I am an Offensive Driver

Which is why I am taking a defensive driving course. Somebody in this city thinks that I need to slow down. Therefore, they force me into taking the course online for the speeding ticket that I recently received.

In taking this online course, they have a couple of outright misconceptions:

#1:
"Your decision, willingness and effort to participate in this course give you an opportunity to learn to drive more alertly, efficiently, and safely."

No, this decision was not one out of willingness. And thank you for the opportunity, but I am still busy being bitter about being a bad driver. (But I ball at alliteration.)

#2:
"As you start this course, you probably consider yourself to be a very good driver. Then recently, and very unexpectedly, you were issued a citation by a law enforcement official. Many good drivers receive citations and are also involved in crashes."

I know I'm not a good driver. I am a pretty good parker, but I am not a great driver. But I know this. I accept this. Therefor I am not going to be all high and mighty when given a ticket. At no time is it unexpected...

Yes, so the class has to be a minimum of 6 hours or something like that. So they have timed it so that you have to stay on each page for a minimum amount of time. But it isn't a decent amount of time where you could just walk away from your computer, it is done in like :20 increments so you have to be attentive. Fucking DPS.

The name of the site is idrivesafely.com. Which I find kind of funny because if you are visiting this site for it's intended purpose (to rid your driving records of a ticket) that is a bit of a false statement. Not only are you not a safe driver. You are pretty much the opposite. I think it would be more effective if the person had to type in: idonotdrivesafely.com. That way there is at least some truth in the statement.

Anyhoo, back to the riveting information.

Fun Fact: Did you know that alcohol related incidents are only #3 in reasons for vehicular fatalities?

Megan and I are not healthy people. This might help us.

(Found through Design Milk)

BonBon's ACL Experience

I must, must, MUST go to ACL this year. SugarSnap has already discussed it, so there is no need for me to use hyperlinks or go into detail about it.

However, as someone who has gone to ACL the last two years, I have a bit more insight into what goes on and how it is. It' pretty sweet.

Oh, you want me to tell you about it? Well, I'd be glad to. All you had to do was ask.

ACL is basically three things:
A. amazing
B. Ballin'
C. An excuse for stoners to get high in a giant park with little to no police supervision
(You thought I was going to use something starting with "c," right? Wrong. I threw you a curveball (which DOES start with "c")).

Does this not sound awesome, BAMFing, and crazy? It should, because it is. Now, I am not a stoner who needs an excuse to get high in a giant park, but I have friends for whom this was a giant convenience. Also, you just meet really cool people from all over Texas and the US, and you pay like $120 (or I did, because I am an early bird) for three days of great music. Epic win? I believe so.

That is all for now.

Austin City Limits

so i am looking at this thing from a beginner's perspective. i have never gone to ACL before. ACL is basically the huge fall music show for the Austin area. SXSW is the spring one.

until now, i had always just thought of ACL as the friday that nobody is at school. until i saw the 2009 lineup. IT IS EPIC! so i had never gotten a 3 day pass to ACL because the lineup had never been good enough to warrant my $185. however, in light of discovering the God that is GirlTalk, that alone was enough to make me scour for da moneyz. and i havent even reached my main attracting point yet.

which is...my undying love for AdRock. and mainly the Beastie Boys in general. i currently have eight CDs of theirs and would almost drop out of high school to meet them. even this close to then end. luckily, i dont have to. i just have to scrap together $185 in the next couple of weeks to be able to see them in october. but seriously. seeing them here. live. in person. is going to be a religious experience. you know, if i were religious.

also, between the arctic monkeys and flogging molly, i am going to get a total dose of foreign accented punk rock music. the only thing that could top this would be to have seen Gogol Bordello at the 2008 ACL. that would have made my fucking life complete. they are so amazing. let me suffice it to say that one of the instuments that they play is the fire bucket. what the fuck, you ask? exactly.

An Epic Struggle

This pretty much describes the struggle between Megan and myself. Guess who is who.

Hint: I think Bill has a cuter sweater, and Steve Jobs is too old to be hip and talking about Gen-Y

P.S. Found through Ari, who is not only ballin', but kind of more amazing than words can describe.

Bacon Explosion

Yes. You read right. And I promise it isn't dirty.

Megan and I have an economics teacher who is obsessed with bacon. And I don't just mean he likes bacon. I mean, the man has gone so far as to buy bacon flavored chcolate, bacon toothpicks, bacon gum, and I feel like he once vaguely mentioned a bacon cologne.

So when he mentioned this , we decided that we must try it in the near future. And I promise, pictures will ensue.

Watchmen

A week or so ago was senior skip day. It was cool. I went swimming and saw Watchmen with Andrea instead of going to school. So we went and saw Watchmen. And I know that I enjoyed it a lot more than she did. But I feel like that is because I get more into the whole superhero thing.

More than liking the actual movie, I liked the subjects that it brought up. My favorite views were those of Rorschach or the Comedian. Favorite 3 Quotes:

1) You see, Doctor, God didn't kill that little girl. Fate didn't butcher her and destiny didn't feed her to those dogs. If God saw what any of us did that night he didn't seem to mind. From then on I knew... God doesn't make the world this way. We do.

2) Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense.

3) I heard a joke once: Man goes to doctor. Says he's depressed. Says life is harsh and cruel. Says he feels all alone in a threatening world. Doctor says, "Treatment is simple. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go see him. That should pick you up." Man bursts into tears. Says, "But doctor... I am Pagliacci." Good joke. Everybody laugh. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.

I really enjoyed it because it totally played into the really dark comedy view of the world (emphasis on the dark) that I tend to have. I really like that it was made into a wide spread movie, but has these intense motives that the majority of America won’t appreciate. Now I am reading the book. So far I like the book much better. It is better at portraying the scenic irony. Anyhoo, once I have finished that, I’ll update with an actual comparison.

Senior Skip Day

So I was cautious getting into the idea of Senior Skip Day at first. Not really because I have moral issue with the idea of every senior skipping on one particular day, but more because I have now racked up enough absences to achieve suspension. In the words of Ferris Bueller, "If I go for 9, I'll probably have to cough up a lung."

So going into this day, I knew that I had to make it worth it. Because it is one of the last days I'll have out of school. And throughout this year, I can really pinpoint 3 days that have been overly worth the class they missed.

1) Field Day.
Field Day was worth skipping because as a team building effort, our school organized a day to run around and be sweaty. So Andrea and I decided to take this as a personal day since we were technically not missing any class. So we started off the morning by going to the Austin Children's Museum and learning about the lightrail that the city is putting in. And just generally bothering the children on field trips. But we went and dressed up and made a music video in the Austin City Limits sound stage they have. It was fun. Then we went to my house to grab a movie, thinking that nobody was there. My mom ended up scaring the shit out of us as we were unlocking the door. After explaining about Field Day, we left and went out to eat. We went to Olive Garden, which as a high schooler, felt fancy. I ordered lasagna and chocolate cake. Very worthy of missing school.

2) Puppet Movie Day.
This day was much more fun than it should have been. Basically I showed up at Andrea's house one morning to pick her up to go to school. She had been thinking that she didnt really want to go to school. So when I got there and curled up in her bed saying, "Ughhh, I dont want to go to school today!" we decided not to. Instead, we sat around in her living room decidin what to do. We finally put our creative energy into making a movie. A very bad movie with a horrible plot. With puppets. Aside from the epic failure of this movie, we had so much fun. I dont think I have laughed that hard since then. But we only finished, like, half of the movie. So once we finish it we will give a link to it. But until then, you are spared.

3) Senior Skip Day.
So I originally thought that we were going to use this day to finish our movie. But instead, we did cooler things. We went to school in the morning before school started to sort some stuff out. But we promptly left. We had to stop by the Municipal Court to figure out some stuff about this speeding ticket I got a while back. But after the court, we went to go see Watchmen. Then we went to Barnes & Nobles, where I bought the graphic novel and Andrea bought something more mature. Then we met up with some friends at Sandy's (mmm, icecream) and went swimming at a friends house. This day was completely worth the school we missed because it felt like summer. And because I finally got to see Watchmen. But mostly because it was the first swim of the year, setting the mood of spring. Ahhh.

*Note: Do not follow our influence. Most times when people skip, it is not worth it. I'm just clarifying the point that IF you are going to skip, make it worth it.*

BonBonBio by SugarSnap

oh, btw, BonBon = Andrea

She is a minority. Her mom is black and her dad is Cuban. Her family as a collective is kind of a badass. She recently got into blogs and currently subscribes to 92 blogs. But I figured that she wouldn’t have enough motivation to keep up her own blog, so we started one together. She wants to major in Art History when she goes off to college next year. She is kind of a web comic junkie, appreciating the fine art it entails. She puts the Young in Angry, Young and Poor. She is 13 months younger than me, even though she acts like my legal guardian the majority of the time. Although when she gets angry, you are really able to see the Cuban Mama within. And poor, well, she never really bothered to get a job so she is kind of consistently low on funds. Although I am definitely the poorer of the two. She tends to be my Sugar Mama. The BonBon nickname came from her being chocolate and roundish. Just kidding. She just has a creamy filling.

BonBon talks about SugarSnap

I am going to talk about SugarSnap aka Megan

Megan is the epitome of Angry, Young, and Poor. She is easily frustrated, often violent, and makes a lot of angry noises. She is approximately 6685 days old as of March 5th, 2009 (which translates to a bit more than 18 years). She has returned to a very rudimentary bartering system in which she trades giving me rides to school in exchange for food and sometimes money.

- Megan is kind of lazy.
- She likes LOLCats (unfortunately).
- She loves disco and Jewish men.
- You put them together and she is ready for a good time.
- She sleeps. A lot. She rivals a sloth in the amount of sleep she needs in order to function normally.
- She loves the Love Calculator.
- She hates sandwiches, hot fruit, fake people, and girly men.
- Seriously, she sleeps a lot.
- She watches YouTube videos all the time, and no one has any fucking clue how she found them. Not even her. She just knows that she found it. And she will send me video after video on IM and expect to watch and remember every detail about every single one.
- She is always losing her cell phone.
- Her response to whether or not she likes eating or sleeping better: “Ummmm, do I really have to choose?...Maybe I could dream about eating...?”
- She really hates shopping. A lot.
- But she really needs to go shopping. A lot.
- She loves macaroni (or like Yankee Doodle).
- She has a clock collection that is pretty baller. And that is a big deal for me to say, because not only is “baller” a term I reserve only for the most baller-ific things, but because I also have trouble telling time and used to really hate clocks.
- In Soviet Russia, sleep loves Megan!
- She loves CollegeHumor, both the website and the TV show (but not as much as I do)
- She is the Amir to my Jake.
- She likes tall men. Anyone know a tall, tech-y Jew in the Austin area for her?