The Soundwich: Another IM Conversation

toro412: figure out a definition for the following word:
toro412: soundwich
MANDEL2002: a psuedo edible entity that feeds the body through the fulfillment of the soul via pleasing tones
toro412: give me some imagery, some context.
MANDEL2002: i don't have any man
MANDEL2002: maybe you inject it with a needle into your ear
MANDEL2002: a gaseous thing
toro412: sounds futuristic
toro412: maybe like freeze-dried ice cream
MANDEL2002: yeah i roll forward looking
toro412: cure world hunger with the ground-breaking soundwich

¡Independencia!

I have been pretty lazy and bored during this break so far. I mean don't get me wrong, I'm not sitting in a darkened room crying softly to myself for large portions of the day while listening to four Postal Service songs on repeat (yes). I mean I've been getting out, doing stuff, cool stuff, ya know. But anyways, I was perusing the internet when I came across the notion of a "micronation." Pretty much, micronations are imagined countries, modeled after the nation-state but they only exist either in the imagination of their creator or on incredibly small created islands, one of these is called Sealand, info is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sealand and i'd make the links better but i can't so drew has to. Anyways, pretty much the notion of a nation is taken for granted as it is, but what is to stop us at the Monstrosity from declaring our own micronation. We would get to make our own currency (beer), and elect a president, this would probably be a bloody electoral campaign that would leave us all dead, therefore I'd probalby propose that we all submit to a benevolent dictatorship under the wise guidance of Olmstead. Other government officials in the micronation of Monstrosity might be:

First Knight of Technology: Drew
Prince of Corrections: Hans Bengtson
Head of Ministry of Distillation and Photography: Garrett Stiles
Twin Towers of Sport: Lane Aikin, Alex Carlson
Director of the Life Aquatic: Julian Trowbridge
Historian, Librarian, Documentarian: Daniel Baxter
Arborial Specialist, Long-Haul Transportation Coordinator: Gus Gustafson
Dude who invented this whole thing and posted it on a blog: Aaron Mandel

A man and his beer.

Today while standing in a convenience store waiting to pay for my horchata smoothie I saw a sharp-looking young fellow purchasing a bottle of wine (remember, convenience store) and a twelve-pack of Corona Light. This initially surprised me because the chap seemed more like a 30-pack of Bud Light and pass out type of guy. He had a fine golden bracelet and a fine golden necklace, with fine boots and a fine pair of jeans and a fine spiked haircut with a fine Abercrombie and Fitch shirt on. I am sure he had a fine raised Jeep with fine floodlights in the parking lot. At this point I realized that you can accurately predict what a person is up to based on the type of alcohol they are purchasing. I needed to know nothing more about what this man was doing this evening or who he was doing it with. The answers came through his choice of alcohol.
Let me say again that he was buying cheap wine and Corona Light. The wine suggests that he is attempting to impress someone of the female persuasion. He is making a rudimentary attempt at class by bringing along a bottle of wine. The wine suggests dinner, and the beer suggests that they will be spending the evening in somewhere. He wouldn't need a lot of beer if they were headed to a bar. He chose a bottle of white wine, which combined with the Corona Light tells me many things. First, because white wine is sweet, it is harder to drink it in quantity. However, he was tailing it up with 12 beers. This says that while he is trying to impress his date with the wine, he knows that she is an experienced drinker and therefore must also bring beer in order to get her to a satisfactory point of inebriation in order to accomplish the goal of this date, which seems to be sex considering the amount of booze he was buying. This girl, she is obviously someone worth of impressing with the wine, or we would not see it. She is also a party girl, or he would not need the beer. She is also not willing to have sex with this man without the use of alcohol, or he wouldn't not be in the convenience store spending $30.
All the "clues in the booze," as I like to say, do not bring about the "sauciest" conclusion of whether or not this man accomplished his goal. If the girl is truly classy and is just giving the guy a shot, he will undoubtedly crash and burn. If she couldn't tell a wine bottle from a jug of laundry detergent, then his trip to the QuikTrip will have been a success.
Try this little game the next time you see someone purchasing alcohol in public. It is a fun way to pass the time while the person in front of you fishes around in their urine-soaked blue jeans for that last nickel to pay for the 40oz.-er.

ho ho ho

umm, this is so true.

_____

Grandma gives me socks for Christmas.

Two redheaded young boys walked into my dad's house today, said not a word as they walked past me, and began examining the presents underneath our Christmas tree. One was too young to read and was asking his older flame-headed brother who every single present under the tree was for. Upon finding a gift that provided the appropriate Christian name, they plopped down on the ground and waited. I didn't know what to do with them because I had never been trespassed by two young children. I had also never been burglarized by young children, so I stood baffled. Then my stepmom walked around the corner and referred to them by name, bumping them up from the category of being "strange unknown children" to the "step-cousin strange unknown children." Having legal relation to a complete stranger does in no way ease any sort of apprehension you have about them entering your home and pillaging your Christmas tree, let me tell you.

We was robbed!

I awoke last saturday a happy happy man, finals had just finished and a long break lay ahead. I scratched sack and ventured downstairs to see what eatings there were to be had. When downstairs I realized that I had left my laptop downstairs exactly where I had entered the monstro to joyous post-finals cheers. I couldn't find my laptop and went upstairs. Then I told Drew and he scoped it out with me, in the process noticing that all of our other electronic equipment from the living room had gone missing too. "fuck, we got robbed," Drew said. "yeah," I agreed. In between the hours of 3 and 8am some coked out bastards had the good sense to be strolling by our house and stopped in for a little christmas shopping. Now they took our stereo, dvd player, n64 +games, and the spongebob remote. THE SPONGEBOB REMOTE (not to mention super smash bros.)??? What kind of cold, heartless bastards are you? Those items are worth less than my calcified toenail! The annoyance at losing my laptop with thesis notes and such pales in comparison to the utter bloodlust revenge urges I am feeling at the loss of the brown n64 controller and the 2nd season of chapelle's show (they took that shit too). So watch out Walla Walla a bunch of extremely inept thefts are on the lookout for easy to pilfer extremely cheap electronic devices.


I'd be on the lookout for that guy. Shady motherfucker.

In other news, some observations on drugs made collectively have been that one of the scariest/coolest things ever would be to have a mutation such that you posessed a tooth in your belly button that could be used to

a) scare the shit out of people or...
b) open beer bottles as a really sweet party trick

Also, me and another friend are considering a show of solidarity by tailgating outside our third friend's jury duty at the courthouse.

and...Garrett tried to microwave two potatoes but went upstairs and fell asleep. I found these in the morning looking sorta like the ancient testicles of a petrified elephant.

Here's to the holidays!

Ghosts in the fog.

I was driving back to Boise today and the fog creamed across the roads like cream. I couldn't see further than about twenty feet in front of the car, so if there was any sort of roadblocks or herds of rhinoceri in the road I would have surely been engaged in what the pig latinos call a "ar-ca rash-ca." I was determined to not pull over as the other cars had done. A light billboard over the road told me to be warned of fog, and to be sure to turn on my fog lights. I decided to try a little experiment and ignore this warning and instead engage in Hyundai's bonus feature on their Elantra sedan aptly titled "Stealth Mode." Without headlights on, I had even less visibility than before but I had a clearer sense of my metaphysical presence within the fog, which allowed me to navigate using my mind's eye. My mind's eye navigated me right into a ditch, at which point I chose to disengage Stealth Mode and back my car out. At this point I began to realize that there hadn't been any other cars for quite some time, and an overwhelming sense of loneliness filled my heart. I looked around and the world had been reduced down to the several thousand square feet surrounding me in the fog. My world was tiny, and I was alone. My mind naturally began to wander, and I thought "What if this is what hell is like? You're just alone and cold on a tiny patch of dirt and you can never leave it." That's when I saw the great beast emerging from the fog. A dark shape was coming towards me on the other side of the road and it wasn't shaped anything like a car or truck. The only thing I could think of was that it resembled a bullet train, but it was moving mind-numbingly slow so I ruled that out. I actually took my foot off of the gas and had a moment of temporary panic trying to figure out what this apparition was. My mind started filling in the gaps and I became convinced that the thing coming down the road was not rolling but rather WALKING and the fog had actually drawn out some great mythical beast from its long slumber and it had wandered down this patch of highway. I slowed down to almost 20 miles per hour to try and gauge the speed of this massive phantom. Finally a headlight blinked into view. It was a vehicle, but shaped like nothing I have ever seen. Then a bright yellow tint and a space-aged cockpit in the front. As I stared in a mix of embrassment and awe, the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile rolled slowly past me on the highway, undoubtedly on a lonely quest across the Pacific Northwest to spread the good word about the superior flavor of Oscar Meyer weiners over other, lesser brands of weiner.

And just like that it will be done.

With the vigor of youth, the man had written a blog post from deep inside his soul. He gazed into the abyss, and when then abyss gazed back upon him, his mind could not handle the revelation. But just as every terrible nightmare must end with a sunrise, so this young man's night is quickly becoming memory after only shortly being lived. As he said, it will be something that he will remember for the rest of his life. Living on the edge of sanity is a line many are not willing to walk, but there are others, like this man, who run screaming to that line and stop short with the momentary hesitation of an unsure suicide. Instead he will walk the line for a few short hours and quickly succumb to sleep. He will awaken to find the world as it was before last night, and the nightmare will quickly fade. Some say that you always remember the bad dreams and never the good ones, but you don't learn anything about yourself when you dream about clouds, but you do when you dream about death.

Friends and beer can calm the most terrifying of nightmares.

the last of days

a broken, beaten man, bearded from lack of ability to move razor over face sits in a fragrant stench of senility and immobility. Warplanes can shoot at my chest but don't cut open my heart with your smiling bullets or you'll drown in a sea of chocolate oil. Spontaneous combustion of rags is not common but frequently warned about and if this library is my prison then the tea I am drinking in great quantities to make myself pee every 20 minutes is my savior-canary. Wind sprints outside to awaken the soul but the wheels turn in a low gear and you realize you forgot to upgrade to 1 million speed, just smart enough to know you're not smart enough is the worst place to be on god's good gangrene earth, and then the flick of some keys, some useless observations to be read by one or two people at most and freedom is here, mass consumption of beer and the sickening thought that I will never publish this post and I have another final in 2.5 hours and 5 pages due at 4 and nothing really matters that much because it is warm as fuck in the bathrooms and I feel a kindred spirit connection to the night lady in the library and sunrise is a placebo that keeps us alert and alive and young. I have a small mole on my arm that changes color quite frequently and maybe if I look hard enough into it I can make a few wishes, none of them would be whiny, i have too much work make it go away wishes because quite honestly I am a fucking masochist for all time, or if enjoying your own pain is another word then I meant that. We are only young once, staying up all night doing 15 pages of work and then taking a final is memorable and if it lowers my grade in a class from a plus to a minus then watch me give a fuck because when the dawn breaks I will have lived a life less ordinary for just a moment and taken some pleasure in that while I still can because I know I have to wake up and mow the lawn and change the diaper of my mind because like my lips, my brain is chapped, it's a reaction to elements, but not the kind on a periodic table, elements of lives and the balm is not blistex but the comfortable slide back into a routine that is preprogrammed and accepted, like not even realizing you are on drugs but being really fucked up we are programmed to receive and maybe we gain strength from the deviations. I don't have worry about getting attacked by a rodent right now because my body odor is creating the kind of permanent force field around me that first person video gamers only dream about. Earth cry in the keyholes of doors that open to nothing but chairs and paintings but where the last line never should have existed and a yearning for more may be inherently place -based and needing to be done away with. mommy.

More.

Yup, that time 'a year.

Good morning!

it's that time of year ain't it?

Please hold.

One of the most dreaded requirements of our modern technological lifestyle is something called Technical Support. Like it is some shocking surprise that people have trouble navigating 2000-page manuals written in Mandarin, the final page of these giant wastes of treelife is a small line that says "If none of these printed solutions work, you may call Technical Support." They tell you you "may" call Technical Support. What they're really saying is "you know how big of a pain in the ass our manual is? If you call the helpline it's more like a cancer in the ass, in that it will most definitely fuck you over."
Calling a helpline is like being taken back to 2nd grade. Upon being taken immediately to hold being told that there is "unusual amount of call volume" the recording will proceed to make you second guess all your reasons for calling the line in the first place. "Did you make sure that all you devices were powered on and plugged into a wall outlet?" The calming female voice chimes over a cheesy elevator tune that will, in about 45 minutes, make you want to murder a family of midgets. What is amazing is that this voice will actually make you think "Did I plug in the computer? Maybe that's been the problem this whole time. Maybe I forgot how to use a wall outlet." The questions for the voice get increasingly specific, but they are all attempts to get you off of the help line. "Did a raccoon or other woodland creature become lodged in you hard drive? If so, please refer to our website section titled "The proper removal of animal carcass and/or human waste from the hard drive of your Hewlett-Packard laptop computer." Anything and everything they can do to get you to hang up will be attempted. Sometimes the voice will come back on and managed to assume the most sarcastic tone I have ever heard in a voice recording by saying "We're sorry you're still on hold, our technicians are busy helping other valueable customers. You can stay on the line, or you can visit us at www.blahblahblah.com for more assistance." I know the technincal assistants are in the back of the cubicles huffing glue, because when I finally wait 3 hours to get on the phone with one of them, their brain capacity is below that of the woodland creature who perished when it mysteriously thrust itself into the bowels of my laptop. The technicial will act as a strange echo of the recorded voice, assuming you know absolutely nothing about the computer that you use EVERY DAY and ask you questions like "Have you checked to make sure your monitor cord is plugged in?" It's always the default move to blame it on the cords. Or, to tell you that your warranty is expired. Or, that the Lord Satan has occupied your piece of modern technology and that the best way to fix it is to find a virgin youth and have them bathe in rosewater and using the bath runoff the cleanse your laptop as the full moon waxes and 12 white leopards circle the ritual counter-clockwise.

As you can probably tell I have a bitter taste in my mouth from having to rely on technical support when my own resources fail me. Luckily, if you threaten enough people when you finally are connected they will usually waive a bunch of fees and pay for your repair because they constantly want to stick to the mantra of "get this fucker off of the phone." If they don't get you with the wait time, the idiotic staff, or the references to Satan worship, they will actually throw money at you to leave them alone in their sanctuary of telephone headsets and speed-laced lattes.

For What it's Worth

this is a story I heard my friend Victor tell one night a few summers ago in the pleasant heat of a starry night:

There were two brothers who grew up in a house on top of a hill amongst the fields. Everyday they would go play at a tire swing by a river near their house. As the brothers grew older their lives began to take different courses but they still got together for a sit and a chat at the tire swing as often as they could. As they went off to college they grew more and more apart but when they came home to visit they could tramp off to the swing and it seemed as if no time had passed. As the years went on the brother's took wives and started families. After their parents passed away they were both back at their old house after the funeral and they went down to see if the tire swing was still in place, hanging from the tree by the river. It was there and they sat down and talked about their lives, their families and so on. After a few hours of talking their boyish adventurish spirits had been coaxed out of hibernation. They formulated a plan to build a sail boat and the older brother would sail for a year, returning to the tire swing exactly 365 days after departing. Then the younger brother would go out for the same amount of time. The brothers built a fine looking boat and after making family arrangements and what not, the older brother set sail from the nearest port. He sailed for many moons until after nearly six months had passed he spotted an island with buildings on the horizon. Setting a course for the island, the older brother pulled into port and was greeted by all the inhabitants. They had not had a visitor in hundreds of years and gave him the royal treatment which included a dinner with the king that night. As the older brother made his way through town he noticed some of the finest jewels he had ever seen in his life just lying in the gutters of the island's streets. The dinner the king had prepared was an extravagant feast, much like Prentiss Brunch. Servants prepared plates for everyone and the king watched intently as the older brother took a bite of chicken. "How is it?" the king asked. "It's okay," replied the older brother. "Only ok?" the king demanded. "It needs some salt, that's all," noted the older brother. The king got a puzzled look on his face and asked his servants if they knew what salt was. No one did. THe older brother then realized that the island probably had not yet figured out how to use salt on food. He quickly ran back to his boat and got some salt and put it on the king's food. The king's face lit up and he exclaimed, "this is the best thing I have ever tasted! How can I ever repay you?" The older brother thought for a moment and then asked, "what about all those jewels in your gutters, can I have some of those?" THe king looked puzzled and said, "you want our trash?" but granted the older brother his wish. The older brother loaded his boat up with the priceless jewels, showed the islanders how to take salt from the ocean's waters and then sailed off toward home and his rendevous at the tire swing with his younger brother. One year after he departed, the older brother arrived back at the tire swing where his younger brother was waiting for him. He told him of his tales and showed off his riches. The younger brother's eyes grew wide and he vowed to sail to the same island and find the same treasure. So he set sail, following his older brother's directions and after about six months arrived at the island. The island people once again gave him a warm reception and invited him to dine with their king. The younger brother noticed all the jewels in the gutters and fantasized about how rich he would be when he got back. At dinner the food tasted great, salted to perfection, but the younger brother had come prepared. He pulled out pepper and some seasoned salt he had brought and bid everyone to try it. Their mouths watered and they proclaimed him a culinary prophet like their visitor one year before. THe king asked, "How can I ever repay you?" The brother was prepared for this question and simply said, "Have your servants load my empty barrels up with all your valuables." That night the younger brother slept soundly in the king's castle while the king's men carried out his wish, loading up his boat. THe younger brother set sail the next day, vowing not to look upon his riches until he could show them to his brother and family. After a year had passed the brothers reunited at the tire swing and shared stories. Then they went to the boat and uncovered the barrels. All that was in them was salt.

Great minds think...and occasionally interact

MANDEL2002: we should seriously learn to sail
Toro412: its ratha easy

Auto response from MANDEL2002: i'm going to stand guard like a postcard of a golden retriever

MANDEL2002: and just vanish
Toro412: before gradeyatin?
MANDEL2002: probably after
MANDEL2002: but i'm openminded
Toro412: yeah well I bet we can find sweet jobs working on a charter boat.
MANDEL2002: i smell like a combo of b-o and shit, i don't think i could beat off right if i tried
MANDEL2002: not to say i haven't
Toro412: ha ha
Toro412: take a fuckin shower
Toro412: self-respect my brother
MANDEL2002: ah the life of a bachelor
Toro412: you should want to smell good
Toro412: or at least not smell.
MANDEL2002: it's not high on my list of concerns
Toro412: you'd be surprised how other shit falls into place when you get your life organized.
Toro412: like cleaning your room and being a groomed person
MANDEL2002: nonsense
MANDEL2002: the only great things of this earth have comem out of chaos
MANDEL2002: such as the BIG FUCKING BANG
Toro412: speaking of nonsense, i hear screams from the street.
MANDEL2002: that is the benefit of overlooking the driveway from my room, i just see the deadbeat dude every now and then
Toro412: screams of lunacy from the sound of it
Toro412: ha ha
Toro412: at the mute woman
Toro412: and
Toro412: not at
MANDEL2002: i honestly think being a motivational speaker would be the easiest job of them all
MANDEL2002: you just stand there and say whatever you want
MANDEL2002: "dream of things that never were"
MANDEL2002: "shoot for the moon, even if you miss you'll land among the stars"
MANDEL2002: i mean seriously
MANDEL2002: speaking fees are good these days, that is a good job
Toro412: have you ever dreamt of just living, and been tired in the morning?
Toro412: that is me right now
Toro412: i dreamt all night about talking, and eating, and going to class.
MANDEL2002: my dreams have been fantastical lately
Toro412: my sleep has been shit lately
MANDEL2002: my urine turned into a huge river and then i was in a tree that fell down and i surfed it down my own river
Toro412: that's a dream to write down.

My theory of the internet

There is a new phenomenon emerging on websites like Facebook.com where people can post their photographs and reference the people in them. What this leads to is the ability for one to reference all the photographs of their friends and relatives that they appear in. It is rather exciting to see what turns up when you click on your name and, in my case, 65 pictures pop up that involve you in some way or another. In many cases, these photographs are posted with two objectives in mind. The first objective is to reference a particular event, like the baby shower you crashed with your fraternity brothers high on mescaline or the monster truck rally at which you met your future wives and adopted polygamy. The other objective of these pictures is for comedic effect. I tend towards this category. People will post pictures of you getting arrested, being surprised at the sexuality of your dancefloor partner, or getting personal with a stripper pole. Both objectives are highly entertaining, so looking at the pictures you appear in is like having a semi-biographical reference of your own life as seen by the people around you.

Now lets take this concept and merge it with the method that Google uses to determine the links you see when you do a Google search. The magic of Google is that is doesn't actually SEARCH the entire internet for what you're looking for, instead it ranks sites by how many OTHER sites link to that one. So when you search for "Pokemon" it will provide you with the site that is referenced to the most by other, less popular sites dedicated to the capture and maintenance of fictional fighting pets that live inside pill balls. What would happen if you did this to Facebook.com's photo galleries? Imagine the ability to reference how many of your friends have posted pictures of you invovled in a particular event. Let's say your friends reference you in the picture and at the same time list the event and when it occured. If this was adopted on a large scale, you would be able to determine what events your FRIENDS viewed as the most important parts of your life. You could do a search and see what pictures you appeared most frequently and when those pictures were taken. It would be like having someone write your biography while you were still alive and having absolutely no say in what the author was writing about.

I'm taking back my life. From now on, nobody is allowed to take pictures of me. It's officially against my religion.

You Want Funny? I'll be your monkey! and part two.

try to ignore the picture for now. try harder.


I am 21 and Drew and I were talking. I had noticed a downturn in the number of hits the monstro blog was getting. What was the cause of our tumbling popularity. We've started no illegal wars, smeared no honorable men (in the public reputation sense that is, I smear my shit on honorable men while they sleep at least 3 times a week) and faithfully posted at least once a week. Drew came up with the hypothesis that the stuff we write about is too weird or arcane for general consumptions, our similar philosophy on most things related to space, time, and the combination of the two just don't seem to fly. Drew seems to think that to attract mass appeal we need to turn to easily digestable comedy. No one wants to hear about our inner collegiate quarter life crisis angst or how we feel about the lady who crossed the street in a red pantsuit. You people want a smile to brighten your miserable day, a story about how I tripped on a banana and fell into a fountain in front of schoolchildren. Well for the most part, tough shit, but for now, digest this and if that doesn't crack you up then all hope is lost.

part two: sure to piss off those who agree with the analysis in (unlabeled) part one with just enough humor fix to keep you slaving back for more.

Tonight, in a fit of rare academic motivation, I went to the library to do some work. Normally I work at the monstro because from my desk I have pretty much everything I have at the library plus 1) peace and quiet 2)distractions galore for when work just isn't going so well (if i was more computer savvy the above picture would be here to demonstrate a time when work was not going so well). Well anyways, tonight at the library I sat down to read my book at one of the long tables on the third floor with a group of people. My friend Eden promptly and sarcastically said, "welcome to greek row" which I didn't make much of at the time. However, about 15 minutes later, the girl sitting across from me, who was in my opinion a completely normal human being, was visited by another girl and turned into something altogether terrifying. The two did the usual post thanksgiving, hey, how was your break shit and then the girl pulled out an US Weekly magazine from under her academic books and the two sat down and began loudly dissecting it.

A: Oh my god, she looks horrible in that dress
B: Yeah, did you hear nick and jessica broke up?
A: I refuse to believe that! I am not even going to listen. LA LA LA
B: God she looks fat in that dress
A: Maybe it's just the dress
B: I ate 9 cookies one day this break
A: (laughter, whispering) me too
B: Melissa Joan Hart looks weird pregnant

and so on and so forth. It made me wonder what I have in common with 99% of humanity if I cannot even relate to most other similarly well heeled white, middle class Americans at a 1400 person liberal arts college, am I the exception or the rule? What am I to people like that? A quaint, ruffian distraction when the "real world" gets boring? Meanwhile back in reality I sighed and dug in my bag for my computer which I planned to plug in and listen to music on to drown out the madness. After laboring right in front of the yak-fiesta to set my monster laptop up I realized I didn't have any headphones so I slowly, agonizingly placed the whole thing back in my bag and watched my body explode off that canoe and the pictures of presidents as my soul crept back to the monstro, where it peacefully rests now and forever.

Next stop 30.

I am 22 and I had a conversation with Aaron today about how the days fly by. Thanksgiving break is already an afterthought. I leave tomorrow morning to go back to Walla Walla and torture myself. Aaron then mentions his grandmother who is pushing 80+ if I recall correctly. She says the YEARS fly by. This is what I have to look forward to. I will be 30 before I know it. And you know what comes after 30? Mortgages I think. And babies. And car payments. I do not look forward to mid-life. I enjoy life as it is now, I miss being younger, and I can't wait to be a dirty old man. Maybe the years flying by will be a blessing in disguise. I can't wait to sit on my porch in stained underwear with a shotgun full of salt-rock and protect my peach tree from the neighborhood kids. Especially that damn Dennis. He's always coming over and stealing my peaches. I also hope that with age I manage to attain the mental acuity to pick up new technology. I don't want to be that old man getting passed by the car telling them to get a wagon. I don't want to be that old man who stares at the airplane and says "whazzit?" while sipping a bottle of whiskey. I want to be the old man teaching my grandkids how to use the new iPod while sipping a bottle of whiskey. Most old people spend their money on odd-smelling furniture or insurance scams, but I will be spending my retirement on cutting-edge stuff that puts hair back on my head and allows me to teleport to Indonesia on a whim. You know what they say about a retired man in Indonesia...

Monstro Blog- Bay Area Bureau

I wonder how many french words there are in the english language like "bureau" that have hella silent letters.

So I hope everyone has been having a nice break. I am bored as I wait for 13 family members (this will be a terrifying day, just think of all the Mandel's) to arrive at my dwelling, so here's what I've been up to. On Monday night I was hanging out with some of my friends and we were messing around at my friend's apartment until like midnight at which point we decided to go out to a bar. The bar closed at 2am and we had walked there so we walked back to my friend's apartment but none of us could drive home and I would have crashed there but I was allergic to all the cat fur and would have done one of those slow death by asphyxiation sleeps which I hear aren't that tight. That being said my friend Josh and I decided to walk from the place we were at in Oakland to his house in Berkeley since it was closer than my house in El Cerrito. Closer was a relative term though as we set out, two men against nature, at 3am to get 6 miles to an acceptable bedding place. Drew and I once talked about what a nocturnal lifestyle would be like, and from this 2.5 hour trek experience I can say it would be cold, windy, uphill, dreary, desolate, and a bit boring. However, the eternal peace that settled over us as we crested a street in the berkeley hills and saw the sun rising in the east and reflecting off the golden gate bridge and the san francisco bay made it almost worth it. Then a night-demon slayed us and we woke up at 2pm wondering who had shaved our pubes.

I yearn for world peace.

I feel Thanksgiving is an appropriate time to slightly dent the hardcore edge of the monstro blog and give some sappy thanks to all the monstronauts for being awesome individuals in a mixed salad of a house. My college experience would be nothing without ye fuckers and for that I am eternally grateful. So with that being said, a happy and safe thanksgiving to all of you, even the mice who are shitting in my bed right now.

That old woman will KILL YOU for the last Beanie Baby.

Black Friday. Fingers greasy and that dulled, over-fed haze in the eyes, millions of people go to bed early on Thanksgiving. They set two alarm clocks. They go to bed in their clothes. Whatever it takes to wake up at 4 a.m. so that the best deals will not be missed. This day is the awful mutant offspring of capitalism. We have created a day solely dedicated to shopping. Not only shopping, but gladiator shopping. Like the frenzied warriors of ancient Rome, television advertisements will rile mothers into a frenzy with the announcement of a 3 hour sale spanning from 4 to 7 a.m. on Black Friday. They will prepare these mothers for battle by offering free coffee and doughnuts at the door. Once the doors open, generally friendly people will destroy each other for crappy gifts. Grown men will shove old ladies out of the way. Old ladies will scream at children. Children will scurry onto an overweight woman in an electric wheelchair and quickly pick her apart until a only fat skeleton remains and goes rolling into a stack of Barbie dolls, toppling the pyramid of boxes.

That being said, if you get in my way on Friday while I try to buy my sister a Spongebob Gameboy, I will net you and slay you with my trident.

That's a cute baby penguin, but I'm still hungry.

I went and watched March of the Penguins the other night. I sat down and was fairly entertained by the exposition (for those of you that don't know big words, it essentially means the part meant to pump you up for watching the movie.) Then the movie started and the crowd began to laugh and laugh and cry and laugh at the antics of the penguins on screen. Morgan Freeman narrated the story and made it seem like an epic quest for survival. These penguins survive the harshest winters on earth. Then I had an epiphany halfway through the movie that I was WATCHING PENGUINS WALK AROUND. The filmmakers had managed to edit hours and hours of footage of penguins into a story that would not only keep people in their seats, but absolutely fucking captivate them. I referenced in my memory the several visits I have paid to the SeaWorld penguin exhibit over the years. To my recollection, not a soul would spend longer than ten minutes watching the penguins walk around and dive into the water in their little room. The penguins were boring as hell. They did'nt DO anything. Watching another creature live it's life is pretty damn unentertaining. Somehow, these genius film editors were able to create a film out of hours of footage of penguins roaming stupidly around the ice of Antarctica.

March of the Penguins is essentially the mutant child of reality television. It's the eyesore that everyone is refusing to recognize. The elephant in the corner. Filmmakers were able to take something completely uniteresting and with careful shot selection, editing, and a narrator, they could make a story out of it. Penguins hobbling around on the ice and puking up their food suddenly turned into "a story about love." The same is true for reality TV like The Real World. If you paid a visit to these people during the day and observed them, the thought would slowly creep into the back of your head that 1) they were boring and 2) you did not give a rat's ass what Chloe's relationship with her boyfriend was like. You would talk to Chloe and realize Chloe had an IQ of 61. Chloe, while fashionable and gorgeous, can not legally operate a power tool because she's a danger to herself and those around her. The Real World spends a week filming 8 boring-ass people and distills it into an hour of nail-biting reality television. Granted those 8 people are absolutely insane, but most people spend their days sleeping and eating, and crazy people are no exception.

Though I must say, given a choice, I would watch penguins over the dumbasses on The Real World any day of the week.

and a good morning to you

welcome to my mind, the morning of friday, november 18, 2005.

3:00 sleep
7:00 wake up
7:01 sleep
8:40 wake up, head towards class
-on the way to class the word roistery popped into my head, it's not a real word, it's a place where roosters go to live, or roost, a roistery a roistery a roos-ta-sha-sha, roosters roost in the roistery where they live, a big gaggle of chickens, roosters, yum, bird flu pandemic, a pandemic, whoo whoo a pandemic, a pandemic in the roostery, fuck, it's a roistery.
9:04 enter class still thinking about above topic, shivering due to sub-40 temperatures and announce, "it's frickin cold" only to then realize that discussion had already started. I was still drunk and mainly sat there shaking and drooling.

Now it is 1226am on the very opening salvos of a new day and it is nearly impossible for me to finish and recreate my post from 12 hours earlier. This is a big problem of mine, I can't maintain a cohesive (or coherent) thought process over the course of more than one sitting. This is scary when thinking about writing my thesis, since I usually just crank out all my papers in one sitting so I can avoid losing trains of thought. Whatever, everyone loves the sound of a train in the distance, everyone knows it's true, and conductors for these trains are important. Most people have departed Whitman like ghosts into the night, leaving the school and the monstro eerily quiet and cloaked in a thick, physical fog. I went to see "walk the line" tonight with hans and gus and it was very much like "ray" but well done, if a bit depressing. Now I sit silently at my computer, eyes fixated to the monitor, and ears allowing david gray to pierce the still night air with songs of love and loss. It's a wonderful and strange world we live in, I wouldn't want it any other way.

A response fit for a pauper

Mandel's opening statement:

pauper- and by that I mean pooper but I do say I have slurred my speech a little too much because I had seven man-shares of the gentleman ale and fell into the deep south. We all gon' go fishin' with poles made from plant-life, the critters will bite if you jest get some good bait, bait from earth, earth my place from birth where I'm proving my worth to sustain this curse, a curse of the over-civilized who can't relate, relate to the fish bait cuz everybody has gone fishin, the daddy, the mama and the baby, he even gone fishin too.

Formal Complaint filed by lawyer Johnnie Cochran on behalf of Mandel

--to ask a half-breed to respond to a gentleman's challenge in kind is similar to asking an American genius to prove himself once and for all by taking a test in Cantonese. The playing field is not even, a dog of superior character will never beat the scuzziest of homo sapien in a game of monopoly, even if he can salvage his master from a burning building. At this point, my client, against my wishes and sound legal counsel has asked to propose a duel of his own. I must now yield to my client.

Duel Proposal by Mandel

Ya know what a gutentag is motherfucker? I think the word is kraut but as far as I'm concerned we're talking about some softened driftwood with scrap metal stuck into it for it be brandished as a weapon. SEWAGE FART. We each get the drift wood presented to us by my friend Cletundtrus and we git 1 hour to fashion our gutentag. The winner is determined by whomever gets the guts not leaked out of them in duel, a duel like this cept without all the biotch-padding. After that one of us is bound to have the advantage of not being almost dead so we move on to the next phase. Phase two gun be a good ol' fashioned poop contest cuz whether you rich or poor you still gotta dump. We get 18 hours to eat the most greasy, starchy, fiber-ous foods possible in hopes of laying the king deuce. Somethign like this will not even get you close to my colonic glory. In my shanty house by the swamp I have three toilets stacked on top of each other just to accomodate my droppings. You my amigre are fuck-ed. We can move on to phase three, which I'll defer to you: the gallon challenge. I say you can drink whatever you want, milk, water if you think that'll help, but my beverage of choice will definetly be what has always gotten me through hard times, raw sewage . After I am done with you in this duel you will be lucky to look this good . In closing as the educated lawyer folk end with, the press will be running stories about this event for years to come, until the union crumbles, and the inbred rule the earth. you sir, have been challenged.

Formal Closing by Johnnie Cochran

sorry for offending most decent monstro blog readers.

Your sir, are a BRIGAND!

I am writing this as a formal CHALLENGE to Mr. Aaron Douglas Mandel to compete in a duel of gentlemanship. I have long stood by, tight-lipped, viewing travesties and sins committed against all types of decent men and women, and I can stand silent no longer. You have displayed your genitalia to small babes and new mothers, you have spewed terrible vulgarities at old women gathering in the park, and you have generally run about un-shaven with your naked figure for all the decent world to see. You sir, are brigand, a vagabond, and a ne'er-do-well.

I call on your, Mr. Mandel, to accept this most proper duel of gentlemanship. The first form of competition will be in attire. Whatever man is judged to be dressed in the most appropriate of fashions upon arrival at the salon or the polo club (by our peers) will be granted one point per occasion. Additional points will be granted to lavish collars and the most ornamental rapiers and pistoles.
The second form of competition will be in performance of the equestrian arts. Every Tuesday we shall gather at the greens to run a course with our chosen steeds. Only a steed of pure bloodline is allowed to compete, as this is a competition between gentlemen and not common cow-boys. If you cannot provide yourself with a horse, you must run the course yourself. You will be provided with the proper amphetamine supplements and horse tranquilizers so as to compete on the level of a purebred steed. Upon your request, you can also have a jockey mount your shoulders, so that you may focus your attention on the course.
The third and final form of competition will be in the most sacred and traditional art of the Gallon Challenge. We shall use whole milk with proper snack supplements. Whomever completes his gallon first without vomiting out of the mouth or nose shall be declared the winner.

I hope to hear from you soon.

balance

a: heyy
b: hyup
a: nurp
b: guh?
a: mmmf
b: brew
a: h'up
b: burp
a: brup
b: burp
a: haha

My Mind!

I have often contemplated the circumstances of insanity. I often wonder if there is a point, an event horizon, at which you have enough of your sanity to realize you are going insane, but there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. I often wonder what someone would say when this realization is upon them. I can assume some people would try to hide it, like they just crapped their pants. They would get a sort of pleased-yet-nervous look about them, like they were simultaneously satisfied and scared that something has gone horribly wrong.

The WINNAH

Is, as you can tell, Thomas Kost. Nice costume Thomas.

Halloween 2005 @ The Monstrosity Kostume Kontest

The party this year was amazing, and the attendance was unbelievable. That being said, we now must choose the winner of the costume contest so that they can collect the prize, which is 2000 tickets. Tootsie rolls are 1 ticket each, but if you want the remote control monster truck that is 10,000 tickets, so you have to win a couple of our other competitions, like the caber toss and the goat jumping.
Just kidding, they're gonna get a gift basket with some lotions and potpurri and some yule logs and shit like that. Maybe there will be a shirt that says "Winner" on it or something. Perhaps we will just forget about any prize whatsoever. Regarless, we live in a democratic society, so we must stage a mock vote so that when we pick the winner it looks legit.

*** TO VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE COSTUME, PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT ON THE PARTICULAR POST THAT THE COSTUME PERTAINS TO. THE VOTES WILL BE TALLIED ON MONDAY AND THE WINNER AND CAMPUS NOTIFIED THAT EVENING ***

Sam Johnson: White Goodman, owner of GLOBOGYM

*Sam's costume included an inflatable crotch, an extra touch from Dodgeball. *

Rose Ryan: Ear

Brandon Weil: Shower Man

Clark Blumenstein: King of all Cosmos

* As a point of reference, Clark based his costume on the character from the video game Katamari Damacy. The character is pictured here to allow some comparison for those of you unfamiliar with the game. (99.9% of you)Also, Clark's lights on his head required 15 lbs. of battery pack. *

Thomas Kost: Windswept Man

not to beat a dead horse

not to beat a dead horse, but i think a follow-up to the sam-aaron mile duel is in order. Last night (SUNDAY) around 10pm brandon came over to the monstro with a slightly deranged look in his eye, demanding to race me in a mile. It should be noted that brandon has run with me a total of one other time in his life, as he mainly prefers the wheeled mode of transportation. Although I had been hungover all day and played 2 bruising IM football games over the weekend there was no way I was going to say no to Brando so we planned to head over. Just then Sam appeared at the monstro in an equally crazy mood and proceeded to grab beer from my room and chug one immediately. Clark was over hangin out too with annabelle and some cheese sticks. As we headed over to the track sam had two more beers and ate 6 cheese sticks. So 3 beers and 6 cheese sticks deep sam took the track with brandon and I, wearing no shirt in 44 degree weather and only boxer shorts. Something told me this wouldn't be quite the battle as on friday. Gus had taken a break from finishing his thesis to time us and started us off. Sam immediately jumped out to a huge lead but I was sure I was going to beat him as he just chugged three beers and eaten 6 fuckin cheese sticks. After one lap Sam led me by 4 seconds and was on pace to run a 4:36 mile. Brandon was 11 seconds back. After two laps, halfway through the race sam had only slowed down a little bit. I was hammering away at the same pace I was on last friday when I beat sam by one second with a time of 5:13 but Sam was not coming back. With one lap left it was apparent some other-worldly forces were in the air as Sam was not dropping back at all. By the end of the race Brandon had forgotten what he was doing and was imagining himself back in his halloween shower with all the girls and crossed the finish line in 7:07. I came through in 5:15, two seconds slower than at friday's duel with sam. And speaking of Sam...well what did he do? Sam, in nothing but boxers in 44 degree weather with three freshly drunken beers and 6 inhaled cheese sticks in his stomach ran 19 seconds faster than on friday, faster than he'd ever run before, and crossed the line in 4:55. No rational logic can explain this. The man is superhuman. Asked at the finish line what the hell had just happened and how he'd done it, Sam looked around crazy-eyed and said, "it was the beer and cheese man."

coming soon on the monstroblog...the 2005 halloween costume contest.

The results are in

Aaron Mandel reporting--

Sam and I approached the track at approximately 2pm where we were to do battle in a one mile race. Aaron was dressed modestly in a Nike t-shirt, reebok shorts, mismatched socks, and nike shoes. Sam was dressed in full body spandex as Ben Stiller of Globo Gym in "Dodgeball". For speed's sake, Sam removed his shoulder pads and inflatable penis padding for the race. As official race timer Brandon Weil counted down to the start Aaron freaked out and stopped the proceedings.

"Wait, wait," he yelled. "My bracelet, I can't run with it."

Aaron took off his english-hebrew peace bracelet and threw it to the side of the track for this was no peaceful endeavor, this was war. Sam had won every single other meeting and one more less might send Aaron into retirement forever. Sam was taller, fitter, stronger and looked way more ridiculous. Aaron carried the passion of a thousand defeats and two thousand years of oppression on his small-framed shoulders.

The race started and as had been the case in past duals, Sam jumped out to a lead in the first of the four laps. After one lap Sam led Aaron by four seconds. After two laps Sam still led Aaron by four seconds. While this deficit seemingly did not bode well, in fact Aaron was thrilled. In the past at this point in a race, Sam was usually 10-25 seconds ahead and pulling further away. Aaron smelled blood, Sam was flailing and tired and had failed to put things away early as was his usual method. At the end of the third lap Sam led Aaron by two seconds. With one lap left Aaron thought of all the people in his life that he loved, family, friends, blog-readers and dug deep. On the backstretch, with 300 meters remaining he pulled even with Sam. Sam's face was a distorted mass of pain, fake mascara mustache ran down his jowls like tears and around the final turn and straightaway Aaron made his move, accelerating to the thoughts of monstro pride and collapsing across the finish line in a glorious heap of sweat and tears, victorious by one mere second.

Please vote if you think this account is true or false.

an epic battle looms

in a mere 40 minutes, at high 2, sam johnson and aaron mandel will face off in one of their frequent duals at the track, racing by foot over the distance of a mile. Sam has never lost but Aaron is hungry for a win and in better shape than usual after a season of doing nothing but running himself retarded. Will an old champion remain on top or will a new hero rise? Stay tuned as the monstro blog covers the event from start to finish.

mouse tally

Alex "Mouse Hunter" Carlson recently tallied that we have killed 32 mice in the monstro counting a handful of kills over the summer.

The paradox of the college degree.

There are two parts to this paradox. I will present each part in two sections, titled "Section 1" and "Section 2." Each section may-or-may-not be made up of sub-headings and perhaps a bullet point here or there. Or a bullet hole, if someone is trying to shoot you in the back.

Section 1: The paradox of posessing a college degree.
If you get junk mail like 99.99% of other people who use email, you have most likely been solicited by websites saying that you can get a college diploma in less than 6 weeks. Most of these sites do not even demand that you take any classes. What these sites do is sell you fake diplomas from your favorite institution of higher learning for a nominal fee, and it takes 6 weeks to print it out with your name on it and ship it to you. These diplomas, I am told, are almost indistinguishable from their legitimate counterparts. So it would seem that it is rather easy to acquire a college degree...compared to actually attending school. Here is where the paradox comes in. Why, if it is so easy to get a perfect forgery of a Harvard degree, do people bother with attending college? Why not just buy the degree and go get a high-paying job at Johnson & Johnson or Maersk Shipping? The reason is that while any Bob Streetcorner can buy a forgery of a Harvard degree online, he would have to be a college graduate to use the forgery competently. An employer would think something was up if he got a job application for Burger King Manager and there was a Harvard degree stapled to the back of it. Being a college student, I would know to research into what companies check transcripts and what companies do not. I would know where to flash the degree, and where to sit on it. Bob Streetcorner would fold it up in his pocket and whip it out at the movie theater trying to get a discount.

Section 2: The paradox of earning a college degree.
College students spend, on average, four years earning a college degree. It is generally assumed that over this time you gain more and more knowlege, and so you become "smarter." It is also generally assumed that if you have a degree, and you haven't bought one (see Section 1) then you are a "smart" person. People will come to you asking for good Scrabble words and to fix their computers. You won't be able to fix your car, but you will be smart enough to buy one that has the lowest probability of breaking down. So, in general, you are a "smart" person for going to college. You don't like to admit you don't know about something, but college taught you to bullshit. You either know about or can fake knowing about almost everything. This is an amazing gift for only four years of your life. Now for the paradox. You, college graduate, and Bob Streetcorner are both buying a hotdog at the hotdog stand, and Bob Streetcorner whips out his fake degree for a discount and you chuckle at his expense. Then a bright light flashes in the sky and colors flash everywhere before a giant tortoise drops from the sky and lands shell-down on the asphalt, spinning furiously down the street and out of view. You, college graduate, will look at Bob Streetcorner, and he will look at you, and you will both say: "What the fuck was that?"

a joke-story (reputations) and an observation (time)

(all attempts to read from here on to the next break should be done in a thick scottish-irish accent, don't worry it's not weird if no one knows you're doing it in yee head, now yee've started) ayyyy lads, me name is macduff and i am a buggerin upstanding citizen-resident of the yarbloke colony in the scottish highlands. I'm'boot 45 years old and I've had me a long and weary life. At age 30 I had ten wee lasses running wild round me loins. Ivvry buggerin one of thim got he or she a good education. BUT DO THEY CALL ME MACDUFF THE FAMILY MAN? NO. Ivvry night 'round aboot supper I invite me pals out to the pub for a few friendly pints. BUT DO THEY CALL ME MACDUFF THE FAMILY MAN? NO. And ivvry year my fields wield a harvest nearly as big as me dick. BUT DO THEY CALL ME MACDUFF THE FARMER? NO. I swear, yee feck wun sheep.

(accent can be discontinued if desired)

Drew and I climbed in his jet black hyundai 6 days ago and went down poplar st. to Hallett Cinemas with the goal of seeing the movie "Proof". The goal was easily accmplished with the help of $5.50 each and the movie viewed. All in all I found it a rather dry, mediocre movie, but not awful. However, after stewing on one of its main points for a while now it keeps haunting me. The movie is all about math geeks who try to advance the field by proving new things (olmstead should probably elaborate on this at some point) except that none of the big proofs are ever accomplished after any of the mathemeticians turn 30. It's like our brains just peak from like 20-23 and then slowly ooze into mush until by the end we are back in diapers. Maybe this is just hogwash, except, the other day was the honorable sarah dawe's 22nd birthday and she was online so i did something brilliant like message her "happy birthday sarah". To this sarah pasted a birthday greeting I had given her over the same medium last year into the window that she had saved for an entire year. It was an incoherently rhymed poem that nonetheless showed a level of risk and motivation that I don't find in myself anymore. I'm not sure how to finish this post.

They make it too easy.

I like to read me news online. I use RSS in my email program, which is basically a system that emails you when a new headline appears on your selected news websites and then provides a link to the article. I wanted to read about how the White Sox had recently made it to the World Series for the first time since 1959, and I was treated to this picture:


There isn't a lot of question as to this man's intent. I've seen athletes give a friendly "butt-paddle" for a job well done, but I've never seen an athlete, shall we say, "scout the territory" before going in. It seems that he doesn't trust his aim and therefore must check out his teammate's ass in order to finish what he's started. First the man hands, now this...My job is too easy.

Comin' clean

Gather children for a story that I shall tell. This story is as true as my recollective powers will allow. I just finished doing my jewish duty and observing Yom Kippur which is the day of atonement where you ask for forgiveness for all your sins of the past year. However, for this story I shall have to go back a few years, to sophomore year in fact.

An old buddy named Wiley was applying to Whitman and came for a visit. I wanted to show him good times so we went to the corn-maze in the afternoon and got really high via the use of marijuana-drug. We came back to Whitman just in time for an acoustic concert at the Outhouse where vegan bread was being passed around. Wiley didn't understand the communal nature of the bread-pass and as I looked away at the music for a few seconds he devoured an entire loaf. We quickly escaped the angry vegans and returned to Marcus House where I was living at the time (with gus) to figure out what we were gonna do for the rest of the night.

There was a kegger at the condemned house so we met up with drew, hans, and julian and pre-funked a bit in marcus and then headed over. The party was cool, we all tucked in behind Drew as he cut a swath toward the keg. Then some sorority girls came and stole the keg so the party died down, but supposedly a new keg was on the way. We grew impatient and went back to Marcus House to smoke in the backyard. After getting pretty messed up we went back to the party at the condemned house, the keg had returned. After being there for a few minutes, Wiley came up to me in a panic and said, "Aaron, what's wrong with the big guy?" I looked to where he was gesturing to find the honorable Drew talking about trying to get to oblivion while attempting to dive head-first off the porch of the house. Me, Hans, Julian, and Wiley all pitch in to rescue the big guy. At this point, I decide that Wiley and I want to challenge some frat guys to pong at the then newly-built phi hog shack. We all stumble across campus over there and me and wiley get our asses kicked by some combo of hans, julian, and drew. Wiley claims to be blind and I myself am having trouble seeing and standing so I reckon that it is time we go home and crash, for he had to fly home and I had an IM football game the next morning.

We start making our way from the Phi shack to Marcus and things get interesting from here as I think I begin to black out because everything gets incredibly fuzzy so I will do my best to recount. We make it across the bridge by Prentiss where we encounter two girls sitting on the grass. We fall down near them and exchange some pleasant salutations. I recall telling one of the girls that I do theater, which she seemed to take delight in. I also recall her saying that I was short, which she apparently also was cool with. At a certain point I realized that Wiley and the other girl were gone, but the girl i was sitting with said they had gone different directions. It didn't occur to me at the time that Wiley was totally trashed and wandering around a campus he had never been to before. I honestly have no idea what I did or said but me and the girl (who is nameless for reasons that shall present themselves later) walked back to Marcus House. As we approached the door of Marcus House I saw the hulking, drunken figure of Wiley slumped against the front door. He had made what must have been a heroic, drunken journey and gotten himself all the way to the front door of Marcus House only to find out that to enter, one needed to know a punch code on the number lock. I let the three of us in, and Wiley informed me he needed to vomit. I started to lead him to the bathroom right outside me and Gus's room (gus had already gone to sleep-surprising?) but before he could go puke in the toilet, the girl i was with darted in and locked the door to pee. Wiley looked at me with helpless eyes and a tragic look on his face. He really needed to vomit and I respected that, since it was mainly my fault he had gotten to that point, but I was not about to let him vomit all over my room and the area right outside it so I reached into my past when I used to harass Wiley in high school on the cross country team and ordered him as his former captain to hold in his puke. Wiley, like a good soldier did his best, but forces of physics and gravity were too much to conquer. Puke came out his nose, for strong Wiley would not unclench his mouth. At this point I banged loudly on the bathroom door and told this girl to hurry the fuck up hella politely. She opened the door and I pulled her out and pushed Wiley in. At this point Gus woke up and noticed the girl had reddish-brown hair (which is important, as will become apparent later) as a brief flash of her went by outside the door as I swapped bathroom users. Gus put Wiley to bed on the floor of our room while I took a blanket and went out into the muddy pit that was the backyard of marcus. As far as I can remember I made out with this girl for probably about 3 minutes and then passed out. The next thing I knew it was really early in the morning, the light was just coming into the dawning world and i was laying in my boxer shorts in a pile of mud behind marcus house feeling hella drunk/hungover. I crawled back into my room in marcus but couldn't even get up to my top bunk so I just lay next to Wiley on the floor. A few hours later a guy from my IM football team came in to my room and felt really awkward about waking me up I think because I was passed out on the floor with my arm around Wiley for some reason.

Anyways, the thing that has consistently nagged me is that we all have done some silly drunk things involving the gender that we desire, but even in the fog of alcohol I have always remembered WHO THE FUCKIN PEOPLE HAVE BEEN, except for this time. The reddish-brown haired girl who was somehow seduced by a drunken neanderthal and left the mud-bed I had laid down in at 4am is most likely still walking this campus, although I honestly have no idea who she is. So I dare say, if a comment appears after this post, saying, "you asshole, it was me- sincerely Jane Doe, I will be glad, because time is a duller and it's time to come clean on this one, with a good chuckle of course.

The little fly.

I sit here wasting an unreasonable amount of time when I should be doing a number of school projects so as to accomplish graduation in an amount of time that is socially and professionally acceptable for the degree that I am purusing. Instead, I watch this little fly attempt to thrust it's body into the incandescent tube of my room lamp. The tube bathes my bedroom in a sick mild green glow that saps color from everything, but inside that tube the fly sees some sort of salvation, or satisfaction. I sit in my chair, prolonging my evening of work ahead, thinking about that fly. "Why does it pursue such a fruitless goal?" I ask myself. "Why does that little fly attempt to scale a mountain who's summit holds only death if it is reached?" This is a time when someone whose mental state leaned more toward depression and who posessed less sense would draw a parallel between their life and that of the little fly. They would sit and say, "Like the little fly, I too am trying to break into a world that would just as soon see me die in its overwhelming glow than see me shine along with it." There are people out there who would think themselves smart for observing this corrolary. They would think themselves creative for writing a short story or poem about it. They would think themselves accomplshed by publishing a thesis or speaking up in class.

I am not the person who sees himself in the little fly. I am the person who sees himself sitting in the chair, observing the little fly attempting its quest for the unattainable. I do not want to ruin the little fly's dream. I do not want to make its efforts seem worthless. But the little fly's constant assault on the lamp makes a "buzz buzz buzz" that nags at the back of my head.

I get up, and I turn the light off.

Fears

When I was a kid the most terrifying things were never created out of my own imagination, but were instead spawned out of the television set. I can remember being babysat by my older cousin when he decided to watch Alien. I sat behind the couch the entire time taking a slow peek now and again only to see something deeply troubling and terrifying and hiding hy face again. Alien spawned a fear of aliens that somewhat exists to this day, and my fear of aliens is the only fear that I can pinpoint the exact events that shaped the development of the phobia. I recall that before aliens I was afraid of volcanoes. I remember going camping and seeing mountains and getting sick to my stomach with fear that the mountains all around me would erupt into hot storms of rock and lava. I dealt with this fear of volcanoes by drawing pictures of volcanoes destroying entire villages, complete with rocketing fireballs and parachuting men (don't ask me why someone would parachute into an erupting volcano, it's just how I dealt with shit back then.)

After Alien got the ball rolling, I watched another film titled Fire In The Sky. The fact that it is supposedly a true story made me shit my pants to begin with, but then about ten minutes into the movie you find out it takes place in Snowflake, Arizona. I was living in Phoenix at the time so I practically had an aneurism before I watched the entire film. That movie sealed the deal and I've been afraid of aliens ever since.

I also remember hiding behind the couch every time the music video for Huey Lewis and the News' "Hip To Be Square" came on. My babysitter loved Huey Lewis, but for some reason the music video trouble me to the core. I remember absolutely nothing about the video, and I've tried to find a link to it to try and remember what about it gave me such terrible nightmares, but I haven't come up with anything. Perhaps someone out there remembers the music video and you can help me discover a long-lost fear.

Neuticles

avid readers of www.cnn.com such as myself may have noticed this article recently pertaining to Neuticles. Neuticles are fake testicles put into dogs after their real ones are removed in the neutering process. Neuticles, according to their website, increase a dog's self-esteem. Now I don't know about you, but there are definetly some over-aggresive dudes I know that could probably use this procedure. However, this really presumes a staggering level of stupidity in dogs. I mean if you woke up from unexpectedly falling asleep on a plastic cot at the hand of a needle to find that you no longer had much interest in humping a fire hydrant or the urge to do the one thing that your biological soul is inclined to do, wouldn't you question the existence of rocks where once your man-jewels had lain?

i am getting out-evolved

i can't fix anything or correctly use tools. In a play production class sophomore year I was the only one who failed the basic "tool test" required to work in the shop, so I had to get my credit operating a snow machine for a show. I think by the time I'm 40 there will be a monkey model of me that is bigger, smarter, stronger, faster. Or maybe that's actually RIGHT NOW! And I kinda like it.

Katrina Cash Cow Mice Madness

We at the residence of 314 E. Poplar St., more commonly known as the Monstrosity opened our doors and hearts to the thirsty students of Whitman College last Saturday night to raise money for Hurricane Katrina victims. With something like 8 other parties going on and a $3 cover charge to get in, we were worried. However, the allure of two bands and three kegs proved to be akin to white on rice as the evening raised over $900 dollars, meaning that for at least part of the night, 300 people passed through our house, one even left his ID card on our counter and retrieved it later. The next morning we all rose groggy and hungover to march onto ankeny to continue the hamburgerlurgers dominance in IM football and that dominance continued as Phi Delta Theta forfeited. This surely had nothing to do with the fact that their two best players happened to be playing for us. Then the girls Black Attack team, maimed, mauled and walked all over another senior team. Garrett took 140 pictures (actually) of the game so hopefully Drew can post some of those here soon. There is one of my ass that will make a grown man weep. It should also be noted that despite trapping and killing five mice in the last week, the sightings continue, and one trap was even dragged with captured prey in it from the third floor down to my room, where garrett found it and actually considered taking his shotgun outside and shooting it. WOW. Fortunately he could not enact his plan because one of the many neighborhood monstro-cats grabbed the trap, with slightly alive mouse still within and took off to a secret cat lair for a nice meal of feces and hair. I however, still maintain that there are no mice in the monstrosity as in two semesters of living here, I have yet to actually see a mouse, so don't believe the hype.

From a domino's pizza ad: "feed your mind"

The Standoff

Yesterday I had a moment that was out of an old western movie. I was riding my bike down the damp sidewalk rather casually. I wasn't in a hurry; I had to get to the library to print off a paper. The bell tower tolled 2pm, and I looked up the sidewalk to see an old woman in walker moving her way down the sidewalk. This woman was the epitome of cute old grandma. Snow-white hair with a sweater the same color, large coke-bottle glasses with a golden chain attached to the ends that sagged over her hunched back. She even had the sliced tennis balls capping the ends of the walker for ease of movement. Then I looked into her face. I saw not sweetness, but determination. The bell had just tolled, and it suddenly dawned on me: "This old lady is going to try and race me!" You see, we were both approaching a turn in the sidewalk, and I was making a wide approach to make the turn. It must have been obvious to the old lady that my intention was to get to the turn before her, and I shit you not this woman sped up. Not casually or sweetly either, she hit the NoS and was off. I was surprised by this old woman's acceleration, which set me back a few tenths of a second that could have made me lose the standoff. Then I remembered that I was on a bike. What I had constructed in my head as an even match of wits was actually as unbalanced as a midget fighting a lawnmower. I just pumped the pedals a few times and easily beat grandma Hortense to the turn, and in the process I sprayed her nice white sweater with a nice brown stream of street water.

The Toll Time Takes

The other day while I was sitting in an ASWC meeting debating the finer points of club budgets I realized that all I had been doing (for the last year or so) was waiting for a lull in debate to personally insult someone who I knew well enough to get away with it. The larger point here is that I didn't care and in fact I have cared about very little for awhile now. This is a scary state of my union because for many many years I was incredibly over-motivated and gleefully involved myself in anything and everything. I wanted to make a difference; in what I did not know, but it didn't matter, I was to be an instrument of change. In mellow moods I sought to change the world through the words of my poetry, in angry moods I saw leading armed insurgency or massive protest to cure the ills of the world. Nowadays I don't feel any of that old motivation, I can't even change things at Whitman. I see freshman throwing themselves headlong into activities, causes, and classes, hoping that through their sheer existence and hard work they can accomplish somethign altogether new and wonderful. However, my utter failure to do any of this is not without its merits. Like a child star at age 18 anyone who accomplishes too much too early is bound to live the rest of their life in backward longing, washed up and burnt out. I feel like I'm just waiting for my moment to come at the perfect time in life, when I'm in my mid-60's I think would be ideal: an entire half century of buildup to something great followed by a short, graceful slide out. To prove I'm not the only one, Bob Dylan, the greatest rabble-rouser of all time, sings in his late 50's in the song "Not Dark Yet"

Shadows are falling and I've been here all day/It's too hot to sleep time is running away/Feel like my soul has turned into steel/I've still got the scars that the sun didn't heal/There's not even room enough to be anywhere/It's not dark yet, but it's getting there/I was born here and I'll die here against my will/I know it looks like I'm moving, but I'm standing still/Every nerve in my body is so vacant and numb/I can't even remember what it was I came here to get away from/Don't even hear a murmur of a prayer/It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.

I think now that I am nearing the end of college I want different things than I used to. I no longer want to move minds with poetry or influence the powerful. I don't want to change the world, get the coolest (or highest paying job) possible, but simply to be happy in what I do. Our dreams are certainly tempered by time. No 5-year-old kid when asked "what do you want to do when you grow up?" responds by saying they want to work mid-management but have a happy home life. They want to be astronauts, firefighters, or sports stars. When we get older we dream of changing the world in more abstract ways, because those still are possible. Now as reality sets in more and more with each day I want to do work that is bearable and allows me to see my good friends, be outside among beautiful earth we so often forget, and continue to exercise my mind in an intellectual way. No more astronauts. When we are 75 we will probably just want to be able to take a subsequent breath pain free, in a few years from now we will want to find lifelong companionship and be diligent family men, and I have said where I am now. And when I was 5? I could save the entire world from underneath my dad's chair with only the help of my two trusty stuffed animal sidekicks. Everything is real in its own time.

Goblins

A goblin woke me up this morning by making tea at my bedside and when I told him that was out of character he replied, "marrghghagrle" because he had a rare form of bird flu that my body was unable to fight against. As I neared the bitter bird flu end I had a choice, to join the goblin and live on and spread avian decimation or to go on to some great unknown. Then I really woke up from that dream and killed seven mice with a laser beam fashioned in my miracle of an eyeball. Then I woke up in the monstro, the power was out and then back on, the phone was doing its usual ringing at 8:00am, sewage piles of junk surrounded me, an empty fish bowl lay on my desk and I contemplated all the chances I had to make friends with goblins but decided not to because of social stigma surrounding non-human entities (discounting dogs and cats) that we consider friends. A lot of people might not understand my friendship with goblins, or might not understand what a goblin even is, as opposed to say an elf, a troll, a demon, or Bill Nye the Science Guy. However if you only look at that site, it explains everything, including the key passage stating, "Often portrayed as the vilains and troublemakers of faerie, Goblins are not truly completely evil. Though they seem to have no moral code of their own, they are happy to enforce the one of their human hosts. The miserly and lazy are apt to feel their pinch or find their rooms and possessions in disarray. Goblins are pranksters, and are known for rearranging items in the house, tangling horses, banging pots and pans, removing the clothes from sleeping humans, knocking on doors and walls and even digging up the graves to scatter the bones around." And there you have it.

Bad Advertising

I browse a few technology news pages every day as I catch up on the latest news in technology. (I have also been practicing with "palindromic" sentences.) I can see the latest gadgets to be released in Japan that I will NEVER want, much less need. Still, for some reason it fulfills some deep desire of mine to simply know of these products' existence. I think it's the same reason why some students at Whitman spend all their time reading Foucault "for fun." These type of people like to seem smart by quoting philosophy. While I enjoy philosophy, I think understanding the cusp of technology is much more beneficial because it is always changing. Foucault isn't going anywhere. I can go to the library now or 20 years from now and all of Foucault's books will be neatly organized alphabetically on the shelf. 20 years from now the technology of today won't mean shit to anyone but a few nerdy artifact collectors. I respect people who will sit down and memorize Foucault, but my deep understanding of the latest developments in technology is about living for tomorrow, not living for yesterday.

On to the point of my post. As I was browsing my tech news I saw an article about a new type of software being used on new cell phones. Blah blah blah. Its not interesting to me, and I browse these sites regularly, so I know nobody reading this would be interested. What I found interesting was the picture that came along with the article:



I am wondering what genius decided to grab the woman with caveman hands and ask her to hold the cell phone for the photograph. Even if I wanted a phone like that, I wouldn't buy that one simply because it looks so dwarfed against those mutant appendages. Perhaps my attention to detail is getting the best of me here, but the first thing I looked at when I saw that picture was the goddamn werewolf hands. The phone was an afterthought along the lines of "That tiny cellphone will soon be crushed by that troll's mighty grip!"

Things That Go Bump

Every night I hear a large *thump* above my room. Sometimes it can shake the ceiling and I can feel the reverberation throughout the room. Finally, I said enough is enough and sprinted upstairs right after I heard it happen.

No one was upstairs (except Gus). Olmstead wasn't there, and his room is right above mine. Until now, I had imagined he was dropping a bowling ball on his floor for some physics experiment. Gus was no help, telling me that the noise was probably "the seven prostitutes he'd just kicked out of his room."

That leaves only one solution. The mouse population had grown so large and complacent due to the abundance of leftover pizza and beer, and until recent environmental aberrations which were not under their control (Drew's clean-up of the 3rd floor), had lived an almost paradisiacal life in which the gods were benevolent, so that, after the leftover food's removal and without an agricultural infrastructure to reproduce its own, the mice fell into anarchy. Now, small factions of Monstro mice have promised a significant role to outside militant mouse communities in the future government's business for weapons of war. THAT is what I'm hearing every night, 1/2 ouncer mice mortars.

Will history teach these hungry mice nothing? Have the spoils of war ever been anything but death and strife?

Mouse Hunt

Remember the movie from the early 90's called Mouse Hunt? It was two crazy fools trying to catch a single mouse who is outsmarting them. There are ten guys in the Monstrosity, and we are unable to cure this mouse problem. I have sat up at night, a nice bait of cheese standing on a table, and waited for the mouse to emerge so I could destroy it. Instead, the mouse is nowhere to be seen. When I get bored and go to bed, I awake the next morning to my bait eaten, with small mouse droppings telling me that I am indeed the loser in this duel.

There has not been a mouse yet who could defy the mighty power of a simple mousetrap. This last semester we thought we had a particularly smart mouse on our hands, only to lay a mousetrap and find our intelligent friend trapped by a simple lever and spring mechanism. We had named the mouse Bob, and we all felt surprisingly sad at the news of his death. Soon after, Bob Jr. came poking around and the legacy of his father lived on.

I Don't Know

It is funny how much work is required to train one's mind to a new system of thinking. Since I have come to Whitman, bits and pieces of a new line of thought have slowly trickled into my mind, but I have yet to put the puzzle together because I am still missing so many of the pieces. I would have never thought this earlier in my life, but it requires practice to change the way you think. I have to make a conscious effort to think the way I believe I should be thinking, and it is tiring. To be honest, it is often a downer.

I have recently been exposed to a line of philosophy that has enlightened me to the truth (in my opinion) that the universe is a system of complete and infinite harmony. Everything in our universe and millions of others are simply on a constant mode of repeat. When this universe dies billions of years from now, another will be created billions of years from that, and billions more after that event I will again be posting this blog. When you believe something like this, there is hardly any motivation to adhere to the laws of society, let alone discipline yourself to pay taxes or work out regularly. I could possibly, at any moment, go run into the streets and begin overturning cars and robbing houses. But I won't, because in the harmony of infinity, I am a logical human being who spends his time contemplating infinity (sober) and experiencing infinity (stoned). What adds joy to this system of belief is actually what many of you may view as its downside: The utter insignificance of our universe adds so much complexity to it that I can barely contain myself. Our universe is most likely a speck of a particle making up one atom in another universe, which in turn is another speck. Every time you bite into a cheeseburger or have an orgasm, you are experiencing an event of ultimate complexity, because it contains infinite mulitverses within that single, solitary act. It is rather humbling to say the least.

My roommate has now abandoned me, while I am in the process of writing this post, to go satisfy his hunger for the infinite experience that is human touch. I, myself, have infinitely experienced french fries and beer just recently. I am sure today you have all infinitely experienced something remarkable. Maybe you ate a banana, or went for a walk, or got hit in the temple by a golf ball. All equally complex and remarkable.

A bastard (as some say I am) would take advantage of this philosophy to be a huge dick to everyone all around him, using the excuse "none of this matters in infinity." That excuse, upon examination, is absurd, because the complexity of infinity is essentially harmony, and anyone who is beating up grandmas or twirling babies around their heads is definitely not in harmony with their surroundings. Chilling on a log, as my good friend Aaron Mandel has been known to do, is perhaps the greatest form of universal oneness a human being can achieve without the assistance of hallucinogenic drugs.

I can no longer type anything interesting, which is not saying a lot.

Walla Walla, Sometimes You're Too Much

or ~My Transcendental Soapin'~

I took a shower this afternoon. I don’t normally listen to the radio while I scrub, but I put it on today. This song came on mid-chorus (I’ve abbreviated it for effect):

Grabs him a girl and he holds on tight
He’s chasing everything in sight
[…]
Life looks good, good, good
with his beer goggles on

Well that was slightly bemusing. I chuckled because drunken hookups are a dime-a-dozen at college and a great opportunity to chastise your friends. I even know someone whose nickname is “beer goggles” for his lengthy laundry list of hookups. So why not put it in a song catered towards an average working class stiff or someone who wishes they were (read: college student). But the commercial that followed pushed me a little further into Walla Walla’s surreality. It went something like this:

Hey rodeo fans! Meet your favorite bareback horse riders Cleetus and Mud at the ole Pick n’ Spit! They’ll be signing belt buckles and trucker hats until 2 p.m.!

Just another radio commercial about rodeos, nothing to start freaking out about, except…

AM/PM, so much good stuff, come in today and try our new Dorito slurpee! In trouble with the wife, a bouquet of twinkees should do the trick! And remember, we don’t buy oil from Iraq or Sudan, only American oil!!

I started sputtering and spitting and making Aaron noises after I heard this doozy. Then I went blind. I’m attending a highly esteemed academic institution in the middle of a twilight episode. Prisoners (2) from a state penitentiary, barely a block away, write letters to me requesting my help as a Brahmin to further their Hindu studies. There’s a dude outside, I think he’s a motivational speaker, because he lives in a van DOWN by the MONSTRO and when he’s not making out with his girlfriend in a lawn chair, he’s smoking pot, an eerie green light effusing from his van.

I’m about to be granted a 4-year liberal arts degree, but I swear to God, I’m speaking a different language when I ask the K-Mart guy where to find tent spikes and a mallet. “Vampire wards, oh yeah, those’re on the gun aisle. Can’t help you with a mallet,” was his reply. People yell at me in tongues from their cars. I’ve seen more mullets than the hockey fan that saw every game the Penguins played in ’83. And now, in the shower, I can’t see a damn thing; I’m fucking blind.

…

It’s been a few days between when I wrote this (blind) and when I posted it (sight returned). Thankfully, Drew happens to be a laser eye surgeon and his work is amazing. I see much clearer now, besides a newly earned sight into several unnamed dimensions of space-time. It’s going to be a long year.

I'm a Hypocrite

I'm rocking so hard to Fall Out Boy right now. I dissed them earlier...but now I must put my foot in my mouth and jump kick around my house with the best of 'em.

We Talk Like This Every Day

An internet chat session from early this morning;

Aaron: a modern dilemma of all time, our internet works, but no water
Aaron: you can't drink the fuckin internet
Drew: Our social survival depends nothing on water, but physically, it is all-important.
Drew: Brother!
Drew: Let us invent a way to drink the internet!
Aaron: cree indian prophecy:
Aaron: only after the last tree has been cut down
Aaron: only after the last river has been poisoned
Aaron: only after the last fish has been caught
Aaron: only then will you find that money cannot be eaten
Drew: Perhaps this Mr. Cree is behind our water shortage.

I love Aaron.

Blade: Stupidity

I sat in a stinky, smokey diner in Meridian, Idaho waiting for a mulleted waitress to bring over my "Country Skillet Breakfast," which consists of a meaty blend of bacon, sausage, gravy, eggs, sausage, gravy, cheese, sausage, hash browns, sausage, gravy, and biscuits. I usually don't concern myself with a decor faux pas in a greasy spoon diner that's located next to a feed warehouse, but for some reason, I could not take my eyes off of the walls of this place. They were covered in all sorts of painted saw blades. This got the wheels turning in my brain. At first I pondered the type of person who thought they were going to shock the art world by painting elk on a twelve-inch saw blade. Maybe they didn't have artistic impression in mind. Even so, what type of person thought they could make a healthy living selling this type of shit to OTHER types of people who, presumably, would find artistic value in it? This created a kind of Star Trek mind-paradox in my head, and I had to reach into my mind and despereately fish around in the muddy tar to rescue my sanity from destruction at the hands of redneck interior decoration.

The Concert and Beyond

So the remainder of the concert went along without too much to report. We pushed our way to the front of the general admission area and took up a small patches of grass with a pretty good view of the stage. Most of my time was spent focusing on the concert and slowly bobbing my head, which was the practice for most of the concert goers. There was one leather-clad biker dude who stood up a lot and played wicked air guitar/drums to the songs that he deemed sufficiently jam-worthy. Soon after the concert started the shut down beer sales, which drove many in the crowd into a frothing frenzy. It was really an amazing lesson in general economics. Usually people would be in a frothing frenzy if you tried to charge them $5.00 for a single beer at Safeway, but stick them into a sweaty concert with 20,000 other people and soon they are tearing each other apart to find a beer PERIOD. To highlight the dilemma of the lack of alcohol, I will tell you the story of our own personal quest for booze. Hans decided during a lull in the concert to go get beer. I hand him ten bucks and tell him to get me as much beer as the ten will buy me. He comes back 20 minutes later with no beers, but he becons me up the hill to him. I reluctantly leave my spot which is immediately taken by another concert goer. "Did you get beer?" I ask, still clinging to hope. "No dude, but I got something BETTER." he says. The way he really stressed the "BETTER" I assumed he had found some sort of drug to ingest or inhale, and I was extatic. INSTEAD, Hans pulls out a tiny airline bottle of whiskey. "We traded a guy two cigarettes for this." The concert had forced us into a type of prison-yard currency where we were trading cigarettes for small amounts of booze. Normally if I had given Hans ten-dollars for booze and he came back with that small bottle, I would have stomped on his foot REALLY HARD. But, since the concert was too good to be getting stressed out, I shrugged and took a few sips of the delicious whiskey out of the tiny baby bottle.

After the show, we all filed back to the campsite and resumed the drinking process. Leif and Pete had managed to maintain their state of drunkeness throughout the concert. I was awed at these guys' ability to keep a mean drunk going for a solid six hours. At one point Leif stumbled over and started giving us a speech about how bullshit our college education was. I don't really remember what he said, but he kept repeating "You guys gotta wake up man." I finally had enough and told him that it was in fact he who needed to wake up as well, because the infinite nature of the universe meant that at some point in infinity he was me and I was he (can you follow that?) and so by telling me I needed to wake up, so did he. He got confused and then started to say something was coming out my ass and nose. I lost track of the conversation at that point. Later on, Pete started talking shit to Leif and saying he could wrestle him to the ground. Leif asked us who we thought would win the match. I noticed at that time that Leif had changed into a pair of navy sweatpants. "I think you would win, you have the sweatpants advantage." I said to him. Everyone else in my group laughed, but Leif looked confused and a few seconds later tackled Pete into a tent and they grappled on the ground until someone in their gang broke them up.

So bedtime is rolling around, and our time at the Gorge is coming to and end. The hippies come back around for a second time offering up mushrooms. Pete accepts, pays his $25, and eats the entire bag right then and there. Let me remind you that he was drunk when we arrived at 4:30pm, and he was still drunk when he ate the shrooms at 2:00am.

I woke at 4:30 in the morning to a sky full of glittering stars and the Beavis-like cackling of Pete in the distance. The old boy must have been having a time with those mushrooms, and I fell asleep with that laughter in my head. I didn't see him when we left in the morning. Perhaps his journey took him into the Columbia, which eventually will lead to the Bering Sea.