Author: Miles Rausch

We’ve all done things that we are ashamed of. Most of these things happened in our past (I will let you think about that one). There are some things, though, that no matter how young you are, they are simply not acceptable.

Since I dont know all that much about a majority of peoples childhoods, I will have to do my own. This may be a long post, since I have done a lot of dumb things, ESPECIALLY as a kid.

I was born in the 80s. This isnt something to be overly proud of (case in point : Flock of Seagulls haircut) but it is something that we need to deal with. Starting now.

… you know what? I don’t know where I’m going with this. I apologize to those who read for my lack of content. This was due largely to not having anything funny to say and being to busy to pretend that I do. This was actually a post I started a long long time ago, but never finished.

Now that I look at it, I had no idea where I was going with this. I think I was going to highlight dumb things I’ve done. Perhaps it was a thinly veiled insult in search of sympathy, but if it was, I’ve given up on that sort of cheap self-esteem tetanus shot. Instead I will post my schedule. Because it’s different.

In the code this table looks double spaced. Why? Because I love whitespace. Did you ever wonder what the “B” in Susan B. Anthony stood for? It stands for Bitchin’. Thank you Brendon Small. Thank you.

drawn tight she lifted her bag and slung it over her shoulder. she looked around the terminal. this was hot it was every business trip every day. there seemed to be an answer. it was a nice bag. she loved it. he had given it to her, but she didn’t love it for that reason. it was the colors. they didn’t scream at her.

too many people too many places and all nonsense. walk with attitude and you will not get in any trouble ? the terminal was crowded with everything. bright as it was, sometimes her love wasn’t enough. it wasn’t anything. it was crazy, stupid, and gone in this terrible rush of things – with book, cd player, and other stuff.

she summed everything up in sighs now. like it was too much effort to talk out loud, she guessed. in her bag was her poem. in her poem was her love. it was too bad that he would never read it. it was, her life, bittersweet. if not exactly, then at least a suggestion to hold onto.

wasn’t this where they met ?

Download it at deviantART.

Well, college has begun again. With the onslaught of books and knowledge comes the onslaught of vomit and alcohol. It’s monsoon season. You can pick out what houses have parties going and which houses are actual people (not college students).

What if you don’t drink? A party is little fun if you are the only one sober and standing upright. What hope is there for people in AA? The drunks have their hand stands, their beer bongs, their lemon slices, their kegs, their tubes, their funnels, and their games.

Drinking games are a mystery among partygoers. Who came up with the first drinking game? Was it a person who was, indeed, drinking? Or did his sober friend, who wanted to mess him up quicker, come up with the idea, rules, and penalties? It is hard to believe the complexity of some of these games. Sober people couldn’t get this stuff right.

I have decided to cater to the minority. Are you a non-drinker but find yourself at parties anyway? Are you constantly pressured into playing their evil Satanic games? Then suggest your own drinking game.

How about a TV Show game? Try out “Gilligan’s Island.”

• Get your friends
• Get some alcohol (like beer or hooch)
• Turn the TV to ‘Gilligan’s Island’ (usually on Nick At Night)
• Drink whenever they get off the island!

Holy crap! I’m drunk just thinking about that game!

How about a musical version? Try the “Good Music, Bad Liver” game.

• Get your friends
• Get some alcohol (like whisky or vodka)
• Turn on the radio to the hottest pop station you can handle
• Drink whenever they play a good song!

That game was music to my ears!

Do you like to spell? Try “Alpha-better-get-out-of-the-way-I’m-gonna-hurl”.

• Get your friends (why haven’t you done this yet?)
• Get some alcohol (like brandy or gin)
• Get out a listing of the Alphabet

Um… that game needs work, yet.

Are you afraid about what your stuffy, old Roman-born religion has to say about what you do in your own home? Try “Massed Up” next Sunday.

• Get your friends and their parents
• You don’t even need your own alcohol
• Get up to the front of church
• Drink whenever the priest or Eucharistic minister says ‘Blood of Christ’!

Mmmm. Our Savior never tasted so refreshing. Get back in line for more!

There is even a drinking game for specific people!

• Get your rowdy friends on a Thursday night
• Get your alcohol (anything you care to swallow)
• Sit around Zimmermann hall
• Drink whenever you are Brian Rand!
• Optional: Destroy property!

Oh, boy. What fun! Now you can enjoy those parties just like a real lush. And if these don’t work, just leave. Then come back with the cops. You’ll never have to worry about those friends again.

Word of the Day for Monday September 8, 2003

defenestrate \dee-FEN-uh-strayt\, transitive verb:

Highlight for the answer –> To throw out of a window.

There is an angry lady who lives on the way back from China Moon. She seems to have the quintessential “attitude problem”, if you can’t my meaning. She seems to automatically hate people who walk on her sidewalk, with little reason.

My first run in with this wonderful harbinger of ill will was on the way to China Moon. I was with my brother, Bryce, Tony Rolfes, Heather, Chris, and the three girls. The old lady’s house is next to a crick of the saddest execution. Lining her side of the guard rail is a rock bed and a few flowers. Bryce, Brigid, and I had stopped to watch the sad little stream. The lady thought that Brigid was standing on one of her flowers and began to yell at the three year old child. So, I pulled Brigid up onto the sidewalk and apologized.

The lady kept yelling. She started to say, “If her parents had taught her any manners…” Then Heather starts yelling, and Chris starts yelling. Brigid gets upset and asks me to hold her. The lady, faced with a sudden onslaught of parental instinct, retracted her statement. She now claimed that she had been yelling at Bryce.

Heather yelled something at the lady. The lady yelled back, “Why don’t you come here and say that?” My heart dropped. That’s the last thing you say to Heather. Luckily no blood was shed and no further angry words were spilt. We walked to Chinese and walked back another route.

Well, you might think what I did. I thought, “Maybe she was having a bad day and maybe the flowers are all she has because she’s barren and angry at God.” I had no way to validate this belief, though, until Brenna, my cousin, came to Madison.

We had gone to China Moon sans accident. As we were leaving, Brenna grabbed me a cookie. It had coconut in it. Thanks, but no thanks, I don’t like coconut. So, when we reached aforementioned crick, I tossed the cookie. The antagonizing old lady happened to be sitting watch for said aquatic mediocrity.

She began to yell at me for tossing trash into it. It was just a cookie. Cookies dissolve, if correctly baked. Brenna came to my rescue and began to verbally spar with her. The best about this was that we just kept walking the whole time. We didn’t stop and confront her. She was just an obstacle on the way. I didn’t say a word to her, being confused by her constant hateful behavior and her apparent inability to be amiable.

It was from that day on that I’ve walked by that house every chance I get. Why, you ask? I want to confront this lady. I want to shatter her and see her core. I want to know why she’s always player hating. I have long had time to fantasize about such a meeting of minds. I would imagine it to go something like this.

I (AN) would be walking back from China Moon, probably alone, and said Mistress of Miff (MM) would be out of doors.

MM: You college students. Drunks and amorals! All of you!

AN: (just stares at her through sunglasses)

MM: Get away from my house! I don’t want to have to call the cops.

AN: (removes sunglasses) Your flowers are all dying, Madam, for flowers require love which you seem to have not.

MM: What?

AN: Need I repeat my biddings?

MM: (taken aback) You are drunk, aren’t you?

AN: Nay, Madam. Presently neither drink nor smoke am I affected by.

MM: Well… only a drunk would say that. Get off my sidewalk.

AN: Thou has words red in anger. Pray tell, why for such a predisposition?

MM: That is none of your business. And quit talking like that!

AN: Speaking such belies a mistrust of such babble. Or is it an unfamiliarity of language?

MM: Are you calling me stupid?

AN: Nay! Said I the words ‘stupid’ or ‘idiot’ or ‘imbecile’? Thou must be an author to put such words in myne mouth.

MM: Look, I’m barren and that’s why I’m bitter because I’m angry at God.

AN: That’s what I thought. Good day and get happy or get lost.

And it would be that easy! Maybe her dialogue was a little contrived at times. And maybe I wouldn’t exactly talk like that, but it remains the same that I would rule her.

It appears, however, I won’t be able to walk that way with lucid dreams of such confrontation. Jeff said that it appears that she’s leaving. Indeed, on my way back from China Moon today, alone, I saw a large assortment of trash bags and boxes on the curb. Could this be the end of her reign of terror? One can hope. I hope she leaves her flowers.

I’m not afraid to say that I’m a Potter Fan. I’m a Bolt Head. I’m a muggle, but my loves goes to Harry. I remember my first Harry experience. My cousin, Molly, was head over heels for the little magic maker, and she insisted that I read his books.

I wasn’t sure I wanted to be seen reading a Harry Potter book around High School, so I compromised. I bought the audio tape and listened to it in my Walkman (yes, I do own one of those) and pretended to be rocking out to Billy Joel instead.

“Some lovers just a hide up their hearts…”

I, too, fell head over heels. Since then I’ve read every book instead of listen to. I feel a bit sheepish at the compromise I’d made now. That is why my latest news is so exciting.

I happen to have an advance copy of Chapter One of the newest Harry Potter book. This is hot and new. Still in development, even this chapter is more of an idea of what the final is going to be. It’s terribly small and there is, as yet, no title for the book decided on.

I feel it is my duty to share this manuscript with my loyal readers. I hope you enjoy this somewhat edited version that I have typed out here for your perusal. Enjoy.

…

By J.K. Rowling

It was dark. It’s always dark. There was Mr. Dursely, Harry’s uncle, prattling on and on downstairs. Harry didn’t care anymore. Harry wasn’t there for anyone. Harry existed on the brink of everything these f@#$ing people understood. Bloody squatters.

“Harry. Come down here please,” croaked Mr. Dursely.

“I think I’ll stay where I am, thank you.” Harry was lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He had placed there a poster of the latest pop star in the Magic realm. Her name was Britney Spells. The Dursleys had not much liked the poster, for how racy an image it was, but they didn’t protest much when Harry pulled a knife on them.

Harry rolled to his side. There didn’t seem to be much point in staying here or in going back to Hogwarts. There didn’t seem much point in anything anymore. The Dursleys let him get his regular owl mail, but he didn’t bother responding to most of the mail he got. It seemed that everyone else was getting on rather fine. Why did they need him?

All he seemed to do was bring darkness. Lord Voldermort had simply followed him step by step. All his time and energy was put into stopping Voldermort one more time. Just one more time, Harry, they said. Just one more time.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t. This was too much f@#$ing pressure. They didn’t understand the s#$% he saw in his dreams. They didn’t understand that he had nightmares so terrible that he woke up sweating blood. He couldn’t tell them, either, because they would only feel sorry for him.

He didn’t want that. God, he didn’t want that.

Harry got up soundlessly and walked into the bathroom. He closed the door as quietly as he could and stared at himself in the mirror. This was it, he thought. This was an end to a horrible thing, he told himself.

He ran the faucet and let the cold water wash over his wrists. God. He hadn’t seen his eyes for a long long time. They looked worn and old. He looked dead, for Ch#$%’s sake. It was fitting enough, to look dead.

“This will be the greatest thing I’ve ever done,” was the last thing he said.

…

Boy was that funny or what?! That J.K. Rowling gets me every time! I can’t wait until the book is completed. That having been said, I can’t hold onto this forever. It’ll be a short time and I’ll be selling this on eBay so I can buy crack. But remember, I gave it to you guys for free.

Baby, I’m sorry. You know I love you. Remember how I, uh, said I would write to you… and I didn’t? And remember how I – er – kinda gave you the cold shoulder… for a week and a half? I’m really sorry about that. To show you how much I love you, I wrote you a poem:

You are the best ever
I will love you forever
I need you like air
If you get hurt, I care
I didn’t ignore you on purpose
But a giant monster was going to slurp us
So I punched him in the face
And then we had to race
And I ran back to you
Because, Baby, I love you

The remedial english teacher says that’s the best poem I could have possibly written “whilst intoxicated.” Whatever that means. I totally wrote this poem drunk! What an idiot!

Ok, folks. Seriously, though. This is my schedule this year.

Times are given in Military Time because that’s the way I like it “sometimes”. I’m not for sure on the club meeting times. Senate got changed from last year, Band got mixed up, Drama club… well – Quinn is the president. We shall see how things all end up. I am still working out Tutoring scheduling. I have to meet with Terry Ryan about it yet. That will happen today sometime, I imagine.

Ok. Now, I’m going to go to class and when I come back I will dazzle you with the hilarity once can have one’s first day of classes for a new year.

This, ladies and germs, was a blast from the past. I took two years of Spanish in High School, so this may mostly be a refresher. The decorations, the language, brought back memories of Spanish in Mrs. Strege’s class.

Then I looked around the class. Sitting in my class was Kelly Torchia (tore-sha) and Amanda Sweeney, n�e Nowick. Both of these girls were in my high school at the same time I was and both of them were in classes with me. In fact, I think Kelly was even IN my Spanish class.

Too, weird. To add to the nostalgia, the grading scale that Lynn uses is identical to the one that Milbank High School used. It’s the one where you need a 93 to get an ‘A’. The first day was easy enough. Homework is going to kill me, though. For tomorrow I have to learn how to trill my ‘r’. How the hell am I going to do that?? Maybe if I can trill a ‘q’ instead, she’ll let me off.

Same room as last year and largely the same people. A new addition to the class was a guy we call Mel. Mel was in one of my classes before and is a part of the larger cliche that I semi-belong to. So, I know Mel. I know that he was in my Calc II class for about a month before he dropped out of it. So, I thought, this should be interesting.

Indra passes out some literature. The class was fairly boring except for the things that Indra says. From time to time, he’s hilarious without knowing why. Some of the things he said today were definately gems. Last year we had a box that we put money into. I’m not actually sure where the money went to at all. This year, however, there is no money box. There is a “suggestion box.” If you want to gripe about Physics or Indra or DSU or America or God or anything, you can put it in the box and don’t sign your name. If you want to tell Indra what a good teacher he is, sign your name.

His joke for the day was, “NASA. You know what those letters stand for?” One student answers with “National Aeronautic Space Adminitration” but is told this is wrong. The answer is, “Needs Another Seven Astronauts”. There were only groans and murmurrs.

He said that we will have a pizza party at the end of the year. We had one last year (that is also when we got awards) but I think we had to pay for it. This year it will be all on him, but we will have to help him out. It will be at a different “venue” than the Physics room. It looks as though it might not pan out as well we would like. It turns out it’s BYOB. Which means “Bring Your Own Pi-zza…”

Math Modeling is a scary class because there is no assigned reading. The reason for this is because it’s an expensive book, his notes are really what the evalutations are over, and the book is out of print. Oh God. This is also with a professor who is notorious for being difficult.

Sitting in the same row as Jeff and I is Mel. Mel may well become a character on Awayken if he keeps his behavior up. Turns out that Math Modeling encompasses everything in the bloody world. So he was giving us examples of systems modeling problems. One of them is Old Faithful. He alluded to that commercial where they put that stuff in Old Faithful to keep it regular.

“What’s that stuff?” He said. There was silence. Then, a voice from my right says, “Metamucil.” Apparently Mel has some reason to remember that. I think everyone in the room turned and looked at him. Class ended (a bit past the amount of time) and we all left. Mel followed Jeff and I right into the next class.

Final class for the day. This one is by Dr Avery. He doesn’t wait for the second day before he lectures. He waits for everyone to walk in, then he launches. He spent a great deal of time telling us that this isn’t an Analysis course. See, it says “analysis” but it means “methods”. Then he showed us what we should already know if this was an analysis class. None of us knew that. So, it’s a methods class. Then he started lecturing, telling us the things that he would show us if this was an analysis course (which it wasn’t) and then showing us anyway.

In this class, Mel made a large racket when he put his shoes up on a chair and they slid off and hit the ground instead. Is this kid a dork or just a bit clumsy? We shall see.

It’s hoping that tomorrow will be a good day, too. So far this one is rounding out. I have some homework to do (*sigh*) but I shant let it damper my mood. Listen to Jezza, if you know him, and now I have to go watch Carl win pizza for a year.

I shouldn’t be angry, but I am, in a way. This weekend I attended the annual DSU Student Senate retreat. Besides a lot of drinking, there was a lot of decision making going on. Some of that came into my camp.

I was asked if I would write up a “jazzy” version of the minutes for the paper. Sure, I said, no problem. The deadline is Monday the 25th. That gave me a short amount of time to write something up, but I did it.

I was proud of what I had. I don’t know if it was terribly funny, but it gave people a realistic look at the Student Senate, with some humour thrown in, and it also gave people a chance to see that we do something.

As far as the retreat went, we didn’t do much. So, I wrote that. I was honest in my writing and kept my hyperboles to a safe distance from the truth. I sent it off to Eric (the president) and Sarah (the vice president) right away. Sarah replied back to me with suggestions for making it better.

I have come to realize that I am not a politician. I should have, if I was a freedom fighter, sent off the original to the paper. But I folded and made her exact changes. I shouldn’t be angry, but I am, in a way. Below is what I wrote. In bold is the text she asked me to delete and in italics is the text she asked me to add.

Hi. My name is Miles Rausch. I am a member of the Student Senate here at DSU. The Student Senate is a collection of students charged with being the voice of the populace. This means more than just being loud and hard to understand. This means having meetings. We have one meeting a week, usually on Wednesday, almost every week a month for every month of the school year. That’s like twelve meetings a year!

Having so many meetings during the year gives the populace (for which we are speaking) a chance to see us in hot legislative action. Rarr. The turnout for meetings is relatively poor (given how many of you there are). My duty with the senate is as the Administrative Assistant. This means I am the secretary, but I get paid for it. So, in an effort to give the senate more visibility, I am also charged with the duty of sending a “jazzed up” version of the minutes to the paper. This is my first attempt so bear with me.

On August 22, 2003, most of the members of the Student Senate gathered at Terry Ryan’s house on Lake Madison to discuss ideas for the new year. We do this because we usually get so behind on our ideas that at least we can say we had good intentions and an early start. I bet SAB doesn’t have an End Of The Summer Super Fun Pre-Planning Retreat like we do. I’m not drawing any conclusions, I’m just saying.

Our first item of business was eating. Terry had two charcoal grills flaming hot for us when we got there. I missed out on a lot of this since I hadn’t realized that my steak should have probably been defrosted BEFORE it was time to cook it. I spent a lot of time in front of the microwave. We ate, we drank, and we finally sat down to start the meeting. The meeting usually starts with me marking down those people who were too lazy to show up. If this was a sport, they’d be running laps during the first meeting. If I had my way…

The first interesting topic we discussed was managing traffic for Dorm Bloat 2003. Eric Saugstad, the president, said, “Okay, we need teams of two people to watch the different major areas. One group will watch the Emry/Richardson Parking Lot and the other will watch the Higbie/Zimmermann Parking Lot. It’s only about two hours a day for Sunday and Monday. Who wants to do it?”

Silence. The meetings never get quieter than after Eric asks who wants to volunteer. We sat there for several minutes listening to the crickets. Then even the crickets got uncomfortable, and all we heard was the lake. After some time we tricked people into raising their hands, myself included, by using something called a ‘guilt trip’. The conscience is a wonderful tool in the hand of those who wish to misuse it.

Next, Kayla Ratcliffe was asked to talk about the Homecoming Bonfire. Last year Kayla had organized a bonfire for Homecoming week. She had a location, wood, and even fire. The only thing Kayla hadn’t gotten was permission. Oops. This year is a different story. This year it’s going to happen. If it doesn’t, I would suggest that everyone avoid Kayla for the first month of school while she her rage ebbs away. She’s not one to reckon with.

A big topic of the night was “tradition”. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the student population is a big fan of apathy. Hopefully the apathy bug waits until after registration to strike, but one can never tell. In an effort to curb the epidemic, the Student Senate has decided to try a campaign for instilling traditions. Don’t laugh. You’ll thank us when your kids start staying at college instead of wasting your money, food, and shelter.

It’s hard to create traditions, though. It is thought that a tradition that people get into will bring them all closer together, but, what that tradition is, we don’t know. Chances are it won’t involve illegal activity, though. I know I heard groans, but there is really no way around it.

One idea that has been put into effect is “Freshmen Adoption”. Various organizations around campus are being given lists of freshman. For the senate, every person gets 5 freshmen. The idea is that, within the first couple weeks of school, we meet with these students. We talk to them, welcome them, and tell them why we’re involved in things around campus. The real benefit of this is we now have five freshmen indentured servants. We were all very excited about this prospect, and we recessed the meeting (it being very dark and me being very unable to see what I was writing anymore) with plans of just what we were going to do with our freshmen.

After a long night, most of which no one remembers, we reconvened about twelve hours later. The group was considerably less excited and talkative than it had been the night before. Go figure.

Exciting topic number one was the Certificate of Merit. This is an institutional pat on the head for clubs around campus. You do nice things for the community and students, and you get a plaque. It’s a quasi-Pavlovian way of getting people to help out the community “just cuz”. I’m not sure it works that way, most of the time, but it does get us involved. Who cares that greed and esteem are our motivators and not good will? There were eventually a lot of ideas, but I can’t tell you what they were until they are declassified. Sorry, my hands are tied.

Exciting topic number two was WebCT. Have you heard of this? It is responsible for quite the uproar around DSU recently. It’s an all-in-one package for grade books, online quizzes, and general mayhem. Despite an outcry from faculty, the Board of Regents has gone ahead and mandated a change over to WebCT. One professor told me that, thanks to his four classes, he has four web pages to make, four email addresses to check, four grade books to update, and sixteen message boards to moderate. Some teachers have flat out refused to use it. We’ll see how the change over goes.

The final topic, the big ‘un, was our goals for the year. If you thought last night was quiet, you should have heard the reaction when Eric suggested we each come up with something. Everyone was antsy to leave. We had just eaten pizza, and now everyone wanted to sleep. We did manage to squeeze out a nice list of ideas (and a larger list of “I don’t know”) before Eric gave up. We did come up with quite a few good ideas, like more student involvement with campus activities, and plans are forming about the possibility of a radio station on campus. Anyone want to be involved? Become a DJ? We�ll see if this idea flies.

When everyone began getting up off the grass in front of Lake Madison and collecting their bags, Eric decided the retreat was over. With a formal motion to adjournment at 1:18 pm, we helped Terry put things back the way they were before we started relaxing all over his property.

As we drove away from the Ryan residence (skillfully hid in a location no human could ever find), I paused to reflect. They wanted a write up of the minutes for the first edition. Then I realized that the first edition deadline was Monday. Well, I guess that doesn’t leave me enough time to write a conclusion, does it? Maybe next time, folks. Keep your eyes peeled for more from “The Minute Waltz.”

Aqua Teen Hunger Force is Back and Ready to Annoy
Master Shake, Frylock, Meatwad and Carl Return Sunday, August 31, at 11:45 p.m. (ET, PT)

Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the animated comedy about three human-sized food products that live together in a rental house in New Jersey, returns to Adult Swim on Sunday, August 31, with a new season of peculiar adventures. New episodes will air every Sunday night in September at 11:45 p.m. (ET, PT). Sometimes the members of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force solve crimes. More often, they bicker and hang out in their neighbor Carl�s above-ground swimming pool.

Master Shake, the self-appointed team leader, has a big mouth, a short attention span and no work ethic. Frylock, the only reasonable member of the group, is a box of french-fried potatoes with mystical powers. Meatwad, a round mound of meat, completes the squad. He is talented, too: at any given moment, Meatwad can take the shape of a hot dog or an igloo.

Sunday, August 31: �Super Sirloin�- At the request of a rapper named Sir Loin, Meatwad collects food and garbage for a very dubious hunger drive.

Sunday, September 7: �Super Squatter�- Frylock tries to teach Shake a lesson about responsibility by making him pay the bills. Shake decides he’d rather move in with Carl.

Sunday, September 14: �The Meat Zone�- Meatwad acquires an amazing ability to see the future. Shake immediately tries to cash in on it.

Sunday, September 21: �Super Trivia�- Frylock drags Meat, Shake and Carl into his insane quest to defeat his arch-nemesis at team trivia, Wayne the Brain.

Sunday, September 28: “Universal Re-Monster”

Jeff Gabhart used to write. He was modest. He wouldn’t come out and say, “I’m a writer,” but he had a blog once. Isn’t that proof enough? I remember sitting for hours, listening to him type out his latest masterpiece. He would turn to me and say, “What word should I put here?” and I would answer, unabashedly, “sexellent, of course”, and he would put whatever word he had been thinking of in the first place.

When he wrote, he loved. He loved the world and its people and especially kittens. Often times he would look longingly at the cat dish he had bought for the dorm room and mournfully ask, “Why don’t we have a kitty? When we get a house, we should have a house kitten.” This isn’t about kittens though, however cute they are.

This is about Jeff and his writing. Rather abruptly Jeff gave up on the blog. He even went so far as to delete the blog entirely, leaving him with nothing left to remind him of what he had loved so much. Soon a forum was implemented where he could still “blog”, so to speak, but the focus was on the others who went to his site.

If you were to ask Jeff in those bruised months why he had suddenly changed over, he would look at the floor, mutter “kittens…”, and quickly change the subject to Weezer before the topic could be pursued. Despite my own repeated attempts to get the truth out of him, I was unable to ascertain anything.

Jeff had, however, changed a great deal. He was nervous and shifty and refused to pick up a book, even for class. He locked the door at all times. We pretended that this was because of Wayner, but the truth is that he had grown alarmingly paranoid. My friend was deteriorating from the inside out.

The worst was yet to come. I had left a note for Jeff saying that I was going to be in the library doing some group studying (email checking and chick ogling) if anyone needed me. Suddenly, while I was talking up this fly sweet honey, Jeff came bursting into the library.

“Jeff, what’s wrong?”

“Get out of the library!!” He grabbed me quite roughly, especially for Jeff. He didn’t manage to move me very far, but I gave in and pretended to be yanked out of the library.

“What the hell was that?”

“Don’t… you can’t – the … library, danger … ous…” He was breathing very heavily. He had obviously run there.

“Well, my bag’s inside, so I’ll go get it, and we can discuss this.”

“NO!! I’ll talk. I’ll… talk.”

And he did. It soon came out. The reason Jeff had stopped writing and reading was the same reason he had tried so desperately to get me out of the library. Jeff had had a run in with the Word Mafia, the Illiterati.

The Word Mafia is responsible for making sure that every word gets fair use. They look out for special words with special interests: transfer, intensify, and quadradical for starters. One of most prized words they watch, however, is “yippie”, a version of “yippy” or “yippee”. Yippie is the Don Corleone of the Word Mafia, and Yippie didn’t like what Jeff had to say anymore.

The violation can be read at Jeff’s old blog’s last entry entitled Webspace – Moving. The text, in its entirety, is below.

Not only did he use the offending word. Not only did he spell it the same exact way. Not only did he lowercase it, but he also exclaimed it. What is the penalty for such a conflagration?

The Word Mafia has long held a tight, iron-like clasp against the literary community. It’s not spoken of loudly but whispered. The Illiterati has broken such gifted spirits as Edgar Allen Poe, Emily Dickinson, and Collin Janes. Recent newcomer to the fall of the bard is Lacey Arneson, long time commenter on Awayken.com (this site you’re reading right now.)

It took a long time to get Jeff calmed down. He made it clear that there were certain surefire signs that the Word Mafia is on your tail.

1. You notice someone following you who always carried a dictionary
2. You wake up to find severed newspaper clippings in your bed
3. A brick comes through your window with a note attached that says “Stick to numbers”
4. An email threatening to put you into a “comma” keeps being sent to you
5. You come back to your room to find everything alphabetized
6. The bookmobile follows you around
7. Some starts shooting hyphens at you
8. And finally they break your legs with textbooks.

With the words off his chest (pun ? or was it ?), he slept much easier that night. I heard no mid-nightmare murmurings of “past participle… not the gerund phrase…”, though they did quite amuse me. I enjoy other people’s pain.

Maybe with the truth out, Jeff can once again restore Lazydesert.net, the blog, to it’s original splendor. Of course, the original splendor needed has some broken links, but that’s easy enough to fix.

Please be responsible, people. This story, too, has an unlikely message. Watch what you write down on paper or the internet. Remember, friends, that talk truly is cheap.

This is an informative post because I am still sick, and right now I am extraordinarily tired, and I don’t feel much like writing. I do not, however, wish to alienate you, my audience.

There is a new addition to the Lazydesert community. It’s called “Snatch.” If you were thinking it has anything to do with the movie, you’re wrong. There is a marked absence of Brad Pitt on the site.

Jeff, or Lazydesert, explained it on his forum, converse.lazydesert.net.

It makes Snatch into a (hopefully) fresh and exciting blog.

It is our duty to find interesting and varied entries to post. Other sites do it with links. We are doing content instead.

Hey – it may be your site that we snatch next.

Posting on the selected person’s site/post shows them that there is benefit to this. Give a little, take a lot.

We might never ask that person to borrow a post, but this is a way we can make connections other ways.

It’s kinda funny, though, that we’re briefing our “audience” on this. “Please go to the Readme section before reading this webpage.”

Check it out. There are two entries thus far : Dischordia @ blog-city.com, halogen rain drop @ deadjournal : but more soon to come.

If you haven’t, sign up for the forum. There are some great conversations going on there (some with myself involved). Best of all, signing up is free (unless you count ridicule).

The kids all thought he was weird. All the old man ever did was sit in his house and look at the window. Kids, you know, can be cruel for no reason. I had been walking around town with a camera and a mindful of ideas. I came across his house the same time they were laughing as the man took pictures of them.

His name was Mr. Avery. I never understood him myself, but I was far from berating an old man’s idiosyncracies. He would walk to his window and take pictures of the outside. His windows were unusual. They were not single panes of glass, but a pane broken into squares.

The kids rode off and I remained. I had been meaning to ask Mr. Avery why he did this for a long time. Today was the day. I walk up the long walkway to his house. His was one of the nicest in the small South Dakota town I’d grown up in. Made of the finest brick and granite, this had been a mansion (respectively) and a smaller house to the south had actually been the servant’s quarters.

I rang the doorbell and stood, waiting, in front of the heavy oaken door. After a nominal pause, the door opened. There he stood, camera slung around his neck, peering at me.

“Yes? Can I help you young man?”

“All I ask is for an answer to a simple question.”

He chuckled. I think he knew what I was going to ask. “Go ahead.”

“Why do you take pictures from inside your house of the outside world?”

“You’ve noticed my windows, haven’t you?” I nodded. “The world seems so much simpler when you divide it into panels. It can be quite … overbearing to take it all in at once. I divide and conquer, so to speak. I trust this answers your question?”

“Yes, Mr. Avery. Good evening.” I headed back down the walkway, and the door shut carefully behind me. Back on the road, I turned to his house, camera in hand, and snapped this picture (complete with blades of grass that belie his lawn grooming techniques). It only seemed fitting when I got home to divide it into panels.

I have to say, I think Mr. Avery is on to something. Too bad not everyone can have their own panels.

Download it at deviantART.