Robotic Plants

I was thinking about the environment today. And how we need plants to convert Carbon Dioxide back into Oxygen for us to breathe and also so we can burn stuff. But. What if robots wanted to take over by destroying all the plant life on Earth. For what that might be like, watch this:




Back to the point. Robots try to kill all our plants, til there's only a couple left that a human rebel force must defend to save the race. That's the theme of Save the Last Plants, a sweet sci-fi short story I'm going to write. Maybe.

But really, why can't we make some sort of machine that converts CO2 to O2? We just need to get rid of that stupid Carbon, and plants can do it, and we're like a billion times smarter than plants. Admittedly, I know next to nothing about chemistry, but i'm sure some people do, and there shoud be a way to figure this out. Think about it. We could just cut down the whole rainforest and replace it with a sweet metropolis of solar-powered robotic trees. How ill would that be?! And for all you tree-huggers out there, I have this little nugget of wisdom for you to chew on: no matter how many trees we cut down, there will always be an environment.

So there.

The Circular Ruins

The Circular Ruins is a mind-blowing short story by Jorge Luis Borges. Borges joins Gabriel Garcia Marquez (100 Years of Solitude) in the lofty realm of Latin American Magical Realism. This is the kind of story I love reading. It's very short, the language is amazing, and it blows your mind conceptually. I hope you like it as much as I do:

The Circular Ruins
By Jorge Luis Borges

No one saw him disembark in the unanimous night, no one saw the bamboo canoe sink into the sacred mud, but in a few days there was no one who did not know that the taciturn man came from the South and that his home had been one of those numberless villages upstream in the deeply cleft side of the mountain, where the Zend language has not been contaminated by Greek and where leprosy is infrequent. What is certain is that the grey man kissed the mud, climbed up the bank with pushing aside (probably, without feeling) the blades which were lacerating his flesh, and crawled, nauseated and bloodstained, up to the circular enclosure crowned with a stone tiger or horse, which sometimes was the color of flame and now was that of ashes. This circle was a temple which had been devoured by ancient fires, profaned by the miasmal jungle, and whose god no longer received the homage of men. The stranger stretched himself out beneath the pedestal. He was awakened by the sun high overhead. He was not astonished to find that his wounds had healed; he closed his pallid eyes and slept, not through weakness of flesh but through determination of will. He knew that this temple was the place required for his invincible intent; he knew that the incessant trees had not succeeded in strangling the ruins of another propitious temple downstream which had once belonged to gods now burned and dead; he knew that his immediate obligation was to dream. Toward midnight he was awakened by the inconsolable shriek of a bird. Tracks of bare feet, some figs and a jug warned him that the men of the region had been spying respectfully on his sleep, soliciting his protection or afraid of his magic. He felt a chill of fear, and sought out a sepulchral niche in the dilapidated wall where he concealed himself among unfamiliar leaves.

The purpose which guided him was not impossible, though supernatural. He wanted to dream a man; he wanted to dream him in minute entirety and impose him on reality. This magic project had exhausted the entire expanse of his mind; if someone had asked him his name or to relate some event of his former life, he would not have been able to give an answer. This uninhabited, ruined temple suited him, for it is contained a minimum of visible world; the proximity of the workmen also suited him, for they took it upon themselves to provide for his frugal needs. The rice and fruit they brought him were nourishment enough for his body, which was consecrated to the sole task of sleeping and dreaming.

At first, his dreams were chaotic; then in a short while they became dialectic in nature. The stranger dreamed that he was in the center of a circular amphitheater which was more or less the burnt temple; clouds of taciturn students filled the tiers of seats; the faces of the farthest ones hung at a distance of many centuries and as high as the stars, but their features were completely precise. The man lectured his pupils on anatomy, cosmography, and magic: the faces listened anxiously and tried to answer understandingly, as if they guessed the importance of that examination which would redeem one of them from his condition of empty illusion and interpolate him into the real world. Asleep or awake, the man thought over the answers of his phantoms, did not allow himself to be deceived by imposters, and in certain perplexities he sensed a growing intelligence. He was seeking a soul worthy of participating in the universe.

After nine or ten nights he understood with a certain bitterness that he could expect nothing from those pupils who accepted his doctrine passively, but that he could expect something from those who occasionally dared to oppose him. The former group, although worthy of love and affection, could not ascend to the level of individuals; the latter pre-existed to a slightly greater degree. One afternoon (now afternoons were also given over to sleep, now he was only awake for a couple hours at daybreak) he dismissed the vast illusory student body for good and kept only one pupil. He was a taciturn, sallow boy, at times intractable, and whose sharp features resembled of those of his dreamer. The brusque elimination of his fellow students did not disconcert him for long; after a few private lessons, his progress was enough to astound the teacher. Nevertheless, a catastrophe took place. One day, the man emerged from his sleep as if from a viscous desert, looked at the useless afternoon light which he immediately confused with the dawn, and understood that he had not dreamed. All that night and all day long, the intolerable lucidity of insomnia fell upon him. He tried exploring the forest, to lose his strength; among the hemlock he barely succeeded in experiencing several short snatchs of sleep, veined with fleeting, rudimentary visions that were useless. He tried to assemble the student body but scarcely had he articulated a few brief words of exhortation when it became deformed and was then erased. In his almost perpetual vigil, tears of anger burned his old eyes.

He understood that modeling the incoherent and vertiginous matter of which dreams are composed was the most difficult task that a man could undertake, even though he should penetrate all the enigmas of a superior and inferior order; much more difficult than weaving a rope out of sand or coining the faceless wind. He swore he would forget the enormous hallucination which had thrown him off at first, and he sought another method of work. Before putting it into execution, he spent a month recovering his strength, which had been squandered by his delirium. He abandoned all premeditation of dreaming and almost immediately succeeded in sleeping a reasonable part of each day. The few times that he had dreams during this period, he paid no attention to them. Before resuming his task, he waited until the moon's disk was perfect. Then, in the afternoon, he purified himself in the waters of the river, worshiped the planetary gods, pronounced the prescribed syllables of a mighty name, and went to sleep. He dreamed almost immediately, with his heart throbbing.

He dreamed that it was warm, secret, about the size of a clenched fist, and of a garnet color within the penumbra of a human body as yet without face or sex; during fourteen lucid nights he dreampt of it with meticulous love. Every night he perceived it more clearly. He did not touch it; he only permitted himself to witness it, to observe it, and occasionally to rectify it with a glance. He perceived it and lived it from all angles and distances. On the fourteenth night he lightly touched the pulmonary artery with his index finger, then the whole heart, outside and inside. He was satisfied with the examination. He deliberately did not dream for a night; he took up the heart again, invoked the name of a planet, and undertook the vision of another of the principle organs. Within a year he had come to the skeleton and the eyelids. The innumerable hair was perhaps the most difficult task. He dreamed an entire man--a young man, but who did not sit up or talk, who was unable to open his eyes. Night after night, the man dreamt him asleep.

In the Gnostic cosmosgonies, demiurges fashion a red Adam who cannot stand; as a clumsy, crude and elemental as this Adam of dust was the Adam of dreams forged by the wizard's nights. One afternoon, the man almost destroyed his entire work, but then changed his mind. (It would have been better had he destroyed it.) When he had exhausted all supplications to the deities of earth, he threw himself at the feet of the effigy which was perhaps a tiger or perhaps a colt and implored its unknown help. That evening, at twilight, he dreamt of the statue. He dreamt it was alive, tremulous: it was not an atrocious bastard of a tiger and a colt, but at the same time these two firey creatures and also a bull, a rose, and a storm. This multiple god revealed to him that his earthly name was Fire, and that in this circular temple (and in others like it) people had once made sacrifices to him and worshiped him, and that he would magically animate the dreamed phantom, in such a way that all creatures, except Fire itself and the dreamer, would believe to be a man of flesh and blood. He commanded that once this man had been instructed in all the rites, he should be sent to the other ruined temple whose pyramids were still standing downstream, so that some voice would glorify him in that deserted edifice. In the dream of the man that dreamed, the dreamed one awoke.

The wizard carried out the orders he had been given. He devoted a certain length of time (which finally proved to be two years) to instructing him in the mysteries of the universe and the cult of fire. Secretly, he was pained at the idea of being separated from him. On the pretext of pedagogical necessity, each day he increased the number of hours dedicated to dreaming. He also remade the right shoulder, which was somewhat defective. At times, he was disturbed by the impression that all this had already happened . . . In general, his days were happy; when he closed his eyes, he thought: Now I will be with my son. Or, more rarely: The son I have engendered is waiting for me and will not exist if I do not go to him.

Gradually, he began accustoming him to reality. Once he ordered him to place a flag on a faraway peak. The next day the flag was fluttering on the peak. He tried other analogous experiments, each time more audacious. With a certain bitterness, he understood that his son was ready to be born--and perhaps impatient. That night he kissed him for the first time and sent him off to the other temple whose remains were turning white downstream, across many miles of inextricable jungle and marshes. Before doing this (and so that his son should never know that he was a phantom, so that he should think himself a man like any other) he destroyed in him all memory of his years of apprenticeship.

His victory and peace became blurred with boredom. In the twilight times of dusk and dawn, he would prostrate himself before the stone figure, perhaps imagining his unreal son carrying out identical rites in other circular ruins downstream; at night he no longer dreamed, or dreamed as any man does. His perceptions of the sounds and forms of the universe became somewhat pallid: his absent son was being nourished by these diminution of his soul. The purpose of his life had been fulfilled; the man remained in a kind of ecstasy. After a certain time, which some chronicles prefer to compute in years and others in decades, two oarsmen awoke him at midnight; he could not see their faces, but they spoke to him of a charmed man in a temple of the North, capable of walking on fire without burning himself. The wizard suddenly remembered the words of the god. He remembered that of all the creatures that people the earth, Fire was the only one who knew his son to be a phantom. This memory, which at first calmed him, ended by tormenting him. He feared lest his son should meditate on this abnormal privilege and by some means find out he was a mere simulacrum. Not to be a man, to be a projection of another man's dreams--what an incomparable humiliation, what madness! Any father is interested in the sons he has procreated (or permitted) out of the mere confusion of happiness; it was natural that the wizard should fear for the future of that son whom he had thought out entrail by entrail, feature by feature, in a thousand and one secret nights.

His misgivings ended abruptly, but not without certain forewarnings. First (after a long drought) a remote cloud, as light as a bird, appeared on a hill; then, toward the South, the sky took on the rose color of leopard's gums; then came clouds of smoke which rusted the metal of the nights; afterwards came the panic-stricken flight of wild animals. For what had happened many centuries before was repeating itself. The ruins of the sanctuary of the god of Fire was destroyed by fire. In a dawn without birds, the wizard saw the concentric fire licking the walls. For a moment, he thought of taking refuge in the water, but then he understood that death was coming to crown his old age and absolve him from his labors. He walked toward the sheets of flame. They did not bite his flesh, they caressed him and flooded him without heat or combustion. With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he also was an illusion, that someone else was dreaming him.

Word up.

Fat Kid Falls Down

Let me first say that I unconditionally love any and all people of size. Unfortunately there aren't hilarious youtube videos of thin people falling down. Just type "fat kid falls down" into your Youtube search box and laugh for hours. You will find that thin kid falls down, will have much less satisfactory results. Here are some of my favorites:

Fat Kid DDR


Fat Kid Falls for Peer Pressure (literally)


Fat Kid Reaches for Rainbow and Falls Short


Slip N Slide Rejects Fatty


Fat Boy attempts to scare sister, gets owned


Fat Kid incurs nasty fall from van


Fat Swimmer has Diving Mishap


Adorably Chubby Child Falls off Log Thanks to Traitorous Friend


Fat Boy Suffers on Rollercoaster to Delight of Mother


Spread the word.

Imagining the Tenth Dimension

I remember watching this video at 4 AM, piss drunk two days before new years. It blew my mind then, it still blows my mind now. Also, if you've read (and hated) the trashy YA novel series A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L'Engle, you'll finally be able to understand tesseract, which is the fucked-up way they teleport by going through the fifth dimension. I used to think it was bullshit (who didn't) but now I kind of get it. I hate Madeline L'engle, but I love this video. I hope we can still be friends after you put your mind back together.

Fun Things to Yell at Hockey Games

I'm just gonna put this out there. Hockey games are boring. Unless you're drunk. First let me tell you how that came to be. So you know the Power Hour right, a shot of beer every minute for an hour, well me and my roommate had this great idea of making a power hour playlist ( you can download a program to do it here) using only shitty 90's music that makes us angry (Nickelback, Sum 41, All American Rejects). The idea was to get drunk and furious before catching a bus to the Carleton men's hockey opener. I'd say it was pretty successful.

Now things got hilarious as soon as we were waiting for the bus. Imagine a writhing mass of 150+ drunk college students each trying as hard as they can to get on to 70-person school bus. It was like a mosh pit with more pain and less music. So after I had headbutted my way to seat in the third row, it was time to be belligerent.

I got to the hockey game and took up my shouting position at the top of the bleachers and the following are things I may or may not have yelled at the top of my lungs (with a little help from a flask of peppermint schnapps):

"Kill the non-believers!"

"Win it for the heathens!"

"Blood for Oil!"

"God hates the other team!"

"Break the bonds of the oppressor!"

"Beat his ass! Beat his ass! Beat his fuckin' ass!"

"Lightning bolt...Lightning bolt...lightning bolt...lightning bolt...death...death...Death DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH DEATH!"

It was good times. I don't think I really affected the game any, but the crowd enjoyed me. Carleton wins 4-1. Then I went home, smoked 5 bowls, drank some more, and passed out playing pokemon. Later bitches.

What's Your Passion?

Don't get me started on the stock conversation. Oh wait, do get me started on the stock conversation because that shit needs to change. Ok. So if you don't know the term "stock conversation" I'll give you an example. Take for example, Mike and Steve. Mike and Steve live one floor apart in the same dorm, they have one class together, and they're both members of the college democratic club. They're on good terms, but they aren't really friends. An average conversation between the two, if they say, happened to run into each other on the way to class, would look like this:

M: Hey, how's it going?
S: It's good, it's good. How bout you?
M: Not bad. My legs are really sore from practice yesterday though.
S: Basketball, right?
M: Yeah
S: Yeah, that seems like it would be real tough. Hey, did you do the problem set?
M: About half of it, I faked the rest
S: Oh yeah, me to BLAH BLAH BLAH

Notice how they managed to basically talk about nothing the entire time. Neither of them will come out of that conversation particularly impressed with the other, and they will remain mere acquaintances forever until someone breaks the ice. Welcome to the stock conversation. You have probably at least 25 a day. You don't like them, but they're better than the alternative of just saying nothing. Or is there another option? Is there a way you can actually talk about something for once?

Enter "What's your passion?" It's basically a joke, but not really. It came about when I was trying to think of a way to have an interesting conversation with the custodians that clean my building. I mean, I don't particularly care how there day is going or who they're going to vote for, I want to know if they used to be lumberjacks or dated a bank robber, or can draw extremely convincing sketches of woodland creatures. So the idea came up to just say, "what's your passion?" to them, and see how they respond. You don't have to use those words exactly, but the idea is to make some sort of question or statement that dislodges the avalanche of truth and knowledge that the average person holds back in the stock conversation.

I mean, think about all the best conversations you've ever had. Were they about homework or classes, or were they when your friend told you he likes to make engines out of scrap he finds at the dump, just because he likes the idea of making something from nothing. You never know who's a badass until you ask.

Now if you're like me, you've probably noticed that you've had a lot of your best conversations when you're drunk and high. Why do you think this is? It's cause your goddamn stock conversation inhibitions go out the window and you're not afraid to ask or answer the kind of insightful question that would make you feel awkward when you're sober. Well fuck that. Just ask those kind of questions all the time and have those kind of conversation and discover all those friends you're too much of a pussy to make. Otherwise it's just a waste of time.

Japanese Fairy Tales

Ok. So I'm sorry I'm not posting that often. I know you rely on me, and I haven't been delivering. I'm sorry. Things are pretty hectic right now and i'm trying to adjust to the homework as well as the three sports (frisbee, volleyball, and karate) that I'm doing. Plus my computer has been in lockup.

Oh. So let me tell you about that. So I brought my computer in to be fixed, and I had to leave it with them. For the form that I left it with, I had to tell them my account and password that controls all my registration information and tuition payments and email. I mean this is to some kid that's just getting paid by the hour to sit there, and then he can tell all his friends and before I know it I'm going to be signed up for Advanced Ballet instead of my Econ class. Fuck that.

Anyway I picked up my computer after 4 days and they couldn't have made it more obvious that they had not so much as looked at it, so I guess I'm going to fix it myself. Here's my advice, if you need something fixed, find a guy like me who's pretty good with computers and buy him a six-pack if he finishes it. Better for you, better for me.

So that's the end of that rant. On to my new Japanese class. Right now we're doing a lot of stuff that requires you to be a little more playful with the language rather than the usual kind of dictionary-esque tasks where the teacher says a word and you define it. Anyways, we're doing a storytelling unit and our first two assignments were to summarize this video of the classic Japanese tale momotaro (peach boy) as well as any fairy tale of our choice. I did the Three Little Pigs or (chisai buta san piki). What follows are my two sakubun (essays) that I turned in. The Japanese is not difficult, so reading them should be pretty easy, and good practice.

Here are some definitions:

桃太郎-momotaro- peach boy
ふうふう- fuufuu- married couple
おに- oni- demon
島- shima - island
きびだんご- kibidango - millet cakes (supposedly make you powerful)
復しゅう- fukushuu - revenge
結局- kekkyoku - In the end

桃太郎

タッド　アンダーソン

むかしむかし、おばあさんとおじいさんのふうふうがいました。子供がいませんでしたから、かなしかったです。ある日、おばあさんはせんたくをしながら川の中に桃を見ました。おばあさんは桃を取って食べました。おいしかったです。それから、川の中にみょうにおおきい桃を見ました。そんな面白い桃がありましたから、おじいさんに見せるために桃を取って家に帰りました。おじいさんは桃をきりました。ところが桃の中に男の子がいました。男の子の名前は桃太郎だっておじいさんとおばあさんの息子みたいな男の子になりました。桃太郎は毎日たくさんご飯を食べました。それでとても力強くなりました。桃太郎の育った村はおにが島と言う島からおにをこまりました。だから、ある日桃太郎はおにとたたかいに村をでました。でも、出た前おばあさんとおじいさんは桃太郎にきびだんごをあげました。それから桃太郎は出ました。おにが島に行きながら桃太郎は動物三ぴきと出会いました。動物はさると犬と鳥でした。動物の皆さんはおにに復しゅうをしたかったです。桃太郎は動物にきびだんごをあげました。食べた時動物は力強くなりました。それからおにが島に着きました。桃太郎と動物はおにとたかかってまかしました。けれども大変大きいおにがあってあやうく桃太郎をころしました。でもももたろうはきびだんごを食べて大きいおにをまかました。結局おにがいませんでしたから、皆さんはうれしく住みました。おわります。

You can find an English translation of the story here.

Now for the 3 Little Pigs, here's the relevent vocabulary:

わら- wara - straw
れんが - renga - bricks
ウルフ- urufu - wolf
ふく - fuku - to blow, ha ha, but seriously
やね- yane - roof
えんかん- enkan - chimney

小さいぶた三ぴき

タッド・アンダーソン

むかしむかし、小さいぶた三ぴきがいた。小さいぶた三ぴきはうれしくお母さんと住んでいた。けれども、ある日小さいぶた三ぴきは自分で住みに家を出た。それから小さいぶた三ぴきは自分の家を建てることを決めた。一番目の小さいぶたはわらで家を建てた。だから家は建てやすいけれど弱かった。二番目の小さいぶたは木で家を建てた。もうちょっと建てにくかったけれどもうちょっと強い家だった。三番目小さいぶたはれんがで家を建てた。とても建てにくくてぶたは本当につかれた。けれども、家の中には安全だった。その時代にいじわるなウルフがいた。ウルフはぶたを食べたかった。ウルフは一番目の小さいぶたの家に行って強くふいた。それでわら家は弱かったからこけた。そしてウルフは小さいぶたを食べた。それからウルフは二番目の小さいぶたの家に行って強くふいた。この家はもうちょっと強かった。ところがウルフはもっと強くふいて家をたおしてぶたを食べた。それから三番目のぶたの家に行った。力強くふいてふいてふいたけれど、れんがの家はうごかなかった。だから、ウルフはやねまでのぼった。結局えんかんをはいてみたけれどおゆのなべをはいちゃって死んだ。終わります。

Don't make fun of my Japanese too much.

Guitar Hero

If you're roughly my age and live anywhere in America, you've probably played, watched, or at least heard about Guitar Hero. In case you're in the dark, Guitar Hero is a series of video games that started with the original Guitar Hero, released in November 2005. The game fed off the popularity of unorthodox controllers started by Dance Dance Revolution and used a guitar-shaped controller to simulate actual guitar playing.

The series has taken off from there growing to get more and more popular, as well as a staple of any college's dorm life. If you're in a college dorm right now, think about how many feet away from the nearest guitar hero set-up you are. Right now I'm 25 feet away from one (two floors above my room) and about 80 feet from another (down the hall), it's ridiculous. So, as you may imagine, being good at Guitar Hero is a very important status symbol, so here are some tips to help you get good and look cool:

1. Unless you're in a social setting where you need to show off, play the highest difficulty you can barely survive at. You don't get good by playing songs on Easy perfectly. You get good by eeking out Free Bird on Hard.

2. Don't be afraid to use Practice mode, it's a great way to nail a hard part of a song that gives you trouble.

3. Choose your party song. The most important thing is to find the right party song. Most parties and social gatherings where you play guitar hero will have you waiting in line just to play one song. Your party song is that one song. You just have to go in there and nail it near perfectly on Expert, possibly adding some complementary dance moves. No one has to know you played that one part of the solo on repeat in Practice mode for 2 hours. They just see you kicking ass. You should try to have one party song for each volume of Guitar Hero, and it should follow these criteria:

a. Recognizable, at least by a few people
b. Catchy riff (songs that are just chords are boring)
c. Difficult/Badass solo (this is how you impress people)

My songs are More Than a Feeling for Guitar Hero, Sweet Child o' Mine for Guitar Hero 2, and Cliffs of Dover for Guitar Hero 3. They're definitely solid.


But enough of that, time for some sweet videos. This first one is a guy playing Through the Fire and Flames, the hardest Guitar Hero song ever, on Expert. Prepare to be humbled:



And here's an 8-year-old that's probably better than you. Half showmanship, half skill, all second-grader.

How Microsoft, Carleton College, and Ethernet Cables Broke the Internet (for me)

Guess who's laptop I'm typing on? You're likely to guess my own, which, in most circumstances, would be true. However, the internet has decided to break-off our wired relationship. Now we just stick to the wireless, I think it's probably for the best.

But seriously, I'm angry, and I'm not sure who to be mad at. Everything worked fine at home and then, at school it's all shit. I'm sorry Al Gore, but my school broke the internet. All fall term I could only use the wireless in the lounge and now I can't even get to the control panel area that manages internet connection without windows explorer encountering an error and restarting.

So. That's a struggle. Now I've given my computer to the tech guys, and I don't really trust them because I used to be one in high school, and I just sat on my ass all day and stole shit whenever possible. Apparently there's one guy there that does just about all the work, and it takes him 3 weeks to get to everything. I guess i'm just gonna go in there on Saturday and ask to fix it myself. Ugh. But seriously, if youve ever encountered this error, when the "Network and Sharing Center" or really any control panel window stops working with Windows Vista, please please help me.

The Backpack Party: How to Have a Successful Night Out

You're gonna need the following things:

2 Backpacks
1 Large winter coat
40 Beers
2 Glasses
2 Half-Pints of Scotch
1 Half-Pint of Vodka
2 Packs of cigarettes
1 Lighter
2 Decks of naked lady playing cards (for Nagano Snatch)
3 Books of Poetry
1 Really Good Friend

So me and my buddy Jeff were driving around at about 7 on New Year's Eve. We decided it would be a good time to stock up on provisions for the night, so we used our time-honored technique of paying someone on their way in to a liquor store to buy us alcohol. That's where Broderick comes in. Broderick was a poor guy outside the liquor store asking for someone to help him get a drink for new years. We went up and told him our plight, and he bought us the three half-pints. Then we gave him $12 to buy himself a bottle of vodka. Then it was off to White Hen Pantry for some cigarettes, then back on the road.

Let me give you a brief aside about ciagarettes. Now don't get me wrong, I went through DARE just like the rest of you, so I know why cigarettes are bad. But I don't smoke for the nicotine, I smoke to be cool, or at least that's what I call it. Sometimes you're just waiting outside for something, and you could just be doing nothing, OR you could be smoking a cigarette, which makes it look like your smoking a cig not waiting around awkwardly. Relevant example: after we bought the alcohol and were dropping Jeff's car off at his house. I was given the mission of guarding the stuff outside, because he didn't want his parents to see. So I'm outside, waiting around looking suspicious, right until I start smoking. Then all the cars driving down the alley don't see a creepy guy, they see a guy on a smoke break. Word.

Back to a successful night out. We had both been getting calls all night from people looking for a party to go to, we were kind of unsure of what was going to happen because the party we were going to go to originally was canceled at the last minute. So we decided on The Backpack Party. This plan was just so perfect. Basically we loaded up our backpacks with PBR we had purchased a few days earlier, as well as some nicer beers (Yebisu) and some glasses to drink them out of. Then we got all the other materials listed above and distributed them between our packs and coats, and then we had done it. We had become a party. We had everything you could ever hope to have at a party, substances to abuse, games, poetry, and of course, each other. I highly recommend this strategy for any night you want to drink and have fun, but you aren't sure if there's going to be a good party. Just be a party yourself, and the night just CANNOT be a failure.

So we set out on our trek. Whenever one of us finished a beer, we'd walk down an alley and throw it away, then grab another one out of the other person's backpack. It's just a great way to travel and talk. There was tons of snow everywhere, and it was really pretty, which reminds me, dress warmly. We each had one glove (for opening cans) and one mitten. We were so warm and happy. Also scotch is a good choice for warmth.

About 3 beers in, we ran into some drunk high school friends of ours, who were walking to a party about a mile away. We took this as a sign and traveled with them on their merry way. We weren't sure how cool this party would be, so we developed ridiculous exit cues. If I wanted to leave, I would ask Jeff if he saw that broken glass outside. If he also wanted to leave, he would say "Yeah, that looked really dangerous" and if not he would say "Nah, it was probably just ice."
If Jeff wanted to leave, he would ask "Hey Todd, have you caught a wild Bidoof (Pokemon Pearl) yet?" If I wanted to leave, "Yeah, it's level 10 already," if not "No, still working on it. Gotta level up some more." If we decided we both wanted to leave we would sneak out at the next gap in conversation. Too bad we never used them.

So we got to this party and had a stereotypically fun New Year's, with lots of substance abuse, regrettable decisions, and long-time-no-sees. Then it was time for a walk home in the cold with this kid I always had assumed hated me, but through some miscommunication, he always thought I hated him. So we patched that shit up, and now we're basically friends. Which is what new year's is all about.

Also, I leave for Carleton tomorrow, so my posts will probably become more sporadic depending on my workload/alcohol intake. Stay tuned though. The fun does not stop here.