Super Ghouls 'n' Ghosts

Yellow

This is me hiking through the Nicolet National Forest in Northern Wisconsin. Old growth trees and hundreds of lakes for miles on end. Pretty freaking awesome. I wish I'd brought my bike. Speaking of which, I bought a spotlight for my mountain bike this week. I've got to say, one of the most adrenaline loaded things I've ever done is night riding. If winding through the woods and over jumps on a trail that is 18" wide in pitch black with nothing but a flashlight strapped to your handlebars doesn't get your blood pumping, nothing will.

America's Dairyland

Wisconsin consumerism in a nutshell =

• There are "Cheese, Liquor, and Gifts" stores
  
• NO Dunkin Donuts.
• Miller Lite is everywhere.
• Every product is titled "Packer" something. McDonalds has McPackers.
  

Weekends = Awesome

Especially this one.

The Syracuse Orangemen won their second consecutive football game (more wins than they achieved the entire 2005 season.)

I've decided that working for Epic is basically like going to college again. Only in a way better party town.

I got my new Mazdaspeed 6. After about an hour of adjusting back into the world of manual transmissions, I'm in love with it. It has all wheel drive, a 6 speed transmission, and a 274 hp turbocharged engine.



I'm thinking road trip.

The Random Irony of Advertising in Late Night Television

The History Channel aired a documentary about the incident at Waco in which 80 Branch Davidians burned to death. The survivors told the story of how they thought they were living out the prophecies of the Bible as it happened.

The final images of the film were of the burning buildings and the gravestones of those who died, including 21 children.

The next image on the TV was a commercial for a Bible CD-ROM.

The Mad City

I went to the most hilarious bar last night: The Dry Bean Smokehouse and Saloon.

At the front door, there was a Harley parked next to a BMW Z4. It pretty much summed up the whole place. The Dry Bean was a veritable social rainbow. I saw a couple of bona fide cowboys. Some gangstas made their presence known. There was even a guy in a wheelchair. Suburban MILF's were letting it all hang out. And of course, there were plenty of 20-somethings (myself included) drinking their faces off.

I walked in the bathroom and a Mexican guy was standing in front of the mirror, with his shirt off, spreading his arms.

This place sounds like an anomaly, but I've figured out exactly why it had such a unique scene. In addition to being a bar, The Dry Bean has a local monopoly on 2 universal human needs that bring out the animals in all of us: karaoke and smoking.

Turns out everyone there had more in common than I originally thought.

Hi There

Welcome to Derka! This is a stream-of-consciousness blog which will look at the world through my very unique lens of perception. A little something about the title: "Derka" was originally popularized by the movie "Team America", but the meaning of the word in the context of this blog is much different. I guess the best way I could define my use of the word would be "an expression of frustrated surprise". Something annoying interrupted whatever it was you were doing or thinking, and you respond with the expression "derka!"

But derka is only defined by how you use it, and it can take on many forms.

• "Derka" can be an expression of mental or physical exhaustion.
• "Derk" or "Derking" can indicate performance of some sort of robot-like or mindless activity.
• "Derka derka" can be substituted for an actual quote (the actual meaning can usually be interpreted by the context of the conversation) when recounting an event.
• This introduces the concept of context. Derka can take on any meaning based on the context in which it is used. In fact, that's how most of my 'definitions' of the word originated.

ANYWAY, no more definitions. I just wanted to make sure you understand what the title of this blog means: It's really an expression of my life events/mental state right now. I had 4 years of college and minimal responsibility, graduated, hung out and didn't work for 3 months, moved to Madison, and all of a sudden... I have to be a real person! DERKA!

Future topics: getting derked by central time TV schedules, the irony of Facebook, living in Madison, working for "the man", the cultural revolution that the internet is facilitating, the universal stupidity of sorority girls, and anything in the public domain that I think is worth discussing or experiencing.