State of the Sopris

All I Ever Talk About Is Highways And Deer: Aspen

2010-04-09T18:10:00.000-07:00

ey - remember Matt Duffy?"
"No, not entirely - oh wait, oh wait. He had that blogging job didn't he?"
"Yeah, that's the one."
"What about him?"
"Well, you ever noticed every time you clicked on his site, his entries were essentially slightly different versions of the same things?"
"Well there's only so much you can talk about when it comes to a blog that only concerns such a small college."
"Yeah, but this guy was psychotic. He was either talking about deer, talking about highways, or talking about having nothing to write about."
"I don't totally remember, but now I'm curious. Let's try finding that blog.... hmm hmmm... oh here it is. In the Colorado Mountain College blog archives."
"See what I'm talking about?"
"Yeah, you're right, you're right. This guy was insane."
"Let's watch this one... dated April 9th, 2010. Yep, it's another video that takes place on the highway. Did this guy only exist to drive?"

**video loads**

road. from Matt Duffy on Vimeo.

"What the hell is this?"
"Dude, it's freaking me out."
"It's just Aspen, man. Safest city in the world. Except for your skiing accidents, but those are brought upon yourself, not by oth--"
"Dude, turn it off! Turn it off!!"
"Why? Calm down, bro. It's just some minor indie band, Animal Collective or whatever, chanting above a music video compiled by some kid who apparently thought he was being artsy."
"Make it stop!!!"
"Ok, it's stopped. Here, I'll turn off the computer while I'm at it. Done. Done. Done! Christ, what is wrong with you?"
"It's not me, man. It was the video. "
"I don't know what to tell you. I don't even know why you had such a strong reaction to --"
"It was the pretentiousness, man! Pretentious overload. It was just too pretentious to exist..."
"Dude, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. It's all clear to me now. Let's get out of here man... there's a better world out there. A world where one can exist without such snobbery... a world where people can still listen to Lil Wayne... a world for the both of us. "
"Why K. Matt Duffy? Why?!?!"

Spring Broke (Clever as this title gets)

2010-04-03T01:23:00.000-07:00

So it's over. Well - not really. I still have Saturday. Sunday too. And day's encompass long periods of time... morning, afternoon, and nights. But for me - well, I just need to pretend it's over because the last time I wrote a blog entry I think I was just entering the 3rd grade.

Anyways, for a lot of people spring break entails the raunchiest moments of their lives, moments in which they released all their inhibitions (feel the rain on their skin?) and went out and lived their lives like they never had before, forgetting morals for the night, forgetting whats going to be left in their wallets for a while, forgetting whether they are single or married or - also usually forgetting everything that took place during the duration of the week due to inane blood-alcohol levels. A lot of people I know went to California, to Mexico, to places where the weather's great and bodies warm and life seemed to last forever. For me - I went home. I really don't understand spring breaks existence... for me, I'm either all or nothing. Give me a long break, or have me wait for the next big one. These miniature breaks in the midst of my schooling-groove sort of ruin things for me - I would have rather gone to school this week and got off April 20th, versus the 30th as plan goes. Do you care? I didn't think so either.

But that said, I didn't go much anywhere. Well, sometimes to Costco.Nowhere exotic. MTV Spring Break this was not. So for fear of reader-boredom, I will be chronicling my spring break in different varieties of writings - because, to reiterate, I really truly did nothing out of the ordinary. I didn't really want to. And for one, this will entertain me. I find writing these blog entries mundane. For two (is that a phrase?), this will entertain you - or actually, I'm guessing it will also annoy you. Which in turn entertains me - so either way, I win and you lose. Here goes:

FRIDAY: (Written in haiku format)

Drive home, forget school
Vail pass closed, entrapped in car
Many a finger I saw

I actually composed a video, so the next entry will show you how I spent the eight most monotonous hours of my life creeping alongside Vail pass. It got so bad that there were times in which I was able to turn my car off and whip out a magazine and read for hours as CDOT cleared up roads and I was stranded on the side of a totally remote mountain, working-heater-less and constantly forcing me to pour bottles of Heet into my suddenly-working jalopy. More on that later.

FRIDAY: (Written as a incredibly pretentious nostalgic self-memoir)

The warmest of warms shone through my bedroom window, early morning sunrays turning my child-hood sanctuary into a room of utter, purest ecstasy. The feeling - bliss! - of waking up, once again, not in the stink of the college dormitory but in the warmth, the comfort, the embrace of one's own home. My dog was the first to greet me, prancing into my room with the jingle of her identification tags, her loose tongue, her perceived smile we convinced ourselves was so, but really just the shape of her face as a the canine she was: Ever-loving. There was no difficulty in arising out of bed, no hesitation: To experience this new world of old, to be constantly swept away by simple objects which unexpectedly flooded one's mind with memories one had never though been of worthy of the life-records at the time, simple times when baking bread, simple times when watching movies with the family, simple times when....

OK, I've had enough, another sentence and I would've obliterated my computer with cuteness.

SATURDAY: (Written in list format)
- Drove to Twist & Shout (record store across from my old high-school, East, in Denver)
- Bought the following
   a) Boards of Canada's Geogaddi (ambient electronic music, heavily influenced by nature, scary album)
   b) Slint's Spiderland (1990's math-rock, literally uses mathematical equations to dictate it's songs, guitar wizardry at times)
   c) Bark Psychosis's The Hex (post-rock album which means no lyrics and rock-and-roll instrument set as a sort of mini-pseudo-orchestra)
   d) Sonic Youth's The Eternal (avant-garde rock, experimental and totally out-of-tune guitars. Enjoyable in a masochistic kind of way)
- Drove to Wax Trax records, looked around for My Bloody Valentine's Loveless (vinyl, already have CD), no avail
- Drove to Hollywood Posters (Colfax), about to buy Seven Samurai (seminal, as the name implies, samurai movie from 1950's by Kurosawa. Remade into equally good western, The Magnificent Seven, with Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, etc. Show-offy, yes.) poster then changed mind
- Had philly cheese-steak at Ted's (across from Wax Trax), saw some not-yet-graduated high-school chums, talked about meaningless stuff.
-Did a variety of other stuff abysmally exciting. I am more boring than I sound.

SUNDAY: (Written as a confessional)

I cannot remember.

MONDAY: (Written in lol-speak)

yo doodz 2day was the day of dayz. alot of my frenz g2 cu boulder n they alraedy had their s-b, so i wuz kinda stuk in the lonesome. brb. ok, bak. lol. newayz, during the nite i went to the du camplus planetarium or whatevz itz called n stargazed 4 about 2 hrs or so. it wuz kinda cloudy so i kudnt c the best stuff but i got a gud view of saturn, very close up. you can go to. my friend haz a job there so i got in 4 free-ninenty-nine but i think it costs 5 2 10 bux a head 2 get in. its all on tha website.

Had I been reading this, I too would want to reach through my computer screen and gag me.

TUESDAY: (Written like Hemingway, only less classic)

I got tickets to a concert at Herman's Hideaway. They were free. The band was called the Microdots. I arrived, and found little crowds. I sweated profusely, and could not figure why. I use Red Spice. Guess it doesnt work.
The band was merely OK. But for free, why complain?
Hipster girls eyed me with confused interest. Did I fit their lifestyle? Was I one of them? Could they approach me?
Neurotic sensibilities led me to believe this. Truth was, my fly was probably just down. Later in the night, I found out it actually was.
I also spilled food on my shirt. Except I was aware of this. I just did not care.
I am glum and gloomy throughout the night. I think of The Smiths, "There Is A Light That Never Goes Out". I realize that was a very hipster thought.
I call my friend, tell him this: If I ever embrace that lifestyle, hang me by the threads of my own hipster-scarf.

WEDNESDAY: (Written as an Apple advertisement)

I went to Twist and Shout again.
I could browse the aisles.
I could listen to music. I could buy stuff.
All within just one store.
I bought My Bloody Valentine's, Isn't Anything, on vinyl. For just $16.99.
The new purchase, by Matt Duffy.
It's good.

THURSDAY: (Written in olde English hyme)

Aghast I went
From pawn to pawn
In search of a buyer, done mowing lawn to lawn
In need of money I went to and fro,
Constantly being told by buyers "no, just no"
A wide variety of things I had to sell
Lies of quality I speaketh of them, pitting my soul into the depths of hell
Finally, alas! A woman, at Quebec and Leetsdale
Buys me ole videogames, my face goeth pale
Initially at five dollars a piece, manager regrets and ponders his niece
A college education she must have, thus I must -

OK, I'll stop, this is getting terrible.

I spent all my money buying those albums I mentioned above, and finally found a copy of Loveless (by My Bloody Valentine, an album I would highly recommend if you're into the extents of what can be done with the careful manipulations of the electric guitar. Very dream-like, very trancey, very ethereal-sounding record... defined the 1990's shoegazer movement... without hesitation my favorite album, and one of which I needed on vinyl while I was in Denver) so anyways I spent about 4 days travelling pawn shop to pawn shop, from the sleeziest sides of town to places only slightly less so. I was convinced a couple times that they places I were at were own by mob-bosses... gold chains, Adidas running gear, slicked back hair... you think I'm making this up? It was unreal how these guys fit their movie cliches.

But anyways I amassed the twenty bucks to buy the album, and it sounds beautiful.
I am going to recommend this album again : I recommend this album.
(If you're scratching your head as to why I repeatedly mention this album in near all my recent blog entries, I will comfort you with a message of reassurance: Yes, I am medically insane.)

FRIDAY: (Written plainly)

Sleep - every muscle of my body relaxed. Every neuron of my brain just slightly less active than usual. My eyes rested. My hunger nonexistent, my thirst quenched, my needs gone, my worries far. So what better away than to kill one's daily slice of ecstasy than waking up in a bedroom flooded with their own feces? My bedroom, in the basement, is adjunct to what is likely the most annoying bathroom in all, um, history (Gee, I'm eloquent aren't I). During the night both the shower and the toilet had bubbled up, our main sewage line entirely backed up and flooding everything our five-piece family had to eat that day right back into our homes. I spent the majority of this day vacuuming (with our very handy industrial water-suitable vacuum) clumps of turds and finding myself oddly humored by the pieces of corn sprawled across my carpet, before commencing to throw up places I had just labored over. Very fun day.

The plumber we got was even weirder. The guy, once again, looked straight out of Goodfellas: White button-up shirt, gold chain, slick hair, dress shoes and slacks. He came into our house and pumped out gutters, finding that our gigantic pine trees in the front-yard were creeping their roots into our sewage line, blockading it. And for the 3 or so hours he spent down there, he came back up with not a single spot on his shirt. I couldn't believe it.

So it's 2:21 in the morning, and I'm sleepy. I realize my writing isn't totally sharp, and it's largely due to the hallucinations I have suffered from today by smelling my own digestive system. I will click Publish Post now and be done with this as my eyes are drooping off and I am fatigued. Goodnight, goodbye, farewell, etc, etc, etc.

Boom Goes The Dynamite

2010-03-08T20:22:00.000-08:00

Quickie: Being a small town, Glenwood - frankly- does not contain a whole lot of news. Maybe that's the whole appeal of living in small towns, considering that news tends to revolve around the latest murder or kidnapping. Colleges tend to be in small towns anyways, don't look as that as a detriment to attending CMC. But anyways, the whole talk of the town has been hard to avoid today, and somewhat applies to my past entry on I-70 (which I might've said something along the lines of, "Not that bad" when it comes to road safety)... news is boulders the size of semi-trucks hit I-70 last night, tearing apart the bridge and delaying traffic from going in or out of Glenwood for the next couple days while they rebuild the bridge.

Photo of which I do not know how to cite properly (Denver Post).

Maybe it's a sign of global warming, maybe it's Obama's fault... or maybe rocks just like to fall every once in a while. But the amount of destruction is described as massive, with a 17 mile stretch leading to Glenwood totally blocked off (this is right outside of town, hence the relevance of this entry). The boulders are so big that C-DOT (basically those who take care of our highways during the winter season... likely the most "hardcore", if that term is even appropriate, group of highway maintenance men in the nation considering the Rockies are... the biggest mountains on this continent.) is unable to move them and is rigging them with explosives in order to blow them up into smaller chunks capable of being moved. Apparently up to twenty boulders all hit the highway at about midnight yesterday (...or today?), which means it'll be a while until anyone can get through.

Yoooouuuuu shaaaaaallll nooot paaaaassss!!!!

There's a lot of teachers/kids who commute to attend here, and it'll be a while before they can attend class again. Thankfully spring break doesnt start for about 3 more weeks, so it should be clear by then when I make the commute back to my residence of yore, Denver. Detours are possible, but average estimate is that they take about 7 hours to trek the same distance - which is really worth coming for a 1-2 hour class, meaning a lot of kids also had class cancellations today.

In the words of great late renaissance poet Mattheus Duffyeus, "One must sacrifice convenience to live amongst beauty."

Couldn't have said it better myself, Mattheus, couldn't have said it better myself.

Los Juegos Extremo

2010-02-22T22:21:00.000-08:00

While I was playing around the video editing in the last entry, I remembered I had some old X-Games footage which I hadn't really thought worthy of a video, nor a blog entry of it's own.

Well, for whatever reason, it is now.
To add some filler (I feel odd posting a blog entry less than 200 words), the X-Games are, if you're oblivious to pop culture as a whole, are short for the "Extreme-Games" - the local snowboarding/skiing/whatever competition in which the world's greatest in their field congregate here in Aspen to do spinny flips and all sorts of stuff. I did assume you already knew this, but once again, I've yet to reach the 200 word mark.

Anyways, I don't have an awful lot of footage aside from what you'll see below for reason that I could never truly get a good view of much anything - 80% of the time spent there was waiting in crowds that violently turned into lines, pushing, shoving, screaming to get up on the Super-Pipe, grabbing hair, stealing babies... OK, no babies... but otherwise being pretty civil about the whole thing.

Apparently, the group I was with appeared on TV, but not having TiVo sort of prevents me from seeing this footage... but somewhere in the deep confines of everything that's both recorded and televised, I'm there, all .623 seconds of me.

Something about where we were on the super-pipe and the physics of it all (it being on a huge slant, where I was even unable to stand without gripping the blockade-fence) made it so that multiple times the snowboarders would launch out directly in front of us, the mist from their snowboards spraying into our faces, some people actually opening their mouths to catch it... at least snow-flakes are clean, you weirdos.

As usual, the X-Games were composed of long-haired rad-brahs, little kids in XXL clothing, people who did not follow snowboarding at all, parents, mostly teenagers, and attractive girls no longer really attractive because of the ridiculous amounts of clothing you have to don in order to stay warm, thus limiting your sex appeal in favor of (Seriously, what the hell)... common sense. Which is why I prefer surfing, spectator-sport wise. Volleyball works too.

I can't really tell you who we saw or who won what (and considering the X-Games happened something like... a month ago), I doubt you care, nor did I at the time. Other than that whatever I was witnessing was the Women's SuperPipe finals.

Also, you ever watch those YouTube videos of just generic footage - like somebody rock-climbing or whatever - and the uploader has insisted on overdubbing it with their favorite song in the assumption that you also share their taste in music, and will appreciate the song? And all you wanna do is watch the video in it's pureness, full of the sounds of the moment and not a song you don't want to hear? Or that they assume they hold superior music taste to you, and you hearing the song in the video will thus make you a fan? Aren't those guys great?

In hopes of annoying you, this is precisely what I've done in the video below.

Also another song by MBV, whom I hope to influence you into buying their record/CD/mp3 so that they receive enough funding to go on tour again. I wasn't a fan during the reunion tour, and now that I am, I am pulling all strings to subliminally influence them to do it again. Or at least record a third album, which has been in promise for over a decade now... once again, carried away. CMC in no way supports this band, but I obviously do.

Enjoy the video, all singular minute of it.

Sup, Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah from Matt Duffy on Vimeo.

A Video.

2010-02-22T16:49:00.001-08:00

I never lie.*
Couple months ago I promised a video detailing the sights-and-sees of I-70, which is what I consider one of the most scenic highways in possibly the world. So after months of capturing footage and video editing, I offer my dearest readers … a pretty mediocre video. Windows Movie Maker bugged out on me, not displaying footage in the preview window and didn’t really decide to start working until this morning. So I captured further footage from further winter months (as the original video I made… when was that entry written? Nov/Dec?), so if you’re confused as to why some of the mountains are snowy and yet seconds later it’s bright, warm and sunny– well, Colorado weather isn’t that bipolar. Pretty close, but not enough to radically convert itself in a three hour time span (Which is essentially how long it takes the Greyhound to go from Glenwood to Denver, unless it’s snowing, whereas you can be prepared for a 5-6 hour journey accompanied by your favorite local alcoholics).

Before you watch the video, I apologize for two things: As far as cinematography goes, I have ADD. Also, if you don’t like the song, turn down your speakers. You’re not missing any audio commentary (I know.. Thank God). But the song is Loomer by My Bloody Valentine, not to be confused with Bullet for My Valentine or My Chemical Romance, or the movie itself (for which the band is named, based of it’s original incarnation).

A seminal 90’band, MBV were the pioneers of the shoe-gazer movement, epitomizing the definition of their sound with their album Loveless (released in November of 1991), an album highly acclaimed by critics and fellow musicians alike (Brian Eno of Talking Heads/David Bowie/U2/Coldplay/Devo producing fame commented on it’s single “Soon” as being, “…a new standard for pop…it’s the vaguest music to ever have been a hit”.) and often unanimously hailed as one of the greatest albums of the decade - outranking even Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit in indie-wire Pitchfork’s Greatest Albums of the 1990’s list, a list that would later be -

Um, sorry... carried away.

Enjoy the video.

*That was... that was a lie.

I70 snipshotz from Matt Duffy on Vimeo.

Undah Kunstruschun!

2010-02-19T13:17:00.000-08:00

Just an FYI to anyone whose clicked on this blog for the first time. And yeah, I realize the text is indecipherable from the background image... just bear with me until I get this stuff sorted out. I've never taken any classes for HTML or have any previous background knowledge on what really means, so the site might be in a kaputz until I learn the cyber-lingo. And it's not as if I even update all too often, but it should be working by the end of the night.

The Best Way Into A Woman Is Through Her Stomach

2010-02-14T01:45:00.000-08:00

Did that - wait, does that even make sense?

But: You know what I mean. The year's annual Valentine's Day approaches, and for many it is a time of reinvigorating what many find their sole reason for existence: really weird, kinky stuff. Or at least in my case. For others, it comes down to no more than the utterance of the word "love", a word that carries so much connotation, so much symbolism, and yet dissolves into no more than biology - lust, love, procreation, and in some cases, chocolate. Go easy on it, ladies. Please.
No, really, I'm serious.

But my rambling leads me to my point: Valentine's Day - apart from it's usual cliches like fresh-picked roses, hand-written Hallmark cards, and state regulation handcuffs - always carries the tradition of eating. Near all our holidays revolve around feasting of some sort, doing the thing that we as western society have somehow found to be not a solitary activity, but an act of communion, a time in which all people are gathered over a thing we can all relate to, regardless of gender, religious beliefs, outlook on life, or taste in music: food. We can all relate to food. We all eat. While many in our tossed-salad of America hold differences - even grudges - based merely on ideals and taste in cultural mediums, love is the thing we can all relate to - love is something we all do, and thus held is Valentine's Day's universal appeal. Forget your distaste and self-perceived act of rebellion against society for celebrating a holiday that promotes a consumerist culture of materialistic things like diamonds and other sorts, and just celebrate the holiday for chrissake. Stuff is on sale. Like chocolates - go at 'em.
Except you, ladies - Please God, chill out on those things. You've had enough. Stop eating them.

So what better thing to do than bring your loved one out to a local restaurant! Glenwood Springs, frankly, has some of the best dining in the Valley - in many a ways, while Aspen is the tourist destination, Glenwood remains the real "hub" of the area... one that's realistically priced, one where you can buy a t-shirt not made Ralph Lauren, one that has some decent restaurants a college kid can afford.

Being frank - I can't get out much. Constant car trouble has kept me hermitted to school grounds, hence my lack of blog entries on anything going on outside of campus. I'm on my second car this year and it too has died on me after $400 dollars in repairs. So apologies in advance in your favorite restaurant is not represented or I failed to mention a Glenwood Essential. I try to get out, but I can only eat at so many places.

First off is The Brew-Pub:
You're going to be spending a little extra money on the lust-of-yer-life this Valentine's Holladay, so don't fret when you find that BrewPub's burgers are priced an average of over ten dollars. If you're of drinking age, The BrewPub offers a wide variety of beers, including the local Hanging Lake beer and some more somewhat-exotic types, like pumpkin and honey flavored ales. Hence the name of the restaurant, the BrewPub makes it's syrups right there on restaurant grounds - no trucking, no importation, straight from the source of thy womb. The atmosphere is also very pleasant, with oak (or some type of....wood) furniture all around. Not necessarily romantic, but if you expect furniture to take over your charming responsibilities, you should not be dating. If you're not of drinking age - well, the burgers are still good. The last time I was in there, I had the bison-burger which set me back $14 dollars or so but was fairly good and arrived within a reasonable amount of time. It wasn't as soft as a Ted's bison burger is, but that's a place in Denver so I guess comparisons can't really be made: As far as I know, it's the only place that offers near-extinct-animal meat in town. Vet-Tech girls love that kind of stuff.

The Brew-Pub is located across from the Amtrak railway station. It's sort of hard to miss, it's amongst the tallest buildings in town.

Next up is The Italian Underground.
I ate here once (Self-realization: Add an "h" to ate, and you form "hate". Seeing that the majority of our language is derived from Latin, would anyone know what the roots of "ate" are? Is there really an association between hating, and eating? Did any body else just think cannibalism? No, nobody? Cannibalism can also be an act of love, you know. What better way to appreciate the presence of a loved one than eat them? OK, I'm sorry - back to the rest of this paragraph: ) while waiting for the Greyhound, and was a little bothered considering my lack of time as to how ridiculously long it took to get an order of spaghetti. But - it was worth it. Very good stuff. Also, before your order you are given salad, and afterwards gelato, which is basically Italian ice-cream and is not incredibly different than from what you get here in the states, plus or minus thickness. I wouldn't call the extras "free", as IU charges over ten bucks a plate, but once again, it's a one-day a year exception. Apparently, the Italian Underground is also located in one of the oldest buildings in Glenwood, which is a cool fact you can tell your loved one in case the conversation lulls and you don't really have much else to say, like what just happened here.

The Italian Underground is located sort of underneath the big bridge in downtown Glenwood. I'd offer directions but downtown Glenwood encompasses such a small amount of town that all you'd have to do is drive for a block and realize that everything is located within a nine second proximity of everything else. It's hard to get lost.

For the carnivore in everyone, there is Juicy Lucy's, which I ate at with my parents years back and - Holy God, it's expensive. This is a place you'll go to if you really want to impress your date, with the sheer amount of cash you're willing to spend on something no more than beef-flank. I can't remember exactly, but I'm pretty sure for my mom and dad the total amount came to about $60 dollars for two steaks a piece. You'd think with a name like Juicy Lucy's you'd get a down-home burger shack (you know, versus a place named something like "Jean-Pierre's Fantastique Eaterie" pronounced with special French emphasis on vowels regardless of the country you dine in).
Also, did anyone else read the name "Juicy Lucy" and have the first word into their mouths spell out "cannibalism"? No, no one? Really? Ok, well, um, let's move on then...

Aaaaaaaaaaay, es mi hombre Peppo Nino, un restaurante de comida Italian en el centro commercial de la ciudad de Glenwood. Peppo Nino es un restaurante muy Italiano. Los precios era reasonable por un occasion especialmente de tu y tu novia o novio, mas o menos $10-15 dollars (No pesos!) por un plato. Mi favorito es un comida de se llama "alfredo" ---- mmmmm, es muy rico!! El ambiente es muy oscuro - es beneficial por los clientele muy romanticas jajajajaja. Anyways, I have a hard time comparing this place to the Italian Underground as I've only been once to both places, and to side with one or the other would imply me, being a pseudo-employee of CMC and thus a representative of an organization, a favoree of one place over the other - so I can't really recommend you one or the other, other than I kind of liked Peppo Nino a little better. Did I - did I just do that?

Peppo Nino is also located in the same general area as the other restaurants, a block or two away from the train station.

You know what's also romantic, now that I think about it? Taking the train. The views are beautiful, and the last time I took the train (from California to Denver - I think it was the Zephyr I took) I remember they're being an entire compartment entirely composed of glass. The walls, the doors, the roof - all glass! Or really sturdy plastic. It was a really neat-o experience, and despite how glacially slow the train moves (A trip to Denver from Glenwood via train takes about 7 hours. Greyhound takes 3 hours. Via car, it's about 2 and 1/2 hours. If you decide to walk, be sure to bring company as it might take a couple days. That way you'll have someone to eat. Oh, oops, that was a typo. I meant that way, you'll have a companion to help you hunt for food. Like him.)

Of course, taking the train and then trying to be back by Monday is sort of nonsensical, unless you were to get on the train, sit down, pretend you had been there for hours, and get off with your date before it leaves. Which isn't really romantic at all, just sort of weird.

The last place I can think of at the moment is the Nepalese Restaurant down here pretty close to CMC, at the base of the hill you have to climb in order to get up here. I find it sort of ridiculous that I can't exactly remember it's name - it might be for no more reason that it was just titled Nepal Restaurant. Anyways - who said romantic evenings have to contain romantic food? What makes some foods more romantic than others? Does a food know it's romantic? It's eat to live, not live to eat. This advice applies to you specifically, ladies. This nation is experiencing an obesity epidemic, and you are guilty for 50% of it. FIFTY PERCENT. That's more than twenty-five percent! I find it appalling you women can eat so much.
Anyways, back to the restaurant: As the name implies, they serve Nepalese food, not Chinese as I suspected you originally thought it did. I was introduced to this restaurant via my 20th Century World History class I took last semester (It's taught by Dr. Wadyko, very enjoyable class, I'd recommend any one coming here to take it next time it's offered.) where we were given presentations on life in Nepal, and additionally brought in Nepalese food. I liked the samplings so much I had to try an actual meal myself. The restaurant is slightly odd in it's serving styles, though - food is given to you via cafeteria trays, which despite my previous statement on foods and romanticism, isn't really romantic at all. But it's exotic, and very fun stuff to eat. I remember this pita bread that you dipped in some hummus-textured cream (except it was spicy) to honestly have been one of the most memorable things I've ever eaten. It's good stuff.

And last of all, at the days end, you can bring your loved on to the local Kaleidoscoops, whom actually offer more than Baskin Robbins 39's flavors - a place that continues to advertise it's 39 flavors, despite Kaleidoscoops's clear superiority variety-wise. Ice-cream is pretty cliche romantic eating affair, but dammit, it tastes good. Alongside your staples like mint chocolate chip, butter pecan, and Oreo flavor are more exotic types like graham cracker crust, Moose tracks, and peanut butter cup stuff. Unfortunately, they did not offer Human flavor, which is my favorite and you really don't see in a lot of places. I searched, read and re-read every flavor of ice-cream and studied even their ingredient labels in the case that Human flavor was possibly placed under a more misleading name, something alone the lines of "Bloody Valentine", "Soylent Green" (I just spoiled that movie for you) or "People With Sprinkles" but to no avail. But no matter- ice-cream is quissential romantic, and despite our 30 degree days, it never fails to taste good. It keeps it's shape better, and you don't have to worry about it running down your hands, so I think it's all a big plus.

SO - that's all I can recommend, based off my limited knowledge of the town's restaurants, so at the least I hope I could provide at least some sort of advice. Hope you guys have a pleasant Valentine's Day, ho ho ho and all that stuff.

Deer: More Deer

2010-01-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

When I had uploaded that last video, detailing my shock and awe at seeing deer actually on campus - not in some state park, not a couple miles away, not close to here, *on* - I was overwhelmed with such excitement and a feeling of one-ness with my natural habitat that I failed to actually watch the video. I just kind of uploaded it and left it at that.

Oh my God, now I know what everyone was talking about. It's a shaky video shot during the night, where the only recognizable part of a deer you can truly see is the white spot upon their rears (Mother nature: What is the evolutionary advantage in making their rears bright white?) I was met in the cafeteria with comments like, "Hey Duffy I saw that video you uploaded....um, seriously, what the hell was that?" Whereas I could only shake my head for daring to ask me such a question, and ask this person, "Why do you hate art?

Anyways, here is a better video. The zoom function on the Flip video cameras isn't the greatest, so I pulled a personal Macgyver and employed the use of binoculars to get you the highly-detailed action-replay you deserve. I present to you (!!!!) : Better deer.

Deer: The Sequel from Matt Duffy on Vimeo.

Being honest though, this is not the first time I've seen mountain animals on campus. There are times where at least once every couple weeks I'll wake up to deer dashing across the field, or even better, munching on it. There was a night I walked out of the library and was literally - no, really, literalidad - three feet from a deer I had failed to see I was approaching as I was reading the back of a book I had just gotten. It was the horned kind, and behind it, a herd of three to four more, all simultaneously staring at me - all simultaneously wondering whether to run away from me, or express enough fear to give their male counterpart permission to knock my head in with it's antlers like tree branches, sharp edged and poised-ready-set-able-wanting to kill. And you think these are such gentle animals - I was scared sh**less, and promptly turned around and took the long way back to the dorms. I thanked the deer for sparing my life, and then realized they probably read my blog and wanted to see me make more posts in the future, so I thanked them for that too.

Hope the video works this time.

Babybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybaby

2010-01-28T19:49:00.000-08:00

Apparently “I want to destroy your body” is not a good pick-up line. Nor is “I love you” – that’s creepy, considering pick-up lines are introductions. Silence is golden, but not in this case either – in order to pick up chicks, one must talk enough to be considered interesting, but enough so with being neurotic, without being overly sensitive, portray confidence without seeming cocky, ask your potential mate about their feelings without caring too much, have control while subjecting yourself to everything the other person does, be yourself whilst trying to be an ideal form of yourself which isn’t really yourself after all but an idealized version of the perfect mate, the standard that which all your hormones agree or that you think should agree upon basing itself as to what culture happens to like in a mate at that particular period in this history on and such so that you maintain this image all throughout –STOP: balance.

This is what David Coleman iterated and reiterated, making sure we knew exactly where to stop and where to begin. Where to mellow, where to reside, where to be, and stay, and content ourselves with. Attracting a mate is an incredibly complicated game, where perfection of near everything must be entirely in sync, all things must work together and function properly and one failure in any one particular area will result in the failure of all other areas thusly. If you're ever watching Animal Planet and thinking how funny it is that birds will waltz in front of a mate in order to prove themselves to them - well, just think, that is precisely what you as a human being is doing, just an obviously much more complicated and yet subtle version of it all.

If you’re confused: David Coleman is the guy the movie Hitch is based upon – which is a movie starring Will Smith, who portrays a guy known for a gift for the girls. He knows what to say. He knows when to smile. He knows the lines between creepy and sensitive, cocky and confident, funny and boring – adjective and adjective, it’s all a balancing act, and it’s all something he’s so wildly good at that he got a movie based upon himself. And with that, he came to CMC to give us a two-hour lecture or so on the art of love making. Or getting there, at least. The naughty stuff only existed in my imagination, and my impatience at the presentation for not getting there soon enough – and then never telling me how. This was even more infuriating than watching Avatar and not being granted a single nudie-scene. Ten years in the making and not even a slip?

I'm not impressed.

Jokes aside, David Coleman had some pretty good advice – which I had a hard time applying to my own life, but I’m sure some of the more sexually-industrious members of our audience got a good thrill out of. No kidding – the guy knew exactly what he was doing and saying.

David Coleman speaking to an auditorium... not CMC's, this is just some stock photo.

What was funny though is that he looked absolutely nothing like Will Smith. D This version of Will Smith was much more mellower than the real Will Smith. It should also be noted that as far as race goes, the casting team at Columbia Pictures got it horribly, horribly wrong.

Here's some of the advice Coleman gave us that I can remember off the top of my head:

DID YOU KNOW?

1. Men are at their sexual prime during the ages of 18-35. Women don’t start being really interested in the whole thing until the age of 26 and until something like the age 45 (Apologies to David Coleman if I’ve gotten this wrong). Meaning the whole mythology behind the desperate housewife is not a myth, but a scientifically proven fact. Meaning I am spending my afternoons in Whole Foods from now on. “Do you like……organics?”

2. In a relationship, the person who does not care is in control. Ironic at first, but the more you think about it, the more it makes sense: the person who is constantly trying to please is the one who is the subject of the other person. You can think there’s mutual love, but one mate is always going to be a little less interested in the relationship than the other. How to win? Stop being interested. That isn’t something what Coleman said, it’s just my advice. Take it from me to know relationships.

3. There’s no such thing as a good pick-up line, only bad ones. The best way to initiate conversation is to actually converse.

Choke-holds are a good way to control the relationship.

While typing this I went back through my dirty laundry (Yes, simultaneously) and found these flyers Coleman provided us with - I’ll list off some of it’s heeds:

The 5-Stages of a Relationship
Infatuation – Discovery- Reality – Decision – Commitment
(Meaning if you have a horrible personality akin to mine, drop out of the relationship when anything remotely close to reality hits.)

The ABC’s of Initial Interest!
Attraction – Believability (“Are you…a real person?”) – Chemistry – Desire

The 5 Characteristics of a Healthy Relationship
Trust – Respect – Intimacy – Passion – Commitment

The Difficulties of Long Distance Relationships
- People force communication to occur every day and ultimately smother each other.
- Couples run out things to say, things get uncomfortable.
- Absence does not make the heart grow fonder, proximity does.
- Another “Hmm” surfaces close to home.
- You forget how wonderful they are and what they fell for in the first place.

There was plenty of other things he had to say, and I truly felt as if none of it was really all too cliché. But then again, the truth is: You’re either attracted to someone, or you’re not. There are ways you can improve your chances, and this is what David was mostly for and I personally think he did a fine job of informing us as to what those things were. But if someone doesn’t like you – look, they don’t like you. Quit beating a wet horse, or whatever the saying is. Oh God, I just read that.

Unfortunately, as the presentation closed (Thanks to PEAK, which is a…physical fitness club we have here at CMC? I think so. ) Coleman failed to elaborate on the stuff that really mattered... meaning I'll have to renew my subscription to this:

Kristen Bell informs us what to do when our boobs begin speaking.

How do I - how do I end this? Do I just keep making bad jokes? Here, I'll just express my thanks: Thanks David Coleman, for giving our small school a pretty handy talk on the thing most of our lives center around, and thanks to everyone else who brought him in. Apparently we have a mentalist (????) coming in in a week, so if CMC keeps up with these pseudo-entertaining things to do during the nights, then I'll finally have stuff to write about - maybe it's because it's just begun, but personally I think second semester is shaping out to be the much better semester of my year here. Personally. So once again, I bid you cyber-adieu...gracias por tu tiempo.

Mein Zeitplan

2010-01-14T18:17:00.000-08:00

Baaaah, sorry about not updating a thing for the past month and a half. I really have no excuse, other than that I.... I have no excuse. Finals did take up the majority of December though (Ended up with 2 B's & 3 A's, which isn't really anything to complain about) and then there were the holidays, which involved a trip to Mexico and not really being on the computer for weeks at a time.

SO - today I finished up my first week of classes in the new semester, and thus I felt obligated to inform you of my schedule. If you're interested.

MONDAYS/WEDNESDAZE
From Medieval to Modern: This is a continuation of Early Civilizations from first semester, but if you're looking to transfer in there's really no harm in not knowing any history prior to the 14th century or so. What the class is is just a history class that picks up after the the rise of Christianity in Europe and notes everything that results because of it, it kind of being the biggest event to hit western civilization since the Greeks/Romans. The class covers all the stuff involving the Black Plague, the Renaissance, the French Revolution, Napoleon, Otto von Bismarck, WW1.... on and on. Personally I find this stuff pretty fascinating, despite having never been to Europe - to see the origins of all our laws, our philosophies, our thought-processes and values in life being just touched upon hundreds of years ago is all pretty neat-o. My description is sort of underwhelming, but I will say that history has always been my favorite subject, and just based on Early Civiliztions last semester (Which I geekily grew enthusiastic over when just writing essays), I'm looking forward to this one.

ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY:
It's what the title of the class says it is: studying bulimics, serial killers, people with voices in their heads, people with eating disorders, people with no connection to reality, people who're depressed, people who're constantly happy, and -people-who- have- inclinations- of delusional- neurosis- and- thus- blog- about- themselves -late -at -night -out -of -sheer -boredom- and- need- for- money- because- I've- totally -run -out -of -toilet-paper -and -I'm -not -sure -what -to do -right -now.

ROCK CLIMBING:
This one hasn't started yet, but it sounded fun, and you need gym credits in order to graduate (Which I personally think is, to be informal, wack - I thought I was done with P.E. in high-school? Why am I being required to incredible amounts of money to do things like run? This isn't a CMC thing, it's universal in colleges... just putting that out there.) But anyways, yeah - the class has a couple lessons in the rock-climbing wall we have here on campus, and then'll take a couple field trips to wherever people rock-climb in this area of Colorado. Looking forward to it.

TUEZDEE/TURRSDAE
HUMAN GROWTH & DEVELOPMENT: I missed Tuesday's class as I was still out of the country that morning, but from the one class I had today, I'm figuring this all out to really just be the study of babies. Babies are fascinating creatures, I guess. I just want to put it out there that not all babies are good looking. Just being a baby doesn't mean you're instantly qualified to take the position of cutest person in the room. That title belongs to me. OK I'm typing this all and shaking my head at what I just typed, but erasing it would lead to a shorter paragraph, and time = money in the paid bloggers world so I'll leave it there for you to scoff at. OK ANYWAYS: The class, once again, is exactly what it describes itself to be. Potential tests in the future will be about the childhood years, the waning of your intelligence in old age, middle-aged crises and the scientific explanation behind them, and my favorite, puberty. For reasons I will not type publically.

INTRODUCTORY ALGEBRA:
There really isn't much to say about this class. Everyone reading this is probably already familiar with what algebra is, and is probably laughing because I have to take it over again. It's a remedial class, meaning alongside it I'll have to take numerous additional math classes in order to graduate - basically what I'm taking right now accounts for nothing except qualifications to attend a college-level math class. But it's not like I'm blaming anyone here: Math has always been a weak-point for me. On my ACT scores, I literally maxed out the Reading/Writing criterion (36/36 points or whatever it was) - and then just dropped an A-Bomb in the math/science fields, where my national equivalent was something like that of a 4th graders. Math's never been something I've found easy... but based off the class I had today, where things were explained almost pain-stakingly detailed, I could at least appreciate the effort the staff here puts into making sure I know - *know* - this time what the hell it is I'm doing. But yeah, math is math. I don't think even math teachers are able to get really enthusiastic about it.

WEIGHT TRAINING:
I kind of do it on occasion anyway, so I figured why not get credit for it? The class structure is pretty dope as well - you basically can come into the gym at any
time of the day, at near any day, entirely at your leisure. As long as you fill out your time-tables, you're set. Our teacher (is that you call him? Coach? Body-Man?) is available for over an hour to just give you advice on stuff, which is a nice plus, and the local beefcakes are always willing to give you advice in between their ritual screaming on the bench-press and heavy panting to make sure everyone in the gym knows exactly how intense they're training, and why you should be aware of this fact. But no, really - most guys in the gym are more than willing to give you advice, and gladly.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand - that's it? That's it. This totals up to 15 credits, which is standard for most kids looking to graduate in 2 years (for the Associates degree, obviously) - 15creds a semester, you know. Classes so far have been fun (fun in the sense that school really isn't really that fun, but you know what I mean) , and if anyworthingth noting pops up in the course of the next semester, I'll be sure to talk about them. But until then: Bye.

Driving Places

2009-12-02T14:12:00.000-08:00

Forget Route 66, forget Mulholland Drive, forget Sunset Boulevard and that joke they call the Pacific Ocean - I70 is the only love you'll ever need.

OK, so it's not that great. Its the highway that carves its way through the Rockies, skimming off the side of cliffs and at times blasting right through the undersides of literal mountains. And that's it - it extends beyond Colorado via Kansas and Utah, but what it leads to I'm not totally sure - nor care.

But I think I've done a little more road-tripping than much else most. Jack Kerouac wannabe I am not, but thanks to my family's constant movings from all sorts of places in California (Lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand; Pretchaburi, Thailand; Mill Valley, California; Tracy, California; Tehachapi, California; Aurora, Colorado; Denver, Colorado, and - oh- here, in Glenwood Springs....Colorado) I'm somewhat used to getting affiliated with a place, getting comfortable with my neighborhood, meeting people, making friends - and then leaving.

I don't want to get sentimental here and drop some ridiculously corny quote like, "Life is a highway", but really, truly, I feel as if I'm more affiliated with highways than most people I know, like a lot of my friends in Denver. They've lived there their entire lives, never leaving, never straying - staying. Even now, I have friends who refuse to leave the city, too unready for change, and too loving of their native grounds. I'd love to go back (and am, come Xmas break/summer/etc) but thanks to my gypsy-lifestyle cities tend to bore me after about a year - it's like growing up watching nothing but commercials, I think an actual feature-length movie would drive me nuts, if you get my metaphor.

But anyways, what I was getting to: I70 is the highway of highways. Anyone who’s driven anywhere in Colorado has taken it, and usually has to if they want to ski at any of the numerous, numerous resorts (Winter Park, Steamboat, Copper, Vail, Aspen a little off-bounds) or to escape the state east/west-bound. It’s the main vein that feeds from Denver into the mountains – cutting it off would kill entire cities (deprived of exports/imports of food, you know what I mean). It’s essential to Colorado – oh, and it’s absolutely f*****g beautiful.

A lot of the highway runs directly adjacent to the Colorado River (“I know the human being and the fish can coexist peacefully” – GWB), providing a nice little glittery scene to glance at as you drive west-bound. The last time I was on the highway was on a Greyhound (for the tragic 6^th time – you always get off those buses smelling like a cigarettes and protein powder), which are nice when empty, miserable when full. Taking the bus really provides you to actually just look at stuff – when you’re in the car you’re able to glance at whatever’s directly ahead of you, but seeing that you’re speeding 70mph for most of the way, it’s hard to really get a nice concentrated look at just about anything unless you want to, you know, die. Being on the bus allows you to just stare at stuff, totally undistracted from gas pedals or current gears or battery meters or amount of gas left or speed limits or lane changes or rearview mirrors or how tight your seatbelt is and how readjusting it might lead to a car crash – and absorb, because there’s no other seat left on the bus, the luxurious scent of dried and crusted-over baby puke you happen to be sitting on. For every high is a low, for every low a high –for every middle-ground, nothing.

The highway starts off from Denver going past the dog-food plant (no matter how tight you roll up your windows, how high you turn on the air conditioning and the car fan, and how many gas masks you have on, that smell is getting in), off and around the near-defunct Lakeside Amusement park (the security provisions are so ancient that if you really wanted to, you could jump off 95% of the rides, for, you know, a real kick) , and slowly escalating past Morrison into the high-rises that are the Rockies. Nothing particular interesting happens for 40-50 miles (except, you know, the biggest mountains in that continent called North America) until you hit the high Rockies, where the sight of blindingly white mountains is seen dominating the horizon, and the side of you, and behind you – you’re not driving by them, you’re going through them.

After a while you hit the Eisenhower tunnel, which is under the Continental Divide and the longest mountain tunnel ever built (on an interstate, anyway). The tunnel itself is nothing special – it’s a big-long white tunnel stained yellow from decades of smog-spewing cars passing through it’s arteries twenty-four hours a day. But going westbound, as soon as you clear the tunnel it’s a real thrill – you shoot out for over twenty miles of downhill entertainment. This might’ve been a little funner for me than other people, as the cars I’ve driven into the Rockies tend to scream for their lives going up the most basic of mountain hills, sans snow, and pedal to the medal (achieving an impressive 25mph going up – I always get the beaters).

Fast-forward through a couple other town and a hundred miles and there’s a point where you seemingly clear the majority of the mountains/ski resorts/aspen trees and come off into a near-plain that looks the majority of the rest of America: cow farms, dinky gasoline-marts (My favorite: “ Kum N’ Go ”….. OK, that was immature. But it’s real.) and places where people are living their lives just like how everyone else is living their lives with their own scenarios of boyfriend-girlfriend drama and the kids who despise their town and want to get out and move to Manhattan and the old folks living the rest of their days in them because they’ve already done that and hated it and the girl who texts too much and the old woman who knits far too often and the cows living out their monotonous lives of eating grass and staring at you as you pass and waiting to be executed eventually so that I can pour barbecue sauce on their ribs and – you get it.

And then you hit the Glenwood Canyon – which – is – beautiful. Emphasis on: “Is”. I already wrote something about hiking it, but driving it is equally satisfying. The things are huge, putting it bluntly. You have to stick your head out the window to see the tops of them, and they top anything humankind has made in terms of tallness. I mean personally I’m not much of a nature-freak but sometimes it blows my mind (I kind of hate that term. What the hell does it mean? Is somebody opening my skull and actually blowing onto my brain? Or am I supposed to imagine my brain being ravaged by a beautiful woman and…. OK, I’ll stop.) to think that thousands of years of erosion and unsettled plates underneath the surface suddenly sprouted these jagged masses of land and that they’ve been here since the dinosaurs were still chilling in their hammocks and totally unaware of the asteroid/meteor/plague/Mayan apocalypse that would eventually destroy them in an entirety.

It’s a great highway. A highway isn’t exactly something you just “do” on a Saturday night, and I doubt trips are ever made just to experience a highway (Well, maybe Route 66 has that privilege – but people are always going somewhere if they’re on it. It’s not as if somebody will drive it, and then go Well that was fun, and turn around to go back home), but all I can really say if you have some sort of check-list in your life (You know what I mean: “Eat a Chipotle burrito in one sitting” - Check. “Go skinny dipping” – Check. “Spontaneously combust inside a retirement home” – In progress.) I70 should be somewhere along there, at the top or bottom, as someplace you’ve got to drive. After driving on so many dull highways across America (and Mexico as well – road-tripped twice now from Denver to Puerto Vallarta, which is excruciating painful for the buns) I can easily say I70, Colorado-wise, isn’t just a road you have to take to get somewhere: It’s fun stuff unto itself. You just don’t get bored driving it.

Oh, and check back later…. I’ve got a poorly-edited little video of some of the scenic spots, but the internet is so bad here that I’m having trouble uploading the guy.

This Blog Entry Will Be About Places I LIke To Study

2009-11-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

I only got around 4 hours of sleep last night. The night before, an impressive 3. I keep this up and I'll be dead by Friday.

It's really only for reason that I have absolutely no sense of time management. I just don't do it. I want to say I "live life with the flow", doing things as they come and not worrying about the past or future, but only the present, the now, the immediate, the life in which you look around and see before you: this. But nah - I actually spend most of my days perusing through Stalkbook. I thoroughly enjoy looking at all your profiles.

But what I was getting to: discipline. The last couple weeks I've made some actually pretty good efforts (by my definition) of hunkering down and gitterin stuffz dun. This whole semester I've gotten into the habit of getting off from classes and doing absolutely nothing (Well actually, I'm somewhat productive - I read, watch movies, illegally download music) until about ten o'clock, when I suddenly realize I have homework due tomorrow, or the next day. It's not that I really find the CMC course-work to be especially challenging (Pretty sure I'm doing real well in all my classes), it's just that find this bizarre pleasure in totally neglecting the fact that I have homework until the hour before class begins. It's like a high for me - I get my fix by watching Pokemon videos on YouTube. Please don't reread that sentence.

So what I've found is that the best way to do homework and, really, get stuff done is to do it in strange environments you are unfamiliar with, like that thing called the library. I've been actually going to the library all year - when the semester began I was the very first one to check-out a book, and I go in there multiple times a week to pick up some movies I've reserved and the gross literature that I'm into, which actually I won't elaborate on considering my last three books have been about sex aficionados, cannibalism during the apocalypse, and college kids with coke addictions. Oh, um - oops.

But Jesus it takes me forever to just make my point. What I was getting to is (once again) is that the library is by far the best place possibly ever to get stuff done. I just can't do homework in my room - I get distracted and fall asleep when I do it on my bed, and when I do it on my desk I usually wake up with drool making it's way through the innards of my keyboard. So I do it in the library. I use the computer lab in there because I can't open iTunes, people will see what I'm doing on Facebook, and because I secretly enjoy typing as loud as I can to other people. It's kind of one of my bizarre pleasures. It makes me look busy.

There's a multitude of desks all around, and something I've got say while I'm on this: Why is the architecture in the library so much better than all the other buildings? The dorm room is an excellent combination of drab grays and whites, the student services building uses the same doors they have down at the county prison (as well as the cafeteria giving off exciting yellow vibes to complement your eating pleasure) and the actual educational building is, well, it's functional I guess. Not much to it.

So it's when you go into the library that you get entirely different vibes - the door is carved oak (or cedar, or maple, or plywood, or plastic, I really have no clue... I don't really follow...wood), you walk in and the lighting's perfect, the fireplace room is comfortable beyond belief (and has an interesting ceiling to stare at), the walls are rounded in some parts, and - OK, it's not going to win any awards, but I personally love the way the library is designed. It's relaxing. Not only that, but upstairs are some couches (I actually don't trust the couches nor beanbags around here, call me a germaphobe) and a couple of killer study rooms you can shut yourself in and just get work done. There's also a balcony (locked off) which I'm hoping will open up next semester, although I'm guessing it was closed because too many morons decided it'd be funny to to fall twenty feet.

I get more stuff done in 2 hours in the library than I do in an entire day in my dorm room. It's just too distracting in here - if anyone's seen my room it's plastered with posters on every remote cubic inch and too many times I've been doing homework only to look up at my poster of Robert De Niro and become lost by his broodingly handsome face. That sentence - um, don't reread that one either. It's not what you think.

But the library closes at 9-10 at night, and on the weekends earlier, at around 5. So then you've got to use your dorm. But also within our dorms are two study rooms on each floor. I actually avoid theses as well because I find them so private that I get a little too comfortable and, once again, fall asleep in them. But sometimes you just got to - it's all psychological, I guess. You associate fun & and pleasure with the context of being in your dorm or at your desk, so when you're actually doing work the two wants conflict and you find yourself doing the worst - "multitasking" - which involves looking at Facebook and writing an essay at the same time, slipping a couple of "lol so drunks last nite doodz" in your essay on ancient Roman art by mistake. Or on purpose, depending on how hilarious you actually think doing that is. I don't judge.

I'd avoid the one across from my room though, which is a study room-turned-wax room. Unless you somehow enjoy the succulent scent of hot burning wax wafting through the air, then by all means just go in there and snort it all in. Different strokes for different folks.

I'm typing all this and am writing it under the assumption that anyone who attends campus up here already knows it's locales. But sometimes I'm shocked when I talk to people and they tell me that they've never actually been in the library on a personal basis. I mean I hear this and just go what?!, but I guess there's people who have enough self-discipline to get homework done in their dorm rooms, with iTunes going and the Seinfeld playing in the background and their roommate screaming bloody murder because they're passing a kidney stone in the bathroom. I get so easily distracted by just about everything that I find it impossible to get anything done in my dorm room anymore - I lack any capability to even remotely regulate myself. How do you guys do it? Tell me your secret. Do you like being whipped?

But anyways I hope this helps, even somewhat, some people to motivate themselves to get stuff done as the semester comes to an end and finals settle in. I'll be back in Denver next week, maybe I can think of something to write about that before my term on this blog is up. I'm tired of typing, goodbye dear reader.

Shoot To Kill

2009-11-07T19:07:00.000-08:00

Apologies to my devout followers (population: .000234) for not having updated this thing in three weeks. Being honest: I haven't really had too much to write about. I'm starting to realize now that I'm probably not the best person to be blogging about school considering that I tend to avoid school events....hmmm... but anyways.

The past three weeks have been fun (Halloween and all, got to kick it back in Denver w/ old friends, lotta stuff) but by far the single greatest occurrence to have happened here is my spotting of three or four white-butted animal things outside my window. I shot a video because it excited me so, and below you can hear my cool stoner-surfer-voice... which I'm actually embarrassed of. The video cameras we received make my voice sound ten decibels too low. Or maybe that's just how I really sound. I don't know. Moving on...

Animal life is actually kind of spare around here. People tell me grizzly bears romp through the library and that trout will sometimes force their way out of my shower spigot, but I've seen none of it. Actually - I haven't even seen squirrels. Maybe I'm blind, but I don't think I've seen one since I've been here. In Denver you got them everywhere, and the sight of squirrel-flambe sitting in the middle of 6th avenue isn't a rare sight. Squirrels are really entertaining animals, they do all sorts of funny stuff... I think I could watch a squirrel eat for hours, I get hysterical at the sight of it. My sense of humor is kind of pathetic.

But this also a relief to anyone who has a fear of bugs - because there aren't any. Which I personally find geat, as I've got (or not me, my parents) have homes in both Mexico and Thailand and you just kind of have to get used to finding spiders in your shoes and all. You go through every activity down there you take for granted up here with an extra step of precaution - don't reach under your bed without looking, beat your shoes before putting them on to filter all the buggers (GET IT) out, et cetera. So it's nice being up here in the high-mountains where any chance of bug life is killed by the cold. I'm not too sure about mosquitoes though, you tend to get ravaged when going camping, but I have a couple months before it's breeding season for those little doodz.

Oh! But you do get to see a lot of birds. Back when I was in Boy Scouts this was kind of a daily activity for me, I loved bird-watching and calling out the different genotypes and all that. Me and my parents used to go to the park and I'd hunker down with binoculars, decked out in green (to blend in with the grass, gosh darn I was a sneaky boy), bird book and binoculars in hand. Any bird I'd see I'd get on my two-way radio and announce something like, "Target acquired: Blue-tooth hummingbird". Problem with living in California was that all I ever really did was get on the radio and go "Pigeon! Pigeon! Pigeon!", which drove my parents absolutely nuts.That hobby died pretty quickly.

So occasionally I'll be looking out my window and spot a blue-jay, or some odd colored bird. I don't really dig them as much as I used to, so I can't name any names. But a lot of wild bird types up here in the high Rockies. Kewl stuffz, if that's the kind of thing you enjoy. Please don't shoot them.

SO: Not the most exciting entry, admittedly. Hopefully my video will suffice, provided I can figure out how to upload it (Keeps giving me error mesages. I'm considering taking advantage of this situation by logging it as another work hour.) Enjoy the....deer.
Memoirs of a Duffy from Matt Duffy on Vimeo.

Until........ whatever time. -- Matt D.

Weee! Take A Hike!

2009-10-16T18:18:00.000-07:00

ally Colorado has a lot of hiking trails- you know, it having mountains and all - and while I've only been on a whopping two this year I have hereby logged on to tell you that they are what I recommend above all others.

Anyways a couple weeks ago me and some fellow CMC-compatriots felt somewhat bored on our regular 3-day weekends (most people have them, occasionally you'll find someone with a class or two on Fridays but it's not common) and figured the only solution was to go to Carbondale and do shrooms and rocks. Oh I'm sorry. Mushroom Rock. (Joke failed). Well anyways, it's right outside Carbondale and you can get to it from CMC by taking County Rd. (or whatever the hell the main road going up to CMC is) and taking a left (going downhill) at what everyone refers to as "the shortcut" and what I personally don't know the actual name for. You follow that until you get to the Interstate and take a left before making a U-eee (how do you spell that?) when you start passing a bunch of red rocks on your left and see a parking lot which seemingly serves nothing (except for the steep gravel pathway to the far left of it). Or: you can MapQuest it. Because, um, my directions kinda sucked. And I can't really remember if we took a left or right at the interstate now that I'm typing it out.

Anyways, it's fun. Once you park you walk up a big gravel pathway until you'll see an opening to the left amongst the brush and it's got a map and all, along with a little marker that says "Blue Ribbon" trail, where you'll go up into a little clearing with a lot of pinish looking trees until you finally clear all the red-sand and start treading on straight-up red rocks.

We did some cliff-skimming, you know like Indiana Jones style, but eventually turned around because it wasn't really leading us anywhere. But here's some pics, courtesy of of M.N. (if you guys are reading this I've left out any pics that have any straight-up facial shots of any of us, unless its one of me, because you know, me being the beautiful one)

Anyways (I'm having a hard time thinking of any other way to start a sentence) you eventually continue upwards until you get to The Rock itself and meet Dwayne Johnson and... that joke just divebombed haha. Well anyways you continue and get to the Mushroom Rock, which looks vaguely like a shroom and.... well, you turn around. But it's fun stuff. Views are breathtaking and you can see the entire town of Carbondale (Which, OK, isn't that impressive considering Carbondale ceases to exist after about three miles into the horizon)

On a scale of one to ten, I'd say the difficulty level was a...4. It's mostly walking and you'll get tired at the top, but there's nothing really strenuous. You never really have to climb over much of anything, and while the possibility of dying was very much there you wouldn't really experience that unless you, you know, tried. Even if you lost your balance you'd still probably be caught by some brush or some of the scraggly trees that jutted off cliff-side. The only possible way one could really die is if they really made a strong effort to do so, as if, you know, sprinting off the mountain or something.

Another trail I hiked with another group of kids was up in the Glenwood Canyon, which if you haven't seen, critics say is "breathtaking", "jaw-dropping", and "almost cooler than Matt Duffy". We did this one earlier in the year and it was killer - literally, in a lot of ways. Anyways this one had some fantastic views but I'd recommend you come ready, with the obvious stuff: water, hiking boots, "hiking clothes" (some people like them loose, other people like body conforming stuff.... your pick. I just wore a tee and some running shorts). But also, GLOVES - there were so many ropes you climb on that that we all left with blisters.

Make a Google search for Hanging Lake and on the trail that leads up there you'll cross over a river when you hit a signpost fittingly named "Deadhorse Trail". Actually, better yet, just look at this:

http://www.glenwoodchamber.com/component/option,com_businessdirectory/task,details/listing,1549/Itemid,33/
Beats me giving instructions again.

Anyways (English gods, I'm sorry), a brief summary of what it's like: Once you start on the trail it's about half a mile of just steep, steep uphill climbing through a lot of dead brush. We went on it such a long time ago I can't really remember exactly what we did, but I'm pretty sure next up you hit a literal wall of rock which you climb up by way of rope. You continue through a lot of awkward rock hiking and a couple times you'll hit slopes that consist of nothing but straight-up loose rocks. Like, 50yards of uphill-going loose rock. Every step you make will make your feet slide around and cause about ten rocks to come loose and hit everyone behind you. And seeing that everybody was making multiple steps, this just meant shiz-loads of rocks just flying everywhere, cutting us all up real bad. I think I'm the only one who walked away unscathed, naturally because of my charming good looks.

There's a lot of crawling over fallen trees, a lot of backwards crawling down and up rocks, and Jesus Christ there were a lot of loose rocks. Everything you stepped on had the potential to up-end itself from the ground and obviously lead to something "bad". The climb's satisfying though, at the top you get views like this:

And here's what all the loose rocks looked like:

Photos courtesy of those at www.travelblog.org (Good site for all this kinda stuff, btw)

It's really serene stuff being at the top - it just exhausting. Not something you should really bring anyone who's elderly or young or.... you know what I mean. Incapable people.

Scale of one to ten, that hike was probably a 8 or 9. It's funny I'm even giving them ratings because they also happen to be the only two hikes I've taken in the Rockiez. I've hiked parts of the Tehachapi Mountains in southern California but those are nothing compared to the da wokkiez. The hills outside my window are bigger than any of the mountains in California. But seeing that it's Colorado: obviously.

So n-e-wayz as I hike more stuff I'll post more stuff about them. But if you're looking to go hiking I say do it *now* as snow will set in permanently, I bet, in the next couple weeks. The views are great and you really get some nice exercise, if that's something you're looking for. It beats doing stuff like jogging on a treadmill, you know?

Bye.

* 2/12/10 - The images of the Glenwood Canyon (which I had typed in: "Courtesy of travelblog.com") give a default hot-linking error, so I guess my citation wasn't legally correct. If you're curious, I'd recommend you just typing in Glenwood Canyon into Google Images.

Trend-Spotting!!!

2009-10-09T00:45:00.000-07:00

Apolgies in advanced that I don't have pictures of anything yet. I only say this because the Spring Valley campus right at this moment is absolutely beautiful - being frank, no glorification of it at all. Taking out the garbage unto itselfis a treat - walking out to the dumpster you look at a back-range of mountains colored orange, red, yellow, and dabs of randoms here and there. Fall really transforms these mountains - I'm not a big nature-buff, but I can't deny that they're just gorgeous as of late. Unfortunately I don't have a camera, but I'll figure something out before my next couple entries... can't have a blog without pictures.

Anyways, the past week or so since my last entry the weather's been somewhat gloomy but with your lows come your highs, and the kicking in of fall has promoted for many the donning of the latest winter attire. If anyone knows Colorado weather (I always thought it was just a Denver thing, but apparently the same applies out here in W. Colorado as well) they know that one minute it'll be snowing - and the next minute the clouds suddenly decide to change their mind and, um, go away. No, really - you will wake up to see that the clouds have been sputtering little snow-chunks all morning, you'll put on your jacket and a sweater, you'll head down your hall, down the stairs, past the security (Fun fact: The police academy is located adjacent to CMC, not even a fourth of a mile away...fun.) out the door - and then you'll notice how warm you are, and realize, Jesus Christ it just went sunny on me. All the clouds you saw pouring outside your window just...kinda...left. This is why you'll notice that Coloradans wear shorts all year-round: Always prepared. Or weird.

What am I getting to though? Oh yeah - my fashion pet peeves. Friends in high-school used to ridicule me for being so overly conscious of fashion. You know it's not like I wear Prada or anything - I mean I think half of my wardrobe is as classy as those $5 t-shirts you get at Target. But I match. I don't mix blues and reds, I don't do whites and blacks. If I had a more expendable income I'd buy better stuff, but I can't : This is why I enjoy critiquing what other people wear so immensely. I'll tell somebody if their shirt is wrinkled. I'll tell them if their shoes are Korean fabrications made out of straw and recycled grocery bags and that you should probably avoid eBay from now on. And I won't even talk to them if they're wearing a black shirt with white shoes because they're usually incapable of help at that point, God save them.
Another annoyance: shoes from the 1990's. Everyone here at CMC seems to be repping them, all these old-school Vans with the puffy tongues and a fat laces. Christ. At night I cry because people dress so badly here.
It probably comes from a low self-esteem, but Jesus do I feel good after doing it.

But who am I to judge? Today I wore a gray t-shirt and jeans. And...a Ralph Lauren dress shirt. And cashmere boxers (ladies, please, calm yourselves). OK, so I dress all right - not really that stylish, but enough to function without looking ridiculous. But most days I'll be content with a black tee and some athletic shorts (which look ironic on me considering that I'm getting chubby off the always available pizza here at the cafeteria.... which is also always consistently good, even though some of the combination can be somewhat weird. Who was the genius that decided to put jalapenos on a Hawaiian pizza?) and just go with that all day.

Also a personal annoyance: "sagging" your beanie. Instead of folding it over, you let it hang out at the back, like... an elf. I swear it looks like the Keebler cookie-factory around the dorms sometimes.

Oh, and this one has to be mentioned - going barefoot. You know, personally, this one I try not to mind because - after all - they're not my feet that are touching the grimey, dirty floors of the dorm hall-ways. It's not my pair of feet that will be amputated in in five-years time due to all the infections one can attain from being in the germ-fest that is the modern college dorm. I try to be open-minded about these things, so I really don't truly care...

No, actually, I do. I hate seeing people's feet. Along with ears, I think they are of the ugliest of human body parts. Toes are never attractive. Remember Kill Bill, one of Tarantino's movies? A lot of people remember that for the excessive blood-spray or the wildly and brutal fight-scenes. I remember it for Uma Thurman's toes. There's an entire scene in the movie in which all focus is put upon seeing her toes. I saw that movie in theaters and to see monster-size toes displayed before my eyes was the most nauseating experience of my life. I hate toes. If genetic-birth selection every becomes a reality (that's the wrong term for it, but think Brave New World) I will make every effort to make sure my kids don't have any toes. Yeah, sure they won't be able to walk but...

Also, bare feet spread disease. OK, no they don't, I just made that up. But in this Swine Flu scare (I thank CMC for providing each and every hallway and floor with a Purrell dispenser, and seeing that I live on the top floor of Sopris Hall, I be sure to hit on the way down every...single....one of them) you never know how the disease can mutate. We can contract it off the floors, and when we take our shoes off it'll get on our hands and when we rub our eyes we'll unknowingly become infected with a disease running like wild-fire through the nation's college dormitories). And if you go barefoot you just get it straight-up, on the spot, seeping into your toenails and thus into your bloodstream and infecting your entire body. Nasty. This isn't proven medical fact though, just my imagination.

On that- make sure to keep clean this weekend. RA's will be on search-and-destroy missions in near everybody's dorms this weekend, and if your dorm falls under FDA standards of cleanliness you will be promptly obliterated. Actually I meant fined. Or something. I really don't know. Just be sure to take out the garbage this weekend. And use plenty of sanitizer - it's free, and it keeps me from contracting all your disgusting teenage diseases. Fun fact: Did you know that at Arizona State University 1/4 of all the girls there have contracted an STD? There's a reason I'm here at CMC versus there - I don't like girls. Kidding. Oh! And another attribute of the Spring-Valley campus, to further my advertising agenda: We have the highest population of female specimen. It's pretty evenly divided - 50% male, 50% female. If you go to the more snowboard-centric campuses like in Leadville or Steamboat you get an experience similar to the Navy's, only you're paying for it. Just a forewarning to any future CMC'ers.

Anyways, hopefully my next entry will be less of a neurotic rant and more of something that you, the reader, will actually find useful. But that's what those other blogs are for - I just like to talk. Kidding, I'll try writing something moderately useful, even if just remotely. Oh, and hopefully I'll have some photogs of....whatever I happen to take pictures of. I haven't decided yet.

hi.

2009-09-28T16:13:00.000-07:00

This here marks the first official blog entry of my first official blog.

I'm going to try to introduce myself without coming off as an unbelievably neurotic kind of guy, but I think it's going to happen eventually before I actually publish this. Anyways, this is yet another Colorado Mountain College blog and this one in particular happens to be for the Spring Valley campus, which overlooks el montana de Sopris (also the name of our residence hall). Blogs tend to be kind of superficial so I'll try to avoid anything "me" out of it as much as possible, and try sticking to whateverz happening at CMC - I won't bore you with my personal life or spend paragraphs talking about what I did and only what I did at an event where there were other people besides me- I mean, who cares? That said, I look incredibly handsome in the reflection of my laptop monitor. I had to stop typing and wink at myself for a minute there because my good looks are just out of control today.

Anyways, as an introduction, I am Matt Duffy, subject of puberty and universal indifference.

And.....oh yeah, I'm from Denver. It's an all right city, more of a small big city than an actual "big city". I think it's the 24th biggest city in the U.S. It's about the same size as Boston, but intoxicated with yuppies instead of Irish. I lived there for near 10 years, and before that a couple small towns in different parts of California, most of my time in Mill Valley - just take the Golden Gate out of San Fran and head for the hills. You go to Mill Valley now and it's just granola-town...same applies for Boulder. Yuppievilles. Which is why I like Glenwood (Springs). It's a relatively touristy town (biggest hot-springs in the world!!!!!!!!!!!) , but hasnt been wiped out by the Whole Foods plague, yet.

Oh yeah, and before that I lived in a couple towns in Thailand, primarily Chiang Mai up north by Myanmar/China. Fun country - I'd suggest anyone visit, it's a nice place. The people are world renowned for being unbelievably nice (they will also steal your wallets, don't let your defenses totally down). I've taken a couple trips back to the Motherland and while I wont deny it's everything you've heard it is (prostitution, smog, etc), it's also a beautiful country - real exotic stuff - and it's got the best Thai food you've ever had.Why? No clue..

And...oh. This blog was supposed to be about CMC. Well I'm sorry. Like I said I'll post whenever the happenings happen, but from my first month here I can tell you it's better than the pictures suggest. The campus is quaint, but absolutely beautiful - trees everywhere, and when I look up from my laptop monitor I can look straight down the valley into shapely rolling hills, dotted with spurts of orange houses atop a landscape that flows into even more mountains, and then boom, hits a row of hazy white peaks and only suggests it's part of a bigger scape. I mean, there's a lot of mountains in the Rocky Mountains. I know that sounds dumb but you really don't realize how many hills and heaping landmasses make up the range until you're actually in it. It's cool stuff - even if you're going to pass over going to CMC, I'd still suggest a trip to the Rockies... you don't really realize how much more powerful nature is than anything man can create until you see how big these things are. They just declare themselves against the sky.

And yeah, while it sounds like I'm glorifying the whole scenery because I'm being paid to write this, everything I've also said I believe to be true. And I have to fund my ChiaPets collection somehow.

And of course there's school, but that's the same everywhere. OK, maybe NYU offers a better film program than CMC, but also remember CMC is only a junior college - you come in, get your Associates in something, and get out. It's like every other community college, only it's better... you get more a of a traditonal college experience than living with your parents for another 2 years while attending classes alongside high-school dropouts, and it's still incredibly cheap. CMC-SV (Spring Valley) also offers great Animal Nursing (?) and Photography classes (renowned, actually), but I can't tell you all too much about those seeing that I'm in neither.

I'm here for my Associates of Arts, whereas I'll transfer to whatever college I can get a scholarship to and probably major in some kind of english or writing, or film if it's a possibility (screen-writing?). Even though I say that don't scoff at the notion as I've been writing pretty casually (as I talk, not as I submit essays) so far.... just saying.

I should probably end this entry right about now. Future entries will be shorter. And I'll update on the latest CMC happenings, or just stuff I've done around town, like hiking trails or whatever. It'll be a cool blog, I'm looking forward to you not reading it. Kidding.

Farewell.