My Alma Mater, lead by their shit-for-brains athletic director Tim Curley has banned tailgating at Penn State. Well, they have banned tailgating during the game. I guess you have to go into the game.
A new policy Penn State announced yesterday could end such an atmosphere.
Tailgating parties will no longer be allowed in the parking lots outside Beaver Stadium from kick-off to the end whistle. The university said it is an effort to increase safety and curb underage drinking.
"We are worried about the health and safety of our fans," Steve Shelow, director of police services at the university, said in a news release. "We continue to see many fans under the age of 21 leaving the game early, or not even getting into the stadium for kick-off, because they must be taken to the emergency room for alcohol overdoses."
Athletic Director Tim Curley said the fans "have no interest in supporting the team inside the stadium and are simply utilizing the parking lot areas for group parties."
Well, Tim Curley watches the games from his leather bound pressbox. Get's driven to a special gate to enter the stadium. He knows nothing about what us fans deal with. $15 to park in a mud pit, $55 for a ticket. And then you are not even allowed to leave the stadium to go out to get a jacket or a quick bite to eat. NO RE-ENTRY!!
It is calling for hard rain Friday and Saturday. In all liklihood it will be a nasty day to sit on aluminum bleachers in State College, but I guess you can't leave. Because if you decide to go to your car, sit under your tent, and have a hamburger, you'll be arrested.
Nice one Timmy.
I remember several years ago, I received a letter from my high school, asking me to join their alumni association. I promptly threw it away. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy my time there, but it is that the school district, flush with money from their high property taxes they charge, tore down the entire middle and high school complex, and built an entirely new school. The school I went to is gone forever. An imposter is in its place.
But the school I remember most was my Junior High School.
The school where I first took a shower in gym class, had my first yearbook, my first school locker, a place where I learned the trumpet (which led me to playing the tuba and marching in the Penn State Blue Band), and had my first date at a middle school halloween party also appears to be gone.
The school was beautiful as I remember it. It was a 1940s brick and stone bohemith. The school had long corridors, and I remember during my brief stint as a Junior High wrestler, we would run laps down the long corridors.
With all the schools I ever went to, with the exception of my high school, I remember this one the most. I don't know why.
Things change, and it appears that school has gone away too. Teachers now wear name badges, and armed guards stand guard at the now locked school doors. Blackboards have been replaced by white boards, and middle schools have replaced Junior High. I guess I have to accept it, live in the now, and forget about the way things were.
So, school is back in session, and I'm not quite ready to admit that Summer is over.
I've been doing a few things, cleaning the office, going over other stuff.
First off, I updated my Wish List, feel free to shower me with gifts. I'd appreciate it.
I also updated my Flikr photos. Go look at them NOW!!
I also ordered a copy of my OFFICIAL transcript from Penn State. I hope to someday go back to school and get a graduate degree. Having that transcript now will save time down the road a ways.
I don't remember what my GPA was, I know it was like 2.8 or so, but it was 3.5 in major. I'm a little worried that graduate schools require at least a 3.0 to apply, otherwise I'll have to take a GRE. I hate tests. But if I am going to go back to school, I should get used to the whole test thing.
Sarah over at Trying to Grok has an interesting post about bloggy things to do. In it she outlines the following:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your Blog (Please include the book and author) along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag five people.
Ok, the nearest book was David McCullough's 1776.
Larger than Boston but smaller than Philadelphia, New York had a peacetime population of perhaps 20,000 people crowded into an area of less than a square mile, less than a tenth of the Island of Manhattan--or York Island, as it was then known--which from the Battery to its northern boundary at the Harlem River reached nearly eleven miles. That far larger stretch north of the city, known as the Outward, was a mix of woods, streams, marshes, and great rocky patches interspersed with a few smalll farms and large country estates, all the way to King's Bridge, where a narrow wooden bridge over the Harlem connected to Island to the mainland.
Well, that was only 2 sentences, but a whole paragraph!! That David McCullough needs to shorten his prose a bit.
Now you go do it, and link back to me!!
First the government came up with the faulty body mass index, then researchers said that a few extra pounds are GOOD for you. Now they are saying they are bad.
It is any wonder that we don't put much faith in anything that comes out of the government's mouth? Especially when you see the faulty science in the latest news.
My tomatoes are not getting ripe this year. Last year by this time we picked about 200 pounds of tomatoes. 200 pounds!! This year so far, we've only picked about 2. It's been pretty hot. There were two weeks in July where the days were about 100 degrees and humid, and the nights were 80 degrees and sultry. They should be ripe. What gives?
Now, I'm not a big fan of MySpace. I think it's annoying, buggy, and basically a good way for teenage girls to get hit on by middle aged men.
But I do have a MySpace account. I mainly have it because all my younger brothers and sisters, cousins, and extended family have it, and it a good way to stay in touch. Well, not a good way, but it is a way.
One thing that is cool about MySpace is that there are many famous people who have their own MySpace account. It's pretty good for social networking. And you can add them as "Friends". That's pretty cool.
I'm a big fan of Billy Joel. His daughter, Alexa Ray Joel, is staring her singing career, and is using her MySpace page as a way of social networking.
I decided to add her as a friend, and she obliged. I'm sure not because she likes my views on politics or my cooking, but mainly because she simply wants more exposure for her album.
But in my small little 5 o'Clock world, when you visit my MySpace page, I have a famous friend.
And I guess that makes me feel special.
I am reading the book Marley and Me by John Grogan. It is a fantastic read, and only a day and a half into it, I'm over half done. It's a great book, and any dog reader must read it. It is weird though. This book could easily be called Oreo and Me, because the trials and tribulations we go through with our dog Oreo are similar to what the writer went through with his dog Marley.
Read the book though.
I love Summer. I love the warmth, I love the birds chirping, the sounds of crickets. I love eating fresh picked sweet corn, and hanging out outside by a nice campfire at night.
It's only August 16, but signs of Summer's end are here. Back to school sales, cool nights, shorter days. It is depressing.
I usually start to get bummed around this time, and it lasts till about October. Once October rolls around and the weather is fully broken, I start to manage, and enjoy fall and winter. But there is still that twang of longing for Summer, and that doesn't abate until the trees are again in full foliage and we are swimming away our June days.
A little girl's passport photo was rejected because she was wearing a tank top, and it showed a little bit of skin. She is 5, and apparently it might offend Muslims.
Read the story here. Tip to Fark.
All I can say is wow. We are at a global war against terrorism, and we are worried a passport photo of a 5 year old girl will offend them? No wonder we may never win this war.
I fould this nifty little clock that displays the current cost of the "War on Drugs".
You can view it here
As of this writing the war is costing us a combined state and federal amount of $31,015,599,601, and climbing faster than a scared cat up a tree.
And how are we doing? France has done better at it's wars than we are doing in the war on drugs.
If, as the Partnership for a Drug Free America implies, drugs use is a disease, then shouldn't we use this money to fight that disease and not on police actions?
In something that defies logic, but can only come from our government, the Partnership for a Drug Free America (PDFA) is running spots comparing drug addiction to diseases such as AIDS and cancer. With ad's that say "I'd rather have a brain tumor" they try to get their point across. I know my dead aunt was thanking her lucky stars she wasn't smoking pot while she was painfully dying of a brain tumor.
Over at Reason, they discuss why this is fucking stupid.
Though I agree that drug addiction should be viewed as a public health issue, and not as the current police state issue that it currently is, I see hypocrisy in the fact that on one hand they claim that drug dependency is a disease, while still encouraging SWAT enforcement of recreactional pot smokers.
Would they beat down the door of a woman with a brain tumor at 3 am, simply to harrass her?
You can't have it both ways PDFA. (Hey, that's a catchy slogan) But I guess when it comes down to it, we have to expect this kind of illogical propaganda when it comes to the immoral "war on drugs".
Fuck Notre Dame, and their lameass shitty fight song
Fuck that little Irish fighting queer mascot of theirs. And fuck Touchdown Jesus.
The Democratic Party as it once was is dead. They party of FDR, John F. Kennedy, and Harry Truman. The party that once truly did stand for what we now consider conservative principles is gone.
This was not so much a campaign against incumbants, but a campaign against people who disagree with the far left fringe.
The people I mentioned earlier, primarily FDR and Kennedy. People who modern Democrats claim as great historical Democrats, would probably have the same thing done to them today. Both were hawkish pro defence Democrats who pragmatically looked at other issues. Kennedy himself also subscribed to the proven fact that lowering taxes grows the economy.
Let's sit back and watch the Democratic Party destroy itself.
In case you haven't noticed it, America is starting to get off its high horse when it comes to sexuality. You see Viagara commercials, and then those are those sexy KY Jelly commercials.
Now sex toys are coming to places like Wal~Mart. Trojan Condoms has come out with a product called the vibrating ring.
As usual, some people are not happy about it.
"All of this falls in the category of the coarsening of the culture that does concern us tremendously," said Charmaine Yoest, a spokeswoman for the Family Research Council, a conservative group whose causes include the push to adopt more stringent indecency standards for television. "A lot of this stuff is just plain vulgar. As a mother myself, I find it very troubling."Yoest, who has five children, worries that because there are no age regulations on sales of condoms and lubricants, kids and teens could easily get their hands on them.
"Your children are exposed to things younger and younger that they wouldn't have been in another day in age," she said. "As a parent, it's getting harder and harder to control it."
In fact, while K-Y's products aren't under any legal restrictions, Trojan's are.
The vibrating ring, for instance, is prohibited from being sold in Texas, Alabama, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Virginia, all of which have laws that limit or forbid the sale of products designed to stimulate genitalia.
Jeez, these people are losers.
So Mel Gibson was arrested, who gives a shit. He fucked up, and said he was sorry. I forgive him. I know I've done stupid shit when I was drunk. What amazes me is how much the liberals in the country celebrate when a conservative screws up. They just can't let it go!