Summer!

I don't know why I chose the pic above, actually, no I do.. but the point remains:

SCHOOL IS OUT!

(I wish there was a better font to express my heartfelt emotion than Lucida Grande..something. Why are there so few fonts on Blogger?) Anyway, I am obviously very excited. I am off until late August. That means late nights, late mornings, late everything to come. I'll be honest, my summer break feels A TON better knowing that the rest of my friends are at work at their 9-to-5s. Does that make me a bad person? Who knows..

I have some goals. I want to go to the gym very often (I'm not going to say everyday because that will not happen). I want to get a lot of planning out of the way for the upcoming school year. I want to make the Road Trip movie based on the road trip I took in the summer of 2006 with my friends Tim and Mickey. Here's the trailer I made:



I kept saying I was going to make it last summer but obviously never did. I want to play basketball a lot. And I want to BBQ and go to the beach.

Lofty goals, I know. But having them is better than having work! Zing!

Superman that Phone

Funny story. So today I went to Six Flags with my 8th graders for their senior trip. Very fun, very long today. Here's a highlight.

If any of you have ever been on the Superman ride at Six Flags, you know they strap you in and then lift you up 90 degrees. My usual protocol is to push every in my pockets down and then push the protective harness (or whatever its called) down. So that's what I did, excitement building because I love roller coasters. We started our ascent, slowly going up and up. The first drop was great, but as we got out of it, I felt a shifting in my pocket. More shifting. More. All of a sudden, my iPhone was falling gracefully in front of my eyes from the coaster, down, down, sunlight glistening, looking exactly like the villains in that glass thing in Superman 2:



Really, all I could do was laugh. I just thought how ridiculous it was that I was one of those (dumb) people whose phone fell out when they were on a roller coaster. People getting of the ride muttering, "Did you see that phone falling?"... "Yea, that was mine."

Luckily, when we got off the ride, there was a nice Six Flags worker who looked around for the phone and found it (I gave him a twenty for the help. Thought that was only fair. I did hesitate because I don't really know if giving a tip is patronizing or acceptable in certain situations. Like would the guy get offended by my insulting the duties of his job or would he be appreciative. He was the latter). Amazingly, my phone, albeit a little scratched up on the back, still worked.

(In the back of my mind I was already justifying the potential loss by promising to buy myself the newest iPhone).

Tiger

I just watched Tiger sink a birdie putt on 18 to send himself into a playoff for the US Open championship.

Damn.

He is so good. It's really awesome to see someone so good at his craft. I like to watch golf sometimes. It's pretty calming. I especially like to watch gold when I can see Tiger play. He is just so good. Who else comes close to him in such an individual sport? Federer? He's just too boring.

Look Alikes: Mike Mussina and Jack from "Lost"

Now This Is Something I Want To See

C3!

Pretty excited for tomorrow's release of Weezy's highly anticipated "Tha Carter III." I've held off on downloading the CD early. Here are some thoughts on the tracks I've already heard.

1. "Got Money" featuring T-Pain is growing on me rapidly. When I first heard it I thought it was garbage. Today it is my go-to track.

2. The Lollipop remix, although not on the album, has given me my go-to verse of the moment. I am thinking about sharing it and having a little lesson on it with my kids:

Safe sex is great sex
Better wear a latex
Cuz you dont want that late text
that "I think I'm late" text

3. Amilli or I'm illi?: OK, so first off, I assumed the song was called "Amilli" as in short for "a million." That's was during the original version with Cory Gunz. Then when the album version came out with just Wayne, I still thought it was "Amilli." Then my friend Jon James emailed me and told me "I'm illi" was his favorite track. I immediately retorted and stated that it was called "Amilli" and felt good about myself because he's the one who usually knows more hip hop things. Then after countless listens I got to thinking that maybe it is "I'm illi." That's due mainly to the fact that Wayne keeps saying "I'm ill" and then finishes of his last verse by saying "I'm illi." What do you think?

4. Who's better, Mr. Carter or Mr. Carter?: So who killed who in that song? I mean Jay's verse was pretty good but he only had one. I liked Wayne's first verse but the last one was weird. Regardless I think the song is great.

Looking forward to tomorrow.

Obama vs. McCain... Speech!

This is pretty hilarious and very true. Embarrassing when a conservative network like Fox puts a Republican down.

Obama!

This is big.

Pause

My students come up with the darnest things! Slang flows freely in my classroom, and I of course am privy to the latest of jargonic trends.

So the newest thing is to say "pause" after anything uttered that may be deemed by any one listener as un-heterosexual. As in, "Damn Mr. Terekhov, this is haaard!! Pause." Or, "Mr. Terekhov, Antonio keeps poking me with his pencil!! Pause."

You can consider this to be the equivalent to the Caucasion's use of "That's what she said," or the bastard child of the ever popular "No homo." Nevertheless, it does provide me with a lot of mental laughter.

Laughter that is deep in nature and extended in length. Pause.

I Can Taste It

I am having a wonderful Memorial Day weekend. I've done pretty much everything - partied, slept, relaxed, movied, bbq'ed, and it's not even over yet. The only problem is, I have to go back to work on Tuesday.

Memorial Day Weekend provides you with a taste of that summer that is so close, and yet, so far. As I am sure my educator friends can attest, summer break is a long time coming if you are in that field. A LONG time coming. But, if it is anything like this weekend, then I am definitely looking forward to it.

Jury Duty

As I write I am sitting in the jury assembly room in the Bronx county hall of justice. Yes, that's right, jury duty! Many people fear getting called for jury duty due to its burdening qualities. Not I! This gives me an official day off from my annoying middle schoolers with the potential for more to come. Plus, I've always thought of serving on a jury to be kind of a cool and interesting thing to do. I got called two times before, last June and then December but had to postpone both times, first for my lateness and then bc of school. So today has been a long time coming. Let's hope its worth the wait!

UPDATE (8:53am): The sign, actually all four of them, clearly say "cell phone usage is not permitted in this room." And yet, who do I hear loudly jabbering away but a f--king Russian!! This is always what happens. They have no regard for rules and regulations. Same thing happens when a plane lands and the fasten seatbelt light is still on. Who gets up before it goes off?? You guessed it, some Russian asshole. God theyre disgusting.

UPDATE (11:49am): Haven't been called yet, been sitting around dozing/reading online articles/listening to music. I admit it is kind of boring BUT MUCH better than being at work. Much. Better. The clerk calls peoples names every 20 minutes or so. Its like a draft or a lottery or getting chosen for a team. Either way you feel kind of sad if you're not called :( So far though in the last name competition its "Vargas" and "Rodriguez" ahead a combined 58 to 0 over "Terekhov."

UPDATE (3:56pm): So got out of the Duty at half-past three. Did not get called AT ALL. It's kind if disappointing. But... I get to try again tomorrow :)

Chris Rock on Hillary Clinton

Took this straight from missinfo.tv. Blog plagiarism. Its too good not to take though.

Fire Hydrants

Let's get something straight here: fire hydrants are completely outdated. I mean, how long have we had them for? Wikipedia says since the late 1800s. Here's my issue: I hate the rules regarding hydrants, and, specifically, the fact that you can't park in front of them. The complete worse is when you've been looking for a parking spot for like 25 minutes and repeatedly keep getting your hopes up by seeing these vast open spaces only to realize in a few seconds that it's a hydrant. I mean, our telephone/cellphone technology has skyrocketed even in the past 10 years, and yet fire hydrants have remained the same for 100 years.
Can't we get them somehow underground, or away from the curb, like maybe out in the middle of the road but flat like a sewer? Why do sooooo many parking spots need to be taken up by this thing. I have an area near my place where two hydrants are separated by about 200 feet. Is that really needed??

Sorry, Couldn't Resist!

Paint That Shit Gold

Awesome site I came across, gives you the opportunity to tag up other sites.

Here's a little example:




Also a great soundtrack to whatever site you're messing with.

Give it a try: paintthatshitgold.com

Barack

So... good night for Barack, huh? I'm happy that he finally came through with what looks like the deciding victory. I loved his speech versus hers last night. He seemed more general-election focused while she seemed conciliatory.

Here is something I want and have been wanting to mention though. I am SO tired of Hillary supporters and many political pundits arguing that she is a better pick because she has won the "battleground states" such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and "Florida." Florida (and Michigan) aside because that argument is pointless... I don't understand how we can equate Hillary winning those states against a Democratic candidate with her winning them versus a Republican one in November. Am I alone here??? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! These primaries she has won have been ALL with DEMOCRATIC voters!!! What battleground are we talking about?? If a Democratic voter is truly such then why wouldn't they vote for a Democratic candidate in November, no matter what?

Help me out here if I am way off!

Awesome Stewie Quote

Stewie: Hey Dylan? Hey, come on in here for a sec.

Dylan: Stewie, why are you nude?

Stewie: Oh just a little something I do once a week around here called a "naked tea party." Got my teacup here, now all I need is a tea bag. That something that interests you my friend?

Dylan: You're weird.

Stewie: Yeah, and you're attractive. Now take your f***ing pants off!

Dylan: I'm outta here.

Stewie: Huh, did you see that Rupert? "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Seconds" starring Stewie Griffin huh? Gee whiz.

Over Under

Let's just get something straight right here, right now: installing toilet paper so that it rolls over the top is the RIGHT way to do it and installing it so that it rolls under is the WRONG way to do it. Period. End of story. I HATE going to the bathroom, one of my last places of refuge left and then realizing that some dolt (not mentioning any names like that of the person I share a living space with, rhyming with matalie) left me something that looks like the picture on the right. I mean, why does this happen? Can anyone explain it to me? Reaching underneath the roll is uncomfortable and just unnatural. It's inhumane. It's savage. And yet, I see it done time and time again.

I'm sure I'll have some Repundercan readers out there. I, however, am proud to be a Demovercrat.

Lost

OK, so I am officially obsessed with Lost. Well, "officially" beginning sometime in the past month. I got into it after starting to watch Season 4 this year. Then, after the show took a break for a couple of weeks, I decided to get the other seasons and catch up. I bought Season 1 on April 8th. Today I am on Season 3, episode 5. That means I have watched 53 episodes in 27 days - an average of just about two episodes a day. That's 2226 minutes, about 37 hours.

Obsessed? Hell yes. Anybody else?

Untoons

Some guy on the net uses Photoshop to create "human" versions of beloved cartoon characters. It's pretty cool. Here's what he's done so far:

Mario______________ Homer________ Jessica Rabbit













Conclusions?: Mario looks like a pederast, Homer is the realest looking based on skin texture, and I would definitely still fuck Jessica Rabbit.