Damn I hate days like these when a mountain of work piles on to one day, especially since I'll have to stop for at least an hour to watch House. Oh, well thats college.

-Mikhail

Needless to say, I'm pretty excited about going home for next week. I'll have been away from home for almost 3 months and honestly never been more happy to be going back. The time here of course has been as interesting as ever meaning there's lots of material for a book to be published sometime. On Friday as soon as I get home, I'll be getting ready to go to my cousin's wedding which will be interesting, since I've never been to one. I'm more than ecstatic about seeing my awesome family and definitely sometime with the jerks as well.

In recent news, my weekend was pretty bland at best. Friday night I saw Dan in Real Life, which I lilked quite a bit. On Saturday I watched alot of college football since no one else was around to entertain. Much later in the night, I went my friend's place and drank, but the time there was brief and pretty awkward (perhaps this will be one of those stories for the book). Sunday was much of the same except football on the professional level and for the night time working at the Night of Giving, where I ended up buying a nice sweater. Hopefully this week goes by quickly and with some good times before Friday.

-Mikhail

MacBook is back in my hands with a bonus repaired top case. Now I gotta remember everything I had in here.

-Mikhail

Step 3 - Return

Product return pending (05-Nov-2007)

That was quick, I sent it in just on Friday. Well good to see things are about to come back to normal, maybe. Home is 11 days away, now that I've delayed my return just one day as to not miss any turkeys that may be cooked next Thursday. The call I made to Amtrak was rather amusing I'd say. The gent that helped me out with was real cool, definitely sounded like an old coot, which is what I imagined most Amtrak workers would be. You'll have to hear me explain this in person as it doesn't do him any justice in print, either that or call Amtrak yourself and have a reservation to change.

-Mikhail

It's safe to say this has been the most difficult weekend I've ever had. To start, in preperation for Saturday's events, on no evaluation of mine, we left at 4AM for State College to wait in line for College Gameday. Aside from a 2 hour nap earlier on Friday, I didn't sleep at all so I was up for about 30 hours straight noting that I've never fully gone 24 hours. I did get on television a few times (with help from my awesome banana costume), but it was just kinda boring being there even with our crazy pride + ESPN. We got lunch downtown and at the Creamery and on the walks to and fro people are saying "Hey Banana!" or singin "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time" which was really cool. Sometime later we did some tailgaiting having nice bits of deep-fried chicken and turkey.

At about 2.5 hours before kickoff we're waiting in line and the gates open. Everyone is bumrushing to get in (which can be seen in the photo gallery here) and we all just get pushed in by the crazies behind us. Then the game itself was just...wow. As my buddy Jonny Mack put it "I've never seen the student section as pissed off as it is." and he was right. After a promising opening drive, the defense got trampled and we couldn't get anything running on offense. After our glowstick experiment failed, tons of ripped pompoms went in the air resulting in kind of a blizzard. Really cool looking, but didn't help at all.

Finally I get back at 2, meet with my theater teacher to work on my monologue which went very well. At around 4PM today, my MacBook literally died. I'm in the library now trying see what the issue is and from similar stories, it looks like I've had a hard drive failure. From the countless stories I've read in the forums, recovery is possible, but kinda hard considering my lack of an external hard drive and of course my financial circumstances. So from this point on expect little to no internet interaction from me until at least Thanksgiving or if I get the situation handled at an Apple Service Provider (which is in Mechanicsburg and not a terrible drive for whoever I go with). This is going to suck serious ass and I'll be sure to put updates here or on Facebook of things.

-Mikhail

Last night, while bored, I decided to read another essay from Greg's end-of-summer present Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas and the article happened to be about lead singer of The Smiths, Steven Morrissey...although known more by just his surname or Moz since he went solo. Well it wasn't so much about him, but rather his new fan-hood of young latino folks. I found it so funny considering my semi-recent discovery of the Smiths and my status as a young latino. Its funny because the article is about a Los Angeles area Smiths/Morrissey convention in which the majority of the attendees are latinos in their late teens to early 20s and a few more pasty looking white people that saved by The Queen is Dead. Its a great article that I wish I could find online, but trust that its an interesting read.

-Mikhail

For the weekend which was supposed to be my untold homecoming, it ended up being really well spent. Friday night we had our Kappa Sigma semi-formal which turned out really well. The after-party was rockin, finally got my Flip Cup game going and got amazingly trashed. Saturday got up early for the Undergrad Open House which went well considering the grogginess due to the night before. Gave my first tour which went alright and went home and watched Penn State beat Indiana. I fell asleep right after the game and then a few hours later went canning for THON on 2nd Street where the drunken citizens of Harrisburg entertained and filled our cans. Also talked to the jerks as they got totally wasted, which was also fun adding to my great night. Had a really good night of sleep and woke up to do more canning at 1 today at the Hershey Outlets. Less drunk people, more kids and candy, but we also had the lion for a little while which is always entertaining. Then Red Robin for dinner and thats pretty much it.

-Mikhail

Another one of those amazing Penn State Saturdays...although outside of football we maybe wanted to stab our eardrums. Anywho, this college football season is ridiculous. Can't wait for the game against Ohio State which will be critical in deciding the national championship. Red Sox just got beat down in the 11th inning and the Rockies just keep on rollin. Raiders vs Chargers tomorrow should be a great game. I'll be home in almost a month wooooooooo.

-Mikhail

Never before have I had so much work I didn't want to do.

-Mikhail

This is going to be a very interesting off-season, that's all that needs to be said.

-Mikhail

With Penn State football having a slow start on the road and against the Big Ten, its been two great weekends for my other active teams. The Yankees of course completing the season long trek and making their way into their 13th straight playoff appearance with a wild card berth (further making our chances better considering the last 5 World Series winners were Wild Card winners). Then of course the Raiders displaying a much livelier offense already scoring more TDs than all of last year as well they've ended two 12-game losing streaks (last week an overall 12 game streak and this week a 12 game road streak).

With the rest of post-season baseball to figure out, I for one am rooting for a Colorado-San Diego 163 game season hopefully with Colorado making their way in just for kicks. At least half of New York may have done terrible things to themselves (the three I know may have already) in wake of the colossal Mets collapse. hope the Cubbies make the season worth while. Arizona sucks dick. I'm not too sure who to root for in the Red Sox/Angels series.

In other news things are going just fine here. The bulk of my extracurricular work has finally subsided, still haven't gotten my internet back even though I've completed my end of the deal. I've got like 187262108762319621 tests and assignments this week so I'll be busy.

Happy October hours away.

-Mikhail

It's good thing to have an outlet to let your mind speak. Two straight days of talking to this gorgeous chick (that I'm not the least bit interested in) bullshitting about how there are just people that you want to have nothing to do with (definitely not a great thing to talk about) as we watch for guys with nice calves (well she is, I just give approval).

In other pleasant news, I finally got my loan approved!

-Mikhail

Its weeks like this where I kinda wish there were someone recording every bit of my life so that my friends and family could see what it is I've been up to. So here it goes: This week (with an ass-load of help) I conducted interviews for Lion Ambassadors, which some were really good and others just horrific. As Vice President thats the majority of my job, so at least the bulk load of my duties is out. Finally had my hearing regarding my pirating and got off pretty light, probation for the rest of the semester, an online lesson thing about being a good "cyber citizen" and a four page paper on why copyright infringement is wrong. Bid dinner for Kappa Sigma making the obvious decision to not let in the pale anti-social motherfucker (being that we ARE a social fraternity). Finally the beginning of Kegs on 2nd softball off to an 0-2 start being outscored 30-5 (at least in two games unlike the Baltimore Orioles).

It goes without saying, life is good.

-Mikhail

Recipe For An Incredible Penn State Weekend:

• 59-0 raping of Florida International
• Division 1-AA team Appalachian State beating Michigan
• trip to the bookstore...just because
• HAMBURGERS
• beer + Amaretto = Dr. Pepper
• drunken volleyball
• meeting random motherfuckers and adding them on Facebook
• do it all again next week

-Mikhail

"Rest My Chemistry" sounds better when you're really drunk (or close to it...I can't really tell right now lol).

PSU feeling so good.

-Mikhail

PS: FIU = pwnt on Saturday.

Here's a pop culture moment for you. I'm going to go buy Mentos and think of how many times the Freshmaker has been found in television and film. I think it has more so than any other product except probably Coca-Cola. I wish I had evidence of this, but I'm too lazy to look for it now.

-Mikhail

So as another summer draws to a close it typically means around this time its my last day of work. Not different from any other year it was emotionally charged, but for some reason it wasn't so much the usual "I'm sad because its all over" but rather an overall sense of appreciation. As usual people having the great appreciation for my awesome boss Greg, but there was alot shown towards the rest of the staff and I receIved a nice share of it quite a few times over day. Its a really pleasant feeling I have to say. It isn't too often people really take the day out to just say thanks for everything people have done for you. At the end of the day its good to see people appreciate those that work hard all day and everyday and without a doubt anyone thats proud to call themselves staff of the Door sure fall fall into that category. Greg gave me a nice little gift that was well timed considering I have just finished Naked Pictures of Famous People and its another collection of political and pop-culture inspired essays (4 times the size of Jon Stewart's) that'll give me something to read on the way to school next week. The other thing about the end of the summer is always the question of whether or not I'll be back. The decision won't be made for quite a while, but it's always good to know I have job security.

-Mikhail

wooooooo Penn State football tickets ftw!


WE ARE...PENN STATE!!
SIH!!

So, as I promised myself after last paycheck, I finally went to Borders and found a few things of interest. First, I bought that book Against the Stream in which the author talks about his life and how Buddhism ended up changing him. Second, looking around I noticed the very familiar cover of Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures which I only recognized one song, so I decided to buy it. Third, browsing the humor section, I saw the Alphabet of Manliness (for those that are fans of Maddox), I'm sure its funny as hell, but I opted for Jon Stewart's Naked Pictures of Famous People which looks promising.

-Mikhail

Guys this week has been one of the very best I've had in a while. It started with Saturday going to Commerce Bank and getting some coins changed and getting $52 woooooooo. Then afterwards I went to the Letterman box office and applied for tickets and at the same time having someone from Penn State working there. Sunday my phone rings waking me up and its the Late Show calling to ask if I want to go on Monday so of course I say sure! so after getting out early from work me and Isaac go down hit up the Kwik-E-Mart then go to the taping which was frickin awesome. work has been alright this week, nothing too stressful. Tuesday, Interpol released Our Love To Admire, which I can finally listen to without feeling guilty at all. Wednesday tickets went on sale and unfortunately didn't have money for them :-/, also I started chatting with this awesome chick thats going to Penn State in the fall and we''ve hit it off pretty well so far :-). Thursday I meditated a little towards the last few minutes of work. Friday after a crazy day at the Door hungout with the jerks for David's birthday and just had a great time overall. And Saturday looks to be more of the same starting early in the morning with me buying an XBOX 360 wooooooo.

-Mikhail