Lost $7, found 4 decks of cards. Not sure whether I come out ahead.

“We ask you to choose your major in your sophomore year. We do that because that’s when we want you to choose your major.”

No SI mentions this week: I suppose Mark Hacking jokes are still considered in bad taste. (Perhaps I should have tried: Proposing in your testimony as a character witness for the defense of Scott Peterson.) Whether proposing through the SI would be cool or otherwise remains a hypothesized gender difference.

I have something special for you, something I’ve been saving for a long time. It may not seem like much, but has great sentimental value, and one day it might be worth something indeed. I will regret giving it up, but I hope that you’ll carry it with you from now on and think of me whenever you use it.

Please accept my Cosi card, and think of me when you eat that free sandwich.

1 free packet of Ramen noodles with purchase of textbooks.

In "Per Veritatem Vis", Vis is translated as strength, not power.

When I began Away Messaging, I lasted about 2 weeks before stopping. Yet after a two month hiatus, I resumed, and from there I did not stop for over two years, until Vanessa’s presence made AIM temporarily untenable. Now her absence does similarly to blogging.

So when we do reunite, I am not sure which I will choose to resume. Away Messaging provides an illusion of communication, whereas blogging I write for only myself. I must weigh the freedoms from character limits against the presence of camaraderie against the nostalgic flexibility archives provide.

Perhaps I will be too busy to do either.

“There’s a feeling I get when I look to the west/And my spirit is crying for leaving.”

This is mine… in that you will explode if you try to step on it.

I really hate buying shoes, particularly sandals. My feet are so narrow that it’s basically New Balance, but they have a poor selection regarding comfort. Other brands are too wide to not flop off my feet unless I choose a size too small in length. A triply-adjustable pair in a close enough size should not be this legendary.

Outlook hazy, trying again. As much as I’d like to blame the Microsoft, they’re not the culpable monopoly: Don’t like the cable people.

Who was that [on the phone]?
“‘Would you like to give money?’
No thank you.
‘Really, would you like to give money?’
No thank you.
‘Oh. Are you sure you wouldn’t like to give money?’”

As hard as it is to root for a team playing as badly as the Frederick Keys did in their double-header losses (11-7, 5-1), it is so much easier than rooting for a team named the Warthogs.

Only now discovering that months and years before I was twice blocked on AIM. While neither inexplicable nor even unsuspected, it still feels a little odd having the blow land so long after being dealt.

A quick little decathlon puzzle. (Registration required.) It's probably the most involved I will become in observing the 2004 Olympics; historically I've always preferred the Winter. I might try something like badminton or fencing, but I'm already meeting this weekend's quota of athletic observation through a minor league game on Sunday.

All of the phone numbers have fallen out of your address book. Whose number do you look for first and why?

My own old cell phone, bequeathed to one to who would appropriately commiserate and mock.

Lobelia and Saruman, similar tangential annoyances, oppose each other having been forgotten. One succumbs to a fatal spiral of tragedy; yet the other somehow lives happily ever until the end of her days, having been redeemed to become, of all things, a Brandybuck.

"Hobbits really are amazing creatures… You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet… they can still surprise you…"

Poison Ivy :(

Despite my negative epicurean score on almost every other question, I am very satisfied to have my preference for chicken wings affirmed. This week revealed chess to be less funny than bridge; though I wonder which is more funny.

"For question six, deduct a point if you said "radicchio." I'm not even going to get into why, you pretentious, dishonest snot."

A triple in this week’s Style Invitational! My unprinted entries included a couple of extremely obscure facts I was not surprised to have rejected, a version of the classic cereal killer pun, and the MacGuyer WMD boxcutter joke. However, I am most disappointed about fallacious googlewhacking: Submitting a two-word phrase with zero hits to a googlewhack contest so that the phrase becomes a googlewhack after it is printed as a contest winner; also known as competitio principii., since I won’t be able to submit competitio principii to the end of the year SI. (Ignoring the various listings of the phrase on this page.)

“Head, shoulders, knees…” Potential dehydration and poison ivy have to be forgotten after a misstep at Great Falls leaves me with a nice collection of abrasions and without a few seconds of consciousness.

Vanessa steps into extra memory, however.

Bishop for a couple hours, futilely defending the White King: Qc1# (0-1). More successful as a gem collecting bouncer, although it was a trifle hard to hear through the miter. Hopefully, despite every chessmen forgetting to bring a working camera, pictures will still be able to be obtained. With my second puzzle hunt behind-the-scene credit collected, perhaps I will have enough experience to create my own, or at least compete in one.

4 drivers, 3 cars, 2 more weeks, and a partridge in a pear tree; yet 2Amys is accomplished, thanks to my non-leper bratty little sister (who keeps her hands to herself).

What was that dessert?
“A fried milk ball in honey.”
No, I mean, what’s it called?
“I don’t know; just google "fried milk ball in honey", and you’ll have to hit a site on Indian desserts.”
“Along with a thousand porn sites.”

Pickled mangos consist of a combination of tastes which, while good separately, should not be experienced simultaneously.

“When I make good chicken, you don’t need to put balsamic vinaigrette on it. When I get lousy chicken, you can put balsamic vinaigrette on that.”
Well, this is good balsamic vinaigrette. If you got lousy vinaigrette, he wouldn’t put it on the chicken.

Don’t take diet advice from people selling food.

Last night's oxymoron:
"Do you eat out at home?"

Extrapolating from a sample of 3, I conclude that one favors chewing on one side of one's mouth, likely the side which one otherwise favors.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink out of one side of his mouth.

"So many adventures couldn't happen today..."

Last chance to suggestion what I won't be doing for my birthday this year.

Nor do I know what I would want to be given, besides [elephant!!!] pancakes. (Peroxide, perhaps- that was an embarrassing Birthday Eve. And floss, apparently.) The monumental event is upcoming, and I've received so much for that that a mere birthday seems too trivial.

For what would I be celebrating? Was Sunday's child too old or too young? Who could avoid worrying about awkwardness with fortune cookie advice like "Watch your relations with other people carefully,be[sic] reserved."? Does today depend on yesteryear?

On average I am average. Without acknowledging last year I have a good time today. With acknowledging last year I have a good time today. It is today. I will have a good time.

"Forever young, I want to be forever young..."

The problem with the World War II Memorial is that it is a memorial for World War II. Not that WW2 should not be remembered; but the Mall has no grand Revolutionary War Memorial or Civil War Memorial, yet each of those conflicts were more important to American History. This is hardly unique, for the Korean and Vietnam Wars similarly are memorialized; and the conflict must be remembered in some manner. But a just doesn't feel appropriate, not there. Neither the obelisk of Washington, which allegedly represents the Revolutionary War, and the temple of Lincoln, which allegedly represents the Civil War, need to state their conflicts in central triumphal glorification bordering on nostalgic propoganda. What message was added to F. Roosevelt's memorial?

(And no, the best time to see it is not after sunset.)

Compose the lyrics to a new national anthem that features an animal sound at least once:

I didn't even have something to submit for the recent similar Style Invitational, which didn't have the additional onomatopoeic restriction. And I really do enjoy the current anthem's poetry, and for that reason regard it, as when hypothetically transforming American Pie, to be foolishly sacrilegious. And I had a traumatic incident in kindergarten regarding audio creativity. And I’m uninspired.

Considering I did really well in this week's SI despite not submitting anything, I think I'll take a pass here too.