lupka31.com

About a week ago, I stumbled upon this little hangman game (its over on the right of that page). I played it a few times and then added it to my homepage, and over the course of the next few days I probably played around 50 games, winning every single one, most with plenty of guesses to spare.

I thought, “surely I am unbeatable,” and as soon as I chose to brag to a friend, this happened…

Ceftriaxone. Right now it is underlined in red because its not even in the spell check dictionary. What is Ceftriaxone, might you ask? Pronounced (sftr-ksn), it is a semisynthetic analogue of cephalosporin, C₁₈H₁₆N₈Na₂O₇S₃, that is administered parenterally and has a broad spectrum of antibiotic activity. Whatever.

Moral of the Story: Don’t be arrogant, because karma will slap you in the face.

Those of you who know me (I’m making the assumption that people actually read this), know that I’m a pretty big sports fan. I’ll watch just about any sporting event, and most of the teams I root for hail from Maryland, where I grew up. Orioles, Terrapins, you name it. But the team I’m the most emotionally attached to is the Baltimore Ravens of the NFL, or “National Football League,” as Ron Jaworski would say.

My room is littered with Ravens paraphernalia: hats, shirts, even these tissues I got for Christmas. I’ve been to 3 games, and I’m proud to say they’re undefeated in those games. If someone from the Ravens organization is reading and can hook me up with season tickets, I’m positive we can go 19-0 next season; the numbers don’t lie.

The thing that spawned this post was a win over the Dallas Cowboys yesterday.  Although the teams have identical records, countless “experts” had the Cowboys as favorites. Why? I don’t know why, but the media seems to be enamored by the Cowboys for whatever reason. I guess because they were good 15 years ago. “America’s Team” hasn’t won a playoff game since 1996, but they win 2 in a row and all of a sudden they are Super Bowl bound.

Anyway, I think sports are a good way from people to forget about the stress of their lives for a few hours, root for something they have no impact on, and pour Gatorade on themselves in the middle of winter.

Merry Christmas everyone. Oh, and check out the stiff arm at [4:35]. See you in the playoffs.

The fall semester has come to a close. My grades were easily my best since I began college. 49 hours completed; 75 more to go. So now I’m faced with a month where aside from a few major holidays, there’s almost nothing on my schedule. I’m not really sure what I’m going to do. Hopefully I can find something productive to spend my time on.

Apparently I’m still employed at Quiznos, but they’re trying to cut back on labor costs so I end up being there 2 days a week at most. With the current economic situation, people seem to cut back on eating out, so we’ve been very slow lately, especially at night. I spend more time doing crossword puzzles and browsing YouTube than doing any sort of work. You won’t hear me complaint though; its better than dealing with [insert negative attribute here] customers.

Hopefully, I’ll get better about writing on here. I’d always imagined my blog being filled with pages and pages of witty monologues, but it just hasn’t evolved into that yet.

Until then, Me if I was on South Park…

Images from this past weekend’s trip to Houston. I look around 300 pictures in all and I will probably add them later. Here are some of the best (Click on any photo to view full-size, high-resolution versions).

The Stadium.

Nice cars in the Players Parking Lot. (Later found out that the Ford GT in the photo belongs to Mario Williams. Price Tag: $140,000+)

I love America.

We were in enemy territory.

Punter, Sam Koch, warming up before the game.

DBs getting fired up.

Quarterbacks taking snaps.

Half of them didn’t show up because they were too scared.

Fire is cool, but it will not lead you to victory.

And we are underway…

Touchdown!!

The Ravens’ 1st of 4 interceptions on the day. Pretty acrobatic for 345 pound Haloti Ngata.

Everyone, players included, are bored during TV timeouts.

They were trying to get inside our heads.

Another Interception. 2 on the day for Ray Lewis.

Texans continually try to score but are unsuccessful.

Please don’t fall.

Texans fans left early in defeat…

…Ravens fans stayed to savor victory. Being a fan at an away game is pretty cool. If you were a Texans fan at this game, you would be one in 70,000. But when you’re wearing purple, you’re instantly friends with a few hundred others.

Starters sat in the 4th quarter. Game is all but over.

Second-string guys still taking care of business.

Celebration begins.

Ed loves the fans.

His beard is ridiculous.

Derrick Mason. Dislocated his shoulder. Still kicked butt. Players like him seemed pretty glad to see a few Ravens fans hanging out in the front row in the final minutes of the game.

Game Over.

It’s been a pretty slow week for me; no run ins with the law, or anything exciting. So, a few random thoughts:

School starts Thursday. Courses for this semester: American History, Geography, Music Appreciation, Data Structures and Assembly Language.

Designed a T-Shirt for an event at church. I’m pretty happy with it:

Last but not least, this is pretty much the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I think just about everyone would enjoy it for one reason or another. Stunning animation:

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

You have served us well.

I was going to make this like “5 reasons blah blah blah” or something, but most of the other stuff was boring so I started over, and there was really only one thing I wanted to talk about because it was a moment I will never forget.

Fire alarms are loud. During my days in Arkansas Hall, we had the occasional fire drill or false alarm, normally not a big deal.  Except when it happens at 4 a.m.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so confused. Its hard to describe what it’s like to wake up to something like that. I hoped it would go off within a few minutes, but it never did. Tried to fall back asleep. Not happening. Then I faced a decision: I could get up and go outside, or wait it out and assume its a false alarm.

Roommate: “Are you up?”

Me: “Yep. I’m not getting up.”

Roommate: “Ok. Same Here.”

Me: “I’ll leave when I see flames.”

False alarm. I’m still alive.

I was on my way home yesterday evening. As I came down the hill, I noticed a police car that was almost stopped in the opposite lane. I slowed down and as I passed the car, they turned around, flicked their lights on and began to follow me.

I pulled onto a side road and stopped immediately. I looked behind me and noticed another set of flashing lights. Now I’m starting to really worry. Two of them? What did I do?

—

A few months ago, I started having problems with my driver’s side window. It’s to the point where I really can’t move it down without a struggle to get it out, so I don’t use it at all. I’d always wondered what would happen if I got pulled over and needed to roll down my window. They’d probably think I was refusing to get out or trying to pull a gun, then they shoot at me, who knows.

—

So, the police officer walks up to my door.  I made sure to speak as loud as I could when I told her my window was broken and I needed to open the door.  She opened the door. Disaster averted. I decide I’m going to be as honest as possible, while remaining as friendly as possible.

Officer: Why did you run that stop sign?

Now I realize what I’ve done, although I’m not sure exactly what kind of response she’s expecting here: I do this all the time? I just felt like breaking the law? I didn’t see it?

Me: I don’t know. I looked though; there was no one coming.

Officer: So you just kind of yielded through it?

Me: Yeah, exactly. (She’s done it before, I can tell; probably every day.)

She takes my license, asks where I was going, how old I am, and says she’ll be back in a minute. All of a sudden my passenger side door pops open, and there’s another cop standing there. He says he’s just keeping and eye on things. I suppose the other officer is new.

Officer 2: Where’s your gun?

What gun? I don’t have a gun. I look towards him and notice that there’s a container of plastic airsoft pellets in my cup holder. The gun is in the compartment on my door. I’m thinking “Crap, its loaded. There’s no way you’re supposed to have these in your car. I am definitely going to jail.” Clearly that was not his concern. I hand him the gun.

Officer 2: Does this use CO2?

Me: No, its just a spring powered one.

Officer 2: How do you load it?

Me: The clip just comes out of the bottom of the - (He figures it out). Yeah, like that.

He hands it back to me. No questions asked. Disaster averted. Again.  By now, the first officer is making her way back to the car. Here comes the moment of truth.

Officer 1: Do you want to get a ticket today? (Again, what does she expect me to say. Yes ma’am, I would love one?)

Me: Not really.

Officer 2: Ok, you have a clean record right now, but that can change at any time. Stop at stop signs.

Me: Thank you.

I start the care back up, turn around and head home, being very careful to stop at the stop sign; they’re still right behind me. Disaster Averted.

So, I’ve decided to give this whole blogging thing another shot. For some reason, I’ve been wanting to write lately and after some encouragement from a few people, I find myself kicking off blog.lupka31.com at 3 a.m.  Not much to say right now; I suppose this is more of a placeholder so I can hammer out some of the design kinks.

Having major Xanga flashbacks.