Wednesday, October 23, 2013

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 








    







Sunday, October 13, 2013

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.   

Sunday, October 6, 2013

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.