1. Youtube is better, cleaner and cheaper than $120-a-month cable.
2. Don’t take your roommate’s trash out because of the flies, or you’ll be doing it all semester.
3. Do not ride your bike to class if it is within walking distance.
4. Kitchen knives are wonderful for picklocking.
5. Two hangers wired together with a loop on the end, passed under a door, are wonderful for picklocking.
6. Before class, no matter what you’re talking about, somehow they’ll turn the conversation to illegal drugs.
7. When someone calls you with a book deal, you’re excused from being late for class.
8. Writing your name on your food in the freezer does not secure it from the Midnight Snacker Bandits.
9. Pizza contains all the basic food groups.
10. Watch out for Southern Belles

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Posted in College

What better movie to watch after the last Final exam than SCHOOL OF ROCK?

The Final Final is Final! I intend to sell my algebra book back to the store under one condition: they burn it in my presence.

Thankfully, I’m keeping a few of them from Humanities, the class I formerly loathed the most until I actually liked two of the books they had me read. One was The Road by Cormac McCarthy, which I will keep, because it taught me what an anti-pastoral world is. But Delillo’s White Noise? Back to the store! Frankenstein I’m keeping. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Good book but once is enough, thank you very much! Back to the shop for the next poor soul.

So this semester shall officially be over and finished tomorrow morning, the first truly free Saturday with no thought of classes again until the week after May 23, when the dreaded Summer classes start.

Picture this: 5 hour classes, two days a week, for five weeks. Someone try to define hell on earth as something different. Thankfully, they give a break in between. For me, it will be to grab a coffee. I am literally about to fall asleep in a 1 hour class. Try 5 times that. But it’s worth 3 credits in a super-short amount of time, and after the five weeks are up, it’s freedom again!

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Posted in College

I discovered two important things this week:

1) Never start watching a Natalie Portman movie the night before final exams, thinking you’ll just see half and finish after the test.

2) Only the stupidest, most oafish of guys would leave Natalie Portman at a Walmart.

After years of being told to see it, I finally watched Where The Heart Is, for the single objective to seeing the inside of a Walmart that was filmed very close to where we used to live. Also, it was quite joyful hearing Natalie Portman called Mrs. Nation multiple times.

It follows the story of a girl who was dumped by her boyfriend in the middle of nowhere with no money, and secretly lives in a Walmart for months until she becomes famous for having her baby in the store. The interesting thing about this movie is that it came out quite a long time ago but I still remember when it was released, because we saw a band that was in the movie at a free show in the middle of a Walmart (fittingly enough).

Unfortunately, though the band had such an enormous potential after all the publicity from the movie (which played their song at least 4 times throughout) they failed to ever become a success, and even released a best-of titled ‘Barely Famous Hits’ just because their label wanted to be rid of their ilk. Even though my Nation grandmother saw it, I wasn’t allowed to for certain reasons you might notice if you see it and then realize I was 11 at the time.

Added May 2, 2008: Forgot to mention the name of the band. It’s The Warren Brothers and the song is called That’s The Beat Of A Heart.

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Movies shot before 9/11 always seem to have a much more innocent feel to them, as if the world wasn’t quite seen as dark as it is today. I always like watching films from before that because they act as a strange reminder of when I was growing up. And besides, Natalie Portman putting on a Texas accent was a laugh.

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Posted in College