With my creation story as inspiration, I thought it only made sense for me to want to marry a Playmate. For almost all of my teenage years, I wanted nothing more than to follow the footsteps of J. Howard Marshall, old dude extraordinaire and brief husband of Playmate of the Year Anna Nicole Smith. I remember my exact thought process was along the lines of, “she can marry me for my money and I’ll marry her for her body. It’s a far trade.”

(In hindsight, to say I was a bit misaligned in my thoughts on a healthy adult relationship would be an understatement. Yet for some reason no one pushed me back in the right direction. Maybe they thought I was joking. Anyway …)

My odd fascination with Playboy continued while I was in the Army. While deployed to Bosnia in 1998, I started a very brief (read: three e-mail) correspondence with Miss October 1994 Jennifer Lavoie. I was so super excited to get an email from a Playmate while a few thousand miles from home. I think I even printed out the emails and hung them over my bunk. Next to making a 35-minute movie about alien invaders, my letter from Jenn Lavoie was the highlight of my Bosnia mission.

Shortly after leaving Bosnia and exiting the Army, I enrolled at FSU. Not knowing a thing about Tallahassee, I signed up to live in the dorms for my first year in college. Being a 22-year old freshman in a dorm full of 18-year olds would have completely sucked if not for meeting two people: my future apartment roommate Zheke Snow and future Playboy Coed of the Week and Road Rules contestant Mary Beth Decker.

While Zheke Snow has little Playboy affiliation that I know off outside of the fact that he dug my poster of December 1993 Playmate Elisa Bridges, Mary Beth and I were friends for her one semester at FSU. She roomed on my floor, we shared Olive Garden, and I also snuck her her first drinks at Potbelly’s bar on our first night in Tallahassee. On that balmy Tallahassee night in August 1999, Mary Beth drove me to Potbelly’s in her Mustang and we talked about Tom Green, Pearl Jam, and how she planned to eventually get a boob job because dresses didn’t fit her small-chested frame.

After only a few months at Florida State, Mary Beth transferred to Texas A&M, where she told me all of her friends from high school went. Lo and behold, in 2003, shortly before I graduated, I saw a familiar face on Playboy.com. Mary Beth had not only gotten her boob job, but changed her hair color from blond to brunette and although she was cute before, her new look made her Playboy model style pretty. A few quick internet searches later, I also found out she was on MTV’s Road Rules and made a name for herself in reality television. I guess because she wasn’t at Florida State for very long, no one in Tallahassee made a big deal of it. But I thought it was cool. We shared cheese sticks.

Playboy girls and I drifted apart after my brief friendship with Mary Beth. In 2004, Playboy made a brief visit to Tallahassee to capture a few pictures for their regular “Girls of ACC” feature. Despite having classes with hundreds, if not thousands of girls at Florida State, I didn’t have any classes with Playboy’s FSU representatives. I did however shop at the local record store where Playboy took several of the girls’ pictures. Sadly, that record store (Vinyl Fever Tallahassee) is no longer open, leaving the Playboy pictorial as one of the few reminders of the place where I could find obscure albums without having to wait five to ten days for delivery.

I went through a bit of a Playboy drought from 2004 to 2010. Although I interviewed one-time-Playboy model-now-porn star Angela McLin on my old site, blogged about one-time Playmate of the Year Carmella DeCesare’s local charity bowling event, and even saw CJ Gibson, sister of December 2005 Playmate Raquel Gibson, at a Tampa beach bar, I didn’t meet, talk to, or make acquaintance with any Playboy models in the flesh.

My Playboy drought finally ended in February 2011 when I met cover girl and then-Tampa Breeze Lingerie Football Player Mikayla Wingle. While working as Social Media Adviser and Special Projects Coordinator for All-Stars Wrestling, I learned the Girls of the LFL were going to be featured in Playboy. After discovering who the Tampa Breeze girl was and finding her contact info, I coordinated for Mikayla to visit All-Stars Wrestling, sign autographs, and even cameo on the local shock jock drive-time radio show.

After exchanging emails and tweets with Mikayla for a few weeks, we finally met at the radio station prior to her going on the air. While we sat in the green room – which by the way wasn’t green – we hit it off and even kinda became quick friends. Mikayla made her appearance on the radio show and then re-met with me and we headed off to the wrestling event. While there, we took some awesome pictures and watched the show, making jokes, cheering, and booing the wrestlers along the way.

Before she left, Mikayla told me she worked at a bar in a Tampa suburb and invited me out to visit whenever she was on shift. After her visit to ASW, I visited her bar once a month to say hello, grab a beer, and catch up on her blossoming modelling and appearance career.

About a month ago, I learned Mikayla was following in the footsteps of my previous Playboy pal Mary Beth Decker and making an appearance on reality TV. But Mikayla wasn’t going to be on a seldom-watched obscure MTV show, she was going for the gusto and appearing on the one of the granddaddies of reality shows, Survivor. So far, she is doing well. Several weeks into the season she is still on the island, making more friends than enemies, and gaining fans and followers by the bushel.

Sometimes it’s weird meeting people who have been in Playboy. I know it’s a great career milestone for models, but as I get older it becomes less exciting of an accomplishment. Although I am proud of them, especially if I know them personally, I am no longer that teenager who wanted nothing more than to marry a Playmate.

These days, I’m not the type of person who will pose with a woman in a one-off meeting (unless it’s Reese Witherspoon, then all bets are off). However, if she is a fun person with a kick-ass sense of humor and she is wholly enamored by the power of the afro then you can bet your sweet bunny ears we will be taking plenty of pics.

And, if by chance, she ends up on a reality TV show, you can also guarantee I’ll be tuning in to support my friend on there as well.

Although back in the day we did not know the author of this great essay on roommates, I have since found it was a gentleman named Dean Rice on a website called Effenheimer.com. Sadly, that site has since closed. So I figured I would re-post the essay here. Everything below is Rice’s work. If he ever finds this, I hope he doesn’t mind, but this essay was that important for me and old Zheke Snow.

Roommates

by Dean Rice

I swear to god, every time I go home, my roommate has touched my shit.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not all about possessions, but it would be nice if the guy would have the goddamn common courtesy to get my con permiso, if you know what I mean.

I didn’t spend three years in the Navy with no privacy sleeping four guys to a bunk so I could go to college and have my stuff fucked with by some sickly, pale looking socialist from Shaker Heights, I tell you what.

For example, I don’t know if you are picky about this shit, but when I watch a porno, I want the god damn thing left where I stopped the tape, am I wrong?

There is nothing more frustrating than coming home from a night at the bar, finding no one home and your favorite spank tape has been forwarded to some part where they’re just talking about how “these car repairs are gonna cost more than I thought” and shit. You’ve got precious few minutes to yourself when you share a dorm room and when you need a good whack, the last thing you need to be doing is scanning for the next doggy style when you left it cued up to the best one. Is this just me? Am I on the wrong track? Am I crazy? What country is this anyway?

Another thing I can’t fucking stand is when the guy leaves his fucking water bottle in MY dorm fridge. There ain’t hardly enough room in there for my sixer of Bud Ice and a chicken pot pie or two for when I come home from the bar and want a salty snack.

Get a drink out of the goddamn fountain you yuppie prick! Comes right out of the fountain colder’n shit. You telling me you need to keep water in my fridge 24-hours a day just in case you need a sip of cold H2O you fucking gel-haired puss?

I was in the Navy for four years before I came to school and I never needed ice-cold water and I WORKED for a living defending my country from barnacles and waxy build-up, you pussy college boy.

I came home from the bar one night and grabbed a potpie and the damn thing was mushy. I thought, “Oh, fuck, my fucking fridge is fucking fucked up!”

Then I checked and the fucking thing was turned down to “6.” I clearly remember setting it on “7″ when I got the damn thing specifically to freeze my potpies and snickers. I never turned it down. So I asked my roommate what the fuck he thought happened… he tells me he had ice in his water so he turned the temp on my fridge down.

WHAT THE FUCK?!

So I told him all calm and rational that if he had ice in his bottled water, he might try letting it sit out on his fucking desk like a normal human fucking being! Then I told him he owed me 63 cents for the fucked up pie. It was only 49 cents, but I figured what the fuck, I might as well get him to pay me for a good one.

And he uses my hand towel. That’s just not hygienic and I should know since I was in the Navy for three years with some of the most unhygienic specimens of humanity before they kicked me out for smoking weed on the flight deck.

I tell you, the next time that scrawny wussy boy jacks around with anything of mine, I’m gonna beat him like a bitch and throw his ass out in the hall.

Am I wrong? Am I over-reacting? Has the train left the station without any passengers?

Does John Denver shit in the woods? This is America, right? This isn’t communist Russia?

I didn’t get on the wrong bus back in Appleton and end up in Canada with the lumberjacks, did I?

I didn’t fucking think so!

Although I didn’t exactly hit the real world until three years later, after two years of grad school sandwiched by six months of unemployment on each side, there is a certain innocence to this, my final article written as an undergraduate student for the FSView and Florida Flambeau.

(Ed. note: I would also write for the paper during that summer and write a companion piece to this article that I’ll post on it’s 8th year anniversary.)

Enjoy.

During my college career at Florida State University, I would estimate I visited about 90 percent of all the popular college bars and clubs in town. Bullwinkle’s, Sloppy Joe’s, Chubby’s, the Irish Pub and the Leon Pub – you name it, I’ve probably been there at least once. Even with all the good times and the large amount of money spent, none of these establishments ever served me a stronger shot than the one I was given at the Leon County Civic Center on May 2nd, 2003.

That night, as I crossed the graduation stage, flipped my tassel and shook President Wetherell’s hand, I was given a “dose of reality.” It is one tough drink to swallow.

True, I knew I wasn’t going to find a job immediately after the semester, but not counting my position here at the FSView & Florida Flambeau, I am now unemployed. Unemployment office, here I come.

Even though it has only been three weeks since I graduated, I feel more and more like Matthew McConaughey’s character in the movie “Dazed and Confused.” You know, the guy who is still hanging around, saying dumb things and acting like he is still in high school. Yeah, that’s me, only on a college level.

Almost overnight, the bars and clubs I used to frequent became “my old college hangouts.” I hope I still resemble a college student in some way, shape or form. I have an eerie fear of being seen as one of those obviously out-of-place older people trying to get their boogie on at Big Daddy’s or Bullwinkle’s. You know who they are.

Like the places I go, most of the people I know have also changed recently. They are all now just “college kids” who don’t know what its like in “the real world.” It’s tough. Trust me. I haven’t got up earlier than 11 a.m. in three weeks.

The next time I hear one of these “college kids” say, “I can’t wait until I graduate.” I am going to quickly grab their cheeks like Adam Sandler did to the chubby third grader in Billy Madison and dole out the same dire warning – “Don’t ever say that.”

There is a lot I am going to miss about college. Studying all night, for example. Nothing beat walking into a classroom after having two hours of sleep the night before, knowing the test I was about to take was 50 percent of my grade.

Now before anyone labels me a procrastinator, keep in mind I was the victim of a vast conspiracy while here at Florida State. Before every semester, my professors, despite being complete strangers from often different departments, would met over coffee and schedule all my tests and papers for the same week. I know it’s true.

Despite my professors’ dubious plans, I managed to graduate with a 3.5 G.P.A. Pretty good, considering my high school G.P.A. was only 2.6. I haven’t met anyone yet with such a large increase. I guess that’s something to be proud of.

But my proudest accomplishment during my time at Florida State University has nothing to do with grades. Thanks to the help and support of many people, including President Wetherell, my idea of erecting a flagpole with an American flag and a POW/MIA flag at the Scott Speicher Tennis Center came to fruition. Although it doesn’t contribute directly to the effort of finding the missing Navy pilot and FSU alum, hopefully this flagpole and the flags it bears will remind people of the plight of Lt. Cmdr. Speicher and the many other service members whose whereabouts are unknown.

Thank you again to all that helped and supported me.

If you think about it, that’s the ultimate job interview. Sure, they are looking at your credentials and all, but appearance counts. Especially if you didn’t die doing something heroic like saving a herd of kids from a burning schoolhouse. Then you have an excuse. But if you die normally, then you better look sharp: teeth brushed, face shaven, and get a haircut. Everyone knows Jesus was the last hippie to go to heaven.

But anyway, a few years ago (seven to be exact), I wrote a piece for the FSU and Florida Flambeau about prophesies and predictions. So being that I don’t have much time left, and that I have more important things to do (like get a haircut), I’m re-posting it here for my final blog post.

Like Ozzy said, see you on the other side.

Preaching the End

Since the dawn of time, humankind has pondered when time will end. Knowing nothing lasts forever, hundreds, if not thousands of philosophers, scientists, religious leaders and everyday laymen have proposed their own ideas on the eventual demise of humanity.

Religion often goes hand-in-hand with apocalyptic forecasts. Just as many beliefs have their own creation story, their teachings usually conclude with a story about humankind’s or even the Earth’s final end. Possibly the most famous of all the end of the world predictions is the Biblical Book of Revelations.

Many organizations travel around the world preaching their interpretation of Revelations to the masses. One such organization, the Sure Word Ministries, recently visited Tallahassee. A flyer describing their 10-night event detailed such sermons as “How Near is Armageddon and the End,” “666 Part 1 and Plagues Upon the Land” and “Revelation’s False Prophet and his Cult Leaders.”

Surprisingly, one of the first “doomsday prophesies” predated the writing of the Bible. According to The Interactive Bible’s online library of date setters of the end of the world, the ancient Thessalonians had heard Christ had returned in 53 A.D. and that “the day of the Lord was near.”

The online library also lists other organizations that have attempted to warn the world of its impending conclusion. The Jehovah’s Witnesses, for example, have issued predictions the world would end in 1874, 1878, 1881, 1910, 1914, 1918, 1925, 1975 and 1984. Another organization, the Jack Van Impe Ministries, predicted disaster in 2001, bringing in “international chaos such as we’ve never seen in our history.” They further added that there will be “drought, war, malaria, and hunger afflicting entire populations throughout the [African] continent,” Islam would be larger than Christianity and “a one-world church will emerge, controlled by demonic hosts.”

Sometimes interpretations of the Bible have directly led to conflict. The online library discusses a 16th Century German peasant named Muntzer who, along with a group of followers, thought attacking the German government would cause God to return. Muntzer believed “the Lord promised that He would catch the cannon balls of the enemy on the sleeves of His cloak.” As could be predicted, Muntzer’s rebellion was suppressed when they were “mowed down by cannon fire.”

Even modern conflict has coincided with apocalyptic predictions. In 1991, Nation of Islam Leader Louis Farrakhan called the Gulf War “the War of Armageddon… the final War.”

Visitors from outer space have been cited as the future cause for the end of humankind as well. According to a Web site appropriately named “It’s the end of the world as we know it…again” (http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/9941), The Sacerdotal Knights of National Security announced in November 1997 that an alien had been captured. This alien cracked under CIA interrogation and “revealed his species’ nefarious plan to attack with a massive space invasion force, stripping the world of every last of its natural resources and enslaving all humankind.”

Opinions on the types of aliens that are planning to invade vary. California psychic Sheldon Nidle claimed that angels would join the “16 million space ships” arriving on Earth in 1996. In stark contrast, Robert Hallman called the extraterrestrials who were planning to destroy the world in 1998 “Satan’s minions.”

Finally, it must be noted that even the most respected historical figures have tried their hand in doomsday predictions. Sir Isaac Newton, famous for his writings on the Law of Gravity, not only wrote that Christ would return in 1715, but according to recent news reports, he also concluded the apocalypse would occur in 2060. Newton further predicted he would be one of the many saints to rule over the earth after this apocalypse.

Especially when it comes to my alma mater.

There are a lot of FSU sports web sites out there. The Internet is full of sites talking about the Noles. But none reached out to me like ScalpEm.com did. The webmaster of ScalpEm.com, NoleCC, was one of the first FSU fans to comment on my work on The Serious Tip and one of the first online people I found I could talk Noles with (it also helps that he is a Mets fan).

I’ve been writing for ScalpEm.com since November 2008. I like to think I wrote some pretty good stuff over there. I like to think I kept it varied. There were times I complained. For example, I was hard on the boosters and tough on the parking situation. But there were times I came out of left field. Those were my favorites. Like when I compared the Florida college football scene to post-WWI geopolitics or when I asked if M&Ms were biased against Florida State.

But alas, like they say in the ending of Dumbo’s Circus, all good things must come to an end. And I wrote my final piece for ScalpEm.com Monday.

Feel free to take a gander.

Jordi’s ScalpEm Farewell – ScalpEm.com

Over the years I have convinced my Dad to wholeheartedly throw his allegiance to FSU. Before I was a Seminole, he could have overlooked college sports without a care. Now he is a diehard supporter.

The other day I received a very strange email from him. He sent me a forward of an email he sent to the M&M candy people in which he asked why there were so few red and yellow M&Ms and so many blue and orange ones in a recent bag he purchased. He also asked the M&M people if they knew blue and orange were the school colors of that hated university down the road. Why wasn’t the closest thing to garnet and gold fairly represented in his bag? Was this a national trend, or did he just get a bag filled by a UF alumnus (probably a math major)?

Less than a week later, my Dad received a response from the M&M people, which he of course also forwarded to me. His sneaking suspicion was correct – there were more blue and orange M&Ms than there were red and yellow ones in every bag. Although it depended on the flavor, in some cases the ratio was almost double.

Here is the response of his inquiry:

Dear Sir,

In response to your email regarding M&M’S CHOCOLATE CANDIES.

Thank you for your email.

Our color blends were selected by conducting consumer preference tests, which indicate the assortment of colors that pleased the greatest number of people and created the most attractive overall effect.

On average, our mix of colors for M&M’S CHOCOLATE CANDIES is:

M&M’S MILK CHOCOLATE: 24% cyan blue, 20% orange, 16% green, 14% bright yellow, 13% red, 13% brown.

M&M’S PEANUT: 23% cyan blue, 23% orange, 15% green, 15% bright yellow, 12% red, 12% brown.

M&M’S KIDS MINIS: 25% cyan blue, 25% orange, 12% green, 13% bright yellow, 12% red, 13% brown.

M&M’S DARK: 17% cyan blue, 16% orange, 16% green, 17% bright yellow, 17% red, 17% brown.

M&M’S PEANUT BUTTER and ALMOND: 20% cyan blue, 20% orange, 20% green, 20% bright yellow, 10% red, 10% brown.

M&M’S PRETZEL: 20% each of red, green, orange, blue and brown.

M&M’S COCONUT: 37.5% white, 37.5% brown and 25% green.

Each large production batch is blended to those ratios and mixed thoroughly. However, since the individual packages are filled by weight on high-speed equipment, and not by count, it is possible to have an unusual color distribution.

Have a great day!

Your Friends at Mars Chocolate North America

Only in a bag of M&Ms Dark are there more red and yellow than orange and blue. And then only by 1%. I don’t know where “my friends” at the Mars Chocolate Co. conducted their “consumer preference tests”, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was somewhere close to Gainesville.

My Favorite Super Bowl Memory – Jan 28, 2008

Wow. What a weekend. It’s great to be a Seminole again.

Here are a few thoughts I have after this rivalry weekend:

On the Gridiron:

• This wasn’t just a win, it was a reawakening. A reawakening of pride, not only in the football team, but in the university. For too long we had to stifle our ability to be loud and proud for fear that someone from another school would ruin our parade. But not anymore. I can wear my Seminole hat or my FSU shirt anywhere in the state with confidence.
• After the Clemson game, I could sense something different – a bit of momentum, if you will. Maybe it was the swelling of confidence. Confidence that carried through the Maryland game and then turned the Gators into roadkill.
• I’ve never been more tempted to drive the 4.5 hours from Tampa to Tallahassee to be part of a post-game celebration.
• Although it was a regular season game, 31-7 was probably one of the biggest wins since 2000.
• To the 100 or so recruits the announcers said were at the game, this isn’t your big brother’s Seminole team. It is not yet your fathers, however. But with your help it could be.

To the Hardwood:

• Although I would have liked to see the win, a close game against #16 is nothing to sneeze at.
• I hate the zone. And so does Leonard Hamilton’s offense.
• Chris Singleton may be turning into Al Thornton II, but he is not there yet. He is good, but not yet great. Great players don’t disappear against tough teams. I know it sounds cliche, but they find a way.
• I’m  not sure I like the formfitting basketball jerseys. They might look good on the players, but I hope they sell the non-formfitting kind. A form-fitting jersey might not look too flattering on me. (Yes, I know, if I hit the gym that wouldn’t be a problem. Trust me, that will be on my New Year’s resolution list.)
• Speaking of Singleton, I recently finished ESPN.com writer Bill Simmons “Book of Basketball”. In this book, Simmons coins a new stat called “stock” – blocks + steals. I bet dollars to donuts Chris Singleton leads the ACC in “stocks” this year.
• I like the phrase “dollars to donuts”. I should use it more often.
• Michael Snaer is an assassin. When he gets hot, he is NBAJamz video game good. He reminds me a bit of Isaiah Swann with his three-point ability. Right now and based only on the FSU-FL game, I think Snaer is better at swinging a game than Chris Singleton.
• Singleton reminds me of a Zach Randolph of the Memphis Grizzles type of player. You watch him score, but you don’t realize he has 20 points and 10 rebounds. He seems like a “quiet” scorer.

Finally, a nail-biting loss to #16 might be tough to take, but considering the a butt-stomping we gave on the football field, I had plenty to be thankful for this Thanksgiving weekend.

I bet dollars to donuts you did too.

Hint: there was a 55-yard game winning field goal. How could I not have a great time?

Observations from a trip to Doak – ScalpEm.com

Four years ago, like many incoming Florida State students, I stood in line outside the FSU bookstore, waiting patiently to get my FSU ID card. After what seemed like hours, I finally got my picture taken and was handed my brand new, hi-tech ID card.

As I proudly left the ID Card Center, I slipped my new card into my wallet. There it joined the other inhabitants of my small, black leather billfold – my driver’s license, military ID card, ATM card, a couple of dollars, and a recently placed Trojan condom, which I thought wouldn’t be a bad idea to have on me. After all, Florida State University was just named the number one party school in the nation and its student body was, and still is, over 50-something percent female. It couldn’t hurt to be prepared.

In the days and weeks that followed, the condom made a home in my wallet. It befriended already established residents such as the ATM card, who every time it left brought back with it money – those transient presidential portraits who never seemed to stay more than a day or two. Money surely could never be called a “wallet fixture,” a title the condom hoped it too would never have.

When was its day in the sun, the condom quickly came to ask. There were nights, Fridays and Saturdays in particular, when it would get its hopes up. It would watch as the ATM card would get money before going to the club, the driver’s license was used to get in the establishment and the money would leave and never return once inside the club. The condom knew its role was in the closing act of a fortunate night that never seemed to arrive, the final runner in a relay race that never seemed to reach its last lap. Patiently, it awaited its baton, its imaginary arms outstretched.

Bad luck seemed to plague the provalactic. Its mere existence was cursed. Months turned to years as the condom recalled legends of unfortunate “rubbers,” as they were called in the early days, which had “dried up” and had to be discarded before ever being used. Its lack of use was not from lack of trying, the condom was told. But after the first dozen or so wrong phone numbers and several mismanaged dates, the condom started to count down the days to its expiration, like an inmate on death row awaiting execution.

Why was it here and not in the wallet of a more socially fortunate soul, the condom wondered. Others formed in Trojan factory, those with whom the condom had an almost brother-like bond, had long served their purpose, protecting their masters and dying on the frontline with honor and dignity. The condom tried hard not shed a tear of despair.

The only source of pride the condom had was in an unmistakable ring it was leaving on the outside of the wallet. A ring that if the condom was used quickly it would have never had the opportunity to make. A consolation prize in the losing game that was the condom’s depressing existence.

On May 2nd, 2003, the condom joined me as I walked across the graduation stage. With one flip of a tassel, I became an alumnus and the condom, with its four-year birthday quickly approaching, was now an institution in my wallet. It had seen many changes sweep the wallet landscape and survived them all. My driver’s license had been replaced twice, ATM cards had changed banks, military ID card expired and even my shiny new FSU ID card had fallen apart, only to be replaced with a newer, more hi-tech card.

Thank goodness the condom has two more years left until its expiration. Two more years of keeping hope alive.

Picture from this Sexual Health site.