Monday, October 27, 2003

Retarded Much?

If You Don’t Have To Go… Go AWAY!

One of the unfortunate facts about public restrooms is the fact that they are public. Many people use them, leave inhuman odors, and who knows what else. It’s even worse when there’s a line for the bathroom and you’re forced to stand in there, wallowing in the stench of others, as you wait to leave your own scent in the mix. It’s much worse being female, because at least guys do one thing in the urinal and they do another thing in the stalls. Females, on the other hand, do both things in the stalls, resulting in this amalgamation of stinkiness festering for the next poor sap that goes in.

If that’s not bad enough, it’s those idiot people that just seem to stand in line for the heck of standing in the bathroom line. They don’t have to go! They’re just there accompanying their friend to the bathroom. So while you’re standing there, waiting for the person at the front of the line to take the stall that just opened up, they just stand there doing absolutely nothing. People wonder why the lines in women’s restrooms are so long, it’s because people bring along a Potty Posse whenever they need to pee or poo. So as the funk molecules are clinging to my pores and clothing, someone’s Potty Posse is impeding my bladder relief. It’s ridiculous. If you’re in a bathroom and don’t have to go… you’re either someone with a bizarre fecal fetish or you’re a freakin’ moron. Get the hell out of the bathroom!

Chicago’s My Kind of Town… Just Not For Sports…

I love Chicago, I was born and raised here… this is my hometown. Unfortunately, this is also a horrible town for a sports fan. We have all of the major sports here, we have the Bears in the NFL, the Bulls in the NBA, the Blackhawks in the NHL, the White Sox and Cubs in MLB, and the Fire in MLS. We also have a Big Ten NCAA football team in Northwestern. Unfortunately, all of the teams that I listed above… SUCK. Well, maybe not the Chicago Fire, but then, no one seems to watch soccer.

In my lifetime, the Bears won a Super Bowl in 1985, Bulls had their run in the 90s as being the best freakin’ team in basketball, Northwestern made it to the Rose Bowl back in 1995, the White Sox won their division in 2000, the Bears won the Central Division in 2001, and the Cubs made the Wild Card in 1998 and was 5 outs away from being in the World Series in 2003. But with the exception of the Bears and the Bulls winning it all back in the day, every success has had a miserable ending. The Sox lost in the playoffs, the Bears lost in the playoffs, Northwestern lost in the Rose Bowl, and the Cubs lost in the playoffs. And this year we had Northern Illinois University to cheer for… true, we’re grasping at straws here by counting those DeKalb kids as a Chicago team, but they were undefeated and were gunning for a BCS spot. During a time when we were mourning the Cubs loss, we were celebrating the Huskies and their run. But then… once the Chicagoans started rooting for them… guess what? They lost this weekend to Bowling Green, their shot at a Bowl game is gone… and we’re again stuck on the downward end of the sports roller coaster ride. Maybe we should just stop rooting for teams…

Speaking of Sports…

The Florida Marlins won the World Series… I guess it does justify the Cubs’ loss to them. Had the Yankees whomped on them, it would’ve really made the Cubs look bad… but those Marlins are quite the battlers. They may look and play like inept idiots one inning, but they never gave up and they’re champions once again. If only Chicago teams are like that… instead they just look like inept idiots and that’s about all.

As much as they’ve earned it… they didn’t EARN it. How many years have the White Sox, the Cubs, and the Boston Red Sox been unable to reach the World Series, much less win one? Here we are again with some expansion team winning it all… the Arizona Diamondbacks? The Florida Marlins? Come on now. It’s getting rather crazy. I guess next year starts now and all the dreams of glory and victory can begin. Here’s to a Cubs-White Sox World Series in 2004… damn, I didn’t just jinx it did I? Oops.

Monday, October 20, 2003

Quit Dorkin' It Up!

Curse of the Billy Goat, Eh?

Baseball fans of all ages watched the 2003 Chicago Cubs choke their way out of the World Series. As a lifelong White Sox fan, seeing the Cubs get so far in the playoffs, despite being whomped on by the Sox earlier in the season, really made me sick to my stomach. But, it was still rather neat to potentially witness history in making. I felt bad, because at one point… I was even hoping the Cubs would win, so that I COULD witness a part of history. But they didn’t and I’m still a loyal Sox fan.

As I’m watching the game and wearing a t-shirt I bought at the Sox game I went to earlier in the season, which had the words CUBS CHOKE in the front and CUBS SUCK in the back, I felt that I was justifying paying attention to the Northsiders without sacrificing my Southside heritage. I watched Games 5, 6, and 7… thinking I’d be able to see something special… but the only thing I saw was the Cubs choking and Cubs fans sucking. Game 6 was hugely disappointing. The idiot fan who interfered with Moises Alou’s potential catch dorked up the Cubs hopes and dreams. White Sox fans at least know to beat the hell out of the coaches of the OTHER team. These idiot Cubs fans don’t pay attention to the game and dork up what might be a once in a lifetime chance for their team. Yet another reason why the White Sox are better than the Cubs…

The Older You Are… The Dumber You Get…

This past weekend, I spent time with high school kids in Junior ROTC at their yearly encampment. And watching them made me realize that the older you are, the dumber you get. I’m not necessarily saying that we’re dumber than they are. But the older you get, the more set in your ways that you are. Younger kids seem to a lot more open to learning, whereas the older kids seem to need a lot more prodding and convincing to chance their erroneous ways.

It made me think about how that little group of high school kids is a representation of society. We do things now because that’s the way we’ve always done it. Things are wrong because they were always wrong. We’ve been living inside the box for so long and most of us are unable to even realize we’re in a box… must less attempt to think outside of it. Little kids grow up like sponges, absorbing everything around them. They’re like a blank piece of paper waiting for someone to write on them. But if someone dorks up while writing… it seems to stay dorked up, making older people so closed-minded that they’re borderline stupid. Just keep that in mind the next time you talk to someone set in their ways… you’re probably better off talking to a brick wall.

Why Am I Learning This Stuff???

It’s finally happened… Senioritis has hit me. Well… I’ve had Senioritis since sophomore year of high school… (probably one of the reasons why I ended up at UIC…) but now, I’m absolutely ready to get the hell out of here. But noooo… I’m stuck taking these random classes that will have no practical application when I graduate. Who’s going to care that I took some random Underwater Basket Weaving 101 class to satisfy a graduation requirement? We’re forced to take these classes in subject areas we don’t like and probably aren’t good at just to graduate. That’s ridiculous.

We choose our majors for a reason, it’s because we like the subject and/or we’re good at it. But stupid schools across the country also tack on random classes just to make students more “well-rounded.” You don’t see engineering students needing to fulfill a foreign language requirement, despite the fact that most engineers are foreign anyways. But Liberal Arts and Sciences seem to group every major under the sun together and force students to take random classes. Like English majors having to take a foreign language seems rather ridiculous, for example. I just wish I’m done with all this… Save me…

Stupid Vending Machines…

It must be UIC alumni that load the vending machines, because many times they are misloaded. There has been many times where I go to a vending machine to get some food and realize what I really want is behind something I’d never touch even if it’s the only thing left on the planet to eat. I don’t want to have to buy something I don’t need to get something I do. That’s the kind of money spending that UIC specializes in, not poor college students.It’s even more annoying to have pop machines be misloaded. Because you can’t see what’s in there. You push a button expecting a Mountain Dew and you get something like non-caffeinated ginger ale. It’s really not that hard to load the same pop in the same slot. It’s something little pre-schoolers learn to! The square blocks go in the square holes, not the circular ones. It’s not that difficult a concept… but yet it’s too complicated for too many people. What a wonderful world…