Peruvian Nights and Jamaican Days

News:

-The ball of phlegm: gone. I think it dislodged while i was skiing today. cross-countried for the first time. turns out, im a pretty good skiier. i only wrecked a few times, and that was cuz there was really big rocks hiding in the snow. annoyingly, they only had backcountry skis left to rent. for midgets. but it was pretty fun.

-not too tired today, really.

-saw "chicago." pretty good. no "singin' in the rain," but good.

thats it.

-m

News o' the day:

-To hell with the constitution, we're trying to protect freedom and liberty here...

-My tiredness level for today = medium.

-I'm ok. Except.. I seem to have this ball of plegm in my throat. You know, the kind that impedes your breathing because it's so big. And you can't make it go up or down. It just sits there. Think its related to the cold I'm getting over.

-I'm switching insurance companies. What kinda hokey two-bit insurer doesn't cover nuclear warfare damage to automobiles?

-There is no God. Or, if there is, she isn't paying attention. See???

-Oh man. This rules. I wish there were pictures. I mean, how do you chew off a bumper?

-Another story that seems too good to be true..


I don't really have any good thoughts..or stories..or anything for today. Wait. Let me think.

Oh yeah...

Boy! Am I ever glad we are back to Code Yellow, instead of Code Orange. I know all my friends here in Laramie, Wyoming, are relieved too. I bet the people I worked with in Medora, North Dakota, and the people from my hometown of Beatrice, Nebraska, and also Maryville, Missouri, are awfully relieved, too. I was worried for awhile there. I mean, Code Orange. Damn. That is some scary stuff. You never know when, say, McPherson, Kansas, or Spearfish, South Dakota could experience terrorist acts.

Evidently the "chatter" interceptions have returned to relatively save levels. PHEW! Anyway. I'm glad we're not in Code Orange, which was originally instituted because we faced a "real" and "immediate" terrorist threat, and NOT as a ploy by the Bush Administration to create fear-based support for his family's war in Iraq.

You're still supposed to be alert, though. So watch out for people with, y'know, big bombs, or like, really big knives, or like, evil looks in their eyes.

I better get some more coffee..

bye.
-m

God-freaking-dammit all!

Unfortunately, there is more important news today...

Fred Rogers dead at 74. God bless the greatest man who ever lived.

Even better than Ed Abbey...

I feel a tad weepy...

-m

+News o' the day:

-Kinda tired again today.

-I didn't have to go to a seminar on Null Hypothesis Significance Testing v. Bayesian methods and the Akaike Information Criterion. I'm counting that as a positive.

-Andrea will hereafter officially be my auxillary source for pop culture news.

-The walls are falling in around President Bush. Mark my words.

-No website o' the day today. Check Dave Barry's blog (link on the left) he usually has a good one every day.


Coming soon (perhaps): a comments section....

[2/26/2003 6:26:36 PM | mark andersen]

And now for the news from Laramie-town:

-I got a TA position for next year. Helping teach GIS (computers and maps and stuff like that). I get free college, plus Ramen money.

-Also, found some long lost Nick Drake recordings just recently available online. Follow the link below..

-I'm feeling kinda tired today.

-Your odds of dying from "ignition or melting of nightwear" in the next year is 1 in 45,470,000. Scary, huh? Well, don't worry, it's alot less likely than being "Bitten or crushed by other reptiles," @ 1 in 6,062,667. Source here.

-Monkeys actually do like bananas (info from our friend Shelly, who worked in a snow monkey sanctuary in Texas. I'm serious. They peel them, too.)

-This is stupid.

OK. A few things deserve to be pointed out right off the bat.

1) Edward Abbey may have been the greatest man who ever lived, excepting Nick Drake, Mark Twain, Andy Kaufman and Nick Bonahoom. I may be missing some people here, or they may not be in the right order. Speaking of Nick Drake, here you can download some long, lost songs (recently found) in mp3 format.

2) This may be the best game ever. probably not. but its not bad.

3) you should never ever ever ever try to get your car repaired at Ken's Kars Toyota in Laramie, Wyoming. never.

4) never trust a man without a beard. ever.

5) right now, i am sitting at work. wishing i had beer.

ok. did that..

so....whats that? tell you a story? ok. here ya go:

we went to happy hour the other day. at 'the library.' a brewpub. they have the best beer of the two microbreweries in town. but the second-best food. anyway. we started a tab. jenn gave them her credit card. so we had some beers. me and jenn and abbie. after a bit i went up to get another beer. it took awhile, and there were some husky fellows beside me. ok, i'll just say it, they were 'obese.' which only adds to the story indirectly. so the guy gave me my beer (they're only $1 at happy hour), and said "1 dollar please." i said, 'put it on my tab.' he says "whats the name." i said "its jennifer."

now. at this point, the two husky gentlemen beside me started chuckling, and i looked at them slightly confus-edly (i had had some beer already, so i didnt catch on, immediately).

so husky number one says, "thats a pretty name, JENNIFER." and both huskies laugh heartily.

showing an amazing amount of mental cat-likeness for a beered guy, i said "thanks, it was my uncle's name."

both huskies fell silent.

as I walked off, husky number one said "sorry..didnt mean to...give you a bad time......'bout your name.." and they both seemed worried, confused, disbelieving, and sullen, all at the same time.

that was hands-down, the uncontested best joke i've made all year. and i wasn't even trying...


-finally. utterly. i would like to point out that i am somewhat pissed off at bennet. here's why:

bennet is up on stuff. he knows about the rawk music. he knows about the movies. he knows about everything pop culture that is worth knowing about. bennet introduced me to the pixies when we were like 16. he is the one that told me about jane's addiction. about the white stripes. he introduced me to the hitchhiker's guide series when we were just little shysters. so. the point is, i've come to depend on bennet for information about anything cool that i should know about.

bennet let me down.

bennet never told me about jeff buckley. so here i am now, like a dork. just learning about jeff buckley. i hang my head in shame. because of bennet.

for those of you who don't know, jeff buckley was one of those flash-in-the-pan "hey I'm a genius...Oops, I'm dead" kinda people. not unlike nick drake. or andy kauffman.

i mean, nobody's perfect. but jeezis....

i'll get over it.