My Thoughts on The Canterlot Royal Wedding

I apologize for my lack of updates of late, as I have been busy "studying".

Well, it's finally come to the conclusion of Season 2 of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and might I say: I was not disappointed.  If you have not already watched it, I strongly recommend you do so before continuing reading this rant.

First of all, let me say from experience as the youngest of four, this is not how the sibling dynamic works.  I no longer feel pain in most of my body as the result of my childhood experiences; I don't have a clue from where this "we never had a fight" nonsense comes.  But this song will be stuck in my head forever... forever.

 Now, it's been about twelve hours since I saw the episode, and I have yet to see Shining Armor or Cadence shipped with anyone, meaning the show may have created its first-ever closed-circuit ship.  Now, for those of you not particularly familiar with the show, I should explain why this is surprising: there are ships for Tom, a literal chunk of rock introduced in the first episode of the season.  Ships, plural.  There are people who think of the relationships of a rock.

And I'm one of them.  TomXBloomburg OTP!

Personally, I will not allow this to stand.  Why not Shining ArmorXBig Macintosh, on the foundation that they are both large-bodied older brothers with visible hooves?  It's not unreasonable.  LyraXBon Bon is almost unanimous, and their link is that they sometimes stand close together.

Alternatively, if you, as I do, demand that the role of "princess" be returned to its original meaning of "sexual bartering chip used to negotiate political influence", then you could consider shipping CadenceXChrysalis or CadenceXDiscord; CadenceXBlue Blood would consolidate power within the family in case Equestria has no need for political connections.  Hey, his blood had to get blue somehow.  This would not be breaking new ground.

As for the story itself: I couldn't help but notice this was the first episode in which the Mane Six display actual combat skills (and I say that because while they have been in fights before, they were always resolved otherwise; namely the manticore and the red dragon).  Twilight Sparkle and Celestia, apparently, have both had massive destructive laser powers this entire time.  Kids' show?

I couldn't be the only person to suspect the Changeling Queen was responsible for Nightmare Moon.  The same voice, the same appearance, the fact that Lauren Faust has said there was "another entity" responsible for her transformation...

And now we wait five months for Season 3.  Buck.  At least we have YouTube.

My Shirt Is Too Long

My shirt is too long.  It goes a little less than halfway down my thighs, making it seem more like a short dress than a shirt.  As I am unlikely to gain several inches in any reasonable timeframe without some surgeries I neither want nor can afford, it is useless to me.  In addition, it is a very slim-cut shirt, meaning everyone I know who is tall enough to wear it is also too large.  It might work decently well as a dress, though unfortunately it is indisputably a man's shirt, meaning any woman wearing it must needs be shooting for the "perpetual walk of shame" look, and since I do not attend Arizona State, I cannot think of anyone to whom to give it.

Hypothetically I could cut it shorter, but that would require skills and materials I do not own, particularly considering that I would then need to re-sew the hem unless I want it to look like a half-shirt from the 1980s.  I do not, especially since cutting it to standard shirt length would mean that it would just make it look like my half-shirt is too long, which does nothing to alleviate the problem.

Being broke, I have to conserve every penny, which means (among other things) laundry days are as far apart as I can manage.  Thus every shirt I own is just one more day I don't have to do laundry.  However, I own one shirt that is just simply too long.  This makes it very frustrating, as I am running very low on clean shirts and having it makes it seem like it is mocking me.  You think you're so good, shirt?  You think you're better than me?

This is not made any better because it is a good-looking shirt.  It's sort of like a polo shirt, with blue and light blue stripes running across it horizontally.  It looks great from the waist up.  It only becomes a problem when it makes me look really, really girly on the full body shot, certainly not helped by the fact that I like skinny jeans and they end up, by comparison, looking like leggings.  Admittedly, my wardrobe is not my manliest aspect to begin with.

In the meantime, I'm stumped.  My best idea so far is to use it as a backup towel, since it has a pocket that could be very useful for holding my wallet (and thus my room key) while I shower, but while it is too large to be a shirt it is too small to be an adequate towel.  I'm frustrated.

My Public Enemies List

Where I "honor" the "contributions" of those who have made the world that much worse by their continued existence or lingering presence.

- "The Best of Pauly Shore" is an oxymoron.

- Advice to writers: read Twilight.  Do the opposite.

- To music producer Mr. Bangladesh:
Beethoven and Mozart, yes, could famously compose entire pieces in their heads.  This is not what you are doing.  It is called "schizophrenia".

- From what I can tell, Beyonce has gone through what can only be described as an unending cavalcade of bad break-ups where the man was entirely at fault, each and every time inspiring her to write and perform a song on the topic.  Perhaps she has some sort of sac or auxiliary organ in which she stores bile and hatred for future use.

- Chris Brown thanks his fans for his success.  Makes sense, since we know it wasn't his musical ability or personality or that he deserved it.
His greatest hits album is coming out, by the way.  Most of them are to the face.

- I don't think I can properly make fun of Jack Chick.  Anything I say would just make him seem less ridiculous than he already is.

- Whenever I get frustrated while trying to draw something, I like to think, "Well, worst case scenario, it's still better than Rob Liefeld."

- Ronald Reagan raised taxes and increased the deficit while somehow convincing modern political actives that we can and should decrease taxes and spending like Ronald Reagan did.

- Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church disliked a verdict held in Sweden that incarcerated a preacher for using hate speech to decry homosexuality.  So they did what they did... well, not "best", but "most often".  They picketed.  They did not picket the Swedish government, or a Swedish embassy, or an area of the United States with a lot of people of Swedish descent.  They picketed a local vacuum store, one of whose brands was originally from Sweden.  I wish I were making this up.  Oh, by the way, as American citizens, their votes count exactly as much as yours does; more, actually, if you live in a populous state.  Ponder that one for a minute.

- Rush Limbaugh clearly speaks for the common man, as does everyone who makes $55 million per year working three hours per day.  From what I can tell, his opinion counts for about 3,250 times the common man's.

- Congratulations, Hot Chelle Rae.  I award you the title of "Musical Unflavored Oatmeal".

- Here's my hypothesis on Jane Eyre: it was published as a series of literary articles in England during a key period, when scientists were first learning about the causes of disease, specifically cholera, in this case.  Also during this time period, paper was considered a commodity, thus people were unlikely to dispose of it.  Jane Eyre was published to encourage the use of bathroom hygiene by making paper that was certifiably useless and which no one would want to keep.  No one had the heart to tell Charlotte.

Dairy

So, you know that "Got Milk?" commercial where there's that rich guy wondering how he can waste his money, and someone says, "We could try making milk from plants." and the other guy says "But milk comes from cows!" and the rich guy's like "Genius!"?  I'm sure it's on YouTube.

Well, that's not entirely accurate.  Soy milk is not milk, it's soy milk, and it's sold as such.  I have yet to see a label that plays down the "soy" part of it.  It's a compound word with a different meaning.  It's just called "soy milk" because it's similar to milk.

The problem I have, though, is the "milk comes from cows" thing.  Cow milk isn't even the most-consumed type of milk by humans, goat milk is.  Milk comes from lots of animals--it's one of the defining characteristics of the entire class Mammalia, and even then there are a few species of snake that lactate.  What they mean to say is "milk comes from females".

So I guess they're left with two real options: recognize that there are in fact multiple quality milk-like products or stick to the most denotatively-correct definition for their product.  They have taken the middle road and done neither.

On an unrelated note:

I like to imagine there's some sadistic crime warlord with a warehouse full of Klondike bars using it to extort illegal/immoral acts out of people as part of a cruel social experiment.

The Best Things About College

BYU-Hawaii: The classes are easy, the people are friendly, and the weather is warm and sunny.  It's my personal hell.


However, my therapist encouraged me to think more positively, so here's the list of what I do like about my college.


-I live on-campus.  This means I can roll out of bed at 7:00 and make it to my 7:30 class with time for a leisurely breakfast in between.  "Community college has everything a four-year has"--never fall for this lie!
-Also on-campus, the health center.  Never before has my hypochondria felt so enabled.  Unlike high school, I'm quite certain these people have received actual medical training.
-Sometimes I legitimately forget whether or not my roommate is in the room.  It's the housing arrangement of my dreams.
-College textbooks are great.  No longer am I distracted by why a demographically-diverse group of people is so manically excited about chemistry.
-My campus is so diverse!  I'm always amazed at the different cultures, ways of life, and perspectives that can be homogenized into oblivion on a religious campus.
-Bulletin boards are everywhere, and with them, the possibility for pranks.  It's good to be alive and mildly sociopathic!
-The library may not have a fiction section (seriously, what?), but today they were giving away their old anthropology books.  FOR FREE.  I got five.
-Film class is pretty neat.  Last Friday we watched La Jetee, a French post-modern soft science-fiction psychological/body horror romantic tragicomic mind-bending photo-roman.  I defy you to name another film that demands that many adjectives.
-"If you don't learn to keep your room clean, what will you do with your dorm when you go to college?"  Hahahahahahahahahahaha.
-I still keep in contact with my friends who are still in high school.  I like to stroke my scraggly neckbeard and act sage over Facebook.
-I have to take the bus just about anywhere outside my 300-person town.  Taking the bus means standing in one place for several hours, doing nothing interesting, and being polite to rude idiots.  This means I can check on my job applications that I have retail experience.

Sex and Profanity in Comedy

I don't have a problem with it, strictly speaking.  Jokes on the subject have the possibility to be hilarious.  There are comedians who use it very cleverly and effectively.

I do, however, had a problem with the fact that comedians have for some reason taken this fact and drawn the conclusion that "sex/profanity = funny, no exceptions".  Now, technically I have this problem with just about everything, as anyone in the voting section of Memebase can tell you that just because a joke contains some potentially funny element it is automatically funny.  Sex and profanity just happen to be the most prevalent.

Presented for your consideration, Pauly Shore:

The man is not funny.  Just simply... not funny.  There is no funny there.  If funny were to be measured by scientific instruments a recording of his shows would be a flat line at zero.  However, because he throws in a brigade F-bombs he gets a few laughs.  Hollow, soul-crushing pity laughs.  This is cheap, lazy comedy at its worst.  Comedy is defined by cleverness and lateral thinking, and this man has neither.  If someone wrote a computer algorithm to make jokes in the 1980s, using a computer of the era, it would come up with precisely this kind of recycled, flat-soda commentary unfounded in reality, but perhaps with an "insert name here" where he says "Hillary Clinton" where you could instead say, oh, Geraldine Ferraro.  He does not deserve to have a career as a comedian; if I ran a comedy I would not allow him to perform if he paid me.  Profanity is his crutch, and the fact that it can be used as such is why I am speaking out against it now.

On the other hand, George Carlin:

He doesn't use dirty language or strong ideas because he can't get laughs otherwise, he does it because it's the right thing to do for his set.  Because of the way he uses it, with obvious practice and forethought, he maximizes the effect of what would already be an poignant and hilarious piece of rhetoric.

The same problem has to do with sex, which again can be an delightful fountain of amazing jokes but can just as easily become a millstone around the neck of a viewer or listener.  Remember, about 60% of any William Shakespeare play is two male protagonists talking about each other's penes (which is the correct plural of "penis", by the way).  Think I'm kidding?  Go re-read Romeo and Juliet.  Still, he's hailed as a master of the craft of writing because they were subtle, thought-out, and creative.

Another problem: oftentimes a movie will insert some cussing or a boob shot in order to avoid getting a G or PG movie and being labelled by the public as "for kids".  I would like to remind you that just because something is not good for kids does not make it good for adults.  Comedy does not work by the process of elimination.

So I realize my point hasn't exactly been clear.  What it comes down to is this: I am neither explicitly for nor against dirty jokes.  However, make sure that they are good jokes and not just dirty.  Here's an exercise: if you can prove to me you can be consistently funny without foul subject material, I will be okay with you being as filthy as you want to be.

Black and Yellow

Wiz Khalifa's "Black and Yellow".  I'd like to talk about it.

Todd in the Shadows, a pop music reviewer of whom I'm fond, has already done a detailed review of it, but I have a few items I'd like to address as well.

The chorus is [Yeah, a'ight, you know what it is, black and yellow (x4)] (x2).  Well, no, I don't know what it is.  It is your job as a writer, Mr. Khalifa, to inform me of what it is.  Now, technically, you could say that I'm holding you to higher standards than other performers, but considering you don't feel the need to stick to the rules of rhyme and meter established for poetry or songs, I felt it would be more appropriate to appraise this as prose.  You fail to show me in any way what it is in the entirety of the work.

In fact, this refrain contains only nine words: yeah, you, know, what, it, is, black, and, yellow.  There's also "a'ight", which is not a word but I suppose I can count it for something.  So your chorus is 9.5 words repeated over and over.  Okay, perhaps I am being unfair.  After all, "I Palindrome I", one my favorite songs by my favorite artists, has a chorus that only uses 13 words.  However, that song was actually about the concept of repetition and recursion.  And it still used more word power than you.

Unlike many short stories, "Black and Yellow" fails to establish setting, characters, or conflict.  While it does use "black and yellow" to tell us that it is set in Pittsburg, this is an entirely nominative setting, as it fails to influence the work, and no imagery is used other than "black and yellow".  Unless I am severely misinformed about the appearance of Pittsburg, I do not believe this is very helpful in enabling me, the reader, to form a mental picture.

Thus, I have concluded it is a work of postmodernist genius.  Rigidly minimalist in both its limited vocabulary and flat delivery, the short story "Black and Yellow" defies many traditions of how to properly form a song, poem, or story.  While I personally do not enjoy it in the least, I assume it is simply above my head.

Disney Complaints

Aladdin: Aladdin wishes to become a prince.  The genie gives him a hundred camels and a hundred servants loaded with gold.  First of all, that's not technically granting his wish.  That's making him nobility, not royalty.  But the bigger problem is... from where did those hundred servants come?  There are two possibilities.  Firstly, that Genie, when it was requested of him, indentured a hundred random people.  No regard for their previous life, no concern for the fact that they were now demoted to nothing but carrying one guy's gold.  That's pretty screwed up.  The second and even more troubling possibility is that the Genie created these people out of thin air.  What kind of existence would that be?  Would they be human, and if so what does that say about the nature of humanity?  If the wish were to be undone, what would happen to them?  Would they vanish into thin air, effectively mass murder, or would they be released into a world where they have no home and no origin?

Beauty and the Beast: A similar problem: there are way too many servants in that castle.  The curse lasted ten years (until the Prince's twenty-first birthday), and there were at least, I'm going to say, 200 dishes, feather dusters, etc. in the "Be Our Guest" musical number.  So that means an eleven-year-old was in charge of 200 people.  That's not responsible.  On top of that, the Beast seems to be the most unhappy with the transformation.  Excuse me, but you got off pretty easily, sir.
"Don't look at me, I'm a monster!"
"Suck it up, a-hole, I'm a candle!"

The Little Mermaid: The heartwarming story of a girl who wants something, gets it via the easiest route despite being warned about the risks involved, foists responsibility for those risks onto the person, her father, who warned her about them, and ends up getting everything she wanted without growing or developing.

Snow White: Why aren't all fourteen-year-olds married to date-raping near-strangers?

Mulan: At the end, Mulan turns down the position in the Emperor's court to live a domestic life.  In the sequel, she teaches young girls martial arts.  Fair enough.  Mulan was based on an existing Chinese myth, and that's what happened in said myth.  Except no, not fair enough.  This is Disney.  The original version matters about as much to them as the physics of combustibility matter to Michael Bay.  If Ariel is allowed to live, Claude Frollo is allowed to be a judge instead of a priest, and Pocahontas is... well, everything about Pocahontas, then you can make some slight adjustments to the Mulan myth to give her a more proactive ending.

Cinderella: Technically, my complaint is about Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep.  Terra insisted "You have to work hard to achieve your goals."  After visiting Castle of Dreams, he says "Maybe sometimes it's enough just to dream."  That's right, Cinderella is so passive she actually gets someone to backtrack morally.

Tarzan and Brother Bear: Why, Phil Collins, why?

The Disney Corporation: Unlike many adults, I do not believe Disney is an evil corporation.  The thing is they market themselves as the moral pillar of all humanity, but they are still a corporation, and they do what corporations do; their job is to make money.  This discrepancy is what people tend to interpret as "evil".

I do, however, strongly disapprove of the copyright laws they have pushed through, such that a copyright now lasts for seventy years after the death of the creator.  There's no need for that.  Copyrights were intended to protect the creator from theft for a limited amount of time.  I won't much care if people are taking money from me after I'm dead and unable to, say, use said money, much less seventy years afterward.  I would like it if something that was released during my childhood would be in the public domain during my lifetime, rather than fifty years after I die (that's being optimistic, I don't take good care of myself).  It would also be slightly more palatable if Disney didn't get every single movie it makes from the public domain it seems to be trying so hard to kill.  E.g. Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, the music from Fantasia, Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, Sleeping Beauty, The Sword in the Stone, The Jungle Book, Robin Hood, Oliver Twist, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Hamlet, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Mulan, Tarzan, Treasure Island, Chicken Little, The Princess and the Frog, Rapunzel, Winnie the Pooh.  Fun fact: if the copyright laws now in place were around during the publication of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, The Jungle Book, or Tarzan, Disney would not legally have been allowed to create films based on them because of the laws they themselves recently passed.  That's my beef with them.

Last Words

On Sunday, February 12, 2012, the writer of this blog was found dead in his dorm.  Next to him were found several notes recounting the events of the previous night, most of them apparently written in his own blood.

Saturday, 11.02.12 8:56 PM
So, I went to brush my teeth, but there were two people using the sinks to get water for ramen.  College!

Saturday, 11.02.12 9:14 PM
I guess it's not just ramen.  They're having a full-on food party out there in the hall.  Some of the stuff smells pretty strong.

Saturday, 11.02.12 9:31 PM
I'm having trouble breathing and my eyes are burning.  I think I'm allergic to something they're using, plus it smells just... awful.  It's like the olfactory equivalent of sandpaper.  I'm going for a walk.

Saturday 11.02.12 9:49 PM
Okay, seriously?  I've walked all over the place and I can still smell it clearly as ever.  I have no idea why someone would need that much spice.  What is that, wasabi?  Can you even eat that much and survive?

Saturday 11.02.12 10:10 PM
There is no use.  The smell has permeated the entire campus.

Saturday 11.02.12 10:23 PM
The smell has permeated the entire town.  I cannot escape.

Saturday 11.02.12 10:31 PM
I am upwind of the source.  I can smell it.  I can smell it against the tropical breezes.  What does this mean?

Stardate 11.02.12 10:34 PM
Clearly the entire world has been contaminated and it has looped back around to here.  We must burn it down, burn it all down, and start anew.  Fire is the cleanser.

Saturday 11.02.12 10:40 PM
They fight my vision.  They know not the evil they support.  Pure, cleansing flames.

Saturday 11.02.12 11:16 PM
On February 11th, 2012, a date which shall live in infamy, American college students stationed in Hawaii were suddenly and deliberately attacked by Japanese spices.

Saturday 11.02.12 11:26 PM
Have I perhaps wronged them in some way?  Please, if there's something I can do to make you stop, I'll do it!

Day in Glory of Saturn 11.02.12 11:34 PM
To the manufacturers of the Bug Bomb,
Have I got an exciting business proposal for you!  If you consider joining your wonderful and iconic Bug Bomb with the cleaning power of air purifiers and cleansing bleach, I'm certain it would sell wonders.  I believe you could make a working prototype and send it to the provided address within the next thirty minutes, and I will gladly let you keep the profits venture.

Day in Glory of Saturn 11.02.12 11:34 PM (scrawled on top of the previous note)
To the manufacturers of 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene,
Have I got an exciting business proposal for you!  If you consider joining your wonderful and iconic trinitrotoluene with the cleaning power of air purifiers and cleansing bleach, I'm certain it would sell wonders.  I believe you could make a working prototype and send it to the provided address within the next thirty minutes, and I will gladly let you keep the profits from this venture.

Saturday 11.02.12 11:55 PM
I promise to be a better Christian if I make it through this.  Please just make the spices go away.

Sunday 11.03.12 12:00 AM
Better Muslim?

Sunday 11.03.12 12:03 AM
Was it Jamestown?  Did I miss my chance already?

Sunday 11.03.12 12:12 AM
Oh, I get it.  It's Shinto, right?  Pretty tricky!

Tsundere 11.03.12 12:18 AM
If I don't make it through this, call every girl on my contacts list and tell her I love her.

Sunday 11.03.12 12:19 AM
Unless there's an asterisk by her name, in which case tell her I hate her.

Sunday 11.03.12 12:26 AM
I'm not sure why everyone hates Pauly Shore, Biodome was hilarious!  He made noise with his mouth a lot.

Sunday 11.03.12 12:31 AM
I fear my mind has begun to failllllllllllme.  Let it be known that I am a man who faces death with composure!

Sundae 11.03.12 12:44 AM
I drew a horsey [this note was accompanied by a picture of a horse, also drawn in the author's blood]

Dimanche 11.03.12 12:51 AM
Screenplay idea: a man struggles against the forces of darkness, despite the darkness's horrible smell and Japan spice
[the rest of the screenplay has been omitted from this report for brevity]

In addition, investigators estimate the author used well over the 4 L of blood contained in a single body in writing this screenplay.  DNA testing is currently being used to determine from whom he took the rest.

Sunday 11.03.12 12:64 AM
I don't like Google Chrome.  I just don't.  Too fancy.

Soonday 8.6.75 3:09 AM
They're still out there.  Why?  Why are they still out there?

Monday Monday Why Would You Leave And Not Take Me April 14 802,701 AD
There is no place for me in this world.  Farewell, foul stench.

4 8 15 16 23 42
Oh, wait!  Tomorrow they're serving pancakes, aren't they?  I'm gonna miss that.


There were no more notes.

The People Who Play Pop Music Way Too Loudly

Well, it's all come down to this.  No fewer than six times, some young couple has decided that the entire school, nay, the entire island of Oahu needs to hear their musical selection.  Naturally, I disagree with this stance for many reasons.

First, I should point out exactly how loudly they are playing this music.  I live in the male dorms, in Hale 4.  They live in the married couples dorms (it's an LDS college, that need actually exists) in Hale 2.  They are across the street, and I can hear every lyric with crystal clarity through my own headphones.  I can only imagine how torturous it is for their more direct neighbors.

I say that because I had the delight of learning that:
1) Our dormitory walls are extremely thin, so thin that just because you're singing along with something almost under your breath people can hear it.
2) Just because someone is not Japanese does not mean they do not speak Japanese.
3) Regardless of context, "Pantsu nugeru mon!" sounds wrong in baritone.  It just sounds wroooong.

So I corrected that behavior.  They have not, and unless the walls in Hale 2 are considerably thicker, their neighbors hate them.  Absolutely hate them.  Actually, "hate" is a strong word, which makes me glad I used it.  I'm not sure how, where, or why they got such powerful speakers.

Anyway, my next point is about how awful their musical tastes are.  As I said in my last rant, I don't have a problem with pop music in general; however, I have a problem with bad music, and they seem to have filtered out any tolerable chart-toppers from their playlist of choice.  For example: in general, I like Bruno Mars.  He's not really in my preferred musical style, but I believe him to be perhaps the most talented singer and one of the most talented musicians currently performing.  He has incredible amounts of passion, his voice's timbre is a little weird in all the right ways, it's obvious he truly loves music and he loves making it, and, I'm not ashamed to say it, he's kind of hot.  However, I absolutely despise "The Lazy Song".  It's dull, it's unimaginative, it's annoying, and it's basically Bruno Mars cautiously avoiding anything he does well.  I'll give you one guess which Bruno Mars song they're constantly playing.

At one point, I swear they picked the most annoying part of The Lazy Song and were playing it on an infinite A-B loop for about four minutes.

And that's not even their worst choice.  I have heard "Eenie Meenie", "Tik Tok", "Party Rock Anthem", "Club Can't Even Handle Me Right Now", "Hey Soul Sister"--basically the entire Todd in the Shadows playlist, and then some.

So the first matter at hand is determining why they chose this awful, awful music.  My current hypothesis is based on the fact that BYU-Hawaii is a very international campus, and a little over 50% of the students come from outside the US.  I fear that someone utterly unfamiliar with American culture but desperately wanting to fit in listened to some American chart-toppers and thought, "This is awful, but I guess it's what they listen to."  They picked the most awful songs, assuming them to be consequentially the most American, made them into a playlist, and began blasting them as loudly as possible, in order to fit the American custom of forcing our own opinions upon others.  It's not the worst plan I've ever heard, but I feel I am a casualty of it.

Alternatively, perhaps they come from some backwater dystopia of which I've never heard which is modeled after that Footloose town, and they have never before been exposed to any sort of music.  As soon as they heard music radio for the first time, perhaps Kiss FM or something, these were the first songs they ever heard, and they now hold some sentimental significance.

However, my next point of order and the main focus of this post is to determine how exactly to react.  My first instinct is to wage unilateral and violent warfare against them.  Do not mistake me for some bloodthirsty madman, but I would kind of like to kill them.  I am a rational man.  But they played "Eenie Meenie".

This would be rather difficult, considering I do not know their room number and there are bars around their windows, much as there are bars around everyone's.  I'm not entirely sure why, presumably it's for precisely this reason.

My next plan would be to get a petition going to have them ejected from the university (and, if they are in fact from outside the US, perhaps from the country in the name of thoroughness).  I am not the only person within earshot of their dorm.  I've got all of Hale 2 and much of Hale 4 on my side, and perhaps more.  The on-campus faculty housing is rather nearby as well.  I reiterate, "Eenie Meenie".

Perhaps the least extreme and least effective method of retaliation would be to respond in kind.  I have music.  I have music that most people wouldn't like, least of all them.  However, unless I make my intentions clear beforehand, this may lead to a vendetta against me as well, lead by some other righteous warrior of peace and quiet.  I also lack any speakers powerful enough, having only my iPod and laptop, whose speakers are rather unreliable as it is.

For now, my best course of action is that of passivity: killing them.  Signing off.