A Collection of Angelfire Posts for Posterity pt 2 - 2004

Thee Archives de '04 
12-11-04
Sometimes its hard living in a city with no night. Sometimes winter makes me sad. Sometimes I just want to scream and punch and flail and show everyone how average they are because they think that I am something special.

12-04-04
Gosh, has there been something lately about authors that abbreviate their names? or is that just me? ~ J.D.Haan

11-15-04

Yesterday I got a mini-tape recorder. Already its revealed some interesting things. Maybe I'll even put them on here when I remember to bring it with me to a computer terminal. Addendem: Lee, you need to call me about Christmas.

Update: 11-27-04
As promised, here are some of the excerpts that exemplify my existance. : :

- Uh, first question: Derek tells me its because of Nietzsche and sad bastard music, we'll never talk the same.

- Sometimes I wonder if, uh, love seats are just ordinary couches that someone snuck in and stole the middle sections from, left the leftover, unwanted sides to.

- It seems the crackling of your teeth betrays as you open your mouth with your fake grin.

- And in this dream the village was being terrorized by some mad scientist and his giant wolf dog dragon creation and everyone was leaving the village in fear which I think was his intent and I was left in the only house left with this whiny olde grandmother and this soft, late middle aged father with short, spiky grey hair. The entire thing led up to some armouring and some fighting, some first person perspective climax. He came back into the house wounded, but he'd done it, he'd killed the, killed the creature, and killed the creator. He laid down on the floor as though to die. He said, "Well, I suppose thats about it for me" I grabbed him. My voice cracked with emotion "Don't leave me. I couldn't even kill a dragon on my own yet." He got back up and he said "I guess I can carry on then. Anyways," he says, "I guess its about Derek's turn then right?"

- Been thinking, love the sound of a Hammond B-3. There's gotta be some drums behind it, doing kind of a descending scale. Doesn't have to be complicated. Pretty neat sound though.

- There's something a lot more significant to me about Bob Seeger's Turn the Page. I'd rather listen to that than just about anything by Rush.

- I really hate when, uh, certain things are emphasized. Either by being bigger or being capitalized. Like, if you were to read it out loud, you would say ridiculous things because you'd have to yell whenever there was an exclamation mark, or three, that's another pet peeve. How about 'LAND of the FREE' or 'these colors don't RUN' Yeah, ok that proves a point somewhere. Get a grip.

- (me)Start talkin' (Derek)Is the light on? I don't think its on(me)It's on (Derek)Is it? (me)Yeah look at it (Derek)Oh my gosh. (me)Derek has declared that he hates family and American holidays. (Derek)It's true. Did you know they released the Nirvana box set? Did you know Franz Ferdinand was offered a cameo spot on the latest Harry Potter film? (all around laughter)

- I don't know if there's a lot more thats drifter than eatin' a sandwich on the road. There's just somethin' about trying to bite around your fingers, leaning all the way forward to the steering wheel, cause.. somebody's gotta hold the tape recorder. I just thought I'd share that.

- All this snow everywhere gives me all these mixed feelings. I feel sad and I feel happy and I feel proud and I'm up and I'm down and I wanna sleep and I wanna run and I wanna make films and I'm not doing any of it. I'm just driving through it. This is some sort of metaphor for my life.

- It occured to me that the vomitorium still exists in the bar bathrooms because alcohol slows down the digestive tract, so, no one poops at a bar. They're there solely to vomit into. Because, the sink clogs up.

10-23-04

I haven't decided yet which is a more worthy reflection; the last time I bought something with just a penny, or how few people if any actually see this page. Those of you who used to come and read it out of some sort of sympathy have given up hope and those I refer to it, never really pay attention. So here is my new song:

When I'm drinking, I develop this strange pride in everything I do or say. This pen bleeds ink too easily. Rachel's on the phone with her sister, so that will be another hour or so. So here I sit and write and wait for her undivided attention again. Is it okay that I write while I'm drinking? The pen is held so lightly above the paper that its a miracle I ever make contact at all. A mysterious sound crystallizes out of the speakers. A couple of seconds pass. I let them. Then I realize its a saw. Someone is playing a saw. With a surety and a delicacy I can only begin to grasp. That was neat though. Maybe someday I'll learn that too. Do I have the time? Do I have the initiative? Well yes and no.

"Thats why everybody was laughing so. I tried to laugh too. I couldn't. I became sad, frightfully sad, sadder than I've ever been in all my life. I don't know what came over me."

"This is the story that makes you laugh in your sleep, the story that starts the tears flowing when you are in the middle of a ballroom and suddenly realize that none of the people around you know what a genius you are. How they would laugh and weep if they could only read what you have not yet written because every word is absolutely true and so far nobody has dared to write this absolute truth except yourself and this true book which is locked up inside you, would make people laugh and weep as they have never laughed, never wept before."

09-05-04
Ramen Journal #15
Flavor: Roast Beef
Ramen Rating: Rotten Cheap
Name Accuracy: Actually some odd little essence of leftovers.
Stench: After my recent foray into Chinatown, I can say with authority: the underside of a Chinaman's shoe. Dude, Chinaman is no longer the preferred nomenclature.
Comments: To my knowledge, the last of the Maruchan Ramen flavour variety. One sad day for the Ramen Journals. One giant leap for the Ramen Journals. And Jasper Johns.
Cooking tips: Scramble yet another egg. Put in the ramen. Eat. Maybe eat Pork flavour instead with a scrambled egg, some pork, and a little bit of Pica-Pica.

Ramen Journal #14
Flavor: Picante Beef
Ramen Rating: Aldi Cheap
Name Accuracy: Not beefy. It's Ramen for shite's sake. A bit hot like 'aaugh'. No, that's not it. Aaugh in the back of the throat.
Stench: Vague, almost fruity
Comments: Better than beef. Which is to say, better than a kick in the eye with a steel toed boot.
Cooking tips: Add cabbage and onions to the mix. Maybe a scrambled egg. Maybe some chicken breast. Maybe eben the 100 year egg. But probably not.

08-18-04
Margarine is now a suitable replacement for butter

Today I had my first really paying couple of hours of hospital work. It was mostly boring. I sat around a lot and waited for my nurse to put me to work. She was doing a lot of paperwork. I guess I can't really help too much with that. But then someone died. For those of you who don't know my darkest secrets, I have never seen a fresh corpse. Yes, I've been to a haunted house, a few funerals, and Wal-Mart; but never anything newly dead. More firsts today:

 - First toe-tagging

 - First body-bagging

 - First bringing a body to the giant Frigidaire in the hospital basement

 - First going back to the basement to find the body because the family decides now they want the wedding ring.

 - We used margarine. We despoiled a dead body. I am now a veritable tomb raider.

08-11-04
Strange things one learns in the South. In a smalltown, proclaiming your own ignorance as a political platform is widely accepted. The word "f'reel" is fairly common. And not in a rap supastar sense. "I told ma doctor I didn't f'reel good. He tol me you ain't een godda feyver" And lastly every man who comes into the bank is sporting a healthy mustache. And the ones that don't, well there's just something funny about that them that took me awhile to figure out. Then I realized. They don't have a mustache.

07-21-04!
That's right. I haven't written here in awhile. Its ok though I know two people that read it. One of them is me. I've graduated college. I've seen Kill Bill 2. And liked it. I've taken tons of review for my boards. I've interviewed for roughly 1O jobs. I have no job. I took my boards. For roughly 65 hours, or the amount of time since then, I've seriously considered working at a guitar store, joining a monastic sect, driving to Canada and not coming back, and various other forms of soft suicide. But my car died. So none of those are going to work. I am sitting at someone else's computer putting off paying the 8 bucks to see my results early (which I almost didn't do because of the principle of the matter, but my drunckle donated a couple bones to the cause). Hence this entry. If you hear nothing, assume I failed and had to go console myself with some Canadian brew now that my car is working again. Or assume I'm out celebrating with some Molson. And I would walk five hundred miles. And I would walk five hundred more...

P.S. I just noticed that most of 'pass' is 'ass' Maybe thats good.

04-19-04

Good idea: Pitting Alex Trebec, Regis Philbin, and Bob Barker against each other on some syndicate game show

Bad idea: Swearing at inanimate objects when you feel helpless

Good idea: Watching Scarface with my favorite cocka-roach.

Bad idea: Writing a complete resumé the night before I need it.

Good idea: Sitting on the couch outside blocking sidewalk traffic all day.

Bad idea: Videotaping a duck hand puppet being dragged behind a car.

Good idea: Stop blogging when you run out of ideas.

Bad idea: Blogging anyways.

04-05-04
Cars that it will soon be very cool to ghetto up

Remember when it was cool to rhyme about a 6-4 Impala? The Monte Carlo has had its day in the sun as well. Next on the stage, we have an entire series of cars that just cry out for the bling-bling gangs to feature them in their videos with 24 inch rims and 3 coats of sparkle blue paint. Chevy has been a real winner. The Nova, the Celebrity, the Rendezvous. But let us not forget the Ford Probe. Why just this weekend I spotted a bright orange Probe with racing vinyl and a spoiler on the back big enough to make any jigga show his gold fronts. You learn a lot in Michigan I guess. Like don't stick your tongue out while you're on a pogo stick. And don't tell crazy olde men you jumped their four-wheeler into an almost frozen lake. Even if you did. Regardless, these cars will soon be seen in any major midwestern city parading the scrilla on Saturday night whence we shall all commence partying like its someone's date of birth. Word.

03-01-04

Archival
In an ongoing effort to contain all my rage, I've put all of last year's entries onto an
archives '03 page.
Please adjust your seatbacks accordingly.

02-27-04

Try it cause its new!
Todays thing that sucks: overly baggy turtlenecks. They don't keep you warmer than normal turtlenecks, they make you look like you are trying to cover an extraordinarily itchy hickey, and, pete's sake people, when has fashion ever been the thing to do?

02-25-04

Fitness water is nonsense
Drinking is for a reason. If I want to drink soda, its going to be for caffeine or carbohydrates. Take away either of those and I fail to see the point. Recently an epidemic of men drinking Diet Coke with Lime has really been upsetting me. These men are by no means fat. Nor do they need that extra chemical in their mouth that says, "hey don't forget about me, I prevent scurvy!" but really doesn't.

Next point: fitness water. Fitness water? Isn't any water that doesn't have 5% salt or more in it good for you? Who's the marketing genius who came up with this one? Lets flavor water and sell it as healthy. I decided to try some of this fitness water. Within 10 minutes of downing the bottle I was ready to dunk a basketball or ski a biath-lon, but instead just ended frotteurizing all the kids in my building.

Last one: fitness beer. This is so ridiculous I don't even know how to respond. I don't drink beer for the taste, if I did, O'douls would be my choice poison. I don't need Michelob to tell me that they have a beer just for me and if I really wanted to stay in shape I would drink it. Because thats what athlete's do.

02-24-04

My professor is a ninja-turtle
In class I do progressive drawings. Nursing classes are boring. I think I've mentioned this. I made a drawing of the lines around my professor's mouth. This turned into a cartoon character. In phase three, it grew a handlebar style mustache. My professor is a french cartoon. After trying out a serious of expressions, around phase seven, the cartoon grew agitated by the pervasive invective towards physicians and grimaced mightily. Phase eight it becomes Donatello. Nine is a profile view of a ninja masked eye. Phase ten becomes some new sort of creature independent of any sort of respiratory or digestive system. I redrew phase ten but it needed a something. Phase eleven it becomes some sort of bird obviously rolling its only eye at the thought that baccalaureate registered nurses are morally superior by default to licensed vocational nurses. Bite me you stupid bird. You never laughed at my jokes.

02-18-04
Bigamy

Today I started posting on a different site. Not because I like to. Not because I enjoy the lack of creative freedom. But because its accessible to other members of this group. Its true: I have joined the XANGA. Prepare to be assimilated. I think its this link:
Hope & Compromise

02-11-04

Death and Role-Playing
Nursing classes are boring. Nursing students are boring, whether as a cause or as a result, the question remains. Today was my latest attempt to stimulate spontaneity, randomness, conversation not regarding nursing or who got engaged last weekend, etc.  I would love to travel. I look at the map. Greenland is owned by Denmark. Amazing. I should visit. On the board in front of class I write:

Places to Visit in Greenland:

 - Scoresbysund

 - Upernivik

 - Sjorapaluk

 - Angmagssalik

 - Savigsavik

One student asks: "Places to visit in Greenland?" Everyone else accepts it as truth and copies it down into their notebooks. (ok I didn't see this last part, but I assure you its like this)
As further evidence of the ineptitude boredom leads to boring or vice versa argument, I cut out a piece of the psychiatric nursing test I took this morning. In the line of patient questioning it goes like this:
"Are you taking any alcohol in any form?" This always gets to me. Nurses not only refer to alcohol as something you don't drink, you use, but they aren't even aware of whether it comes in pill form or not. They in turn rely on the psychiatric patient to enlighten them. I think I'm out of my league.

02-04-04

THE List
Other things to add to the list:

 - Things I like: Being outside late at night and watching the lights go out one at a time in someone else's house.

 - Things I detest: People who let out a little giggle and occasionally drop their head down and forward (kind of like a pigeon) when they decide to share the mundane details of their useless life with me. No I don't think its cute that we have a new assignment. No I don't find it amusing that you disagree but can see my point. No I DON'T think its funny that you're cold.

 - Things I detest: In a list of three things, when writers decide to put a comma after the first item but not the second.

 - Things I detest: When I'm writing and the end of the line breaks up a sentence fragment or I have to waste a line by putting a single word by itself on it because it wouldn't fit otherwise.

 - Things I like: Popping bubble wrap.

 - Things I detest: When someone uses "irregardless" instead of "regardless". The same goes for orientated/oriented, commentated, commented, etc.

 - Things I detest: People already stopped inching forward at a red light.

 - Things I like: Blowing out candles and watching the smoke.

 - Things I detest: People using the heart to symbolize love.

 - Things I like: Books with matching bindings.

 - Things I like: Voices resonating through bedsprings.

 - Things I like: Van art.

 - Things I like: The sound pots half filled with water make against the side of the sink.

 - Things I detest: The words 'savory', 'tasty', or 'slather'

 - Things I detest: Men who fake-bake. Maybe fake-baking in general...

 - Things I detest: Self-assessments

02-02-04

The One About the Haircut
Friday I got my hair cut for the first time in almost a year. Not because of the near constant prodding from my mother and classmates, but because frankly, I was tired of its malicious eye-stabbing ways. Not a bad hair cut mind you, but anytime someone removes 6 inches + of any part of you, you're going to notice. I've been collecting comments all day. Maybe I'll update this later today.

Person #1

"Your hair looks nice Jon"

 - I had a hat on

Person #2

"Let me see your hair.."

 - "No way"

"Please.."

 - "No, I look like a cancer patient"

Person #3

"Holy cancer patient!"

 - After removing my hat (this was about an hour after person #2)

Person #4

"Jon, I like your haircut"

 - Still wearing aforementioned hat

Person #5

"Why did you cut your hair? Aren't you cold?"

Person #6

"Hey, you're Jonathan!"

 - my cousin

Person #7

"Gaah! Why?!"

Person #8

"Nice haircut Jon"

 - Still still wearing that hat

Person #9 (the band conductor)

"Jon, is that hat hiding something?"

 - I hide behind my baritone

"Its the olde Jon I knew! I was just bragging to my doctor about you.

"We decided you should go to grad school and become a..a..uh.."

 - "a P.A?"

"Yeah, one of those"

 - "Uh, are you paying for it then? Or is he?"

"Well I could adopt you, you could move to Canada and go to school there for free..."

 - "But then my degree would be worthless..."

01-20-04
Today was carnage at the bookstore. Three required books and three books I needed. I don't think it should be frowned upon to buy more books than your courses demand. Especially when you can get a book used that's as good as new for 3/4s the price. I may be the only one on campus though buying books for classes I'm not in because I want to read them. Today's book lust continues with More's Utopia, Solzhenitsyn's Ivan Denisovich, and Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Unfortunately these go to the bottom of the pile of other books to read.

01-14-04
I finally got a response to my PETA suggestion box, but it was a MESSAGE UNSENT alert. So I'm looking to the info line for either resending it or the suggestion box page.

01-12-04
Often my source for really cool and/or lame things on the internet, Dirty comes to rescue me from a blogging rut. Now I too can become a lifetime member for only $29.95 credit card or money order. To what you ask? To get paid to drive me car with a huge advertisement on it. Yarr, that's right, its a pirate car. Or even better, I can get a new car with ads already all over it. I can get paid up to $3200 per month. All I have to do to apply is send in my thirty bones and fill out some credit card application or sign up for a 30-day product trial. Then I'll be eligible for my free gift card of $50. $50.. $50... I thought I was signing up to drive my car around with an ad on it... Maybe the fee is for the free gift card. As you can clearly( http://www.freecardirectory.net/ ) see, the details aren't all that clear except for that they're sure you will be 100% satisfied and they do accept credit cards. If you really like the idea, you can become an affiliate and get $12 for every $30 sign-up fee you rein in. This is starting to look more like a pyramid scam. And less like a good idea. Ah well, click at your own risk.

01-04-04
Yesterday the dog we've had for 10 years or so got his foot run over. Not a big deal, but he's an olde dog. We weren't sure if he'd make it, and my dad didn't want to see him suffer. He was ready to take him out back and give him the leaden goodbye. This of course was neither ok with my mom nor really necessary. Once we bandaged the foot up and gave him some shots, he started walking on it again. Watching my dad go through this was nothing new to me. I've seen him deal with family member death before. He hates seeing them suffer and just waiting around for death. And in this case, its a dog, so its legal to put him down yourself. This got me thinking about when he gets older. There is no doubt in my mind that he secretly pines for some sort of Viking funeral. Where death is nothing to be feared, but to be embraced with all of one's possessions. I wish our family had traditions like that. The burning ships, the killing of all the servants, extravagant, beautiful, pagan traditions. I feel I have to let him. What do you say to a man when he knows his time has come?

But things were already busy getting out of hand...

Books I read in 2004

J.R.R. Tolkien - The Return of the King
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Two Towers
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Fellowship of the Ring
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
J.D. Salinger - Raise High the Roof Beam Carpenters / Seymour
C.S. Lewis - The Last Battle
C.S. Lewis - The Silver Chair
C.S. Lewis - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
C.S. Lewis - Prince Caspian
C.S. Lewis - The Horse and His Boy
C.S. Lewis - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis - The Magician's Nephew
Michael Crichton - Jurassic Park
Alfred W. Crosby - The Measure of Reality
William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood
Henry Miller - Black Spring
Edith Wharton - Ethan Frome
Robert Cormier - After the First Death
Michael Crichton - Travels
Brian Jacques - Redwall
Ayn Rand - For the New Intellectual
C.S. Lewis - The Screwtape Letters
Michael Crichton - Rising Sun
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - 100 Years of Solitude
Clive Cussler - Valhalla Rising
Susanna Kaysen - Girl, Interrupted
Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes
John Steinbeck - Of Mice and Men
Sir Walter Scott - Ivanhoe
Ayn Rand - The Early Ayn Rand
Oscar Wilde - The Portrait of Dorian Gray and other works
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels - The Communist Manifesto
Friedrich Nietzsche - Thus Spoke Zarathustra
S.E. Hinton - The Outsiders
Thomas Pynchon - The Crying of Lot 49
Thomas More - Utopia
Upton Sinclair - The Jungle
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn - One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
Tom Clancy - The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince
Robert M. Pirsig - Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
Michael Crichton - A Case of Need
Aldous Huxley - Time Must Have a Stop
George Orwell - 1984
George Orwell - Animal Farm
Francois Voltaire - Candide
Lewis Carroll -Through the Looking Glass
Lewis Carroll - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
J.D. Salinger - Nine Stories

A Collection of Angelfire Posts for Posterity pt 1 - 2003

an understatement and things long forgotten
Thee Archives de '03

12-31-03
Its a real shame when people tell me to put some clothes on because I'm making them cold. The shame is that I don't tell them to leave because they are making me ugly and fat. Why can't being around me make them witty? Or at least make them have a high enough opinion of their person not to degrade themselves by whining about the weather? Oh happy new year I guess.

12-28-03
In this house time has no meaning. Today has dragged on interminably. But I can wait. I have waited so long already. Not really for anything in particular, more for anything in general. Something has got to happen. But today is nothing. No change, the clocks don't move, the sun is frozen in the sky. The family lazes around yelling at me to keep quiet. The newspaper is read. The books are done. The meal is finished. Limbo has officially been breached. This is simply the worst day of my life. Not because anything terrible has happened, but because nothing has happened. And since this day is so akin to my previous ones, every day like this is the worst day of my life. Days when there is nothing to do. There are things to do really, but you don't feel like doing them. There is food to eat, but you aren't hungry. You could swear you already used the bathroom 20 times. And the only thing that breaks the tedium is the uneven period of time between the noise of trucks passing by outside. At least in solitary confinement, prisoners don't have to put up with their families.

12-23-03
People are animals too

People feel sorry for animals. It might be the skinny mutts you see on the National Geographic Channel. It might be that pitiful mewing your new kitten spends all night tormenting you with. It might be the way your half of a puppy looks at you before breathing its last after being maimed by a Honda CRX.

I'm really not too much different than normal people apart from a few minor exceptions. I don't like faux-Mexican restaurants. I hate the concept of non-alcoholic beer. I loathe the words "tasty" and "savoury". Just things like that. Anyways, I'm beginning to think that circus animals actually hate PETA. This organization believes that the dairy is cruel to cows, eggs are cruel for chickens, and the circus is cruel to the animals. Hey man, no one really likes their job that much, but you have to pay the bills. And since there is no animal welfare system, I have taken it upon myself to instate a...well, an animal welfare system. So without picking up a taste for Pabst Blue Ribbon, I had to find somewhere to help me research the welfare system. I started out this evening by conferring with my vegan buddy Dirty and then sending in for advice to PETA's idea/suggestion box. Here's the text of the letter:

Hello, long-time listener, first-time writer. I have an idea for circus animals and their ilk. The circus owners and caregivers can be very cruel to these poor creatures of the wild, but I'm sure you already know this. Freeing these animals from the daily grind is a great start, but by taking them from their jobs, you also take their livelihood. I was thinking it would be cruel to just leave these animals out in the cold, especially in the holiday season. A welfare system for them could be instated. Once they qualify, their new caregivers could be given animal food stamps to help keep them fed on soy products and sheltered from the elements. Even if this can't be done, at least some sort of workanimal's compensation program could be started. This would at least help the animals pay for their health care when their cruel masters maltreat them. Hope to hear from you soon,

Keep the tofaith

JonD

Their suggestion box link is of course broken. This brings me to this crazy page that has suggestions of how to fix the problem. Email them here, or try writing it again, or go vegan. Not believable, but true.
I may yet be disavowed from my family from even looking at PETA pages, but hey when in Rome eh? Its a darn shame I have to be in Hanford. No word yet...

12-20-03
Driving presents two separate 2-way paradoxes for me. I hate driving somewhere when I know I should be doing something else. Just the thought that I have to waste time getting somewhere irks me. I should just be there and get whatever I need taken care of. The worst cases are when there is a) heavy traffic or b) somewhere I don't want to go (read: home) In the last year or two, though, I have discovered just driving. Get this: I'm working on all this crap that no human being should willingly suffer (but we do) without thoughts of insurrection and the only thing that lets me relax at all is driving. I just have to leave. Pulling out of a driveway and seeing no traffic is unbelievable. Its like coming up for air, taking a big one and having your ears de-pressurize at the same time. Now this driving can be pretty specific. There can't be anywhere I have to go. Like those wretched car commercials, it is actually driving that matters, not being wherever your otherwise vain imitation of a life thinks you should be. If there is a destination, then no time frame is allowed. I'll get there when I effing get there. Deal with it. Also the car has to be one of two persuasions. It can either be fast and sleek, or most likely: my car. This brings me to my next point.
When I'm driving the smaller car, I hate SUV drivers. They come up fast on my tail and the front grille is reminiscent of nothing less than a craven maw bearing down on me. Piss off. I'm driving here. I just want to get out and throttle that soccer mom driving by herself getting three gallons to the mile on the way to the mall talking on her cellphone with some disturbingly butchered classical song as the ringer. Here comes the fun. The car I drove most often is my own: a Chevrolet 4-door Tahoe. Its big. Its black. It has empty bullet casings in the console. It has no sense of pity. This makes it everything you'd fear meeting in that downtown alley. When I drive it, I become everything I hate about SUV drivers, particularly if I'm feeling unusually spiteful. I bear people down. I force my way into lanes. They may be faster, but I AM bigger.
The most curious part about all of this is coming back home and driving around. No matter what the car is, I still pull the olde farmer driving style. Whatever's out that driver's side window is much more important than oncoming traffic. Did I mention what a great driver I am?

12-12-03
Exam Week : Day 5 : Flammable vs. Inflammable

I still don't know the difference. I know that 'flammable' burns, but according to last night's test, Lysol which clearly states: Danger - Inflammable Keep away from open flame, heat source, spark, bla, bla, bla, burns very well. Even on shoes.

We headed out about midnight, never sure what to expect, only that the weather was already witch-teat-cold. After thousands of letters alight, we decided it would be a good idea to light our shoes on fire. Which continued to be a good idea. This was probably the least resistance books have ever put up to our flames. When there were only a few pages left to go and the ashes had all been sifted, we noticed someone running jogging puffily towards us. It was security guy Norm. Both Dirty and I used to work security so we knew Norm, but we were also expecting art-fag Sam to have the rounds where we were. Guess not.

Norm: Hey! What are you guys doing!? (yelling from a ways off)
Me: Uh, putting out a fire (begin stamping books and flames and hiding flammable aerosols in my backpack)
Norm: How did this get started?
Us: (stamp, stamp, stare at shoes)
Norm: Hey, how did this get started?
Us: (stamp, stamp, stare at shoes)
Norm: Guys?
Rach: We just got back from studying and found this fire.
Me: We were just putting this fire out.
Norm: I'll go get some water (Norm leaves to go get water from the chapel nearby)
Me: Holy crap! We'll be local heroes!
Dirty: Thankfully staring at my shoes is now a suitable replacement for talking (Norm comes back)
Me: So, uh, Norm, how's the evening going? Pretty eventful?
Norm: No. Uh, did you guys start this?
Me: Now Norm, would we start this?
Rach: They were just leaving when we got here.

Here I grab the bucket and start throwing the smoulders into it. Norm leaves after I offer to take a picture of him. Rachel takes a picture of him as he walks off. We go back to my room have a drink and go back to work on some sculpture. It is then 2:30am. The burn page is started. God bless the college life.

12-11-03
Exam Week : Day 4 : Unscheduled reschedulings
(0830)Purportedly, the whole class minus me and two wenches knew the exam was rescheduled an hour later. I really could have used that extra hour to catch up on my studying sleep. Instead, I wandered the campus for half an hour looking for the rest of my class. So now I'm in here doing what I do best: wasting my effing time. I almost died several times trying to get here on time. Hurry up and wait. Welcome to senior year. Yeah, in college. Shouldn't scheduled overlookings like this have been done away with in high school? Professionalism is at a new low. This is why we burn books like the NAZIs we should have been. Hopefully I have that site started tonight.

(1000)Fit has hit the shan. The practice test put out by this nursing test company (that incidentally also wrote the real test) gave me a 97.3% correct. I thought sounded encouraging. So I took the real one. Really wretched difficult. Not to complain unjustly, not to cry over a B+, but I got 15% correct on the actual test. Does this strike anyone as cruel? The rest of the day was spent lying in wait, armed to the teeth. Anything, a freshman, or a roomate would suffice. I just need something to skin.

12-10-03

Exam Week : Day 3 : Saturday #1

Today I have off. No nasal hemorrhage, no nightmarish computer tests gang aft agley, no school lunchies. I've been sitting here for the last hour thinking about not thinking and when I'm going to get my hair cut.

I no longer have the shortest hair in the class. I am the only guy though. The estrogen waves that ebb and flow daily make it obvious to me that girls don't like/handle well 1) temperature changes of more than 2 degrees F and 2) me having hair that covers my ears. 'Maybe thats why men don't listen' they whisper almost sub-audibly. 'Why doesn't he just cut his hair?' is usually louder. As is traditional, I wait for the first snow of the year to separate myself from all this dead protein I seem to have become so attached to. This is of course a big fat deal to me as this hair now weighs more than my skull (assuming each is removed and weighed individually). Its more than just a tradition though. All summer, my dear mother took my refusal to trim the 'do as a direct insult to her. My father would of course sing the Cowsills' hit song from the 70's, "Hair" everytime she mentioned getting it cut. 25 years ago, she married this man with hair much longer than mine. But I digress, this hair has become principle. I won't change for you. I won't be guilted by faulty accusations. I won't stop driving with the windows down simply because I can't see a blasted thing.

I leave school back to my happy home on Saturday. ITS DECEMBER! VHERE IZ ZE SNO? It never snows in sunny

foggy central California. So that means I'll be waiting till mid-January for my triumphal return to school with hopes for colder weather, a bigger visual field, and that no one stole my stuff over break.

12-09-03
Exam Week : Day 2 : Not going to make it
(10:30) I CAN'T make myself care about this! I've been trying for hours. This is just nonsense. Either fail me or give me a license. I don't care. Just something.
(18:30) I guess I kind of forgot to mention the steak that almost ate your face. Leftovers and finding last semester's entry about it kind of reminded me. Friday night, Dirty, Patrick, and some significant girls went out for the annual man-vs-steak beatdown. It was going pretty well until I started singing along to the birthday song at a table across the room. Bad habit, but I just have so many happy birthday wishes to get out. It was bad luck. The Fates decreed my doom thusly: my intrusion on others' conversations would be duly punished by intrusion on the rest of my evening. And sure enough. This walking resonance chamber of a woman was seated near us and found this funny. Or something funny. Or anything and every-effing-thing funny. We weren't sure what to do exactly apart from turn back to the meatpile. Never before have I put more than a dab of A1 on my meat. The same for Dirty and Patrick. But by the end of the night, we had gone through the entire bottle of it and I, for one, couldn't remember having any of it. Also, at this point I was messed up enough to think I wasn't full, but upon attempting to eat, I soon found my jaw had locked. She just kept laughing.
Final thought: Kenny Gorlick would never have sold that many records with a name like that.

12-08-03

Exam Week : Day 1 : Blood! That's supposed to be on the inside!

Some weeks can just break your heart. This is going to be one of them. I'm 21 years olde, why am I being quizzed? I'm not a child do you hear me? AM NOT AM NOT AM NOT! Exam week is like flushing when your roomate forgets to. You don't want anything to do with it, but if you don't, nothing will ever get passed again.

Sorry, I'm at a bit of a blood loss right now. 8 questions into my first final today, my nose decided it was time to commit suicide. Now, rather than contemplate the moral reasons why it shouldn't, it just decided to do it before it chickened out. I wiped my nose because I felt something and remembered that my profs mark off for unhygienic papers, but I got red when I expected something clear-ish. Quickly springing into evasive action, I held my nostril shut for the next 92 questions. I got up once to ask a question and the teacher just smiled at me. [why does he have his thumb up his nose? sigh, boys will be boys] Later on when I was cleaning my hands off, I looked in the mirror and could only see this Peter Criss make-up scheme done all in real blood. I laughed harder than one should who'd just bold-facedly displayed bodily fluids as fashion accessory to a superior.

12-05-03
Ramen Journal #13
Flavor: Lime Chili Shrimp
Ramen Rating: Dirty Cheap
Name Accuracy: Limey. Chili. Not shrimpy unless it was buried under the habaneros.
Stench: Like lime. (coff) Like chili.
Comments: Excellent (coff) flavour. Very spicy. Had me panting and coughing for quite awhile
Cooking tips: Do not attempt with chapped lips. Do not be distracted by music magazines and boil away the water much needed for sauce dilution. Have at least a quart of water at hand.

12-04-03
Funny how when you're in the Honours Society, you're cheered as a hero for donating a $4 crock pot and quoting a little Monty Python. Its like I donated half my liver to a dying president. Too bad the fake beard and (real) mustache trimmer set went to my roomate's girl. The kid who got the pipe rack at least showed some intent to use it.

12-03-03
I guess the reason I'm so lame all stems from this childhood fear I had of being cool. Cool kids always beat me up. Sometimes I think about what it would be like at my 10-year reunion. I would show up in my cool car with (I don't know, a hot wifey?) and they would all be impressed. Then I would sit down at this table full of kids I was loth to approach before I got cool and wow them all with a real college degree. I'd sure show them. Then I remember I'm a male nurse.

11-07-03
'Click here to meet beatufil women'. Does this sound like abuse to anyone else? `Yes,' said Arthur, `yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused
lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of The Leopard".'

Sex is hereditary
If your parents didn't have it, chances are that you won't either

11-01-03
Would it be worth it to explain what I did for Halloween? Between that Cubs fan slapping down a wedding bouquet and wandering roughly 10 miles around down-chi-town, I forgot entirely what day it was... Till I got hit in the crotch with an egg.

10-30-03

Ok I am retarded. The last (posted) odd email and the previous odd email both contain strange conversations with Arthur. Who I now realize is the main character from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Thanx to everyone else who read it and didn't bother reminding me. Though I still can't figure out how pieces of this book got into spam junk mail telling me about vacations I could be taking and discount ink cartridge refills. Bloody improbability drive.

10-28-03
Onward & Not forward

After a hard night of wandering around in the frizin dark, crafting an axe of cardboard tubing and a shield of a Ford Taurus rim cover, attacking the olde people bus from the casino, and fleeing from two hockey teams, I come home to find this amidst another piece of spam: "Do you think the company would be willing to lower my pay?" "`This must be Thursday,' said Arthur to himself, sinking low over his beer, `I never could get the hang of Thursdays.'"  "Why
am I here?","`Life, don't talk to me about life.'"  
 - On second thought this could be from the same author as the October 4 entry (see below). That darn Arthur.

10-27-03
Cursed ruins! This year was going to be the best pumpkin design ever. Better than the mouldy bat-child pumpkin of a year ago. Lo, even above the mouldy spooks of yesteryear. This years pumpkin would bear the ancient craftings of the stone lentils of eons past.

STONEHENGE!
Where the demons dwell
Where the banshees live and they do live well.

This weekend I spent about 5 hours not carving but skinning and scraping the guts out of this pumpkin so the stones would be dark while the light would shine around them from within. This took forever armed with but a paring knife and a cereal spoon. But such are the supplies of the apartment. I even sprayed it down with WD-40 which supposedly works as a pumpkin preserver. Within 12 hours the lid had rotted through and collapsed into the pumpk-henge. Just in case it would start to stink, I put it on the patio outside. The very next morning I awoke to see that the ancient curse of the deserted stones had wreaked its havoc on my 1/4" thick pumpkin. There was enough semblence left to put in a Dominick's bag.
To this day it huddles proudly, and not too un-mysteriously next to my roomate's pumpkin (which is still intact and will remain so till spite gets the better of me) leering typically into the suburban night...

10-22-03
How important is being cheap to me? Sometimes I even go out and practice when I don't really need to spend and/or save money. Like last night. Walgreens has to have a few things under a dollar right? I had one dollar and a few assorted coins. I was ready. Armed with a cardboard flap torn off a display, an old receipt, and a pen, I got to work. Now there are a few rules here. Because of sheer cheapness, I refuse to include anything that I can't get more than one for a dollar. Also none of this buy one for two dollars get one free or three for two dollars. I have a budget here people. The items must be one dollar or less pre-tax. Also they have to be for individual use. For example toothpicks could count but a box of raisins do not. And so I present to you:
The cheapest-ness list
-$.50-2 soapboxes (hmm) or 2 toothbrush boxes
-$.50-cuticle stick
-$.50-Walgreen lotion trial size: dry skin, cocoa butter, advanced care
-$.50-Cottonelle ultra trial size toilet paper roll
-$.50-various votive candles described by color not by scent
-$.50-8oz. bubble water
-$.50-6oz. Kool-aid burst
-$.50-chili seasoning package
-$.50-DelMonte Tomato Sauce
-$.50-Starkist tuna
-$.49-Gerber processed food-stuff: applesauce, peaches, pears, bananas, sweet potatoes, carrots
-3 for $1-halloween pumpkin candy cup
-$.29-Walgreen tissues travel pack
-$.25-Orville Redenbacher Smart Pop mini-bag
-$.25-Fruna's fruit chews
-$.25-medium duty non-disposable bowl
-$.25-Aaron Carter or N'Sync glamour shot school folder
-$.20-confetti popper
-6 for $1-'scub it' scrubbers (assorted)
-3 for $.50-scented floating candles
-18 for $1-fig bars
-24 for $1-sugar wafers
-24 for $1-peanut butter cheese crackers (8 packs of 4)
-28 for $1-holiday bowls
-30 for $1-menthol cough suppressant drops
-200 for $1-paper clips

Despite all this cheapness, I settled for a box of Black Vines for $1. I didn't count how many yet. Everytime I count it has less in it.
Oh lest I forget, I learned some important information. Limp Bizkit has a new album out. How long ago? I thought it was funny (funny hmm, not funny ha ha) to find at a drug store along with Bob Seger's Greatest Hits and Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. Also, I have not bought hair products in years, so I'm a little out of the game, but when did they start using Cholesterol hair conditioning cream and Henna & Placenta as hair products? Finally, a skull candy dish with a sticker inside "WIPE CLEAN BEFORE USING". Sometimes you forget to wipe all the brains out of the skull before using it as a candy dish. Happens to the best of us.

10-21-03

Ramen Journal #12

Flavor: Beef
Ramen Rating: Dutch
Name Accuracy: Well...it is ramen
Stench: Like mushrooms on that pizza in your fridge from a month ago
Comments: If ramen was a party this would be the pooper. I've had a secret vendetta against beef ramen since last year when I accidentally bought a case of it instead of chicken (see chicken entry: Ramen Journal #9). If ramen was the only item left on earth and I had to use it for everything, beef would be the flavor I'd wipe my ass with.
Cooking tips: Simple...don't

10-17-03
List of who I am when I'm not around:
1. Eagle Scout (for renovating an amphitheater), and concertmaster for Monta Vista's orchestra in Cupertino, California
2. French Canadian pharmacist at the Universite de Colombie-Britannque under some sort of foreign acclaim (he can read French, I can't)
3. General licensed FCC something or other (both modified and renewed)
4. County Line club representative for the 4-H club in Marion County, Iowa
5. Contributor of a grand total of $297,000 in  to the Republican National State Elections Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee, George W. Bush and Rudolph Giuliani
6. Recipient of the ARDA Professional of the Year award sometime prior to 1985
7. Creator of Resort Condominiums International (RCI). Today Lehigh Resort Club has more than 100 sold-out, purpose-built studio and one-bedroom vacation-ownership units
8. Yes concert attender and very opinionated reviewer from Vredenburg, Utrecht, Holland

10-09-03
Ok the only thing worse than getting urgent phone call messages at the wrong number is nostalgic emails to the wrong address**. Hey, their loss, your gain:

"Larry and crew, I just wanted to drop a note of thanks to you guys for the company you all gave me in your camp/pit. I saw and spoke with a bunch of folk I've known for 25 plus years and very much enjoyed that but hangin out with you guys drinkin a cold one just made the whole weekend for me! To be so good and fast and in the know and not have a big head (which you'd be justified for if you did) makes you guys a class act that would be very hard to follow. I wish I had you guys for neighbors. Hey out of all them there ((Jandhi: did he just say 'them there'?)) people, I was the only one draggin a cooler :) Jackie said she was gonna start callin me bud lite dave:) Well,I'm gonna go (i know you folks are busy) Just wanted to thank you all for makin my weekend! Take care and I'll talk to ya later!"(closing names withheld for financial purposes*)

*not getting sued makes good financial sense to me
**Update: also maybe taking someone else's notebooks back from class

10-04-03
"Visit foreign con tries!" It's emails like this that confuse me. Other than a link to some page offering me vacations, the rest includes (and I quote):
"Why am I here?" `Oh good,' said Arthur. Also included are a number of unusual statement made by
candidates during `On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them.'

09-30-03
Planetary inebriation -
Is it just me or is the universe spinning?
I know, I know. We all hoped they'd be gone for good. But apparently the royalties from M(m(m?))Bop weren't enough to satisfy this impotent trio's quest for notoriety. Email highpoint of the day: "Hanson libido got you down?"

09-28-03
The Weakerthans played in Chicago last night and tonight again. The earlier show blew out my eardrums. The rad opening band "der constantiners" was partly at fault. I did pick up some tips though:
small people in front of you at a show is cool
small people behind you at a show have sharp elbows
extremely loud music hall = uproariously loud farts with no consequences (this seems to be surfacing more)
outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend
inside of a dog, its too dark to read

09-21-03
Last night, we went downtown to Bar Chicago. Apparently my roomate's friend's boyfriend's friend had won some drawing and there were drinks on the house for a few hours. Whatever. I went expecting something. Not much, but something. In the elevator down the parking garage, I found out mixed drinks were going to cost. Thats fine. I can drink beer. So in we go. This place offers one source of entertainment to its patrons: video of more exciting nights when you weren't around because those nights only scantily clad women are allowed in the bar. My roomate turns to me to ask what that odd smell is. I hadn't figured it out yet. So I ask for a bottle of Bud. No bottles apparently. Only draught beer. Fine, do you have Bud on tap? No, only Miller Lite. Bud bottles cost but the draught was free. Then I realized what the smell was... Scam. But I am Dutch. Highpoints of the evening include writing my thoughts down on my beer cup and screaming Monty Python quotes at some drunken bridesmaid who kept requesting Shakespeare. It was a simple matter of weight ratios. Anyways, here's what I learned.

Ugly girls, don't drink so much, it doesn't matter how much you drink.

I don't tip for lite beer. Even free.

Its rather cruel to make one climb a flight of stairs to get to the can. The mirrored walls were worse.

Loud bar = uproariously loud farts with no consequences

parking garage = $17

mixed drinks = $3

any bottled brew = $3

dancing the funkiest dance I have ever danced in the car on the way back because I was quite certain my midsection was going to explode unless I pee'd in the car of this guy I hardly know = priceless

09-04-03
I was in this web-design class for kicks. I'd been in the class for about 2 weeks. So far it had been pretty much stuff I've known since high school. I talked to the teacher and he says it doesn't really get much more in-depth. So I sold back my book and officially dropped the class. But the same day I was on campus and bored. So I decided to go to the class anyways. Besides I'd already done the homework and I felt like it would be a waste to not at least turn it in. Sure it won't count for anything. But its done. So off to class.
But now the teacher knows I've done this before. Prior to my having a chance to say anything, he announces to the class that I probably know more about this class than he does and he's really glad that I decided to stay in the course and that I am now a resource for the other members of the class. In fact he wants me to give presentations to the class. He says he can expect quite a bit of more of me than the rest of the class.
I joined jazz band instead.

Todays highlight: Looking at my watch this afternoon and realizing I have class in 15 minutes. I guess I should put some pants on.

08-03-03
Summer school is finally over! Thank you Lord! This teacher was so full of wrong clichés and terrible quotes, that I couldn't help but fill an entire notebook page with them. In no particular order, I present to you:
"its a winning dynomite!"
though she narrated through every song she played, "when one is listening to music, one is not talking!"
"editors, editors, darn them!"
"this is the chance of an opportunity!"
and now the mosquitos (misquotes):

you can die a thousand deaths
you can commit an act of consummation with a lover
it's dapper dan
it's out the wazoo
you can place all your eggs in the same basket
it's chromaticism
it's treatise
a string can be taut
it's fathom
it's yin and yang
it's genre
a film can have a climactic ending
when you admire someone you want to emulate them
it's disconcerting
it's flamenco guitar

you cannot bleed a thousand deaths
you cannot commit an act of consolation
it is not damper dan
it is not out the kazoo
you cannot place all your chickens in one basket
it is not cromanticism
it is not treces
but it cannot be taunt
it is not phantom
it is not ying and yang
it is not gendre
it cannot have a climatic ending
you do not want to immolate them
it is not deserting
it is not flamingo guitar

I'm a rockstar
I don't have to change my underwear

05-12-03
So I walked into the mailroom today and was immediately hit by some awe-inspiring stank. The mailroom was obviously infected with something unnatural. As I walked out I wondered what in God's green earth could make it smell so bad. Then I remembered Friday night. (see previous entry immediately) I was so full I may as well have been drunk on steak. We wandered into the student center and I went to check my mail. Glory be. A letter from Alumni Relations. Apparently I am now an alumnus and therefore have all the rights that come with it. Such as having to endure fund-drives. But the real kicker was the very cool, very free, very blue plastic chip clip with the school's name on it so that every time I opened or closed up my favorite bag of chips, I could remember the school and the great rewards they send me for spending thousands a year on tuition. But then I remembered I don't really need a chip clip. So I sent it back in the same envelope but somehow some mayonnaise and sweet pickle relish happened to get into the envelope before I sent it off. Monday morning in the mailroom was soon to be brand new levels of olfactory fun for all involved.

05-09-03
Tonight the food fought back. Months ago, I checked out this restaurant in the Radisson basement that had this really good Porterhouse. I remembered seeing on the menu that there was this huge steak that you could get free if you could eat the whole thing. I remember being amazed thinking it was around two pounds. So I convinced my roomates Dirty and Tiny that we should go take this challenge and Friday night was our time of reckoning. We walk in and the steak on display looks about the size of a loaf of bread. Ok, do-able. We get seated and the menu says 4-5 pounds. Trouble. The waitress brings it out and later tells us its around 7 pounds of bovine casualty. Tiny didn't even bother ordering one. Dirty made it through maybe 2/3s before bowing before the meat pile on his plate. I didn't even make that. My jaw locked up by the time the steak got cold and I was pretty sure if I was ever going to die, now would be an appropriate time.

05-09-03
Ramen Journal #11
Flavor: Curry Chicken
Ramen Rating: Cheap
Name Accuracy: More chili than curry but who cares?
Stench: Chili powder, glorius chili powder
Comments: By the many arms of Vishnu! A week ago I didn't even know this flavor existed. Now I'm running my karma over every dogma I see. Holy nirvana!
Cooking tips: Could this get any better? That's like asking if moms on drugs should be sterilized. Hey easy, I said its like asking...

04-25-03
Fun product of the day: Target brand; Hi-tech dental floss. "Do not be deceived by the slight fraying that may take place during use. It will not pull or stretch loose. It will not break and it will not cut easily in the presence of rough fillings, inlays, or braces." Personally, I wasn't really sure I needed this kind of technology in floss. I ran out last week and I was using strings I pulled off of my belt stitching. But then my belt fell apart. Hmm, I said, maybe its time for something more technologically advanced. Enter Target floss: stage left.

04-24-03
Ramen Journal #10
Flavor: Lime Shrimp
Ramen Rating: Dirty Cheap
Name Accuracy: Wow, limey and noodle chunks with shrimpy consistency
Stench: Probably about the same as throwing up after a hard night of Corona and lime
Comments: Its a red-letter day when you can have lime shrimp and classic chicken. Ah snap! Or something similar...
Cooking tips: Eat it. Like it. Repeat.

Ramen Journal #9
Flavor: Chicken
Ramen Rating: Cheap
Name Accuracy: Wotsa matter, afraid?
Stench: Spicy rotting vegetation mush
Comments: Chicken has always been the classic favorite. Cheap, tasty, doesn't grease the skids...What more could you ask for?
Cooking tips: Don't drain all the water. Its half the fun. Who knew the other half would be Spanish talk shows? ¡Peligro: Sabor macizo!

And if I could write you a song
To make you feel better
This would be it

04-17-03
So I got an email today offering a Master's Degree Diploma. I was quite impressed. The subject line? "Pick Up The Diploma Without Waisting The Cash". The email promised I could "Receive the benefits and admiration that comes with a diploma!" Apparently its working for this company. You can get a job without having even basic spelling skills. They must have had a Masters Degree in English to write this subject heading.

04-11-03

Ramen Journal #8

Flavor: Picante Chicken
Ramen Rating: Rotten Cheap
Name Accuracy: More picante than chicken
Stench: A lot like the silage pile
Comments: Very festive what with the red and green flakelets. But more spicy than anything else. I'll let you know when my mouth stops burning.
Cooking tips: Avoid the water at the bottom like the plague. Because it won't treat you any better.

Ramen Journal #7
Flavor: Pork
Ramen Rating: Aldi Cheap
Name Accuracy: I don't really like pork normally, but this just sucked
Stench: I guess when they said pork, they meant pigsty
Comments: Not particularly flavorful considering the pungent stench. Maybe its the fat-free pork flavor.
Cooking tips: Don't bother adding lemon and breading the ramen brick. Can you make sausage from pork ramen? Be sure to add something resembling flavor.

Appropriate for vegan and diabetic diets.

04-09-03
Summer classes can be a pain in the butt. Then again other times they can be lots of fun. Like Architecture 299, a study abroad program in Italy... that meets Monday through Thursday 9-11am in room 403. This is why I love community college. Maybe next summer I'll be ready for Child Abuse 134.

04-08-03
So I was watching TV the other day (bad start) and I found to my racist amazement this infomercial not offering to send you anything for your money, but instead to send a Jew back to Israel. That's right. Now you too can take part in the fulfillment of these ancient prophecies for the low low price of only $750 per Jew. Even better, I could send four Jews back for only $3000 (they tell me this in case I can't do math). Here may be found the related website.
http://www.ifcj.org/subpage.asp?id=120 Odd odd odd.
"The Wings program is truly a miracle!" says Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder and president of the Fellowship.

04-07-03
Oh sweet, this guy from my building just came over with a pack of Ramen straight from Taiwan. Flavor? Rib noodles with pungent.
God bless the English language.

Roomates are a strange phenomenon

Tiny: I lost something important. I think it was my soul.

Me: Didn't you trade that last week for a bag of Donut Gems?

Tiny: Oh yeah. If I had a donkey that I didn't care about, I would try to choke it with peanut butter and jelly.

Me: Who chokes a donkey with peanut butter and jelly?

Tiny: Well we certainly have enough of it...

04-06-03
Ramen Journal #6
Flavor: Roast Chicken
Ramen Rating: Dirty Cheap
Name Accuracy: More like chicken than roast. Sigh, roast...
Stench: Like Mom's spice cabinet
Comments: Actually quite good. Don't let the "Rich Flavor" bubble on the package fool you into thinking the added promotion means it sucks. Seriously.
Cooking tips: No knife needed for this roast chicken. Did you forget? Its just ramen!

Ramen Journal #5
Flavor: Oriental
Ramen Rating: Rotten Cheap
Name Accuracy: Not really sure what orientals taste like so...
Stench: Like Lemon Pine-Sol and peanuts
Comments: Well no images of pagodas or Buddha coming to mind. And doesn't Ramen's origin make an oriental flavoring kind of a redundancy? Maybe they should have just called it original flavor.
Cooking tips: Eat with chopsticks if you want some authenticity. You'll lose weight too. Slippery buggers.

Put up with me
Its not worth it
I can't promise that it ever will be
But I'm trying

03-27-03
Ramen Journal #4
Flavor: Chicken Mushroom
Ramen Rating: Rotten Cheap
Name Accuracy: Better than the real thing. No, wait. Cheaper. Cheaper than the real thing.
Stench: Like an abandoned boullion factory.
Comments: Not too bad. Which of course doesn't make it good, but... Hey better than watching The Nanny.
Cooking tips: I suppose adding chicken or mushrooms might make this taste more like...well, chicken or mushrooms.

Ramen Journal #3
Flavor: Shrimp
Ramen Rating: Aldi Cheap
Name Accuracy: Not even close
Stench: Like under the seat in your dad's old work truck
Comments: Tastes a lot like eating nothing. Or maybe spaghetti with salt instead of sauce. Not worth the 3 minute wait for the water to boil.
Cooking tips: Eat something else. Or better yet, eat Chili Ramen. Or watch The Nanny while eating to add flavor.

Black holes and environmental variables
2000 hours of work a year

03-21-03
Ramen Journal #2
Flavor: Hot Chili
Ramen Rating: Dirty Cheap
Name Accuracy: hot for ramen
Stench: Like curry and marijuana
Comments: Spatters maliciously and burns like fire. Sort of spicy. Ramen that tastes like something. Novel concept.
Cooking tips: Have a cold drink handy. Don't drink the leftover water!

Ramen Journal #1
Flavor: Creamy Chicken
Ramen Rating: Rotten Cheap
Name Accuracy: Not creamy. Not chicken.
Stench: Like chicken ramen and parmesan cheese
Comments: Sauce clumpy, doesn't mix in well. Rather bland as a result. Sauce clumps excruciating. Flavor better at the bottom.
Cooking tips: Knead sauce in packet before mixing in. Don't drain, mix well.

But things were already busy getting out of hand...

Books I read in 2003:
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Silmarillion
Franz Kafka - The Metamorphosis and Other Stories
J.R.R. Tolkien - Unfinished Tales
Chaim Potok - My Name is Asher Lev
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Return of the King
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Two Towers
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Hobbit
J.R.R. Tolkien - The Fellowship of the Ring
Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Joseph Heller - Catch 22
J. D. Salinger - Catcher in the Rye
Annie Dillard - Holy the Firm
Sylvia Plath - The Bell Jar
Michael Crichton - Timeline
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged
Ayn Rand - Anthem
Ayn Rand - We the Living
Ayn Rand - The Fountainhead
J.D. Salinger - Franny and Zoe