Clearance Sale

Smiles here. It’s been awhile since my last post, but assuming you read mills’ post you know how great of a night I had last weekend. The concert was great and being on stage was awesome. I’m practically a rock star now. I’m friends with a lead singer of a band, I jam out on stage and direct the crowd in chants, and I sing semi charmed lift at Geo’s with Draft week. If that doesn’t qualify me for rock star status I don’t know what does.

This last week has been tough school wise. There are tons of tests, quizzes, it was 0 degrees and everyone is sick. This does not equate to having crazy fun nights out but crazy fun nights in studying and sleeping. For example on Monday I watched “Shawshank Redemption” start to finish on tv then went to bed. What a great night right??

This Wednesday however we had an exchange at it was awesome. Some would call it a clearance sale, some would call it an all you can eat buffet, I would just say the girls wanted it. Parker convinced Lanter to go to the exchange for a few hours before he started studying. So anter and Nate went but weren’t going to drink a lot, and then they were going to come home and study. This plan changed very quickly once they arrived at high dive. Lanter realized that picking up girls there was super easy and he could have his pick of the lot. The both aborted the mission, and let’s just say Lanter did do some studying that night, but no books were involved. It was more of a “hands on lesson”.

As for my night, I spent my time chatting with a couple of guys and a couple of girls. I ended up getting pretty drunk because the bartender gave me this huge 24 oz sized blue cup of mostly alcohol when I asked for one blue guy. I thought we was being nice but turns out I was wrong. As the exchange was ending a large group of locals soon entered the bar and we were waiting for our bus. This group was on a barcrawl and every single person was very very ghetto. John Parker and I decided to take a lap and I soon found myself in the center of a group of girls juking and dougieing. I decided to roll with it and began dancing with these nice girls. They were very uncomfortable at first but then began to go along with it. We were dancing for about thirty seconds when I realized everyone in the bar was staring at me, especially all the dudes. I quickly decided it was time to go and slowly danced away from the group of chicks. I made it outside and on the bus to kams. I spent another few hours at kams and finally woke up in my bed. Great night all around.

The weather here has finally turned as well. Today was the warmest day of the year by far. It must have been 60 degrees out and all of the snow melted away. There is nothing like the first spring day when you can take of you coat and walk around in short sleeves. 

You will not go to heaven, you’ll go to Champaign Illinois. 

Lucky Smiles Confusion

Danny up in hurr for this one.

I will start off by saying that Saturday, February 5th was probably the greatest day in the life of Andrew Albert Smiles.

It all starts when the Illini lost at Northwestern. As we watched the CBS telecast, we all felt anger and frustration. Not a great start. But this day gets better.

In the afternoon, we walked over to the Armory to spectate the Club Track & Field meet. Aaron Silver anchored (what's up Delta Gamma followers?) the 4 x 1600 relay. He dominated with his own indoor PR. That stands for personal record.

After the big meet, we were all inspired to work out. So we got a good pump in while jamming out to Lucky Boys Confusion.

For dinner, we travelled to Joe's Brewery. Isn't it weird that they do not brew beer there? Anyways, we all ordered cheeseburgers. The waitress was nice enough to give them to us for HALF PRICE!!! I think she did it just for us. What was more amazing was the fact that Smiles upgraded his fries to...get this...mac 'n cheese! This was no box o' Kraft. This bowl was loaded with so many goodies: bacon, extra cheese on top, you name it, it had it. He could not stop talking about it. Even with a mouthful of mac, he continued to rave. Rohde almost left a bite on his plate. He was peer pressured into eating it. After we all downed few pitchers of water, it was time to go.

Kyle and I went to baseball practice as Smiles and Co. slurped up some liquid carbs. Upon our return, we headed to a much anticipated event on campus...the Lucky Boys Confusion concert at Canopy Club. We got there in time to see the end of the Good Luck Jane set. They were followed by the one and only Draft Week. Zevin and his beard slapped the bass and looked cool on stage. After Draft Week, Smiles and Kirby each chugged a pitcher of PBR to prepare for LBC. When Stubhy and his friends got on stage, the place went nuts. Rohde and Parker moshed hard for an insane amount of time. I think Rohde tallied 25 tackles on the night. Parker was right behind him with 18.

Goethals and I spent most of the concert about three people away from the stage. Smiles, on the other hand, was even closer. I wouldn't say he was front row, but he could at least grab hold of the rail. He even admitted to giving the guy next to him a few good jabs in the ribcage.

So Smiles is right there. He's pumped. He's having a great time. Jamming out loud to every song. His sweat and happiness meters were at an all-time high. About two-thirds of the way through the concert, Stubhy was filling time between songs and while holding a shot of vodka. Smiles felt the need to encourage him by yelling, "VODKA! VODKA! VODKA!" Stubhy apparently didn't need any help as he said, "Shutup drunkass." Everyone laughed because it was funny and that what you do when something is funny. But the story does not stop there. He then went on to say, "Speaking of this drunkass. Yeah, sorry about screwing up back there. During Killians, I was getting close to the crowd and this drunkass was yelling random stuff that was nowhere near the words to the song. I usually don't let these things affect me, but this time for some reason it did. So, I guess, if I had to blame someone, it would be the drunkass right here."

As Stubhy said that, he extended a pound (fist, knucks, closed hand, whatever you want to call it) towards the center of the crowd. Of course, 15 people reached out to touch Stubhy. He retracted his pound and said, "No. Just the drunkass." It was then he extended his pound again and made perfect contact with the knuckles of Andrew Albert Smiles.

Goethals and I went crazy. Smiles interrupted an LBC concert for his drunken shenanigans and then was recognized for it in front of everyone. I turning to Kyle and saying, "This has to be the coolest thing that has ever happend to Smiles!"

The cool didn't stop there. After the encore, Stubhy invited anyone to come up onto the stage. I'm sure you can guess what happened next. Andy was on the stage within minutes. He didn't go to the back and mix in with the rest of the wannabes. He stood front and center and directed the crown.

He gave them Gerry Bertier-like points.

He acted like the conductor of an orchestra as the crowd chanted "LBC! LBC! LBC!"

Kyle then had a thought: we could nab the set list. He screamed to Smiles the vital command, "SET LIST! SET LIST!"

Smiles bent down and scratched...but came up empty. He reported back to us, "IT'S TAPED!"

Kyle exclaimed, "OF COURSE IT'S TAPED DOWN!"

By now, we were worried someone else heard the set list conversation and would swoop in and snag it under Smiles. Not tonight. Not on the greatest night of Drew's life. The security guard noticed his struggles and leaned a speaker off of the set list. This gave Smiles just enough room to rip two-thirds of the set list off of the stage and hand it safely to Goethals.

We walked home in the bitter cold that froze our sweat-drenched clothes. Along the way, we talked about how many people will enjoy this story. While crossing the street, Smiles screamed, "This is going to be the best blog post EVER!!!!!"


Goethals put him in his place with, "Shutup, Smiles. Blog posts aren't that cool."


We ate reheated Geo's chicken and reminisced about the crazy night.

R.I.P. Room 24's table. Loomis stumbled in and walked into Smiles. They both fell over onto the already-injured table. You will be missed.

You will not go to Heaven...You'll go to Champaign, Illinois.

Terry’s Birthday Sauce and related events

Hello world travelers, Kyle here again with another guest blog post.  You’re might be thinking, “Gee, another guest post from this Kyle guy??  He’s basically a full timer!”  Well, as Smiles and Kirby will tell you, I spend an equivalent amount of time in their room as I do mine.  So if you start to feel like you see/read too much of me, you’re not the only one. 

By now, you’ve probably read the title and are eagerly awaiting some of the promised ‘sauce’ mentioned in the title.  Well patience is a virtue, and good things come to those who wait.  I won’t actually get to the sauce part until the 7^th paragraph, so don’t hold your breath.  Regardless, this blog entry is about Terry’s 21^st birthday celebration last Friday, along with some details from Colin’s 21^st last Monday.  If you enjoy birthdays, bodily fluids, or alliteration, I’d like to encourage you to read on. 

It was Friday night, and I had just got off my Friday night shift at Flat Top Grill with $75 American dollars to show for my efforts.  Before you ask, I’ll let you know that the co-worker from my pervious blog post wasn’t there.  Awkwardness avoided.  Anyway, I arrived home to a basement bumping with sound.  Apparently they decided not to wait for me to start partying, but that must have come as a result of the language barrier between me and the locals, so I wasn’t offended.  I quickly changed my clothes and headed down to the celebration. 

I find it ironic that people celebrate their birth here by destroying their bodies with alcohol.  Not  my culture, not my problem.  With an extra large cup of apple juice in hand, I joined the festivities already in progress.  I immediately ran into Terry, and wished him a happy birthday as is the custom.  Meg McCaleb, also from the previous blog post, had made the trip from Australia for the event and was still hiding her accent.  She seemed excited to see me, which was awkward cause I didn’t really care about seeing her.  Fun side note: At one point during the party, Meg started flexing her biceps and Vinnie was genuinely impressed.  He told me so in the weight room yesterday.

In typical Terry fashion, everyone had their fair share of Bud Selects, and the singing and dancing rituals began.  Pretty soon everyone was sweating to the sounds of 90’s pop.  And of course, Terry was sweating the most.  I had never seen about half the people at the party before, and some of them were apparently too cool for the singing and dancing ritual.  But overall, the pregame was a raging success.  

On the way to the bars, Terry called multiple audibles that disrupted the force of his birthday charge.  We followed his very loud voice to Joes, only to find out he was actually at Cly’s.  Clys’ line was over 30 meters long, which I guess would be about 100ft in local measurement.  It was already 1am, which led Mills and I to question why anyone would be remotely interested in standing in this line, with essentially no chance of achieving admittance.  We arrived at the conclusion that in Champaigne, there are people who like to stand inside of bar, and those that enjoy standing in line.  It’s a cultural difference that will take some getting used to. 

Ok, if you just skipped to this paragraph because I mentioned in the in opening paragraph…fuck you.  Go back and read the other paragraphs.  If they weren’t important I wouldn’t have written them.  Anyway, the Terry shenanigans progressed quickly and took on its own life form.  Back home from the bars, he cut his hand on Krieger’s abs, and started bleeding profusely.  But Terry made lemonade out of his lemons, and took this opportunity to decorate the walls of the house with legendary blood scripture.  Epic messages like “Terry + Kevyn” and drawings of hearts took permanent residence on the beige walls, and by permanent I mean until Terry left the room and Eddie Edens scrubbed them off. Jump to 4am, when Terry thought it would be super cool to throw a jar of salsa all over me and my door.  I’ve added a picture below.  There is still dried salsa on my door.  I’m sure Terry will be back soon to clean it up.  

In between 2am and 4am, it was apparent that Terry’s tendency for balderdash (look it up) was contagious.  On a whim, me and my 4 closest friends in the house (Turk, Jamieson, Logan, and Kristian…duh) snuck over to another fraternity and stole their rush banner.  I don’t know which fraternity it was because I’m not familiar with the town much…it’s not like the name was written on the banner or anything.

Also I walked in Meg McCaleb and Cuzman making out.  End of paragraph. 

And that was about it for Terry’s birthday.  Besides playing N64 literally all day on Saturday, the next interesting thing that happened to me was Monday for Colin Cuzman’s birthday.  We tried to get Colin extremely drunk, but he remained somewhat conscious over the course of the night.  He later admitted to spitting out shots we were giving him, and I’m expecting a big financial refund from him the mail any day now.  For some reason he wanted to go to the Red Lion, and we obeyed because everyone is afraid of the brute force that is Colin Cuzman.  Wahab hooked Mills and I up with some sweet wristbands, immediately making Cuzman’s birthday unimportant.  Oh you’re turning 21? You can buy drinks now? Welcome to the club, Mills and I will be at the bar buying our own drinks.  

The best part of Red Lion had to be the sweet dancing that commenced later in the night.  Steph, Colleen, Colin, Kirby, Parker, Lanter, random dude and I ruled the dance floor with epic dance moves like the Bernie, which you can see featured below.  It was very sweaty, and everyone was intoxicated.  Just like Cuzman likes it.  I don’t even know what I mean by that, I’m rather tired.

There you have it, two 21^st birthdays in Champaigne.  It’s amazing that I seem to experience something new every day, and even more amazing that Meg continues to get mentioned in my posts.  She doesn’t even go here.  Whatever, I gotta do homework or something.  Stay tuned for outlandish stories with superlative adjectives. 

Kyle