So, I haven't blogged in a while(hahaha that sounds dirty, kidding) about what's been going on in my life, however, I will blog about something that has a huge impact on my life...and my sense of humor. This blog will be about what I think is one of the funniest, clever, raunchy, and best comedy out there that is definitely slept on: "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

The show revolves around four friends(after the second season five characters) who run a bar in the City of Brotherly Love and have to overcome their relentless self-involvement to make their friendship and business work. The show is completely random, I don't even remember how I even started watching it, yet I'm willing to guess that there was a marathon that the network played that I was egged on to watch. After the first episode, I became intrigued by the sense of humor and the styling of the show. When I mean this show is raunchy, I mean it is REALLY raunchy. The show is broadcast on the FX Network, the network is best known for broadcasting shows with television ratings of TV-MA.

The characters on the show consist of Charlie Kelley, the twins Dennis and Dee (Sweet Dee) Reynolds, Mac, and Frank Reyonlds (played by the Danny DeVito, he loved the show so much they asked him to be a series regular at the start of the second season). To get a sense of why this show is so funny, here is a gist of their character profiles:

Dennis R. Reynolds: Dennis is Paddy's co-owner and Dee's twin brother. He is a vain, self-absorbed prep and a self-described "ladies' man". He will often manipulate women into sleeping with him and go out of his way to make other men jealous. Dennis' self-esteem is derived chiefly from his appearance, and takes criticism of his looks very poorly. He frequently removes his shirt without hesitation, believing that his physique impresses people and diffuses conflicts.

Charlie Kelly: Mac's childhood friend and a co-owner of Paddy's. Arguably the most unhappy and pathetic member of the gang, Charlie is a volatile loser who displays little ability to cope with day-to-day problems and is prone to Al Pacino-styled outbursts. He also has poor hygiene, lives in squalor, and frequently abuses inhalants. Several characters refer to his dingy apartment as a "shit hole." His poverty is in part caused by a tendency to make "bad investments," at one point selling several shares of Paddy's to Mac for half a sandwich.

"Sweet Dee" Reynolds: Dee is Dennis's twin sister and a bartender at Paddy's. She dropped out of Penn (where she had majored in psychology but failed her classes) to become an actress, but has put little effort into realizing her ambition. Although she identifies herself as a compassionate liberal, she is self-centered and often holds the same prejudices as the rest of the gang. She is highly sensitive about her appearance and her professional failings. She was unpopular in high school due to her severe scoliosis, which forced her to wear a back brace and earned her the nickname "The Aluminum Monster".


Mac: Mac is Charlie's friend from childhood and Dennis' high school friend, later roommate. He is co-owner of Paddy's and generally the pub's most active manager. He comes from a broken home; his father being an incarcerated meth dealer, and his mother being extremely apathetic. Mac constantly seeks the acceptance of others, especially his parents, but his over-earnest efforts make him come off as an "asshole." Dennis notes that he only survived high school by selling drugs to popular kids, and even then was considered a jerk.

Frank Reynolds: Frank is the legal father of Dennis and Dee. He is a successful businessman and has a long history of illegal operations and diabolical schemes. He was introduced in the first episode of the second season as a man undergoing a midlife crisis. He divorced Dennis and Dee's mother and decided to join in his children's lazy, scheming lifestyle. Frank became co-owner of Paddy's by purchasing land underneath it, and used this leverage to forcibly join the gang.

My favorite character on the show would have to be: Sweet Dee. Why? Because she is often made fun of by the other characters for being too sensible and responsible for her and the rest of the gang's actions. Also, she is so pathetic with her acting career, it's unimaginable. She won't eat any food before a performance because she dry heaves, she has video diaries about how pathetic her life is, and the guys always volunteer her to do stupid stunts to make her feel like she's apart of their group: like setting herself on fire, hitting her in the face dead on with a volleyball, and because Kaitlin Olson (the actress who plays Sweet Dee) is a comedic genius!

The show just ended its fourth season, it was by far the best! What made this season so perfect is that the shows writers decided to make fun of absolutely nothing. The past three seasons tackled issues that would surface in Philadelphia. Since nothing too exciting was happening in the City of Brotherly Love, the writers made fun of anything they felt needed to have their chops busted. They made fun of America's Next Top Model, the rise in gas prices, past episodes from previous seasons, and people who take advantage of health care. I would have to say that the best episodes from the fourth season would have to be "America's Next Top Paddy's Model Billboard Contest" and "The Nightman Cometh." The first episode was about the gang buying a billboard and calling in all models to try to advertise the bar. Half the crew wanted to do the model cons test (with secret motives for the guys to interview the female models) while Sweet Dee and Charlie attempt to make viral videos and advertise the bar through youtube! Sweet Dee attempted to advertise the bar with some of the characters that she developed for her acting career, however they were unbelievably racist and stereotypical (Crazy Paddy-pale skinned, red-haired and freckled Irish woman; Martina Martinez-a sassy Hispanic woman with a huge posterior that always had a sassy comeback; Taiwan Tammy-an Asian tourist who came to the United States to do hair, nails, and work at a local Panda Express....racist, but in good taste). Hysterical! The second episode was making fun of an episode in the third season in which the gang tries to form a band called Chemical Toilet. After kicking both Charlie and Dennis out of the group, the two make their own group called Electric Dream Machine where they made their hit song "Dayman," the original song "Nightman" (written by Charlie) was lame because he didn't have any real lyrics the words were drawn out on a piece of paper, and the song was about a guy sneaking into another guy's house to sexually assault him. You have to see the episode to see it, it's hilarious.

So....why should you watch this show, everything is listed above. However, no subject is too taboo for It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Case in point--they've done shows about race relations, child molesters, dumpster babies, Nazis, crack, male escorts, and mental retardation. It could shock the monocle right out of your eye! With that in mind, if you're one to be easily offended, then this show is not for you, however, I would highly advise that you check out this show, because it's really good and extremely hilarious. It's been running strong for the past 4 years and I hope for 4 more to come. If you want to watch the episodes when you have nothing to do, check out the episodes through this website:

http://www.sidereel.com/It%27s_Always_Sunny_in_Philadelphia

So, without any further hesitation, I will present to you a couple of clips from the show that I find hilarious. *Note: Parental Guidance is advised, kidding....we're in college!

So....it's better late than never, but I wanted to tell you guys about the best weekend ever! The weekend of October 24th, my friends Christie Yopst, Sarah Quigley, Priyanka Deo, Michael Stephens, and myself went up to Sycamore, IL. to take part a some of the most random festivities ever: PUMPKIN FEST! I went to Pumpkin Fest last year, but this year was something to look forward to. Not only were we going up there to check out everything, but the main goal was to be reunited with our dear friend Tabatha Anderson.

Tabatha is a loser, and one of my closest friends and we liked to take a lot of emo pictures together. She went to UIS last year and transferred to NIU her junior year, it was really hard to let her go. Tabatha can fill you in on the details about the day that she left. Let's just say it was sad! It's hard to try to sum up the best weekend ever. We stayed at Christie's house and her mom and dad are B.A.M.F.'s. I'll just say that. Mama Yopster is such a mom, she even cut up my caramelapple! Michael was having problems.....he can't cut very well (he'd be a bad emo). They also have a dog named Boomer, he was so awesome. Yet, he didn't know what it meant when it came down for the gang to try to sleep!



After an hour of trying to get him upstairs....it finally worked! The next day was beautiful!



We saw a bunch of pumpkin's down there that were really creative, however, the best one by far was the "Incredible Pumpk." It was really creative! I thought it was the best one by far!

We met our friends Matt Derber and Howard Kang down there, then Howard and Tabatha thought it was a bright idea to enter a Pumpkin Pie eating contest. Then I got peer pressured to join in, possibly the dumbest idea that I got shoved into.....but I had sooo much fun. I also found out the technique to eating pie in a pie eating contest: "Shove everything into your mouth!" I almost lost all of my pie because my friend Priyanka was being a tool yelling "Pumpkin Fest" in her Indian Accent all weekend. She was making me laugh and everyone thought that she was crazy!





Yeah, I failed miserably! But it was soooo much fun. After the pie eating contest, it was a dumb idea for Vicky, Priyanka and I to go on a ride that was pretty cool, especially after I ate all that pie. But it was the most hilarious ride ever. Priyanka kept yelling "Pumpkin Fest" over and over again. Flipping hilarious!



Later on that night, we ate a crap load of food, watched "Baby Mama" hilarioso! Then we went to a haunted house, it scared the crap out of me! Not really, but it was really good! We even got a picture with the guy that scared everybody!

Oh yeah, the guy that's in the back pointing at him is Drew Creal, that guy is the "ish." We also played signs! Let's just say that Christie's little sister is not good at that game at all! She got screwed over sooooo much! But it was all in good fun!

The last Pumpkin Fest event was the Pumpkin Fest Parade, and it was sooooo nice! The floats were really nice, and majority of the floats had dogs, I don't know what it was with that town and but there were a lot of them! Here are a couple of videos that were taken of the Parade!











It was sad to leave Tabatha....and Boomer! But it was soooo much fun! I look forward to Pumpkin Fest next year!

So, I thought it would be a really good idea to get some opinions on the recent election of Barack Obama as the newly elected President of the United States of America. The following videos contain reactions/responses from:

1. Brandi Parker, Freshman (Founder's Hall)
2. Matthew Derber, Senior (Pennyroyal Court)
3. Kudus Ogunseye, Freshman (Lincoln Residence Hall)
4. Lori Giordano, Assistand Director of Admissions (Office of Admissions and Registration)
5. Katie McCoy, Freshman (Lincoln Residence Hall)

Yesterday, November 4th, 2008 was the biggest event in the history of the United States of America: for the first time, the next President of the United States of America will be Barack Obama: the FIRST African American President in all of history. I repeat: "My Uncle Obama is going to be the next President of the United States!" I was working the front desk when I first heard it on the news, and at that moment, it took a second for it to actually settle in. The minute that I heard that he won, my boss was down in the front lobby and we started dancing. It was crazy outside yesterday, I walked outside and you could hear tons of people yelling "Obama" and running around celebrating on such a great victory. I've had 24 hours to let the information settle in and I'm still getting used to it. However, the best part of yesterday was that I was able to take part in such an amazing event in history by voting. Just by voting, I felt as if I put my voice out there. My best friend Pavan Ganapathiraju (try saying his name 5x fast) and I went to go vote at Lincoln Land Community College and it was ridiculous. First off, it was an adventure in itself, there were no signs pointing anywhere to vote. Not only that, people gave bad directions, they kept telling us to go to the building that was across the parking lot. Yeah, that was really descriptive, the entire freaking college was a parking lot. We finally voted after searching for 45 minutes on where to vote, and it felt soooooo good to check Obama/Biden on my ballot. It felt really great. We were soooo excited, I had some random chick take a picture of us!



To better get an idea on the entire situation, I decided to document the journey that Pavan and I went on, I think it was pretty funny/frustrating/random all at once! OBAMA '08!












Shout Out To My Uncle Bama! I'll see you at Thanksgiving! (If you don't believe that Barack Obama is my uncle, just ask my cousin Tiger....you know which tiger I'm talking about)

Okay, it's been a while since I've blogged, so I'm going to bombard you guys with a crap ton of stuff that I've done over the past tw0 weeks. I've been so busy with exams, studying for midterms, doing projects in Microbiology, and ish like that, I've barely had time for myself (most importantly, I'm behind 2 episodes of "Heroes," 1 episode of "Smallville," and I have yet to open "Lego: Batman"). So with all of this stress going on, what's the best way for a typical college student to get rid of it.......drink it all away!



Stephanie (2 South RA) and Brittany (1 West RA) decided to put on a program that emphasized having fun while being sober. They advertised their program as a "Kegger" grabbing the attention of many residents. They had a pretty sweet set up for everything. It took place in the Lincoln Residence Hall Great Room: they had Flippy Cup with Pepsi, Root Beer Pong, Dance Dance Revolution, and Guitar Hero. At each table, the ladies placed facts about alcohol consumption and its dangers amongst the college-esque demographic. In my personal opinion the ladies did a fine job. However, they couldn't even beat me at Flippy Cup. I have never had the pleasure of playing the game, but to sum up everything, I pretty much owned Steph every time. Charles (1 South RA) never played the game either, yet we still beat Steph combined. Looks like she needs to step up her game. So I took a bunch of videos of that night, so there will be proof of how baller I am at Flippy Cup. Stacks on Deck, Patron on Ice! We popped bottles all night....and I was sooooo bloated and "belchy" by the end of the night! Way to get me inebriated Stephanie! Kidding (KTHXBYE!) Enjoy the videos!









L8ter Days!