I'm Writing Something Gorram it!

I have been slacking. Yes. I admit this. I apologize. I've been mad busy! See what I did there! Italics! For emphasis! Anywho, what's up guys? How's it been? Good? Good.

With that out of the way, lets move on to more pressing matters. Television is addictive. Over the summer I had at least one show every night of the week, with the exception of Saturday. We had good ol' TNT Sundays, Syfy Mondays, USA Tuesdays, Franklin & Bash on Wednesdays, Suits on Thursdays, and Haven on Fridays. "Wow Jim, you watch a lot of TV!" Yeah. I know. Thanks. But I mean Wow! Someone somewhere decided to step up their game this summer. New series like Franklin & Bash, Falling Skies and especially Suits and Alphas (both of which I got Kevin hooked on) all were just top-shelf stuff. Plus the return contenders like White Collar, Covert Affairs, Leverage, Eureka, Warehouse 13 and Haven all had solid seasons.

So maybe it's just me, but I really get into TV shows. I was listening to a podcast as I drove home today for the long weekend, and they said that the reason the mainstream public is into the whole Kardashian, reality show idiocracy is because they can't get into a great television show. You know, something that really takes them out of it. Some of these shows, I watch them and I just get caught up. What's gonna happen next? I don't know. Or maybe I do? But these people are story tellers, and they are damn good at it.

As for what's coming up, you got the perennial classics How I Met Your Mother, House, Psych, SVU, Chuck, Parks & Recreation, Community, The Walking Dead, Sanctuary, and the second half of Covert Affairs as well as some new guys like Terra Nova, Grimm, and Once Upon A Time, all of which have my interests piqued. I'm also getting the Dexter and Breaking Bad vibe going. Which is interesting.

So basically, I'm a TV snob, and even though I didn't mean to write a blog about my unusual TV habits, but here it is. Maybe this is a step in the right direction? Here we go Jim! You can do it! Go team! If you've got some show that I'm not watching that I should be, or some other comment on my wide variety of  legal/cop/sci-fi shows, let me know!

Wow. Have I Been Slacking or What?

"Jim! What the hell? You haven't posted a blog in forever!"

Yes. I hear you. MY BAD. But I've been caught up in this whole thing called Life. I mean living in an apartment with 3 or 4 (depends what day it is,) of your best friends doesn't exactly leave you with a lot of free time to write about nonsensical things... I mean. I turned 21! I'm about to be a senior in college! I don't know how to manage my time! But I guess now that school is done, maybe I'll have more time to write. OH WAIT.

I'm working 40 hours a week at the Garden Center, interning at RunKeeper in Boston, and trying to maintain what little social life I claim to have!

Basically what I'm saying here is; Nerdventures, I love you, but right now, you're on the back burner. Frowny face, I know. But life is coming at me pretty fast right now. I'm getting home from work, and it takes pretty much all of what little energy I have left to not go to bed. On the bright side, I've slept better in the last 2 weeks than I did the last 6 months at school! Aside from that, the only things I've got going for me right now are the Bruins and my sweet, sweet playoff beard. I've been reading a lot of books. Been watching 30 Rock too. As I type even! Radio's been going pretty swell. Kevin and I added our good friend and my former trainee, Noel to our hosting staff, and I got the DJ Training Director gig. All in all, life is pretty good. Busy, fast, dirty, but good. (What I work at the Garden Center, I just scraped dirt out from under my nails!)

So here's to you Nerdventures. Two years old. This was a very unproductive year in terms of blogging, but for writing on the whole, my 58 page screenplay nods it's approval. I'll try and write more, honest.

Much love.

James

A list of Excuses for why I can't write my 10 page paper:

• I sprained my typing finger (right, middle) so I can't type it. Or write it.
• I was too busy watching a 7 hour cricket match between Bangladesh and Zimbabwe on ESPN3 on the xBox 360.
• I had to watch the latest Blamimation on PATV.
• I had to watch the one of the movies for the paper, that I should've watched two months ago.
• I had to watch the countless videos of John Mayer that Jake kept finding on YouTube.
• I had to listen to Jake play guitar.
• I had to check, double check, and triple check my See Friendships with random people on Facebook.
• I had to Tweet about how bad this paper was.
• I had to make incoherent babbling sounds.
• I had to write a dozen fake intros to the paper using slang and cuss words to describe the class.
• I had to delete those intros.
• I had to write how much I hated the class.
• I had to delete that too.
• Andy kept talking my ear off every time I wanted to start working.
• Seriously, he'd be all like, "Hey man stop going on Facebook and do your work." 
• What a chatty Cathy right? 
• He's such a jerk.
• I kept staring at our fish, Wendel for inspiration.
• The Christmas lights we use to light our apartment just make it too comfortable to entertain the thought of doing anything other then staring at their dull white glow....
• I had to throw my hat in the corner in disgust of how bad I'm doing at writing this paper.
• I had to moan about how my hat is now over in the corner and I want it back on my head.
• I had to moan about how I'm too lazy to go get it and Andy why won't you go get it for me I don't care if it's farther away from you just go get it I know it's my hat but c'mon please you're such a jerk I hate you why don't you love me fine I'll go get it jerk.
• I had to double check and see if Netflix works on the xBox.
• I'm thirsty and I can't work if I'm thirsty.
• Alright so I'm totally gonna do it, but I just gotta pick out some music to listen to.
• What time're the Pats on again? Oh I could totally just start it after. Okay fine I'll start it!
• Dude this song's really good. 
• Just sit back and listen man.
• Close your eyes and just go for it.
• I had to wonder if Kevin was having fun in class. Or wherever he is.
• I had to ask what was for dinner.
• I had to get yelled at.
• I had to ask Jake how his car ride was first.
• But seriously this is getting ridiculous, I'm gonna go start it.
• I had to write a blog about how I couldn't write it.
• I did write a blog about how I couldn't write it.

Ode to the Worst Class I've Ever Had The Displeasure of Taking

College is a wonderful place. There's plenty of opportunities, there's plenty of girls (or guys (if that's your thing)) to swoon over, and there's plenty of interesting classes you can take. Unfortunately, after the honeymoon that is most student's freshman year, in my case freshman and sophomore years, you settle down with a major, maybe a minor, and you have to take some classes that aren't so interesting.

Now I don't remember if I've ever gone into detail on my schooling and whatnot, but I'm now officially a Communications major here at the good ol' University of Massachusetts. I'm also unofficially an Education minor. It's a Catch-22 system, where you can't be a minor until you have completed all the courses, and it never tells you what courses you need to take online, because you are not a minor. It's a dumb and flawed system.

But what's more dumb and flawed is one of the classes that I've needed to take. Now I won't go into specifics of when I had to take this class, or which class it is specifically, but let me tell you about it. This class had a promising title, offering to teach us about international things, implying that the general scope would be scattered, you know, internationally. Turns out international, in this context, stands for "Africa, India, and China."

Now, I wouldn't mind studying Africa, India and China, except that's all we did. I was under the assumption that if our teacher was from Great Britain, we might actually take interest in the U.K. and Europe, but apparently I was mistaken. My Bad.

Anyways, this class was painful to go to. Not only did we have the class in a room that always had the heat blasting from 5 gigantic radiators, even during the fall when it was already high 70's, but the class was rarely taught by our actual teacher. Most of the time, we'd walk into class, and we'd have a guest speaker, talking about something irrelevant, and non-consequential to the class. Then a few times, we'd walk in to class only to find that all 8 of the TA's were going to parade up to the front of the class and tell us about all their time spent in the peace corps in, oh wouldn't you look at that! Africa. The few classes she actually taught? Yeah, she just stood up there and talked at us. It was painful.

So that's what happened from a "teaching" perspective for the first few classes. From a "student" perspective I did the following:

• Read a book
• Listened to my iPod
• Played PSP
• Played Trivia/Solitaire on my iPod
• Played Mahjong on my Laptop
• Read the Newspaper

There was no wireless in this building for some godforsaken reason. Who knows why. Perhaps they thought the heat would make us pass out before we tried to use it. Perhaps they were right.

I will take this time to tell you the sole, shimmering gem of wisdom I've gleaned from this class. Having all that time of sitting in class allows one to accomplish tremendous feats. I mastered the alphabet. Backwards. Yes. Through repetitive writing, and filling two pages of paper, I, Jim Redding, have conquered the alphabet both forwards and backwards. I feel accomplished. I also wrote a short screen play for a Star Wars spoof created by my bro-host Kevin and myself. We are thinking of selling it to Robot Chicken. They seem pretty cool.

After the Midterm Reviews, where everyone slammed her for having an awful class, she decided to merge the second and third papers of the class into one final paper. At this point I need to mention the discussion section of the class. The class only met once a week, with a discussion section immediately following the class itself. Two and a half hours of class purely on one subject is brutal, even in the best of classes. This was living in a hellish netherworld where time falls to a standstill and you are prodded with a pointy stick for what seems like eternity.

Now my TA was nice enough. Arguably too nice. Hailing from, oh weird, AFRICA (specifically Nigeria), she was all about being our friend, and us being buddies. So the first couple of classes, we'd go in, and instead of you know, having class, possibly getting through everything so we could get out early, we'd sit down, and have to find a neighbor and ask them, "How was your day?"

Cue the prodding.

This is the last place any of us wanted to be, and we were forced into niceties with strangers, that nobody really wanted to be there with. This eventually escalated into "Friendship Groups" which consisted of 5 people sitting around and asking each other how our days were. This was quickly replaced with us asking each other why they had made the horrible decision of taking this class.

This also might be a good time to note, while after the midterm beat-down, our teacher started teaching, and actually used PowerPoint, we weren't graded or tested upon anything we learned in class. The entire grading system is based on homeworks, done using readings provided to us online, and turned in to discussion. We took a few weeks off after we figured this out, skipping the class and blending in with the crowds as we filtered off to discussion. It was, unfortunately, all too easy, and still horrifically painful.

I have explained to you my rage, and agony I have experienced for participating in this class, but this does it no justice. Should you ever be in a similar position to that of my own, be wary of international classes. I beg of you. Should you ever stumble into a class where there is a promise of "International" and "Learning," be wary. Be very wary.

Adventures in Radioland

Week 3 of classes is in the hole, but more importantly week 3 of Music Salad Sandwich has blessed the airwaves. If you haven't heard Kevin and my latest adventure on the airwaves, I must say I think we're outdoing ourselves. Last year, our brutal taskmaster of a program director came to us mid-semester and basically told us, "Listen guys, I don't want you playing any music that has ever been played on any other station, and I don't want you talking more than three or four times an show." Fearing for our infant show's life we accepted these terms and conditions.

But now it's a new year, and a new show, with a new program director. We're making the rules this year. As well as having our intern Mariah on the phones Kevin and I really have a lot more of our creative juices flowing at midnight, instead of 2 AM.

Point in case, on our way to the Station last night, we drove by the Rotary by Totman that we see every day. This time I stop to ask Kevin what he thinks is going in the middle of it. Before we even park the car down the road, we've got it. UMass's greatest alumni, back to back buddy cop style. That's right, Bill Cosby and Dr. J. Can you imagine, driving down the longest street through campus, only to find the literal gold at the end of the rainbow? That's right, not only is it an amazing statue, it is also an amazing gold statue. It would make everyone on campus's day. Imagine the nice warm spring sun gleaming upon the golden statue as snow slowly seeps off, revealing the heroes of UMass under the tundra. There would be absolutely nothing better.

Now we know, this idea has not only made your day, but your lives. We get it. This is everyone's dream come true. We don't need a lot of recognition, names on a plaque perhaps. But what we do need, is everybody's signature. If you're interested in this beautiful, priceless statue adorning our unworthy campus, write on the Music Salad Sandwich wall, through either the link up there, the link at the bottom of the page, or http://www.facebook.com/pages/Music-Salad-Sandwich/141646119211523 for all of you who are reading through Facebook and let us know you're interested. Tell your friends, get them in on this. Who knows, maybe we can actually get this dream realized!

Procrastinating!

So as I sit here, "packing" and "getting ready to go back to school tomorrow," I'm doing what I do best, procrastinating, and what I do moderately well, blogging (in my opinion.) I can't help but be nostalgic on this summer, which in my books will be known as the summer of SVU.

Sure, the beginning of the summer held trips to Los Angeles, Amherst, and the movies, as well as heart-breaking losses, cherished covers, and theories about Zombies, as well as books galore. I read about 8 or 9 books, plus about 9 or 10 graphic novels. And then, on June 3rd, I was bored, and found that 10 seasons of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit were on Netflix. OOOOHHHH BABY. It took me approximately 74 days, to finish SVU but man, was it worth it. I'd always liked the series, and watching all of the seasons really made me like it that much more. I got to see plot lines beginnings and ends, the characters grow and mature, and the series progress ten years over this summer which has been really cool. Now I miss it. But new episodes start up this fall! :D

I was able to watch this much TV in this much time because of my work schedule. Don't get me wrong, work was all well and good, but every Friday and Sunday for the last half of the summer, I had to get up and go to work, which was definitely a damper when Friday and Saturday nights were the only nights of the week when the guys could hangout. So when they were working Monday through Friday, and not wanting to hang out cause of their early mornings during the week, I had a bunch of time to sit around and hang out with my good friends Elliot, Olivia, John and Fin.

But that's not to say that I wasn't active. I went and gym'd it up for a majority of the summer. Monday through Thursday for reasons already explained. That was a good thing! Right? And work was fun from time to time. Two of my co-workers, Daria and Zack as well as myself decided to make Lacrosse Pennies for the Garden Center. The first ones we ordered were too big, and the second ones aren't done yet but no worries. Next summer.

Next summer will be bigger, badder, and a lot more fun. I'll be 21, friends will be off interning in various places I can visit, and they'll be 21 too! That's not to say I want school to fly by though. With a schedule first semester as sick as this, and roomates like Jake, Andy and my bro-host Kevin (Late Night Window returns Tuesday mornings at Midnight this fall!) this is going to be a fun year. SO PREPARE YOURSELF FOR MORE NERDVENTURES COMING YOUR WAY! UNTIL NEXT TIME!

VIVE LE TROIS DE FIN DE LA SEMAINE!

Video did not kill the Radio Star, I'm still here

Oh me, so modest right? Well that's neither here nor there. Well in the recent weeks myself and my good amigo Kevin have been going to the UMass radio station WMUA 91.1 Amherst, and have been going through DJ training. I decided I wanted to do this over the summer, when the only reprieve I had through the monotony that was working at the Marblehead Garden Center was listening to podcasts, specifically The Adam Carolla Podcast, and The Sandbox podcast.

Now the Sandbox podcast is a shortened down version of the radio show The Sandbox on WFNX 101.7 Lynn/Boston. Listening to this show every day (for the most part) got me to thinking. What do I do for the most part? Talk. What do these guys do all morning? Talk. The gears were turning. So I figured, hey why not give it a shot right? So I looked up the info, shot off an email, and forgot about it. A couple weeks went by, and I got a response. All the info about training, when they would be having meetings etc. So I my mind was set.

A month or so later, school started, and the time came for the first meeting. I was pretty much on my way out the door when I saw Kevin. In what I could only assume was out of suspicion of some murderous plot against him, Kevin asked me what I was doing. As I told him, he nodded and said "OK, I'll go with you." I was awestruck. Someone else wants to do the radio? How did I not pick this up all last year? But as I soon learned Kevin was no novice when it came to radio.

Kevin's small town, where we just recently learned they do indeed have cable TV, (A shocker, I know,) also had it's own little radio station run by the high school. Kevin was a DJ there and pretty much had free reign. Their version of giveaways was giving away the class books that were property of the school. That right there's sticking it to the man. But eventually after getting a new antenna the FCC, who had previously ignored their small 1 mile radius station, started taking notice, and made them actually start doing things the "right" way. Lame.

So then Kevin went to college and forgot about it. But then I rekindled it! Whooo! So now we're training and having fun and all that good stuff. We've got our test to see if we get to be DJ's in two weeks I believe. You can wish us luck. If all goes we'll get a show next semester. We don't have a format, and we don't have any idea what genre we want to play, but we figure we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.

In the meantime however, we've got access to the production studio and we got a chance to get in there two weeks ago and take it for a test run. So if you feel like wasting an hour and would like to hear me talk about nothing, instead of just reading me write about nothing, give it a download. And if you do please, please, please let me know what you think. Okay? Thanks.

Wow that was a pretty long post for me just to ask you to oblige me. Oh well. :D