the world is a vampire...

well its officially halloween, but i'm going to bed soon. damon and i came back from watching Saw II with the crew (i was quite pleased with the sequel, any fan of the first one should definitely see this one, and if you haven't seen either...watch both. keep in mind that both are pretty gory though, and most likely you're a whimp and will jump at some point during both movies. i didn't jump of course, since movies don't scare me at all -- even though i've tried). wow that was a long parenthetical exposition.

either way, the movie was good. my sister did a good job of upholding the david tradition of not being scared by scary movies...ok well rachel fails at that part, but at least sarah kept it up. we were also pleased to see the return of squeaky wheel syndrome on that tricycle in the movie.

after the movie we went to kroger where i bought some more ben & jerry's half baked ice cream, which i later performed cookie dough/brownie extraction surgery on while watching a very interesting episode of Grey's Anatomy. after that we were in the mood for another halloween-appropriate movie, so we decided on Interview with a Vampire. now some of you probably didnt even know what movies were when this originally came out, but it's been a favorite flick of mine for quite some time. if i remember correctly (and i always do), me, one of my best friends, and our dates watched this at some point on prom night. fun times. i should also point out that the next morning was the first time i was able to eat Count Chocula cereal for breakfast since (as sarah pointed out in her previously excerpted live journal entry) the kids in our family were not allowed to do so (not that mom and dad did or anything). seems kind of inverted with those rules...all of us sleeping over at a friends place on prom night was just fine, but eating count chocula for breakfast was taboo and definitely kept secret for at least a little bit...

either way, i would just like to point out that vampires are very cool and if i had the choice i'd probably be one. i already am more active during the night than day, so thats not a stretch, and from what i have learned from the Blade movies and ray-ban commercials, some good sunglasses and capes can go a long way towards tolerating sunlight. given the vampire representation in my dvd collection and the fact that the fangs (last year and this year) looked a little too real, james ventured the opinion that perhaps i actually was a vampire. sarah and i have also put together the pseudo-tradition in that we will see pretty much any vampire movie...rachel again, not so much, but she tries. i think she's still bitter about missing out on the bourne identity back in 2002.

ok well that's all for now; we still haven't decided if we're going to go out tomorrow evening or not, but it is officially halloween and i plan on wearing my cape whenever i possibly can, no matter how appropriate (or inappropriate) it may actually be. good night <:><

more halloween pics...

testing out damon's camera...i guess this costume isn't that far of a stretch for me, what with the black attire and being evil and all...

evil damon impersonating a member of KISS...

hal was definitely the better Magnum P.I. ...who wears a hat that identifies the character you are anyway???

katie, janine, AJ, hal, damon at one of the parties. gotta love the donald trump expression.

me, rakhi, carrie, and damon at an SPH party. a classic clash of good vs evil...

an evil halloween...

well halloween has definitely been a fun event this season, and damon and i really got into it this year with our costumes which we summed up with the blanket term: evil. we weren't necessarily vampires, demons, ghouls, or anything specific, but more of a combination of all those things and we just decided to describe the characters as evil. i would say our point was well-made and understood by anyone who saw (or was scared) of us at the various parties and clubs. it was definitely a good time. hal, AJ and janine also had some cool costumes in the form of Magnum PI, a pirate, and cheetara (from thundercats) respectively.

its too late and i'm tired right now (gotta take advantage of that extra hour of sleep tonight) so i'll just post a few pics for your entertainment. more to come later, have a good night <:><

myself and damon in full costume...

another shot of the two us of before heading out for the night. we looked pretty disturbing in the light, you can imagine what it was like in the darkly lit parties/club...

group shot from friday night; me, hal, AJ, janine. that dude in the dress on the far left is probably creepier than any of us.

me, AJ, janine, and damon at LIVE (new club where damato's used to be). everyone was dressed up at this place and it was quite entertaining. i'm not sure AJ knows how to hold that sword though...

one of those always-fun "hold the camera out in front of yourselves" shots. i'd say i did a decent job of getting everyone in the frame.

piled higher and deeper...PhD...

well i am following my mom's favorite advice to me and the other david siblings: "go to bed early." (must be imagined/said with an indian accent)

considering that i went to bed around 4:30am yesterday that should be pretty easy to do now that its only about 2:20am. friday will be quite the busy day as damon and i are meeting for dinner with some of the other fish grad students (well, at least the cool ones...ok stop laughing). and then there is what has historically been a crazy halloween party thrown by some SNRE folks so that should be interesting...that and we'll be unveiling our costumes as well.

but i digress from the entry title (yes, my entry titles actually DO have to do with the entry subject matter, unlike my sister's. her mechanism is quite humorous, and i'll leave that as unique to her live journal instead of assimilating it into mine -seeing as i already use excerpts from her's when i feel lazy...and we all know that happens with some frequency). right, anyway, PHD: piled higher and deeper is a play on the good old Ph.D. terminology, and specifically refers to (in this case) a HILARIOUS comic site found here:

Piled Higher and Deeper

thanks to nick (one of kara's good friends, and i guess would be a friend of mine via transitive property and the fact that he visited the tank this past summer...and showed an interest in the fishes, which always ranks one higher than normal, haha) for posting the link to this comic strip. you should all be warned that unless you are in grad school yourself, or know someone who is in grad school very well, the jokes may not seem to be as funny. either way, i highly recommend checking it out; the "what is the thesis" episodes are particularly funny and loosely based on the matrix. keep in mind these are highly effective time wasters, so be sure to read the comics when you have papers due, deadlines to meet, or any other sort of real, actual work.

that's all for now, halloweekend starts tomorrow so be ready for some craziness and hopefully some entertaining pictures! good night <:><

p.s. - we watched the first 'saw' tonight and it was nice to see that hal, AJ, and janine all jumped at least twice over the course of the movie, AND the squeaky tricycle scene is still freaking hilarious. the saw II outing will be sunday...should be interesting to see how the sequel stands up.

random pic:

here is a shot of one of the walls in my room in my old apartment, as you can see, i don't like bare walls by any means. my room at our new place is pretty bare right now and i hope to (someday) get the time to put up more posters/pictures/etc.

"golphins", evil costumes, and coloring books...

i'll just touch briefly on a few things here since there is somewhat of a diverse grouping of topics for today's entry...

oh yeah, happy birthday (Oct. 26*) to my buddy hal!

first off, you may ask, "what is a 'golphin'?"...well let me tell you:

i mentioned in an earlier entry that we had a visiting professor come to the university from india who has been a guest of our aquatics department and more generally SNRE. well today he gave a (much anticipated - for me at least) talk on the ganges river dolphin (Platanista gangetica). finally a cause i can get my arms around (maybe not literally, but i would try)! the ganges river dolphin is one of about 5 freshwater dolphin species in the world and is in great decline in its limited native range in the large rivers (primarily the ganges/ganga) in india. now, i know this animal is not a fish, but its pretty cool looking in my opinion. look at that elongate snout full of teeth...now what kind of fish** does that remind you of? more importantly, what kind of fish would that remind ME of? if you don't know, then you don't know me terribly well and you can just stop reading these altogether. even if you didnt know right away, i think you could figure it out. anyway, combine that fish's name with dolphin and you get: golphin. no, i didnt come up with that corny name, damon did as we went into the talk and saw some pics. well now you know.

these ancient mammals are in major decline and its estimated that only about 1500-2000 are left on the planet. they are being poached, accidentally killed by fishing gear, and dying due to the tremendous pollution which is going into the ganges (which is of course also a concern to human populations). this is all interconnected, and the visiting professor (whom i have had the pleasure with chatting with over the past week or so) is part of a major environmental organization working to study/preserve/clean up india's major river system, including their most important, the ganges. their main icon for the origanization is this dolphin, for which their main theme is saving the ganges river dolphin means saving the ganges river. they have made tremendous efforts with comparatively (to the US) funding and definitely not the same technology...yet they are making some significant progress where many of our US programs failed. now, i know...usually i'm complaining or making fun of something in the entries (and that is yet to come in this entry) but this was something that was very interesting to me and tied together a lot of stuff...aquatic ecology, india, and getting the heck out of the dungeon. one of the major ways they have been working towards the conservation of this animal and therefore started some clean-up efforts/preservation of the river is by working through local schools and educating the children of the local fishermen and those who live near the river. i must say, although its an uphill and bleak battle, the progress has been impressive. UofM is looking to further work with this organization and help out even more (you can see their current project plans and reports HERE. i know this seems somewhat focused on one animal, and you may ask where the value to the people comes in, but hopefully you have been able to figure that out (the water quality is important to all organisms). either way, its something i'd like to help out with during my time here at UofM...coincidentally the fishes i helped ID are going into an exhibit which will showcase the ganges ecosystem including the dolphin and the efforts to clean up the river for people and everything else as well.

ok, stepping off my 'environmental' soapbox...i know you guys know i don't normally voice much of an opinion about that stuff, but i thought that project/presentation was pretty cool.

well moving right along; after the talk today damon, james and i hit up pancheros (where out of revenge of tios always screwing up my order and getting james' right, i had 'cheros screw up james' quesadilla...well, not really, but i was happy they messed it up. indirect revenge.) man that burrito was good, but aren't they always?

after that james split off from us and went home, and damon went on our quest to find halloween costumes...it was an interesting adventure covering three stores and also involved some red bull, a leprachaun, and a lot of spontaneous brainstorming by myself and d. needless to say, we came up with our costumes, which should be pretty cool, or at the very least allow us to play the part as well as disturb people. thanks to everyone who gave us suggestions...we didn't really use any of them, but rest assured they were carefully considered by a committee (me) before their eventual dismissal. ok, i ran a few of them by damon but we still came up with our own ideas and will keep other suggestions as options for years to come.

now i'll include some interesting stuff about halloween and my family from sarah's live journal, which does get into halloween costumes and other festivities which we definitely didnt participate in back in the day.
===
i did something that i've never done before tonight...carved a pumpkin! now i know what the general reaction from people is "u never carved a pumpkin? what kind of kid were u?". well let's just say my parents were rather strict when it came to the halloween holiday. we were allowed to trick or treat, but we didn't really partake in any other festivities. but i'm not complaining. the only thing that i wasn't allowed to do while growing up around halloween were dressing up as : witches, ghosts, or anything satanic.(and i find it ironic how solo's idea for a costume is to go as 'evil'. i'm definitely telling my parents. maybe i'll become the new favorite.) that and we have never really been allowed to eat count chocula cereal (the rentz were never big fans of vampires). but anyways, the pumpkin carving experience was all right. i didn't like having to take out the insides of the pumpkin, the texture just grossed me out. and carving looks easy, but i think it definitely gave my weakling arm a good workout.
===
i have to agree with her though, pumpkin carving is gross, those insides are just nasty. that and don't worry sarah, you'll have to do a heck of a lot more and i'll have to do a heck of a lot worse for you to become 'the favorite' over me, hahaha. nice try though.

i would finally like to note that when i returned a call to her later this evening and asked her what she was doing, she matter-of-factly answered 'coloring'. i assumed this was for one of her non-auditory listening classes that she takes as a culinary arts major (is that right, or am i still off on what you're studying?) at the emu farm. ok ok, she's communications, but the coloring issue still stands. i hope she stayed inside the lines and made a good picture, but then again, she has more or less always been the rebel of the siblings, so who knows how that winnie the pooh picture turned out. reminds me of the days when i used to be into art/drawing before my parents pulled me out of art II to put me into a computer class (8th grade). yeah, that was useless. the students surpassed the skills of our teacher in about 2 weeks and then we just played networked video games (the 1991 equivalent of halo) for the rest of the semester. at least i still get to draw when teaching...sigh...

ok i'm sure there is something else (actually school related) that i need to do for tomorrow, so i'm going to get moving on to that. for those of you who don't already know, the saw I party is at our place tomorrow evening, and then the group is watching saw II on sunday afternoon/evening. if you need more info, look for the guy wearing a black cape for the rest of the semester and ask him...yeah, that thing is pretty sweet. good night <:><

*i haven't gone to sleep yet, so this isn't late!
**no, i'm not talking about a coelacanth here.

random pic: in celebration of halloween, here is a pic of our family's "little" monster, jeevan -

he used to look like this, now he looks more like 'the griff' (Harry Potter) or 'gamork' (Neverending Story) and is about 85 pounds.

just get rid of the ice cream...

...and sell the half baked brownies and cookie dough in a carton! this would make me much happier (and probably fatter too). i think the only ice cream i have eaten in the past three years has been ben & jerry's twisted half-baked brownie and cookie dough (i have liza to thank for that introduction, and its definitely my favorite ice cream so far). most of you who know me know that i don't deviate from a pattern once i find something i like (pancheros burritos, my typical tio's order, screen names, and toothpaste), well the ice cream hasn't been any exception. what i would see as room for improvement is if they (yes, i am actually about to say this) get rid of the ice cream and keep just the add-in's. i really only buy the ice cream for the brownie and cookie dough, and all i end up doing is foraging through the ice cream eating only the minimal amount that lets me get to the other stuff. what a waste of ice cream! this ends up with a couple cartons in the freezer with all ice cream and several gaps/holes where i surgically removed the brownie/cookie dough. i obviously possess no skills to make half-baked brownies, and i tried the plain cookie dough thing once and felt kind of ill. so yeah, nix the ice cream and give me some of the other stuff in a carton of its own...i KNOW there are others out there who would be happy with this, but probably not many.

speaking of old music, i ended up transferring a bunch of mp3's from my CD back-ups from an old computer to my laptop today. the CD's were made several years ago and the music on them kind of reflects the times (some of it was pretty old anyway). among them were several nostalgic selections such as "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by deep blue something, the Transformers: The Movie soundtrack, Tubthumper by Chumbawamba, Teenage Dirtbag by wheatus, southside by moby & gwen stefani, Angel by Shaggy, Shake a little Something by 2 Live Crew, But Anyway by Blues Traveler, and Mr E's Beautiful Blues by The Eels...the rest of the tunes are similar in their randomness of genre. this will make for a great departure from my last few iPod sessions since i have now memorized the several gigabytes of songs i listened to over the semester's work so far in the dreaded dungeon.

well if you get the chance, i would suggest downloading any of the above-mentioned songs since there is bound to be at least one that you like and will probably remind you of earlier (perhaps more entertaining, less happy, crazier, or just different) times. oh yeah, damon and i still don't have costumes for halloween yet. at this rate i'm going to go as 3-hole punch solomon, like that guy was on 'the office' last week. either that or i'm going as gandhi. we'll see. have a good night <:><

random pic:

this an actual sign we saw along the road while driving in Australia. the cassowary is Australia's largest land animal and quite endangered. the tiny car we were driving would probably have been destroyed if we hit one.

the song...

i was finally able to track down the weirdo song that hal and lindsey were dancing to while AJ and i just watched in confusion at rick's homecoming weekend. i guess i didnt put much effort into it a while back, but that song really got stuck in my head. the name of the song is "Dragonstea Din Tei" by O-Zone. if you are able to download it you should...so it can vex you just the same as it did me. here are a couple pics of the incident. <:><

caption that went with the pics:

"what AJ and i described as 'our friends (lindsey & hal) dancing to a weird song that apparently only white people know...'"

the pizza, the hippie and death by fish...

so i'm sitting here watching CSI: Miami after eating another wonderful papa john's perfect pan pizza which was preceded by a nice typical david-style 3 hour nap...but more on the pizza and other stuff later.

during a preview for CSI:NY, my least favorite of the three series (i definitely like the first two), they had an interesting phrase: death by fish. yeah, apparently on this week's episode someone was apparently killed by a swordfish. first a tiger at the zoo (i mentioned this in an entry quite a while ago, but its obviously too far back for me to give you an exact citation) and now a swordfish! i will watch this episode purely to see what they do with that murder plot. as a bit of trivia it's interesting to note that the scientific name of the swordfish is Xiphias gladius...of which Xiphias means "sword" in greek and gladius means "sword" in latin. guess they wanted to make sure people knew the fish had a sword.

getting back to the pizza. i woke up from a 3 hour nap starving, sometimes this is the only reason why i wake up in the morning or after a nap...because i'm too hungry to sleep anymore. i don't wake up because i'm well rested or have slept too much, this doesn't happen...or at least it hasn't happened since last year when i finally went to bed after staying awake for over 40 hours straight to work on thesis stuff. yeah, when i decide to get some work done i really stick to it, it just doesn't happen too often. anyway, i had to take the nap because i was up until around 3am last night, so i was falling asleep at the dungeon today and decided to take off early so i could get work done later in the night. wow, what an annoyingly long intro...

i think delivery and phone people working for restaurants are getting dumber and dumber. i swear just placing a simple order for a pizza took me over 10 minutes today, i think the lady was a trainee, and i'm sorry, but it shouldnt take 10 minutes to understand the words: pepperoni, green peppers, mushrooms, sausage, ham, and pan crust. i swear i repeated everything two or three times, i even got the pleasure of being called 'david' which hasn't happened in a while either. when the phone marathon was finally over with, i was even more starving; this is the point where i start getting cranky, eventually start to shake, and then heat up to the point where i will burst into flames if i don't get enough food (usually before that happens i will eat ANYTHING i can get a hold of). entire family get-together's have been accelerated (in terms of when we start eating) based on my progression of hunger (my two aunts and their families in seattle are quite sympathetic to my feeding issues).

anyway, after about 20 minutes the doorbell rings and my roommates (who had been enjoying listening to me complain for the past 20 minutes) look at me with surprise on their faces thinking this was the fastest pizza delivery ever. i go to the door hoping for a miracle, and what do i get??? some weirdo hippie who took a good 15-20 seconds before he said anything to me. yeah, he was from the sierra club. now, he had a clipboard, so i figured i was going to be losing some money on this one or going to need to come up with some sort of BS excuse why i wasnt going to pay any money. he started his little speech about the sierra club and i quickly stopped him saying that i thought my roommate james was a member of the club, since i (honestly) vaguely remembered a sierra club sticker on his car or something (who really knows?) the hippie stopped so i could confirm this, and i hoped that this would send him on his way (good song by rusted root). i yelled back to james in the living room and asked him if he was part of the club and he looked at me blankly and said 'no'. at this point i silently swore at him in my mind and with my eyes and turned back to the hippie. damon didnt say anything at this point, but i think he was buying stuff on ebay.

so now im stuck listening to the hippie talk about saving the environment...here i'm thinking i go to the freaking school of natural resources and environment and will be there for the next couple years at least. of course i care about fish and grass and snowy owls. ok maybe just the first one listed there. either way, if i was that much into the environment i would have gone to see Al Bore (i mean gore) talk today at SNRE instead of taking a nap for three hours. the nap was definitely much more refreshing, besides, we all already know that al gore invented the internet.
anyway, i must have felt guilty because i figured i could drop $15 on this legalized-pot supporter and get him out of my apartment so as to make way for the pizza delivery person (let's call him marco). i must have been overcome with some guilt on the way to get my checkbook (i'll get into why no one should be writing checks for instances other than the one im talking about or rent in a later entry. you check people really annoy the heck out of me) and so i ended up paying a full $35 for membership (i get a year of their cool magazine!!!) and some really cheap recycled paper membership card. we don't need any more magazines, we already get sports illustrated, entertainment weekly, national geographic, tropical fish hobbyist, fisheries and some random biking magazines (last one because of damon)...so yeah, if you ever need something to read just come to the tank, because i don't read anyway, i just look at the pictures.
the good thing about all of this is that with this new membership and card i figure i'm authorized to throw trash out the window, drive a ridiculously large SUV, shoot snowy owls, and leave the caps on my plastic bottles when i put them into the recycling bin (i have been told we're not supposed to do that). yeah, i can do all of that because of my donation and this cool membership card which i have just laminated (with plastic and styrofoam and CFC's).

well, now i was really pissed off. my pizza wasn't here yet, i spent all this money on some grassroots organization because it has a sea turtle on the brochure, and my roommate james didnt catch on to the fact that he should have made something up so we could get rid of the hippie!!! thanks james. the funny thing is that damon gets sent to muskegon for his sins of inaction in this incident and i'm sure something will happen to james in the near future. the pizza did eventually show up, in about an hour, and i only had the appetite to eat half of it since i had already started to digest vital organs.

after all this, i will be incorporating some new policies at the tank, and we'll no longer be donating to other organizations nor will we answer the door to you if we don't know you OR if you dress like a hippie. i thought it was bad enough when damon allowed the complete breach of security when he let the 86'ers in the other day and he didn't even know who they were! but that is another story. i hope i've wasted as much of your time as this sierra club hippie (who i am now associated with via the membership card) and the morons at the pizza place did of mine. good evening <:><

random pic:
here's the pumpkin erin carved after we went to the sweater & cider party, panchero's and then finally back to her place...now is this thing scary or what??? i seriously thought someone was going to get hurt while this was being created as well. oh yeah, damon also took this opportunity to open one of the doors in their apartment, which apparently leads to outer space.

Solomon David & The Chalice of Doom...

ok, so it may not have the same ring to it as HP & The Goblet of Fire, but it's close enough for me. unfortunately it's already too late to get into this story, but rest assured it's filled with all sorts of action, intrigue and plenty of colorful characters. it's also sort of the other half of the entry i previously made, but just didn't have time. sarah, you should be interested (but not alarmed) to know that over the course of this incident/story the highly coveted charlie brown pillowcase was almost lost...but don't worry, it was quickly recovered and now highly secured. guess all the details will have to wait even longer. yup, definitely turning in now; have a good night! <:><

pics:

the infamous chalice of doom...

and the infamous j-berry/j-knasty and some of her friends at theo's (you may recall sarah was also in a "picture of the week" from this place as well). place seems kind of shady to me (especially with the characters they allow in the pics of the week), but then again i don't go out in ypsi too much...well, except for fish doctors, subway, and the asian market.

hawkeyes, buckeyes, and the cider house rules...

what an insanely eventful saturday it was...most of today was spent in recovery (i.e. sleeping, eating, and a brief anti-terrorism incident) so i apologize for getting to this so late. a lot of you may have caught some brief clips about what went on if you are keeping up with sarah's live journal, interesting how our paths have crossed (not unintentionally so far) many times this year compared to the past couple years when we lived closer together (i would usually only hang out with her if she had food for me from home, or laundry -- come to think of it she did bring me some milano cookies yesterday, so maybe that hasn't changed so much).

anyway, it was an exciting day. first, we had a small group of people (yet very rowdy/energetic) over to the tank to watch the Michigan vs Iowa game. i must say that it was a great game and definitely ran the typical gamut of emotions that have gone along with this season (i.e. we suck, we don't suck, we're predictable, great he's injured, henne sucks, etc etc). glad we pulled off the win though. i just want to point out that in the mascot arena, hawkeyes are pretty freaking stupid. it reminds me of that lame superhero that hung out with captain america or the guy daniel day lewis played in last of the mohicans...either way, both of these characters suck, and therefore the iowa hawkeyes suck. going along with stupid mascots that end in 'eye' we cannot help but mention the bane of all mascots and college football teams...the buckeyes. yeah, it doesn't necessarily fit in perfectly here in terms of subject matter, but i think we can all agree that the buckeyes suck and it was nice to have that reflective conversation with the gang yesterday about how they are the most obnoxious fans in college football. my dad realized this when i took him to the UM/OSU game last year, and he's a hardcore buckeye fan.

moving right along. after the win and FINALLY getting out papa john's pizza (sarah and i were starting to get cranky, and the shakes were on their way), we decided that damon should ride hal's scooter, and that hal and i would toss the football back and forth (i had not done something like that for many years). then we ended moving to the backyard and ended up with a 2 on 2 football game with me/hal and damon/emily. we definitely won...and i am definitely feeling sore today, guess i should consider getting back into running. i would at least point out that i still have my speed and was able to elude any defender on the field over the course of the game.

it should also be noted that i had just about the same papa john's pizza within less than 12 hours...good times. normally i would not endorse papa johns, because of the curse that goes along with it (some of you know what i mean) but this new pizza is pretty good and doesnt seem to carry the same witchcraft associated with the original.

after playing some football, we went to BW3 and that was definitely a good time. damon got a new camera, and was going through that phase where you take bad pictures of everything around you. i think he needs to work on his framing, but some of them turned out pretty well (some of his will be posted at the end of this). while at BW3 we were joined by janine, julia and our friend ron (also a fish guy) so the group expanded a bit and it was definitely a lot of fun...i should also point out that we got to talking about batman begins, and the other batman movies...then hal and damon for some ridiculous reason decided to challenge me on the statement that tommy lee jones and jim carrey were the villains in batman forever and ahnold and uma thurman were in batman & robin. now, im not a big fan of either of those MTV Batman catastophes, but i have no idea where they thought they were right and i was wrong. at one point i had to bet my rent check in order to explain how sure i was. i think we actually had emily's brother go into best buy to check on it for us and confirm. either way, yeah, i was right. losers.
EDIT: as janine pointed out in her comment to this entry, i DO need to mention that she supported my stance on the whole batman argument and was also a voice of reason while telling us that we needed to quiet down (we were getting quite loud, but i am usually pretty loud in general i suppose). either way, thanks janine!

after BW3 and a quick trip home, we went to (gasp!) an SNRE party which was entitled the "sweater & cider party". as a requirement, one had to wear a sweater (i guess it was preferred that it was a bad sweater, but i was only going so far with the sweater idea to begin with). well this party was actually pretty fun, i'll get into why i dont normally like SNRE stuff in a later entry, but i will say that it was good to get together with more friends and the cider was decent too...and i'm not even a big cider fan.

ok i have quite a bit of work left to do today, so it looks like this is going to be cut into a two-part episode...i have to give props to sarah for pulling off several multiple-entry days in the past few, i think she may actually be catching up with me. anyway, the night did no end there, and there was a lot of fun to be had by the big michigan cube (damon had never seen it, and i dont think hal knew it spins around if you push it). panchero's was of course included in the evening as was a venture into 86'er territory which actually had repercussions leading to this afternoon (but again, more on that stuff later).

i'll close with a few statments:

sarah - don't worry, i changed the away message late last night and was just too lazy to change it this morning...but thanks for the concern, nice to know people gauge wehther i'm ok or not based on the away message.

j-berry - sorry sarah didnt invite you to watch the game with us yesterday, but from what sarah had been telling me you were probably too busy getting into more trouble. i'll have to add that theos pic to an entry at some point. unfortunately it looks like rachel has resurfaced, so we may have to retract bids for the david sibling replacement, but we'll see how things go. a red lobster shirt can go a long way here.

my last piece of pizza didn't have much cheese on it. this was unusual. <:><

damon tries out hal's scooter...

damon, me, and the UM clock tower; we're practically twins (me and damon, not the clock tower)

good times at BW3, (L-R) hal, me, janine, julia

sweater & cider party; me, erin, janine, kara

another group shot; (L-R) chris, janine, erin, me, kara, drew

i swear i wasn't pissed off in this picture...in fact, i was happy to be at panchero's...i really don't know what happened here.

more pics to come...

a "chill" night at The Tank...

so its only 1:13am, and that is pretty early for me on a normal school night, let alone a friday night. it was a very low-key evening compared to the past several weekend nights; probably the most low-key since...well, the beginning of the school year. for the first time this semester i didn't really make any major plans and given my 5am turn in time this morning and a busy day at work, i would say that was the right move. damon and i just hung out here at the tank and eventually were joined by hal. it was basically a guy's night in...now that may not sound terribly exciting, but it was nice to just chill. we watched some comedy central, then Super Troopers, and then Office Space. hal took off and damon just went to bed, so i think i'll watch another movie and then turn in myself. don't worry, tomorrow is the UM vs Iowa game, we're having people over (maybe even my sister, which is always interesting) to watch it, and then off to Ann Arbor for the rest of the evening in some capacity...so yeah, this 'chill' stuff will only be temporary. it was nice tonight, but to be honest i start to go insane if i'm not usually doing something, and more specifically with a large group of friends or some sort of event.

one of the productive things we did tonight was come up with some good halloween costume ideas; damon and i still have some legwork to do to get the costumes together, but if things go as planned they should be pretty sweet! we also ordered that new papa john's pizza and i must say that it was VERY good and hit the spot around 11:30pm or so. i love how they give you those banana peppers with the pizza too, i definitely make sure to nab one or two of those.

well that's all for this entry, i'm starting to get tired and need to make it through this next movie...i think i'll watch "high tension" which is supposed to be really scary and gory...perfect to watch on my own and maybe even accomplish (what has been impossible for the past 10 years) scaring me. doubtful. i hope you all had a good night, there will probably more interesting/exciting stuff going on tomorrow <:><

getting kicked out of india...

so what is the final verdict on ashlee simpson? anyone? just curious...

anyway, i'm hopped up on red bull right now so this entry could make absolutely no sense and be completely random...guess that isn't very different from the norm other than that it is being typed at light speed right now due to my chemically-induced enhanced concentration. sweet.

i have a lot of work to do tonight (this morning) and so i think this entry will just consist of some random thoughts as i see fit to report them.

today was relatively normal, but i did find out that hal and AJ found themselves eating at the same restaurant as michigan tight end tyler ecker. they did not, however, go up and talk to him; i guess they needed me there since last year it worked out well and i got to talk to braylon edwards a couple times. on a somewhat related note, when AJ walked over to me in the dana building to tell me this stuff, i totally thought she was just a random indian person coming way too close to me while i was trying to eat my lunch (panchero's burrito). it was one of those things where you only make out certain features through your peripheral vision and don't recognize the actual person (no matter how well you know them) until they are right there next to you. kind of freaked me out at first, but then again, most indian people cause me to go into sort of an alarm state.

i will also add that a nap this evening when i got back from work has helped me stay up, especially since i wasted a good two hours of quality work watching batman begins with my roommates...oh well, that movie is pretty sweet and i managed to be .045% productive with my work during that period of time.

so one of the only other 'exciting' things to happen today was the fact that we have this hyped up visiting professor/researcher from india coming to talk at our school. well i found out he also brought some fishes from the ganges (ganga) river with him. i came into the lab today and heard that he had arrived and brought some fishes, so i was really excited to see the fishes (and of course meet the prof since i had heard about him from labmates for quite some time now). well they finally came into the dungeon and i was unshackled and allowed to meet him. he seems like a nice guy, way too formally dressed for SNRE though, but oh well.
anyway, i asked about the fishes, and my mike (my main research advisor) told me where they were and said i should take a look at them since he knew i happen to like fishes just a little bit. well this was a great departure from my GIS work so i got right into them. well to make a long story only moderately long, i went through the fishes and actually recognized most of them and noted some corrections on their ID/classification. the problem was i was kind of worried about how to say this to the visiting prof and my advisor and the other indian researcher when they came back to the lab. i was worried that i was overstepping my bounds, but i knew i was right. what's the worst they could do? ban me from indian fishes? ban me from india? ban me from the local indian restaurants??? now that last one would suck.

well anyway, they came back and i had written an elaborate note and email to my advisor and the researcher, and it turns out they went with all the changes i suggested (my advisor actually said i was a gifted ichthyologist) and were happy to get the modifications. i think they are going to send me over my own personal elephant or something because of this, now THAT will be cool. or perhaps an auto-rickshaw, which i have always wanted (coolest yet most dangerous vehicle in india...well, maybe after the water buffalo). anyway, i was glad to help and therefore make myself into an even bigger FISH NERD. so yeah, it's not really bragging when you make yourself into a bigger nerd. oh well, soon i'll have my elephant and be stomping on your cars and impaling bikers with its tusks. and we won't even get into the potential warfare in terms of waste production...

well i should get back to work. i'll leave you with a quote from my good friend from undergrad, aundrea, which i thought was humorous. glad i could contribute to your time wasting aun, and you'll have to visit again soon!

"solomon...i was just wasting some time reading your blog and i think i could just sit here and weep with laughter at the "makes me tired just thinking about it" story. seriously, why is this just now coming out? that needed to be shared many years ago...."

oh and to erin and beth, trust me, i have a better record of the facts than either of you two do!!!

and laura, the fact that you know j-berry (aka jane) makes you and 86.1 even crazier!!!

ok time to get back to work <:><

random pic: now this one is old school...well, three years ago. some of my students made me a cookie in the shape of a bug when i taught parasitology, its latin name (on the sign karen is holding up) is "Solomonis cookiei". talk about sucking up! they were a fun group though. (L-R) karen, AJ, beth, lamia, me.

so i actually went running today...

well today was quite the busy day, and yet nothing terribly exciting happened. in fact, it was probably one of the most low-key wednesday's of the semester so far, but that's of course all relative. fall break was over with (for those who had it) and so students were back on campus in full force. this made the day go much faster, for the hours i was actually on campus (got a bit of a late start this morning, but nothing compared to sarah's noon wake-up time).

i spent most of the day in the social computer lab getting some research work done, came back and did some water changes on a few tanks (yes, taking care of three tanks doesn't even cover half the tank responsibilities...we need to divide them up over the weeks or it would take forever). later in the evening we were FINALLY able to get together at BW3 for some trivia and what would mark the return of team BOWFIN to domination. i should note that the game 'passport' sucks and if given the choice it would not be in the same bracket as 'countdown' and 'wipeout' which are the classics. we lost to team 'betha' which was made up of julia, erin, and janine; but this was really just one round. once team 'HAJ' showed up (AJ and hal) we were on a roll (it was just me and damon - james had to stay home and do homework) and were actually able to win the next three straight...now if only MICHIGAN can pull off the same run!

well, that's really about it for today's events...see? nothing really exciting, and i don't even have the motivation to make something up. we'll just move on to another topic:

damon and i need to come up with halloween costumes. we have no idea yet what we will be, and the time is fast approaching. thanks to j-berry for some of her clever suggestions (i finally got the whole point of the 'dungeoness' idea) but at this point i am very close to going as blade again this year since it worked quite well and required minimal costuming last year. yeah, i know its lame to do a repeat, but i'm lazy and don't want to do anything too elaborate. well either way, if you all have any suggestions please let me know. too bad it wouldn't be practical to go as a fish, and no one really recognizes a gar anyway. maybe i'll go as the dad from bend it like beckham...i'm sure people would recognize that...or they would just think i was some Raja Rani's worker who strayed out into the streets.

speaking of indians, it must be noted that aishwarya rai was spotted by sarah in some make-up ad on tv today. i can only hope to see it at some point in the future, but i think i've seen her in a shampoo commercial a while back. for those of you who don't know who she is, she was the lead in the recent 'bride & prejudice' (great movie and nice americanized version of bollywood) and was also miss world a few years back. to say the very least in understated terms, she is very attractive as well. that's all for now on that, but rest assured i'm sure she'll come up in a future entry or two...

well, that's all for now, it's 3am and i'm going to try to get to bed 'early'. i still have a couple stories to share, but they will have to wait, including my extended rant on why i really really really HATE bikers (my gosh that may even beat out the laguna-rant entry). there is also the exploding burrito incident and the theories on why my mom ordered a happy meal at mcdonald's the other day. also noteworthy is one of the most recent entries on kara's blog; you'll know which one i'm talking about it when you see it. she finally got around to checking out some cool stuff on vacation, although i'm sure the other stuff was interesting as well, haha.

oh yeah, in case you didn't figure it out by now, i definitely did NOT go running today. yeah, that title was completely fabricated. someday it will happen though...

i'll leave you now with a couple not quite random pictures of Aishwarya Rai...

quotes, comments, etc...

note: this was supposed to be posted last night, but of course comCRAP, our piece of garbage ISP goes nuts each evening. i'm glad we pay $60/month for their POS service. anyway, moving right along, here is the entry:

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well its now 2:12am and time to get some sleep...i don't even know why i bother attempting work at these hours any more, maybe i'm just getting old or just really unmotivated as of late. either way, i'm going to have to kick it into high gear at the end of this week as i have some research meetings/deadlines coming up.

this entry will be short since i'm actually pretty tired and have a lot to do tomorrow. luckily it's been an insane day on the blog and instead of coming up with a lot of my own material tonight, i will refer you to the various comments that have been made on the last two or three entries for your reading enjoyment. one of sarah's friends, jane (aka j-nasty, j-stranger, j-berry, etc...you get the point) went crazy with a bunch of comments (quite entertaining) this evening using up a bunch of time that she did not have (was apparently supposed to be studying). sarah, AJ, and janine also left some interesting comments, so you can check those out too. i love it, i don't even really have to type anything this time around (but don't get used to that).

on a related note, sarah called me up and we had an emergency phone meeting of the david siblings (only 2/3 are required for an official meeting) and decided to grant j-berry honorary 'david' status for her dedication to wasting enormous amounts of time and seriously procrastinating this evening. this comes at a good time seeing as the other 1/3 of the david siblings has been MIA for quite some time now. we may soon be accepting applications for a permanent replacement, but we'll give rachel the benefit of the doubt for a little while longer.

and finally...

random quotes and comments:

-damon (one of my roommates) has become an ebay junkie. someone needs to stop him. soon.

-i saw the movie 'serenity' with some friends this evening; the movie was pretty cool, but i can see how it wouldnt be for everyone (it's kind of a sci-fi space western action flick). it's still probably the best-reviewed movie i have seen lately, so check it out on $5 tuesday's at showcase cinemas if you get the chance!

-i think the panchero's people are making my burritos even BIGGER than they were before (they were already making mine bigger than average). either they think i'm starving or they realize how crazy i am coming in there at all hours of the day...perhaps i'm some sort of mascot for them now. either way, i'm not complaining.

-facebook just started this picture tagging thing where you can link pics with a particular person to their profile...i am sure this will not end up causing any problems in the future at all...

ok i just got REALLY lazy and am just taking the quotes off my AIM listing (for the most part), deal with it.
=
AJ: i'm not a wimpy indian either!!!
~on being grouped with the two sisters
=
Julia: sorry not to ask you 24 HOURS in advance!!!
=
Meghan (86.1) : because of your burrito, i couldnt taste anything for 3 days.
=
Rakhi (via email) : so solomon, i can clearly see you sleeping in the next cubicle in the computer lab, so i will email you instead.
=
Janine: mac's are superior!!!

Me: i'm pretty sure they're not.
=
Sarah: this was like the bourne identity incident, only with 111,000 people.
~on rachel missing the Penn State game

as usual, comCRAP (i.e. POS internet service) is acting up at night so no pics/links will be posted at this time. maybe later. have a good night <:><

makes me tired just thinking about it...

what makes me tired just thinking about it? work? eating? interacting with annoying people? unwrapping baked potatoes from aluminum foil?

regardless of what it is, that's not the point of the title of this entry. i was talking to sarah the other day and she said something about her 'being tired just thinking about it' and it reminded me of my only line in an old church musical/play way back when i was in elementary school in bismarck, north dakota. i actually had several lines, but it was the same statement over and over again with no variation:

"makes me tired just thinking about it"

now, i was pretty young then, and apparently didn't know much about dry humor or any of that stuff. i just couldnt understand why every time i said my line everyone started laughing...i think i actually started crying after a rehearsal at one point. yeah, pretty sad...but you can laugh, its ok. i think someone later told me that it was supposed to be funny and that's why people were laughing, but i still had my suspicions. to this day amongst all my "biting sarcasm" (as has been described by many friends, old and new) that line is emblazoned on my memory, it was probably my first entry into dry humor/sarcasm, and i didnt even know it. so yeah, i'm basically a product of that church play. oh yeah, i think there was also some added humor to it since i was the pastor's son. either way, i definitely plan on reincorporating this line into my everyday conversations, so be ready...and if i say it to you, it probably means we should change the subject, change the venue, or change conversational companions.

on an unrelated note, i want to say that i was VERY impressed with my parents when we all went to red hawk on saturday (well, rachel was missing from the family outing, but this has been the general trend as of late). i introduced my mom and dad to "jamaica hell fire" sauce and how you could put it on fries, sandwhiches, or into iced tea. ok that last one was not attempted. eventually we managed to finish off more than half of the bottle amongst the three of us. i will also add that sarah, who is a wimpier indian (AJ also falls into this category, and if rachel ever shows up again, she will be retested and inevitably lumped into this group as well) did NOT choose to use the hell fire sauce except for with a couple fries. maybe next time.

ok it's time for bed. remember that batman begins comes out on dvd tomorrow, and we are still planning to head out to see Saw II next weekend en force. i believe those are all the important announcements for tonight. oh yeah, and the apartment is now back to smelling normal and very clean...as punishment for yesterday's noxious incident damon was forced to eat 10 of the fish food sticks that caused the problem from his unauthorized feeding of my fishes. i don't think he'll do that again. <:><

random pic:spotted gar, Lepisosteus oculatus

the social computer lab...

well i am taking a brief break here in 'the social computer lab' while doing work while most regular students are on fall break. this also adds to the fact that the lab isn't as social as it normally would be when classes are in session, but it sure as heck beats the dungeon down below.

i've been running around this morning having some brief meetings but also getting my thesis data together so i can finally wrap up with all that stuff...fun times. just for your reading/viewing pleasure i am including one of the examples of a multivariate statistical test output that is going into my research. i know you are all very interested so i will just say that the circles represent species of fish, and the rays represent ecological factors (such as current velocity, vegetation, substrate, etc.) yeah, very exciting...actually it's not nearly as boring as some of the stuff i have been working on during the semester so far (GIS data entry).

well either way, i'm glad i can now count myself among the 'nerdy grad students' who come in and work on their days off (even though i technically don't have it off, there are still plenty of nerdy grad students who are here and DO have the days off). i think its about time to get a burrito from you know where. yeah, this was definitely one of those instances where one uses the blog to just waste some time and deviate from the task at hand for a bit. until next time <:><

output for a canonical correspondence analysis...fun times

fall break...only not so much...

***note, comCRAP is acting up again so the internet is slow...so this will be one of those (few) text only entries. i'll make it up with more elaborate posts later this week.

well its getting late and i need to get up for work tomorrow morning...yes work. it's fall break for everyone taking classes at UM, but since i am just doing research, the work must continue. out of protest to this i'm going out with damon and some of his friends who are visiting for a conference to breakfast tomorrow at northside grill (my favorite place in A2 for breakfast). after that, it will be back to the dungeon or maybe the social computer lab (although with no students it may as well be the same thing).

i'm pretty tired, so the recaps of weekend events, etc etc will have to wait until tomorrow. i will leave you with a few random comments though:

-i came home from working on preserved fishes ID at the U this evening to find out that damon fed some of my fishes (unauthorized)...only he fed one of the tanks the wrong food and this managed to cause the ENTIRE APARTMENT to STINK. now, i learned of these problems a long time back and have since not fed the fishes this sort of food. this is also why when i am in town no one feeds the fishes besides me. damon made this mistake once when i was gone to Florida for a fishing trip and i came back to a similarly sickening smell due to the same fish-feeding fiasco. ah well, i think he learned his lesson this time around, and things should hopefully be back to normal (aromatically speaking) by tomorrow. keep in mind this whole smell thing is particularly annoying to me since i'm pretty OCD about the cleanliness of our place, as is damon in most cases.

-apparently the two villains for spider-man 3 will be sandman and venom. these two have not been officially announced, but our favorite actress, kirsten dunst, let this slip in an interview and its more or less been accepted as the truth. i'm really looking forward to this since venom is my favorite spider-villain, and it will be very interesting to see how they do it since topher grace (that 70s show) is going to play him/eddie brock. thomas hayden church will be playing the sandman; church was the other guy in the movie sideways (starred opposite paul giamatti), this should also be quite entertaining.

-in other news elizabethtown was mediocre at best, but i thought KD did a decent job in her part. the movie also ended with a scene of some fish swimming upstream, so that was pretty cool too. my final rating was *** out of *****. unless you're a big fan of KD or orlando bloom (or like strangely melancholy movies) wait for video.

-i saw pumpkins today that were so huge one could fit inside them. seriously, they must have weighed at least 300 lbs and been the size of half a car. i also believe they were grown using hormones from a pig or something.

ok it's time for bed, more to come tomorrow. hope you all had a good weekend <:><

in the case of lions vs. wolverines...

ok this was supposed to be posted last night, but since there were connxn problems it's posted now...will be edited with more stuff later:

well its 4am...why the heck am i updating this now??? well i haven't done so (effectively) in a while, and since i am not going to write much until tomorrow, i will leave you all with some pics from today's events centering around the UM vs Penn State game...which was by far one of the most exciting games i have ever seen or attended (on TV or in person). i was especially glad that most of my family (parents and sarah) were able to go to the game as well. congrats to the wolverines in an amazing victory over Penn State. GO BLUE!!!

me, sarah, and the rents at the big game (nice job on the maize-out!)

final score...came down to the LAST SECOND (literally)

and the crowd goes wild!

me, james, christy (note the UM shirt) and damon at BW3 after the game

rick's pics...

ok believe it or not it's only 1:30am (pretty early for me) and i'm going to bed. the week has been pretty crazy and tomorrow will be quite busy with the big game and my parents coming up and whatever else is going on in the evening. rest assured i'll be back to my normally extensive entries soon, but for now i'll leave you with a couple pics from rick's on thursday night, which followed a really fun get together at julia's place. more to come soon, good night for now <:><

some crazy SPH girls...
(CW from the center - erin, seema, beth, julia, steph)

i think brian and i were just invading this shot...oh well

large televisions, Saw II, and naps...

well this entry is going to be sort of a mixed bag...but when is it not, you may ask? well, you would be correct, i'm just stating the obvious in this case to eat up some space since you know i don't do the one or two sentence blog thing.

today wasn't terribly thrilling since i spent most of the day in the dana building commons area working on my presentation on my master's research, which i had to give earlier in the evening. now, i had most of it done last spring, so it wasn't a classic 'wait until the last minute' thing, but it was close enough. i actually like speaking to/in front of large groups of people, so i don't mind presentations and i like to see how close i can come to having to wing the whole talk due to cutting the completion time so close to presentation time. today i got to use one of those fancy slide-advancing/laser pointer devices, so it was almost like a video game; i think next time i get one of those i'm going to point to the exact opposite thing i am talking about and see how well people follow along. well either way, the talk went very well and i got a lot of good questions and responses as well. this also justified my doing almost NOTHING productive for the rest of the day.

while i was hanging out in the dana commons they were working on the new giant plasma TV they recently installed in one section of the room. there is a lot of buzz about this thing and what it is supposed to do, and what they will put on it. now keep in mind the dana building is the home of the School of Natural Resources & Environment, so you can bet there is going to be something unusual and ridiculous done with this normally perfect college football-viewing device.
my friend hal (fellow SNRE student) came over a couple times and we chatted about the TV. apparently the tv is going to be used to display the electricity consumption of the dana building over the course of each day...yeah, i told you it was going to be something unusual...i mean stupid. well, one may ask (as i did) "isn't it ironic that it would monitor electricity usage, yet it could contribute to more electricity usage in and of itself?" to which hal responded "well, i heard it's supposed to actually be powered by the wind." yeah, i don't think he believed it any more than i did. so now we have this giant 60"+ plasma TV that is going to show us how much electricity our 'green' building is using up and it's powered by the wind. this is so ludicrous i can't even comment further on it other than saying i still think we should be able to watch college football games on it on saturdays. either that or my roommates and i would be more than willing to give the tv a new home. it should be noted that this idea is right up there with the composting toilet idea and the fact that the SNRE building runs the AC to 50F during the summer. now, i am all about protecting/preserving/conserving the environment (well, at least the fishes) but it's this sort of conflicting action that really annoys me about my school at times.

so Saw II is coming out! this movie is going to be SWEET! it definitely won't be the best horror movie ever made, but i honestly thought the first one was rather innovative and actually held my interest for the whole time AND i couldn't predict the ending (which one can normally do with any genre movie at this point in movie-making). that and there is the hilarious (but creepy) tricycle scene which AJ and i were cracking up about long after the sequence had passed in the theaters. i think hal found it funny as well, but was too tied up with being scared from some of the other parts. good times. my roommate james wasn't as thrilled about the sequel coming out, but we're definitely going to get a group together to see this movie (and probably watch the first one at my place since i own it) when it comes out october 28, so let us know if you're interested in getting in on what is sure to be an academy award-winning film.

ok, i'm actually pretty tired, so the 'naps' segment is going to have to be cut shorter than what i intended (not that i plan any of this stuff out). i was FINALLY able to take a nap today, the same nap i had been hoping to take over the past couple weeks. if there is one thing the david clan is good at, its taking naps to avoid doing other work as well as just for the sake of getting some 'extra' sleep or the fact that it's the afternoon or a day that ends in 'y'. we don't do those 10-minute 'power naps', these are serious '3-4 hour wake up and you don't know if it's day or night or what day it is' naps. i find that what determines how serious you are about a nap depends on whether or not you actually get under the covers or not. if you don't you're not taking a real nap, its one of those wussy naps. i like the ones where you wake up and you're actually more tired (because you obviously slept too long) and so you hit the snooze (yes, set an alarm for these naps) or shut off the alarm and just continue sleeping. if it wasn't for a tiger eating someone episode on CSI:NY i would probably have just slept through the rest of the night (9:15pm turn in time? that's just nuts though).

ok well i'm satisfied with the mediocrity of this entry so i'm going to call it a night. oh yeah, bonus points go to janine for remembering where 'murky & lurky' comes from in my reference to these two villains HERE . if you don't remember this tv show/movie then you are definitely tragically young and lost...you may think i'm old, but i'll still look like i'm 20 when i'm 37 so shut it.
tomorrow is going to be a long and busy day, and then my friend julia is having people over to her place so the next update may not come until later...always craziness down there around south U. good night <:><

random pic:

blast from the past...my birthday at Dominick's, April 2004

food from home...

this will be short (relatively speaking) but i just wanted to make sure that i pointed out the fact that food from home, consumed up here at school, is the next best thing to a panchero's opening up in the basement of our apartment.

i told my roommates that they could have some of this pasta stuff that my mom made (i believe its called marzetti, but the name isn't important since that hasn't concerned me for the past 13 years she's been making it). well damon had some of it today, and i asked him if he had seen how much of it i had already eaten since just last night. he looked at me and said "you mean that thing was FULL when you got it???" yeah, i definitely ate more than half of the entire pasta tray in about 24 hours. good news is that i will be getting more on saturday when the rents come up for the game. i think there will be plenty of food coming up with this next shipment since we now have our own washer and dryer at the new apartment and therefore i didn't have to waste valuable van-space by sending home laundry with my sister last weekend. either way, food is good. really good.

well thats all for tonight, mainly because i have small, unimportant things to do tomorrow, such as present my master's research to our entire lab meeting as well as get some more analyses done. fun times. oh, and for those of you wondering, i ate that snickers bar that i put into my backpack yesterday today in the computer lab. i got the candy bar (my favorite kind) after i realized the coffee machine at work malfunctioned and got the cups jammed and proceeded to pour my entire drink directly into the drain instead of into a cup. i was quite upset and was able to pull a good 10 jammed cups from the machine before giving up and just opting for the junk food. i don't believe i told anyone about the snicker's bar initially, so this story was completely extraneous information.

that being said, i will leave you for the ultimate in blog-laziness, i had an interesting conversation with sarah today about wasting time with this stuff and since she had some good material from that convo i'm just going to take it out of her live journal and use it here. yeah, soon i'll just piece together blogs from all the rest of you people to where i don't even have to write anything on my own, although who knows how exciting that would be.

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from sarah's LJ:

after all the laziness, i decided to attempt to do some homework, but the i got into a conversation with my brother. i told him that we always have these conversations about how we NEED to get work done...but all we do is put it off. so i told him that maybe from now on we shouldn't beat around the bush by saying "well i should probably go attempt to do this work." i told him from now on we should say what we really intend on doing ...which for the most part is: 'i'm going to go pass out or take a nap' , 'i'm going to go stuff my face with indian food', 'i'm going to go update the lj/blog' , or the one that's usually the most true 'i'm going to go do absolutely nothing.' ahhhh good times.

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good night! <:><

random pic:

me and all THREE of my indian friends (sonya, sheila, AJ)
-taken during AJ's bday at Oz last year

politics??? like i really want to talk about politics...

so i took this politics test (another great waste of time if you are looking for one) and here are my results. credit for the time lost filling this out goes to kara for posting the link to the test in her blog. more to come in case i don't fall asleep first.

You are a Social Moderate (50% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (31% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Centrist: You exhibit a very well-developed sense of Right and Wrong and believe in economic fairness.

random pic:

apparently they put up a random photo of the week for the club "theo's" in ypsi. note the punk on the right.

you know what? it's just too late...

ok well it's not necessarily 'too late' by my normal standards of when i go to sleep, but for some reason i was dozing off at work today and didn't get the nap i was planning on earlier this evening. maybe it's because saturday was so insane that i didn't get much sleep that night, and yet woke up in the morning in time to spend most of the afternoon shocking fishes and hauling a boat and generator around the chelsea area of michigan. without the power of a panchero's burrito & red baron personal pan pizza i would NOT advise combining late night outings with electrofishing. somehow i survived and made it in to work today.

ah work, yes, it still sucks like no other semester thus far (ok, maybe my first semester at Michigan was worse, but that's mainly because i was living in a run-down Day's Inn for the first week or so of the semester and Ameritech screwed up my apartment phone). luckily today there were a couple people in and out of the office so that helped pass the time...and what was the deal with the weather? i hate the gloominess. makes me think that murky and lurky actually succeeded in blocking out the sun as they planned in that movie from about 15 years back...if you get that reference you ARE old or know way too much about obscure nostalgic pop culture.

moving right along, i came home in time to chill with the roommates for a little while and watch sports center and seinfeld. i then left to pick up the massive shipment of food that was sent with sarah from back home. this was a lifesaver since it means i don't have to eat (and more importantly pay for) Tio's or Panchero's (not that that is a huge problem) or Pita Kabob for the rest of the week. even better news is that i'll be re-supplied at the end of the week when my parents come up for the Penn State game.

i was also able to hang out with sarah at Eastern for a little while and chat about such important things like how much time we waste on facebook and blogs/live journals. it's amazing the david family has successfully gotten as far as it has with such procrastination practices...oh well, if it ain't broke...

now, i realize this entry so far has been nothing more than random rambling, but you chose to read it and i'll generally type what i feel like, so deal with it. there are several stories i still need to post about, but i wanted to wait a bit since i have been talking about them for a little while and would rather bring them in as random interjections at unexpected times. believe me, this week is going to be just about all work and no play (until the latter part of the week/weekend) so i'll need the interesting stories to carry this blog through the inevitable mundane monotony of a productive week.

in other news i've been able to contribute to the time-wasting of another friend of mine, janine, who recently started up her own blog. i'm trusting she'll keep up with it (not that it's a competition in this case) so i have added her's to my link list on the right. i figure she's a member of team BOWFIN so i'll give those people the benefit of the doubt. she is a mac user though.

and what is the deal with the price of beef jerky??? while we were on our way to shock some fishes on sunday we stopped at a gas station and i wanted something salty and picked up an un-priced bag of beef jerky and it was about $6!!! what the heck goes into making this salted leather that costs so much??? it's like grade C beef, and there's no major shortage of beef anyway! maybe it's because we were so close to ann arbor, and most of the people here think meat is the devil and don't even eat cheese or pizza or artichokes for the fear of harming plants and microbes. if anyone has any clue as to why these prices are so high (maybe it has to do with rising gas prices?) please let me know as it has puzzled me for quite some time. it was sad to think i could have seen a movie (with a college discount) for a mere $2 more.

i will also add here that my sister posted in her journal yesterday that my dad, during his sermon this past sunday morning, referenced the "happy happy, joy joy" song from ren & stimpy. i don't think this needs much more commentary other than showing that my siblings' and my condition may be hereditary and that surprisingly both young and old can recognize old nickelodeon pop culture references. and now for some sugar toasted sod puffs (the cereal that tastes like a freshly mowed lawn).

so which movie would be better to see first? elizabethtown or domino? i'll definitely end up seeing both, but its quite the different crowd for both films. we shall see, there may not even be enough time this weekend, but luckily we have fall break coming up, and if there is one thing i'm good at, its fitting a max amount of social activities into a given period of time.

in closing ( i know i've wasted a lot of your time already if you made it this far) i will leave you with this hilarious video link which sarah sent to me yesterday. if you are not indian you may not find it as funny, but you should still find it amusing. i sent it to all (three) of my indian friends already and they thought it was hilarious. for the record i normally hate the original song.

Curry-N-Rice Girl

good night! <:>< what AJ and i described as "our friends (lindsey & hal) dancing to a weird song that apparently only white people know..."