This is what happens when a light-sleeping guy like me goes on family vacation. For a middle-class family of four, it only makes economical sense to pay for one hotel room.

One family member not named me is a giant of a snorer.

I have not fallen asleep yet, nor do I foresee myself doing so anytime soon.

Thanks to the wonders of wireless internet technology, I can blog about it! Not that anyone swings by here anymore anyways!

I'm wondering if I should continue to toss and turn for the next four hours. I may be forced to eventually do so regardless of my decision, as my laptop battery only lasts for two and a half more hours.

Family vacations.

A source of such great times, but such great stress at the very same time.

Maybe tomorrow night will be better.

*Preface - I haven't talked television in a while because television has become more of an excuse to straight chill with folks rather than being the event itself. I suppose it's for the better that way. But the upcoming holiday season tends to be accompanied by a look-back on things of the year past. For myself, it's much easier to review things that are way more fresher (that's right) in my mind, so with that said, here's some backward glances at television offerings of the year past! Allons-y!

I can sum up the past few months of television in one noun, which also doubles as a verb, triples as a tongue twister, and according to dictionary.com, quadruples as a British idiom! Seriously! The chance for confusion this word inherently possess is enough to make me chuckle!

(no pun intended)

Chuck - Geek employee (Chuck Bartowski) employed at a "Buy More" (think Best Buy/Futureshop) forced to double as a CIA agent. Is this a sign of things to come in my life? Probably not. Shows involving spies, covert agents and the protection of valuable assets usually turn out for the better. Plus, I like the character dynamics. And the fact that two life-long friends end up working at the same place and do almost everything together (reminds me of two ex-housemates of mine...the life parallels are uncanny). Two thumbs up for Chuck. Or, should I say, 10 binary thumbs up for Chuck.

Isn't she lovely? This character, Charlotte "Chuck" Charles, hails from the television series Pushing Daisies. Unconventional detective work (the male lead has special powers!) and a pie shop as a home-base put this show over the top. Add in some wit and some wacky characters and you have yourself one tasty pie. I mean, show. Pie is delicious.

Don't get me started on the finer points. If you watched Serendipity and it managed to incite violent anger from you every time the characters were oh-so-close to finding each other, but loved the movie nonetheless, this show should be right up your alley. The male and female stars are completely in love, but mustn't ever touch! WHAT A TWIST!



American Gladiators! They're coming back! The writer's strike means we, the audience, will be treated to a handful of horrible reality-based television shows, none of which I am more excited about then American Gladiators. For the "chuck" tie in, check out the 2:15 mark of the video. Fantastic.

Lastly, I know none of my readers watch the Sopranos (that I know of). Nor am I on that episode just yet. But I've got to wonder how many people chucked their television remotes at the cable box thinking that the cable companies screwed them out of the series' final scene, only to find out later that the show actually ended that way.

Time is short.
Time is money.

Money is definitely short (unless you're Frank Lucas).
Short is money?

If there's one thing for sure, this post sure ain't short. Buckle your safety harnesses, you're in for a wild ride...crank that Kosha Boy...

...Hanukkah's a festival we celebrate it everyday, haters get mad cuz they got one and we got eight!...

...now let's get to the business.

What You Should Actually Do Whilst In University

You know, besides all the academic learning you're paying for. I assume that because you pay for it, you probably should be doing it. But you're not going to spend every living hour doing the academics. So what should you, the scholar-to-be, be doing with all your free time? I say that hesitatingly because time is not free. Read the equations above.

1. Train your immune system.
Rigorously and thoroughly. What's that saying, if you ain't using it, you're losing it? So while you're in your prime, push yourself immune system to the limit. Don't hesitate to eat food off the floor or to use a cup you haven't washed in a week. The oven-baked chicken wing looks a little raw after 20 minutes in the oven? There's only one way to find out, and that way goes through your stomach. Forgot to wash your hands before you eat? Don't stop now, if you go wash your hands your meal will get cold! And unless you're eating ice-cream, you probably don't want that.

*Sidenote* - Ice-cream for dinner? Why. Not. *End Sidenote*

You'll find that if you commit yourself to this, you'll get sick less often as the years go by, and you'll recover from any sickness quicker.

2. Evolve proper studying habits.

I say evolve because discovery is not enough. Sure, you may be a great owl, studying through insane never-heard-of early morning hours. You may even find that you work best with the pressure of an exam the next morning. Heck, you may find that on the day of the exam, you will drop everything to watch Evan Almighty (started off as a waste of time but finished nicely). And the absolute worst, you find that you calculate your mark prior to the exam, calculate exactly what mark you need on the exam to arrive at an acceptable overall mark, and then you study accordingly.

You will do well in academia. Really. Go on, give yourself a future round of applause if this is you. I'll wait.

pfft

But realize this. For the vast majority of us, in the (near) future, we will be taking jobs where we will not be able to dictate our working hours (at least not like we dictate our studying hours). We will not be able to rush work and get away with it, a 60% may be a pass in school, but 60% is a pink slip in the working world. We will not get to interrupt our working day to go and catch a movie or jump onto the non-existent beds for a power-nap-turned-full-out-sleep.

So this could go either way. Now that you realize your studying habits may not necessarily carry over to a successful career (it may open doors to it though), maybe you should look to study from 9-5 and then call it a night. I'm just saying. Or you could go the opposite way, and say that "this is the last time I'll ever get to live like a night owl" and take it the other extreme. But you need to know this.

3. For the music enthusiasts, go to concerts. For the eating enthusiasts, join a cooking club.

Don't just dabble in things you enjoy or may enjoy, commit to trying them out. Obviously this is within reasonable limits; I will not cover gray areas, but suffice to say, if you enjoy stealing, don't steal. Unless you're Derek Jeter.

Take some time to listen to different varieties of music or to taste different foods. Find a mountain and climb it!

This is getting too inspirational. Please watch this before continuing. In a year, I'll be 23. I'm going to need bigger shirts.

4. A french fry just fell on the floor. You better eat it.

5. Continuation of 3., sort of, but I lost my train of thought.

Enjoy the company of different people. Sometimes this may be born out of necessity. But if you find yourself running with a different pack of wolves (so to speak) every term, do not despair. You'll find that like most dynamic networks, you'll settle on a steadier group of friends (attractors) even if the peripherals keep changing.

But people are like snowflakes. No two are the same. So get to know some.

6. The list is getting too generic.

Yup. I went in with a full head of steam with my first two points, then 2am, coupled with the reality of my zero-creative-ability level, kicked in. This post ends now.

The point is, university is a special place. And I can't believe I only have half a year left (pending the passing of courses). This is one of the happier and sadder days of the year at the very same time. I need to stop putting myself in situations that confuse my mind.

*Preface - I hired trained bodyguards to protect the names embedded in this post. The guards are disguised as *'s. Don't make them angry, not only are they DYING to shoot, but they will shoot to KILL. The cleverness of that last statement warrants a moment of silence.

*moment*

Recently, a string of e-mails addressed to my e-mail address, but not to me, was delivered to my inbox. Some other A**** Y* seems to be feeding their friends faulty information. You may understand after reading the snippet pasted below:

"there are always fun and adventure when taking up a different step in life, without a doubt, you will find them around you in your upcoming new journey.

hope you will enjoy and make the most of it :)

will miss you for the special golf lessens :P .. and thank you for that :P

Good bye and Good luck !

Cheers,
M*** :)"

This "other-me" is departing for some new life experience and has already chosen to ditch his (or her, but hopefully his because A**** with two a's should be a guy's name 100% of the time) friends, cleverly dodging e-mails and unintentionally giving the guy who get surprised by increasing inbox counts something to talk about.

Win-win?

The other e-mails I received were along the same lines, with one special "group" e-mail informing me that I was invited to a "goodbye party"!

For the record, I totally debated leaving the "special golf lessens" alone, but decided that 'lessens' was too horrendous of a mistake. Never-mind (special) golf lessons, but I'd investigate English lessons if I were M***.

But don't worry, I've done the right thing, courteously replying back to inform them they have the wrong A****, which probably exposes their real friend as a ditcher, but I stand by my decision.

...but Nalgene bottles may be destructing YOU from the inside-out.

This has been a public service announcement.

I sat down to discover my fortune for tonight, via the opening and eating of a fortune cookie delivered alongside some takeout.

"Give yourself a day off -- at least give yourself a relaxing evening."

I was not pleased with the outcome of this fortune as I had already planned to give myself the night off (did I mention I was going to a concert that technically starts in the middle of my exam tonight? Chris, I know you're not reading this, but don't tell our parents, okay? Thanks.)

(That made no sense at all.)

Because I ordered a meal for two (the food works about to be about four meals so it's cheaper if I order this way and pretend as if I had someone to eat with), I sat down to open the other fortune cookie.

"Give yourself a day off -- at least give yourself a relaxing evening."

Either the restaurant has a barrel full of the exact same message for all the frazzled students during exam time (probable), or the gods-of-Chinese-takeout are trying to tell me something (ominous).

*Preface - I'm procrastinating on my philosophy paper, which I was only working on as a cover for procrastinating on studying for Wednesday's exam. Nevertheless, for those that have been unwillingly & unwantingly(?) subjected to my football-rants of late, I apologize, and will attempt to word this football post in much more interesting terms. Seriously. You wouldn't even know I was talking about football if I didn't mention it here in my preface. But I didn't want to blindside you. So, you're welcome.

Have you ever played video-games with someone so ridiculously good looking?

For example, in the game of Goldeneye, they'd herd you into a corner, shoot you, pump a few more bullets in you after you're dead to leave blood stains on your character when you re-spawn, and when you do re-spawn, they've placed mines all over re-spawn locations and kill you all over again. Then they start playing with their left hand, playing with their back turned to the television, playing with their eyes closed and going for extended washroom/snack breaks, all while taunting you?

And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse, they cede control of half the controller to their little sister and still manage to rampage right over you.

As time begins to expire, you hear the beautiful sound of ticks counting down the time to the end of this deflating torture, yet they manage to shoot you once more from an insane angle when you thought you could just mercifully run out the time. So you chuck your Nintendo-64 controller at the television*, but because of the wire limitations, it manages to drop just short of the tele, the cherry on top of your embarrassment-chocolate-fudge-sundae.

I. Was. That Guy.

But more importantly, so are the 2007 New England Patriots! But back to the video game analogy.

Now, let's say that screen-looking is considered cheating. But it's one of those things that every gamer does and it's one of those things that only good gamers will actually use to their advantage anyways. Let's say the above great gamer (me) is called out by a newbling, who provides evidence of the great gamer screen-looking. The great-gamer gets a slap on the wrist, then proceeds to relentlessly decimate every opponent from that point on, even more so than before. They're not even blinking anymore because they're so focused beating people down and showing people they don't need to screen-look to be scary-good.

In two weeks, the world will witness that very great gamer, still very much hell-bent on getting revenge, going up against the newbie that ratted him out.

It is not going to be pretty. 100-0? It's realistic at this point.

That's the NFL! It's Faaaaaaaaaantastic!

*Out of control gaming controllers being hurled at television sets is a phenomenon that has been around a lot longer than the Nintendo Wii, which only made it popular thanks to the hilarious Youtube videos arising from such situations). If Youtube had been around in the Nintendo-64 days, there would've been hilarious Youtube videos of that too, probably from the same dumdums. You could disagree with me, but you'd be wrong.

*Preface - That's a new low as far as post titles go.

Last night, I was waiting on a couple chicken wings to heat up in the oven, so I had a couple minutes to spare in the kitchen.

I also had access to a carton of Equality apple juice. Equality being possibly the worst-tasting brand of apple juice, it's just too watery.

You see where this is going don't you.

Ten minutes later, I was sipping on a hot cup of Tropicana-tasting apple juice (the excessive water in Equality magically boiled off, leaving the desired sugar-rich concentrate).

This process is patent pending.

I'm as aawesome as I'll ever be.

*Preface - As opposed to reflection eternal. On a music related note, DJ Girl Talk. Have ya heard? If you haven't, you need to hook yourself up. Or bug me to hook you up. More importantly, Broken Social Scene. December 5th. I am fully aware I have an exam the night of the 5th. But if you are remotely interested, and reside in Kingston or are willing to drop by Kingston, BUG ME and let's get this show on the road!

"Sometimes it seems there are only two constants: who we are, our reality, and who we want to be, our potential. And life is the time we spend trying to bridge that gap." - T.A.N.

As John Mayer once said, everybody take a moment and acknowledge how damn deep that is. John was talking about a drum intro to a blues version of his song "Something's Missing".

It was deep.

As I continue to mull over what the future holds for me, I think I've made a startling discovery. Not a patentable discovery, but one of personal importance nonetheless. Because you see, the discovery was about me.

That sentence contained a nice rhyming structure.

I function remarkably better in the higher-institution-of-learning environment than I do in the working world, even though the amount of work, and arguably the difficulty of the work, is similar.

I'd plot the relationship out for you if I weren't so sick of, word to Ne-Yo, graphs.

Now, I was previously able to convey that point by semi-explaining that the freedom of pressure offered by academic learning as compared to the stress of delivering or facing real world implications in the work place was the main difference.

I still think there is a tidbit of truth in that. The impact of me tanking school really only impacts my parent's money my parents and I (ignoring the people I technically could've affected in the future). But those two (or three) factors still weigh in and do not allow a completely pressure-free environment.

The more likely mechanism at work here is the fact that my ENTIRE internal biological clock is just a time zone behind. Yup. It's not only my eating habits. It's also my studying/work habits.

From the hours of 9pm-present, I cranked out a paper that's not due for another two days. Yet, this morning at 8:30am, I wasn't even in the right state of mind to bring a pen to tutorial.

A. Pen.

The stark contrast between the times when my mind is fresh is ridiculous. I had to bother an equally zoned-out student in front of me for a pen to sign the attendance sheet (the only reason I ventured to class that early in the first place, I've had a long few weeks), who also didn't have a pen. A guy sitting across the aisle was kind enough to toss me a pen, and the situation was slightly salvaged by me not dropping the pen.

I should probably re-locate to another time zone if I want to have a successful career. And I may need to re-locate every so-often in case my body decides to 'adapt', even though it clearly does not want to adapt to my current situation.