Let's Read a Book

   

         I’m about to start reading Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. I’m sure you’ve never heard of it. It is only one of the finest, if not tantalizing and controversial, literary works of the 20^th century. It’s European, and from the ‘50s, so yeah, it’s pretty awesome.

      You’re probably too busy playing Words with Friends or napping to spend quality time with such fine literature. Your idea of reading is skimming over your Twitter and Facebook feeds. Well, unlike you, I spend hours pouring over books that you’ve never even heard of. Some of them are difficult reads, but that doesn’t stop me. I’m really well read and I have an amazing vocabulary. I was reading Tolstoy when I was seven.

       Now, if you don’t mind I need to get to my reading.

       Ok, here we go, Chapter 1.

You Only Live Once, And Then You're Dead

     

      I just ate 490 calories worth of pudding. It wasn’t even that good. I should have been writing my final paper for 18^th Century Wit, but instead I decided to buy pudding because, as I told myself, “I deserved a treat.” To be clear, I did not deserve a treat.

      A draft of my paper is due tomorrow and I have no idea what to write about. To make matters worse, I haven’t read the book I’m supposed to be writing about. Nevertheless, I put my books away after 15 minutes and made my way outside to purchase some pudding. I saw the large cup of pudding in the refrigerated container and knew it was a lot. I knew it would be better not to buy it, there were some perfectly nice bananas close by. But, guess what. I bought it and ate it. Then I made the mistake of looking at the label. 490 calories, 16 grams of fat, 580mg of sodium.

     This entire weekend had been incredibly self-indulgent as evident by my laundry hamper, which smelled like an episode of Mad Men. I had made some questionable choices, but no regrets, just love. After all, you only live once. The pudding, however, was a whole other animal. Suddenly, it seemed wrong to have eaten so much pudding. Why had I made such a bad choice? Suddenly, it seemed like I had been making a lot of bad choices lately. I haven’t been reading or writing as much, I don’t get enough sleep, I’m behind on all my work, I go on Twitter when I’m at my job. I shouldn’t even be typing this right now because I need to go to my professor’s office hours to talk about the paper I haven’t started yet. Where’s my initiative? Why don’t I care? Where is my life headed? Should I get some more pudding?

      YOLO, or for the unhip “you only live once,” is a good motto to live by. It means taking risks and throwing convention to the side. You have nothing to lose, so you might as well go for it, right? Well, maybe. But, dear readers, I can say without a doubt that YOLO is best not applied to pudding. If you buy pudding and eat too much of it, you’ll be forced to question where your life is headed and become even more self-indulgent by writing about it. Yes, it’s true, you only live once, but after eating 490 calories of a shitty dessert the romanticism of the motto wears off and you realize after life comes death. And after too much pudding comes a really bad tummy ache.

Such a Tease

      

     “I want to rub my naked breasts all over your face,” she whispered into my ear.

     “Wow, I’m flattered, but no thank you,” I replied.

      This middle-aged stripper was being incredibly forward.

     “I want to touch you and feel you,” she said in broken English through the gaps in her teeth, “I’m not just saying this, I like you.”

      “No thank you,” I said, trying to get her to leave me alone. All I wanted was to have a relaxing night out, but obviously I had done too good a job looking sexy that night; the strippers were all over me.

Happy Easter Janie

       

       Janie, be careful with that. We don’t want dye all over the counter. That’s better. Wow, that Easter egg really came out nice. Good job princess.

        Look, sweetheart I think it’s time we had a talk. You’re getting older now; you’ll be a first grader next year. As your father, I feel it is my right to tell you some facts of life so that you’re better prepared for the world. Well, where to begin? How ‘bout Easter! Janie, angel, you know the Easter Bunny you’re so excited to have come tonight? Well, he’s not real. Your mother and I are the ones who fill your basket with chocolates and treats. I know, it’s rather shocking, but this is just one of the many terrible truths about life that you will have to face. What? Of course you’ll still get chocolate tomorrow, but it’ll be from your mother and I. Not some magical rabbit. Remember when your tooth fell out and you put it under your pillow and the tooth fairy came? She’s not real either. That was me who put the money under your pillow. And Santa? I hate to break it to you sweetheart but he is also just a charade. There is no Santa and there’s no magic and there’s nothing worth living for. I can see this is upsetting you, honey, but you need to know all of this if you’re gonna survive in this world.

Point One Sibuna! Analyzing "House of Anubis" Season 2

       I’m going through a serious “House of Anubis” withdrawal right now. For those of you who do not know what “House of Anubis” is, and I don’t expect that many of you do, I suggest you Google it. Since January, I’ve had to explain “House of Anubis” to many people and my reason for watching it, and I’ve grown tired of doing this so I will keep the explanations brief. It’s a Nickelodeon soap opera centering on a group of high school aged students in an English boarding school who solve ancient Egyptian mysteries inside of the house they live in. So that’s what it is and the reason I watched it is because Stephanie Chan made me and everyone always does what she tells them to do.

      My sense of withdrawal has nothing to do with the quality of the show. Let me make this perfectly clear: it is awful. It is low budget, the characters are two-dimensional, the acting is embarrassingly bad, it has glaring plot holes, and none of it is as charming or as clever as it wants to be. The “Egyptian” mythology the show bases itself around never goes any deeper than what one can learn from a Wikipedia article and the mystery cliches are topped off with a revolving bookshelf. Yet there is something about it, other than Stephanie Chan, which kept me watching every weekday for 8 weeks.

Choose Your Own Adventure Story!

    
     It is 8AM and your alarm wakes you up. Class starts in a half hour. Pick 1 to get out of bed or 2 to go back to sleep.

1. Time to shower! After that you brush your teeth, and get dressed. Now it’s time to go to class. To go to class choose 3. To go to JFK airport and hop on a flight to Somalia, choose 4.

2. You sleep for an additional 4 hours and wake up because the sun is incredibly bright. You decide to get out of bed and get dressed. Go to 5 to put on a blue shirt, go to 6 to put on a green shirt.

3. Wow, you’re really bad at this. You’re not allowed to read anymore.

4. Somalia is really sunny. Better put on some sunscreen! Next, you decide to do some sightseeing. To ask a local for directions pick 7. To buy a sword, pick 8.

“The Office” Finds Some Much Needed Direction

       

        Last month, news came that Rainn Wilson is teaming up with show-runner Paul Lieberstein to create a spinoff about Schrute Farms and the quirky family members that work there. The plan is to launch the new show next spring, meaning Wilson will only appear in half of “The Office” episodes next season. Additionally, Mindy Kaling has a pilot in development at Fox and if it’s picked up as a series, she will also be leaving. Just this week, James Spader announced that his work on “The Office” will end after this season. “Office” head writer Danny Chun has signed a development deal with ABC and is also likely to leave. And, perhaps most importantly, none of the cast members have deals in place for next season. Ed Helms, John Krasinski, and Jenna Fischer are all in contract negotiations for a ninth season, which has yet to be picked up by NBC. In the past month, the shows ratings have hit series lows. “The Office” is in a state of flux. In all likelihood the show will return in the fall for what will surely be its final season. But who will be back remains to be seen.