Hyperinflation, otherwise normal

According to some experts, inflation might get as bad as it is in Zimbabwe. (I'm just guessing that it is really bad there. I don't know personally.) Just thought you might want to have some good news to start the day, you know? What really bothers me is that people keep saying that they are racking up debt for their children. That's just another means of procrastination. Why don't you say, we're racking up debt for ourselves? I predict that the next generation will still be saying the same thing. And the next. And people will keep putting off debt until finally China forces us to file bankruptcy or something.

Fruit

You know what I really enjoy eating? Fruit. It is so tasty. Fruit is like a mix between candy that doesn't make you sick and vegetables that taste good. I just can't get enough of it. Yesterday, Grandma bought a watermelon. It was so good. I ate it all that evening. Mmmm mmmm, watermelon. You know what else tasted good? Grapes. Grandma bought a lot of those too. Mmmmmm. So good. I haven't even touched the Moose Tracks ice cream yet. That is how good fruit tastes.

Oh the things liberals think

I've just gotten here and I've already learned dozens of depressing things that have happened in the last few days. Here's a few.

1. Acorn is heading the census. I already knew this from my depressing newspaper but I didn't know that you weren't allowed to help in the census if you were law enforcement, intimidation group (makes sense, but when liberals say intimidation group they mean AAA womens' services not Black Panther (see point 2.)), or anti-illegal immigration groups. You see, someone who is against illegal imigration would probably not count the illegal immigrants as registered voters.

2. There is a group called the Black Panther Party that used scare tactics to keep white people from the polls during the last presidential cycle. The charges were just dropped recently which turned the thing into a big affair. As one of Grandad's talk radio people put it, it's not smart politics to prosecute the people who got you elected.

3. Just the other day the first male was elected as prom queen. A gay guy in Los Angelos. Darn.

4. It was actually a good thing that the North won the Civil War. Double darn.

5. I now have over $500,000 dollars in debt to pay for the rest of my life and the number is growing.

6. Did you know that Andrew Lambert was gay? I didn't. I didn't even care who he was. I just knew he was a good singer.

7. A new Supreme Court Justice is on her way and just the other day she made a racial slur against whites. Terrific.

8. Kim Jong-Il launched another nuclear missile the other day. That makes six, according to John Bolton, the only person who is counting. What else is new?

9. The nice British lady singer had a breakdown. The nice British prince headed Memorial day at the Twin Towers. The nice British economy is collapsing. Yay Britain!

All of this is getting depressing. According to my prediction there will be a war about something. I don't know what yet. It could be national debt, abortion, whatever. I only know that this nation is tearing itself apart and it will soon be torn apart. There's only one thing that can truly symbolize the entirety of my depression: A sad emoticon. :(

Have a couple more for the road. :( :( :( :( :(

Camera Camera

There's one thing I miss about my siblings: Easily available guinea pigs. Grandad said that I'm going to record a video about getting excited about the Republican party. It doesn't sound very exciting and exciting has never been Grandad's strong suit (Grandad's Super Program is a white background with black text. I know what you're thinking, it needs pin people, right?) so the script will probably bore everyone who listens to it instead of motivating them. Oh no!

But back to the guinea pig business. Grandad has told me to experiment with and get comfortable with this camera. The only person I have to videotape is... well, Grandad. Not only that but when I say "Just say something, anything" he says something like "Today is June 3rd, and I'm here in Triangle Commons at the Tea Party. We're giving out swell prizes to lucky people who come so stop on by. Is it recording?" (Exact quote.) There are just a few problems, it's May 29th, we're in his house, and we won't be showing this clip to anyone so it is like advertising gone to waste. It's like he can't open his mouth without advertising for the Republican Party. I love it.

Childhood Memories

Yesterday I was in the car with my cousins for nine and a half hours. It got tiring pretty quickly. Half way through the trip, Aunt Jennifer said something to Bryce and instantly I remembered the many times my mom had said the same thing. Here's the story:

Bryce was acting up. Every now and then he would lean over to my chair and start moving his hand up my arm, through my sleeve, and tickling me. Whereupon I would bring both hands in and start tickling him full throttle. Then high-pitch shriek. After about thirty minutes of this Uncle Paul and Aunt Jennifer started having severe headaches.
"Be quiet Bryce," Aunt Jennifer said.
"I can't Mom," Bryce said. What he meant was that he couldn't be quiet if I tickled him.
"Then, don't lean over into Duncan's chair," Uncle Paul said. He actually said this multiple times during the car trip.
"I can't Dad," Bryce said.
Oh, here it comes.
"Why don't you ask God to help you?" Aunt Jennifer asked.

I can't tell you how many times I've heard that. I can't imagine why. It doesn't sound like something that every mother says. I don't think even every evangelical Christian would say this. This is the kind of thing that you grow up hearing and thinking "Ug, I will never say that to my children when I grow up." It's weird.

Ultimate Cosmic Power

Hey Grandad's ranking system really is great! Today, I arrived in North Carolina at about 4:30. I was promptly taken to a Republicans' training meeting where Grandad showed an one-hour presentation he had made toting every possible aspect of his new ranking system. (Sound familiar? I really like Grandad.) It was really awesome. Every now and then one of the ladies in the crowd would say something like "Oooooooh. You must be a genius." or "Gasp! I never knew there was something so amazing in your ranking system!" Whereupon Grandad would look smug and continue. I wish I could have such support during my presentations. I just get cruel snickers from Evelyn and Douglas. Growl.

But hey, this ranking system really is amazing. Every single person in every single precinct is counted. It's one thing when you are told that there are 3461 Republicans in Precinct 12. It's another when you hear that there are 8 Libertarians. I mean, there are so few libertarians that I wouldn't even care enough to put them in. Grandad put them in and each of them have their names, addresses, etc. recorded. And speaking of how well their information is recorded, I just have to say that it is amazing. I can find out anything about anyone including their registered party, what years they have voted, how they voted, cell phone numbers, household size, and deepest darkest secrets. (P.S. Last one was the joke FYI.) It makes me power drunk. Bwa ha ha ha ha.

Disney should adopt my Ranking System

I've been reading a Disney guide book on this trip. In this book they list every ride and assign it a number of stars. Unfortunately, these stars don't really mean anything to me because they aren't qualified so I'm going to make my own ranking system and list it here. Just for fun.

1-star (*): Little kid rides. Think Dumbo and all its unfortunate progeny. When little kids start crying, mothers put their children on these rides to put them to sleep.
Who will enjoy: Meredith, Emily.
2-star (**): Scares Meredith but excites Bryce, and therefore by extension Luke. Think little kid roller coasters and race tracks. When little kids say to their parents: "Put me on something really scary" and the parents don't have enough cruel sense of humor/irresponsibility to put them on something like TOWER OF TERROR!!! then they put their kids on this ride. For uppity young children.
Who will enjoy: Emily, Bryce, Luke, Grace (Connor would probably be bored.)
3-star (***): The rides that no one goes on. When you ask Aunt Jennifer if she went on them, she rolls her eyes.
Who will enjoy: Alexie
4-star (****): Rides that everyone will enjoy. The little squirts may or may not go on these rides, depending on how scary they are. Everything from PhilharMagic (Fun for the whole family) to Thunder Mountain Railroad (Fun for any of the family who don't mind broken ribs) that is fun and good falls into this category.
Who will enjoy: Everyone or most everyone, depending on how scary it is.
5-star (*****): The big attraction. These things attract lightning bolts like nothing else because they are the tallest things in the park and you can see them from anywhere in Florida. They garner the longest lines in the park that are slowed down by little kids crying their eyeballs out at the thought of riding and girlfriends who are only riding it because their boyfriends are. That's how scary and awe-inspiring these rides are.
Who will enjoy: Duncan, Kathryn


Well, that's it. I'm going to go alter all my past blog posts on disneyland to include my ranking system. I'll also put in the label "vacation" just in case any of you want to find these posts quickly. Just click on the label below.

Dad's New Friend Carl

Yesterday, Dad had the most unusual encounter with one of the workers at Disney. We were riding Expedition Everest (*****) over and over. The person contolling traffic was named "Carl." Carl looked to be over 50 years old. Carl was talking to a lady who was apparantly asking Carl for directions. Dad, being his usual doofy self, stepped in between them and flashed his tickets at Carl. Carl, taken aback, sputtered "You are so rude!" Dad glared at him and asked "Let me see your name." So Carl turned his back on Dad to protect his "Hi! I'm Carl and I LOVE YOU!" button from Dad's evil penetrating gaze. Dad grabbed Carl's shoulder to turn him around and then Carl screamed "DON'T TOUCH ME OR I'LL CALL SECURITY!!!"

Kathryn and I quickly dragged Dad into the line and rode Everest. Dad, for some reason, has not dropped this and has done annoying official things like "registering complaints" at guest services. In my opinion, he should just turn the other cheek and let this thing slide. I think this won't become a big deal and Carl will probably not be fired since he looks like he's been there since 1963 when Disneyworld first opened. Oh well.

Maniacal Crew

All week I've been part of the "Adventurous Crew," including me, Dad, David, and our cousin Kathryn. Kathryn is a true-blue danger and death nut. When we were preparing to come I was rather depressed because I was the only McPherson who expressed any interest in riding any ride moving faster than "It's a Small World." Then along came Kathryn.

Yesterday we went to DisneyQuest which is like an enormous arcade. The best ride, which just so happens to be the ride we rode a million times because it was awesome, was CyberSpace Mountain. (*****) What happened was that you designed a roller coaster and then rode in a flight simulator that rode you through it. It was awesome. Also I did it incrementally. You see, the first time I rode I was with Andrew. On the "Scream-o-meter" our coaster got three out of five screams. Booooring. When we gave the card with our coaster on it to the disney intern, she asked "You go upside-down three times. Is that all right?"
"N-", Andrew started.
"Yes!" I said. So we rode it and if Andrew wasn't a complete lame-o, he would have been able to stop clutching onto the handlebar long enough to press the emergency stop button. (According to him, he couldn't reach it.)

The second time (and third and fourth and fifth) I rode with Kathryn. Our first coaster got four screams out of five and if we weren't both digitally impaired and in a hurry to get on our coaster and die, we would have figured out how to change some of our boring coaster parts to EXTREME DANGER coaster parts. We just rode it and had fun. It went upside down five times. Our third time we put in nothing but EXTREME DANGER, NECK PAIN, AND STOMACH SWIRLING coaster parts. "YAY!" was our general reaction. We went upside down seven times. Our next time we went upside nine times. That was our max, unfortunately.

Today was Animal Kingdom and we rode the only roller coaster in the park, Mt. Everest (*****), at least a bazillion times. It was AWESOME!! I also convinced her to ride the Dinosaur (*****) ride, which turned me into a lifeless puddle of primordial goo the last time I rode it. It's great to have someone to be maniacal with you.

Singles' Lines

This is funny, so I might as well put it down although if any of my siblings read it they'll be bored because they were all there laughing at my expense as it happened. Oh well. Dad and I both have an affinity for "singles' lines" at Disneyworld. This is where people who don't have friends they want to go with can be matched up with other hapless suckers of the same nature to cut down on the number of "lone riders" which seriously slows the system. Anyways, it means you are constantly riding with people you don't know.

Alexie, naturally, thought the notion of singles' lines was ridiculous. She instantly thought "singles' bars."

"So what?" She asked, "Is a singles' line where you go to pick up single chicks?"

"What? Well sort of," I responded.

"So do you use pick-up lines? Like hey baby, what's your sign?"

"No."

"Since this is Disneyworld he should instead say 'Whose your favorite Disney character?'" Dad piped up.

So Alexie instantly thought up the perfect pick-up line which goes as follows "Whose your favorite princess? Because I think I just found mine."

Alexie added that if I used this on some girl I don't know, she would look at me in a digusted manner and might even slap me, so I don't think I'll use it. Ever.

Descended from a Fish

Today we went to Blizzard Beach, Disneyworld's water park. It was pretty awesome although I spent the entire day soaked to the bone. One weird thing about Blizzard Beach is that although after riding any one attraction you are soaked from head to toe, they still have paper towels and automatic hand blowers in the bathrooms. Oh joy, you think, now my hands are dry. Big whoop.

Anyways I ran all around that park doing one thing after another. I was in Dad's group and one thing to know about Dad is that he never does the same thing twice in a row. You think to yourself, "Hey, since I just got off this ride I could save myself the trouble of walking to another place by riding the same thing again." Dad however prefers to hop from one ride to another and then back again, which is a pain since Blizzard Beach is spread out like butter over too much bread. Anyways it was great.

Of course by the time we went home I was so sick of good old H2O that I never wanted to see it again. All of a sudden my younger cousin asked "Hey Duncan! You want to go into the pool with me?" (Our villa has a pool FYI) I think to myself, "Bryce, you have been soaking in the Lazy River for seven hours now. You must be as sick of water as I am." Nope. Bryce is the missing link between fish and humans. So Bryce and I had a rollicking good time in the pool. Getting even wetter and more isotonic.

Tentative Connection

Well, we arrived in Florida. We have Wi-Fi in the house we rented here so we tried it out. The only problem is that they (the Wi-Fi alien waves) sometimes leave our computers and we have to rope them back. Maybe I'll be online sometimes. Maybe I won't. It's all so tentative.

8-dollar jeans

I'm not really good with money so I never realized before today what a good bargain $8 jeans are. Here's the story:

Alright, I'm going to my grandparents and suddenly my mother notices/cares that all my jeans have holes over the right knee. (I have no idea why it is always the right knee. It just always is.) So she tells Dad to go buy me some jeans. Dad, naturally, brings me along.

A quick side note: Mom never brings me along. She always thinks to herself "What size would Duncan be?" and then gets one size bigger. Sometimes they fit perfectly, sometimes they don't. If they don't, she just shrugs and tells me I'll grow into them. Anyways, it has worked for sixteen years and I kind of liked that system.

Back to the present. Dad is drawn to an 8-dollar jeans sale sign like a fly to a lantern. He is so happy. He is in a state of euphoria. He picks up about five pairs of jeans and tells me to go figure out which one fits the best. I try them all on which takes a long long time because new jeans always have buttons that don't yet fit the clasp. Anyways, I finally figure out that I'm a 31x32 whatever that means. We waltz over to the cash register and ding! Up pops "14.92" on the screen.

"Um, um, um, excuse me," says my dad, "This isn't the right cost. They were on sale for eight dollars." The cashier smiles politely and then calls someone on her Wal-mart phone.

"They said that was the right price," said the cashier.

"Come with me," says me dad. The cashier is obviously not being paid enough for this. "Wait here, Duncan." Off they go. A short while later the cashier comes back noticably lacking my dad. I go through all the possible options quickly ruling out natural disaster, sudden plague, earth swallowing up my dad, etc., leaving "murdered by cashier" as a reasonable choice, given the circumstances.

"He wants you to go back there," said the cashier. Processing... "Um, hello? He wants you to go back there."

"Ah," I say blankly and walk robotically back to the young mens' clothing aisle. When I spot Dad and notice how extremely deep in thought he is (and noticably alive) and that his attention is fixed on the price tag I realize in a flash what happened.

"Oh no!" I cry. Dad, realizing I'm there, begins explaining to me that the jeans I've been trying on for the past half hour are NOT included in the sale. You see, if you had simply removed a metal rail saying and I quote "JEANS JEANS JEANS," you would have seen the price tag very clearly stating "14.95." So after a brief argument I go back to the dressing rooms to try on two more pairs of pants, one 30x32 and one 32x32. You see, odd numbers are never included in sales. It's one of Walmart's rules.

In the end we decided to go with the one that was too big, saying with a shrug that I'll grow into them. (If we had let Mom do the shopping we'd have reached the same conclusion in less time.) All for the sake of six dollars.

A Long Hill to Climb

Recently I've started setting goals for myself. They're things like "Work out for 30 minutes every day" and "Spend 30 minutes going over notes every day." or habits you want to break like "Don't hit your siblings." I even have this neat-o site called "Joesgoals.com" that I found in WORLD magazine. (Federal Law requires that you write WORLD magazine's name in all caps.) It gives you little smiley faces when you complete your goal and little sad faces when you don't. Recently I've stopped going to the site because 1: I never fulfill any of the positive goals so I have no checks to put down, 2: I always fulfill the negative goals and it depresses me putting a check down that shows me how bad I'm doing and 3: It gets depressing looking at all the little red sad faces looking at you.

The reason for all this is that I procrastinate like crazy. I say stuff to myself like "I'll start working out methodically tomorrow" or "I'll stop beating up my siblings like crazy tomorrow." "Just one day more" ought to be my motto.

Recently I put down a negative goal saying "Don't Procrastinate." That one hasn't made much progress. It's kind of circular. I don't stop procrastinating because I procrastinate on stopping procrastinating. It's a vicious cycle.

Oh happiness!

Just the other day I got help via phone from Uncle Billy to recover the hard drive of the computer that has strayed from the path of God. It was really complicated and stuff, but it all worked out in the end. I have now recovered a lot of things that I probably didn't need. The most important thing I've recovered, however, is the data for SUPER PROGRAM!!!

This summer he will undergo and alteration... He will become more powerful, less flippant, able to calculate scores within seconds, efficient enough not to exit every ten seconds for lack of memory, with the capacity to sort people into pods based on who they have already fenced and who they need to fence, putting everyone's scores into separate areas so that you can't easily compare them, and it will probably solve World Hunger too. Of course, Don Heath Bar will probably not allow Super Program (Or his new altered improved Uber-ified name) to see the light of day if she has anything to do with it, but hey, what's a super hero without a super villain?

Early Education

Yesterday Heather was cleaning out the refridgerator while Andrew and I, being helpful chivalrous brothers, watched her. Suddenly Emily frisked by and shouted "Obama is stupid!" Andrew looked at me. He figured that whatever was happening was my fault because it had to do with politics. Heather just looked extremely shocked.

"Emily!" She yelped. "What did you say?"

"Obama is stupid," Emily said, "Because he gets rid of babies!" Then she frisked off as if nothing had happened. As you can see, we begin educating our children extremely early. Dad, when the story was later related to him, suggested that since Emily was herself a baby the issue was rather close to her heart. Personally, I think it has something to do with the fact that Emily has participated in the Walk for Life every year for her entire life. It's one thing to sit your kids down and explain justice to them, but it drives the message home much stronger to make your children go out and fight for it.

Skills you'll use all your life

Lots of people think being on the Homeschool Yearbook Staff is a boring and useless waste of time. That's where they are wrong! You'll use the skills you gain creating the yearbook for the rest of your life!

For example, let's say after creating the yearbook you gain the ability to recognize any homeschooler from the Southeast Tennessee area. So, you ask, what good is this ability unless you want to walk up to people who don't know you and ask them whether they're still into gymnastics while referring to them by their first name?

Well, first, use your imagination and imagine you are driving with your family to Lake Winnie. Your younger brother brings along his GPS to help you find Lake Winnie. The GPS tells you to drive for a quarter mile up someone's driveway and then turn left. Now what? If you hadn't been on the yearbook staff the year before, you might as well give up and go home since you'll be going in circles for the rest of your life. But! If you have participated on the yearbook staff, you'll be able to randomly shout "HEY LOOK! IT'S THE CRAIG FAMILY! THEY MUST BE GOING TO LAKE WINNIE TOO! FOLLOW THEM! DON'T LOSE THAT CAR!" even though you have never met, talked to, or even seen the Craig family outside of pictures they send in to the yearbook. And then TA~DA! You will magically find Lake Winnie. Incredible.

Hot-blooded

I have found that I enjoy direct elimination tournaments more than pod tournaments. Pod tournaments, I see now, are like removing the burning blood from competitive tournaments, which is sort of boring.

Only when you get past the nasty taste of having rigged all the pods against all the little children can you really begin to enjoy the full glory of the direct elimination tournament. When Forrest first saw he was in a pod against Dylan, first he thought it was a joke, then he thought we were insulting him, and then when he found out the truth he felt all bad for having beat Dylan. I agree, it is a cruel aspect of the tournament, but a necessary one. Otherwise, the direct elimination brackets would be all screwy and bizarre. You see, the second best person will be kicked out when he meets the best person, right? So therefore it should be arranged so that the second best person will meet the best person in the final round of the tournament.

Speaking of bizarre and screwy, it was pretty bad today. This was mostly caused because one of our directors flipped the outcome of one of the matches so that Annie beat Matthew instead of the other way around, which was how it actually happened. Therefore, Annie placed in the top 8. Her first match she lost, though, so therefore Dylan, ranked below 8th, advanced to the second round and made the matchings all funny. It also meant that someone better than Dylan who should have been in that spot was kicked out in the first round. SAD FACE!!! :(

Another weird coincedence was that all the aggressive fencers were on one half and all the defensive fencers were on the other half. One half had Elliot, Quinn, Aaron, Alex, Forrest, Etc. The other half had Dylan, Annie, Emerald, David, Etc. Jacob was in with the defensive half and at one point asked me why that was. I just stared at the brackets for a while and said something non-obligatory. Whatever.

The best part that was by the time you got to the final four matches, there were only the four best fencers, who today were Elliot, Jacob, Quinn, and David. The matches were hot-blooded and manly and full of fighting spirit and stuff. Twas epic.

David's Game

Okay, the first thing on the list of positive topics is David's new homemade game. It is lots of fun. There is no point, or goal, or anything, it is just a lot of throwing-giant-blocks-onto-your-younger-brothers type fun. David is constantly upgrading it, adding new blocks, making it more complex, ridding it of bugs, etc. so that every time I play it is is new and exciting. The main shazam of the game is that if you attach certain blocks to each other they will do something cool, so therefore you can create big complex machines and take over your 40 x 40 square world. For some reason, I always get stuck under large amounts of blocks, which isn't fun.

It is the most brotherly game I have ever played because one second you are helping someone by getting them out from underneath a large pile of blocks, and the next second you are throwing them all on top of him again. Maybe this is what it means to be a family.

Positive Attitude

I decided to challenge myself and see if I can write only positive things for an entire week. It might get kind of boring to read, but stick with me. You can comment on my posts and tell me whether I'm succeeding or not or you could just tell me at what point you got bored and stopped reading. It might be a little tricky because I have fencing camp all week and there's nothing that negatively affects your attitude quite as much as pain and exhaustion. Still, fencing camp was lots of fun and I regret that so many of my friends couldn't come to it. See, I even have a sad emoticon: :-(

I'm too hungry to think up a decent title for a blog post

Today we ran out of ramen, which means I don't eat lunch. Of course, I often eat sandwiches for lunch, but today I don't feel like it. Why? Because they would be too much trouble to prepare. When I'm hungry, I can't even make sandwiches to feed myself. This is a vicious cycle. Of course, I have somehow mastered the ability to make ramen even when I'm too hungry to type correctly. (I've had to backspace at least a dozen times in the last paragraph and I still keep missing the backspace and pressing \, I'd name it but my brain has lost the function to remember obscure symbol's names.) But, because there is no ramen today, I can not make anything. I would make this blog post longer but my vision is starting to blur. I think it is time to employ the "eat enough plain bread to build enough energy to make a sandwich" strategy.

Andrew Aguecheek

Today was the first rehearsal for our Shakespeare camp. It will actually be one of the only two I attend because I will be in North Carolina for two of them. Anyways, a discussion arose concerning the pronunciation of "aguecheek" Okay, so the second part was easy. Cheek is pronounced "Cheek" no matter who you are. "Ague" on the other hand posed a real problem because Matthew's sister told him that "Ague" was the old english equivalent of swine flu, which is true except she pronunced it "Egg-oo." I have always pronounced it just "Egg," correct me if I'm wrong. So here I am calling Matthew M. "Sir Andrew Eggoocheek" and thinking "This pronunciation hurts my brain." Since Matthew M. is the person playing Sir Andrew, I'm going to have to go along with it, but it is still painful to my mouth.

Logic

Yesterday, Luke got his hair cut. Coincedentally he also got sick. He was lying on the boys' room floor all day yesterday without the ability to get up. Every now and then one of the older boys would kick him and tell him to move whereupon he would tell them he couldn't. After one episode of this I realized that he was sick and just left him alone. (I know what you're thinking: A good brother would have carried him to his bed. His bed, however, is about eight feet off the ground.)

Because I am his logic teacher he naturally had not learned to avoid the logical fallacy "Post Hoc ergo Propter Hoc." Every time someone told him to move he would say: "This hair is making me dizzy." This statement is actually the only reason I wrote this blog post because it is such an obvious logical mistake. Luke has the tendency to say things which don't make any sense and make me laugh.

Hmmmm

The math lab people have still not contacted me about this new job. I have no idea what it entails and I'm hoping they'd be willing to let me disappear for the month of June. It's weird because the new semester began last week. I'd think they would have something for me to do, some meeting to attend, some student to teach, etc. There's zip. Nothing. Well, if they never contact me, it won't matter that I leave for a month. I can't lose a job I'm not doing, now can I?

Politics, the Art of the Possible

Yo, guys. I'm leaving Tennessee in two weeks. I'll be gone for one month. I will seriously miss you all. I will probably also not have computer access so my blog might temporarily pause for the month of June. I'll be missing two Shakespeare rehearsals which is fine because I'm not even ready for the one this Friday. I will probably lose every job I've gotten in the past two weeks, including teaching Luke, courier business for Dad, tutoring at the math lab, etc. Somehow a one month leave of absence just doesn't sound plausible. I also pray that the Chattanooga Fencing Club won't place their fencing tournament in the month of June because if they did hold a tournament, I would give both my arms to go, which would cause me to lose horribly because I'm not so good at fencing with no arms. This will also keep me from attending any Random Fun for the month of June, which is what I regret most. Nothing I intend to do will be done. Everything I've planned will blow away with the wind. I'm pretty sure I remember a Bible verse for this type of situation, but I don't remember its exact wording.

Anyways, you're probably wondering WHERE I'm going, and if you read the title you probably guessed I was just elected to be the student ambassador to New Zealand. You would be wrong. I am not leaving the country. I'm also not going to Washington D.C. which was probably your next guess (or your first guess, depending.) I'm going to North Carolina to help my grandfather market his Republican Organization System to neighboring precincts. Considering that I have had no luck marketing my ranking system, it doesn't make any sense that I would be fit for this job. I'm going anyway and maybe my pester-people-until-they-submit-to-my-will tactic will actually work by some stroke of luck.

Bad Passenger

I've come to the conclusion that I am a pretty good driver and everyone else is simply a bad passenger with a bunch of bad attitudes. While driving with Heather she said to me: "If I have to scream one more time, I will never take you driving again." I thought to myself "Well, you don't HAVE to scream, you only do that because you're retarded."

In addition I was driving somewhere I had never driven before and Heather gave me the wrong instructions. She told me to get into the right lane, which turned out to be a right turn only lane to get onto the interstate going the direction opposite to the one we wanted to go, so she yelled a bit and had me merge two lanes of traffic to get into the left lane which would turn onto the interstate going the right direction. Pssh.

Also, she is unduly obsessed with how I drive too close to the right side of the lane. "Duncan," she screams, "I am like SEVEN INCHES away from the car next to me!"
"Well, duh," I think, "The lanes are only a foot or two wider than our car."
The dumbest thing is that if I went any farther left I would crash into a concrete wall.
"You have a shoulder there and then a concrete wall," she sniffs airily. Personally, I would rather let the fast moving car to the right of me shave off the right side of the car and get rid of this annoying passenger.

Thomas Jefferson

I'm teaching Luke's school and boy is it ever a trip. His subjects with me include math, reading, and logic. For reading, we always read the same book every day, which is called Thomas Jefferson or something. The annoying thing is that it is written in "short words" that are easy to read interspersed with really hard words. The short words are like "Dick and Jane" words and are very easy to read but then you get words like "Monticello" and "House of Burgesses" thrown in there. Of course, you have to have these words because otherwise you're being historically dishonest, but Luke mars every word longer than five letters long. He still reads the House of Burgesses as the House of Burglars, which I bet King George would say they were.

The last book we read was about Abraham Lincoln. It REALLY tore Luke up when Lincoln got shot. I mean he cried about it for days. It was pretty incredible.

Tears of Blood

I'm been having this vision over and over: A computer is trudging slowly out of the darkness, tears of blood are flowing down its face.

Help me...

Help me...

To begin recovery press F11...

And then I wake up in a cold sweat. I think this vision I'm having means something!

No, before you ask, I haven't really been having this vision over and over. It was a lie/joke. But the weird thing is that when we were doing our seance to resurrect Papaya's mind, we discovered that he had two minds. One was a Compact and the other was the XP Papaya that I knew so well. Anyways, we tried resurrecting Papaya and all that would come up was a Compact that did nothing but show us its loading screens and then say: "To begin recovery press F11." We followed this instruction several times and even pressed every other key on the keyboard just in case it was mistaken, but it was to no avail. So, you're probably thinking we should just exorcise this emo ghost, and we probably would have if Papaya wasn't already dead. It doesn't really matter now so we'll probably just let it rest in peace. Though, I'd appreciate it if this ghost wasn't so stuck on keeping us from seeing our friend Papaya-chan again.

P.S. I bet you're all wondering how this ghost got stuck in my computer in the first place. It's all because of my uncle Billy and his failed attempts at human transmutation. Hmph.

Smelly Flowers

Heather's graduation was last night and we received a ton of flowers. Everyone figured that since we told them they couldn't bring presents they would bring flowers because, since no one likes them, they don't count as presents. Pretty sneaky, right?

Anyway, there is one bouquet that smells really strong. I'm not saying they smell bad, because they don't. They only smell strong. Standing within one foot of them would kill a horse. We had them in the living room but then people sitting around talking started collapsing so we had to move them. Anyway they are now located in the boys' room to cover the smell of "rotting tuna fish" as my mother puts it. We haven't figured out where that smell comes from but since we have something that smells worse readily at hand, we can just cover it up instead of fixing it.

Shakespeare Half Way Point

Today is the Shakespeare half way point, meaning that today I'm supposed to recite half my lines to Lexie. I suspect that what will happen is that I will stand next to her saying them as she ignores me. I could say anything I wanted to and she probably would not notice. Anyways, if anybody happens to be reading this, now you know that it is time to get a move-on on all those lines.

Recently, I was going through Toby Belch's lines. I was struck by how quickly and randomly he disappeared. His last scene is halfway through the play and he merely exits and is never seen again. I think he might be mentioned, but that really has nothing to do with me. It's said he marries Maria in the end, but apparently he's not there when it happens or something. The only impact it has on me is that the halfway point in my lines is rather early in the play. It's sometime during the scene tricking Malvolio I think.

May Day

Hey hey hey! Happy May Day! I bet that none of you remembered to say "Rabbit Rabbit" this morning. That's bad luck for you. Heh. (I forgot too. :P) Actually, I bet you didn't know about this little known Irish superstition. The first thing you say on the first day of the month needs to be "Rabbit Rabbit." If you do this, then you will have good luck that month. It would be great to have good luck, but I never remember to say it. Andrew always says that he said it, but if Andrew says "Rabbit Rabbit" and no one was around to hear him, does he make a sound? The answer is no.

Anyways, it's mayday. Someday I would like to sneak up to a girl's house early in the morning and leave a large May Day Basket there, but as of yet I have no driver's license so it would have to be a girl in the neighborhood. There is no girl in this neighborhood who even remotely appeals to me, so I'll have to wait until I have a driver's license to leave a May Day basket. Maybe, I could be a wussy pansy and leave one for my mom or something...

The only really cool thing happening this May Day is that Alexie is bothering Heather with talk of pagan worship. I don't know how Alexie knows all this stuff, but it's really fascinating and gross. Since I enjoy listening to her talk, she seldom tells me about it. Instead she tells Heather who does NOT want to hear this stuff. Alexie's favorite anecdote is how last October at our Fall Festival we had a maypole. At the time, Heather said we didn't want to do anything "Pagan" like Halloween that would offend anyone. Alexie likes to point out that maypoles are actually used in Pagan rituals. In comparison to maypoles, Halloween is harmless. This begs the question: "How come so many people hate Halloween and not maypoles?" Hmmm.

Swine Flu

Hey, there's an epidemic spreading through the country. It is not only very dangerous and incurable but it has a really dumb name. It's right now competing with the Avian Flu. That's a pretty dumb name too. It should be called the Demon Flu or the Older Sister Flu or something else that really strikes fear into the heart of victims. You know, then the doctor could say "You have the Death Flu. It currently has no cure." Whereupon the victims would show symptoms of nausea and fainting.

Currently, Mom is afraid that we have it so she wants us not to contaminate anyone until after Heather's graduation party on Sunday. Personally, I'm not that scared because I have a Super Immune System. It's so awesome that I suspect that I programmed it myself when I wasn't looking. It works something like this:

If LargeAnnoyingLookingAppointment=1
Sickness = 1
else
Sickness = 0
endif

I don't get sick when I'm having fun, off from school, or looking down the barrel of the most important test of the year (SAT, ACT, finals, etc.) I'm hoping that my friends will get better in time for their finals. I could always loan them my immune system if I could only find my USB port.