Last First Day Of School!

Shut up. For God's sake, shut your trap. We are supposedly seniors in high school, but still we are unable to avoid cliche' catch phrases like LFDOS! or HAGS! Thinking you were the first person to think up that phrase was probably the most notable and eventful thing of your day, just like me posting this reprimand will be the greatest part of mine. I'm not trying to get down on anybody here, but don't think up phrases as to why a perfectly MEDIOCRE day should have some type of glorification tacked onto it. Go save a village from being covered in molten lava...then you will have had a perfectly awesome day and you won't give a shit as to whether it's the first last day of school or the one-of-many days in which you pee in your bed. So what if you're a bed-wetter? You just saved a village, you're a badass and you deserve a medal.

Back to School, Back to Bloggin'

Well it's back to school for the monstro crew and everyone else as we move back in and get ready to start classes. For me, the start of a new school year is a chance to not only reflect on deep, intra-personal-meta0/.physical lessons learned about self over the summer, but also to look ahead and set some goals for the upcoming year. Some of my goals include continuing to buy Safeway completely out of butt-wipes, this has already happened once and I don't like to rest on laurels. I'm looking forward to christening the new fountain outside hunter with soapy bubbles and my naked, drunken body joining in tandem as one with the upward fountain shots, no decision yet on urination. I'd really like to meet two freshmen in particular that caught my eye in the look book. The first is Peter Griffin and the second is Phil Collins, I hope they're as great as mass media makes them out to be! And of course, we at the monstro are always looking forward to parties. I can't wait to get my ass mistaken for a drunk freshmen girl by a beta at the foam party or get puked on by a sweaty dude during Andy-O. I'm most excited for my bible study with the Sigs and my facial hair grooming with the DG's. But I mean no harm, this is a wonderful place of learning, from George Bridges in a bow tie watching my naked body slip and slide across Harper Joy Field to hearing ASWC President Amy Kunkel-Patterson talk about pong during her convocation address there is truly no better place to get smart and get a vd. I recently joined the cross country team, which by all accounts is comprised of people who are really the byproduct of an ostrich mating with Ichabod Crane. To the loyal readers of the monstro blog who had to go all summer without posts from anyone but Drew, I salute you, we are now back in full force, at least Drew and I and Dan most likely. Tune in daily, or at least therabouts for the insider scoop on the pulse of campus (mine was 52 b/m this morning). To start things off right, I've decided to test the monstro-blog reader's knowledge of all things monstro with a little quiz. Answer in the comments section and the winner can get drunk on us at some point this semester, I'll post the correct answers as a comment in a few days.

1. Whose room is the only air conditioned room?

2. Whose room has no drawers?

3. Whose room is most often mistaken for a sauna?

4. As of 14 hours before classes start, who is not yet back at the house?

5. Whose room turns orange at sunset?

6. Whose room has dark, hardwood floors?

7. Which monstrot spent the summer on a bike?

8. Who spent some time in the monstro this summer?

9. How many monstrots worked at a summer camp this summer?

10. How many different majors are represented in the house?

good luck and best wishes for a safe and happy fall 2005 semester!

The Monstro

Perfect 10

I give an awesome perfect "10" score to all the gymnasts who have quit competition in order to play instruments in punk and emo bands. I was watching a band called Fall Out Boy on MTV2 and "wheee!" They started jumping and twirling around like little Peter Pans. They were real serious about it though, with a look on their faces like "This is so awesome" and then they would jump kick the air and thrash the guitar for good measure. The whole time I'm sitting there thinking that this has to be some kind of joke, and I turn and ask my brothers, who are into that type of shit (by that I mean punk and emo.) They told me that no, it wasn't a joke, but these "musicians" do the aerial maneuvers to attract attention and be cool. I was thinking about how things have changed since I was in school, because I'm pretty sure that the kid who flew down the hallways pirouetting this way and that got his ass beat 24/7, and now all he has to do is put on some jeans with a holes in them and some Converse All-Stars and learn how to play rudimentary guitar and he's the coolest shit in town. I thought I had seen it all and then it showed a shot of the awesome fans of these urban ballerinas. The fans were all stomping around angrily like "nobody will change my poopy diaper!" and then they too would occasionally jump and twirl, with a little bit of arm swinging. At first I thought it was strange that rather mediocre and un-rocking music would have a Korn-esque moshpit, so I turned once again to the fountains of emo knowledge that are my two siblings. The fans call themselves "straight edge" and don't drink or smoke. The way they get by in life is to punch each other in the face in a Disneyland moshpit. I have never seen a group of people who needed marijuana more in my entire life. It is now my goal to scoop up some Rastafarians straight from Jamaica and take them to the Warped Tour next year to help me chill these kids the fuck out.


Danger: Rocking may make you look like an idiot.
photo courtesy of falloutboyrock.com

McEmpire

I've been travelling a lot recently, and while sitting doing some people-watching in the various airports I've been in I've noticed one common factor...everyone walking around the goddamned airport is shoving McDonald's into their faces. I walked by the McDonald's in Phoenix's Sky Harbor airport to see a line of perhaps 30 people, only to walk another 100 yards and see ANOTHER McDonald's with ANOTHER 30 people waiting patiently in line to get their food, like horses waiting for the feeding trough. What baffled me was that these people were not what Super Size Me had painted them to be. Nobody was overweight, greasy-skinned, or undergoing liver/heart failure. They were normal looking people. A businesswoman towing a brifcase on wheels whisked from the Starbucks line with a steaming latte' right into the McD's line to grab breakfast. This woman probably does fucking yoga and only eats organic; but it was 7am, she probably got groped by some TSA agent, and was starving as hell, so all that shit went out the window and she grabbed an Egg McMuffin.
I'm gonna broaden to fast food in general in order to include something else that sickened me beyond belief. I literally lost all hope in humanity when I saw this shit I am about to relate to you.
I was in San Diego chilling in a parking lot by the car waiting for my family to catch up. A van comes rolling through the lot and I spy Arkansas plates. Interesting, I think. The van slows down and I see a family of about 6 overweight people literally CRAMMED into that van as the brakes creak and strain trying to slow the additional 2 tons of cargo. A woman in a mumu is sitting in the passengers seat inhaling an Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger from Jack In The Box. She pokes her head out the window and asks "Y'all leavin'?" With that thick southern drawl perfectly accented with flying bacon pieces and reeking cow meat. Before I answer I scan the vehicle to see the same spectacle occuring throughout; the whole family is eating J In The B staring at me cow-eyed. I shake my head "no" and smile, and the van creaks forward with a painful moan of the shocks and they roll on through the parking lot. Later as I was walking out of the parking lot I passed the van and got to look inside. It was parked neatly under a light pole and the entire family was sitting inside the van still, eating a fresh round of burgers. Turns out they didn't really want to go to the beach, they just wanted a place to stop and keep eating. Nevermind that the Jack In The Box that they got their food from was on the opposite side of the street, with all its tables and chairs. That would have neccessitated GETTING OUT OF THE CAR, which from the looks of it would have taken most of the evening for that family to successfully accomplish.

I still cannot get that terrifying Image from my head, I can only hope that someday it will be stricken from my mind forever.

I Have Returned

I have to admit, I do feel slight pangs of guilt when I go away on vacations or short trips and I am unable to update the blog. I realize that many people rely on it for information and entertainment in much the same way as our parents rely on Reader's Digest. At the same time, this is an utterly thankless cross that I must bear to the top of a mighty mountain, and I can see in the future the inevitability of me being nailed to the burden that I carry with a smile.
This blog will be the death of me.
Well, perhaps not the death of me, but I am sure in the years of senseless un-edited posting ahead that somewhere I will off-handedly mention the means of my ultimate demise. I will invoke the principals of the mighty theory of Chaos; by making that simple remark I will set into motion the great universal machine that is required to finally bring about my end. I expect no less than the influence of gods and the gods of gods, if they exist. If they do not exists, then at least the machinations of a crack-addicted hobo who will shiv me to death in an alley for $22. But a mighty fall it will be.

The Beginning

The new school year is quickly approaching and many of the readers of this blog will be going back to school of some kind, whether it be Bible school or Dance Academy. We all know that amazing frist day of school feeling, don't we?
Wondering if you're going to like your teacher. Will you like your classmates? What if the kid that sits next to you smells? Or has dyptheria? (Most likely from travelling the Oregon Trail.) Is your Trapper Keeper with your Lisa Frank folders in it still cool? It has a cute pink panda. Who doesn't like cute pink pandas? Did you bring some stickers? Some cute unicorn stickers to stick on stuff and make them cute? What about those LA Gears with the flashing lights you bought? What if one of the lights goes out? What the fuck will you do then? Go to the bathroom and hang yourself, that's what you SHOULD do. We all know owning a pair of non-flashing LA Gears is social suicide, so you might as well commit REAL suicide so as not to condemn yourself to the fucking community service club for your entire life at school. Did you bring enough pens? Did you get cool pens? Did you get mechanical pencils? The cool rich kids have mechanical pencils. Even if you can't afford mechanical pencils buy spare mechnical pencil lead so when that cute cool girl leans over and says "Do you have any .5 lead?" You can say yes instead of shamefully shaking your head and wishing you were dead. Also you'd better get something cool to put in your locker. You'd better get a cool poster of Pamela Anderson. That Miss Piggie in the bikini poster you were gonna put up isn't going to get you any friends, just an ass-kicking. What about a cool backpack? Do you have a cool backpack? Do you have a cool Jansport backpack? You'd better. And you'd better write cool stuff on it with white-out like "Whatever!" and "Time Out!" otherwise nobody will be your friend. Maybe get a pin or patch. A cool patch that says "Korn" or "Dave Matthews Band" or better yet just "DMB." You'd better have some cool No Fear. If you don't have No Fear you'd better fear getting pummeled by the jocks. The jocks have no fear, that's why they wear the shirts. They like to jump motorcycles and skateboards with no fear, do you think they will have any fear of beating your face off?

I'm putting myself in time-out for rambling on about school. We're all going to college, not middle school, right? ...Right?

The Crazies Are Out

If you live in Walla Walla, I encourage you to go outside immediately and walk downtown. It would seem the population of the town that puts "Complete Lunacy" as their profession on a census are all out on Main Street at the same time. I was under the impression they only came out at night...hence the word "lunacy" to which I attribute the ad-hoc definition "driven boot-eatin' crazy by the devil-moon." Though I have no particular grudge against our celestial neighbor, it would seem that many people simply can't bear the sight of the sonofabitch without something in their brain snapping like a twig. I say "many people" but I now imagine that many of you probably don't have neighborhoods filled with colander-wearing "superheroes."
Walla Walla has the Washington State Penitentiary conveniently located right outside of town. When the term is up for the guys who had good enough grades to get accepted to WSP, they are let out into the community with nothing more than a change of clothes and a kick in the ass. That kick in the ass must be just swift and hard enough to land them right smack downtown to start climbing the streetlamps and besieging the hotdog vendors.
Perhaps you think I'm bashing on crazy people, but if you know me then you know that in some ways I envy them. I plan on sailing solo across the Pacific Ocean next year to achieve a kind of insanity straight out of The Ryme of the Ancient Mariner which has so far eluded me in my 21 years of existence.

My Life Part 1

It disappeared strangely, but I managed to get the puppy back online. My Life Part 1, session 2.

I came out of my mother's womb with a full head of hair and a tattoo of the Holy Virgin Mary on my back. The doctors said it 'twernt right for a babe to have a tattoo of the Holy Virgin Mary on it's back, and it should be removed. But my parents were poor and they could only afford one surgery; it was either the tattoo or a circumcision. I remember being in that doctors hands and thinking in my head, "You'd better not cut off my tattoo you sonofabitch." But being a baby I didn't have the words to get that idea out, and so I did the next best thing and began to cry.

At the age of 3 I began to read from the Encylopedia Britannica clearly and correctly, completely out of the blue. My first word was "Aa," which is a genus of orchid which grows in the Andes. Unfortunately I spoke with a rough Icelandic accent, which puzzled my parents because none of my neighbors, babysitters, or friends were of Icelandic origin. My invisible friend Ragnheidr stayed away after that...I supposed my parents quickly began to suspect his influence.

Around the time of my 8th birthday I climbed to the top of a large Oak tree in my front yard and quite clearly saw my closest neighbor, Mr. Goldstein, having a conversation with his Welsh Corgie who's name was Flamingo. I was surprised to see that Flamingo answered him in a baritone voice, a voice I had always attributed to Mr. Goldstein and never to Flamingo, who I saw only when he was being walked by Mr. Goldstein. As he went into and out of his house fetching food and toys for Flamingo, I soon realized that Mr. Goldstein was actually the puppet of his dog. The next time I saw them walking down the street I was playing with my Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figure of Ace Duck. I stared at Flamingo and then started a rather engaging conversation with the animal about the artistic merits of the cartoon show in which my action figure character made only a brief guest appearance.

More to come...

What the hell

I hope someone out there has a cached copy of the website with "My Life Part 1" on it...for some weird reason it has gone missing...What the hell???

Portrait Series

A portrait of Mr. David Varagic in the Walla Walla wheatfields. The only person I've ever known to go watch the sunset and face the wrong direction. Shortly after this shot was taken Clark Blumenstein hefted his Corgie Annabelle into the air at David and struck him dead. Annabelle went straight to work digging the grave in the soft, tilled soil. It would seem Annabelle was not new to being a murder weapon.