Don't be the Lane Kiffin

So...it's been a while. I think this is my first post in almost a month and I apologize for that. I have been really busy for the past couple of weeks...which is, of course, a complete and total lie. Saying that you've been "busy" is almost as big of a lie as saying "Oh, I didn't see your text." The only things I've done for school are study for a few tests and work on a few projects. But, other than that, the only "busy" things I've done in the past couple of weeks are look at LL Cool J's IMDb profile, learn the words to "Roar" by Katy Perry, and constantly check my fantasy football teams. The latter of which has taken up the majority of my time because anyone who plays fantasy football knows what time of year it is...playoffs.  

The end of the fantasy football regular season is near and I have been working tirelessly to try and get my teams to the playoffs. Yes, you read correctly, "teams." As in, I have more than one team. I am currently the General Manager (GM) and Coach of five different fantasy football franchises. Impressive, I know. Studies have shown that running just two fantasy football teams is equivalent to raising one child. So, you could say I am currently raising 2.5 children or, because of recent childhood obesity trends in the United States, 1 American child. But, that's not the point. The point is that fantasy football has created an amazing world for football fans. A world where fans can create their football "dream team" and compete against friends on a week by week basis. Sadly, however, this world has created monsters. Monsters that are unique and specific to the fantasy football world. We will call them "Fantasy Football Monsters." Throughout my fantasy football years, I have identified five such monsters. Five monsters that I am sure you have encountered or even became because of fantasy football. Here they are... 

1. The Benedict Arnold (AKA the "Trader") 

 

The Benedict Arnold, often referred to as the "trader," is the person in your fantasy football league who is always looking to make a trade. As soon as the draft is over, this person is already trying to trade away all of his players. Throughout the season, he will constantly send you trade requests and seldom will you ever receive a good one. By the end of the season, the Benedict's roster will be 100% different. 

2. The Kevin Garnett (AKA the "Trash Talker")

"My team is so good!" "I'm going to destroy you guys this year." "HAHAHAHA your team sucks!" These are common sayings from the Kevin Garnett of your fantasy league. This person will talk trash the entire year no matter how good or bad their team is. They are often the same person that thinks their team is going to win it all after the draft. You can find this person on the league message boards making jokes about your mother or something else unrelated to fantasy football. You absolutely do not want to lose to this person because you will NEVER hear the end of it.

3. The Adam Schefter (AKA the "Researcher")

The Adam Schefter is already preparing for next year's fantasy football season at the conclusion of week 17. This person is constantly reading fantasy football blogs, articles, and keeping up with the latest player news. The Adam Schefter is always looking for the next "breakout" player in the fantasy football world. This Adam Schefter also changes their lineup and picks up free agents on a weekly basis. Sadly, the Adam Schefter never wins the league championship simply because he cares way too much. 

4. The Dennis Quaid (AKA the "Rookie")

Fantasy season is quickly approaching and you still need one more team in your league. You scramble and ask everyone you know if they will join. Sadly, all of the usual prospects fail and you have to go to your last resort...the Dennis Quaid. The Dennis Quaid has never played fantasy football before and to make it worse, he doesn't even pay attention to the NFL. But, nonetheless, the Dennis Quaid joins your league. On draft day, the Dennis Quaid will draft only players he has heard of and his team is viewed by the other players as "terrible." The Dennis Quaid is always the underdog of the league and no one expects him to win. However, the Dennis Quaid ALWAYS wins the league championship. The other players attribute Dennis Quaid's championship victory to "luck," because we all know that fantasy football requires a lots and lots of skill. 

5. The Lane Kiffin (AKA the "Quitter")

The Lane Kiffin is by far the worst fantasy football monster there is. You let the Lane Kiffin join your league because you think he will be a committed player. You could never be more wrong. Once the Lane Kiffin's team is in last place four weeks into the season, he gives up. He no longer pays attention to his team and will never change his line up leaving in bye week or injured players. His team takes away from the competitive nature of the league and will always finish last place. Don't be the Lane Kiffin. EVERYONE hates the Lane Kiffin (especially if you are from Tennessee or Southern California). 

Anyone who has ever played fantasy football is guilty of being at least one of these monsters at some point. Even I am guilty of it. Anyways, I think fantasy football is awesome. It is crazy to see how many blogs, websites, and people there are dedicated solely to this game. There are even people they call "Fantasy Football Experts" or "Gurus" that get paid to give fantasy football advice and even appear on ESPN. Think of how ridiculous that is. My only hope is that fantasy football will still be popular when I have grandkids. Mainly so I can talk trash about their mother.   

The Most Important Public Service Announcement Ever Created Ever

If you did not read my last blog post about Henry Ruff, then...

A. Do yourself a favor and go read it now.

B. Be lazy and just continue reading. 

C. Quit reading my blog all together because you hate multiple              choice tests. 

For those of you that chose option A, I love you. I promised you guys I would let you know if Henry responded to me and....HE FREAKING RESPONDED. But first...

Pictured above is my original tweet to Henry which got a whopping 8 retweets and 20 favorites. That just so happens to be a Chan Traub personal record for retweets and favorites...so what if most of the retweets and favorites were from Henry's friends. Anyways, Henry did in fact tweet me back and here were his responses (Yes that was plural, which means more than one). 

It turns my life story of Henry was not 100% accurate. It was actually 98% inaccurate, which puts it on par with any political speech ever given. So, I will consider that a success. In the end, Henry and I both follow each other on twitter now and it's safe to say that we are BFFs. Next time I visit Nebraska, I will be sure to stop by Henry's house and say hello (to put that into perspective, I've never visited Nebraska before). 

But for now, on to more pressing matters. For anyone who didn't know, this past weekend was Georgia-Florida weekend. The weekend where Georgia plays against Florida in Jacksonville for what is called the "World's Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party." For Georgia students, this weekend is basically a holiday. No really. It is literally our Fall Break. We get that Friday off every year and almost everyone spends that Friday on St. Simons Island beach which is dubbed, "Frat Beach." Here is a picture from Frat Beach this year...

Being at Frat Beach is like starring in every episode of the Jersey Shore, but where every girl acts like Snooki and every guy is dressed like the Situation. For those of you who don't know what that means, you clearly have more class than I do. Anyways, the best part about Frat Beach is not that you are on the beach or that you are with all your best friends. No. The best part about Frat Beach is that it is UGA students only.  It is the one day where we can celebrate just as Georgia fans before we have to go down to Jacksonville and share a stadium with the most vile, disgusting creatures known to man...Florida fans. 

If you have never seen a Florida fan before, then let me just say, you are a very lucky person. To get a feel for what your average Florida fan looks like, just picture Hulk Hogan in jean shorts and a cut off t-shirt...well, I guess just picture Hulk Hogan. Now, Florida fans have always been classless, obnoxious human beings, but this past weekend I noticed that they were especially bad. So bad, that I decided it was my duty to do something about it. I needed to fix this problem. So, I mulled my options and decided that the best thing I could do was to get the word out there and let the world see how bad these Gator fans had become.  I created a Public Service Announcement (PSA) and uploaded it to YouTube.  

I chose YouTube because it is far and away the best video streaming outlet on the web. YouTube gives me the ability to reach the largest audience and inform the most possible people that I can. The goal of my PSA is not to eliminate Gator fans, but rather to help them. To help them earn a place in society and become respectable human beings. So, please watch and be informed by my "Save a Gator Fan PSA." 

If you didn't shed a tear during that, then shame on you. These Gator fans need our help and the only way that can happen is if we get the word out there. So please, share this video and help a Gator fan today. Here is a link for your copying/pasting convenience. Thank you. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qawvtb50SM

For any Florida fans that read this post and were offended, this might make you feel better... 

LOLZ JK!! GO DAWGS! 

The Legend of Henry Ruff

A picture is worth a thousand words, a picture of a dictionary is worth way more than a thousand words, and an autographed picture of Emilio Estevez is worth about $60 (but only if you buy it now).

The point that I'm getting at is that a tweet is only worth 140 characters. Apparently those characters can tell a lot about your character. I recently read an article on mashable.com that said researchers from Cornell and Carnegie Mellon are developing an algorithm that will tell someone's life story based on their twitter interactions and tweets (http://mashable.com/2013/10/12/algorithm-twitter-life-story/). I was very intrigued by this until I began to think what my life story would be based on my twitter account. My life story would revolve around party pizzas, questionable songs on my Iphone, and terrible Helen Keller jokes. Yes, my life is awesome. Anyways, I questioned the reliability of this algorithm. Mainly because it is being developed by researchers from two of the worst schools in the United States. So, since I am a qualified research expert, I decided to conduct my own study without an algorithm. A study that would tell the life story of the man, the myth, the legend...Henry Ruff. 

I do not know Henry Ruff personally. In order to produce an accurate study, I had to pick someone I didn't know anything about. So, how did I stumble upon good ole Henry? I accessed a resource that I assume most celebrities use to name their babies...a random name generator. This picture shows my selection process... 

  

Henry Huff. What a magical name. I took this name to twitter and unfortunately, Henry "Huff" does not exist, but, Henry "Ruff" exists! Close enough for me. Now, it was time to begin my research. I was going to determine Henry's life story by looking at his twitter profile, twitpics, and individual tweets. Here are my findings. 

1. Twitter Profile 

There are a few things I can determine from Henry's twitter profile. 

• Henry is from Omaha, Nebraska, so he is most likely bored a lot. 
• Henry is dyslexic. He has his name listed as "Renry Huff" but his twitter handle is @Henry_Ruff...Hoor Penry.  
• Henry is the Confucius of his time. He says, "Money is in the heart, not the pocket" in his profile description. Such a deep saying, even though his background photo is the Louis Vuitton logo. 
• Henry really likes zippers. In his cover photo, his hoodie is all the way zipped up. He will never be caught with his fly open. 

Now that I had a general understanding of Henry, I moved on to the next component of my analysis. I looked at Henry's twitpics. 

Picture 1 AKA our first glimpse of the Legend himself.  

(Caption: Hc #2013)

•  I am going to assume "Hc" stands for homecoming, which means Henry is in High School. Henry is most likely a Freshman because he cared enough to get his date a corsage. What a sweetheart. 
• Henry is wearing a bowtie which can only mean on thing...his favorite food is bowtie pasta.
• Henry's favorite song is "Umbrella," by Rihanna. It is sunny outside, yet Henry is standing under an umbrella. You're not fooling anyone Henry. 

Picture 2 

(Caption: No filter. Gorgeous USA flag with stunning jet. #america)

• Henry is a true American hero. Only a true patriot would take a picture like this. George Washington would be proud. 
• Henry is an opportunist. He took the opportunity to capture a beautiful photo...even if that meant staring directly into the sun. 

So, I had looked at Henry's general profile and a few of his photos, but I could not yet determine his life story. The only way I could truly understand Henry was through a thorough analysis of his tweets. And that's exactly what I did.  

Tweet 1

• Based on this tweet, Henry's favorite TV show is "Jersey Shore" and his celebrity idol is Snooki.  

Tweet 2 

• Notice how Henry ends this tweet with three dots. Henry leaves you with suspense, which can only mean one thing. He is the Ryan Seacrest of his generation. Who is this "her" that he is referring too? Could it be Snooki? Could it be the girl in the previous photo? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? The world may never know. 

Tweet 3

• Henry has big city dreams of fame, but he is stuck in Nebraska. He wants to be famous...but how? 

Tweet 4

• Ahh...the mystery is solved. Henry wants to become Vine famous. There is no fame greater or more prestigious than Vine fame. YOU CAN DO IT HENRY.

With the final component of my analysis complete, it was time to put together Henry's life story. So, without further ado, I present to you the life story of the legend himself, Henry Ruff... 

       Henry Ruff was born in the mid 1990s in the crown jewel of the United States...Nebraska. There is no record of Henry's parents, so it is believed Henry raised himself in the cornfields of Nebraska. He spent his younger years living off of only corn, but quickly grew tired of it. He began to gather crops from surrounding farms and created bowtie pasta for the first time in 2004. It quickly became his favorite food. The next few years for Henry were his best. He ate bowtie pasta all the time, until 2012 when tragedy struck. There was an infestation that destroyed every single ingredient you needed to make bowtie pasta with. Henry was forced to move from his beloved farmlands and migrate to Omaha, where he currently resides today. Up to this point in his life, Henry had taught himself everything. However, teaching himself was a challenge, especially when it came to writing. Henry developed a mild form of dyslexia but was able to overcome it when he decided to go to high school in 2013. Omaha exposed many new things to Henry, most notably music and television. Henry was first exposed to music and TV when he stumbled inside a Circuit City (because I'm assuming those still exist in Omaha). The first TV he came across was on MTV. The song that played in between shows was "Umbrella" by Rihanna and it instantly became Henry's favorite song. He now stands under an umbrella any chance he gets and always makes that overused umbrella joke when it rains (if you don't know what joke that is, then you are probably the one that uses it). Lucky for Henry, the next show that came on MTV was "Jersey Shore." Henry was immediately intrigued by the show. He was fascinated by all the characters, especially Snooki. Never before had Henry seen someone so small and tan like Snooki. The "Jersey Shore" taught Henry a valuable lesson that day. He learned that you can become famous with zero talent and hard-work as long as you make a complete fool of yourself. Thus began Henry's dream of becoming "Vine Famous." Only time will tell if Henry will one day become Vine famous. All I know is, we are all pulling for you Henry. 

There you have it. The life story of Henry Ruff. But, as with any scholarly study, I needed to check the validity of my research. So, I had to tweet Mr. Ruff himself and ask how accurate I was. However, before you see my tweet, it is important that you see a tweet previously made by Henry...

Oh the irony. I wonder what Henry will think when one of these "weird accounts" wrote an entire blog post about him. Looks like I'm about to find out...

Stay tuned for my next blog post and I'll show you if Henry responded to me. Thanks for reading! 

ONLY READ THIS IF YOU ARE HENRY RUFF

Thanks Henry. 

Sincerely, 

Chandler Traub 

    

The Game of Love

You guys, I am at a very stressful point in my life right now. I'm a senior in college and in less than a year I will be in the real world. Like the real, real world. Not like that terrible show on MTV that's about as real as...(SPOILER ALERT for my readers in the South and elementary school readers) the WWE and Santa Claus. But, am I stressed about finding a job and starting my future? No. Why on Earth would I be worried about that? Instead, I am stressed about something much, much worse. Something that keeps me up at night and has me listening to Drake 24/7. You guys...I am single. 

The point of college isn't to get a degree, the point of college is to find your significant other (thank God I didn't go to Alabama). Unfortunately, I haven't yet found my princess charming that's going to sweep me off my feet and carry me off into the sunset. I know what you're thinking. How am I single? What's not to like about a senior in college with a minimum wage, part-time job who has no clue what he is going to do post-graduation? I blame my singleness on the fact that dating in college is way harder than dating in high school. In high school, all you had to do was text someone for a week, have a few things in common with said person (i.e., same favorite color, favorite food, favorite sport), and take that person to the new scary movie in theaters and boom. You're Facebook official. In college, it's completely different. You actually look for things like personality, intelligence, goals, and ambitions in the other person. Plus, you have to go on multiple dates before you're Fabo official. Unheard of. Well, I haven't dated in a long time and frankly, I have no idea how to date anymore. So, I decided to try something new. I decided to enter a new realm, explore uncharted waters. The waters of online dating. 

I had never tried online dating before so I really didn't know where to begin. What site would I choose? Eharmony? Match.com? BlackPeopleMeet? So many choices. Well, I was terrified of putting myself out there, so, I decided to test the waters of online dating by testing the waters of online dating.  This past Wednesday I created three fake online dating accounts on three separate online dating sites. The goal was to get a feel for the sites, learn the features, and of course see if I found any compatible matches with my characters. Well, I checked my profiles earlier today and unfortunately none of my charming gentlemen received any matches. Maybe you guys can tell me where you think I went wrong...

1. Alias: Lester Buckrod

    Dating Site:  meethuntinglovers.com 

    Birthday:  August 10th, 1987 (26 years old)

    Email:  TenPointBuckrod22@yahoo.com 

I honestly had high hopes for Lester. However, he was unable to find his perfect doe and remains a lonely hunter. On to profile number two. 

2. Alias: Isaac Kanagy

    Dating Site: amishdating.com

    Birthday: February 7th, 1992 (21 years old) 

    Email: KanaGetSomeElectricity@yahoo.com

Even the Amish have trouble finding love. Isaac couldn't find his Amish soul mate, but I am confident that he will indeed make it to the moon one day. Two profiles and no matches. Not a good start. Third times a charm, right?  

3. Alias: Donald Steed

    Dating Site: stdmatch.net 

    Birthday: October 20, 1985 (27 years old)

    Email: LotsOfSTeeDs@yahoo.com 

Donald was supposed to be my Ace of Spades. I mean, what girl isn't interested in a guy with herpes, chlamydia, syhpilis, and gonorrhea? COME ON LADIES. 

My online dating experiment was a total failure, but thanks to Lester, Isaac, and Donald I learned a lot about online dating. Here are a few of my key takeaways...

1. Online Dating is Free...Kind of
      It was free to create an account on all three sites. However, "free" is a very flexible term in the online dating world. The sites urged that I pay a monthly fee to upgrade to a better version. The upgraded versions give you access to more features that will increase your chances of finding your soul mate. I was unwilling to splurge to find true love for my profiles. Sorry guys. 

2. You like to dress as a Leprechaun and Eat Lucky Charms while Irish Step-dancing? There's a dating site for that. 
      There is literally a dating site for anyone. Any niche market you can think of, they have a dating site for it. It's kind of ridiculous, but hilarious at the same time. 

3. The Formats of Dating Sites are Relatively Homogenous
        I know what you're thinking right now. Homogenous? Wow Chan, I didn't know you knew words that big! Well I do, so shut up. All of the sites had relatively the same format. For instance, each site required you to put a "headline" on your profile. The headline is a few sentences long and is basically the first impression you give to everyone. Since the formats of the sites are pretty much the same, it makes it easy for people if they decide to switch to a different dating site. Like if you went from Team Edward to Team Jacob or something stupid like that. 

In my opinion, online dating is great. There is a huge market for it and it really has exploded in our generation. It is just another example of how social media connects us closer and closer to one another and really makes the world a lot smaller. Plus, it has given us awesome shows like "Catfish." As for me, I won't be creating an online dating profile anytime soon. I'll just learn how to date again the old-fashioned way. And that's by reading every Nicholas Sparks book. Lastly, I want to apologize to Yahoo, amishdating.com, meethuntinglovers.com, and stdmatch.net. I am assuming I violated all of your terms and conditions by creating fake email accounts and dating profiles. But lets get real, no one reads those anyways.   

Instagrammers Love Instaholidays

I wrote a poem for you guys, but it's more like a remix to a poem. Like a remix to a rap song, minus the terrible extra lyrics from Lil Wayne. So, without further ado, here is my remix to "Twas the Night Before Christmas."  

"Twas the night before Thursday when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The old pictures were prepared on the iPhone with care,

In hopes that throwback Thursday would soon be there." 

I just made a throwback Thursday edition to a throwback poem. Is that a double throwback? Yeah, that's definitely a throwthrowback. 

No one celebrates holidays more than an Instagrammer. And by more I literally mean more. As in three times a week more. As in every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday more. As in I can't take it anymore more. If you have Instagram, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you don't have Instagram, then you're probably more confused at what I'm saying than Paula Deen shopping at a Whole Foods. Well, for those of you that don't have Instagram and think your photos are too good for filters, I will explain these holidays to you right meow. 

1. Man Crush Monday (#mcm)

This Instaholiday is celebrated every Monday...obviously. Instagrammers celebrate this holiday by posting pictures of hawt male celebrities or athletes. Occasionally you see the girlfriend that posts a picture of her boyfriend as her MCM, which generally means she has reached a DEFCON level 3 of craziness. When I searched #mcm on Instagram, there were over 11.3 million related posts. I immediately deleted my hashtag search history to hide the evidence, but not before I looked at all the pictures of Channing Tatum. 

2.  Woman Crush Wednesday (#wcw)

I am convinced that this Instaholiday was created in response to Man Crush Monday. This holiday is essentially the exact opposite of #mcm. To celebrate, Instagrammers post pictures of beautiful women (cue Jennifer Aniston, Blake Lively, Beyonce, Rosie O'donnell, etc.) with the hashtag "wcw." Similar to girlfriends and #mcm, boyfriends will also occasionally post pictures of their girlfriends for #wcw. When this happens, I generally assume that the boyfriend is in the doghouse and is trying to get brownie points or he is just...well let's just say he needs to give up his man card. When I searched #wcw there were over 20.5 million related posts. 

3. Throwback Thursday (#tbt)

By far the most popular Instaholiday, Throwback Thursday involves posting pictures from way back in the day. The most popular pictures posted are pictures from ones childhood or pictures from a favorite memory with friends. I've never posted a baby picture for #tbt, but if I ever were too, this would be my thought process for doing so... 

1. Post a Cute Baby Pic
2. Pic Gets Hundreds of Likes 
3. Girls See Cute Baby Pic
4. Girls Fall in Love With Cute Baby Pic
5. Girls Fall in Love With Me because of Cute Baby Pic
6. I Win. 

My reasoning is flawless right? RIGHT!? Well anyways, when I searched #tbt over 99.1 million related posts came up. Holy cow. 

Why are these Instaholidays so important for Instagram? Millions and millions of people post pictures on these days which drives a lot of traffic for Instagram.  These Instaholidays have become part of the "Instaculture" for Instagrammers and keep them active which is important for the success of the app. But there are four other days of the week that aren't Instaholidays. So, I created a list of Instaholiday suggestions for Tuesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Let me know what you think. 

Turnip Tuesdays - Pictures of your favorite Turnips. 

Free Willy Fridays - Post pictures from the movie Free Willy

Save a Snail Saturdays - Self explanatory. 

Stun Gun Sundays - All you need is a stun gun.  

Well tomorrow is Monday so I have to go prepare my #mcm picture. If you haven't found your #mcm pic yet then I have a few suggestions...

 

All of them are good, so just follow your heart. 

Snapchat is Redefining the Selfiie

I want to play a game. Don't worry though, this game won't result in the elaborate deaths of many B-list actors and create a movie franchise that goes seven movies too long. This game is actually quite simple to play. All you need to do is open facebook (which you probably have open in another tab anyways) and go to a friend's profile. When you get to their profile, go to their photos and begin to scroll backwards. The goal of the game is simple. Find a picture of your friend taking a "selfie" and like the photo. Once the photo is liked, it will pop up on everyone's newsfeed and instant shame will rain down upon the victim. 

There are two types of people in the world. Those who admit to have taken a selfie before and those who wear fire retardant pants. Selfies are done by both guys and girls. A girl selfie usually comes in form of the "Duck face peace sign combo" shown below...

You go girl. 

Guy selfies usually take the form of  the "I'm too sexy for my shirt mirror pic" shown below...

Damn bro, do you workout? 

No matter the form, all selfies are created equal...or so we thought. That was the belief until Snapchat came along. Snapchat has completely redefined the selfie. But, before we get into that, it is important that we look at the history of "the selfie" and see how it has evolved over time. So.. 

"Come with me

And you'll be

In a world of self infatuation"

"Take a look

And you'll see 

Into the history of the selfie." 

 

The Self Portrait

Believe it or not the selfie was created in the 1500's during the Early Renaissance era. Artists would paint themselves and call their masterpieces "Self-portraits" (selfies). These artists would often create inaccurate portrayals of themselves to enhance their appearance, because seriously, who would make a fugly picture of thy self? 

The Polaroid Camera

The selfie went through a dry few hundred years until the invention of the polaroid camera. The polaroid camera greatly sped up the creation of the selfie. The "instant selfie," as I like to call it, was an instant success among selfers (people who take selfies). 

Digital Cameras 

Digital cameras allowed selfers to store hundreds of selfies in one device. Selfers could also upload selfies from their cameras to the internet. Digital cameras sparked the early beginnings of the "mirror pic" and "duck face" movements. 

Camera Phones

The creation of the camera phone enabled selfers to take selfies and store them on their phone. No more carrying cameras. Selfers had their own phone calling selfie device right in their pockets. 

Smart Phones

Smartphones innovated the selfie by having the turn around camera function. Selfers could use this function to look at themselves while taking a selfie. As if we couldn't get enough of ourselves already! Smartphones also allowed selfers to use selfie apps like Snapchat!

Now that we have taken a crash course in selfie history, we can take a look at how Snapchat has completely redefined the selfie...

 

With Snapchat you can only send pictures to your friends for up to ten seconds and then they are deleted. This is extremely important because the selfer is no longer required to look good in their selfie. The goal of a snapchat selfie is to look as ugly as possible because who cares? It just gets deleted into Snapchat abyss (AKA Snapchat headquarters).   

Snapchat allows you to draw on your selfie. Have you ever taken a selfie and thought, "Damn, I really wish I was wearing a sombrero." Well, take your finger and draw a sombrero then! Go ahead and throw a mustache on their as well. The drawing function allows selfers to be creative as ever with their selfies. 

Perhaps one of the most important functions of Snapchat is the caption function. The caption function allows you to write a short sentence to your friends along with your selfie. Now you can have full on selfie conversations with selfies that literally have no context to your caption at all. 

Snapchat is the biggest innovation to the selfie since the creation of bathroom mirrors. Next time you walk through campus, look around you. I guarantee you will see at least one person idiotically looking at their smart phone and you won't question it. You know exactly what that person is doing. They are taking a Snapchat. Snapchat is rooted into our culture now. Get used to it, because Snapchat is here to stay. 

Dentists Prevent Cancer Prevention

Close your eyes, clear your mind, and take a deep breath. Put yourself in a place of absolute happiness. Somewhere that you feel safe, comfortable, and secure. Now, if you're still reading at this point then you clearly don't know how to follow directions because I said to close your eyes...but whatever. So now that you're in a place of happiness, I want you to put yourself in the two worst places in the world. Obviously, the first place you thought of was Captain D's because, yeah...enough said. I'd be willing to bet my left...overs that the second place you thought of was the dentist's office. I mean, what's more awesome than a stranger asking you questions with their hands in your mouth while simultaneously drilling away at your pearly yellowish-whites with the finest Craftsman tools on the market? If you said "nothing," then your sarcasm is not welcome here. But, what if I told you that dentists may be preventing cancer prevention with the so called "advice" that they give us? 

I recently read an article from mashable.com that said that dental cavities may reduce the risk for certain types of cancer (http://mashable.com/2013/09/16/dental-cavity-cancer). The article mentions a study conducted by researchers from the State University of New York at Buffalo involving 620 participants with cavities. Participants in the study showed a significantly reduced rate of developing types of head an neck cancers compared to a control group. However, the results are inconclusive because the study did not take into account different variables such as socioeconomic status and diet. So, the results just show a correlation, not a cause and effect relationship. And, as we have heard in every statistics class we have ever taken ever, correlation does not prove causation. 

Why does this story mean so much to me? Well, since you inadvertently asked me by reading the question out loud in your head, I'll tell you. Last year I had the worst dentist visit of my life. It was my first visit to our new dentist, so naturally I had to get x-rays done. The x-rays revealed horrible news. I had eight cavities. Eight freaking cavities. Before you judge me on my dental hygiene, I'll let you know I brush my teeth multiple times a day every day. Yeah, I used to eat my fair share of skittles, but rainbows taste awesome and you know it. Eight cavities though? That's ridiculous. Little did I know though that you can have cavities in between your teeth, which happened to be where all my cavities were located. Now, I mentioned earlier that I brushed my teeth multiple times a day, but I never said anything about flossing. Ahead of working out and going on a diet, flossing is the number one thing people say they do but actually don't. 

Needless to say, I got all my cavities filled and I am currently cavity free. I now floss my teeth every single day (Source: third paragraph, last sentence). However, if ever again a dentist tells me I have a cavity I will have one response for them. "Yeah, and I'm also cancer free." Checkmate dentists. 

Fake It Till You Make It

We have all heard the motto, "fake it till you make it." If you grew up in my generation, you've also heard the motto, "YOLO." Drake really is a modern day Confucius. As human beings, we like to think that we dislike fake things. However, this is not true. We love fake things. Fake plants, the WWE, Reality TV (oh the irony), and fake...bodies. The list goes on and on. When it comes to social media, there is one fake thing that we covet above all. Fake twitter accounts. 

If you have a twitter account, then it's likely you've come across one of these fake accounts or "parody" accounts. Some have probably been good, some have probably been bad. Well, I have conducted some extensive research (by that I mean looking at twitter while in class or procrastinating) and came up with the top three qualities of a good twitter parody account. 

1. The account portrays the person in the way the general public perceives them. 

The best fake accounts are the ones that tweet things that you think the actual person would say. For example, here is a tweet from the fake Isaiah Crowell (@FakeIsaiahCrow1) account..

Now, I'm sure the real Isaiah Crowell is a well-mannered, very intelligent human being that would never tweet something like this. However, the general public doesn't view him that way which makes this tweet hilariously hilarious. Let's take a look at a bad example. This tweet comes from an account for Si Roberson from Duck Dynasty.

If you've ever seen Duck Dynasty, then you immediately know Si would never say something like this. Instead, this fake account consists of "inspirational tweets," which seem to be written by a middle school girl giving relationship advice. What's up with that, jack!? 

2. The account tweets about current events

It is a lot more exciting when the account stays on top of current events. Here is a tweet from the fake Johnny Manziel account (@JohnnyFootball) about the Texas A&M vs. Alabama game this past weekend... 

Classic Johnny Football. 

3. Never reveal your true identity

Just like a superhero (minus Ironman), a parody account must NEVER reveal its true identity. The beauty of a parody account is that we actually believe it is the celebrity/athlete that is making the tweets. If we find out it is Jim, the 40 year old guy down the street that lives with his parents, making the tweets, that kind of ruins it for us. 

6 Seconds of Fame

It doesn't take a clock to tell you that six seconds isn't a lot of time. What can you actually do in six seconds anyways besides count to six? I guess it's about the time it would take to change a Nickelback song, but even then, that's too much time. I mean, it took Nicolas Cage a whole minute to be Gone in 60 Seconds. Now if only that movie was about the length of his acting career instead of stealing cars (sorry Mr. Cage, I really enjoyed Ghost Rider 2). The point is that you can't do many things in six seconds. However, Vine has given regular people like you and me the chance to become famous in six seconds. 

We can all think of someone who has had their "15 minutes of fame." My personal favorite being William Hung. You know, the guy from American Idol who sang the best rendition of She Bangs by Ricky Martin known to man? This guy. 

Vine allows its users to post videos up to six seconds long to their respective profiles. Through these videos, Vine has turned "15 minutes of fame" into "6 seconds of fame." Don't believe me? Well, lets look at three regular people who are now famous because of Vine. 

1. Lets start off with Brittany Furlan. She has over 2.5 million followers and 472 posts on Vine. Here is one of her videos...

2. Next we have Jared Stradling. He has over 177 thousand followers and 302 posts. He is most famous for his "Tummy Tuesday" posts... 

3. Lastly we have Maleek who has over 294 thousand followers and 228 posts. He is most known for his videos of "his little cuzo Terio." 

Without Vine, these three people may never have achieved their "6 seconds of fame."

Why is this so important? Social media sites, like Vine, give users so much power and freedom to produce their own content and reach virtually every corner of the world. In my opinion, Vine is currently the best video sharing outlet out there. Yes, even better than YouTube. Vine exploits the most common disease for humans. Which is, of course, a short attention span. I would much rather watch 100, six second Vine videos than 100, six minute YouTube videos. Lets get real, we all know that feeling when a friend asks us to watch a "hilarious" YouTube video. 99% of the time we don't want to watch the video but we do it anyways because we are good friends. We pretend to laugh at it and move on with our lives. Now, when it comes to Vine, nearly everyone will watch a recommended Vine video because they know it will only take six seconds of their time. Plus, Vine videos get straight to the punch-line, which is all we care about anyways.

Even with Instagram introducing video, I don't see Vine going away anytime soon. After all, there are only so many times we can watch an Instagram video of someone preparing their food before getting annoyed.  

Twitter Helped Me Find My Best Friend

When you think of best friends you think of famous duos like Joey and Chandler, Shaggy and Scooby-Doo, or Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow.  Everyone has a best friend. If you are a girl, you probably have more ex-best friends than current best friends, but you get the point. I have had a lot friends throughout my life. I've had school friends, imaginary friends, Facebook friends, girlfriends, ex-girlfriends, crazy ex-girlfriends, and of course my main bros. However, I had never been able to grant the title of "best" friend to any of those friends until this past April. On April 17th, 2013 my best friend spot was no longer vacant. On that day, I gave the other half of my friendship necklace to my current best friend...Waffle House.  

I have known Waffle House for most of my life but did not grow closer to it until my college years. I couldn't tell you the amount of times Waffle House has given me shelter from the cold, fed me when I was hungry, or given me a place to go at 2:30 in the morning on the weekend. Waffle House has always been there for me and I didn't realize how much they cared until that April day. The night prior to the 17th, I had an awful nightmare that Waffle House no longer served scrambled eggs. I remember waking up in a cold sweat thinking, "How could they do this to me? Scrambled eggs are my fave." I had to uncover the truth, so I did what any person my age would do and I took my actions to Twitter...

My tweets generally consist of cheesy one-liners or letting my followers know that I really enjoyed the sandwich I just ate. I had never interacted with a company via Twitter until that day. This was the first tweet I sent to the Waffle House Twitter account...

I must admit, the all-caps was a little overkill but I had to get my message across. Sure enough, within minutes Waffle House tweeted me back and reassured me that scrambled eggs were still on the menu. Overjoyed with their response, I sent out another tweet...

I like to say that this next tweet was the defining moment that led to myself and Waffle House becoming best friends....

Do you see that!? Waffle House said we were "BFFs for life!!" FOR LIFE! 

The moral of this story is not to tell you how I got my best friend. The moral of the story is that Waffle House is an example of a company that handles social media the right way. Waffle House is constantly responding to their followers in a fun, playful way that makes you feel as if they are an actual person rather than just a restaurant trying to sell you waffles. If more companies took time to respond to their tweets like Waffle House does it would drastically improve their impact in the social media world. I've told the story of these tweets so many times to people which is essentially free advertising for Waffle House from me. I would say my loyalty to Waffle House increased because of this experience and I will continue to be "BFFs" with them for the rest of my life. Screw IHOP.