WTF, Ryan?  What’s with all the retarded ads?  I thought I’d sell my website space in order to make a couple cents.  Everytime someone clicks on the ads, I get a very very small amount of money.  I think you should all put them up on your websites, that way we can eventually make enough money to go get a Route 44 at Sonic.  So click on the ads whenever you’re done reading my updates and then just close the pages after they load.  If you do this I will love you .05 cents worth.  What a steal!

“…the only pleasurable element of this entire trip will be sitting behind the wheel of my rental car and having my skull crushed by deafening music. [...] I love the way music inside a car makes you feel invisible; if you play the stereo at maximum volume, it’s almost like other people can’t see into your vehicle.  It tints your windows, somehow.”  – Chuck Klosterman
Chuck Klosterman is my hero of the week.  I won’t take the time to put him on the page, but know that he is there.  His writing style is entertaining, fresh and completely honest.  He’s an average kid from the Midwest who loves music and falls in love with girls at the drop of a hat.  All of these girls, even the insignificant ones, are chronicled in his writings.  “Killing Yourself to Live” is as much about famous musicians as it is about the various women in his life.  During one of the books best scenes (so far) he has a fictional conversation with the three women in his head in which they (he) psychoanalyze his behaviors and explain why he will never understand Eric Clapton’s song “Layla”.  Ever since I started reading it I find myself listening to the bands he talks about.  I put on Radiohead when he explained how Kid A represented the events of 9/11 even though it was released the a year before.  He makes a good case, and the music certainly has a different impact after reading his assessment.  By the way, if you’ve never listened to the album in its entirety, you have 24 hours before our friendship ceases to exist.  For that matter, anyone who has not listened to ( ) by Sigur Ros must do the same.  Those are (probably) my two favorite albums, though it’s always impossible for me to commit to statements like that.

This week, thankfully, went by really quickly.  I didn’t have a large amount of work and managed to relax more than usual.  I even acted like a normal college kid by drinking with my neighbors on a Thursday night.  I don’t know how people do things like that, then go take tests the next day.  I’m so anal and worrisome that I could never do it.  Anyway, we had an amazing game of PIG in which I decimated the competition by making a shot from the balcony (the Fisher Price basketball goal was inside the apartment).  After listening to our neighbors discuss penis size, jungle fever and what their next drinks should be for two hours we finally called it a night and went to sleep.  Not a very exciting night, but the most interesting thing I’ve done all week.  My life is sad.  This paragraph feels like it was copied from some junior high Xanga.

Speaking of Xanga, I’m enjoying the current “image-off” between Aaron, Veronica and Joanna.  Well done ladies, all three of ya’ll did a great job.  Joanna basically made Aaron look like the Burger King eating, Good Charlotte loving recipient of a David Hasselhoff hand job that he is.  In fairness, though, Aaron made Joanna look like the tube floating alcoholic that she is.

Am I the only person in America who thinks all of the controversy surrounding A Million Little Pieces is more than a little ridiculous?  Frankly, I could care less if the entire book is a fabrication.  If people were moved by the story that’s all that matters.  The truth(iness) of the events does not make the message any less valid or moving.  If the author had published the memoir as fiction it would still be a moving and accurate account of what it is like to be an addict.  But the story wasn’t even that false!  It was over 90% accurate.  What’s the big fucking deal?  Are people really so uninteresting that they fixate on meaningless shit like this?  I’m sad for every member of Oprah’s book club; not because you’ve been “lied to”, but because you act like the lessons the book taught you are no longer valid because certain aspects of it aren’t true.  I compare these readers to the audiences who were duped into believing that The Blair Witch Project was real when they first saw it.  That’s a bad example, just because the movie sucked.  Still, the fact that the tapes were pure fiction did not ruin the movie for the millions that experienced the film after the falsity was common knowledge.  In five years people will look back at A Million Little Pieces and no one will remember a damn thing about what Oprah or Bill O’Reilly thought about it.  No one will care.  The work is (presumably) entertaining, and will continue drawing an audience for its message.  Oh, and I’m sure that the author is laughing all the way to the bank…all of this controversy will just continue to increase sales of the book.  There’s no such thing as bad publicity…

You know what’s underrated?  Feeling.  I was reading the Tao Te Ching for my metaphysics class last week, and basically thought it was a bunch of poetic crap.  It’s full of self references that don’t make sense and encourages people to live their lives as meaningless drones that have no emotions or free thoughts but just exist in a “water-like” state that discourages competition and promotes blind compliance.  Sounds good, if you’re a Communist.  By the way, Katie really likes the Tao, so next time you’re around her encourage her to void herself of any feeling and stop trying to get good grades because competition is the worst thing a person can do.  Also, if you’re going to be complacent, you better stop drinking, scavenger-hunting (stealing) and driving without your license…

No pictures, once again.  Sorry.

I’ll have to keep this short because I have class in a few hours, but I had to write something to introduce the Pictures of the Day segment of my website.  I’ll (hopefully) be updating these pictures every few days, but let me know if you don’t like the format.  I can change it four different ways, so the possibilities are endless.
I hope that some of the nonagon have wandered over to re-check out the site.  There are some pictures from the trip in the Pictures of the Day sections.  You guys should download Hello, though.  It’s a program by Google that allows people to send pictures really easily and I think it’s the easiest way for us to swap pictures.  Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy the site (look at the “Facebook” – bottom left of the menu -  to put faces to names if something doesn’t make sense).  I expect some turf wars to commence between the Belgians and the Texans.  Which group does Ryan really like better?  Who knows Ryan more intimately?  Let the trash-talking begin.

Bob Loblaw: “Actually, I was going to stay in my office tonight and work on my law blog.”
Tobias: “Of course – the ‘Bob Loblaw Law Blog.’ Wow. You, sir, are a mouthful.”
Arrested Development and Scrubs are the funniest things to come along in years.  Download/buy/steal/watch them now.

Vince Young is leaving us!  Why, Vince, why???  Didn’t we treat you well?  You’ll be a God if you just come back for one more year.  I can’t believe he’s gone.  I can’t believe he’s going.  I can’t believe our amazing team must die.  Vince Young helped us believe in love.  I can’t believe you disagree.  I can’t believe this is…goodbye.  We were long overdue for a Rent reference, people.

Speaking of long overdue, why has nobody been updating recently?  Brandon hasn’t updated in a month.  Yes, the same Brandon that once updated with computer-crashing 4000 word stories daily for our reading pleasure.  I hear he’s updating tonight, but that really all depends on how bored he gets / what movies  finish downloading.  Leahanne, I left a message for you on your forum days ago and still no update.  Veronica, I expected more from you.  Ho-anna, when you admit that you should be writing more but are too lazy, you’re right.  You should, and must write more.  I don’t comment on half entries.  Katie, I gave up hope long ago.  Surprise me.  I need my juice, people.  I’m a freaking continent away and every time I try to talk to someone they’re on their way out the door.  Even Leahanne blew me off to go cook food at five o’clock today!  You haven’t seen me in two weeks!  Look at me, look at me!  Joanna gets 40 Damn-Damns for emailing me an update of what’s going on in her life.  She even got the juicy gossip about my trip first.  See what happens when you fuel my ego…

Back to me.  My trip here is coming to an end, which is sad.  I’m looking forward to spending a few days in the Wood, though.  Friendswood, by the way, is the real wood.  I’m so sure of this fact that I don’t even need to put quotation marks around it, like Joanna does with the Woodlands.  The honor of being called the Wood is not something that you earn simply by having more trees.  To argue that this was the case would be rediculous.  Being the Wood is so much more.  It’s about the spirit of a community, and the adventures that occur within it.  For further illustration, I recommend picking up The Wood seasons 1-6 and it’s follow up The Wood: The Next Generation when they hit shelves in 10-12 years.  Besides, saying that the Woodlands is the Wood just doesn’t make sense…it’s just like stopping midway.  The wood in Friendswood comes at the end, which is where it should be found if you want to use it as a name.  It’s the Station, not the College.

I made the best playlist ever for the train ride last week.  It’s my slow, folk-heavy playlist that is perfect for winter, or all year round if you’re soul-less like me. (Katherine maintains that I have a soul, I just lost it.  One day I’m gonna open up a DVD – which I believe will be When Harry Met Sally… - and find it again.)  The playlist kicks off with my newest obsession, Joshua Radin, before leading in to some Colin Hay, Imogen Heap and my all-time favorite, Ryan Adams.  It then touches on anything from Dylan to Postal Service to Elton John.  It’s the playlist I’ve been trying to make for the last two years.  The songs all capture the perfect mood that is relaxing and fitting to more than one emotional state.  If you’re lucky I might just let you listen to all five hours of it some day.  Anyway, I made the playlist for my trip to London and listened to it while we crossed the Channel to visit my friend Geoff (G to the eoff, to me).

London was magnificent.  It’s my second favorite city in the world.  After meeting up with Geoff we headed back to his house, which is owned by singer Richard Ashcroft.  It’s hilarious, because his house is basically four stories with a huge garden, and it is surrounded by little one story cottages with fifty square feet of yard space.  It was over 300 years old, and had the historic feel that you can only find in Europe.  After spending the first night there telling scary stories and having a ridiculously long conversation about serial killers, we went into the city the following morning.  When we got off the tube at Leicester Square, the buildings all around us looked fake.  It looked exactly like it did in the movies, and the sky was (for once) beautiful.  After walking around the Square, we had fish and chips at a local bar, made fun of the Asian restaurant next door that was named Poons, and bought tickets to see Les Miserables that night.  After that we went shopping somewhere.  By “we” I of course mean “the girls”.  I went to Borders, bought the 200th Empire, and met Davide and Geoff at a pub.  Brandon, the issue is awesome, and they have an amazing ILM montage on one of the pages.  the 201 greatest movies are coming on the next issue, which should be awesome too!  Anyway, that night we saw the show which was phenomenal.  I was very excited when I heard the first notes of “On My Own”, though.  I nearly kicked the guy in front of me as I turned to Alexia and said (in a voice far too loud for the theatre), “I know this song from Dawson’s Creek! Joey sings it!!”  Thankfully, she too knew of the glorious episode in which Joey competes in the beauty pageant.  After the show, we went out to eat for Alexia and Davide’s birthday at Little Italy, a restaurant near Leicester Square.  We then caught the last train to to Richmond (Geoff’s town) and began playing drinking games to Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me.  We drank whenever Austin said “yeah, baby!”, whenever Dr. Evil put his pinky to his mouth and whenever a penis or ass joke was made.  Unfortunately, most people went to bed before anything really stupid happened.

We woke up the next day at 14:00 (2 PM for you un-international readers) amazed that we had wasted half of the day.  After sitting around for hours, trying to decide whether or not we were going to go into the city (I was very adamently in favor of going – to the point of annoying everybody else), we headed to Leicester Square again to look at ticket prices.  Half of the group (Lauren, Patricia and Geoff) decided to go see the limited screening of Brokeback Mountain, while the rest of us (Rachel, Alexia, Davide and I) went to see The Producers: The Musical.  I saw the show on Broadway back in December 2002, and it was just as great the second time around.  Seeing two West End shows in two nights was great, and I’m really glad we were able to work it out so that I could waste all of my money doing it!  That night we went back to Geoff’s house and proceeded to recount the olden days of high school, while slowly getting more and more drunk.  By the end of the night lots of bizarre information had been shared, people had gone to the bathroom far too many times, Geoff punched his computer screen as hard as he could in a moment of drunken stupidity and the girls depressed everyone by putting on The Notebook.  Later that night, when I went to brush my teeth, I heard noises coming from Rachel and Alexia’s room (they had “gone to sleep” an hour before), so I went in there and we ended up talking for awhile before everyone else slowly made their way into the room.  By 4 AM we had six people on a small bed, all laughing so loud that we actually woke Geoff’s mom up.  In the morning we all got packed, headed down to the train station and barely made our train (I had to keep the door from closing twice), didn’t have time to give Geoff a proper goodbye, and then  barely made the Eurostar back to Brussels (we were on the LAST car, all the way at the end of the platform).

It was great seeing Geoff again, and seeing that absolutely nothing has changed with him.  I really missed being together with all of my friends, and the three days we spent in London are really precious to me.  I don’t know when we’ll all be together again, but knowing that we can be gone this long without anything changing is really refreshing.  Change is one of the hardest things to deal with in the transition from high school to college to professional life, and little things like this make it much easier.

The last few days have been really lazy.  Davide and I have just been hanging out at his house, watching Scrubs and hoping that some act of God suspends time so that we never have to go back.  He leaves in about two hours, and I’m gonna miss the hell out of him.  I didn’t realize how long it had been, or how much I missed him until this trip, but that’s probably a good thing.  I still think of him as if we’ve been apart for a month and not eighteen.  When I lose that, it’ll be bad.  You’ll all know, though, because I’ll spend all of my time looking at pictures and watching old tapes of Pippin from high school.  Anyway, Davide, if you’re reading this, I had an amazing time and I’m gonna do everything in my power to make sure we see each other again this summer.

So that’s what been going on since my last update.  Just your usual…I downloaded the first two episodes from the newest Scrubs season.  The first episode was painfully mediocre and I didn’t really like the whole intern camera thing / the whole intern thing.  Plus, having Elliot at another hospital was a bad mistake.  BAD.  You need to keep them all in the same hospital.  I don’t care how unrealistic it actually is.  Anyway, I thought the “MAN” cards were great and the second episode helped return the show to it’s usual level.  I just hope that Elliot goes back to Sacred Heart and the writers realize how retarded it was to ever change something that worked as well as Scrubs did.  Also, I can’t wait until spring when they release the third season and, more importantly, “My Screw Up”, the greatest episode of the show.

Ok, well it’s now 5:47 and I have to wake up to say goodbye to Davide in an hour.  I’ll probably still be up adding pictures when he awakes, but I’m just trying to begin to wrap up my entry (Note: when I finished it was exactly 6:47 – weird).  For those of you that matter, I get in to Houston around 2:00 on Wednesday (1/12).  Since neither of my parents seem to care, they’re sending a driver to pick me up.  When I was talking to my mom on the phone yesterday I thought she was kidding.  I responded with  a “yeah, is that where all our money is going, woman?  Why don’t you and dad just save money by picking me up in the Navi’ and buy me a Lexus?”  She proceeded to say, “she’ll have a placard with you name and just call my cell phone when you get home to let me know you arrived alright.”  She was for real.  It makes a bit more sense when I explain that neither of them are going to be in Houston at the time, and that she is charging it to her company, but still.  All that matters is that I’ll be cruising to the Wood in style as the perfect ending to my European vacation.  God, I love being pretentious. 

Speaking of pretentious, Katherine and I decided that the Perfects’ new hobby is going to be sailing, so I’ll learn and teach everyone else (with the help of Veronica, hopefully).  In the meantime we can just spend time on Veronica’s yacht talking about sailing.  As Katherine said earlier today, “how can you have a wealthy, pseudo-intellectual group of crime-fighting philanthropists who do not know how to sail?”  Well that’s all for now.  I hope everyone’s vacations are going well and I’ll update sometime before school starts.

WHY VINCE, WHY?!!!

This is for Katherine:

Wardryan: koozies are just funny
Katherine: and pointless
Katherine: but that’s just my opinion
Wardryan: yeah, I agree
Wardryan: just hold the damn drink
Katherine: if you can’t handle it
Katherine: you don’t deserve to drink it

Happy New Year everybody.  I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to try and update my website.  I don’t know why, but every time I’ve been drinking heavily, I can’t get to sleep and end up throwing off my sleeping pattern more and more.  Yesterday I woke up at 6 PM after sleeping for 15 hours, and I haven’t gone to bed since.  I’ve pretty much gotten back to CST now, I’ve missed so much sleep.  It’s been amazing though…

First, Chrismukkah was, in one word, scrumtrillescent.  The chocolate fountain was great, there was more food than anyone knew what to do with, and my sisters friends kept out of our way enough for us to retain the feeling of the Core Chrismukkah.  After hours of building an amazing gingerbread fortress and playing Trivial Pursuit, Brandon and I finally gave up on trying to make the end of the year video into one file, and just played the files individually.  Everyone thought (at least at the beginning of the night, before hours of stalling) that we only finished the first chapter of the video, but we surprised them with an hour and a half long opus of vanity.  It was glorious.  The music was amazing, the pictures were hilarious and the ending montage was brilliant.  Well done, Ryan and Brandon.  20 Damn-Damns to Katherine for co-creating the idea.

The next day I woke up around noon and headed off to the airport, which is much farther away than I remember it being.  Anyway, got to the terminal and talked to some kid who had just gotten out of a year in jail.  Nice guy.  Got on the plane, sat next to smells like sour milk Frenchie for 9 hours, let him eat my shrimp cocktail and enjoyed Gandalf the White (playing Bob Dylan and Sigur Ros).  Also, I saw The Island which was crap.  Oliver Twist was on, but I opted for a movie not made by a child rapist whose films Leahanne overrates on her top 100.  Instead I watched the always great Forrest Gump.  Arrived at Paris.  Fuckers didn’t stamp my passport.  I hate when that happens.  He could’ve taken my passport virginity, but no.  It’s okay, though, because now I get to have the first stamp be given when I arrive back in Houston.  When I got to the train, after an hour of waiting for my luggage (people in Europe aren’t really ever in a hurray to do things), it was snowing outside, which was awesome.  Some of the snow was sneaking down onto the platform, and I relaxed with my new Slytherin scarf, courtesy of Joanna Queen.  Train arrived, and an hour later I was in Belgium with Davide and his dad.

It was great to see that absolutely nothing had changed with anyone here.  We’re all still the same, and it seems like it’s been a month since we’ve seen each other.  Ever since I got in, we’ve basically hung around our respective houses during the day, and then gone out to waste all of our money drinking at night.  It’s bizarre to be able to buy a drink again.  If drinking we’re legal (even at 18) in the states, it would be much more entertaining.  Drinking at a party, or at someone’s house is one thing, but going out to a bar is entirely different.  So New Years we all met at Davide’s house for a three-pasta meal cooked by his amazing mother, went to a party at the house of someone from my high school, drank all of his alcohol and hung out in his kitchen for hours.  It was very chill, but a lot of fun.  The craziest part of the night was when the kid’s mom came into the kitchen completely blitzed and started taking shots with kids from our school (the parents were having a separate party in the other room).

That’s basically all that’s happened since I’ve gotten here.  It’s fairly repetitious, but it’s so much fun that no one cares.  I’ve been watching a lot of Scrubs episodes during the day, which is amazing.  The new episodes come out today, but I won’t be able to watch them!  Brandon, can you please leave them on your tivo in case mine messes up and doesn’t record them?  Thanks, you’re a doll.  I think that qualifies as a gay joke.  Anyway, tomorrow we head out to London for three days, which should be fun.  We’ll get to see my friend Geoff, who was supposed to come to Brussels, but ended up canceling at the last minute.  Also, we’ll hopefully catch a show or two on the West End, if they have any student rush tickets.  Regardless, we’ll be in London with no agenda, which should be amazing.

So that’s basically it for me…just your usual week.  What about you guys?  Paris?  Rome?  Oh, Houston, huh?  Well that’s….cool.  At least ya’ll have Mountain Dew!!!  It’s killing me, I swear.

Have fun, email me (though I probably won’t write back – loved the picture, Lenanana!  How’d you do it?) and I’ll see everyone soon!

R. Alexander Ward