did anyone watch the VMA's? hot damn did the singer from hoobastank suck hog. likely his monitor wasnt working or whatever, but he made my ears cry when he was singing his much touted (sp?) single "the reason". sweet jesus was it terrible to hear. not the catchy tune i was used to. i coudlnt help but cringe and feel as though i was being beaten with a tone deaf corpse. awful.

watching jeopardy today i confirmed i am smarter than atleast three 12 year olds. i only missed 2 questions on the whole show.

on a side note, i find the media to be generally obnoxious.

peter gammons broke my heart today in his discussion on sportscenter regarding possible AL MVP's. he mentioned gary sheffield, and vladimir guerrero as favorites with ichiro and miguel tejada splitting votes for players on losing teams. hearing no red sox mentioned, i set out to investigate if i was just being a home town fan. i will analyze the following stats: batting average (BA), total bases, extra-base hits (XBH), doubles, homers, RBI's, and on base percentage (OBP). to those who ask "what about Jeter? sure he struggled a little but he made the allstar team as the starter and he is a real team leader", let me respond. jeter has been nothing short of terrible this year. just look at the numbers. everyone knows the allstar game is a sham (popularity contest at best) and being a team leader makes you a team MVP, not a league MVP. another question is, did i chose specific stats to make my case? of course i did, thats what stats are for. keep in mind that i dont have walks, strikeouts, slugging percentage, fielding percentage, and basestealing stats. it took me sort of awhile to do this, knowing full well that everyone reading it has a cumulative number of MVP votes equal to zero. regardless:

Ichiro Suzuki:
ranked first in batting average by a wide margin, first in hits, second in OBP and 7th in total bases. however, he shows up no where in any of the real power hitting categories. here is why he should be the MVP: he has a legit chance to break both .400 and the hit/season record, steals bases, and plays great defense. here is why he shouldnt: the mariners stink. they are terrible. and all his bazillion singles dont make any kind of real impact on that.

Vladimir Guerrero:
5th in average, tied 3rd (T3) in total bases, T4 in hits, T5 in XB hits, T8 in doubles, 7th in homers, T4 in RBI's, 17th in OBP. armed with a canon he plays good defensive outfield and his angels are doing amazing considering the injuries he sustained. heres why he shouldnt be the MVP: look at some of the stats in following players and youll know.

Manny Ramirez:
6th in average, 2nd in total bases, T13 in hits, 2nd in XB hits, T6 in doubles, 1st in homers, 3rd in RBIs, and 3rd in OBP. manny plays suspect defense (though generally solid), and steals few bases. few homerun hitters do.

Alex Rodriguez:
putting this mans rankings down is a waste of time. he doesnt compare. last out of this group in almost every category. he does play gold glove defense at a new position. however, nobody outside of new york cares. not one single vote should go to this guy.

Miguel Tejada:
7th in average, T3 in total bases, 3rd in hits, 3rd in XB hits, T4 in doubles, T10 in homers, 1st in RBI's, 23rd in OBP. he plays outstanding shortstop for a crummy orioles team. based on his RBI numbers id vote for him except he is getting hosed in a bunch of other categories and plays for a BAD team.

David Ortiz:
17 in avg., 1st in total bases, 16th in hits, 1st in XB hits, 3rd in doubles, T2 in homers, 2nd in RBI's and 18 in OBP. critics argue he is a DH and therefore half a player. they are wrong. he is destroying the ball and in the top 5 in several key power categories.

Gary Sheffield:
22nd in average, 6th in total bases, T23 in hits, T10 in XB hits, T2 in homers, 6th in RBIs and 6th in OBP. has a cannon arm and is playing hurt (who isnt you crybaby?) plain and simple, he shouldnt be the MVP. gets sympathy votes because as of late he has been real hot and the rest of the yankees havent.

i agree this must be a bit cumbersome to read if anyone did. and tabulated data would have been much better, but importing a table from excel requires ftp space that i dont have. so die.

remember that time last night when i got real drunk, went to dougs, and puked in his backyard? that was awesome.

this is an email i received today from my financial aid advisor, check out the date she's coming back ...

I will be out of the office starting 06/29/2004 and will not return until 04/15/2040. I no longer work for Northeastern University. If you need assistance, please contact 617 373-3190. This email account will NOT be checked

this is the 6th change in my financial advisor since i have been enrolled at the wonderful university of northeastern.

joe dooling makes me laugh almost everyday. through the grapevine i heard grange was (is?) looking to unload 3 costly tickets to the Kanye West/Usher/probably more concert tomorrow. in an attempt (though weak) to help, i left an away message. joe had the only response:

Auto response from Whitetrashkateer: anyone want tickets for the usher/kanye show at the fleet?
FOREVER27 JD: nah dude, see if grange wants em aaaaahhahahahahhaaa

so on tuesday, me and kinlin get a call from grange. he wants to go to a ballgame, and ive only seen a couple this year, so we went down to pick up some tickets an hour or so before the game. i couldnt fathom that we wouldnt be able to get cheap seats. it was a tuesday night, bronson arroyo was facing the devil rays. i cant imagine a better (less enticing) matchup so spirits were high. laprel(l?) (oh yeah, he was there too) and i left to find scalpers and kinlin and grange went to find a parking spot. as it turns out, the cheapest tickets we found were 50$ standing room only. fuck that. not to see bronson. anyway, after circling the stadium a couple times, we met up with grange and kinlin, told them the bad news, and decided to head home to watch the game. we walk to the car ... except now it has transformed into the spot where the car was parked. it got towed ! hooray. starting out to catch a cab, we decided to take a short cut over some rusty, half complete bridge. after a train came roaring under us, we abandoned the shaky bridge for the street and the long way around. we catch a cab out to a very shadey (sp?) jamaica plains tow shop. we almost beat granges car there, they were still unhooking it from the truck. several large signs informed us that only cash was accepted so grange ponied up the 105 bucks and we left to get beer and catch the game. so not only did we not get tickets to the game, but missed a couple innings and spent like 120 bucks. fuck you bronson. thanks for winning though.

last night me, st louis, and eric went to the bars while the babies went to glenns. Our House was dead so we went over to Conner Larkins where drunkeness occurred and i offended some people. then we returned to Our House where i made crappy attempts to hit on the bar tender and touched one of the waitresses boobs. actually two, when you count marissa too. real drunk. we got free zippos for smoking butts though, that was neat. i think we left then, to stumble home in the rain. around west campus, i (for some reason) tackled st louis into a big puddle. i guess i broke his watch. oops. already dripping wet the puddle didnt bother me (it was raining all night). upon arriving home, without st louis who had pursued a lady friend, i commanded that a bowl be packed for me. in the very same sentence, i realized that by no means was i going to be able to smoke it. i think i stumbled upstairs and found my bed. but i woke up with a zippo, no money, no clothes on, and wet shoes. my breath smells like i puked, but im not sure i did. anyone remember? oh well. i saw atleast the following people last night and didnt want to end my narrative without including them: nader, jay, some girl who likes the yankees and was getting hit on by jay, spongebob, kara, lisa, marissa, ryan, coffey, some english guy, steph spino, and melissa. also the girl in the blue skirt who was playing with her belly button chain all night. a glorious sight.

i have decided that the college is the opposite place i should be. maybe ill go into detail later, but it can be summed up in one sentence. college is full of people trying to learn a lot about a little, and i want to know a little about a lot.

yes, im well aware engineers are nerds

i did poorly on an exam earlier in the year. at the opportunity to take a make-up, i jumped and evidently did poorly on it as well. as i still earned the maximum amount of points to be added to my first i paid my corrected test very little attention. after the professor stared at me and told the class he would be glad to go over the test on several occasions, i got the feeling that he wanted to talk to me about it. extra help, i thought, could be good. turned out that my extra help turned into the professor bitching at me for making a number of stupid (and some were really stupid) mistakes. at the end of his help session/bitch fest he said very sternly, "Don't disappoint me again Matt". thanks jerko.

this is the same professor who gives useless notes and today started his lecture, "If I remember correctly, and I probably don't ..." followed by a 40 minute rant about some remotely related topic. he is not a good professor. but he is extraordinarily old. im talking minutes from the grave old.

two little bits today. it struck me as odd that Ryder Hall, the home of (among other things) the architexture department here at northeastern, would include in its lobby a gaudy stairwell that doesnt go to the top floor of the building. just seems like it could have been planned better.

i was watching a bill hick's stand up routine and he raised an interesting point. if we are indeed in a war on drugs, and were losing it (as politicians often lament), that means that both the drugs and the people on them are winning the war. sorta makes you wonder how millions of fucked up people on drugs can win a war.

The Bible: Interpreted Through Legos

hmmm

 

about an hour and fifteen minutes into my first class, i decided i would rather not be in class, then be in it. so i left. im also skipping my 9:50-11:40 class. so now it is the weekend.

i have a problem. split personalities you see. morning matt, and evening matt. evening matt seems to have a lot of fun, but it pisses morning matt off. to punish evening matt, morning matt wakes up extra early and feels shitty right up until evening matt takes over. at which point evening matt counters by staying up late and abusing various substances in order to punish morning matt in return. its a terrible vicious cycle where neither seems to be getting the better of the other. but im pretty tired, so thats all im going to write.

it should never be this hot at 9:30 in the morning. never. i said never.

two revelations today:

1. you can easily tell which kids are here for orientation. because they look at you. some might call it staring, but they LOOK. usually i walk and i SEE people, but i dont look at them. these kids look long and hard, as if to determine if college kids are different than them. plus they often wear silly nametags or carry bags from the bookstore.

2. when you find yourself stumped on a particular homework problem, let it go. give up. then when its due just stay after and ask the professor how to do it. they will literally do it for you. then not only do you not have to worry about it when you were doing it, but you also get to know how to do it, without doing the work. plus it makes you look like a go-getter asking for extra help. by the way, this doesnt work exceptionally well if you do it too often, or come with 1 out of 10 homework problems done.

Be TERRIFIED, but carry on with your day

i guess well call this the other side of the story.