Svenson opening.

The Wash U A Team (tragically left unnamed; perhaps Gold to match the Wash U Green and Red of the B and C teams?) in my first performance on it went undefeated. The best of my 13 powers would have to be metaing “Valkerie” after only “In the video game Gauntlet, this character <buzz> wielded a sword”; though I must also must mention powering “Tolkien” given Oxford and Edith.

"Among her childrens books are Whangdoodle..."
<buzz> "Julie Andrews?"
"Correct."
"That was power, right?"
"No, you had to get it before Doodle."
"Actually, the cutoff was Whang."
Whang should never be the cutoff.

Even so, I regrettably could not match last year’s tastelessness even with the statue of the miner costumed as a crusader.

Amongst the coolest things ever would be a T-Rex on Segway.

I would like to remind Peter that following a performance the energy level is going to maintain its high; and that there if one looks hard enough, one can find humor in every situation; and that a troupe should, as a whole, collectively encourage the expression of humor; and that murder, torture, dismemberment, and sodomy are abhorrent and illegal practices; and that it was all Amy’s idea.

If I were forced to be doing EComp again, I would be doing a Pirate vs. Ninja research paper.

Suspicious of Whistlers will be at the St. Louis Science Center Friday evening. Transportation might be able to be provided- let me know as soon as possible if interested.

Philosophy *sucks*. This paper *sucks*. Well, that’s not true. This paper doesn't exist.
That's philosophical. Can something that does not exist suck?

Mario Kart and Mario Kart, and Princess is still the best. Let nostalgia come to Shanedling.

Too many possibilities, but still pure skill.

“It’s like Rock-Paper-Scissors, only it’s called Bear-Hunter-Ninja.”
Okay, but how does the ninja kill the hunter?
“It’s a fucking ninja!”
Okay, but how does the bear kill the ninja?
“It’s a fucking bear!”

[Delivery beats Decency. Sorry.]

Since commercial airlines will probably never allow smoking henceforth, it seems wasteful to have the “no-smoking” light next to the “fasten seatbelts” light. While the latter is a condition which will change over a flight, the former condition is constant; unlike, say, the usage of portable electronic devices. So, why not make that a light instead?

As I discovered on a flight last week, however, apparently USAirways beat me to the patent office. Moral victory, I suppose.

So I’m walking through the mall past a shoe store and a bright orange Converse catches my eye. So I have to go inside and inquire. And I discover that the only pair that color they carry is the one on display. Which happens to be in my size. And which happens to be 50% off.

I hereby declare the week of suck over.

About a week ago I indicated that this week would suck.
It still does.
It still is.

"O the cares of humans! O how much emptiness there is in things!"

I haven’t yet been to class this week and it still sucks.

New year or near you.

Home, with only Van Ness Monster to listen to. Which is might not be as unpleasant as it sounds.

[Speaking of new names: Dental Sedimental?]

Home until Tuesday. But it’s not the same.

I fixed myself dinner because I didn't feeling like leaving the room. I had a piece of bread with Hershey kisses and Hershey kisses on the side. I felt really sick.

My apologize for being whiny. And not conjugating my verbs.

And she tore it apart. Which I can respect, because it's my first college paper, and I wrote it the night before, and it sucked.

I wish people knew me and that I am just unstable.

Let Satan have his day.

Sprinkles make the hot chocolate.

The name of an improv troupe should
1) Be easy to pronounce
2) Not sound like an a capella group

Suggestions are being solicited through Saturday.

ps It’s a Long-form!

“Actually, I just ate dinner- with someone you know.”
Animal, vegetable, or mineral?
“Animal.”
Are they bigger than a breadbox?
“Slightly.”
Are they sma- wait, is it Cat?
“No.”

Mission Accomplished.

Finally had the time to admire my orangy new iPod, which needs a name. Currently proprsed is Van Ness Monster. Taking alternate suggestions until I find the time to actually load music onto the thing.

Curiouser and curiouser.

Eliot 2 Girls Are Ugly

(Swiping an air hockey table is a 4-man job.)

Comparatives and superlatives:

Walk in, lie down.
Walk in, lie down, emergency room.
Walk in, lie down, Emergency Support Team.

Lost and La, if not other things which should be celebrated but won't be on account of it being Wednesday. <insert hurricane joke here>

My toes hate Mondays.

So today the girl behind me in linguistics needed a stapler. Which I so carry with me. Really. I do.

First of all, next time you have a heart attack, um, tell me about it? And second, get rid of that pig.

Of all the things not to do...
...Drugs are one of them?
I was going to say not be yourself.

Why do you have 2 tissue boxes?
That’s my vice tissue box. If my first one dies, this one takes over.

Unfortunately didn’t have a chance to follow up last year’s reputation setting limericks, but did manage the following overlooked entry for [blonde]:

A bimbo bearing a hot bod;
Her insights, at best, are quite odd.
Portrayed as a ditz
In humor, but its
Just a stereotype. Omigod.

The reason that it is impossible to make a good parody of “American Pie” is because it mimetically imitates thricely.

Though it might be possible to make a parody of American Pie about American Pie parodies. I am hypothesizing that while it may not be able to be good, it has the potential to not be bad.

Audiences do not read for Audiences alone, but for Men.

Wednesday is my Katrina day. Disastrous, oversaturated, and dominated by awesome forces of destruction and mismanagement.

(I figure Katrina jokes should be tasteful any day now, and want to get a jump on it.)

Call for help.

But not to Cingular, who during a roadtrip to Indianapolis reset my service without prompt or notification, and still do not feel like restoring my now-borderline coverage to beyond 1 bar at best.

*4* showers in one day? Never has being so clean felt so dirty.

(And 4 loads of laundry accounted for/corrected, a most impressive considering there being only 3 laundry machines.)

"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.