Monday, August 31, 2009

Uni G Employee of the Week

Last thursday in the hallowed booths of Guava, Tour Guide Ray instated the new tradition of "employee of the week." As staff, he is used to being under-appreciated and could more easily see the necessity of this, and declared Thursday, August 27 through Thursday, September 3rd "THE WEEK OF HALOISE."

We cherish our haloise for the following reasons:
  • bringing us lulz
  • being the unofficial historian of UGMo
  • being a hetero and being still
  • owning cats
Cheers to you, hallie. Enjoy your week. Cause once it's over, we'll be back to untagging facebook photos you tag us in and hating you for having other friends.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

A Boogie Board + Baby Oil + Houston's Topography = Success



The Departments of Physical Education and Physics proudly announce a new cross-listed course that will be offered in the coming semester: PhysEd 415C/Physics 138: Hill Surfing. The esteemed Dean J.Toy will lead students in an innovative workshop that will combine physical fitness and the scientific method. During week one, students who enroll in this course will start by learning the art of hill surfing with the most basic equipment, cardboard. As they begin to master the techniques and prove their ability, the Dean will provide further instruction to the students on the more advanced method of using an oiled boogie board on the hill. Meanwhile, students will also learn about important principles such as friction, velocity, momentum and balance. After the midterm, the fun will really begin when students will be assigned the challenge of coming up with alternate techniques and equipment to use. Trial and error will be encouraged and all experiments should be well documented and presented to the class to aid in the learning process. The University Health Department reminds all students participating in this activity to exercise caution and wear helmets and/or other protective gear when trying something new in the exciting world of hill surfing.

Enrollment will be limited to approximately 12 students and classes will be held MWTh 7:00-8:00PM at Eleanor Tinsley Park, adjacent to North Montrose (NoMo).

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Guidelines for When to Worry about Faculty and Staff

It's 2am and your fellow faculty member is missing. Do you worry? Do you send them a congratulatory text for probably hooking up with someone in a nearby car or bathroom stall? Do you even bother realizing they are gone? It can be confusing, so here are some guidelines...

Day 1: 2am: don't worry. they're fine
Day 2: 9am: don't bother. they're fine, and they're sleeping
Day 2: 1pm: you can call, but they're still fine and still sleeping
Day 2: 5pm: call to invite them out (it's the polite thing to do), but don't worry, they're probably recovering. Or taking the metro back from katy
Day 2: 11pm: ask others to call them. it's possible that you did something the night before that you dont' remember and thus they aren't taking your call
Day 3: 1pm: call them, but they're probably fine... and hungover from going out without you the night before
Day 3: 5pm: now you can start to worry

These are loose guidelines, and as always please be extra cautious when bodies of water have been involved. When dealing with students, remind yourself to be more prudent and remember they do not have the training and experience many of the faculty and staff do.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

From 50 Cent Fridays to $250 Saturdays...

In the Fall, I will be leading a graduate-level seminar course entitled The Shitshow and Other Bad Nights: Advanced Techniques in Being an Epic Trainwreck and I did an extreme amount of hands-on research last night to prepare for what I hope to be really enlightening discussions with some of the University's top graduate students. I'm sure everyone can recall my extensive series about good decisions and bad decisions...it's kind of been a while since I've had any good examples to bring forth, but all of that changed last night. Where do I even begin...?

While most of the UniG community was at a pool party at a satellite facility in OTB, I started my night at what I foolishly assumed would be a fairly lowkey house party designed to save us money because that way we could just spend a little on a handle and mixers instead of running up a tab at the bar. Things were going smoothly enough for a couple of hours but then the handle ran out and we clearly weren't done yet, though apparently we probably should have been. At this point, it is important for me to mention that I do not have ANY memory of the rest of this story until further notice and am only relating these details as they have been told to me...

  • We went to Bayou City again. Parked in a spot apparently reserved for the gay store next to the bar, went into the store first, and then the bar.
  • At some point, I was in contact with the Dean of LULZtography and his chauffeur but I was such a trainwreck already that I became unable to operate my phone and my person and thus received a slew of very angry voicemails.
  • I also somehow fell on the floor and regained my phone abilities (sort of) to post the following to Twitter:

    Lola i fellell on there flood. Whooke type I'd meess. Theyafe me bit bot sit on the floor. Qhllte type of mess.


    For those who don't speak drunkanese, that roughly translates to Lolz I fell on the floor. Whole type of mess. The made me not sit on the floor. Whole type of mess. Apparently bar owners don't like people to sit/lay on the floor of their bars. But he also didn't mind that I stayed at the bar, telling my friends something to the effect of "It's my job to get people wasted, they just can't be on the floor."
  • I may or may not have vomitted both in the bathroom and outside on the patio. The bartender may or may not have done coke under the bar and then made out with my friend.
  • Upon exiting the bar, we found that my rental car had been towed. We managed to get a ride with some other people back to the house where our night had started out so (relatively) innocently just a few hours before.
  • At some point, I decided to pass out for a while on the couch. When I woke up, a girl was sitting on the floor near me and upon seeing I was awake, introduced herself, "Hi, I'm the neighbor and it's almost 6am." This is the first thing I remember since like 11:30 or 12.


As I slowly regained consciousness and became aware of my surroundings, I saw that people were dancing and having a great time while I had been asleep. And there was a chocolate lab sniffing me. Also, one of the bartenders from Guava was there, not one I usally get drinks from, but I recognized him and he me, apparently. He was surprised and impresssed when I said I knew who he was because of the condition I was in but even if I didn't remember the entire night up to that point, I still have a good memory of things outside of when I'm really trashed. I was then informed of the car towing situation and I didn't even really know how to process that at the time, but found my phone in the couch and fired off text to Clay just before my phone lost it's last ounce of battery life. The neighbors left, we called to find out where the car was and then went to sleep around 6:30 in the morning.

I wake up who knows how many hours later and some CD is looping the same song over and over again but I can't manage to get up to deal with it so I just remain on the couch trying to figure out what the fuck to do. Eventually we go to the place to get the car and it's in such a sketchy weird area and we had to wait for the LONGEST train ever to go by and omg it was so awful just trying to get there. But we finally made it and talked to the lady through the little window and I had to go get the rental agreement from the car, but only one person is allowed to go in there where all the cars are, IDEK why, but that's the rule. So I wander in and I'm just like "WTF how am I supposed to find this car out here by myself?" Of course it was all the way in like the farthest area.

From there, the tale does not improve for the better. Absolutely not. The rental agreement is in my mom's name and it doesn't show my name on there anywhere as being an authorized driver of the car even though my mom asked them about that and they said it was fine. So they can't let me have the car. I tried to call the rental company to try to get them to fax something over. Of course the location where the car was from is not open on Sundays, so we tried the main office/corporate number and that was a whole mess of automated menus and whatnot. And for some godforsaken reason, this man was using a jackhammer next to me while I was trying to deal with the phone call and it was really rude. The phone call did not yield positive results and I still couldn't have the car back so we just left and went to the bar, which clearly was the best possible course of action.

Fast forward a bit, my parents get back from Austin and my mom wants to go to try and get the car again. Tow yards are open 24 hours and I suppose this is like the one nice thing about them, because everything else is shitty shitty shitty. We called to find out if they'll let us have the car now but there was another problem with the rental agreement saying I was supposed to return the car on Friday, so my mom and I have to get up and go to the rental place when they open at 7:30am to sort this all out. The cost to get your car back increases at midnight so since we can't get it til the morning, it goes up from $191 to $250...which is a shit ton of money I cannot afford to throw away but it's too late for that.

FUCK MY LIFE.

Saturday, August 1, 2009

50 Cent Fridays in GuantanaMontrose

Thanks to the combined efforts of the University Financial Aid Department and the Social Events Planning Committee, faculty, staff and students have a new place to cut loose on Friday nights. Formerly a diner owned by and named for a drag queen, the establishment has been remodeled and rebranded and is now the latest in a string of happening hot spots to open up in the neighborhood adjacent to the campus. Bayou City knows how to draw a crowd of thirsty folks who maybe don't have as much money to spend as they might like because of this economy...they offer well drinks on Friday nights for the amazingly low price of just 50 cents. As a self-appointed scout dedicated to finding all the best drink specials and fun places to party, I spent last Friday evening at Bayou City and discovered that it was a pretty good time, so I sent out the following missive to some of my fellow professors yesterday afternoon and the word spread from there:

"Fifty cent wells at Bayou City tonight...good idea or bad idea that we'll do anyway?"

I arrived early with Carl and we staked out a suitable area right next to the bar on the patio. Prof. Tim soon joined us and shortly thereafter a contingent of other professors and top graduate students arrived, already full of blue margs from El Patio. As more and more members of the UGMo community arrived, we rapidly took over a large portion of the patio and sometimes the dance floor inside as well.

Over the course of the night, the following things may have occurred:

1. Dean J.Toy tumbled off the stage where she had been dancing. She may have been pushed by Kathleen, a student who is rumoured to be pissed that the Dean wouldn't let her write a thesis about the effects of drinking 4 blue margs and/or Texas Teas in one night. The investigation is still pending.

2. A student who shall remain nameless danced on the bar with a fellow patron.

3. Carl referred to pretty much everyone as either Flapjack or Captain K'nuckles. They are adventurers.

4. I was forced to make many visits to the handicapped stall in the men's restroom.

5. Chancellor Steven invited people to post-party at his ToHo/his neighbor's ToHo. I arrived too late with Carl and Tour Guide Ray, after stopping at CVS and failing to be able to access cheap wine as it was almost 3am. The party was mostly over, so we left and brought with us the Visiting Professor of Europedancepop, who seemed to be in need of rescuing from some unknown fate that had her running around the ToHo sans pants.

6. There were many twinks and skanks present, so if anyone is in the market for a new twink slave or a skank...who is a skank...then this would be a good place to look.

7. Uhhh...probably a lot more things also took place but consuming a dozen or so 50-cent vodka tonics does not exactly lead to a good memory of the previous night's events. I invite others to add their recollections to the comments.

The Deans of LULZtography and Drama Llama Studies were sadly missing in action during this whirlwind of chaos and cheap shitty liquor. They will have to experience 50 Cent Friday another time. Or not.