Posts Tagged ‘pictures’

Despite the Rainpocalypse, THE TRUTH WILL PREVAIL

April 28th, 2009 by pladd

When the weather is this bad, I tend to blame it for absolutely everything wrong with my life, including my inability to access my blog from my lap top. Usually that alone would be enough to trigger my intense paranoia, but it seems to only happen on Tuesday and Friday mornings when I want to update my blog. It says WITHOUT FAIL in the top right hand corner there. I can’t ignore those capital letters. So for the second time this week I have dutifully walked down to the Wiess computer lab to work on it there, which seems to annoy the people around me who have actual work to finish. Also, me, because I like to write in my pajamas. Friday, I grudgingly got dressed before warning you about the dangers of Rachel Liontas, but today I’ve given up. Steven Wiggins, itinerant webmaster, at first told me I was crazy. Then, when Roque also complained that he could not see my blog, he decided to investigate, and then decided to blame WordPress or some server or something. He says it will be okay by the end of this week, but I think it is some conspiracy perpetuated by Brian Reinhart. He seemed pretty upset when I saw him last Friday.

Ostensibly, he dropped by on a “I’m never going to see you again because I’m going home tomorrow” visit (the VERY day the Rainpocalypse began–a little TOO convenient). Along with his sadness, however, he brought along two reusable Target bags full of newspapers, claiming that I could take them to IKEA and exchange them for food.

Brian Reinhart: I view IKEA as the greatest triumph of modern capitalism.

Only later did I find out this was A LIE. You CANNOT exchange newspaper for food at IKEA and now there’s a 20-inch stack of newspapers in my room I don’t know what to do with. I can only make so many funny hats, Brian. I would just recycle them to make Jeremy Caves happy (my goal in life) and think nothing of it, except for Brian’s OTHER comments on that fateful Friday.

Brian Reinhart: I saw your blog. (dramatic pause) You think it’s over because there’s no Thresher this week. But you just wait. You forgot the GRADUATE EDITION.
Me: I have no idea what that is.
Brian Reinhart: OH, YOU’LL SEE! (maniacal laughter)

I don’t know if he realizes that, after every “last” issue of The Thresher, I WILL STILL HAVE A BLOG. You can’t turn off the Internet, Brian.

And just when I was about to shout that at him I realized: that’s what he’s been doing. It’s not the server or WordPress or the other things Steven Wiggins has claimed so it looks like he knows what he’s doing; it’s BRIAN REINHART trying to STIFLE THE TRUTH. AND CAPITAL LETTERS. As Bo will tell you from his career as a Wiess President who often says things he regrets at Cabinet, I firmly believe that The People Have a Right To Know, but mostly just Nobody Tells Me What To Do. And that includes you, Mr. Calendar Page. Bring it.

In other news, despite Brian’s Rainpocalypse, we managed to complete another List item #88 this weekend by, not only going to see Molly and the Ringwalds at the Continental Club, but singing on stage with them:

As you can see by the dancing drunk girl, it was a wild success

We got made fun of a lot (by the band) for being “babies” and, in the case of Rachel and Bova, for forming a “Tall Girl Club” that the lead singer could not join. Still, we prevailed. Livin’ On a Prayer was never shrieked into a microphone so well. (I am noticably absent from this THE 434 picture because Patricia Ladd does not sing in public ever since a traumatic incident in the sixth grade.)

Tagged: brian is a weather witch, conspiracy theories, JerBear, paranoia, pictures, rain, Steven, The List, transcripts, Wiess

Posted in Uncategorized |

Things That Spell Our Doom–2

April 24th, 2009 by pladd

1. Rachel Liontas

Harmless Gullible Freshman... OR IDENTITY THIEF???

She looks a little TOO happy considering we convinced her to buy most of the Wiess Garage Sale. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I love Rachel Liontas. If there was some kind of bracket system to determine The Best Freshman, she would totally be in my Final Four (now that I think about it, why DON’T we pit the freshmen against each other in a dramatic, death-defying battle for the seniors’ love? Or is that the Freshmen One Acts?). At the wildly successful Wiess Garage Sale, Rachel made off with the following from THE 434’s stash of amazingness: a coconut cup, kickball, Mystery Date Game, pirate hat, Rubix Cube, shiny pink 80s dress, hot pink toga, cowboy hat, Christmas lights, and red star sunglasses. This list is a little too calculated to be just random, impulse buying. Clearly she is amassing all of our definitive possessions in a wild bid to become THE 434 after we have gone. DO NOT BE FOOLED. Just because it is pink and sparkly does NOT mean that it is necessarily Bova!
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Tagged: brian is a weather witch, conspiracy theories, doom, freshmen, JerBear, lists, paranoia, pictures, The List, Wiess, zombies

Posted in lists |

Misguided Travel Guide: Humble, Texas

April 21st, 2009 by pladd

After four years at Rice even the most reclusive among us tend to pick up at least a little bit of knowledge about Houston, such as where the closest Whataburger is and what animals have lately been caught in precarious yet adorable situations thanks to the H-Chron’s hard-hitting reporting. However, when it comes to Houston’s surroundings, I’m guessing most of you only know where to find the airport, pretty much the only reason normal people visit Humble, Texas. As an un-normal person whose fiance happens to live there, I can fill you in on what you’ve been missing.

1. Its Wikipedia Page

My favorite fact about Humble is definitely that its Wikipedia Page features this picture prominently:

You Know Your Town Is Classy when the Highway Exit to get to it is a "Point of Interest"

2. The Dump

Now with ravenous bands of seagulls!

Little known fact: all of Rice’s trash ends up here in the Atascocita Landfill! If you ever want to revisit that old 80s costume you couldn’t bear to look at anymore or the Bio homework you threw out after you dropped being a premed and started having a life, Humble is the place to go! This is by far the biggest and most important aspect of Humble. Apart from the airport, natch.

3. It’s Pronounced without the “H”

The first time I heard about Humble was on my second date with Steven Wiggins (the first being Screw Date), during which a drunk man at a bowling alley told us that his girlfriend was also from there, and that she often beat him for pronouncing the “H”.

Drunk Man: Man, how am I supposed to know you don’t say the H, man? It has an H! What are we, man, French or something?
Steven: Lots of people make that mistake. It’s no big deal.
Drunk Man: (big, scared eyes) My girlfriend once kicked me right in the balls for saying the H. (to me, loudly) DON’T SAY THE H! WHATEVER YOU DO!
Me: Okay.
Drunk Man: Okay. (pause) Do you want to be on my bowling league?

Naturally, this made a lasting impression.

4. “The Fast Food Capital of Texas”

Steven’s particular suburb of Humble, Atascocita, touts itself on its own website as being “The Fast Food Capital of Texas”, an impressive claim, which they back up with the admittedly solid evidence of this logo collage:

Hey, at least they're proud

MS Paint: clearly the best way to prove any point. I’m not sure if this claim is legitimately true, but they do have at least six Sonics within a ten minute radius of Steven’s house. He already google Earthed our apartment in Chapel Hill next year and discovered the nearest Sonic is thirty minutes away. He has thus deemed Chapel Hill a “thirsty wasteland”.

5. The Park That Claims to have Buffalo

When I first went to this park, on the shores of murky Lake Houston, I kept seeing these signs for buffalo but was unable to locate them:

Granted, it's a confusing sign. Is it a buffalo or Jeremy Caves?

I guess I was envisioning herds of mighty bison having free run of the park, crashing children’s birthday parties and smashing the pinatas beneath their hooves. In reality this is not a “Caution: Buffalo” sign but a “This way, down a road that looks closed you can see some clearly malnourished and miniature buffalo” sign. I guess I just didn’t realize that the drawing on the sign is actually to scale. In conclusion: Buffalo at Humble’s parks=mad anti-climactic.

Tagged: Humble, JerBear, lists, pictures, Steven, texas, transcripts, travel guides, Wikipedia

Posted in lists |

The List #32: Tie Everyone Together

April 17th, 2009 by pladd

The List #32: Tie Everyone Together
Status: Completed!

In this case "everyone" is THE 434. AS IN EVERY CASE.

We’d like to thank Dirty Sparkly College Night, jump rope class (for the rope), and Roque for making this possible.

Tagged: pictures, The List

Posted in lists |

The List Doubleheader: #74 Get a Human Leash and #78 Abuse the List Serv

April 7th, 2009 by pladd

I cannot explain why some things are on The List of things we have to do before graduating. Don’t get me wrong, I totally see the merit in things like #32 Tie Everyone Together or #72 At One Dinner Pretend We’re All Pregnant. Even #78 Abuse the List Serv makes complete sense and sounds like a good time. But I have no idea about #74 Get a Human Leash. I don’t know if anyone in THE 434 remembers why it got written down; all we know is, when it’s on The List it must be completed. Case in point: I spent three of my dollars and a million of my Coolness Points on #51 Get Sippy Cups to Drink Out of (in the Servery). But it had to be done, and I did it gladly. Besides, as Patricia Ladd, I had an excess of Coolness Points anyway. It was making everyone else feel bad about themselves.

Anyway, to tackle the Human Leash problem we decided to combine list items. If we sent out a “Lost Item” message to the List Serv about our lost human leash, then maybe someone would find one and give it to us. Stellar logic, I know. So we composed this email:
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Tagged: human leash, pictures, The List, Wiess

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Things That Spell Our Doom–1

March 27th, 2009 by pladd

Since I have no class on Fridays, I usually spend the day drawing inane comics about myself fighting crime or honing my paranoia into a finely sharpened point of irrational fear and stockpiled canned goods. Hey, if you have a plan for even the most unlikely worst case scenario, you never have to waste an unnecessary two hours having the awkward “Okay, who do we eat first?” discussion. And because I care about you, all three of you reading this, I’ve decided to share my plans for defeating the Top Five Things That Spell Our Doom (today, anyway).

1. The West Side Story Mafia

“But, Patricia,” you will say. “Everyone knows that West Side Story was over last weekend and so you have no more reason to complain.” WRONG ON BOTH COUNTS, MY FRIEND. I can always find a reason to complain, and they only want you to think they have disbanded. These people practiced for at least four hours a night for three months. Now that the show is officially over, their lives are filled with empty holes and devoid of meaning. A mob without a purpose. Just waiting to wreak untold havoc and reveal its secret agenda. I have a hunch about that too. Because the Wiess commons currently looks like this:

Laziness... OR DIABOLICAL PLAN??

What are they planning on doing with all those stage pieces? Clearly, they will soon institute Phase II of their plan to take over Wiess by using them to build a giant barricade around the Wiess Commons, forcing those of us who still resist them to give up our claims to Wiess or starve to death.

The Plan: Graduate! In a month, I won’t care who owns the commons! Until then, I think I can subsist on the box of Triscuits I just found in my room. DO YOUR WORST, CAITLIN MILLER!
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Tagged: Bridget, doom, lists, paranoia, pictures, pigeon, rat, Wiess, WSS Mafia, zombies

Posted in lists |

Farewell to Bridget: the Once and Future Fish

March 24th, 2009 by pladd

You may not realize it, but despite the recent festivities (and all evidence to the contrary) the residents of THE 434 are WRACKED by grief at the death of our beloved friend, roommate, and noted alcoholic: Bridget, the long-lived Beta Fish. Previously thought to be immortal, her death at the age of three comes as a shock—although, as noted Betaologist Rachel Kinney astutely points out, “that’s like one million in fish years”. And so I’ve decided to compile a timeline of Bridget’s life to immortalize her greatness.
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Tagged: Bridget, death, fish, mullet hatred, pictures, salmonella, timeline, Wiess

Posted in Uncategorized |