Sunday, September 13, 2009
Saturday, December 6, 2008
Hi
Joe's Blog @ Oberlin.edu
Sunday, November 9, 2008
I'm tired for no good reason.
I should be starting my other blog soon, the one connected with Oberlin. I've actually written an entry and two half entries, but they're not open to the public yet. When they are, the addy should be www.blogs.oberlin.edu that's what it is now, but the director of his whole program (I want to call it an 'experiment' or something, because I'm still not sure about it) is in Boston for a short trip. I learned recently that he was super active when he went to school here, in a capella and choir, and I guess he was the general manager for the Cat, which is a little coffeehouse that has acts from all over the place playing and stuff. Makes me feel downright lazy. I have been studying my ass off lately, and playing a lot of tennis, so that's good, right? I took a couple quizzes today and I'm taking a big exam Friday. I sound like a real damn college student right now, listen to me. I'm really not nervous about it though, which is good. I have been super tired lately, no real reason, I just can't get to sleep these days. My roommate usually comes home right around 4 am, which is AWESOME. I have nothing else to complain about, so bye!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Funny thing about....
before limping to the bathroom). I'm in a weird, kind of random mood I guess. I watched a bunch of Youtube videos yesterday when I was burned out from writing my cancer class paper. I saw this short one where a model falls on a runway. These guys on the evening news were talking about the clip and they couldn't stop laughing. But I couldn't either. This model carrying a watering can fell once, got back up, then fell again, but this time took like five seconds to fall, trying the whole time to balance in her ridiculous heels and wobbling on her tiny ankles until whooooaaaaa she fell. I was dying. Here it is if you're immature enough to want to see it.
Here's a list of things I think are funny, beginning with:
1. Falling. Oh goodness. Not all falling, like falling that looks really painful, but well-timed falls are awesome to me. Call me sophomoric (that would be a compliment actually, since I am indeed a freshman).
2. Jokes when you're not expecting them. My friend Mike reached halfway across the table at dinner the other night and very politely asked me, "Hey Joe could you toss my salad over here?" I was looking for a salad for ten seconds before I realized the joke. While that jackal Mike just giggled to himself in his chair "Yeah, just toss my salad over here for me." It was clever though.
3. Incongruous, random things. Like Kramer. Or the joke about the two sausages frying in the pan where one says to the other “boy, it’s really hot in here,” and the second one says, “holy crap! A talking sausage!”
4. Clever stuff. Like British clever.
5. Fake translations. Like they do on the daily show sometimes, where like a Chinese government official is talking about something and the voice over guy is saying something completely different. Or like in this klutz book I had when I was little it had helpful phrases in foreign languages and they were like “Where is the nearest American rapid food establishment?” (Waar is de meest nabij amerikaan snelle voedselonderneming?) Or “Excuse me madam, your weasel has just made sick in my shoe” (m'excuser la madame, votre belette a fait juste malade dans ma chaussure)
6. Dave Chappelle. I think he's great and I wish he would come out of hiding already. I guess there are a lot of people I think are funny, so he shouldn't get his own thing. Will Farrell is funny, so is my family. Austin P. (aforementioned), Will Sevege, Jason, Tina, gosh there are tons of people actually...
7. Funny laughs. Like baby laughs. Those make me giggle like crazy.
8. Funny insults. As long as their not too personal, and everyone knows it's a joke, and we don't make jokes about Jeremy's lazy eye for a half hour again, I think these can be funny.
Things that are not funny to me:
1. Clowns. Not funny, never will be. Even when I was a kid I think I was just like, “Yeah, okay, so you’re silly. Do you do anything else? It does get boring doesn’t it, being silly all the time?” 2. Knock-knock jokes. Unless they’re really really good (What?!?! You say, good knock knock jokes? Oh, there are GREAT ones. So great they haven't even been invented yet.), like the ones on Garrison Keillor. Delivery counts in these, too. I like ‘em rapid fire
boom-ba-boom-ba-boom.
3. Folding socks. I only say this because I have a bunch of socks fresh out of the drier, staring me in the face and waiting to be paired and folded. Not tonight, boys. I gots ta sleep.
5. People who think they're really funny. These people just make me not want to laugh.
6. Dead baby jokes. I dunno, most of them are just supposed to be gross, and I like stuff that's creative more than just stuff that conjures up nasty mental pictures.
7. "That's what SHE said!"
8. Pick up lines. It has got to be the awkwardest effing thing if anyone actually uses one of these. What do you say to a guy who just told you that a polar bear weighs enough to break the ice?
Monday, October 13, 2008
Photo Phun!
Lorain Street early in the morning. Foggy, pretty trees.

This is the observatory from the rooftop just outside of it. It still works, and it's cool and old-timey.

listen, blog,
Hey, blog, I didn't forget about you. I visited you every day, I meant to write in you, I just couldn't find the time, things have been crazy lately. I know. No- well yes- I have another blog, but that's a school blog. You're my blog, my own personal blog, my real blog. I know. yes. I swear. never again.
It has been a while. I really haven't been that busy either. Just sick and trying like mad to get better before I go home for Gen's wedding. It'll be fun to see Steve and Lil and Gilbert after so long and to meet the Dazets. And see my Tina! Dad's cool too. I guess I'm looking forward to the whole thing. I gotta practice singing that song so it sounds wicked good at Genny's wedding (people at Oberlin say 'wicked' a lot. And 'hella' which sounds kind of dumb to me). Should get with Liam, my pianist, this week (Liam is also my nickname for my penis, which is funny 'cause it rhymes!).
I was sobered reading my Cancer Biology textbook today. As you can imagine, it's not a particularly cheery kind of reading, but today's chapter (seven, in case you're following along at home) was especially dreary. In the early days of X-Ray research, apparently, Thomas Edison had a techician whom he used to take X-Ray pictures of hands. He used the same technician, since he had no idea the radiation could be harmful. The poor lab assistant got radiation burns on his hands after a while, and cancer in them not too long after. Despite having his arms amputated, he died of metastatic cancer not too long after. Armless for Pete's sake. Who the hell is Pete, who gets put on the same level as God? 'For God's sake' is the same as 'For Pete's sake,' but I would be much more willing to do something for God than some guy named Pete, for the love of God/Pete.
Madam Curie died in a similar fashion, of leukemia after years of working with radioactive chemicals, as did her scientist daughter. Ouch. Similar radioactive materials are also found in cigarettes. Radon is in fertilizers they use to grow tobacco, and both radon and polonium are found in cigarette smoke (and in high concentrations in smokers' lungs). Smoking a pack a day for a year will subject you to 3000 times more cancer causing radiation than living next door to a nuclear power plant for a year, about 500 times more than getting a chest x-ray. Now I know that, even if this was well publicized and explained in a few Truth commercials, it wouldn't do a thing as far as getting people to quit smoking, but the fact that the government knows about all of this and has for decades now is a bit vexing for me. As soon as asbestos was linked to lung and chest cavity cancer, the US and affluent countries around the world banned it and actively excised all traces of it from their homes and public buildings. Asbestos isn't mined anymore, and asbestos products aren't produced. It only exists in third world countries where they need schools and hospitals and can't afford to tear down the walls and build new ones. Tobacco companies add things (fertilizer to grow tobacco, chemicals for taste and addictivity) to tobacco, and many of these cause emphysema and lung cancer, but really the only thing the government has done is put a warning label and a higher price on cigarettes. I think that kind of sucks. You can't even do anything with cigarettes, like build a house. You just burn them and suck on them. I wish they would just tell the people who make cigarettes to make them a little less harmful, but it's such a moneymaker that they won't even do that. I suppose I could try to do something about it, but then I would have to go into politics, which gives me the willies.