Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

This past Sunday I went to see the musical "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels". It was being performed in St. Benedict High School's auditorium. I knew many of the students in the cast, so I decided to go watch how they did and see what this play was all about. I hadn't heard anything about the play before I went. The play begins in a casino with a man tricking a woman into giving him money . This man, Lawrence, later sees a man on a train who is also tricking a woman out of her money. His name is Freddy. Freddy is envious of Lawrence and wants him to teach him his ways. After a while, they decide that the town isn't big enough for the both of them. They make a deal that who ever tricks a woman out of $50,000 first got to stay in town. Freddy pretends to be paralyzed and needs $50,000 for rehabilitation. The doctor turns out to be Lawrence. They try to trip each other while both trying to get this woman's money. In the end the woman is the one who is scamming both of them, and she manages to make off with the $50,000.

Visiting Parents

Visiting your parents house after not being there for a while is the best. They are so happy to see you first of all. Second of all you do not have to do anything. cooking gets old, especially when your only cooking for yourself. Parents cook the best food that you have had in what seems like years. I am used to chef boyardee and ramen noodles. When I can afford it I splurge for some skinless boneless chicken breasts to grill. When I get home I can eat brownies, cookies, steaks, and the first green vegetables I have eaten since the last time I visited. When home I don't have to worry about washing my clothes: my mom does it because she misses me. I am also taken out to dinner a lot when I come home. Sushi is my favorite. This Thanksgiving I did get really good leftovers though so I will have some delicious thanksgiving food to eat. I will probably go eat some now actually...

You know what really grinds my gears?

People who are way too good at online gaming. I get on as a recreational user and enjoy to play some Halo or Call of Duty. These guys take video games way too serious. They get on their little microphones to talk crap when everyone knows in real life that they could never back it up. Just because they like to stay inside all day and play video games only proves that they are good at being anti-social. When is being good at video games going to get you anywhere in life? never unless your so good that you somehow get to be a professional gamer. Not likely. So stop kidding yourselves and get out in the real world. Then talk crap to somebody and see what happens. Your going to get knocked out. Especially those twelve year olds who like to get on and talk crap for some reason.

Mrs. Rebecca Skloot visited our class last week to talk about her articles for the New York Times. She writes mostly about things that have to do with the field of Biology or animal medicine. We had prepared many questions for her about her background and other questions about some of her writing. She is publishing a book on Henrietta Lacks. Henrietta was a black woman who died of cancer. Scientists have used her cancer cells to find many vaccines for diseases. The most important vaccine so far has been the polio vaccine. Rebecca talked about what it was like to be a writer and how important it was for a scientist to also be a good writer. I enjoyed her question and answer session and I look forward to reading her book next semester.

Thanksgiving break is coming up and we have class until wednesday. I feel like we should have wednesday off because students from out of town have no time to get back to their hometown for the holidays. If they plan to get back there they will possibly have to catch a plane because a long drive right before thanksgiving may be a bit hectic. The roads are always packed over the holidays and there is inevitable traffic. I am looking forward to thanksgiving most just to get a break from schoolwork. I am so sick of going to lectures every day only to get a ton of homework dropped on me so I have to spend the rest of my day doing the homework. I want some me time already. Some professors need to realize that we have families and friends and everything is not all about school all the time.

uhhhh....

alright so I went to the outside event tonight at The Otherlands Coffee bar. Jonathan May and Emily Thrash were reading their poetry and short nonfiction pieces. First of all... What the fuck was that all about?! Pardon my French but that was by far the most uncomfortable I have ever been. I did not hear much of Emily's writing but Jonathan's was a little... homosexual. Don't get me wrong, I could care less if people are gay, but putting what he put down on paper should be illegal. He was talking about giving his bisexual friend blow jobs while they were on cocaine and acid trips. I am not sure how honest you all want me to be but I will stop there. To say the least, it got worse. I went with Alex and we could not even look around the room because this guy was saying the most ridiculous things. As far as the venue goes, it was a small room with a couple futons and tables. There were different chairs set up all facing the speakers who were behind a table. The walls were covered in sheet metal and paintings. It seemed like a very liberal part of town where a lot of artists and aspiring writers lived. By far the weirdest experience of my life. Wow....

You know what really grinds my gears?

Cereal box toys.

When I was younger I would always have my mom buy the cereal with the sweetest toy. Even now I buy the colorful cereal boxes but they don't always have toys in them anymore. When I do find ones with toys, I am always disappointed with what I find lurking in the bottom of the bag. The cereal companies make the toys look so cool, but they always end up sucking. They cant chip in a little bit more money to give a toy that is worth a damn. I want some freaking matchbox cars that I can take off sick jumps and stuff. I don't want some stupid "decoder ring" that does absolutely nothing. It decodes nothing. There is no secret message that i really need to know. There are no x-ray specs that actually work. The 3-D glasses are a joke. I can get a piece of red plastic and a piece of blue plastic and put them over my eyes and it will have the same effect. If they are going to put a toy in a box make it worthwhile. Don't waste my time with the crap you put in there. I don't want to dig to the bottom to be disappointed anymore. I've just now decided that I am done buying cereal because of the empty promises of cool toys.

When they do promise something cool, you have to buy like fifty boxes and send in the box tops. NO thats not even worth it. I want to talk to the owners of these companies.

Registration

Well, today was the first day to register for spring classes. It is pretty annoying going through the whole process because we had to find classes that fit into our schedule, and didn't conflict with other classes. My biggest problem was finding classes that didn't conflict with the classes i had already signed up for. Overall I am happy with my class selection. I am not looking forward to taking chemistry and biology in the same semester, both with supplementary labs. I did not get the math that I wanted to take, so I had to substitute in World Civilization I. I think I will enjoy the history class, because that interested me in high school.

Inglorious Bastards

Over the weekend I watched the movie "Inglorious Bastards" illegally on the internet. It start Brad Pitt who plays the leader of a small behind enemy lines battalion. The story takes place in Nazi Germany in the 1940s. The most interesting part of the film was the way in which it was presented. It was directed by Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino directs his films in mostly the same way. He breaks the plot down into chapters. In each chapter, you meet different characters in different settings. In the end all the characters end up meeting. In this particular movie, the characters meet up and come up with a plot to kill Hitler. I will not give up the ending, but it is a good movie. In my opinion, Brad Pitt is best when he plays a somewhat comedic role. In this movie he is pretty funny and to top it all off he is a moonshine bootlegger from the hills of Tennessee.

You know what really grinds my gears?

messy roommates...

I have recently moved in with a couple of my buddies from high school. We live in a house just off campus. I have known these two for four years, and I thought we would have a great time. After the first few weeks it was great and I didn't really care if something bothered me. After a few months of living with it I am beginning to go crazy. Is it really that difficult to clean up after yourself? I mean you can leave one or two dishes in the sink, but if you never clean them up then they pile up and begin to stink. Then I cant use the sink when I need it and I have to end up cleaning it for him. Then when i tell him to clean up after himself he just tells me that i'm bitching at him. I am about ready to knock his face in. Obviously he was just raised in a messy house and likes to live in a pig sty, I don't know. All I know is that once my room began to smell like mildew and ass I would start to realize what a damn slob I am. I would probably feel bad if my roommate constantly cleaned up after me, but that is just me, maybe I am just a nice guy. Next time the dishes start to pile up in the sink you can bet they will make it to his bed so I can use tha damn sink. I could go on for days, but I am done for the week.

introduction to paper

Back in the early nineteen hundreds, my grandfather, Donald Simon Sr., visited a lake in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York with a friend. He camped there numerous times after that and fell in love with the mountains. When he had some money saved up, Donald bought a piece of property on that same lake. My father was raised on that lake, and I was also brought up on the lake. Ever since I was a small boy, nature amazed me. I continuously questioned my father about the mountains, and the animals that inhabited them. I also enjoyed fishing and was always studying the species that lived in the lake. I could experience deer, black bear, coyote, beaver, porcupine, and countless other species first hand.

When I got to high school and took my first Biology course I knew what I wanted to study in college. Biology is known as the study of living organisms, and that is what I have been interested in since I was so intrigued by everything I experienced growing up in the Adirondack Mountains. Although I no longer live in upstate New York, I visit the cabin every summer to hike, fish, and observe the natural beauty of the region. I decided that I would like to teach or work for the government in a state or national park. I want to teach because I would like to see future generations enjoy the natural world and hopefully preserve it.

After enrolling in college, I have learned that biology is not only about the larger organisms that I am so interested in. Biology includes the living things down to the cellular level. Everything living is composed of cells. Inside of those cells are many organelles and the nucleus. DNA runs these cells and determines what the larger organism will look like and what species it will be a part of. Every living thing has its own unique DNA code, even members of the same species. For this reason, governments have recently been using DNA profiles to fight crime. Anyone taken into custody has a DNA sample taken of him or her, which will become part of a growing National DNA Database (NDNAD). The NDNAD had sparked a large controversy because of an apparent violation of constitutional rights. However, the database is also receiving a large group of supporters because of its ability to help solve crimes.

The required "Works in Progress Symposium" was today and I was impressed, but also baffled. The first presentation I was impressed by because it dealt with food. The second presentation however, went way over my head. I was very impressed with the ideas coming out of the University of Memphis. I am not sure if these were grad students or just seniors but they had some patentable ideas. The first presentation was about the presentation of pureed food. The second was about evidence that a new electronic device for Parkinson’s disease is beneficial to patients.

As I have previously stated, the pureed food presentation was really interesting. The presenters each challenged themselves to make pureed food more presentable. They were also trying to make the protein content higher. Pureed food is like regular food but thrown in a blender and blended into a mush. It literally looks like throw up. It does taste like the food that it was before it was blended though. These researchers showed that the visual appeal greatly influences the way the eater tastes the food.

The students chose different ways to prepare their pureed food. The female chose to puree chicken stir-fry. She blended each of the ingredients separately and shaped them into their original shape. She then froze them. When she heated them up after freezing, they retained their shape and it looked like an actual stir-fry. The man chose to puree a sandwich. His did not turn out as well. He also pureed each of the ingredients separately and froze them into sheets. He thawed the frozen sheets and rolled them into what looked like a burrito. It was not as appetizing as the stir-fry but results showed it tasted like the real thing, not to mention it was not a blob of mush anymore.

The second presentation was tough to follow. The woman mainly used medical terms that were way over my head. From what I understood, she was improving on an already existing technology. Her improved version would not require as much invasive surgery as the existing product does. She used a lot of other fancy medical experimental terms, but it was all about the same subject, so I zoned out.

You know what really grinds my gears?

eHarmony commercials. If you have a TV, you have seen at least fifty of these. They come on the commercial with that white background with their newfound "soulmate" and you see them hanging all over each other laughing. What's funny? I would really like to hear the joke one of them just told because it seems like a real riot. Then they come on saying "I never thought I would find anyone, but then I tried eHarmony, and looky looky what I got now." First of all, if your on a dating website like that, then you will pretty much take anything they throw at you anyways. Of course your going to get along with the person. They are doing the same thing you are. They can't find anyone in real life so when they get matched up with someone they believe that this is "the one" based on a stupid compatibility test. Really? Yeah, I think I will let a computer analyze my answers and tell me who I am compatible with. No, that is dumb and I do not believe that for one second. How many people even really get matched up and married anyways? They probably come out with a new commercial every time someone does to make it seem like a lot. Out of the countless people on that dating site the only ones that have gotten married are the ones they have made a commercial about. GARBAGE! stop making commercials to waste my life and make everybody dumber.

"Scholarly article"

This is one of the few Scholarly articles I found that I did not have to have a subscription to read, and it turned out to be very helpful. Although it talks a lot about the DNA database in Wales and the UK, it shows what it could become in the United States. I think the U.S. could learn from what other countries have done wrong with their DNA databases and make one that is a lot more fair. I liked what it had about the retention of children's DNA samples, and the samples of people that were acquitted of all charges. I think it will help me provide a good argument for the anti-databasing, which was what I have been looking for.

genewatch

The movie we watched in class last thursday was about tracing the paths of human populations out of Africa. It showed us that we all come from the first human who was from Africa. National Geographic took DNA samples from a large number of people from Queens, New York. From these DNA samples, they took the .01 % difference in different races and traced them back to the first human. Then, they showed when and what path a particular group took out of Africa to inhabit the rest of the world. They also showed how certain races are related, and where and what time they merged in history. I thought it was very interesting to see how we all are actually related from a very distant ancestor. I'd like to find out what path my ancestors took out of Africa and where they ended up.