My College Roommate

This is a true story...

Being a Tech student has its share of hardships... especially if you're a guy. In addition to the insane academic workload, the cramped dorms, and the occasional samurai sword attack, there's the dreaded Ratio. You see, Georgia Tech boasts one of the most unbalanced male-to-female ratio of students in the country, with over 2 guys for every girl. Throw in the fact that many of these girls are engineers who prefer to spend time in the lab rather than in front of the mirror and the pickings are slim. Yes, even Jimmy Dean thinks there's too much sausage on the Georgia Tech campus.

Now I'm not saying there aren't pretty girls at Tech. There are. It's just that with the Ratio and the focus on academics, there are less pretty girls than say at your typical SEC party school. So the odds are bad enough as it is, with guys clamoring for girls' attention and fighting over the one dumb blonde who somehow slipped through the cracks in the admission office... you can't afford any extra obstacles. But I had one. Boy, did I have one.

Enter Paulo Rodriguez.

The man pictured atop this post is Paulo, my roommate my sophomore year at Tech. If you think he looks like a model, it's because he is. With the odds of getting girls already against me, I also had to deal with this. The thing about beautiful people, though, is that they have flaws like the rest of us. All I had to do was find and expose Paulo's flaws, then surely all the ladies would look straight past his washboard abs and at me and my... personality. So I made a list of common beautiful people flaws and tested them out:

He may be hot, but he's dumb.
Nope. Paulo majored in Mechanical Engineering, is multi-lingual, and was on the Dean's List at one of the nation's top institutions.

He may be hot, but he's not nice.
Paulo was a sweetheart. He was always nice to me and by all accounts completely satisfied every single girl he brought back to the dorm.

He may be hot, but he's not smooth.
He was. And even if he wasn't, he's from South Africa and has a heavy accent. Not fair.

Paulo on Manhunt. (4th from the left)

So needless to say, I didn't get a lot of action thrown my way sophomore year... though I did always have the hottest girls on campus in my dorm. There were some other positives that came from having Paulo as a roommate. The lack of girls led to an increase in studying, so I got pretty good grades that year. I also learned an awful lot about humility.

Sophomore year ended and Paulo and I parted ways. We haven't kept in touch, but I have seen him on TV several times, most notably on the Bravo show Manhunt: The Search For America's Most Gorgeous Male Model. He got sixth. I feel sorry for the roommates of the five guys who finished ahead of him.

Odds and Ends

• I love Words With Friends, but I wonder if Words With Enemies isn't a better idea. Sure, beating your friends is cool, but how bout dropping QUARTZ on a triple word score on someone you've hated your whole life?

• Kraft needs to create some sort of Adult-Style Mac & Cheese. Instead of dinosaur shapes, there can be little briefcases, ties, bills, reading glasses, etc. This way, I get all the enjoyment of eating cheesy shapes with none of the judgmental glances from the cashiers at publix.

•  I wonder if the temperature is always 98 degrees at Nick Lachey's house. His girlfriend is over and is sweating and dying of heat exhaustion and is all begging Nick to turn the air on and he just won't do it and she's all like 'you don't cherish me' and he's like 'I do cherish you' and then he laughs cuz he realizes the inadvertent pun and she passes out and he misses Jessica Simpson a little.
  

• Anything with pumpkin in it is good... pumpkin pie, pumpkins muffins, pumpkins lattes... the list goes on and on. Yes, I think I'd eat anything with pumpkin in front of it. Now am I saying I'd eat pumpkin poop? No. But I'm not gonna just rule it out. Depends how poop-heavy the dish is.
  

• Check out the old and new Hawaiian Punch mascots:

       Thoughts on the updated version:
       Pros: He's wearing pants.
       Cons: Everything else.


       What a terrible change.

       (Did you ever think the red hat on the original was his hair? I did.)

All A Twitter

Twitter has become the go-to medium for the rich and famous to communicate with the masses. As much as I like hearing about Kim Kardashian's day, it's too bad Twitter wasn't invented earlier so we could follow some interesting historical figures instead of vapid celebrities. Here's a look at what could have been:


HonestAbe Abraham Lincoln
@slaves, good news... ur free! #13thAmendment
149 years ago Favorite Retweet Reply


MLKdoesthabodygood  Martin Luther King Jr
crazy dream last nite. daughter wuz playin wit a white girl. hopefully a sign of things 2 come cuz i really wanna use that 'whites only' twitter
48 years ago Favorite Retweet Reply


FiReSiDeCHATTA  Franklin Delano Roosevelt
New Deal... on Groupon!
65 years ago Favorite Retweet Reply


I<3Cleo Mark Antony
@Friends @Romans @Countrymen... R.I.P. Julius Caesar
2050 years ago Favorite Retweet Reply


ReforMartin  Martin Luther
I've got 95 Theses but a b*#$% ain't one! JK... but srsly check 'em out http://t.co/NuxqZVQ
594 years ago Favorite Retweet Reply


theRealHelenKeller  Helen Keller 
rioasndaiog asdojfsj asdogj 2390jsalgj q09wejpasdjfgj aspoegjiapsdjg pasjdgpj!
47 years ago Favorite Retweet Reply


PatsFan1776  Nathan Hale
I regret that I have but 140 characters to type for my country
235 years ago Favorite Retweet Reply


hearmeroar  Sappho
UGH! Guyz are SO confuuuuzing!
2590 years ago Favorite Retweet Reply


TheRaven  The Raven   by Edgar_Allen_Poe
"Nevermore."
166 years ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Fun With Potato Famine

I saw a special on the History Channel about the Irish Potato Famine where the narrator asked the viewer to imagine what it would have been like to live during that trying time. It's long been my policy to do exactly what the good people on television tell me to do, so I imagined what life might be like during the Great Irish Famine of the 1840s. Turns out, it wasn't so bad. This is due in most part to me imagining myself in the United States and not Ireland, as the narrator did not specify location. Sure there were no iPhones or internet, but there was plenty to eat and no Justin Bieber ... a pleasant era indeed. But what of my Irish brethren across the Atlantic? What was it like? What if someone I knew was Irish and lived during the Potato Famine? Then it hit me. I do know someone Irish. The band U2. Omg, what if U2 had lived in Ireland during the potato famine?! Why it could have changed the very course of rock and roll!

Songwriters tend to write about what's going on around them. Dylan wrote about counterculture, Lennon wrote about social activism, Ke$ha writes about glitter*... it would make sense that if U2 were around back then that they would have written about the Potato Famine. With hunger as the driving force behind their music, the starving artists would have probably released some slightly different singles. Here's a quick look at what might have been:

• Sunday Bloody Sunday --->
  Sunday Hungry Sunday
• With Or Without You --->
  With Or Without Food
• I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For --->
  I Still Haven't Found Something On My Fork
• One --->
  None
• Hold Me, Kill Me, Kiss Me, Thrill Me --->
  Feed Me, Feed Me, Feed Me, Feed Me
• One Tree Hill --->
  One Wee Meal
• Elevation --->
  Malnutrition
• If God Would Send His Angels --->
  If God Would Send Some Pringles

Who knows what other ways the Potato Famine could have changed U2 and the rock and roll landscape? Would they have been able to practice and master their craft while near the Edge of starvation? Reduced to skin and Bonos, would they have had the strength to play at all? Lucky for the band and their fans, these questions are irrelevant. Personally, I'd be way more upset if Snow Patrol was the Irish band that had to endure the Potato Famine... wouldn't U2?


* This is the 2nd dig I've taken at Ke$ha on this blog in as many months, but let it be known that TKAA has always been and always will be Pro-Ke$ha. In fact, I would like to extend a formal invitation to Miss, um, whatever Ke$ha's last name is, to be the official celebrity ambassador for the blog... unless Katy Perry is available.

Odds and Ends

• Why do oatmeal cookies always have to have raisins in them? It's like, "Hey David, want a delicious oatmeal cookie? Well, prove it by eating around these shriveled up grapes."

• After enjoying a purple Gatorade, I saw on the bottle that the flavor was called "Fierce Grape." I wonder if the "Fierce" is necessary. Like do people go to the store and catch a glimpse of a purple sports drink, excitedly pick it up, then put it back in disgust when they discover the bottle of grape fluid is devoid of ferocity?

• You know how when someone says, "It's hot in here," somebody else inevitably quips, "Okay, I'll leave."? How come that person never leaves?

• Almost every promo for a show about football has the analysts standing around holding, twirling, spinning, or tossing a football. Is the football necessary? It must be... I challenge you to find a promo that doesn't have a guy with a handful of pigskin. That was a terrible way to put that.

• I feel like there are way too many songs telling me to put my hands in the air. Kanye West, Taio Cruz, Chris Brown, Miley Cyrus, Flo Rida... I'll put my hands in the air when I'm good and ready... and don't even think about telling me that they should stay there, DJ Khaled... that's my decision too.

Fantasy WNBA

Last month, I attempted to help the WNBA become more mainstream by creating a WNBA video game. It didn't work. The game didn't sell very well (though Ellen Degeneres did buy several copies) and I was left more confused than ever about how to achieve my life's goal of making the WNBA popular. Then it hit me. Video games are good, but fantasy sports is where it's really at. I mean, who's not in a fantasy league these days? Surely an online fantasy WNBA game will propel the beautiful (on the inside) sport into unprecedented popularity. I can't believe I didn't think of this before. (Duh-ble U NBA)

If you're not familiar with fantasy sports (aka a girl), this is how they work. You pick real players to be on your team and earn points based on their performance. You get points every time they score a point, points for rebounds, points for assists... you get the idea. At the end of the season, if your fantasy team has more points than anyone else's in your league, you win. Easy enough. Now I just have to tailor this format to the WNBA. The scoring should look something like this:

• Point = +1 point
• Rebound = +2 points
• Assist = +2 points
• Steal = +2 points
• Turnover = -1 point

Pretty standard... but it needs something that sets it apart from other fantasy games... something unique. Maybe a few more categories that are WNBA-specific:

• Finishes game without breaking a nail = +3 points
• Mascara runs = -2 points
• Dunk = +1,000,000,000 points
• Misses beginning of 3rd quarter because she had to finish watching Sex and the City in the locker room = -5 points
• Bakes referee brownies = +2 (brownie) points
• Last name is too long to fit on jersey because she got married in the offseason and refused to simply take her husband's last name, but instead turned it into one of those long, hyphenated double names as some sort of expression of feminism = -10 points
• Goes entire game without asking if her uniform makes her look fat = +3 points
• Fails drug test = -5 points
• Fails pregnancy test = +5 points
• Wears "Air Stilletos" on the court = -10

I'm pretty excited about this. I hope I get first pick in my draft so I can take... um... ummmm... yeah, I don't know a single WNBA player.

Ugly Baby Protocol

"What an ugly baby."

How often do you hear those words? Almost never. But let's face it, some babies look like they would have benefited from a longer stay in the oven. So why do people usually refrain from telling a parent that their child looks like it got a full scholarship to attend Ugly University where it'll major in Hideous? Because it's mean. The baby can't help that it fell from the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down, then got stuck on the bottom branch where it was repeatedly beaten by some attractive children who mistook it for some kind of grotesque pinata. That's why people don't say mean things about babies... cuz they can't help it. Seems to me like maybe this Ugly Baby Protocol should be applied to people of all ages. Words can hurt (especially the word "sword"), so why say mean things to anyone about things they can't help? It's like Thumper's step-mom says (yes, it's actually his step-mom... the Blu-ray edition of Bambi has some in-depth bonus features, one of which details Thumper's ancestry) "if you can't say something nice, don't say nothing at all."


This all kinda reminds me of a joke by Demetri Martin:

"There’s a saying that goes: “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Okay. How about “Nobody should throw stones”? That’s crappy behavior. My policy is: “No stone throwing regardless of housing situation.” Don’t do it. There is one exception though: If you’re trapped in a glass house, and you have a stone…then throw it! What are you, an idiot? So maybe it’s “Only people in glass houses should throw stones, provided they are trapped…in the house with a stone.” It’s a little longer, but yeah."

And The Winner Is... Everyone: Part 2

Everybody likes movies, but not everybody likes the same kind of movie. Some folks enjoy critically acclaimed films while others prefer a special effects driven flick. Sadly, it seems like Hollywood rarely puts out a movie that satisfies both crowds. That's why we here at The Kids Are Aight are working hard to petition Hollywood for the following remakes and mash-ups that will help bring the two crowds together.

The Fast and Furious Case of Benjamin Button

- Benjamin Button lives his life a quarter-mile at a time... in reverse! His car can only be driven backward, but life must be lived forward.

Tyler Perry's Diary of a Mad Black Swan

- Latisha Portman gives an Oscar-worthy performance as a ballerina who can do battement all by herself. Halleluyer!

Waterfront For Elephants

- "I coulda been a contender!" No you couldn't. Sorry Robert Pattinson, you'll never win an Oscar... you couldn't even win the Tri-Wizard Tournament.

Dark Knight, and Good Luck
- Batman has triumphed over the Penguin, Two-Face, and the Joker, but can he prevail over Senator Joseph McCarthy? Yeah, probably.

West Side Toy Story

- When Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and Jessie from Woody's Roundup fall in love, nothing can keep them apart... except for that members of Star Command and Woody's Roundup hate each other! Oh no! But would not a rose by any other name still smell as sweet? Yeah, probably.