Dear Kid Who Wears Shorts in the Winter,

What the hell are you doing?

I see you on campus every day, and it’s always the same story with you. You speed walk past everyone else in your khaki shorts and flimsy gray t-shirt, with arms held close to your body, and hands tucked into your pockets. Hey, asshole, you wouldn’t have to walk around like that if you would just wear clothes.

I’ve considered the fact that maybe I don’t know the whole story. It’s possible that your next class cranks the heat up to 90 degrees, or that you’re on your way to compete in a friendly tennis match. I’ve decided that it’s more likely that you’re just a douche.

What are you trying to accomplish? The only people who look tough doing this are, well, not you.

You sold your winter clothes for Ramen Noodles, didn’t you? You poor bastard.

Dear Couple that Naps Together on the Lawn Outside of Linthicum,

What the hell are you doing?

Don’t you have a bed somewhere? Do you have back problems or something? Hey dude, I know that the fresh earth can provide firm support, but somehow I feel like having a girl laying on your chest cavity would cancel out all the benefits. Dump her and buy a Sleep Number.

It’s cute in a way, but also disgusting. I’d estimate the disgusting to cute ratio at about 90-10. For every instant that I feel happy for you, I want to vomit nine times.

I’m especially happy for whichever one of you suggested doing that the first time. Happy that the other didn’t have you committed to an institution.

I haven’t seen you in a while, so I assume you’ve gone into hibernation for the winter. Your roommates hate both of you.

Dear Every Campus Group Ever,

I know what you’re doing, and please stop.

Thanks. Now I can never use the steps under the Lecture Hall ever again because you camp out there to recruit people. Can’t you camp out somewhere else, where no one ever goes? Like the football games?

I want to get a shirt that just says NO in big, bold, red letters. No I don’t want to join your group, no I don’t want to give you money, no I don’t know how to get to wherever you’re going on campus, no I don’t want fries with that, no I don’t want to come to the board to solve the problem, no I don’t know how to solve it, no I didn’t do the reading, no I’m not on drugs, no I won’t stop sleeping in class.

I hate doing laundry. I know most people do, especially guys, but I really do hate it. You could probably argue that I “don’t know what I’m doing.” I break the golden rules of laundry all the time, refuse to follow standard laundry procedure, and this is what happens. What the fuck is up with the following things:

- If you wash any sort of sheet with your clothes, they will all end up bundled up inside said sheet while in the dryer. Then, since they’re all lumped together in a soggy ball, none of them will be fully dried. The sheet will be warm and crisp but everything else will require a second go-round.

- I have a feeling I might be the only person to whom this happens, but whenever I wash something made of somewhat stiffer fabric (like a pillow case or especially dress shirts), all hell breaks loose. It gets twisted up and folded in on itself and then dries like that, taking on an accordion like shape far too powerful for any iron to remove.

- Never in my life have I separated whites from colors, even when I’m washing a new item of clothing. Despite this, I have never experienced the colors bleeding onto my socks and white shirts. I’ve come to believe that the whole thing is a conspiracy perpetrated by the water company to make you do two loads.

- Doing laundry in a dorm is insanely expensive. When I lived on campus (at Arizona State) it was $1.75 for a full load, and I’ve heard Towson is comparable. A friend of mine who goes to school in California pays $.25 to wash, $.25 to dry. Imagine all the time you could buy at parking meters with the extra quarters. Or Advil and condoms (always simultaneously) from public restrooms. Or, dare I say, Chiclets?

Some other laundry related observations:

- I saw a clip of John Mayer (of all people) doing stand-up comedy and he said something like, “Most people wash their clothes to make them cleaner, I wash mine to make them tighter.” Truer words have never been spoken; not everything about laundry sucks. Of course I still hate his music.

- Have you ever put your shit in the washer and then forgotten to start it? You walk away completely oblivious. 40 minutes later you go to check on it and find it completely dry. It ruins your entire day, especially if you have more than one load to do. It puts you behind schedule in a mean way and makes you feel like a moron.

- Dirty laundry is such a good analogy for things you don’t want people to know about. If someone is going to see your bedroom (provided you actually care what they think), the dirty laundry all over the floor is the first thing to get cleaned up. Screw taking out the trash and vacuuming, I’ve got boxers laying around. Granted “dirty laundry” is not as dramatic and cool sounding as “skeletons in the closet,” but it’s a surprisingly strong number two candidate.

- It’s sad when the biggest part of cleaning your room is doing laundry. Why invest in a hamper when you can just throw it on the floor?

- I have a pair of dress pants that I’ve owned for months. I just realized about a week ago that there is a small pouch on the inside of the waistband that says in big bold letters, “REMOVE BEFORE WASHING.” I still haven’t cut it off because it’s obviously an empty threat. The pants are fine. Besides, I like my pants de-oxygenated at all times.

From wjz.com (click here for the whole article): 

TOWSON, Md. (WJZ) ? Loud parties, drinking on the streets and general bad behavior have people who live in off-campus apartment communities around the Towson University campus fed up.   

 

Mike Hellgren reports Baltimore County police officers Joshua Miller and Sean Dissett have been assigned to crack down on behavior that’s not only bad but also escalating to dangerous.

  
That’s right, the Baltimore County Police Department has assigned two entire police officers to rid Towson of rowdy drunkards. 

This article actually confused me on so many levels. They refer to this assignment as a “pilot program.” They’re going to see if it’s effective and then decide whether or not to continue it. So, you mean to tell me that before now there have been no police officers assigned to patrol Towson on weekend nights? Is this a landmark idea? I understand that these officers are specifically there to respond to alcohol/party related incidents, but I imagine if they saw a robbery or a rape in progress they would step in, so how are they different than any other patrolling police officer?  

Second of all, if you read the whole article and watch the video report, you’ll get confused even more. It seems as though the reporter didn’t tag along with two of the officers assigned to patrol Towson, rather he tagged along with THE two officers assigned to patrol Towson. If you’re going to assign two guys to police an entire town, one of them had better be RoboCop. That’s all I’m saying.   

Unless this is just a case of poor journalism, it sounds like the BCPD is… well… stupid. If they think that assigning two people to do this job is going to make a real difference, they are mistaken. If they think that this is going to be an effective PR weapon, to show that they are serious about “cracking down,” then they’re seriously underestimating our intelligence.  

I, for one, am outraged. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go down a handle of vodka and urinate all over Donnybrook. Who’s gonna stop me?

Here’s a quick little something before everyone goes home for the holiday. Be safe, and stay away from the turducken.
 
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Every holiday has its own culture. Halloween is costumes, candy, and scary movies. Christmas is presents, commercial capitalism, and cheesy Christmas films. Thanksgiving is turkey and football. Where are all the Thanksgiving movies?
 
Is Thanksgiving just not a compelling enough holiday? Is there no story there? That’s ridiculous. If any holiday has a universal meaning it’s Thanksgiving. Halloween is basically a giant party, as is the Fourth of July, and Christmas really only means something to people who are religious. Being thankful for the positive things in our life, though, that’s something everyone can get on board with.
 
I know that Thanksgiving makes a small cameo in a lot of films; the cooking of Thanksgiving dinner turns into a comedy of errors and someone burns the bird. Yeah, it’s been done. I want to see a movie that uses Thanksgiving as the focal point, the way Halloween is at the heart of the Halloween series, or the way that Jennifer Lopez’s ass is at the heart of any movie she has ever been in.
 
It can’t be that hard, and I’ll prove it. Below I have taken a few holiday classics and shifted the focus to Thanksgiving. Enjoy.
 
The Nightmare Before Thanksgiving - Jack is whisked away to a world where every day is Thanksgiving. Everyone is obese, constantly subdued by tryptophan, and forced to watch endless Detroit Lions games. Jack learns that Thanksgiving land is lame and comes to be thankful for his old life.
 
A Thanksgiving Carol - The prequel to the popular “A Christmas Carol.” Ralphie is unhappy with the traditional celebration and wants to hunt his own wild turkey. His parents object, afraid he may “shoot his eye out.” A bitter Ralphie attempts to sabotage Thanksgiving dinner. Hilarity ensues.
 
Turkey Day (Groundhog Day) - Bill Murray finds himself reliving Thanksgiving over and over again. Frustrated at first, he eventually uses the phenomenon to figure out how to bang some chick, and learns to appreciate how clever he is.
 
The Hot Turkey - Rob Schneider switches bodies with a turkey.
 
I could go on, but unlike Hollywood directors, I’m not getting paid for this. I’m not just going to give away all my best ideas for free. Then again, if the Writer’s Guild strike doesn’t end soon, Hollywood might be looking for scabs. They know where to find me.

I was walking through the mall today when I passed a store I hadn’t seen before. It’s called Garage. The sign is neon pink, but with a cool name like Garage, I thought there might be some interesting clothes inside. Or maybe a good place to park my car. A quick glance at the mannequins in the window and the customers inside told me everything I needed to know; I wouldn’t be shopping there today, or any other day for that matter. That’s because Garage sells clothes for girls. I don’t see why they would need clothes, but I guess if some sort of emergency arose, they could get them there. I was pretty disappointed.
 
Upon further, and quite accidental, research, I learned that Garage is a Canadian brand. The store in Towson Town Center is their first ever in the United States. Supposedly, Towson Town Center is a popular mall for new stores looking to launch their brand. The first Apple Store was there, as well as the first Nordstroms. But to choose Towson as the first international location, that really says something. And it’s only getting bigger, with a Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Chang’s moving in (or so I’ve heard).
 
The University and the mall have a lot in common in that sense. They’re both expanding, there’s nowhere to park at either place, and both reek of Hollister cologne. As it turns out, school administrators and mall owners have been collaborating for years on a shared business model.
 
Mall executives are involved in talks about being adopted as a branch of the University and renamed “Career Services.” If you’ve ever worked there you know that more than half of the employees are Towson students. It works out because over half of the customers are Towson students too. Towson Town Center is like its own little self-sustaining economy. The money never leaves that place, it just gets recycled.  Said University President Bob Caret, “We saw how well TTC was doing, so we decided to borrow a page from their play book. We realized that by hiring students instead of outsiders for on-campus jobs, we could save money while simultaneously distracting students from their studies. Everyone wins.”
 
The similarities don’t end there. Towson Town Center has a handful of rival malls in the area, just like TU has rival schools. University-Mall Liaison Mike Goff explained it as such: “Arundel Mills is easily compared to University of Maryland College Park. It’s huge, expensive, and just far enough away to make you not want to visit. White Marsh is just like Goucher; pretty solid in all respects if it weren’t for the bizarre people that go there. Hunt Valley is essentially the same as UMBC. The layout is such that you probably won’t ever go there without a specific purpose. If there is such a thing as a commuter mall it’s Hunt Valley. Security Square is obviously Morgan. We use these rivalries to create brand loyalty and also to sell more sweatshirts at football games.”
 
The best things about Towson University’s campus are the surplus of beautiful girls, the Chic Fil-A, and not being there (not necessarily in that order). Similarly, the best things about Towson Town Center are the surplus of beautiful girls, the Chic Fil-A, and not being there. Goff writes, “The last thing we want is for there to be competition between the two entities. If one can offer something that the other can’t, then we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. The similarities are certainly on purpose. Do you really think Baltimore produces all these beautiful girls? We have them shipped in from as far away as Anne Arundel County.”
 
Goff had no comment when asked if it’s a coincidence that the most disappointing part of both Towson University and Towson Town Center is the Garage.

From Yahoo! News (whole article):

Two hugs equals two days of detention for 13-year-old Megan Coulter. The eighth-grader was punished for violating a school policy banning public displays of affection when she hugged two friends Friday.

 
Wow. Remember middle school rules? They seem retarded now that we’re older, but at the time we had to put up with some serious bullshit.
 
Remember when you had to ask permission to go to the bathroom? Couldn’t wear a hat inside? Couldn’t drink a soda in class? And that isn’t even the half of it.
 
I know a lot of you can probably relate to this… At my middle school we had 35 minute lunch periods. The first 15 minutes were devoted to the Assistant Principal rambling on about policy and other stupid crap. We were not allowed to talk during this time, only to eat in silence. After the daily rhetoric, we had about 10 minutes where we could eat and talk freely. Of course, we had to stay seated at all times. Moving to a different table was forbidden, and sitting with another class was a serious offense. Oh and also if things got too loud, the AP would grab the mic again, tell us to shut up, and cut our “talk time” short. The last 10 minutes of lunch were essentially the same as the first 15. Sit in silence, quietly finish your lunch and dispose of all trash, and wait for your class to be called to exit the cafeteria. Talking at any time except the designated 10 minutes would result in detention. Changing tables, detention. Making eye contact with the AP, detention.  There was actually a wall in the middle of the lunch room where you would have to stand if you misbehaved, right in front of the whole school, for everyone to see. You’d stand there until the end of lunch, unable to finish eating.
 
In the morning, when we first got to school, we had to wait outside - rain or shine, warm or cold. They seriously would not let anyone into the building until precisely the minute homeroom started. If you pulled in front of my school in the morning, you would see 300 kids standing outside in little groups. If you wandered into a different grade’s designated waiting area, detention. A lot of kids got dropped off pretty early because of their parents’ work schedules, so it wasn’t uncommon for kids to be forced to wait outside for a good half an hour before school started. In the winter, this sucked.
 
We had lockers in middle school, just like we did in high school. The only difference was that, in middle school, we literally were not allowed to use them. I have absolutely no idea where my locker was, what it looked like, and definitely no idea what the combination was. I didn’t know then either because I couldn’t use it. We had to carry our lunches, coats, and all of our books with us all day. There were a few designated times when we were allowed to go to our lockers but I know we couldn’t before school or at lunch. That was detention. I guess it was only after school that we could use them. Anything we put in there had to stay for at least 24 hours.
 
My middle school had a program known as the Ingenuity Project. It was basically the “smart-kids track.” It emphasized math and science, and was meant to prepare you for those courses at the high school level. As bad as the school administrators were, the people that ran Ingenuity were a thousand times worse. When I was in sixth grade, Ingenuity had a policy that if you received below an 80 in a class, it was considered failing. So, yes, a C was failing. By the time I left they had raised it to 85, so that anything less than pure perfection was bordering on unacceptable. A great job was no longer great, it was expected. A good job was grounds for removal from the program. A poor job was 30 lashes.
 
And they wonder why 8th graders fuck with their teachers non-stop, pull the fire alarm every other week, and generally act like ignorant little shits. It’s probably because after 3 years of that Nazi horseshit, you go insane and want to kill everyone in the school.

I know I rag on Towson constantly, often with tongue firmly in cheek. I’m honestly surprised the administration hasn’t sent me a cease and desist order yet. If I ever run into Bob Caret in a dark alley, things might not end well for me. The truth is, though, that it’s very easy to find things you don’t like about something and then exploit them. Sarcasm, annoyance, and blind rage (as much as I sometimes enjoy them) are easy. Optimism; now that takes a little more effort.
 
Towson has been catching a lot of flack lately. It seems like everyone has some sort of issue with the campus, the town, or especially the administration. While a lot of the complaints are legitimate, I think the good aspects of Towson as a whole get overshadowed. So here is something I’ve been meaning to write for a long time; my favorite things about Towson.
 
I love that Towson’s Safe Ride is the police. Does anyone else think that’s awesome? The cops can be beating you down with a billy club as you run from a party one minute and be chauffeuring you home the next.
 
I love Starvin’ Student deals at Jerry’s Subs and Pizza. Monday night is $5 large pizza night. Wednesday night is $4 cheese steak night. I find it sort of ironic that these kinds of great deals can be found in such close proximity to the college bookstore. That’s like building an elementary school next to a strip club.
 
I love the “Uptown” bar scene. I’m not old enough to actually go, but so far I’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching the drunk traffic to and from the strip. I’ve learned that anyone standing outside a bar talking on a cell phone is invariably arguing with a significant other, and that my front yard is the perfect place to throw down in an alcohol induced fisticuffs.
 
I love the trumpet playing guy. He’s everything you could want in a homeless man; he’s not pushy, he provides a valuable service, and he’s not pretending to need bus fare or cigarette money. It really makes a big difference in the atmosphere, having his trumpet liven up the air. His throaty singing voice, although startling to unsuspecting pedestrians, is crazy and awesome.
 
I love how everyone and their mother knows what J. Friendly’s is REALLY about.
 
I love the pizza from The Den. I don’t care if it’s floppy and rubbery, it tastes amazing.
 
I love the hippies that congregate outside Brick Street and organize hippie rallies and play hippie songs on their hippie guitars. Of course, I don’t love them enough to join their causes, but still.
 
I love Tigerfest and Homecoming. For my money, nothing beats getting drunk with the sun still high in the sky. Towson has just the right amount of students to make events like this work. At a huge school, there are just too many people to have a centralized celebration without it turning into a full scale riot. At a small school, not enough people will show up to make it worth while. Towson’s population is just big enough for a few rowdy drunkards to throw beer cans at the police, but not so big that they need to respond with tear gas and German Shephards.
 
I love that Mike Rowe (of Dirty Jobs fame) and Stacy Kiebler (former Baltimore Ravens’ cheerleader, former WWE Diva, and current long-legged goddess) are Towson alumni.
 
I love that, with a few minor exceptions, Towson is very centralized. Sure that means crowds, but it also means that you can move between buildings quickly. You never see anybody riding a bike around campus, and for good reason. It’s completely unnecessary and they would probably ride over someone’s feet and face plant.
 
I love campus-wide wireless internet. No matter what building I am in, I can stop listening to what the teacher is saying at any time and start reading The Onion instead. I can play addicting online games. I can do my taxes. I can even update my website. Now I just have to buy that film that goes over your monitor so people to the side of you can’t see your screen. Then I could even look at porn.
 
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I kind of liked hearing from people about their favorite horror movie antagonists. So, if you have something to add I’d love to hear about it. What’s your favorite thing about Towson?

Most of you already know that I live in a house off campus. For those of you that don’t, I live in a house off campus. The cool thing about my house is that the rent is cheap and I rarely get bothered by the landlord or neighbors. The bad thing is that the house itself was constructed with roughly the same quality standards as a doll house.
 
Granted, we throw a lot of parties here and there is a constant stream of people coming and going. We’re rough on the place, but we’re not exactly hosting UFC fights every weekend. Some of the damage to the house is understandable but some of it is completely absurd.
 
I should have known what to expect after my first day living here. The day that I moved in, the refrigerator door broke off as I was unpacking my first round of groceries. I popped it back in place and held it there with a cereal box supporting the bottom. The landlord, begrudgingly, came out to fix it the next day. That would be the last thing he would ever fix in this house.
 
A few days after I moved in, I threw myself a housewarming party. At this point there was nothing in the house except for a long table for beerpong, a couch, and an air mattress in my room. And beer in the fridge. The next morning, I discovered the cabinet/mirror in the bathroom had come out of the wall and was hanging perilously by electrical wires. I have no idea how that happened, but I figured it would be an easy fix. I tried to screw it back in but found that the holes had been stripped. Fine. I tried to nail the damn thing back in place. I must have pounded in seven or eight different nails before I realized that there isn’t actually a stud behind the mirror. That means there was never anything to screw into and the thing had been holding onto empty drywall the entire time. After letting it hang for a few days, I disconnected the entire thing and took it down. It is still sitting on my hallway floor to this day.
 
The next thing to go was the front door handle. Again, I have no fucking idea how these things happen, but one day the front door knob decided to unscrew itself and hang by a thread. It was back door entry only (in a non-sexual way) for a few days until my rommate figured out how to fix it.
 
My bedroom door also fell victim to whatever bizarre curse is responsible for all of this. Someone bumped into it one night, causing the top hinge to rip completely out of the wall. My door was left leaning away from the frame at a 20 degree angle or so. Again, the screws just stripped right out and there was no screwing them back in. I left my door like this for a good five months. I just fixed it yesterday, as a matter of fact. And by fixed I mean temporarily jury-rigged.
 
A few weeks ago our toilet handle snapped off. Like everything else in the house, it didn’t just come off in a clean fashion, but rather was completely destroyed. I replaced it with an industrial strength, metal, bad-ass motherfucker of a toilet handle. I see this as a victory because now our toilet is better than ever.
 
There are a few swollen floor boards in our dining room. We’re not talking “slightly beveled,” swollen, we’re talking “you will trip over this and die if you’re not careful,” swollen. The peak of the swelling is a good two to three inches higher than the rest of the floor. I contribute this to a geographical fault underneath the house. It remains unfixed.
 
I just listed all of this crap, and I still feel like I’m missing something. Unbelievable.
 
You have a pretty simple choice, really. Live in a normal place and don’t throw parties, and you won’t have to deal with home improvement. But if you want cheap rent and lots of alcohol, you’re going to have to be ready for this kind of thing. Don’t say you weren’t warned.