.

Matchstick Men was awesome. Nicolas Cage and Sam Rockwell are among my favorite actors, and I thought this film had a lot of substance. Cage's portrayal of a guy with a whole bunch of emotional problems and nervous ticks was hysterical.

Cabin Fever, on the other hand, was such a mess of a movie that I was considering walking out of it several times. I won't even begin to explain why this bizarre movie sucked so bad, but if you ever have to suffer through it, let me know and we can discuss. The basic premise here was something like the Movie Outbreak, where a virus starts killing people, but on a very small scale. A bunch of kids go to a cabin in the woods and one of them get infected with a deadly virus. This is not a horror movie. Outbreak wasn't a horror movie. It was a sad movie. It was a drama. A horror movie implies some kind of bad guy or thing, not a virus. Anyway, after seeing this pile of shit movie that reminded me of a sex ed video showing how AIDS kills its victims, I simply assumed that all of the reviews would be negative. To my dismay, the majority of reviews and looked at were actually positive and hailed this movie as an original, clever and gory horror film. Whereas before I simply thought most movie reviewers were imbeciles, I now actually want to kick the shit out of these morons. And I'm not a violent guy.

Those M2M burgers never let me down. I had one today for lunch. I bumped into my friend Larry, who I went to high school with, college with, and now he's at the Columbia business school.

During today's drill, I got a call from the Brooklyn Skyline, a free Brooklyn newspaper that is mailed to residents. They said they wanted to print my daybook article and would pay me $25 for it. Obviously I'm pretty psyched for this, being that it's my first clip. Here it is.

It's not really funny anymore. Okay maybe it is, just a little. Me and Devi went to Columbia Bagels today to film a process. Angel and the other workers were gracious hosts as we fumbled around with the camera and tripod. In the end, we had forgotten to check the microphone input and check the sound so there was no sound on our tape. Anyway, it was a miserable rainy day to go along with our miserable day of shooting and miserable final product. Most remarkable was Mark and Caitlin's pizza piece which was edited almost flawlessly.

Dave, Devi and I went to 1020 Amsterdam happy hour. That was fun. Lisa bought us a round of kamikazes.

Because I lost my Internet access, I had to go to the computer lab late that night to submit my article to a bunch of newspapers. Meredith kept me company. She decided to do a little public records search for sex criminals in her area which obviously scared the shit out of her. It's actually pretty scary, since you can look at the person's name, their photo, and a list of specific crimes including the age and sex of the victims. Not the happiest thing to do on a Tuesday night.

Today was a pretty intense day.

First, I went to interview a guy at the covenant House in Chelsea. He's 21 years old, served five years in prison, and now has a GED and has just started college. I have a two-hour interview on tape and am going to transcribe it as soon as possible. He said he wants to write a book about his experiences and his opinions about the justice system, and asked me if I would be interested. I am most definitely interested. We'll see how this turns out.

Next I went to do my daybook assignment at the Belarus mission to the United Nations at 67th Street and Lexington. I showed up about an hour early, and found a bunch of police cars and limousines parked on the sidewalk in front with a handful of guys that had earpieces and looked like Secret Service. Of course I thought I was lucky and that my daybook assignment would involve lots of drama. So I asked the Secret Service guys if they were there for the Hasidic Jews protesting the Cemetery also, and they gave me blank stares and asked me what the hell I was talking about.

These guys were actually really cool, and very friendly to me, and I told them everything I knew, like how many people were coming, what the protest was for, who was going to be there. I was then told to stand behind “the PD vehicle" which I thought was kind of funny, since I always thought it was a police car. So I did, and they thanked me for my cooperation.

A minute later one of the guys I was talking to who must've been in his late 20's, came over to me and gave me his card and told me if I needed any stories, to give him a ring. That guy turned out to be a special agent in the diplomatic security service. Another guy standing near me also turned to me and gave me his card as well, and told me he would be happy to help me out with stories too. He turned out to be a detective in the Bronx special victims squad. These were the easiest contacts I think I've ever made. Just cooperate with a few cops, and they hook you up.

Finally I made it to the protest, which was pretty interesting. Read my article, and you'll see what I mean. Just like last week, I was the only journalist covering the event. To these Hasidic Jews, I was a curious sight. As soon as I started talking to one person, 40 other people would quickly circle around me in a huddle, staring at my face, looking at what I had written on my notepad, and squinting to read my press Pass ID. They reminded me a lot of the group of little animals in the movie Toy Story who are all trapped in that arcade vending machine with the big claw that falls down from the top. When the cowboy toy finds himself surrounded by them, they all stare at him in awe and point and huddle around him. I was the cowboy in this case.

So I went home and was able to file the article by my deadline. Muha thought it was really good, barely edited it, and said it was good enough to be printed. So now I need to find a list of Williamsburg publications (where all the Jews were bused in from) and Jewish weeklies that I could try to sell the story to.

This morning was a rough Friday morning. First of all, let me just tell you about my towels. They are in desperate need of a washing, but at the moment I don't have enough laundry for a full load, so I'm in something of a dilemma. Having to choose the least smelliest of my three towels is usually the primary issue of my mornings.

9 AM marked the second installment of our law class, for which I was inadequately prepared. I think I'm going to begin recording the lectures in anticipation of the final exam, and as a much-needed backup to my inferior notetaking.

Next up was our critical issues class. I happen to enjoy Professor Isaacs and Professor Carey so much that I have been recording the lectures. I also like the articles they have assigned. Unfortunately, I didn't even begin the stack of reading that was due for today's class. And during class Devi had to wake me up twice.

I met with Professor Lipton and pitched three masters project ideas: the Next Generation of file sharing networks, alternative energy in New York, and how computers can help doctors improve patient care. She liked the alternative energy one the most, and I happen to agree with her. It should be a lot of fun working with her.

I hung out with Devi for pretty much the rest of the day. We needed to scope out a place to do our video project for Tuesday's TV class. The gist of the project is to film a process, like baking a cake or doing your laundry. So Angelo at Columbia Bagels, is going to let us come in and shoot them baking bagels on Tuesday morning. It should be pretty cool. I had absolutely no idea that bagels were made with a vat of boiling water.

Then Devi came over and I cooked her Annie's Mac and cheese as we chatted about random things and watched clips from The Daily Show that I have on my computer. It was a real bonding experience.

So Blogger added a way to change the time and date of entries, so it seems I no longer have to write these blogs on deadline :-)

HAHAHA -- a forwarded email.

A brief note on the following: my mom sent it to me, and I had never seen it before. So I put it up here, thinking I was clever and this was something of interest.... turns out, (I should have known), every J-schooler and their mother (haha) has read this forward. It's even posted in the equipment room in the Journalism building to boot. Yeah, so I'm a little behind. It's still pretty funny.


The London Financial Times is read by people who run the world.

The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at crosswords.

USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave LA to do it.

The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and they did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.

The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

The New York Post is read by people who don't care who's running the country, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure there is a country or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from any country or galaxy as long as they are Democrats.

The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

My good friend from college, Lakshmi Rengarajan, is interning at Chicago Public Radio, and just sold her first piece. It's about racial profiling after Sept 11. This is the real audio broadcast. (Skip to 20 min in.) This is the website, scroll down to Sept 11th's broadcast.

So it's been a few days. It's been a busy few days.

On Tuesday we had our first television class, TV Tools, where we learned editing. I, of course, said that I have lots of experience (spending my high school days on a linear system cutting together packages for our daily News, and then through college directing, shooting, and editing short films and one feature length movie). So I figured this first editing assignment, to cut together some raw footage and narration, would be a piece of cake. Devi, who was particularly irritable that day, but is normally as sweet and crumbly as a Butterfinger, was my partner. Together, we managed to completely fuck up the assignment, and didn't have any background sound in any of the B-roll.

Fucking up assignments has become pretty normal for me, but Devi had no excuse. I had misunderstood Prof. Williston, (who, by the way, is hilarious and whose lectures are worthy of space on my MiniDisc recorder), and thought she only wanted us to use one track of audio, but that's because I'm an idiot. Devi, who was sitting with me the entire time and helped with many of the edits, apparently was too preoccupied with anger management to notice that our two-minute piece sucked absolute ass and made no sense.

After we played our pile of shit for the class, all of whom did a far better job, Devi pointed out that me and her had recently received the Camera Planet scholarship. Ironic to say the least, as the scholarship is given out to broadcast students who showed the most promise, and we most decidedly did not show promise. We had a good laugh about that, and realized that because we are starting at the bottom, there is a whole world of promise ahead of us.

We are, indeed, TV Tools.

On Thursday, the two-year anniversary for 9/11, we all covered relevant stories for the radio class. Obviously there was a lot of drama in the interviews that people got at their events. My story was about the computer data for financial institutions and how they prepare for catastrophes. I don't think my piece really lent itself to the same kind of drama, but it was pretty fun to do nonetheless. Needless to say, I missed the 5:30 deadline, but Kerry appears to think my scriptwriting is improving. I say this because she normally says, in not so many words, my shit stinks and I have no story. This time she just edited my copy. Big up to me!

I happen to love computers and technology, and any cool shit that can improve the efficiency of anything I do. Using a MiniDisc to record interviews is really cool, and the benefits don't end with the CD-quality recordings you get. Basically on the subway ride home, you can listen to your footage, and insert tracks before and after the clips that stand out. This makes everything easier because you can simply jump to any audio clip. You can also delete or move tracks around, meaning you can literally record narration (in a quiet place with the same mic), and do a basic assembly cut of a piece, all away from the computer.

Also, I'm using Dragon NaturallySpeaking, a voice dictation program for the computer which basically works as my own personal transcriptionist. I love this shit. It can handle up to 160 wpm, and is about 99 percent accurate. So, what I did for September 11th, was simultaneously listen to the interview and simply repeat what I heard. This means I can do transcription in almost real-time, which is pretty fucking cool. Yes, a whole bunch of words will get fucked up because the computer might think you said one thing when really you meant something else. But it doesn't matter, because you're going to be using what's recorded anyway.

I was up till three in the morning last night doing laundry and trying to finish the reading for today. There are three washers and three dryers in the basement of my building, and it seems like they are used all the time. I couldn't get to a washer until midnight. And two of the three dryers were broken. One was busted (tape around the coin slot), and the other had a pool of water inside it. The super happened to be standing nearby when I saw the water, and I told him about it, implying maybe he should fix it. He just laughed, "there's water in the dryer? ha, guess you should use the other dryer," and walked into his apartment.

Time to drink at Caitlin's now. I'm sure there'll be more to come ;-)

Monday morning I actually had to take the subway to the Park Place stop. Remember that as of three days ago I didn't even know Park Place, which we all know from Monopoly, was a real location. So that was amusing.

I officially dropped the photography class I had scheduled for 9:30 AM on Saturdays. I'm no overachiever, so it just didn't feel right to take a class that was optional... especially when I knew I would be hung over for each of the seven classes we would have. In general, I like to think of myself as a minimalist. I do the bare minimum required. Not lazy. Minimalist.

Monday's daybook assignment was actually very exciting for me. Finally, I get to speak to people who actually want to talk and are eager to be interviewed, and give their full names without coercion. Writing up the story for the three o'clock deadline was actually very stressful, and I don't remember being under that kind of pressure before. (I was usually an hour or two late handing in my weekly op-ed column. But I was hooking up with the editor, so I could get away with it ;-)

At three o'clock I had an editing session with Joe, our adjunct, and quite possibly the coolest guy ever.

I remember a time, shortly after the Columbia open house back in April, when I thought Michael Shapiro, a print professor, was the coolest guy in the world. Everything he said, and the way he said it, was like a comedian's performance. I was nearly willing to switch from broadcast to print in order to have him as my professor. But alas, it wasn't meant to be. And for days I wondered in my heart of hearts if there could ever be a Shapiro in broadcast, if I could ever laugh the way I laughed at open house.

The answer came by way of a thick Southern accent.

Joe is fucking hilarious. I think I'll try to keep a log of some of his more noteworthy quotes. I can't remember any right now, but I'll try to remember for the next time.

Tomorrow is SPJ elections. We'll get to find out which monkeys will run the show this year. On that note, a word from Manu Chao:

Every monkey'd like to be
In my place instead of me
Cause I'm the king of bongo, baby
I'm the king of bongo bong

Is it Monday already? The photos are up from Abby's party Saturday night. It looks like we have some keepers.

Sunday was another lazy day. Slept til 1. Putzed around til 5. Finally took a shower and went out to hang with Bonnie, a good friend from college. We watched a bit of Minority Report, which I had already seen when it came out, but never realized how insanely unrealistic the plot is (suspension of disbelief is one thing, but suspension of intellect and common sense is another) and how ludicrious Speilberg's vision of the future is. I won't go into details here, but the next time I see the movie, I'll take down some notes.

So I finally made it!!! Into SPJ that is (Society for Professional Journalists... but really J-School's student council)... Me, Dave and Jodi are the official "No-frills movie coordinators" now. Sure, we were unopposed. Sure, it's the position with the least responsibilities. Sure, all I want to do is schedule happy hours and drink a lot. But all in all, it was a tough journey with lots of campaigning (Abby's party? Yeah, that was campaigning. Drinking? Yes. Campaigning? Yes. Trying to get Shasha, the cutest little Chinese girl you've ever seen, drunk and belligerent? Yup.)

It took some real stamina, and a liver of steel, to traverse the road of SPJ elections. Some nights I wasn’t sure I could even pull it off. I'd wake up in a cold sweat, scared that maybe I didn't have what it takes. Maybe I wasn't cut out for movie coordination after all. Maybe I'd have to retire my Blockbuster card and sell my pet monkey. But it looks like the long, lonely nights have paid off. For I, (and Dave and Jodi), are now part of SPJ and BOOYA, we can at long last begin our reign of movie watching and happy hour terror. San Dimas High School football rules!!!!

I figured out that "Park Place" is a real place. (You know, from Monopoly). It's actually a stop on the 2/3. Who knew? Apparently I've been out of the loop. And my subway ride downtown was literally the quietest ride I've ever been on. Not a friggin' peep out of the 50 people in my car. It was the wierdest thing I'd ever sat through.

I fucking love house parties. They were commonplace back in Baltimore (in college), but in NYC where everyone's strapped for space, they're pretty rare. At least it's rare to find any parties with more than a few people. So that's why I dig my friend Schwalb, who has sick parties every now and then (like new years) at his pad which can hold 150+ comfortably. Tonight he had something like 3 kegs, 3 cases of girlie drinks, 5 big bottles of rum and vodka, $30 worth of ice, several cold pizza pies, and 2 cakes. I mean, who the fuck has parties like that?? In New York? No. So he's up high on my list of super cool friends. I'm looking forward to his next party (which I won't pay anything for or help clean up the next morning ;-). I'm a great friend!

It's 3:15am. I have my photo skills class at 9:30am. Fuck.

This blog thing doesn't really work on my schedule. Since I'm always writing after midnight, the days are all fucked up and it looks like I'm talking about the next day when really I'm talking about the day before.

Anyway, today (and by today I mean yesterday) was a pretty chill day. After seminar, a bunch of us went out to Koronet's for some bigass slices of pizza. I managed to spill a shit load of grease on the crotch of my pants. Now I'm down to two pairs of pants. I hope nobody notices.

Later on, we re-wrote new leads for our first two stories. Of course, since my stories had no real point, my leads, once again, sucked ass. So I went home and watched the end of Disney's Hercules, one of the greatest movies of all time..."Hercules is a very popular name. Remember a few years ago when all the boys were named Jason, and the girls Brittany?"

I finished my radio piece tonight (Thurs night). Kerry, the instructor, had originally told me two weeks ago that there were no good transitions in my script, that I had no good quotes, that my story was pretty much nonexistent, and that I basically did not do the assignment at all. Well, I showed her with this piece I cut tonight. Who says dogs jumping around in a pool and barking at each other isn't newsworthy? The original assignment was: "a 2-3 minute profile of a place. This means you need to think of a location, relatively close to school, where you can go and get great ambient sound as well as some people doing/making the sound to speak with you. This piece should have at least two people in it and should feature some type of action, if possible."

I pretty much failed this assignment, but I have some cute dog sounds on tape. Wonderful. (Or as a 76-year-old lawyer I used to work for said all the time... "Wonderbar!")

Been listening to a ton of Rob Zombie / White Zombie yesterday. I love this stuff. Rob Zombie's movie "House of 1000 Corpses" had a sweet soundtrack -- though it was one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen.

And lastly, I'm a little upset with the sluggishness that internet piracy and the computer nerds who code the peer-to-peer file sharing software has been in responding to all the things the RIAA has thrown into the mix as of late. I can't believe the record industry is more clever than 20 million people who steal music (several of whom actually know how to write software...). DVD encryption was cracked by a 14 year old within a week of it's initial release. I find it appalling that things have taken so long with music sharing. Not because i want to steal music or do anything illegal... it's just a philosophical thing.

Is Kazaa pulling a rope-a-dope? Let the RIAA think it's won then kick its ass with self-authenticating P2P software? It scares me that BusinessWeek just ran an article saying something like "The music piracy war is about to begin and the RIAA has all the weapons." Weapons like an mp3 that you download, but its really a virus that scans your computer for other mp3s and deletes them. Weapons like mp3s that look and appear to be real, but are really just 3 minutes of silence. Come on!!! We (and by "we" I mean "other people") can do SOOO much better. A single college kid invented napster. A bunch of hackers wrote SoBig and other viruses that kicked the Internet and Microsoft on it's ass. Why can't they just redirect their efforts?? Surely a few computer nerds can get their shit together and get music piracy back on track. It's high time the pirates obtain some mp3 weapons of their own.

(If you are the FBI or the RIAA, I do not condone anything that I wrote here. I don't pirate or steal music. I pay the full price every time. I don't even buy used CDs because I know the artist (label) is not getting a cut of the profits. I know CDs cost a lot of money to produce, and $18 for a new CD is a perfectly reasonable price, especially because such a large percentage of that is going to the artist that actually made the music. Uhhhhh. I'll stop. )

I gotta say, I'm a huge fan of cheap food. Let me break down my weekly meals:
$2 - Annie's shells and cheese (organic too!!)
$.33 - Ramen noodles
$1 - veg. burger
PBJ - still on a jar of peanut butter from 2 months ago!
the M2M (pronounced "m squared m"... or M-cubed if you do the math) across from the broadway entrance to Columbia -- $4 burger deluxe!! best deal ever.
$2 - big wedge of brie from west side market... yum
$2 - big container of granola -- this stuff is great, also from the west side market
and orange juice -- for the vitamin C -- to keep my immune system fighting hard when I'm chronically tired.
water - free from the tap. free!!!

Funny story. So on Sunday night, when me and Roy were going out to get plastered, we apparently walked by a group of people sitting in an ice cream shop on Broadway. I think I was in the middle of telling Roy some long drawn out story when some girl in the group started checking him out as we walked by.

The next day I get an email from that girl. Turns out I had exchanged emails with her through Jdate (Jewish internet dating) a few months ago, and never met her. (I'm a big fan of internet dating, but I'm cheap too, so I couldn't really afford it and had to cancel.) Anyway, she was able to recognize me just from my picture on the site. How crazy is that?? So I'm gonna get to see her for lunch on Wednesday. Things like this could NEVER happen without the internet.

Holy fuck!!! I'm one of 4 broadcast students receiving a $5,000 Camera Planet Scholarship (c/o Steve Rosenbaum, President). Wow that's cool. I splurged for dinner and treated myself to a $3.50 falafel from down the street. Apparently, Mr. Rosenbaum invites the winners out for lunch in a few months. So I get a free meal out of this too!! This has to be my lucky day.

Finally bought www.jeffnovich.com. Yeehaw.

This past weekend was Labor Day weekend, and I went back to Larchmont. Originally, I wasn't really planning on going, but my parents offered to take me out to dinner.

Upon arriving, my golden retriever, Tillie, gave me a huge welcome. I noticed she smelled a little fishy when I was petting her, but she's a dog, so she normally smells like crap. Usually I'll just write off any strange smells with my dog because, well, she eats her own shit. But this was different. I learned later that Tillie's face and my sister's arms were sprayed by a skunk last week.

I miss my home. Obviously I miss my family and my dog, but there are several other things as well. I miss not having to see rats and cockroaches on my walk to the front door. I miss our jet powered toilets. I miss having a well-stocked refrigerator that doesn't have a freezer completely encased in ice. I miss having a working oven.

I was lucky enough to be able to hang out with my good friend Zak on Saturday night. We went to see Freddy vs. Jason. Me and Zak usually tend to be the only people we know who will go and see movies like this. The last movie we saw was Rob Zombie's "House of 1000 Corpses," which was one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen. But Freddy vs. Jason was actually really cool. It had the right mix of gore and humor to make it exceptionally entertaining. Freddy had many memorable lines, and somehow broke out some martial arts in the end when he was trying to kick Jason's ass. One interesting thing I'd like to point out is that towards the end of the film the teenagers drive for what seems like only an hour or two from their suburb (they live on Elm Street) to Crystal Lake. Sure, this makes some sense that these two locations should be near each other, until you realize (if you're a nerd like me) that Freddy is in Ohio and Jason is in upstate New York. Whatever, this was still an awesome flick.

Sunday night Roy and I went out in the Columbia area for some good times. We shared a pitcher at the West End, and met two girls, a law student and an aspiring actress. We all ended up at The Heights for happy hour from 11 to 1, and we got some margaritas. I was pretty exhausted from having slept between 10 and 12 hours each night for the past four days, so I went home and crashed. Sleeping can really wear you out, I'll tell ya.

Today it rained and I never left my room. It was a very productive day.

Each time I write in this blog, I feel more and more like Robert Shields, the guy who literally sits at his typewriter writing out everything that he does. Read the transcript of the David Isay profile on this guy.

Oh, and I'm running for "Movie Coordinator Chair." Here's my shtick:

Education:
-PhD Instantdegrees.com, Movie Renting and Watching
-B.A. Johns Hopkins 2002 (Physics and Computer Science)

Work Experience:
-Jan. 28, 2001, my birthday AND Super Bowl XXXV -- planned and executed a single kickass party. Not only did I turn 21, but the Baltimore Ravens beat the Giants 34-7. Baltimore was at its happiest... until it got nuked in "Sum of all Fears"
-Directed a feature length movie and had a school-wide screening. Got everyone drunk at subsequent party. 2001. Official selection of several film festivals.
-Op-Ed columnist for JHU News-Letter, 2000-2002, made some enemies
-Organizer of several themed potlucks, including the famous “Las Vegas Potluck,” where all food had to be obnoxious and loud, “MSG Potluck,” where all food had to contain MSG, and the infamous “POT-luck,” figure that one out, all I’ll say is it was a bad idea
-Contract computer work, 2000-2003

Why You Should Vote for Me:
Let’s be honest here. Anyone can rent a movie. Anyone can plan a party. But it takes a special kind of person, special like me, to write a compelling argument for why you should elect me to this position – a position a monkey could manage fairly well with a Blockbuster card and some cash, and maybe a typewriter because that would be funny. I think my movie collection speaks for itself: Rambo 3, Tremors, and, of course, Waterworld. Serpico can teach us to fight corruption, Superman can teach us to hide our alter-egos, and Zoolander can teach us “investigatory journalism.” I think Freddy Vs. Jason is good cinema. But my taste is irrelevant since your votes determine the movies rented by me and my two sidekick movie coordinator monkeys. I’ll also push for more free alcohol, pizza, and more parties where Columbia, I mean tuition, foots the bill. Booyakasha!