Samuel Maurers Day Off

Samuel Maurer’s Day Off DID YOU KNOW? When the cartoon Underdog was syndicated in the 1980s and 1990s, all scenes that showed Underdog taking his Underdog Super Energy Pill were edited out because censors thought they suggested drug abuse. Wow, Super Energy Pill would be an awesome band name. Uh, sorry about that last blank entry. Im looking for the rebuild button to get rid of it from all your displays, but I cant really find it and its 2:43 AM, so thats probably not going to happen. Im kind of tired because I just spent the day with Ruthie 07, Lauren 08 and Jeff G playing hookey in New York City. Ruthie scored some tickets to The Colbert Report because she is lucky and I am not, and since New York is only a 4-hour Fung Wah Bus ride away from Boston, we decided to head down for the most awesome school-skipping adventure of all time. Actually, Senior Skip Day at my high school was pretty sweet too, except in a different way, because it ended in a Red Robin in Central PA rather than Rice to Riches, New York Citys hippest $5 rice pudding joint. But it was all worth it, if for no other reason, because I got to have a 13-word conversation with Stephen Colbertbefore the show, Stephen takes a few questions from the studio audience, who are instructed to all have really creative questions beforehand. A lot of the ones around us were kind of stupid, like, Why dont you mention GOOGLE BOMBING on your show? The Colbert Nation would LOVE that because they totally havent done enough ridiculous things, like that bridge in Norway! and If bears are the number one threat to America and Bill OReilly is Papa Bear, does that mean HES the number one threat to America? I mean, once you hear my question its kind of a judge not lest ye be judged kind of thing, but still. Since I was young, or at least since I wrote my biography for this blog, its been my dream to have a unit of measurement in the metric system named after me. Now, my floor is amazing, so one day when I was not home they decided to define one. The maurer is a unit of awesomeness, equal to the awesomeness of me playing one note of Trogdor on Guitar Hero II. The entire song, including the wild scream of and the Trogdor comes in the niiiiiiiiiight at the end, is equal to 0.8 kilomaurer. This eventually became a convention that we extended to every member of the floor. For example, the dizzle is a unit of innocence, the lopez is a unit of dedication, and the miller is a unit of bad decision making. Perhaps my favorite is the tang, which measures orthogonality to conversation direction. Anyway, were interviewing new GRTs (like RAs at other colleges, but theyre graduate students and probably cooler) for next year, so we decided it would be a good idea to ask them this question at every GRT interview we conduct. Weve gotten a variety of very revealing responses, such as a unit of old-man clothes or a unit of taking peoples vices and addictions and enabling them just to see what happens, but not in a dangerous way. Really, I dont think either of those people is going to be our GRT next year. So Ruthie 07 decided that this would be our question to Stephen. Anticipating his migration over to our side of the studio audience, I raised my hand excitedly and looked RIGHT AT HIM. Luckily, I was wearing my flamboyant red corduroy jacket specifically because I thought such an occasion might arise today. Also because its an awesome jacket and cost only three dollars. And so we had the following discourse: ME: If the colbert were a unit of measurement, what would it measure? STEPHEN COLBERT: [pensively] Ball. ME: [pfft] If Im being honest, it wasnt the most brilliant comedic answer ever given, but since I was expecting freedom it was a nice surprise. Also, you know the old adageask a stupid question, get a CHANCE TO TALK TO STEPHEN COLBERT! Ruthie 07 only later came up with the idea that I should have asked him whether to pick Berkeley or Stanford for grad school. That would have made this whole decision business a lot easier (shoot, three more days!). Anyhoo, Im going to be covered in fur in, uh, oh snap, five hours, so I think Im just going to wash some dishes and head off to bed. If youre coming to CPW, check out the international panel at 4 PM. I think its in 34-101 on Thursday and 32-141 on Friday. Itll be great and eye-opening, and not just because Ill be speaking on it. Until tomorrow night, I GOT TO SEE STEPHEN COLBERT! WHOOOOOOOO!!