10,000 pageview special: life erichment from the far east

... WE JUST HIT 10000 PAGEVIEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 10k! 10 large! now i really AM your man 10 grand! and to celebrate, watch this little asian kid play the high falooting shit outta this xylophone!! TEN THOUSAND PAGEVIEW SWAG!!!!!!!!!!!

RQOD-ception: RQOD in an RQOD

today's RQOD is about RQOD's: is it better when i do an RQOD like this where i just ask a question and keep it moving, or like this where is go into some detail about whatever random thoughts are going through my head at the time? because i like the latter, but i'm not opposed to doing less work.

in other news, this cat is employee of the month here at the drewniverse

RQOD: internet dating

hmmm..... to be honest with you, i don't really care about this whole Manti hoax thing, so i won't be discussing my opinion on that. but i do like ESPN First Take [especially when they feature Ed "c'mon son" Lover as a special guest] and the Te'o hoax was one of the topics of discussion. as you all know, we here at the drewniverse believe in being timely so now that the horse is dead we won't beat it. we have more journalistic integrity than those ESPN talking heads, you see. but i did appreciate one of the points that was made during First Take's discussion of the issue. during the discussion Lover pointed out [well, to be fair Stephen A. Smith raised the point first] that it was a bit unusual for a young person to meet and fall for another person whom the have never met in person. the debate then went into whether Te'o was just swagless and naive [he is] or complicit and devious [he was probably willfully ignorant][so i discussed my opinion a little. sue me].

but i think they glossed over the most important question that their topic raised, and that question is threefold. first, there's the problem with the pressure we put on young people to succeed. now i don;t mean to suggest that i'm against a society that values achievement. i think merit based reward is a good thing when used right [i'm just not convinced we do it right]. but what we do here in america is put too much value on the reward. one of the theories for why Te'o was complicit, if he in fact was [like i said, he probably was just naive and a little willfully ignorant] is that he needed the story to garner support for his Heisman campaign. that this is even a consideration speaks volumes about the public psyche. nevermind that you've done your best, grown as a player and a person and are considered a lock for your dream career, none of that matter unless you get the achievement.

next there's the question suggested n the title. First Take, being that the talking heads are from a different generation, wholly dismissed [save for Skip Bayless] the possibility that Te'o could have legitimately connected with a person that he'd never had in person contact with. but is it possible to connect on a substantial level with a person we've never occupied space with? last night, while fake shooting people in the face playing Farcry 3 online, i witnessed two players who had never met before develop a friendship over the course of a single match to the point where they planned to "meet up" at a later date to play again. at no point did they plan to meet in person, but the connection was there.

finally, even if we concede that you can make a real connection with people whom you've never met, is it possible that the connection can blossom into love? certainly not, right? well, it seems that there are tons of examples of even online gamers falling in love with -- and even marrying -- each other based on there online interactions.

so here, after all of that, is the RQOD: can we be done with Manti's fake girlfriend now? please??

:-\

gimme some more (update swag)

*sigh*

be still 11-year-old Drew's beating heart

*LOUDER SIGH*

[you. this is what you say]: drew. what is it about ms lawerence up there that's got you so glum?

[me]: iunno... nuthin

[you again. you're persistent. go you]: but drew! but drew! you sad *sigh* twice!

[me]: well... remember about a year ago when i wrote a blog about danielle "topanga lawerence" fishel aka my school boy crush rapping on say what karaoke? you don't? well take a few minutes to read this...

familiar? ok, welcome back! those of you who followed the link now know that i promised the swagalicious ms. sam bam at lawless and flawless that ms. fishel did that IRL, and she was all, "what? no way!" and i was all, "yes, uh huh way!" and then and there set out to find video proof to support my lofty assertion. alas, dear drewninites, i have been thus far unsuccessful in my year-ish long search for said proof. if you recall that post (and since the link is literally right there)

see? there's a large arrow with words pointing to it

i asked that you, you guys, the drewninites out there in the drewniverse, help me by keeping an eye outin your various interwebs for that video. sadly even the combined efforts of all the drewninites combined have not yet been able to unearth this video. here's a little history: accoding to retro junk, say what? karaoke featured [possibly drunk/high] kids who sang hit songs and were judged and voted off. well on one special spring break celebrity edition topanga lawerence from boy meets world ripped the crowd apart with a rendition of Busta Rhymes "gimme some more", and if you're not impressed with that b/c you either don't reember that song, or had terrible taste in music in the late 90's (we don't blame you do we DARK? DARK?? um, DARK's not paying attention. something about evil doers.... that kid's weird) here's the psychedelic, pimptacular sexification of a video they made for it (Luscious told me to write that.... that kid's weird, too)

little miss fishel performed that. live at spring break. word. for. frickin. word. AND, AND she was on beat!!!! impressive right?

[you decided this was a good time to chime in. i disagree, but ok, whatevs]: but drew! but drew! if this really happened where's the video proof?! there's got to be a video somewhere, right? it's one of the rules of the internet!!
[me]: well, i thought you were going to say something asinine, bu look at you raising a valid point! go you! i was thinking the same thing  i mean you're absolutely right. rule 11 of the internet says i have to have at least photographic proof (i'd discuss rule 34, but that's another show). but i've looked through all of the things. i can't find it anywhere! did mtv eradicate every publicly shared copy? i mean, this is the only video i can even find on say what? karaoke that happened during spring break.  this guy over a replyz.com mirrors my frustration

i feel you, bruh

i know the video exists. i can feel it in my plums. now all i have to do is head to times square, raid the mtv vault, find and upload the danielle fishel video and bobbity boobity bam, video proof. at this point it'd almost be worth the NYPD beat down and subsequent prison time....

almost...

5 minute break

i was thinking the other day about law school and what evil i must have committed in some past life to have been put in it i was immediately reminded of a conversation i had with a mentor last summer: "if you love it, then you're in the right field, but if not it may not be worth the effort". i'm paraphrasing, of course. he did not say it wouldn't be worth the effort, but i can't help but wonder if i'm actually supposed to be in law school right now. like cosmically. is this my lot in life? who knows. all i know is that this isn't what i expected it to be, and i don't know if i want to be here. but then there's the side of me who doesn't know how to quit. doesn't even know the meaning of the word quit. so i guess i have to go with that side. it's too late to change my mind at this point, and i don't want to go through life wondering what could have been. so, yeah, get the degree. but what happens after that?

It was all a dream... Right?

Dear Drewniverse,
     I feel like I can share this with you because I just left my first privacy in the digital age class, and am confident that sharing this won't get me arrested like idiotic, drunk 12-year-olds in Oklahoma. I had a really weird dream like a week ago in which I cut my hand -- the right one above the pinky knuckle -- on a barbell. This shouldn't have bothered me, but as with all injuries, I was compelled to survey the damage. The wound's appearance was quite odd. It was a sort of circular, fairly deep wound, at least for the back of a hand. But inside wasn't the normal fleshy stuff you'd expect: there was this red layer on top of which was a sort of nylon polymer looking mesh with a node in the center. I touched the node and was able to move it around a bit. It was kinda like if an orange bag was made of suet and was holding a wet nerf ball also made of suet.

this. it felt like nylon made of this

 It was mesmerizing. I kept going back to it. I couldn't take my eyes off it. I kept waiting for it to bleed so I didn't have to face the sad truth that I was turning into a bag of beef by-product made citrus. But it wouldn't bleed. It was there for the rest of the dream just not bleeding and looking horrible. I remember at one point in the dream I began to shout at the wound, " DAMN IT, JUST BLEED ALREADY! BLEED AND GET IT OVER WITH!!" and then I woke up. Ever since I've found myself peeking at my right pinky knuckle from time to time, you know, just in case.

The Return of the Drewms

Had this dream last night that my dad and I were at our old house (all my "home" dreams use my childhood home as the setting). The crazy, in-your-dreams, part was that we are insurgents at war with some invading alien threat that had taken over a neighboring island (mind you to get to the closest island to my childhood home you gotta drive 4+ hours to the coast. so there's that) so we're at home putting together our guerrilla war kit -- just the essentials: missiles and rockets, launch codes, tactical computer, and cookout tent because, you know, it might rain -- when my big sis shows up to go to the cookout, oh yeah, there was a cookout at some undisclosed location that the rest of the fam was going to. This is an important plot point. so she shows up to go to the cookout, but she unintentionally blocks my car with hers! I'm all, "hey, tryna blow up some aliens, here". so she moves the car. But another car blocks me in! We wind up switching cars. My dad and I are driving, and I assume we've already completed our mini shock and awe mission because we're in my college town. Also it's no longer my dad, but my roommate and we're looking for food. so we stop at this taco bell, and before going in a notice that my folks' car is across the street at this other restaurant. "Eff taco bell" I think to myself as I head over to the restaurant. Once inside, my peeps behaved add if they hadn't Seen me in a while, suggesting either that my mission ran afoul and pops and I had to make ourselves scarce for awhile, or reality had stated to creep in and I'd just been in school (considering roomie was there, the latter is most likely). after not eating and going outside it became apparent that I was now for no reason in this vacation town that I made up in my head. Also it was much earlier than it had been when I went into the restaurant. Just before waking,  the dream jump cut to this childhood "memory" (it was only a memory for dream me) of this time when my neighborhood in the vacation city, because you always stay in a neighborhood when you vacation,  flooded with crystal clear water and the adults and big kids all rode jet skis everywhere. The memory was brought on by the fact that the rain from the beginning of the dream caused the ground to flood with crystal clear water, and ironically we all started riding on jet skis. the moral of this story is don't watch " Starship Troopers" before bed.

Humanity

A man vacationing in Rio De Janeiro was walking down a street one sleepy afternoon. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the man. His thinning hair and grey stubble suggest that he was maybe pushing 60, and if you were unconvinced by that, his St. John's bay polo and khaki shorts surely would do the trick. The man was likely retired or at the very least not far from it. I imagine this man is a professional. This trip is his reward, a gift from him to him for silk the hard years he gave his firm or the company, department or bureau. Maybe he was being forced out to make room for the young hot shot and this trip was his way of coping with t the reality that he wasn't wanted anymore

"How dare they! Who do they think they are? How could they kick me to the curb for some milk-breathed thunder cat? After all the pounds of flesh I gave for them?" I imagine going through the events of the inevitably, his eyes, one soaking with ambition, a shadow behind overpriced sunglasses. Another reminder of what he was losing. despite taking in All of the beauty Rio had to offer over the first four days and five nights of his five day six night vacation (I assume, being that his flight was international, he arrived at night) he still felt betrayed and angry at the turn of events at the job. Nobody likes rejection, and after the decades he devoted to his work, this rejection was the ultimate betrayal.

He had resigned to walk until the lump welling up inside him passed, even if it meant walking clear across Brazil. After about an hour the man found that he silk hadn't walked the pain away. He glanced up and realized that he didn't know where he was either. This was no longer the tourist friendly hotel district inside the city. No, the man had crossed an invisible barrier. He was somewhere between the gorgeous south american metropolis that failed him and the true city of Rio. He was on a rocky, unpaved road that connected the city to the shanty town that encircles it. As if his problems weren't enough already, he knew that being caught out in the slums could mean a bad night for him. Not knowing how he'd let himself wander off like that, the only logical step was to turn around and make his way back to the city.

So of he went, angrier than when he left. "just great. Some help this was. this whole trip has been a waste." Out of the corner of his eye he noticed a small figure. Were it not for an oddly placed bike he might have missed it, as the figure was the same beige color as the surroundings. It was the figure of a little girl. Her clothes, if you can call the tattered filthy rags she had on clothes, were covered in dirt and her face wasn't much better off. She looked as if the last kindness life offered her was a back hand slap and the next would be a swift exit.

Before the man knew what was happening, he found himself standing next to the girl. I don't know if it was fear or for lack of a Better course, but the girl didn't move. The man's Portuguese was good awful, more like a crude amalgam of Spanish and Italian stereotypes, and for all he knew the poor girl didn't speak English. " are you ok, miss?" He felt like he knew the answer even though she offered no response. One look at her told the story. He hadn't noticed before, but the girl's feet were bare. " what happened to your shoes",  the man pointed to her feet. The girl grabbed one arm, like she was holding herself, her weight shifted back and forth. On this unpaved road with no shoes, for some reason this kept going through his mind.

With as little thought as has brought him to this road, the man slipped the sandals from his feet. The girl's hand went to her mouth, a whimper rose from her throat. The whimper turned into tears as the man placed the sandals at her feet. "This road is full of rocks and all kinds of sharp things. You should put those on do you don't get hurt." The man walked away, back toward the beautiful south american metropolis. He wasn't angry anymore.

I imagine the girl stood there for a few minutes crying her eyes out. As the tears subsided, she glanced toward the city to catch a glimpse of the man who showed her the first true kindness she'd ever experienced. But the man was already gone. She looked at the sandals he placed by her. They were far to big, but a vast improvement over her current lack of a pair. She placed her feet in them. "Perfeito", the whimper arose in her throat again.

Nexus is a dancer

This is gonna be a really short one. New tablet swag! GOOGLE NEXUS TAB IS THE SQUAD!!! GOOGLE NEXUS TAB SHITS ON YOUR TAB!!! you know who else shits on your tab? MY MOM!!!! *hi-fives Hi-Five Ghost* On the real, though, this new tablet o mine makes me feel all of the things, and guess what it means?  it means that I will be blogging more often. Face especially if it means that I can blog by talking. Which I can do now. Because google Nexus tab is the squad!!! Chyea!!!

stuck on the highway

so, I'm riding down 85 and I notice that the whole highway is on fire! so I totally stop riding down the highway and start sitting on tye highway, because, you know, fire's bad for tires and shit. nothing especially interesting happened, but there were a lot of people getting  out of the car on some disaster movie type shit. and the choppers were circling like vultures around an old carcass. I got pics, but the choppers look more like UFOs than actual aircraft. anyway, it's finally moving some, so you know, gotta focus on the road. can't be crashing up fir y'all bitches ... bitches ....