I went to grad school just a little too early

I came across this article a week ago and wanted to bring it to your attention. First car engineering, now this...

For those too lazy to read the article, Potsdam University near Berlin is offering a Master's level course for IT students focused on how to avoid being socially awkward. Students learn to flirt through text messages and emails, impress people at parties, and deal with rejection.

I have but one question: WHERE WAS THIS COURSE WHEN WE WERE IN COLLEGE?!?!

The logical follow-up, of course, is trying to figure out how to get students to study for this in between campaigns of World of Warcraft.

More nimble than Mathletes?

Over the years I've endured my share of mockery picking apart my nerdy high school days. Everyone gets tortured a little bit while trying to find their identity, but I did a particularly good job of making it as awkward as possible. "How?" you ask? Dungeons & Dragons? No...well, yes, but even worse... I played chess. Not your casual game either, I'm talking about varsity tournaments all over the country. Seriously. I have the trophies to prove it.

Personally, I think that chess gets a bad rap. We were not all smelly, anti-social losers. Granted, most of us were, but not everyone. And I have proof. Take a gander at this article from the world's most trusted news source, The Miami New Times.

See? Told you. You stand corrected. Now if you'll excuse me, I believe there's a Harry Potter marathon on today.

Yahoo Answers ROCKS

I don't know how I managed to miss it for all of these years, but Yahoo Answers may be the second most entertaining thing on the internet (after The Daily Agitator of course). For those of you who aren't familiar, Yahoo Answers is a forum for users to submit questions on a variety of topics and receive answers from its almost entirely uneducated user base.

Yes, this is as awesome as it sounds. I highly recommend wasting at least 30 minutes randomly searching for horrible answers to horrible questions.

Now many of you may doubt the heights of amusement that I am evangelizing here. That's understandable of course, and I suspected that you would. That's why I've prepared several examples below to prove my point. Enjoy:

Exhibit 1: Since when is being good...bad?

Translation: All of your friends have burning pee, but you don't. Are YOU weird?


Answer: Yeah, you might not want to take advice from your friends.

Exhibit 2: If you pose this question, chances are you have bigger problems.

Translation: Your parents ignore you, you crave attention, and you're creatively masochistic...

Answer: This one had several great answers ranging from two seconds to 13.3 minutes
(give or take 2.8 minutes for having long hair)

Exhibit 3: It took until you were 15?!?

Translation: I'm pubescent. WTF?


Answer a: Not sure this solves the problem, but it's sweet to offer.


Answer b: This answer has it all- a pun, statistical evidence, clarity on sexual orientation- we have a...weener? Oh snap!

Exhibit 4: If Satan can't fly, explain United Airlines.

Translation: Um, I don't really know what this person is actually asking.

Answer: This one doesn't have an answer yet. Maybe no one understands the question.

Those are just four of the amazing questions and answers I've found on Yahoo Answers, and it's only been an hour of searching. I laughed, I cried, I've achieved enlightenment. This site is great. Read it after you read this blog 5-6 times per day.

10 animals I wish really existed

Today I was thinking about how awesome it would be if there were more horrifying/amusing creatures roaming the earth today. We were roughly 80 million years too late for dinosaurs, and most of the really good ones that remain- sharks, alligators, tigers, unicorns- can't be found in major metropolitan areas. To make myself feel better, I've compiled a list of ten animals I wish really existed.

Dragopus- This half-mythical, tentacled monstrosity spends most of its time in the ocean or on dry land. What? It's versatile. This offspring of a dragon and an octopus is cursed with being extremely angsty, the result of being born wingless. Thanks, genetics.

Hippopotiraffe- What is 18 feet tall, 7,000 pounds, and has sharp teeth and a bad temper? Normally, when something's chasing you the logical solution is to climb a tree to avoid being eaten. Oops, not an option anymore. Unless you find a 19-foot tall branch, then I guess you're fine.

Shat- What animals terrify women? Rats. And what terrifies men? Sharks. Also Pottery Barn. But I digress... What could be more frightening than either of these? How about a family of 11-ounce, disease carrying rodents with razor-sharp teeth and a penchant for eating human flesh living in your walls. Oh, and they probably like Pottery Barn. Run!!!!

Flamingorilla- 800 pounds; able to climb, run, and open doors; hot pink. No, not RuPaul. You don't want to mess with this thing.

Porcupig- This is perhaps the scariest of those on this list. Imagine the most delicious animal of all time...covered in deadly spikes. Damnit! Come on! Why would anyone do that? If this thing existed, I'd know there was no god.

Lobstorck- Tough exoskeleton, the ability to fly, and AWESOME GIANT CLAWS. Luckily, there is no shortage of butter or lemons, so even if the dreaded Lobstork did exist, it wouldn't for long.

Skunkaroo- The Skunkaroo is terrible because, unlike the common skunk, it's really fast. It's bad enough that it can spray with accuracy to 15 feet, but now it can also chase you through the forest, follow you home at speeds of up to 35 MPH, kick in your front door, and ruin your afternoon.

Coyotter- It hunts in packs and builds a badass fort. Enough said.

Groundharpy- This mythical beast is normally tame until February 2. At precisely 7:25 AM it suddenly snaps, tearing anything around it asunder. Of course, the slaughter lasts for about 3 minutes, then it just goes back to sleep. Bottom line- if you're dumb enough to be anywhere near the Groundharpy when it wakes up, you deserve what happens next.

Vampire Bass- The Vampire Bass gets a bad rap. True, it sucks the blood of the innocent and turns them into denizens of the night, but it's much lower in cholesterol than people think. Pan-seared with a side of potatoes au gratin and you've got quite the delicious unholy meal. Just make sure your recipe doesn't include garlic.

So there you have it, the ten worst corruptions of genetics in the history of the world. Luckily, none of these exist...yet.

Special Note: bonus points for anyone who can capture an image of any of these rare species. I'll be happy to post updates to this article.

My weird dreams

I'm not sure why, but for the past week and a half or so I've been having some weird dreams. Now everyone has odd dreams every now and then, but this is particularly odd in my case for two reasons. First, I never remember my dreams, and these have been both clear and vivid. Second, they're f-ing weird. I mean really weird. Here's a rundown of what's been going on in my head:

Optimus Primate- This one is a favorite. Everyone loves Transformers. Everyone loves primates. I had a dream last week about two warring factions of robots, except they all looked like Optimus Prime and had gorilla heads, hands, and feet. Even better, the two factions looked exactly the same and couldn't tell each other apart, so they were constantly killing the wrong gang members.

They were totally more intimidating in my dream

Army Men- Remember in Toy Story when the Army Men came to life? I dreamed that I was a member of the infantry unit in the Army Men Army. I don't know why. I distinctly remember being extremely frustrated that my feet were stuck together, as I was forced to waddle and couldn't run anywhere. Although I didn't take part in any battles in my dream, I'm sure I was a badass.

Hero Shark- This one is an odd coincidence in light of the earlier water slide post. This dream takes place in flooded subway tunnels. There are schools of barracuda chasing after people stuck in the tunnels. I am a shark. I don't want to attack the people, but somehow I'm in the tunnels, hate barracuda, and want to do something about it. The rest of the dream is me eating barracuda and saving people. Pretty sweet.

Worst Monster Ever- This dream was from last night. Some of you might remember Starship Troopers, the movie with the futuristic soldiers protecting the world from alien bug swarms bent on eating everyone. This dream takes place in a similar scenario. I'm a soldier in the army and I'm on the front lines of an invasion. There's the expected running around and shooting, but oddly I never see the alien until the very end of my dream. And thank goodness. Please keep in mind that the entire dream to this point was extremely realistic and high-tech looking. The aliens literally looked like this:

I present to you, dear readers, the... Octomoose?

This is not my poorly-drawn description, this is exactly what they looked like. 2-D and everything. At this point I woke up, but I'm fairly certain that my character in the dream was thinking something along the lines of "WTF?!?" Yeah, me too.

So there you have it- a small insight into the mind of yours truly. I'm so very sorry for you.