Back Issue #3: I got bit by a spider (part 2) (WITH A PIC!)

Originally posted June 22nd, 2008 on MySpace.

Ok, so it's like day 6 of my spider bite. Still no super powers. All I'm getting is an infection. Seriously though, I'm somewhat afraid that my skin's gonna start rotting off my body. I looked up some spider bite pictures just now and holy shit... there's some pretty fucked up spiders out there. Take this link for instance. While that remains undetermined whether it was a brown recluse bite or not, they suspect it was. I can't even imagine that happening to my stomach. I mean, duh, I didn't get bitten by one of those but my bite still has the potential to get pretty gross. And speaking of really gross...

Here's a picture of my spider bite (Click it for the "full effect"):


It's gross, I know. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have to see a doctor about it on Monday or Tuesday. It doesn't appear to be getting any better. When I move it stings like dry skin. It's pretty aweful. And since I'm not an Olympian God and don't have a 6-pack, the spider bite's on the top part of where my mini gut starts. So like, when I move, the spider bite's basically like, "WOW! [inflicts pain, inflicts pain] STOP EATING SUCH SHITTY FAST FOOD! I'M THE PAINFUL REMINDER THAT YOU HAVE A CREASE WHERE A GUT'S FORMING!"

Spider bites = best diet ever. If you're not convinced quite yet that that's true, take a good LONG look at my picture and tell me if you feel like eating after that.

Didn't think so.

Back Issue #2 : I got bit by a spider, and I don't have super powers... what a sham!

Originally posted June 20th, 2008 on MySpace.

At least I think it was a spider. I don't know. Regardless of the species, I still have no super powers. I didn't think it was going to happen, but it would've been cool. Cooler than a giant, red, sore welt on my stomach at least.

I'm not really sure when it happened either, just that it happened on Monday. It REALLY creeps me out to think that it was inside my shirt and just biting me repeatedly. I have like 2 other smaller bumps near it.

So yeah, on another buggy note, I don't know if many of you know this about me, but I'm most definitely extremely afraid of centipedes. Now I know what you're thinking... "Really Phil? Those stupid little red things you see under rocks?" And yeah. Understandable. Allow me to explain. When I was little and lived in Hawaii, I had one crawl across my arm in my bed. And for those of you who don't know, centipedes look more like this in Hawaii...


Yeah. Fucking terrifying. So back to my story...

So a few days ago, I was in my room minding my own business and changing my shirt. As I pulled it over my head, I saw something on my newly made bed. Yup... you guessed it. A centipede. I freaked out so bad, anyone would've laughed. It was very reminiscent of a woman on Looney Tunes screaming on top of a chair at a mouse. Except it was me, on the floor. Still screaming, though.

Anyway, I tried to think quickly and find something to kill it with, which happened to be my remote. So I grabbed the remote tried smashing it on the top of my bed. This proved rather ineffective at first, considering my comforter was cushioning all of my remote's blows, not to mention these guys live under rocks for Christ's sake, so they can take a beating. Eventually though, I killed it.

Filled with a case of "The Phils"

My geology/meteorology teacher is a bit flakey sometimes, and that's giving him a lot of credit. One of the biggest problems in my opinion is after knowing me for well over 6 months, he still doesn't know my name, even though we're in an extremely tiny community college and I'd like to think I stick out like a sore thumb sometimes, especially since I'm a little chatty sometimes. Anyway, let me take you back to around late November 2008...

Last semester, when he was my geology teacher, he had us do these big research projects where we had to write a 5 page paper and do a PowerPoint presentation about, as it turns out, anything we wanted to. I, unlike some of the people in my class, stuck to geology and did my project on diamonds. I didn't know much about them at the time, and thought it would be kind of fun to research. After doing all the research for it though, I'm really glad I picked what I did. Diamonds are pretty fucking cool. I would normally go on about all the awesome things diamonds do, but I'm far too lazy and tired to list everything, or even something, that I researched.

Moving right along, it came time to do our presentations, and I gave mine, and it went along smoothly and I got a good grade. But that's when things started to get weird. My friend Jeff went up to do his presentation on... whatever it was that he did... and my professor said, "Ok Phil, so you're doing _______?" and Jeff replied, not really catching that he called him Phil. I certainly noticed though. I've always felt like if there was one person in the class that the teacher would always forget their name, it would be me. For some reason, I'm used to being called the wrong name in class, but never have I been the person the teacher calls other people. And to be clear, Jeff and I look nothing alike.

Anyway, Jeff finished his presentation, and sat back down. As our professor was talking to the next presenter, I leaned over a little and got Jeff's attention from a few rows down, and mouthed a few words that somehow got across, "You might want to remind our teacher who you are. He called you Phil and he's going to give me your grade because he's an idiot."

Jeff raised his hand: "Hey, who's name did you write down on that paper?"
Professor: "Uh... yours!"
Jeff: "What did you write?"
Professor: "Philip!"
Jeff: "Yeah uh... my name's Jeff."
Professor: "Oh gosh, DUH! I would've caught that eventually!"

Sure you would have, professor, sure you would.

Anyway, normally this wouldn't weird me out as much, but frankly he should know who's who in a class of only 15 or so on the week before finals. Oh well though, it was a simple slip-up I guess... or was it?

Fast forward 5 or so months...

My professor likes variety in his classes, so what better way to do that than to assign the exact same research project in meteorology as he did when I took geology! One day we had to have a summary typed up on what we were going to do our research projects on. I chose lightning. Frankly, there's a lot of information on it, and it's pretty sweet. I also plan to incorporate extremely loud thunder claps when I change each slide on my PowerPoint, just to give my fellow classmates the "full effect". So I gave that to my teacher and he read it and liked it. Then my friend Jeff went after I did. He was going to do his project on the mini ice age that occurred in the 1500's or something, but my professor said it was too vague.

After going through a few other people's ideas, my professor made a few general statements to the class about the subjects people have been picking. He started off by saying...

"Like I was telling Phil, doing the mini ice age of the 1500's is too vague. You need something more specific."

This is coming from the guy who thinks a good research project is comparing a baseball player's batting average to the weather.

After he finished his little lecture on how to pick a research project he hasn't seen done before because he's bored with some subjects (which, I'll have you note, isn't lightning apparently), another student raised his hand and asked a question about the projects. My teacher replied:

"Good question, Phil! Let me explain..."

That's right. All of the sudden there's 3 Phils in my class. Surprise! I'm the only Phil that he has in that class, and probably all of his other classes too (it's not a big college at all).

So I've deduced a few things out of his inability to remember which person I am in the class. It's one of the following options...

1. He doesn't know anyone's name in the class but the name "Phil" sticks with him, so he just decided to stick with that.
2. He knows there's a Phil in the class but has no idea who I am, so he's calling everyone that.

and finally...

3. I do something that really bothers him and makes him think about me.


I hope it's number 3. If that's the case, I need to find out what it is that I do that annoys the snot out of him just so I can do it more. It might seem a little vindictive, but that's just necessary sometimes.

Anyway, if anyone has any other ideas as to why he might be having such a hard time remembering who I am, please leave a comment below. I'm interested to hear your theories!

"Hey Wendy, forgetting something!?"

This happened over a month ago, but since I've been busy with school and stuff lately, I haven't really had a chance to post it.

I was in creative writing one day. Let me tell you, definitely think twice before taking a class like that... especially if you can't stand poems of questionable quality written by your peers. If you answered yes to the proceeding, then that class isn't for you. That said, I really enjoy critiquing them... probably too much.

Anyway, class got out one day, and I want standing around with my friends Beth and Wendy. The 3 of us were talking while getting our stuff together when I saw a set of keys on the table. At that moment, I thought it'd be funny to take Wendy's keys so she'd freak out later. So I grabbed them and just carried them around a little, thinking a was a smug little bastard who pulled one over on her. I played with the light on the key chain. I even shined it in her face a few times to see if she'd say anything, but to no avail.

A few minutes later, the three of us had gone down 3 floors and went outside and were heading to the cars. While we were in the middle of saying something, I got tired of being anonymously clever, so I took the keys out of my pocket. The conversation went as follows:

"Hey Wendy, forgetting something?!"
"Oh my God, who's are those?"
"They're yours! I took them off the table while you weren't looking!" I replied, grinning ear to ear. Just then, Wendy reached into her pocket and grabbed her keys,
"No... These are my keys!"

The smug look completely washed off my face. I had definitely just stolen some random person's keys. I was borderline horrified. I quickly turned around and literally ran up those three flights of stairs and back into my classroom. I noticed they were my classmate Jodie's on the way up. Thankfully she was still in there.

She looked a little confused when I ran in the room panting practically shouting some story about what I was trying to do, which probably made me look like an even worse person.

At the end of the day though, Jodie has her keys, and I failed to prank Wendy yet again. That's what really matters, right?

Stop Hate

Well folks, I have another serious post for you.

A few years back, my town heard we were going to have some unwanted visitors. Anyone ever hear of Fred Phelps or his family? The family from the Westboro Baptist Church, the ones that make outrageous claims against gay people and the soldiers in Iraq? If you have no idea what I'm taking about, take a minute or two and watch the following videos.






There you have it, nuts in a nutshell. In any case, these people came to my town's Mayor's Cup, and decided it'd be a good idea to protest against our gay mayor and say that he's doomed to hell and the like. This didn't bother me too incredibly much. After all, while Phelps was essentially protesting our mayor's sexuality, he was also protesting the town, and by doing that we united, backed up our mayor, and many joined the "Stop Hate" program. He eventually left... but guess what! He's coming back.

This time, he's not attacking the mayor (who's now out of office), he's attacking our schools. My high school and SUNY Plattsburgh are his new targets. My high school likes to promote tolerance, and therefore started a GSA (Gay Straight Alliance), which a friend of mine was head of, and one of the founders for our school. Many students are members.

SUNY Plattsburgh also has a similar program I believe called the Laramie Project, which they focus on Matthew Shepard, the man who was murdered and tied to a fence for being gay.

All these programs do is promote peace and acceptance. Phelps and his little followers believe however that the people involved in this program are "sinners". So now they're planning a trip back here to protest at our schools.

This infuriates me. Kids, regardless of what gender(s) they want to sleep with have every single right to go to school without being hassled about who they decide to love. I wish I still went to that dreadful little high school, just so I could show them a thing or two. The thing that really gets to me, is the fact that what these people are doing is perfectly legal! This shit needs to end. Protesting should be preserved for things that improve the quality of life for other people, not for things that make people feel shitty about their lives and to promote hatred to a minority.

These people are part of the reason I'm an atheist. I don't want any part of some religious cult or otherwise. I like knowing that I have control of my life. I like believing that you're not a sinner for loving someone. More importantly, it's nice believing that masturbation isn't a sin either... If it is, I'm certainly going to this alleged "hell" faster than anyone else. I accept everyone regardless of their race, religion, orientation, whatever.

I'm not saying people who have a solid religion are all crazy like these people... That's certainly not what I mean. I have the upmost respect for any religion that doesn't preach hatred. These people, however, have not earned that respect.

Anyway, I felt I needed to say something about this. People like this who believe in causing torment in the lives of other people should be locked up and put in a looney bin if you ask me. I think lighting them on fire is a more fitting answer, but who am I to decide their fate.

I more than welcome your thoughts and opinions about anything mentioned in this blog.

Watch your mouth!

Today at my college was a special day. We had a fire drill! I've been at this school now for over 3 semesters, and not once have we had a fire drill. I was in the cafeteria and apparently it was someone's brilliant idea to not install fire alarms in teh cafeteria. I can't imagine why they would anyway. Lets face it, fires don't happen in places involving food and stoves. That's unheard of!

In any case, my friend Wendy and I went outside in the freezing cold air and stood around and joked about the people around us. I then reminded her of last week's episode of The Office, where they also had a fire drill. I then started quoting it and laughing about it.

As we were going back inside after the drill, I quoted this one part where Michael Scott said, "Stay fucking calm! JUST STAY FUCKING CALM!" and this lady who works at the school turned around and said, "HEY! Watch your mouth!" and she gave me a seriously angry look. I was so offended! I mean, not only was I not actually cursing at anyone in particular, but she has absolutely no right to tell me what I can and cannot say. I'm less then 2 weeks away from being 20 years old, and I don't need some old bat telling me to watch my mouth. Regardless of whether or not I was saying anything vulgar to her or anyone around me is none of her business. People really just need to let things go and not try to control what other people do or say. It was really asinine.

"Jewelry, This is Dianne!"

I love pranks. I love plotting them, pulling them on people, and watching their usually horrified reaction. Lets face it, the best pranks are the ones that are borderline mean, but still funny.

One of my all time favorite pranks is one I pulled on my friend Dianne when she and I worked at Sears. I was working in the shoe department, and she was working in the adjacent department, jewelry.

One night, sometime last August, it was really slow I felt like being a little mean, so I devised a brilliant idea.

When you use the phones at Sears, there's numerous nifty things you can do with it. For instance, if you hit "8-1" you go over the intercom. If you hit "*-8", you can talk to another department over the speakerphone on their phone, which usually subsequently scares the crap out of them. Scaring people like that though is a bit tired, but still a little funny, especially when you make noises into the phone. It's also fun to do that and pretend to be a customer and say "Hello, ma'am? Can you help me over here?" and then watch them from afar say "Where are you? How can I help you?" ... It's pretty great.

Anyway, I picked up the phone in my department and hit "8-1" to go over the intercom, and set the phone very carefully on the table. I then went over to Dianne and told her a customer was calling about a watch that had broken and they apparently had a problem using the switchboard to get to the right department. So I asked her to come over and take the call.

As she was leaving her booth, a manager stopped her and asked her to start putting the jewelry away since we were closing soon, but Dianne told her she had to take a call in my department. The manager understood and said to do it after and that she'd wait for her in the department (managers have to watch associates put the jewelry away for security reasons). Dianne came over and I carefully handed her the phone as to not make any noise. When she put the phone up to her face to answer the call, throughout the entire store rang the words...

"JEWELRY, THIS IS DIANNE!"

She then stared straight ahead and hung up the phone quickly. The look on her face was absolutely priceless. I still laugh to myself whenever I picture it. She promised she'd get me back even worse, and I'm still waiting for it. I looked at the manager, who at this point was trying really hard to look angry, but even she couldn't help but grin a little. She did manage to say "Phil! That's not what the phones are for!"

Dianne, thank you for having a sense of humor.