Dreams, in general, are extremely interesting to the one having them and unbelievably boring to the ones being told about them. This is a fact that I am well aware of. That being said, last night I dreamt I was God.

Ok, I didn't dream I was God God, because I didn't, you know, create the entire world in the first part of my dream and then rest for a while before moving on. I wasn't really omnipresent either. I sort of felt like I was a god, in that I had some pretty neat powers to change and create anything in my dream world. The thing was that I didn't realize I had these powers until someone called me God and asked me to change something about them. So I did. Poof, they were changed. Actually, not even a poof. They were just changed to whatever they wanted changed into. And I said it was good.

In my dream I started to feel a little blasphemous...I mean, I was dreaming I was God. But I wasn't really imposing my will upon people, and like I said, I wasn't really God, I just had godlike powers. So I got over it pretty quickly. However, I started wondering why I wasn't using my godlike powers - all I was doing was walking around feeling really self-satisfied. That's it.

You know, now that I think about it, I had a dream I was Spiderman once, and it followed the same basic pattern. I used my Spider-powers a couple times, you know, slung a few webs, climbed a couple walls, but the majority of the dream was pretty much me walking around very self-satisfied, thinking, "Yeah, I'm Spiderman. This is pretty nice."

It seems like I should use these powers I give myself when I'm asleep, but apparently I derive more satisfaction from the fact that I can use them, but I have no need to use them whatsoever.

So since I neglected to use my powers in my dream, I made the logo a little bigger. And it was good.
1:03 PM Top

-Wednesday, January 29, 2003

 

So today is the day where the real update isn't so much this, but the website itself getting a facelift.

Personally, I like the new design in that its more compact than before and less susceptible to how big the Internet Explorer window is. I hadn't planned on changing the color scheme at all, and initially I used the same colors in this format. But, as a friend pointed out, "it looked good, but I think you could have better colors. Unless you're attached to the whole green and orange thing."

Fair enough, I guess. That's about when I realized I really wasn't attached to them, but it was just so much easier than finding a new color scheme. Changing colors wouldn't be that big of a deal to anyone else, but color schemes aren't exactly my "forte." In fact, I kinda suck when it comes to colors. Thanks to a program called Color Wheel Expert though, I made off pretty well, and I'm pretty much pleased all around.
3:03 PM Top

-Friday, January 24, 2003

 

Apparently Northwestern has this thing called a "Winter Carnival" that may or may not have happened last year; I don't really remember. Anyway, as I was going to get lunch at the student union today I came down the stairs to the ground floor and saw what may have been the most disgusting thing I've seen in a long time.

A "one-ton Sundae."

Lumped in what looked like a kiddie pool with a plastic covering, a giant mound of ice cream at least four feet high stared me down as I walked past. I think at first I didn't believe what I saw, because after I set down my stuff I came back and looked at it again. Yep, it was there. A giant ice cream monster, just daring me to take a bite out of it. In a strange coincidence a friend of mine that is also somewhat lactose intolerant came down the stairs just as I completed a battle of wills with the beast, and she was easily as disturbed as I was.

I can understand how people like ice cream, but it would be an understatement to say that I'm not fond of it. Of course, dairy products and I don't exactly have a great history together, so this is understandable. They could have had a giant vat of milk and I'd think it monstrous, I'm sure.

Actually, that'd be really disgusting regardless.
1:20 PM Top

-Tuesday, January 21, 2003

 

Sometimes even going to the bathroom can be tricky. At the student union the other day I was walking over to the bathroom when I noticed a University Police officer standing outside the door. Maybe she's just waiting for something, I thought as I reached for the door.

"Oh, you might want to wait a minute. There's a...gender-confused woman inside there right now."

Uh, ok. Fair enough.

"She apparently thinks she's a man, we've arrested her all over campus but she just doesn't quit."

Alright then. I decided to wait by the nearby elevator until the situation was under control. The officer leaned inside and called, "Elsabeth! You need to use the women's restroom, not the men's." I tried not to notice.

Just then my friend Jenn, who I had been waiting for to meet for dinner, got off the elevator and saw me leaning against the wall. Obviously a little confused, I explained that I was waiting to use the bathroom. "There's a...gender-confused woman inside."

"What?"

"Yeah." So I filled her in. Just as I finished explaining the woman in question came out of the bathroom. While I'm not exactly sure how she could be confused (it seems to be a fairly obvious thing to distinguish), she quickly got into an argument with the officer, who told her to stop using men's restrooms. The short, good-sized (fat) woman with gray hair scolded the officer, "I haven't used a women's restroom since..." and she said something like "since I joined the church." I don't really know what in the hell that means, but I had more pressing issues on my mind like, you know, finally going to the bathroom.

A minute later I come out and Jenn tells me the officer gave her and the lady selling jewelry nearby an in depth history of this woman's arrests all over campus and how crazy she is.

To be honest, if Jenn hadn't been there, I probably would have convinced myself I imagined the entire thing. I try not to think about it, but I can't help but wonder why she's so confused. I also can't help scratching at my eyes whenever I start wondering.

I mean, she was pretty dike-ish for an old woman.
6:32 PM Top

-Monday, January 20, 2003

 

It should be noted that this year's Super Bowl consist entirely of pirates.

Lately I've been trying to redesign the layout of this website due to the fact that I'm still using a Blogger template. While I think it looks fine, there's something a little disturbing when I randomly click on a link and a page full of terrible poetry laid out on the same template pops up. I'm still trying to decide what looks best and what colors to use - thank God for color wheels, because I sure as hell can't tell what looks good - so updates might become less frequent in the near future. Thanks to Sam the automaton though, a few select people will have no trouble knowing when there's been an update.

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr., the student union food court served several of King's favorite foods, apparently. These foods included Martin Luther King BBQ Chicken, Martin Luther King Chicken Stuffed w/Cornbread, Martin Luther King Mashed Potatoes, Martin Luther King Meatball Soup, Martin Luther King Vegetable Soup, Martin Luther King Broccoli Salad, Martin Luther King Cooler Ranch! Doritos, Martin Luther King Fountain Sodas, and many other Martin Luther King delicacies. The stir fry may or may not have been Martin Luther King thematized, I didn't check.

That's about it for today; back to designing.


2:49 PM Top

-Wednesday, January 15, 2003

 

In what I hope to be the last chapter of the board contract cancellation saga, I received yet another email from Housing-

Your request to cancel your meal plan has been approved. However, we charge per week and not per meal. We are giving you the option to pay for the meals you have eaten. You have used $71.00 in meals.

You have one of two options:

1. Go to a residence dining hall and pay $71 for the meals that you have eaten, obtain a receipt and bring the receipt to housing (write your name on it). You will then be credited for the full 13 meal plan.

or

2. We will charge you for two whole weeks ($190) since you ate on Sunday (the week starts on Sunday). If you choose to pay for the whole week, we will allow you to continue eating in the dining hall for the rest of this week.

Apparently this is some sort of farewell screwjob attempt. While I can appreciate the fact that they let me know exactly how much I've spent, I certainly did not eat in the dining halls on Sunday. While I did use some "Wildcat Points" (extra money they give you to spend as you please), I didn't think this would lead to me possibly getting charged $95 for a sandwich. It wasn't even the best sandwich ever, so I would have been really upset had they not given me all of two days to deal with this.

But, like I said, hopefully this will be the end of the struggle. The fruits of my labor are sweet though; I haven't eaten this well consistently since I've been at school. I don't mean since I came back from winter break, either. I mean ever. Just the other day I was eating at the student union and I got half of a very tasty chicken plus two sides for $5.50! If I were still eating in the dining halls, I would have paid $8.50 for breaded chicken bones, lumpy mashed potatoes, and "Basic Gravy."

Basic Gravy.

If that doesn't make your eye twitch (and your stomach turn), I don't know what will. Actually, if they labeled it "Vomit sauce" that would be much worse, but this is getting out of hand. Clearly they can serve whatever they want now and I don't give a damn.
2:29 PM Top

-Monday, January 13, 2003

 

Well...it looks like I should have gotten a bucket of mac & cheese ready.

So right after I got off of work on Friday I headed over to Housing to see if I was really off of the meal plan. I find the same lady I've been talking to throughout the entire process, ask her what the status of my request is, and she goes to check. I take a seat, because God knows I'll probably be waiting. A few minutes later, she comes back and tells me the woman that receives the faxes from Health Services has already gone home for the weekend and that they'll process it on Monday when she gets back. "Ok fine, whatever," I think, and leave, figuring I've finally got nothing else to worry about.

Of course, I'm wrong. As soon as I get back, my roommate tells me that Housing just called, and that I should call them back before 5pm. While I'm just confused at this point, my confusion quickly turns into total disbelief. The woman I've been talking to tells me she has called Health Services (which she wasn't supposed to do, since Housing isn't supposed to call Health Services at all) to find out about the letter they were supposed to fax. They didn't fax it. In fact, they were going to send the letter via campus mail, even though the two offices are on the same fucking block. The letter would get there on Tuesday, she tells me.

Thank god I have a higher tolerance for stupidity than my sister. Otherwise I'm sure at least one person would have gotten kicked in the head by now.

However, apparently today is my lucky day. After sleeping in until thirty minutes before my first class, I decide to check my email even though I really don't have time. The first exciting email says that my meal plan has (finally) been canceled, and I let out a little cheer while brushing my teeth. The second says the class I now have in twenty-five minutes has been canceled due to the teacher being sick. This time I almost spit on my computer, and within two minutes I'm back in bed, well on my way to falling back asleep for another hour and a half.

---

I could be on a roll from this weekend though. Sunday evening I invented this wicked cool (thanks Boston) game that involves throwing a ball into a pumpkin that looks similar to this one, except a little more round-

We taped the pumpkin to a wall in our lounge and invented two rules: 1) You can't break the shooting rotation, and 2) you can't get out of your seat, even to get the ball. Thanks to some reaching sticks (including one wrapped with duct tape, sticky side out), the second rule is fairly easy to follow. Oddly enough, we played "Lazy Pumpkin" for most of the evening while watching TV, and it wouldn't surprise me if we figure out a way to permanently attach the pumpkin to our wall.

You know, this game would work really well if our lounge was also a ball pit.
1:03 PM Top

-Friday, January 10, 2003

 

I've been back at school for six days now, and it feels like its been weeks already. I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing; it could have something to do with the fact we've cycled through several seasons' worth of weather in a week. It felt like spring yesterday, and now it feels like 9 degrees Fahrenheit outside (according to weather.com anyway). Needless to say, I probably won't be going outside this weekend.

In between classes all this week I've been trying to wade through several bureaucratic processes, shuffling papers around and dealing with strange little people that like to lie to me. A lot. While I had my RA application due today (which I started and finished last night), that wasn't nearly the headache that trying to get off of the dorm meal plan was.

It would be an understatement to say that the standard Northwestern meal plans are ripoffs: in all six cases, one pays more for their food than they would if they spent money on their own. Under one particular plan you pay an equivalent of $10 for every meal, instead of paying $3.50 for breakfast, $6.50 for lunch, or $8.50 for dinner. Keep in mind that its not like you're getting good food either, unless dishes such as "Extra Crusty Macaroni & Cheese" or "Blackened Catfish with Extra Crust" sounds tasty, that is.

As finals rolled around last quarter I realized that to make food sound appetizing, its a good rule of thumb to not describe it as "crusty." I also realized that I shouldn't be paying for "crusty" food, so I began to see what my options were. Turns out that so long as you live in the dorms at NU you have to be on a meal plan unless you have a medical condition requiring a special diet. God knows why they don't just let you not be on the meal plan if you don't want to, but it didn't matter. I had found the key that would open the door to tasty food.

I guess I sort of have a medical condition, but its more an inconvenience than a real condition. I'm lactose intolerant, which basically means that anything dairy is bad news. There's little lactaid pills that I can take to digest dairy products, and while it works well, I've still learned to avoid certain things, like, you know, glasses of milk and ice cream. Sometimes I think the worst part about it is the harassment I receive from my friends, who invented a game they could play with me (I'm red-green colorblind as well, making it hard to tell certain shades of those colors apart). Its called "The Red-Green Game," and the rules are simple. One person holds up a card that is either red or green. The other person has to say which color it is. If they're wrong, they have to drink a glass of milk. Repeat.

Did I mention I hate my friends?

Anyway, I decided to use my inconvenient intolerance as a stepping stone, and over winter break I had an appointment set up with my doctor, where I complained about many things- I'm always hungry, the food never looks appetizing, the food sucks, I'm wasting my money, etc. And somewhat surprisingly, it worked. He seemed convinced (or at least sympathetic) and gave me a note that read as follows:

"Please allow Michael Jansen to be exempt from the dorm meal plan due to food and food absorbancy intolerances."

I'm not sure how I kept the grin off my face until I got to the parking lot, but step one was complete.

Two days later I downloaded all the forms I needed to request removal from the board contract, filled them out properly, and promptly mailed the doctor's note to Northwestern Health Services, who had to approve the note, and the form to Housing, who had to process the form once they got approval from Health Services. The Friday before I came back to school I gave both offices a call to see where my request was in the system; Housing hadn't heard anything yet, and the woman that approves the doctor's notes was out until Monday. That wasn't terrible though. Certainly as much as I could have expected.

This brings us to the beginning of this week. Seeing that Housing could do nothing for my situation, harassing Health Services was my only option. And so it began.

• Monday- I stop by Health Services to see what my request's status is. A lady writes down my name and number and tells me the director will call me to let me know. "Thanks," I said, naive enough to believe her.


• Wednesday- Since I hadn't received a call yet, I decided to call them. I call the same desk I went to on Monday, but the woman who answers the phone tells me "Uh, we don't handle this sort of thing." Oh? Well thanks for your opinion, but I've been dealing with your office for the past week, and I'm pretty sure you do. "Well, I stopped by Monday to check on the status and was told I'd receive phone call, but I haven't heard anything yet. Are you sure you can't do anything?" I asked. A few minutes later, she comes back and tells me she has my file with her and that my request has been forwarded to Housing. That's a good thing. Right?


• Friday- I still haven't heard a thing, and my meal plan refund is losing value by the day. Having had a little more luck in person, I decide to go by Housing and see if its been processed. Nope. They haven't received anything at all from Health Services. "But they said it was sent to the Director of Housing." "The Director? He's not supposed to deal with those things at all." Oh. Great.
  I find out Health Services often faxes information to Housing that is never received by Housing at all, and that may have been the problem. Ok, whatever. I'll go to Health Services and see whats going on. There I find out that my doctor's note was indeed approved, but was never signed by the Health Services director or sent to Housing. In fact, the chart they have on file at Health Services had someone else's information in it. This information, coupled with the complete disbelief in my eyes, probably spurred them into action, as they promised to take care of it right that minute. They told me to check at Housing again around 4pm to see if it had been processed.
  

 

I'll be twenty this year. Not for a few months though.

---

The past few years my Christmas gifts have become mostly necessities, more items I'll use over and over than video games I'll play through once and then forget about. Consequently, this makes shopping for me somewhat hard, and I tend to receive certain gifts several times. For example, this year I was given three fleeces and two watches (all of which were greatly appreciated). However, a few more watches and I could have ended up looking like this guy-

Good thing I already have a bananamobile.

I don't need six watches though, and come to think of it, neither does Bananas Gorilla. Sure, he's got places to be in Busytown (he does have a pretty sweet ride), but I bet one watch would do.

Of course, you don't always have to ask for just what you need. Christmas would probably be boring as hell then! We'd all just sit around being thankful, and everyone knows thankfulness doesn't fill stockings. You know what does? Candy. Other little goodies.

Ok, fine. Jesus fills stockings too. I don't want to offend anyone or anything like that; God fucking forbid, right?

Busytown and blasphemy aside, what I'd really like but I know I won't get any time soon is a trip to Alaska. I'm not really sure how this came about, but it sounds like a good idea. I'd go during the summer when the sun is out all day, visit some national parks, and play with the friendly bears and eskimos (yeah, friendly eskimos. That'll be the day). Unfortunately, as I sat at my friend's computer trying to figure out the cost of such an adventure, my hopes dwindled as the price got higher and higher. Around that point my friend asked me why I wanted to go Alaska anyway. "Just because I guess," I answered. "It seems like it'd be fun."

"Yeah, you'd get to see the polar bears and the penguins."

I blinked a few times. "Uh, penguins live in the Antarctic, not in Alaska. Only polar bears live in Alaska, no penguins."

"What? Why?" he asked in rapid succession. I didn't really know how to explain it to him; that's just the way it is. With "just because" not cutting it and "the polar bears ate all the penguins" a poor explanation (but a funny mental image), I turned around to the computer again, determined to prove my answer right. And by typing "penguins polar bears" into Google, my faith in the Internet was restored-

Nothing comes easy though. While I quickly found the scientific proof I needed to back up my claims, I had to sort through the inevitable crap that floods the Internet. The first link my search produced was to a site that let you adopt Pengies & PBs. Of course, "adopt" means putting a picture of a pengie or a PB on your website (duh). However, since I don't think I'll be getting any late presents in the forms of several weeks away from school or work in Alaska, I guess I'll have to settle for adopting a couple of PBs.

Oh well.

1:06 AM Top