Fantastic

I should go take a nap, but I’m in the library pretending to do work, instead wasting time...

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:45:11 -0500

I should go take a nap, but I’m in the library pretending to do work, instead wasting time stalking girls facebooks. It’s a hard life. Lifted this morning hungover, but won a water polo national championship. People tell me I type funnily. Got swim practice in about two hours. Gotta go. Gotta roll. Getting things done with business endeavors, but less in school related. What is college? This is college, welcome to it.

Photo

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 22:34:17 -0400

A college application essay I wrote two years ago:

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 10:50:54 -0400

PROMPT: WRITE THE BEST ESSAY IN THE WORLD…

Write the best essay in the world. Make sure you’re influenced by everyone, but make sure no one else is influenced by the same person as you. Be original. Write to what the readers want to hear. Write to get into college. That’s all that matters. Make sure your essay is the best ever. It has to be witty and out of the box and original and everything. Everyone else is trying to do the same thing, obviously, so in order to make yours stand out, make sure it is written in crayon. And incredibly mundane. They’ll like that. But make sure you make it witty. And out of the box. That’s all that matters really.

I wrote a million essays. A million. Actually less than that, and far less. And none of them I liked. None of them were very good, none of them got the point across hard enough. Blame it on block scheduling and the fact that I took AP English Literature last year instead of AP English Language. I hear that entire class is writing essays about real life. That would have made things much easier. Give me another essay, or a story, or anything literary for that matter, and I’ll write you an essay for the ages. I got a five on that AP test after all.

But it’s essays like these that give trouble. They frustrate me, because I don’t like to write about real life seriously. Writing just one frustrated me so much, that I wrote this really sarcastic and angry mock-essay (it should have been a non-rhyming poem) to my mom because she suggested ideas for essays that I though were terrible. In actuality, they probably weren’t as bad as I made them out to be. In fact, I guess they could have been pretty good. It’s just one of those things that you end up with when your mom was an English major. She wants everything to be formal and I don’t.

But anyway, the mock essay (we’ll say messy) that I wrote was entitled “PROMPT: WRITE THE BEST ESSAY IN THE WORLD”, which you may notice is the very same as the title to this essay. This is not a coincidence, because this essay was inspired by that one. This one isn’t written entirely in the second person, however, and isn’t nearly as sarcastic. Truthfully, I rather liked that essay, but it was pretty biting. Not the sort of thing I’d want you (the reader) to be reading as one of the only impressions you’d get of me.

The impression I’m supposed to be giving is, of course, that I am a very well rounded young man. I’m supposed to tell you all about all the places I’ve been all over the world (like France and Italy and England and Alaska and all over the Caribbean), and all the good deeds I’ve done (like distributing food to elderly Jewish immigrants in Philadelphia), and all the work experiences I’ve had (like when I was a summer camp counselor in Pennsylvania this last summer for ten and eleven year old boys, for eight weeks at a sleep away camp). I’m also supposed to come across as an active member of my community and school and tell about all the great things I’ve done (like founding clubs and presiding over swim teams and participating in honor societies and the like). I guess you’d also like to learn about all the rigorous honors and AP classes I took.

Of course you’d also like to know who has influenced me. You probably don’t want to know how much my mother and father have impacted me (unless of course I do it particularly well and originally), because you’ve heard that about a thousand times all ready. You might guess how much Holden Caulfield’s philosophies have influenced me (you should have read an essay I wrote on that book), and you’ll probably realize I’ve read a lot of Jack Kerouac. When I talk about the Lomographic movement in photography, you might not know what that is, but you’ll be happy to know that that influenced me as well. I’ve been influenced by a lot of things, actually, even though I say that nothing influenced me.

I’ll have to talk about swimming and what an affect that has had on my life. And it has really. Through swimming, I became quite a time- and goal-oriented young man. Much more so than any of my friends. I’m disciplined, and I can hold my breath for a really long time to boot. Seeing other people swim, too, has affected me; watching them slack off during practice pushes me to a higher level of self-motivation. I never want to be seen pretending I have a cramp during ten one-hundreds on the one-ten. Never. And I like to think that mentality has carried over to my school work as well.

Just remind me that when I start talking about how much each and every one of my teachers has impacted me (and they have), that I need to really start thinking about what I’m writing. Once you get to know me, you’ll realize that that is not my style at all.

The best thing about writing these essays, really, is that it has prepared me for the time when I eventually have kids and they eventually have to do the college application thing. I’ll only have a single word of advice for them. I’ll look them right in the eye and tell them to make sure they write the best essay in the world. And then I’ll tell them I did.

"The band originally planned on calling themselves “The Suburban Get Up Kids”, until..."

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 12:35:29 -0400

“The band originally planned on calling themselves “The Suburban Get Up Kids”, until reasoning that there were fewer band names beginning with the letter ‘G’ than there are with the letter ‘S’, and that therefore they were more likely to be noticed in a record store if their name began with a ‘G’.”

- I feel like this sort of success-oriented thinking is lacking in bands that are forming today

abteen: “In a billboard for their campaign titled, Natural...

Mon, 01 Jun 2009 21:32:52 -0400

abteen:

“In a billboard for their campaign titled, Natural Colours, a live painter appeared to be painting the blue of the sky onto the billboard. It was achieved by cutting out strips that are the actual shape and size of the roller strokes.”

Welcome to Freshman Year has posted five all new videos. Check...

Tue, 05 May 2009 00:01:35 -0400

Welcome to Freshman Year has posted five all new videos. Check them out, and see the rest at our newly redesigned (but still under-construction) website.

Spent most of last night relearning how to style things, but I’m still not very good. A better...

Mon, 04 May 2009 16:07:54 -0400

Spent most of last night relearning how to style things, but I’m still not very good. A better use of my time would be studying for finals—whatever. Going to be famous. Internet famous. There is a difference. One is much more useful. The former. The latter means nothing. It’s fun though. Is a choppy sentence structure more “mature” than flowing, complex one? Seems more edgy. Watched American Psycho again today, want to reread Less Than Zero and Rules of Attraction. They’re not available on the Kindle, which is my favorite thing right now. It’s out of battery right now. My room is too messy.

WelcomeToFreshmanYear.com, one of my projects is turning popular...

Fri, 01 May 2009 20:19:48 -0400

WelcomeToFreshmanYear.com, one of my projects is turning popular FML stories into videos. Check them all out at here.

Mike wrote a good post. I wanna write a good post. I’m in class; I should be paying attention....

Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:17:10 -0400

Mike wrote a good post. I wanna write a good post. I’m in class; I should be paying attention. Instead I’ll write and play poker. Or pokemon. What if someone made a game about poker player pokemon? A movie? What’s the difference? Do you know what I did yesterday? Started a paper. Finished it this morning. On poker. Need to work out after class.

There's always time to launch your dream - (37signals)

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:25:46 -0400

There's always time to launch your dream - (37signals):

“Never let your schooling interfere with your education, someone clever once said. Being willing to sacrifice at the edges is one of the most important skills you’ll ever learn.”

(via vskyeno)

Stream of Consciousness

Fri, 20 Mar 2009 02:05:09 -0400

Do I use this enough? Probably not. My IQ has gone down since I got to college? Wouldn’t doubt it. I just wanna write stuff, but I’ve become to self-critical. Will writing stream of conscious help? Maybe. The problem is emulating without emulation. Write like your favorite authors, but not blatantly. Like Kerouac, Salinger, Fitzgerald, and Max. Can you do it? I should try harder. In everything.

Is This the World’s Worst Dog? Dig it if you don’t...

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:15:00 -0400

Is This the World’s Worst Dog?

Dig it if you don’t mind

my mother doesn’t really understand computers…

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:05:32 -0500

my mother doesn’t really understand computers…

vskyeno: I need a new phone lg dare

Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:41:14 -0400

vskyeno:

I need a new phone

lg dare

Obama vs. McCain: Tax Implications on YOU

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 13:59:54 -0400

Obama vs. McCain: Tax Implications on YOU:

Poor/lower income families barely (if they even) pay taxes at all. It’s pretty difficult cut taxes for someone who barely qualifies for taxes to begin with.

abteen:

“How could average Americans support a plan that gives tax cuts to the super-rich and barely any tax cuts to the poor/lower income families?” (via Dan Ackerman-Greenberg)

azizisbored: Oh shit! “Swagger Like Us” (Jay Z feat. T-Pain,...

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:20:32 -0400

azizisbored:

Oh shit! “Swagger Like Us” (Jay Z feat. T-Pain, Kanye, Lil’ Wayne) leaks, “Paper Planes” sample and all. Thanks commenters.

UPDATE: Mr. Cho duly notes some details I missed on the ID3 tags of this track…

TI feat. Kanye West, Jay-Z, Lil’ Wayne and MIA - ‘S.L.U. (Swagger Like Us)’

Produced by Kanye, this song is NOT for ‘The Blueprint 3’ but it’s actually off TI’s new album.

It’s unclear as to whether or not this song got cleared by Jay to get leaked, but since it’s not tagged, have at it dudes.

I think it’s easy to get all up in arms about this sort of...

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:42:00 -0400

I think it’s easy to get all up in arms about this sort of thing when you are not actually a swimmer and don’t really understand what’s going on. When people are complaining that “the suit makes you a better swimmer”, they fail to realize that just wearing the suit isn’t going to do any good if you’re a terrible swimmer to begin with. Like many have said, fractions of a second make so much of a difference in swimming—any athlete is going to want to have the most drag efficient suit available. The best swimmers will naturally gravitate towards a suit that can minimize their drag, maximize their efficiency.

The Economist claiming that “less-than-notable racers” swimming record times is proof that “difference lies in the apparel, not the athlete” is ridiculous. Just the notion that “less-than-notable racers” are lesser swimmers that “more notable” ones completely disregards that notability is built by the media. Because a swimmer is more “notable” than another doesn’t mean he is a worse swimmer. This is just a terrible conclusion. To become notable, you have to swim fast—To swim fast, you do not have to be notable. Training makes a faster swimmer, and naturally ability, and again, you do not need to be “notable” to have either.

I swam four years of high school and I will be swimming next year in college; I also swim with US Swimming through out the year. At all high level meets, kids are going to be wearing the best suit available. Right now, it’s Fastskins, and FSIIs. Next year, it’ll move towards more LZRs. That is the cycle of things—in all sports. Baseball players use different bats now than fifteen years ago; even runners (arguable the “most natural” sport) wear different shoes than runners even just a few years ago. While it’s easy to get up in arms about how change is ruining sports, think about this: those are are actually competing are more than happy to have these new technologies available.

this is a toothpaste for dinner cartoon (and tshirt) from long...

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 11:14:31 -0400

this is a toothpaste for dinner cartoon (and tshirt) from long ago.

People keep following me on twitter

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 18:18:06 -0400

and I haven’t used that shit in at least a year. Probably two. What’s up with that?

Dara Torres and the Olympics, Steroids, and Shit

Tue, 08 Jul 2008 17:04:00 -0400

All right, so everybody thinks Dara Torres is on steroids and some dude on Rome is Burning just said that he won’t watch the Olympics because “somebody out there is trying to get an advantage over everybody else.” Well, uh, obviously. Isn’t that the idea of sports? Now I’m not condoning steroids, but seriously, to not watch the Olympics because people have a competitive instinct is fucking retarded.

Barry Bonds is getting a lot of shit because he supposedly took steroids when he was in his late thirties; he wanted to stay at the top of his game. At this point, steroids aren’t really even illegal—at least not the stuff he was taking. Whether you agree with that or not, how is this different from Babe fucking Ruth having an entire stadium customized for him, so he can hit more home runs? That right there is a pretty fucking big advantage. Also, remember that Barry Bonds still played at a Hall of Fame level before he is even accused of steroid use. Attributing all of Bonds’ success to steroids is ridiculous, and insulting to Barry Bonds’ talent.

Back to swimming. Dara Torres is accused of steroid use because she is old and obviously old people can’t do the same stuff younger people can. Tell that to the millions of workers who are suing because their employers are saying they’re too old to work. Obviously they don’t hold the same point of view. But even if the masses aren’t right, look at Gary Hall Jr. Same sport, same damn fast times. Granted he’s about six years younger, and he didn’t have a kid, but he’s still performing just as well as the fastest kids in their twenties.

Dara Torres has been checked constantly for steroid use, before she practices, while she practices, after she practices, all because she asked to be. Obviously this is a women with a guilty conscious, right?

Wrong. This is a athlete who is still at the top of her game after twenty years, and doesn’t want her competitive drive and training to be for nothing—she doesn’t want her success to because “oh, she was using steroids. It doesn’t mean anything.”

Because it does mean something.