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2011-03-24T02:20:00.003-04:00

It's been more than six months since my last post and wonder where did things turn? That's not to say that my life has been in ruins the last half a year, but there are days when that;s just the way it seems. Back then I was waiting on two really sexy paychecks, had something to occupy my time and rarely went without seeing my friends multiple times a week. Not so much these days, I'm broke as hell, started an internship (yes, another one), see my friends less than regularly (all broke too) and pretty much blindly send resumes out to not even get an automated email saying they received it and it's under review to determine whether I'd be suitable for the position. In less than two months, it will be the one year anniversary of the proudest day of my life and I'm still trying to make the next one happen.

On a brighter note, it's great to have a friend from school moving to the city. It's still fun to bar hop (even more fun with the little cash I still have). Finally got to see British Sea Power, which subsequently led to my ears bleeding (totally worth it). I also discovered that if you want to talk to a girl on the subway, just say something about her purple pants.

-Mikhail

2010-09-10T01:55:00.002-04:00

This summer has really had very few things to write about. Well not really, but I think the way things went it was that when I had things to say I was too busy and when I didn't I just had no will to write. Today though, easily has been one of the best days since I have come home. Yesterday I started an internship at a sports parody site, which is pretty fun and they put me to work. This morning while I was capturing the footage I would spend the entire day on, I get a call from my lovely friend Marisa to let me know she was coming to the city Tuesday for job fair and that I should come along, yay! Then I find out the pretty chick from work just graduated from the University of Alabama, so I possibly have at least one other person I can see the game with, yay! On the way home I see one of Vadhil's friends from a couple weeks ago that works nearby and had a little chat, yay! Went to Jake's and David was finally at the bar with us, then we won two games in beer pong, yay! On my way out, I notice one of the fans that were on the Fan vs Wild special last night and had a chat with him, yay! Some random old guy told me a joke about dogs with no tails, yay! Saw Louis CK's Hilarious at the IFC Theater and entertained us with an amazing (truly) Q&A session, yay!

Seriously a fantastic day.

-Mikhail

2010-07-21T02:50:00.002-04:00

After a week of nearly full-time work, this is third day out of the last four that I have not gotten out of the house. It's odd because it doesn't feel at all like the way I was in the beginning of the summer, when I just didn't do anything at all. I felt like I earned the time off, though today I spent part of that applying to paying and (ideally) more permanent work. Though while I wait to hear about my next job, I've got concerts to look forward to next week The National with Beach House (I'm more excited about that having already seen the former) and The Black Keys, though I could also possibly see Modest Mouse if the price is right. One of my good friends from school is coming to see them so I may get to hangout with him, which will be awesome. I also won free open bar on Thursday, so I'm getting fucked up!

-Mikhail

2010-07-14T02:42:00.004-04:00

I neglected to mention this in the last post, due to its off-handedness, but I did start to work some place. I mean it's another unpaid internship, but it's something to do at least and they're actually putting me to work. I find it odd that I have to try and rationalize my choice to work for free as opposed to working in something unrelated for money or just not doing anything because I should just enjoy the time off while I can. My first six weeks at home were mostly spent watching tv and going to the bar with little money to spend and tht just made me feel like a waste of space. Now though, I'm keeping my skills sharp and just adding to my resume, which never hurts though. On the other hand, I am still looking for something paid and I have two other jobs that one of which I was really interested in since before graduation and the other just somethings cool sounding. It'll be nice though this week to get to work for money and see a concert, score.

-Mikhail

2010-07-09T02:49:00.002-04:00

This usually isn't my venue for venting on sports in general (unless it's one of my teams fucking up miserably), but I have to make this point available in text somewhere. It's fair to say that a period of two seasons of apparent meaningless basketball may have finally come to an end with that guy making his long awaited announcement. The details are not really important and don't particular affect my point so I'll leave them out there for others to revel or agonize about.

Sports coverage has changed a lot over the years, certainly a lot in my time as a spectator of sports. ESPN once had an interesting idea, a channel that covers sports all day...everyday. I remembered when you would pretty much only see highlights of the most recent sporting events, tantalizing statistics, standings and a top ten list. Not so much these days, sports coverage (especially for the Worldwide Leader) is about analysis, chatter and speculation. While no sport violates this as much as football does (do we really need to have daily episodes of NFL Live talking about the upcoming NFL Draft when one happened days earlier?), but with the NBA summer of free agents that we're witnessing is just sad. Did you know that the Lakers won back to back titles? That's fine, ESPN forgot about that once *ahem* experienced another early playoff exit. In that same light, what about CC Sabathia having to answer question about someone not even in the same sport as he, while he's on his way to another Cy Young and another ring (hopefully).

It is sad that the actual sporting events have taken a back seat to off-the-field business like free agency, contract negotiating, drafting and of course the personal lives of athletes. While every fan of a team or athlete will always share the desire to know about what is going on in their day, it really should be up to the individual fan to seek out that information and not for a national broadcaster to be saturating our lives with athletes that they think we should care about. If only we could get back to where sports coverage was limited to just scores, great plays and being blown away by statistical anomalies as opposed to which former quarterback (also a name never to be mentioned on this blog ever again) got busted for sippin on some sizzurp or how teams will clear up cap space to land free agents that have multiple years remaining on their contracts.

-Mikhail

2010-06-21T02:57:00.000-04:00

First time in weeks that I have to get up early for something and of course now that I'm trying to sleep early, I of course can't. I'm reporting for jury duty for the first time and I am somewhat relieved since it will be something to get out of bed for. While things have been getting rolling of late with my first couple of career launching interviews done, it still has been more of the same ol waking up at 11:30AM and not getting out of bed until 1 or 2, then maybe go out to the bars and hangout. The last couple of weeks had some fantastic moments such as seeing Plants and Animals again on the same day as seeing one my lovely little Penn State friends; completely impressing one of my potential employers by the quality of my work; seeing an epic matchup of CC Sabathia and Roy Halladay thanks to stubhub; going to Radio City Music Hall for the first time to see The National for the second time (phenomenal show by the way); watching an entire bar live an die by the bucket during game 7 of the NBA Finals; and finally the first family bbq of the summer.

As the first half of 2010 comes to a close (damn, already!?) I look forward to a July where I hopefully have an internship and/or something paying, the big time family reunion for my grandfather's 85th, seeing The National for the third (with Beach House, finally!) and maybe even a fourth show. Now if only I can get this summer truly started right, by being alert for my civic responsibilities.

-Mikhail

2010-05-20T19:53:00.000-04:00

I've held this post off for long enough, but I guess now is a good chance to do it since I doubt I'll be going out tonight. I am a Penn State graduate. My Bachelor of Arts in Telecommunications is proudly hanging in the living room no one ever goes in under a picture of the lion shrine (that is when the picture stays in the frame). This is day 4 of real life and so far I've spent it digging around craigslist and sending in resumes, watching TV, making my player in MLB 2K10 an elite pitcher, finding the bar with the best special that night (minus the $7 shot) and watching possibly the worst movie ever: The Room. I'm hoping that it isn't a horribly long wait before I find some work, whether in media or just something to get money in the bank. Should be a great summer though, settling back into home life and catching many of my favorite bands for the 2nd and 3rd times.

-Mikhail

2010-05-09T02:05:00.003-04:00

I'm done with school. I'm waiting on grades, though it doesn't matter since I'm pretty sure I'll pass and therefore the credits. Thanks to Yeasayer I took a trip back home as soon as I was done with finals for what will certainly be one of the most memorable weeks in my life. Tomorrow I'm heading back to State to enjoy a final week with those that I would like to see again in the future, but it might be a while before that happens. I honestly don't think I've ever felt such relief and accomplishment to officially be a college graduate. While this week was meant to be relaxing and fun, I did start the job search. One place I applied to is exactly what I would like to jump into to start my career with a production company. Hopefully I hear back from them, so we'll see what comes out of that, but I'll be looking around a lot more during the day this week inbetween playing MLB 2K10 and catching up on House and How I Met Your Mother.

-Mikhail

2010-03-27T22:49:00.004-04:00

As busy as I have been over the past few weeks, it's amazing how I've managed to carefully balance my work load and social life. I feel that while the work is obviously harder, that my time in college has come full circle. This semester (especially since break) has been more like my first in that I hangout most of the time. Not only that, but I feel like I'm back in a clique. The surest sign of that is when you get a laminated VIP card with your profile pic from facebook.

This weekend, my only project as the campus relations chair for Blue & White Society is coming to reality. This semester (with help from an amazing group of people) I have put together what we believe will be an amazing conference. The dinner went well tonight and people are excited about tomorrow's activities. I'm hoping that with this soon to be off my to do list, I can start getting into the search for the rest of my life, especially with the job fair in a couple weeks will really push that off. Still need to update my resume, gotta get on that.

-Mikhail

2010-02-23T23:20:00.002-05:00

I really have been quite lucky in my life. I have a family that I see quite regularly, more than most families I hear. Today I lost one of my uncles, that I haven't seen in almost 10 years. My memory of him is great, he drove me and my brother around when we visited him to get ice cream or a sandwich. Took us to the waterpark and the river I almost drowned in. My father always loved to hear from his brother and his other siblings and his nieces and nephews never failed to mention how much they wish he were around. I'm glad that I have those things to remember him by, he's a pretty special person to our family and I'm happy that for even just those 4 weeks in Tenares I got see what my family loved about him.

Rest In Peace Tio Chepe

-Mikhail

2010-02-22T02:33:00.002-05:00

This weekend marked a couple of significant last moments of my time at Penn State. First was my last snowboarding class, by the way did I mention I was taking a snowboarding class? It was a pretty rough ride compared to last week when everything came together quite nicely. I got a few nasty bruises and my hip couldn't hurt any more than it did before riding, but of course it then did. I'm definitely pretty glad I got to spend the last six Saturdays doing that and actually learned something.

The other thing was THON. It was definitely the first Penn State tradition that really became a big part of my experience. It did irk me that I wasn't picked to dance (again) and part of that was probably my fault for being a person with commitments to anything and everything (except to another human being). I experienced this a little last year, the randomly seeing everyone I've met over the years and just reinforcing whatever connection I had to them (or catching up as some may call it) and of course whatever connection brought us to THON. I love that part of it because it could be someone who I've known since day 1 or someone I helped out just last week. This year more than the last three, tried so hard to pull the tears out seemingly making every reminder possible that the third weekend in February 2011 may not be the same as it had been since 2007. I'm convinced that I will make an attempt to dance as an alumni in the future, though hopefully sooner rather than later.

I can't believe Spring Break is less than two weeks away and that I'm spending it at home, but I really couldn't picture it any other way.

-Mikhail

2010-02-13T01:01:00.002-05:00

I often tout my success with groupwork whenever someone talks of their misfortunes in the situation. Now I've joined the ranks as it seems evident that my class isn't without those that you simply can't work with. Except for one group, we all have someone that has given us a difficult time. One many of us barely could identify her if she were standing in front of us with her name written on her forehead, while being the team leader; the other two (one of which I'm partnered with) are twins that couldn't be any more alike. In the month we've been in class, these two have logged more talk time in class asking the most centralized questions ever to our teacher, none of which pertaining to things the rest of us care about. Unlike other twins I've encountered, they have no indistinguishable traits physically or characteristically. I don't really care anymore, I think it's become clear I won't be working with either of them once the first show is done.

In other news, while I haven't started my job search fully, my summer concert schedule is already awesome! Yeasayer, The National at Radio City, Passion Pit and The National again at Prospect Park. Very excite!

-Mikhail

2010-01-15T02:09:00.004-05:00

I think it's absolutely fair to say that I'm well educated in the goings on of late night talk shows. It's true! While Johnny Carson had to compete with my early bedtimes and Nickelodeon during his final years, I know well enough of things before I started moonlighting in while in my tweens. Hell, I've even watched Craig Kilborn on Sportscenter, The Daily Show and The Late Late Show! I watched Jimmy Kimmel in his first week and can recall parts of Andy Milonakis's "Super Bowl is Gay" song. But really this thing going on right now is just nuts. While everyone has been talking about the 2010 NBA free agency and the mega contracts and shuffle that will bring, it can hopefully take a lesson from the situation in television.

The year started with Fox and Time Warner and Scripps and Cablevision. As always "not getting the valued contract for our programming", "costing too much for the customers aka less profits for us", blah, blah, blah and well the former almost spent a day over striking a deal past the deadline without service interruption, while Cablevision customers can rejoice in not having to see Guy Fieri stuff as much food as he can into his greasy, sweaty face, but paying the same rates for two less channels. Now this giant clusterfuck by NBC after the Jay Leno primetime experiment failed miserably. While I switched to Sir Chattiness shortly after the writer's strike, Conan was still always there to provide a hearty laugh and while there was no way I would leave Dave (who of course scumbagged his way back into America's lives) for the very show he once wished to have, I still tuned in for Conan's first week of shows.

The humor of course wasn't the same, but he was definitely growing into it and it's no secret that he embraced having that brand in front of his name. Now to only start getting bamboozled (like we did last week ourselves) by some bad contract writing (back in 1993 when Letterman signed with CBS, putting in the 11:30 slot was a major sticking point to draw him in, didn't hurt to get the ownership of the 12:30 show and $50 million either). It's amazing how easily sides have been taken and overwhelmingly favoring Conan by the public, but even then you just have to make the rounds really. By the way, consider that Jimmy Kimmel and Jay are pretty good friends and he definitely let him have it on his 10 @ 10 segment.

This week of course will certainly go down in history as far as television after the late local news goes, but next week really has the meat and potatoes coming, especially if Conan's last episode is next Friday. Big guests of course will try to be squeezed in to force CBS to put the highlights of the night on YouTube at 7:30, including well known Leno-hater Howard Stern and the following week the alleged possible trip by Coco to 53rd Street to the predecessor that put NBC behind him long, long ago. Meanwhile I'm sure Fox is making sure that contract is nice and specific when he's ready to jump ship.

-Mikhail

2010-01-03T04:01:00.003-05:00

One of my all-time favorite kinds of blog posts are the ones that come as I'm about to fall asleep. Sure that may mean breaking my shut down mode and having to turn the computer back on, but it's fresher than when I jot down the thoughts on a post-it (which I don't have any lying around at home) and trying to recollect what the keywords are supposed to mean.

Anyway, I figured out that this year (first post of oh-10 yay!) is the time I become a family man. Not that it means I'm starting a family getting some chick I barely know knocked up, but just being involved in my family or families really. While there's plenty of people I really have yet to meet (including the chick I will eventually be knocking up), the majority of the people in my life at the moment I feel I have known for a considerable amount of time (at least 3 years). My inner circle here at home is rooted from high school friends so thats 7-8 years and the few from middle school at more than 10 years. While recently my college friends are ones that I've met withing the last year or so, there are a few that I've known since pretty much the beginning. Now with graduation coming I'll be back as full-time family member at home and in the tri-state area. Today some of my cousins kids that have been growing while I've been away are learning my name and learning that the fat guy that they love to bother is my brother.

I don't really think of this as something arbitrary to do, but really it's more like a great time to pick up on that. My college friends are the ones I'll be calling up when it's time to go to a big game in Happy Valley or future bowl games, my home friends are probably gonna be a few of the people I'll be renting my first apartment with, my family will be there for me to give support and find support. While the nature of many of my relationships with these people is soon to change, I think that this year will be dedicated to keeping those links despite the changes, no matter if it's been there for 21 weeks or 21 years.

-Mikhail

2009-12-25T19:30:00.002-05:00

Every once in a while I go back and read some of my old posts and this time did not have to go very far to inspire some writing. Since Thanksgiving I was working and working and working. Mentally and physically exhausted often times feeling winter break would never arrive. Winter break did indeed take its time to get here. It is such a relief to not worry about anything right now (except my future of course), but its great. I had an amazing birthday packed with my best friends and amazing food and music (thanks Talib Kweli and the Blacksmith crew), a Christmas that never disappoints with the family and now looking forward to just hanging out with everyone and of course the Animal Collective show at the planetarium! Next semester should be just amazing, lots of free time and going out to the bars, should be wonderful.

-Mikhail

2009-11-09T23:08:00.002-05:00

Another Monday and another attempt to get started on a paper due for Thursday. This has been the story for pretty much the last month. Needless to say I'm pretty sick of doing papers. After this Tuesday I've still got two more to go a sexy 8 pager and sexier 15, I think both are due around the same time. I'm really ready for this semester to be over and though in about 10 days I'll be home for Thanksgiving, I just can't wait to be home and not thinking about homework or work or internships for a bit. This semester has just been a steady onslaught of activity, sometimes fun, sometimes just pointless, but really not enough downtime. There have been times like the last few days where I've just been sleeping or not doing anything, but I've still just had my mind on everything I've got coming up to do. I'm hoping winter break isn't gonna take its time getting here.

-Mikhail

2009-10-29T15:49:00.004-04:00

Today I had a very interesting revelation in my Sociology of Education class. This week we were talking about school choice and its role in the academic path of a child.* It amazed me how much school choice was a part of my life, in fact it stunned me that I was one of the very few that attended public school and had choices. This is of course because in New York City, parents and their children are allowed to choose whatever school they would like to go to, whether because of how close from home it is, the programs they have, their reputation, etc. In fact the very area in which I went to high school was a catalyst in the way school choice has progressed in the city. Amazing isn't it? Needless to say, the teacher remembers my name now.

-Mikhail

*We watched a video in class about it today and when they talked about the way New York City handled it, one of my brothers friends from elementary school was in a scene.

2009-10-27T03:38:00.002-04:00

I think I may have fucked up a little bit. I'm definitely an overthinker and when an overthinker lets other people know what he overthunk, things get messy or at least feel that way. I think I thought a more of the comfortability of our relationship. As you may or may not know I don't express my thoughts a whole lot and for whatever reason this time I did. Its likely that this will pass soon enough, but the immediate aftermath is slightly unsettling. This weekend should definitely prove to loosen that of course or maybe as soon as I get my oversized hat.

-Mikhail

2009-10-20T21:42:00.002-04:00

With the exception of my sophomore year I usually don't ever get homesick, but lately I have been a little. Oddly enough it isn't missing my family or friends (I do of course), but I miss food. I miss the home cooking naturally, but also all the great food I've had over the summer. One thing in particular are the quesadillas from Burrito Box. Sure I've grown a fondness for a few places that I wish I had explored last year, but it is nowhere near the level of satisfying as the food from home. Does this mean I'm pregnant?

-Mikhail

2009-10-09T00:02:00.003-04:00

Scene: Wednesday, October 7th, 2009 10ish - Finestra Editing Lab

I was delivering a flash drive containing the week's episode of What's That Fact? to our editor Johanna. The flash drive which I hand her is pretty bent out of shape. She inquired about the condition of the flash drive.

Johanna: If this thing doesn't work you can't blame me if there's no show for next week.
Mikhail: Well, if I got it in there we can get it out right?
Johanna: *awkward stare*

/Scene

-Mikhail

2009-09-28T00:35:00.002-04:00

I've done this what? SEVEN TIMES? And the one that matters the most is the one that provides the hardest time. I'm talking about registering for classes. Hard to believe for my last semester of my undergraduate career is now somewhat written in stone. The weirdest thing is that, in prior semesters I'd already have my potential schedule on a post-it looking at it for weeks until the clock struck 12:00:00AM on the first eligible day. Things were different this time I literally put together my tentative schedule earlier this afternoon, still debating whether or not to take that Big Ten Network class or just deal with another semester of Baukus (who's driving me nuts already!). On top of that the only other important course I need to take was filled and if no one drops I'm looking at a dreaded Friday class. You know, another day.

On a lighter note, I went to a party on Friday night that was by far one of the nicer parties I've ever been to. It seemed to have been everyone's birthday except mine and I was probably the only person that didn't go to Altoona. I learned that I shouldn't dance with Indian chicks and that its possible that I may still have a thing for redheads.

-Mikhail

2009-09-22T00:48:00.002-04:00

I've been trying to write this paper for a few days and just can't seem to concentrate and oddly enough I should be much more engaged than I am. It's about Konami, the people that make the only thing I genuinely obsess over, Metal Gear Solid. My first attempt led to me listening through the entire MGS4 soundtrack. The second try led to me playing MGS1. It's due Thursday, so hopefully I can make it.

I know it is a kind of strange thing to update with but really I don't know what to articulate to you my sexy viewers. I'm really, really busy with the readings for class, working football and soccer games, the internship with WPSU-TV, the socializing, What's That Fact? and possibly more things to come. The fall is typically much more action packed, but in a way sometimes it feels like more than I bargained for. Though I feel a bit overwhelmed, I don't feel like I'm going to break. At least pretty soon I'll have my Fridays back for the most part, so I'll have a good portion of 20 something hours to recover from the week's madness. As much as I'd like to slow down and enjoy senior year, I really just can't wait for the fall to be done, then enjoy my birthday and the rest of winter break. Smooth ride to May afterwards, hopefully.

-Mikhail

2009-08-21T02:32:00.002-04:00

In about 30 hours I'll be heading over to the happiest of valleys. The strangest thing about it is that this time next year there's not gonna be that build up anticipating going back to school. This is the last year of my formal education cycle. Those 5 elementary years, the 3 middle school, 4 high school and 4 undergraduate. Its been like that for 15 years of my life mid-August comes and school is just a couple weeks away. Amazing. Well needless to say the upcoming year has a lot of truly great things ahead. Full-time directing for What's That Fact?, adding football to my sports videography reel, another year of crazy times with the friends I've made in the past three years and who knows making more hopefully.

-Mikhail

2009-08-17T02:32:00.002-04:00

Tragic moment ladies and gentlemen, I think my BlackBerry's keyboard is fried. It hasn't been unusual for it act up during the heat and therefore humidity in the pocket of my pants, but at the moment the motherfucker is dead. Not single button functioning, which is tragic to say the least. Hopefully overnight in an air conditioned room it'll be working again in the morning, but right now it may be time to think repair, replacement or an early upgrade to the Tour. Oh well guess we'll find out soon. Class starts in a week, yay?

-Mikhail

2009-08-15T12:49:00.002-04:00

Hey world, I've been busy figuring things out. Then I got some wonderful advice and stopped to enjoy myself. Obviously since last post, my internship at CBS2 ended. It was mostly awesome, I got to work with some incredibly talented people and learned so much more about working in television and as I've stated before about life in general. On the last day, Scags almost sent me out to Yankee Stadium against the Red Sox, which would have been EPIC, but he needed me to hang around and watch golf, plus he would've been all by himself. I didn't mind much because I got to bid farewell to everyone, which was a little more important to me. Scags left me with the thought to just enjoy senior year, especially since for him he had an amazing time and that I shouldn't worry about getting a job next year as long as long as I keep open to what is out there. Plus after this year work's gonna be a part of the rest of my life. As a result I've had an amazing concert filled week. Monday: The Roots at the Highline Ballroom, Tuesday: TV on the Radio at Prospect Park (both openers Chin Chin and Gang Gang Dance were awesome), Thursday: Yeasayer at Pier 54 (their opener was blah), Friday: Animal Collective at Prospect Park (DJ Dam Funk was cool and he does his own echoes! Black Dice was crap) then Sunday: Dinosaur Jr. and The Walkmen at Central Park. This time next week back at dear Old State, very excite!

-Mikhail

2009-07-29T00:55:00.002-04:00

Much happier news to report this time around. Today we did all of our in studio shooting for the newscast. For about the first 30 minutes everything was just getting all the talent mic'd up and getting out of the way to let Maurice DuBois do news flash. It went by incredibly smooth, many times the anchors got their reads on the first try and when they didn't, it wasn't much longer until it was perfect. We ended up finishing a half hour early even. What really sucks is that it was really only the third time that all the interns spent as much an hour around each other, which is unfortunate since we all were pretty comfortable as a group. Later in the day I had a phone interview with Jimmie Johnson, which is ridiculous since I know absolutely nothing about NASCAR, but went well. Pretty hard to believe these are the last two weeks, just when it started to get fun.

-Mikhail

2009-07-28T01:55:00.002-04:00

Today I figured out my absolute flaw. I am unable to close. Amazingly on my way home from doing some preparations for the newscast I was thinking today how I'm really relaxed about pretty much every situation except for talking to pretty girls. Definitely not true, within 10 minutes of standing around in Webster Hall anticipating a great show by Atmosphere I started chatting with an incredibly cute girl from Minnesota (die hard fan, since that's where they're from) that just moved to the city. At this point definitely hitting it off, but then her friend arrived so there wasn't much talking after that, but the occasional glance was met. At the end of the show friend takes off for the bathroom and I tap her on the shoulder to let her know I'm leaving and that it was really nice to meet her and a nice handshake and hug, but of course I forget to ask for her number. Closing is my flaw. I had an 0-2 count with the bases loaded and wound up walking in the tying run, so now I can only hope that the team can come back to win in the bottom of the 9th or better make sure it doesn't happen again.

-Mikhail

2009-07-22T21:17:00.002-04:00

I meant to write about this earlier, but I've kept putting it off and well its better that I did because it kinda came together today really. Two of the producers in the sports departments had kids within the last couple weeks. Really cool right? Internships are definitely not all about doing bitchwork, or "learning the industry" you also learn that people do indeed live lives outside of a room with computers on tables and videotapes on shelves. Ranging from people adding to their families, starting them or still dealing with roommates. I've heard a lot of cool stories come from my superiors. A lot of these guys have been working together for years and years and know each others tales and of course are always learning more too. Seeing my supervisor come in after his paternity leave with more words than just the "everyones doing well" that we've been getting as our updates was great to hear. It's nice to hear the stories that come straight from the people that are usually delivering it.

-Mikhail

2009-07-14T02:35:00.003-04:00

Needless to say I've neglected you blog of mine. Last summer I had a lot of love for you. Every Monday I'd let you know the nothingness of my life. Oddly though compared to last year I'm unsure about almost everything. In a way that feels good, I'm more open to my possibilities. The summer is more than halfway done and soon it'll be back to school. I really don't know whether I want to be back in school or for this summer to just slow down. It's been going at a good pace and much to look forward to in both the immediate future and beyond. See what I mean?

-Mikhail

PS: oh yeah, I cut my hair.

2009-06-28T22:32:00.002-04:00

CELEBRITY IS SOMETHING I'VE NEVER REALLY PAYED A LOT OF ATTENTION TO. PEOPLE THAT ARE FAMOUS THAT WE ADMIRE LIVE THE SAME WAY THAT WE DO FOR THE MOST PART. THEY EAT, SLEEP, WORK, HAVE FAMILIES, GO AND HANGOUT WITH THEIR FRIENDS, ALBEIT THE VARIABLES WITHIN THOSE ACTIVITIES MAY MUCH DIFFERENT FROM THE AVERAGE PERSON. BUT TODAY I LEAVE MY BILLY MAYS KEY ON BECAUSE HE'S ONE OF THESE PEOPLE THAT 10 YEARS AGO WHEN HE WAS JUST STARTING TO CATCH ON WITH OXICLEAN, WAS LIKE MANY OF US. THE SAME WAS PROBABLY TRUE OF ED MCMAHON, FARRAH FAWCETT, AND MICHAEL JACKSON (NOT AS TRUE SINCE HE'S BEEN AROUND SINCE HE WAS A KID), BUT BILLY MAYS WAS PITCHING ON THE BOARDWALK. FROM SEEING HIM SKYROCKET TO THE SPOTLIGHT IN THE LAST YEAR, IT IS EASY TO SEE WHY HE GOT TO THE LEVEL HE ACHIEVED. HE'S A GUY THAT STANDS FOR WHAT HE BELIEVES IN, TELLS THE TRUTH AND FOR ME BROUGHT SOME JOY WHENEVER HE APPEARED ON THE SCREEN. BELIEVE ME, I CAN'T STAND PEOPLE THAT SEEK ATTENTION, BUT BILLY MAYS WAS UNIQUE IN THAT ATTENTION CAME TO HIM, BUT NOT FOR HIMSELF BUT FOR THE THINGS HE WAS PUTTING HIS FAITH IN. TODAY WE LOST A GUY THAT WAS LIVING THE DREAM, A MAN THAT GOT THERE BY TAKING THE INDIVIDUAL STEPS UP THE LADDER AND THEN CONVINCED YOU TO BUY THE LADDER.

-MIKHAIL

2009-06-17T02:53:00.002-04:00

I've been really type lazy lately. Last night I managed to get my first two entries done and realized that out of the 67 hours my 1 credit requires me to do, I did 66 in the first two weeks. Given I signed up for 10 weeks, its amazing how much I've already done in just what is now my third week. Today went to Giants mini camp which was cool, since its the first pro "event" outside of baseball I've ever attended. If there's one thing that was immediately clear, pro football players are massive. I got to see reporting during the off-season at its best, although now that the NBA just wrapped up we'll hopefully jump into that next week with the Draft.

All else is well I suppose.

-Mikhail

2009-06-07T02:37:00.004-04:00

Man Bob Martin is gonna enjoy reading my 1st week journal thats for sure. Today I went in at 1 instead of 4 after Scags asked me to come in and log the Yankees game. So I'm sitting around watching the game and they decide to let me go out and do post-game. I rode off with 27 year veteran Vince to Yankee Stadium and first pick up my one day press pass (note the correct spelling of my name).

After that we headed down through the press elevator, that I pointed out to my brother during our visit last month, to the press room where crews from NBC4, NY1, YES Network and SNY were already hanging out. The game still wasn't over and we watched the last inning and a half on one of the many HDTVs lining the concourse of the stadium, while we waited for Girardi to come down. Yankees down 4 in the 9th and they cut the lead in half, but couldn't pull off the comeback this time.

Girardi came in maybe within five minutes of the last out and in between that time some 20 other reporters swarmed in (about six of them being Japanese media in a game where Matsui only pinch-hit, I suppose this has been regular since he's come over to the states though). Not a lot of questions for Girardi, since the obvious focus in a game like this is his trust of Mo, so we headed to the clubhouse. I got handed the CBS2 microphone and stuck it in front of the monstrous CC Sabathia (for as big a guy as he is, he's pretty soft spoken), Johnny Damon (and his extra spiky hair) and Mariano Rivera (who a security guard said would've liked to seen him pitch to Longoria because he's "Mo" and reciprocated that statement).

After the interviews we headed out to this Little League game where A-Rod and Richard Gere were coaching the two teams facing each other. A-Rod was not nearly as excited as Gere was in his managerial role, but did go to the mound congratulated the pitcher for a fine outing before taking him out and walking back to the bench with him. A very awesome day indeed!

-Mikhail

2009-06-03T01:08:00.002-04:00

Today, I met a couple of anchors. First was Maurice DuBois early in the day while I was eating a bagel, and he nodded and I nodded back. He said "Hey how's it going?" and I couldn't say anything, since I had a mouth full of bagel. Shortly before I left I met Sam Ryan who does sports and she let me have some trail mix. Good times. Anyway, today I just logged a couple matches from the French Open, some sound bytes from the Yankees post-game and shots of the seagulls and midges from during the game.

-Mikhail

2009-06-01T21:28:00.003-04:00

Day One at CBS, pretty good. I got a nice tour of the massive CBS Broadcasting Center, which takes up the entire city block of 56th and 57th between 10th and 11th Avenues. I'm sure a lot more shoot there, but so far I've seen the news studio (and its ballin ass control room), the 106 and Park set (which I didn't know they still aired), Guiding Light (which won't be airing much longer soon), the CBS Sports desk where they do NFL Today and March Madness coverage (those studios were locked though). Otherwise it was a lot of just familiarizing with the system and some of the equipment, but not a lot. Considering I'm gonna have to write a journal on this once a week for my credit, it wouldn't be a bad idea to just write for my memory's sake later. So far I've really only talked to three of the other five interns there today and they seem pretty chill, including one from Penn State, go figure.

-Mikhail

2009-05-29T02:48:00.003-04:00

Week 3 of 3, time has really flown by and yet it really hasn't. After all it IS still May and I've already been home for 24 days. The fact I've spent between 14 and 18 days in my room, proves how really interesting my vacation has been thus far. Not really, last week I hung out with the jerks and went to the Yankees game. Tuesday I got really messed up playing Wizards and while a fun time, I haven't had a desire to go outside since. I'm a weekend away from starting my internship at CBS2 which will add an element of activity for the next 10 weeks to fill the hours I've spent playing my Marlins franchise on MLB 2K9. But later today I get to party with a friend from school in which I'm 98% sure will have the highest concentration of people wearing adidas track jackets in Manhattan. Heating up? Hope so.

-Mikhail

2009-05-22T16:40:00.002-04:00

Week 2 of 3 of do-nothings definitely much better. All the jerks are back in the city so I've gotten to hangout with them the last 3 days and possibly later tonight and more this weekend. Definitely lots of things left to do before the intern orientation June 1st, so yeah.

-Mikhail

2009-05-15T02:03:00.002-04:00

Week 1 of 3 do-nothings is almost complete. I've gone outside for no more than 30 minutes total since Sunday when I spent about an hour and half going to the Ed Sullivan Theater to request tickets for the Late Show and getting Jamba Juice. So really the last time I was out for a considerable time was last Friday. It might be a result of the absolute shit sleep schedule I always have during breaks, which leads to it being 2:30 and I still haven't even rolled out of bed to brush my teeth. I'm hoping I can stop that tomorrow since I'll make a valiant effort to go to the Door and then see one of my favorite people in the world, Katie!

Aside from that all this time breathing my own air, while watching Bob Ross (damn shame they only give him once a week now, also the difficulty of finding clips of him online), I've thought of just about everything:

- When am I gonna take driving lessons?
- I've met fans of other AL East teams except the Blue Jays, need to meet some Canadians.
- How am I possibly gonna work and make no money this summer?
- Am I ever gonna get around to reading Living on the Black?
- How long is it really gonna take for me to get the Big Boss Emblem in MGS4?
- Is it weird that I've been a pretty apathetic about how things kinda left off with Cat?
- Will I actually make time to go re-register as a voter in New York?
- How is it that I care so much about a girl I've at most talked to for 15 minutes?
- I really need to get new shoooooooooooooeeess.
- Who could I possibly get to go see The Price is Right with for Spring Break next year?
- I really should have done those extra credits for 387 and 405 (would've have a sweet GPA)

Hopefully a more exciting week awaits.

-Mikhail

2009-05-06T20:26:00.002-04:00

Well intertubers, I got the internship with WCBS-TV! I got interviewed by the head of the sports department today with my hair quite crazy (because there was no hot water in the morning so I skipped the shower) and dressed in my extra-wrinkled suit. Had a good half-hour chat about sports (naturally), the layoffs at the station, union jobs, and briefly possible tasks and availability. I'm pretty excited about this especially since its likely that I'd get to work at a few games. If you couldn't tell already, I am home.

-Mikhail

2009-05-03T17:08:00.002-04:00

The very dirty ads for the Quiznos Toasty Torpedo sandwiches suddenly all make sense. I had one for the first time today and the first observation upon my first bite is that its the most phallic sandwich you'll ever have. That's why the oven really wants some torpedo in it, because the thing is a friggin foot and a half long! Add in the fact that its on ciabatta, which is typically a pretty hard bread (although theirs isn't really), and you've got some sexed up metaphors.

-Mikhail

2009-04-30T00:42:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure if it has ever been mentioned on this blog, but I along with my brother have a genuine obsession for a man name Paul Lukas and his column on ESPN's Page 2 (and now blog as well), Uni Watch: The Obsessive Study of Athletics Aesthetics. I was just reading an absolutely hilarious article about NYY Steak, in Yankee Stadium.

-Mikhail

2009-04-29T00:43:00.002-04:00

I meant to post this earlier today shortly after it happened, but my BlackBerry was being gay. Anywho, I was waiting for the bus looking around bored as shit and saw this ant dragging around a leaf. So I'm just watching it going across the sidewalk, when this chick walks by and steps right on the poor guy. It didn't get crushed, but it was so distraught and lost the leaf it was carrying it around and just scrambled back to its hill presumably. That's all really.

-Mikhail

2009-04-28T01:04:00.003-04:00

Hey party people, so I've got 3 of the most intense classwork days ever. Tomorrow I've got my presentation for 381 on universal service. We decided to make a replica of your typical Zach Morris cell phone, which this guy in my group made look absolutely badass. I'll have a pic of that hopefully soon. After that I'm directing my project 4 for 283, which might be the thing I'm most worried about. Wednesday I got a test for 387, which shouldn't be too bad. Thursday is really just busy for 283 again working on the other two groups projects. Still working on getting the internship secured, so more words on that soon I'm sure. I'm going home May 5th, so I have a nice 5 day weekend to enjoy, not worrying about work and stuff and of course looking for a party to crash.

-Mikhail

2009-04-21T01:10:00.008-04:00

Man, I really wish I had gone to that British Sea Power concert I got a ticket to last year. I listen to them nonstop now. Oh well, catch them around next time.

Edit: This led to me looking at some of my other favorite bands websites and I found a very interesting movie about Rogue Wave's drummer Pat Spurgeon. He is apparently looking for a kidney donation and in the meantime is still performing! I haven't gotten a chance to watch it myself, but I'm sure it is an awesome flick (featuring live performances from Ben Gibbard, Nada Surf, and of course Rogue Wave among others I'm sure). You can read more on that at dtourmovie.com as well as make a donation and download an exclusive Rogue Wave song.

That was from last summer, look how awesome he is! I wish him the best.

BRING ON THE WAVE!

-Mikhail

2009-04-13T23:44:00.002-04:00

So, Letterman came back from break today, but guess what? The friggin CBS affiliate here sucks dick and has a blacked out picture! This feels like the brief time that Letterman was simulcast on CBS radio many years back.

Minus: I don't know when commercials are and can't mute it.
Plus: Don't have to see Zach Efron's creepy looking face!
Push: Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic of ESPN Radio's Mike and Mike in the Morning are gonna be on. This is particularly peculiar because I don't listen to the show, but whenever they get a perspective from the duo during Sportscenter there's a picture. Of course since they're making a television appearance I won't be seeing it, just listening.

Personal life is being very interesting, but once again saving that for another post. Looking forward to the weekend though, New York on Friday, Relay for Life most of Saturday and last parties of the semester! Woooooo!

-Mikhail

2009-04-09T17:28:00.002-04:00

As of this moment I only have 3 weeks of classes left in the semester. Time has flown right by since spring break and overall things are working quite well. Just taped my project three for my production class, where I made my directing debut. The practice really got me into a good flow, but overall it was quite sloppy. The second take was much much better, things worked out really well and I did some more creative shot selections than the group before, which made me happy. I think a third take may have made it perfect, but I didn't want to have our guest bored. By the way, my job was made really easier when the host/guest combo was absolutely gorgeous. I can't wait to see how it actually came out on tape though. Campus is definitely gonna be a little empty since many went home for Easter, but most of my primary comrades are hanging around so I'm sure we'll find something to do.

-Mikhail

2009-03-30T01:16:00.002-04:00

So it appears that next weekend I won't have any plans! Sure Jim may end up finding us a party to go to, but aside from that no work since the baseball team will be on the road and I don't think I have anything due next week (probably do, but I don't know it yet). I have something in mind that I could be doing, but more on that for another day. Anyway this weekend was just fine. Registered for the fall, partied a bit Saturday night, ran into many people that I was not expecting to see, which is always welcome. It is safe to say that I'm doing pretty okay...well except for losing to the Angels in MLB 2K9, but I'll recover.

-Mikhail

2009-03-27T03:08:00.003-04:00

I'm supposed to be writing on the relationship between citizenship and consumerism right now. If the deadline wasn't changed to 5PM as opposed the noon, like it was before Wednesday, writing this right now would an issue I'd say. But the great thing is that I intend on getting this done before I go to sleep. Why? you may ask, well let's say I have 3 other cans of Red Bull waiting in case I do start thinking about sleep. Anyway, baseball has been in my thoughts all week. Started working the baseball games last week and have two more this weekend, me and my brother ordered Yankees tickets on Tuesday and baseball is starting back up in 9 days. I'm hoping any plans for Friday night won't be bothered by my having to register on Saturday, but that might be the case unfortunately. Maybe I'll try something I'm not so used to doing instead or maybe I'll catch up on all those movies I downloaded, but haven't seen. Well, back to the citizen-consumer, joy!

-Mikhail

2009-03-17T02:01:00.003-04:00

Back to the old grind it is. First day of the second half of the semester is through. Nice and quick as is always the special on a Monday, it kinda sets up the rest of the week especially once I'm back home from Innovation Park on Tuesdays it really means I have to do the same thing I just did for Wednesday and Thursday. Again, although I hate the idleness, not having classes on Friday is the shit.

A quick note Spring Break: good, but boring many days.
Highlights: uncarded boozing, inconvenient raving and trials of being a lifeguard with Franco and Lopez; a visit to The Door, briefly saw everyone I wanted to see though lacking the nice sit-down chat; Red Mango > pinkberry (yeah, I said it); usual Katz's Delicatessen family trip, never fails.

The phone interview Friday, went well one could say. I think producer Lisa Ammerman, may have been slightly impressed with my knowledge of the show, though it felt more like a viewer feedback survey than me trying to get an internship. Unfortunately they were filled up for the summer and of course asked if I could take the fall or spring next year to do it instead, but this is another of the Harrisburg groin pulls, that maybe I'd be able to do if I were here for all four (should've changed majors sooner). Oh well at least that saves me going Hollywood and turning out like this (yes, it's still funny!).

Finally, I just finished working out my schedule for the fall, since registration is next Saturday. At the end of it I'll have 2 credits left for the major, 3 credits left for the minor, which obviously means Ballroom Dancing and/or Dinosaur Extinction for Spring 2010. Here's the catch: 1 class on Mondays and Wednesdays, 4 classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:45AM-3:45PM (almost high school-like hours). I'll see what the advisor thinks of it, considering he told me not to take 381 and 387 together this semester and I did anyway.

-Mikhail

2009-03-06T12:40:00.002-05:00

Well tubers, I'd like to let you know that for the first time in few months (definitely the first time this year), that my major stresses have gone in decline. Got papers, presentations, projects out of the way. Applications for internships, cover letters and the simplest resume ever done. I'm going into Spring Break, just finishing the awesome home basketball season for Penn State (most for home wins in a season by the way). Still got a little work ahead during the break, like securing an internship. I have a phone interview with a producer from The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson next Friday, so I'm gonna be figuring out what a summer in Los Angeles may cause me. I'm hoping this week will entail a good bit of relaxing, especially since I'll be home the entire spring break for once.

-Mikhail

2009-03-02T23:01:00.002-05:00

I have a really great weekend story to tell, but I am absolutely too lazy to write it. I feel you should all know this intertubers. My efforts should really be on writing a paper on the makers of BlackBerry and soon enough they will be. You know me, I'll always save it for another time.

-Mikhail

2009-02-27T03:06:00.004-05:00

Last week at this time I was writing maybe the worst paper I've written since probably any of my middle school book reports. You know how I know it was the worst paper? I got my grade with critique back later that night and I got a 30/60 on it. Fortunately I can redo it since, my group arranged to have the paper moved back (and apparently I got this confused with a nonexistent paper). Thing is I have no motivation to rewrite it, especially when I've got internship stuff to take care of, another paper due next Friday that I haven't even thought about and getting ready to go home next Friday. By the way, my spring break starts in a week. Had I not signed up to work the basketball game next Thursday, this time next week I'd be home in front my big ass TV. Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy that TV? Well it needs some honorable mention. I'm not sure how I plan to pull this off considering that my Friday and Saturday this week include snowtubing, a men's basketball game and State Patty's Day madness. You know bad things are going to happen, but hopefully not enough that I won't be able to get my shit together on Sunday.

-Mikhail

2009-02-22T22:48:00.002-05:00

THON 09 has finally passed and it definitely was my favorite of three I've been at so far for many reasons.
1. I was already here at the Park, no need to drive 2 hours from Middletown and get a hotel we wouldn't spend much time at anyway.
2. I got to work the webcast which initially I was fine with only doing one shift, but something about looking for good shots of the crowd is always fun for me. What I usually look for is people with interesting hats, there sure were a lot of them.
3. I knew many more people dancing and just straight up involved than I did in previous years. Until this year my network was limited to the dancers from my campus. This year it was them, my Blue & White people, people I work with during basketball that were working the webcast or something related and just the various people I see pretty much everyday.
4. The people that I knew dancing were people I have varying amounts of closeness with. First there's Tim one of the B&W dancers, until last week I didn't think he even knew my name, yet when I get on the floor and find him he's glad to see me down there. I'm gonna have to talk to him some more at meetings, cool guy. Next is my friend/audio and video production partner Jackie, I've known her for about 6 weeks and we've bonded well through our love for chocolate and our Korean teacher. She's one of the few people I interact with pretty regularly this semester so being able to cheer her on was a delight. Finally my #1 brother Micah. It was a plan that we came up with after our crazy night during last year's THON, he'd dance and I was going to be his moraler. Well only one of us managed to live up to that, but I was there with him during the final stretch. What was interesting about the floor pass situation was that though there had been a somewhat laid out shift schedule, Micah always asked that I come down. It was definitely a result of our adventure last year, since he was sure I was going to be around (except from 6-7AM when I felt like I needed to shower), which I was and takes me to my last point.
5. I realized the absolute need for me to be dancing next year. I've said it a lot recently since I wasn't chosen to dance this year and that is it would be a great way to go out as a senior dancing. All the time I've put into THON and it culminates that way? There's no doubt it would be fantastic. Watching how Micah was up for pretty much the entire time until the end when things were slowing down and Tim being able to show signs delusion, though not really showing any major fatigue, set up a real challenge for me to match. On the other hand, when I saw Jackie during the final hour, she was crying from the pain in her knees pretty much keeping her glued to the spot she was in. The fight was still in her and that was what I expected from her as well as Micah and Tim, and I know it'll be there if I'm going for 46.

I want to make my presence felt early and known that I'm going to dance in THON 2010, by any means. Its the perfect ending to my involvement with the event as an undergrad, as well as the potential scenario of dancing with three of my favorite people in the world Katie, Amanda and the Little One.

-Mikhail

2009-02-17T00:11:00.002-05:00

Looks like things eased up a little. I went into today thinking this is only the beginning of an absolutely miserable week. Not so much anymore fortunately. First off I got a test on Wednesday and in class we looked at review questions which were ridiculously easy. Then almost had a heart attack when in the beginning of 405 teachers all like "Team 2 presentation on Wednesday" someone in the back (an alleged group member) asked why it wasn't moved back, and said that only the paper was pushed back not the presentation. We were only doing a workshop on our papers so the only person I knew in our group called over the other two that were in class and we hammered shit out. Then we talks to teacher and she's cool with pushing it to Monday. Fantastic! Quiz tomorrow and yeah, I feel much better.

-Mikhail

2009-02-03T22:59:00.002-05:00

Strange Realization Time: Miki Deez fries and Pepsi negate each others taste. (try it)

I'm hitting a busy time you could say. I'm supposed to be reading 44 pages of McChesney and his beef with the media. This reading was for Monday by the way, but she mentioned that its a big part of the test. frig. In two weeks I got a paper, a presentation, a quiz and an exam, also it'll be THON weekend. If I make it out alive, I'll let you know.

-Mikhail

2009-01-28T12:21:00.002-05:00

I've been thinking about the summer a lot lately. Obviously not in a "I'M FUCKIN SICK OF WINTER ALREADY" way, you know winter is my happy time, but in a "what am I going to do this summer" way. It's weird, for 5 years my summer plans have been easily laid out. I mean last year was a little different (at least the beginning of it), but this year everything will be different. The only for sure thing is that I will be interning somewhere. That somewhere though is a huge question, its a matter of whether my gateway to transportation will be a MetroCard or a passport. Even with the passport I'd end up either on the West Coast or across the pond. Well at least part of the decision will be made this weekend. Speaking of this weekend, I'm excited for some much needed boozing during this luau thing on Friday and hopefully during the Super Bowl.

-Mikhail

2009-01-21T00:37:00.002-05:00

Things are good in the world, not just mine, but really everyone else it's probably safe to say. Great weekend, got twisted mah niggas, made out with some random bitch, and had french toast at 2:30 in the morning. Also convinced our waiter to drive us home since the taxi companies in the are were being dicks. Penn State beat Michigan in basketball and not only was it a good game to watch, our production was flawless. The camerawork was good, the replays were fantastic *boasts* and just straight up error-free...except for Kiss Cam, but thats never easy to do. Only three days of class this week, yay!!

-Mikhail

2009-01-12T19:51:00.003-05:00

Today I made an observation that I'm surprised I didn't catch earlier. I was watching The Price is Right (now a Monday and Wednesday treat for this semester) and they show one of the many life insurance ads (in between the diabetes testing supplies and diaper ads) and the dude mentions how he was watching a commercial for (insert life insurance provider) and how he was going to call and apply for it. Why is it that aside from the spots Alex Trebek does, that insurance ads usually refer to another ad that may have never been actually shown on television? This may be the only product/service that uses this tactic, if it isn't I'd like to see and example.

In other news, first day of class and you know it is what it is. Reading syllabi and finding the best route to class. For some reason campus seems really empty and considering how many people I met last year that went to study abroad this semester. So, I'm going to use that as reasoning for now. Two classes today, first being my Intro to Telecommunications Management at 4:15 with my major advisor teaching, which should be coo. Then a stunning revelation in my Political Economy of Communications class, I have never had hot teacher. Damn. Mondays and Wednesdays are going to pass.

-Mikhail

2009-01-08T18:05:00.002-05:00

Well, winter break is drawing to a close and I'm of course excited to be headed back to dear old State. My fucked up sleep schedule has peaked in the last week, which has led to me watching a lot of the Food Network in the afternoon. I got to see Bobby Flay fuck up his grilled red snapper. Just yesterday I had been wondering if they ever messed up the dish on these "in the kitchen" shows and low and behold I get to see it happen.

Well this time next week I'll be back to the Price is Right and 3 hours of the CNN Newsroom. This time around I'll also have a remote again!

-Mikhail

2009-01-03T05:26:00.004-05:00

So I just spent the last hour reading through all of my old posts. I'm really impressed with how much things have changed and stayed the same with both my writing style and my development as a person. Great strides on both sides, if one had an hour to spend reading a bunch of nothing I'd imagine they would notice it too. This started as a blog for my freshman English class in Fall 2006 and now it's a collection of the times I've been willing and able to reflect on things going on. It is good that I've gone from "w00t!!s" to "yay!!s", even better that I capitalize the beginnings of my sentences, that I always have some slip of mind where a word is missing and possibly altering what I'm trying to say. Hopefully this lasts another two years, maybe even longer, definitely so now that my readership may be at its all-time high. Good for me, I say, good for you too.

On that note, I caught my January 3rd, 2008 post, which had a pretty solid layout of things to look forward to in 2008. I did every single thing on there except for two (the notebook of thoughts from myself and others and going to new area outside the Northeast).
Here are things for 2009:
- stick to the workout plan I started at the end of the semester, add more to it as well
- do the alternative Spring Break thing with Habitat for Humanity (I alluded to this earlier)
- get another internship (seriously this time with Letterman)
- go to several Yankees games) making up for last year
- figure out a way to go outside the country between now and the summer 2010
- get my driver's license
- arrange hangout time with people I actually want to see, especially if I don't hangout with them very often.

This definitely isn't as great as last year's list, but it'll be something to stick to...even if I pretty much forget that I'm doing them.

-Mikhail

edit: Nevermind the new area portion, I did go to Long Island twice in two months. A bit of a stretch, but I've never been there before that.

2008-12-31T02:14:00.003-05:00

Well another year passing and a damn good one at that. A lot of really cool things happened, a lot of not so cool things happened and honestly I feel like I learned quite a lot about myself. Aside from the crazy endurance test that THON was, I didn't really retain anything from the first four and a half months. Actually there was this: if someone tells you they like you and at the same time you're chasing some chick that doesn't seem to really think much at all, don't be stupid. I went out on two dates with each of them and I seriously didn't figure this out earlier. It was the end of the semester anyway and I was not gonna see either of them again, but really *facepalm*.

The mid-May to August was a lot of very interesting things going on in my life. As well as seeing alot of shows (DeVotchKa, Rogue Wave, Death Cab for Cutie, Yeasayer and The National) and chillin with the jerks, it was a lot of work for me. I got my first retail job at the candy store that shall not be named. Although I already knew that retail was not a field I would ever consider working in, I had a PS3 to buy on June 12th and there was no way around that (of course the only time I'd ever go to a midnight release would be for MGS4). In retrospect the job was really not all that bad, the pay was good, the people were cool, the job fairly easy usually (sometimes I literally walked around the store all day). But really, how could 34-year-old Dylan Lauren picture her business venture as a literal interpretation of a candyland? There had to have been some kind of 6-year-old consult or elves or something for that place to look and sound the way it does. The moment that I truly said it was enough was a Saturday night during which a group of maybe 20 teenage girls were on a spree courtesy of a frugal uncle. This guy seriously paid for more than $800 in overpriced candies, with this birthday insisting on getting more. when I was done on my end a single guy comes up with a single item and I say pretty smugly "Wow, there's only one of you! Thank you, Sir!"

So after those four weeks of fun, I went back to the Door for my 5th and final summer. I made that announcement early and really it seemed that everyone else that had been returning for at least the last 3 years had the same plans in mind. This summer more than ever I felt like I had a project that I really could make my own even though it wasn't even my idea. Though I wasn't new to facilitating a workshop I was definitely new to dedicating all my work to it. My lesson plans were done weekly instead of the night before, I had a project that affected the program year round instead of just the summer AND I had my own desk! I sacrificed hangout time with one of the most important people in my life, but its clear that might have been the right way to do it. Still my old job was to keep him from having a stroke, definitely looked sometimes like he was damn near close to it.

Finally the fall semester. Finally at University Park, where there are never dull moments and always a party going on yet I found myself on many nights (at least until November) not doing anything. There's a lot of reasons for that, but I did get a good run going towards the end of the semester, definitely good thing going into the spring. I started doing things focused on my career, doing the internship with Intercollegiate Athletics capturing the best of Penn State sports and doing the club thing with PSNTV are both very fun and just keeping my skills honed. Again I realize another thing: if you're trying to get with some chick and at the same time finding out one chick that is pretty interested in you is just straight weird, don't be stupid. That case is unfortunate though, I'm stuck running into one, while I won't see the other til next fall. Oh well, I'm sure 2009 will be enjoyable enough that when the summer passes things will only get better.

-Mikhail

2008-12-25T20:59:00.002-05:00

I had a pretty awesome birthday. My grandfather came from Massachusetts for the Christmas Eve party a day early, which was great since I hadn't seen him in more than a year. It was a pretty cool thing to think that he's 85 and for has looked basically the same my entire life. Encouraging I'd say. My brother got me Living on the Black which I had been dying to read since the being of the summer and my parents got me a new watch. Then of course had dinner with the jerks and played Apples after some cake. Next year is gonna just be about the same I'm sure, except no one will probably remember it without pictures. Another great Christmas Eve with the family, which of course never fails to end without being twisted mah niggas. I'm never really anxious for time to pass by, but 2009 flew right by until the fall, it'd be pretty alright.

-Mikhail

2008-12-21T15:46:00.003-05:00

I think the peak of High Definition Television viewing has been achieved. Bear Grylls cooking and eating a turtle. Thank you Discovery Channel.

-Mikhail

Correction: Bear Grylls jumping in and getting out of a sinkhole, the peak of HDTV.

2008-12-18T16:06:00.002-05:00

Is it weird that not even a day home for winter break I'm already thinking spring break? Not for any particularly bad reason, actually it's a really good and humble reason. More to come.

-Mikhail

2008-12-13T18:14:00.002-05:00

I've had a very interesting realization over the last week. Ready? Okay here it is: People think I'm good for someone. How did this come to be? Well, I went out with my friend Ricky last week to this party at his friend's place and we're just talking about things (I hadn't seen him a few weeks before that) and since then he started seeing some chick (whom before I eventually meet later that night, swears I met her at the party I last saw Ricky at). The majority of the talk I had with her on the way back to our building was about how she thinks I would be perfect for someone. I seriously talked to her for about an hour going back and forth about this because I just thought it was really funny. Most of this actually came from talks she'd been having Ricky I think. Anyway, then again last night my boy Kevin is trying to get me into looking out for "Ethiopian chicks" since he started dating one a few weeks ago. This really has made me think the last few hours, since the one chick I've been bothering all semester is heading abroad and won't see her til next fall, that its time I become that guy. You know the one you try to set your friends up with. How that'll work out is yet to be determined, but I think I've got a good trial period ahead.

-Mikhail

2008-11-24T20:50:00.002-05:00

Wonderful weekend most definitely. Well worth staying around for Saturday to see Penn State dominate Michigan State for the BigTen title. Came home yesterday afternoon and watched the Raiders offense wake up to rape the Donkeys. Today I went to Katz's and had some most awesome pastrami because thats the only way they do it. Hopefully get to see the jerks and other assorted significant people in my city life.

-Mikhail

2008-11-16T23:05:00.002-05:00

I'm still coughing rather violently, needless to say it sucks ass. Anyway, so things are pretty cool right now. FInally got the nerve to start talking with this chick from downstairs in person instead of just leaving drunken notes on her board. I invited her to the hell party, but unfortunately she ended up elsewhere, but I got her number which is never a bad thing. So the hell party wasn't not very hellish at all. They had a band and a jungle juice that tasted like Robitussin and Milwaukee's Beast as my friend calls it. The only thing really hellish about it was its location all the way in carajoland. Saturday had its day set on being absolutely miserable. Rain all morning and through game time. It was hard rain, light rain, sideways rain, and another rain Forrest Gump could think of. Naturally after the game, it was pretty nice out, but later that night, very windy. I went to this chicks 21st and that was alright at best. Then went to my other friend's party which was better, definitely more happening, but until my escort left to go pick up her drunk roommates I wasn't there for much longer. Then I got pizza and on my way out and back to my place someone calls out "MIK!" and look across the street and its a couple of my bros! We caught up on things since initiation, mostly on how they got ritual down, but then we went to this party which was like the other two parties that night, alright. Home in a week!

-Mikhail

2008-11-14T02:00:00.002-05:00

I've had this nagging cough for the past three nights and it sucks ass. I've made some good progress this week in just about everything. I'll try and go into detail whenever I'm not coughing my lungs up.

-Mikhail

2008-11-10T02:07:00.002-05:00

Anytime things just feel like they're going to get bad they don't or something else compensates for that. Why I'm saying that is beyond me, especially since for the most part things have been going quite well. Last night I got quite fucked up, to the point of throwing up once I decided to call it a night. I really hate when that happens, but I did kind of ask for it by drinking that jungle juice. This morning I got my 2nd ever hangover, first since that second night of freshman year, and it was quite the killer. This definitely was not anything I needed this morning considering I was doing two games today at 12. I ate a bagel and drank some gatorade, but stomach was having a tough time agreeing, fortunately it did enough to not find my head in the toilet again. I get to the BJC a little late but so was everyone else. After we ran down the plans for the day, we got some food which is different from doing the soccer games in which the only compensation we got for that was the hot chocolate on that cold fuckin night (definitely won't complain about that). I felt pretty good by tip-off, which was good because it would have sucked to be throwing up on the court. This was a pretty cool experience overall, in that I hadn't gone to an actual basketball game in an arena and that my first experience was on the floor for a good portion of it, something surely most people don't ever do. Also what is good about doing basketball is since the Big Ten covers alot of basketball games we get to just do more b-roll stuff and things that will be shown on the JumboTron or in a highlight, which also means we don't get limited by the use of a tripod. Needless to say, guess who's pretty excited about watching home games for free (even better if they were really good this season...not likely though). After that I hung out with one of my floormates, even though we were really just supposed to be studying for our test Tuesday, but fuck that! It's been a while since I was able to just bullshit with someone and of course I'm someone that needs to do that.

-Mikhail

2008-10-30T00:57:00.002-04:00

Pretty happenin day today I'd say. Bullshitted with Ally in meteorology especially since that jerk hadn't been in class lately so that was cool. Then met up with my group and got our outline together. Laterwards I skipped Nutrition and went and saw that sly dog President Bill Clinton and spoke great things about the O man. Then on my way to the soccer game I ran into Joe Paterno. He was driving his BMW looking to get onto Bigler and I was crossing and he looks at me and lets me cross and I can only nod smile back at him. Then I get back to my room to a nice little note on my board of someone stopping by and of course me not being there. This weekend is gonna be great, but unfortunately no Halloween fun for me.

-Mikhail

2008-10-27T17:14:00.005-04:00

It has been a week since I learned maybe the most shocking thing, well really in my life. No it wasn't so much that I gained another 10 pounds, but that I'm like not fit at all. I was well below average in my arm and abdomen strength, well below in my VO2 MAX test (that's how you measure the body's ability to circulate oxygenated blood), surprisingly below average in leg strength and oddly enough I'm pretty flexible. So really I'm just gonna start moving around. I need to end my sedentary lifestyle and hopefully my going to the track today is a pleasant step in the right direction.

-Mikhail

2008-10-11T15:00:00.000-04:00

yeah.

-Mikhail

2008-10-06T17:03:00.002-04:00

I've been reconnected with the world for an hour and already feel significant improvement in lifestyle. When you live without all the communications devices in your life you really see how much of your daily activity revolves around it. The two times I had to break my technology depravation were when I saw Wall-E because they were showing it for free this weekend and of course I hadn't seen it and when I had to register for spring classes this morning, which if I should've really registered for on Thursday but didn't know that. Anyway, what made it really hard this weekend was that I knew alot of people went home so it wasn't likely that I'd be seeing too many people anyway. Today was not bad at all, probably because of the likelihood of running into random people on the way to and from classes and therefore potential opportunities to set up times to meet up later. Well now that thats behind me time to write whatever it is I gotta write for the class.

-Mikhail

2008-09-30T00:15:00.003-04:00

Oh it was one of those days today. Nothing spectacular to report, which is odd because I'm writing about it. Lately the highlight of my day has been pointing out things I've learned in my Meteorology class. I've never thought the weather was as interesting as it is from a meteorologist's stand point, but hey nothing really is until you see it from another perspective...well there is one thing, accounting I bet.

Another interesting Tuesday ahead (they always are), which can only mean that there's three days left in my week and therefore the weekend is just around the corner. I'm hoping the Rally in the Valley crew can get together again, for instant good times. Either that or I find an excuse to bother a downstairs neighbor of mine.

A better post in 3 days I assure you.

-Mikhail

2008-09-25T01:59:00.006-04:00

If you catch this blog somewhat regularly (although not recently), you know of my stance in the Late Night talk show world. Letterman/Ferguson is where its at and really tonight may have been a good enough pedestal for my argument. So here's the story, economy in the shitter and potential government bailout is looming, our boys in Washington gotta go decide whether to go with it or not. Sometime this morning (let's say its still Wednesday), Obama calls up McCain like "yo, I don't know if you heard this or not, but we should probably go to work and put aside this campaigning stuff until we figure out a temporary fix to this mess, because you and I both know, whoever wins gotta really fix this." McCain didn't get the initial call, but they did speak at some point today and figured "yeah let's, in fact let's just put it off all together until we actually figure something out."

Here's where it gets good (for the first time readers I am NOT about to bash on pushing the debates), McCain was going to appear on the Late Show tonight, as Obama did a couple weeks ago, and says "hey, you know what's on the up and up, I gotta go down to Washington and take care of business, I've suspended my campaign even!" Letterman doesn't like it a bit and thinks something is up (this is coming from a man that clearly respects him and knows he wouldn't skip out for just anything). Presumably, McCain was going to have 2-3 segments on the show tonight, so instead they call up old friend Keith Olbermann to chat about why this is maybe. Live Feed from just on the studios of 57th and 5th Ave, and our buddy John McCain is talking to Katie Couric on the CBS Evening News. Now I did actually watch what he said during the interview with Couric and from what I gathered I found it just so odd that he literally said everything that he likely would've said on Letterman, but as Dave said "maybe he missed his flight."

Then on Ferguson, who really has been fired up lately about everything in the news (which is not from his Scottish blood in this case). A man that is ready to participate in his first general election is most definitely qualified to speak on the behalf of the public due to his fresh American eyes that are now looking from the inside. Ferguson did not mock based on his ditching of Letterman, but that he's not living up to the Democratic process. There are no suspending of the Democratic process he says. He was done with McCain, and went on to talk about the economy. He didn't say anything that every person that isn't on Wall Street already knows or thinks, but he was bold enough to just go out and say it. Not many people in the media are ever willing to challenge people with money or power and this is why the Worldwide Pants boys never get the credit on the ratings edge. Our country needs to challenge itself right now. The people that are the least American don't live on the other side of the globe, they live on the inside surrounded by a gate.

-Mikhail

edit: forgot to include some necessary citations
"Where's John McCain?" http://lateshow.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/dave_tv/highlights/index/php/bigshowhighlight.phtml
McCain on CBS Evening News http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4476356n
Obama Suggests Joint Statement http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/24/senate-dems-call-mccains_n_129009.html
Craig Ferguson's Monologue 9/24/08 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DuQGqIZCWE

2008-09-24T23:49:00.002-04:00

HE-MO-GLO-BIN *clap**clap**clap**clap**clap* HE-MO-GLO-BIN *clap**clap**clap**clap**clap* HE-MO-GLO-BIN *clap**clap**clap**clap**clap* HE-MO-GLO-BIN *clap**clap**clap**clap**clap*

Anyway, Rally in the Valley Friday night, its gonna be awesome. White House against Illinois. Probably getting twisted mah niggas a few times this weekend.

Life is good, obviously.

-Mikhail

2008-09-17T01:34:00.002-04:00

For one instance I would like to describe my very interesting day. Here it goes, I'm going to start with my sociology class (sure I had two classes before that, but things were slow until then). I'd like to remind you first that it is a RACE AND ETHNIC RELATIONS course, so with that said we were talking about biological and sociological differences between races. Towards the end of class we got up to statistics about blacks and hispanics having higher drop-out rates in high school than other groups, to which some chick interjects (the microphone I might add) "yeah, in my high school I think the reason that was is that the blacks and hispanics were out getting pregnant meaning that two people would have to drop-out at a time." Everyone in the class was just dumbfounded, especially given that it was the end of class, people were more than anxious to leave now even while mouthing "WHAT THE FUCK!" I'm pretty sure it even shook Sam Richards (the prof) a bit...maybe turning off her mic. According to a few people in my discussion group that met afterwards, some black girl jetted out just after she said that. What a wonderful thing to know that this ignorant girl can pick up her Coach bag and go about the rest of her day saying that in a RACE AND ETHNIC RELATIONS class. Funny enough, Sam today was making emphasis about how white people shouldn't feel bad about being white.

On a much lighter note! After discussion group I went to the first Blue & White meeting, which was cool. Followed by the Rally in the Valley committee meeting which was fantastic. Met some awesome people while pondering one of the all time great debates "cheese or oral sex?"

-Mikhail

2008-09-13T00:25:00.002-04:00

Hey world, once again just chillin. This week has been alot of business between class and various meetings which is good for me and finally finding people on facebook. For whatever reason the latter has been more difficult than previous years. Some people are just straight up difficult to find, but I'm back to my old tricks. Last week I got twisted with my floormates Markos and James some place off-campus. I also started my internship, where I operate the camera that does the stream for the men's and women's soccer games on gopsusports.com. That's really all I got.

-Mikhail

2008-09-03T20:51:00.003-04:00

Things of course are going great as I imagined. I've seen pretty much everyone I've wanted to see from Harrisburg that has come up here, as well as the ones that came up for the game on Saturday. Classes have been alright so far, professors are all cool, the workload hasn't been overwhelming yet, but that might change by next week. I've checked out pretty much every club that I had any relative interest in so I'm pretty much winding it down to just PSNTV, Blue & White Society and the improv group. I'm still in the process of getting my internship, so hopefully within the next week I'm doing some work with that.

-Mikhail

2008-08-26T23:48:00.002-04:00

So now that summer is over I figure I'd go back to the regular just random posts when I feel like. First few days at University Park have been pretty cool. Haven't gone partying yet, but I'm sure that'll change this weekend. Meeting some cool peoples, classes aren't too shabby so far. Professors are chill so I think I'll tough it out. I've been checking out alot of clubs, trying to figure which ones I'll stick with, as well as getting in line with an internship during the fall filming and editing Penn State athletics games and putting them online. Good times ahead!

-Mikhail

2008-08-18T19:44:00.002-04:00

Well last week home. Its been a great summer once again. Lots of good times with the jerks, good times at the Door. Its hard to believe that my time there is pretty much done, but who knows might end up working there again if the situation allows it. Well, a lot of packing in my immediate future. I'm looking forward to meeting some cool new people and seeing the few cool people I know already.

-Mikhail

2008-08-11T03:55:00.000-04:00

Man its been a little while. A lot has changed since last post. Manny Ramirez is on the Dodgers now, Brett Favre is a Jet and I have a BlackBerry, which I'm posting this from actually. Two weeks from today I'll be getting ready for class (hopefully asleep at this time). Got another 12 days here to enjoy. Last week at the Door should be good and then one week to just get everything together. This year is gonna be awesome!

-Mikhail

2008-07-14T01:59:00.002-04:00

Good week since last. Doing the work thing, always fun and crazy. Tried and Indian food and hookah which were both great. Drank with my family Saturday after working the All-Star FanFest. Sunday bought clothes and met Don Mattingly who was signing autographs at Foot Locker. Then hung out with David and Franco, More work this week, hopefully flies by.

-Mikhail

2008-07-07T23:59:00.000-04:00

Man its been a good two weeks since last post. Working at The Door has never been as great as this year. Definitely alot more grateful for it since working at a certain designer's daughter's store. I went to Economy Candy, and to Katz's for some pastrami. Needless to say great fuckin afternoon. Friday saw the fireworks, which was bad ass surprisingly. Saturday at Vice's brothers' graduation bbq, which was great as well. I'm hoping I get paid this week, considering I really need to get some paper flow.

-Mikhail

2008-06-23T18:46:00.002-04:00

I've had a nice week off since leaving Dylan's. I'm well rested, my legs and feet don't hurt as much, and mental stability has returned. I finished MGS4 last week, not much after my last post. Snake can finally rest like I have the last week. On Wednesday I went to the Penn State Communications mentoring thing at the Hearst Tower. It's a beautiful building there and got to see one of my favorite people there which was nice. Went to the museum and drank with the jerks on Saturday, good times of course. Tomorrow I go back to where I'm supposed to be the Door. I got a very busy summer ahead, so it should be interesting.

-Mikhail

2008-06-16T19:57:00.002-04:00

Tomorrow's my last day at Dylan's, which is great. Got my PS3 on Thursday with David. MGS4 is just spectacular. I'm almost done with it I think and the story is coming together nicely as usual. On Wednesday I get to go to the Hearst Tower for a speed mentoring deal for communications majors at Penn State. That should be interesting. Football tickets on sale tomorrow morning so looking forward to that.

-Mikhail

2008-06-09T11:38:00.002-04:00

Its my last full week at Dylan's and I start off closing Sunday, Monday and Tuesday off and the rest of the week work 1-10. Death Cab and Rogue Wave tomorrow night, very excited. Sneaking out on Thursday, whether its in the wee hours or just before noon.

-Mikhail

2008-06-02T22:34:00.003-04:00

Last week needless to say was really up and down. I discovered my absolute hate for working at Dylan's because its just straight up creepy to spend the day in. The hours have been really exhausting especially since I closed both Friday and Saturday. During those two days though I got to talk more with a couple of my coworkers, both can understand my desire to leave (one of which actually is around the same time I am). That's what kind of sucks about it because for the most part everyone there is pretty chill. Anyway, today I went to the Door to get a gist of this year's plan. I'm definitely excited about that as always, so it makes me more anxious to get the next two weeks out of the way. Less than 11 days til MGS4, wooooooooooo! Oh yeah, observation for the week: what is this new fascination with Avante Garde?

-Mikhail

2008-05-26T23:59:00.002-04:00

Interesting week since last post. Went to see DeVotchKa on Tuesday night, which was amazing. Immediately prior to that I got a call to come in and work at Dylan's Candy Bar. Started on Wednesday, worked crazily Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Its not a terrible job at all, but it really isn't my type of thing. I'm gonna stick with it until its time to work at the Door so I can get MGS4 woooooooo and pay off other miscellaneous debts. In the meantime I can tell tales of customers I've had.

So here's one: This chick is standing at bulk candies in front of the Sour Patch Kids.
Me: Need some help?
Lady: Do you guys sell individual flavors of Sour Patch Kids, I need the red ones?
Me: No, you know we do have the Sour Patch Cherries.
Lady: Yeah, I saw those, but my boyfriend only likes the red Sour Patch Kids. He'll buy a pack eat the red ones and throw them out.
Me: Okay, you have fun with that.

-Mikhail

2008-05-19T01:59:00.002-04:00

Beginning of week 2 of Summer of SIH!! The OCHO. Nothing really going on as you could suspect. Thursday I applied at Dylan's Candy Bar, some crazy candy shop on 60th & 3rd, interview went well so I hope to hear back. Afterwards bought Craig Ferguson's book Between the Bridge and the River read the first couple chapters and looks to be something good to read for the summer. Saturday had my first driving lesson, which wasn't too bad at all. Driving is fricken hard though, alot of things to consider when making any move at all. Hopefully in 6 lessons I know enough to pass the test and be on my way to drive around. Just heard from Greg about plans for the summer, so if I'm unemployed still by the end of the week, I might be getting an early start on that.

-Mikhail

2008-05-12T23:35:00.002-04:00

Well, its great to be back home. Of course the way I officially know I'm home is when it only takes me 10 minutes to put shoes on, find the downstairs key and money and buy a slice of pizza and come back. I'm more than happy to be done with this year. This was definitely the toughest year ever because I missed out on a lot of good times. Whenever I saw my friends from last year they were easily the highlight of that week. It sucks that now most of them decided not to go to University Park, but I know I'll be seeing them during football season and other times.

On another note, I think this is gonna be a great summer. I've seen the people that I can see for now and thats the best way to start the vacation. Hopefully tomorrow, I can go get my driving lessons on while looking for work. I need some serious money this summer so that I can get MGS4 and PS3, new phone, new TV maybe, and pay off my credit card before going to University Park.

Good Times Ahead,
-Mikhail

2008-04-19T01:24:00.003-04:00

Holy shit, I don't think I've ever been as sick as I've been this week. Officially I have an upper respiratory infection, which implies that not only is my throat all sore, but my nose and surrounding upper respiratory areas are all fucked up. I'm now trying to irritate my sore by gargling a simple saline solution and drinking highly acidic orange juice. I'm hoping my reverse psychology works because it really sucks. Only 2 weeks left of class and a few finals and i'll be home in 3 weeks time.

-Mikhail

2008-04-06T04:01:00.002-04:00

I'm so sick of this place, it has really taken a toll on me mentally and physically. Last week I had to work on two major papers and study for a quiz that I was actually sick. Sure it was my usual change of weather sick, but it was really just pounding me bad. I saw a buddy of mine today from last year that unfortunately due to lame circumstances couldn't come back to school this year. He saw me and said "Mikhail, I'm glad to see you! You're like one of the most chill people I've ever met." I wish that were still true, but too many things here really make that impossible. There are some people, there are some rules, this place in general just is here to ruin your day and with proper combination of each it definitely will. And you know how they say things get better with time, well in this case its not because you get used to it, its because there's a time limit fortunately. My new situation at University Park is less than 5 months and I'm lucky enough to know that its not a drag on you, but rather enhancing. Classes are gonna suck already for me, but at least a friendlier atmosphere is there to keep from dreading them. Oh well, 5 weeks to go before I become a workaholic again.

-Mikhail

2008-03-23T20:13:00.002-04:00

UPDATE!

So I'm working on this project for sociology, that is ridiculously difficult in that I never meet with my group. It always involves several exchanges of emails and text messages the day before a project or presentation is due. Its cool though, our group does the best at all of these things. Anyway, I've been playing MLB 2K8 lately, which is possibly the most frustrating video game ever. Their pitching interface is pretty innovative, but one would hope that when putting this in it'd be at least near perfect. After looking through the 2K forums I of course found I was not the only one with this problem and someone put up a very helpful diagram. Since seeking this advice I've won 4 of my last 5, with 3 shutouts and the other win taking a no hitter into the 8th inning before tossing a meatball that goes over right field.

7 to go.

-Mikhail

2008-03-15T20:21:00.001-04:00

Here's an interesting article about joke-stealing.

Oh and me? Alive, eight weeks left in this hell-hole...can't complain.

-Mikhail

2008-03-08T14:21:00.001-05:00

Here's an interesting video.

2008-03-04T23:26:00.002-05:00

Spring Break coming up Thursday. I'm very excited about seeing my family again and going to Stony Brook to hangout with the jerks. I'm probably gonna go back next Thursday since allegedly I'm hanging out with some chick I've been meaning to meet up with for a while. This would be alot easier if this place had more housing or if I was more mobile. Anyway gotta get through anal-rape Wednesday (one with 3 scrumptious tests) and Thursday. Oh yeah, hopefully MLB 2K8 comes tomorrow, that should pass the time.

-Mikhail

2008-02-24T22:53:00.002-05:00

You know...February wasn't at all too bad. My weekends this month have been incredible. On Saturday the ninth I went to New York with Katie and she ended up meeting my folks and the jerks as well. The Saturday after that we went to the University of Pennsylvania for our district conclave. It was great to meet brothers from other chapters and learn about what they do in their chapters. This weekend of course was THON 2008. Just like last year it was amazing, but this time the dancers were people I have been friends with for a good part of my college career. Me and Micah decided to spend the night at Bryce Jordan Center instead of going to the hotel, which was crazy because we really were like the dancers and had no idea what time it was. We did the line dance many times, sung and danced to songs we sure as hell knew we hated (my favorite being Adam suffering through "Blue") and met cool people such as my potential neighbors next semester and Gwen, who I'll refer to as "Micah's friend". Another great Penn State weekend.

-Mikhail

2008-02-07T23:50:00.001-05:00

This Texas Ranger Doesn’t Play Baseball

With the rise of the Internet no one person has been given hero status more in the past three years than Chuck Norris. Before I became familiar with Chuck Norris in his current form, I found myself in one of the many dojos where he practiced in Harlem. His hero status has been assumed since he started appearing in his own feature films during the 70s where he of course roundhouse kicks fiends and takes names. In the 80s he had a cartoon show where he lead a team of a couple of kids and a helpful sumo wrestler pal fighting a crazy ninja and some dude with a freakish golden claw. In the 90s Chuck was Walker, Texas Ranger, who was fighting crime (while selling home gym systems at that) when Texas was having some serious issues apparently…for eight years too. Well in this decade Chuck Norris is now a supernatural being that until about two months ago, was greater than God.

One characteristic of the rise of Chuck is his continuous gain of power, which of course was helped by immense training, but was enhanced with the powers of his facial hair. The rise of this hero starts with a really big fall inn a fight scene with Bruce Lee. Not only does Bruce Lee beat him to death, he had hair ripped right off of his chest! In the 1980s he had a mustache while fighting ninjas in The Octagon. While on his Texas Ranger stint he had a full beard hiding another fist. Back to the Bruce Lee fight, no mustache...just wimpy sideburns.

In 2005, Chuck Norris became a phenomenon once again because people were learning more and more about what a brute, unforgiving force he was to humans, nature and pretty much the entire universe. Our beloved crime fighting Texan was not only striking fear into the eyes of criminals, but everything alive…maybe even dead in some cases. The Chuck Norris facts became an amazing hit and of course Chuck Norris being the man he is acknowledged the jokes and was willing to laugh at his own awesomeness.
Unfortunately it was time for another fall, when Chuck Norris decided to show that maybe God actually does have more power than what Chuck Norris gave to him. He began running ads to promote Bible study in schools, which of course to many shows that Chuck Norris may be a God fearing man, but he can snap your neck faster than you can blink. In late 2007, he sued a book publisher for releasing a book of the mythological Chuck Norris facts, which of course makes the threat of “Don’t F*** with Chuck” true because he’ll sue your ass.

Well now that that’s taken care of Chuck Norris has teamed with Mike Huckabee in a line of ads including “Huck-Chuck” facts, which were of course “Chuck Norris Approved”. By the way, this paper would not exist had Harry Truman decided to use the atomic bomb instead of use Chuck Norris, since it was more humane.

-Mikhail

2008-02-07T23:24:00.000-05:00

Man I'm tired. Next two weekends should be cool. UPenn next Saturday with the boys. THON the week after that. Good times.

-Mikhail

2008-01-27T03:48:00.000-05:00

So yesterday I went to New York for the day and it may have been one of the best 12 hour spans I've been in the city. Our time in there started with my first ride on the PATH stopping at where else but the in progress World Trade Center hub, which is a crazy sight in that you are right in "Ground Zero" watching people build stuff there after the reckoning the Cloverfield monster did. We went to Chipotle's for lunch although it was the first meal for most of us. Then we went canning at our respective spots having initially moderate success. We took a break and went our separate ways for the most part. I ended up going home where I had a nice hearty meal and then took a nap only to wake up to my brother playing Ken Griffey Jr.'s Slugfest on a N64 emulator. Six o'clock hit so I went back to meet up with the others. As it should be no surprise to anyone, cluster-fucked weekend service left us waiting at each stop while "traffic" cleared. We finally met up at Times Square where the characters finally started to appear including my favorite "I GOTTA SLEEP, GOTTA EAT, GOTTA SHIT, GOTTA COOK BREAKFAST MAAAAAAAAAN." While trying to figure out our next canning locale, we heard about a bar that serves as an underground Penn State Alum spot. We head down there and low and behold you can spot a banner that says "Welcome All Penn State Nittany Lions" We imediately think this is incredibly awesome and that about ends the trip. The entire time (especially after leaving my folks place) I thought that soon enough this is how life's going to be for me. Whether it'll be other trips to day trips to New York from school or after graduation, when I'm living far from my current home and just stop by to say "Hi!" to my family. Also this day helped to give me an idea of where to find fellow Penn Staters after my time at State College is done. Best Saturday so far this year and definitely top 10 lifetime.

-Mikhail