Horrorscopes!

Horrorscopes! They're like horoscopes, except spooky! ....ooOOooOOooOOoohhhhh....

In changing our classic horoscope feature to horrorscopes, we decided to go with the classic Universal Monsters, not only because they represent the height of human/monster cooperation and goodwill, but because they're silly and retro.



Dracula (1/20–2/18)

Despite your cool accent, noble status, castle ownership, creamy white skin, ability to pick up ladies, and useful transmogrification, you still have a lot to fear. Be wary, as many are out to defeat you (or worse, use you for evil and create Twilight).

The Creature from the Black Lagoon (2/19–3/20)

(See Scorpio)

Teenage Werewolf (3/21–4/19)

Look. It's rough being a teenager. We know. While things look dark now, remember that soon your acne will clear up, your hair growth will be limited to your face except on the full moon, and soon your doctor friend will invent a time machine and you'll get to go back in time...
Or maybe instead you'll be the star of one of the funniest shows ever created...

Mummy (4/20–5/20)

The process of mummification removes most of the internal organs from the body. Therefore a mummy should probably be less threatening than Frankenstein's monster, as it's a dead body missing most of its organs rather then a full set of missmatched dead body parts. In fact, mummies are often filled with precious metals and charms, making a mummy basically a giant piñata.

Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.

The Invisible Man (5/21–6/21)

Sure, you think being invisible might be cool. But remember, it doesn't make your clothes invisible. Which means that you can really only be invisible in tropical climates and defenitly only in areas where you can go barefoot. I mean, you don't want to cut your feet and leave a trail of blood, do you? Think about it. Invisibility is such a stupid power.

Quasimodo (6/22–7/22)

Someday your image will be made into a Disney film that completely misses the point of your original story. Actually, that sounds like a fortune that can be very widely applied. Let's hold that one for later and give you a new one like...

...hold on, we've almost got it...

Your love life is looking up, and religious/political stability is on the horizon.

There. Perfect.

Wolfman (7/23–8/22)

Oh, we see. You think that because you're all grown up you can push us around? Well, you smell. And not even good, we mean you smell like wet dog and unwashed hair. And you're shedding everywhere. Stop that. Stop it now! Heel! Heel, boy, heel!

The Phantom of the Opera (8/23–9/22)

You will become known as one of the greatest romantic leads ever known while you're really just a creepy freak in a basement. And not even a really cool creepy freak in a basement. I mean, you're not a demon clown and you don't even have a rat army or anything. All you do is play opera. Wow, we're really scared.

Dr. Frankenstein (9/23–10/22)

Remember: playing god may sound like a good idea in the short term, but in the long run it really doesn't turn out so well. Maybe you should stick with playing Spore or something.

Also: hanging out in graveyards collecting body parts isn't very hygienic.

Frankenstein's Monster (10/23–11/21)

Okay, loyal readers. Before we make a prediction, we just have a bone to pick. You see the above astrological category? The one labeled "Dr Frankenstein"? That is labeled so precisely because the DOCTOR'S name is Frankenstein, not the MONSTER'S. Geez, not that difficult to understand, people. We don't know why you keep making this mistake.

Anyways, here's your fortune: The red dog barks at midnight.

Bride of Frankenstein (11/22–12/21)

No. Just no. We're not doing you, because your stupid name just confuses the "Frankenstein/Monster" issue further.

No, seriously, we're not doing one.

You can stop reading here, because we're not printing a fortune.

We really mean it.

Stop reading this!

Why are you still read-

The Metaluna Mutant (12/22–1/19)

Be sure to drink your Space-Ovaltine.

Remember, everyone, stay spooky!

Horoscopes!

Everyone with half a brain knows that horoscopes are completely legitimate and accurate. After all, if they weren't true, then how could they print them in a newspaper? After many days of studious research and astrological observation, We have divined the secrets of the cosmos and am prepared to present them to you as guides to live your lives. We do not ask for any money for this extraordinary service, just that you live by these guidelines:


Aquarius (1/20–2/18)

That business tip you're thinking of will pay off soon. Yes, that one. The one that Bob from Accounting told you about surreptitiously. Look what happened to him. He got rich, bought a boat. Don't you want that to happen to you? What are you, scared? Chicken.

Pisces (2/19–3/20)

(See Scorpio)

Aries (3/21–4/19)

Stay the course, persevere, and everything will turn out a-Ok! Remember that with a positive attitude you can achieve anything and- oh, wait, Aries? Hahahaha, we were thinking of Capricorn. Let's just look up Aries and.... oh.

Oh.

Well the important thing is that you're still alive.

Taurus (4/20–5/20)

Mars says that you should try for new love. Venus says that you've got a pretty thing going on now, so why screw it up? Saturn is undecided about this whole love business. And Jupiter is honestly just tired of hearing about your problems. Do you ever think about Jupiter's problems? Of course you don't. Insensitive bastard.

Gemini (5/21–6/21)

Remember, no matter what you think, that cop can probably run faster then you. I mean, he's had training and everything. No, your best bet is to sit tight and wait for legal counsel....

What do you mean you don't have a lawyer? I mean, I guess that's alright, that's what public defenders are for....

Well why didn't you tell us that you had that on your record? If we had known that, we probably would have told you to run in the first place.

You know what? You're on your own on this one.

Cancer (6/22–7/22)

You should probably stock up on garlic and crucifixes. Not that we're saying that there's going to be a vampire attack, but you should probably only go out in daylight from now on, if you get our drift.

Leo (7/23–8/22)

Today is not looking like a good day to take risks. Actually, let's just put a hold on that whole "risk-taking" think for a while and just try to make it through the day, alright? I think we'll all be a lot happier that way.

Virgo (8/23–9/22)

Have you ever noticed that people often use the word "penultimate" to simply mean "ultimate"? What a serious mistake. I mean, what would it be like if we tried doing that in your horoscope? "Today is the penultimate day of your life"? Doesn't that just sound silly?

Libra (9/23–10/22)

Stop that. No, seriously, stop it now. NO DON'T TOUCH THAT. Oh god you've screwed it all up.... NO DOING THAT WON'T MAKE IT BETTER. STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT. Really, just let us take over and try not to make things worse.

Scorpio (10/23–11/21)

(See Pisces)

Sagittarius (11/22–12/21)

Many other horoscopes make very vague predictions to that they can cover themselves. After all, when you think about it, it's impossible to make a single prediction that applies to each and every one of the hundreds of millions of people that were born in a specific monthly period.

So we're going to make a horoscope for one very lucky Sagittarius:

Jeff Neuhart of Ashtabula, Ohio: First of all, what were you thinking when you did that with Sally? We mean, come on man, she's married! You'd better hope that Richard doesn't find out, because we hear he's got a nasty temper.

So you should probably just try to play it cool for the next few days. Definitely don't go to the Sit'n'Spit for a while, because there's some bad blood there.

Oh, and if Richard reads this... Our Bad.

Capricorn (12/22–1/19)

Be sure to drink your Ovaltine.

Random Thoughts

A collection of random thoughts, starting from 7:41 on Tuesday, January 20 and ending at 8:36 on Wednesday, January 21
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The fact that Spider-Man’s name is hyphenated while superheroes like Superman and Batman don’t have hyphenated names throws me off. Sure, they’re from different universes, but there should be some sort of superhero naming consistency.

Speaking of superhero names, I have a burning desire to name a child of mine “Justice League Holm”. My kids are going to hate me.

I need a job designing trashy t-shirts or something, just so I could create creatively-offensive things for people to wear. Shell World would eat that shit up.

I am a huge fan of absurd fake names for things. “The Sultan’s Delight” is a great name for a lot of things, from sex positions to Indian food. Also “Most Honorable Test of the Shogun”.

In the future I believe that things should be given the same names just with “Space” in front of them, to sound more futuristic. I would not be ashamed to make a Space Poop in a Space Toilet.

Why does “XXX” stand for both alcohol and porn? Is there some sort of secret relation between the two? And what does it have to do with the number thirty?

I really like the Backstreet Boys’ “As Long as You Love Me”, but as either Erin or Sarah pointed out to me, the singer seems fairly desperate to overlook any flaws in the girl they’re singing too. Will you really not “care… what they did” if they burnt down a nunnery?

Sometimes I find myself unironically telling myself “no guts, no glory”, and have to remind myself that that’s from a shot glass.

There should be more people that refer to themselves in the 3rd person. It’s at once both kind of ego-boosting douchey and delightfully twisted in that “disconnected from reality” sense.

We should play Sharks and Minnows with harpoon guns sometime. No one would want to be a minnow, I guess.

I wonder if President Obama spent his first bit of alone time in the Oval Office just laughing and laughing. I know I would.

As willing as I am to put my thoughts on things up here on the Internet, I would never upload videos of myself ranting about nothing in particular onto YouTube. Depressingly, there are so many people that this makes me better than.

There should be some sort of tax on the usage of the term “epic fail”.

I am about to post this and wish I had more things up here. But then again I’m really tired.

I am going to blog about this SO HARD...

My stated goal for this blog was to write about whatever I felt like.

So what happens when I don't feel like writing about anything?

The problem is, of course, that it seems like a cheat to not write anything. Especially since I've taken that route out for two days (well I was really busy one day and the other my Internet was out but still). And technically I'm still being evaluated on the contents of this blog for school credit.

So what can I write about? Clearly creative stuff like "Jon Vimr Beat Me Up" requires me to be creative, which is a hard thing to force. I've something that I started writing already but got fairly bored with, simply because I'm having a hard time finding the voice of the characters. (I've had an idea for a continuing series of "[blank] Beat Me Up" posts, using increasingly harmless members of the swim team, but I don't want to wear on the impact of the original.)

The easiest thing to do is to blog about whatever's been happening in my life recently, but swimming is the dominating force of my recent life and I've blogged about that enough. Sure, there have been tempting moments, like when Findor assigns a real armpit of a set, I throw out "I'm going to blog about this SO HARD" as a fairly empty threat, but that's really just more of my friendly antagonism then anything else.

(Speaking of "friendly antagonism", I've been told from various people over the last half-year that my personality has changed a bit. This is clearly a result of my being more comfortable with my surroundings, being now a more senior presense at my job and on the Oberlin Swim Team. It allows me to be more forthwright with my opinions. My opinions are generally of the sarcastic, cynical kind. To those who know me, they know I'm kidding, but from people who are getting to know me, I come off as kind of a dick. It doesn't help that sometimes I'm shooting for "friendly antagonism" and overshoot a tiny bit.)

Of course I'm percolating ideas of things to blog about. Random thoughts, TV shows you should watch, maybe I'll even write about today's inauguration spectacular.

But all of that still leaves me out in the cold regarding any subject for today. I guess I could always blog about having nothing to blog about. But that seems like kind of a cop-out.

Re: Concepts That Should Be Revisited

(Again I am cribbing the title of this post from my previously-entered history for title bars. I like this conceit so much, I might just keep with it.)

We lost our internet for about 26 hours.

Human beings have existed on this planet for around 200,000 years. Compared to the 13.7 Billion years that our universe has existed, that is nothing (well, technically it's .00145% of the total time, if my math is correct, which it frequently isn't). A single day of human existence constitutes about .000000000002% (calculated again through my limited mathematical skills) of the total time of well, totality.

And yet those last 26 hours were probably among the longest days of my life. (The longest day of my life, as defined in a 24-hour period, took place on a bus to Florida last year. Sleeping on the floor of a bus is not fun. Failing to sleep on the floor of a bus is even less fun.) I am shamelessly addicted to the Internet. Not only does it provide me with news and information from all over the world, it gives me much more interesting and useless pieces of information like what photos my friends have appeared in recently or the fact that Batman died a few days ago.

As a college student, the Internet also plays a very important role in my life. It allows me to communicate with my professors, turn in assignments, comment on readings, research for papers, and more importantly for today, find out where and what I can eat (only one of the dining halls is open for Winter Term each week, and it rotates. It didn't rotate this week). College students rely on the internet so much that while reflecting on our predicament, I mused that a good social experiment would be to cut off Oberlin's internet during Finals Week and find out how long it takes for the students to burn the school to the ground. I'm betting about 3 hours.

The other difficulty is that I am by nature a fairly introverted person. I enjoy, if not relish my alone time and especially enjoy the fact that I have my room to myself this month. Though I love my teammates, I've seen them multiple times a day, every day, for the last two weeks. I lived with multiple other people for one of those weeks, with precious little time to myself. To put it lightly, Sunday afternoon and evening I was looking forward to spending a little bit of time alone.

And my Internet shut down.

To claim that the day was a disaster would be going too far. I spent more time with my teammates Sunday afternoon, having fun and being productive in the snow. Sunday evening I got non-Internet related things done, including some writing for this blog, watching TV shows I haven't seen in a while, beating several cases on Carmen Sandiego (though with my Internet gone I was unable to answer the almanac-based promotion questions), and reading some books. I made the best of my situation and I enjoyed myself.

So maybe I was exaggerating the severity of the situation. It was fun to make jokes along the lines of "well, you could E-MAIL something to us" to Mark Fino, and to bitch with my teammates over a shared problem (well, another shared problem other then the whole swimming thing).

But seriously. I need to stay on top of this whole Batman dying thing.

Re: Dash Hopes: Really that bad?

(The title of this entry is taken from my previously entered subject bar saved in Firefox. Apparently they feel that I may need to type the same title twice and should be spared any inconvenience in doing so.)

My lock is ganked.

A brief aside: I don't know where I first stumbled upon the term "ganked" as an alternative for the less polite "fucked up", but I've always wanted to use it. The only problem is that no one else would understand the term, so I've always held off on using it, until today.

Why is my lock so ganked? Well, thanks to the geniuses that are Oberlin's Resed Department, I have a short little story to tell.

It all happened in early October, back when the land was green and it was safe to go outside without falling into a snowbank and freezing to death. My dorm, Burton, was having a little cookout picnic with a few other dorms, and my roommate, Nick, was enjoying the brisk fall air and the pretty Oberlin campus.

When he returned to our room, he quickly realized that he lost his room key outside. Even worse, he realized that he had left his room key on the paper plate that he was enjoying his meal on, and that his key was now probably inside a trash bag.

After a probably disgusting time digging through the aforementioned trash bag searching for his key, Nick gave up hope of finding it forever. Instead, he did the unthinkable: he reported it to Oberlin Residential and Dining Services.

Let me explain this for a second: despite relying on Oberlin Resed for the last 2.5 years for my room and board, I have found them to be the least responsive, least helpful, least time-efficient organization on the entire Oberlin campus. And this is from a school where my professors sometimes forget to send me the assignments for my finals.

So of course Resed charges Nick the $60-esque dollars for a replacement key and lock. They then give him a spare key to the room so that he can you know, GET IN, between then and when they replace the lock.

So what happens? Does Resed do as they say will and replace the lock as soon as they promise (within the next week) or do they do nothing and let us sit on the problem?

Let's seriously take an educated guess at what happens.

About a month and a half later, on the second day of real snow in Oberlin, a cold November Tuesday (when I have class earlier in the morning), I get a text AND a voicemail from Nick that Resed has (finally) replaced our lock, leaving us LOCKED OUT OF OUR ROOM IN THE COLD AND SNOW.

Because the note that they helpfully left on our door indicates that Nick should go to Resed to get our new keys, Nick goes to Resed to get our new keys. Surprise, surprise, they don't have our keys. Instead Nick has to go down to the Security building to sign off on the new key. And since they only let Nick take HIS key, I also have to go down to the Security office to pick up my new key.

At this point in the story, it is important that you note that we both had keys to our room. Although Nick had the spare key that Resed kept in case of emergencies, we were both perfectly able to open our lock (which was installed well) and get into our room, and able to lock it afterwards to keep our valuables safe.

So when they FINALLY get around to replacing our door's lock, do you think they did a good job of it?

Of course not.

I get back to our room with a new key and a new lock in the door. The new lock is not fitted correctly into the door frame, and as a result it spins around when the key is not completely inserted into the lock. If it spins like this, it is impossible to lock or unlock the door.

At this point, let me assert that this is not the first time that I have had door problems. Oh, no. My freshman year at Oberlin, our door handle broke somehow and the knob would not turn effectively. As a solution, my roommate and I decided to keep the door so that the knob's jam was inside the door, so that as a result you would not have to turn the knob to open the door, but just push on it. It was an incredibly more efficient way of getting into the room, but only if you knew that the knob was completely useless. We of course reported this situation to our RA, but it was never fixed.

So this is my dilemma. Do I report the spinney-lock situation to my RA (an extension of Resed)? I know that if I do so, it will likely never get fixed. If it breaks on me, I believe I will have a worse situation on my hands because Nick and I never reported that they FUCKED UP fixing our lock (which was perfectly functional FOR A MONTH AND A HALF before they decided to 'fix' it) and they will charge us AGAIN for the lock-fixing. Either way results in much more hassle then dealing with an occasionally-spinning, non-functional lock.

So for now I have a lock that spins. But only when I don't insert the key the whole way.

Fantastic.

Jon Vimr Beat Me Up

I don't know why he singles me out, but he always does. This isn't the first time this has happened, and it won't be the last.

Some people say I bring it upon myself. That I'm just asking for it. That just simply isn't true. I swear, I'm just minding my own business. Then he strikes.

It was after practice this morning. After Findor demolished us heart and soul, when I had absolutely nothing left in me to fight back, that's when he struck. I had just hefted my medicine ball back on the rack and was headed towards the locker room when I heard that voice.

"Hey, Holm!"

Even before I turned around I recognized that voice. The voice I hear in my nightmares. I turned around and saw behind me the monstrous visage of Jon Vimr.

Vimr and his posse.

He glared at me, his water bottle in one hand and his goggles in the other. In the brightly lit hallway, his slightly tan chest shined like a beacon of death. His dark eyes flashed dangerously as he glared at me.

"Didn't I tell you not to come back here, Holm?"

I glanced around, looking for someone else in the area, someone to protect me. Big mistake. In my vain effort to find a savior, Vimr cleared the distance between us. He lifted his meaty hand, and in one smooth motion grabbed my shoulder and pushed me up against the wall. I felt his goggles pushing into my skin. He was so close to me now, I could smell the Gatorade on his breath.

"Look, Jon, I-" I stammered.

"SHUT UP!" He yelled. When he did, his voice broke its register: that's how I knew he was really mad. "I thought I told you never to show your face around here."

I tried to reason- oh God, I tried to reason. "Jon, I'm a member of the team too. I... I have to practice..."

He didn't like that at all. He threw his water bottle and screamed. "I DON'T CARE!" The bottle clattered nosily down the hallway, but to my chagrin, no one noticed and came to my rescue.

Evil personified.

His now empty hand clenched into a fist and launched itself into my gut. The force knocked the air from my lungs, and I slumped against the wall. Overcome by the earlier effort of swimming eight 200 FRIMs, I almost lost my breakfast, but I didn't want to give Vimr the satisfaction.

Suddenly he pulled his fist out and propped me up against the wall. I turned to see Mark Muthersbaugh walking cheerfully down the hallway away from the pool.

"Mark..." I whispered weakly. Jon's hand clamped down my shoulder like a vice. Wincing in pain, I shut up.

"Oh hey guys!" Mark said cheerfully, oblivious to my torment. "I'll see you at lunch, okay?"

Jon smiles and turns to Mark. "Yeah, sure." Mark entered the locker room, leaving me alone to my fate.

When the locker room door closes Vimr slapped me across the face. "You think you're clever, Holm? That little stunt will cost you."

The next five minutes were a blur of pain. When I could see straight again, Vimr stood above me, his almost-nude body covered in specks of my blood. He casually checked his hands and pulled one of my teeth out of his knuckles.

"If I see you here this afternoon, Holm, you're dead." With that he went into the locker room to wash off the evidence of his brutality.

I don't know what I'm going to do. None of the other swimmers believe me. They all love Vimr, and think he's just some nice guy. Mark Fino loves him, and will never believe me if I tell him the truth. The only one who knows Vimr's true nature is Eric Hardy, and we all know what happened to him.

I'm as good as dead.

Someone please stop this man before he kills again.