Saturday, September 29, 2007

back in school...

well hello hello.

Friday I started my internship of tutoring/observing at East Middle School in Binghamton. I went to six classes, ranging from 6th grade social studies, to reading, and some spanish of all three grades. It was fairly entertaining for a number of reasons. In my first class, the teacher was all afluster and the kids were not paying any attention to him, but they were to me. All of a sudden, the four girls in the back all raised their hands, and when called all pointed and said, "WHO'S THAT!?!" Then i got to introduce myself, and the boys went for reals, for deals. I am out of touch. Anyhow, in 8th grade spanish, one of the girls turned to me and said, "Are you a new student?" kids are so cute. then she asked me if i was Iraqi, and if not what race i was. We bonded over our mutual cuban heritage. It was all kinds of fun. Also, both of the history teachers were super bitches. and one of the reading teachers graduated from geneseo and was a phig. He was very nice, and I want to set him up with either a sister or a friend, even if he is 26 or 27. ANYHOW. just thought I'd let you know that middle school is full of goofy kids and i look like i'm 12 or 13. Now we're watching Zulu. Yay!

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

A Curious Wager

Although this may be considered my attempt at making the life of a friend trivial, I suggest that we make predicitions on what will become of our comrade, Brendan Kelly, on his voyage to the old World. All predictions may be backed by funds and whom ever comes closest in his prediction of one event that occurs will win all wages made by other predictors. Interested?

Sunday, September 23, 2007

it's not a problem if you don't acknowledge it

A Notice of Gambling Debts (So We Don't Forget About Them):

So far, for wagers placed during the fall of 2007, Neil owes Joe $6:

$2, Mike def. Kate in checkers
$2, Colts def. Saints
$2, Giants def. Redskins

For the record, I'm pretty sure I also owe Joe several million euro. There are also some debated past incidents which may or may not have involved me losing a bet to Joe, including Ortiz-Shamrock and WrestleMania XXIII. Will he ever see this money? Not on my watch! As we discussed on the phone before, it will be included in my will, when my corpse hits him back on the proverbial first. I am letting this information be known to the public so that if I die in some sort of mysterious accident, Joe ought to be considered as the first and only suspect and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

By decree, all future gambling tabs shall be accounted for in this post.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Dear Bob,

Damn it's good to have you on the internet again. Maybe you could post here, someday? As for you, Joe? Your gross and overarching proclamations of love for our tall friend have led me to the conclusion that should probably drive your zamboni of love to Bob's house and carry him over the threshold...I expect to receive the wedding invitations soon (could you imagine a more glorious wedding? Bob in white, of course, to offset his brown eyes and delicate features...Joe stumbling drunk down the aisle).
Now that we all have that wonderful image in our heads, I would like to say that I have talked on the phone to a good amount of you recently due to my isolation here in connecticut and heinous lack of internet connection for my first 3 weeks...others I have snatched a few words with when bogarting on campus internet in my graduate carrell/isolation box...and I'm loving hearing about all the crazy shit that's going on with everyone now. Brendan-Europe, Becca/Mallo/Jeph-grad madness, Tina-Gallbladder, Meg, Jess-Ro-che-cha, Feesh-?, Bob-<3 and moisturizing, Andrew-park ranger, Inbal-opera, Kate, Evan, Barry-D.C., Neil-where's my diploma? Though I must say, Joe driving a zamboni is pretty much the best thing I've ever heard in my life. My latest crazy undertaking is joining the capoeira club here on campus.
My friend Jill (a loud-mouthed jersey girl who used to be a semi professional ice skater with tara lapinski, whatttt? I'm friends with some pretty weird people these days) and I were going to join the kayaking club, but upon arriving at the meeting 6 minutes late and realizing that yes, we really did just miss the entire thing (also, the awkward leader of the group said soon after "if you're underage you should probably leave, we're going to watch porn now..." and then they put on this extreme kayaking video and pretty much all orgasmed at the sight of it. YEAH), we decided to try something new. My roommate, the golden god P Lombardo, runs a capoeira club, which if you have never seen/know what it is...you should youtube that shit, stat. It's this brazilian martial arts/dance thing where two people engage in a "conversation" in the middle of a circle of people singing and playing crazy instruments. The conversation involves kicks and blocks and hand stands and cartwheels and insanity, all without contact with the other person really, just this dynamic push and pull. It's bizarre, and so hard, but the guys in the club are really nice and don't mind that i make an ass out of myself. I am most definitely the least adept/graceful/strong/coordinated/balanced person there and it shows, but I'm pretty used to looking like a doofus brain so I don't really care. I am learning to do a cartwheel, which I have never known how to do before, so I'm pretty pumped! Basically, Joe, I'm learning self defense and I'm coming for you.
School is good. My new friends are good (though don't yet compare to the sheer amazingness of our love and insanity). Halloween is going to be nutso. I can't wait to see you all (except for Brendan, you ass)

Lovelovelove
K-bomb

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

this is looonnnnggggg

Dear Friends,

This story is about one of the dumbest moments of my life so far, and hopefully also in my future. It is kind of long, but if you're bored or trying to avoid whatever other things you are supposed to be doing, I hope it helps you procrastinate/provides entertainment.

I spent all of last week in the states of Washington and Oregon. This story took place on Thursday, at Mount St. Helens. There's this cave in the park that was formed by some volcanic lava, and visitors can hike/climb through the cave. Keep in mind that this is not really like most national parks, in the sense that it is not as well organized. The people at the park do the minimal amount of maintenance necessary for people to be able to access it, but there aren't tons of paved trails and signs everywhere pointing out to you exactly which trail you are on and which trail you will be on should you choose to take another path.

Anyway, there are two different routes in this cave. One is labeled easy, and the other one is labeled difficult/very difficult. Here is a little detail that will be important later in the story- in the hard route you exit the cave at some point and you walk back to the starting point on a regular trail.
My dad and I plan on doing the hard trail, but before we go in my dad questions a bunch of guys that just came out of the cave and asks them how hard it really is, and if they think I can make it. They say, yeah, it's pretty challenging. You will have to do some rock climbing. There's an 8 foot wall at some point that you will have to climb. But you can do it. So, off we go.

We start walking through the cave. It basically alternates between a semi-flat surface and huge piles of rocks. At some point we reached something that I swear was an 8-foot flat wall that we had to climb, but according to my dad that was not hard, so he is convinced that we did not yet find the wall they were talking about. And this continues for a long while. And then... I see a light. The light at the end of the cave?!

Hmm. Maybe not. There is indeed a hole in the cave, but the cave continues on. I look at the hole and say, no way that this is the end. It is going to be really hard to climb out of this hole. Plus, the cave continues. My dad, however, thinks back to the hard wall we haven't found yet, assesses the situation, and says, no, it is totally possible to climb out of here. I convince him to continue on for a little bit, and we do, and we hit another one of those big piles of rocks, and my dad decides that no, we will not continue to find out that there is no other exit and then have to go all the way back. We will climb out the hole we passed. And this, my friends, is the dumbest moment of my life. The thing is, I was tired, and kind of sick of climbing over large piles of rocks already, and kind of wanted out of the cave already. But really, if I had just paused for 2 minutes to think about it rationally, there is just NO way that that was the exit. It was way too hard to climb, and, the fact that the cave continues without any sign or indication that it is the end of the trail, and the fact that it continues the exact same way it's been all along, should really have screamed at me that NO OF COURSE THIS IS NOT THE WAY OUT AND THE ONLY REASON MY DAD EVEN CONSIDERED IT IS BECAUSE OF THAT THING THOSE GUYS SAID ABOUT THERE BEING A WALL TO CLIMB!!!!!! Yet somehow, I just was not thinking. So, we start ascending up that wall.

The wall had four different levels. So basically, my dad pushed me up to the next level each time and then climbed up after me. The last level was the easiest so I just climbed out of the cave and waited outside. Oh, wait. Since this is not the end, that means that... there is no trail back. But, at that point, I am all the way out, my dad is stuck halfway out and is trying to devise a way to get himself out, and is convinced that it would be nearly impossible for us to go back down into the cave without severely injuring ourselves. As a matter of fact, at that point he is not even sure if he can get himself out of this cave at all. So he sits there for 10 minutes and looks around, until a solution comes to him and he manages to get himself out.

OK, we are out now. Now we just have to find the trail. We start walking in the general direction the cave continued. We try to find plants that were stepped on by animals or humans, assuming it would maybe lead us somewhere. I am farely confident though that humans did not walk in the area we were in. We walk for a few minutes and I start freaking out. We are lost. In the forest. We have no food or water, no way to reach anyone, no easy way for anyone to find us, and my mom was waiting for us back in the beginning/end of the trail. I don't think I've ever been so mad at my dad in my life. A few minutes later I hear this sort of growl/snort type of sound, which doesn't help the anxiety. (Later that day after questioning a ranger we would find out it was most likely a bear.) We realize we are not going to find a trail this way, so we start walking downward. There are a couple of roads relatively nearby, and if we walk in the right direction, we should be able to hit one of them at some point, and from there I guess we would just wait for a car to pass and figure out where we were and get back to where my mom was waiting. If we miss the roads, we're fucked.

We walk down for a while, and my dad stops and says, hold on, I'm going to check something out, don't lose sight of me. And then, we actually find human shoe prints. Probably not ones from the same day, but at least we know we're in an area where humans were at some point... and I start feeling a little better about the situation. We continue walking for a while, and then, like a chorus of angels descending upon us from the heavens, a trail! A real trail! Now I feel infinitely better, knowing that it's just a matter of time until we find out exactly where we are. But wait, there's more. We get to the end of the trail, and found ourselves exactly where we needed to be, back at the beginning of the cave. And it didn't even take long enough for my mom to start asking random hikers if they've seen us and if they could please get some help as soon as they get back within cell phone working range.

That is my story of being lost in the woods!

XO
Is

89.3 fm the no teamvanillalution



SO, HERE I AM AT MY FIRST RADIO SHOW SINCE THE LAST TEAM VANILLA SHOW. And in protest of everything that is dumb about not having my fellow team vanilla brethren here, I am playing no song under 20 minutes long, starting with "the odyssey" by symphony x. YOU SEE, instead of talking of talking for obnoxiously long periods of time, i'm playing extremely long songs that nobody but me wants to listen to. HA. YOU GET IT?! TAKE THAT GENESEO COMMUNITY. But seriously, i miss you guys.

P.s. here's me getting ready for my first radio show


Friday, September 7, 2007

Dragonblog?

Just for fun I typed "Dragonblog" into my browser, thinking that Mozilla (being the most awesome of browers) would take me to the ultimate blog in the world, ours. But I got something else: Dragonblog

A part of me wants to post on there like it's ours.