Bro Bait Dressed As Hipsters For Halloween

Josh feels the costume was more, girl about to be reamed by a group of guys from the basketball team.

Blind Culture

A few months ago Terry and Mia went to a production of the musical Pippin. They rarely want to see musicals and never had a desire to hear someone belt the piano-bar-ballad Corner Of The Sky; in fact they went to hear as little as possible. The play's direction was based around making the night accessible to the deaf, with several deaf actors singing and all of the dialogue signed out as it was spoken. Terry and Mia said that at the end of the play, everything went silent and then the principle character, alone on stage, performed the last monologue with just his hands. Near the closing of his monologue, all the deaf and otherwise sign-language-literate members of the audience burst into laughter; Terry and Mia sat quietly and grinned.

Deaf culture is strong and unified, birthed from an active community and use of the word "handicapable." Such is not the same with the blind, although not because of difficulties relating to one another. They all use the same color cane purposely, and shop in the grocery store [alone] in the same way; having tried to memorize the layout of the shop, they'll go to where the peanut butter generally is, wait for someone to walk by, and then ask the shopper to hand them a jar. However, because of how hard solo actions can be, it's harder for them to get together on their own.

Many of them are illiterate, by which I mean that they can't read Braille. "Why waste the time teaching Braille when so many audio books are available?" goes the argument. And while listening to an audio book still probes the imagination, there is something in the effort that it takes to interpret a tone on your own that makes reading all the more enriching in the long run.

Reading Braille must take longer than with a printed language, at least for new readers, and I've often wondered if it's more satisfying to finish a Braille book because of the extra time invested. Then I've wondered if jokes are much funnier in Braille because of how long the build up is to the punch line. Last week, after coming home from Mains d’Œuvres, I spent an hour sitting on the floor, scouring YouTube for videos of blind people reading a sentence in Braille and then laughing.

I found tons of videos of kids pretending they couldn't see and then running into walls with shopping carts, and one video of a girl pretending to read erotic Braille and touching herself and then getting teased by another girl who could see her doing it and was also able to read Braille. It made me think of idioms like, "the blind leading the blind," and "you'd have to be blind to," and "are you blind, bitch?" Those poor people! They deserve so much more respect, and in the meantime, a solid Braille joke book.

I solemnly swear to write one one day but until I do, David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day is available in Braille for $44.95. The man is quite a miracle worker.

I Would Wear This $64 Sports Bra As A Shirt

As seen on NBC's The Biggest Loser.

Athletic Heirloom

Last night I videochatted with my dad and held up this shirt. He recognized it from his last year of high school, when he moved from Greece to New Jersey to avoid serving in the army and to go to college in America.I found it on the first floor of my grandmother's house, which she built in the mid-60's along a river before other land-locked Greeks had considered the value of living near water. The shirt was folded and crisp with dirt in my aunt's childhood room, which had been rendered unlivable by floods and stray cats and a long period of neglect. Upon realization of the shirt's greatness, its velveteen letters cracking and turning gray, I stuffed it into my handbag and then my duffel bag without mention, unable to risk it being wrongfully claimed after all this time.

We All Will Be Received In Iceland

The slightly-stronger-than tentative plan is to, instead of flying from France to America, fly from Paris to Iceland, knock around Iceland for a week [either with my dad or alone] and then fly to New York. If I should end up alone, here is my adventure skeleton:

Day 1 Reyjavik - http://www.reykjavikbackpackers.com/
Day 2 Blue Lagoon (sleep in Reyjavik)
Day 3/4 bus to Höfn í Hornafirði http://www.nat.is/travelguideeng/bus_stop_to_hofn.htm and then go to Vatnajökull glacier
Day 4/5 Skaftafell National Park--->Svartifoss (Black Falls) / Lónsöræfi [depending whether this is day 4 or day 5]
Day 5 bus to Reyjavik http://www.nat.is/travelguideeng/bus_stop_to_hofn.htm
Day 6 bus to Keflavik - http://www.nat.is/travelguideeng/bus_stop_keflavik_reykjavik.htm and then if i need to sleepover - http://www.hostelworld.com/findabed.php/ChosenCity.Keflavik/ChosenCountry.Iceland - but hopefully back to Reyjavik
Day 7 Reyjavik to New York

things to see in Reyjavik:
The Hallgrimskirkja Church - designed to look like Black Falls
The Perlan Observatory
Zoo - ride Icelandic horses / Botanical garden
Buy a bunch wool crafts and go to hipster bars - http://nogoodforme.filmstills.org/blog/archives/2008/10/29/nogoodforme_in_4.html

outstanding ways to break vegetarianism:
hákarl (putrefied shark cubes)
svið, singed sheep's head
Slátur, consists of lyfrapylsa, a sausage made from the offal of sheep, and blóðmör which is similar to lyfrapylsa only with the sheep's blood mixed into it
Lundabaggi (Sheep's fat)
hrútspungar (pickled ram's testicles)
hot dogs (but exotic!)

Birthday Brood

I got high yesterday and came to the 'realization' that I generally feel ashamed celebrating a birthday. I like the perks of a solo anniversary - forcing people to hang out with me, getting to choose what we have for dinner, etc - but I feel uncomfortable at the idea that everyone should submit themselves to me for 24-hours for no serious reason. As a species we've taken the struggle to survive out of our day to day regiment, so to me aging really doesn't feel like an accomplishment worth mentioning. In early high school I dated a Jehovah's Witness for about a week, and in that week he came up to me and said, "Today is my birthday, not that it matters"; I don't act like that but when I want to reference something that happened the same date that I was born, especially if that date was within the past week, more often than not I'll leave the holiday element out of the retelling.

I wondered if there was another, more innate reasoning behind my discomfort. Do I really dislike birthdays because the people of my heritage prefer to celebrate saint-related Name Days? Or because birthdays were invented by a defunct cult? Maybe, after 19 conscious years, I'm bored of constantly celebrating other people's special day and reflect upon it when it's time to deal with mine.

These are all things to consider as you download the lightly-Birthday-themed episode of Treat Me Rough, which aired Tuesday on AUP Radio. The 56 minute MP3 is available today.

Being Cool

Wikipedia censored it almost immediately, but I was able to first capture this moment of playful ill-intent. You can see from the original content that I was v accurate.

Old Blue Eyes

Blue-eyed soul (also known as Aryan soul) is rhythm and blues or soul music performed by white artists. Blue-eyed soul has always been one of my favorite genres because, as with it's artists, I've always wanted to be black but was born too corny. I'm so boring and white that I have to dress like a circus so people will care when I come to town. And worst of all, I inherently can't sing or dance. Life's just too unfair to the fairest.

Watch now as 60's teen idol Paul Anka pretends that he was in the rat pack, and does karaoke, his way.

Rock Me Amadeus

Today in 2003 the Billboard #1 song was 50 Cent's first hit, and when people would ask what I was up to later, I'd mock him with, "You can find me in the cluuuuub," despite it's obvious improbability. For 2006 it was "Had A Bad Day," a lullabye for receptionists written by James Blunt-impersonator Daniel Powder, and before that, in 2000, "Butterfly" by Crazytown was at the top of the Top 40. But my favorite song of April seventh would have to be 1899's smash hit, "I Guess I'll Have To Telegraph My Baby."

However, if you really want to be playing my song, you'd first need to powder your nose and then your wig, and then put on 1986's Rock Me Amadeus.

Excessive Dramamine Usage

Dan- "Dude, what are you doing?"
Me- "I'm swimming"
Dan- "Man that's a table, not water"
Me- "Your face is melting."
Dan- "what the hell?"
Drew- "Dude he took like a billion dramamine pills earlier, he's tripping the fuck out"
Dan- "sweeeet gimme some'a dem shits"

Ladysmith Black Mambazo: Best Dressed Band Of The 20th Century

I almost called Ladysmith Black Mambazo the "best dressed band of all time" but then thought for a moment and realized that I liked the things Mozart wore more. My twenty-third birthday is on Tuesday, April seventh. If you live in America and are the type of person who would buy me a present, you should get this shirt for me. If you know other people who might take this advice, talk it over with them first before bidding; otherwise you might needlessly drive up the price fighting for me against someone who is also fighting for me.

How You Gonna Wear Sandals With Nasty Corns?

This Sporty Theivz video has way more zingers than I ever gave it credit for, alongside timeless, tried-and-true fashion tips. If I was Left Eye I would've driven my car off the road, too.

Most Unique

Not to toot my on horn too loud but when I was a senior in high school the yearbook committee invented a new superlative that I was an obvious shoe-in to win: most unique. It doesn't mean anything, but because I had no qualities that would bring me recognition as Friendliest or Nicest Hair and because I got a 2 on the AP art test and in turn wasn't even in the running for Most Artistic and because I was enough of a high school personality to deserve extra pictures in the yearbook, especially because my actual yearbook picture was surprisingly ugly, the yearbook committee gave me my due. And because superlatives were set up so that one girl and one boy won for each category, a kid I had never really spoken to and I were photographed together. I initially assumed he was undeserving and lucky that I was around but tonight I found a picture of him from 2003 on Facebook, and because somewhere beyond the studs and chain wallet there seems to be something special, I'm beginning to think that I thought wrong.