The Beginning May 31, 2008
Posted by Amandeep in Ritual Sacrifice, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.add a comment
It is the eve of the Friends House move in. Get ready, world.
I have made all the necessary ritual sacrifices to the gods of packing and U-Haul and can only hope that our journey to the land of milk and honey is one we will survive.
Cloning Attempt Leads to Misery, Dispair. May 17, 2008
Posted by Leah in I'm at work right now.2 comments
Saturday, May 17– General Peter S. Mastersonn, owner of “Pookie“, came into trouble yesterday with the Coalition Against Cloning of Animals, when he cloned over a dozen dogs to serve as genetic matches for his dog as “Organ-replacement dogs”. This high-profile case marks a growing fad among military personnel, especially high-ranking military officials, of using all resources possible, even government resources for saving their own personal man’s best friend.
The representative for CACA stated “This whole thing is like, ridiculous, man. I mean, what kind of person would clone a bunch of animals to like, save one animal?” The representative who wished to be named only as “the masked protector” revealed later in the interview that he “doesn’t even like animals” and that his involvement in CACA is purely “to tear down the imperialistic structure that man has created for itself” and “for the chicks”.
When General Mastersonn was asked to comment, he said “I don’t know why I did it, I just know that I love my dog,” and said about the affair “[my wife and I] just don’t know what to do, we are devastated. I had no idea that animal cloning was unethical. The whole ordeal came as a bit of a surprise”
When asked why he decided to clone so many dogs, Mastersonn replied “Just to be safe”. This case marks the largest cloning operation ever for a single individual, human or otherwise.
Think that cloning a replacement for your dog might be in order? Slow down. Researchers have shown that cloned animals have a much shorter life expectancy than their natural born cousins, some explanations have been linked to many of these dogs being used as organs for other dogs.
why the Friends House is awesome May 13, 2008
Posted by Amandeep in Better than Claire Coiro '06, Kitchen Confidential.add a comment
The Friends House is better than your house. Why?
Here are five reasons:
1) In the Friends House, no one pees on the toilet seat, or if they do, they clean it up.
I have greatly enjoyed my time in college, but dorm life does have its drawbacks. An example of one of them is the serial seat pisser who dwells on the second floor of the sacred halls of the Alpha Delta Phi Society. There is really nothing worse than sleepily walking into the bathroom after waking up to relieve myself and sitting in someone else’s urine. I don’t know who you are, Mr. Serial Toilet Seat Defiler, but since I’m fairly confident you are not Ben, I know you will not be at the Friends House.
2) The Friends House does dishes.
This past summer, I lived at Hockey House which was, you guessed it, the home of the Brown men’s hockey team. Turns out that hockey players are generally nice and also hot. However, they aren’t cleanly, unlike the members of the Friends House. In the Friends House, the sink is clear enough to wash dishes in, and at any given time, there are clean dishes to be used. In the Friends House, there are no swarms of flies or ants, drawn to the rank aroma of unwashed dishes and untaken-out trash. In the Friends House, I don’t take out the dripping and disgusting trash every day. In the Friends House, we take turns taking out the trash. And the Friends House doesn’t put things that drip in the trash.
3) In the Friends House, you don’t have to wear shoes in the shower.
I am tired of wearing shoes into the shower. In the Friends House, it is okay to go shoeless into the shower. You also don’t have to worry about your elbows hitting the walls in the shower, although I have become a master at avoiding this without thought. However, if your elbows did hit the walls of the Friends House shower, it would be okay because you’d know the shower was clean and that the Friends are not disgusting.
In the Friends House, there are no flimsy shower curtains that don’t close all the way, curl back at the edges, and may or may not be ripped on end hooks such that you can never feel totally secure of your shower privacy. However, even if there were, it wouldn’t matter because in the Friends House, there aren’t 3 other people of various sexes/genders in the bathroom at the same time as you.
Come to think of it, showering isn’t the only bathroom activity for which it will be nice to have some privacy.
4) We can paint the walls in the Friends House.
For years, we college students have papered our walls with as much color as possible to bring life to the cracking, surface-marred white paint of dorm rooms. And while I will miss the dorm style of decoration (and may in fact still employ it in my Friends House boudoir) I will enjoy the fact that my abode will still have personality and beauty without it. So maybe we can’t paint it really bright or interesting colors, but at least it will have an even color and surface texture.
5) The Friends House is in a nice residential neighborhood – not in the middle of the frat and program house section of campus.
It will be nice not to be woken up and forced to leave the building whenever DPhi sets vomit on fire and not to be woken by Thetes chanting “Naked Moat!” at ungodly hours before exams.
Once, sophomore year, at 4am on the morning of a 9am physics final, some Thetes actually took a megaphone outside to start yelling at the quad with the express purpose of waking people up and disturbing them. When, at 5am, I called the Department of Public Safety in hopes that I could at least get something approaching a decent amount of sleep, they informed me that noise complaints weren’t their problem and that I should find my community director’s room and tell her to deal with it. Uh-huh. I should pit a poor sweet girl against the football frat when they are being intentionally disruptive? When you make a lot of noise outside of the Friends House, I call the cops on you and you get your ass busted.
Ben has med school and I have 2 upper level physics classes to look forward to. I think we will appreciate the quiet for studying. Skip will no longer have to take periodic sabbaticals away from noise. And Leah and Sonia will probably appreciate the transition into rooms that aren’t right above nightly Beirut games and oh-so-kickable doors.
problems May 13, 2008
Posted by Sonia in Hong Kong.add a comment
My shampoo says I should express more approval. It’s jealous of my conditioner.
Friends House Meme (quiz)–Respond in comments11!!!! lolz May 10, 2008
Posted by Leah in Bathroom Humor, Communism, Just for fun, Question and Answer.8 comments
About You:
Name:
What would you say is your personal motto?
What color shirt are you wearing?
What kind of pie do you like?
What’s your totem animal?
Never have you ever…:
Would you rather:
Freeze to death/be burned alive?
Eat a raw egg with its shell/be crushed alive?
Sit down/stand up?
#1/#2?
Respond to this meme/Do something else?
About the house:
What animal do you associate with:
Amandeep:
Ben:
Leah:
Skip:
Sonia:
What Color do you associate with:
Amandeep:
Ben:
Leah:
Skip:
Sonia:
Where do you see _________ in 10 years:
Amandeep:
Ben:
Leah:
Skip:
Sonia:
Who in the house do you think is most likely to:
Be on a television show?
Get eaten alive by bears?
Get eaten alive by cannibals?
Form a religion?
Get married to a native Serbian?
Have 15 babies?
Own a Mule?
Make out with you?
Make out with your mom?
Search Engine Terms May 10, 2008
Posted by Ben Brown in Sass, Self-Help.4 comments
One of the great things that WordPress does is track what search engine terms people use to find your blog. This is particularly useful if you are, say, selling something online. If, for example, I were hawking bargain-priced oranges and I found that people kept finding my site by searching “bargain apples,” maybe I would want to consider expanding into other fruits. Wait, does that make any sense? Whatever. I think you sort of understand what I’m talking about: the search engine term history is like free market research, albeit for a very specific and potentially useless segment of the market.
Anyway, here at the Friends House Blog, the only use of this function is amusement. I don’t care how people find our page, especially since most of the people reading it will be our friends. I can’t imagine why anyone who doesn’t know us would want to read this stuff, but if they do, more power to them.
But I digress. A lot. What I’m trying to say is, the terms people use to find our blog can be amusing. In addition to the seven searches for “friends house wordpress” (predictable), there was one search today which I find most excellent: someone made their way to the Friends House Blog by googling “taryn sass.”
Now, first of all, I have no way of knowing who this was, so don’t worry if it was you. Even if I wanted to judge you, I couldn’t. But the truth is, I don’t want to judge you. I want to shake your hand. You have made my life a little happier and actually induced me to type “taryn sass” into Google to see what comes up. Here’s a list of some of the more notable hits:
- The top page is from a University of Washington climate dynamics class. Taryn Sass is in group F.
- A hit from page two is an article on Taryn Manning: “Once the bad girl sidekick, this actress is heading for the front lines.”
- Taryn’s fashion blog reminds us all that “Milly is the quintessential label for uptown girls with a bit of sass.”
- On the Cumberland, Rhode Island Public Library’s website, there is a book review of Getting the Boot by Alyssa, age 13 which states in its plot summary that “Kelly really wants to study abroad in Italy over the summer. She is lucky enough to be admitted to the S.A.S.S. program, Students Across the Seven Seas.”
- Finally, on page six, The Friends House appears. I don’t know who waded through all these pages to find us. I’m just thankful they decided it was worth their time to check us out.
So, loyal readers, I invite you to try to find the wackiest search engine term which will turn up the Friends House Blog. When you find us in the results page, make sure you follow the link to our site or else it won’t register on our side. I will continue to check the search history regularly and will post the best terms I find there. Google-bomb us, baby!
In which I also Ask Leah May 10, 2008
Posted by Ben Brown in Advice, Goldfish, Question and Answer.add a comment
Hi Leah,
I’m a recent college graduate with a degree in Trans-Atlantic Critical Sociology. I’ve been on the job market for a few months now, and have applied – without success – to a number of positions in investment banking, raw food activism and military intelligence. In spite of my really hip credentials, no one seems to want to hire me. What am I doing wrong and how can I make myself a more attractive job candidate?
Signed,
Unemployed in Ulster
Ask Leah May 9, 2008
Posted by Leah in Advice, Question and Answer, Self-Help.add a comment
Q: Dear Leah, Sometimes I just want to choke a bitch–what should I do?
- Excessively Aggressive in Personal Life (Sonia)
A: Dear E.A.P.L.,
First off, Aggressive, I think that you should come to terms with reality–sure people can be insensitive, callous, even downright mean, but is that any reason to retaliate so harshly? I know that in our personal lives it can be tempting to take out our frustrations on others, but such actions are no way to cultivate a feeling of good will, nor are they an effective way to start a cult of personality. So I ask this question of you–why do you want to choke this proverbial “bitch”? If your answer is that you simply wish to hurt them to make yourself feel better–I can assure you that physical harm will help neither you, nor them. If you, however, take the time and make them the subject of subtle passive-aggressive plot, there is a good chance that you will come out on top and look better. If they are just being a bitch, however–by all means, choke them. You and everyone around them will feel better for it.
skip and ben May 9, 2008
Posted by Sonia in Better than Claire Coiro '06, Predictions of the Future.2 comments
So, it’s about that time to rehash that old debate that keeps cropping up around these parts:
Who is your lord, master, and personal savior — Skip or Ben Brown?
Now, before you all start firing away your comments, I just want you to know that I am personally indifferent to this issue. I would like to position myself as an objective insider, partial to both candidates but impartial to this question. It really comes down to simple, instinctual preferences — whose cult of personality do you most mindlessly ascribe to? Who would you be most likely to elect “absolute monarch and lesser god of my personal kingdom”? Who would you be most likely to sacrifice a small animal for? Who would you be most likely to hoist over your head in a chair with several of your closest friends and sing whatever Jewish song people sing when it’s a bar mitzvah?
These are desperate times, and these times call for DESPERATE ANSWERS.
Skip
Pros: Jesus-esque. Vegetarian. Keeps wonderfully odd hours. Has an amazing laptop with swivel powers and a stylus so he can DRAW ON IT.
Cons: Probably thinks Ben Brown is his personal savior.
Ben
Pros: Tall, Quaker, dubious gay relationship with Dan Rogers. Has an espresso machine and will make coffee for the masses.
Cons: Probably thinks Jesus is his personal savior.
Well, there you have it. You’ve seen them on TV — you’ve heard them on the radio. But now it’s your time to decide.
Haircut! May 8, 2008
Posted by Ben Brown in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.2 comments
In keeping with a long tradition of posting pictures of my haircuts on blogs, I hereby post the pictures of today’s haircut on this blog.
