Help me, Help You

Dear Nonsensical Nation,

With just a few months left of the school year, and my final year here at UNH, I have been brainstorming ways to give back to UNH. I have a few small projects in mind. But, I would also like your help. This blog has been a major part of my UNH career. I'm very proud of what it evolved into and I am always looking for ways to improve it and my own writing style and ability. I decided to create a short survey to help me get a better understanding of what my readers are like and why you come to this blog. It will not only help improve this blog over the last few months, but it will also help me with future projects as well. Please take a few minutes to fill out the survey, it is only 10 questions long and about half of it is multiple choice so it won't take long. Thank you so much.

Love,

The New Hampshirite

Click here to take survey

Update on likealittle.com

By Lady Meow

Looks like my post gave likealittle.com/UNH a little boost, the site keeps getting busier! :)

The New Hampshirite even gets some action:

I swear I didn't design these...

I'm not that full of myself, but any true reader would buy some...

 

Come on, that last one has to make you laugh. You can get any of those designs (and a few more) on any type of merchandise on cafepress.  I have been thinking a lot about that whole blog t-shirt idea, but I don't see it happening. It just costs too much upfront and I don't want to risk not breaking even. So if you still want some gear check out that stuff, it just won't be blog specific, but people on campus will know. If I see anyone with some sort of New Hampshirite apparel on (even the buttons) I'll be so pumped.

Stay classy, not UMassy.

Making Changes

If you're not blind, which I am assuming unless you have a brail print out of this blog, you may have noticed that I have made some layout and format changes. If you didn't notice I changed the color scheme a bit. I also changes some things on the right sidebar. Where the UNH logo is I plan on changing each week (starting next semester)  to a different picture taken by me or a reader. Feel free to send funny, cool and blog appropriate pictures as submissions. All my contacts are also listed over there as well as some reader confessionals. So if you leave an awesome comment (like how this blog changed your life) it could be added. (I will not add anonymous comments though so make up a nickname or whatever.) Let me know if you have any suggestions to make the blog better and more appealing.

Stay classy, not UMassy.

These Shirts are the Sex!

Okay, I've been trying to compromise with everyone and I feel like this is the favorite design. Because of the blue T-shirt I would have to sell them for $12. (But you would get a chance to meet me and I'll throw in an autographed newspaper with every shirt!)

Post comments and vote in the new poll!

Stay classy, not UMassy.

The UNH-UMaine Decathlon

Two schools. Ten events and categories. One epic night. One winner.

Friday at noon my friend (aka my driver) and I left for the 3 and 1/2 hour drive to Orono, Maine to visit some friends at UMaine. My friend has an apartment about 15 minutes off campus in Old Town. I would say it is like the equivalent of living in Newmarket or Dover. We arrived at his apartment around four and he gave us a tour around campus. To make this story easy, my Maine friend will be known as Maine Guy. Maine Guy is a big fan of the blog and he knew ahead of time that I would be critiquing UMO all day and night so he came out swinging by showing of their recreational center. It was very nice. We went to a dining hall, which I would compare to our Union Court in the MUB, which is weird because it was also called Union something. Good food, but pricy. It wasn't all you can eat like our cafes and I paid $8.50 for a small pizza, breadsticks and a drink. Anyways, we picked up another friend and returned to the house to find a lot of alcohol waiting for us.

The rest of the night consisted in drinking, playing wii, drinking while playing wii, beirut, dringa, smoking, and drinking. We also had a discussion, really just me and Maine Guy's roommate about facebook. He wasn't sure if he could call this girl because they weren't friends on facebook, so he wasn't sure if they were really friends at all. It night also involved one person (the Maine Guy) puking at least 8 times. I have no idea how no one else did. He also asked me for "warm ice cubes." I didn't know what to do. I think we all passed out around 3am, not bad considering we started around 7:00. That's a solid 8 hours. Any ways, here is what you are all waiting for.

The First Annual New Hampshirite and Maine Guy UNH-UMO decathlon.

1) Location: This one hands down goes to UNH. UNH has great access to the ocean, mountains and Boston. UMaine is in bumfuck nowhere. Surrounding towns also factors into this and I would take the combo of Portsmouth, Newington, Dover and Newmarket over Bangor any day of the week.

UNH 1-0.

2) Rec Center: Sadly I have decided to give this one to UMaine. Although we have 5 indoor basketball courts to UMO's four, they have two separate gym rooms. One with weights and the other is all aerobic type bikes and machines. Combined they are much bigger than our weight room. They also have an indoor pool with a huge jacuzzi and whirlpool in the same building as the student gym.

1-1

3) Campus Layout: This category also goes to UMO. The entire campus is very compact, like a high school. They also have this really cool quad thing they call the mall which is this huge grass field between their library and their Union Center right in the middle of campus. UNH is very spread out, which can be a pain.

UMO 2-1.

4) Downtown: This goes to UNH, basically because UMO doesn't have one. Since their campus is so compound like, you can't walk to a downtown. Also D-Hop blows "O-Hop" out of the water.

Tied 2-2.

5) Athletics. UNH. Yes, their hockey team has won two national titles, but they haven't done shit since Mrs. Kayria experienced menopause. We currently are more dominate in football, hockey, and basketball. They don't have men's soccer any more, which kind of makes up for us not having a baseball team.

UNH 3-2

6) Playing Fields. UMaine. Although the Whit blows Alfond out of the water in aesthetic values, Alfond has character... and a replay scoreboard. I really gave this to UMO because Cowell Stadium (our football field) is a piece of crap. The stadium looks like it might collapse and ESPN once refused to cover a playoff game here because of the condition of the press box.

Tied 3-3.

7) Wildlife: I saw a bald eagle and a bunch of deer at UMaine. That's pretty cool.

UMO 4-3.

8) Education. UNH. "If you can't get into college 'cause you lack the basic knowledge, go to Maine." (and see picture #3 below.)

Tied 4-4.

9) Vibe: UNH. Maine felt like a ghost town while I was on campus. There was nothing really going on. Especially for a Friday afternoon. I will admit most of the kids I met were really chill, the actual campus just felt really bland.

UNH 5-4.

10) Parties: UNH. We're taking back the Princeton Review one weekend at a time. The cops and UNH administration can fuck themselves.

UNH 6-4.

I fucked this up last night (I was writing drunk on a notecard) and thought it was 5-5 so we played a game of beirut for the "tie breaker" and UNH won again...

The game is 2 on 2 beirut. Me and my driver were reppin' UNH vs Maine Guy and one of his roommates. It was a back and forth battle, but when the dust settled UNH had sank all their cups and UMaine had 3 left.

So technically UNH won 7-4.

The New Hampshirite claiming victory for UNH in front of the UMO Black Bear.

This was in a UMO Dorm. Not sure what it means...

Grey Goose and Captain Morgan's... The Maine Guy... need I say more?

Stay classy, not UMassy. (Or UMainy for that matter.)

What Should I Do?

Last night I had an epiphany. I had a sudden realization that my made up blogger identity is, and always will be, way more popular than me. Last night was going like every other Thursday night for me at UNH. I had a few drinks, just to get a buzz going, hung around with some friends and whatnot. But later in the evening I checked all three of my emails, personal and for the blog, and twitter and both of my facebooks and I had one message in all five forms of social networking technology. It was an invitation to go to a party... on the New Hampshirite's facebook account. Never, in my career at UNH have I ever received a formal invitation to a party. That being said, I have been to many, many parties at various apartments, frats and houses, but I was never invited a full week a head of time. It has always been a last minute thing. These people want someone who they have never met before to show up at their apartment next weekend to have a friendly get-together.

I fear the question is not, whether my alias is cooler than me, because it is quite obvious that's true. But the real question is whether or not I go to this party. These people obviously read the blog because they not only friended me on facebook, but also invited me to the party. But how do I know if this isn't some type of witch hunt just to find out who I am? I feel obligated to make an appearance and show them how to party the New Hampshirite way because these really could be my biggest readers and I don't want to let them down, but what happens if I knock on the door and the next thing I know a camera flash goes off and my face is all over campus, and the internet. That would not be cool. At all. So, as you can tell, I have found myself to be in a bit of a pickle. Any ideas about what I should do?

I don't know if you saw in today's TNH but I got mentioned in the "blogs de jour" section. I very much enjoyed which passage they choose to represent me. For those readers off campus, it was the one about the two girls talking about cocaine and my reaction to that. I should be finishing up my debut article for TNH later today so hopefully that will make it into one of next week's issues.

Just some other things I want to throw out, Fall Feast is tonight at the Whit. It can usually be a good place to see drunk kids try to do stupid things such as riding a mechanical bull. I'll probably swing by for a bit, but I also have places to be and people to see. Damn, I should start charging people to make an appearance. Have a good weekend everybody. Stay safe, stay smart, stay drunk, but most of all

Stay classy, not UMassy.

Eating a Firecracker

Note: The following took place on Friday March 6th, 2009; roughly three weeks before this blog was first published. This is 100% factual. Enjoy.

Introduction:
A friend of mine and I had bought tickets to see the world famous Pink Floyd cover band, The Machine, at the Portsmouth City Music Hall. We are both huge fans of Floyd and since we are far too young to have seen the original Floyd we figured that The Machine would have to do. We made plans take the early evening bus to Portsmouth, pick up our tickets and have about an hour before the show started to walk around downtown. After the show we were going to crash at my older brother's apartment just outside of downtown Portsmouth, about a 10-minute walk from the Music Hall. The plan seemed pretty solid.

The Story:
My friend and I decided that there was no way that we could see a Pink Floyd cover band without being under the influence of a little plant known as marijuana, but there were two problems. 1) Since we had to take a bus to Portsmouth there was no way that we would be able to smoke before the show and still be influenced by the time the band came on. And 2) we lived in a dorm. So, being the good college students that we are (seriously, we both get very respectable grades) we did some research. Thanks to some crazy cannabis forum found via the Internet we learned about something called “firecrackers.”

A firecracker is a very simple way to cook weed much like a brownie, but it is very quick and scentless, which caught our attention because we lived in dorms. To make a firecracker simply take a saltine cracker and coat it with natural fat-containing peanut butter (found at the bagel stations in our lovely dinning halls). Then sprinkle on some weed and take a second cracker with peanut butter to make a sandwich. The final step is to microwave the peanut butter weed sandwich for about a minute on high. Since THC is fat-soluble it cooks from the weed into the fat of the peanut butter. It’s simple chemistry. The crackers are only there to make it a little easier to eat. A good firecracker will take about 1.5 hours to kick in and can potentially give you a crazy strong high for up to three hours.

DISCLAIMER: Firecrackers are not worth it. They are too inconsistent; we did this twice each and only had on good result out of the four we cooked. That good result was me in this story.

Back to the story.
So anyways we cooked up our snacks and downed them promptly (they tasted disgusting.) We caught our bus and were on our way to downtown Portsmouth, a city that I knew decently at the time and my buddy had never been to. The bus ride, because of the various stops, took about 45 minutes. About 40 minutes into the ride, I began to take a ride of my own. My firecracker was coming on very early, and very strong.

I began to try to explain to my friend that the bus wasn’t even moving, but the road and the buildings were moving around the bus. As soon as I finished trying to explain this phenomenon I realized that I could see the moves the bus driver were going to make. I knew where he was going to turn and when he would brake or accelerate. Not only this but I began to see the bus from a third person angle, like in a videogame. To put it simply, I was fucked up.

At this point in time we had reached our destination, downtown Portsmouth. The bus drops off right near the Music Hall, but I was not in the right frame of mind to realize this, and like I said before my friend had never been to Portsmouth. We began walking in the wrong direction all the way around the block that makes up the downtown area. About 35 minutes later we arrived at the Music Hall, I was able to pick up our tickets at will call without a problem and we were seated in our balcony seats with a half hour to spare. Success! My firecracker was beginning to wear off, or so I thought. When The Machine came on and busted into Shine on You Crazy Diamond the balcony turned into a rollercoaster and I was forced to lean back in my seat and grip my armrests as hard as I could. It was fucking intense.

By about the 3rd song my firecracker wore off for good and I was sad to hear that my friend was completely sober the entire night. But I would not let that last long, and neither would my brother. The Machine finished their set, which included most of Dark Side of the Moon, Animals (my favorite Floyd album), all of Wish You Were Here and hits from The Wall as well as some lesser known (but equally awesome) songs.

After the show, we walked over to my brother’s apartment to chill with him and a couple of his friends. We had a few beers, took a few hits from a bong, threw some darts and later played some videogames. I remember asking one of my brother’s friends, who is a huge Lions fan, how they would do next season. He gave me a hard time for making fun of the team because one of their players just died.

Then the fun started, or should I say complete domination. My brother’s roommate, knowing that I’m a big fan of skateboarding, busted out the most recent Tony Hawk videogame he rented for PS3. A couple people played before me, in a head to head total points format, with the winner staying in. Before me the highest point total was about 15,000. I realized they didn’t know the R2 button to “revert to manual” for huge combos. I broke 500,000 without a sweat. After beating everyone with my high score over 900,000 everyone else got pissed and quit. My brother’s roommate returned the game the next day. It remains a soar subject with him to this day.

The rest of the night was pretty uneventful, people passed out on couches and I on the floor. We returned to campus the next day. So that is my firecracker story, I just wanted to kick off the new school year with something interesting. It was a very fun experience, but seeing how inconsistent they are I probably won’t be cooking any up this year; but if I do, I’ll let you know.

Stay classy, not UMassy.

Announcement

I have created a facebook account to help promote the site. When I add a new post I will update my status, which will hopefully make it easier for you. My account name is "New Hampshirite." I am listed in the Concord, NH network because I didn't want to release my UNH email in order to join the UNH network. Also feel free to email me at unhblog@yahoo.com

Thanks,

Stay classy, not UMassy.