Here's To You, My Favorite Cousin

Kate passed away this morning after battling her cancer for almost four months. Of all my cousins she was the one I was always closest to, not just because of our age, but because we were so much the same. I can't even imagine what it's going to be like without her. But I guess I need to think of what's best for Kate, and perhaps this is better than what she's had for the last few months. She celebrated her 20th birthday in the hospital. She woke up on Christmas in a hospital bed in her house barely able to move her arms or keep her eyes open. She didn't know that we spent the entire day by her side.

But anyway, she wouldn't have wanted this sob story. So in memoriam, here's a video clip of Kate stopping a shot like she doesn't even care.

She's Like A Wall
(It'll take a bit to load completely, so stick it out)

At The Museum With Rosemary's Baby

I'm An Officer, Officer

Me: "Son of a bitch."
Beth: "You're an antifeminist aren't you?"
Jon: "Huh."
Sarah: *giggling thing she does*
Laura: "Congratulations."

What do these quotes have in common? They're the reactions I got after people found out I'm the newest secretary of Alpha Phi Omega.

Whoop-dee-doo.

Good Morning Mister Blue

I wrote this poem yesterday. Part 1 is supposed to be read as quickly as possible and Part 2 can be read fast too, but it'll be more emotional if you slow it down. Anyway, enjoy.

GOOD MORNING MISTER BLUE
a poem by Rob

Part 1

A sock is a sock unless it's a sock,
Unless it's a sock that's a sock that's a sock.
But you Mister Blue, not a sock but a sock,
Not a sock but a sock through and through.

And you?
And you Mister Blue?
And you Mister Blue is this true?

The dryer on STOP with my clothes up on top,
That freshman I caught and his things in my spot,
I took all my stuff off the dryer top
"Huff"
Was the sound that I made as I prayed and I prayed
That my things that I brings to my room all in gloom
Would be there wrapped with care as I stare--stare in there--
In the bag with my clothes as I sag
With the weight of the hate and the pain and disdain
He's so vain to have taken my clothes out but he'll feel my bane
'Cause I stopped his dumb dryer half-cycle, half-cocked,
I'm happy--so happy--my actions just rocked!

But alas. Pains my ass.
Not quite even. Downright odd.
5...6...7? Where's my eight?
Fuckin' great.

Part 2

Good morning Mister Blue, this shoe?
Oh yes, that's true, this shoe's for you.
The zoo? Of course.
If that is what you'd like to do,
Come let us zoo and zoo and zoo.

But not today, no zoo for you,
You've gone you've left it's toodle-oo.
I don't know how I don't know when,
My Blue shall we not meet again?

I searched and searched but came up bare,
I searched the trash, I searched in there.
The floor, the sink, the skating rink
I even stopped for a mixed drink.

Now drunk I never faltered once,
I kept my vigilance amongst.
The alcohol runs through my veins,
Passed softly yet my heart still pains.

I never once gave up the hope
But soon I found I lived to mope.
The sadness permeates my soul
And where you were now lies a hole.

A sock hole, yes. Ironic, no?
You've left your other half, your bro.
My foot is cold, frostbitten toe,
And where you lie I shalln't know.

I only dream you've found a place
Amongst your kind, the "Lost Sock Race."
Perhaps one day we'll meet again,
When now is past and then was then.

Until that day I'll wait for you,
There is no thing I'd rather do.
And when that day comes when we meet,
I shall caress you on my feet.

But nothing will be quite as sweet
As when we greet when we first meet.
I'll take you in my hands anew
And be one thing I'll say to you:

"From you to me, from me to you,
A smile, a tear, a hug for two.
I wish you'd never said adieu,
I love you love you Mister Blue."

It Seems Like Everyone Knows How To Ice Skate These Days

Thanksgiving was uneventful. The food was decent but nothing spectacular, and I spent most of the time playing the piano while everyone talked around the table and had coffee and pie.

I've spent a lot of this break over at Fairfax Hospital with my cousin. It's not really fair, one minute she's a typical sophomore at Virginia Tech and the next she's spending her 20th birthday and Thanksgiving in the "Living with Cancer" ward on the 9th floor. She likes it when I push her chair around the hallways really fast, and I'm proud to say that she says I push her better and faster than both her mom and her dad. Sometimes I steal soda for her and I from the kitchen when the nurses aren't looking and we like to get Starburst from the vending machine and watch movies to pass the time.

Today some of us peoples went to Pentagon Row to get dinner and watch people fall down while ice skating. It was fun, not that many people wiped out but we had a good time anyway.

I don't really have any plans for the last couple days of break but I'm sure I'll find something to do. I really need to get my Alexa Warden fix because I'm starting to go into withdrawal and I think I want to see the Wallace and Gromit movie if it's still playing. I also need to get my watch fixed before I go back to school.

Well, that's all I've got. I'll be back in the big rectangular state they call Pennsylvania soon enough, I guess.

Adieu.

And They Wonder Why More People Don't Use Public Transportation

Well this is my second year of college in Meadville, PA and I just now realized that I'm in nowhere land. So here I am looking at the bus schedule for tomorrow and let me show you what I found:

1. The buses only come by each stop once every hour.
2. Bus service only goes until 4:30 p.m. on Sundays.

Can you believe this!? I mean, Jesus, back home if you miss the bus you don't have to worry because there'll be another one coming in about 18 SECONDS! I mean, literally, it's a constant stream of buses. And I'm not even talking about the big time Metro buses that service the entire Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area. This is the Fairfax Connector, the COUNTY bus.

Why do they even have a bus if when you ride to your destination you can't get back because service has ended? Oh yeah, one-way bus service...real helpful.

And what self-respecting bus service has only SIX LINES? Come on, the Fairfax Connector's line numbers go from 101 to 989!

I tell you what, the first thing I'm going to do when I get back to good old Springfield, VA is to ride the bus. A real goddamn bus.

It's All Within Your Reach

I've always wanted platinum power. It's always sort of been a little dream for me, you know? Marry a girl I can almost beat in arm wrestling, settle down in a house with a yard that has some trees but not so many that raking in the fall is a pain in the ass, have some kids, clothe them, and obtain platinum power. It's not that much to ask, is it?

I don't know, everyone has their goals in life and you strive for this stuff and tell everyone you're gonna make it big but in some way or another you eventually find out it's not going to happen. So and so wants to be the next Charlton Heston. What's her name says she'll cure cancer. Joe Shmoe thinks this. Jane Doe thinks that. It never gets you anywhere and despite how we try to convince ourselves otherwise, on the inside we've always known we'll grow up to be just another person who will die without having done anything.

It's the same way with me and platinum power. It's this big deal thing that I'm always telling everyone about.

"Hey, did you know that someday I'll have platinum power?"
"Hi Susan. Golden Grahams for breakfast? No thanks, I've got platinum power."

But the more I think about it the more I know it's just a stupid pipe dream (minus the opium). It's one of those things I never want to think about. I walk through life with blinders on and I tell myself that platinum power is on the horizon but I keep on walking and the farther I go the more I realize that I'm never going to get there. I mean, it doesn't keep me up at night but it's always there in the back of my head.

When I feel like I should stop studying I tell myself that I'm doing it for the platinum power and I'm able to keep going. When I'm in class and I'm hungry I tell myself that later I'll have platinum power and I'll have all the food I could ever need.

So, I mean, maybe it's one of those impossibilities that helps you more in the long run than it hurts you. I like this idea but maybe it's just because it hurts so bad to think about throwing the dream away.

So it's not strange that I was so taken aback today when I reached into my mailbox and found a letter addressed to me which in large writing stated:

You are INVITED TO APPLY for
PLATINUM POWER

No annual fee
Platinum benefits

Was it a sign? Some sort of omen? Maybe it was simply a message, you know? A message letting me know that I shouldn't give up hope. I mean, maybe it was just what it looked like, a CapitalOne Platinum card, but I don't think so. What are the chances that CapitalOne knew about my platinum power dream? Can we really write this off as a mass mailing?

Anyway, I hope you guys take this to heart. Go after your dreams because no matter how impossible they may seem you never know what's going to happen.

Who knows, maybe someday you'll reach into your mailbox and pull out Charlton Heston.

Cat, I'm A Kitty Cat

One of my friends emailed me this today. It's probably one of the greatest videos I've ever seen.

Cat Dance

Why Won't You Just Stop Nominating Me?

Why am I cursed with being the guy people always try to nominate for officer positions in clubs even when I have no interest in doing it?

Last night was the Chemii Thanksgiving Bash and yes, if that sounds like an event where a bunch of nerdy chemists get together to talk molecules and eat turkey, then you're right. Anyway, they were nominating officers and all of a sudden the girl in front of me turns around and says, "Hey, what's your name? I want to nominate you." Can you believe that? Why would she want to nominate someone she doesn't even know? Why must I be so likeable, popular, and an all around great guy?

The same thing happened with Lambda Sigma. There was this guy in front of me and I don't know how he knew my name but before I knew it he was nominating me for secretary. What are these people thinking? Do I have a sign on me that says "Please Nominate" or am I really just that awesome? Oh well, maybe I'll never know.

Live and learn, and then get Luvs.

The Vietcong Wouldn't Even Know What Hit Them

I've always wondered why the U.S. military doesn't invest in a weapon similar in nature to the Nerf Secret Shot. If you were never a ten year old boy, the Secret Shot was a typical Nerf sidearm that was equipped with a hidden barrel in the handle. Basically, if your best friend just jumped in front of you with his Nerf crossbow and told you to put your hands up and surrender, you could comply but subsequently shoot him in the face with your secret gun.

I've thought about this for a good long time and while I don't think the trick would work well against Americans, I think it would prove extremely effective against Asians. My reasoning for this claim is not scientifically backed but I'm pretty sure it's probably true since back in elementary school my friend Chris Kim was always the first one to die when we had a Nerf war.

Can you imagine what the Vietnam War would have been like if the U.S. troops had Nerf Secret Shots? Let me just say, I think it probably would have been a lot more fun.

Thinking about the Nerf Secret Shot has really made me quite nostalgic for the good old days. For the past week or so I've had the Inspector Gadget cartoon theme song stuck in my head and I've taken absolutely no measures to try and remove it.

Anyway, I don't have much else to say so I'll leave you with this thought:

Why is it that locusts kick so much more ass in the Bible than they do in biology textbooks?

Platypus Surgery For Dummies

I've just completed the first ever platypus-drumstick fusion surgery in the history of modern medicine. I'm so sure this is going to change the face of medicine completely that I've already picked out my clothes for the Nobel Prize banquet and laid them out on my bed.

I wanted to share with you, my non-Nobel Prize winner friends, exactly what this complex surgery entails. I've provided some before and after photos too.

Subject/Victim: 1 Platypus, male or female, must be wearing shirt
Fancy Medical Tools Needed: 1 KFC Picnic Playset ($1 at Meadville Dollar General), 1 pointy needle and fried chicken colored thread ($1 at Meadville Dollar General), thumbtack or other poking thing that isn't the pointy needle



Step 1: Remove drumstick from KFC Picnic Playset. Feel free to discard chicken bucket, corn-on-the-cob, and napkin or give it to your roommate.

Step 2: Poke holes in drumstick, two on each side, at a distance of slightly less than the width of one regulation size platypus hand/fin with thumbtack or other poking thing that isn't the pointy needle.

Step 3: Thread pointy needle with fried chicken colored thread.

Step 4: Stab platypus hand/fin with threaded pointy needle going through the flesh, into the drumstick, out the other side, across to other drumstick hole on that side , back through the drumstick and flesh, and across to the starting point. Repeat until you're out of thread or it's lunchtime...whichever comes first.

Step 5: When you're satisfied with the threading quality or once you've finished lunch, tie off the fried chicken colored thread and make sure the drumstick is securely fastened to the platypus hand/fin. This can be done by grasping the drumstick and moving it to the platypus' mouth and seeing if the hand/fin comes with it, or by pulling gently on the hunk of fried meat as if to say, "Hey Mr. Platypus, I want that chicken so give it to me" and observing the same.

Step 6: Sit back and marvel at the quality of your handiwork. If you're really flexible (like if you could ever do that V-sit reach thing in P.E. and get a score of anything above -19) you could attempt to pat yourself on the back. If you're not flexible you can find someone who is and watch them pat themselves on the back and feel bad that you suck, or you could ask them to pat you on the back.

Step 7: Remember that you forgot to give the platypus any anesthetic.

And here's the finished product!

I Eat Relationships For Sunday Brunch

My roommate tells me that this here blog ruins relationships. Supposedly there is proof that at least one couple has parted ways after having come across the link here from my Facebook profile. I'm not quite sure how I should feel about this.

I could provide a disclaimer. Maybe put up some of those "Enter" or "Leave" buttons like they have before you view porn sites. Not that I know anything about that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm sorry.

I'm sorry if I caused you to say goodbye to that person you thought you'd be with forever.

I'm sorry if after viewing this site he admitted to sleeping with your sister.

I'm sorry that after relating to one of my entries she decided to move to Morocco and offer camel rides for a Euro to high schools students on a day trip from Spain.

I'm sorry that stumbling across this website caused her to eat a bowl of Alpha-Bits cereal and the letters spelled out the phrase, "Leave your boyfriend for a bowl of Maryland clam chowder" and after seeing this she did so and now she's married to the aforementioned clam chowder and they have two beautiful children named Sam and Maria and they live in the suburbs of Denver and ski on the weekends unless the in-laws are in town in which case they stay inside by the fire and talk about future plans and sip coffee and play board games like The Game of Life and the clam chowder gets to be the doctor but ends up living in the mobile home which is the place I always wanted to live in because even though it was really crappy it was cheap and the taxes were low and after all it's just a board game and you don't actually have to live in it so it doesn't make much of a difference.

I'm sorry that these scenarios keep getting more far-fetched and more rambling.

I guess what I'm trying to say, and don't take this the wrong way, is that I hope these entries ruin your life. I hope you drop out of college because I told you I had a hamburger for lunch. I hope I shape the very way you approach and view the world.

I hope I change you.

Weather Update

Ice is falling from the sky again.

Haircuts, Hail Storms And Other Words That Make This Title Alliteration

I got a haircut today and I must say it looks mighty fine. It looked even mightier fine before I got hailed on, though. I saw Josh Nolan and he was standing under a tree by Bentley to get away from the deadly chunks of ice. As I walked by him I told him that it didn't sting that excruciatingly bad and he just laughed. Also, I went to Reis Hall today to write down my comments on the preceptorship hospital visits and it's not even funny how much candy I swiped on my way out. Seriously, I now have more Starburst and Kit Kats than I know what to do with.

In other news, thermodynamics class is over. That means I'm done with classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday by noon. Isn't that magical? I should probably use that time to go to the gym or study but I'll probably just end up using it for napping and an excessive amount of video game playing. Of course, what this means is that I won't get to see Shafiq wear his gorilla mask to class for Halloween. If I'm lucky he'll have it on at Physics T today!

Finally, Jon (the roommate) has a new girlfriend. Her name is Brenda and she likes country music and is a feminist. I didn't want to tell Jon but I'm worried she might try to cut off his penis while he's sleeping. She's coming over for pumpkin carving tonight so I might confront her about it. You have to protect your roommate, you know?

Slurp.

My Traumatic Childhood II: Shattered Bones

It was a really good polar bear.

I had found the biggest piece of cardboard anyone had ever seen and I drew the best polar bear you can imagine--and it was big. I brought it to school the next day and showed it to Ms. Winniger my first grade teacher. She loved it.

After lunch Ms. Winniger took me out to the playground so we could set the polar bear up in the woods with the other animals the other kids had made. We found a good spot and leaned my masterpiece up against a big, sturdy tree not far from the wooden train. It looked amazing, she said. You wouldn't expect an arctic creature to look so at home in a temperate region such as Mount Vernon, Virginia but it did. It really did.

Smiling, we began the walk back to class and I could barely contain my excitement for when everyone would go outside after school and see the woods filled with creatures large and small. I was so excited that I barely noticed Ms. Winniger stumble and fall--a sickening crunch, a thud, and then screaming. Just screaming.

And there I stood. I was out in the woods at six years old with my teacher who had just completely shattered her leg and there was nobody around. There was nobody to come and help. There was nobody to rescue her. I couldn't think. I stood there in shock, the only thing getting through to me was the screaming. My elderly teacher, normally calm and composed was now transformed into someone I didn't recognize. I didn't know her. I waited for her to tell me what to do but the words never came. Finally I was able to move and I ran towards the school with tears streaming down my face.

I watched as the ambulance careened around the corner and out onto the playground. I stood helpless as I watched her being loaded into the back. All I could think about was the second everything had changed. We were laughing, and then all there was was terror.

It was my fault. It was all my fault and I knew it.

I didn't go back to class. There was no point. I went back onto the playground and kicked over my stupid polar bear. He didn't even flinch. He just lay there on the ground with the same look on his face I had painted the previous night. He didn't care. He didn't care and I hated him for it.

I sat in the train for the rest of the day.

Flashback Friday: The Joy Of Subpoenas (3/8/05)

I found out recently that I've been subpoenaed. Is that really the correct spelling? "Subpoena-ed"? Anyways, yeah, I'm not going to tell you why because it makes it more mysterious and I think it would be fun for people to try and guess what kind of super-cool criminal acts me and my homeboys have been committing against the helpless community. It's amazing how much your life changes when you've been subpoenaed. Since getting that piece of paper stating that I am COMMANDED to appear in court (it really says "commanded"), my social status has skyrocketed. Seriously, I just have to wave that little government document in the air and boom, instant access to all the the frat parties as well as dibs on first kick on loser beating day. Yeah, you heard me right, now I'M doing the beating. I don't even need to mention what this subpoena has done for my love life, but I will anyway. Before getting the subpoena my girlfriend was the fire-lady on the Samoas box (I named her Beatrice), but now I have more women than I know what to do with. I can't go anywhere without stepping on them because they all lay on the ground for me to walk on. It was sort of uncomfortable at first but now I've gotten used to the fleshy bounce that comes with each stride as I head to class. My roommate is so jealous and I think all the women I have is making him kind of angry. I've offered numerous times to lend him Beatrice for a few days, you know, to get through the lonely nights when I'm away with my sex mob (which is like every night, by the way) but he is too proud to give in. Besides all the attention I've been getting outside of classes, my academic situation has definitely improved as well. A good example was the other day in physics when we got our quizzes back. So Greeky McGreek (that's what I call my professor, his real name is Deep, and by my nickname for him you can see that he's Greek) handed me my quiz and I noticed that it did not say 20/20 on it but instead it said something like 18/20 or some crap like that. I wasn't going to take any of this so I went up to have a friendly word with Greeky. He said something like, "I took off two points because the velocity you found was off by at least a factor of 10,000..." but I wasn't listening. I whipped it out (the subpoena) and let him take a good, long look at it. By the time he got to the part that said I was "criminally awesome" he had already pulled out his pen and was changing the 18 to a 56. So yeah, people with subpoenas have power and that's a fact. So basically, if you want to ace college with a vengeance don't try to kill your roommate and say it was suicide or anything like that. The best thing to do is to get subpoenaed and leave the rest to your new best friend. Not to mention, you'll never be at a loss for companionship on those cold nights when your bed is feeling a little too big for just one person.

What Will Come Of Tomorrow?

Someday I'll be better than most people at living large.

Someday I'll find that monkey that climbed on Alexa in Gibraltar and report him to the proper authorities.

Someday I'll be able to run faster than I need to.

Someday I'll return to Morocco and take that guy up on his offer to trade Kim for fourteen camels and an acre of land.

Someday I'll find out it was real even though I always swore it was only in my head.

Someday I'll convince the people who wrote my high school Spanish textbook that a chapter on 1940s film noir was sort of unnecessary.

Someday I'll admit that I enjoy singing when I'm alone.

Someday I'll have my very own planets orbiting me even though Dr. Cox told me a thousand times in astrophysics class that I'd never be massive enough to bend space-time enough to pull it off no matter how many Krispy Kreme doughnuts I consumed.

Someday I'll realize I missed my chance.

Someday I'll admit that I didn't want it to be this way.

Puppy Love: Why You Should Beat Your Dog

Tonight is the first night of Fall Break and there are people swing dancing in the laundry room. The bathroom smells like hockey and there are gnats in all the closets. I am currently consuming the largest bag of Hot Tamales you can imagine and am enjoying it thoroughly.

But things aren't all sunshine and lollypops, considering it's currently post-dusk and I'm diabetic, so let me lay it down for you.

There's been a question on my mind for a while now, or rather, ever since I posted that last entry about one of my many run-ins with Mary Ann. The question is simple:

At what point in our life did we stop showing affection through blunt force trauma?

I know you know what I'm talking about because we all remember that guy or girl who had that certain way of showing they cared. What I'm not sure about is whether everyone's list is as extensive as mine. Here's an excerpt from my list (Pre-K through 6th grade) and each girl's preferred means of attack:

Lauren- quick, secretive jabs to the kidneys
Mary Ann- throwdowns, various object chucking, unwanted make-out sessions while her friends hold me down
Ashley- it's amazing how many body parts are irritated when covered in dirt
Kimberly- tripping
Stephanie- various physical assaults
Amelia- emotional abuse: calling and hanging up, gossiping
Sarah- arm punching
Amanda- secretive ankle kicks under the desk
Rebecca- throwing playground equipment (kickballs, etc.)
Kira- spitting, biting
Jennifer- tripping
Meg- various sneak attacks
Emily- accidentally bumping into me so hard I fall down
Victoria- sharpened pencils to the forearm
Samantha- super-soakers full of scalding hot water
Lindsey- hair pulling
Patty- horrible, horrible, insults
Kelly- she stapled my finger
Alicia- pinching, stepping on feet/hands
...and the list goes on.

Did I mention that I never observed these actions taken against anyone besides me?

Despite how horrible it sounds, I can't help but joyfully reminisce about how simple things were back then. Back then you knew how much a girl liked you by the number of bruises or bite marks you had on your arms. Back then if she punched you in the face you knew it was something real and not just lust. Back then if your crotch wasn't sore by the end of the day you probably wouldn't get a date to the dance.

But nowadays things are so much different. First of all, I'm expected to initiate when it comes to dating because I have a penis. When did that happen? That's backwards. Nowadays you never know what she thinks of you so you have to resort to complex mathematical algorithms that take into account the ratio of number of times she blinks per minute to number of times she touches her left cheek and multiply this value by the square root of the inverse of how many times she adjusts her shirt during class without playing with her hair and even then you're still in the dark because you have no idea how to interpret your found numerical value.

Seriously, and how is flirting useful? My friend instant messaged me a few weeks ago with a link to a website that claims that if you want to get the girl you have to lick your lips every time she looks at you. Are you serious? Is she the girl you want to start a relationship with or a steak and cheese sandwich?

I just don't get it. Does anyone really believe our methods of meeting that special someone improve with age? If you can explain how looking at someone until they turn towards you and then looking away really quickly so they don't catch you looking at them but you know they sort of saw you because you planned it that way and then repeating this over and over again is better than a choke hold behind the slide where the teacher can't see you, then by all means explain to me how.

I don't know about you, but I wish things had never changed. I want to walk into class this coming week and leave in an ambulance.

At least I'll know that after the reconstructive surgery I can call her from my hospital room and be confident that she'll want to go to the new Wallace and Gromit movie with me when I get out.

My Traumatic Childhood I: Dirt In Your Eyes

Is it just me or has anyone else experienced traumatic childhood events that haunt you for the rest of your life in the form of flashbacks, blood-stained bathroom walls, or combination of the two?

I had a dream last night and, like the last dream I regailed you with, was not as much a dream as it was a flashback. I have a lot of flashbacks. Anyway, this flashback was to second grade. The scene opens on me and a few friends (Kyle, Ben, Mark, and Avrill) just covering a hole we had dug with sticks and leaves. The concealed hole was meant to be a trap for any unsuspecting passersby such as a deer, fox, or Chapley. Seriously though, who names their daughter Chapley? It wasn't a deep hole, but we had been working on it for a few recesses and with the sticks and leaves it was practically invisible. Anyway, at just about the time we were finishing up there comes this girl and her name is Mary Ann and she's like totally second grade hot. I don't think I need to go into the definition of "second grade hot" but let me just tell you that it most definitly involves those jellies sandals. So yeah, over comes Mary Ann and she tells me that she has something she wants to show me over on the train (we had a big wooden train that was big enough for us to climb inside and stuff). Well I walk over to the train and she tells me that the thing she wants to show me is in the caboose and so I climb in. Once inside I notice that there's nothing there and so I turn to leave but my exits are blocked by the sudden appearance of Mary Ann's posse. I don't want to sicken you with the details of what happend after that but let me tell you that when I finally got out of the caboose I had more dirt in my eyes than I did before I went in. I also had scratches on my face and arms from when the girls had thrown those spiny ball things that fall from sweetgum trees at me.

At this point I woke up from my dream.

Needless to say, ever since that day I can't look at sweetgum trees without wincing in pain. I'm also deathly afraid of topsoil and I've sworn to myself that I'll never let my daughter wear those jellies sandals.

Flashback Friday: Phycocyanin in the Bloodstream (2/12/05)

I have a rift in my epidermis that quite possibly spans farther down into the dermis. No, not a rift as in a large-scale crack in the earth's lithosphere produced by the tensional forces of two plates or two slide masses collapsing in different directions, but a rift as in a large-scale crack in my thumb-skin caused by the seething sharpness of a shattered Pyrex test tube being dragged across my skin as a result of me trying to clean it of its chemical contents with a test-tube-cleaning-brush that was way too big and ill-suited for the task at hand.

So anyway, I was in chem lab and I was trying to figure out how to clean the green algae goo from the bottom of my test tube with the only devices I had--water and an over-sized test tube brush. The water wasn't working (damn you viscosity) and the brush was way too wide to fit in the small test tube I had. But with class nearing an end and my extreme desire to get out of there considering it was the last class of the day and I had absolutely nothing else to do for the remainder of the evening, I decided to jam the big ol' brush down in there. At first it seemed to be working and the green goo was being whisked away by the brushy brush bristles. But then I noticed that I wasn't holding a test tube anymore but instead I was holding a mass of shattered glass and goo and my thumb was bleeding profusely. I dropped the tube into the sink but it was no use, my once pure innards had been breached by the horrible chemicals in the tube, namely sodium phosphate, hydrochloric acid, and that ghastly chromoprotein PHYCOCYANIN! So there it was, there was now a rogue protein in my body and it was stirring up a frenzy down in my capillaries and having a blast of a time. I could just imagine those damn hydrophilic amino acids basking in the warm wonderland of my bloodstream and the hydrophobic ones cozy and safe from the evil water that pounded on their walls. I knew I had to do something so I ran around the lab screaming, "DENATURE IT! DENATURE IT!" Thanks to books I knew that there were five ways to denature a protein: the addition of a large quantity of a small polar molecule, the addition of a detergent, an increase in temperature, a change in pH, or a good old mechanical shock. The first four weren't going to be easy to come by so I decided to choose door number five: the mechanical shock, and so I started smashing my thumb on the counters leaving splotched bloody thumbprints on everything I touched. Finally Dr. Murphree came into the lab and told me to put on a Band-aid and so I did and that was the end of the fiasco.

Minus that little event the day was pretty uneventful so I guess I can't complain too much.

I'm Staying Up 'Til Dawn Forever

I think I should be the Up 'Til Dawn coordinator now and forever more. My reason for such a claim is one-fold:

"Baddia J. Rashid is my great-uncle and he was the president of ALSAC from 1976-1992 as well as a close personal friend to Danny Thomas. He has a building at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital named after him."

That is all.

Now = dinner.

P.S. My uncle Bud's (that's what we called him) wife Yvonne made the greatest kibbe b'sounieh ever!

Milk Sniffin'

I'm a big fan of those times when you go to do something but in the process you end up doing something else and that something else results in a prize.

I went to the water fountain by B-Lounge today and in the kitchen were four girls--two Rachels and two unknowns. One of the Rachels, possibly Learned but maybe Keaton, spoke up and the ensuing conversation went something like this:

Rachel: Hey look, it's RA.

Me: Yep, that's me. (Takes sip from water fountain.)

Rachel: Can you smell this milk for me?

Me: Yeah, I'd be happy to. Just let me finish getting some water. (Takes another sip and then strolls into kitchen.)

Rachel: Does this smell funny to you? (Puts milk carton up to my nose.)

Me: Hmm...it does have a sort of odor. I can't be sure of it, though.

Rachel: Thanks. Have one of these freshly baked peanut butter cookies I have here.

Me: Really? Thanks. If you ever need anyone to sniff your milk again just let me know. I'd be happy to be of service. (Exits hallway left.)

In other news, until recently I thought it was perfectly normal that I had no idea what a Eugelnoid is. Apparently I was wrong.

Now I gotsta, gotsta, gotsta get to bed!

For Unhappy Spouses Everywhere

I took this picture today near Conneaut Lake Park and I thought I'd share it with you.

Go Away Duck!

Who You Are And Where You Belong

I miss the mutant food court.

I miss the homeless guy in the corner eating his club sandwich and stroking his thick, scratchy beard.

I miss the stairs and the way they creaked on the way down but not on the way up--perhaps a kind of alerting system for the mutants as to detect intruders.

I miss the table I always sat at and the cryptic poetry scribbled all over it in ink so thick that even after years of being there it still got on your arms.

I miss the little old lady at the juice bar that no one ever went to.

I miss the walls with the peeling paint, the floors with the deep, black scuffs, and the windows that looked out over nothing at all.

But most of all I miss the companionship. I miss the simple fact that none of us really belonged there. Despite the fact that we were all outsiders we always came back. Maybe we just wanted to see that the place was still there. Maybe we needed to know that there was somewhere in the world just for us. But maybe, just maybe, the reason we always came back was to see those we knew would always be there. To see the people who we might never have seen--who might never have existed--if we hadn't peered down into the darkness and decided to find out what was below. But we knew. We all knew. What we would find--what we all eventually found--was the one thing we always knew was there.

And I miss it.

Chocolate Milk = Love

My roommate won’t get me chocolate milk. He’s going to McKinley’s and he won’t get me chocolate milk even though I want some.

In other news, physics lab today blew. The whole thing was slightly interesting except for the fact that it wasn’t. I mean, getting to see that equipotential lines actually exist and aren’t just a figment of Dr. Petasis’ imagination was cool and all but I think I understood the concept after about q = +4.00 nC. By the way, nC is not a unit of time but I figure if Han Solo got away with saying a parsec was a unit of time I can work it like that too.

But today wasn’t completely bad. Jon, Sarah, and I spent ample time at the playground north of Crawford Hall after the fantastically awesome picnic in Brooks Circle. I rode on the purple dinosaur for a good portion of the time but split the remainder of my time evenly between the fire chief car and the airplane that looks like a whale. I also rode the swings for a bit but decided to get off when a family came to the park to have an outdoor meal (I would normally just say “picnic” instead of “outdoor meal” but I already used the word “picnic” once in this thing so another time might be slightly awkward). The family had a little boy and he was really good at golf. He had this big, blue, plastic golf club that I doubt was regulation size by PGA standards but I’ll let it slide.

I also learned today that the dopamine producing neurons in the substantia nigra that are killed resulting in Parkinson’s disease are destroyed by means of laser death ray. While this may seem far-fetched at first, when you really think about it it’s not that crazy of an idea.

Well that’s all I have to say at this point in time.


P.S. My roommate just got back from McKinley’s and he brought me chocolate milk!!!

Run-in With The Man

I was throwing a lacrosse ball against the back of the Wise Center today and a security guy drove up in his van and told me to go somewhere else because there were windows around. I told him that after playing lacrosse for 12 years I think I know how to avoid windows but this only made him angry. He told me to go around to the parking lot side and throw the ball there but I told him that I couldn't because the bricks weren't smooth enough. Oh well, I still got about two hours of throwing in and it was a blast.

Also, at one point the ball hit a crack between bricks and the ball flew off into the ravine. I went down to retrieve it and it was very exciting. I got to jump across the water and everything. I felt like an Aztec or maybe a Mayan or Incan.

Tomorrow I'll go back and if the security guy comes by again I'll just run. Anyway, tomorrow is Wingfest and such.

I Think I'm Obsessed With Quiznos

I had a dream last night which wasn't really like a dream at all. All the dream was was a flashback of late August when I was at Quiznos. I naturally wanted the Mesquite Chicken sandwich but the guy behind the counter told me that people preferred the new Chicken Milano 10:1 compared to any other thing on the menu. Now that's pretty good for a sandwich so I took him up on his offer and got the Milano instead of the Mesquite. I sat down at the table with my root beer and took a bite. Long story short, I realized that the sandwich I had in front of me was horrendously bad and I longed for my Mesquite.

Needless to say, I woke up from the dream crying.

The dream also reminded me that on that same day I had gone to the driving range and hit the ball picker-upper guy with a nice lofting 9 iron. This in turn reminded me of the time back when I was about 15 and had hit the ball picker-upper guy and he had gotten really mad and came over and threatened to break all my clubs.

P.S. Today in lab we induced Parkinson's disease in a rat.

Einstein Ain't Got Nothin' on Shafiqur

Today in thermo Shafiq told the whole class that I made a goof on my quiz. It wasn’t like a—Hey, guess what? Rob is an imbecile.—but more of a—Hey, guess what? This may be the only time you have the opportunity to score better on a graded assignment than Rob.
And that’s what I like about ol’ Shafiq, he’s not afraid to proclaim the superiority of one student over another. In fact, he’s not shy about proclaiming anything. Such memorable quotes include:

"Physicists are better than Nazis."

And let’s not forget,

“As a physicist, you have a certain responsibility to society, due to the fact that you are better than everyone else.”

In fact, there are many memories that come to mind when I think back on my time with Shafiq.

1. At our very first class Shafiq tells me that I should consider being a male cheerleader because I look strong and I could lift up all the girls. He asks the class if they agree.

2. Shafiq, seeing that my last name is foreign sounding, tells me in front of the class that he’ll go easy on taking points off for grammar and sentence structure on the first essay.

3. Shafiq comes into class on Halloween wearing a gorilla mask and asks for his treat.

4. Shafiq regails us with a tale about his childhood bb gun and how he shot a chicken with it against his mother’s wishes.

5. Shafiq tells us he’s having difficulty with his teenage daughter regarding clothes. He proceeds to have us list all the fashionable brand names on the board and asks if anyone in the class considers themselves stylish and would consider advising her on clothing decisions.

6. We learn about Shafiq's invention he came up with to give his sister an electric shock.

I'd list some more but I'm lazy. In conclusion, Shafiq is totally sweet.

The Eighth Plague Grandmaster

There are people outside my dorm room window sword fighting with foam weapons. One kid’s got a hockey stick, and while you’d think that would be unfair, it’s really not because everyone else has ganged up on him.

I’ve been playing a lot of chess lately. It’s computer chess. It comes with the Mac OS X operating system. It’s funny, Windows machines come with solitaire and other brainless games like pinball, but Apples come equipped with chess and chess alone. I really wish I could assert a correlation between the games that come with the operating system and the intelligence of those who use them but I can’t because I’ve met Roger Ebbs. Anyway, I’ve been playing a lot of chess lately and I’m really good at it. What usually happens is that I make a move, the computer takes my piece and I press the “undo” button so I can try another move. I keep doing this until I find a move that doesn’t allow the computer to take my piece and then go through the process again for my next move. Needless to say, I win a lot. I think I might graduate to playing biological organisms after a few more rounds of computer opponents. Maybe locusts. I think locusts would be the best insect chess players mostly due to the fact that they kicked so much ass in the Bible.

Anyway, that’s all I have to say for now.

"The Colors, Duke! The Colors!"

It didn’t rain at all today. It was nice.

The All College Celebration was yesterday and I didn’t go. I did, however, sneak over to the shindig at around 8:00 and swiped myself a few popsicles. They were those really good popsicles, you know, the ones that are long and cylindrical and have layers that are different colors and flavors. I’m pretty sure that they’re called “Lick-a-Color” and are made by Popsicle which is a subsidiary company of the Good Humor corporation. In fact, I’m not just “pretty sure,” I’m actually “completely confident” that this is true because I just finished researching it on the Internet.

The outside doors on my dorm are locked because there is nothing of interest here for non-residents such as a dining hall or super-fucking-sweet ping-pong table. We do have a ping-pong table but it is by no means super-fucking-sweet. We also have an air-hockey table but Vince lost the paddles last year and now we have to use our hands which tends to get painful. Sometimes we use ping-pong paddles instead, but that gets the ping-pong dudes kind of angry and I end up hiding behind the Pepsi machine, which used to be a Coke machine but was changed because Pepsi offered the college a better deal on soda which up here is called pop, in order to escape their wrath. Anyways, since the doors are locked, it’s very difficult for people who don’t live in this dorm to get access to the building. That is, unless somebody sticks a small twig in the outside doorframe by A-Tower which is often the case. So today I was in my room, which looks out over the hill leading up to B-Lounge, and I saw these two people trying to climb in the window. The first guy got in pretty easily because he was really scrawny. He also had a goatee. Have you ever noticed that a lot of little scrawny guys have goatees? Well, he got in fine but his girl friend which could quite possibly have been his girlfriend, was a different story. This girl was normal sized but she couldn’t quite get the hang of climbing in. She lay halfway through the window with her legs hanging outside for a little while and it appeared as if she was giving up. I, of course, didn’t want to see that happen so I opened the window to shout some encouragements and advice in her general direction.

“Pull with your arms!”
“Flail those legs!”
“Don’t give up!”
“Retrieve your purse!”
“Go! Go! Go! Go!”
“Stop, drop and roll!”

All in all I couldn’t quite understand why her friend couldn’t have just opened the door for her from the inside and bypassed the whole window struggle.

I had Sloppy Joes for lunch today and they were amazing.

He's Packin' Heat

I am currently accessing the internet by piggybacking on the people next door's wireless connection. I feel like a spy. I haven't updated in a while because the beach happened and that is where I am now. Not much happening around here so this entry won't be too long.

Oh, before I left for the ol' seashore I went to this restaurant near my house to get carry-out. While I was waiting, this guy came in and he had this big-ass handgun on his hip and he was carrying two extra clips with him too. Can you believe that? It was so crazy. There was a waitress hanging out in the area where I was waiting because the people she was waiting on were jackasses and she didn't want to go back over there and so she saw him too. She gave me the "am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?" look which involves her eyes getting really large and her mouth sort of dropping open as well. You have to be careful not to confuse this look with the "holy shit, your dick is gigantic!" look, but I was able to successfully decipher it and realize which it was. I returned her look with the male response which is a small smirk and the quick and somewhat quiet pushing of air out of your nostrils while nodding your head in a yes motion in order to confirm her suspicions. I also added a wink somewhere in the whole thing just to mix it up a little.

It then dawned on me that I live in Virginia. Well, if you live where I live you wouldn't ever admit that. People in my area are always careful about how they describe where they live. It's never "Virginia." Sometimes it's "Northern Virginia" but most of the time it's "Washington, D.C. area" or just "Washington, D.C.".

It's funny, I live in the only county in Virginia that has ever gone to a Democrat in any major election. This, and the other things I experience on an everyday basis only help to solidify my belief that Northern Virginia needs to take a really big saw and cut itself off from the rest of the state.

Anyways, tomorrow I will most likely swim in the ocean.

"And they shall go and live there, and he shall teach them the way..."

I climbed the Washington Monument today. Of course, when I say "climbed" I really mean "took the elevator up". Most people go up there because they're tourists and they want to see a really sweet view of the city from way up there but I went to the top merely to escape the heat (and this homeless lady who I swear was following me while licking her lips).

When I got to the top it was packed full of tourists with their cameras shoving each other around to get to a window so they could peer out. One window looks over the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial and when I was over there I overheard this lady giving her son this really heartwarming description about why the Reflecting Pool is called the Reflecting Pool. She said all this stuff about how it's where you can go and think back on all the people who have given their lives in order to uphold our ideals and to ponder the nature of freedom and liberty and how all of this makes our country super-fantastic and all that. Looking back, I probably shouldn't have interjected but I did. I told the lady that what she was saying was very nice and I was glad she was teaching her son about our nation but that she was completely wrong about the Reflecting Pool because the reason it's called the Reflecting Pool is because it "reflects" the image of the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument like a mirror. She walked away sort of disappointed but I'm sure that inside she was glad I had straightened her out.

I enjoy helping people.

My Roller Coaster Life With Buddha By My Side

Today I consumed the most succulent strip of beef you could ever hope to devour. It was so tender and juicy and the flavor was intense. I figure the experience closely resembles what it would be like to take a big bite out of Buddha's stomach. I don't think I'd ever make it as a Buddhist because I'd probably always be trying to marinate him in my mind and I don't think that would lead to enlightenment. At least it wouldn't be the shortest path.

Also, today I ran through my front yard with moths flying around me. I pretended to be their chief deity and waved my hands around and watched them fly in the directions I pointed. They probably did this because my flailing arms made air-vortexes that constantly sucked them up. I also shouted boasts like, "I am the porch light!" and other clever phrases.

Oh yeah, I played Mouse Trap today and I got to the end and turned the crank and watched the whole chain reaction thing go down but my friend moved her mouse out from under the spot where the net falls at the last minute and I said that was cheating but she just laughed. Her and I also like to replace the yellow bucket thing that the man dives into with a bowl of chicken noodle soup and pretend that he dies when he falls in because either the soup is hot or he gets strangled by a noodle.

All in all I think my life is reminiscent of when a roller coaster stops while upside down because somebody wasn't strapped in well and they fell out and died. It's kind of sad but also very thrilling because you can pretend you are more powerful than Batman. Also you are upside down which is exciting.

Bye bye.

Peer Pressure

The Truth About Me and D.C., See?

Today is both my birthday and the last day of my internship downtown. They're taking me to lunch today for a goodbye/birthday meal and after that I'll start packing up my stuff and then head out for good.

I had a lot of great times. I know that I've shared some of them with you. Michael Douglas was a recent one. The mutant food court. These were the highlights, but they were not the norm. A lot of the days I didn't see famous celebrities and a lot of the days I went to Potbelly's instead of the food court I've spoken so fondly of. I think that unknowingly, maybe even unconsciously, I've been leading you on; I've been making you think my job has been something it isn't. For that, I'm really sorry and I hope we can still be good friends. It's only fair that I let you see what it was like on the days when there wasn't a bomb threat, and the guy on the corner by Farragut Park didn't have a sign that contained a clever, hobo quip aimed at George W. Bush that involved him being either a necromancer or a wolfman.

It's only fair that you know the truth--to know what it was really like.

Celebrity Scoop

Michael Douglas was definitely filming his upcoming movie "The Sentinel" just a block from my office. There were like a bajillion people crowded around to see and lots of cameras. It was all quite thrilling. I didn't see the big guy, but you can rest assured that for the rest of my life when the subject comes up I will shamelessly lie and claim that I did.

The Return to Mutant Headquarters

I went back to the mutant lair today like I said I would in the previous entry on the subject and they still have not caught on to the fact that I am not of their world. My hair was slightly ruffled today and my shirt was orange with stripes so that may have been the helping hand I needed to ease their suspicions. Plus, I consciously tried to blink my eyes significantly more often than usual and this coupled with my constant outbursts of X-Men quotes every few minutes no doubt gave me the credibility I needed.

I decided to have lunch at the Subway which is located there, and since I was craving a meatball sub I ordered one up. Now I'm not up to date on mutant eating customs or traditions but I can say that I've been to non-mutant Subway's as well as the Subway website and I see nothing talking about differences between mutant and non-mutant franchises so I just assumed they were supposed to be identical. Of course, as I should have guessed, they aren't. In the surface-dweller world meatball subs involve meatballs in a tomato-type sauce that are placed on bread and most likely covered with cheese of some sort. While the mutant meatball sub is very similar, it differs in one area. Instead of using tomato sauce as a substance in which to bathe the meatballs, they use water. By the time I noticed the watery meatballs being placed on my roll by the mutant worker it was too late. Accepting my fate of having a waterball sub and knowing I was powerless to stop it, I willfully gave in and said yes when he asked me if I wanted "extra sauce."

The rest of the lunch was fine except for the excessive amount of ice they put in my root beer since mutants have not yet accepted self-serve soda machines as a necessary staple of everyday existence and thus I was at the cashier's mercy when it came to the root beer to ice ratio. I also noticed while eating that, along with the secret Metro entrance, there is also a secret elevator that goes up into the office building directly above the mutant food court. I saw numerous business people going in and out of these elevators (which required a swipe of your security card) and thus assumed that this was for mutants who wanted to try and assimilate into surface-dweller society while maintaining the safety and piece of mind that came from the "roots" these elevators effectively created with the old country or "mothership" as I colorfully refer to it.

Let us wish the mutants luck in their endeavors and hope that, when I find the time to return to their proud civilization, I will once again be greeted by a thriving and prosperous society and not by the rotting remains of a once grand empire brought down by giant rats that encroached upon the food court from the endless maze of Metro tunnels wherein it currently lies as an oasis of sophistication in a savage world.

Implausible Invention #1: The FriendFinder3000

For the guy who's got everything except a mountain of women. Put on the FriendFinder3000 and watch the ladies pour in. WARNING: FriendFinder3000 is not a toy and once activated sex is almost always unavoidable.


Key:

A: High quality titanium helmet offering unparalleled support and comfort for the guy on the go. Breathing vents keep head cool even in the hottest of night clubs.

B: Industrial strength pointing arrow expertly indicates who has the big penis. Guaranteed not to point at anyone besides the wearer or your money back.

C: Commercial grade billboard featuring the words "BIG PENIS" displayed in flashing yellow lights. Flash rate can be set to either FAST, MEGA FAST, or SEIZURE. An optional brightness upgrade can be added to flood even the darkest corner of the room with migraine-inducing light.

D: Steel-reinforced counterweights give the FriendFinder3000 perfect balance even while breakdancing.

E: Rechargable Lithium-Ion battery that'll keep the FriendFinder3000 up and running at all hours of the night. No need to ever turn it off! Ever!

SMALL PRINT: FriendFinder Inc. is not responsible for any bodily harm or mental anguish stemming from inconsistencies between the FriendFinder3000 billboard message and actual penis size.

Mutant Food Court

At lunch today I found an underground civilization of mutants. They were kind of like those mutant people who live in the old subway tunnels under the ground in Beneath the Planet of the Apes except that these guys had a Frank & Stein and a Chinese restaurant in their lair.

Anyways, I was heading to lunch thinking I would go to Potbelly's but the line was out the door. Not wanting to wait since it was 105 degrees I decided to head over to food-by-the-ton which is what I call this pay-by-the-pound food stop shop on the corner of Connecticut and L called the SOHO Cafe. The place is not at street-level so you have to go down these stairs to get to it which is really awesome. I got my orange chicken and lemonade and then paid for my food and headed over to find a seat. Of course there weren't any open tables since nobody wanted to sit outside today. I considered taking my food over to Farragut Square but then I remembered the homeless guy with the "Bush is a Necromancer" sign who lives there and thus I ruled out that idea. Leaving the restaurant to bring my food back to the office I noticed that the stairs went down further into the depths of the underground and so I decided to follow them. What I found was amazing. It was like a scuzzy cave that looked like it had once been a food court. There were still a few places to eat (I mentioned them at the beginning) but most of the establishments were long since abandoned and even the ones that were left were looking kind of shady.

The amazing thing was that there were all these empty tables and only a few other people around. The Hunchback of Notre Dame was there along with two of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Bebop, this guy with, like, six arms, and a family of four from Boston. It was a pretty eclectic bunch and I wondered what the various circumstances were that made these people decide to devote their lives to mutantdom. The place also had its own private entrance to the Farragut North Metro station right there in the cave so the inhabitants could seep out into the city and prowl around without having to see the light of day at all! Seriously, this place had everything you need to maintain a functioning society--people, napkin dispensers, and recessed lighting. I was so freakin' excited as I ate my food and knew that I needed to come back again later this week, that is, if they don't find out I'm a surface dweller.

What was extra awesome was that I couldn't seem to find any way for the store owners to close off their lair from the street so it was likely that you could go down there at any hour of the night and see all kinds of vampires and stuff. Of course they were bound to have some sort of security system in place that either consisted of the most vicious of the mutants acting as guards or possibly just a high-tech system of trip-wires and swinging smack-you-in-the-face-and-kill-you logs.

Needless to say, I walked back to work happy. I wonder if they worship a nuclear bomb?

Metrorail vs. British Monarchy

It's almost disgusting how much the Queen of England and the people who drive Metro trains have in common. Here's a little taste of how I see it:

Metrorail Driver: sits in the front of the train and looks pretty.
Queen of England: sits in a chair and looks pretty.

Metrorail Driver: gives passengers the finger as he strolls by.
Queen of England: waves at the citizens as she strolls by.

Metrorail Driver: can't understand him because of thick "black man" accent.
Queen of England: can't understand her because of thick "British" accent.

Metrorail Driver: doesn't know what a crumpet is.
Queen of England: eats crumpets.

Metrorail Driver: only a figurehead. Giant computer at Metro Control has the power.
Queen of England: only a figurehead. Prime Minister has the power.

Metrorail Driver: crushes riders in doors because of incompetence.
Queen of England: Ireland

Metrorail Driver: hides behind tinted glass so you can't see/murder him and steal train.
Queen of England: hides in palace so you can't see/murder her and steal throne.

Metrorail Driver: is useless in every way.
Queen of England: is useless in every way.

Metrorail Driver: has a website: http://www.wmata.com/default.cfm
Queen of England: has a website: http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page1.asp

Metrorail Driver: probably never met Superman but probably met Batman.
Queen of England: probably never met Superman or Batman.

Metrorail Driver: stinks.
Queen of England: is stinking rich.

Metrorail Driver: drives the train down into the ground.
Queen of England: drives her country into the ground. (zing!)

Metrorail Driver: is not an astronaut.
Queen of England: is old.

Metrorail Driver: likes to hang out with his dawgs.
Queen of England: has fourteen dogs (according to royal website)

Metrorail Driver: eats a lot of refined sugars.
Queen of England: is refined.

So as you can see, the Queen of England and Metrorail drivers have a lot in common. Many people would disagree and say that the Queen of England isn't totally useless but they're just in denial. Sure, she has a fancy name, large, elaborate hats and a seemingly important and influential position, but in reality her life is a sham. She just sits there, smiles at people, and walks around a little bit. Sometimes she'll throw a medal at you if you did something special but when you get down to it, she is the most worthless, lazy, good-for-nothing, person in her entire country. I mean, think about it, nobody in her "royal bloodline" has had a real job in hundreds and hundreds of years.

Unwanted Guests

Quiznos Modeling Agency

This weekend was pretty uneventful. Xenogears happened. My computer decided to be a dick so I got back at him by stealing his soul which involved wiping his hard drive and reinstalling Tiger. I definitely showed him.

Some of us peoples went to Quiznos for lunch today because that Mesquite Chicken sub is so delectable but there was this lady there who made the whole visit a little less enjoyable. Basically, we wanted to sit on the barstools because barstools are fun but this lady, who thought she was a model or something by the way she was sitting and eating, decided to sit down in the middle of five barstools leaving two on either side of her. Of course, there were three of us so we were basically screwed. We walked back and forth behind her for a little while trying to give her subtle hints that she was being a bitch like saying, "Man I wish three people were two people so we could sit down at the bar here" and "Don't you just hate those people who sit down at the middle barstool which basically fucks any other group that might want to sit down?" Anyway, after a little while she had to go to the bathroom and make herself throw up so when she left we pushed her stuff over to the end and sat ourselves down and when she came back we just pretended not to see her. I mean, we're not assholes or anything, we just thought it was rude how she'd do that. I guess maybe she's just an idiot who didn't even know what she was doing but I doubt that. You have to be pretty smart to be a model these days. At least that's what my friends tell me. Previously I had thought it just took bulimia and the willingness to sleep with anyone and everyone. But I don't claim to be an expert on the subject. Of course maybe she wasn't even a model since I think models usually have like five boyfriends with them at any given time and all the boyfriends have really good hairstyles.

Disabilities

You see them everywhere, handicapped parking spaces at the mall, priority seating on trains, elevators, those "kneeling" buses, Kmart--every little thing we provide for people with disabilities. But I don't think people really understand the diverse nature of disabilities. There are disabilities that everyone knows about like having no legs, having no arms, or having no radiator fluid, but there are so many more that we don't even think about.

Having six watches on your arm is one of them. Can you imagine how heavy that would be? I guess it wouldn't be that heavy with those loser "athletic" watches that are made of plastic with bands made of rubber, but with real watches, the shiny ones made out of metal that have links you can take out to make it your size and a spinny ring thing with numbers on it with no apparent purpose but for twisting over and over again to hear that really sweet clicky sound it makes, that would really suck.

And what about the guy who is cursed to have to live without the ability to pour liquids from a pitcher? You know, the guy who tries to do it but the liquid doesn't cascade gently off the lip of the pitcher like an Olympic diver diving into a pool but instead somehow creates these really strong molecular bonds with the pitcher glass and instead of coming out nicely, the liquid sticks to the pitcher and spills down onto the table, his pants, or anywhere other than the cup he was aiming for.

That guy behind the counter who is just really bad at folding up the wrap you just ordered? It happens a lot at my college food court but it's undoubtedly apparent on a worldwide scale. He's that guy (the person is always male) who in the process of trying to roll it up, rips it, and when you eat it all the fillings fall out and the place doesn't have any napkins. I know that by the time I get what's left of my mangled wrap I want to put a bullet in his face and if that's not a disability for him then I don't know what is.

Parallel parking is difficult for many people but the little known disability involves the person who parallel parks perfectly the first time but every time they think they fucked it up so they go at it again and they never get it as well as they had it the first time.

These are real disabilities that we never even consider. We hand out handicapped license plates to old ladies who have to walk with canes, but what about the guy who was born with canes fused to his butt cheeks? What about that guy? We make ramps for people in wheelchairs but what about the guy who's got this really kick-ass wheelchair that can climb steps? How is he ever going to get the attention he deserves when there's never an opportunity for him to show of the nifty stair-climbing feature? It's stuff like this that just sickens me.

But what about the most horrible disability of all? I'm talking about lack of imagination. Picture what it would be like, if you will (or if you can). That army guy who has to get his legs amputated without any anesthetic because the anesthesiologist shot it all up the night before and so the surgeon just tells him to imagine a serene, painless scene in order to keep his mind off the excruciating pain? He's fucked. That kid from the Neverending Story that could save all of Fantasia if he just imagined all the things that had been eaten by the Nothing back again, like that big stone giant that kept saying "they look like big, strong hands, don't they?" Well, that stone guy would have been screwed and so would that princess that kept telling the kid to say her name. Are you getting this!? This is serious stuff we're talking about here.

Anyway, I just think the world needs to know that there's more to disabilities than most people think. Personally I think the guy in the first row who can never get his bag in the overhead storage bin on the airplane and so he holds up every other passenger while he tries to do it needs to be able to sit in the special "fuckhead" section more than an old lady with bad knees needs bars for her to grab onto in order to sit on the toilet.

But that's just me.

An Awkward Situation

Puff Puff

Today on the way to work I saw a homeless guy take someone's old cigarette out of an outdoor ashtray and start smoking it. It wasn't lit but when has that ever stopped anyone?

Also, one of his socks was ripped and he had an old Indiana Jones hat that I was jealous of.

The Joys of Metro Travel

Pros:

• Watching tourists desperately trying to figure out which train to get on or which stop to get off at.
• People giving me dirty looks on a crowded train because there's a newspaper on the empty seat next to me and they think I'm a jerk who won't move it because I don't want people sitting there when in reality the guy sitting there previously had just left it there and they could just come move it and sit down anytime.
• The look on people's faces as they realize that only half their group got on the train before the doors closed.
• Standing really close to the tracks as a train approaches and having it almost kill you as it thunders by.
• When the condensation from the air conditioning unit drips on other people.
• The lady who desperately tries to act like she's from the area by talking back to the doors when they say "doors closing" and who stands in the middle of the train not holding any of the handrails because she wants to prove that years of riding the Metro have given her superhuman balance but when all is said and done she gets off at Arlington Cemetery and falls on her face in the process as the train lurches to a stop thus blowing her cover.

Cons:

• Those idiots who stand still on the left side of the escalator and hold up the rest of us who know that the left side is for walking and the right side is for standing.
• The woman on the Metro who thinks you're looking at her when actually you're just watching the crazy homeless guy behind her talk to his reflection and thus she keeps tugging her blouse down and hiking her skirt up more and more thinking you want to have sex with her.
• The people who don't know how to use their farecards.
• Having your face crushed into the armpit of a large African-American woman on a crowded train.
• Standing next to that guy who keeps scratching at his crotch and most of the time his hand brushes your crotch on the way to his own.
• When the condensation from the air conditioning unit drips on you.

Welcome to 'Scarcely Hygienic'

Hello there. If you're here and reading this you probably clicked the wrong link, entered the wrong URL, or something like that. You were probably looking for some sort of dental hygienist porn or possibly just searching for a better antiperspirant. It's understandable considering the name of this here thingy so I don't blame you if you hit the back button now. Anyways, if on the off chance you're here because you want to be then I'll just say welcome and that I hope you enjoy yourself. There isn't much here yet, but there will be. Feel free to come back later and poke around if you want.