About Me

After a discussion about people’s About Me sections of facebook with my friend Jess, I realized that here I am, a senior who’s been writing for over two years, and most of you still know nothing about me. On a related note, I’m always amused by the once-a-month occurrence of talking to someone I’ve been friendly with for about a year, then suddenly having them say “wait, you’re the Andrew from the paper! I never realized that!” Anyway, time to do a better job introducing myself.

Despite what the picture may have you believing, I am not Nelly’s long lost albino twin with dyed red hair. That costume was the end of a thought process on Halloween my freshman year that went something like this: “Oh…. looks like people dress up in college for Halloween… damn it, I’m supposed to be somewhere in 10 minutes. What can I be? (opens closet) Hmmm, a football jersey. Hmmm, a hat. Hmmm, a box of band-aids…”

In case you've only read it online: the author's picture in each week's paper.

I’m half-Jewish, so when I screw something up, I only say “oy” instead of the full “oy vey.”

I believe that the Red Hot Chili Peppers are the best band of our generation… but I’d rather listen to Cascada. And speaking of music, I love hip hop despite being unable to relate to most of it, I have an unhealthy addiction to crappy techno that I recognize is awful but listen to anyway, and I enjoy Dave Matthews Band, although I don’t understand why people love them more than their families, friends, and all non-dave-matthews-cd-possessions combined. They’re pretty good… not amazing. And that being said, if I happen to be discovered at the bottom of the Thames River sometime within a week of this column being printed, I encourage any and all investigating to head straight to Emily the diehard DMB fan, who is probably already plotting my death upon reading this.

I only have three heroes – Takeru Kobayashi (ate 53.75 hot dogs in 12 minutes), Shakira (which is Spanish for “watch me move my hips and just imagine what I’m like in bed”), and the late, great Steve Irwin, mate.

The only thing I hate more than driving behind an old lady from Florida driving her car slower than David Wells immediately after he eats a meal in the left lane with the blinker on for 46 miles is biting into a delicious looking chocolate chip cookie, only to find out that it has nuts. Biting into a cookie with a nut in it is getting hit in the face by an asteroid as you’re walking down the sidewalk on your way to class: you never see it coming, and it hurts every time.

My heart beats about 30 beats per minute faster with excitement every time Darkwing Duck says “Let’s… get… DANGEROUS.” And yes, I do own the first 25 episodes of Darkwing Duck on DVD.

I have problems with people who fail to recognize the difference between “clean” and “organized.” I only wear clothes once before I wash them, I change my sheets once a week, and I shower at least once a day; I am clean. I am frequently forgetting homework assignments, have piles of unfolded (but clean) laundry lying around, and have to play hopscotch to get from my bed to my desk; I am unorganized. It’s quite easy to be both.

I have spent the past 5 years pushing for a law that would require people to say “sunday, Sunday, SUNDAY!” like a monster truck race announcer every time they want to talk about the day after Saturday.

The only thing better than ice cream is ice cream a la mode. Speaking of ice cream, I do not believe in the phrase “it’s too cold for ice cream.” There is no such thing as “too cold for ice cream”, only “hey, the ice cream will melt slower!”

Finally, my birthday is September 28, so it seems like a good time to remind you that it’s better to give than to receive.

Back and Less Focused than Ever

Ah, Fall. That magical time of year when the birds start chirping, the skimpy tanktops replace the baggy sweatshirts, and love is in the air. Wait… never mind, I’m thinking of Spring. Fall is when you look outside and see the sun and assume it’s hot, only to walk to class freezing your ass off in a t-shirt as trees shed their leaves like dandruff all over your shivering body. But Fall does mean back-to-school, which means it’s time for some new columns. And (caution: shameless self-promotion ahead) in case you missed it, the summer columns can be found at http://meyercolumn.blogspot.com. But what better way to start off the year than random crap I’ve been waiting to get off my mind?

A few random definitions I’d like to see in next year’s edition of Webster’s dictionary… “Crabby” should be used to describe people with crabs. The Big Bang was a giant orgy in the 70’s. “The captain has turned on the fasten seatbelt sign” (known in France as “Le captain has waved le white flag”) is simply another way of saying “I drank too much Captain Morgan’s, and now the room is spinning.” Finally, I believe a new entry should be made for prostitot, a term coined by my friend Laura to describe the 12 year olds you see walking around wearing less clothes than Jenna Jameson visiting a nudist colony.

Do you think Topanga from Boy Meets World ever had to endure jokes about how Corey wanted To-bang-her?

In case you’ve been wondering where I get the random jokes from, I believe a conversation at the end of summer at a family dinner cleared it up…

Me: Richard Bronson… who is that? Is that the Virgin guy?

Dad: No, he’s Virgin Atlantic. With all that money, there’s no way in hell he’s a virgin.

I want to marry a girl whose last name is Oscar, just so I can have an Oscar-Meyer wedding. I’ll serve hot dogs there… but they’ll be Hebrew Nationals. They’ll never see it coming. And speaking of hot dogs, how many mini pig-in-a-blankets do you think Takeru Kobayashi could eat in 12 minutes? I’m setting the over/under at 219… million. On a related note, I firmly believe that Kobayashi could eat at least half of the world’s remaining pandas in one sitting. And continuing this rant while pretending these topics are somehow related, there has never been a bigger waste of technology than HDTV. Until competitive eating is broadcast in HDTV so I can watch the crumbs dribble down Joey Chestnut’s chin as he pounds hot dogs like it’s his job, which I guess it kind of is, I refuse to purchase an HDTV. I hope CELS can get me a job that cool some day.

I went to Niketown at the end of the summer, which is apparently Latin for Rolemodelville, as they had giant posters of Justin Gatlin (just days after his 8-year suspension for steroids) and Kobe “I Like Chairs” Bryant hanging on the wall.

I think I would enjoy life approximately 4.7x more if everytime anybody screwed anything up, the “doink” noise from errors in RBI baseball played. Speaking of baseball, I’m always amused when commercials come on informing us that “Budweiser is a proud sponsor of the NFL.” Why the hell would they sponsor it unproudly? I really want to hear something like “Coors Light is completely ashamed and embarrassed to be sponsoring the Devil Rays-Pirates game. We apologize to any lost souls who happen to be watching this crap.”

There are several great mysteries in life – the meaning of life, the origin of the universe, why Grady Little left Pedro in the game my freshman year of college – but none are as great as “why do I urinate just before going to bed and drink no fluids while I’m sleeping, but I still have to urinate when I wake up in the morning?” I think I could stop drinking liquids for a full week, and I’d still take a leak every morning when I woke up.

What do you think Stuart Scott and Mike Ditka’s off-camera conversations sound like? I’m picturing something along the lines of…

Stu: Yo, Mikey, how’s my boy The Fridge doin’? What’s my dog up to these days?

Mike: Stuart, if you ever speak to me again, I will personally rip your arms off and beat you to death with them.

(awkward silence for 3 minutes until cameras turn on again)

I’ve reached my word limit for this week, so I’m off like the bathroom lights when nobody’s in there. Kids, don’t forget to turn off the bathroom light. I may not care about the environment, but there’s nothing I despise more than having to dodge mosquitoes while still aiming for the middle of the toilet bowl… although, maybe this could become a Camelympic event this year.