Features X: in three digits

Feature #100:

Would you believe it, this is Feature #100! A landmark number by any accounts, although i wish i was more prompt with these updates because then it would also be significant of how many months i've been running the feature. The page has been up since 1997, but i haven't a clue how long these things have existed. Ah, memories. Madmarcy, the stupid letters to companies, the bad dates... it's been an interesting century of features. 200, here we come.

I was thinking about doing some sort of retrospective for #100, but that felt way too haughty and self-promoting, so instead, we're just going to go about business as usual. A little of this, a little of that. For however long you've been reading, thanks so much. And, of course, an enormous and humble thanks to those who have been with this page since before the features even began. I know there are at least a few of you out there, and you can't imagine how much i appreciate it.

I'm not too sure what kind of free time i'll have towards the end of the year, since i'll be out of town for a few days and my girlfriend (yay!) is coming to visit. If i can update on time, i will. But if not, Happy New Year, and i'll see you in the palendrome. Have a good and safe one.

Here we go. Feature #100. Phew.

1. Flying to Florida
2. Clearly pissing

1. Florida is Florida, and it's where i'll be for the next few weeks. Flying down here was fine, although the woman next to me was in her 60s and wanted to hold my hand for the takeoff and landing.

"I'm a very nervous flyer," she said -- along with the million other things she told me, almost all of which seemed to be laced with unnecessary details that suggested her wealth. Her business ("i've been written up many times"), her kids and where they go to school, her past travel destinations. It's just inappropriate. I hate when people feel the need to flaunt their lifestyles.

This was an actual story of hers:

(she tosses a pill in her mouth and follows it down with a sip of tomato juice) "It's a melatonin pill to help me sleep. When i flew to Zurich, i took two of them and had a glass of wine, and i slept through the whole flight! When i woke up, we were almost there, and i felt so groggy..." and here, she winds up for the punchline. "So the stewardess got me a cappichino!"

People like this should be stripped of whatever maintains their dignity until they learn how to relate to people on a normal, non-self-centered fashion. She would occasionally ask me questions, but would never listen to the answers -- which was evident when she asked the same question multiple times and volunteered the same information over and over again. She evernbroke FAA regulations twice to go to the bathroom before takeoff and landing, and then sprayed eight -- no exaggeration, EIGHT -- shots of throat-wrenching perfume on her chest. First she invaded my ears, and then she tried to suffocate me with the kind of smell that skunks use as a natural defense.

The choice moment was after she woke up, and we were descending towards Ft. Lauderdale. I had slept a good majority of the ride, and hadn't even heard the captain give the usual landing announcements. She missed them as well, and was curious about the weather. "Did they say what the temperature is in Florida?" she would ask, and i'd explain that i slept through it.

Five minutes pass. "Did they say what the temperature in Florida is?" she asked, and i once again explained that i slept through it. Another minute later, she switches tactics:

"They usually say what the temperature is when we're about to land. They say, 'We're approaching Ft. Lauderdale, and the temperature is...' Did they say anything like that?"

Again, i explain that they probably did, but i slept through it. She asked two more times -- a total of five, each with a slightly different angle -- as if there was some sordid reason that i was keeping my intimate knowledge of the weather from her. I couldn't have gotten off that plane sooner. It was like mental terrorism. Someone should send this woman after Osama, to see what his game can become.

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2. I like to conserve water, and i often find flushing a toilet to be a sad waste of a precious natural resource. Yet, in the name of good sanity and hospitality, i flush after almost any toilet use. There is, however, the clear piss.

Come on, i know you've experienced this before. Perhaps it was too much water, or maybe not enough vitamins at dinner, but somehow your piss is nearly or completely clear.

At that point, if you're pissing in someone else's toilet, what do you do? I've never been able to make up my mind about this. There is undeniably urine in the toilet, yet it isn't visible to the naked eye. Thus, what really matters: the fact or the illusion? When are we to flush, after use or after we leave proof of our visit? I think i usually end up not flushing, although i'm just never comfortable with any solution. Oh, the complexities of life. We are fortunes fools, indeed.

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Feature #101:

It's a new year. 2001 didn't bring us Hal or trips to Jupiter, but it did bring us some great music (see especially: new Hefner album, "Dead Media), a very expensive scooter, and some awful terrorism -- both from America and bin Laden. But, with a new year, i'm hoping for some new things: More good music, perhaps something a little more exciting than the scooter, and perhaps a common understanding. We'll see how it plays out.

So, on to the feature. Have a wonderful first week of 2002, and welcome to the palindrome. For now, there are five:

1. My dad can't draw
2. Embracing herpes
3. 1-800-BAD-IDEA
4. Birds and bees, revealed!
5. Fun game and eyeshadow

1. My dad drew the following on a post-it note and left it in my bathroom. I'm assuming he meant it as a suggestion for me to turn into an i can't draw comic, but it seemed only appropriate to scan it in its original format:

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2. A few friends and i (sara and kevin) were discussing what would happen if something like herpes got so out of control that trying to combat it was no longer a viable option. (this wasn't, for your information, a serious conversation pertaining to anybody in specific). It was decided upon that the wisest thing our government could do in such a situation would be to embark upon a feel-good campaign with herpes as its hero. Like that scene in Billy Madison where Adam Sandler turns pants-peeing in-style (the old lady's comment of "If peeing your pants is cool, consider me Miles Davis" took me years and a jazz history class to understand. i'm so not hip), the government would have to encourage people to embrace herpes.

The two winning slogans we came up with were:

1. "If herpes is wrong, i don't wanna be right."

2. Herpes: if you can't beat it, spread it. And if you can't spread it, beat it.

We especially liked the double-entendre of #2.

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3. I call this "1-800-BAD-IDEA":

I had a great idea. It was so grand, so delightfully inventive, that i wrote it down on a post-it note a month ago so I was sure not to forget. I told people about it. I laughed about it. I thought, by golly, this is really quite something. It was explosively wonderful, yet painfully simple: I would call 1-800 numbers that beared some kind of crude message, the kind that makes schoolchildren giggle and grandparents frown. Then, when someone picked up, in a wizardry of cleverness, I would ask the unfortunate receptionist if s/he was aware that the company's phone number bears such an embarassing missive.

I wasn't sure what kind of response I would get, but it mattered not: the concept was too smooth, too crafty, to fail. It was instant humor, like a pie in the face, or a monkey -- but not a pie in the face of a monkey, because that brings up sticky moral issues.

Alas, as perhaps my futive tone suggests, the stunt was as successful as a nuclear waste-eating competition. It was miserable. Most numbers just rang until I lost patience, and the only four that didn't were these:

1-800-BOBO-BOB:
Them: All-tronics
Me: Did you know that your number spells "Bobo-Bob"?
Them: It does? And why do i need to be aware of this?
Me: Well, this is part of a campaign to let people know what their phone numbers are.
Them: Really? Fine.
(click)

1-800-WET-FART:
Them: "...yeah, baby, we're wet and wild ladies..."
Me: Ahh! Phone sex number!

1-800-BUY-WEED:
Them: Wheaton and company
Me: Hi, was it intentional that your phone number is 1-800-BUY-WEED?
Them: Uh, yeah, it is.
Me: Do you sell weed?
Them: Look, i really don't have time.
Me: Well, what is Wheaton?
Them: It's a trading company.
Me: Ok, bye.
(click)

1-800-EAT-POOP:
(busy)

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4. I frequently get comments on the ramblings, but this is one of the few times that someone took the time to do actual research on a subject. What she came up with was pretty interesting, and quite worthy of being shared:

Subj: A Wierd Answer to one of Your Ramblings
Date: 12/29/01 12:03:09 AM Eastern Standard Time
From: mankey (C L)
To: knulprek@aol.com

Hi there!

I was reading your site when I came across one of your ramblings about the 'birds and the bees.' You got me wondering about why the heck love *is* refered to that. So, I brought it up to one of my science teachers, and he pulled out the ol' science book and gave me this explanation:

The 'birds and the bees' is a reference to the cycle of pollination. This is to say the transfer of pollen from the male reproductive organ (stamen or staminate cone) to the female reproductive organ (pistil or pistillate cone) of the same or of another flower or cone. The devices that operate to ensure cross-pollination, like sex.

And there you have it! Interesting explanation, that. The intricate story behind the 'birds and the bees'. He did talk about the wind helping pollination as well, but, that sounds a bit silly; 'wind and the bees'?

Well, I hope you enjoyed finding this out as much as I did!

Sincerely:
Kaitlin K.

My suggestion is that the 'wind' in question here could be something like the old-time cliche standard of "softly blowing" into an ear to, ahem, get in the mood. Always sounded a bit hokey to me, but in terms of its intended purpose, the wind in question would quite easily help "pollenation." Interesting.

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5. Hey, girl. Lay off the eyeshadow, will you? It looks like a smurf peed on your face.

(found this via a great game. use this girl's picture as a springboard (http://www.livejournal.com/userpic/822746), and just change the number at the end. sometimes you'll get a "no picture" label, but the majority of the time, you'll get wacky pictures from livejournal.com members. it's often quite entertaining, i assure you.)

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Feature #102:

My winter break is almost at a close, which is a bit freaky. This is the last time in an unpredictable amount of years that i'll have an entire month of vacation. Hell, with the way America whips its dogs -- er, that is, runs its workforce -- i might not see a month's vacation until i'm gearing down for the Big Vacation in the sky. It's been a good break, without a doubt. Things got accomplished, people were seen, so on and so on.

One of the things i accomplished was a Buddy System Indeed "slide show," which i'd advise (of course) checking out. I've been trying to think of ways to keep that site alive and well, and that seems like a solid start.

The first week of 2002 has treated me well, i'd say. My band's show was really fun, and totally unexpectedly, Julio Iglesias Jr. was in the audience. Apparently he enjoyed it, although the only words we exchanged were when he asked me if i "really don't own a cell phone," which was in response to something Isaac (singer/guitar) said during the show. It was odd. He said it as if it were shocking, as if he were asking if i really don't have internal organs. And no, i really don't have a cell phone. I hate being in constant contact. When i'm out, i'm out. I'll call you back later.

Time to get along with this feature. Have a nice week!

1. Sorta-Dog
2. ManBeef response
3. Duck!

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1. For the holidays, my parents bought me a robotic dog. I can't say i had ever considered owning one of these things, but now that i have it, it does seem like it would make for an interesting experiment in... well, something. I ruled this idea out at about the same time as i came up with it, but it would be entertaining to see how people respond to a robotic dog on campus versus a real dog. Because, if you've been on a college campus before, you know this simple, fail-proof fact: dogs attract the attention of girls, and that's why guys have dogs. Dog is a man's best friend, period? Bullshit. A dog is a college guy's best friend because it's the best friend that'll get him a girl and then never steal her away.

The robotic dog, i'm assuming, would gather a very skeptical crowd, all of whom would probably be more interested in figuring out what is potentially wrong with the dog owner than actually greeting the dog. Me personally, i don't think i could ever take the dog out. I'd feel like i was walking my toaster oven.

This dog takes more batteries than a car, and it requires five minutes of intense feeding and petting in the beginning of its "life," otherwise, says the instruction manual, "baby Popito will be easy to get sick, fall asleep and can't grow up."

Oh yeah. It's name is "Popito," as dictated by the manufacturer. I'm sure there are plenty of Spots and Fidos running around in this world, but this company has manufactured an army of dogs that are all named Popito. Think about that. Hundreds, probably thousands, of households, all with a dog named Popito. This is a cultural invasion.

Suffice to say, i wasn't able to give it the kind of love and attention it needed in its first five minutes, and i think i killed it. It kept making "waaa" sounds and eventually fell asleep. I do have every intention of eventually getting this thing to work, so i guess i'll soon be hitting the reset button that appears to double as his anus, and will try again.

For now, though, the instruction manual has provided great amusement -- cheap humor, really, based around its broken english. To give you an idea of how little the manufacturer seems to know about what they're writing, they listed on the back of the box a number of selling points for Popito, which somehow included "Make you feel safe in the evening!" and "No need to clean pet poo-poo anymore!" No Popito poo-poo? Sign me up! And may i just say, having Popito stand guard at a house would work as well as leaving a dead dog to do the job. Every movement of his is accompanied by a whirring sound, as if his limbs were built out of tiny blenders, and his bark is about as intense as a squeaky chair. If someone were to "feel safe in the evening" because of Popito, they either have never felt unsafe or are living in a charming, unearthly utopia where crooks are skiddish and batteries are cheap.

Inside the manual, i get helpful information like "So when you feed Popito, you should give him 8 feedings. When he sound full, he will play fart sound." Most of the time, they refer to the dog as "Popito," although sometimes he becomes "the Popito," as in "In this game, you can train yourself to be a good DJ and music commander, the Popito is a orchestra & music player." For some reason, towards the very end of the manual, it begins to refer to him as "the Robo-Dog."

But either way, i'm sure this dog -- this Popito, really -- will come in good fun... once i figure out what to do with it.

And of course, i couldn't resist taking the juxtaposition shot: my dog Emy and Popito, staring each other down. It should be noted that about 30 seconds after this picture was taken, Emy put her head down and fell asleep. Popito, on the other hand, didn't move an inch.

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2. I got an amusing e-mail from a reader named Steve, who was responding to a link (manbeef.com) that i had posted on the Picture of the Day. Here it is:

Subj: ManBeef
Date: 1/9/02 12:57:50 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: (steve)
To: KNULPREK@aol.com

Haha, I was looking at your Picture of the Day today and I thought you might be interested to hear this:

ManBeef.com claims to operate out of Binghamton, New York. That's about where I live. Instead of recognizing the website for the obvious gag it is, the Binghamton police force spent a lot of time trying to investigate ManBeef in order to determine just what the hell was going on. It's been a long time since I read the newspaper article about it, but basically the Binghamton police had the bright idea of simply e-mailing ManBeef.com to ask if they really sold human meat. The e-mail was never returned, so the Binghamton police were baffled and gave up. Isn't that sad? You'd think it'd be pretty easy to figure out who was making the website. Then again, you'd also think it was pretty easy to figure out ManBeef.com was a humorous website. You just can't give those local police too much confidence.

I remember once this guy named Lester Harris killed his daughter (who was also his common law wife... Yay, incest!) and then ran away. The Candor police tried their best to track him down, but 4 years passed and ol' Lester Harris "escaped" (you'll see the reason for the quotes in a moment). The police investigation decided he probably took off for Florida, and an investigation was started down there. Anywho, four years later (about a month ago) a hunter was walking through the Candor woods, no doubt looking to kill some poor defenseless animal, when he stumbled over a body. It was Lester Harris' body. The day he killed his daufe (it's a combination of 'daughter' and 'wife,' clever eh), he wandered into the woods, made it less then one mile from his house, then commited suicide. Yeah, he shot himself the day of the murder. A dead guy less then a mile from his home, right out in the open, evaded Candor police for four years. It makes you feel so safe and oh-so-proud of authority figures, doesn't it?

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3. This happened pretty near my place in Florida. Somebody should have screamed, "Duck!" (ba-dum-bum)

Man Dies in High-Speed Crash With Duck
NOVEMBER 20, 11:30 ET

DEERFIELD BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A man dashing across a lake on a customized personal watercraft at about 55 mph was killed in an apparent collision with a flying duck.

Leon Resnick, an employee of Riva Yamaha, was testing the water jet-propelled craft Thursday on a lake about 20 miles north of Fort Lauderdale, investigators said Monday.

A co-worker who was watching turned to pick up a radar gun to check Resnick's speed, and when he turned back Resnick was no longer aboard the craft.

Resnick, 31, of Hollywood, drowned after suffering a blow to his head, the Broward County medical examiner's office said.

``Our theory is that the bird was airborne and clocked him in the head,'' said David Bamdas, an owner of the dealership.

At the speed Resnick was traveling, the 10- to 15-pound duck ``might as well have been a cinder block,'' Bamdas said.

The bird's carcass was found nearby and there were feathers on the water bike's handlebars, said Broward County sheriff's spokesman Hugh Graf.

(article sent to me by my dad)

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Feature #103:

Only a few days late. Not too bad, considering classes just started. My schedule isn't as hectic as i feared, although i do have a (very good) class at 9 am on Tuesday and Thursday -- and that's my only one for the day. If you're still in high school, let me tell you this: the kind of schedule you have to suffer through right now would destroy a college student. I take one, maybe two, classes a day, and I have Friday off. The devotion of time that they expect of you in high school is cruel and unusual. Just wait. It'll be over soon.

I'm trying to get my foot in the door at the local daily newspaper, and i have an interview for an internship this Tuesday. The plan is to do well at the internship, and then hit them up for a job before graduation. Right now, that's all resting on Tuesday, so wish me luck. Yeesh.

Anyway, perhaps its time to get into the feature. Don't forget to also check out the new comic this week. Enjoy.

1. Quote the drunk
2. The winner of the true-story contest
3. The two runner-ups

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1. My apartment is on a road between campus and a big party house, so i always have the luxury of hearing people who drank enough to lose control of, amongst other things, their vocal volume. Usually, they just say stupid things and remind each other of something that just happened, but this past Friday, i heard a guy say something that, while stupid, would be great to attribute to a drunk character, if i ever write one. He said:

"My father told me to leave my mark on this world, and i'm going to do it right here!"

As far as i can tell, he then proceeded to take a piss on the street. Impressive.

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2. Here's the winning story from my tell-me-a-true-story contest. This one comes from Steve, and he'll be getting a Buddy System Indeed CD. Stay tuned for more contests, but for now, here's the story.

This is a great story. Unfortunately it is unfinished, although I will update you as it progresses.

My name is Steve. I am an Illustration major at the Rochester Institute of Technology. One day, on my way out the door for class, my roommate Don stopped me. "Dude, you have to hear this," he said and brought me over to our answering machine. He proceeded to press the play button.

Take one part robot voice, one part throat cancer machine voice (you know, like that guy from South Park), and exaggerate it to the level where you cannot understand the words, and you will have a good idea what this machine message sounded like. I laughed with Don and we wondered what the hell was going on until I realized the mechanical voice was saying "Steve... Steve... Steve... [unintelligible gibberish]."

"Oh no!!! I've pissed off the robots for the last time!!!!!" I declared, and laughed some more. Five minutes later I had completely forgotten the incident.

Minutes passed. Minutes turned to days. Days turned to more days. Finally, what must have been at least three days later, I was in the kitchen making myself some dinner (Oscar Meyer hotdogs on a George Foreman Grill!!!! Whooo!!!) when the phone rang. I decided to not bother answering it, seeing as the phone is rarely for me (when you live on a wired campus like RIT, it is really easy to completely skip telephone communication for internet communication). However, another of my roommates, Reuben, walked down the stairs and told me the phone was for me. I thanked Reuben and picked up the phone.

An electric buzz fell upon my ears, which slowly mutated into the unintelligible robot babble that had left a message on our answering machine. "Hello? Hello?" I tried to ask, but the robot voice seemed to ignore my own. I stopped talking and silence set in.

Okay, to describe this next part I have to ask all of you to imagine what happens when kidnappers call for their ransom in movies. Like that movie, what was it called again? Oh yeah... Ransom. Anyway, the kidnapper's voice is always distorted into a low, semi-electronic, distorted voice so they cannot be traced. Like in the motion picture Ransom starring Mel Gibson and that other guy that is in a bunch of other movies. Well, that cliche sound is EXACTLY the voice that began talking to me. "Hello? Are you there?" the kidnapper voice asked me.

I literally fell on the ground in laughter. I tried to ask "what the hell is going on," but I could not squeeze the sentence out through my giggles.

"Why are you laughing?" the sinister voice inquired. "Go to your window."

"Which one?" I asked.

"Your bedroom window."

I climbed the stairs and entered my room, looking out the window to see if I was actually being watched.

"Closer," the voice demanded. I told them I was already as close to the window as I could possibly get. "Are you on Don's bed?"

I looked down, as I was standing on my roommate Don's bed to get to the window. "Uhm... Yeah."

"Well get the hell off of it!!!!!!!!" I wondered if I was talking to Don. "Get on your computer."

"Okay, I'm online," I responded.

"Enter the following screenname on America Online Instant Messanger: Z... A... R... V... O... X... 3... 2... 1." I typed it in and marvelled at the screenname Zarvox321. I thought, this would be exactly like a movie if I was scared instead of amused. The voice concluded the phone call saying "we will contact you," and hanging up.

Seconds later, the screenname Zarvox321 instant messaged me. I will now try to recreate what happened in this conversation to the best of my memory:

Zarvox321: Hello, Steve.
NotMySN: Uhm, hey.
Zarvox321: I never thought it would ever have to come to this, Steve.
Zarvox321: But things have gone too far now.
Zarvox321: I don't even care what makes sense anymore.
NotMySN: That sucks.
Zarvox321: You're going to have to make a delivery for me, Steve.
NotMySN: Really?
Zarvox321: Just wait.
Zarvox321: I'll contact you.
Zarvox321: Soon.

And with that, Zarvox321 signed off. He/she hasn't signed on since. When Don returned home, I asked him "what the hell dude? How'd you do that?" He responded with a look of confusion, and after a little bit of interrogation I decided he was being honest, although I was still suspicious.

However, just today my suspicions were discredited. As I sat at my desk doing some sketches for an assignment, the phone rang. Don answered. He gave me an odd look and handed the phone to me. I stared back at him, and we stared in silence for a minute before I answered, because I knew what was coming.

"Steve? Steve?" The voice was now a raspy, demonic, snake-ish voice.

"Yeah..."

"Can you hear me?"

"Fine."

"The time is drawing near... Be ready!!!" This warning was followed by the click of the telephone hanging up. And that is the cliffhanger I am afraid I must leave you with. I am really curious as to what sort of climax the prankster involved has. I hope its nothing too anti-climactic. I want to see this adventure through now.

I'm afraid that this is going to have a really lame ending to it, but for now, we're left with a Lord of the Rings-like anti-ending. Steve will update us as this progresses.

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3. Here are the two runner-up stories. They don't get any prizes, but they do get posted. This first one's from Adam Kilgas:

I work in a computer lab at a public library ...So there I am, "working", waiting for my lunch break, when some guy a few computers over jumps up and runs over to my desk asking if we have a phone somewhere in the library. I say yes, we do, a payphone in the lobby downstairs. Anxiously, the man runs back over to his computer, stares at it for a few seconds, then says "Aww... It's too late now anyway...", and sits back down. I had no idea what was going on, nor did I really care. In this job, you talk as little as possible to the patrons, otherwise they all want to tell you their life story, and some of the more "interesting" ones think of you as their new best friend (a situation I've gotten myself into once or twice before I figured this little rule out...)

Well, about two minutes later the guy jumps up again exclaiming "Oh my god!! I can't believe it happened again!!" He then comes back over, all in a hurry, and asks if I have change for a dollar. I say that no, I don't, but you can get change at the circulation desk. (I'll admit, now I'm starting to rather curious as to what's going on...) He says something like "That'll take too long..." and sits back down at his computer. At this time I suppose he decides to tell me what's going on, whether I want to know or not. So he turns toward me and says "You'll never believe this! I was on this site, and I did something, I don't know what, but I won a $1,000 shopping spree! It said I only had like 500 seconds to call in and claim it, though... That's why I was asking if there was a payphone. And if that's not amazing enough, I went back to the site a few minutes later, and won again!! What're the odds of that happening?? Can you believe it!?"

Yeah, by this time I know what's going on... I get up and go over there, and sure enough, it's an ad. The guy's fallin' for a freakin' ad. I explain to him what it was, and that I don't think he really won anything... And I hit the 'Refresh' button on the browser to show him... Sure enough, it says he won again, and gives a phone number to call in order to claim your "prize". So then he asks "Well do you think I should call them, just in case?" I tell him to do what he likes, 'cause frankly I didn't really care...(but I didn't tell him that..) Well, by now it was time for my lunch break, so I left and went downstairs to the staff area. Now from here you can look out the small window in the door that leads to the lobby, and see the payphone... And sure enough, about three minutes after going down there I look up and see our "winner" making a phone call...

I never thought those things worked... Though I suppose they'd have to, otherwise they wouldn't have them on every other site... And now I've witnessed first hand exactly how they work on people... Not to mention on what kind of people...

It is sad that people lack such vital common sense. Even without a working knowledge of the Internet, i still feel like people would recognize a scheme when they see one. But, i guess judging from the number of people who have flown to Publishers Clearinghouse headquarters to claim their money after getting a standard "You've won a million dollars (is what we'd say if you actually won)" letter. Some people are dupes, really. It's what allows the advertising industry to thrive.

This last story is from Amy Patterson:

I don't know if I was the only person to do this when I was in elementary school, but I used to send people on little scavenger hunts through textbooks by writing, like, "Go to page 35" on page 2, and then you'd go to page 35 and it would say "Go to page 87" and so on. It was a great way to amuse myself in class, both going through other people's scavenger hunts (i guess this was popular in my high school) although i never really had a good thing to say at the end. It was always very anti-climatic.

Now I'm 17, and probably haven't made one of these things in a good 9 years. But, I was at the city library about a month ago, and was going through a collected works of Chaucer for a English class paper, and on the bottom of a page with some biographical information, there was a little note saying "Go to page 77." Happy to be momentarily relieved of this boring Chaucer crap, I followed the instructions, and continued to do so as it wound its way around the book and finally landed on page 198, where there was written "Have fun? Call me, Joe." and then there was a phone number.

I admit, I was curious. For some reason, I assumed that this must have been someone my age, who had either never grown out of making these scavenger hunts or who had suddenly had a fit of nostalgia for them. Either way, I decided that I would call. It was safe and, hey, maybe Joe would be a really cool guy.

When I got home from the library, I sat in front of the phone for a few minutes, trying to plan out my dialog. I tried to think of something fun or smooth to say to start off conversation, but I think what I ended up saying was something stupid like, "Hi, is this Joe? Yeah, hi, you don't know me, but, um, ok, this is really weird. I found your phone number in a book in the library, after following a little scavenger hunt, you know?"

Joe knew, and he was really excited. I mean, REALLY excited. He said he loves to make those, he makes them all the time, and sometimes he even does it on dollar bills with notes like "Find dollar bill # (serial number)." I think it was safe to say that Joe doesn't have a life. He told me that nobody's ever called him from these things before, and that he's really happy that I did because I "sound cute" and his favorite television show (The Real World) had just ended, so he didn't have anything to do and now I've "called to entertain" him.

It was real weird. I regretted calling the minute I did, because Joe just made me uncomfortable. He talked on and on, laughed at almost everything, and apparently goes to the library often just to "watch people read, because then they're not looking and can't notice me watching." He turned out to be my age, like I thought. But I never expected this.

Soon, i managed to excuse myself and get off the phone, and he asked if I would call again. I didn't want to be mean, so I said, "maybe," which, of course, he was really excited about. He said he couldn't wait to hear from me again.

And really, he couldn't wait, because he called me the next day. He has caller-id, which is a great invention until someone freaky starts using it. He called me every day for a week and, since I also have caller-id, i could tell when he called. Most of the time, I wouldn't answer it, and sometimes I had my dad answer and tell Joe that I wasn't home. Finally, after a week, my dad told him I wasn't home and he told her something priceless: "Well, tell Amy that she's being rude, and that I'm tired of always being the one to call, so I'm not going to call her anymore until she calls me back first. And tell her that I don't play hard-to-get, so she should stop doing it, too."

My dad told me that he really, really had to try hard to not laugh, and just said "ok" and hung up the phone. Boo-hoo, huh? The Joe-snake ate his own tail.

If only all annoying people were that easy to get rid of! I remember those scavenger hunt things, and i loved them. Such a great distraction from class. I never saw anyone's phone number at the end, though. Apparently, that's a good thing.

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Feature #103:

I blew the crumpet. I was about to update this site, and then my girlfriend asked me if i could make her a crumpet, which we apparently have a few of, and they're sitting next to the microwave. (Who knew!?) But, i blew the crumpet. I didn't toast it very much, and i used jelly that i've been storing in the closet instead of the fridge. (Again, who knew that's a bad thing!?) Being the kind gal she is, she ate it anyway. But let's face it: i blew the crumpet. Up until now, i didn't even know what a crumpet was.

And with roughly no smooth transition from that into this, here's this week's feature. It's a real random one this week, but i hope you enjoy.

1. Check out my ass
2. Newspaper in bed
3. Mallard Fillmore is awful
4. Jacket-note mystery

1. There it is. My ass, sticking out like a duck's caboose.

I'm posting this here for multiple reasons, none of which involve me proudly flaunting what is, in that picture, a hugely awkward protrusion. This is a picture my friend Rob took of me as i was trying to squeeze through a gate at Bancroft Tower, which is this real neat mini-tower built in 1900 and overlooking Worcester. According to sources i no longer remember, the tower's doors used to be open so the public could wander around inside, but at some point, the place turned into a haven for sex and drugs, and so the metal gates went up.

But, if you're agile and thin enough, you can squeeze through one of them, which is what i'm in the process of doing in this picture. What Rob and i didn't know when the picture was taken, however, was that my body had somehow taught itself to bend like never before. Give me some spandex and long hair, and damnit, i'd be J-Lo.

Now, the reason i'm posting this is because when i was at bar mitzvahs and someone would try encouraging me to dance, i'd tell them that i danced like a fish out of water. (hey, it's witty enough for a 13-year-old. come one!) And while i don't currently try the dance floor out too often, i can confidantly say that i'm still truly stiff enough that, if a dead man were to be propped up next to me and the two of us compared, it would look like he'd be rocking out a perfect jitterbug.

That picture, however, tells a different story. If i could somehow channel whatever it was in my body that made my ass do that, well then, by golly, it would be Saturday Night Fever every night! If i could stick my ass out like that on command, James Brown would be cryin' in his hairspray because, dammit, i'd be FUN with an extra K. And that's a fact, jack.

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2. There's an old and tired game to play with fortune cookies. I'm sure you've heard of it. Read any cookie, and then add the words "in bed" at the end, and it's suddenly much more amusing than it was before. These little rounds generally start when someone says, "You know, people think it's so funny to put 'in bed' after these fortune cookies, but i don't know." Then they start reading, and then they start laughing. It works almost every time, although it's so predictable.

I wondered if this game would hold up anywhere, and so i decided to go through January 29th's Boston Globe and add "in bed" to random headlines. Here we go.

1. Boston parkers have lots to lose in bed (City & Region, front page)
2. Researcher says she was eased out in bed (City & Region, p2)
3. Who says dead men tell no tales in bed? (Health/Science, front page)
4. Energy firms' accounting practice causes worry in bed (Business, p13)
5. Risking big, winning bigger in bed (Business, front page)
6. Bush's call on captives in bed (Editorial, p10)
7. Cheney's secrets in bed (Editorial, p10)
8. Clinton again ranks as a top fund-raiser in bed (The Nation, p6)
9. They've arrived in bed (Sports, front page)
10. Will wonders ever cease in bed? (Sports, p8)
11. Power has been turned up a notch in bed (Sports, p3)
12. Pressure-packed with intrigue in bed (Sports, p6)
13. The myth of American innocence in bed (Living Arts, front page)
14. At MIT, a new planner for public art in bed (Living Arts, front page)
15. Smile -- dentists are everywhere in bed (Living Arts, p3)
16. Hasty decisions in bed (Living Arts, p3)

Ok, i'm not sure if that got old or not, but i think the point has been proven: given a chance, this game is still amusing, and isn't limited to fortune cookies. So, there's some insta-fun for you... in bed?

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3. We get the paper delivered to our apartment every day, and i almost always read it in the exact same order: 1) editorial cartoon, 2) the news section, cover to cover, 3) the comics. When i get to the comics, i only read a few, because most of them are tired and worn out (eg: Garfield hasn't done anything new since about 1990, the Family Circus is the Family Church, and Rose is Rose is like one of those people who are never not smiling and yet never have anything even remotely interesting to say). So, i marvel in Doonsbury, the Boondocks, Dilbert, Non Sequitur, and others that have something to say and can say it with sass.

And then, just to anger myself, i read Mallard Fillmore. This strip is written by a conservative guy named Bruce Tinsley, and Bruce must be either 95 years old or just about as mentally blind as they come. His strip is consistantly not funny, and always resorts to either out-of-date news or out-of-nowhere, petty and pathetic attacks on liberals. The main character, Mallard Fillmore, is a reporter duck (genius, i know) who doesn't seem to do a whole lot of reporting. Instead, he just sort of flops around, asking questions to goofy characters just so that there are more speech bubbles for Bruce to spill his apparently racist and dangerously close-minded agenda.

I always refute him, either to myself or to whoever is in the room. But, i can take it no longer. Bruce, for the integrity of comics pages across America, you need to be shut up, and so i'm starting it here. What follows probably won't be funny, but it'll be a nice, soothing rebuttle to Bruce, and it'll make me feel better. Let's start, shall we?

This one is just unbelivable. Who's writing these, the KKK? There are two implications here: either this is Bruce telling us that "diverse" crowds (which, let's face it, means 'minorities' in media-talk) are so stupid that they can't learn basic things like reading and writing, or he's telling us that home-schooled kids are racist. Fire up the ol' cross, boys, because here comes Brucey-boy!

I'm giving Bruce the benifit of the doubt here, and assuming that he's talking about taxes, since that seems to what conservatives are so fixed upon. But really, if we didn't know this was about taxes, what is this implying? Bruce is telling us that charity is bad and should be looked down upon -- and that, furthermore, anyone who gives charity is doing it for their own personal gain. Is that Bruce's message? Every man for himself, sink or swim? This is like Ayn Rand!

Is he saying that it's bad to have friends that aren't like you? Perhaps Bruce doesn't know anybody who isn't rich and white, or perhaps he just looks down upon anybody who is friends with people from another ethnicity or background. Is this why republicans always struggle to get minority votes?

This is one of the strips where Bruce momentarily gives up on struggling to make a political point, and just tries (tries) to be funny. What i don't understand about this strip, aside from how it possibly made it into the newspaper, is why it was run on January 29th -- a long time after the crowd at a foodball game got rowdy and started throwing plastic beer bottles. And then, it wasn't at the Superbowl, either. Did it take him this long to come up with such a weak joke about bottle-throwing football fans? For a guy who writes about a reporter duck, Bruce doesn't know much about the news: if it's not immediate, it's not news anymore, pal. And if it's not funny -- for instance, jokes should have a punchline -- it shouldn't be a comic, either.

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4. I left my jacket sitting around somewhere once, and when i came back to pick it up, there was a note in one of the pockets. Conceptually, this note is slightly clever, but in execution, it's just dumb. The note is comprised of three post-it notes, each of which contain a varying degree of scribbed writing in what looks like either a thin red crayon or a red pencil. The first post-it says the following:

"If when this you find
You are standing in place,
Turn to the next sheet under
This one. BUT if you are
Walking, turn to the 3rd
Piece AND KEEP WALKING"

The second sheet says:

"If your feet leave
the ground, you will
explode and mess every-
thing like scattered,
soggy oats
AND NOT THE INSTANT KIND"

And the shirt sheet says:

"If you stop walking, yo
will blow up like a
kite into the sky and
fall like its tattered remains
after a thunderstorm!
HA-HA!"

On the back, the author tells me to "TELL NO ONE (OR 2) OF THIS NOTE!"

I'll admit, the idea is clever. It's kind of like putting someone into a small-time version of the movie Speed, but in execution and because there's essentially no good reason for someone to have put this in my pocket, it's just kind of dumb. Not apparently dumb enough to share with you on this page, but still. Quite dumb.

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Feature #104:

I'm late again. I know. If this was work, i'd be fired. If this was a class, i'd get an F. If this was a date, i'd be making weak excuses. But, it's not. Luckily.

Anyway, the excuse (not a weak one, either) is that i was extremely busy with WheatBread this past week -- so much so that i hardly had time to see my girlfriend, let alone do other work. So, now that the dust has settled and the issue is off to the press, i finally have time to serve up a feature. Sorry about that, but thanks for checking back, despite my folly. If i may put on an old lady voice for a moment, "you're all angels."

By the way, i got two e-mails this week from government officials in the Congo, each of which had a completely different story about how their president was killed and how they now have a large sum of money on their hands. Unbelivably, both of them want me to help them, and they're willing to give me a cut of the dough! Boy, to gain their trust like this, i must really be popular in the Congo. I hope nobody out there is actually falling for these scams. They're amazingly elaborate, but so amazingly stupid as well.

Time for the feature. Have a nice week, a nice Valentines Day, a nice Chinese New Year, a nice Lincoln's Birthday, a nice Ash Wednesday, and a nice Feast of Onions Day. (ok, so there's no such thing as a Feast of Onions day, but the others are all this week).

1. Emily, Gilligan and me: together for music
2. WheatBread sex stuff
3. Gender nouns
4. Explain sex to kids

1. I just discovered that the crappy sound recorder program that comes with Windows can actually overlap files, and thus, with a bit of luck, it's possible to create and record multi-layered music. I decided to try this out, and using the old trick that every Emily Dickenson poem can be sung to the theme of Gilligans Island (it's true, try it), i recorded a pirate-like version of her poem, "I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died." It came out completely absurd, and maybe it's just because i appreciate simple crap, but i like it. In fact, if you all think it's funny, i just might make a series out of this stuff. So help us.

Anyway, here it is in mp3 format:
"I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died"
words by Emily Dickenson
music (or: bass, two pens clicking on a CD jewel case, vocals) by Jason Feifer
(if you so desire, here's a page about the lyrics)

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2. The issue of WheatBread that was just finished (which will hopefully come out on Thursday) contains an 8-page sex section. It was something of an experiment, since the magazine had never done something like this before, and it was also something of a saving grace, since submissions were lacking. Anyway, the issue is really good, but that's not the point. The point is that i'm sharing two particularly amusing images from the magazine with you.

One: this is the graphic that's going across the cover (and is, obviouslly, much bigger than this).

It's supposed to convey the theme of the issue in something of a subversive manner. The original plan was much more blatent, with a guy and a girl holding hands, photographed from the chest to their feet, and with a banana hanging out of the guy's fly and a bagel attached to the girl's waist. Oh, and the guy didn't have a shirt on. It's fair to say that, especially since the banana didn't quite look like a banana (if you catch my drift), this photograph walked a fine line between awful and disgusting. My girlfriend ended up suggesting (and then posing) that little linear progression between banana and bagel, and i must say, it's quite a classy number.

Two: Remember the bit about herpes that i wrote in a feature a few weeks ago? Here it is, illustrated:

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3. I am so glad that i don't have to take Spanish anymore. Never again. Never! What a relief. It's a good month or so into the semester, and so this is a realization that i've had plenty of time to marvel over. That class was a misery, and the article that made my teacher cry (see feature 94) just topped it off. No more. No mas! Hah, life is sweet.

English may be a stupid language (see: words like gnat, through, knife, and so on), but at least everything is void of gender, unlike Spanish or French. The very concept of engendered nouns seems so rediculious and asinine, and i remember struggling to figure out why such a structure ever survived language evolution. But anyway, the reason i bring this up isn't because i have anything particularly funny to say about it, but because i have to clips from other people who have particularly funny things to say about it, and i thought i'd share.

This first one is a little clip from David Sedaris's extremely brilliant book, Me Talk Pretty One Day:

Of all the stumbling blocks inherent in learning this language, the greatest for me is the princple that each noun has a corresponding sex that affects both its articles and its adjectives. Because it is a female and lays eggs, a chicken is masculine. Vagina is masculine as well, while the word masculinity is feminine. Forced by the grammar to take a stand one way or the other, hermaphrodite is male and indecisiveness female.

I spent months searching for some secret code before I realized that common sense has nothing to do with it. Hysteria, psychosis, torture depression: I was told that if something is unpleasant, it's probably feminine. This encouraged me, but the theory was blown by such masculine nouns as murder, toothache, and Rollerblade. I have no problem leaning the words themselves, it's the sexes that trip me up and refuse to stick.

What's the trick to remembering that a sandwich is masculine? What qualities does it share with anyone in possession of a penis? I'll tell myself that a sandwich is masculine because if left alone for a week or two, it will eventually grow a beard. This works until it's time to order and I decide thta because it sometimes loses its makeup, a sandwich is undoubtedly feminine.

And this one is from Washington Post Invitation, "in which it was postulated that English should have male and female nouns, and readers were asked to assign a gender to a noun of their choice and explain their reason." These suggestions are funny, but it also does a great job of reinforcing how much could be implied by an engendered noun, and how that really just doesn't make any sense. Hooray for English!

ZIPLOC BAGS-male, because they hold everything in, but you can always see right through them.

SWISS ARMY KNIFE-male, because even though it appears useful for a wide variety of work, it spends most of its time just opening bottles.

KIDNEYS-female, because they always go to the bathroom in pairs.

SHOE-male, because it is usually unpolished, with its tongue hanging out.

COPIER-female, because once turned off, it takes a while to warm up. Because it is an effective reproductive device when the right buttons are pushed. Because it can wreak havoc when the wrong buttons are pushed.

TIRE-male, because it goes bald and often is over inflated.

HOT AIR BALLOON: male, because to get it to go anywhere you have to light a fire under it ... and, of course, there's the hot air part.

SPONGES-female, because they are soft and squeezable and retain water.

WEB PAGE-female, because it is always getting hit on.

SUBWAY-male, because it uses the same old lines to pick people up.

HOURGLASS-female, because over time, the weight shifts to the bottom.

HAMMER-male, because it hasn't evolved much over the last 5,000 years, but it's handy to have around.

REMOTE CONTROL-female...Ha! You thought I'd say male. But consider, it gives man pleasure, he'd be lost without it, and while he doesn't always know the right buttons to push, he keeps trying.

(Washington Post segment sent to me by my dad)

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4. Parents explain things to kids in the darndest ways, especially when it comes to sex or anything sex-related. I remember my dad, upon my inquiry, telling me (and i think i've mentioned this before) that the Playboy Channel was just like regular tv, except that everyone's clothes were off. My first thought was the Golden Girls, a show i often watched when i was that age, and i decided then and there that the Playboy Channel was nothing i wanted to investigate further.

Some parents give their kids books about sex. Some explain these books, some just plop them down and say, "read this," and some leave the book lying around conspiciously and hope their child will pick it up and leaf through it themselves. I can't really recall if i was ever presented with a book, but i do have a vague recollection of being told very bluntly what sex was. At probably seven years old, i don't think i needed to think about the Golden Girls to decide that, indeed, that was nothing i wanted to investigate further either.

But some kids get these hackneyed explanations about sex-related things, and strangely, none of them ever involve sex. The classic example is the "when a man and a woman love each other, they have a baby." There are too many kids walking around right now who think that. Could you imagine what would happen if that was true? The word 'love' is tossed around like a cheerleader at a frat party, and if love spawned babies, we'd have nurseries in middle schools. It would be like the baby boom gone horribly, horribly wrong. A couple would fall in love, a baby would pop out, the couple would fall in love with the baby, and then they'd have twins. I thought this would make for an interesting movie concept, but i can't really think of where to go with it. Babies everywhere. That's the movie.

There are other explanations, but they generally come from the rumor mill at school. "When a man and a woman kiss, they have a baby," is one of them. Wouldn't that scare anybody the holy hell away from kissing? If i had heard that when i was younger, i would have been terrified of kissing. I wonder if any parents ever used lines like, "When a man or a woman stay up past their bedtime, they have a baby." In some sense it's true, but i bet it would put kids to sleep faster than an adult dose of Nyquil.

Anyway, i don't really have anywhere i'm going with this. That's all.

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Feature #105:

I want to stop starting my features with acknowledgements of my being late, but then i feel back ignoring my severe lack of timliness. So, here we are. Sorry!

What's exciting... hmmm... not much, really. The olympics are about as exciting as a movie version of "See Spot", but for some reason they're on the cover of the newspaper almost EVERY DAMN DAY. Please, get these things over with so i can start hearing about some real news already. I'm more excited about my bowel movements than i am about this crap.

Let's waste no more time, shall we? Here's this week's feature, complete with a long tale of personal woe and triumph, a new weird mp3, and other such goodness. Enjoy!

1. Weird, backwards mp3 (which, backwards, is 3pm. like the time. exciting! or not.)
2. My strange story of money lost and found
3. Update on stalkers
4. Journalism award

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1. I've never watched an episode of Twin Peaks, but i have a friend who was (and still is) a huge fan on the show. He was telling me once about this epsiode in which there was some kind of dream sequence, and the way they shot it was by having the actors act and talk in reverse, and then they just ran the tape backwards. Apparently it sounded incredibly strange, because it was close enough to being English that the language was familiar, but there was just some significant level of composure to the speech that was lacking.

So, as i was sitting here trying to read through an essay called "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses" by the extremely boring and disgustingly haughty Mr. Louis Althusser, i decided that my time would be better spent mimicing that Twin Peaks episode.

Thus, here we: The second in my series of weird mp3s. REVERSE JOKE.mp3

This is me reciting a classic one-liner, except that i was saying it backwards... and be sure to note the rimshot (ba-dum-bum, pshhhhh) at the end. I will warn you: it's really really weird. I'm not going to tell you what the one-liner is, since i think that'll make this even stranger. If you can't understand me in the mp3, though, check the end of the feature, where i'll post it just for posterity's sake.

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2. I was working at my school's store two weeks ago, and a girl comes in and asks if we could cash a check. She claims that it's an emergency, and i have no reason to doubt her. I had seen her in the store before, and that day, her eyes were somewhat watery, her voice was quivery, and she had a look of desperation about her. She said that she had gone to a few stores and the school's accounting office, and nobody would cash it because "it wasn't the right kind of check." (it was a personal check, made out by another student for $100). I said i'd call the general manager, since i didn't know how to process the request, but she wasn't home.

This girl really looked desperate, and i had seen her in the store before, so i decided to cash it myself. I had her sign it over to me, and then i went to the ATM, deposited it, and withdrew $100. She gave me a hug, told me i saved her life, and ran out of the building.

A week and a half later, the check comes back. It bounced, although the bank didn't really give a good reason why. Luckily, I had kept the reciepts, and now I have this check with the girl's name on it. (me, in all my infinite wisdom, didn't even ask this girl her name before depositing the check). So that this doesn't ever become a legal issue, let's just call the girl "Diane."

So, the first logical step is to call Diane and see if there wasn't some kind of screw-up or misunderstanding. She wasn't home, so i decided to call the girl who wrote the check -- also a student here, and we'll call her "Amanda." So, i call Amanda, and whoever picked up told me that she's moved to another room. I get the new number, call her, and her roommate says that she isn't home either.

A day later, I call both. Again, neither are home. A day later, I call again. Same thing. The two girls are never in their rooms, and their roommates unfailingly have no idea where they are or when they're getting back. Conversations started to go like this:

"Is Diane there?"
(sigh) "No"
"Do you know when she's getting back?"
"No."
"Do you know if she's on campus."
"I don't know."
"Do you know if she's in the state."
"I don't know."

It was like they were mafia. Eventually, Diane's roommate got irritated with me and so i explained why I was calling. She said she'd leave a message.

The next day, I call and, instead of getting an answering machine, I get a voice mail message... and neither girl on the voice mail is named Diane or anything even CLOSE to Diane. Now, i must ask myself, what the hell is going on? I'm $105 in the hole (the bank charged me $5, mainly because banks are a big scam. why am i responsible for this check? no good reason. is that reason enough to not make some money off of me? in banking terms, no way.), and these two girls are seemingly non-existant.

So, i decide to contact one of the administrators on campus (which i'm also leaving vague, for potential legal reasons). I explain the situation, and say that i believe that i can handle this problem if only i could get in touch with these girls. I expected to get a response asking to see the paperwork, or perhaps to have a further discussion about it, or maybe to keep on trying Diane. But instead, i got the following message:

"I'll get the money for you that Diane owes you. I'll contact you when i get it."

That was it. That was it! Sure, it was wonderfully proactive and i was thankful for the progress i already felt that this situation made, but really now! No proof? No discussion? No nothing? It really did feel like the mafia... again.

A day later, i get a second e-mail from the administrator: "I'll have the money by 2p.m. You can come and pick it up then."

This is so sketchy. It was such a quick production of $100. And why all the curtness? Maybe it's just because any short sentences that include the word money sound sketchy (I'll get your money; You got the money?; I am the money.; Money money money money.; There's the money, honey.; That's funny about the money, Mr. Bunny; I'll bite off your head and take your money; etc.), but something felt very strange about all this.

But, at 2:30 the next day, i head over to the administrator's office. S/he wasn't there, and so i sat down and started reading a magazine. Two minutes later, the administrator walks over to me, hands me $100, and says that the other $5 will be there tomorrow. I am impressed. Confused, and impressed.

Perhaps, i think, this has happened before. Maybe Diane is pulling a scam on fellow students, but is just too stupid enough to not put her real name on it. And hell, what did she need that money for? Before, i assumed it was something like a morning-after pill, but now maybe she was paying off a bookee or buying crack. I must find out.

I ask: "If you don't mind me asking, were you surprised when you got my e-mail?"

Administrator responds: "No."

I say: "Ok, i won't make you say any more."

Administrator: "Good, because i wouldn't be able to tell you any more anyway."

And that was that. I haven't had time to go back for the other $5, but i guess i'll do it after the weekend. Still, this leaves me to wonder: really, what did i get myself involved in? Elusive students, vague administrators, unsurprising story about a student forking over $100. It all sounds like some weird ivory tower version of the mob, just with dumber criminals that leave more paper trails than a slug made out of sawdust. I don't know what to make of it, and i don't know if i'll ever learn any more about it, but i am damn glad i got my money back.

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3. I had a request or two from people who were left on the edge of their seat by our last winner of the "send in a true story" contest. If you'll recall from Feature 101, Steve from Rochester was getting stalked by someone who appeared to have visual access into his room. It was kind of freaky, to be sure. The conclusion, however, is disappointing:

Sadly... It has been quite a while since those initial phone calls, and I can only assume that whoever it was doesn't intend to follow through with their prank. Quite dissapointing. I worried that the ending would be very anticlimactic, altough I was hoping for something more then THIS. At least a "hey, those phone calls were from ME" ending would have wrapped things up. I guess there are some things mankind was not meant to know... Like the identity of his stalkers. Dammit. Sorry to dissapoint.

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4. The Top-Notch Journalism award goes to: the Scarlet!

The student newspaper here at Clark is struggling. Their staff really does mean well, but a combination of a lack of familiarity with the campus and with journalim and a cramped work schedule has lead them to produce some awful, awful blunders. The one in this week's edition was really something special, though, and so i thought i'd share it with you.

Buried on page five, on the bottom right, under and advertisement, in a small box, the following is written:

Editor's Note:
In the December 7, issue of The Scarlet on page two we reported that former Bon Apetit employee Michael J. Todd was arrester and spent the night in jail. After checking with the WPD we discovered that Todd was not arrested during that week.

Ok. There it is. Now, aside from the shamelessly poor placement of the correction, there's the lack of proactivity to be addressed here, since this ran in the February 14th issue -- over TWO MONTHS after the incorrect information ran! And then there's the grammar and spelling (commas in the wrong place, "arrester" instead of "arrested," and "Bon Apetit" instead of "Bon Appetit," my school's food supplier that the Scarlet suddenly turned into jungle porn with the name "Ape-tit.") But really, past all that: damnit, people, they said the man was arrested and he wasn't! Wow. A+.

(the one-liner was "A man walks into a bar. Ouch.")

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Feature #106:

Look out...

A fly! The Fly! My DNA has mutated and crossed with a fly's! I'm like Jeff Goldblum! I can see hundreds of the same thing at once! I used to think the Olsen Twins were bad with just two of them, and now i can't bare to look! I buzz around and leave microscopic poops and won't fly out a window to save my life but am impossible to kill! I'll walk on your leg with no fear, and land in your ear if you're asleep! Run for your lives!

Or, i saw my girlfriend's ear muffs on the bed and put them on my face. Same thing. Perhaps even the same level of maturity, given the mental capacity of a fly. Hey, no shame here.

For the record, i had another bad mp3 in the works, but decided that i didn't want to just rip off someone else's lyrics and i didn't really have much time to sit around and think some up. So, this week shall end the two-week streak of bad mp3s. I know, i'm sorry. I'm sure they'll be back soon... which may or may not be very comforting.

But for now, i leave you with this feature. It's somewhat short, but it's what i've got.

1. Back to high school
2. Nutty news
3. In bed again
4. Car and driver

1. So, I went to a local high school to report on this story about Peace Corps volunteers sharing their experiences with a few classes. It was for the local daily paper (i always post these stories with the pic of the day, usually the day after they run), and as i was walking around looking for the right classroom, a well-dressed guy points at me and says, "Hey, do you have a hall pass?"

When i was in high school, this was not a good question to hear. But now. Now! Now i say, "I'm a reporter from the Telegram & Gazette."

And the well-dressed guy gets embarassed and says, "Oh."

And i think to myself: boo-yah.

And i also think to myself: do i look like i'm in high school?

And just as a random side-note, the best thing one of the Peace Corps guys said about the time he spent with a village in Paraguay: "As a special gift, they'd bring me a hoof and a spoon. I was supposed to scoop the gelatin right out of it." That's truly a special gift. About as special as pillow stuffed with rotten meat loaf. Or a bicycle with a bottle of lubricant and no seat. Or a winter jacket made like a waterbed. Or herpes.

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2. WheatBread's next issue is a news parody issue, a la the Onion. I've been trying to think of things relevant to campus to write about, but one of the things i wrote addresses what i'd consider a nationwide epidemic:

With Spring Comes Unwanted Exposure

Andrea Smith is not looking forward to the warmer weather.

Every time the temperature rises about 75 degrees, Smith's boyfriend Frank Allen wears droopy shorts. When he sits Indian-style in these shorts, his nutsack is clearly visible.

"It's just revolting, but I know that if I tell him that his nuts are gross, he'll get all self-conscious in bed," Smith said. "I just try to look away, but it's difficult. It looks like he's got a floppy tumor down there."

Allen's friends agree that something needs to change, either in the way he sits or in the shorts he wears.

"Frank's a cool guy and all, but something really changes when you see another man's nutsack," said his friend, Jim Tollens. "Sometimes, I just want to throw ice down his pants, because then at least his nuts would stop sagging so much."

Tollens said that whenever Allen talks to him about a serious problem, he has to try hard to not incorporate his nutsack into the conversation.

"He'll complain that he got a bad grade on a paper, and I have to stop myself from saying something like, 'Your GPA is going to start drooping like your nuts'," he said.

Allen's friends are currently trying to put together a plan to avoid his nutsack before the spring lures it out. So far, they've bought him longer shorts, which they'll present as a birthday present next month. The friends were considering "tighty-whities," but abandoned the idea because Smith said that Allen would never wear them.

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3. So, i was thinking a bit more about this whole "...in bed" phenomonon, and have come to the conclusion that it will work anywhere. A few weeks ago, i put the phrase at the end of Boston Globe headlines, and it did its job. Today, i picked up my girlfriend's copy of Harry Potter (because, for the record, i've never touched the stuff), and just started including the phrase at either the break in the sentence, or at the end. (Hey, a little lee-way with the rules, ok? Sentences have different rules.) Here are the first two paragraphs:

Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were very proud to say that they were perfectly normal in bed, thank you very much. They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious in bed, because they just didn't hold with such nonsense.

Mr. Dursley was the director of a firm called Grunnings, which made drills in bed. He was a big, beefy man with hardly any neck in bed, although he did have a very large moustache. Mrs. Dursley was thin and blonde and had nearly twice the usual amount of neck in bed, which came in very useful as she spent so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors in bed. The Dursleys had a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there was no finer boy anywhere in bed.

Ok, that works. Harry Potter just turned into this weird porno, where the parents are satisfied with a humdrum sex-life but have both, in fact, had sex changes (please note who has the "neck" in bed). Apparently, their lack of sexual ferver has not rubbed off on their son Dudley, who has, even as a boy, been declared by his parents to be the finest in bed. Now i see why everyone says it's not just a children's book.

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4. This is rife with important parenting lessons:

Dad lets son, 7, get behind wheel
The Associated Press
February 18, 2002

NEW PORT RICHEY -- Maybe the beer was talking when Barry Colbert agreed to let his 7-year-old son drive the family car.

Whatever the reason, it turned out to be a bad idea -- investigators say the first-grader ran a stop sign and crashed into another car. No one was seriously hurt, but Colbert and his son were cited.

"I'm not irresponsible," Colbert, 38, said. "I just had a few beers."

It started Friday night when the boy finished dinner, cleaned his room and completed his homework. As a reward, he wanted to drive the family's 1988 Mercury Tracer.

"Sure," dad says he replied. "I had a couple beers and went back to the feeling that we can go around the block a couple times and be safe."

Colbert says he often lets his son drive while he rides along, pushing the seat forward and putting inline skates behind the boy so he can reach the pedals.

"Some kids play with dolls," Colbert said. "My kid wants to drive."

Pasco County deputy sheriffs said the boy, driving with his headlights off, ran a stop sign less than a block from his home. He crashed into another car, causing a combined $3,500 in damage, authorities said.

Deputies arrived just as Colbert backed his car up. They say two tests showed his blood-alcohol level to be 0.109 and 0.128 percent. Florida law presumes impairment at 0.08 percent.

Colbert was charged with drunken driving, habitually driving with a suspended license and letting an unlicensed person drive. He was released from jail Saturday without bail.

The boy will be cited for driving without a license, driving without headlights and running a stop sign, deputies said.

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Feature #107:

The city desk editor at the newspaper i'm interning at has a photocopied sign on his desk that says: "Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things." I read it, and then couldn't stop snickering to myself as i walked to the ancient vending machine they have tucked away next to the photo department. Then i started snickering to myself because the machine is so damn old (and has mild-tasting orange juice as its only non-soda choice, so i'm always stuck with the oj). Then i realized, things are funnier when other things are funny.

I wonder if that's why sit-coms work. Out of half-hour of bad jokes, if they have at least one legitimately funny one, the rest suddenly become more comical. Because let's face it: there's nothing extremely funny about an old vending machine, but i laughed. And there's nothing funny about the Olsen twins, but people laughed. I think i'm on to something.

But maybe not with this feature, because it's embarassingly short. It's WheatBread production week, so much of my energies have to be put into that. But hey, i've got a four-parter here. Let's check it out, shall we?

1. Bad mp3: the ingredients
2. Observations about stuff
3. Weird poem
4. Bad joke got worse

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1. The snack food we eat is disgusting. You think you're eating a cracker, and hey, a cracker is a cracker. Maybe some wheat, a little flour, some time in the oven. Cracker.

No. A cracker has a laundry list of chemicals that, if you can pronounce them, it's a safe bet that you can't define them. I think it's safe to say that we snack on the same crap that the Joker fell in to make him the Joker. A massive vat of chemicals, dried up and flattened, and we call it a cracker.

So, i decided to dedicate my next bad mp3 to the ingredients of a cracker... and it turned out the the ingredients of Pepperidge Farm's Goldfish crackers fit perfectly to the (poorly recorded) music i already laid down.

Here we are. Listen, enjoy. Maybe even eat some Goldfish crackers while your ears are digesting. If you ask yourself, "why am i still eating these?", then i think you have asked wisely. And if you ask yourself, "why is he singing with a deep voice and a Boston accent?", then you have also asked wisely, but i don't have a good answer for you. It just came out that way.

Enough introduction. I call this: Ingredients for Goldfish crackers (mp3)
Jason Feifer: music (bass, pencil and pen on desk, pen against plate) and vocals
Pepperidge Farm: lyrics

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2. My dad e-mailed me this. It's called "George Carlin's Imponderables," but most of the time when an e-mail forward bears someone's name, it's not really from them at all. So, let's just call these, "Sometimes-funny observations about stuff (that i'm posting because it's easier than coming up with my own content at this particular moment)":

1. If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented?

2. If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren't people from Holland called Holes?

3. Why do we say something is out of whack? What's a whack?

4. Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

5. If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

6. If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

7. When someone asks you, "A penny for your thoughts" and you put your two cents in, what happens to the other penny?

8. Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

9. Why do croutons come in airtight packages? Aren't they just stale bread to begin with?

10. When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?

11. Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a race car not called a racist?

12. Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?

13. Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?

14. Why isn't the number 11 pronounced unity one?

15. "I am" is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that "I do" is the longest sentence?

16. If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?

17. If Fed Ex and UPS were to merge, would they call it Fed UP?

18. Do Lipton Tea employees take coffee breaks?

19. What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men?

20. I was thinking about how people seem to read the Bible a whole lot more as they get older; then it dawned on me, they're cramming for their final exam.

21. I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?

22. Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don't they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail

23. If it's true that we are here to help others, then what exactly are the others here for?

24. You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.

25. No one ever says, "It's only a game" when their team is winning.

26. Ever wonder what the speed of lightning would be if it didn't zigzag?

27. If a cow laughed, would milk come out her nose?

28. Do people who spend $2.00 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water know that spelling it backwards is NAIVE.

29. Isn't making a smoking section in a restaurant like making a peeing section in a swimming pool?

30. OK...so if the Jacksonville Jaguars are known as the "Jags" and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are known as the "Bucs", what does that make the Tennessee Titans ?

31. If 4 out of 5 people SUFFER from diarrhea... does that mean the fifth one enjoys it?

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3. This poem was sent to me by a reader named Sean. He seemed to imply that it was inspired by this page, but i don't quite see it. It could have been inspired by something like Nyquil in the morning, but i'm not making any assumptions here.

THE BIRD IN MY SOUP

Oh bird, dear bird
Why did you fly in my soup?
I was only eating it kindly
And you come along up beside me
You did a poop and it went in my soup
You’re a disgrace to my country
The bird in my soup that did a poop in my soup
Should be stabbed through the head
and/or be filled with lead
So birds that land in my soup shall pay
Remember remember the 8th of March you soup pooping birds...

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4. So, i posted this bad joke on the picture of the day, and about halfway through the day, i realized that i had gotten it wrong. I mean, the joke still made sense, but the true punchline -- hell, the true reason the joke was ever created -- was pretty much omitted. To correct my error, i've decided to post the joke here. It's nothing special, but hey.. who doesn't like a bad joke?

Q: What's the difference between a grocery bag and Michael Jackson?
A: One is made of plastic and is dangerous for kids to play with, and the other carries your groceries.

(i had forgotten the "dangerous for kids to play with" bit. crucial, indeed. i failed Bad Joke 101.)

Feature #108:

Here we are. Probably one of the latest updates i've ever had, but for good reason... just read section one. I had a great past two weeks. Insanely busy, with WheatBread and the wonder that is described in section one. And now, i have one issue of the magazine left, about six weeks of college left, and then it's a whole new ballgame. Insanity.

1. What i did last Thursday.
2. Advice from the Ladies Home Journal
3. History of fuck
4. Awful Star Wars joke

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1. This may very well be the most self-indulgent thing i've posted on here, but i'm sharing it nonetheless. What can i say... i'm a fan-boy.

If you've ever seen Clerks, this webpage's namesake probably wasn't lost on you. Kevin Smith wrote, directed, and was Silent Bob in Clerks (and then four more), and I respect him immensely. He took what was essentially a small amount of money and an overflow of personal talent, and turned it into small legacy. To me, he's proof that ordinary guys with no contacts can make it in a job that doesn't involve cubicles, and that the author of a work can be just as recognized and important as the product itself. Since i sat down and watched Mallrats in 1995, i've wanted to meet this guy, because he's an inspiration to me. I've tried a few times, and i've also worked for four years to get him here at my school -- most intensely this past semester, especially this past week. This event was "my baby." Tickets sold out in 7 hours.

So, why was this update so late?

Because there was a lot of work leading up to this: At about 7:10 pm this past thursday, i am in a parking lot with a friend of mine, and we're looking at an SUV with a "clerks" sticker on its bumper, and i say,  more to emphasize to myself the turning point of this whole situation, "that door is going to open up, and kevin smith is going to walk out of it." My friend laughs. As the old saying goes, it's funny because it's true.

It was so strange standing there. There are few aspirations that really, for what they're worth, all come down to a single instance. I wanted to meet Kevin Smith. Just shake his hand and take a photo. And there's an SUV, and inside is this guy whose movies i've loved, who has been all over the place, who i've seen on my tv and in numerous theaters, and now he doesn't exist anywhere else but in this parking lot in front of us. Very surreal moment. Then he walkes out and i say "hey, i'm jason" and he says "hey, i'm kevin." and we shake hands. Holy fucking shit. Mission accomplished.

Oh, and the whole thing was filmed for inclusion in a double-DVD called "An evening with Kevin Smith." I don't know if i'll actually be on it (although, i'll be in the credits for helping the crew all day), but the place was all filming-ready and filled with cameras and lighting. If anything could make meeting Kevin Smith more exciting, it's meeting Kevin Smith and then having a DVD from Columbia/Tri-star to show for it.

A few minutes after the parking lot meeting, Kevin was upstairs in the 'green room' with the dvd director/producer (JM Kenny -- real nice guy; loves to mess with people and tell stories about himself) and his assistant Jonathan. Three of us (me, Jeff the guy from the parking lot, and my girlfriend Lisa) decide to go upstairs and give Kevin this rediculious Clark paraphanalia we bought him: a xxl t-shirt (we hoped it wouldn't be an insult, but we were told xxl), a cow beanie-baby with a Clark t-shirt (which didn't make any sense, and for which i can't think of any situation where this gift would be warranted), a Clark hat, and a Clark shotglass (which i'm sure will come in handy since we learned during the show that he doesn't drink -- which is awesome).

We made it about 2 steps up. Then we froze, and listened. It sounded like they were talking business, but who knows. We retreated. We regrouped. We started for the stairs again, made it about 2 steps up, and froze again. Listened. Retreated. I think we did this one or two more times, until we finally got the nerve to head up there. We should have just yelled "Disorganized welcoming crew coming up with random crap!" When we got up there, Kevin was smoking a cigarette, thanked us for the stuff, and told us to put it on the table.

After that, we had nothing. Nothing to say, no clue what to do. We hadn't really planned this far ahead. We had stuff, we gave stuff, now we had Kevin in front of us and no stuff to talk about. Jeff and Lisa decide to go back downstairs, but i stayed in the green room. I belonged there about as much as an Ebola outbreak, but hey, if you can't take your rewards yourself, nobody's giving them to you. JM and Kevin talked, I said about one thing to agree with JM, and otherwise i just stood around and listened. Down the road, i may just be "that wide-eyed kid that stuck around in the green room," or maybe they won't remember at all, and that's fine. For me, i was in the green room with Kevin Smith. Not forgetting it.

Kevin Smith is pretty quiet, and speaks with a soft, unassuming voice. He seems to like to listen more than talk -- although, i think he might be more talkative when the topic isn't him. He's not too tall, wears the same thing you'd expect him to (the baggy sweatshirt and jeans), and has small hands. He's completely different from how he is on stage and Silent Bob, because he's not a show or a spectacle. I think he was a bit larger-than-life for me originally, but he really is just a regular guy, and he doesn't pretend to be anything more. And when you're the likes of Kevin Smith, that's incredibly respectable.

JM, Jonathan and I eventually went downstairs, and then I had to wait for Kevin to finish up another cigarette before going out to introduce him. Finally, he came down, and so i notified the cameraman on stage, who told everyone else. ("Camera A? Rolling. Camera B? Rolling...") When all were rolling, I looked at Kevin and, said, "Thanks for being here, Kevin," and strolled out to the applause of 650+ people. I don't think moments get any better than that.

He even referenced part of my intro, where i said "Fuck Benjamin Franklin; Kevin Smith is the self-made man." He stood up for Ben, but my money's still on Kevin. Not to mention, Ben's dead.

Kevin talked for 5 hours, and just about everyone stayed. Afterwards, i took a picture with him and my girlfriend (which i'll post as soon as i get it developed), and then we walked back to his car. About 20 people saw where he was outside, and so he ended up signing autographs for a minute or two, even though he was exhausted. He asked one of the autograph-seekers for one of the posters I made for the event, which i'd like to think is still in his posession.

When he was done, the two of us walked to his car, and i said, "And that's why you're the cult hero, because you're willing to do that." And he said something like "I guess," or just laughed. I can't remember.

"I can't imagine that gets old, though," I said.

"It doesn't get old," he said. "It just gets time consuming."

Then we got to his car, talked about directions to Boston and the Big Dig for a minute. I told him about the cop who we hired for the event, who snuck his nephew from upstate new york in, and who i'm assuming let the building stay open until 12:45 (it's supposed to close at midnight) because he didn't want to disappoint his nephew. Kevin laughed and said we should have just stopped the show. Not a chance was i going to do that.

We may have talked about something else, but the hell if i can remember. Too much happening all at once.

If i was anywhere in that parking lot besides being me, i would have been insanely jealous. One-on-one time with a guy who i would have been thrilled with just a handshake and a camera flash. The conversation wasn't important, but being there was. I don't know if he knew what it meant to me or not, but he was being extremely generous either way. It must be weird to know that your very presence is reward.

And there's the lesson to take away from this: you work hard and take what you can get. And if you're lucky, you get a lot.

I got a whole lot. Can't wait for that picture.

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I'm reading an 1897 edition of the Ladies Home Journal for an independent study i'm taking. It's actually pretty interesting, although not always particularly engaging. The articles are very reflective of the publication's name: they're for old-time ladies (that is, it's proper, it talks about homemaking and children, and never politics or anything that could have been deemed heavy), and it's just about always about the home.

Some of the stuff is pretty rediculious -- especially the advice columns, which really are the first incarnation of the kind of advice columns we know today (which are still stupid, to be sure). What's interesting is that they don't print the original letter, and the advice is offered so personally that there's really no point in printing it. Instead of universalizing the advice to answer someone's question and also address the casual column reader, it just says things like, "C.D.- Yes, you should tell her to do that." It's like reading the kind of notes you scribble, poke the person next to you in the back of class, and point to. Did that makes sense?

Anyway, the reason i bring this up is because this particular item of advice was so impressively miserable that i had to share it. This doesn't come from the same kind of advice columns that i just mentioned; this is from an unprompted list of housekeeping tips:

Impure water -- The quality of water may be tested by putting about a pint into a clear glass bottle with a stoper. Add to it a few grains of white lump sugar, and expose the bottle in a light, warm room for ten days. If the wayer then has a thick or discolored appearance it is impure and not fit for drinking purposes. It is unwise to allow drinking water to run through lead pipes.

It's too bad that the Journal doesn't give advice on what to do for those ten days. Ten days without water? What is the suggestion here? They just might as well have said: "Impure water -- The quality of water may be tested by drinking it and then waiting to see if you die." But anyway.

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3. This is slightly lame, but i'm short on content and it did at least keep me amused. So, here we are, courtesy of an e-mail forward and my dad:

TOP 10 Times in History, When Using the F Word was Appropriate:

10th - "Scattered fucking showers, my ass!" - Noah, 431 BC

9th - "How the fuck did you work that out?" - Pythagorus, 126 BC

8th - "You want WHAT on the fucking ceiling?" - Michelangelo, 1566

7th - "Where did all those fucking Indians come from?" - Custer, 1877

6th - "It does so fucking look like her!" - Picasso, 1926

5th - "Where the fuck are we?" - Amelia Earhart, 1937

4th - "Any fucking idiot could understand that." - Einstein, 1938

3rd - "What the fuck was that?" - Mayor Of Hiroshima, 1945

2nd - "I need this parade like I need a fucking hole in the head!" - JFK,1963

And,.....drum roll........  The number 1 most appropriate time for using the "F" word.............

"Aw c'mon. Who the fuck is going to find out?"- Bill Clinton, 1997

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4. Here is a terrible Star Wars joke. I mean, terrible:

Obi Wan Kanobi and Luke Skywalker are sitting in front of the Christmas tree, and Obi says, "Luke, I know what you're getting for Christmas."

"How do you know, Obi?" Luke says. Obi replies, "because I felt your presents."

Ouch. That was really bad.

Feature #109:

The weather has been beautiful. I sat down on the grass for three hours one day last week, and it was fantastic. Probably the most inactive thing i've done all year, and i enjoyed every minute of it. There's something to be said for productivity, but i'll be damned if there's something not to be said for it as well.

1. Sports history
2. The road to peace

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1. I don't know what made me think of this, because it's really neither intelligent nor slightly relevant to anything. But, while sitting at a bus stop on the way to the newspaper office, an idea struck me. Here's what i did with it:

Historical moments as told by sportscasters
By Jason Feifer

Jesus being crucified
Well Bob, with his main player on the injured list, Jesus's defences are certantly short tonight. What he¹s going to want to do here is get himself off the cross, and then away from the people who want to kill him. I'm telling you, I haven't seen the Romans this fired up since the Punic Wars, and that was a doosey! All roads may lead to Rome, but tonight all Romans are leading to Jesus and, oh! They¹re nailing him. Left arm to wood! Wood to right arm! Feet down, and they're hoisting him and, oh, he COULD. GO. UP. ALL. THE. WAY!!!

Neil Armstrong on the moon
Well Bob, a old CBS friend of mine once said that the only thing between the moon and the Earth was a whole lot of stuff, and tonight it looks like Neil "The Guy Who¹s About to Walk on the Moon" Armstrong will slam home that final frontier. You know, this reminds me of the time that Babe Ruth went up to bat to hit a home run, because there wasn't a single person in that stadium that didn't think that, oh! Oh, Armstrong's out, he's floating a little, he's... Oh! Oh, that¹s it! He's on base! That¹s ONE. GIANT. LEAP. FOR. MAN. KIND!!!!!!

The Wright Brothers' first flight
Well Bob, it's two brothers up against all known laws of physics, and it¹s really anybody's game at this point. The Wright brothers have certantly done their homework, and that flying machine really reminds me of a machine that flies, but keep in mind that the laws of physics have done a fantastic job of remaining unchanged since the beginning of time. That's a pretty tough record to beat. Still, you can't discount them, because, oh. They're about to start, aaaaaaaaand they're off! It's physics with a commanding lead, but the brothers are running, and that flying machine is starting to shuffle around like a roomful of city girls at a country ho-down, and there they go down the hill. It's neck and neck folks. If tension was butter, you could cut the tension with a butter knife. And it's physics. No, it's the brothers. Physics. Brothers. Physics. Brothers. Oh! They¹re lifting off. They could. Yes. They COULD. GO. ALL. THE. WA-- OHHHhhhhh! The Wright brothers have crashed like pounds of salami without a butcher. What an upset! Physics wins! Physics wins!

The Boston Tea Party
Well Bob, they've come out of the woodworks and we're at full capacity here to receive the tea. There¹s been a long history between the home and visiting teams here for some time, and you can just feel the tension like a big bag of tea sitting on your head. So far this visiting team is undefeated in taxes, and I'm sure the folks here in Boston don't like that one bit. The curse, they¹re starting to call it. And here we go, there're coming in and, OH! There goes some tea, right into the, OH! There goes another, they're just dropping like a bird that dies in mid-flight. You can see the morale in the British droop, as they¹re letting this one slip away. And there goes some more and, oh, they COULD. GO. ALL. IN. THE. BAY!!!

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2. What's going on in the middle east is scary and awful and everything else you'd expect someone to say about it. I don't sympathize with one side over the other, but i've read about as much as i can on the subject. (one great story came from Newsweek last week; it was about the 18-year-old female suicide bomber and the 17-year-old israeli girl she killed) I don't delve into political writing too often, but here's what i've got to say about it:

The road to peace
by Jason Feifer

ISRAEL4ME: a/s/l

P-STINE: 72/male/Palestine

ISRAEL4ME: Palestine? LOL! You're in Israel, pally-boy.

P-STINE: Wait, who r u?

ISRAEL4ME: 74/m/Israel is-REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ISRAEL4ME has received a 10% warning

ISRAEL4ME: wtf?? What was that for?

P-STINE: Who is this?

ISRAEL4ME: Ari Sharon. And u?

P-STINE: No way! :) ROFL! This is Arafat.

ISRAEL4ME: Ara-fat-butt! It¹s been a while.

P-STINE: Stop calling me that, Ariel Sharon Stone.

P-STINE: Seriously, thou. Last time was at that peace confnce?

P-STINE: I mean, confrence.

ISRAEL4ME: Yeah, that was super-stoopid.

P-STINE: I know, right!

P-STINE: Right? Hello?

P-STINE: HELLO????

ISRAEL4ME: Sorry. Powell just IM'd me.

P-STINE: Typical.

ISRAEL4ME: I wish he would stop bugging me. Like, every time we talk, he's all like "You know Bush still supports you, right? He just wants things to calm down."

P-STINE: No shit! LOL! He says that to me too!

ISRAEL4ME: That two-timing bastard. Oh, I have an idea.

P-STINE: What?

ISRAEL4ME: Hahahahahaha! I wrote Powell, "You know Arafat still supports you, right? He just wants things to calm down" and he was all "What? Really? You guys are talking?"

P-STINE: haha

ISRAEL4ME: So hey, how about we just split the land 50-50?

P-STINE: What? Really?

ISRAEL4ME: Syke! I had you going there, Ara-fatty!

P-STINE: Not funny.

ISRAEL4ME: Hey, hows the martyr thing going?

P-STINE: I don't know, kinda freaks me out. Like, it's cool to say to the media, being all "I'm a martyr" and stuff. I've got sooooo many headlines with my name hanging on my fridge, which is cool. But like, martyr? That's death.

ISRAEL4ME: Tell that to your suicide bombers. ;)

P-STINE: unfair. you KNOW that isn't me.

ISRAEL4ME: Take a chill pill. Just messing with u.

P-STINE: Sorry. It's tense, u know? I wanna move past all this. If you'd just give us back our land...

ISRAEL4ME: There u go again!

P-STINE: I'm just saying. Ours first.

ISRAEL4ME: It's our land.

P-STINE: You know that isn't true :(

ISRAEL4ME: whatever

P-STINE: <--------rightful owner of land

ISRAEL4ME: "P-STINE: Boo-hoo, I know it's your land but I want it. Waaa waaa."

P-STINE: you're a child

ISRAEL4ME: no, *U* are a child. finders keepers

P-STINE: you didn't find palestine!

ISRAEL4ME: you mean Israel

P-STINE: Fuck this.

ISRAEL4ME: What, can't take the heat? Can't face the truth? Huh? Huh?

P-STINE has signed off

*****************************************************************************

There are more features to be had. (well, old features, that is.)

Features I II III IV V VI VII VIII IX X XI XII XIII XIV XV XVI

Or, we can always go back.