From my notes #3

I am moving in a week.

One of the things that I always notice when I move is that I am very bad at throwing things out. Many of the things that I find lying around my place are things that I never use and don't actually want to keep. However, for some reason, every time that I find something that I don't want, I put it in a box to be moved to my new place rather than simply throwing it out. My theory for why I do this is that I am dumb.

Among the things that I should probably stop moving with me is a collection of class notebooks going back to my senior year of undergrad. Upon (re-) discovering that collection, I read through the book for one class in which it had only taken me about two weeks to realize that the lecture was not helpful. Here are the highlights from those notes:

How cold is 0°F?

0°F is the temperature at which a saturated solution of ammonium chloride in water freezes. It is also cold enough to make me say, "BALLS," involuntarily.

Personal milestone

In 2010, my savings account earned enough interest that I have to pay taxes on it.

Life really does change when you move into the working world.

Catching up

I took this picture in September so that I could complain about the fact that it says, "PIN NUMBER," and I didn't get around to doing so until just now.

Tough road matchup

Things heard from the crowd as Michigan State played at Northwestern tonight:

• Go green!
• Go white!

I should probably start buying tickets to MSU-NU games since I'm in the area. I'll have to keep that in mind this fall.

Things that won't happen in 2011

I needed to cheer myself up after seeing the Big Ten go winless in its five (sigh) bowls today, so I wrote up a list of unfunny mock-predictions for next year.

Lets just get this out of the way and pretend it didn't happen.

1. Cyrus Kouandjio, a Rivals.com 5-star-rated offensive tackle, makes a surprise commitment to Michigan State, telling reporters, "I wanted to go someplace where I could play for four years."
2. Edwin Baker sets a school record in the Youngstown State game by gaining at least five yards on every play where he rushes up the middle.
3. In the Michigan-Michigan State game, Denard Robinson suffers a knee injury when he is sacked by William Gholston. Tate Forcier enters the game to replace him and takes two consecutive knees. He then leaves the game and announces that he is transferring to MIT.
4. In their game against Northwestern, Michigan State runs a trick play wherein Kirk Cousins hands the ball off to Keith Nichol, who throws a lateral pass to Keshawn Martin, who hands the ball off to Larry Caper on a reverse, who passes the ball to Cousins for a two-yard gain. When asked by reporters after the game, Dantonio says that the play is called, "I need to talk to those guys."
5. Mark Dantonio lures Charlie Weis away from the Florida offensive coordinator position at the last possible second. Michigan State uses their decided schematic advantage to upset Ohio State in the Big Ten Championship game. They fall to Stanford in the Rose Bowl, however, when Weis's insistence that the line judge slapped him draws an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty and pushes the Spartans back too far for Dan Conroy to kick what would have been the game-winning field goal.
6. Michigan State fans look at the Rose Bowl loss and complain about how a really good coach would've won a bowl game by now.

2011 Capital One Bowl Recap

At the beginning of the Capital One Bowl today, I was so excited about the game that I decided to take notes on every play. I had no reason to be so enthusiastic.

It's taken me a few hours to convince myself to post this. Most of what I wrote provides no context and will likely not make sense even a few days after the game. Some of it is insulting, to both teams, and for that, I apologize. Watching football makes me emotional. For its potential value as a psychological study, however, here is a chronicle of one Michigan State fan's thoughts during today's game, fully unedited (except for grammar and spelling):

I am a Consumer Whore #2

Today was a big day for the Big Ten conference in football. It also turned out to be a terrible day, but I didn't know that when I woke up this morning. I only knew how great it would be if the conference won four games and proved that its teams deserved consideration among the country's frontrunners.

To get ready for the logjam of Big Ten games around noon, I wanted to do something that would show my unequivocal support for the conference, but I wasn't sure what I could do. For inspiration, I turned to my memory of the conference's own Big Ten Network and the way in which they covered games this season. It didn't take me long to realize that there was only one thing that I really could do, one thing that the Big Ten Network had endorsed above all else.

I made RO*TEL-and-Velveeta queso dip.

__sdfg's Chinese Feast

The thought that I'd be spending New Year's alone this year somehow reminded me of the scene in A Christmas Story where the family's planned Christmas dinner is ruined and they go to a Chinese restaurant. I therefore decided to pull some recipes from a Chinese cookbook and make something that would resemble a meal.

As you can tell from the above photo, I don't really know what I'm doing.

I considered applying the verde sauce to the rice, but elected not to.