2003-02-11 - 4:14 p.m.

OK. Yes. Then. Stat. Sauce. Here. Pepper. Ready? Yes. It's been a while. There was all the amazement over two entries in three days and then BOOM, barren wasteland. With the tumbleweeds and such. Have no fear, Underdog . . . well, he's on his way, he's running late - so he's not quite here. But he will be.

I actually started this entry on Thursday morning, as it was supposed to go up in time for my gala 300th Day of having Stuff & Things. [Yes Monique, I know I just wrote 'gala'.] Obviously, that didn't work out. But so not to waste what I did write, I will start off this splendiferous entry by posting the beginning of . . . THE LOST ENTRY. Ok, well, it wasn't really "lost". I mean, I had a copy of it saved on the computer all along. It just sounds more mysterious and full of candy that way. I like candy.

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Thursday - 02/06/03

From the heart of darkness I write this entry on the 300th Day of Stuff & Things. And by heart of darkness I mean the back room at the Wallakers. Puzzle Lady just came in and broke my heart and I think I�m gonna just drink myself blind in order to get over it. But seriously, here we are. The First Annual Montgomery Burns Awards For Outstanding Achievement In The Field Of Excellence. We have a lot to cover . . . but not really, so let�s get a move on . . .

Before I forget: How I Became Bionic. Well, firstly, my trick knee. It appears it�s not so tricky anymore. At least pulling-rabbits-out-it�s-hat kind of tricky. My left knee hurts like a motherfucker. I can just be standing behind the counter at work and all of a sudden I feel the bone in my knee shift and I shrink about 3 inches as my leg collapses on itself and I let out a blood-curdling scream and crumple to the floor in a bloody pile of broken bone shards. And this happens like 5 to 6 times a day. Sweet. My other knee, who I refer to as �the good knee�, or just simply, �Gerard�, has now met a fate similar to his brother. I smashed him into this metal bar on one of my professor�s desks. How? I was just standing there waiting to talk to her and my knee had this weird spasm and shot out from my leg at like 60 mph and *SKRAK* my kneecap shattered. So as it was I hobbling around like my grandmother looking to fit you in the right size Levi�s. Then, the other night, as I was gallumphing up the stairs with the grace of a rhino I whacked my elbow into the big wooden knobby thing that sits at the top of the stair railing. And it cut me in the process. And I began to bleed. Seriously. I haven�t seen this much bleeding since . . . nevermind, I�m not gonna finish that joke. But anyway, the moral of the story is, I now hobble around like even more of an old man than I already was. And the worst part is, I didn�t even get any bionic body parts. I wish I did. Then I could be part of The Bionic Six. Well, I guess they�d have to be the Bionic Seven. Man, they were so fucking cool. Scarab was always trying to mess with them but it never worked. Purple Monkey always came to save his bacon. Ok, ok - Purple Monkey wasn't associated with The Bionic Six at all whatsoever. But for all of you that will get that joke ("all of you" = Rick) it was worth it. Scarab was so fucking gross to look at. He was like a Math Teacher who gorged on lard and got drunk with power. Wait, I just described every Math Teacher that has ever been. But Madame O, mmmm, let me look under that mask, mmmm, mmmm, mmmm! I�m so stupid.

[Man, Mother One was H-O-T. Well, I mean, her only competition was Meg, ahem, �Rock - 1�. So I mean, come on, I�d take Scarab over the walking crab bag that is Meg.]

Seriously, it�s 5 hours since I wrote the above paragraphs. In that time, Andrea, Kate, and I managed to have a Moe�s Party, a water fight, a Dotty sponsored tongue bath (ok, that was just Kate) and THREE trips to McDonald�s. But only on one of those trips to McDonald�s did I actually get something for me. Mmmmm, coffee shake. Anyway, my shirt is wet (thanks to Kate), the back of Kate�s knees are wet (thanks to me), and one of my comics is wet (thanks to Andrea). So you know. That�s fun. And yes, Andrea is still living. Surprisingly. She owns that comic now. Seriously, the three of us must not be getting enough oxygen. Or as Kate keeps claiming, �I think it�s all that Salami.�

Ok, so now it�s 2 hours since I wrote the Salami paragraph. And what, dear reader, happened in those two hours?! Well - quite a surprise indeed! A blast from the Wallakers past, none other than Megan Taft came breezing on into town!

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And that was that. Megan Taft did indeed breeze into town, and just as quickly breezed back out. I must remember to e-mail Megan Broadhurst and inform her of these going-ons. As well as give her Taft's e-mail address. Megan, not William Howard. Ha. Megan almost fainted dead away when I told her of the license and the Jeep and such stories of Drivey McAllOnMyOwnerson. It was nice to see Megan had not succumbed to the wilds of Maine as had been reported. For that . . . we should be thankful. So yeah . . . Megan Taft. That was cool. And Catherine, if you're reading this, that makes Taft the new cool kid, and you can't have that can you? I didn't think so.

Had some weird ass dreams lately. And for me, that's saying something. Nothing is more interesting to yourself and more paintdryingly boring to others than the telling of dreams. But I don't care - it's my Online Journal, not, you know, somebody else's. Man, I have to work on my wit here. I think Wallakers is dulling it down so it won't even be able to cut butter in an emergency. And you know, those situations . . . they arise a lot. Anyway, the dream. Serene and I are stealing bootleg Monopoly games out of The Dunn's house on Elm Street and selling them to kids under the bleachers at MMS. And when we're done, I go to drive home and I realize I'm drunk. And I was so scared because I didn't want to get pulled over. And I kept falling asleep at the wheel. Scary huh? Then there was some stuff about water-skiing, and paddleboats, but that's not important. My second dream, I'm gonna need to give you a little back story on. I'm pretty limited as to what I can drink. It's true. Soda makes me sick sick sick, and beer isn't always the best choice between classes or at work. And I can only drink so much water before I feel as bloated as Tracey Lundgren on Prom Night. And I can't have pretty much any fruit juice, gatorade, those cool Snapple flavor's that we all fell in love with that crazy hazy summer, or any such fructosey beverage. Why? Well, if you've ever known me for more than 4 minutes, than you know it's because {all together now}: it makes my face hot. So yeah. So I'm at the grocery store the other night. It was pretty wild. It was like a foam party without the foam. Anyway, I get to the drinky drink aisle, and like usual, I gaze wistfully at all the drinks I used to imbibe on a regular basis. "Hello Juicy Juice. You're looking well." "How's the fam' Mott's Apple Juice?" "Thanks for the venereal disease Clamato." You know, the usual. When what should I see with my thirsty little blue/green eyes? A delightful concoction called V8 Splash: Strawberry Banana! Now, I'm a little wary of the ol' V8 simply due to the fact that ol' Benny Boy loves the shit. If that kid could drink only one thing for the rest of his life, it'd be tomato juice. I know. Fucking gross. Tomato soup. Mmmmmm. Tomato Juice? Ne mmmmmm pas. So I checked out the ingredients and there were no tomatoes in sight. So I bought it. And long story short [too late!] I brought it home and I loved it. Seriously, I have a crush on this splashy juxtaposition of Strawberry and Banana bliss. I love it so much that I don't want to drink it. Because then it would be gone. It's not a Jamaican Splash, but those are really two beverages on two opposite ends of the thirst quenching spectrum now aren't they? Which brings me to my dream. I was at this birthday party for some little kid and there were all these mothers there. All of a sudden some kid walks by me with a dixie cup filled with some thick pink juice. "Where the fuck did you get that?!" I politely asked him. "My mom." he says. And I say, "You better hope that's fucking Pepto Bismol, because if that's my Strawberry Banana shit I'm gonna lose my fucking shit." And he says, "It's yummy. My mom is handing it out." And for real, I start shaking. I clear my throat and as I do one of the mothers grabs my arm and says, "No Zach. Please. Please don't do it." And I apologize to her and go ahead and say, "Excuse me! Everyone. Can I have your attention. A woman named Jennifer is handing out all of my V8 Splash Strawberry Banana like she fucking owns it. She does not. And I'm really fucking pissed off about it." And the crowd goes fucking nuts. In a good way. They all start cheering and clapping and telling me, "Congratulations" and shit. I don't know. I didn't get my drink back. I was pissed. Fucked up dreams.

"I fuckin' rock. I'm the Maura Tierney of fruit drinks!"

"Sigh, I suppose that makes us the Kirstie Alleys' of fruit drinks?"

"Indeed it do. Indeed it do."

Did I ever mention that two weekends ago I went to the infamous Barley Pub with the original Katzenjammer Kids, Alex and Lisa Crawshaw? Well, I did. Two friends of Lisa's -Cassie and Leah if I remember correctly- Alex and I sat in front of the band and played cards for a few hours. And then I bravely drove home in the snow. It was fun. And especially refreshing to not almost be thrown out for the drunken antics of Rich and Ben.

We've been studying the imparfait in French and I can't help but think of the plus que parfait form. Which quite obviously leads me to how we'd torture Madame in high school. Every time we went over the different conjugations, invariably Monique, Rick or I would raise our hand and ask Madame how does one conjugate avoir in the peanut buster parfait form. And we'd always get a stern look. Maybe a "See me, {heart} Mme." on our next homework (whilst Rachel got a "C'est Superb!" on hers). See the funny part about what I just related about the parfaits and whatnot is that I knowingly excised McKeen from that recollection. I knew when I started talking about Mme. and prankery that McKeen's name would pop up. And I know for a fact that McKeen would often ask Madame about the peanut buster parfait. But see, I took an exacto knife to history and I cut him out. Snip, Snip to borrow a phrase from Frazierfur. Of course, now I've gone and undercut my whole goal, that of not bringing up McKeen. But I just wanted to illustrate a point. If one remembers an omelet as a turtle long enough, eventually that omelet will turn into a turtle. It's weird (now that I've opened these worms, I find the need to pontificate for a moment), McKeen dropped out of life for a good while . . . well, let me check with my associate . . . FOUR years ago next month. Hard to believe, but true. He would pop up from time to time with tales of evangelical enlightenment, drug tales, new jobs, splitting railroads, taming the sea, and various tall tales. The odd thing is, love him or hate him, (and I can't picture many people in the former category) almost everyone knew him. Had some connection to him, no matter how small. And almost everyone I know has approached me at one time or another over the last four years with a "McKeen story". Did I hear he worked at such and such a place? He was badmouthing Monique. He says he misses being friends with Rick. He found God. He likes the color orange. He thinks Lanigan has the fashion sense of a squished caterpillar. A whole laundry list. But for all the Rachels, and Jeffs, and Jimbos, and Moniques, and Nannys and Aunt Lindas that have had their individual run-ins with him, he's never run into me. I am honest-to-God curious what he would say to me if he saw me. Not many people have claimed I am an agent of the Devil. Personally, I take pride in the fact that someone could think so much of me. I think I'm going to make it my February resolution to try to run into McKeen before the end of the year. I'd really like to see what he has to say for himself, and to me. I mean, I not dumb. I know he is surely still a lying, spying, crying weasel, but I'm still curious to what extent he is still a weasel. And to see if he really had that paper route. But who knows, I'll probably change my mind tomorrow. Besides, there's actual friends I'd rather see first. P. D. Farmer leading that list, with Rodney Carter a close second. I will say this though - he put the chalk in Madame's erasers during the fire drill and that will always make me laugh. Laugh especially hard seeing as I was the one that happened to mention to Madame who the culprit of such a nefarious deed was. Ain't I a stinker?

Je n'adore pas Sirloin, Supernova, Basketball la tete, et Dumpster Dog!"

THAAAAT was Chris McNeil!

Good lord, have I accomplished in writing plenty of nothing yet? I think about McLaughlin every day and wonder how he is. I have his address, well the address he gave me that we need to write to if we want a letter to find him. I need to get on that. If I was in hell, I'd want a letter.

I'm cold. I have homework. Blech. Oh wait. It's all over and I forgot to talk about the Staff Meeting that we didn't get in trouble at, or how Kelly, Liz, Abby, Ben, Marco, etc. all went up for a super awesome wicked fun time ski weekend to Sunday River this past weekend while I rotted in Rollinsford and the Wallakers. Roy and I shared a good cry over that one. I will mention that I want to marry Alias, and MT can sing Afternoon Delight all she wants, I still love her. And seriously, I know Tim Curtis will damn me to the depths of hell, but people, are you watching RW/RR Challenge? Melissa is HOT. I'm sorry. I admit I may be straying off of the Ellen path a bit (especially after a heavily hyped ass kicking never came to pass) but I find Melissa to be highly attractive suddenly . . . or not so suddenly. People - Simpsons Season 3 on DVD in May, Family Guy in April. And for the love of God people, don't forget, it was Jim's birthday yesterday. Oops, too late.

It's been real,

Simon Bar Sinister

ps - People, here's the deal. I can't afford to keep feeding all these Iberian orphans if you don't sign up for the Notify List in the Upper Left hand corner of this screen. Just sign up. It's free, and not only do you get notification of a new entry as soon as it goes live, but you get some extra special messages of wonderment not found in the entry from me! Me! And if you send in 3 UPC's you get a baking soda powered diving submarine! Hooray! So you know, do it. Sign up for the fucking Notify List. Or I start killing the orphans.

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