New Years Eve Fireworks Party

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After the success of Anthony's Playboy Birthday party, we were afraid New Years Eve would be a let down, but luckily there was another group of people like Alice that showed up, and others like Brooke who couldn’t. This made it a completely different dynamic and new kind of success.

CRANIUM:
To start off, Dicke showed up with a "Got a sister?" t-shirt because he's dating MattyMat's little sister--lol. Dicke was on my team along with Trouble (Jess), but Dicke was quickly replaced by Amy because he abandoned the team for other fun. I laughed when Nicole wasn't allowed to see some of the cards because she's too lame to play. Oh I guess I should tell you the game we were playing, Cranium.

Damn those hustlers. We were destroyed by the expertise of Fox, his girlfriend, and Steve. I lacked the ability to recognize the songs by their titles, and they were simple, like the fittingly appropriate New Year's song. The most amusing card drawn was a club Cranium (all teams draw) and I was forced to draw "plastic surgery" so I drew Amy wanting a boob job. I’m such an idiot. Amy would have gotten it I drew an ass reduction--lol.

Before we knew it, the countdown erupted without Dick Clark. Earnestly, Me, Julia and the others around me attempted to start from 50 seconds, but we were only in sync for the last 5 seconds, damn you alcohol. Since State College had a fireworks display set to go at midnight, we migrated to the balcony even though Kate's mom forbids her from going on balconies because she thinks it’s dangerous.

What could be dangerous about fireworks? Well maybe when we started lighting our own fireworks and Anthony dropped a Roman Candle and almost created a balcony of fricassee friends. Lucky for me, I couldn't tell what danger was occurring because I was making a video, until I felt Amy hands clenching me like an eagle on its prey, screaming along with others from behind. I'd like to think Amy was trying to pull me back to protect me and not just trying to use me as a human sheild, but nobody could save Julia from her own drunkenness.

Drunken Julia lit a Roman Candle with a sparkler, and in her drunken state, she thought she had to relight the Roman Candle to make it fire multiple times. Finally when her Roman Candle was exhausted, Julia refused to believe it was over and kept trying to relight it. Then, in drunken splendor, Julia turned to the people on balcony and asked, “Did we miss the countdown?”--hahahahah.

Granted I can't say the liquor didn't affect me. Well I could say it, but lying makes baby Jesus cry. In my liquor induced happiness, I wanted to make a sparkler smile so I stuck two in my mouth and was getting antsy when the picture took a while took a while. My favorite of all the videos made New Year's night was when I captured a successful launch by Anthony but lost firecracker in the air so I turned to the real display and jokingly said "Wow look at that big one!!" --I'm such a goof.

Unfortunately Amy had to work the next day so she took off shortly after midnight. I told her the drunks drive slower than they normally would, so her best chance was to drive as fast as she could and kiss her cows for me when she got home to the farm. Somehow Anthony translated the recipient of that to kiss a Kitty, which then went perverted, right up Amy’s alley.

Since the fire fun was still within us, when Central New Years was celebrated by Conan O’Brian, we decided to make Anthony finally eat his belated birthday cake so we could play with the fire. Unfortunately, we lacked a lighter so we used a match to light the first candle, and then use that candle to light the others. This routine would have worked but when Anthony went to blow out the match, he also blew out three candles. After we finally had all the candles glowing, the ‘F’ candle I used to light the others broke so Anthony’s cake read "Happy _ucking Birthday" like we censored it. Anthony assured me though that his birthday wish was not censored.

After cake, Julia was "tired and wanted to go home". At least that's what we sang to her as mikev and MattyMat carried her out the door. Meanwhile, Nicole refused to let the party die so she initiated a new rule. If you stand on the throwing line for the dart board you have to line dance. Dicke, Steve, Trouble, Alice and Nicole carried on this silly dancing for quite a while.

By the time it was Mountain New Years, the dancing died down so Nicole got into a long distance dart match where people got points for just hitting board. No so surprisingly, a drunk freshmen took over the role of puker for the night, I mean she had hiccups. We dubbed her drunk persona "Anthony" [a play on us calling Anthony, Nancy when he's drunk.]

Before we realized it, it was Pacific New years and we were ready to call it a night. Since we already did the marker on someone's face thing last night, we decided to make a video of MattyMat snoring and put it on the TV. Then we made a video of MattyMat snoring which panned up to the TV that was playing the orginal snoring video. Being a computer engineer, I realized this could become recursive infinity so we called it a night.

In honor of the Greeks let’s do the Roman numeral count down:
.X
..IX
...VIII
....VII
.....VI
......V
.......IV
........III
.........II
..........I

(now if you can do that in 10 seconds on New Year’s eve, you need to drink more)

Your Personal Hero
THE BAbbLER
pchewy
Anshu Gupta
http://psubabbler.esmartguy.com

Trouble Visits

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There is a Wednesday extravaganza that most of us who are above the legal drinking age at Penn State love called "Margarita Madness" at "Chiles". On one specific Wednesday during my undergrad, it was the 22nd birthday of my buddy Minka who everyone thought was gay because he liked hugging more than a man in our society is allowed. I twisted this fetish into an opportunity. The challenge for his friends was to acquire him 22 hugs from single women, hoping one would work out and get him over his recently break up with my friend, Neesha.

On that Hump Day we ran into friends with a few people I hadn't ever met, including this beautiful blue-eyed girl with a strawberry margarita in hand. I introduced myself and pimped out my mate Minka by requiring her to give him a hug. I then told her "My friend's call me pChewy" which I worked into a conversation asking if she had a nickname. She pleaded the case that Jess was short for Jessica, but if I left it at that the conversation would have died so I stubbornly did not accept. Eventually, I made her describe herself. She turned up to me with those beautiful blue eyes and said, "My friends say I'm Trouble."

Thusly, Trouble was born and a lesson was learned by all, be careful how you met me. Trouble and I became the closest of friends and our group of friends intertwined. My biggest acquisition was another one of her love interests, Petey. After college I even made some money of off Trouble referring her to the company I work for but she only stayed for a short while due to a layoff. Since she didn't want anything to do with her accounting degree, Trouble (Jessica McGuire) went back to Penn State to get two additional degrees, one in psychology and the other in women's study. Three degrees isn't enough for her though. Currently she's in ASU for five years going to grad school, unless she decides she misses me too much, and then she'll be living in my closet. This weekend marked Trouble's first return to Happy Valley for New Years fun.

We went to one of her favorite restaurants, Mad Mex, for some tasty margaritas and later we went to Panera for some morning after partying eats. At my place we got an awesome food package from Aussie Mike, so I gave Trouble some tasty Australian snacks. Next, I introduced her to my devil puppet, Melof, and then showed off my Xmas present from him, Shocking Tanks.

Trouble quickly decided Shocking Tanks were not her cup of tea after one shock on low, but at least, I got a hilarious videos of her reaction--muhahahhaah. Finally I got her addicted to an old classic game that preceded Tetris, called Klax. When I managed to peel her away, we took to the town to go shopping for a PSU hat.

Though we failed to find a hat she liked, Trouble seemed happy with a coffee cup from Irvings she bought. Along the way, we got to see many of the 100 ice sculptures erected around my picturesque town for New Years. We didn't go on a horse ride or down the ice slide, but in the theme of New Years in a small town, we wrote our New Year's resolutions and hung them up for the town to see.

Nicole was lame and wouldn't follow my tradition to make a resolution, so I wrote one for her "I will not be lame!" which she quickly ripped up. I was going to write "I will not be a bore", and then point to the ice sculpture of the bore, but I knew she could turn around and say "Don't be a cock" and point to the cock ice sculpture that was diagonal from the bore on Allen. Punny, huh? Instead I just turned to Trouble and took a picture of her hanging up hers (See Picture above).

You can read the other blogs to learn about the parties I took Trouble too. I miss you Trouble and can't wait tell I can see you again.

PS: YOU'RE SUCH A NERD, getting a 4.0 in grad school. WOW!

Your Personal Hero
THE BAbbLER
pchewy
Anshu Gupta
http://psubabbler.esmartguy.com

Anthony's Playboy Bday

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LESSON ON IMAGINATION:
Memorable people look at the world differently, posing questions outside the box. Whether it's exploring outer space, the oceans, or theories of how organisms or the universe works, explorers ask "What's Beyond?" They venture deeper, outside, and higher than the box of current knowledge.

Inventors are legendary for saying "Why Not?", "Let's try this", "That blows, why can't it be like this?" Before they know it, inventors have asked enough questions to bring them closer to making their dreams manifest.

Don't forget that often overlooked but quintessential kind of smart. Genius artist and musicians can take common items and ask "What If I did this from this perspective?", then shift and combine their materials to create moving masterpieces that invoke awe from their audience of the imagination-challenged, or more fittingly the imagination-lazy.

I know for certain that we all have an imagination and a genius inside. Most of us forget it though, and it twitters away into chaos. We say "We're no good at that", and use our vapid imagination to create the worst excuses of why you can't do something, get something you want, or attract something you desire.

If not harnessed, our imaginations are underutilized, relegated to taper expectations so we can’t be hurt. If you learn anything from this blog, it should be that dreams only come true if you use your imagination to go towards what you want, rather than leaving it to imagine obstacles. Active imagination is not a guarantee, unfortunately, it's a prerequisite. If you don't agree you're just being a fool, player.

PREPARING WITH IMAGINATION:
Let’s apply active imagination in a college setting. For many higher learners, college is synonymous with poor. Poor means cheap, and cheap means splitting two ply toilet paper, reusing plastic cups, and surviving on Ramen Noodles.

If you are what you eat, I'm quick and easy, and Ramen Noodles are the perfect convenient lunch time menu item. For the genius of Steve though, Ramen Noodles can be a great gag gift if bought in bulk and a tool for his creative genius. Ramen Noodles can be transformed into letters that spell out 'H's, then 'A's then 'P's and much, much more. Eventually Steve took these letters and spelled "Happy Birthday Ass" to transform the mundane into legendary laughs and memories for all. Ramen Noodles set the stage for the birthday party of the year.

For years, in fact, for his whole life, Anthony's birthday has been trapped between Xmas and New Years which made it hard to escape to celebrate with his friends. I commend Anthony for combating a childhood blizzard which ruined his only birthday party. Instead of sulking on a therapist’s couch, Anthony mobilized his imagination and proactively did something about his lack of birthday party joy.

Anthony didn't use his imagination to say it couldn't be done. Anthony could have made excuses, --people are all at their homes, they can't be reunited. Anthony didn’t use his imagination to say, "Nobody likes me that much", or use self doubt to ask, "What will people think if I had to throw myself a party? Would I be a loser?"

Brilliantly, Anthony threw all doubts and fears away like he does with recycled bottles to piss off MattyMat. He IMAGINED what he wanted in his perfect birthday party. Nobel as he is, Anthony's only true desire was to have his friends there and it'd be perfect.

But why stifle his imagination and not go further? Anthony likes alcohol, let's have some of that, and maybe some music. Anthony's always complaining about his boney ass wanting to be comfortable so wouldn't it be great if he could lounge in his party, in say a robe? Hell, contrary to the myriad of gay-esk pictures, Anthony really likes girls so let’s get the girls to dress up, or should I say dress down-meow.

Thusly, a Playboy themed birthday party was born from the visionary’s imagination of Anthony. Who cares if people think he's just overcompensating for his gayness, and just trying to put on a face of a sex driven heterosexual to combat the truth? Anthony imagined it, so as his friends we imagined it too, and made it real.


APPLICATION OF IMAGINATION:
...How ridiculous was this playboy party you're probably asking. Let's just say you can see some of the fun from the pics, but this party was so crazy Anthony had a cake, but didn't have time to eat it too!!

The drinks were flowing, literally out of the cups and onto the floor, many, many times (I was responsible for a spill myself). I think Steve showed MattyMat a zoomed picture of Amy's crotch which frightened MattyMat because he thought it was a dude, leading to a ruckus that left brokenness. Previously in the semester James replaced a hole in the wall with a fake outlet, and tipsy Anthony made the mistake of plugging the vacuum into it--hahahaha. Personally though, I preferred it when MichealAnne played the maid and cleaned up the mess in her sexxy outfit, meow.

Even though Trouble (Jess) was not in the mood to dress up, she still found a guy named JoeJ hitting on her endlessly. He's a nice pal, but is the standard clueless type around women, smothering them which make him seem desperate. When he passed out, we drew on JoeJ because that is the college party law.

Gallantly, I gave Trouble the hilarious rejection hotline number (212-478-7990) to give to JoeJ, but she claimed that was mean so I left Nicole to try to fend him off for. I still think Trouble, along with most girls, need to learn how to reject guys themselves. If I was a hot girl, I'd be like, "Sorry I'm not attracted to you. Nothing personal, it's just your approach is predictable like a wuss. If you really want to attract girls, you might try to relax, be funny, don’t try so hard, tease a girl and make her want to come to you. At least that's what I like."

Anywho, luckily Ashley dressed up, and didn't see the rejection hotline the same way as Trouble. Ashley plugged that rejection number in her phone and considered me a savior. I think this was after she spent forever "ordering a pizza" and then picking it up in her lingerie to the joy of the Papa John’s delivery man. If you have free long distance like normal cell phones, call the number for a laugh right now.

To get the ladies to shake their sexiness we laid down some tunes. We learned that not all black people can do the moonwalk, but Anthony can shake his groove thing okay for a white Caucasian. MattyMat in his skilled tradition dropped down and did some break dancing. Who can top that?, one may wonder. I sent Dicke to dance with MattyMat’s sister, KT, and then dip her which sent overprotective MattyMat searching for a weapon. Even Nicole, when she wasn't chilling with Steve, joined in to create a congo line of massaging.

I tried to take extra pictures to make sure Anthony had enough sexxy shots to remember the lively night because I wasn't sure how wasted he was going to become. Obviously, Amy's fat ass wondering around came in the way of the photo lense a few times, but between Steve, Dicke and I, we got some great pictures, including classic shots of Brooke and Kate. Granted the mosaic I created for Anthony with my pics isn't as kewl as the Antonio Banderas cologne he got, but I’m sure he appreciated it all.

As the night peaked, Nancy showed up. [James started this tradition when one of the guys gets trashed their feminine alter ego comes out and does the puking. When Anthony goes to the toilet he is transformed to Nancy]. After Nancy finished, the party thinned and we chilled around reminiscing over the craziness that just commenced. I glanced at Trouble peacefully lying on Anthony’s shoulder, randomly exposing his nipple from his robe. Everyone knows “nipples make me sleepy” so before the sun blinded us, we headed back to my place to crash. Now that’s IMAGINATION, will it inspire you?

Your Personal Hero
THE BAbbLER
pchewy
Anshu Gupta
http://psubabbler.esmartguy.com

Xmas in Happy Valley

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TIS THE SEASON TO BE A GAMER:
Pre-Xmas at work we had a video game “Mario Kart” tournament where I got booted in the first round, a “Dance-Dance Revolution” completion which I placed in the top three, and a day of playing random multi-player games including old school “Gantlet” and a twist on a the classic Packman where three people take the role of the ghosts and the fourth plays packman. For Xmas I bought myself “X-men” for the Xbox, and I bought Nicole two role playing games, “Syberia” and “Syberia II”. Of course when we were not watching movies, evil Nicole played her game endlessly and we never cracked open X-men.

MEET ME HALF WAY:
Since my parents didn't want to go to my sister's new place in Jersey, I decided to meeting Nicole in Altoona and bring her back to State College for an intimate Xmas. She left her family because she's Orthodox and their Xmas isn't until January. Her direction to Altoona failed because I took the first exit instead of the 3rd which she assumed I'd know to take, and I had no idea what Crackle Barrel looks like because I've never gone to one.

MEN DONT GET LOST:
Lost, I waited for her parents at a Sheetz but they found one a mile away from me (Later I remembered that stupid Altoona is the headquarters of Sheetz). Finally, I went back in the driver's seat and made it to the mall with directions from a random man to finally find the Myers family including their Schnauzer Tevy they brought along for the ride.

YAY PRESENTS:
Once reunited, Nicole and I bought Xmas presents for each other at State College's and Altoona's malls. We purchased robes for one another and I got her a red teddy from VS. I also bought myself some shoes, and in a sad series of events, lost the shoes in the mall and had to repurchase them. After some tedious laundry, shopping, and cleaning, we made some Xmas steaks and celebrated with wax under the one foot minny Xmas tree in my tiny apartment. Nicole has a device that melts candles to release their aroma, which is great because you can reuse candles, and have fun dipping your hands in the wax to make wax fingers.

I tried to show Nicole match rockets (matches wrapped in aluminum foil that shoot 5 feet) but the last of the matches I had turned out to be a dud, so I moved to the best gift ever, Shocking Tanks. The way these two remote control tanks work is simple. When you shoot the other tank with infrared light, the opposing tank registers the hit and your opponent receives an electrocution though the control, usually dropping the controller. You can set your control to low shock which will do one point of damage, or high shock which will inflict two points of damage. I guess that kind of represents shield which lessen fire power. First to inflict 6 points technically wins, but when you're shocking people, everyone wins.

Well Merry Xmas to you and yours...

Your Personal Hero
THE BAbbLER
pchewy
Anshu Gupta
http://psubabbler.esmartguy.com

Farewell Vball Mike, Dica Returns, Celery has a boyfriend

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SUMMESTER WANES:
As the fall ends, my slacking student friends desperately start studying more which means I rent movies. The main character in the award winning film "Amelie" that I adore was also in this movie "He loves me, he loves me not". Even though I had to read subtitles it was a great change of pace flick where they told the same story of unrequited love two ways, one if he loved her and another if he loved her not.

Another consequence of the ending of the semester is we have to say goodbye to some special peps like the legendary Rhetta, and in this case the short-lived friendship with Vball Mike. Though some people don’t have my Peter Pan lifestyle and must be lame and grow up, the kewl ones come back to visit Happy Valley, like Dica who returned this weekend (Unfortunately, I have no pics of Dica’s visit).

THE GATHERING:
Dicke didn't want to call this going away shindig a party, rather he called it a gathering. This makes me wonder what nutty escapades he expects from a true party. Sign me up for that bad boy! Vball Mike was the guest of honor so he wore a tiara; I had no reason to but I wore a random clip-on ear ring for part of the night to the delight of Nicole. Oh wait, she hated it—tee-he. Does this mean that Nicole has latent transgender issues. Oh well.

Before we set up beer pong matches like Rachel & Carson verses Rick & Aaron, we played real ping pong on the Petey's old table. Brooke edged over me in a close game after a steadfast victory over Vball Mike. With this momentum, you'd think Brooke would dominate with Vball Mike as her partner in ping pong doubles, sadly no. Playing confined tag-team table tennis at work adds up, and led to my definitive victory. Hooray for me and teamwork!!

EVERYONE SOCIALIZE:
People cycled in and out during the drinking card game "Circle of Death", leaving Kate and I as the only stagnant players. It was a first time I've gone through the entire deck without anybody dropping any cards for a penalty. It was freaky on a cosmic scale. Kate and I were like Jedis reigning order over evil in the Circe of Death. I always thought Kate and I were evil so maybe it was professional curtsy.

Meanwhile, Brooke snuck in some CDs to dance to because Dicke broke his computer moving it from his bedroom to the living room. You’d think you could expect more from a computer scientist. Way to go dork!!

Still, more of my comments about the music go to Brooke for playing songs that were old when I was young. You don't go to parties and hear 80s tunes followed by the theme song to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles nearly enough. Rock on party girl!!

Still it was clutch that Brooke brought any music after the Dicke computer debacle. Usually we use Steve’s mp3 player to run tunes but I don’t think he brought it to the party. I guess I didn’t mention that Steve came up for the weekend which was great but I failed to go to Indian Pavilion for good eats with him. He did seem to keep Nicole amused which was much appreciated.

FEET OF FURY, LORD OF THE RINGS, OR JUST AMY'S GIANT ASS?: When Amy snuck up behind me for a warm "I'm here" hug from behind, I offered her a "foot" shaped ring I got in Canada. I gave her the foot ring in honor of the foot pictures I took of Amy before. Generally, I think feet are the ugliest part of the human body. You agree with me, right? I mean there is no such thing as good looking feet, only somewhat okay feet and nasty feet like my old roommate Heverly's that looked like it would burst into blood and puss at any moment. Ick, right?

Perhaps it would have been more fitting to bequeath Amy a giant butt-shaped ring, but that would have to cover all her knuckles to be fittingly large enough to represent her giant ass and PSU doesn't allow brass knuckles--hehe. Amy told me to hold onto the foot ring until she left, which of course meant it was destroyed in some freakish accident caused by invisible monsters during the party, I swear. A Frodo I am not; I could not hold onto the ring and now Amy’s butt is doomed to grow forever.

HEAT THINGS UP:
I’m all for using instinct, impulse and imagination but sometimes the directions on food items should be adhered to. This advice only goes to others and should never be applied to me. When I was in college, my neighbors tried to use scorching dorm water to boil a lobster which killed it but didn't cook it. Today, Kate and Brooke tried to make Jell-O Shots in the dorm without the boiling water (which they could have gotten using the microwave).

We ended up with gritty un-gelatinized green Jell-O shots. Granted, that didn't stop Genny and I from enjoying them. At our first shot I joked around with Genny "There's someone making out in the other room and it's not you." I didn't know the couple that was hooking up. Apparently this was the culmination of a semester's worth of sexual tension. Most of the rest of the people released there tension with a giant "Lets smack each other in the ass" game. Luckily Vball Mike got his licks in.

Well, we'll miss u Vball Mike!

SAT======>
MOVIE DRAMA:
Saturday Nicole and I saw the vampire movie "Blade Trinity" expecting sci fi plot, comic book horror and state of the art fighting scenes. What we got was all that and a bonus of some excellent humor. For its genre, Blade Trinity is a quality film, though I wouldn’t suggest it to the average Jane on the street. On the way out of the downtown theater, the fates bumped us into the always engaging crew of RuchaCat who recently turned 21. I couldn’t deny serendipity so I agreed to go with them to the bar "Anthony's Big Easy" where we waited for Dica who was watching Ocean’s 12 with her boyfriend.

DRAMA BECAUSE OF THE MOIVE:
Nicole was being super lame, and didn't really know anyone, so she took off. She was pissed because the night before I told Kate I'd see "Ocean's 12" in the morning with her. I did this because I knew that Nicole wanted to see it assuming this would a treat for Nicole. Apparently, Nicole wanted to see it with just me, and couldn't see it with Kate because she had a group meeting at the same time. I told Nicole it was sad, but I'd go without her. In the end I didn't see the movie because Kate was still ripped from previous party night.

Eventually Nicole and I went to see the movie Blade Trinity because BK invited us to join him and we watched Blade II together. I totally forgot Trinity came out. This peeved Nicole more because she still wanted to see Ocean's 12 which ended up being sold out. To top everything I didn't buy Nicole popcorn because I was already sitting when she returned from the bathroom. I wasn't about to get up when the previews started.

I think girls are human beings and I shouldn't disempower them by pampering them, especially to my inconvenience when they can easily do it their selves. If you think I'm a jerk, then you are probably a lazy girl, or you're a guy who's a wuss that bores women and tries to win them over with shallow unoriginal manipulative politeness that rarely works. I mean don’t be abusive to girls, but treat them as your equal which means not putting up with stuff and teasing them about it so you both can laugh. It was sad that we couldn’t go see the movie Nicole wanted, but it wasn’t like I did anything to sabotage Ocean’s 12. We’ll see it eventually and Dica said it wasn’t as great as the hype.

DICA RETURNS:
ANYwho, without Nicole the night continued. This was the third time in a row that I went to Sleasy (The Big Easy) without anybody in my group buying a drink because Celery decided to take off to another bar while the rest of use ventured towards "Cafe 210" in the cold to reunite with Dica. Before she left, Celery punched me for a comment I made in her absence. I said Celery was the hottest girl I've ever met with absolutely no game. I'm pretty sure Celery didn't know that I knew she had a boyfriend at this juncture, but more about that later.

PEOPLE WATCHING:
After some quick reacquainting with RuchaCat, Dica, Vidhi, Abha and such, I spent most of my time people-watching with Alice. At first we tried to figure out if the lead singer playing at Café 210 was a guy or a girl. Last vote count said it was it was a she, but the jury is still deliberating.

The funniest thing Alice and I saw people-watching was a couple forming that I could only describe as the lame hooking up with the lamer. If I ever saw two goofier people with no game hook up I'd swear I was watching a Disney movie. The two lovers were cursed and would transform into beautiful royalty if only they realize it’s the inside counts. I don't know why the romance of these two strangers was so fascinating, funny, and heartwarming to me, but it was. I guess I like the thought that everyone who tries can get a chance at love.

In perspective, I was probably like that lame guy once. I never really had Trouble trying though; I just tried the completely wrong things. Now I'm glad I know a few more things that give me a better chance of positively interacting with woman on an attraction level with skills rather than being afraid or just trying the wrong things. If you're a guy in a rut and are willing to really try new things, let me know and I'll bestow some of my pearls of wisdom. Here's a free one, don't be a predictable, polite wuss; be cocky, funny, and tease a girl so she wants to come to you.

THE USUALLY GRUELING GAME OF WHATS NEXT:
Surprisingly standing outside of Cafe 210 in the bitter cold trying to figure out what to do next was more fun than the bars. At first it was just debating over breaking up the group or doing something together. Then, when most of us seemed to decide to go to Vidhi's, it became a "do we wait for Celery who is still at another bar or not" battle.

Suddenly, RuchaCat exploded on her friends for previously accusing her of being anorexic. I took some perverse joy in this because RuchaCat is just so damn entertaining when she's passionately talking about anything, serious or not. I didn't take the acquisitions seriously because I could never imagine RuchaCat passing up something good to eat, or that she would fall into that unhealthy mindset. Also most people who are anorexic have my deepest sympathies but are typecast as perfectionists or people prone to panic which doesn't describe RuchaCat.

Surprisingly, contrarily to her impulsive erratic explosive persona, I see RuchaCat as having more self control than most. For example, she gave up meat for a long period of time just to see if she could do it. I fully trust RuchaCat and believe her when she said she is just eating healthier. I could probably take a page from her book, but I'd never admit that to her. I was just happy to see her arguing with someone who wasn’t me, and amused by the firey nature she burst out with.

After the drama, which I don't mean to say was very big, fizzled away, people were playing the always entertaining game of I want to be the last person to hug Dica. An unintentional effect of this was keeping us chilling in a cold for a while. Finally we broke towards Vidhi's place, but I wanted to get my car which was by the theater. This lead to the type of antics that only happen to me...

AM I FAT?:
Speed walking down College Ave. to my car, I surveyed a group of people rejoicing a block away. From the cheers, it was easy to determine that a guy just proposed to his love and she accepted. Both were slightly inebriated, but it was real because there was a ring. When the two people in front of me walked by the couple, the drunken girl said "I just got engaged!!" and the strangers cheered and appropriately said "Congratulations".

Keying off his new fiancé, it was the newly-engaged man who turned to me and said, "Hey I just got engaged!!" Humorously, I said, "Really? When's the baby due?"

In her drunken state the girl was quite confused, "What?"

Of course, I just kept walking and overheard her query the man, "What did he say?"

He replied, "He asked when the baby was due."

"What baby?"

"He was just saying that you were pregnant and that's why we got married."

"Pregnant?, I'm not pregnant. Does he think I'm fat!!" --Hahahahah, I love the Trouble I cause.

I FEEL THE NEED FOR PEE:
After I return my car home, I shuffled over to Vidhi's but misinterpreted her directions which normally wouldn't be a problem but my new cell phone ngage batter died. I guess I was playing NCAA football on it too much the day before waiting for Tia's music recital which I went to an hour before because I misinterpreted the time of the show. Adding to the drama was the fact that I had the need to pee. I didn't do at my place because I didn't want to wake Nicole.

Since I'm the genius type, I started sniffing around until I found a mailbox inside a house that said Vidhi and a number which made me think she lived on the second floor of that building. When I got upstairs I saw a number 2. This meant second floor, right? So I opened the door to find Vidhi's room. It turned out that I was in someone else’s house who left their door open. Nobody was home.

I couldn't control it anymore so I just peed in their bathroom and left. In my rush, I couldn't find the second light to turn off. I think I left the toilet seat up too. Finally, I went back the first floor and knocked on that door to ask if they knew where Vidhi's place was. They didn’t know Vidhi, but gave me enough of a clue to realize the mailbox was in this house, but Vidhi lived next door.

MEAT THE BOYFRIEND:
After the joys of telling the two stories to the others at Vidhi’s, I munched on some popcorn and met Celery's new boyfriend while they made ice cream. In retaliation to my accusation that she was game-less, Celery pulled a, "Do you think I have game now?", and I just brutally replied, "You'll find a way to mess this up, don't worry."

Later I realized I might have been wrong. Celery, was the hottest girl with no game which is in little dispute, but this girl in front of me was different than that girl I remember. That girl from before once couldn't say the word "blowjob". This Celery was still relationshiply-awkward, not wanting to call the guy her boyfriend in girlish fashion to not jinx it, but I must commend that she did have a guy who seemed to be kewl. This means Celery has more game that I did at her age.

What has changed with Celery, I thought to acquire this game? Then in a flash of brilliant deduction, it hit me like a stalk of wet Celery. Celery is no longer a vegetarian. My 6 year campaign finally got to her. With some meat in her system, the crave for meat has....well you can fill in the blank. She got the man!!

Per usual, most people started dropping like flies leaving RuchaCat and I the last few alive watching Bruce Lee until the good part of the flick was done. My favorite part is when the one fighter replied to the villian who asked what he’d do when he was defeated. “Bullshit Mr. Handman, I’ll be too busy looking good!” Alice reclaimed her pot from Vidhi, and since I'm such a great guy, I drove everyone home.

Wow that was a super blog, though I guess I should call this an online journal to be correct. What a great weekend, just wish I had a camera for the later part.

Your Personal Hero
THE BAbbLER
pchewy
Anshu Gupta
http://psubabbler.esmartguy.com

Black Friday

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SHOPAPHOBIA:
Like spiders to a flashlight, Black Friday frightened and dispersed the feeble in my family. Fearlessly, my little sister Molly and I met up with my cousin, Kitty, and her college roommate, Mandy, at Simons "Ross Park" mall. I miss my suburban center, which dwarfs the meager mall at Penn State like a shnowzer sitting next to an elephant. As a teen, you could label me a mallrat, constantly wasting time in search of video games, movies, electronics, coffee, CDs and the arcade. But to my defense, I tried to spend just as much time at boutiques in the city as the commercialized malls when transportation was available.

My cousin Kitty bullied me to open a credit card at “Banana Republic” so she could get an anorexic sized black coat at a discount. I was enamored by the puzzle store and all neat and creative thing they do, especially the mosaics where thousands of pictures make one giant picture. Inspired, I went online got some free software to create ones myself. Click Here for more mosaic pics.

At the mall, I learned my little sister Molly was one of those hot girls that received bounty without asking. She's such a tart. When we were at “Spensors” one of her peers made her gobble like a chicken in exchange for 25% off coupon. Molly adhered to the request, and we made Kitty put on this Rastafarian hat shown above, but we didn't buy anything. Finally, we went to “Eat n Park” to end the day. I got some iced chai from their extended menu-mmmmmm.

NEW PUTER:
After dinner, Molly and I went back home and watch "Mean Girls" and "Saved", super-great teen comedies. For once, Black Friday didn't seduce me to buy anything. That's probably because I'm broke, shelling out cash to purchase this new Ferrari laptop I'm using to type this blog. Finally, I have a working computer again and can be on aim (psubabbler) after work though I'll probably still only check email at work. It's always nice hearing from peps, especially if they find fun sites to visits like this game where you try not to fall down drunk. My high score is 61. Click Here to play game.

HOMEWARD BOUND:
Saturday I was feeling lazy so I just high-tailed back to State College not realizing this meant I couldn't watch the Steelers game at Casebeer's. This also meant no winter coat for me. Forty-five minutes from State College, the funniest thing happened at the gas station. Celery called me to request a ride home, and while rejecting her I set the gas pump to auto fill. It's supposed to stop itself, but didn't, leaving the passenger side of my car caked with petroleum and a puddle of wasted expensive gas on the ground. With no winter jacket, I was force to settle for a winter hat on my head to keep me warm while I spent the rest of the drive with my sunroof down to a Void dying of fumes.

Every time I go home I sing this rendition of a classic....
Country roads,
Take me home
To the place I belong.
Happy valley,
Home of joe-pa.
Take me home
Country roads.

Tis' all for now.

Your Personal Hero
THE BAbbLER
pchewy
Anshu Gupta
http://psubabbler.esmartguy.com

Thanksgiving at Shipra's

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AN INDIAN-INDIAN THANKSGIVING
After filling myself with an authentic Thanksgiving food at Case's, my family headed to my cousin Shipra's place near the Pittsburgh Airport where I was born for our Thanksgiving gathering of family and family friends. Granted to say this occasion called for a lot of "Indian" food--hehe. It was one of those pot luck events where kids ate traditional Native American "Indian" turkey while the parents eat mostly Asian "Indian" food in a smorgasbord of yumminess.

ELECTRONICS TO THE RESCUE:
Of course being the computer fanatic I whipped out my pockets electronics to keep me amused including my ngage computer game cell phone, my digital camera, a bag of Xbox games, and Super Joy joystick console. The Super Joy is a hack console that has 12000 Nintendo games embedded in one of the controllers. In truth, there are probably only 200 games because they take a game like Track and Field and split it up to each event and call them several games, and then replicate games with their Korean, Japanese, and Chinese versions. Still it's sweet for the price ($30), convenience, and comes with two joysticks and gun for Duck Hunt fun.

My oldest cousin's wife Riju, who is expecting a child, seemed to get the biggest kick out the games, especially the shooting ones. Being the benevolent type, I brought a treasure trove of Xbox games for my cousin Shipra, who told me she was happy with just “Dead or Alive”. It was enough of a challenge to try to beat her sister Kitty who randomly presses buttons and wins.

BOARD GAME FUN:
My cousin Kitty had an extra special Thanksgiving because I finally gave her an anime, "Blue Seed", which Mikeypooh got her for Xmas last year--whoops. The anime was a TV series in Japan so it'd be too long to watch that day. Instead we played board games so more people could be involved in the fun. First, we played the original Therapy games (one of my favorite board games which I own the sequel TherapyII), but with the number of family friends at the party, Cranium was more sensible.

Unfortunately, I left Cranium in the car year round. Now the clay has turned to a rock. Like Humpty Dumpty, the clay couldn't be saved even with the power of water, so we skipped the clay sculpting categories.

It was hilarious watching my little sister try to do charades and listening to all our tone deaf humming of songs. The guys verses girls left the guys winning repeatedly, mostly because we rolled better. I peg Anisha as the most valuable player for the girls team and declare myself the king of the boys.

Men are number 1!!

Happy gobble gobble day to all.

Your Personal Hero
THE BAbbLER
pchewy
Anshu Gupta
http://psubabbler.esmartguy.com

Casebeer Reunion

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PONG AND PART:
Part of the splendor of my job is knowing they'll let me off early before Thanksgiving after a Ping Pong match. Almost daily at 3pm we play the best of three confined ping pong at work for the world tag team champion belts. If one team wins the first two games, a winner-takes-all bonus battle for the “leather belts” occurs. The champion belt is a bootleg wresting belt, whereas the leather belts only exist in the mind’s eye.

My coworker, anshuaron, and I have dominated mostly due to his prowess, but on this pre-Thanksgiving day game we wanted to treat our 'fans' to something special. This led to our demise. The "special" moment was when anshuaron walloped our boss Jim smack in the face to give him a little bit of the reddish Rudolph look for the holidays.

DEATH OF THE AUTOBON:
The drive to the burgh was near record time if you subtract the 40 minutes of bumper-to-bumper inching traffic to escape Port Mitlida. Damn, that was grueling.

Since there was nothing going on at home in north Pittsburgh, I dialed my best friend Case in Shadyside to find a mini reunion at his parent's house. His sister Teresa, her husband Raj, and their kid were coming up for Thanksgiving from Chicago. I haven't seen Case's sister since before she had her first kid and she is expecting a second one.

To get to Case's family home, I had to forgo the fun twists and turns of my usual exit, and instead go cruising at high speeds down the famed McKnight road. Then travesty hit, and it hit hard. They say things change when you grow old. First you forget names, and then you forget faces. Next you forget to pull your zipper up and finally, you forget to pull it down. This was worse than all that.

The last stretch of McKnight road outward bound from the city is an area we dubbed the autobahn, a pristine a stretch of navigateable road where cops were visible so racing your friend in a multilane road was safer. The MAN destroyed this legacy by adding a new pointless traffic light.

MEETING THE WHITE HALF INDIAN:
Broken hearted from the loss of my autobahn, I met up with Case's family. I finally met his nephew, Adian (not spelt right) and greeted Teresa who is expecting another kid that Case wants to call Kimo, after the Steelers player Kimo von Oelhoffen. I've always wanted to name my kids Violet Case Gupta and Justin Case Gupta, but suggested calling Teresa's kid Mr. Big to continue the Sex in the City theme of naming the first child Adian, which purported is also Indian for fire but my sources say it's Gaelic.

Speaking of Indian, Yes, Case's sister married a 100% Indian named Raj Marvah (no relation to Naveen). Purportedly their love created Adian, pictured above. Is it me or does this boy not look half Indian to you? Still, the kid amused me with his going back to the fridge repeatedly to give everyone pop. What was more peculiar was Teresa said we couldn’t watch Aladdin because it has swords in it. Also, we couldn't say words like "guns" or "sword" because it'd somehow be detrimental to the child's development, crazy huh?

After some delicious ham, shrimp, and pie, Case, his brother who we call Beer and I chewed the fat outside until Beer choose lameness and went home. I did learn Beer has my winter jacket I left last year.

TRADITIONAL THANKSGIVING

Thursday morning sent me to Case's for Thanksgiving first. I just wanted to say hi, but ended up staying for food, delicious, authentic American dinner. It was so damn good, Case's mom is amazing. Before the turkey comatose set in, I bid the Casebeer's adu and hightailed to my rents.

Your Personal Hero
THE BAbbLER
pchewy
Anshu Gupta
http://psubabbler.esmartguy.com

KT Secret Niagra Bday

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Dicke the sweetheart wanted to celebrate his girlfriend's 20th bday, and since KT can't drink at the bars in the USA, he planned a lovely trip north of the border to o' Canada. Overall it was pretty kewl except that I didn't get to gamble.

Top 10 Things About The Secret Trip to Canada

1) Niagara on TV==>When we got back to "the states" and flicked on the TVs, lo and behold "The Nanny" was in Niagara. She was trying to sucker her rich boss onto the Maid of the Mists boat ride to seduce him to propose in the engagement capital of the world. Freaky, huh?

2) KT stays with Dicke==>Do you believe in curses? I used to think there was a birthday curse with Dicke. Last time he had a girlfriend she dumped him through email on his birthday. This year he launched a shredded wet napkin wad into his girlfriend's eye at his birthday dinner, but she still stayed with him. Now this weekend her birthday has been celebrated and Dicke remains steadfast. The curse is reversed!! Hang onto this girl Dicke huh!

3) Phil permission slip==>Last time I saw the falls was in June after Pete's pimpin' wedding dance in Buffalo. We decided to visit since we were in the vicinity, but on the car ride to Canada , KT curiously turned to Dicke and asked, "Honey, are you allowed to go to Canada?"

"--Damn!" Dicke exclaimed as he realized that with his security clearance he wasn't allowed to leave the country without informing them; subsequently we viewed the falls from the American side. Come to think about it though, we were in the Canadian waters when we did the Maid of the Mists boat ride. Rebels huh?

4) Animal, Mineral, or Vegetable?==>named after that "Model General" jingle which was brilliantly preformed by Wacko from Animanaics, this quizzical game is a simple twist on twenty questions. One person pictures something in their mind's eye while their mates try to guess with yes-no questions. The first question queries the category, Is it an animal? Is it a vegetable? Mineral? and if the answer is no, your turn is forfeited to the next mate in line....

I apparently picked hard ones, flamingo, bats, and eagles. People get confused by a bird that doesn't fly or a mammal that does; perhaps I am due some fault, apparently, eagles aren't blue, but after America's propaganda genetic core gets to them they will be red-eyed, white-feathered with blue mains, rest assured.

Overall, it's a nifty challenge to teach people not to jump to conclusions. It made a road trip triumphant joy playing with Nicole, Steph and her boyfriend on the way up to o' Canada. The ESPN highlight to me was when Steph chose "Dicke" as the "thing" and the question "Can it be found in Pennsylvania?" arose. The coy reply was, "Yes, well not now because it's in New York". Pretty silly huh?

5) Slip, Slide, Suds, Sauna, and Splashes==>I didn't get to gamble but I did enjoy my other favorite thing to do on vacation, hotel sauna. It was a dry sauna which was meak, but the Jacuzzi was nifty, and get this, they had a SLIDE going into the 4 meter pool! Dave Wyman wins outright for the biggest splash and the daring headfirst, upside-down type shenanigans. --Also the pool was half indoor / half outdoor, but we didn't get to experience the joys of the outdoor portion due to the season. That just means we can go back in summer huh?

6) Hotel Overload --Immediately when we got to the hotel our presence was known to the staff. I had to do some nifty Knight Rider driving to get a parking spot, but it was probably all of us standing outside of the hotel with our stuff that didn't help our cause of sharing a room. The manager didn't buy Dicke's unconvincing ruse that some of us were staying in another hotel. Since the room was oddly shaped, Mr. and Mrs. Dave Wyman got their own room where Nicole and I stayed in exchange for buying them dinner at the Keg. Good deal huh?

7) Shoe buffer -- What fine hotel doesn't have one? Me being on-shoe, I was most happily impressed with the shoe appliance. Thusly, I preceded to use the shoe buffer for its many uses, foot massager, waking Nicole up in the morning, you know the usual. Does that give anybody a hint for what I want for Christmas huh?

8) Behind the falls--Yet again, I didn't see the night lights on the falls, but I did go behind the falls. It's much overrated and pitiful compared to Maid of the Mist rides in the summer, but it did allow me to make some funny videos of Nicole and I dancing by the falls. So if Kodak moments control your life and Hallmark seduces your wallet from you every season, succumb to the allure of Behind The Falls; otherwise try the other joys of the falls like the arcades, wacky museums or haunted houses. With THE BAbbLER around who needs tour agents huh?

9) Arcade--You lika the arcade, yeah I lika the arcade, the arcade iz goooood. You got to love a bar that's incorporated with an arcade where you get the advantage of the exchange rate to play next generation arcade games. I fell in love with a soccer game where you had to kick a ball connected to the machine to simulate your player, and was impressed by the boxing game where I wore gloves and video cameras censored my movements. I also played a lot of kiddy games to get tickets. The first night we claimed our prize of rings for all the girls, while the second night it was kazoo blowers for all! (i miss Playland :( ). I'm so giving huh?

10) Drinking & Dining--We tried to rekindle our love for a mixed frozen drink that we had in spring break in Niagara before, but couldn't remember the name of drinks. Instead, we consumed a group shot of kamikazes compliments of Dicke at this bar that was weaker than my thumb wrestling skills.

Apparently elevator advertising work, because it convinced us to go to Dennys which was priced like a fancy restaurant (never again). The culinary best goes to "The Keg" where I got a delicious mango mixed drink and sword fought Dave Wyman while dining of fine blue rare steak! Dicke's crew was troublemakers, breaking a drink which was promptly replaced by the kewl waitress.

The most amusing dining award goes to Burger King. On the way there I thought we were driving and departing quickly, so I ordered a shrimp salad and just downed the shrimp and saved the salad to apparently rot in the hotel. On the return trip there was a random old guy hitting on KT's friend doing the most outrageous stand up routine and harmonica playing at the Burger King.

--introductions....knock-knock; who's there -you forgot already?
--Your eyes are like Marylyn Monroe, one on each side.
--Your legs are like petals, bicycle pedals
Funny stuff live, huh?

So another fine trip to Canada without meeting my doom!!! Doom, what the hell is that about?

BONUS BLOG: ...years ago I went to the most accurate fortune teller on the beaches of South Carolina. I was amazed that the lady came up with more specific fortunes than generated ones, probably because I challenged her with humor and skepticism. Also, it was kind of cute that she keyed off my persona to the point that she did the reading with comic book analogies for me. I was 16 and everything she predicted has so far come true, including injury's to my friend on that trip, death of my grandfather, getting into the first college I applied, and describing generally, but eerily precisely, my romantic infatuations from high school to college.

She described me as the joker with 5 cups of wine, --3 full, 1 drunk, 1 spilt over and said that my life would be overwhelmed with joys if I learned to focus on full glasses of the future and not the cups that have been drunk or spilt. The most poignant prediction was her prediction that I would meet what she called as my kryptonite, an artist that will have more energy and wit than me. The only 2 things left is my marriage in Vegas and my "DOOM" in Canada. She said it wasn't death, because there's no doom in death, but it was defiantly doom, but wouldn't elaborate further.

Once again, I tempted the fates and survived, huh!

Your Personal Hero
THE BAbbLER
pchewy
Anshu Gupta
http://psubabbler.esmartguy.com