I don’t know how many of you guys have TVs or watch them, but I think I’m safe in assuming that all of y’all do.  I don’t watch my tv all that much. Yes, it is on, but I’m hardly ever paying attention to it. Most of the time I am doing something else and am to preoccupied. There is one channel on the local channel listings that when it’s on I always pay attention to, and that is channel 14.

            Channel 14 is the local movie channel here at Penn State. It shows movies ranging from the really old to the really new. Past films have included The Shawshank Redemption, How to Train Your Dragon, Gladiator, The Hangover 1 and 2, and many more. I really really love this channel. It always plays really entertaining and captivating films. On those occasions where I want to stay in for the night or simply want to sit back relax and watch a good film with my buddies. Now that it is really winter and really cold outside, staying in and having something that is going to make for a fun night that doesn’t require any effort is a welcome relief.

           

            Now channel 14 is not always playing a good movie. Sometimes, in fact, it is playing a movie that has absolutely zero appeal to me and I change the channel as fast as possible. This is a rare occurrence and not something I overly worry about when I am looking for a movie to watch. While that does not happen too often, what does happen quite a bit is that a movie I have already seen too many times to count is playing. This has the same effect as a movie I could careless about. I don’t want to watch it again. Unfortunately I often find myself doing just that because there’s nothing else on. But in general channel 14 rocks and I am a huge fan.

            

Tonight’s post is about the weather, specifically State College’s weather. I think its safe to assume that it rains EVERYDAY here! Haha obviously I’m kidding but you know what I mean. It rains most days of the week and if its not raining its dark and dreary outside so you feel like it’s raining anyway. Being from Texas, the land of heat, heat, and more heat, I’m very used to the sun. And I have to admit; this constant rain “Grinds My Gears’ a little. The other day it was an amazing 55ish degrees, sunny, no wind… the perfect day in probably everyone’s opinion. It was a welcome break to the constant rain and dreariness. I don’t really like rain. It’s wet, cold, and once your wet it ruins relaxing unless you change. Of course, there are umbrellas, but hey, I always forget them. I just feel like rain is blah. Its not as fun as snow or as welcoming as sunshine.

            I love snow. It’s awesome. The cold is so refreshing, the snow doesn’t get you wet, unless you lay in it, and it is so beautiful when it covers everything. When I accepted my admittance to Penn State I thought that the winter would be full of snow. That’s what I just assumed and what all my friends told me. We have had some snow, but not nearly as much as I would like. There has been a lot of rain though.

            Because I don’t like always talking about things that “grind” my gears, in later posts I will be including things that “turn” my gears? In other words ill be blogging about things I really like and that are awesome. 

Hello fellow bloggers, 

I'm curious, what do y'all think of the microwaves here? Personally I cannot stand them, and that is why they are the subject of this weeks what "Grinds Ian's Gears".

 I love popcorn. It is easily one of my favorite snack foods. I always have at least two boxes in my room for whenever the urge to sit, watch a movie, and have a little popcorn arises. The problem is, my microwave SUCKS!

It burns every single bag I put in and most of the time it burns them so bad I have to not only throw the bag away but also turn my fan on to blow the smoke out the window. I don’t understand why they do this. My friends say its because it isn’t even distributing the heat… Well of course its not!!! Why else would only one part be burn on the bag? Anyways it’s a very upsetting thing when the timer goes off and you open the microwave and are greeted by a wave of smoke and a ruined bag of popcorn. Don’t fret though, after a full semester of experimentation I know how to fix this atrocious problem. Take the bag out sooner.

This method usually always works in producing a bag of fresh popcorn that is not burned and not smoking. Unfortunately, it also produces a bag that has just as many if not more kernels than actual popcorn. I have tried putting the popcorn bag in again after having eaten the popped popcorn but this just yields yet another smoking and burned bag. It seems that either a bag of burned popcorn or a bag that is barely full will forever plague me. Most of the time I try and look at it from the bright side; I have a bag of popcorn and kernels! Two for the price of one! This works pretty well, mainly because I like the crunchy kernels at the bottom of the bag, but this is a fleeting feeling. After about the tenth one, my teeth are tired from having to break apart the hard seeds. And most are so coated in congealed butter that I would rather not try.

Oh well, I guess I’m bound to always fight this horrible machine… that is until I move out next semester! It was a good fight microwave from hell, but in the end you lose.

Hello everyone who reads this. My name is Ian Margot and this is my first post on this blog and my first blog ever. This blog is an on going assignment for my English class and it will be about things "Grind My Gears" to quote the infamous Peter Griffin. One thing that really "Grinds My Gears" is having to wake up for a class at 8 am. Having a class at anytime in the day is bad enough, but having one that is so absurdly early that, when you walk to your class there are only a handful of people on the road in a school of 40 thousand, is just too much. Now when I was in high school I woke up for class everyday at 6 in the morning and was at school by 7. I never had any trouble with it. Unfortunately that isn’t how it works now that I’m in college. When my phone goes off at 7:25 the first thing I want to do is throw it against the wall. Lucky for my phone I just hit the sleep button. Now I don’t mean to be a whiny, little 4 year old that just complains about everything in my life. Waking up really early just plain sucks. You are tired and want to just sleep some more; you are freezing cold as soon as you take the covers off; and you have to be really quiet so you don’t wake up your roommate. It’s a rough life for us students who have been duped into scheduling 8 ams, I know. Given there are some positives to 8 am classes. For one thing, you finish class before most everyone else even wakes up. Another thing is that it gives you a good excuse to get up and get the day going. No lying around in bed all day and wasting it away. Anyway I can’t complain to much…seeing as how I rescheduled so that I no longer have 8 ams, but hey… who wouldn’t.