And The Moral of the Story, Kids...

My good ol' pal Stephanie Lerner likes to make fun of me in the presence of very attractive women. I'm wearing my red Pearl Jam "Patriot" Vote For Change shirt, and she said, "I like it when your face matches your shirt." The lovely girl with long, dark hair on my left turned, looked, and turned back to her computer. A few minutes later, she left. I've never seen her before. I will likely not see her again. Really nice. Thanks, Steph.

Anyway...

Yesterday, the College Democrats (or three of us, anyway) went to US Senator Charles Schumer's Buffalo office. We were met by a Staff Assistant named Liz, who was quite candid about the inner workings of the office and her job. There are only two 'real' (paid) employees there, it seems. Liz, and the regional director. The rest of the staff is 2-5 interns. Schumer has eight offices across New York State, but this is actually by choice. Apparently senators are allotted a certain amount of square footage for office space in their state. He could have chosen to have fewer, larger offices. Instead, he opted for more, smaller offices. Anyway, it seems like they have quite an operation going there, and they're obviously doing a pretty good job, since Chuck seems to be getting a lot of press (and a lot of positive press locally, even in conservative areas like Fredonia and Jamestown).

I haven't updated in a while. I had a presentation in my Political Science class on Wednesday that went fairly well. It was actually only the second time that I've used PowerPoint for anything. My presentation (and my accompanying survey project/paper) focused on the impact of political talk radio on the attitudes, political leanings, and voting behavior of listeners. Initially, I thought that there would be a substantial impact from the years and years of senseless vitriol that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk were spewing out since the increase in talk radio popularity in the 1990s. However, it appears that for the most part, the fat bastard was preaching to the previously converted and thus had very little effect. The fact that my face didn't turn bright red and I didn't stammer uncontrollably probably has something to do with the lights being down for the PowerPoint presentation and that only about 12 people decided to show up for class that day. Whatever the reason, I was pretty satisfied with how it went.

Last Friday was a lot of fun. Randy and I came back to my apartment for a while and listened to Robert Plant's final performance with the Priory of Brion (12/21/2000), which was in Wolverhampton. It features renditions of 'Hey Joe' and also 'If 6 Was 9' leading into 'Thank You,' which was the only song written by Zeppelin ever to be played in its entirety by the Priory. Turck came down from Buffalo, and we went back to the college to get Laura. We came back to the apartment and watched some of John Paul Jones at the Showbox in Seattle from October 25, 1999 - a show that took place six days after Aaron and I had seen him in Cleveland at the Odeon. Turck's friend Brian showed up, and Matt eventually came as well before we headed to Applebee's (but not before Turck fell down the stairs into Matt). Turck must have had about four beers from 5pm to a little after 7, and he never quite recovered the rest of the night. Brian bought him a nice big Brewtus to open the festivities, and Matt went with a glass of coffee. Yeah, that's right. I had a couple Coronas, the second of which happened to spritz Turck in the face after the drop of the lime.

After a good meal, Randy and Laura took off and the rest of us went back to the apartment went back for reinforcements before heading to Steph's apartment for a Halloween party with a lot of what turned out to be Matt's sister Jen's friends. I was the same pirate from last year, Matt was me (he wore my Zeppelin hoodie and snowcap), and Turck donned his white pharmacist coat and grabbed a clipboard.

Thom showed up at Steph's party, although he was not quite in costume. Stephanie was dynamite at beer pong until I got on her team, which is when she started to suck badly. I was quite good for a change, but not good enough to carry the team to a win without help more than once or twice.

At the party, we encountered Thing 1 and Thing 2 from Dr. Seuss fame, as well as Peter Griffin from Family Guy, who turned out to be kind of a jerkoff. Quail Boy was also there, although I'm not really familiar with his origins. He was played by Jeff. Matt D and Kristen O were also there, dressed as Stephanie and 'Post-Modernism' if I remember correctly.

Eventually, we grew tired of losing at beer pong (although Jeff and Turck combined for a victory before we left) and ventured back to the apartment to shed some of the more awkward accoutrements of our costumes (I left the pirate hat, but kept the bandana, Turck left his lab coat, Matt stopped being me and left the Zep clothing) before going downtown.

We went to Ellicottville Brewing Company (EBC from now on) for a while, but it wasn't that busy and Jeff got some odd looks from some older people for his Quail Boy outfit. I'd like to think that I pull the bandana look off alright even when not in costume, but I'm probably wrong on that count.

We hit Heenan's, where I talked with Amy from Two Brothers' and Quality Markets fame, before she could escape to the bathroom, that is. I'm not sure why I keep trying to talk to her. She was friendly enough, I guess. I asked her about her "sort-of boyfriend" (see this), and she said he was "okay" but didn't seem enthusiastic. I remember explaining that I was wearing the bandana as part of a pirate costume, and attempting to be suave. I was somewhat drunk. Still sober enough to wonder if I should or should not ask her and if that would be a jerky thing to do, but drunk enough to say "screw it" in my head and proceed. While Amy was indisposed, this girl Nicole from one of my classes came over and appeared very happy to see me, but it became fairly obvious that she was hammered, since she not only hugged me but actually talked to me for more than a minute or so before she decided to go to the bathroom as well. I say "obvious" because she rarely will say two words to me in class, and then only if I'm in a conversation with Rob Thompson, who normally sits behind her. I think she's pretty, and I kind of like her somewhat..."no nonsense" if I can use that expression...attitude. Oh well. She has a boyfriend anyway - and I'm pretty sure hers isn't a 'sorta' relationship.

Eventually, we made it to Pizza, Wings, & Things (PWT, as the locals say), and waited a very long time. Apparently Abe was there almost the entire time, but he was in a mask and didn't initiate conversation. We got our pizza and made our way back to my apartment, where Turck promptly passed out on a large pillow that he brought and consequently paid the price. I got a phone call from Abe fairly quickly, and he told us where he had been. He and his friend, whose name now escapes me, came up and joined us in a showing of The Big Lebowski while we devoured our pizza. You'll be able to see the extensive furnishings in my apartment from the photos.

This is a link to the whole photo page. I preferred to show them in sequence as part of the story.

The next morning, Turck woke up with the permanent marker-drawn penis smeared unrecognizably on his forehead, and Thom kept talking to him about how it was a good thing he had cool friends that wouldn't fuck with him when he passed out. Turck nodded groggily along until he happened to go into the bathroom at my recommendation and exclaimed, "what the hell?!" which was pretty damn funny.

Thom and Turck and I watched HBO's Mr. Show DVDs on loan from Matt D while I ironed my work clothes. I ventured off eventually and was approximately 10 minutes late for work (surprise), but since when has that mattered?

I told my parents and grandparents that weekend that I was going to the Czech Republic in January, to a generally positive reaction.

I finally completed my Washington Semester application and turned it in on Tuesday. Dr. Rankin foresaw no problems with my acceptance and said that the coordinator of the program would be in next week. In anticipation of that, I may decide to shave my beard down to the goatee, since I think it looks slighty more professional (and is slightly easier to keep trimmed effectively).

After paying my rent and other bills, I have less than $250 in my account, which is just a bit worrisome with Friday night coming up and no pay day until next week. But I figure I'll make due. The bad part is that I think I'm going to need to do a few things before the end of the year. By 'a few things,' I mean buying comfortable shoes for walking around Prague, enough business attire to get me through working five days per week in DC, and I would really like to have a digital camera for my European venture. In addition, I think I'm going to finally have to bite the proverbial bullet and get a dreaded cell phone for my time in DC and beyond, kind of as a step toward entering the real world - almost. Not sure where all that money's going to come from.

I have a quiz tomorrow but nothing really stress-inducing until next week or so. That's my personal update. I may have some news-related comments tomorrow. I've been busy this week.