Late Friday night, I went bowling with a group of my Brothers. We knocked down the pins at Vigo Bowl – nice bowling alley, really shady neighborhood. As we were entering, a crazy woman drove by and yelled nonsensical obscentities at us. Minufo responded in kind, but the rest of us hurried inside, not wanting to find out if irate Hautians pack heat. Once inside, we played several games, watched the NHL Super Skills Challenge, and had an overall good time. Upon departure, we trekked to IHOP for some late night cheesecake and shakes. Healthy, no? I’ve still yet to eat pancakes at IHOP. From there we returned to the House, only to find a party going on. (Did I say party? I meant casual gathering. Yeah, that’s it…)

Despite how I feel about drunken parties, this one seemed almost appealing to me. I decided to relax for a few minutes before doing anything else, so I sat down in my desk chair. Big mistake. I didn’t think that I was tired enough to fall asleep in my chair at 1:00 a.m., but reality proved me wrong. The next thing I know, it’s 3:00 a.m., and I’ve just awoken with a jolt when Will, my little bro, walked into the room. I had a strange recollection of Perenic asking me for a ride to IHOP, but it seemed like a hazy dream. Giving such matters no further thought, I brushed my teeth and went to bed.
Later on Saturday, several people commented that I was “completely out of it” Friday night. Curious, I got a first-hand account from my roommate, Minufo. It turns out that Perenic and others had come into my room at about 2:00 a.m. looking for sober people to drive a bunch of drunks to IHOP. Apparently, they tried waking me up. I became semi-concious, stuck in a delerious stupor. I’m told that I mumbled giberish for a while, refused to drive, then agreed to drive, all while maintaining minimal control of my extremities. I even stood up and was about to leave, still rubbing my eyes to vanquish the cataplexy. At this point, Minufo stood up for my best interests and said that I shouldn’t drive anywhere, especially since I had returned from IHOP not two hours prior. The possy left, and I sat down, returning to my blissful slumber.

I was doing MSYS (Mechanical Systems for you Non-Rose people) in my room not but a few hours ago, when I heard the soft serinade of a TV sitcom coming from Dzwonek’s room. Every so often, the show would be punctuated by laughter. “Boy,” I thought, “must be a funny show!” Oddly, the laughs sounded strangely familiar. Of course the sitcom had a laugh track, a device shrouded in mystery and secrecy. Wanting to discover who laughs, ye-haws, and chortles for the Several shows, I did some research into the matter. That, or I was desperate for a topic to post about, seeing as how I haven’t commented in almost a week.

It seems that most of the laughs in use today found their virgin utterance on the sets of I Love Lucy or The Red Skelton Show. Both shows had live audiences and numerous sight gags, causing frequent laughter with little dialogue. Red Skelton’s show was particularly apt for laugh recording — he would do pantomine skits almost weekly. Think that shows would be better without laugh tracks? Try watcing Cartoon Network’s new versions of classic Flintstones episodes, which lack a laugh track, and compare with the original version: the original is funnier. (Source)

It’s been a busy few days. My Fraternity held Initiation last night. It went well, and now my little bro is a full Active. Woohoo!

Sorry, no witty rants today. However, I would like to share a solution to a computer problem I had: If you own a Philips CDRW800 drive – model PCRW804 – and have noticed that CD’s burn slowly when using 80 minute blanks, I found a solution: Update the firmware! Of course, this turned out to be easier said than done. One would think that the Philips website would have the update. Sadly, that is not the case. I searched high and low for the firmware update, but met not but failure. That is, untill I happened upon some random French site. There I found it, and here I mirror it for the rest of the world to use.

It’s been about a month since I debuted the ‘New’ Keacher.com, and in celebration, I’ve decided to post my resume. If you’re looking to hire a bright, computer-guru Electrical Engineering student, I’m your best choice. I will make a valuable addition to you company’s team.

Nature seems to have found its way into my room at the Fraternity House. A small black bird somehow appeared in the room while I was in class. Apparently, Minufo is deathly afraid of birds, and was rolled in a little ball panicking while Dave shooed the feathered beast outside. That happened Monday. Today, I came back from class, opened my door, and was greeted by a black avis [see below] darting over the couch. I was able to snap a photo before it darted away. If you can identify it, I would be greatly appreciative.

Regarding the word ‘avis’: there is disagreement about its meaning in the online dictionary world. I got the word from the MS-Word thesaurus but decided to check the meaning on Dictionary.com. I was a bit surprised to find a definition of ‘Advice; opinion; deliberation.’ when I was expecting something related to winged flying things. Now unsure of myself, I checked the Encarta online dictionary. A search for ‘avis‘ returned no results, so I tried ‘aves.’ Once again, no definition, but to my surprise, one of the suggested alternate words was ‘avis.’ Now thouroughly confused, I made a stop at Merriam-Webster. To my delight, a search for avis returned an entry for rara avis, with a given meaning of ‘rare bird.’ Confident that ‘avis’ is a synonym for ‘bird,’ I proceded to finish writing this entry. Moral of the story: sometimes even dictionaries should eat crow.

Apparently, I’m out of the loop. Back on Friday, I noticed a sign on U.S. Highway 41 (a.k.a. Wabash Avenue) that had significant damage and a number of adjacent tire tracks. It was obvious that someone had done a little unintentional off-roading, though I didn’t think much of it. Coincidentally, Doug, one of my Fraternity Brothers, wasn’t in class that day. I thought it an odd day to skip, for we had an MSYS [Mechanical Systems, somewhat like dynamics] test to take. Jump forward to today (Monday): I was sitting in the Commons, killing some time, when I noticed Doug was doing homework that had been due Friday. I ribbed him for skipping class, a joke that quickly went sour when he indicated that his car was no more. It turns out that the accident happened Thursday night. That’s right: it took me three and a half days to get the skinny.

Doug showed me pictures of the car, the sign, and the skid marks. The story goes that he sweved to avoid a rapidly braking car, had the tail slide out, over-corrected, and left the road, taking out a park direction sign and damaging an age-old Clabber Girl baking powder billboard. The park sign, being made of the green-sign-on-two-metal-poles variety, yielded rather quickly. The Clabber Girl billboard was another story. Built of thick wooden beams and anchored with metal braces to cement feet, the structure stood fast against the oncoming Cougar. The sign lost a foot. The machine lost its form. Has the car breathed its last? Too soon to tell.

Despite today being a national holiday, Rose held classes. I wonder if any of the High School students touring Campus, here because public schools are closed on holodays, noticed. Hmmm….