rant on rant on rant

I've done it again, I've waited millions of seconds since my last post, and it's costing me dearly. I'm gonna cut to the chase on this one:
1. back home
2. the ineptitude that is Starbucks
3. the Tebow phenomenon.

1. Two weekends ago I snuck home for a buddy's engagement party. Without addressing the partying, and the wine chugging, and the blowjobs (the shot, it's the shot, relax people), let me first say it was weird. Good, but weird (yes it's possible to be both). I live in Gainesville. I FEEL like I live in Gainesville. From the start, the apartment has felt like home (nod to mom and dad), so going back home to Montreal and being in THAT home is a sensation I've never experienced. I was somewhere that most definitely was my home, but wasn't my current residence, a residence which as stated, was very homey. Anyway, I got over it all. It's not difficult when reverting back to the shisha-brew combo within two hours of landing. And then bed at 7am. And then wake up at 10. And then breakfast. And then lunch withe the future groom. Some more beer. And then dinner with the future groom and wine and desert and wine and the bar and shots and beers and shots, all with the future groom.... and then when the perfect shisha-brew nightcap was within reach, passing out on my kitchen floor with three compatriots. Before ranting onto the next rant, let me just say this. In a delirium, one of my Kitchen Floor Compatriots got up, went to relieve himself, and proceeded to crawl into bed with my parents. That's it, that's the summary of my weekend. When someone you grew up with crawls into bed with your parents, and they barely bat an eyelash, you know your work is complete.

Side note: I flipped on the TV when I sat down to do this and Twilight was on. I'm amazed at the quality of writing and at some point later tonight, I'll ponder how I didn't think the acting was even better. I can't get enough of hte stuttering, droopy eyelids, and throaty whispers of "Bella, you need to stay away from me," and, "but Edward, I just need..." *eyelid flutter* "... answers."

2. Ok... I go into Starbucks maybe 10 times a week. It's not even fair, they put one IN the library. Not the "library" they have in Chapters, but like, the school library. A place that probably sees five to ten thousand unique students walk through its front door every day. It's not even fair.
OMG, Bella is the first one to notice there's something weird about Edward. SOMEONE GET THIS GIRL A SCHOLARSHIP TO DETECTIVE SCHOOL.
Ok, back to the important stuff. Suffice to say I'm in Starbucks a lot and I get to observe them A LOT. I've noticed a few problems....
First, I get it, Starbucks is for hipsters. Granted, non-hipsters go there (nod to the West Island), but that fricken place was designed by someone from The Plateau (nod to my Montrealers). But even so, that doesn't give them the right to change the names of the sizes of drinks; Tall, Grande, Venti.
Now this guy http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071217051431AAwi31y
has the best technical answer. And I'd like to echo what he's saying in a more irate way.
The sophistication.... I DON'T NEED IT. I only overpay for coffee cause there's nothing else around. (Omg, Edward just told Bella she's his own personal brand of Heroin. Somebody get me a fucking valium). And to borrow a term from Bill Simmons, the seemingly limited intellectual capital of those working the cash is taxed to the maximum when I ask for a medium coffee (I refuse to speak Italian).
Here's a sample conversation when I order a medium, including my, and their thoughts:
Me: Hi, I'd like a medium coffee, please.
Cashier: Uhhhhh *quizzical look* wuh... medium... Medium (dammit, 1... 2... 3... no that's not it.... A....B....shit, that's not it either.... small, medium, large, yes, YES. Ok so small is the smallest, so that's like our smallest too, cause they're both the smallest. So small is like.... TALL. YES. ok. no. he didn't want a small, wait. Tall? shit. Ok he said medium, so that's next. after small that is. Shit, I can't even THINK with proper punctuation. Ok so medium is next, so that's ourrrrr.....COME ON..... grande.yes.grande is medium..... Wait, grande means large. I know fucking Italian. So what's medium. Well Grande seems bigger than Tall. K, so he probably ordered a tall).
Great! Medium coffee, that'll be $2.25
Me: thanks *smile* (what, the, hell.....)
Invariably, I get served a small coffee.

omg omg omg omg, Bella just "met the parents" for the first time. They just cooked and used their kitchen for the first time JUST FOR HER. And they have a tree growing out of the floor. THIS IS THE BEST MOVIE EVER.

Second, the limited intellectual capital of the managers, or whoever invented the strategy for dealing with rush times. It obviously gets busy quite often, so they need a strategy operated by a well-oiled machine to deal with it, day in, day out. Right?

omgomgomg.
Bella: *looking up at his CD collection numbering in the tens? maybe twenties* oh my God, you have, like, so much music. LOLOLOLOLOLOL. Cue the .mp3 player and 2010. Thank you

Anyway, well-oiled machine. Right. So, typically they have anywhere from 2 to 8 people working at once. That's one problem. When it gets REALLY busy, they try to be cute and "streamline" the operation. You know, do something clever to make it go faster. So there's one person at the cash, great. One person making hot drinks (remember this, at a coffee shop, O-N-E person making hot drinks), one person putting whipped cream on cold drinks, and one cake-getter/surface wiper. Now, the best part. They have someone walk through the line that's constantly snaking out the front door asking people what they want. Once they get this "advanced order" they walkie-talkie that shit back to someone standing between the cashier and the hot-drink-maker who writes the order on the cup. On the surface, seems legit. NOT.
The person maybe radios in 5 drinks for every 1 the hot drink maker can make.
EDWARD'S ABOUT TO KISS BELLA.
.......

Anyway, this leads to the inevitable pile-up of unmade drinks at the hot-drink maker station, and the scrum of people crowding around that little fake window drink-outlet aperture; as if to say "this is like a fast food window but we're not fastfood, we serve ventis, bitch."
This never works since I think they take the worst candidate from every round of hiring and stick them on as the hot-drink maker. Anyway, fiasco every time I want my Tall Soy Skinny Caramel Macchiato with extra whip cream. Ok I don't order that shit (much), but I have to hear them call out every drink title every time they finish making one (like it's some sort of achievement proclamation to the world) along with miss-pronouncing all the foreign names that pass through.

HA! Edward is meeting Papa Bella. WHATCHU KNOW ABOUT TAKIN IT TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

Finally, last problem. But this is something I'm working on and I think I've made progress. If I pay, and my change comes in the form of coins AND bills, please don't make a little origami boat with the dollar bill and put the coins in it like little sailors. Coins go in the and first, then hand the bills to me. I don't want surfing nickels riding the George Board in my palm. I give you money, you give me coins, then bills. No monkey business.

3. The Tebow thing. I don't have the energy for this. Saving it for tomorrow.

-The Mtl Gator

P.S. I wish I could stay here and play-by-play the rest of Twilight. They just played Vampire Baseball, Edward saved a home run. Some bad vampies showed up. Bella's running away and is hurting her father to protect him from the bad vampies. You couldn't even make this shit up.

oh, another one?

If someone were to write a biography about me right this minute and began working backwards from the present day only to get board after two weeks worth of material, the book would be titled "Farid Medleg: Social Glutton." Not for any excess in partying, texting or phone calls, but simply because every second thing I do seems to be tied to some social network. Some would say, "duh, asshole, half the world is on Facebook or Twitter pretty much the entire day."

But that's not it (granted, I don't so much "sign on" to Facebook as I leave it open so that my 15-minute wall-check is that much easier).... I just feel like in an age dominated by a select few social networks, I seem bombarded with new ones every day. I guess I'm not helping my case; I've watched The Social Network four times in two months, I'm reading a book about Facebook (with one about Google waiting on the shelf), I have a Facebook account, a Twitter account, a Google+ account, and most recently a Geekli.st account. The worst part? I feel like each has their purpose, and yet the only one I use with any real consistency is Facebook.
So what gives?
What's the purpose of a social network if you have four of them?

Well, upon not-so-close inspection, I've come to quickly realize it's because they're all awesome. Well, the ones that get popular anyway. And not awesome in the a-lightsaber-can-cut-through-anything kind of way, but awesome in that genuinely chest thumping, somewhat awe inspiring kind of way. Now before anyone eye-rolls so much they can see their brain, I ask you this: how often does something come around that so profoundly aligns so many millions of people at the same time. Aside form social networks, I challenge you to find more than 5 things created in the last century that can get a billion people to do the same thing within 24 hours. I'm having difficulties.

And the best part, I think save a few Silicon Valley denizens, none of us know exactly what social networks are capable of. Sure they can do so much now; message, comment, post pictures/videos/websites, program, play games, sign onto Xbox, even online shop. But I can't help but think that's just the beginning. When PCs hit the market, did you expect to be able to play interactive games with people all around the world? When you got your first email account way back when, did you think that a company called Google would create Gmail where you could send files bigger than your entire hard drive at the time? When you got your first cell phone, did you think one day you'd be able to surf the internet simply by touching the glass surface of a telephone? When you first learned about the internet, did you think one day you'd be able to do groceries, shop for clothes, and find a husband or wife using it? To this question and the ones before, I say "no". I don't even think Mark Zuckerberg totally conceived of what Facebook is doing today when he launched it seven years ago.

So to all the new social networks I say "Welcome. If you're not useful now it's only a matter of time before someone makes you useful."

-Montreal Gator

The First Week: never doing this again?

So I needed to figure out a way of starting this thing tonight, because there's too much swirling through my mind. (I also need to find another word to begin my sentences with; there's got to be a grammar book out there somewhere that disagrees with "so").
I thought an appropriate way would be to begin with something that totally disagrees with my theme of the week: something I'll definitely repeat in the future --> cheerios with a wooden spoon. You see, you need to keep the O's at the front of the spoon because your oral cavity (ew) is not deep enough (ew) to fit the whole thing in (that's what she said). That challenge alone is enough to merit another experience. Also, the identical color of the spoon and the cheerios makes it so that, if you cross your eyes, you think you're eating cheerios with a spoon made of cheerios! (Or that you're eating a bowl full of wooden spoons with said wooden spoon.)
Seconds please!

Anyway, I digress. Back to more important things like the apartment. I'd like to introduce you all to Furniture Piece #2: Floor Lamp. Floor Lamp was purchased as a compliment to the dark furniture I planned on..... DAMMIT.

Ok. Theme of the week: "never doing this again" There are many things I don't think I'll ever repeat. Let's start with not blogging for 5 days after moving to a new city. When you lack human contact beyond curt nods, even the monotonous waiter who doesn't know the difference between a gluten free meal and one that's low in calories seems like Steve Irwin; eating fish for dinner feels like you're LIVING an episode of Shark Week; even taking the bus feels like a Disney adventure. My standards have definitely been lowered. That being said, I feel like I have too much to write about. I hope I meet some REALLY exciting people to readjust my metric for awesomeness.

Next thing I'll never do again: move into a second floor apartment and buy a 6000 pound couch. Nope, never again, not ever. Not even if you paid me in over-inflated gold. "Just rent a Uhaul," they said. "We'll hold it for 30 days," they assured me.
Oh. My. Gosh. How gracious of them to let me transport my own couch!
I'll remember them forever.
Here are the thoughts that went through my head, you tell me if they make sense:
1. Purchase the couch, have the store hold it.
2. Rent a Uhaul with the parents, pick it up ourselves.
3. Rent an appliance dolly (extended handles). Allllll goood right?
4. Roll it up the stairs on the dolly, and then just get mom and dad to help me turn it sideways to get it through the door.
Airtight.
Foolproof.
Guaranteed.
No worries, mate.
Right?





WRONG. More wrong than Christopher Walken at an elementary school.
(just kidding, I love that guy).

Idea #1 was fine, and so was idea #2. It's at idea #3 things started to go wrong. The dolly sucked. Oh look, a perfect segway into idea #4: you know what also sucks? The stairs and railing outside my door. The only way to get the couch at an angle able to go through the door was to suspend it 18 feet in the air over the railing (under which REAL humans walk every day!). Not to mention having to do so with arms extended, ligaments tearing, and heart exploding.

Don't worry, enthralled readers. I was spared this agony, and the eventual death it would have led to, by an angel. A guardian angel. A Peruvian guardian angel. A Peruvian guardian angel sporting six-pack abs, a barrel chest, and biceps for days. Not only did he walk by at the EXACT moment we opened up the Uhaul and offer to help move EVERYTHING, he did so wearing only pyjama pants. Now don't get the wrong impression ladies, he's unavailable because of a relationship and a child, not because I have a crush on him (although it may sound like it). But I will have you know, walking around flashing your guns automatically signs you up for "Team Help-Farid-Move-The-Couch". And move the couch we did! However, let's get one thing clear: it was NOT all butterflies and puppies and Aladdin coloring books. We did so with blood, sweat, and a few tears. The couch did, for a moment, hang over that spot where people walk, I now have carpal tunnel syndrome, and I believe The Angel has leather burns on his palms. But the couch now sits comfortably behind me none the worse for wear, INSIDE the apartment. I sincerely believe that if an angel hadn't descended from apartment 84 at that exact moment, the focal point of my living room would be sitting on the grass outside for all to enjoy.

You may have noticed I've metioned my parents a few times as if they're close by. THEY ARE. They got here Monday!!! WOOOOOOOOHHOOOO!
BRAP!
BRAP!
BRAP!
That leads me to another thing I'll never do again: move away from home without immediately bringing them with me. The obvious question you're all thinking right now: Farid, what the hell are you talking about? Let me explain.
I flew to Gainesville Wednesday, August 10th. They arrived Monday, August 15th. In the five days before they got here, what did I accomplish? I bought a shower curtain with frogs on it; I bought a bendable hamper and got hit in the face with it; I bought a wooden spoon as my first utensil.
What's been done since they got here? The entire apartment is now fully furnished (including assembly), the kitchen is fully stocked (cupboards and fridge), bank/phone/internet have all been set up.
Conclusion: I make a better tourist than I do resident/I'm a wandering space cadet and my parents are Houston, Ground Control.

In other news: It was Papa Saad's birthday yesterday! What did we do to celebrate, you ask?
We assembled furniture.

Perfect.

But seriously, having them down here is a blessing. After the novelty of living out of a hotel room off bar food wore off, the bare walls in my apartment and a serious lack of friends started to suck. Not having to leave all of home behind all at once is probably my salvation at this point. If it wasn't for them, this apartment would have never fixed itself and this place wouldn't feel like a home. Let's just say they're making this transition logistically, and more important, emotionally bearable.
Mom, Dad, you're welcome to sleep on my couch anytime.

That being said, check out this cool restaurant we went to tonight. It's a better version of the failed Zyng on Sources.




On a very serious note, I apologize for the formatting of this page, photos and all. These pictures are more stubborn than an Amish on the threshold of a Best Buy.

What else have I done this week? About four or five orientations, all of them boring (but I must admit, quite informative). I've accumulated a Dwight Howard-size stack of paper made up of bank statements, warranties, pamphlets, and receipts from every furniture and hardware store in Gainesville. (Nice reference, I know) Git'r'done. Ummmmmm..... I've sweat a lot? Yah, until the storms yesterday, the humidex pushed the mercury up to 44 celsius. I'm glad I'm here for school during a time when it gets "cold". Speaking of cold, the International Student website advises all students that winter clothing is appropriate as temperatures have been known to drop to 5 or 10 degrees celsius in winter. Brrrrrr.
Fuck off.
Look for me in Bermudas on the 9th hole in January.

That being said, goodnight to you all. I'll probably post some melancholic, philosophically insightful piece Sunday night. It'll only be fitting as I start class Monday morning and that sort of thing just seems appropriate. In the meantime, check out these dope-ass pictures of my campus. Whenever it gets too cold this winter, just scroll back and pretend you're here.

-Montreal Gator

Fountain behind J. Wayne Reitz Union building

Bell Tower - the bell rings every 15 minutes and chimes tunes in line with the weather. More on that later.

Booya. That is all.

Florida Gym - College of Health and Human Performance, my home for the next 2 years.

THE SWAMP - home of the Gators, and importantly, next door to my department.

There are people scattered throughout this picture, can you figure out which ones are real? Not all of them are.

The first ever tablet PC. And you thought the iPad was revolutionary.

This wasn't on campus. It was actually taken behind a Target. Less glamorous, but still pretty.