A Special Thanksgiving Post to Make Your Holiday Even Better!

Facebook is the ultimate procrastination tool. Just about everyone has it except for a rare few who miraculously had no interest in joining the world’s largest community. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been trying to figure out why I am on the website at all myself. Every single picture is a candid photo of two people, one of them holding the camera as far away as possible to capture both faces. Status updates range from obscure quotes to how depressing the person’s life is, all of which I could care less about. The only exciting day of the year is your birthday when about a third of the people you are either friends with or ones you hardly know write on your wall to wish you a good one. Quite possibly, this is not everyone’s perception of the site, but it’s definitely how I’ve seen it as of late. Is it time for me to finally drop Facebook?

Of course there are many practical applications of Facebook, like finding a friend’s phone number or screen name who you need to get in touch with, or figuring out the relationship status of that secret crush of yours. You can use it to write on a long lost friend’s wall to let them know you’re still alive, or be on-and-off again friends with that ex-girlfriend who recently dumped you. Admittedly, I have used Facebook for all of the above at one point in my life. But of course, my favorite practical reason to use Facebook is to send and receive bumper stickers relating to inside jokes between my friends and I.

Since the summer after freshman year of college, I’ve wasted an estimated half of my life on Facebook. I was able to hold off joining the social networking site for an entire year, but for some reason I gave in to the temptation and made an account. Slowly but surely I have come to regret that decision I made over two years ago. By dropping Facebook altogether, I can’t even imagine how much extra time I will have in my life. I can’t find any justification for ever logging on, but for some reason I keep coming back. There must be cocaine lining the website that makes it so addicting.

I’ve decided to challenge myself. Being finals time and everything, this is coincidentally the perfect time to do it. I am not going to log on to Facebook for at least a month. Now, this is only a start that will hopefully lead to me being able to delete my account forever. For some reason right now, I can’t seem to bring myself to such drastic measures. I’ll have to start out slow. Maybe they have some sort of gum or a patch like they do for cigarettes. Hopefully going cold turkey will not cause irrational mood swings or intense headaches. I apologize in advance if I lash out at you for something trivial; just know what I am going through right now. Maybe I can load up on office mints to calm my nerves, which seemingly solves all problems, right Diane?

So please, feel free to write on my wall, tag pictures of me, send me bumper stickers, comment on photos of me, poke me (but not too hard ;-) ), invite me to events, request me to join groups, or anything else you could imagine doing to me Facebook related, but realize I won’t be there to see it until at least January, if ever.

I hope everyone had an excellent Thanksgiving filled with food and good times! I had enough stuffing to feed a small child for three lifetimes, that’s for sure!

Gobble Gobble!

R.I.P. Favorite Jeans 09.04.06 - 11.24.08

Today marks the end of an era for a certain pair of jeans I wear.  These jeans have been nothing but a blessing since I bought them one marvelous day way back when. I remember it like it was yesterday...

I was home during Labor Day weekend my sophomore year of college. My birthday just happened to be the very next weekend (September 9 is my birthday for those of you unaware) so my parents gave me a little extra spending money. I decided to do a little shopping at the local mall to buy some new clothes and the like. Little did I know I would be making the single greatest purchase of my young life.  During my shopping spree I stopped in J.C. Penny, although not as cool as many of the other stores in the mall, still has a decent selection.  They were having an amazing sale on Levi jeans: Buy 1 pair and get the second for $1!  I did not have too many denim slacks at the time, so I decided to try on a few in the nearby fitting room.  I knew it was meant to be the minute I zipped up that fly.  I had to have them no matter what they cost.  Lucky for me they were pretty inexpensive at the time due to the incredible sale. I must go back to that J.C. Penny someday to thank them for selling me the jeans of the century.

My jeans and I had a good run for a long time. I noticed a few signs of aging a couple weeks ago but it did not bother me all that much since I assumed my jeans would last forever.  A few holes started to form, one in the crotch area and another in the back pocket. I was not even phased by the amount of damage my jeans began to take. I would wear them regardless. Or so I thought...

After taking my jeans out of the dryer not too long before my last blog post, I found a small hole in the left knee.  This made my laundry experience even more miserable than usual.  The tear was not too noticeable, making me less pertubed than I could have been. One of the biggest mistakes I have ever made was not realizing the hole was more trouble than I originally thought.

I woke up Sunday morning to go to Tank's breakfast before the Browns game when the unthinkable happened. As many of you know, I had a pretty wild Saturday, which did not help the situation whatsoever. I started to slip my left leg into my pants when MY BIG TOE WENT THROUGH THE HOLE IN THE KNEE! My Levis tore even more, making it an awful Sunday. I continued to wear them hoping for a few more days of glorious comfort. 

It wasn't until 10 o'clock tonight I realized my jeans had finally kicked the bucket, bit the dust, reached the finish line, flew the coop, bought the farm, and so on (I like euphemisms). I was chasing Jenny around like usual and dove to grab her. My knee slid across the ground, opening the hole from the inner seam to the outer seam, putting an end to the life of my favorite trousers.

Levi's 527 Low-Rise Boot Cut Jeans, you will be missed. We've had so many great memories together and hopefully someday I will be able to move on past this horrible travesty.  I will never own a pair of jeans that were as comfortable or that made me look as fabulous as you did. Thanks for all the good times. RIP.

Laundry Day!!

I feel like I spend a lot of time complaining here.  I guess I use my blog as a sort of venting tool for me.  This post will be along the same lines. I apologize, I'm a pessimistic person. Deal with it.

I don't know how many of you live in a campus house, but probably the worst experience about living in one is having to do laundry.  I try to hold out as long as possible, but I'm always delaying the inevitable. I want clean clothes. More importantly, I need clean clothes.  Here is my entire laundry experience from start to finish. Be warned, it is not for the faint of heart.

After collecting all my clothes off of the ground and putting them in my laundry basket, I walk with my laundry alllll the way to Mcginnis from College Park.  For those of you who don't know where either of these places are, let's just say it's about a 30 minute walk when you're carrying a 1,000 lb. laundry basket.  When I arrive at Mcginnis, I look around the room and notice all the miserable faces of people who are also washing their clothes.  Every once in a while I will see a person huddled in the corner balling his or her eyes out screaming, "Why God, why must you make me do laundry every other week!? I hate my life!" True story.

Now begins the fun part. Finding an open washer to put my clothes in.  Fortunately for me, I've never had to wait on a washer.  There will usually be one top-loading washer open and then one of the two random front-loading washers that take twice as long to wash your clothes.  After starting the washers, I bolt out of there before I lose the little bit of sanity I have left and head to heaven on Earth, Artstreet Cafe.

For those of you who have never been to Artstreet before, the only advice I can give you is GO.  It is the coolest place with the most amazing workers and THE BEST food.  Just walking into the place puts the biggest smile on my face. I almost forget that I'm doing laundry because I'm having such a great time.  Not to mention they have two of the best sandwiches ever made. The El Greco and the Van Gogh.  Never tried either of them? What are you waiting for? Stop reading my blog and get to Artstreet Cafe right now!

For those of you who are not taking my advice and are still reading, let me finish telling you my laundry experience. After leaving Artstreet and remembering why I am on that side of campus, I sulkily make my way back to the laundry room.  I transfer my clothes from the washer to the dryer, start it up, then try to find something to do for 42 minutes until it is done.  Once finished, I take my semi-dry clothes out and fold them. I don't think the university's dryers were built to completely dry your clothes. I've come to terms with that a long time ago. Finally, I make the 30 minute trek back home with the 2,000 lb. laundry basket (It is now twice as heavy since it is weighed down by an extra 1,000 lbs. of water).

Every time I get home I tell myself I am never doing that again.  Two weeks later, I do. What a miserable day laundry day is.

On a completely unrelated note, Jordan went to Tim's last night! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

A Difficult Decision

Have you ever had trouble deciding between different brands of a product to purchase? I was in a difficult situation the other day in Marianist Hall, trying to figure out which type of gum to buy. Why was I in Marianist? Long story. So why don't I share it with you?

Actually I lied, it's not that long (that's what she said). I was working on a group project for Business and Proposal Writing...blah, and had to drop a book off at a friend's house afterward. I chatted it up with my friend for a while, then decided to mosey on over to my sophomore year residence to purchase a pack of gum. While there, I happened to know the front desk attendant working at the time. I told him my dilemma, and he suggested that I try Trident Original Flavor®. Have you ever had a friend recommend something to you only to find out that it was possibly the worst decision you could ever make?

First of all, never buy a pack of gum from Dining Services. Not only is Dining Services lame, but my gum cost $1.49 for 18 sticks the size of my pinky toe! If that didn't just grind my gears already, Trident Original Flavor® tastes like a mix of bleach, spaghettios, and Blue Moo Cookie Dough Ice Cream from UDF. Ok, it's not that bad, but from the variety of options I had in front of me, I was definitely recommended the worst.

Not only do I now have a lame pack of chewing gum, I have also lost all respect for my friend. So, my friends, I have three pieces of advice for you:

1. Never buy a pack of gum from the Emporium or any other dining services locations. But do continue to purchase from Stuart's Landing and all other Flyer Enterprises/Dining Services joint ventures because they are superb places with an impeccable selection.
2. When you buy some gum, never get Trident Original Flavor®.
3. Do not, under any circumstances, take the advice of someone from the Marianist Hall front desk.

Sidenote to the Marianist front desk worker: If you actually read my blog, I'm sorry and know that I love you.

Brr, It's Cold in Here.

It's about that time of year again. The temperature drops below freezing and all I want to do is sit inside and try not to turn into a popsicle. Nothing helps keep you warm like chasing a small rat-dog around the house, let me tell you. It's one of the few benefits of having a the thing around. But I digress.

It is also around this time that I contemplate bailing and move to a place much, much warmer than Dayton, Ohio. There are 4 benefits that I can see in this plan already. 1.) I would not have to worry about bringing a winter jacket because where I'll be going they don't celebrate winter(not that anyone would want to celebrate a season in the first place). 2.) I can wear flip-flops year round which means I will not have to worry about washing socks. 3.) The fear of someone throwing a snowball in my face is completely eliminated by the fact that THERE WILL BE NO SNOW! 4.) Most importantly, I will be leaving Jenny behind. Enough said.

I pulled up places in the US with the highest average temperatures for the month of January, the heart of winter. According to my research, the following are the best places to live if you are looking for warm weather:

City	Avg Temp for Jan (Fahrenheit)
Honolulu, Hi	73
Miami, Fl	68.1
Vero Beach, Fl	63
Tampa, Fl	61.3
San Diego, Ca	57.8
Los Angeles, Ca	57.1
Long Beach, Ca	57
Jacksonville, Fl	53.1
New Orleans, La	52.6
Houston, Tx	51.8
Dayton, Oh	26

As you can see, Dayton is a little colder by comparison. If any of these places sound interesting to you and you also want to avoid the upcoming cold weather, let me know and we can start planning a trip to one of these destinations for the next few months.

Boom!

Last night, a certain Ryan Noonan told me I should blog when I am drunk. He said that his friend back home did it all the time and would write about how much he hates Noonan. At the time, I was feeling the same way his friend was, but I decided to go about it a little differently. I am not writing this late at night, hardly able to sit up from being completely "shmammered." I thought it would be better to wait until morning to write about my hatred for Noonan.

Unfortunately, I realized something. Being the awful person that he is, he would just think it is funny. I am not here to entertain people I hate, which is exactly what I would have done if I wrote this after a night of drinking.

And that my friends is why you don't drink and blog.

Are Groupwork and a Flock of Geese the Same Thing?

As many of you probably know, my Business Proposal and Report Writing classes are the biggest waste of time a student can spend at the University of Dayton. Now, I'll admit that the projects the professor assigns are somewhat meaningful and I am able to learn a little about writing proposals and reports. Unfortunately, class time is not spent on learning how to write the various reports. It is spent going over many grammar and sentence structure lessons that most individuals learn in the 5th grade. Past lessons included the proper use of apostrophes; those "pesky" pronouns such as everyone, no one, or anybody; and those deadly run-on sentences. We have had some wild classes in English 370, but nothing prepared me for what was in store during class this past Monday.

Our next project involves working in groups, an important part of today's business world. As expected, the class pertained to effective group work. How did she accomplish this you ask? By comparing every aspect of a flock of geese to the business world!
I never knew how much you can learn from the most annoying bird in existence. Did you know that geese fly in a "V" to reduce the amount of work that the entire group has to do as a whole? Did you care? Or, did you also know that when flying in "V" formation, the geese in the back are the ones who are doing all the honking? No one knows for sure why the geese in the back honk, but my professor decided to relate it to group work anyway because it sounded cool.

These life lessons are what we went over THE ENTIRE CLASS! Anyways, I wanted to use this post to share with you a small part of my daily life, so hopefully you learned a little something about Daniel J Laycock.

Useless Information.

I was sitting on the can today (TMI...sorry), reading the back of the bottle of hand soap in our bathroom. Following along, I found some useful tidbits of information. Did you know that Equate Antibacterial Clear Liquid Soap contains 0.115% Triclosan? Or that putting soap in your eyes is harmful? Me neither! I made it all the way to the bottom of the label until I finally reached the directions:

Directions - Wet hands - Apply palmful to hands - Scrub thoroughly - Rinse

Now I don't know about you, but for the past 22 years of my life I have always known how to properly wash my hands. I began to wonder if anyone actually had to look at the directions to figure it out. I concluded that everyone actually knew, but certain questions were still racing through my mind. What if someone was illiterate and couldn't read the directions, will they have to go their entire lives without washing their hands? Is it dangerous to apply more than a palmful of soap? What happens if you apply the soap to dry hands? I needed answers.

Since I am currently a college student surrounded by knowledgeable people, it is almost impossible for me to find someone illiterate. However, instincts tell me that most illiterate people have washed their hands at least one time in their life. My instincts are usually right, so let's say case closed. Moving on.

Being the daredevil I am, I decided to kill two birds with one stone by applying excess amounts of soap to my bone dry paws. The outcome is not as thrilling as you might think. Turns out using too much soap only makes your hands cleaner. What a waste of time and soap.

I would be a horrible blogger if I left my reader feeling disappointed due to the anticlimactic conclusion to my story, so I decided to do an Internet search to find more useless information for your entertainment.

Enjoy!

Useless Fact #1: Michael Jordan shaves his head on Tuesdays and Fridays.
Useless Fact #2: The international telephone dialing code for Antarctica is 672.
Useless Fact #3: There are 293 ways to make change for a dollar.
Useless Fact #4: The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
Useless Fact #5: No president of the United States was an only child.

An Introduction to the Spiciest Blog Sauce You Will Ever Try!

Over the past few days, I have been debating whether or not to start a blog. I never thought of myself as much of a writer, but I've found myself becoming more and more confident in my writing as the current semester progresses. Lucky for you guys, I broke down and decided to share my thoughts through the art of blogging.

Although you may be excited of what the future may bring for this blog, we'll see how far I actually take it. You might want to consider this a trial run of sorts. Future blogs will be dependent on how much time I have on my hands, whether or not I am bored, and most importantly, how creative I am feeling at the time.

And off we go!

So there's this girl in my life right now. She's cute, has tons of character, and doesn't have a care in the world. She can be easy to get along with, but at the same time she has challenged me in ways I could not have imagined without her. People who meet her fall in love with her instantly and she has helped me make plenty of new friends. She loves to cuddle and has the cutest little snore you will ever hear. She will always let me know when something is bothering her, and she is the easiest person to please. You would think that I am the happiest man alive, but I am not.

Although she can be great at times, she is very clingy. I can hardly leave my house without her having something to say about it. When I don't do something she wants to do, she will not let me hear the end of it. Although she has many amazing qualities, her flaws are just so hard to look past. Our relationship has been on the fritz since that one fateful day in late September.

Oh, what a day it was. I remember it like it was yesterday. She thought it would be cute to hide a little gift for me to find later in the day. Needless to say, I found it, but it was too late. A quick look at the bottom of my foot told it all. Like many times before, she had pooped on the floor, only this time I did not realize it until I felt the warm, fresh, squishy feeling between my toes. Since then our relationship just has not been the same.

I dedicate this first post to Jenny, the house dog. Although you may be cute and currently sleeping in my lap, you better realize I will probably never like you.