i've got good news!

this was another candy bar at the candy store. i didn't try this one although i liked the look of it. and i like the name. it's fun to say "i've got good news!" and then hold up a candy bar that is called good news. also it says "celebrate!" and yellow star. and i think that's good advice. and apparently i use the phrase "good news" a lot.

good news!

my favorite joke to make on easter is to say "have you heard the Good News?" and people say "no, what's the good news?" and they are intrigued and excited and probably expecting me to tell them about a free hot dog promotion going on somewhere or something but, instead, i say, "He is Risen!" then people laugh. some people don't know whether or not they should feel bad about laughing because they don't want Jesus to think they're laughing at HIM. but even Jesus would agree that it's a funny way to say he came back from the dead. plus it's funny because i tricked you. there's no free hot dogs, sucker!

HAPPY EASTER

aw crud

okay guys: good news/bad news. the bad news is that my computer's broken. the good news is that a bunch of nerds are fixing it and it will be back to me in five days. right now i'm on my roommate's laptop. i'm in his room right now WITHOUT his permission which isn't cool of me at all. but i felt like i needed to let you guys what's going on. just PLEASE do not tell my roommate i'm in here using his laptop. if he finds out, i'm dead meat.

DEAD MEAT!

happy new year china

china got a new year today. that's always pretty exciting news. this one's called "the year of the ox." pretty good name, i suppose.
i was checking out what that meant, just now, on this website called wikipedia. it's pretty much this website that knows absolutely everything about absolutely everything. so wikipedia told me that the ox is a sign of "prosperity through fortitude and hard work." so that's good news right? i mean, sucks we gotta work hard and show some fortitude. but good news that if we DO, then we'll be properous. it would totally suck if we worked hard and showed some fortitude ALL year and then didn't get any prosperity. anyway, i guess what china is saying is, "if you plan on working hard and putting up with bullcrap, this year, it might actually pay off." i'm not chinese or anything. but i feel inspired. sincerely.

so then i was asking wikipedia what other years meant. like the year of the dog, which is the year i was born. and wikipedia told me all about myself. being born in the year of the dog means i'm loyal, amicable, sociable, and open-minded. but it also means i'm cynical, judgemental, stubborn, and quarrelsome. which explains why i love everybody and hate everybody at the same time. even more specifically, wikipedia told me that i was born in a water year of the ox. and water is associated with a difficulty to make a decision and stick to it, because water is "fluid and weak." BUT it can "weild great power when it floods and overwhelms the land." also, water's primal spirit is represented by the Black Tortoise. i didn't even know tortoises CAME in black! so cool! i really want to befriend a black tortoise now.

Rob Braub's weekly podcast video movie

Well, the good news is: i keep making videos. The bad news is: they keep getting weirder.
Or maybe those are both good news.
I had the idea for this video a couple of days ago in the shower. So I shot it immediately after I got out of the shower. It's pretty dumb.
I promise my videos will start to get better and cleverer.
But until then: enjoy this intentionally bad video from Rob Braub:

Verizon Wirelies Presents: Schoolpants, A Blog Story

Good News, Gang! This blog has been purchased by Verizon Wirelies! Now, in addition to getting all most up-to-date Schoolpants news, you will also get special deals and coupons for all your Wirely needs!

From now on, look no further for news regarding:

• Verizon text message phones, internet plugs, and microchips;
• All the latest fashions of pants worn to school;
• Cellular telephone coverage maps;
• Computer Pants.

Also, I'm going to live at home with my parents from now on, which means no more photoshop pictures. We only have microsoft paint here. So pictures from now on will only look like this:

ha. suckers. what are you, stupid?

good news/bad news

and we don't have time for the bad news.

TNT: nancy bush

Good news! Nancy Reagan was recently spotted at a gala wearing a Schoolpants button on her lapel! In other schoolpants news, That's Not That may be staging a comeback.

smiles

good news: my dear friend, Parsnip "pat trick" Rule, and i have developed a new type of technology which allows us to makes movies with each other while living on opposite sides of the continent.

this is for a contest or something. patrick filmed his part and sent it to me through satellite dishes and phone chords and outer space and a bunch of computers and then i edited it and sent it back through outer space and satellites and stuff to get it back to his computer. we have a couple of different versions of this video. all of which are awesomely, intentionally crappy.

you'll see the rest in due time. for now, enjoy this one that we sent in with an application for some contest or something.

good news guys!

it's true. it is.

this thanksgiving, i became a man

the title of this post is probably misleading. i'm sure most of you are thinking, "he got bar mitzvahed?" sorry to get your hopes up. no, i did NOT get bar mitzvahed. i'm waiting for marriage.

but i did have my first thanksgiving not at home. it was weird. and not weird. both at the same time! it was not weird because it just felt like another day. but it was weird because i knew my family was hanging out without me. and it was also weird because i realized this is what happens when you grow up. you sometimes miss holidays with your family. because you don't live in the same town as them. and you have a shitty job and you have to work on the holidays.

but the good news is: jon, from work, invited me to tag along to his thanksgiving potluck dinner in griffith park. it was cool. my friend, eric, gave me two guinnesses from his 6pack. a bunch of people i had never met gave me delicious food. we saw a deer and two coyotes. the cops shined lights at us. AND there were prizes! i won a pencil, a set of friendship bracelets, a duck made out of a basketball, and a tiny deck of cards that you can only play one game with.

i am thankful.

hydrogen psychosis (the crazy eye)

good news: i ordered a bunch of new contact lenses. this means i can throw out the 2-week-disposables i have been wearing for approximately 3 months. maybe my eyes won't be so bloodshot and crazy looking anymore.

but you know what i just realized? "bloodshot" is an AWESOME word. i would've never thought of that term to describe the way those eyes look. i would've called it something stupid like "tiny red veins in your eye" syndrome. but somebody, a long long time ago, came up with "bloodshot." and it stuck!

i'm glad.

jazzercise

good news guys: there's still a place where you can jazzercise.

new year's evening bracelet

hey so, on new year's evening, my friend margaret put this bracelet on my wrist because it's supposed to be good luck or something and it's supposed to mean something. she told me that yellow and green stand for power and love. i said "oh, i love huey lewis and the news." i don't think she got the joke.

anyway, i had to make a wish when she tied it on my wrist and supposedly, when the thing falls off, that wish is supposed to come true. well, it fell off today but here's the thing, i was drunk when i made that wish and i honestly don't remember what the hell i wished for. so for all i know, it came true already.

anyway, i tried to look up what the thing meant and wikipedia gave me an answer in stinking portuguese for crying out loud. fat lot of good that does me, wikipedia!

amster! amster! dam dam dam!

i just saw this article on the bbc news website that dutch authorities are trying to "clean up" amsterdam by shutting down HALF the city's brothels, sex shops, and marijuana cafes. i put "clean up" in quotes because i think the correct phrase they were looking for is "water down."

they're also planning on reducing the number of "sex windows" from 482 to 243. "sex windows" is a bit of a misnomer. they aren't windows you have sex with. that would be weird. even for amsterdam. they are just windows, through which you can view prostitutes. no big deal. and for people too proud to pay for sexual favors, but still curious enough to want to see the red light district, amsterdam is spectacular for window shopping. but don't make eye contact! when i was in amsterdam, we were checking out the red light district and saw this LARGE prostitute sending a scared looking young man out of her booth. we were laughing because she was sweaty and gross and out of breath and he looked like he wanted to sit in the shower and cry for a few hours. the big prosti caught our eye and started yelling for us to "come here!" it was terrifying.

but it was all part of the experience. and i didn't really experience anything TOO crazy. and part of me kind of regrets that. i mean, i don't wish that i had visited a hooker or anything like that. i just feel like i should've done something more amsterdamy, ya know?

there were a few semi-crazy stories from the trip. one night, we got a little too drunk at this campus bar and i convinced the girl we were staying with (a friend of my friend, mike's) that we were sober enough to go into the city to check out some more bars. on the train to the city, my friend mike somehow fell and cut his head open and was bleeding pretty badly. but we were still smooth enough to convince everyone we were with that we could totally still go to some bars in the city. so mike is like all sprawled out in the train, with his head tilted back, holding a tissue to the gash, trying to stop the bleeding. suddenly he lurches forward and barfs all over the floor of the train. finally, the girl hosting us is like, "okay, we're not going into the city. we'll get off at the next stop and turn around." then one of the conducters comes back and sees mike, bleeding profusely from the forehead, sitting in front of a bunch of barf, and the conducter asks, "is he okay?" i'm wasted and say something like, "yeah, just needs another beer." and the conductor actually laughs and just walks away. looking back at it, i can't believe we didn't get arrested or at least thrown off the train or something.

then later that night, mike woke up and started making a ruckus. he somehow thought he was still on the train and he wanted to get off. we couldn't get him to realize we were back at his friend's flat. it was kind of scary. kind of comical. funny what alcohol and headwounds can do to the brain.

oh and another story from that trip: we were at a party one night and it was a lot of international students. and this one guy and girl call me over to them and the guy asks me where i'm from. i say the states and he reacts disappointedly, the girl seems triumphant. i ask what gives and they tell me they were just looking around the room trying to guess where people were from. i ask where they guessed i was from. the girl guessed ireland or america. i tell her that's a good guess because i'm going to school in ireland, but i'm from the states. i ask the guy where he guessed i was from. "portugual," he says. "portugual?" i say. "yeah," he says, serious as hell.

it's not a very interesting story but for a minute it made me feel like i looked exotic.

world news

i remember when we got new cabinets in our kitchen when i was a kid. my parents hired amish people to build them. because, allegedly, amish people are awesome cabinet makers. and cheap. you can pay them in heaven points. heaven points are these little circles my dad cut out of cardboard and then wrapped in tin foil. then he used a magic marker to write "1 heaven pt." on them. the amish were bewildered by the tin foil, or "god paper," as they called it.

just kidding about the heaven points. they were actually called "jesus pennies."

just kidding. but also, we'd have this amish lady come to our house sometimes to clean our house. her name was emma. or eva. or something. i don't remember. she was nice. sometimes her sister rebecca would come too. just for fun. they would speak only in dutch to each other, which i found really annoying as a kid. but i shouldn't've been annoyed. because dutch was their first language. and first languages are like first kisses. they're wetter and warmer than you expected.
wait, what? anyway, my mom thought those amish sisters were the coolest. my mom would drive them home and she'd take me and my little brother along so we could see where they lived and what their lives were like. one time we even ate dinner over there. they had homemade bread and homemade butter. it was awesome. they had other food too. but i just remember eating like a million pieces of bread because it was so good. i love bread.
in conclusion, all the amish people i've ever met were very kind and hardworking and smart and bilingual. don't make fun of amish people.

fortune cookie

last night i ate chinese food. my fortune cookie told me that everybody feels lucky for having me as a friend. i hope that's true.

it made me feel pretty okay. because i feel lucky for having all my friends as friends. so it's good to hear that they all feel lucky to have me too. but then i thought about it some more. the wording of the fortune is peculiar. notice it doesn't say "all of your friends feel lucky for having you as a friend." it says EVERYBODY feels that way. this wording implies that EVERYBODY thinks of me as a friend. talk about terrific news. not only does everyone think of me as a friend but they all feel LUCKY to feel that way. wow. i'm on top of the world.

pet cow

when i was in college, i had a friend who always talked about how cool it would be to have a bear the size of a rat as a pet. it would be adorable, we all agreed. there's now a cow in england that is the size of a sheep. that's a good start, i think.

also, i think it's funny that the in the photo caption, the bbc news feels the need to explain that the tiny cow is the one on the right.