taylor

songs you need in your life: all available on kazaa, or I'll make you a cd because they are that good. you need them

John Prine - Sam Stone
Beastie Boys - Intergalactic (disco remix)
Peaches - Fuck the pain away
ELO - Mr Blue sky
Wilco - Red, Eyed, and Blue
Al Green - Love and Happiness
Rolling Stones - Beast of Burden
Van Morrison - And it stoned me
Tom Waits - Chocolate Jesus
Pixies - Gigantic
Bob Schneider - 2002
Billy Joel - Piano man
Nick Drake - Don't think twice (dylan cover)
Pink Floyd - Great gig in the sky
Badly Drawn Boy - Something to talk about
Beatles - Happiness is a warm gun
Cee Lo - Big ole words
Creedence Clearwater Revival - As long as I can see the light
Kinks - Waterloo sunset


. . . eh, feel free to send me a list of songs I need in my life.

Allan should order beef chow mein, aaooo.

it is 2:00 am. I am drunk. Tonight I discovered it is possible to ride a bike even if you are drunk enough to have difficulty holding decent conversation - sorry megan. It would be better if you were drunker, ah not a word but I'm using it none the less. I'm allowed to use drunker because I can coherently use the phrase none the less after this much vodka. goodnight moon.

Wine party? stellar. not stella, that would require a streetcar.

tonight was the culmination of the, who the hell is general tso, and what's in this chicken project. I ate the dish last night at jade garden. Tonight I made some at home from an internet recipe, which took about two and a half hours.

I have to say I did a pretty good job. They're a little different but Allan told me mine was better than the thing he ordered from jade last night. I don't really remember what he ordered and neither can he which part of his problem. It's tough figure out what to get when you can't remember if things are good or not. The other half of his problem is that the thing he ordered "because the name sounds cool" had way too many vegetables.

Timeout on the floor, I just remembered; it was Hunan beef. I always remember that one because it looks like Human beef when you read it on the menu and that throws me a little.

holy shit. maybe this deserves another holy shit, so, holy shit again. The four foot tall cactus I got at walmart last winter for ten dollars is a San Pedro cactus apparently. While San Pedro is pretty impressive as far as names go, what's even more impressive is that it contains mescaline. It's one of only two species to do so, and is also the only legal species.

To make more cactii you cut off 10" chunks of it, then let them set for four weeks or so. After that you just plant them and they grow. Unfortunately they grow really slowly, but multiply quickly once the cuttings get going. Science is fun.

were I a bean
with religious beliefs
hell would have to be
burrito king

Stealing and Ballpoint pens:

The U-Locks that people lock their bikes with can be easily picked with a ballpoint pen. You take the pen tip and ink resevoir part out of the end and then shove that end into the lock. The plastic bends into the shape of the lock and you can turn it and open the lock. My friend who works at the bike shop told me they tried it and it worked. Of course you could steal the ballpoint pen too. Stealing pens is ok, stealing bikes with those pens is not.

I think karmatically though I am entitled to a bike since one of mine did get stolen. I tried to take a lime green road bike this summer but then Kent got busted on campus for it. That's a whole other story.

Stealing and Karma.

I think it's ok to pick up a nalgene, ballpoint pen or other similar object that gets left in class. It's karma; I know I've lost more things than I've picked up. Someone has to be using the objects I lost. So if I use the ones I find, everything works out. I haven't bought a pen in three years (excluding art supplies).

backstreet boys trivia game, nsync phone and computer game combo, brightly colored waterballoons, gold aviators, a pink and lavendar motorcycle sound handlebar attachment, were this a price is right showcase I would jump wildly because that's pretty standard procedure for contestants then come on down. after careful consideration and consultation through ridiculous incoherent shouting with friends, relatives, complete strangers who are seated as far from the stage as possible, I would place a bid of one hundred seventy eight dollars. But, this isn't a price is right showcase, they're my birthday presents. Cates, Megan, Rachel and Liz are also not a price is right showcase; they're my heroes. the end.

well turns out you can find a stump at 7:00 pm on a friday night. I found one in the woods near a parking lot. why?

stump is a game, a game that requires a stump. so you put a nail in for each person playing. then take turns flipping the hammer one full rotation up into the air, catching it and then trying to hit someone else's nail. if successful, the person whose nail you hit has to drink a portion of beer equal to the percentage of nail driven into the stump. if it is hit in halfway that's half of the beer. it works better when participants wear shoes and actually play the game. lastly, all that is known about stump is that it comes from vermont.

most of the opportunities you'll have are hit-or-miss


but that's duckhunt for you

today I had the craziest 5 to 7 pm that I can remember. this guy rolls up to the door in a white shirt/tie with 5 gold teeth on the bottom. He's from the inner city in Florida somewhere and selling magazines, those are the parts of the conversation I could understand. but I think that was the entertaining part. and he's yelling at the sorority girls parking their cars near our house, "damn girl," followed by stuff I don't understand, also entertaining. so I look at the magazines and decide to buy 2 years of bicycling for no reason at all. I really only have $150 to my name right now and no job, but whatever, minor detail. anyways after this kent comes home and he talks him into another 40 worth of magazines. then somehow we get around to talking about pot and he asks if we have any cigars. no, well ya'll want to go with me to get some... bla bla what else do you do for fun around here? party, yeah we're having one friday its my 21st birthday. no shit, well I'll buy you a six pack. so we finish buying the magazines and he(andre) and kent go to the convenience store where gets the six pack and a couple of peach flavored cigars. then on the way back we spot one of his coworkers and he joins the party. so we go to the garage and they roll up two peach blunts and we smoke those down. his friend is from new york apparently and they just travel all over with this urban opportunity type program hitting people up for magazines. they had great stories about people with a jaguar in the driveway who would tell them "they can't buy any because they're broke" then literally seconds later their wife and daughter would drive up in two matching H2 hummers. they had stories about when they sold to the kennedy's, various football players, and espn anchors. then kent loaded another bowl, and we talked about music. Andre from florida and probably the blackest person I've ever met was a fan of KISS. so after a beer, two blunts, and a bowl of KB andre needs to borrow visine because he's planning to go out and sell more magazines, good luck buddy. and then they left. what a godamn surreal afternoon. they sure beat the mormons.

I've had four people tell me I look like napolean dynamite this week. I didn't realize the marketing buzz behind this movie was so large, but it is an mtv production so that figures. I guess if I had tv...

I don't miss it. this week I've gone running, played basketball, frisbee, rode my bike, played my guitar. all because I was bored. this never would have happened last year when I had tv.

pot is less addictive than tv, I could have smoked any time I wanted and did, yet I did all of these productive things too. I would challenge most people to compare hours wasted during the week between an average smoker and an average television viewer.

the KU drinking club, I'm starting it. You recreationally or competitively drink various liquids. For example you could have the 500 mL syrup competition or the 1600 mL milk chug both of which would be more endurance oriented events, while an event like the 500 mL water event would be geared more towards sprinters.

I only consider myself handicapped when searching for a parking spot, said the man with no legs.

which reminds me of something my dad always told me, " I see, said the blind man to his deaf dog. who stuck his wooden paw out the window to see if it was raining."

"you guys could afford cable if you didn't smoke so much" - megan
"mumbling...yeah probably, but I think this is less addictive" - taylor and allan

allan is my friend. his blog is cool. go there. http://allanfieldhouse.blogspot.com/

Pyramid scheme academia - So let me get this straight, if I major in something completely useless yet fun, and learn enough about it. I can get a job teaching other people this completely useless knowledge. When the next generation graduates they have no other choice but to become teachers too, and the cycle repeats itself. As long as the population keeps growing everyone gets jobs. hmm

do people with IV's in get hungry?

other military/chicken related people: Colonel Sanders. Who wasn't a real colonel, but was pretty famous anyways. the first KFC franchise was in Utah.
"In 1976, an independent survey ranked the Colonel as the world's second most recognizable celebrity. "

:from kfc.com
Colonel Harland Sanders, born September 9, 1890, actively began franchising his chicken business at the age of 65. Now, the KFC® business he started has grown to be one of the largest quick service food service systems in the world. And Colonel Sanders, a quick service restaurant pioneer, has become a symbol of entrepreneurial spirit.
More than a billion of the Colonel's "finger lickin' good" chicken dinners are served annually. And not just in North America. The Colonel's cooking is available in more than 80 countries and territories around the world.
When the Colonel was six, his father died. His mother was forced to go to work, and young Harland had to take care of his three-year-old brother and baby sister. This meant doing much of the family cooking. By the age of seven, he was a master of several regional dishes.
At age 10, he got his first job working on a nearby farm for $2 a month. When he was 12, his mother remarried and he left his home near Henryville, Ind., for a job on a farm in Greenwood, Ind. He held a series of jobs over the next few years, first as a 15-year-old streetcar conductor in New Albany, Ind., and then as a 16-year-old private, soldiering for six months in Cuba.
After that he was a railroad fireman, studied law by correspondence, practiced in justice of the peace courts, sold insurance, operated an Ohio River steamboat ferry, sold tires, and operated service stations. When he was 40, the Colonel began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his service station in Corbin, Ky. He didn't have a restaurant then, but served folks on his own dining table in the living quarters of his service station.
As more people started coming just for food, he moved across the street to a motel and restaurant that seated 142 people. Over the next nine years, he perfected his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices and the basic cooking technique that is still used today.
Sander's fame grew. Governor Ruby Laffoon made him a Kentucky Colonel in 1935 in recognition of his contributions to the state's cuisine. And in 1939, his establishment was first listed in Duncan Hines' "Adventures in Good Eating."
In the early 1950s a new interstate highway was planned to bypass the town of Corbin. Seeing an end to his business, the Colonel auctioned off his operations. After paying his bills, he was reduced to living on his $105 Social Security checks.
Confident of the quality of his fried chicken, the Colonel devoted himself to the chicken franchising business that he started in 1952. He traveled across the country by car from restaurant to restaurant, cooking batches of chicken for restaurant owners and their employees. If the reaction was favorable, he entered into a handshake agreement on a deal that stipulated a payment to him of a nickel for each chicken the restaurant sold. By 1964, Colonel Sanders had more than 600 franchised outlets for his chicken in the United States and Canada. That year, he sold his interest in the U.S. company for $2 million to a group of investors including John Y. Brown Jr., who later was governor of Kentucky from 1980 to 1984. The Colonel remained a public spokesman for the company. In 1976, an independent survey ranked the Colonel as the world's second most recognizable celebrity.
Under the new owners, Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation grew rapidly. It went public on March 17, 1966, and was listed on the New York Stock Exchange on January 16, 1969. More than 3,500 franchised and company-owned restaurants were in worldwide operation when Heublein Inc. acquired KFC Corporation on July 8, 1971, for $285 million.
Kentucky Fried Chicken became a subsidiary of R.J. Reynolds Industries, Inc. (now RJR Nabisco, Inc.), when Heublein Inc. was acquired by Reynolds in 1982. KFC was acquired in October 1986 from RJR Nabisco, Inc. by PepsiCo, Inc., for approximately $840 million.
In January 1997, PepsiCo, Inc. announced the spin-off of its quick service restaurants -- KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut -- into an independent restaurant company, Tricon Global Restaurants, Inc. In May 2002, the company announced it received shareholders' approval to change it's corporation name to Yum! Brands, Inc. The company, which owns A&W All-American Food Restaurants, KFC, Long John Silvers, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell restaurants, is the world's largest restaurant company in terms of system units with nearly 32,500 in more than 100 countries and territories.
Until he was fatally stricken with leukemia in 1980 at the age of 90, the Colonel traveled 250,000 miles a year visiting the KFC restaurants around the world.
And it all began with a 65-year-old gentleman who used his $105 Social Security check to start a business.

who the hell is this General Tso person and what does he have to do with chicken? Well nothing actually according to The Harper Encyclopedia of Military Biography, but he did fight most of his battles while suffering from dysentary if that counts for anything. The chicken was invented in NYC by a guy named Chef Peng. Chinese food in New York was different in the early '70s; while there were a quite a few Chinese restaurants around, they were all Cantonese. Bland food, served in a decor straight out of the 1950's (think: Too much RED).

Around 1974, Hunan and Szechuan food were introduced to the city, and General Tso's Chicken was an exemplar of the new style. Peng's, on East 44th Street, was the first restaurant in NYC to serve it, and since the dish (and cuisine) were new, Chef Peng was able to make it a House Specialty, in spite of its commonplace ingredients.

What exactly is in the chicken? fried boneless dark-meat chicken (leg), served with vegetables and whole dried red peppers in a sweet-spicy sauce

all about gen. Tso:
TSO T'sung-t'ang (1812-1885). Chinese statesman and general. Principal wars: Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864); Nien Rebellion (1851-1868); Muslim Rebellion (1867-1873); conquest of Sinkiang (1874-1878).
Born in Hunan to a gentry family (1812); received a classical Confucian education and gained his doctoral degree (c. 1840); embarked on a successful career as a scholar-administrator, he was sent to join Tseng Kuo-fan's Hunan army to fight against the Taipings (1853); a general by 1860, he was given a semi-independent command, and enjoyed considerable success; appointed governor of Chekiang province, then largely in Taiping control, he was charged with restoring it to Imperial rule (1862); he set about his task with energy and efficiency, and soon drove out the Taiping (1864); in the meantime, he had been appointed viceroy of Chekiang and Fukien provinces (1863); he founded a modern arsenal and dockyard at Foochow; ennobled as a marquis (1866); appointed viceroy of Shensi and Kansu provinces in northwest China (1867) and ordered to suppress the Muslim rebels in those areas; before he could begin this task, he was sent to help in final operations against the Nien rebels (1867 - August 1868); he organized local forces as his mentor Tsung Kuo-fan had done in Hunan (autumn 1868); creating an efficient system of logistical support, he moved against the Muslim rebels and suppressed them in five years of vigorous activity (1868-1873); the successful conclusion of these operations left his troops near Sinkiang, occupied by rebellious Turkic tribes; a bitter debate ensued in the government between the supporters of Li Hung-chang, who favored creation of a modern navy and a maritime policy, and the supporters of Tso, who favored the recovery of Sinkiang and the expulsion of the Russians from the Ili Valley; Tso's allies won (April 1875); after considerable planning he launched his offensive (March 1876); often operating as far as three months' march from his nearest base, he subdued the Turkic tribesmen, defeated their leader, Yakub Beg (May 1877), and reestablished Chinese control of Sinkiang as far as the Ili (1878); this success enabled the Chinese to negotiate the recovery of most of the valley (1881); appointed governor-general of Liang Kiang (1882); during the Sino-French War (1883-1885) he was appointed a grand secretary of state (1884); died in Foochow (September 5, 1885).
An intelligent and able scholar-administrator, Tso was particularly gifted as a logistical planner; his long-distance campaigns in northwest China and Sinkiang compare favorably with contemporary operations of European armies; equally remarkable was his unusual stamina, for most of these operations were carried out while he suffered from recurring bouts of malaria and dysentery; with Li Hung-chang and Tseng, a founding member of the Self-Strengthening Movement.

ah, good to know.

Anyone who doubts that man is one of the animals has never lived with a group of eight year olds. It's entertaining.

The tricks to dealing with children are apathy and encouraging self reliance. yeah sure you can swing from the rafters, just don't hurt yourself. can I pee off the top of this tree, go for it dude. you really can't make them do what you want, so give up. let them do whatever they want as long as its not going to hurt them too badly. next point, self reliance=less work for me. where are you going to sleep tonight, you better set up your tent. will you open this ketchup packet for me, no if you were really hungry you'd get it open. so they learn and and you don't have to do stupid things like open ketchup packets for people. you give them a list, then let them pack their own backpacks. If they pack weird stupid heavy stuff like their whole shower kit and a harry potter book for a 4 hr hike, then they have to carry it and they don't do it the next time. and in conclusion I just got a thankyou card from one of my kids and his parents with a check for 75 bucks in it, yes I am that good.