paint by blogger.

blogging is interesting kinda.
i can essentially paint myself however i want in text form.

if i want to come across as caring, intelligent, wise, hilarious, thoughtful, invested, furious, frustrated, whatever - i can to it. and this kind of makes me feel a little bit cautious about what i post on this thing now. i don't know, maybe i'm double checking my motives i suppose.

cause really, what exactly is the point of blogging and letting people know your thoughts on life if they're fabricated so that you can fit whatever persona you care to fit in that blog. that comes across as fake and deceptive to me pretty much.

i've never really thought about this before. i wonder if i've been fake in the past and didnt even realize it. ew. i hope not.

-ap.

freerice.com

go here. super great.
it is fun, educational, and missional.
its a win-win-WIN (the office ref).


-ap.

mr. excuse ridden over-confident kansas football fan

an email i was forwarded from karlie.
originally from one of her professors.

Bud Light Presents: Real Men of Genius
> (real men of genius)
> Today we salute you, Mr. Excuse Ridden Over-Confident Kansas Football
> Fan.
> (Mr. Excuse Ridden Over-Confident Kansas Football Fan) Eleven straight
> wins,
> you wore that classy "Muck Fizzou" shirt like you meant it (Pinch me,
> I'm
> dreamin'!) A season of bloated statistics and over-hyped wins against
> Junior
> Varsity competition (Serve another cupcake!) Losing to a superior team
> with
> better players is no match for your what-if scenarios and
> could-have-been
> dreams (The field goal missed by inches!) So crack open an ice-cold Bud
> Light you emphatic engineer of excuses. After all, you would've won the
> game if it was played somewhere else!
> (Mr Excuse Ridden Over-Confident Kansas Football Fan.)

i might extend it into basketball a little too. bradley, bucknell, you know.

pardon the arrows and sporatic line lengths.
i'm too lazy to fix it.
plus i like the forwarded email look.

-ap.

let me whine about the bcs. everyone else gets to.

for those of you who have any sports knowledge at all - you already know the ridiculousness of the bcs. its been around for 10 years now - and only three years it has really worked at all.

yeah there's a ton of talk of a playoff system and better ways to do things - which i agree, there should be a playoff system. its more exciting, gives teams from non-bcs conferences and with weaker schedules a shot at the national championship (boise st '06, hawaii '07), and it ceases the ridiculous debates, blogs, articles, and complaints that are unavoidable at the end of each college football season.

but that isn't going to happen any time soon - cause college football is about money and publicity. it stinks that it is true, but it is. it is about better television and higher ratings and ticket sales and popularity. boo.

ultimately the sponsoring companies and the bowl committees get to pick which teams they think would make their company more money. i understand that. that having been said, let me point out my complaints about this years college football post-season.

missouri left out while kansas and illinois are in?
first off, let me say crassly that missouri got screwed big time. number one going into the big xii campionship game fighting for a national championship berth, and you get beat by oklahoma (debatably the best team in the nation) and you get ousted out of bcs bowls completely? thats just unfair. but what makes things worse: the team you clobbered the week before is stealing your spot. and what makes things worse: the second best team from the big ten, illinois, is in a bowl game too - and you beat them too. the only reason illinois made is is because the bcs needed a big ten team because the only truly good team weas ohio state (which tells you a lot about the teams they played this year - but more on that later). missouri has already defeated 2 of the 10 bcs teams this year. this is very "kstate 98": they can win the big xii championship and go to the national championship, but they lost to a&m and got dropped out entirely. but that neither here nor there. point is: ku doesnt deserve a bcs berth. both cause i hate them and because they didnt play a sole/soul (i never know which makes sense in that phrase). best wins: at kstate, at texas a&m - neither of which made a bowl game. ku only played two ranked opponents all year long - #24 kstate (what a joke) and #3 missouri (got destroyed). plus missouri is ranked higher in the bcs! #6 vs #8? it ought to be an obvious selection. but since life in post-season college football is about money and publicity - no wonder ku got picked over missouri. i'll be excited to read all the depressing (to others) headlines after virginia tech steamrolls them in miami. i'll be wearing my VT garb for sure.

lsu over oklahoma and virginia tech for the national championship?
lsu loses two games all season: at kentucky and at home against arkansas. these teams COMBINED for 7 wins in the SEC this year - and only one of them (ark) made a bowl game. oklahoma also loses only two games: at colorado and at texas tech. BOTH of which are bowl teams and BOTH of which were road games. oklahoma beat the number one team in the nation in teh big xii championship game by 21 points. not even close. lsu beats #14 tennessee by only a touchdown to win the SEC. and how about virginia tech?! they lose two games all season long, both to #2 ranked teams. the ACC was extremely underrated this year (BC, Clemson, Virginia). this one is harder to fight for beacuse lsu beat them badly early in the season, but virginia tech and oklahoma both won their conference championship games decisively and both were ranked higher than lsu going into conf champ week - and it appeared that those two performed better against higher ranked teams (win by 21 against #1 mizzou, win by 14 against #11 BC) than lsu (win by 7 against #14 tennessee). yet lsu jumps both of them from #7 to #2 to end up in the national championship while the other move up to #3 and #4. i just dont really get it.

ohio state as the number one overall?
i realize that SOMEBODY had to be number one, and maybe OSU is a possible choice, but what i dont understand is why that makes them a shoe in for the national championship. they haven't played a game against anyone ranked higher than #21 (which is something that every team but ku has done). and their only loss was to UNRANKED Illinois - who landed a bowl berth because of this ohio state tragedy. it has to be obvious that the big ten is overrated when only 3 teams are in the top 25. i guess my argument is based mostly on the fact that the big ten was sour this year up and down the conference. i dont think ohio state deserves it any more than the next 6 ranked teams. ugh.

games i'm truly excited to watch though:
cotton bowl: missouri vs. arkansas - chase daniel vs darren mcfadden - awesome.
fiesta bowl: oklahoma vs. west virginia - two alternate national title contenders - awesome.
sugar bowl: hawaii vs. georgia - get to see colt brennen play before midnight - awesome.
GMAC bowl: bowling green vs. tulsa (jk guys. jk.)

granted, i dont pick these things. and even though i find these flaws or things i'd like to debate - i feel like you can argue a case for any team really. except ku. ever.

really, when it all boils down to it - they probably made MOSTLY the right decisions. the only two changes i would truly and honestly make...

missouri in the orange bowl instead of kansas.
ANYBODY in the rose bowl besides illinois...florida? arizona state? boston college? even kansas!? thats how much illinois doesnt deserve it. i'd take ku/usc before illinois. just bad.

anyway. eventually the bcs committee will all die of old age and then we can have a college football post season the way it should be: playoff style. there are 96 ways to do it. all of which are better than the bcs.

man i love to complain.

-ap.

spring semester.

next semester is probably going to go ahead and kill me.

i'm taking 15 hours - doesn't seem too steep really, but in the eyes of someone who dislikes school and hasn't had 5 courses where i was required to actually go to campus, sit down and take notes every day of the week? thats rough. the last time i didnt have a day off of campus in a week was first semester sophomore year...since then i've been able to finagle my way around to where my schedule looked amazing and i could take a break when i wanted to - granted that usually meant that certain days of the week felt like hell on campus (wednesdays, 1st semester, junior year), but it was worth it knowing i got a day off some other time in the week.

next semester: courses aren't really being user friendly. i have class all morning long on Mon Wed Fri and all afternoon on Tues Thurs...and the likelihood of working from 5:45 am til my afternoon classes on either tuesday or thursday is high. AND i'll have afternoon shifts on the other days. yuck. i'm going to need to learn to get to bed earlier - otherwise i'm a goner. oh and i have a night class on wednesdays.

warning to my roommates: you'll be seeing even less of me at home in the spring.

oh well. keeping busy is probably a good thing. i just wish it wasn't for 5 months straight.

but for now, i'm done thinking about that. i'm going to focus on getting to christmas break. hollerrrrr.

video games are dumbo.

so my roommates have been playing this video game called Assassins Creed for the last week or so, and i really question why.

the whole premise of the game is 100% sketch. essentially killing people is this dude's religion...for some reason that doesnt sit right with me. go figure.

plus, what the game seems to have in graphics is lost entirely to me by the horrendous voice audio. the dialogue is simply awful. i think i'd rather just read it in speech bubbles.

sometimes i feel like i'm not caught up with video game culture...however, games like this make it kinda easy to not really care how far behind i am. i'll stick to my nintendo 64 and games that dont focus entirely on plotted mass religious murder.

i hope someone has some knowledge of this game so they can hate me because of my completely ignorant blog. i dont really know anything about it except that it takes many many hours of focus and dedication. it doesnt even look fun.

-ap.

what photobooth and the lost and found will get you.

- ap.

"hey look everybody! billy peed his pants!"

so kstate lost to oregon at home in a game that they definitely should have won. they lost it at the free throw line and they had a shot at the last second but jacob pullen and andre gilbert teamed up for a pretty dumb maneuver and the game ended.

but anyway. this post isn't about that.
it is about the following picture that i witnessed live.


yes.
billy walker peed himself with 1.8 seconds left in regulation. the teams broke out of a time out and set up for the last play. billy proceeded to grab himself and jump around out at midcourt for 30 seconds before sprinting to the bench, grabbing about 15 towels and shoving them down the front of his pants, and doing his thing.

then he ran back out on the court without washing his hands.
but not until after he wiped off his leg. yuck.

just another reason billy walker is my favorite.
#12 on your roster. #1 in your hearts.

-ap.

ps. gotta love the perfectly executed Billy Madison quote. holler.

its the weather.

i've been learning a lot about expectations this semester.

when you get too excited for something - you're easily let down.
but wen you're not excited for something at all - you're easily pelased.

a way in which i think God has decided to teach this to Kansans: weather.

thanksgiving break comes and we're all excited.
then last tuesday it snowed and was freezing cold, so we get disappointed and hate the weather. and, in turn, life.
then thursday it decides to warm up to the upper 40s and we all get excited about life again.
then monday comes and it is in the 50s and we're loving life; especially when we look at the weather report and find that it is supposed to be beautiful all week.
then we come to find out that all that is supposed to change and it is supposed to freezing rain tonight and through tomorrow with horrendous wind til sunday. just perfect.

however, i've devized a plan to always be pleased with Kansas weather.

1. never expect it to stay beautiful for more than a day at a time, that way you're never disappointed when it's gross the next day.
2. never get discouraged when it is gross because the weather is guaranteed to change within the week.

its fool proof.

unless the weather doesn't change within the week...but that just means you're not in kansas anymore. so thats no problem.

-ap.

ratatouille in review.

i was disappointed.

and i'm not sure if it was because i just expected something different, or if it truly was subpar. probably, as is the case with most situations like this, it was a little bit of both. Ratatouille was pretty much made out to be the most brilliant film of the year. i mean, it got ridiculous online ratings (97% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and 96/100 on Metacritic - 6th highest rated Metacritic movie ever). so i think it HAD to be better than i think it was.

i'd gotten myself excited about it too, so i think there was a possibility of disappointment there. when i see new animated movies, i typically subconsciously begin to compare them to Toy Story - which is completely unfair because Toy Story is one of my favorite animated movies ever to exist...the only recent movies to even compare are Toy Story 2 and Meet the Robinsons. but anyway. i'm always looking for excellence, and when an animated movie doesnt come through like i want it to then i get a little bummed out.

but anyway. enough about expectations and deliverance - my reasons for being somewhat disappointed:

first of all, it lacked a substantial amount of humor. well, thats not entirely true, there was humor, but it typically came in the form of slapstick and situational humor. I typically go more for the one liners, so possibly just not my cup of tea, but the humor that was involved seemed to be even less funny still. from what i've found, in most animated movies there is a second or third tier character who tends to provide the bulk of the humor in the movie. this is why Toy Story is so perfect to me - there are about 35 lower level characters providing tons of one-liners. But i felt that this movie lacked those characters and the humor they provide. overall, it probably wasn't even supposed to be the slightest bit funny...i just wanted it to be.

the movie also hit me as 100% dramatic. a little drama is ok, but when a love story springs out of no where? i just didnt understand the importance of it. the movie revolves around this rat (who's name i'm not sure if i ever even caught in the movie) who wants to be a chef, and this kid, Linguini, who wants to be a chef but pretty much is horrible. so the two find each other and work together. Rat's aren't acceptable - humans are; Linguini can't cook - Emril the Rodent can. it works. it's a simple concept that can work. however, the rat starts talking with the spirit of a famously dead chef, the kid randomly decides to fall for the feminist chick chef in the kitchen, the rat's family doesn't believe he should mess with humans, the kid turns out to be the chef spirit's son and it complicates things - you know, typical film complications - but everything felt extremely over"acted" and kinda rubbed me the wrong way. cheesy and dramatic. thats about it.

one bright side to it: so much talk of great food made me super hungry. even for an animated movie, the food looked pretty tasty. Linguini/the rat makes this soup - and it is just a boring orangy-red color...perhaps salmon? nah, that's too pink. but anyway. it just sounded so perfect and it started to make me wish i wasn't a poor college kid. i want some fine dining for a change.

i should probably re-watch it with different expectations - i've noticed that enjoying a movie depends chiefly on your attitude going into it; if it isn't what you expected then you can't fully enjoy it. my thoughts at least.

right now...i'd give ratatouille 2 stars with the option for a third if it ever manages to hit me while i'm in the right mood...like maybe i can put it on in the kitchen and watch it while i make sweet potatoes (which i mastered over thanksgiving - add it to the list: guacamole, cereal, peppermint bark, peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and sweet potatoes).

-ap.