This picture is awesome.

From the time I was a little boy I always imagined what it would be like to have my house filled with water. Not in the flash flood/my life is ruined, kind of way. I just wondered what it would feel like to swim through my.....
UGH!
I just got stuck in a 20 minute "conversation" with my neighbor. She has two dogs Bella and Petey. I have my back door opened to get a breeze and I heard her say "Peter?" I thought she was talking to her dog, but then a minute later I heard her say "Hey Peter?" so I poked my head out and said, "Marci? Are you talking to me?" and she said "No, my dog. But how are you?"
Now, I try to avoid my neighbor because although she is nice and well intentioned she communicates as though most of her brain has been burned away by a decades long addiction to crystal meth...probably because as far as I can tell her brain has been burned away by a decades long addiction to crystal meth.
She talks and she talks and she wanders from one subject to another, so "we" start out talking about her day and how she was cleaning houses with her daughter (who is pretty cool) and then I get to learn about her former 80 year old boyfriend in cleveland who retired at 51 and I get to hear about how she loves the jewish community up there because they are such big tippers during Christmas.
Me: "You mean Hanukah?"
Marci: "What?"
Me: "Well, the Jews usually-."
Marci: "And you know we used to clean houses of all the rich doctors and they didn't live in really nice neighborhoods and my son is going to fix my car because someone hit my car when it was parked on the street and..."

And so I stand and watch her little dogs bound around our shared backyard and I listen for the slightest pause so I can say "I really need to get back in..." but there is no such pause. The woman must be circularly breathing or something. I just can't interrupt people, at least not people I don't know very well. When telemarketers call, when greenpeace comes knocking at my door... as long as they keep talking I keep listening.

Eventually I get a word in and tell her I have to go back inside to do school work.
Marci: "Oh Sure, I understand."
Peter opens his door and gets one foot inside.
Marci: "So how is school, you acing everything?"
Peter: "Yep, school is going very well. Well goodnight!"
Marci: "How much do you have left before you graduate."
Peter: "Probably a couple of years. Have a nice night."
Marci: "That's great. Are you ready to....

UGH. Finally I have to interrupt her. I apologize profusely but I REALLY have to get some more work done. She stares at me blankly and I take this as my cue to run inside and throw the deadbolt.

I will never, ever try crystal meth.

Hoppy Birsdai to me

If you get the reference, you're as a big a gamer as me.

Blogging Under the Influence

For the past, oh, six days now I have been feeling ill. Symptoms fall in the range of your common garden-variety virus, sore throat, sinus congestion, runny nose, headaches, fevers, chills, speaking in tongues etc...
So I've been stocking up on vitamins, fruits, soups, drugs, throat lozenges and other tradition cures/alleviations. I bought a packet of NyQuil liquid caps to help me sleep since that seems to be the most difficult thing for me to do when I'm sick.
Last night, I was lying on my couch feeling miserable and self pitying and watching Firefly actor/producer commentary. It made me laugh, which made me feel a little better. At about 9:30, I decide that I want to hit the sack early, so I crawl upstairs to my bathroom and rummage around my medicine closet. Let me say here that I have enough medical supplies to support the third mobile infantry and enough drugs to stun a team of oxen. As I'm looking through my many and varied pharmaceuticals (some purchased over the counter, some prescription use only) I realize I have left my NyQuil liquid caps downstairs. I did however, notice a bottle of NyQuil liquid.

The only problem is that this particular bottle of cherry flavored NyQuil expired in November of 2008. Now, I know what you're thinking, surely I just went downstairs and got the packet of freshly purchased nyquil liquid caps and took those. Surely I dumped that half used bottle of liquid death down the drain. *ahem*
So I measure out the appropriate dosage from the Cherry NyQuil and throw it down the hatch. At this point I can safely say that the flavor engineers over at NyQuil have a really good sense of humor. Calling this product "cherry flavored" is a sin equivalent to filling grenadine bottles with hamster vomit and selling them in bulk.

Now, I know what you're thinking, and in my defense, let me just say that drinking two year old NyQuil is not as crazy as it sounds. I've had a clinical trials course and I know something about what happens after the best used by date on pharmaceuticals. Usually, the product simply loses efficacy. The effects of the drug are lessened not changed.
So I crawl into bed with the taste of rodent upchuck still on my tongue and settle in for a nice long sleep....

I wake up at about 11:00pm and I'm groggy and dizzy but otherwise comfortable. In my semi-conscious state I ask myself, why did I wake up? Surely, the medication didn't work. So I stumble out of bed and go downstairs. It takes me a while to find the liquid caps (because I'm drugged out of my gourd). I crack them open and take the full the dose. This is where things get a little weird.


I fall asleep again and my dreams become vivid and grand. I can see geometric shapes laid out against a pastoral landscape and I hear the voices of Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, and Ron Glass. They are talking and talking and they won't stop talking and when I wake up 2 hours later I can still hear them talking. That's right, I am awake and I can still hear the disembodied voices of the men doing firely commentary. I stumble into the bathroom and everywhere I look, there are shapes, mostly rectangles with dots at the vertices. The voices keep talking and the shapes are sticking to the walls and I stumble back into bed. I wake up two hours later and the voices are now a cacophony in my head. I try to close my eyes again but the room spins and I can see citadels built upon layered and interlocking rectangles with dots at the vertices. The noise increases until I feel my head is going to split open. Why won't they shut-up, I can't sleep unless they shut-up. As the voices reach a crescendo, I bolt upright and then there's silence.
I'm covered in sweat and my heart is pounding, but the room is cool and silent. I take a few deep breaths and fall back down to my pillow. As I close my eyes, all is quiet, but I see a single rectangle, outlined in silver, with blue dots at the vertices floating in the middle of my mind's eye.

An Evening with That Author Guy

The Fighting Librarian and I spent the evening at a book signing/reading with one of my favorite authors, Christopher Moore. There's nothing like hearing an author wax prosical to make you want to fire up the old blog.

He was supposed to read an excerpt from his new novel Bite Me: A love story (linked on the site above), but ended up just chatting with the audience for an hour and half. He told stories, talked about his new found fame, and then fielded questions from all the weirdos in the audience.

It was a really really good time. He was witty and self deprecating, funny and sincere. To be short, I would really like it if he and I became friends. I've actually written him a few fan letters and was amazed when I got replies...within 30 minutes. I'm not kidding. I wrote the guy after I read Lamb and not even half an hour later I got a response wherein he commented on my email. That is to say, unless he has some dastardly clever reply program, I think he actually read and responded to my email. Now that's a man who's dedicated to his fans.

For those of you who have not read Mr. Moore, I highly recommend picking up some of his stuff. Lamb is spectacular, but it's even better if you're familiar with some of the christian mythology. A Dirty Job stands out as one of the best and most hilarious books I've ever read. I put it up there with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (though it's a different kind of humor).

I also, just recently, purchased a DROID. You may know if it as the only phone/operating system that comes close (in terms of popularity) to the iPhone. Now, you all know I'm a HUGE fan of Apple and the Macintosh computer. I learned to type on an Apple II gs and my first personal computer was beige Macintosh G3. I've had a clamshell iBook and powerbook titanium, and my computer right now is an aluminum iMac. I've loved them all. However, when it came time to get a new phone I had two reservations when it came to apple. 1) I like having a physical keypad for typing. Something about the iPhone touchscreen keypad drove me bonkers. I would start to twitch and mutter curses in german. 2) Apple's business practice vis a vis the App store is just short of despotic. I don't like the closed door iron fist acceptance rejection policy and I don't like that I can't make my own app and load it on my phone. Apple has always kept tight reigns on their hardware/software, but at some point you begin to stifle creativity. Enter the Android operating system. Made by a somewhat less despotic Google to be an open source, pretty GUI whereon you don't need to void your warranty to upload any app your tech savvy grandmother just made.

The Motorola Droid, the flagship of the Android fleet, has a slideout qwerty keyboard and an open source philosphy I can get behind.

So far, I love it! I've never had a true "smart phone" before and I love how it syncs up with gmail and gmail calendar. The screen is big and beautiful and the apps are wicked fun. There's even an app that let's you download public domain literature.

O.k. that's all that's on my mind for now. I hope you all are happy and well.

=SP=

The long dark tea-time of the soul.

Hi All!

It's spring break here in buckeye country and I'm sure you're all wondering what's going on in the life of one Sigmund J. Sprocketplug.

The quarter ended fairly uneventfully, but it marks the last quarter of full time "real" classes. I'll need to take one or two more electives over the next year, but other than that it's just reading classes and dissertation credits (provided I pass my second qualifier).
About that, I take my second qualifier, which should be much less scary than the first, in August. Please send well wishes to sprocketplug@catlovers.com .

The biggest news of the moment comes from the realm of personal finance.

March was an expensive month for me mostly due to the crazy amount of money I owe(d) the United States government. I learned that my cocaine habit was not tax deductible and neither was the interest on my Faberge egg collection. Really, though, it was the fact that I do some freelance textbook editing and the publisher doesn't take out taxes before paying me.
I also got a speeding ticket in Indiana while on my way to Chicago to hear Free Energy rock the pants off some party people.
On top of that, during my last dental appointment, my DDS told me that my jaw is funny. It's a problem I've lived with my entire adult life

You see, when I bite down, my molars don't touch on the right side. Meaning I can only chew food on the left side of mouth. The dentist huffed and puffed a little and I was kind of "meh" but then he mentioned that over time I might develop arthritis in my jaw. Now, I'm not a doctor, but jaw arthritis doesn't sound like much fun. So I scheduled an appointment with ye ole apothecaries down at OSU orthodontics. A dental grad student looked in my mouth and said "your teeth don't touch on the right side of your mouth." Then an orthodontic resident looked in my mouth and said "your teeth don't touch on the right side of your mouth." Then an orthodontic specialist looked in my mouth and said "you have appendicitis." Then a nurse leaned over and whispered something in his ear and then he said, "your teeth don't touch on the right side of your mouth." He checked a little box that said "SURGERY" and sent me to a woman who told me how much I get to pay for them to break, saw, move, and screw my jaw. Spoiler: It's a lot of money.
Inspired by that wonderful christmas tale, The Gift of the Magi, I'm going to sell all my teeth to pay for my jaw surgery. They'll just grow back, right?


If I do get the surgery, it'll probably happen this summer. If/When that occurs I will be sure to blog about the whole experience. This will include audio recordings of what it sounds like when you try to sing "Surrey with a fringe on top" with your jaw wired shut. Before and after x-rays. Pictures of the slivers of left over adamantium that weren't used in the reconstruction process.

Snow Day!

Columbus Public Schools (including OSU) were closed today on  account of the Snowtorious B.I.G.
So the exam I was supposed to take today is rescheduled for Thursday and I have a full day to lounge about. Well, I spent the last two hours shoveling, but other than that...

Quick recap of the past couple months
 Modern Warfare 2:


And that's pretty much it.

I've been making some extra scratch as a tutor and I like it very much. There's something more satisfying about sitting with an individual than lecturing to a classroom. There are nuances of understanding and discovery that cannot be obtained when talking to 100 students. It's pretty easy work too, depending on which class I'm tutoring. I've taught the intro classes for so many years, I know the most common pitfalls and the best way to circumnavigate frustrations. Helping a student with Stats 135, I feel a little like The Player from Ros & Guil. He seems to know so much, but really it's just that he's "been here before" and the student can't figure out "the direction of the wind."

On a happy note, my old roommate from StOlaf is coming to Columbus for the weekend. And ye there shall be much playing of videogames and eating of pizza. I'm also trying to get together some people for a poker night, something we've never quite been able to do when he's visited.

Merry Christmas, Bitches.

GameCRAWL

So I signed up for GameFly. For all you non-gamers out there, it's like netflix but for videogames. Awesome concept, but I've found it to be a little lacking in execution.
So far, I've received 8 games from gamefly and they've shipped semi-promptly and arrived semi-quickly. These 8 games have all been older titles (Fun but older). Titles that I passed up buying earlier in the year or last year thinking that someday I would get them on the cheap or rent them...as I'm doing now. These games have all been low on my list, with a stack of new releases atop the list. I've had two games in particular at the top of my queue for as long as I've been a member, those two games were Assassin's Creed II and Modern Warfare II. I ended up buying AC II and I'm still waiting to get my hands of MW II. You see, none of the top 5 games in my queue ever ship. So I started putting in games that might be fun, but that I wasn't really interested in. Games like Halo Wars and WET.
When those games arrived, I sighed, feeling as though I've settled. So enough is enough, I deleted all the games I wasn't too thrilled about and left the top 5 creme de la creme.
I returned my last game and it got to GameFly last wednesday. Since then I've been waiting for one my top 5 games to ship. Nothing. I wait. Nothing.
Granted, not all the games are as available as the rest. Everyone wants to play Modern Warfare II, so it has "low" availability. Which means it has a less than 25% chance of shipping. Fine, but.... I have other games in my list with "high" availability or even the oh so falsely labeled "Available Now."
So i waited three days and nothing has shipped. Finally I wrote an email. I was polite. I asked "Where the fuck are my fucking games you puss headed sons-of-whores?"
I get a little intense about my games.

I get this email in return:

Dear Peter,

Our apologies. We have reviewed your account and noted that you currently have only very popular releases in your GameQ. ...[blah...]... Please note the availability statuses on the Web site reflect inventory across all of our shipping centers. While the game may reflect "Available Now” or “High" in your Q, it may only be available in the shipping center that is more distant from your residence. We try to ship games from your primary shipping center to allow you to receive your games faster.

To ensure we ship games in the fairest possible manner, we factor in the length of time that you have been waiting for a game (once a return is received in our facility) and the time the desired available game was placed in your GameQ. ...[blah blah]... We also recommend you add more titles to your GameQ so you do not miss out on receiving games (i.e. don't you want to play viva pinata or Iron Man the game or maybe Halo 2??????).

[blah blah blah]
Sincerely,

The GameFly Team
Email: support@gamefly.com
Online help: http://www.gamefly.com/help

----------------------

I'm going to copy and paste something again for emphasis:

While the game may reflect "Available Now” or “High" in your Q, it may only be available in the shipping center that is more distant from your residence. We try to ship games from your primary shipping center to allow you to receive your games faster.

*ahem* even though the game may reflect AVAILABLE NOW, we're not going to ship it to you. Becaaaaaaause, and this is the great part, we would rather you not have a game at all, than make you wait an extra day or two to get the game.

This is the sound of me blinking in astonishment.

Further-frakking-more...
The top 5 games in my queue have availabilities as follows:

Medium
Low
High
High
Very Low

With these ranks, GameFly associates a probablity of immediate shipping. For Medium games it's 50%-74%, low is 25%-50%, etc... With the percentages given that should mean the probability that 1 of the games ships immediately is... (and here I'm using the most conservative values of their stated percentages, i.e. giving them the benefit of the doubt)
1-.5*.75*.25*.25*.95 = .9777

Given that the ranks stay the same, the probability that I don't get a game for three days is (0.0223)^3 = 0.000011

Something is rotten in the state of Ohio.

come for the abs, stay for the action

Let's get one thing straight, movie adaptations of videogames have thus far been garbage. The king of the genre Uwe Boll, really knows how to such the lifeforce out of a idea and paste its withered corpse on a movie screen.  Except for a few notable exceptions in the immediate past, the same has gone the other way. Take a movie, try to turn it into a videogame, and watch as a ten thousand gamers through their controllers into a wall. Notable exceptions are the newest Batman game, the newest Wolverine game, and the game based on the time life classic My Teenage Pregnancy. 
However, there is a chance that the Prince of Persia movie could be decent. The trailers look like your stereotypical Jerry Bruckheimer film, i.e. all balls and no brains, but there's something about it that makes my thumbs twitch. Take a look.

Oh shirtless Jake Gylenhall, is there no genre of film you can't master.

I can't wait for the romantic comedy based off of Left4Dead 2. In theaters this Spring.

me vs. my subconscious

An open letter to the girl in my dream:

First of all, let me apologize. By the look on your face, it was clear to me that you were upset when you got splashed. I could tell that a significant amount of water got on your book and it was, perhaps, ruined from the experience. Before I ask what you were doing sitting in the water fountain in the middle of the shopping mall, let me remind you that I did, indeed, get up to locate a towel for you. Just because I got lost on the second story (near banana republic), which, subsequently, turned into a medieval dungeon, doesn't mean I wasn't sincere in the undertaking. Although you said nothing, I am certain that you were displeased by the entire engagement.  Had I known someone was sitting under the footbridge that spanned the fountain, I would not have leapt in near that exact spot. I pray that, in hindsight, you find my action irreverent instead of malevolent. If ever I return to your mall, which, as I recall, was almost entirely populated with bipedal lizardfolk, I shall make a point to stay clear of the fountain. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,
Sprocketplug

Trust

Let's set the mood. To start, fire up iTunes and put on In the House-In A Heartbeat by John Murphy. Go for it. I'll wait...
You got it rolling? Great. Now imagine you're on the roof of an abandoned hotel somewhere outside Atlanta. You're with three people you just met and each of you is carrying a 9mm pistol. You look over the side of the roof and you see a crash of people below. From this distance, the group resembles a mosh pit, or a throng of shoppers waiting for the doors to open on Black Friday. Some sway back and forth as if entranced by some music that sits beyond the range of human sensitivity. Some look around expectantly, as if they are on the lookout for the 16 year old checkout girl to come unlock the gate. But all are silent. If you were to descend towards the group, the first thing you would notice is the smell. It is the smell of raw beef left to spoil. It is the smell of acid soaked fish congealing in the summer sun. It is like a physical blow to your head, and were your eyes not filled with tears you could see that these are not people at all. The ones that still have most of their skin are the color of bleached blue jeans, and their hands open and close, open and close, open and close.
Your next step makes the stair creak and 100 heads turn in unison. One of them opens its mouth and like birds in flight the group turns and launches towards you.



I just finished the final campaign in Left4Dead 2. I like to play the whole game offline with computer controlled teammates before jumping online so I'm a little better at not getting my team killed. The final chapter of the final campaign is a bridge. You have to fight your way across the bridge and into a rescue helicopter. There is no single moment of respite during the entire chapter. You run and you shoot and you keep moving or you die. On the second try I was 50 feet from the chopper when I was taken down by a dozen infected. The hardest part about playing with computer teammates is that they always let you take the lead. You're always the one in front and therefore the one who takes most of the damage from the special infected...like this guy:


So on the fourth try I am getting frustrated. We work our way past the halfway point and the zombies come like grains of rice being poured from a measuring cup. They slide around cars, crawl over the skeletons of 16 wheelers and station wagons. They are uncountable and relentless and I lead the way. Firing, reloading, pushing, punching, struggling for each foot of forward progression. And then I hear it, the sound of helicopter blades. I pull out my adrenaline pen and jam it into my thigh. I sprint, pushing past the mob of infected, killing many, avoiding many more, until I stand before the chopper. I turn around and I am alone. Rochelle is dead. Coach is on the ground yelling for help and Nick, with only a sliver of health, is fighting his way back to Coach. I put in a new clip and take a step forward, and then Nick goes down. Coach and Nick are still alive, incapacitated, but alive. The infected are pummeling them with fists and feet, elbows and knees. I can hear their cries. I hesitate.

I turn and step into the chopper.

As it takes off, I can see the infected below, like spiders crawling from a freshly hatched eggsac. I wonder if there will ever be a day when I don't see this in my dreams.

Zombie Survival

Take a minute to fill out this sheet. Who knows, it might save your life some day.

Here's my take

Oh Joss...

An Open Letter

Dear Sirs/Ma'ams,

I am Joss Whedon, the mastermind behind Titan A.E., Parenthood (not the movie) (or the new series) (or the one where 'hood' was capitalized 'cause it was a pun), and myriad other legendary tales. I have heard through the 'grapevine' that the Terminator franchise is for sale, and I am prepared to make a pre-emptive bid RIGHT NOW to wrap this dealio up. This is not a joke, this is not a scam, this is not available on TV. I will write a check TODAY for $10,000, and viola! Terminator off your hands.

No, you didn't miscount. That's four -- FOUR! -- zeroes after that one. That's to show you I mean business. And I mean show business. Nikki Finke says the Terminator concept is played. Well, here's what I have to say to Nikki Finke: you are a fine journalist and please don't ever notice me. The Terminator story is as formative and important in our culture -- and my pretend play -- as any I can think of. It's far from over. And before you Terminator-Owners (I have trouble remembering names) rush to cash that sweet cheque, let me give you a taste of what I could do with that franchise:

1) Terminator... of the Rings! Yeah, what if he time-travelled TOO far... back to when there was dragons and wizards? (I think it was the Dark Ages.) Hasta La Vista, Boramir! Cool, huh? "Now you gonna be Gandalf the Red!" RRRRIP! But then he totally helps, because he's a cyborg and he doesn't give a s#&% about the ring -- it has no power over him! And he can carry it AND Frodo AND Sam AND f@%& up some orcs while he's doing it. This stuff just comes to me. I mean it. (I will also offer $10,000 for the Lord of the Rings franchise).

2) More Glau. Hey. There's a reason they're called "Summer" movies.

3) Can you say... musical? Well don't. Even I know that's an awful idea.

4) Christian Bale's John Connor will get a throat lozenge. This will also help his Batwork (ten grand for that franchise too, btw.)

5) More porn. John Connor never told Kyle Reese this, but his main objective in going to the past was to get some. What if there's a lot of future-babies that have to be made? Cue wah-wah pedal guitar -- and dollar signs!

6) The movies will stop getting less cool.

Okay. There's more -- this brain don't quit! (though it has occasionally been fired) -- but I think you get my drift. I really believe the Terminator franchise has only begun to plumb the depths of questioning the human condition during awesome stunts, and I'd like to shepherd it through the next phase. The money is there, but more importantly, the heart is there. But more importantly, money. Think about it. End this bloody bidding war before it begins, and put the Terminator in the hands of someone who watched the first one more than any other movie in college, including "Song of Norway" (no current franchise offer). Sincerely, Joss Whedon.

Stopping Power

A few weeks ago a friend and I went to a Shooting Range in a north eastern suburb of Columbus. He had just bought a new shotgun and I'm always up for perforating paper cutouts. We rented a few guns such as a 9mm Beretta Pistol and a 9mm Carbine rifle. We were having a great time shooting zombie cutouts and what not, and then my buddy decided he wanted something a little bigger. We went out and chatted with the staff for a while and then my buddy said "Let's try that one." I looked up and he was pointing at the largest handgun I had ever seen. Why was it the largest handgun I had ever seen? Because it's the largest handgun made.
It's a Smith and Wesson 500 and it's large enough to be a gag prop on a Quentin Tarantino movie.
The bullets for this thing are 5 dollars a pop and worth every penny.

For those of you familiar with firearms, here's a comparison of bullet size for some common calibers. The .500 is in the middle.



I was first to fire the thing:




Notice that I wasn't quite prepared for the kick. I was wearing earplugs under those earmuffs and the sound was still impressive. The concussion from the blast sent my heart bouncing off my ribcage.
Because of the shotguns and the rifle we were using, they put us on the rifle range, so the people around us were firing some pretty heavy rounds, but when this gun went off, everyone stopped shooting and looked over, asking "What is that??"
At point blank range, the muzzle flare alone could knock over a moose.

When my buddy shot after me, he had much better control. Now the perspective in these videos don't do the gun justice. The size of the thing was immense.




Some Pics:

All-Terrain Attack Transport

Behold the construction of the behemoth AT-AT.

Friday Night

So you may be wondering: "Sprocketplug, what does an incredibly popular, attractive, and interesting person like you do on a Friday night?"

Well, friends lemme tell you. Last Friday I was feeling a little ill. I had been sneezing as though the great dust bowl of the 1930's had lodged itself in my sinuses. I was feeling better after self medicating with various narcotics and low-level hallucinogens lying about the apartment, but I decided to spend a quiet evening at home.

So I decided to start the 7th and final season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I started around 2:00pm and was still going strong around 9:00. You should never doubt my ability to binge watch television series on DVD. (cf Mr. Gubbins and The West Wing also cf Mr. Gubbins and Psyche). As I watched this delightfully dark and deranged season, I began assembling my Lego™ AT-AT. I had almost finished the walker when I got a text message from my buddy asking me to meet him and his new girlfriend at the Newport to see the Sublime tribute band, Badfish. He asked me what I was doing and I paused for a moment and in one of those rare moments of self-awareness I became a little embarrassed. I was home alone on a Friday night watching Buffy and playing with Legos.
I'm proud to say that after that moment of embarrassment, I thought, this is exactly what I WANT to be doing. So there.
However, I really did want to meet his new girlfriend and I decided it might not be a bad idea to get outside once that day. So I went. It was pretty fun, the Newport is a great venue, and even if I'm not the biggest fan of Sublime, the music was good and my buddy's new girlfriend is pretty rad.
I don't spend a lot of time at these venues so a couple of things struck me:
1) Undergraduate Freshmen look like they're 12
2) I'm kind of a square

The three of us were hanging out by the back, near the exit for the smokers. This guy walks up and asks if I'll watch his beer while he goes out. There's a ledge that runs along the back wall from where we're standing to the exit and no drinks are allowed outside. He says that he left his drink there before, but it got swiped (probably by some 12 year old). I said no problem and I watched his drink. He came back a little while later and thanked me profusely then offered me a "nugget" for my troubles. I said it's not a problem and that I didn't need any payment. I say this because A) it really wasn't any trouble and B) I have no idea what a nugget is. If it's pot, which I'm reasonably sure it is, I probably wouldn't smoke something that this guy was holding. He looked a little sketchy. You know, the kind of guy who's built up such a tolerance that lacing his weed with a little powdered detergent just makes his fingertips tingle.

The show ended, the crowd shuffled out and I declared the night a success. Since then I've watched all but 4 episodes of Season 7. The show is amazing. Maybe later I'll try to describe why I love it so much, but for now, I'm not unable to unpack my heart with words.

the pater familias

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Revivification

Many things are happening in the life of old Sprocketplug.
Yesterday, the Fighting Librarian and I celebrated the anniversary of our first date. Our plans to reenact our first date fell by the wayside due to my upset stomach. That and we couldn't find the cat o' nine tails. Instead we spent a relaxing evening at home, watching Entourage and munching on chinese food.

One of the gifts I received from my sweetheart is pictured below.



Does this girl know me or what?
It's been a fantastic year (broken foot and all) and I wouldn't trade it for anything.

---

With the onset of fall-like weather comes a new school year, and honeycrisp apples!



Most of you have heard this all before, but Honeycrisp apples are one of my absolute favorite foods. The texture and taste are in perfect harmony. Heaven may very well be a Honeycrisp apple.


Lastly, my academic responsibilities start tomorrow.

I'll be taking three classes and for the first time ever I'll be a research assistant for Dr's Lemeshow and Lu. I haven't met with them regarding the project, so I'm not sure what my work will entail, but I am excited to help with some original research! Don't be surprised if I cure childhood leukemia by next Thursday.

Worries

There is a special collection of worries
that I keep in an old mahogany chest
in the attic of my mind

This is not where I keep those simple,
day to day worries
like
Does she think I'm cute?
What if I can't find parking?
What should I get my dad for his birthday?

If you were to open that old mahogany chest
in the attic of my mind,
you would see

What if a cockroach eats one of my toenail clippings
that fell under the bed? Will it absorb my DNA? Will it
become a half-human half-insect juggernaut of destruction?
What if every night I am replaced with a robot that has all my
memories? My voice, my thoughts, my desires all programmed
into its twinkling,
LED covered brain?
What if the only reason I haven’t developed pyrokinetic powers is because
of my disbelief?

And so I sit at my desk, staring at the black wick
of my lavender scented candle,
concentrating,
hands balled up on my knees
seeing,
in my mind’s eye,
an orange flame
blossom on that black, withered finger

at this moment, Lisa walks into my office
and asks
“Hey, Pete, what are you doing?”
“Huh?
Oh
I was just thinking about
what to get my dad
for his birthday.”