Stadium 110 Live, again!

So we decided not to put the show directly on the front page since it's big and kind of annoying. There's a link now on the rightthat will bring you to the show's home page. It also says if we're live or not.

A Few Things

1. I don't get this live blogging and I definitely feel left out. What gives?
2. I've seen Putin. At least I think I have. He lives on the same street as me, and I've seen a Rolls-Royce followed closely by a huge Cadillac stretch SUV. Medvedev also lives close to me, but he's in London. So it's probably Putin. Hells to the yes.
3. I have a hot professor. Yes. Seriously. She is the epitome of the hot librarian/teacher. She teaches our singing class (which is awesome) and she's unbelievable. Other members of the group agree with me, so I'm not crazy. And no, Elliot, I'm not going to take pictures of my professor.
4. We met a fellow English speaker on the Metro! She was from UT-Austin studying Russian. It was honestly the first time I was glad to hear someone say "y'all," so refreshingly American.
5. I just had the best night ever. I met a group of Carleton kids outside the Arbatskaya metro and we decided to go to a place called the Margarita Cafe. It's named the Margarita Cafe after the novel, The Master and Margarita. This novel happens to be one of my favorites. The Cafe is located on the Patriarch Ponds, which is where the book begins. So we set off, walked along New Arbat, which is filled with casinos and clubs, and made our way to Patriarch Ponds (honestly, just the fact that we went to Patriarch Ponds has me freaking out. The Master and Margarita is kind of a Bible to me). We got to Patriarch Ponds and walked around it and were about to give up on finding the Cafe, when suddenly it was right in front of us. We walked to it, opened the door, and it was full except for a table for 4. There were 5 of us. They almost turned us away, but let us stay and got an extra chair. As we walked in, we realized that the song that they were playing and that the entire cafe was singing along with was one that we had learned in class today. So we started singing too, and we immediately blended in with the rest of the restaurant. I'd write a review of the place, but that'd be lame and Cafe Margarita was beyond review. There were maybe 30 people in the restaurant, ranging in age from me to probably 70, all Russian except us. There were 2 violinists and one piano player, all extraordinarily talented. The female violinist was absolutely incredible, and if I were going to be a musician I'd want to play in this cafe. We ordered caviar and a bottle of Pinot Grigio, and both were superb. What made the restaurant was the atmosphere, the musicians obviously loved the music and the audience was enraptured, they passed out shakers to allow us to participate as well, but for the most part we just sang at the top of our lungs. The first two songs were popular Russian songs that we learned in class, and the rest of the repertoire consisted of Vivaldi's Four Seasons, a 1920s reel, Hotel California, and a few others that I had heard before but didn't recognize. The decor of that cafe was simple, it had several bookshelves and small statues, but it was also very small. We exchanged a few words with the group at the table next to us, they were mostly older Russians, dressed very well, drinking copious amounts of vodka. I'm definitely going to return there and make sure I get there earlier and eat a meal, the food around us looked absolutely delicious and the menu was not absurdly priced. In essence, this was the perfect restaurant, and its association with one of the best books I've ever read gave this night the added flair that made it truly legendary.

stadium 110 live!

The crazy antics of Stadium 110 are now live, everywhere in the world. We will continue to post insightful commentary on the blog daily, but the live stream above will always be the first thing you see when you click on your "stadium110" bookmark. We will turn off the stream from time to time when we are away or we deem it to be too creepy.

Enjoy!

Life Under The Bleachers

One of the largest structures on Carleton's campus is Laird Stadium. The brick structure is the 11th largest Division 3 football stadium. Moreover, the stadium was originally built as a half of a stadium for later expansion as Carleton made a bid to join the Big Ten.
Aside from the storied history of the building, Laird Stadium boasts one of the most unique features of a college stadium; student apartments. Imagine during college football season being able to walk outside your door and be right down on the field. Also imagine that instead of a lounge, usually populated by people fighting over the remote to the television, you have a weight lifting facility known as "The Cage".
Contrary to life in the dorms, Stadium life offers an escape from the mundane. You don't have people reading in the hallways. You don't have "study breaks" in which the RA comes around and tries to get you out of bed. Essentially, life in stadium offers its residents independence.
Even though stadium is only home to 15 or so residents, it often becomes the social hub on weekends. The larger apartments often throw some of the most fun parties on campus. Thanks to its rather isolated location, the noise in stadium does not reach the ears of those who usually break up events.
I am writing this because all of this will not be available starting in the fall of 2009. As of the end of the final term of this year, stadium is closing it's doors to students. Its a shame because one of the most fun and interesting places to live will not be able to be enjoyed by future generations.

Peace of Mind

Today... was a bit of a rough day for me.
It may or may not have had something to do with the copious amount of drink I consumed last night to celebrate my departure from teenage-dom.
Or maybe the physical consequences of what those drinks made me do...
But either way I went through the day feeling kind of like a zombie.
BUT around 6 o clock, I had some tea upstairs with John and Tim. And I had some yummy curry at dinner. And I felt better.

After dinner, I went to the CMC, where I am now, to import the hours and hours of footage I am going to try to edit this term. The footage is mostly from various trips I've been on with friends, but I like to think of them as home movies.

But importing the damn footage brought upon all types of problems. First my hard drive wan't mac compatible, then the footage was importing in a chopped up/inefficient fashion, then i had to reimport it all because it was in the wrong folder and it wouldn't let me move it.
Long story short, I've been here for about 3 hours now and I don't even have 1 tape on the damn hard drive, because I have to import it to the scratch disk, and then move it to the harddrive from there, which takes twice as long to do.

Needless to say, I'm pissed off. Which sucks, cause it was right when I was feeling better physically. But, I took a deep breath, watched this video and felt better about my life. His guitar playing is very peaceful, not to mention fucking mind boggling. He's incredibly talented. Make sure you watch the whole thing - he doesn't really get going until 1:45...

So I thought I would share this awesome video with you. And maybe next time you have a bad day after a drunken evening of hurdles, vomit, and getting your ass kicked (I deserved it, fyi) by your roommate, you can come back to the video and find some peace of mind. It worked for me!

Beer Drinking 101: Lesson 1 (Boxer Blogging)

The is the first installment of the new stadium 110 feature, Beer Drinking 101, team taught by Tim and Ted.

Lesson 1: The new toast.

"My M.O. is the new toast," says Tim (Note: M.O. are Mark's initials). So Mark Olson tonight invented a new toast (on his birthday) without even knowing or remembering it. This toast is all about efficiency.

Here are the steps:
1. Put the beer to your lips
2. Commence drinking
3. Move in for the toast
4. Clink drinking vessels, continue to drink
5. Continue to drink as long as you like

As you can clearly see, this toast is at least twice as efficient as a regular toast; the drinking begins before the toast and doesn't stop 'til you're good and drunk. Enjoy this maneuver the next time you're drinking.

Stay tuned for more Beer Drinking 101, the team taught drinking course by Tim and Ted.

P.S.: Johnny V. is a bitch (-Tim)
P.P.S.: I forgot (-Tim)
P.P.P.S.: Did we mention that we're drunk and in our boxers?
P.P.P.P.S.: Mark vomited in the Reub.
P.P.P.P.P.S.: The first drunk blog post of the term
P.P.P.P.P.P.S.: Original content bitches!

Week One in Review

Instead of listing all the things I did, I'm gonna dedicate this post to my thoughts about Moscow and what I've learned being here. This will be my first true "international correspondent" post.
Moscow is a city of paradox and irony. The proximity of opposites will never cease to amaze me. The most obvious paradox is how closely the fantastically rich and the devastatingly destitute interact. Outside of shops selling expensive French perfumes and outrageous European clothing can be found babushkas selling fruit and homemade mittens, or staggering drunks. On the Metro, one can see women wearing ridiculous fashionable clothing, next to blind men walking up and down the train begging for money. Outside the Kremlin walls roam people dressed up as Stalin, Lenin, and Napoleon, looking for people to pay to take their pictures with them. Right outside Red Square is a circular emblem on the ground that is said to be the center of Moscow. People toss coins there for good luck, and beggars fight each other to get the coins (most coins are worth less than a dime). Perhaps most striking was the Rolls-Royce Dealership in Moscow. I walked past it the other day, and had to take a picture. While in the picture it appears to be in a nice part of town, one block away I saw people living in Port-a-Potties. I'd take their picture but that seems grossly inappropriate. The contrast of unimaginable splendor and heartbreaking poverty is very difficult for me to accept.
Another major contrast in the city is that between the historic and the new. The neighborhood in which I live is an excellent example of that. I live on the street that General Kutuzovskii marched down after returning from victory against Napoleon. Across the Moscow River from this street, aptly named Kutuzovskii Prospekt, are growing the skyscrapers that will form Moscow City and become the largest skyscrapers in Europe. There is a McDonalds outside the Kremlin walls on the Alexander Gardens. There are 2 Starbucks on the Arbat, one across from the house where Pushkin lived. The GUM used to be the main Soviet department store, now it's the fanciest mall that I've ever seen. I think the picture to the right displays what I mean perfectly. The statue in the foreground is Dostoevskii, representing the 19th century Russian literary elite. The building in the background is the Lenin Library. And in the back, don't miss the Samsung advertisement... 3 eras, all adjacent to each other.
Another thing that is impossible to miss in this city is the corruption. The mayor of Moscow, Luzhkov, has made a habit of tearing down old buildings and selling the property to private corporations. Also, he has rebuilt several of the buildings that were torn down during the Soviet era. The richest woman in Moscow is the mayor's wife. She owns a plastics company and a construction company. While renovating the Olympic Stadium, it was decided that every seat in every athletics facility had to be replaced with a brand new individual plastic seat. Purchased, of course, from the mayor's wife. While starting construction on Moscow City and rebuilding old buildings, the mayor's wife's construction companies were contracted. I find this utterly revolting and don't understand how such a man can continue to be so popular.
On a personal note, I have a lot of difficulty with Moscow because of my utter hatred of authority. Anyone that places themself in a position of authority over me (aka. police) I hate. In Moscow, there are police and private security guards everywhere. Malls are crawling with private guards and storefronts often have a man standing watch outside. The historical museum had an old woman in every room to make sure that nothing went awry. It's odd to be in a society that embraces authority and utterly distrusts everyone, yet has had a Marxist revolution. I think it's good that these guards have jobs, but there are such better things to hire someone for than to stroll around a mall food court with one earbud in and look important.
Moscow is a very cold city. I don't mean that the weather is cold, it hasn't been too bad actually, I mean that the people here are very cold. While aquaintances show the highest levels of hospitality, Muscovites on the street are uncaring and severe. I had a discussion with one of Christian's Russian friends about this: she said that in the Soviet era there was no class distinction, and now that there is, the lower classes are jealous. And this is true, I definitely get the feeling that waitresses don't like me or anyone else they are serving, and the women at the univeristy coat racks glare at everyone that has them store their jackets. However, the same goes for the upper-class. The rich Muscovites flaunt their riches for everyone to see, and this is most easily seen at clubs. I got turned away at two Moscow clubs due to face control, and I was wearing my nicest clothing (not a jacket, but still). Russia has been based upon class differences since the initiation of serfdom in medieval times, and the Soviet era did little to change that.
I love Moscow. However, it has many problems, most of which are ancient Russian problems that were addressed by Tolstoy, Dostoevskii, Chekhov, Gogol, and many other major Russian authors. Being an eyewitness to the paradoxes of Moscow is difficult to translate into words. Russia and the US are not so different on a very superficial level, its the multitude of small differences that make Russia so entirely foreign to Americans. Russia and the rest of the Western Europe have been at odds since the reign of Ivan the Terrible. However, Russia is a European country with many similar traditions. One way I like to think about Russia is to imagine China or Iran having a Christian tradition, yet still remaining isolated from the West. Russia is difficult to define, it has had such a rollercoaster history and expands across such a vast empire. However, even after only a week in Moscow I'm beginning to have a clearer few of what Russia actually means.

conficker

Hey all, just a little computery PSA here:
There's a worm (called conficker) making its way around the intarwebs thats set to do "something" tomorrow, April 1st.  By "something," I mean it's programmed to wait for orders from about 50,000 internet addresses, some of which may give it a command to turn your computer into a bomb, to kick your dog, or to inflict some real damage (ddos attacks/more normal virusy things like stealing credit card numbers/etc...).  Or it could just be a hoax.  Anyway, if you're on a windows machine, you should make sure you don't have the worm.  And watch the news tomorrow, something interesting might happen...

BREAKING NEWS!

BREAKING NEWS!

Stop the presses! Hold the phone! Sit the fuck down and chill the fuck out!
This is important news. The ONE and ONLY Shamwow guy... has been arrested!

For what? For beating up a hooker after she bit his tongue and wouldn't let go.

Now let's sit down and think about this for a minute.
This man is a national icon, a national HERO. I think that we, the blogreading/writing community needs to unite for a common purpose, and what better cause than to raise funds for Vince's bail. Read the article and you'll agree. He was doing it in self-defense... OBVIOUSLY.

Look we missed our opportunity to save the Carleton Penis, let's not let this be another missed opportunity.

Any checks can be sent to:

Mark Olson
Re: The Vince Shlomi Legal Fund
300 N. College St.
Northfield, MN 55057



Let's not let this national disaster get worse. Every minute Vince stays in jail, it gives the symbol to hookers everywhere that our government, legal system, and society condones extensive biting during prostitution. This would be disastrous for our country. If we love our ol' girl, America, we should send this message to all those biting hookers. Chomping down on lips is one thing, but if you give them an inch...

Weekend in Moscow

The last two days have been ridiculous. Yesterday, the first thing we did was meet at Novii Cheremushkii towers to buy phones that work in Russia. It was a longer train ride than usual, saw some cool stations, and got to the Cheremushii station. Found the group, went inside, and saw pure capitalism at play. The bottom floor is filled with electronics stores, but they were all kiosks. It was a mall made up entirely of the small kiosks that are usually in the middle of the mall and are entirely annoying. But these kiosks sold HD TVs. In the end I bought a cheap cell phone, it was about 1500 rubles (45 dollars), and while I was obviously a foreigner I wasn’t a stupid foreigner, in my opinion.
After getting phones, we went to a mall across the street, which had a grocery store in the basement, because some people wanted to buy food for lunch. After that, we made our way to the center of the city. We took the Metro to Revolution Square, which is filled with people selling big fur hats, old Soviet propaganda, and several very funny shirts. We walked past the vendors to the Alexander Gardens, which are outside the walls of the Kremlin. We saw the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, who died in the October Revolution, and we also saw the changing of the guard. We walked down to the corner of the Kremlin and turned around to go to Red Square. It's also very funny to see people dressed as Lenin, Stalin, and Napoleon walking around taking pictures with everyone. Red Square is the most magnificent place on the planet, hands down. St. Basil’s Cathedral is unbelievable; it’s huge and beautiful.

The Kremlin gates are impressive, and Lenin’s Mausoleum is also pretty sweet. We went into GUM, the old Soviet department store that is now the classiest mall I’ve ever seen. The annoying kiosks were for Chanel. Yeah.

I left the group early because I wanted to get back to take a nap before staying out all night, and went to get back on the Metro. Unfortunately, I got on the Metro at the same time that everyone going to the Moscow-Azerbaijan football game did. I thought I was going to die. In my train car, there was no room to move and everyone was wearing red and blue, shouting “Moskva! Moskva!” I was unable to get off at my station and I had to wait for 2 more stops until everyone got off. Then I switched trains and went back.
That night, I met up with Christian at his friend’s house near the Arbat. His friend lives about 3 houses down from Gogol’s old house. I bought my first alcoholic beverage that night, a bottle of wine to bring as a gift. I get to the house, meet Christian’s friends, all of whom are awesome, and hung out there until about midnight. The purpose of the gathering was to view pictures taken during a trip to America that Christian made with his housemates. After that pictures, we watched the Netherlands-Scotland football game. Christians good friends are all Dutch so they have Dutch satellite TV. There were 3 other American girls there, 2 of them were Fulbrights. Two went to Occidental, one to Swarthmore. It’s weird being 19, because the next youngest person in the group was 24.
At one we went clubbing, or at least tried to. We got turned away from Forbes Club, the newest in Moscow, and also from Sorry Babushka. Thanks to the impressive language skills of my new Fulbright friend, we made it to a bar where we talked and drank until a little after 5. I got home a little before 6, woke up at 10, which was 11 because of daylight savings, and realized that I was late to meet with Laura before our group excursion.
After running the Metro, we went back to Revolution Square station and met the whole group, including Anna Mikhailovna! We went to Red Square again, and then took a bus around the city. Red Square had a group of communists congregating in front of the Lenin Mausoleum, which was pretty cool.

Moscow is amazing. I’ve seen most major monuments, but there’s something historical on every street corner of this city. For example, the building in which Schmirnoff Vodka started.

Most of the buildings are just fucking impressive.
From a bridge in front of this cathedral, I was able to get an amazing few of the Kremlin.

Tonight I went to a coffee place called Shokalodnitsa, which is basically a sit-down Starbucks on steroids. It’s a chain in Moscow, but it’s got a great atmosphere, and good coffee, tea, and other beverages. Interacting with Russians in a commercial setting is very weird, I know the language but not the etiquette. I definitely seem like a foreigner when I try to speak Russian, but I’ve been able to communicate quite easily and haven’t had too much difficulty anywhere. I enjoy speaking Russian with my host mom; she’s very good at communicating and making her sentences easier to understand. She also knows a little English, which helps a lot. It’s also interesting to hear the different types of mistakes she makes when speaking: it shows the stranger structures in English grammar and also gives me a good example of how I sound to a Russian. I went to a grocery store tonight, which was pretty unsuccessful. My cashier was a fat bitch and the store had very cheap, small plastic bags. One of mine broke and smashed my jar of peanut butter, which was actually very expensive. Cutting back costs by using shitty plastic bags, thank you Perekryostok.
I love a lot about Moscow and the people here. I definitely want to become an expat in Moscow for a few years before I start grad school; I think living in Moscow would be absolutely incredible. Most of the other expats I’ve met have been really smart and relaxed, and I’ve already had many deep conversations with people I’ve just met. It takes a certain kind of personality to want to live in Russia, and I think people with that same quirk tend to get along quite well. I know that at Carleton if I meet a room of people I’ve never met before, I probably wouldn’t talk to hardly any of them, but I became well acquainted with several new people while hanging out with the expats.
So I’m beginning to feel pretty settled down in the city I’m not really going through culture shock too bad, which is surprising me because I’ve never left the US. But studying Russian so intensely for the last 2 years has prepared me well to survive, and I know the history behind every monument we see. I’m nervous about class on Tuesday, but tomorrow I have another day to adventure around Moscow! I’m planning on buying my Mom a card from the Hallmark store in the mall near my house. She always shops at Hallmark in Wichita so I think a Russian hallmark card would amuse her.
Speaking of where I live, I might be in the best location of anyone on the trip. I live a half hour walk from the Arbat, a few blocks from Moscow city, and very close to several war commemoration museums. My street is called Kutuzovskii Prospekt after the Russian general who forced Napoleon and the French back to Paris. It’s named after Kutuzovskii because this is the street he marched back to the Kremlin on after victory. Brezhnev lived a few houses down from me, and Putin lives pretty close to me too. So yeah, I’m very happy with the way this trip has turned out so far and I’m very excited for the next few months in this crazy city!