Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Dear MacGuyver, Enclosed is a rubber band, a paper clip, and a drinking straw. Please save my dog.

As I stood on the cramped metro on my way to school today, trying to avoid the stare of a homeless man (pure conjecture based on his unique scent and large collection of plastic bags) standing directly in front of me , I noticed a Public Service Announcement that called for citizen preparedness "in case of a natural disaster or terrorist attack."

Specifically the poster advised stocking up on lots of water, flashlights, batteries, and canned goods in case, say, a hurricane, or, i dont know, an outbreak of smallpox should hit sometime soon. I have only two problems with this undoubtedly well-intentioned announcement:

1) Obviously, its a clever way to get the public to accept terrorist attacks as natural and inevitable.

2) I've spent the last two hours staring at the water and flashlights in my makeshift "natural disaster or terrorist attack supply closet" and i'm still a little cloudy about how they'll keep me from blowing up.

On a side note, i've heard that the scene of a natural disaster is a great place to meet people. Unfortunately, i have not witnessed this firsthand, but i imagine it would go something like this:

Me: Oh My God. Did you see that hord of locusts sweep through town killing everyone and everything?
IHSRG*: Yes! I did. It was...devastating.
Me: It just makes you realize...
IHSRG: ...that life...
Me: ...is so...
Me and IHSRG (in perfect unison): short.

(commence makeout session).

I'm not sure if the aftermath of a terrorist attack is quite as sexy. I'd personally be a little more cautious...especially if you normally go for accents or the tall, dark, and handsome type.

*IHSRG= Incredibly Hot Single Rich Guy

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Dancing in the Street. Just like Aretha.

Withdrawal from our favorite capital city that doubles as a giant suburb is a real bitch. Since the end of the summer/fall meeting of RBIE's staff last weekend (or the one before?), I have found my only solace in drink. Rather than trying to "label" this new habit as some sort of "addiction", I have chosen to embrace it and its consequences like I would my illegitimate children or a friend of a friend who I talk about behind his back- uncautiously and without remorse. Unfortunately, in between blacking out and pizza at 3 am on a Monday night, I find myself hung over and dealing with the snippets of memory that now make me want to bury my face in my hands and yes, drink. Highlights from the last few nights:

-Spending $72 on God-knows-what because a bartender is cute.

-Asking a refugee from New Orleans for one of his chest hairs.

-Singing Bonnie Raitt's "Let's Give them Something to Talk About", even though the karaoke machine is broken.

-Dialing my friend Annya* at an unfashionably late hour, because I want to tell her I think she's super.

-Thinking all of a sudden that it's a completely genius idea to dance in high heels. In traffic.

Some of these are slightly stretched truths, but they're truth nonetheless. We only inform. You decide.

*She's not my friend anymore.

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Awkward Conversation With My Newly Assigned Mentee

me: Hi. you must be Jack*, my new mentee! Is it ok if i call you grasshopper?

mentee: Hi, i'd prefer it if you didn't. I'm sorry, i was expecting you to be a guy.

me: Um..ok. Is it a problem that i'm a girl?

mentee: No, no..that's not what i mean. its just that, your emails...they kinda threw me off i guess. You know, like the one where you said you'd help me "mack on GW girls?"

me: And i will, but first things first...tell me about yourself.

mentee: Well, i'm not sure how much you've heard about me already. i graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Harvard last spring...

me: Wow. Harvard. and did you say you were in a fraternity?--Phi Beta Kappa?

mentee: Uh..no..that just means i was in the top __** percent of my class.

me: Wow. And you came to GW?.....any serious social problems i should know about up front?

mentee: (clearly offended) Um...where did you go to school?

me: Alachua County Community College of Florida...and i graduated Alpha Delta Epsilon.

mentee: You just made that up, didn't you?

me: Hey, now. i've been nice to you so far, but you cannot expect me to stand here and be insulted by my very own protege!

mentee: Your what? Lady, i just wanted some class outlines....

me: Don't call me a lady. You barely know me. Now then, grasshopper, i think we got off on the wrong foot....

mentee: Seriously, that's not funny. Are you going to be helpful to me at all?

me: Patience, my sidekick. Now then...take this toothbrush and scrub the entire lounge floor. After you're done..and only after...i will begin the "mentoring sessions."

mentee: I gotta go. later...


me: Call me!!

*real names have been protected. everything else is verbatim and true. everything.
** wasnt really paying attention at this point.

Sunday, September 11, 2005

DeadChatouilleSaysWhat?

Some experiences make you wiser, stronger, (dare i say) faster-- and some just make you realize that you'd probably be of greater service to humanity as a med school cadavre than a living being.

On an entirely unrelated note, I woke up hungover today and realized that i have a five page paper due tomorrow in a class that i temporarily forgot i had and for which i haven't purchased the required textbook. I then spent 15 bucks on a cab to make it to the bookstore before it closed, realized only when i got there that i didn't know the name of the book, ran around finding internet so i could check the course syllabus, discovered that the professor apparently expected me (ME!) to hold on to the paper version handed to me over two weeks ago, ran around some more trying to find a hard copy of said syllabus, slammed my head on a glass door when it turned out that the room in which i would find it was locked, glared up at the sky and shook my fist at God while also rubbing my bruised forehead, and immediately afterwards tripped over a loose brick and twisted my already fucked up foot.

On the bright side, I don't smoke --med school kids would go ape over my lungs.

Monday, September 05, 2005

This Guy Just Won't Quit Gardening..

This weekend, i was assigned the short-straw task of going to outrageously expensive movies and writing up reviews for box office openings. My original assignment was to do a one-on-one interview with Jason Statham (the ridiculously hot star of "The Transporter 2") while we rode along the beach on horseback...he shirtless and i holding a tape recorder in one hand and his chest with the other (he's just more comfortable that way).
Recent developments unfortunately "crippled" my ability to travel and i "fell" head first into this new project, determined not to "limp" through it idly, but rather keep going till i "covered enough ground." You might even say i fell down a bunch of stairs, sprained my ankle, and couldn't do anything but watch movies all weekend while my "sorry excuse for" friends went to parties where everyone stood around admiring their ability to walk and jump effortlessly. You might say that, but i personally am not nearly that bitter or petty.

Here are my short and sweet reviews of two films that opened this weekend:

The Transporter 2: Jason Statham is still the sexiest man from the UK, but much like the first Transporter, this film has no plot that a delinquent 12 year old couldn't write up in crayon while going through withdrawal from his ADHD medication. Ignoring the inconsistencies and lack of explanation for several key plot points (like how a red-head and a blond end up with a latino kid, or how the entire city of Miami is suddenly cured of an airborne virus when ten minutes earlier, it is on the brink of an epidemic), what proves most disappointing is the fact that despite several opportunities to remove his shirt, Statham keeps it on for 99.9% of the film. Meanwhile, the "villain" or "anorexic super-model with rabies" spends the entire film in her underwear. Clearly action film producers are not tapping into the right market. In short, i would NOT recommend this film to anyone but pyromaniacs and the worst of my enemies. (If you want to see Statham, rent Snatch or Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels...even "The Italian Job" is better, and hey, Marky Mark is included in that one.) That having been said, i don't mind supporting Statham's career...i know that somewhere there's a script about a half-naked hunk with his name all over it.

The Constant Gardener: Go see it. Now. If it's too early, take a flight to a better time-zone so you can catch it as soon as possible. It's worth it. You may or may not want to slit your wrists afterwards because it's not what i would call an uplifting film (use your discretion on that one), but even if you do eventually die bleeding in your bathtub, at least you will take comfort in the fact that the last movie you saw was worth the 9 or 10 bucks that theaters are charging nowadays.* Yes, Ralphe Fiennes is yet another rare and beautiful Englishman, but this film actually has so much more to offer that you will barely notice, let alone fault the fact that his clothes remain on while Rachel Weisz spends way too much time out of hers. I've heard that "March of the Penguins" is the best film of the summer...i'm willing to bet that this one can compete.

*incidently, i haven't found a connection between fuel shortage and the rise in movie ticket prices, but if you know of a country we can attack to fix this problem, please contact your representative.

Friday, September 02, 2005

Uncle Sam Wants You, Katie Couric!

This week's media coverage of the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina inspired all of us here at RBIE to brainstorm solutions for getting more aid and supplies to the hurricane victims...in short, we want to do our part. Watching the news, it's clear what the next step should be. All the different news outlets must shut down their studios and send all of their employees to volunteer in the rescue efforts. Think of all the money and manpower they could provide if they just spent a little less time creating dramatic montages of the old New Orleans or paying people for clever catch-phrases like "now New Orleans is really singing the blues" or "this semester, the students have learned a hard lesson in adversity." (these were almost as painful to listen to as CNN referring to the rise in gas prices as "Gas Pains" or Katie Couric asking mothers with dehydrated babies if they would be more careful about planning their pregnancies in the future so that they wouldn't deliver during hurricane season.)

Questions like this make me want to throw sharp and heavy objects at my television, but i always stop short, struck with the utterly depressing realization that the "journalist" inside will escape unscathed while my plans of watching four back-to-back episodes of "Real World Austin On Demand" may be destroyed forever.

As long as the studios keep recycling the same video footage they've been playing for the last three days, the population's morbid curiosity will be satisfied and everyone can rest easy. It only takes one worker to operate a tape player and of course i'd leave it to the discretion of the studios to decide who should get that great responsibility. (I suggest Katie Couric, because i'm not so sure she'd be that helpful in terms of manpower. Her questions could easily get her killed.)

Here's my advice to our loyal readers: when you reach the point where you can state all the hurricane statistics before the news channel lists them, it is time to change the channel. If you really have nothing better to do and want to fry your brain, there are other more enjoyable ways of doing so. Afterall, MTV is only a few clicks away and Danny and Melinda are both pretty hot. How about this semester, you learn an easy lesson in apathy?

Genius, i know. The federal government hasn't put the entire RBIE staff through school for nothing.