Back by semi-popular request!

What are the haps, my friends?!

I've missed you.

I began writing this post on the weekend before shark week, so while it's no longer super relevant, I would like to share with you some of my very favorite shark pictures anyway!

Alright, it's been awhile since some of you have been all up inside my brain n stuff, so let's CATCH UP! That first one is from the set of Jaws! Classic.

First of all, I'm in love! It's not happened to me before! It's so great! I've moved into an apartment near Milwaukee with Marie, my girlfriend of a little over a year! Very exciting! We are almost completely unpacked and moved in, with the notable exceptions that we don't own a couch yet, nor do we have the hardware to mount our tv on the wall! HOW am I supposed to snuggle Marie if there's no couch! I ask you.

At this point, you might be asking yourself, "Why Nick, how are you supposed to get to classes in Madison from Milwau

kee, now that you've moved out there??" Don't even worry about it! Not a problem, because I

FINALLY GRADUATED!

Now I get to look for real jobs! The next step. It's so fun. (It's not fun)

Other news! Marie and I went to the blink 182 concert in Milwaukee last weekend, and they were totally wicked awesome! My Chemical Romance and some forgettable

local band opened for them, and they were pretty good too. For concert details and pictures and wonderfulness, check out this post from Marie!

I went home to MN briefly with Marie for my college graduation party last weekend, which had a WAY larger turnout than I would have thought! It was just like my high school graduation, only with fewer of my friends. Thank you SO much for coming out to hang out with me, superfamily! I had a blast.

Things that have lately caught my attention on the internet:

"Why you shouldn't challenge a breast-feeding mom to a game of Call of Duty." That article is out there, in the world somewhere. I didn't read it.

Also, one of my buddies (Rob I think? Maybe Ethan) posted this article on his facebook awhile back. I laughed my arms off.

Alright friends, til next time!

Single's Awareness Day

Hello again my dear readers!! I hope your Valentine's Day was lovely!

I had a date this year! Like a legitimate one! It was really fun! If you want details you may call me, but for now it will suffice to say that i went out with this really cool girl i've been seeing recently! There were a few hiccups, but for the most part, i had a wonderful time!

Andy and I have signed a lease for the upcoming year (which is VERY exciting!) and i think I've decided definitively that i will be staying here in Madison should i get the summer supervisor position that i applied for. Yay!

The roommates (excluding Andy of course) have taken to locking the doors to their bedrooms when they go to bed. The door to the apartment itself is always locked before we go to sleep, so i can only assume the locks are then in place to keep the rest of us out!! I've been wondering what they think we might do to them while they sleep. I've begun to think of it like the great wall of china. And i am the Huns. At least as far as the Mulan story goes. Disney kinda made it seem like the only reason they invaded was because the Chinese threw up the defenses. I'm not sure how historically accurate that is, but that's the metaphor i'm going for here. Someday i'ma break through just because i can.

I've been trying out the contacts look over the past few weeks, and after my initial discomfort, i've decided that i like them! Glasses are more convenient, but on my less lazy days i will be seen glasses-less.

I feel a bit homesick today.

Alright, that's all for today folks! I'm off to watch 500 Days of Summer for the first time! Should be wonderful!

Stay sweet.

Look Alive, Blogonauts!

The new semester has begun!! And i am pumped! I am taking four spanish classes (which IS my major for the record) so i figure i will get super grades since i'll actually care about everything! That's the hope anyway. Also, all but one of my professors so far has been EXCELLENT. And the class with which i wasn't impressed had a wonderfully high ratio of cute girls to guys.

Yesterday i was surfing the 'tubes when i remembered i had a few iTunes gift cards to burn through. I "accidentally" purchased the song "Blah blah blah" by Ke$ha featuring 3OH!3, because i love Tik Tok and a series of 3OH!3's stuff. It seemed safe but i've never been so thoroughly embarrassed to own a song before in my life! It was an even bigger bust than "In My Head" by Jason Derulo (he did Whatcha Say, which was awesome. Maybe because i loved imogen heap before it?) which is a song about a dude essentially using "i'm raping you right now in my head" as a pick-up line. No wait, come back! It sounds like you're really enjoying it! It's some pretty compelling stuff. What a standup individual.

Andy is currently in the process of making a screensaver that includes a picture of every actor/actress that he knows. He's using it as a way to remember all of their names, which is pretty cool. And I think it's great, because for one, he finds some really cool pictures, but second and more important, i play a different game than he does. Whenever i see a picture of an actor, i shout out either A. my favorite role they've played or B. A ridiculous/bad/strange actor that they are not. But that they kind of look like. For example, when i see this photo here, i shout







Nicolas Cage!










It's especially fun, because sometimes Andy can't tell if i'm joking. For example, i've taken to shouting CHOW YUN FAT every time i see an asian man. He did a double take when i did it yesterday. Hours of entertainment.

I'm a supervisor now at Liz Waters, and while it's really cool to get paid more to do less, there are some downsides. I'm struggling with minor insubordination. I'm not gonna run around hounding everyone, but there's this guy there that sucks at EVERYTHING and when i ask him to do things he either ignores me or he does it horribly wrong! I also have a sneaking suspicion that when i told him he wasn't allowed to wear his iPod while he worked, he put it back in his ear every time i walked away and he felt safe. Whatever. I guess if it continues i'll just have to be a prick to him and see if that works.

There is now a flip camera in the apartment due to Andy and his parents' penchant for awesomeness, so since i have been a little bored with this blogging stuff, i think i may soon (with his permission and help) try vlogging on the youtube. He's done a few vlogs so far, and they look like a lot of fun! So i'll keep you guys posted on that progress as it comes along!

On my return to Madison, i recieved a few presents for my Birfday/Christmas, and among them was a poster of Megan Fox from Transformers. I have since hung it on my ceiling over my bed because i have wanted a poster over my bed since FOREVER ago when i saw it in movies as like a 6 year old. *side note: ive just recalled the scene from Christmas Vacation where the grandpa is in one of the kids' beds and is staring up at the bikini poster. Yea, it's kinda like that* Additionally, i am totally obsessed with Transformers, and Megan Fox is gorgeous.


I mean, look at her. You will notice her "toe thumbs" have been carefully left out of this shot, but can i just say...

That is such a stupid problem to have with someone's appearance!! Good lord. She's beautiful.







Remember that one time when i told you guys about the super bed? OK, so i was telling my uncle Scott about my living situation with Andy, and in his appalled bewilderment he mentioned that he could probably cheaply build us the bunk beds/lofts that we so desperately need! I got really pumped!!! But it seems like it might have been a fever dream. It would be a long drive for him. I wish i was a little handier.

Alright ladies and gents, I gotta go get some din-din, so i'ma holla atcha later!

O also, i deliberately gave this post no continuity or even transitional statements. How do you guys feel about that?

The New Plan

Alright guys, the gross lack of posting in the month of November has caused me to rethink my blog strategy.

It used to be that i would only post when i was sure i had enough premium life content to keep you guys entertained, but what i found happened under the "laugh quota" regime was that i would start a post one day, decide it wasn't long enough, and then continue to add to it from here to infinity, and what ended up happening was that by the time i was ready to post some huge post, half of what i said was no longer relevant! SO in the interest of keeping some content coming, i'm gonna go ahead and LOWER MY STANDARDS!!

This MAY result in some posts that are a bit blander than others, but hey, at least there's something here again right? ...

There will still be good stuff here.
Please read it occasionally.

today i leave you all with something i found on my friend Kevin's facebook. It is the Charlie Brown Christmas performed by the cast of Scrubs! It's totally excellent. especially if you like Scrubs.

Enjoy!

We Survived the Slootpocalypse!!

Last weekend (nearly 2 weekends ago now) was the long anticipated culmination of many months planning... for some people. It was Halloween!! The weekend of OUTRAGEOUSLY AWESOME COSTUMES and just generally slutty attire! Andy and myself of course, being the procrastinators that we are, didn't take time to put a costume together until Wednesday afternoon, 2 days before we needed them. Classic Niandy (wow, there's really no way to properly combine our names! The point is, we generally function as a single unit) maneuver.

Anyway, we went to Ragstock to find something interesting to inspire us, but after spending about 20 minutes sifting through countless wigs, boyscout uniforms, scrubs, and pimp coats, we decided to move on. I was feeling concerned about our costume future when we entered Goodwill, but it was there that i stumbled upon inspiration!

while digging through a pile of ridiculous hats, wondering who in their right mind would have worn them previous to donating them to the goodwill, when i remembered an obscure internet meme! The link there is this cartoonist's attempts at commercials for several different networks, and they are all really disturbing in one way or another, but the one the hats brought to mind was at about 1:54 in the video. Basically, the costume is this.

So Andy and i bought like 9 outrageous hats (some of them so outrageous that they were never worn) and made a couple signs. It was simple, mildly clever, and easy to include new people should the need arise.


Anyway, here was our finished product, pre-state street. We dressed up strangely to avoid appearing too lazy. Which made it infinitely more fun. I really enjoy dressing up.



In honor of the fall season, we conjured up about 2 gallons of "apple pie" for the weekend, as well as ammo for the beerstick (btw, it will henceforth be known as Excalibur). The apple pie took us a solid 3 hours to make on our first run through (its a crazy process. you mix apple cider and apple juice, bring it to a boil, stir in cinnamon and sugar to taste (it supposedly tastes even better if you have cinnamon sticks to leave in the drink while it cools, but they were in a grocery store far away, and too expensive) then you allow it to cool before adding everclear. again, to taste. The stuff is potent, and it tastes pretty much like apple juice. Its frightening. (best served chilled btw. You're thinking o, apple cider, that would be good hot! We once thought as you did. Honestly, don't do it.)

In the end, what was initially set up to be a small gathering at our apartment on Friday became a party that just barely fit in our apartment (comfortably). We ran out of apple pie that night, and so discovered that there's a much easier way to make it really quickly: pour everclear, sugar, and cinnamon into apple juice. tastes almost exactly the same.



ANYWAY my friend Rob and my cousin Sam came down to join us in the celebration of this esteemed holiday. Rob was Clark Kent (which turned out totally awesome Rob) and my cousin forgot his costume in Cincinnati, so he donned a silly hat and marched with us against all wearers of humdrum head ware!



Speaking of humdrum, how was the fun-vee Jake?


Another really fantastic costume.





So our friends from last year (shout out to all my Slichter peeps! Love you guys) came over on Friday to warm up for other parties. They drank all of our booze, went off to different parties, then ended up coming back later because of some crazy altercation with the other parties. Which was wonderful!... kinda. It was broken up shortly thereafter by one of my good friends becoming violently ill, but it was still overall a pretty fun evening. Eventful, if nothing else.

But Saturday... Ah, Saturday. This was the day we had all been waiting for. We woke up at the crack of 1 PM (Sam got up far earlier, but that's because he passed out at like 11:30. He claims to have been up til 1:30, but i think he's lying. He totally pussed out) and began setting plans in motion. And by that i mean we started drinking again. Everybody whanged, everybody chunged, everybody did a beerstick! Good times were had by all.

Then we went to State Street.

This tradition has changed a lot over the last 5 or so years from the free, crazy, riotous havoc it used to be to a more regulated, police infested, closed off area for people to prance about and take pictures with everyone in their super cool outfits!! I won't say these changes are for the better, but State IS a much SAFER place to be on Halloween than it once was. With the exception of the bandstand of course. Which i come back to later.

People come out in droves for this event, and i won't lie, aside from the many geeky awesome costumes that are witnessed, the best part about State is the women. The ladies go all out for state street, and honestly, it's a bit surprising. Girls, your dedication to the slutty attire in the face of freezing temperatures is inspiring. Really.

Here's a few more of the better costumes I witnessed this Halloween.










In addition to the huge numbers of people that showed up on State for the festivities, UW hires a band each year to play at the base of the capital. This year they brought in Third Eye Blind, with Cage the Elephant as their opener.

Now among my State Street crew was Jake Rohrig (Tony Stark) who loves Third Eye Blind, Rob Finlayson (Clark Kent) who loves Cage the Elephant, Andy and Sam (fellow silly hat wearers) who are mostly indifferent to both of them, and me. I like Cage the Elephant, and i REALLY like Third Eye Blind, but i wasn't sure i wanted to go to the concert. It was kind of a big time commitment, and getting up close would require an amount of effort (ie. shoving) that i didn't really want to participate in. Everyone could sense my aversion to the whole idea, so we decided to forget about the concert and move on.

...

Bazinga! (you guys never see my little practical jokes coming)

We totally stayed! Rob heard "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked" and we all scrambled forth to be up close for when Third Eye Blind came on. We randomly ran into our next door neighbors from the apartment during said scramble, but during the ensuing press forward, we were separated. Like, extremely. Andy and Rob somehow stayed relatively close together, and Jake, Sam and I got up really close to the bandstand. I'm still carrying my "SiLLY HATS ONLY" sign, and in close proximity there is literally nothing i can do with it. I have to hold it above my head, which is already pretty high up. Of course, this little (relatively speaking) Asian dude starts shouting at me to put my sign down. Like i'm capable of something like that. I can't even tie my shoe, how am i supposed to set my sign down? Asshole. Whatever. I hadn't planned on being this close to the band.

It is at this point that State Street becomes frightening. Everyone is pushing to get closer (unsurprisingly) but there's only so much space to smash together, so we all inevitably get a little closer than we would generally be comfortable with, particularly among strangers. This results in some unplanned and occasionally unintentional grinding with a couple of random cute girls we ran into. I honestly couldn't tell you what their costumes were anymore. I've completely forgotten.

Anyway, when Third Eye Blind finally comes on, people get rowdy. Everyone rushes toward the bandstand, shoving violently. And sorry, i lost track of my story a little but it was at THIS point that State got scary. I lost my footing once and almost fell over, which i am CONVINCED would have been the end of my life. There were points where i couldn't breathe, and i had my feet trampled on and my head kicked by crowd surfers so many times i nearly lost my temper (in an 'i might kill you with my sign' sort of way).

We eventually escaped the madness, (dragging our 2 ladies in our wake, as they had had enough trampling too) because honestly, i couldn't even focus on the music, because i had to focus on survival. I had to think about ways to not die. It wasn't conducive to a good concert.

We finally met up with everyone at the apartment around 1 in the morning, at which point we decided we didn't need to go out to any parties, but would rather just watch a movie. And so we played "Tonight We Drink in Hell," a really intense drinking game to the movie 300. Then everybody passed out. The end. I'm sorry, but that just reminded me of this.

Rob and Sam ended up staying through Sunday and going home Monday, which involved watching the Packers vs. Vikings game, sitting around being lazy, eating a crazy unhealthy meal concocted by my cousin, and eventually watching Battle Royale. Man, every time i think i'm gonna wrap up this post i think of something else that i just HAVE to tell you about!

If you haven't seen Battle Royale... well, you have something in common with 98% of America. But it is seriously so funny. The basic plot is this: the Japanese government is sick of children boycotting school (or maybe they were just bored? i don't remember the details), so they round up a random class of school children, bring them to a deserted island, strap explosive collars to their necks, and tell them they have to kill each other. They give each child a random weapon, and send them out into the island to murder each other. It's so crazy!!! And the weapons are great. Some kids get guns, and then the less lucky ones get like... well, the protagonist gets a pot lid, and somebody gets a gps, etc. It's pretty awesome. If you are into the "so bad it's good" movie genre, you should DEFINITELY check this one out.

We actually enjoyed it so much that Andy went out and rented the 2nd one (that's right, a SEQUEL) which turned out to be nowhere near as good. The plot was crazier, they went way too in depth into each characters back story, and there was a lot less killing.

MY FAVORITE SLUTTY HALLOWEEN COSTUMES FOR THIS YEAR ARE:


The Olsen twins, as slutty... sluts?
OK, so there are some wings involved, and what appears to be haloes, but... what are those, butterflies? I don't know what it is, but i like it







And secondly, this slutty sailor. You know what? It's been so long since i started this post that i can't remember where i got this image. It's probably not even from Halloween. Looks like maybe she's just a stripper. Like maybe i just googled "slutty sailor" and saved this image. But ya know what? she's hot, so i'm gonna let it slide.

Alright everyone, it's taken me several hours over several days to finish this damned post, but i've finally done it!! Happy Halloween everyone!

Bazinga!!

I'm totally back!!

I just watched Greg make his lunch! And it was even more awesome than it sounds. He asked me to blog about bologna sandwiches, which i was immediately averse to, but when i wandered into the kitchen, i changed my mind.

Bologna has to be one of the more disgusting meats out there. It's like hot dogs, only flattened. For the record, i really like hot dogs. AND i don't mind bologna, given the proper circumstances.

The proper circumstances are as follows:
1. There must be some form of cheese in the sandwich.
2. There must be mayo in the sandwich.
3. I must be outrageously hungry, with little to no time in which to think of/make an alternative meal.

Greg's sandwiches flew in the face of all of my bologna sandwich criteria! He made TWO bologna sandwiches (one slice of bologna each), with nothing more than butter as a buffer between his mouth and questionable flavor! In addition to making one of the most boring sandwiches i've ever seen (second only to me grabbing a plain piece of white bread to eat on my way to class one morning. A mistake i shan't repeat, btw), it was PREMEDITATED! He was packing a lunch! For his trip to the library. There is a whole slew of issues with this plan, but i'm trying to stick to the packed lunch. There was no rush here! After he proudly placed his sandwiches into an overlarge tupperware (does another noun belong there? i never know what to call tupperware. It wasn't like a tupperware bowl. It was like... a tupperware... thingy), he sprinkled some of his staple food, tostitos, over the top. No one love tostitos like Greg. He eats them with/on everything. It's pretty great. So if anyone ever needs nachos...
You had better go find your own chips, because those are Greg's.

I don't remember what random YouTube search brought this on, but i found an alternative to an old meme using a different meme that made me chuckle. It's here.

As long as we are being immature, here's the poop thesaurus. Don't ask how this came up. It made Andy and i laugh for awhile though. But we are occasionally the maturity equivalent of 7 year olds.

I'm finally done with stressful activities until Halloween now, and i am feeling very relaxed. I am caught up on my work for once, so all i need do now is sit through classes until my friends arrive! It's gonna be a wonderful weekend. We found some new female takers for the beerstick!! I really am not going to stop repping it. It is so cool. In fact, if you wanna be cool like me (LOL) then you could get one yourself! One of my friends from high school sells them. Or you could just come hang out with me. Either way. Either way is fine.

CONTAINER!! That's a word that might have worked in the sandwich paragraph. Ugh.

The show Castle made me happy this week, though as Andy already linked the the Malcolm Reynolds comeback moment, i guess i'll leave off. It was pretty great though. Castle decided to be a 'space cowboy' for halloween. Good stuff.

Halloween updates are imminent! You can have 'em next post.

This Is Me, Being Contrite

I said some things I'm not proud of yesterday, shaming myself, causing unnecessary friction, and just generally being a punk.

I used my blog to vent some late night drunken frustrations, dredging up old stale arguments and twisting them to make me feel better about my (then) situation. I have since deleted them, hopefully before too many of you got to it.

I have to study a bit for an upcoming exam, but this may be my last post for awhile. The immediate flurry of well deserved hate mail regarding my 'crossed the line' post has me thinking that perhaps i need to take some time to consider whether i should have a blog at all.

Sorry to have let y'all down.