This is kinda an emergency.

My friend sent me this link ... saying it was really important.

Really important.

Really important and really frightening.

Read it now.

...

Yeah.

That important.
















.but then I read the date at the top of the article.

Update.

Day Five over.
This is getting rough.

Self-Abuse, a new project.

I'm a fan of projects. Not the elementary-school-make-a-poster-with-each-letter-a-different-color projects. But fun things to do for the sole purpose of "seeing what would happen" or any other alternative reasons.

My new project is called Mastinence.

I'm abstaining from masturbation for as long as possible.

It's a test of willpower really. How long, do you ask, before I give in to the temptations of ejaculation? What are the consequences? Why would anyone want to do that? Is it religious? Is there a prize? The answers to these, I do not know. I relish the absurdity.

I've gone a day and a half now. I'm looking around for one of those internet clock timer thingies to put on here. Let me know if you find one.

New Font!

Enter: Georgia.

Hope it's easier to read.

This Semester... My Semester.

MAT 105D. Math for Quantitative Punching Myself in the Face.

I've never liked math. Never. Not once has doing math ever been an enjoyable or pleasant experience. All this course does is remind me of that. It's the lowest level math class before breaching the "special needs" gap, and it's required. Our first class we covered rounding up and down. The next chapter was on Venn diagrams. Today, we entered the realm of Logic, where we discern whether statements like: "Bruce Springsteen is a U.S. President" are true or not, and how to make them true.

(correct answer: add a "not")

I hate this class.

PHI 103E. Human Alienation: The Study of Awkward Silences and Apathy.

I like philosophy. It's very interesting to me. It just isn't interesting to anybody else in the University of Southern Maine though, particularly the students in my class, who number so greatly there aren't enough seats (or windows!!) for anyone to be comfortable. I've never been taught philosophy, and my professor doesn't seem too bad at it, but he's having difficulty connecting with kids who'd rather binge drink while watching ESPN than politely debate the finer points of Plato's Republic.

THE 150H. Play (Anal)ysis...

is only moderately annoying since there's a lot of homework involved but other than that it's fine. Just a theater class with theater people in it. Professor's handwriting is tough to decipher at times, but nothing I can't tolerate. I am the Master of Tolerence!

THE 230. Designing Things That The Performer Won't Read In To.

This class has been rather fun so far. It's full of fun theater kids and the projects are always interesting to see. Some people slave all week to create a piece of art that masterfully blends technology with nature but is actually a huge metaphor for their struggle for independence from their mother and the loss of their innocence...and other students get drunk the night before class and write songs about losing their virginity that they perform for class on their ukulele. That brings me to the major problem with this class: It's on a friday! Same time as all my other classes, one less day of the weekend. They can't take my Thursday nights away from me. They can't, and they won't.

THE 233. Lighting Intense Labor.

This class is fun as well. Two hours of working with the lights and cables and technology that make the stage look pretty. A lot of hands-on experience teaching which I totally dig, and after this class I'll know enough to work as an Electrician for workstudy. The only issues so far have been on occasion we'll have class on SATURDAY starting at 9:00 AM and ending around 4:00 PM when we're doing a full hang for a show. It's ridiculous. Just ridiculous.
Ridiculous.

THE 131. Theatre WorkShop.

Last year this class was basically the equivalent of Theatre Homeroom. All the theatre majors would gather in the theater and socialize, then the professor would take role and give theatre-related announcements, if anyone had any announcements they would stand up and give them, and then that'd basically be it. After every show there was a critique where everyone in the show would sit onstage and everyone else would ask questions or tell them what they liked or didn't like. Credit is based loosely off attendance and whether or not you worked on a production. It was all very fun.
This year, there's a new professor in town, and she's making it out to be some sort of actual "class" where we do things like update our theatre resumes, establish professionalism, make portfolios, etc. I'll just be having none of that. It'll become an intricate chessgame between me and the professors in charge, but I'll outwit them in the end, and prove to be the victor.
...
..
I just forgot what I was going on about. Sorry. I like this class.

Don't Give Me that Do-Goody-Good Bullshit.

Mad Props, Shout-outs, and Et Cetera to Sallie Mae for hooking a brotha up with a sweet unsubsidized loan WHICH I just endorsed today and was informed by the Student Billing Offices that I'd be receiving a pretty refund check.

Now I am not a wealthy man in any respect (save with knowledge, happiness and a good heart), so this refund check will be vitally important to helping relieve me of a portion of my financial strain, such as my autoinsurance bill. I could be extra-conservative and place it into my bank account until the dark and fear-filled days six months after my college career has ended and I find myself, to my dismay, owning Sallie May 8,000 units (maybe more) of hard cold American cash.
But no.
Not I.

I'm so fucking terrible when it comes to managing my finances. My tendencies to disregard the significance of currency in my life leave my wallet vacant and debit card worried. If I ever have cash on me, I toss it off on whims lighter than pollen in the air of a dawning end-of-summer day. You need some extra cash for {insert whatever here}? Sure thing, no problem, I'll spot you. You can pay me back later, but I, and you, will probably forget. Whatever. Yeah sure I'll have make my order a large. I'm not sure if I'm that hungry, but you never know. The price is only a little bit higher. Just a little bit. Meh.



This is all very typical.


BUT RECENTLY I've viewed a couple of items for sale that makes the subconcious of my psyche recall all those subliminal advertising tricks I thought I may have learned to avoid...right? Do I really need that? Well...it would be nice...etc. And it makes me want to consider trying to possibly think about putting an effort into saving some money for them? Yeah, that'd be cool. These are those things:

THE THINGS (that i want to buy when enough money is saved):

• SHOES.
  

  The Blackspot "Unswoosher" Sneaker V2. 100% Hemp. Recycled Tire Rubber Tread. Made in a Sweat-shop Free Union Factory. Totally cool look. Created by the Black Spot Anti-Corporation. For roughly 100 bucks... Ouch. That's a lot for a pair of shoes. They sound like they'd last though, and I currently have a lack-of-good-shoes situation. My stolen bowling shoes will not survive this winter. I'm not entirely sure how trustworthy this company is to their anticorporate claims. What if they don't fit? I'm scared of ordering offline... but damn those are some good-lookin' shoes.
  Price: $95.00 + $14.00 shipping (from Canada) = $109.00 USD

  
  
  
• MP3 PLAYER.
  

  I know, I know, I know. iPods are trendy, silly-looking, overpriced and easily outdated...but can you just check out how fricking small this is? Ridiculous. I have issues though: something that small will be easily lost/damaged/stolen/dissapeared. It also has the same capacity of a Mini. I own a Mini. My mother bought it for me for Christmas and it's been nice reliable and slightly shameful to visibly wear in public, but hey, it's like any gift sweater...you may not look that great in it but you still wear it just the same. This Nano thinger though...It's be pretty fucking cool to have. Holds photos...14 hour battery life...small enough to hide in just about any body cavity imaginable. It's not likely I'll actually dish out the cash to buy it (I'd sell my Mini, but it won't go for much, now being prehistoric technology) but it's still fun to look at and pretend.
  Price: $249.00 USD.

  
  
  
• DIGITAL CAMERA.
  

  I like this idea a lot. I don't know much about digicams at all though, so I could make some bad choices. I asked a respected source for a relatively cheap decent camera and he pointed me at the Fuji FinePix A330. It is small, affordable, and looks like fun. It has 3.2 megapixels...and I don't know what that means on how nice my pictures will look...but I really just want to take photodocumentaries of adventures or maybe even some artsy fartsy pictures of pretty things up close or slow-shutter-speed no-flash shots of lights at night. To be honest, I really really just want an account on Flickr. We'll see.
  Price: approx. $150.00 USD

  .

P.S. Anyone like the Floyd reference Title? Eh? Eh? Eh?
I'm sorry.

Panhandler (unrevised)

written for my Play Analysis course, the assignment was to narratize and create a story out of a small interaction between people.

THE SCENE: A young man is sitting on the curb of a street in downtown Portland with a backpack on. He is wearing worn jeans, an old band t-shirt and has multiple piercings on his face. Moderately overweight but with dignity and hair cut short enough to see his scalp, he has a pair of large round headphones slung around his neck. A couple walk past him, hand in hand. As they pass he says “Spare some change for a traveling kid” almost to himself without making eye-contact. The couple both say their I’m Sorry’s and keep walking.

MY SCENE: It had been pretty cold last night, so he walked down to the wharf and slept on the back of a big expensive boat, wrapped uncomfortably but manageably in a rug he found on the dock nearby. He woke early to seagulls and the chill morning air. The sky was pale and opaque, anxious for the sun to rise. His stomach reminded him how unsatisfactory last night’s dinner of two Iced Honeybuns he bought at a Seven Eleven with the change he made that day. He had kindly asked the clerk if he could hang out in there for the night, possibly lie down and sleep somewhere out in the back. The clerk said something about policy through his thick Arabic accent. It was around 3:30 am at that point, so he headed to the docks as a last resort but it turned out to be all right.
Mark Hotz had been traveling for a couple months now…was it months? He didn’t always know the date anymore, much less the time. He had hawked his watch in Portsmouth, New Hampshire one day when he hadn’t made any change for food. His sojourn had started in Hoboken, New Jersey. He was originally a student at N.Y.U. studying film. After a full year he decided that it didn’t really suit him. Since the first grade at Hoboken Elementary, Mark had been living a life of routine and plan. His mother was always keeping calendars and schedules, making sure they both knew exactly what would be going on every minute of his future and there would be nothing either of them would be unprepared for. After the surge of independence one feels after being out in college for the first time, Mark decided he was through being perpetually in anticipation of the next step in his life. He wanted out of the structured and planned life that was built around him. He wanted spontaneity, he wanted to be unprepared, he wanted to never know what the next day would bring. Mark wanted freedom.
That was all it took to bring Mark back home to Jersey one last time, during his April vacation. He packed a backpack and began to walk, one foot in front of the other, away from home. His only real target was Montreal, Canada. He knew a couple people there. If he couldn’t find them it wouldn’t be too bad though. It’s not really about the destination. He hitchhiked most of the time, he rode a bus once after getting some cash from a pawnshop for some of his books, some CD’s and his leather wallet. He tried to not eat a lot, to save on money, which he usually got from working people on the street or selling off his remaining possessions. He would sleep wherever he could. Sometimes there would be homeless shelters, sometimes he’d find parks. He’d only slept in an alley twice, because it had started raining too hard to keep looking. He’d made it as far as Portland, but he was in a spot of trouble here. There weren’t really any major cities close enough to hitchhike too. North of Portland, he only knew about Bangor, and nobody seemed to want to go to Bangor. He decided to stick around for a couple of days and see if the situation improved. He was scared he’d have to hawk off his CD player, his one luxury he didn’t think he could live without, in order to buy a bus ticket to Canada. For now, he would just keep begging a bit to keep his hunger in check and maybe find a warmer place to sleep.
After leaving the boat and the rug behind, Mark walked into a Denny’s around six-ish to catch the early morning crowd. He refused to be seated and waited until some people left there table before swiftly moving to it and grabbing what they had not eaten. The staff at this Denny’s must have been used to this and caught him with half a pancake in his mouth and kicked him out. At least he had finished the hashbrowns in time. He wandered the streets for a bit, looking for more early-morning joints, but had no luck. He walked down Exchange Street and found a nice little park. The sun had come up so he lied down and took a nap on the warm grass. He’d learned to find alternate uses for everything, in this case his backpack became a pillow. In his backpack he had another pair of jeans (the pair he was wearing still had a couple more days in them) which could cushion any hard sharp areas he decided to lay on for the night. There was his CD player with headphones and spare batteries, and the barest minimum of albums that he painfully chose and decided he needed to keep with him. He had a short hunting knife, a lighter, four dollars and sixty seven cents, an empty water bottle, and two books: “Rule of the Bone” by Russell Banks, and everyone lonesome traveler’s Bible, “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac. Mark picked himself up and walked up the street a ways. He sat down by the curb and turned on his CD player and lifted his headphones to his ears.
Halfway through Track 11 Mark saw two people walking up the street. He was starting to get that hungry feeling again and thought he’d better start soon before it got late again. He took off his headphones and waited for them to get close. It was a man and woman, holding hands and smiling and talking to each other. The girl was shorter than he and had long curly brown hair. The guy had scrawny little arms and unkempt long blonde hair. As they walked past, Mark adverted his eyes and said loud enough for them to hear:
“Spare change for a traveling kid,” and he trailed off after that.
“I’m sorry, I wish I did,” said the guy quickly, almost as if he had prepared what he was going to say before he even reached Mark.
“Nope, sorry,” the girl said with him at the same time. As they walked on past but not out of earshot, he could hear the girl say to the guy:
“Honestly, what’s spare about my change? Money I worked for…”
“It’s not about money…” the guy responded and then their conversation faded too faint to hear down the street.
It wasn’t about begging for money. It wasn’t about giving money away. It was about being a generous person. It was about recognizing another person as a living breathing human being who would like some help, and only if it wouldn’t trouble you, and not seeing them as some broken cog in a machine called “Capitalism” or a native of local tribe called “Poverty.” It’s not like we’re Untouchable, it’s just that our lives are different than yours, just like yours is different from everybody else’s. People make choices, some good and some bad and either way you’re going down your own separate path in life. Forgive me, thought Mark, if something that is important to me is not important to you. You can keep to your family, your home, your school, your job, your cars, your auto-insurance bills, your mortgage rate, your designer shoes, your full and complete and successful lives. I’ll never look at you funny for it. I’ll just do whatever it takes to make me happy, and to me, that means doing what I want to do, making my own decisions and living the way that I choose to. That’s all it takes for me, these days. I do get hungry sometimes, so if you’re feeling happy enough to help me be happy, then could you spare me some change? It’d be really nice, and you could bet your full and happy life I’d do it for you.

Number Thirteen. Category: Miscellanius.

This summer I purchased Richard Hawthorne's 101 Things to Do Before You Die, a marvellous little handbook that is exactly that. Complete with forms to be filled for each acheivement and gold stars. It's really quite cool. I've completed about four of the 101 things already (#3. Win an Award, #9. Learn an Instrument, #15. Stage Dive or Crowd Surf, and #83. Skinny Dip at Midnight), but after some advanced research cough google I am one step closer to adorning a page with a Gold Star sticker...

Number Thirteen: Meet Someone With Your Own Name.

It'd be most difficult to find Travis Curran Beta ( I am Alpha) because a bunch of other people are looking for him too who he does not want to find him. When the coppers do catch him, he might be the easiest to find since I could always visit the Placer County Jail (helping me accomplish #53. Complete a Coast-to-Coast Road Trip Across America). But then again if he's smart at all, which I'd hope someone sharing my full name would be, then he'd be well aware he's on Placer County's Top Twenty Most Wanted List and would be nowhere near Placer County, California.

Travis Curran Gamma, also in California, actually goes by the full name "Travis Curran Talley" so I am not positive if he counts. He holds a nice job as the Recruiting Manager for the Los Angeles Chapter of Risk and Insurance Management Society Inc. The site gives his full contact info, including phone, fax and email address. He does not seem too tough to hunt down and arrange a meeting with.

Travis Curran Delta is a student at Kansas State College, but, it appears here that he is studying abroad in Prague, Czech Republic. I've always wanted to check Prague out. Good excuse for potential Eurotrip? I think so. (That would also help me complete #36. Visit Every Country).

Travis Curran Epsilon goes to UC Davis and plays ultimate frisbee for them. But I found that here, he played for the "Dogs", and here, he played for a team called "Trouser Fiesta". What an awesome title for anything. He seems like a pretty cool dude. UC Davis is also in California. Weird, huh?

Travis Curran Iota is a little boy. He is the son of Dean and Shannon Curran, who own the Curran Cattle Company in Saskatchewan, Canada. They'd be totally cool to visit, since I like Canada's farmlands and while I'm there, I could Milk a Cow (#47).

And finally, we come to the most famous Travis Curran out there...Travis Curran Kappa. If you were ever so inclined to google my first and last name, there would be about upwards to fifty sites in reference to this fellow here. He plays Men's Tennis for University of Toledo. He's pretty good too. I get envious of his website percentage...but yours truly is the next existing Travis Curran on the Google Search Results page for my old highschool band Brackett and the Drill Bits. I designed the website years ago in an Advanced Communications class. Good times. Anyways, Toledo's in Ohio, and an easy stop on any road trip to make. And I'd probably have to travel in a van to do it...(#97. Live Out of a Van).

I almost made a joke about finding all these people and killing them, then making a Highlander "There can only be one!!" reference and ending the update on a mediocrely funny joke, but then one of these peoples or someone close to them may find this site and take it as a serious death threat and sue me or something crazy like that and I don't think that'd be very funny at all in the end.

Ouch.

The Anti-Rape Female Condom

The State of 2nd Andrews Address

In the 2004-2005 season at the University of Southern Maine, the second floor on the Andrews side of the Robie-Andrews Residence Hall was a floor that could not be rivalled. You could smell marijiuana just by entering through the hallway door. The floor of the bathroom was always covered in water and other liquids. There was someone drinking every night. It was just an ideal archetypal college setting. The residents were either music, theater or media studies majors with not a lot of real work to do and a whole lot of free time on their hands. Thursday nights were reasons for living.

I was more than excited to be living on 2nd Andrews again for my second year at USM. My floor was the floor to be living on. What's more? My roommate, Corey Anderson, happened to be quite beneficial in last year's room selection process. He and his exorbitant amount of credits helped us snipe one of the best rooms in the building. It's on the corner of the building, meaning three windows. Bunk beds to save space. Two roomy closets. Adequate electric outlet placement. Linoleum floors. Three overhead water sprinklers. White walls. The only real fault is the center ceiling-mounted fluorescent light had an epileptic-seizure inducing inconsistent blinking. But that was all really, and nothing some desk and floor lamps couldn't remedy. This year, as far as Residential Life was concerned, was looking pretty fuckin' rad on my part.

Alas, if all good things could last.

I was ill-prepared for this year's freshmen onslaught onto my beloved homestead. My best hypothesis at the moment is that the generation gap between mine and the next has either grown larger or faster, and these kids are straight out of a high school I recognize far too well. Middle America High's fresh new crop of graduates include all the stereotypes I spent my secondary education days pretending didn't exist. "Jocks", "Nerds" and the "Popular Girls" now live in the building an editorial from the Free Press campus paper referred to as "the art-fag dorm." Out my door, I hear echoes in the hall of kids chatting on cellphones with Monday Night football in the background. Walking down the stairs to the lobby, I pass packs of cookie-cutter magazine blondes with their short shorts and solid color designer tops tightly pressed over their perky B-cups. It's just feeling more and more highschool to me.

Luckily, these problems are going to work themselves out eventually. Personalities change and people grow up, and soon these n00bz will realize what college, and 2nd Andrews, and meeting my pretentious expectations, is all about. There are a number of saving graces, in the form of returning residents from last year other than myself, such as Pont & Despres in the same room, Chris Sand is present, along with half of the old Geek Quad. Two of my old high school alumni have moved onto the floor, as well as a fellow named Tim who attended my elementary school a very many years ago in a small town called Newmarket, New Hampshire.

I think I'll be feeling much better after the first Thirsty Thursday.

It is the second day of school, after all...

Brief Bulleted List of Things that are Thoroughly Bumming Me Out:

• Summer is ending.