Thursday, September 30, 2010

You Scream, I Scream: The Ice Cream Oscars

The cafeteria here at Asbury generally offers up a wide selection of ice creams, from pineapple sherbet, to mint chocolate chip, to pineapple sherbet. Thanks to supplier Blue Bell Creameries, the Café features as many as three different flavors of ice cream daily. "But how do we choose from all of these ice creams," many cry out, "it all just looks so good!" Well, that's why I'm here, ladies and gents.

Yes, for the benefit of you, the reader, I ventured into the dark underworld of ice creams over the past week; the best flavors, the ones you want to stay far away from. It's all here thanks to science and hard-hitting, objective journalism. I gained four pounds this week - you're welcome.

Before we begin, however, it should be noted that I only judged flavors which have made an appearance in the cafeteria over a given week (my apologies to strawberry cheesecake) and based my decisions upon several criteria: flavor, texture, creaminess, how good it tastes, iciness, appearance, deliciousness, bouquet, and taste bud pleasingness. I then plugged my quantified scores into a sophisticated and nondisclosable formula, yielding our winners which will be awarded with an ice cream cone statuette, called an "Icee", in a ceremony appearing on Food Network.

Let us start off with The C-Student Award, for "The Best Average Flavor of Ice Cream"; this includes such normal flavors as vanilla and chocolate - you know, the real plain Janes of the ice cream world. There were only a pair of contenders this week as, in a head-to-head duel with strawberry, French vanilla emerged victorious. Both flavors were delicious, but the loser was just a little too excellent to take home the honor this time.

Next up is the Golden Pecan Award for "The Best Potentially Lethal Ice Cream." This category, admittedly, was a bit hard to judge considering I am allergic to pecans. This was made even worse by the fact that ice creams and their ingredients frequently go unlabeled, so on more than one occasion I didn't have my EpiPen handy when trying a new flavor housing a hidden pecan and almost died. Unfortunately for me, this category boasted the most entrants and was the most consistently featured on the show floor. Among the candidates were fudge brownie nut, buttered pecan, and numerous other hostile creations. Many were surprisingly good, many were not, but all gave me that familiar itch in my throat that assured me I was tasting a true pecan. That being said, Southern Hospitality is delicious and made my esophagus swell up the least, so this ensemble cast of ingredients takes home the gold. For medical reasons, however, this will be the first and last time I judge this category.

The Delsym Cough Syrup Award for "The Ice Cream Which Best Exhibits the Taste of Grape-Flavored Medication" goes to Rum Raisin! One spoonful of this evil concoction, this indescribably putrid substance was enough to make me want to give up living; I had flashbacks of choking down that purple crap when I was sick - oh, lord... I can't even think about it. Moving on...

The Pretty Pineapple Award for "Best Ice Cream Featuring Pineapple in a Supporting Role" - this seemingly small niche in the ice cream world gets a ridiculously disproportionate amount of room in the freezer, and, just as in the battle for the Pecan, this too was hotly contested. However, one ice cream stood a cone above the rest, as no other contestant containing the tropical fruit could stand up to, once again, the might of Southern Hospitality.

The Sure-Bet Sherbet Award for "Best Sherbet" goes to Rainbow Sherbet, because, well, it shouldn't be pineapple.

Finally, the coveted Yoko Ono Award for "Lifetime Achievement in Being Hated" goes to... drumroll, please... pineapple sherbet! Believe it or not, some people gagged down Rum Raisin, but I think the collective might of the hundreds of students who frequent the Café could hardly stomach one gallon of this ridiculous flavor (let alone the two that are customarily offered). Congratulations, your hard work in consistently breaking the hearts of sweet-toothed students desiring real ice cream has finally removed from us all hope for a better tomorrow. Thank you, pineapple sherbet!

Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Halo, Goodbye: Deleted Scenes

The "stinky chicken incident" concerns the slow and unnoticed rotting of a chicken breast in the mini-fridge of my dorm room. On one of my first few days here at Asbury, I was greeted by someone holding a bowl full of chicken. "If you guys want some, there's like forty pieces downstairs in the kitchen." Literally, too, as I would find out. He offered me a morsel. "Well, it's not terrible, and I am in college so I can't be too picky."

I made my way to the kitchen, opened the fridge and saw chicken as far as the arm could reach. There was a large aluminum pan (the kind you bake like half a dozen turkeys in) filled to the brim with white, unseasoned meat, swimming in their own fluids. Yum. Why did I even take this stuff in the first place?

As you may have guessed, I didn't exactly gobble up the four delectable blobs I took back to the room with me. After a few days, only one solitary breast remained... and it sat there undisturbed for three weeks. My roommate and I had discussed throwing the amorphous lump (and whatever was growing on it) out for days, but I finally gave in when he offhandedly mentioned that the fridge smelled. Now, keep in mind we are freshmen guys living together; when something noticeably stinks to us, that is a terrible sign.

I peeled back the Tupperware lid ever so gently -  I wanted a good whiff before I threw its contents into the trash. "Whoa." My roommate begged me to get that junk out of the room and to never open that around another human being again. "Dude, smell this," I demanded others on my hall. After making everyone around me nauseous, I went to apologize to the person from whom I had borrowed the container. "Uh, I don't think you want this back." He didn't.

I tossed the container (now with the label "HAZARDOUS MATERIALS") some distance into the garbage can and the lid popped right off. "No, no, no, no, no!" I took a deep breath and ran over to lock the stench into its resting place, but, alas, the chicken had poured out into the trash. "God, I will never do a bad thing for as long as I live if you miracle this chicken back into that box." I waited a moment and nothing. I was already clothed in the reek of farty, rotten eggs and had to take action; I shoved my hand into the bag and placed the foul thing back where it belonged, snapping the lid shut as fast as my greasy hands could muster. All I remember afterwards is alternating between washing my hands til they pruned, dry heaving, and holding a fragrant candle under my nose. I'll never look at a chicken or a breast the same way again.

Halo, Goodbye

After writing my first column for the Collegian, I was asked by my editor if I wanted to continue contributing to the paper on a weekly basis (this will forever be known as "Bruner's Folly"). "Wow, these guys must be in some dire straits," I thought. "But I really like this, so why not?" Upon accepting, I cemented my place as whatever the heck I am for the rest of... eternity? I don't know; not really sure on the timeframe. However, afterwards, I did have an unnerving thought: what if I run out of ideas? Would I be fired? Dumped in a drainage ditch and left for dead? "Nah, that'll never happen," I reassured myself. Well, I am now out of ideas, and may God have mercy on my soul.

I mean, I could have written about getting thrown out of two dressing rooms this past weekend or the stinky chicken incident, but who would want to read that? No one, that's who - and certainly not a respectable college student like you, who only reads hard news and the obituaries. After all, this is a humor column, not a place to be silly.

I need some inspiration, something interesting, something... Oh, I give up. "God, please help me to think of something funny to write about; I don't want everyone to realize what a fraud I am, not yet," I would plead. "I am willing to be the butt of your divine joke, just let me live to write about it." Well, uh, I guess I got my wish.

As many of my readers of the male persuasion likely know, Halo: Reach was released last week to critical acclaim, financial success and much hullabaloo from dorks like myself. I pre-ordered the final addition to the franchise and ensured that it would arrive in my CPO box on the day of release, Tuesday the 14th.

This day finally came and was greeted with much excitement; finally, a real excuse to skip class. I waited ever so patiently until my courses were finished for the day, and headed back to the dorm to put away my books (I wouldn't be seeing them for a while). "Man the battle stations!" I bellowed down the dark hallway. Wait, dark hallway? Yep, the power was out. That's right, a no-Halo, Facebook-offline, peeing-in-the-dark power outage.

I went to sulk at a piano in McCreless, thinking of all the fun being had by 12-year-olds across the world that I was being denied because some guy at Kentucky Utilities didn't quite get the whole "don't put your finger in a light bulb socket" thing. I raced through the five stages of grieving half a dozen times as I choked back thoughts of the Covenant armada laying waste to so many Spartans.

After I came back around to "acceptance" for the seventh time, I left the poorly-lit room to find that electricity had been restored! I squealed with ecstasy as I marched - nay, paraded! - gleefully to CPO. I glance at the clock on my cell phone: "Ah, half-past four, that's more than enough time to beat the first level before dinner! Look out world, I'm a man on a mission! I've got a plasma rifle and I'm not af - wait, 4:30... But, but CPO closes at four. No."

A cloud hung in the air above me for just a few moments before releasing a torrent of self-loathing and depression squarely onto my head. I literally held in my hand the golden ticket, and Willy Wonka just shut down the choclate factory. Well, until tomorrow that is, but who has time for patience nowadays? Not me, that's for sure.

Anyway, to make a long conclusion short - I may or may not have broken into CPO (spoiler: I didn't) and Reach may be the worst thing to happen to my GPA since the invention of the pop quiz. So, what's the moral of the story? You guessed it: don't leave an old chicken breast in your refrigerator for three weeks. Seriously, it smells like rotten eggs.

Merciless: TellMeWhy We Use TellMeMore

A foreign language is something everyone should learn; you know, just in case you find yourself stranded in Latin or if you want to graduate or whatever. Heck, some people learn a new language just for the fun of it, like to expand their horizons or something (these people are called nerds). Anyway, here at Asbury most of the classes in this field utilize TellMeMore, an "award-winning language learning software". TellMeMore is a splendid program for anyone looking to learn and use a new language... until you get to the speech recognition activities. The objective of these lessons is to assist users in pronunciation; in theory, this should leave the student with a better understanding of the general flow, sound, and cadence of foreign phrases. In practice, however, the student leaves with intracranial bleeding, homicidal tendencies, and low self-esteem.

I began my first TellMeMore lesson in the computer lab, stationed between two unfortunate students probably working on something very important. After much downloading, installation, and shouting, I was allowed to access the speech "recognition" portions of the lesson. "Thank God", I thought naively, "now that the hard part is over, I can finally begin learning!" The activity started out easy enough: say the ABC's in French. "Ah, bay, say..." Oh, yea, I got this! I'm king of the world - I'm Napoléon Bonaparte, baby! I make my way through the entire lesson with only four or five bits of trouble, and proceed to finish the rest of the assignment with the intention of coming back at the end. I returned first to "E-F-G", apparently an initialism for "Everyone Fails Gruseomely." After dozens of fruitless attempts, I give up and move on to the next set, "H-I-J-K-L". No luck. "T-U-V"? Apparently my hillbilly accent wasn't quite getting through, as the program wasn't even registering that I was saying the right letters. Then, somewhere in my tiny brain, I thought a thought that was so good I almost imploded with thoughtfulness: I was going to turn TellMeMore against itself!

I drew out a blueprint of how everything was going to go down, it was so simple: I would start TellMeMore on an additional computer and open up my current assignment; then I would simply click record on one computer and play on the other. The program would say the words to itself through the other headset and into my microphone. Genius! I cracked my knuckles and readied my things to head back to the dorm; it was all going to be over soon. Wait... what's this? "I don't understand you," you say? How can this be? You're the one saying it! The situation seemed hopeless, but, as Napoléon said, "impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools."

I grew weary over the next few hours; stubble had spread across my manly chin and my eyes were bloodshot. "Tay, eww, vay..." I whimpered into the mic - incorrect. "Why have you forsaken me?" After exhausting all possible French pronunciations, I sarcastically say it in English: "tee, you, vee," and I hear quite an unfamiliar sound. "Correct"? And it works for "E-F-G", too? Oh, somebody pinch me! I get to "H-I-J-K-L" and begin in English, but mess up at the end: "Aitch, eye, jay, kah - ahh, crap." Ding! (Yep, that's right - "crap" is the proper pronunciation of the French "L".) Now it was time for the final boss of the activity: I had to answer an apparently dim-witted Frenchman's question of how to spell "merci". "M-E-R-C-I, merci," I responded with enthusiasm. Alas, my strategy did not work here; it didn't matter if I said it in English, French, or screamed. Other students wanting to shut me up and get me out of the lab pitched in to no avail. I repeated the phrase literally over one hundred times in as many accents as I could think of (Schwarzenegger? Brando? Barney the dinosaur? None of them worked) before I finally heard the blessed ding. And there was much rejoicing. "TellMeMore," the official website claims, "is the most effective way to learn a language." Yea, if you're not driven to suicide by the end of lesson one.

Welcome to the Writer's Block

An alarm clock screams across the halls of Johnson, waking an anxious young man from his slumber. He wipes the sleep from his eyes and is filled with a sudden excitement, knowing that today is the day he begins college classes... This is not his story.

Over on Second Naked (a name I am beginning to understand more and more), I am jolted awake by a sudden fear, almost as if my body sensed imminent death and tried kicking itself awake. I glance over at my phone, barely making out the time of 7:46. Having an 8 o' clock class, this concerned me a bit. How I remember the following sequence of events: feet meet the floor; brush teeth; heart palpitations; pants; belt; shirt... does this one match? Will this make me look fat? Oh, why was I cursed with a sense of style!? This is no time to match, I'm about to be late for French - sacrebleu!

Upon finalizing my T-shirt decision, I make my way to my first ever big boy class. It was uneventful enough; however, I was so out of it I could barely speak English, let alone French. "Je m'appelle Zack! Ho, ho, ho!" I whisper to myself in a thick accent on the way back to the dorm. I swipe my student ID, and... denied. Once more, denied. Banging on the door produces no results, no help from inside. Fantastic, now I'll probably have to pay a fine to get my card replaced; that combined with the $83 I just spent on a workbook - that I won't be able to return! - ensures that I'll be eating nothing but Top Ramen this semester. Oh, my aching wallet. I peer around for a kind soul to ferry me into the dorm when I realize I am not where I thought I was. Trustees has a big wooden swing in front of it, this building did not. I begin to slowly back away. "Ha ha, whoops!" I say to no one. With as much machismo as I can muster, I casually strut to my actual housing and, upon shutting the door, collapse in a pile of embarrassment. It's gonna be some year, huh?

A fly latches its tiny mandibles delicately onto my hotdog, probably excreting some disgusting insect vomit onto my once promising bratwurst. "Get off," I tell the vile beast. He probably didn't hear me, so I shout again, "Go away!" Still no movement. "Okay, fine, just eat it, eat all of it; it's yours." Promptly, the bug takes flight never to be seen again. First, he spits on my hotdog and then in my face - what a jerk. I finish my dinner and rise up from my grassy seat to continue the adventure that is the co-curricular fair. (I really needed a break after doing all that walking and candy eating.) Oh, look, an educational tour of Greece! Sign me up! Men's glee club? Absolutely! Mentoring underprivileged youth in inner-city Lexington? You bet. What's that? "Feed the pygmy elephants"? I love pygmy elephants! By the end of the event I had registered for sixteen mission trips, thirty-three clubs, something called "The Collegian", and I'm actually pretty sure I adopted a third-world child. Okay, so maybe I got into a little too much, but that's what college is all about, right? Experiencing new things, venturing outside your comfort zone, and just plain having fun. Plus, I'm only taking seventeen credit hours, so what could it hurt?

I am now in my third week of "higher education" and, having already lost my roommate to bedbugs, I find myself alone in my room wondering just how in the world I'm going to juggle everything: all of my classes, my Zimbabwean son Chamakomo (who, oddly, refuses to eat the Café food), and being this ridiculously good-looking. But, somehow, I'll make it. After all, there will always be a job waiting for me at McDonald's.