2006-01-30 - 7:20 a.m.

Time to get your crayons and pencils. If you have crayons and pencils that is. Come on, you can't be that poor, can you? Just use the loose ones under thc counter. I know the red one is faded. But pink is better than no red at all, right? Didn't a wise man say that once? Or a shaman? Or a charmin? I don't know. Anyway, if crayons and pencils are good enough for Bill Cosby, they're damn well good enough for me! Yeah . . . I don't know. It's early in the AM. My eyes hurt. Leave me alone.

I was cleaning out my knick-knack drawer, and after I threw out all of those half-used glue sticks and Laconia Centennial pins, I came across a backlog of pictures. And now I'm going to share them with you. Doesn't that sound nice? I thought so. But before we get to all the Picture Pages fun, let me take a moment . . .

Da+yum = Dayum! My new feature, "A Paragraph" really made a splash, now didn't it? Everyone scurrying around wondering if they were the ones lying to me or not. Well, those of you that are in the clear know you're in the clear because I told you so. Which isn't to say you're in the clear if I told you it wasn't about you. See, the lying thing works both ways. Which, that was a stupid thing for me to type - too bad my delete key is broken! But yeah, now you're only all going to ask me again. Or at least ask other people to ask me. Yeah, that is only going to be marginally annoying. Look, it has nothing, I reapeat nothing to do with you, you, (surprisingly enough) you, you, or you. You people can go practice the Time Warp at Leavitt Park confident that it's not about you. Pretty much everybody else is getting put on shout. That's right. I just did it. If I can't threaten people with false actions based on an insane member of Real World: Las Vegas, then really, what do I have left? But seriously, it was mostly you, you, you, and a little bit of you and you, and smidgen of you that I was writing about. Good, we clear now? Besides, I'm not going to make a practice of writing paragraphs about "A Paragraph" in the future, besides, the new one is full of enough superfun to make us all forget the premiere one.

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There's the humungoid Dunkin Donuts empolyee (you can tell from her Dunkin Donuts apparel) that always hangs out at the bus stop in front of the Diamond Mines. She seems nice enough, I suppose. I've never actually talked to her. I only stare at her every afternoon around 2:30, I'm not rude enough to actually TALK to her. I think Little Nick has though. He'll talk to anybody. Anyway, she was sitting her large carcass down on the curb and facing the Mines. And she kept spreading her legs WIDE OPEN. Which was very distracting. As well as fucking hilarious. Luckily, there were two giant snowmobile trailers between us and her so she couldn't tell we were staring. But it looked like the Wicked Witch of the Fat East got crushed by snowmobile trailers and in her last act of fat defiance, spread her mammoth doughy thighs apart to distract drivers into fiery crashes. Or something. Of course, RIGHT as I sneak out to take the picture, she pulls her legs back together. Bitch. Oh well, it's the thought that counts.

TO THE EXTREME!

Oh man. This is a great picture. I got the tingles when I took it I was so excited. Or maybe that was the vapors I'm thinking of. Either way, it's a giant float for The Polar Express. The Polar Express. You know, the children's book and marketing explosion of the same name. And who better to be the Grand Thanksgiving Marshal of the Polar Express? That's right - faded "star" Brian McKnight. I know what you're thinking, "Zach, he's not faded! Don't say that! Don't you dare say that!". And I'm thinking, "Oh really, because I can't even come up with ONE song he sings, let alone FIVE." Hmmmmm. That's what Google is for. Hold on . . . Wow. Google just informed me that I'm the first person since the inception of Search Engines to ever type the words, "Brian McKnight Discography". Good for me. So here are five of his songs: "Let Me Love You", "The Way Love Goes", "Still in Love", "Love of My Life", and "The Way I Do." People, I stand corrected, Brian McKnight was the PERFECT choice to command the evil powers of The Polar Express!

Obviously, another picture from Thanksgiving in NYC. Just my luck - I FINALLY get to meet the fuckin' Ninja Turtles and all I get a pic of is god damned katana-wielding blue LEONARDO and "party animal" nunchucks-flipping orange MICHAELANGELO. Rapheal and Donatello were there but they were probably doing COOL things with their sais and bo and being smart and inventing stuff and making jokes and stuff and stuff. Not being ineffectual leaders and lame ass surfer-wannabees. Like some OTHER turtles I happen to be thinking of. Fucking assholes.

Ohhhhh shit! Now THIS is where it's at. I thought of many different things when I took this picture. Chief among them - wanting to tell Frederick how excited I was to see the real live Hamburgler. Although I knew Fred would then ask if the real live Hamburgler smashed any of my coffee pots together and then ran away. And I would tell him that the real live Hamburgler indeed DID do that. But we'd both know that I was lying. Yeah, yeah - Ronald, Birdie, Grimace - nice. But the real live HAMBURGLER! He's always burgling hams! Or something.

Obviously, another pic from the trip to Brooklyn. I'd love to say that Monique put that gigantic flower in her hair for the picture, or that she was on her way to San Fransisco and was only doing what she was told - but neither of those things are true. She actually had follicle surgery done so that flower is there 24/7. Sure, it looks nice there, but you should see the flower before she's had time to spruce it all up and make it look nice - bad scene. Anyway, this shot was taken right after we called Peter to make him sad and jealous that Ryan, Monique and I were in a Brooklyn bar listening to Pixies on the bar CD player and drinking Stella Artois. Because that's ALL they drink in Brooklyn. It's the law. A very good law, I might add. Peter wept. Do you blame him?

I like this picture. I took it the morning I was leaving Brooklyn, as I was scurrying down the sidewalk with all my luggage towards the subway station. It's some sort of Orthadox Temple thing. Monique or Ryan can elucidate us to its exact function I am sure. But I just wanted a pic of it since I thought it was a cool building - but the sun rays coming down made it that much sweeter. Anyway, I like this picture, I don't care if anyone else does.

Oh those scamps! Brian and Hannah trying to lure big fat Lucy out from under the table during the Christmas Party at my mom's house. That was a fun party. And there were lots of green drinks. That were purported to be ecto-cooler, but sadly, were not.

And while the rest of the world relaxed with their familes and had Christmas Eve fun, we were all stuck at the Mines. And it wasn't even worth it as it wasn't that busy. As you can tell from Matt, Big Nick, and Little Nick lazily eyeballing the camera. Well, Chase is actually working in the background. He's like that.

This one was just taken this last weekend, as Little Nick got himself trapped inside the ski display as he was trying to change it. So we decided to take advantage of the situation and . . .

. . .make him pose with the white girly Mad bomber hat, the ever-present owl decoy and of course, a bag of Hyper Striper Stump Jumpers! Obviously. See what happens when it gets slow at work? Dangerous things.

So that's some of the extra pics I've had laying around. There's a ton more, but that's all for now. Maybe some more sometime soon. We'll see. Don't forget to take the new Valentine's Poll below, and check out the new volume of Quotes in the upper left! And yes Eliza, your star has been born.

It's been real,

Ichabod Magic Marker

A Paragraph

A friend is someone who isn't embarrassed to be your friend. Let me be clear - that doesn't mean you can't embarrass them. I consider Justin my friend, but that doesn't mean he doesn't successfully attempt to embarrass me in many public situations. That's just Justin. And that's what I like about him. But it doesn't make me embarrassed to be his friend. I knew the kind of person he was when we drew up Friend Contract Papers. Which now makes it look like I have big things to say about Justin. Nope. He was just a safe example. I can say embarrassing things too. Or do embarrassing things. If a few drinks are aboard this is almost a given. But if someone is embarrassed to BE MY FRIEND, not just embarrassed over something specific I did - I can't make this more clear - but over me as a person, as a friend? Then - whoa - wow. You're not only NOT my friend, you clearly never really were. I'm me and I do what I do and the chips fall where they fall. And I know that I have friends, no matter what their jobs, backgrounds, age, geographical location, etc. are - I know that they are my true friends no matter what I do or say. But those of you that go running when things get dicey? Yeah - have fun. My New Year's Resolution was to cut the fat & gristle off my social entanglements. Some people just make it all the easier to do so.

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