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April 27, 2004
SI Loves to [Surprise] Party!
Last week I had my 25th birthday, and because it was final exam week, i was too busy to go out and celebrate it. Fortunately there was an ice cream/dessert day at SI and i decided to have my fun there. To my surprise, srah baked a fantastic red-velvet cake for me and brought it to the dessert thing, so everybody knew it was my birthday and even sang to me! Wow! I thought that was a pretty cool thing to do... little did i know that was not the end.
During that same week I was invited with a few other people to Mr. B------'s house to christen his first viewing of the Princess Bride *. We were even planning on dressing up Peep's as PB characters, based on my previous post. So i picked up The Urstodian and we tried to find Peeps. Of course there were none, so we ended up getting regular Marshmallows instead. We arrived at Mr. B------'s house an hour late **, but i was expecting the crowd of 3 people inside not to be too upset.
To my great surprise however, there were not 3 people inside, there were more like 15 people, all yelling Happy Birthday and singing and stuff! The movie night was a sham! I was tricked! It turned out that srah and The Urstodian and Mr. B------ and a bunch of others had been planning this for a week or more! It turned out to be a great party, with karaoke singing on the Xbox, and has to be my best birthday party ever. Thanks again everybody - that was awesome!
* which was part of the sham
** apparently planned, although i was stalling myself without knowing it
Posted by MaTT at 06:54 PM | Comments (25)
April 22, 2004
Marshmallow Peep Dioramas
Apparently by discussing this topic with a few friends, I've come to find that i am a big fan of marshmallow peeps. Ya' know, the little sugar-coated piles of fluff that come in flat-looking chickens, bunnies, trees, etc. I live in the next town over from where their maker, Just Born Inc. has their plant, and my sister went to school with one of the PeepMaster's sons, so I feel a slight connection there.
In any case, there are bigger fans of Peeps than me, as evidenced by this article given to me by my friend Anne. It talks about Pioneer Press hosting a Marshmallow Peeps Diorama Content, in which they had 40 participants assemble quite intricate scenes involving the marshmallow fluff. Because the website is registration-protected, here are some pics that i deliberately made freely accessible:
** (Uh oh, my first non AA post...) :)
Posted by MaTT at 05:50 PM | Comments (8)
April 19, 2004
The Keys to U-M Night-life
After knuckling down and working late on a Saturday night, i ended up having some unplanned excitement anyway. The Urstodian calls me at 2:04am, because she forgot her keys* in the Village Corner, which was closing at 2am. So we drive over there, only to be innundated with drunk undergrads, who have been kicked out of all the clubs and bars around South U. We even get approached twice by a young girl and guy: once desperately wondering where a bathroom is (they decide to stumble into Subway) and then again after they exit Subway, asking for cigarettes in an all-too-recognizable drunken-stuporish laugh. The girl asking the question then continues to stagger on, hacking and coughing from her laughing and almost vomiting on the sidewalk. Nice... **
All the way back to Ursa's apartment (Village Corner ceased refused to answer), we hoped not to hit any random kid staggering into the street, or get hit *by* some random drunk driver, of which there were probably more than a few. Um, yay for U-M night-life... %) **
* Ursa's keys were actually in her purse the whole time, which, while ironic, was cool because she got into her apartment and I still got something to write about in my blog...
** Please note the dripping sarcasm in each of these phrases...
Posted by MaTT at 02:16 AM | Comments (5)
April 15, 2004
The Boat, the Bike, and the Limousine
Finally, something to blog about! I was beginning to lose faith in A2 craziness (or else fearing an immunity to recognizing it...) But just as i was about to lose hope, here comes three stories all in one day!
The Boat on the Diag:
-- yes, there was a boat in the middle of the U-M Diag. Not a rowboat, a plastic toy boat, a kayak, a canoe, or even one of those rowing machines that teams use to simulate boatish activities -- no, this was a real 15 or 20 foot-long motor-driven fishing-style boat. Just sitting there in the Diag. I was so surprised i didn't even think to ask why it was there...
The 90-cent Pizza Bike Beggar:
-- Walking down South U., one sure sees some strange things, but i didn't expect it to be a friendly guy on a bike who was approaching me. He was normally dressed, well-kept, and riding what seemed to be a fine-looking bike. He said hello, and i replied the same, and then he asked about pizza. I said "yeah, you could probably get some back that way." But no, he was asking if i had 90 cents for a piece of pizza. 90 cents!? Now, i have nothing against underprivileged people, but ok... if he's that poor and hungry he should be spending money on stuff like, um, *food*, instead of nice clothes and bicycles... I knew A2 was an upscale place but jeez...
The Limo down the street from Bubble Island:
-- Again on South U., which is surprisingly active at 1:10am, there was a car, haphazardly parallel-parked, with its hood open, waiting to get jumped or serviced or something. Normally that would be ok, except that it was a limo -- an old 1980's Lincoln double-window stretch limo! And not only that, it had little black letters on it saying "NOT FOR HIRE" and "PRIVATE CAR". Who in the world would be driving around a college campus in their private 20 year old junky stretch limo at 1am on a Wednesday nite? Scary...
Posted by MaTT at 02:17 AM | Comments (10)