Last week was my final Spring Break in law school.  As all of you know by now, I tried my best to make it something special.  I’ve gone through and chosen some of my favorite pictures and posted them on my Flickr account.  Note: I don’t have the ones Zach took — which includes most of the pictures of myself.  Unless you’re my parents, I don’t think that will matter much.

Here’s a rough breakdown of the trip:

Day 1: lots of flying, ultimately arriving in Peru around 10:30pm.  Took a taxi straight to the hostel, and then back to the airport again less than twelve hours later.

Day 2: flight to Cusco!  Took it easy to avoid altitude sickness; walked around Sacsayhuaman (sounds like “sexy woman”) — an Inca fortress made of awesome giant stones.

Day 3: bus and train to Machu Picchu!  We arrived at noon and spent the next five hours exploring the actual ruins, mostly shrouded in mist.  Took 600 pictures.

Day 4: Woke up at 4 am.  They only let 400 people climb Huayna Picchu each day, and we wanted to make sure we did it.  Got in line at 4:30.  We were in the 300s.  After we arrived, we had four hours before we could climb Huayna, so we saw the Inca Drawbridge.  Climbing Huayna was surprisingly grueling (especially on the way down!), but totally worth it for the view from the top.

Day 5: train back to Cusco, via Ollantaytambo — and some cool ruins that didn’t impress us as much after two days at Machu Picchu.  Epic night out with friends from Machu Picchu.

Day 6: took a taxi to Moray and the Salt Mines, in the Sacred Valley outside of Cusco.  Both were incredible.  Exhaustion finally caught up with us, and we were hurting by 5pm.  Night bus to Arequipa.

Day 7: Arrived in Arequipa, and immediately left on a tour of the Colca Canyon.  Reached 4900 meters at one point.  It was snowing.  Altitude sickness kicked in.  Not the best couple of hours, but still beautiful.

Day 8: Woke up early to see condors (AWESOME!).  More amazing views of the Colca Canyon (second deepest canyon in the world, next to the canyon on the other side of the mountains).

Day 9: arrived in Trujillo, and hung out on the beach with Veronica.  Ate delicious ceviche (a massive plate for $3.50).

Day 10: visited the ruins of Chan Chan — what was once the largest mud city in the world.  Surf lessons with one of Veronica’s friends (note: I need to buy a board when I move back to LA).  Went to a reggae bar that evening, which was hilarious.

Day 11: met all of Veronica’s Peruvian students and went to the market in Trujillo.  My pictures do a terrible job of capturing the size of this market — it was enormous.  Took lots of cool pictures, visited another temple, and went fishing in Huanchaco.  Another epic night out, which ended at some random Peruvian twentysomethings apartment.  They thought it was awesome that two gringos wanted to party with them, and Veronica and I were given lots of free beer.

Day 12: 28 hours of traveling, only to come back to a snowstorm in Boston.  Missed Peru immediately.

The trip is broken up into four sets on Flickr.  The best way to view them is to click on the first picture and then use your arrow keys to scroll to the right.  You can also just view my “Best of” set if you (understandably) don’t have time to look through 500 pictures.

Machu Picchu

Cusco and the Sacred Valley

Arequipa and Colca Canyon

Trujillo and Huanchaco

I’m waiting for my flight in Newark, reflecting on one of the best trips I’ve taken. Right now I’m on hour 25 of my journey home (thankfully I slept the entire plane ride).

I’ll have MANY more pictures once I unload my camera, but for now here’s a picture of the Peruvian coast I snapped on my iPhone from the bus to Lima yesterday. It was breathtaking. There were a few makeshift shelters below (not visible here) that overlooked this viewpoint.

A week ago I had no spring break plans. Thanks to Veronica Hansen’s refusal to stay in the U.S. for more than a month, I’m now going to visit her in Peru!

I even recruited an HLS friend (Zach) to accompany me on the trip. We’re spending 11 days in the country and plan on seeing at least Lima, Cusco, Machu Picchu, and Huanchaco (where Veronica lives). I’ve pretty much never been more excited for any trip — Machu Picchu has been atop the bucket list for a decade.

I’m thinking about getting a new camera for the trip — any suggestions?

Oh what a night it has been!

First of all, today was the beginning of my last semester at UT. I had three classes, all of which seem like fun, so this should be a good semester. After class, I picked up two kegs for Veronica and Steph’s Birthday Bash with Aaron and Drew. We delivered the kegs, ate some Mexican food, and proceeded to spend the next hour and a half playing Lemmings for SNES. Turns out, that game is as amazing as ever.

Once 11:00 rolled around, we decided to head over to Steph’s sorority for the celebration. We were surprisingly late, and the party already had at least seventy people. Within thirty minutes the evening’s entertainment (i.e. the Skandanavian stripper, Bjorn, whom we hired to grind all over Veronica) had arrived. Of course, the second I try to capture this moment of disgusted excitement my camera dies. Granted, I hadn’t charged it in nearly a month, but it was probably the worst time/day for such an event to occur. Why, exactly? Read on, loyal Wardies (if President Bush can do it, why can’t I?).

The party continued to grow in both density and ethnicities as evening became morning. The house was unbearably hot,so Greg and I decided to settle outside in the parking lot, where we remained for at least an hour. Conversations were had, drinks were ingested or spilled, cigarettes were smoked. It was a lovely time. And the TABC ruined everything.

12:45 AM: Four police officers arrive. One is wearing a white shirt. This man is a douchebag. He works for TABC, and has chosen to pick on our little party out of all the late night events in West Campus. After chatting with a few people at the party, he proceeds to knock on the front door. By this point all minors with half a brain have retreated inside, or fled the scene. Seeing as how I was a) over 21 and b) sober, I found myself overcome with joy at being able to sit around and talk without fear of getting a ticket. After two attempts to knock on the door, some idiot actually opens the door and begins to talk to the officers. Of course they immediately accuse him of trespassing, because he “has no idea who lives in the house”. Understandably, the cops start to get agitated.

The cops ask Veronica’s brother, Michael, if he lives at the house. He answers no. The cops continue looking for the owner of the house, and Michael asks the officers what we all need to do. Mr. TABitChface responds with, “I already told you to back off.” He had not. As the officer berates him, Michael asks what he had done, and is told he is violating the direct order of a police officer. He asks why he is being told to leave the porch, and is arrested. They originally say that he is being arrested for disobeying the order of an officer, but this charge is later upgraded to interfering with a police investigation (a Class B misdemeanor). When I question one of the other officers, he tells me that it is illegal to even question a direct order from a police officer. If they tell you to do something, you are not allowed to ask questions or seek clarification. You must simply comply, or be arrested. I politely challenged the Constitutionality of this claim, and he told me that the police must look after their own interests, and never know when their lives could be in danger from a lack of obedience. He tells me that “something could happen like the riots downtown a few years ago.” You’re saying that twenty kids outside a sorority house pose an equal threat to hundreds of drunk pedestrians on Sixth street?!?

Instead of arguing, I ask the officer how to go about getting Michael out of jail, and what steps must be taken to record eye witness testimony of the events that took place. He tells me that Michael is not going to be processed for at least two hours, if not more, and that we have to go to the Travis County Jail for more information. At first he won’t let Veronica talk to him, or collect his personal belongings, but they later allow her to take his keys and cell phone. Still in utter disbelief that someone (not to mention a first year law student) was arrested for failing to immediately obey a police order, we all watched the police officers get in their cars and drive away with Michael in the back seat. A few people made shouted out gems such as “gestapo tactics”, “police state” and “what happened to the Constitution?” Then it happened. One of Veronica’s friends started the slow clap. As the West Campus police walked away, the entire congregation outside of Steph’s sorority began a cinema-worthy slow clap that even Molly Ringwald would be proud of. Looking back, it was probably the highlight of the party.

The rest of the evening was spent downing Taco C queso and waiting for time to pass until we could go get Michael. Veronica and I finally got down to the county jail at 3:30, and were informed that Michael would not see a judge until the next day. It made us feel pretty helpless, but there was nothing to do but go home and wait. It’s now 4:36, and I just hope he’s able to get out before tomorrow evening. One of the ladies sitting in the waiting room at the jail said that it typically takes 24 hours to release someone, regardless of their charge. Hopefully this will all turn out to be something we laugh about for years to come. It’s hard to look at it that way right now, but I have hope. Tomorrow Veronica is taking him to a concert, and Saturday I’m taking him to the first UT football game, so it’s still possible for him to end up looking back on this weekend with fond memories. If nothing else, I’m sure it will help motivate him to keep persuing his law degree!

This seems to be the day for updating websites, so I guess I’ll follow others’ example.  Normally I wouldn’t listen to any request that Brandon makes, but he seems especially lonely this week.  Maybe he should have chosen to live somewhere with a bit more culture…I imagine his decision to go to A&M went something like this: “College Station…that place has to be awesome, it has college in the fucking name!”  Of course this was soon followed with four years of, “Well, shit.”  Still, for one weekend only the Station should be infinitely cooler when they host their “Haunted Housewarming” party.  I just made up that title, by the way, but I think everyone should adopt it.
This weekend was lame.  More specifically, I was lame.  I spent at least two hours studying every night, including Friday.  I didn’t even feel like doing anything besides studying.  I think I need to go on a 12 step drinking program, so I can learn how to have fun again.  Anyone want to be my sponsor?

Super Nintendo is the greatest gaming console ever created.  I say this primarily because anything more complicated is impossible for me to win.  One of these days I will stay home all day and just play Super Mario Brothers.  Come to think of it, I haven’t skipped any classes this year.  What is wrong with me?  I need to stop worrying about school, and get back to spending all my time watching television and movies.

Will Ferrell’s appearance on SNL last week was funnier than anything else they have done all year.  I think that pretty much sums up the current state of SNL.

While I continue to enjoy Studio 60, I’m starting to understand why it won’t ever have a broad appeal.  Like SportsNight, I think it just might be “too smart to be funny”. The production values of the show are great, and I really enjoy all of the actors, but it tries to walk the line between comedy and drama too often.  While I’m fine with that, most people go in expecting a show about live comedy to be consistently funny.

Evidently my website comes up on Yahoo’s search…I don’t know how I feel about that.  I think I should change the title of the site to something like “Donkey Masturbation and Midget Peep Shows”, just to fuck with the perverts.

Has anyone else noticed the explosion of Facebook over the past two weeks?  I’m starting to miss the days when you actually had to be in college to use the networking site for college students.  Still, at least now I can more accurately quantify my friends.

Every now and then I feel like I make fun of Joanna too often, and that I should really back off…then she comes over and makes me sit through hour long documentaries about obscure doctors that were made in the ’70s.  What’s worse, I’m pretty sure she thinks the videos are awesome.  I guess something has to fill her void until another episode of Grey’s Anatomy airs.The new Travesty came out today.  Don’t worry, the rest of the world didn’t notice either.

Actually, I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but I’m sure it’s at least as funny as Veronica after a few “Ronnie Ritas”.  Instead of reading it, I decided to go do my civic duty and participate in the glory that is early voting.  Like any good American I voted for Rick Perry…no, wait.  Not that douche.  Richard “Kinky” Friedman, that’s the one.  I’m sure you’re all shocked…it’s not like I’ve made my vote well known for over a year.  Anyway, everyone should go out and vote before early voting ends, because it’s so much easier than waiting until Nov. 7.  Go out and vote now; you have no excuse!  Unless you’re an foreigner, or a woman, or a liberal.

I don’t think music has evolved since Savage Garden broke up.  Sometimes I just play “I Knew I Loved You”, and cry.

Today, Katie tried to justify walking all the way to Book People, even though she had a car.  “It was a nice day, and I felt like walking.  I almost died walking home, though.  I was really scared.”  She never ceases to amaze me.

So I have some time before my 4:00 meeting, and thought I’d make a quick update. I have two tests this week, and two finals the next so I don’t think I’ll be updating much.

I watched the Comeback of Rob “I hate being called Vanilla Ice” van Winkle. For someone who claims to be a hardcore rock rapper, van Winkle is a really pussy name. Anyway, he was a huge dick and made me hate him more than ever. Then I watched the 10th Anniversary of Inside the Actors Studio, which was amazing! I really hope they show it again so I can tivo it and show it to everyone.

Also, I watched two Project Greenlights yesterday, and they were glorious. John Gulager’s dad goes ape-shit and tells the producers to fuck off while John is trying to work out a scene with the actors. It’s really awesome. Then they take some of the cut footage to Dimension and they love it! I’m excited, and really hope that they end up releasing the film. Evidently, the whole Miramax/Disney split may result in the movie being shelved (boo!!!). I think it would actually do well, though, since more people are watching the show than ever before. Still, as much as I love this season it isn’t the second season. HBO was a better channel to have a show like this on, because you can show just about anything without censorship.

I’m gonna start a new section of my daily entries called “Stalker Express”. In this section, I will reveal things about my past that will allow all of the stalkers out there to do their job better (except Davide…this section will be pretty useless for you). Today’s fun fact is that I am self-diagnosed with “neckaphobia”. Whenever someone tries to touch my neck (from the front), I FREAK out. I think it all stems from my fear of being strangled. Many people find it funny to exploit my condition for their own personal gain. Fucking bastards. That’s like forcing an alcoholic to binge drink! Decent people don’t do things like that! I’m not one to talk, however. If I knew things like that about my friends I would exploit the hell out of it.

I’ve officially decided to not take any more pictures of Leahanne until she puts pictures of my on her website. That means that the end of the year video is going to be seriously lacking. Don’t worry, though, there will be TONS of everyone else. I’ll even take more, just to make up for it. It all works out for the best…no one wants to see her annoying pouty face anyway. I hope she runs out of meal plans and starves to death.

By the way, I realized that some people who read this site have no idea who my “Friendswood friends” are, so I thought I’d put up pictures of them. Also, I’ll put up pictures of my Belgian friends. This way you’ll have a rough idea of who I’m talking about. You can also check out Brandon or Leahanne’s websites to see what I’m responding to. Brandon is usually much funnier than I am, and Leahanne is an old, annoying whore. Literally. I’ve seen her working Sunset after midnight.

See My Facebook

Well that was fun.  I’ll probably make a separate page soon that has those three tables, and I’ll update it if and when I make more friends.  At least for now you can put a face to the name of my few friends.  If you want to be on the list, email me!

I need to cut my fingernails, but I left my clippers at home. Maybe I’ll just let them grow out like that awesome guy in the Guinness Book. I’m pretty sure the ladies would flock to me if I did that.

Veronica and I stalked my philosophy professor after class today. He was walking towards his car at Jester (I know he parks at Jester because I’ve stalked him before) and we ended up two people behind him. We slowed our walking pace to admire the gorgeous gray curls and small water glass that he carried so proudly. I’m not gonna lie, I took a picture. Now our obsession is complete: a collection of quotes from class, a facebook group about him and a picture. “Taking a joke too far”? What are you talking about, everyone does things like this. Right? Oh.

I felt like a badass today, because I stole a bottle of A1 steak sauce and a spoon from the cafeteria. Also, on Friday I stole a trey from Jester. By the end of the year, I’ll have enough silverware and condiments to keep our apartment stocked for months. I think I should just steal silverware everyday and then never do the dishes. That would be awesome. Maybe I should stop, though. After all, I’m stealing from Armando’s work.

Ok well that’s it for now. I’ll try to update again, but I’m not sure when it will be.

I’m so happy that everyone has started updating again.  I have twenty minutes before I begin registration, so I thought I’d make a quick post.

I LOVED the story!  As the resident mob boss, I’m very impressed with how well you’ve managed to cross genres and condense hours of plot into a seamless story!  Brandon, have you seen Once Upon A Time In America, yet, because you definitely included parts of it (possibly without knowing).  Anyway, awesome job.  Oh, the picture is from a movie called Ash Wednesday with Elijah Wood that I really want to see now.  It’s about the Irish mafia in the 1980s.

Someone needs to send me the link to take the X-Men test so I can be cool.  Also, this summer I want to watch more of the old X-Men cartoons…they have them all on the hub.

I decided last week that I hate reading dialects.  Eh aye wanid ta spin an our readin four words id letya know.  Whatever, it pisses me off.  I can do the accent in my head, just write it so I can easily understand it.  Seriously, whenever I see a huge paragraph written in dialect, I’ll usually skip it.  I just don’t give a shit.

Also, my sociology teacher smells like sugar-free gum.  Every morning I’ve noticed her distinct, unappetizing smell and today I finally placed it.  Whatever deodorant or aftershave (because I’m sure she does) she wears isn’t working for her.

I’ve also decided to start watching movies from the library…one of my classes requires us to watch a movie every Sunday in this screening room, and no one ever shows up.  It’s just be in a big room with a 12 ft projection screen.  I found out that if no one reserves it, we can have them put on movies for us.  Even if it is full, there are 30 other small viewing rooms.  I really want to watch King Kong!  I think I may go do that this weekend, also.

Ok, well I have to go register for classes now.  It would’ve been great and easy if my advisor was not a waste of life.  Not only could he not answer any of my questions, he set me up with classes that filled up before sophomores could even start thinking about registering.  Ass-hat.  I hope he goes and drives off a cliff with Zach.  Instead I had to scrounge around for some classes to take this semester.  I’m pretty happy with how things turned out (no classes before 10, one class on Friday), but I don’t get to take Spanish for another semester.  I’m thinking about just taking the placement test…I’m pretty sure I could pass.  I also have to wait to register for one of my classes (until I test out of GOV310L), so I just have to hope things turn out alright.  It’s times like these I wish I would have applied to the honors program.

Oh, last Thursday I totally scored on Veronica twice, and I’m not talking about broomball.  Gross, yes I am.  We played broomball and it was awesome.  Even though her group “won” (the scores were actually tied), I was amazing.  Not to brag or anything.

Things would be so great if I didn’t wake up and see the newspaper headline.  Today, I hate being a Texan.

I’m in Metro procrastinating and I thought I’d give a shout out to Ve-Ve. I was surprised to not find her here, but I guess she has to go out every once and a while. Anyway, this week I’m having a lot of trouble finding the motivation to do my work. I have a test tomorrow and a paper due Thursday but that’s really it. The test is in philosophy which I know pretty well (and we’re reviewing tonight) and I’ll do the paper the day it’s due. Maybe Artsy Avenger can draw my paper for me and make it real. That would be awesome.

I’m gonna update my wish list with a bunch of really cheap stuff so if you guys have any left-over money after buying Brandon’s half-Birthday present than you can get me something. Oh, and my friend Alexia just sent me my Birthday card from last year. She sealed it, addressed it and forgot to send it until she found it over Christmas break. Anyway, it was hilarious, and I loved it. I can’t wait to send her 20th Birthday card a month before she turns 21.

So camping is official! Yea! I can’t wait for Friday…the sooner I’m out of here the better. Ok, well to please Leahanne and waste some more time I’ll list some of the things I would like to do before I die.

* Go back to Europe with all of my friends.

* Go to New Zealand, buy some property and reconstruct Hobbiton.

* Own all of my top 100 (According to my current top 100, I own 69…yeah, I know.)

* Produce a movie.

* Produce a movie by MNL Studios.

* Act in a movie.

* Take a spontaneous road trip with a friend.
* Go to a World Series game.

* Live in New York City.

* Spend a month in Japan.

Own an awesome studio loft apartment.

Write my memoirs (how pretentious am I?)

Design, build and live in my own mansion.

Donate ridiculous amounts of money to the College of Liberal Arts so that they can build a building that will make the School of Business look like dog shit.

* Kill Clint Eastwood with his Oscars.

* Give his Oscars to Martin Scorsese.

* Blow up Stanford, Columbia, Duke and Yale.

* Spend a year traveling the world by boat, writing and taking pictures.

* Learn Greek.

* Live in Mystras, Greece for a summer (my grandma’s village)

Ok, that’s enough for now. Most of them involve living overseas for a period of time. I really want to do that once I retire. Hopefully I’ll have earned enough money in life to afford this lifestyle but I’ll honestly be thrilled if I end up doing a quarter of the things on this list.

So expect an update to the top 100 pretty soon. I’ve printed out over 130 covers and plan on “laminating” them tonight instead of studying. For those of you who don’t see me regularly, I’m making a poster of my top 100 movies that will hang on my wall. I stole the idea from Brandon who stole the idea and format of his Top 100 list from me, so it’s all good. I don’t know whether I should put the posters on the board with ticky-tack or velcro, though. Velcro seems like it would last longer but it’s more or a hassle. Anyway, I’ll decide next week. Now I think I’m going to put in a good ten minutes of work and then surf the internet for porn, or hentai, or naked pictures of Gosha. Mmm, Gosha.

So I tried to post what’s above last night but someone sucks at life. I’m not gonna name names, but it starts with Kistenmacher and ends with tard face. Anyway, last night at dinner Veronica and Steph decided that they wanted me to have sex before my birthday and offered me $100 if I could do it. I find it funny that they want me to get laid more than I do. Veronica even tried to pimp me out to my friend Erin, who signed over her body in exchange for an ab machine. Jose also listed off all of the sluts he knows in San Antonio so if I’m desperate to prove myself and earn $100 I have my options.

Speaking of desperate, last night Veronica and I decided that Katie would sleep with me if Veronica promised to date her afterwards. Then we made fun of her run/walk for about ten minutes. That, and her ginormous jugs. Ok, I’m late for a meeting. Later.

So this Saturday was awesome!  It was my Dad’s birthday, so my family came up to Austin to celebrate.  We went to eat at Papasitos and then watched UT kick Rice’s ass.  My sister got to see how “real” football games are…not just crappy Friendswood High School games.  Also, we got a lot of people in our section to join us in shouting: Rice!  Sucks! in the same fashion as Texas!  Fight!  Oh yeah, Cedric Benson is a god…that’s all I have to say about that.  Anyway, after the game we had cake and decided to start having fun.

First, Veronica and Ram stole a tall metal object that we later decided was a sign holder (like the ones seen on highways when there’s lots of traffic) for my half-birthday.  I didn’t really know what to do with it so I just put lots of posters on it.  Then we started by climbing the 20 ft. statue of wild horses and riding them.  The statue is right by my dorm and I’ve been dying to climb it since I got here. 

Anyway, after that we went to go swimming in this huge fountain by the LBJ Presidential Museum.  The fountain consists of two circles; the outer circle was about five feet below ground level while the inner circle was about five feet away from the rim and five feet above ground.  Anyway, it was not easy to get in and if you missed it was a ten foot fall into shallow water.  Sucks for Jose, because he totally ate his shit when he tried to get in a second time.  So yeah, we swam in there for about 20 minutes while Kistenmacher took pictures and kept guard.  Once we got bored, we moved on to the LBJ fountains.  Since they’re a part of the Presidential Museum, it was probably a federal offense to swim in them but oh well it was fun!

We then went and ran around in the sprinkles outside the Bass Concert Hall and made slip and slides out of the muddy ground.  Finally came the group shower in my dorm and then Veronica slutting it up by sleeping with her second guy in two nights.  What a whore!  Yeah, that’s it for now…enjoy the pictures.