What Goes Down, Must Come Up.

A birthday for a college student is typically an excuse to have yet another "raging" house party--The only difference between a college birthday party and other parties, is that instead of having a bunch of guests you don't know come over to party; it's a bunch of guests you don't know coming over to party--for a birthday that they don't even know exsists.

So when my birthday came along on April 25, I decided that instead of celebrating a personal holiday with a bunch of strangers who wouldn't appreciate the value of it, I would just spend it with the guys, go out to eat, and hang out.

After me and my co-blogger hit a baseball game,we met up with a couple of the boys to figure out what we would eat. We were hungry; and we didn't want any pizza, dorm food, chinese, frat meals, salads, or hot pockets...we wanted something with some soul--and there is only one place in this triflin' ass city to get yo' soul on...Papa's soul food.

Ahh Papa's....the Eugene/Springflield area's flavorful blast from the "souf". I had never been there or had its food, but everybody in town told me it was "incredible..."

Now, bluntly put, I am from a black family where my grandma whips up yams, greens, mac and cheese like a pro; I know how it's supposed to taste. So when I had a bunch of white college kids, who probably grew up off of pasta and chicken nuggets, tell me that the CORNbread (for the last time people, it's pronounced CONEbread--the "R" is silent) is "wonderful" or the yams were "spectacular....it made me a bit skeptical to say the least.

I mean, how could I not have been? I had people telling me the food is "wonderful," "incredible," and "superb"--any brotha who eats soulfood professionally, knows damn well that those big ass words aint supposed to be coming to mind when you thinkin' 'bout catfish nuggets, ribs, and 'tato salad! Why you think black people describe soul food as "bomb" "the shit" or "hella good?" It's because it tastes so great, that you ain't got time to think of sensible adjectives when you attempt to explain it. The fact that proper english was used to describe their food made me uncomfortable...

But I figured it wouldn't kill me to try it, so the six of us loaded into the truck, and headed to Papa's Soulfood Kitchen.

15 minutes later we arrived...and my skeptisim rose. It was surrounded by redneck mobiles and trailer trash apartments. They said it was southern...but is it the blues and saxaphones type of southern? Or the banjo's and confederate flag type of southern? But before I tasted the food or even saw the menu my every skeptisism was cleared...

I saw old school tables with plaid tablecloths, old school show posters of many blues legends, and, most importantly, a picture of the owner...who was fat as hell!

[Sidenote: If the owner of a soul food restaurant is morbidly obese, most likely, their restaurant is the shit. The fatter the owner, the more "firsthand" experience he has with taste and the more irresistable his restaurants food is.]

I was officially excited to eat there.

We sat down, and the waiter brought us the menu, which was so innovative I cant really describe it, and offered us drinks...sweet tea or Kool-Aid.

Could it get any better?

I ordered pork ribs, yams, mac and cheese and purple Kool-Aid.

In summary, it was the shit. It was bomb. It was hella good.

We ordered boxes, made jokes about how Papa is black taxing us all because it was so damn expensive, and left.

As we got in the car, my co-blogger had stated how he felt like he was gonna throw up from eating so much. We all laughed it off, but as soon as we hit the parking lot of the house, he hopped out of the truck and hurled up one of the most epic and lengthy vomits of all time.

He didn't have enough soul for soul food.

just as I was making fun of him, for throwing up, I realized that I had to throw up too!

So there I was: on my knees and vomiting my eyes out, like many other people do on their birthday....except I didn't have a lick of alcohol.

What the hell happened? I understand one person throwing up from a meal--but two? Did we pick up the Swine Flu from the pork ribs?

Nah. We were just fat asses.

We came to the conclusion that we over ate. Him and I got so adapt to hella college cuisine, that when it came to good food--the type of meals that had entrees AND side dishes--our bellies panicked and didn't know how to react. We're pretty upset that we didnt get to digest all those fats, empty calories, carbs and oils that we call soul food. we would have loved to get that much closer to obesity and heart failure.

But we look on the brightside...not only was Papa's good going down, but, we can both attest, it was just as good coming up.

We got two meals for the price of one...whats more thrifty than that?

Hellacollege.

Always Smooth

So cheap beer is a beast all its own. The taste: anywhere from watery to bitter, tangy to tainted. Cheap beer comes in all shapes, sizes, packages, and shelf-lives. Some try to position their product as dirt cheap and plain, while others try to pass off as the cheaper version of nice beers. Some are filling, some have horrible aftertastes, some are actually pretty good. Probably the reason we at hellacollege love cheap beer so much is because its what we've been drinking since we got the nerves to ask the random dude outside rite-aid to get us some booze in high school.

I will say for one, the reason love cheap beer is NOT because the marketing. Yesterday I got a 30-bomb (rack, case, boat, what have you) of Keystone light and i noticed something weird about the case insert. It's part of a marketing campaign called, "Always Smooth" They put a slogan in the middle of the case explaining a sort of unsmooth situation. It then says, "Key Light, always smooth. Even when you're not". At first we laughed...

"Bagged a six-point buck. (With your bumper)." Oh haha yeah reeeealll smooth.

Wait... is that talking about driving in the alcohol box?

It took me 10 beers to be able to pull this out of the box. Kinda like the toy half way through the cereal. Are they describing a drunken driving mishap involving some beautiful wildlife? Whatttt the effffff. This is messed up. I looked further into the campaign online and found some more slogans.

SHE CALLED YOU AT HOME (YOUR MOTHER ANSWERED)

If that isn't encouraging underage drinking I don't know what is.

GOT OUT OF A TICKET (BY CRYING)

Being a drunk emotional asshole getting out of a DUI. Way to go key light

GOT TO WORK EARLY (ON A HOLIDAY)

Real alcoholics here. Drunk at work.

HELD OPEN THE DOOR (INTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC)

At least this douche bag never made it into traffic. If he's that drunk imagine what damage he could have done with his Chevy Silverado.

THE RESULTS CAME BACK NEGATIVE (ON YOUR DRIVING EXAM)

Now thats just dumb. Underage drinking and drunk driving.

MET A GIRL ONLINE (HE'S THIRTY-SEVEN)

Hella homophobic and heteronormative and ish. WTF. This also implies the reader is drinking at home, alone, scouring the internet. CMON!

WENT HUNTING (BAGGED A DECOY)

Now guns and alcohol have to be the worst idea ever.

Anyway. I like cheap beer. I drink key light, but come on. This has to be the worst campaign ever for a beer company. Seems funny at first. Definitely is not. Stop encouraging underage, alcoholic, irresponsible beer. Start positioning your product as the beer thats cheap as dirt, gets ya drunk, and goes down well for binge drinking games. I'll be graduating in a year with a marketing degree. Feel free to hire me.

Hella College.

Lazy Bloggers

So Tyree and I have been horrible bloggers lately. I've even pretty lazy on tweeting, the diet zero carb grandchild of blogging. Its not that our lives havn't been hellacollege, or that we don't love yall, its just that Spring Term is a beautiful siren of a beast. We're constantly lured into the pollen-allergy-sun-burning-homework-ignoring "great outdoors" by the foreign sun we havn't seen for 6 months. You know you're procrastinating when you put off what you usually spend time procrastinating with.

What I'm trying to say is i'm sorry. Instead of spending time blogging, we've been playing frisbee, tanning on the roof (though no color to show for it), and drinking "hard" slurpees. We've been half-assed tweeting because softball games and 1$ microbrews are just too hard to pass up.

Anyway, I have 45 minutes till my next class, and I'm gonna go outside. Who knows how long this will last up here in Oregon. HOWEVER. Don't fall off the face of the earth, lots of exciting things in the works. Watch out for the hellacollege cam snapping pictures and hellacollegeTV's debut in a few weeks. In the meantime, enjoy that sun, but for pete's sake go to class. If you stare out the window long enough, the professor will let class out early.

Much Love,

hellacollege

Hella Golf

I've always been an antifan of golf. I could probably think of a million better things to watch than 85 year olds dressing like they lost a bet, bashing around a poor little dimpled ball with a club (ok when described like that it sounds pretty damn amusing). The problem with golf is that its so damn conservative and snooty--and boring. perhaps thats why so many upperclass Americans enjoy it...

However, it is a good thing to watch when you wanna make fun of some suckas plaid shorts, don't want to wear your eyes out following around a bunch of men scurrying up and down a court, or if you just need something to lull you to bed. Yesterday after school, I kinda wanted to do all 3.

As I'm watching the golfers waltz up and down the green and semi dozing off, my roommate (probably the most hellacollege person I know) comes down stairs, and we begin poking fun at how old they are. I then go on a rant about how I think golf is completely boring and lame. He surprises me with his response:

Roommate:"yeah but I love that shit."

Me:"you love this shit?"

R:"yeah, I like to play but not to watch"

M:"hmm...that's weird."

R:"but I didn't look like that when I was out there."

M:"No?"

R: "I used to have dubees and 40's when I hit the green."

M: "what?"

R: Yeah man! whats better than getting out of school on a sunny day, and teeing off with a dubee?"

Guess I couldn't challenge his logic.

you know, revolutionizing golf wouldn't be a bad thought--my roomate is a pioneer! his style of play could attract millions of younger viewers and angry mothers! this would be a reinvention of golf! Hell, if they started getting faded during the PGA tour, I wouldn't miss a second of it! This gave me an idea of how I would hellacollege baptize professional golf...

If hellacollege ran the PGA...

1) The goddamn scoring system would make more sense. none of that negitive is positive shit, none of those birdies, eagles, doves, geese and any other nicknames they have.

2) Caddies would have at least a C cup.

3) Intoxication of some sort would be recommended.

4) Steroids would be mandatory.

5) Instead of a green jacket, the winner would recieve a fine bag of green and a pair of nikes.

6) I'm tired of the big green country club bullshit, lets take it to the skreetz! golf would be played in the New York City projects; imagine how much more valuable it would be to get a hole in one--while Deshawn is shooting his pistol at you.

7) Instead of FOUR!! everyone would yell out MOVE BITCH!!!!

8) Dress code wouldn't be enforced.

9) Games would not be cancelled or delayed due to bad weather.

10) And most importantly, it would be come a full contact sport.

Although these changes will NEVER happen (they're a little dangerous...and illegal), I still dream of the day where I'd hit the course and ask my big breasted caddy what should I use in this situation and she replies:

"a 9 iron and a dimesack."

Hellacollege.

Marco! Polo!

So its spring term now. That means the weekend starts on tuesday. Last night I was minding my own business, doing some business statistics in my second-floor room when I heard some yelling outside. 

MARCO! Polo! MARCO! Polo! MARCO! POLO! MARCO! POLO!

It took me a second to figure to figure out what was happening, but two groups of drunk ass girls were using an instinctual hellacollege skill to locate their friends. 

Everyone remembers the old pool game of marco polo. The game where all the big kids swim around taunting you while you flap around the deep end of the pool barely keeping your head above the water. The worst part was even when you tried to cheat by opening your eyes, the chlorine stung your eyes. At the end of the day, the cheaters always needed some clear eyes. 

I think the old Venetian explorer who traveled the Silk road to trade in china would be proud to know that his years of master trade, authorship, and mingling with Kubali Khan have been reduced to letting your friends know which apartment the beer pong table is in 

Hellacollege ladies! Way to go. 

Great uses for financial aid...

While most people spent their spring break blacking out at Disneyland, Mines consisted of working for money toward my spring term books, right here in the wonderfully lame Euge. I picked up about 30 hours at the friendly neighboorhood Slaveway, and spent my scarce free-time playing video games (thank god for X-box live).

Boy, what a wonderful freshman spring break.

Go ahead: rub it in my face in with that trip to Italy, that drive to California, that beach exploration, or whatever "fun" you had...I'll be happy to let you know I mastered the art of close range combat and trash-talking on Halo 3. But despite all the gamer achievements and new online friends, this was probably my worst week in college thus far.

In every clam, there is a pearl however, and though I wasn't expecting it from this week of lameness, a wee bit of a hellacollege moment was born. After all, being the hellacollege-magnet that I am, had to run into something worthy of posting...

it's a wednesday evening. I'm working the checkstand, checking out all the regular crackheads, republican hippies, and drunk ass underagers with fake I.Ds. These two college girls then walk up to my checkstand with a 24 pack of Miller, so I begin some petty conversation with them, and the topic of finacial aid refund checks comes up.

In case you don't know, a Financial aid refund is money left over after a students financial aid disperse pays for tuition...most kids use that money to pay for books, rent, credit cards fees, or other responsibilities--

--at least I thought.

After the girls make their purchase, I ask them when the aid checks come back and one replies,

"I think they come on the 27th. they need to get here sooner though, this 24-pack ain't gonna last that long."

Way to use our wonderful tax dollars. A booze grant.

So then I thought to myself: While these bastards are waiting for the state to supply them with their "get fucked-up fund," I'm working six days this week, sleeping about four hours a night, stuck in a town with no friends, and sacrficing quality family time for 3 bitch-ass overpriced books!

but I wasn't bitter about it....

I laugh, nod my head and continue on to the next person in line--a crackhead with six Snickers.

Hellacollege.

What's the worst way you've spent your Financial aid money? Or for those who have their parents pay, whats the dumbest thing you've used your parents money on?

Spring Break- Amended

So its Monday morning and I've been in the library for an hour... before even having my first class yet. That means the glorious span of time that is spring break is over, and the even more glorious time that is spring term has begun. Its not quite sunny, but its not raining, so I'm rocking my number 99 dodgers shirt.

Reflecting on Spring Break, I know my crew of cohorts made more of the 7 glorious days than any year previous. We conquered beaches like the allied troops at Normandy, we drunkenly overused catch phrases, we all gained at least 7 pounds, and best of all, we saw everything at Disneyland twice.

We drove over 40 hours. We got pink eye, scraped knees, hangovers, and Joey struck out. We drank over a gallon of PoPov and Dirty Bird, tore through cases of keystone light, and even managed to get some faderade into Disneyland. As luck would have it, turnaround passes helped us cut hours of lines at disneyland, and one kid even got a haircut in a salon that had 20 women in their underwear. Epic for sure. One for the books. See you next year spring break...




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So its the beginning of spring break for us at hellacollege. Spring Break is a very important time for college students. No matter what, you MUST mix 4 of 5 elements to have a successful spring break. If you get them all you achieve spring break nirvana

1. A drive that is way too long

2. You must contract a disease

3. Cheap booze > Expensive booze

4. Getting in somewhere you definitely don't belong

5. Disneyland &/or a foreign country. Disneyland is preferred

So its officially day 2 of spring break for us. We have the first 3 down and we're chasing legendary spring break status. Here's a little video shout out of half of the hellacollege crew. Hit us on twitter for updates on our SB.

VIDEO REMOVED

P.S. What are yall doin for break?