Well guys, it sounds like we got something out of watching season 1 of The League. Be it a new understanding of fantasy football, or how to be an asshole to your friends. Good times.
I can add season 2 to our list of future things to watch, as I mentioned before, Rafi is one of the more deranged characters of the show and I really feel that you guys should meet him. Also, Daniella says we have to discuss “el cuñado”! LOL! So we should make this happen.
This week some people are on a time crunch, so I thought we’d try a movie. Short n’ sweet.
I keep seeing this one movie on Netflix called Side Effects.
It’s got an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, and its got Rooney Mara & Catherine Zeta Johns – who are boss. It also stars Jude Law and Channing Tatum.
The super quick run down of what we’re getting into: an experimental anti-depressant is prescribed to a female patient and then the shit hits the fan.
Run time is 106 minutes, so hopefully its something you can watch before bed, or whenever convenient.
Below is a trailer that may excite you for our adventure.
I’m not even sure who the guest speakers are going to be, but last year’s TEDxFIU was a huge success, and I didn’t even know it happened. To be honest, the fact that I get to participate as an audience member in any TEDTalk is mind-blowing. I have been a fan of TED and watched numerous speakers inspire and educate me on a variety of topics. I think I’ve even blogged about a few of my favorite speakers. I plan on continuing to do so as well. I will be periodically checking their webpage for updates. I am just so excited, you have no idea.
That being said. I just had the most terrible anxiety building up as I was refreshing the ticket page.
Has anyone ever done this before?
I have to admit, though I have in the past bought tickets the same day they were made available, I never had to camp out for tickets. I mean, I’ve camped out for various other things (Black Friday deals!), but never for an online purchase.
It’s kind of a nail biting experience. All you do is sit there and wait for the website to start selling the tickets, you’re compulsively clicking refresh again and again. Your palms get all sweaty. Your heart starts to pound like crazy within five minutes before the time they become available, mostly because you realize that maybe your computer or cell phone clock isn’t in sync with whatever the website’s clock is. Not to mention my crappy internet connection. Why do I pay so much money for below average connection speeds? I digress. So, around 9:55am I was in full refresh-click-mode.
But when my computer clock changed to 10am, a fiery motivation took over my body and right index finger. THIS IS IT. THE TIME IS NOW.
BUT NOTHING HAPPENED WHEN I CLICKED REFRESH! So, naturally, I panic. I focus all my energy on keeping my eye on the prize. I WILL CLICK THIS REFRESH BUTTON FOREVER. I WILL GET MY TED TALK TICKET!
Le Bus Bear, or is it an RV? Regardless, I love it.
She’s got a great style of drawing, and she has a shop section! So those who want one of her adorable cards, prints, stickers or bags – I implore you to indulge yourself. I personally have my eye on this:
I was reading a few of the Clean House posts, and it reminded me of my own junk…
Those who know me know of my mess. I never consciously go out and try to make a mess, it just kind of piles up that way. Over time. Without me realizing. Also I get lazy.
Let me explain myself.
Over the years I have acquired an impressive mountain of stuff, often times I forget that I have this mountain…especially when I see cute things on sale or clearance. Then I get home and I see there was no space for anything before my purchase…so now I guess all that’s left to do is pile my new belongings on top of my old belongings. Perfect. If clothing piles were a competitive sport, I don’t even think it would be fair for me to compete…I’d just win by default. Now, I’ve seen what hoarder rooms look like. I’d like to take this moment to say that my room is not on that level. I assure you that there are no living creatures or new organisms residing in my room piles. I think it becomes too much though when I can’t find my things.
You see, I may be disorganized in my room, but I know where my stuff is…like…85% of the time. There is organization in my disorganization. I know that people who are neat freaks are just kind of judging me right now, and that’s cool. I get it. I understand your point of view, I’m a huge slobby mcslobberson. But I mean, I always end up being too busy to clean. Something always comes up – things are due, there are places to be, people to meet. I mean, I’m not going to defend all of my actions. I’ve said “no” to cleaning my room on more than one occasion to play a video game or watch Netflix instead. Eventually I just become very apathetic towards the poor thing. It’s not until I take a moment to really reflect on all my crap that I get this random burst of energy to clean it all. I have the best intentions, I WANT to finish the entire room. But after about an hour of digging through one corner of my room, I become super overwhelmed with all of my crap.
STACKS ON STACKS ON STACKS
On more than one occasion I have attempted to clean my room by the transfer-dumping method. The transfer dumping method is something I just made up to describe how I will clean one corner of my room by stuffing the things I removed into another corner of my room. A transfer, of junk. Then I wonder why or how a giant pile of clothing could fall on my head. Eventually it just turns into a huge game of room-jenga…and I’m the one who has to clean up – regardless of which junk piles falls first.
Recently, I’ve taken to laying on my bedroom floor. Prior to recent incidences in my life, I only did this to calm my anxiety. I’m not sure if other people lay on their floors to calm their anxiety…but I don’t fucking care, that’s what I do. YOU DON’T KNOW ME. YOU DON’T KNOW MY LIFE.
Anyway, so basically, the little space that there was for walking, I sort of filled with comforters and pillows.
I was sleeping on the floor
This system worked for a while, until my room suddenly required a more permanent sleeping arrangement…
I needed a bed. Problem was, there was no room for a bed. There was no room for anything, really. So things needed to change. I went onto youtube and binged on videos that showed ways to tidy up rooms / clean up clutters / redesign spaces. Basically, I went out looking for inspiration. I got some, but nothing could have really inspired me like my trip to IKEA.
IKEA is the answer to all of my junky problems. IKEA’s floor rooms look hella classy, save on space and look like grown up shit. I instantly thought to myself, “Hey man, I’m adult-ish, I should be able to do that too!” Being broke really limited the amount of organizational products I could bring home… But on my budget I was able to splurge on a sweet IKEA dresser (from the children’s section…), as well as some boxes to better contain my crap – and make it look neater. So I came home with this insane amount of confidence that things were going to change.
And change it did. I rediscovered the art of throwing crap away (a long lost concept that I had forsaken in the name of keepsakes). You see, I’m huge on pictures, post cards, letters, etc. I love that stuff. It fuels my happy feels. So I have a tendency to keep EVERYTHING. Then my brother reminded me that although all of the things in my room were linked to certain memories, they weren’t really keepsakes. For example, my physics books. What am I doing with those? Nothing, they’re just chillin and taking up space. I don’t plan on taking physics again any time soon and honestly, I’d probably just look up information on the internet anyway. This effect of throwing junk away that I no longer needed, with minimal nostalgia potential, caught on like a wild fire. Eventually I filled up a couple of bags worth of stuff. JUST ENOUGH to move in mattress (shout out to my homegirl who let me have it). So now, my room is more like this:
My computer chair can’t move…
Granted, there’s even less space in my room now, and my walls look like I’m playing a serious game of Tetris, but I can sleep there. And that’s what’s important.
My new goal is to keep everything (my junk) at a manageable level so that I don’t over-flood the place with crap again. We shall see.
Alrighty guys, it seems everyone has finished the very first Breaking Netflix viewing! That means its discussion time!
We all watched The League – Season 1 (6 Episodes) THIS POST HAS SPOILERS! REPEAT, SPOILERS! Turn away if you want to watch this series and don’t want to blame me for knowledge you didn’t want to know.
From left to right: Peter “Pete” Eckhart, Andre Nowzick, Rodney Ruxin, Kevin MacArthur, Jenny MacArthur, Taco MacArthur
Some questions I want to ask you guys!
What did you think of the series? Did you like it/not like it?
Who was your favorite or least favorite characters?
It was through my college experience that I truly understood the value of free stuff. No one appreciated that free pizza on campus that your club was passing out as a promotion more than I did, especially right after tuition was due. I came to have a new found appreciation for free things. I mean, I have always loved free stuff – but I never took advantage of it like I did in college. If I didn’t need to pay for it, then I didn’t pay for it. I wasn’t trying to be a douche bag, I just did not have the money. You get creative when you’re broke.
Free t-shirts for my university’s homecoming? Nice! I needed a new work out shirt!
It’s my birthday? Sounds like I’m going to Denny’s for a free breakfast and grabbing some baskin robins later for free ice cream!
Free pancakes for International Pancake Day? Don’t mind if I do.
Free Slurpee Day? Is someone reading my mind?
Why yes, I would like to try some of your bourbon chicken, thank you for the free sample outside of your Mall Food Court restaurant. But first, I have to make my rounds to the rest of the Food Court free sample train.
Lady’s drink free on Wednesday nights? Good thing I don’t have classes on Thursday!
Hey man, you got to do what you got to do. And I was doing everything I could to try and not spend anymore than I needed to on things.
So yes, I went to a lot of free art galleries, a lot of student art galleries, and free museums…
Which brings me to the article that inspired me to write a post. Kathrine Brooks’s article brought to light that The Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Met) had a discounted Groupon for tickets that were, essentially, free.
Ruh roh. You see, the Met does state that there is a “recommended admission price.” Recommended, as in, not mandatory.
So the the Met is essentially selling a discounted recommendation? Really? That’s a thing now? Normally admission to the Met is $25 for adults, $17 for seniors ages 65 and up, and $12 for students. The Groupon was knocking off a few bucks for adults, selling the tickets for $18.
Now, obviously, this is kinda shady. So I was not surprised to find out that there have already been a few lawsuits filed. Arnold Weiss, one of the lawyers in these lawsuit cases, had this to say:
Okay, now, I understand that supporting your local museum or any museum is hella important. In fact, if you’ve got some money lying around, I fully support you donate it to a museum. Museums don’t run themselves, they have a lot of people who dedicate a lot of hard work to make them the wonderful places that they are. These recommended admission fees obviously go towards the cost of helping run the place. That being said, free means free. Recommended means its recommended. And this kind of advertising is blatantly deceiving. If I were a broke college student (oh wait, I am) and I was looking into visiting the Met as a tourist, I would probably not have known what policy the museum had for admissions, and I would have thought this Groupon was a super cool deal. However, if the whole deal about giving a “recommended” amount of money to a museum is to help pay for costs, is discounting a recommendation really validate the reasons behind asking for the recommendation in the first place?
Give us ten bucks to get in, this is a number we estimate will help cover costs of the museum! But if you get this groupon it’ll be five bucks! So, why get the groupon at all then? If you need the ten bucks so bad…I feel like I’m complaining. Sorry if this sounds like that, I had a point somewhere in here…
If you are providing free admission, I’m not so sure you can dictate how much people are supposed to donate, in fact, I think telling people how much they should donate is a bit arrogant. Maybe arrogant isn’t the right word, but I’m too tired to look at a thesaurus. I’m not trying to give an excuse as to why its okay to cop out of giving money to the museum. But I mean… Do you guys get what I’m trying to say?
My friend Brett has been having some tough times. Right now, so am I, so I feel his pain. Therefore, in an effort to cheer him up, and because I feel like it, I’ve decided to tell the story of our friendship.
Three years ago…wait…no…Four years ago, on the internet, I met one of the greatest bros of all time. It was in the game Guild Wars that I would have the privilege of getting to know the funniest guild I have ever been in. That guild, was Us Are Not [leet]. Here’s a group picture that I made a long time ago, we are a good looking bunch, amirite?
I have been using MS Paint for a while, as you can see.
Anyway, I had just moved to pursue nursing as my second degree, so I didn’t know a lot of people in the new place I was living in. So, naturally, I spent a lot of time gaming. Thus, I spent a lot of time bonding, with Us Are Not. One of the peeps that I got to know very well was Bretty poo. This is Brett:
Brett is a very energetic dude, and super funny, so naturally we got along quite well. It just so happened that I was going to be in one of the northern states visiting family, and Brett was like “OMG I’LL DRIVE OVER TO MEET YOU!” So I was like, “OKAY!” And so he did, and we hung out for a bit – making this the first time ever that I met a person who I played online with! It wasn’t a very long meeting, because he had to drive back, obviously. But we had some tasties, and tasties are always the best. Also we went into a “Giant” which is a super market chain only in the northern part of the U.S. In it we proceeded to try and find all of the purple and yellowthings we could. Also we attempted to drive a truck that was clearly too small for us; we were giants in the Giant.
O GOD BRETT, YOU’RE STEERING IT INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC
The funniest thing about us meeting was that when I first saw him I kind of just touched his face for like a good ten minutes. It’s weird, and hard to explain. But, when you have talked to someone for a while and you never actually met them in person, the first time you see that person face-to-face there’s like this realization of OMG YOU DO EXIST. I mean, I knew he was a real person before, but now there’s an actual person. So I poked his face a few times.
When I think of Brett, three things come to mind.
(1) ENERGETIC. Brett always a great attitude about stuff and a lot of energy. He isn’t without his limit, he is human, but its always good to know someone who is up for anything.
(2) CONVERSATIONALIST. He is an awesome person to talk to, regardless of what topic you decide to discuss. He can talk for several hours, as he has proven, and always has something funny to say.
(3) MUSICIAN. Brett has a musical famly, so I am not surprised that he is a musician himself. I also recall that he created some comedic raps, which I also participated in, in the name of Gerby! (Gerby is a long story…but, I wish we still had our old guild website up, I would quote some of our “sick” “flow” – but alas, the forums were deleted a while back) I’m always up for any music he may recommend.
Brett is but a baby (yer so widdle and younnng) so he has a big future ahead of him, I can feel it. For now, I hope you stay optimistic and continue being hilarious. C:
A new estimate reports that 15% of Americans, ages 18 and older, are “offline.” As in, no internets.
According to an article on Pew Internet, there are several reasons why these adults choose not to use the internet. There’s a whole list of reasons, ranging from not having a computer at all, to thinking its a waste of time. But the biggest reason that people don’t use the internet, “Just Not Interested.”
Dang. Shot down like a bad date.
But, the thing that I really didn’t understand was the statistic: 14% of these adults had used the internet (at least once) and decided to stop.
This got me thinking. What kind of circumstances would have to happen for me to never use the internet again?
Scenario 1:If I lost access to the internet.
Let’s say that I could no longer afford to pay for the internet, or my computer exploded, or both. I still foresee myself going to the local library or my university library and hogging a computer for as many hours as I need. So, nope, I still use the internet in this case.
Scenario 2: If I were stranded on a deserted island.
I’d be fucked. I have completely forgotten all the survival skills I learned in the Girl Scouts. Wait, did we learn those? Yeah, I’m super fucked. So, this would probably be the only scenario – that I can come up with – where I would be forced to stop using the internet.
But, if I survived, you know what I’d want to do when I came back in contact with civilization? Blog about it.
Scenario 3: If I died.
Yes, being dead stops me from using a lot of things.
The problem with all 3 of these scenarios is that I can’t control them. Maybe I can try to work more to save money to buy a new computer or resume payments to my internet provider. But all of these situations were against my will. I can’t see myself willingly giving up the internet.
On a global scale, there’s a crazy number of people who don’t even have access to the internet. But if they were introduced to it, I wonder how many would chose to stop. Would it still be 14%?
I mean, I’m old enough to remember what it was like growing up without the internet. I still had fun. I may not be a fan of social media, but I mean, I have to admit I was excited to create my first email account. Even with youtube and Netflix feeding me all sorts of entertainment, I know it wouldn’t be impossible for me to go back to exclusively reading books/graphic novels/comics. I could do it. I just…choose the internet.
So, my friends, now I am curious…What kind of circumstances would have to happen for YOU to never use the internet again?
Disclaimer: I have never been, nor do I claim to be, a computer expert of any kind. The following story is based on true events that happened to me yesterday. All information regarding the incident was found off of google, my friend Kauf (a programmer), my friend Luuk (a person who knows what memory sticks are) and my own brain. If this isn’t how these things work, I am not the least bit surprised. At some point I will claim to be a computer wizard, I’d like to mention now that I do not and have never practiced magic. I was, however, my own tech support. Let me bask in this moment, okay? I did something without others present. THIS IS LIKE A HUGE LIFE ACCOMPLISHMENT. (Also, kind of magical)
Friends, I wish to tell you a little story.
It all started when I was typing up some essays yesterday, you know, normal nursing school stuff…when something happened to me. My computer screen suddenly went blank.
Naturally I immediately assumed it had something to do with the cable that runs from my magical computer box (tower) to my monitor. But I was interrupted mid-thought by a high pitched, upset, demonic noise suddenly erupting from my desktop tower.
My response, as it is when anything goes wrong with digital devices, was to turn off the computer. So I did. I waited a few seconds…and a few more, then I turned it back on. To my dismay, my tower was still singing its raging digital acapella. WTF IS HAPPENING??? OGOD.
Initially I of course, because I am a catastrophic thinker, went to the worst possible scenario; I killed it. I must have somehow offended my tower to the point of hardware suicide. It was failing to thrive. My computer was dying and this was its final Cheyne-Stokes breathes. I turned it off and went into full TECH PANIC MODE.
I texted a few people, but when no one responded, I called my friend Kauf. I don’t recall most of the phone call in much detail, it was a blur of anxiety, but I do remember Kauf telling me that my computer’s beeps were a code. A code? Well, shit. What kind of code are we talking here? It wants to communicate with me, I’m okay with that, I’ll go into the grid! WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO TO TALK WITH IT???
Unfortunately, my call was badly timed, as Kauf was in the middle of a Final Fantasy XIV Online raid. I apologized for the frantic phone call, said goodbye, and just sat on the floor staring at my computer tower.
A code? My sweet, innocent tower, what is it that you want to tell me? Is this in binary? Is binary even a language? Are there other languages? Oh sweet Jesus, I hope this isn’t the audio version of C++…for a moment the scene from Zoolander came to mind… I don’t understand. LET ME HELP YOU.
With no options left, and millions of unanswered questions, I knew there was only one thing left to try. Google it.
I ran for my laptop and ferociously finger stabbed my keyboard until the google screen appeared. When you type into google “dying computer noises” you actually get free sound clips of what, I presume, a computer sounds like when its dying. Which is random and cool at the same time, but of no use to me. So I tried “computer noises + code” (Kauf mentioned it, so I should have probably used that in the search…) and BAM, answers!
The beepies are “beep codes” that are used by something called BIOS (basic input output system). The BIOS is the lord of the boots! Boots being the booting up process of a computer. BIOS is the tower guardian.
Mr. BIOS was letting me know that shit was going down in my tower. OH GOD HOW DO I COMMUNICATE WITH YOU MR. BIOS??? Easy, back to google. I searched “HP BIOS codes” – and lo and behold, I had found it. THE ROSETTA STONE FOR HP DESKTOP TOWER BIOS BEEPS. OH WHAT A GLOOOOOORIOUS DAY!
I listened again to my tower’s beep message, it wasn’t random complaints, oh no, no sir. My computer was speaking to me. He was saying “ONE SHORT BEEP AND A LONG BEEP. ONE SHORT BEEP AND A LONG BEEP. HEY, ARE YOU GETTING THIS? I MEAN I CAN KEEP GOING, BUT I FEEL LIKE I’M JUST REPEATING MYSELF AT THIS POINT. ONE SHORT BEEP AND A LONG BEEP.”
I’ll spare you the suspense, it was a memory problem. I tore open my tower and searched for the culprits. Two, very suspicious, RAM sticks were just sitting there…acting like nothing had fucking happened. YOU DON’T FOOL ME, DEVIANTS!
I took one of the sticks of RAM out, tried to turn my computer on again, but he was still cranky and repeating the memory BIOS code. So I put that one back and took out the other one. The most magical thing happened when I pressed the power…MY COMPUTER BOOTED. It brought a tear to my eye. But I couldn’t celebrate just yet…my computer is hella old, I can’t just survive off of one memory stick for long. Looking at the motherboard, where the stick holders (not the technical term) were located I took note that two of them were black and two of them were blue. The memory sticks had been in the blue slots, so, I moved both sticks into the black slots and tried turning on the computer.
SUCCESS. I had never been so happy to see my monitor screen’s ten minute long Windows Starting logo.
Then it dawned on me. This is the first time, ever, in the history of my life, that I fixed a hardware computer problem BY MYSELF. AND IT FELT GLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORIOUS!
To reward myself, I went on a magical internet browsing journey where I accomplished nothing, and it felt great. The moral of this story is, wait no, there’s no moral to this story. This is just what happened to me yesterday.
But, there was a take away message from all this, and that is – I AM A COMPUTER WIZARD, I DON’T NEED TECH SUPPORT, I AM TECH SUPPORT *drops a mic* DEUCES.
There comes a time in every little girl’s life when you have to decide wtf you’re going to do when you are mind numbingly bored. It has to be something so crazy, so intense, so affordable…yet broad enough to include all of your friends who live all over the God damn place.
This is that time. This is my time. The time to introduce Project: Breaking Netflix.
Jesse Dutchman and SuperSaiyan White
That’s right folks. I’m bringing in the big guns, the online streaming guns. I invite you to watch shit with me and then discuss in posts in this blog. It’s the closest thing I can do to feel like I’m hanging out with actual humans. Human friends. Don’t worry if you can’t watch the show we all chose immediately. I’ll do an end of the week or biweekly post where we can all discuss it, so you have time to catch up. Also, the post where we decide on what to watch will remain spoiler free, but the discussion post can talk about any and all details of the show. Are you excited yet? Cause I am.
So far, I know of two people who will be joining me on this magical journey (Kiam and Luuk). Last night Kiam and I threw around some ideas about what we wanted to watch, and ended up with The League.
Da dada duh duh da da duhhh
The league is a show about six friends (Pete, Kevin, Ruxin, Dr. Andre, Taco, and Jenny) and the terrible shit they put each other through in order to win their fantasy football league. Katie and Pete are married, Pete and Taco are brothers, and everyone else are old buds.
Season 1 has 6 episodes, which is super short and convenient. SO WHO WANTS TO WATCH IT WITH US? Daniela? Natty Cakes? Cactaur? Anyone?
Let me know :D
For those who are not interested in The League, what series would you want to see next? Shoot some ideas out there! Here are some that I recommend we partake in…
I will edit this post to update your suggestions. Also we don’t have to do series, if there’s a movie or documentary that you are interested in comment with those as well!!! I fucking love documentaries (though I may have already seen the majority of the ones available on Netflix) and a movie may be easier for peeps to get through if they decide they don’t like it. If The League turns out to really tickle your fancies, we can go on to the other seasons. It’s all negotiable folks! LETTUS BEGIN!!
Scenario 1: If I lost access to the internet.
I'm just Super Saiyan 
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