Nerdfest 2K10

It's almost unbelievable.

If I didn't take pictures and document them in writing, I swear to god no one would ever believe that things like the following exist.

I mentioned in a blog post last week that one of the reasons I blog is because going home to my parents' house is like entering some weird alternate universe where the 1980s are still cool, made-up "designer" breed dogs run loose and wild, and in any given closet or alcove you might find an enormous hidden stash of bird seeds or a life-size Darth Vader head staring out at you from the back corner.

This weekend was no different.

Friday night rolled around, and my parents, brother, sister-in-law, niece, and nephew were all here for a nice Friday-night-in with Pizza Hut for dinner.

The pizza got eaten, and conversations were had about the usual things: everyone's work week, my school week, what funny things the kids had done lately, etc.

After dinner, my brother, nephew, and I went to the upstairs den. We put on Men in Black, busted out the K'Nex, and started making kick-ass pieces of K'Nex construction equipment, with my nephew serving as construction manager and pointing out every tiny thing I was doing wrong in my K'Nex handiwork.

And then, right there amidst the Christmas decoration explosion that covered every inch of my parents' house, my sister-in-law came sprinting into the den, shrieking with excitement and teasing us with taunts of "Guess what I found?! Guess what I found?!" as she came scurrying down the hallway that led to the den.

My brother and I exchanged glances. We didn't know what the hell Mandy had found, but we knew it had to be good. We. were. excited.

We were not disappointed.

Mandy had apparently accidentally stumbled upon a treasure-trove of a bookshelf in one of my mom's upstairs guest rooms. This bookshelf might as well have never left 1982. Every book on it was 30 years old. And most of them were Star Wars themed.

Honest to god, sometimes I wonder how I ended up being such a dork, but then I remember....Oh yeah! My mother has entire bookshelves and rooms and storage closets and Christmas wreaths completely devoted to Star Wars or any of the franchise's various spin-off stories.

The thing Mandy had found was this:

This is a children's book entitled "The Ewoks and the Lost Children." Awesome.

After this, it was game over. We were all on missions to explore what other hidden caverns of nerd-dom the Suz had hidden away in closets in her house.

Something like this happens every time I come home to my parents' house in Greenville.

It's like....

Oh hey Mom! The North Pole called, they want all their Christmas shit back. Or....

Oh heyyy Mom, George Lucas called, he wants his massive collection of weird-ass Star Wars memorabilia back. Or...

Oh heyy Suz! The 1980's called, they want all of their creepy-ass shit you only ever see on "I Love the 80s," that you have stored in all the closets of your house like it's totally normal to still own an Atari or a Care-Bear, back......

So, like I said at the start of this post, if I didn't have photographic evidence, people might never believe that some freaks in the year 2010 (my mom) still actually own this stuff and keep it in their house like it's completely acceptable.

Exhibit A:

You see that name scrawled in the upper left of this device? Yes. It says "Michael" in small-child-chicken scratch. This first belonged to my 30-year-old brother when he was about 5. And my mom still. has. it. Why? The world of normal people may never know.

It's the "Fisher Price Big Bird Record Player", by the way, and the record we put in it tonight was this also-30-year-old record of Empire Strikes Back.

I find this especially comical because my mother never really let us watch Sesame Street. She thought that the characters looked decrepit and homeless and didn't think they were good examples to show her young children.

....But by god she bought the Big Bird record player.....and kept it for thirty years......





I just stuck this in here because after the childhood toy artifacts started coming out, I figured I might need it, and I got really excited that Rolling Rock is making "Rock Light" now! Awesome!


Exhibit B:

This poor child doesn't know it yet, but she's doomed for a life of LucasFilm-fueled dorkhood just like the rest of us.

The bookshelf where Mandy had found the initial Ewok book that sparked this foray into the Outer Rim of course had to be revisited, where books like the rest of these seen above were found: "Shiny as a Droid," "Return of the Jedi: The Ewoks Join the Fight," and "Star Wars: The Wookiee Storybook." Classics!



Exhibit C:

I just felt like "Shiny as a Droid" was too epic not to give it its own close-up. I'm thinking about bringing this in to my 9th graders for a read-aloud to help them think about imagery and vivid details. Just kidding.......or am I?




Exhibit D:

I wasn't kidding about the giant life-size Vader head. I found it in a closet, accompanied by this....

A giant shiny life size C-3PO head!

And before you go thinking that these little guys are just for display, and don't actually serve very legitimate purposes.....I opened them up and found this inside....

Star Wars character figurines inside a giant Star Wars character travel case inside a closet filled with nothing but blast-from-the-past Star Wars memorabilia. You're welcome, George Lucas.


AND, just so you don't think this household was COMPLETELY biased towards and obsessed with Lucas-lore, I give you....


Exhibit E:

Donatello, in all his green, teenage, mutant, turtley, bandana-ed glory. You can't tell from the picture, but this thing is about 2 feet tall.

*For those of you in my grad cohort, you now have a visual representation of what I wanted to be for Halloween the year after my mom made me go as Alice in Wonderland. And I had to settle for being the trampy, harlot, green M&M instead.*


Sometimes I fear I talk about Star Wars a little too much. But, this is my blog after all, right?


Let's go GAMECOCKS, and may the force be with you.


And just for good measure, some Admiral Ackbar parodies:





.

Nutshell Summer

*Shoutout to my baller friend Gary for helping me think of a post idea. I'm like a sad little dry well in the middle of the Kalahari when it comes to blog topics these days.*

This post is relatively straightforward. Unless I have a bunch of noobs reading my blog, which I don't think i do.

Since summer is now officially over, here is my summer in a nutshell. Be forewarned, my summer was not. very. exciting.



Phase 1: The Not-Really-Summer-At-All Part of Summer

The spring school semester ends.
Everyone else starts raging and gallivanting and otherwise enjoying their summers.
I start a Maymester class 2 days later.
I realize Maymesters f***ing suck.
My townhouse floods. (there's a post for that....)
I realize my townhouse f***ing sucks.
I immediately start a Craigslist-fueled scavenger hunt for a new living situation.
I hit the Craigslist jackpot and find a lovely new pad with a sweetass new roommate.
I move in to said pad (which I lovingly call The Herm).
I pray that my hopefully-not-a-murderer new Craigslist bunkmate doesn't chop me up and store me in the walls.
Maymester ends. I ball out with my grades as usual and get an A.
My next summer class starts.
I almost fail said class due to complete and utter lack of interest and motivation.
That summer class ends.
My "failing" final grade ends up being a B+ because I'm awesome.
I get my first break from grad school in 13 months.
My actual summer begins.



my summer school did not involve Hawaiian leis, cool dogs wearing sunglasses, or Mark Harmons.




Phase 2: The Southeast-Traveler-and-Superbum Part of Summer

I go to Atlanta to see my old college roommate at Emory.
I discover the asskick-in-a-can known as Four Loko. I drink it often.
I go to Charleston and Edisto with the Sister and the Suz.
I attempt to be in Columbia as little as humanly possible.
I basically live at my parents' house again and spend their money and eat all their Cheetoh puffs.
I chill with the doodles all day long.
I stay in bed till 1 in the afternoon approximately every other day.
I drink some more Four Loko.
I go to Atlanta to see aforementioned college roommate again.
I go days at a time where I only leave the house to get food or sometimes not at all.
I play 5+ hours straight of Wii Super Mario Brothers with my nephew on the REG.
My sister and I spend all of our time with each other because we apparently have no use for "friends" and get even weirder.
I discover Criminal Minds and do nothing but have Crim Minds episode DVD marathons for almost a month.
I develop a stalker-like obsession with Mathew Gray Gubler and get legitimately borderline depressed when I exhaust all of the episodes.
I drink some more Four Loko and eat some more Cheetoh puffs to console myself.


this is what superbum probably looks like.




Phase 3: The Edisto-Family-Vacation Part of Summer

The Townes clan heads down to Edisto for the annual shitshow that is our beach vacation.
We bring along some other extended family members and family friends.
We drink beers on the beach.
We drink beers on the balcony.
We discover that Edisto now has a "pub crawl," with all FOUR of the island's bars participating.
We participate in the pub crawl 2 different times.
Our parents kick our asses in beer pong even though they've "never played before."
Everyone gets sunburned.
I buy a cowboy hat.
I don't take off my cowboy hat for a week.
We take a daytrip to Savannah. (Fun fact! Savannah has no existing open container laws).
We watch Shark Week all week long.
Everyone is subsequently scared of the ocean.
Assholes near us on the beach fish and attract potential sharks to our swimming spot.
We talk a lot of shit on these assholes as we drink our beers.
We play a lot of Scattergories.
I get entirely too competitive for a board game and win most games of Scattergories.
Suz makes a crapload of margaritas.
The adults get drunker than the "kids", try to deny it, and it's hilarious.
Everyone is sad as another successful Edisto trip ends.


this is approximately what I envisioned every time I got in the water




Phase 4: The Kinda-But-Also-Kinda-Not-Crappy-End Part of Summer

I get sad to leave Suz, Steve, the doodles, and my summer crash-pad in Greenville.
I go back to Columbia full time because school is starting.
My newly-confirmed-not-ax-murderer Craigslist roommate comes back from her summer job and I no longer have to live by myself in The Herm.
Ugly-as-sin pigeons nest all over our balcony in piles of their own shit.
We contemplate their murders.
We decide we can't kill the pigeons.
We buy fake owls from Wal-mart to scare the pigeons off.
We name the fake owls instead and put them in our living room.
Roommate and I discover awesome things we have in common like Mathew Gray Gubler and Crim Minds fetishes.
Fall Classes start.
I rediscover my hatred for having classes with undergrads.
After 2 days of class, many new TPYMIGS blog posts are inspired.
I get my high school assignments for this semester's student teaching and I am happy about them.
I start student teaching 2 days from now.
Many more blog posts will hopefully ensue.
Summer officially ends.




Eff school. Look out for some posts about the beginning of my high school student teaching experiences and some more "People You Meet in Grad School."

.

OMG are you two twins?!

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that question in the past 5-ish years or so. Ever since my sister got to high school, basically (which was my first year of COLLEGE, mind you), people have been asking us this.

The only question I've heard with the same regularity is "Which one of you is older?"

Um. I am. By four and a half years. And I officially kind of hate you, person who just asked me that.

"You'll appreciate this 10 years from now!" Yeah, yeah, when I'm 35 I will be glad for someone to tell me I look 4 years younger. But I'm 22, and I can't even fathom 35 right now, and I don't appreciate it. But I digress.

If I actually thought my sister and I looked like twins, I'd be a lot more cool with it. Heck, I might even be totally on board with it. People think twins are cool. I think twins are cool. I think my sister is cool, I wouldn't mind being her twin. But in my professional opinion, we don't look alike. AT. ALL. So I don't get it; it baffles me. Either there is something that she and I are just really not seeing, or most of the general public is out of their mind.

But I don't think it can JUST be that people are crazy (although people are crazy). We have family members, close friends, classmates, etc. who think we are each other's spitting images too. There's even been said to be a "Townes-nose."


This is Stephanie (left), and me (right). We're at a Hallmark convention in this picture (that blog will be coming soon). Brown hair, blonde hair. Brown eyes, blue eyes. Different face shapes. What gives??



Here we are again at said Hallmark convention. If anything, I might argue that we complement, not mirror, each other in looks.



Okay, okay. I can kiiinda see it in this one.



This is from a cruise we went on during spring break 2 years ago.





Don't get me wrong. The chick is gorgeous. I could be doing a hell of a lot worse than looking like her. I just don't see it. What do you all think?

I guess until I am 35 or halfway to dead or something, I'll just have to suck it up and keep whipping out that I.D. when I inevitably get carded trying to purchase my gas station Merlot. Cheers to that.