OK, Now You Can Offically Sing 'In The Navy'

So in case you didn't hear, yes, I got accepted into the Navy. I thought I'd let everyone know what this means, in order to answer what I assume are your many questions.

First off, I am actually not in the Navy yet. What I am is 'Professional Accepted.' This means that a bunch of guys many pay grades higher than I will be got together in a room, looked at my application, test scores, and employer references and said, "This guy looks good. Let him in."

There are still a few things I need to do. The first and most important is pass my Physical Readiness Test (PRT). This involves 47 push ups and 58 sit ups in two minutes (not the same two minutes) and a mile and a half run in 12 minutes. I'm not there yet, but getting accepted is a huge motivation booster. I just got back from a 2.75 mile run/jog. I've never run that far before in my life.

Second, for those wondering, no I did not get into Intelligence. I got into Surface Warfare (which I've learned is shortened to SWO, pronounced S-Whoa). However, I didn't get NOT get into Intel. The Intel guys just haven't gotten into that room to look over my application yet. I'm going to give them that time and not jump into SWO immediately.

Finally, many may be wondering where I go from here. To be honest, I'm not exactly sure. I need to talk to my recruiter more. But assuming I pass my PRT, I get into Officer Candidate School (OCS) in Newport, Rhode Island. where I will wear a uniform all the time, cut my hair real short, and be forced to work out every morning at 5AM. Yes, I know, it sounds right up my alley, huh?

The Weekend That Was

This past weekend found me once again in Gainesville. I was there because...well, because I needed to get the hell out of Jacksonville. I don't know if you know this, but Jacksonville blows. I was talking to Rachel this weekend about not moving to Greenville, SC because its a crappy town. My clinching argument: I live in Jacksonville, I know crappy towns.

Jacksonville...God how I loathe thee.

So what did I do while in the great city of Titletown? I drank, I helped paint Amos' and Christina's apartment, but there were a few things that stood out:

1. The fight. I know its sad when I say that I've been going to parties in Gainesville for six years, but its true. And in that entire time, I've seen maybe one fight, and even that, from what I remember, was pretty tame. The fight on Saturday, not so much. From what I gathered, someone spit on one of the hosts, and work was done. I was playing beer pong on the patio when the tussle spilled out into the patio, knocking over the table. I was stuck in the corner, so there was no place for me to go except through the screen. Sorry about that, whoever's house that was.

The parts of the fight I saw where hilarious and intense. Intense because the participants in the fight kept going at it about every 20 seconds. Hilarious because by 'going at it', I mean 'ineffectively slapping at each other faces until they got pulled away from each other.' That actually kinda killed the mood of the party, which was eventually broken up by the cops, who immediately demanded that all the drunk people get the hell out of there. Good job, GPD. Very smart of you.

2. The Search. Cush showed up drunk at Amo's while we were painting and watching Heroes. He needed one thing for his costume for the party that night: a cowbell. And we could not find one. Anywhere. We got to the Western Wear place about 3 minutes after it closed, Cracker Barrel had a very helpful and very cute girl who helped us look around the store, but still nothing. We eventually went to the costume store, where we found a tiny fake one which Cush never actually used. But I do have to say that Center Stage was still a great experience, as they sold us the cowbell 40 minutes after they had closed. Very nice of them.

This is all we wanted. Is that so hard?

3. The Game. I watched a quarter at the PSP watching party, a quarter at Jess's, where my cheering kept scaring her cats, and the last half at the Dojo. Watching games at the Dojo is fun. If we aren't doing well, Cush has to immediately run out and get victory chicken from Publix. This always works. As soon as he gave Publix money, Tony Joiner intercepted a pass. It went well. Also, the shotgunning a beer every time Tebow scores leads to drunkenness. Not on my part, cause I'm horrible at shottgunning, but Cush was really drunk, Michael was feeling and good, and Dave I'm pretty sure was buzzing.

Other features of the weekend was actually motherfucking going out, something I haven't done in a while, with Christina, seeing Erin and getting in on old job drama (apparently everything went to hell when I left) and the best game of volleyball I've played (this does not mean much).

Until next time, I remain,
Matt McKenzie

Still reading Reality Dysfunction by Peter Hamilton.

Jack Bauer, Improbable Commercials, and Other Things Found on the Interwebs

My brain is dead today, along with my arms and back. As such, there will be little to no creative writing. Instead, I bring you the things that have gotten me through the day the last few days.

First is the 100 greatest moments in 24. Not only are there snarky comments on all the events, but there's YouTube clips for all of them. Truly a momentous undertaking, one worthy of all the beer and women that can be thrust upon these fine men. Also, since my mom is inexplicably suddenly into 24, this is her chance to catch up. Or at least know what I'm talking about in when I reference crazy things in that crazy show.

Next, we have the Montgomery Flea Market. Its just like. A. Mini. Mall. And also, completely insane.

Here's an interesting essay from a woman who didn't feel complete until both her legs were cut off. In much the same way that some people feel like they were born the wrong sex, this 'Susan Smith' feels she has two too many working limbs. This reminds me of a passage out of Neal Stephenson's Cryptnonomicon, where one of the characters is commenting that sometime around the age of five or six, your brain patterns just get stuck, and sometimes on very weird things. For example, his wife, for some reason, can't get off sexually unless the sex happens on antique furniture. This Smith seems to have the same problem. It doesn't appear to be sexual, but at six years old, she decided that what really needed to go were her legs.

And finally, I bring you a video from Japan. I don't know how I found it or why I ended up watching it, but this only confirms my firmly held belief that the Japanese are incredibly weird, especially the people who make anime.

Gay on the Mind

Through a weird series of events, gays have been on my mind today.

No Mom, I'm not coming out of the closest. Stop freaking out.

As I've written before, I spend a large chunk of my day surfing the Internet. One site I've been going to for a while is Andrew Sullivan's blog, The Daily Dish. Mr. Sullivan's an interesting guy, a gay Catholic, an old-style conservative who's HIV+, he's an amazing writer and a damned good political thinker. He was pro-Bush and pro-war. He's since changed his mind as the evidence accumulated that the war was not going well, and it was mostly the President's fault.

But anyways, he pointed his readers to this video for the song The Bible Says. Its mind blowing, to say the least. Absolutely stunning. Watch it. You won't be sorry.

Now, I've watched it twice today, and there's no way that can't be parody, right? I mean, saying gays are going to hell is one thing, but to actually put out a song with the chorus being "God Hates a Fag?" Would people actually do that?

After a second watching, the clues start coming through that this is a truly brilliant piece of parody. The lead singer has a very, well, gay mustache and is wearing a pink shirt. There are quite a few scenes that scream "Gay allusions!" too. And plus, the singer is basically admitting he's gay, but he's going to get through it with the power of Christ. That's not something many of the type of people who would put out a song like this would admit to.

The other thing that made me think about homosexuality happened during lunch. I went and visited the lackluster Phi Sig tabling in Turlington, and hung out for a bit talking to Jeff, Kristen and Sammy. Hung out just long enough, in fact, for the preacher who had been torturing the people in the Plaza of the Americas to make his was over to Turlington. And then the fun began.

He took out two electrical cords, and proceeded to demonstrate why being gay doesn't work. As he pushed two male sides of the plugs together, the first thing that came into my mind was "If two guys are doing that, they're probably too dumb to be gay. Or alive."

He then told a ten minute story about how sexual relations are supposed to go in his head. They involved trips to Starbucks, courting, marriage, a trip to Barbados, a hotel room, and "then they get NAKED!!!" (to quote Crazy Preacher).

These words will be ingrained in my head for the rest of my life. I really wish they weren't.

"The woman lays on her back in the bed! She spreads her legs! The man mounts her! And the penis," he then pushes the electrical plugs together, "enters the vagina! The man moves back and forth," which he demonstrated by jerking the plugs back and forth. And that, I assume, is the end of his sex life. Now, I'm pretty sure it never says in the Bible that the missionary position is the only acceptable position. Or maybe it does, but its in among all the rules in Leviticus that no one pays attention to anymore, like selling your daughters into slavery, or stoning anyone who wears both linen and leather.

Soon the Turlington Crazy started going into what happens when the virginal newlyweds decide to try out that anal sex thing they've been hearing so much about. That was my cue to leave.

Fear

Fear is the power of the brain to extrapolate. It is that organ's ability to look forward the next few hours and decide that you stand a good chance of death. The brain then shoots anxiety and worry throughout your body, in an effort to stop you from whatever your doing. Fear is what I experienced on Saturday night.

I've gotten into a car when I shouldn't have before. Whether it was because the person driving was a bad driver, talking way too much on the phone, tailgated other cars (I'm looking at you Amos), or were a little worse for wear due to alcohol or lack of sleep (or both), after we've safely gotten to our destination, I think to myself, "Let's not do that again." But in none of the above incidents did I ever actively feel that there was a better than 50% chance that I was going to die. Saturday, my chances were probably somewhere in the realm of 80.

Some friends were visiting this past weekend, and since I hadn't seen them in a while, I decided to hang out with them. I met up with these friends at a party in the Estates (which I guess is what the Exchange is called now). There was Shannon, an ex-girlfriend who I'm still on good terms with (one of the few) and who is about to become a cop, which I find hilariously awesome for some reason. Her friend Cynthia was along, who is also a cool person. There, I met Cynthia's boyfriend, whose name escapes me at the moment. Her boyfriend introduced me to Nicole, his cousin. She was good looking, and very outgoing. Also, she apparently loved to drink. Every time I turned around, she was downing another shot.

I talked the group into going to Gator City, as there was no cover, and all my friends were there. So we left. Nicole drove Cyn and her boyfriend, while I drove Shannon. Nicole's drink count at this point was probably around 4. We drive, Shannon and I hang out in the parking lot for a while while Nicole drives downtown to drop a friend off. We go in.

We're there just about long enough for me and Shannon to finish a beer and say hi to everyone before Shannon gets a call saying that the rest of her group is going to a party in Cabana Beach. I'm disappointed, but I leave. We meet up with the rest of the group, and head to Nicole's car. Its not until I get into her car that I ask myself, "Why am I in this car?" The only explanation I have is that I'm tired and distracted by talking to Shannon and Cyn. But by the time I'm buckled in, Nicole has already taken a shot straight out of a vodka bottle and a chug of a Bud Light which someone had brought into the car. Then we took off.

I'm not sure what initially started my danger sense tingling, but it may have been comments like "Its OK, I drive wasted almost everyday." Or maybe its the fact that she was about two feet away from the car in front of us, and I was riding shotgun. Whatever it was, I was holding on the "OH JESUS" handle with a grip capable of squeezing coal into a diamond and pumping the air brake like the imaginary pedal might actually stop the car.

Nicole noticed, in between the phone calls she was making (yes, she was on her cell phone too). She started telling me to calm down. "Are you freaking out? I'm a very good driver!" she yelled. I assured her I was fine, as my clawing at the arm rest increased to a frantic pace. At this point, a plan emerged in my head. I mentioned that my car was back on campus and asked if Nicole would be driving us back. "Oh, no that's probably not a good idea. I mean, I can barely drive now! I won't be able to after the party we're going to." So she turned onto a side street (one that she only saw at the last second and was forced to swerve onto) and took me back to campus.

On the way over, Nicole really starting annoying me with her yelling at me not to be scared. She started stroking my face saying "Oh, is Pookums scared?" I grabbed her hand, put it back on the wheel, reminding her to keep them on 10 and 2.

"Am I annoying you?" she asked.

"Of course not," I replied, while in my head the scene from 40 Year Old Virgin was going through my head where Steve Carrell is in the car with the drunk girl, going "I just want to live!"

When we make it back to campus, Nicole turns onto the street where I'm parked. As she's turning onto it, I guess she wasn't paying attention to where the road went, as she went straight instead of turning left. This left her with the car up on a curb. "Motherfucker, the road looked it went that way!" she screamed. I looked around, but I couldn't see how that was possible. It was either go left or onto the field next to the Swamp. But as we were nearly at my car, I said "This is good," and got the hell out of that car.

The trip was maybe a total distance of one mile. I aged maybe three years and stood a good chance of emptying my bowels at any moment. No offense Nicole, but if your reading this, I am never getting in the car with you again. I like living.