JDS

Oh boy, I can remember it like it was slightly over a year and a half ago. I was walking to my apartment on one of the hottest days of the year in a cold sweat. I was excited and simultaneously depressed. I was walking to my apartment after giving a speech in a Communications class. It was my last assignment before graduating. Walking home, away from campus, I began to think about campus. Just a variety of buildings, a lot of buildings (at tOSU, at least), but I had spent the past 4 years there and there really isn't a reason to go back after you graduate. I wasn't sad just because I wasn't going to see my buildings anymore, I was going to miss everything they represented. College. Walking away from all those buildings was a metaphor for walking away from those 4 years. The greatest 4 years of my life, without question. I wasn't ready to go. Walking east on Woodruff and crossing over High Street, as I had done for the last two years, I began to experience and eerie feeling. I felt like the campus I was walking away from was disintegrating behind me and so too, would all of my great memories from my time at tOSU. After crossing High Street I continued between Wendy's and No.1 Chinese and eventually was back on Woodruff (it jogs), standing right below where I lived my junior year, 30 East Woodruff, Apartment I. Fucking loved it there. I crossed through the parking lot adjacent to Tuller. While walking through this parking lot, where I had lived the previous year, in a depressed daze, I spotted something amazing. It was my footprint. While living at 30 I, we decided to make a roommate beer pong table. We wanted to make it unique to us. I suggested spray-painting our hands and feet and putting them on the board. Once outside we starting spray-painting. We had the soles of our feet painted we were putting prints all over the parking lot as we walked around like idiots. We made this board in August or September '06 and I had rediscovered these prints in June '08. It was about too much for me to handle and I had to stop. Staring at my old footprint, having just completed undergrad, my college life flashed before my eyes and I felt like "The Giver." So many unbelievable people and memories. But the eerie feeling I was describing before was completely manifesting itself, it was overwhelming. I felt like I was disappearing. For me, this feeling was so strange because a character from my favorite book says he feels like he is disappearing. I've always thought this was one of the most piercing lines from the book and I never understood it. What did he mean, disappearing? I totally got it that day. Does anyone know how paragraphs work? I feel like I should have more than one paragraph after all this text. I'll start a new paragraph now.

The speech I gave in class that day was supposed to be persuasive. That was the only parameter. I decided to try to persuade my peers to do more reading in their leisure time. The speech was, no doubt, extremely hypocritical. At the time I gave that speech I had read a grand total of four books for leisure, "Scar Tissue," "3 Nights in August," "Clapton, The Autobiography," and my favorite, "The Catcher in the Rye." Four books in 22 years. I have read one book since I gave that speech, it's called, "Twilight." Maybe you've heard of it. It was awful and I can't believe the movie was even worse. If I remember correctly, there are 6 reasons why I read this book: Kirby Boeke, Shannon Puthoff, Sam Schumann, Dayton Ohio, The Drury Inn and Dayton Freight Lines. That's neither here nor there. While I was creating this 7 minute speech about the pleasure of reading even though I never read, I was thinking a great deal about the few books I had actually read, specifically, "The Catcher in the Rye."

Have you ever heard me speak? Giving a 7 minute persuasive speech doesn't come easily to someone who happens to be the most monotone person Earth has ever known.

Anyway, "The Catcher in the Rye," is basically about a teenager (Holden Caulfield) who is completely alone, nobody cares for him, as he tries to deal with losing his younger brother, one of his only companions. The book opens as Holden is being kicked out of boarding school. During the process of leaving the school he states that he feels like he is disappearing. I first read this book when I was 16 or 17 and I couldn't really relate to it as I had always been surrounded by my friends and family in Minster. I reread the book when I got to college and I totally got it. I think the feeling of being alone is universal, we've all experienced it, if only for a little bit. The story has really stuck with me and I often find myself wondering about Holden, as if he were a real person. It's been about 60 years since it was written and it really is amazing how poignant the tale still is. The author, JD Salinger, has said the story is semi-autobiographical and he's also been a bit of a recluse since writing it. Which only makes him and the book more interesting.

Well I guess I've been kinda rumblin', bumblin' and stumblin' all entry and surely, this will be one of my least entertaining blogs, but JD Salinger passed away Wednesday and I thought this story was at least, valid. I've never, to my knowledge, met a person who has the same initials as me but JD Salinger does share all three with me. It's a shame I never met him. He wrote one of the best stories' of his generation, my parents' generation and my generation and it was all one book.

If you're ever in the parking lot of 30-36 East Woodruff look for my footprint. If you see it say, "Hi," you'd be talking to yourself, of course, since I disappeared from there in June '08.

1500

Finally, we did it. We have achieved our ultimate goal of acquiring 1500 hits. So what if at least 800 of them were just me checking out if I had any actual hits. When I had totaled 1490 hits it became all but a certainty, that within a few mere weeks I would topple the 1500 hit mark. It was truly a momentous occasion and boy, did it feel real nice. I'd first off, like to thank myself, for giving myself 800 (approximately) of the aforementioned 1500 hits. I'd also like to thank you, the somewhat loyal and certainly, bored reader. I can't imagine what you all must do on a typical day before you decide it's actually a good idea to look at this site. I do appreciate it. I also want to thank Ty Parks. I want to thank Ty for tying my tie. He did this for me last Saturday when Jennifer Bornhorst and Scott Ranly were married. I can never thank you enough for tying my tie, Ty. I will always be in your debt.

As the 1500th hit approached, surely the most significant event of my life, I began to wonder why I ever even started this blog in the first place. It didn't take long for me to remember, I wanted to be rich and famous, and readily accessible to my legions of female fans, especially, the good-looking ones, wink. Mission accomplished. Another question is, why would I want to continue blogging. This is a two-part answer which is simpler than the previous question. I want to become richer, more famous and even more readily accessible to legions of better looking female fans. The new motivation, I want to beat Mark Titus at his own game. When I extrapolate the hit numbers from my first year of blogging (I believe I posted my first blog slightly before last years' Super Bowl) I see no reason why I won't eventually, take the reign as the greatest blogger to ever graduate from tOSU. Mark has a slim hit lead over me as I type this, about 2.2 million or so, but the gap is closing, and I doubt he had over 1500 hits in his first year, think about it. I am somewhat hesitant to put a timetable on my inevitable lapping of The Shark as he does seem to use proper grammar and what-not. I think he actually knows when to use commas and whatever these things ";" are called. I, to date, have not been able to discern this. I can, however, change the tire of a semi-truck, now ask yourself, "which skill is more useful?" His "Mr. Rainmaker" video is very impressive but I still think a best of 7 horse championship between us would undoubtedly go all the way to the 7th game. Unless, of course, dunking is allowed, in which case, I'd win in 5, "HORSE" to "HO".

What's in store for you as we stride on to 3000 hits? A seemingly, unreachable number indeed, I predict less sports analyzation and more stories which contain no more than 10% non-fiction. I want to keep this site all about the ladies and we know they loathe sports. I also think I'll continue referencing Mark "The Shark" Titus in an attempt to get him to acknowledge this blog via his twitter account. I only hope he doesn't take it personally when I do become the unofficial OSU blog champ. I also plan to continually find the freshest ways to mention Dave Coulier. I will never, "Cut it out." If you don't know who Dave Coulier is, you're terrible.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9_JLqbYHm8

On an unMark Titusy note,

I recently wore my, "Michael Damian's 30th Birthday Bash" shirt (this outrageous event took place April 25, 1992 in Cincinnati, Ohio) and people always wonder who he is, so i thought I would do a little research. I got this from Wikipedia: Michael Damian Weir (born April 26, 1962 in San Diego, California) is an American actor, singer and producer, known mainly for his role as singer Danny Romalotti on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, which he played from 1980 to 1998.

Anyways, when I purchased this shirt at the annual Saint Augustine Church garage sale in Minster, Ohio for $1, it was autographed by Michael Damian, himself. Sadly the autograph has since washed off due to washing machines.

It's kind of amazing that Michael Damian actually has a Wikipedia page when Mark Titus does not.

Did I mention, on Saturday, Ty tied my tie?

Mark Awesome is Titus

You'll have to excuse me if my sentences don't flow as seamlessly as you may be accustomed to. I have recently been diagnosed with Entire-Sentence Dyslexia. From my understanding, it is a relatively new affliction, that I just made up in an attempt to explain why the title is out of order. Entire-Sentence Dyslexia is not very funny and may cause someone to write an entire opening paragraph with absolutely no substance.

Anyway, Mark Titus is awesome, you know it's true because it is the title. So I heard Mark was on ESPN First Take this afternoon and I'm sorry I missed it. I wasn't able to watch because I was busy being semi-hungover from drinking beer with my 57 year old uncle last night. Also, it aired at the same time as The Herd, and while Cowherd is my boy, Skip Bayless is my friends' 7 month old mutt who licks everything as long as it is, in fact, a thing. My friend named his dog "Carson" in honor of that QB who plays football for the bingles. I think he named his dog this because he really wants to sleep with Carson Palmer and since he knows that isn't going to happen, the next best thing is sleeping with an animal who shares the same name. *Gay Bestiality Joke!* I can make this joke because no gay people read this blog. This is why I frequently poke fun at Canadians, Dave Coulier, Peter Parker (not Tobey Maguire) and horses.

Eventually, I'm going to explain why Mark Titus is awesome. I'll start right now. Short Paragraph.

1. The most obvious reason. His writing is hilarious. Maybe it's just me, but when you read his posts, you don't envision a person who is laboring over his stories. He sits down, writes for 2 hours, skims it over and then clicks, 'publish post.' I think that's an amazing ability, and it's rare. Just more Mark Titus hilariousness posted for eager eyes to read, and it was just so easy for him. At least, that's how I picture it. I also choose to picture him in a robe, with glasses, on a typewriter, Angela Lansbury style but I know that part probably isn't true. I do think he would make a great middle-aged female novelist/detective, if he chose that endeavor. Mark's blog entry's are long. They are not long because he is writing for a 6th grade English teacher who employs bumper stickers which read, "Less is NEVER More," and "Save the Whales," (the whales sticker isn't relevant). His blog entry's are long and the content is spectacular. He is always either adding to the story or saying something witty/funny. There is never really any fluff. Fluff may be the best hangman word in the history of hangman.

2. Mark's awesome because in one blog entry he explained a party in Coldwater, Ohio which reminded him of parties in high school that he was never invited to. That's not an exact quote, but it was something like that. I also appreciate a good Coldwater reference. It's hard to believe a person this funny, this witty, could have been an outsider in high school. He seems like an absolute riot. I could see that being the case only if Mark was simply so ahead of his peers, mentally, that he just did not mesh well with his classmates. I think it actually makes him a lot more interesting if he weren't all that popular in high school. Whether he was popular or not then, he's most certainly is now.

3. He can grow a beard.

What if?

What if Colt McCoy gets injured early in the first quarter of the National Championship and Texas is forced to finish the game with a guy named Gilbert?

What if Megan Fox couldn't re-sign for Transformers 2 and Barbara Walters played her role instead.

What if you ran out of potatoes and had to finish making your potato salad with pickles.

What if you blew a tire and didn't have a spare tire and had to replace it with a 45 pound weight-disc.

What if your dog sneaks behind your couch and voids his bowels and you're all out of paper towels and toilet paper and you would have to clean it up with a flat-head screwdriver and a fork?

What if you were tired of flipping light-switches so you installed "clappers" throughout your house and then, tragically, lost your right arm from the elbow down in a gruesome chainsaw-marathon incident and you were afraid of the dark?

What if the chain on your chainsaw broke while you were running a marathon and you could only replace it with the shoestring from your left shoe?

What if you were on a hammock and one of the supporting trees fell down and the only thing you could replace it with was a broom stick?

What if you were doing the backstroke in the ocean when you suddenly realized that a shark was swimming toward you and your only weapon was a slinkee?

What if your "S" key was broken and you desperately needed to type the phrase, 'Susie and her sister have been sassing each other steadily since they set sails to Mississippi.'

What if someone robbed your house and they took all of your blankets, shoes and shirts and the only thing you could cover up with at night was an industrial-sized sheet of double-sided of sandpaper. Also, you wouldn't be able to enter a store to purchase a new blanket because you wouldn't have any shoes or shirts.