Boingy Boingy!

First things first: I just had an intense desire to listen to "Beautiful Soul" by Jesse McCartney, so of course I had to dial it up on YouTube, and thus I did. The experience satisfied my needs, and now I'm on to bigger and better things, like acquiring his new song, "How Do You Sleep," which I heard on the radio earlier tonight. Pretty good song, and interestingly, it features Ludacris, of whom I was not formerly a huge fan (and I'm still not, mind you), but his involvement in the Blizzard Man skits on Saturday Night Live as well as his turn in Max Payne ("THEM WHITE BOYS BETTER NOT BE STARTIN THE SHOOTIN WITHOUT ME!") have boosted my respect for the fellow. Not to mention, the way he yells "LUDA!" at the end of his little rap segment in the Jesse McCartney song made me chuckle, as did both the SNL skits and his role in Max Payne.

I am currently immersed in all the trappings of a wild spring break, or at least as wild of a spring break as one can have in Colonie, New York. Frankly, I'm not one for epic trips on spring break; every year I've just come home and hung out at my house with my family, doing all the associated things, which mainly involves bumming around the house and relaxing a lot. Generally this is just what I need at this point in the semester, so it works out perfectly. I think if I were to go on one of your typical spring break ventures, say to Florida or some other nonsensical place, that I would be so tired at the end of the journey that I may as well have not had a break at all, and that is no condition in which to enter the home stretch of the school year. The craziest spring break I ever had was last year when one friend from school was staying with another friend from school who lives about 20 minutes from me (I knew neither of these people independent from Liberty), and we all drove home and back in the same car. And do you know what we did on this particularly wild and crazy spring break? We went to Stewart's on St. Patrick's Day and got free ice cream because we were wearing green shirts (an upstate New York tradition), we visited my old high school, and we went to Colonie Center (which, for you out-of-towners, is Colonie's premiere mall). I also spent several days at Chris's dorm, the illustrious BARH, playing Typing of the Dead on Will Lassen's Dreamcast and participating in various other forms of tomfoolery occurring at that establishment, and I wrote a beast of a research paper for Coms 488.

It appears to me that every year around this time, a major motion picture event befalls humanity. Sure, summer is the real season for the blockbusters, but, at least for the last four years, there has been a particularly noteworthy film garnering a respectable amount of hype released roughly around the time I go on spring break; good thing too, because every year the movie has been rated R, and those of us shackled by the Liberty Way are more or less unable to see these kinds of films while at school. Interestingly enough, each year the movie in question has been an adaptation of a comic book: Freshman year it was Constantine; Sophomore year it was V For Vendetta; Junior year it was 300; Senior year it was... okay I can't remember which, if any, movie was the big deal last year, if you do remember don't hesitate to inform me; this year it was Watchmen. I saw all of those movies aside from Constantine, and they were all enjoyable. For me personally, Watchmen was more than just a moviegoing experience, since I had read the book prior to seeing the movie, and it was quite an intellectually stimulating read, but I plan to address that in a later post, so I won't get into it now.

You know what annoys me? The "high school" mentality. There are, of course, many facets to this particular mindset, but there is one that I would like to address right here and now. Background: Yesterday I went with my brother Chris and good friend Josh Woodard to watch my high school, CBA, play in the Section II Championship against Albany Academy at the Section II Championship. We won, 62-49. Go Brothers. Anyway, while we were there, we ran into a chap who I used to consider something of a twit back in the day; he was in 7th grade when I was a Senior in high school, making him a Senior now. Apparently, he's still a twit today, and I attribute this largely to the aforementioned high school mentality. Chris and I were discussing the fineries of Pokemon training at one point during the game, and the fellow in question was sitting right in front of us. He incredulously asked us, "You guys still like Pokemon? How old are you?" To which Chris replied that we are in fact both college age individuals and are thus free of the fallacious notions of what is "cool" in high school. Out of everyone I've talked to at Liberty University, not a single soul has looked down upon me for still playing Pokemon; as a matter of fact, virtually everyone agrees that it is quite a fun game, they admit that they used to play it, and some even join in the fun themselves (namely my hallmates). IN FACT, I was playing Pokemon on the big screen in between class periods last week (for those of you who are unaware, I teach Coms 101, and I took the opportunity to play Pokemon on a projector screen by hooking my laptop up to it on the Friday before spring break), and one of my students walked in, noted me playing, and said not a derogatory word. Bear in mind these students are freshmen, not even a year removed from high school, and even they are distanced enough from their former social conventions, or at least the kind that dictate you can't play games like Pokemon once you reach a certain age. To sum this up kids: once you reach college, all the old things that were "uncool" in high school suddenly become fair game once more, and I exploit this to the fullest, because I am a little kid at heart.

I'm not exactly sure where I'm going with this post; being on break has caused me to largely shut down most of the more involved processes of my brain, and I feel like I'm kind of just rambling on here, but I do have one more thing to say before I depart. Earlier this evening, we were at Wal-Mart, and I found Clerks 2, one of my favorite movies of all time, in the $5 DVD bin. I snatched that puppy right up, and the sheer glee I experienced after discovering such a bargain got me thinking: in the face of a future that seems to be more and more uncertain, bleak, and generally meaningless, every time you get a chance to experience one of those small moments of joy, you appreciate it that much more. A Hot Wheels Mach 6 on clearance for 75 cents serves to supplement these nuggets of joy nicely. And I found one of those. Freakin A.

Adios Amigos.