A bowdlerized single will at least end the SI drought, and considering how tasteless my entries were I suppose I should be grateful that I got anything. Forget deciding whether to chance submitting a misogynistic joke to the Empress; what does one do after she doesn’t get it and requests an explanation?

[Okay, Doughnut Guy seems doable. If anyone has something like an apron, give me a call.]

Any simple good last-minute ideas for a Halloween costume which aren’t based on Rocky Horror Picture Show?

Hold, the phone.

(Though maybe Carnahan and Gore then won't call back?)

Speaking of sweeps: can I pick a great week to stop rooting for the Red Sox? With the kindergarten era preference for the color red and the regular tickets to see the Orioles dominated having been long dissipated, was it so awful to desire a home team I could actually root for?

“Another life awaits me…”
7-hour bus rides are easily undertaken for the wonders of nostalgia with old friends moved away years ago. The reminiscing, the endless chess and card games, the admiration of feline antics, the lunches, the lazy weekends, the glimpsing of new lives with the photographing of old ones: random touches of the eternal past incidentally swept together.
“…for I am not your broom.”

I believe I might have just read the best book I have ever read: Umberto Eco’s “Baudolino”. It is the type of book that reading changes how one reads books. After every chapter, page, and paragraph I had to remind myself, convince myself, repeat to myself that it was not true, so that by the end of the novel I was questioning what truth itself was.

Like other Eco novels, however, it does have a steep period of struggle where the reader must invest himself until the can’t-put-it-down suddenly catches: ~250, I estimate.

Vander wasn't bilt in a day.

If Cardinals/Astros Game 7 didn’t have enough pressure, now the winner will take the World Series. The Astros offer Texas/Massachusetts in a contest appropriate enough for 2004; however, the Cardinals offer me a rootable home team. This is an easy call.

Hypothetically: an hour into a no-buyin poker tournament with about the initial 3250 remaining, you hold AT offsuit. Preflop the 50-100 blinds are raised 1500 by the left-hand player (who holds ~2000 more than you­), which you call after everyone else folds. Flop is 987 rainbow. How do you play?

Yesterday was brought to you by the phrase “Don’t Bother”. I’d explain further except cantaloupe and I’m still trying to decide what should be done with an $85 carabiner.

And speaking of apathy, while I still think that media will eventually merge into politics, even before any new paradigm I wonder why Jon Stewart does not run for office. Aside from being more qualified than, say, Schwarzenegger, he seems to want to make a difference, and most importantly realizes what must not be done better than any other political figure aside from basic voters.

Which is not to imply that an Apathy Club shouldn’t be formed, but it shouldn’t.

Apologies, but couldn't design entries: fourteen grueling harsh innings juxtaposed knowledge, lab, midterm. Now our perennial, quixotic rhyme: "Successor / Two-thousand-four / Undeserved vitriol / Whore"
XOXOXO
Yours zealously,

I finally saw the Tivoed third debate and despite all the reports feel that Kerry did badly, but after his successes in the first 2 debates it doesn't matter at all, and honestly, I don't care. I’m more concerned that Kerry doesn't seem to consider Missouri as a potential swing state anymore.

To sum up the debates:
Who won the first, What took the second, and I don't know the third.

Upward and downward, and downward and downward:
Ascended the arch, and the amazingly cheap markerboard fell down. Descended the arch, and the rehung markerboard broke as it fell again.

So do I just buy another cheap one, or try to salvage this one, or go without though I have been receiving messages? Or just never descend from my room?

Dearest dainty damsel Cat
Your name, it seems, does rhyme with Matt.
(I had to write a poem on that.)
Be back later for a chat.

[Yay bad poetry. It’s that kind of weekend.]

Pulp Fiction was interesting in a way I am still not sure how to otherwise describe. Perhaps contrarian, as if, at points when the audience would have an expectation the opposite would be done. Perhaps a thrill, in the way a roller coaster is a thrill ride: it is more entertaining the more queasy (physically and psychologically) an audience becomes?

1+1+2+1 actually came up in a problem during Calculus study session- but no one else had a Clue.

[And a Hessian matrix is an nxn array that fought for Britain.]

The difference between Christopher Walken and Christopher Reeve is the first guy isn't Reeve, and the second guy isn’t

Part 1 of a Catullus poem: Geography lesson.
Part 2 of a Catullus poem: My mistress is a slut.

[Final chance to find my key…]

"If his name were George, you'd capitalize it; his name is God, not George, so..."

[Still searching for my key, or $85, or my pride. If anyone has any clues *please* let me know.]

My overwhelming concern about my missing key has made it too hard to vanish for the weekend and spread the rumor that a Secret Service agent infiltrated the freshman class to provide an ultimate level of security for the debate.

[If anyone found a Wash U keychain with a room key on it *please* let me know.]
Likely losing one’s keys and thus $85 really dampens any political enthusiasm.

Blah blah Kerry dominates Bush but by less than in Debate 1 so it doesn’t matter that Kerry, having finally shaken the impression of a wishy-washy flip-flopping extreme liberal gave a wishy-washy flip-flopping extreme liberal answer to the abortion question since it’s a tie anyhow.

In a particularly ironic follow-up to 2000, I believe Bush just invented the Internets.

[If anyone found a Wash U keychain with a room key on it *please* let me know ASAP...]

Let reading the Republic be remembered and debating the Democrat be decisive.

Fahrenheit 9/11, seen with it being shown complimentarily, was the propaganda expected. Admittedly the technical quality was rather good; however this may be more of a drawback as the blatant illogic might seem harder to dismiss than that of, say, the lower quality Outfoxed. Buried beneath the preponderance of preposterousness slung throughout are a few potentially intriguing arguments [to be itemized later], half of which thus cannot be accepted without independent confirmation.

Danny’s Law of Work
The time when a task will be finished does not depend on the time the task was started.

Turkigy Armendy
Catherine Anne Karayan,
Farseeing Oracle,
Mistress of Pout,

Torn between many mates,
Auto-prognosticates:
Sibylline sylph with her
Love life in doubt.

At 8:44 pm (Central) on October 2, 2004, Claire Kaufman awoke.

“elatus est” seems like it would be translated as “he [Atticus] is happy”. Not “he is elated”, since the Latin teacher dislikes the mere substitution of English words for Latin. Considering that it was the final line of the final chapter of the final assignment before bed, it did not seem to be worth thinking further about.

However, as revealed to embarrassing laughter, “elatus” is from ex + latum = carried out. This makes more than a slight difference, as Atticus was, at that moment, dead. The fact that he would have been pleased with his funeral arrangements isn’t worth protesting.

Outfoxed is propaganda which I only saw because it could be seen for free. Which is not to imply that Fox News is not as nauseating as is alleged therein or as was stated in a previous Away Message. But the documentary reminded me of an attempt to brainwash people into rejecting freedom of the press. It defines a problem while obfuscating any solution implied. And it contained some embarrassingly ugly PowerPoint.

The premise of democracy is that voters are able to make decisions. If they are unable to correctly choose how to be informed, why even try government? And if they are able to, then why bother caring about Fox News? Why demolish freedom of the press, why encourage illogic over an issue which will have to sort itself out either way?

Messed mixages:
Bonus points for using the future perfect tense: “will have been held”.

If a lower bound exists, then so does the infimum. What exactly was the “pre-September 10th” mentality?

Bush really ought to not make “speaking clearly” a cornerstone of his international strategy. Though he did manage a slight applause line among the College Democrats with “don’t forget Poland”.

Kerry, despite still being such a weak candidate that in the early stages of the debate that Bush actually seemed almost his equal in oratory, got extremely lucky when Bush just lost it ~:40. [Which is about 40 minutes, not a clown emoticon.]

The moderately interesting philosophical question of whether innermost beliefs are by definition inalterable was raised, but who cares.