"President Bush probably never read Livy or Virgil."

        
           

I wish I drew a cypress well.

“...male si mandata loqueris aut dormitabo aut ridebo.”

Schedule: Active/fair.

Underage drinking is not a joke.

Just kidding.

c i p h e r s
o & 1 9 2 0 1
d 2 1 5 2 1 9
e 1 9 4 1 1 3
s 1 3 9 2 0 !

“References
[1] Some reference to something, probably an Austin paper.
[2] That one with the cave.
[3] Parr’s proof of concept thingie
[4] Their paper?
[5] ditto”

“This proposal proposes...”

All I know is that I know nothing.

Through no fault of my own I lost Mini 199, a time travel variant. I, as mafia, had wondered before the game whether it made any sense to kill myself night 1, so that I’d be resurrected and thought innocent. But doing the math and considering a SK probably existed, I decided it would most likely fail. Ironically, a serial killer hit me Night 1, and neither they nor my partner left solitary could defeat the town. This was my first time being targeted Night 1; I'm not sure whether I should be insulted or flattered.

wash. u. pride.


it’s in st. louis dammit.

In retrospect, I should have wagered one of 2 packages, one of which contained my new iPod, for 2 bottles of limeade in RPS.

Schrödinger’s cat is <blink>not</blink> alive.

Cat, too stubborn for her own good, refuses to use AIM. This, despite the fact that some of us would like to know if she's in without having to trek over to her room. Really. How hard is it to put up away messages? She doesn't even need to actually chat with anyone. Just a simple "I am currently away from my computer". How hard is that? Seriously.

She'll "think about it" if 500 people petition her. I figure she'll give in long before that. Either way, I give it a month at most.

Cat Karayan Will Use aim If 500 People Join This Group

[Okay fine facebook wins blech.]

Thai restaurants are required to have a neon outline of Thailand in a window.

Nobody doesn’t live here anymore.

Moving Day. No Sludgefest ’05, yet somehow that’s thematic.

So I guess the summer’s over.

“This is the dawning of the rest of our lives...”

I was thinking about going to AU until I realized that move-in day would be “Let’s drive down River Road.”

“Are these the Great Plains?”
“No. These are just the Good Plains; the Great Plains don’t begin until the Mississippi. The settlers crossed it and were like, ‘These are some Great Plains!’”
Yeah, these are more like the Mediocre Plains. Or the Seen Better Plains. Or the If I Really Have To Plains. Or the Regret It in the Morning Plains.

Someone tell the metaphor for “earsight” so it can stop bothering me. In other words:

Eye : Eagle :: Ear : __?__

9/17: Constitution Day.
[Endcap 3]

Sorry this can't be funnier, but I can't make those jokes.

Red -> Purple
Black -> Grey
White -> Orange

Favorite color defaults to blue. In my case, I am pleased by the past year's neoarrival of orange. Though I can neither fully explain nor deny the lost childhood attraction of red, found in such dropped relics as baseball fandom, token selection in Clue, and preferred editing hue. The color requires further study, I suppose.

Singled in this week’s SI with a shared attribution. My overwhelming best entry {New ombudsman: Simon Cowell.}, which aside from being clever was original, was completely overlooked.

[Back from Indiana, still in sublet for another]

Roadtrip. Should be fun.

1875678165
1431234212231
5353535354545454565
5353535354545454567

Pari passu seems like an unnecessary phrase for English to borrow from Latin, until one realizes that there isn’t any nonawkward equivalent. And it’s in the ablative. I <heart> the ablative.

What do “From Russia with Love” and “Empire Records” have in common?
[Endcap 2]

Mystery--; Sci-fi/fantasy++;
So satisfying.

If the flat of the fork touches the cake with more pressure than the sides or tines, then you are doing something horribly wrong.
So wrong that I will need to excuse myself to go learn some Italian.

Tigris El'phantidae
Two tokens of trav'ling
{New York, San Diego,
LA, Saint Lou'}

Bear thanks; wish my nineteenth
Anniversational
Day were sensational.
(ie: With you.)

It's not every day that I don't turn 19.

You know the person making a loud noise behind you every time you swing when playing minigolf? That’s one of my evil minions.

(Weapon of choice: lanyard)

The perfected Subway sandwich
Italian bread
Pepperoni
Chicken Breast
Shredded Cheese
Tomatoes
Olive Oil
Oregano
Parmesan Cheese

[Results possibly reported prematurely. Further testing will need to be conducted regarding a splash of vinegar.]

You have to spend money on properties to make money in Monopoly. That's the only lesson in life Mom ever taught me. <pause> Except don't skimp on eye makeup remover.

Even if I made a movie about time-traveling cannibals, it would not achieve its purpose. Rather, the movie would have to be not made by me.

[They can't all be noncryptic.]

Saw Donnie Darko- twice. Incredible foreshadowing ties the film up so confusingly neatly, more so than “Twelve Monkeys”. Still not sure I completely understand it, but all the more enjoyable. And, school spirit requires my cheering a murderous bunny of death.

Dead-Man-in-the-Middle-of-the-Road Productions!

Dumbledore might not be a house-elf. Read HP6, so spoil me rotten.

Southwest offers $200 credits to be bumped from a 1-stop overcrowded delayed flight to a nonstop one that would get in 1:45 later. Didn’t work this time, but there’s definitely a strategy here.

Dentist/eye doctor done, so now the more celebratory parts of the trip. No idea what form it will be taking, really. Call etc. if in town.

[And the usual birthday wishes from don't-like-the-cable-people. Might be a little hard to contact me, but should be somehow possible.]

Maryland for, among other things, my birthday. Call/IM if in town.

My First Endcap

Halved in this week’s SI: shared a partial attribution for a similar entry. {Howard Dean: “We are ahead. We are near ahead. We drew. How are we down? We won! We are now hardened! Do we need a new war, or Enron honored, or Roe-Wade deadened? No, no, and no! We head on! NH! And OH. And DE. And OR and WA. And NE, and ND! Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”}

Though the funniest piece of journalism would have to be the headline “U.S. Army to Leave 13 Bases in Germany”.

I so just did one of those things that you clearly aren't thinking at the time, and only when you realize the severity of your errors do you realize the severity of your errors.

“My parents never let me see “Jesus Christ Superstar”.”
He dies at the end.

“What if they made hair color keyed to one’s emotions?”
“What color would confused be?”
Blonde.

Hey- how does Auld Lang Syne go?
Um? Do you mean the lyrics or the melody?
The melody.
Um? ba baaa ba ba/ba baaa ba ba...
Okay, thanks. <click>

Lime Shrimp Ramen not only would be better without the Shrimp, but without the Ramen. The artificial flavoring is that good.

Thematically, Minute Maid Limeade was on sale at Schnucks: $3/gallon.

What’s the difference between a duck?
( ) The left leg is identical.
( ) It has one leg alike.
( ) One leg is similar.
( ) One leg's twice the same.
( ) One of its legs are both the same.
( ) Cantaloupe

(Eider one will do.)

Things I hate about Cingular:
1) My online account, unable to be accessed.
2) The itemized bill for last month that does not seem to exist in any form.
3) The $106.93 they are charging me despite (1) and (2).

One has no excuse for not knowing what an Internet chat acronym which appears in the OED stands for, imho.

“Naked Pictures of Famous People” had some very clever premises, but suffers from seeming to be poorly edited. The worst essays are at the beginning of the book. The humor of each essay seems diluted, resulting in most of the wit being sapped, with an inconsistent tone ruining most of the satiric effect. It’s no “America”, and I miss Daily Show.

CUSTOMERS
INNOVATION
INTEGRITY
TEAMWORK
ACCOUNTABILITY
EACH AND EVERY ASSOCIATE WEARING PANTS

Destination vs. journey: sometimes there may be no plane to sleep on.

Jesus died for all of our sins- but that’s a lot of Jesus to be divided up. Meaning that each individual will be left with a small fraction of Jesus. And with new people being born constantly, that fraction will be decreasing. Slaughtering people would free up some Jesus to be reapportioned among the survivors; but murder, being a sin, will increase the amount of sin to be Jesusified. And then the sins that the slaughtered people won’t be doing on account of being dead must be subtracted. The math gets messy.

So I think this Holy Spirit thing has to be a fudge factor, some hypothesized dark matter to make things zero out. And that’s a sloppy way for sins to be accounted for.

Unlawful to Copy.

The problem with Outburst is that most of the answers are wrong.
For example, for "Ten things found in a pond":
Pond scum should an answer.
*Water* should be an answer.
Amoeba should not.

Does every city have a bad part of town?
“Pretty much. Well, except the Vatican.”
Ah yes, the slums of Vatican City.

Of the languages you might take, what are they?

I’d go right from French to German.
That’s what Paris did in WW2.

It asked for a communicable disease of the 80s...
You put cancer, right?
<wince> I put cancer.

What’s my password?
Um? Something47?
<shocked> How’d you know that?
Um?
Oh. Right.
Wait- please tell me that isn’t it.
No! I mean, it’s not S-O-M...

And from the front page of the Washington Post:
Don’t like the cable people.

Far too many undeservedly rejecteds for this week's SI to fit in this Away Message.

We would like to remind our Republican travelers that they may bypass the security checkpoint by showing proof of party affiliation.

Passengers in exit rows may be called upon to assist the crew in certain non-emergency situations. Federal law requires these passengers to be at least 18 years of age, but no older than 25. And female.

Attention, travelers: there is a sale on lingerie and skillets at gate 34.

Domestic travelers, we have some gate changes to announce. Please report to gate x^3 - 2x^2 - 5x + 53 mod 32, where x is your original gate. International passengers, please use mod 31.

For those passengers who have not yet reached Chapter 22, Hermione kisses Ron in front of Harry.

I once made an announcement that Brad Pitt heard.

“Who am I?”
“Crazy?”
“I said who, not what. Nice string of letters there after my name.”

“Nothing screams out ‘I am a slacker’ than wearing flipflops to class.”

“You can’t have an undog or an uncat, but you can have an uncola.”

“You don’t just learn linguistics in linguistics class; you also learn parenting.”

“Syntax is very touchy-feely; semantics is very violent.”

“If you want to have a successful marriage, don’t go to 7-11.”

“They won’t be playing the Canadian national anthem at the Linguistics Olympics anytime soon.”

“No one wants me to cancel class today? That takes all the fun out of saying no.”

“There are no weekends in linguistics.”

Pottermania.

(The remixed music is almost more clever than the concept. Listening to it is an excuse to keep watching the later movements for the differences.)

Let there be a stack of N coins, one of which is counterfeit. The N-1 real coins all weigh the same, but the counterfeit one is either heavier or lighter than the rest. Given a balance, find the counterfeit coin in three weighings and solve for N.

What’s in a name?

“The first recorded urban myth involved a choking Doberman in a Brooklyn closet in 1973.”

The Mall is a tourist attraction in DC.
It shouldn’t be in St. Louis.

If it's Friday, it must be Oh-let's-have-a-sludgy-kitchen-sink Day.

Will be looking for fun and meals that don't involve proximity to my kitchen this weekend. IM/e-mail/call if you can aid with either.

<fearless>

Experiencing deja vu twice about something that never really happened in the first place.

Not that that would be an excuse:
“My parents just died.”
lol Funny coincidence.

My Away Messages, totaling 165 pages (plus another 16 pages of yet unused esoteria) have managed to break Word’s spellchecker. Apparently there is a limit to the number of red squiggly lines that can be generated, and there are enough proper words and other text not listed in the dictionary to trigger the cutoff. Meaning that henceforth there might be a few more typographical errors within my Away Messages. As always, feel free to IM an edit, but now I have an excuse.

"The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn’t suck is the day they start making vacuum cleaners."

“...It's cold / It feels like Independence Day / And I can't break away...”

Suffering summer, season of irony.

“...There's got to be an opening / Somewhere here...”

War of the Worlds, described as “simultaneously Spielburg’s best and worst movie”, I found suffered from thematic deficiency, containing only the too simple “survive”. Other ideas were never fully developed and were chaotically contradictory to one another; I was particularly disappointed that the “heroic” rejection of xenia/regression to barbarism was lost. The ending felt especially anticlimactic

I would have liked to have seen it remade as a TV miniseries, perhaps narrated through news broadcasts, to update the this-could-really-happen theme which made the radio version so powerful.

Tripled in this week’s SI: 2 HMs and a win! From a letter/word ratio standpoint, I was disappointed that my earnosethroater: Hellenophobe's otorhinolaryngologist was edited. Considering that Dane-rot was improved in editing, I really shouldn’t complain.

I did have a bad pun on vernalism to answer a recent contest’s “Le Sacre du Printemps, but not the Sack of Rome.”. There was a much better but horrendously obscure pun on vaernal I didn’t even try to submit.

Other rejecteds:
beanrate: .2 cows.

bourneagain: Someone who is filled with wonder by another insipid sequel to another Hollywood action flick.

arenal: Of, like, or characteristic of holding it after a game because the lines at a stadium restrooms are way too long.

How are you spending your Fourth of July weekend?

(a) Vacationing with friends in the mountains.
(b) Going to a baseball game on a glorious summer day.
(c) Driving to Kansas City for the fun of it.
(d) Cleaning sludge off the kitchen floor.

If you answered (a-c), congratulations: You're not Danny.

[Call/IM; I'm going to be desperate to be doing *anything* once maintenance shows up.]

Melodic cacophony.
Somehow Media Center managed to replicatably glitch itself so that two playlists play simultaneously. It’s not a bug; it’s a feature.

WWLD?

The sister fanclab to “Danny Is Cool” has a motto.
(And a meeting place: next to my former room, present and future.)

Won the Texas Holdem themed game (Mini 188) of online mafia as A8- Dead Man's Hand. I really wanted to claim to be a "superdeputy", with the ability to gain the abilities of a killed hand, but when 5+ aces showed up in other claimed hands (accurately, as it ironically turned out!) I instead claimed to be 99- Barbara Feldon. Though by that point the game was all but over, after which my actual role of Mafia Godfather was revealed.

While the game was fun, albeit with some balance issues, it didn't *feel* like a mafia game. Day 1 was a competition to figure out the rules; Day 2, to figure out the setup; Day 3, a race. The informed minority vs. uninformed majority theme never really felt prominent.

Hit every roller coaster at 6 Flags, but the best ride was easily Xcalibur. I need to ride it on a cloudier day or at twilight, so that the sun does not force me to close my eyes to the unrestrainedly shifting horizon.

The rest, best to worst:

Batman- Excellent all-around.
Ninja- Very nice spirals.
Mr. Freeze- Short but thematically intense.
Screamin’ Eagle- Nothing too memorable, but some good drops.
The Boss- Too woodenly rickety.
River King Mine Train- Too tame, especially having the misfortune of being ridden following Batman.

No SI mentions this week; my best was probably a meta-entry. (102nd use for an AOL disk: Installing AOL.) Two fellow Losers also had overlooked entires I thought funny:

“102nd thing to do when bored: Challenge yourself to a game of "Rock, Paper, Scissors".”
Actually, I know someone who’s done this. (In fairness, they are ambidextrous.)

“102nd thing to do to get through another lonely Saturday night: Sit at your computer and keep hittingthe refresh button until the new SI results pop up on-line.”
Actually, I’ve done this.

And for that matter, I’ve installed AOL from an AOL disk.

People with 7-letter last names are naturally superior.

I neither excessively liked nor excessively hated Napoleon Dynamite, which I finally got around to seeing. It had practically no plot or theme, and the humor felt amateurish. Yet it had amazing intereactions between extremely strongly described characters. Despite the implausible quirks, the film had a near perfect suspense of disbelief from the characters’ consistency. And Pedro totally stole the show.

Perhaps more surprising, the liger actually exists.

“So I had a thought while watching Kill Bill 2 last night. […] Now, this is deep: Why do you never see Clark Kent and Superman at the same time?”
Um, have you seen any of the movies? ‘Cause I don’t want to give anything away… but, see, they’re the same person.

Almost as silly as Superman's identity being debated in Linguistics was contrasting distribution randomly arising in conversation that night at 2:15 AM.

“If you understand this, you will understand phonology: Superman and Clark Kent are allophones in complementary distribution. If you’re a duck, or a goat, it’s a very difficult concept.”

If anyone wants to visit me this week, start by tying a long piece of string around the Bunny. Hold onto the other end, and start walking.

If arriving by car, same thing, only start by tying the string to the clock tower.

No SI mentions this week; understandably so given how unprintable *I* was deeming my funniest entry. Which as I submitted I realized was a sign of how tasteless college has made me; a year ago I would have probably not sent it, whereas now I don't even add a bracketed apology. At least losernet appreciated it.

A: "Le Sacre du Printemps" but not "The Sack of Rome"
Q: What is an appropriate euphemism for the Pope's genitalia?

It would be wonderful if all zealotry could be addressed with the elegant simplicity of eBay.

“Q: THIS SELLER AND ALL BIDDERS WILL BURN IN HELL FOR PARTAKING IN THIS UNHOLY AUCTION! YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS BLASPHEMY! ALL PRAISE ALLAH!!
A: Dude - you recently purchased a Sea Monkey doll using BuyItNow. The only thing that you should be praising are your parents for letting you live in their basement.”

[There’s certainly enough bizarre eBay listings.]

Over this past forgotten weekend I singled in the SI with what I considered my funniest submission, for a change. (Wag the Dogma: A group of apostles spin some messianic nonsense to distract the public from the Pilate-Magdalene affair.) A funny week all-around:

“It's a Wonderful Life Is Beautiful: A man sees how depressing a Nazi concentration camp would have been without him.

The Lion in Winterminator 2: Eleanor of Aquitaine can't be bargained with. She can't be reasoned with. She doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And she absolutely will not stop. Until you are dead.”

A toroidal inductor apparently is a thick washer-sized object with copper wire coiled about that can be found on graphics cards. It apparently should not be detached rattling around the fan. Between that discovery, a misplaced cell phone, and the usually miraculous convergence of technology, I found myself utterly primitivized. No telephone, no computer, no television, no CD player, no radio.

It was incredibly boring.

I'd like to think that John Ronald Reuel would have chuckled.

Danny’s Rule of Cooking:
Pepperoni is a good thing to have around.

“Something’s coming over me...”

I don’t understand the feelings I have as I read these secrets: Morbid, fascinated, artistically appreciative, half-amused, horrified, disbelieving, jarring, raw.

I don’t wonder what I would send. I wonder whether I would send it.

Home's a great place to visit, but I'm not sure I'd want to live there.

The semester’s SI sabbatical was broken by a badly worded and late entry that the Empress allowed to be amended. The result was a coincidental single on the day I was able to break the SI social sabbatical to attend my second LoserOlympics.

Fencing: Bronze
Improv: Silver
Mechanical Fish Racing: Silver
Completathon: Bronze

(No cupstacking this year, regretfully.)

Whitman’s final LinDanny bonding.

‘Thus the theme is established that had she missed the train or not, regardless of the sequence of events that proceeded, in the end it does not matter.’ Most awkward sentence ever.
Second most-awkward.

“The work-study questionnaire is like the roommate survey: no matter how you fill it out, you’ll get something.”
Actually, if you fill out your roommate survey obnoxiously enough you’ll get a single.
“Really?”
No!

That’s your bag. I know because from across the claim I can tell it’s the most badly packed bag I’ve ever seen.

When the Russians don’t have vodka, they use salad dressing.

freerabbispeechs.com

This is the best parallel parking I’ve ever done.
<thump>
Still is.

I can't put down anything. Oh wait, I can put down isotope. Only *not*.

Wazoo is so a word [and not a word meaning *that*]. I'm not going to bother to argue apriline [clearly being an uncapitalized word meaning of, like, or characteristic of April]. Having broken 300 in my first real Scrabble game, I really can’t growl.

Was that what urbandictionary said?
No. dictionary.

Maryland until Tuesday because high school was survived.
(If you’re reading this than I probably can’t be reached by IM; use cell or e-mail instead.)

Newbie Mafia 111, with me a vanilla, began with my identifying a mafia member in my first post based on something said in their first post. I followed up this incredible accomplishment by voting to lynch the doctor, calling for the cop to be needlessly exposed, being voted by the surviving innocent vote on the final day, and having my final instinct being proven wrong after it was moot anyhow. Mafia win, I lose. While the mafia did play very well, the game was lost by the lack of support the rest of the town contributed, especially from the full complement of power roles we had. Is it too much to ask that the doctor not be suicidal, to claim rather than be lynched? Or the cop to use his investigative power to investigate? Or for townspeople to mention who they think suspicious? Talk about incredible play...

Couldn’t decide between emptyger@ and dbravman@, so gmailing it up, x2. (googleplex, perhaps?)

[Wiki Tangent Foxtrot?]

Are there ethical guidelines to humor? A Foxtrot from a few weeks ago apparently inspired vandalism on Wikipedia. Does humor preclude accuracy in a democratic free press?

Of course, such philosophical musings in this week’s Czar’s chat were interrupted by a more critical Warthog Tango Foxtrot:
“Deep Throat has been unmasked, and the CNN Poll is "Do you think Paris Hilton is ready for marriage?"”

Speaking of prioritizing online information, the Orbit Gum girl does not yet have a wiki page. I should probably do something about that.

I would like to call my next witness: the deity Saturn.
I am right, Cat is wrong, and Wednesday is Saturday.
I'd like to think I had a chance of at least not losing that argument, even if I couldn't have won it.

For some reason suicidal bunnies seemed morbidly appropriate for Memorial Day at Wash U. [I expect in the morning there to be a great chance that I decide that this is very wrong.]

Taking the 9.

Mostly settled into my sublet; contact information updated. No landline, meaning I'll need to expand my cell phone plan. Mail should be forwarded, but *NO PACKAGES* over the summer. (If you need to send me something, call me before sending and I'll try to work it out.) Travel schedule mostly indeterminate, though I will be back in Maryland next weekend. Devastatingly delayed e-mail correspondences should finally be remembered this weekend. If anyone's found a beige laundry bag or any other scattered tidbit I've inadvertently left strewn across St. Louis, let me know.

“If more than 3 women live in a brothel, it is considered a whorehouse.”
This is not an urban legend.

Fargona forelorna.
Cat, California-bred,
Trying somehow to make
Summer plans (work):

Nonsequestrational
Joys seek out: Summertime
Need be no bummer; I’m
Missing you (smirk).

Apples to Apples is technically won by obtaining 5 green apple cards, but it is effectively won by obtaining the green apple card “Touchy-Feely” by submitting the red apple card “Helen Keller”.

Episode 3 neatly filled the hole between 2 and 4, but I’m not yet prepared to make a declaration on relative quality; 3 and 4 in particular feel difficult to compare. I do hope that my hypothesized “when all is said and done, the ep.s will run from worst to best” is fulfilled, if only to provide an artistic excuse for 1 and 2 being so bad. I do think that there’s a continuity mistake, as in Episode 6 Leia admitted she remembered her mother. For who, forgive me, because of either from the writing or the acting ability, I wasn’t feeling it from Natalie Portman, to the point where I need to apologize about it.

It's the day before break begins, it's the day before dorms close. Most people have already left. There's nothing left that you must do. So, when late evening gives way to night, what will you do? Sleep? Why, when there's so much you won't be able to do tomorrow:

* Chat about nothing in the halls and lounges of various dorms.
* Investigate the resilience of exit signs.
* Listen to all the bands starting with 'A' on your playlist.
* Search for those mysterious tunnels.
* Walk to Steak 'n Shake. And back.
* Movie.
* Cards.
* Burn through the remaining alcohol and meal points.
* Watch the sunrise.

Sleep???
You can sleep on the plane.
You're having fun tonight.

Somehow college is 1/4 finished, but there’s so much I need to do:

Spend ~60 points
Seek the tunnels
Hearts rematch
Movies
Music
Employment
Housing
Mail
Bear’s Den French Fries
See the final dawn
Taco Bell
Write the Orbit Gum girl
Biscuit
[and other things I’d never dreamed of]

(Maybe pack, perhaps.)

Still no keyboard, but I borrowed one to type this, so no need to appreciate how hard it was to put this one up. Used the extra time to make smores in JKL courtyard and to tour next year’s dorm.

[Keyboard has arrived. Yay HP!]