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!