Random Thoughts

I update this page as often as I think of material

What I can't figure out, though, about the rock station in Moscow is how come every male DJ there has the same voice? As far as I can tell they either have the single most motivated guy in the industry who works 20 hours a day, or even more likely, they have an automated DJ robot named Patrick. That's right, Patrick the DJ-bot. Maybe the same company that made him also makes a comedy writing robot that I could buy...

I miss the good old days when Will Smith released a rap song with every movie.

When the Exxon punitive damages lawsuit over the oil spill was at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Exxon's lawyers invoked a case from 1818 that found companies are not liable for punitive damages for actions at sea. Really? 1818? You mean 190 years ago when circumstances were so drastically different as to render obscure maritime legal decisions completely irrelevant? "Well you see your honor, in 1818 we wouldn't have to compensate affected people for a massive oil spill, so we shouldn't have to do that in 2008 either." "Is that a serious argument?" "No, your honor."

Ever heard of the comic strip Zack Hill? The paper here runs it and like I do with most strips I gave it a chance--it's basically Calvin and Hobbes if Calvin was a hardcore right winger. This kid's hair is even styled to look like Calvin, making his extreme conservatism more egregious, at least in my mind. It's usually not noticeable, but every once in a while there will be a strip where Zack is crying because the evil activist judges had the 10 commandments removed from his school, or lamenting the complacency of the American people regarding terrorism. Needless to say I don't get very many laughs out of the strip.

The rules of grammar get distorted in English when dealing with curse words. Take “shit” for example: the article preceding the word can completely change the meaning. Being a shit is bad and means people hate you, however, being the shit is terrific. If somebody says about you, hey, that guy is the shit, then you have it made. Also, the chances that George Carlin never pointed this out are minimal, but ever notice how in life nobody ever has to give a shit, but we all have to take a shit many, many times?

In a leap year, why is the extra day added to February? Who made that decision? Who thought, we need to find a place for this extra day, and godammit, I want that extra day in February--the best month of the year. It sure seems like it would be better to put the extra day in a month everybody likes. Maybe June or August if people want to keep all the months at 31 days or less. Clearly I was not consulted when the Gregorian calendar was set up.

In one of my classrooms this semester all the desks say: Do Not Move This Desk from This Location. Unfortunately, that really only works if the location is specified on the instructions. As it's written, it sounds like wherever the desk is at any point in time, that's exactly where it is supposed to be. I could put the desk in the hall and people following instructions would just leave it there. After all, Do Not Move This Desk from This Location.

You know what the best part about being a competitive eater would be? You'd never have to worry about not having enough time to eat a meal. It's like, hey, I only have a ten minute break but I'm really hungry. Is there time to eat lunch? Of course there is! That's enough time to eat 50 hot dogs!

Here's something I've been struggling to understand recently: the unicorn, mythical horse with a horn coming out of its forehead, is a symbol of femininity. Unicorns are associated with young girls. This doesn't make sense to me, because it seems like taking an existing animal and then putting a horn on its face is badass! Just think if a person had a horn coming out of their forehead! This person could KILL SOMEBODY with a headbutt! Also, there is in fact a real life version of this animal—the narwhal—but you don't see 10 year old girls playing with narwhal dolls. That's because a narwhal could mess you up with the HORN COMING OUT OF ITS FACE! A creature with a horn protruding from its forehead is terrifying! I don't see why unicorns are perceived as cute and feminine instead of as the ruthless, cold, and efficient killing machines that they obviously are.

How do those bodybuilders and WWE guys have such huge necks? How do you even work on building neck muscle? Is there a “neck machine” at the gym that I've just never noticed?

The commercials for Viagra and Cialis always include a warning to see your doctor if an erection lasts longer than four hours. How did they determine that cut-off? How did the test group work for that? Did they induce long-duration erections in a group of men and try to find the cutoff at which there was irreparable penis damage? Also, four hours seems like quite a while to be the cutoff. Can you imagine a guy sitting there thinking, well let's see, it's 3:30 and I've had an erection since noon, so I'm still fine for another half hour? Personally, I'd get concerned well before I hit the four hour mark.

It seems like all the hyper-addictive American junk food features high fructose corn syrup as the top billed ingredient. What I want to know is how do I get in on some of that? At the grocery store all I can ever find is just regular corn syrup. I'm sure I could make all the food I cook taste better by adding high fructose corn syrup and MSG.

I settled a long standing debate with my brother this morning. It turns out I was right: putting butter in your coffee is really gross.

Whenever I want to feel like a rockstar super hacker--like I could infiltrate the most secure computer system--I load up the DOS prompt and type dir/w.

Last semester, one of my professors would constantly use the word "utilize" in lieu of "consume" when talking about microbiology. He would say things like, in this process, the bacteria utilize the phosphate. Oh yeah? Hey, how about this: after class I think I'm going to head over to the commons and utilize a cheeseburger.

Often while writing certain words, I break them down into smaller components so I spell the word correctly. For example, when I write "tomorrow" I think "tom-or-row." I also do this with "ass-ass-ination" and "anal-ysis."

To maintain healthy bowel movements I strive for the optimum combination of coffee and saltine crackers. If I'm not regular enough, I drink more coffee and eat less saltine crackers. If I get too regular, I eat more saltine crackers and cut down on the coffee.

In their ongoing quest for a marketable "brand," the University of Idaho changed their slogan again. The highly touted, $900,000 slogan, "Open Spaces, Open Minds" quickly fizzled and now we have been presented with the new slogan: "A Legacy of Leading." This is especially disappointing for me because my top two slogan choices did not even receive consideration. University of Idaho? No U-Da-Ho! or my personal favorite, University of Idaho: Have a good time all the time with Pabst Blue Ribbon!

I took a swimming class last year. By the end of the semester I could perform most of the strokes with a level of basic competency, but the breast stroke was always just a little beyond my abilities. I would quickly enter a positive feedback loop where on each successive breath I would have to pull harder with my arms to get my head above the water; this increased vertical movement would then cause me to sink further down into the water after taking the breath. So I would have to pull even harder with my arms to get my head above the surface for the next breath. This would cause me to sink EVEN further down into the water after the breath. As a result, my movement across the pool resembled a whale, slowly and successively breaching his way across the pool.

Last summer, my neighbors and I had the idea that the local used bookstore should, in an attempt to rid itself of trashy and cheap romance novels, hold a store sanctioned book burning. Call it Hot Burning Night of Romance and encourage people from the community to bring their romance novels to burn. Supposedly, my friend who works at the bookstore actually suggested the idea to her boss, but for some reason he was not nearly as excited about the idea of a bookstore sponsored book burning as we were.

Opponents of evolution often argue that viewing our existence as nothing more than the product of a biological, self-replicating information structure takes away all semblance of consequence and importance. They say that accepting evolution on a philosophical level removes meaning from life: there's no point to any of this if you believe in evolution. Now, I think that's a pretty depressing interpretation. I prefer to infer from Darwin that, far from removing meaning and pointedness, the point of my life is to have sex with the hottest woman I possibly can. Personally, I see no problems with that.

I was thinking about coffee the other day--specifically the "shot in the dark," which is drip coffee with a shot of espresso. It's really the most hardcore beverage to order in the morning. What do you mix your espresso with? Milk and chocolate? Yeah, I mix my espresso with MORE COFFEE! What do you add to your coffee? Cream and sugar? Yeah, I add ESPRESSO to my coffee!

I'm basically an old man trapped in the body of a 20 year old. This thought occurred to me last semester when I realized that I was spending Friday and Saturday nights at home with a gin and tonic, listening to the radio. (In my defense, I was listening to college sports--I would have been watching the games but I don't get cable.)

So the University of Idaho allocates a "print quota" to each student for use at the university computer labs. For reasons that are beyond me, my print quota has 2,500 pages in it; these pages are "use it or lose it" so they'll just expire when I gruaduate this spring. Since I'd hate to think I wasted my print quota I plan on going to a computer lab in May, opening Microsoft Word, clicking "print," "2,000" copies, and then leave.

I think coming in second to last place is worse than last place. Last place is something; second to last place is nothing. Finishing second to last is like failing at failing.

If you are ever asked the question what is your greatest weakness? at a job interview, remember, the correct answer is "my hubris."

I've been keeping my cell phone in the breast pocket of my shirt recently and am often startled during the day with the revelation, Oh my God, I think my nipple is buzzing! This is usually the case, but every once in a while it is, in fact, a phone call. I need to stop carrying my phone there until I can solve my buzzing nipple problem, but my only other idea was to keep it in my pants pocket, which causes a similar problem.

The fuel efficient, eco-friendly, one piece composite fuselage Boeing Dreamliner appears poised to outsell the Airbus Spruce Goose.

ConocoPhillips, my favorite oil company, has just taken another step towards the inevitable advertisement that merely consists of a puppy smiling and wagging his tail for 30 seconds, followed by the ConocoPhillips logo. Their new ad campaign features children talking about how great the company is. Children! You have to at least give them credit for hiring an advertising agency with some balls, know what I'm sayin'?

Not to harp too much on Jay Leno, but I've heard that in addition to an "Applause" sign there is also a "Sympathy" sign. Sometimes they light up at the same time.

Most food products have allergen information at the end of the ingredients list these days. You know, like "May Contain Traces of Sesame Seeds and Tree Nuts," or "Contains Wheat, Soy, and Milk Ingredients." So are there any cans of Tuna fish that say, "May Contain Traces of Dolphin?"

Since I'm taking a swimming class this semester I get to start my Monday and Wednesday mornings by showering with other men.

When buying Archie comics at the grocery store you pretty much have to go with Betty and Veronica's Double Digest or nothing, because that's where the humor is. I can read one of those and think to myself, I'm being aroused by a comic book for children. That's hilarious!

Here's a sports metaphor to describe how college is going for me: it's a run out the clock situation. I'm at the end of the third quarter and have a comfortable lead, so now I just need to waste as much time as possible and shoot good free throws. In this case, third quarter is a metaphor for third year; comfortable lead is a metaphor for having a higher gpa than required to keep my scholarships; shooting good free throws is a metaphor for performing well on tests; wasting time is a metaphor for, uh, wasting time.

I've been trying to learn how to swim, but mostly I just drink pool water. I usually tell people that I'm doing it to sterilize my intestinal tract.

What's with these people who brag about how little they sleep? You've been up for 50 hours? Really? That's funny, I tend to sleep 7-9 hours a day and I feel terrific.

It's pretty much a given that the guy who invented gin was sitting around the Christmas (excuse me, Party) tree one December and thought to himself, "Gee, this is pretty terrific, but it would be better if I was getting drunk off this tree."

There's a picture of the Leaning Tower of Pisa on the cover of my Geotechnical Engineering textbook. They put a famous Geotechnical Engineering failure on the cover of the book? Isn't that's like a Mechanical Engineering design book having a picture of the space shuttle exploding on the cover?

My roommate bought a 'Da Vinci Code' puzzle the other day. There's no picture of the finished puzzle on the box and it came with a black light--the idea being that you assemble the puzzle and then solve the mystery of the Holy Grail. Well we couldn't really see anything with the blacklight, so I can only assume it was included to make sure nobody jizzed on the puzzle.

The booklet that came with the puzzle suggested all sorts of theories about the Mona Lisa, including the theory that she is actually supposed to be Da Vinci himself! They even included a picture comparing the facial structure of the Mona Lisa and Da Vinci. Does that really make things better? That Da Vinci spent years painting what he would look like as a woman? I find that kind of disturbing.

There are three things I want to do before I die: moon somebody out the window of a moving car, smash a running television set by throwing an empty beer bottle at it, and yell "FOOD FIGHT!" in a crowded cafeteria, throw my food at some random person and actually starting a food fight.

What's with the assumption in America that cheese should be bright orange? I tend to think if something comes out of a cow that's colored bright orange I probably don't want to eat it.

My project for this weekend is to drink soda through a straw so fast that it cavitates in my mouth. (Quick definition so somebody gets the joke: Cavitation occurs when a fluid is pumped so hard that the pressure in the pipe drops below the vapor pressure of the liquid and gas bubbles form, then when the pressure rises again the bubbles implode and wreck stuff up.)

I find that when I try to play on playgrounds at parks everything is just too small for a full grown adult. What they need are playgrounds for grown ups, where there are monkey bars, rope ladders, slides, swings, and all that stuff but sized for full grown people.

Here's an idea for some fun: Go to McDonald's and wink repeatedly at the cashier while ordering your food.

Amazingly, WebMD.com can actually diagnose people as hypochondriacs. Yeah, turns out if you're ever at WebMD.com then you're a hypochondriac.

It would be really funny if the NFL, in addition to allowing challenges based on instant replay, also gave each team 3 do-overs per game. As in, "Hey! No Fair! They intercepted the ball! We want a do over!"

I love the idea of buying livestock at a 4H auction. Apparently the love of a child makes the meat taste better.

Somebody typed "Funky Winkerbean You Have Cancer" in a search engine to get to this website. What would compel somebody to type that and hit the search button? It's not a query of any sort, it's just bizarre. There are some weird people on the internet.

But what really baffles me is people who drive to the gym. Couldn't you just run to the gym and spend a little less time there?

Why does the yogurt I bought have a year on the expiration date? Look, if you're not sure how many years you've had a container of yogurt in your fridge, you should probably just throw it away.

I hate public bathrooms that have really low sinks and high water pressure. When I try to wash my hands, water from the sink invariably splashes onto the front of my pants to look as though I had some sort of violent, messy, urination accident. Usually I end up adopting a bent at the waist posture to keep my midsection as far from the sink as possible.

If I ever become rich I'll donate a bunch of money to PBS for a lifetime supply of coffee mugs and tote bags.

Stupid super hero idea: The Seagull. He's a guy in a hang glider with his pants down who poops on the cars of his enemies.

Weird fact: There's a regulatory agency that watches over all the college radio stations in the country, and fires DJ's who fail to meet the minimum quota of Beck and The Flaming Lips.

Car company KIA makes a car called the "Optima." Apparently, that final title was slightly changed from the original, descriptive design name, "Sub-Optima."

When a Pharoah in Ancient Egypt died, all his close friends and high ranking officials were killed and buried with him. Hmm, wonder why that idea never took off anywhere else. On the plus side, implementing a system like that now would probably make people think twice before going into politics.

Why do people reading the news on television use a different inflection than people reading the news on the radio? Next time you watch the evening news pay close attention to how the anchors talk: they all speak with the same "news anchor" cadence.

Instead of having a bed and dresser, it would be cheaper to sleep in a nest of clothing.

Here's a political observation: The far left tends to tell people what to do. They know what's best for you and will make you comply. Wear a helmet, wear a seatbelt, pay all these taxes, give minorities preferential treatment, etc... The far right, in contrast, doesn't want government telling them what to do. You'll hear Cons say, "Hey! The government doesn't know what's best for me, I know what's best for me! They're not going to tell me what to do!" The right wing would rather tell you what not to do. Don't get an abortion, don't marry somebody of the same gender, don't use stem cells in scientific research, don't teach evolution in schools. So when voting this year, just ask yourself, "Do I want the government telling me what to do? Or do I want the government telling me what not to do?" (Yeah I know there are exceptions. Don't email me about it.)

I had a revelation today about the comic strip Funky Winkerbean: the cartoonist is setting himself up for retirement. By systematically giving all his female characters breast cancer and sending his male characters to Iraq it's only a matter of time before everybody in the strip is dead, at which point he can retire.

What's with these pretentious people who prefer to be addressed by first initial, middle name, last name? I can take my name, Michael Logsdon, and suddenly turn myself into a snob by demanding to be called, "M. John Logsdon." Except that sounds a lot like "M. Log Johnson", and "Log Johnson" is a pretty funny name.

Here's a challenge for any computer programmers: write a program that determines the outcome of the card game “War” based on an initial order of cards in the deck. It would save a lot of time since War is really the only pre-determined card game I know of. Once the cards have been dealt, actually playing the game is more of a formality to find out who the pre-ordained “chosen one” is; it's the Calvinist card game.

I am baffled by people who prefer diet sodas and artificial sweeteners. Nothing like replacing sugar with good old fashioned synthesized chemicals. No sugar for me, I'm trying to eat healthier: I'll have some N-L-aspartyl-L-phenylalanine-1-menthal ester. And when the artificial sweeteners say “causes cancer in lab rats,” how did they move past that phase of testing? Well, all our lab animals have cancer. I think we're ready to try this out on some people.

Professional basketball player Steve Nash, or as I call him, Lizard Man, can most likely attribute his success to having lateral vision, but his greatest and least known weakness is that he can't see anything directly in front of him.

It would be fun to show up to a Department of Defense press conference with a giant letter D and picket fence cut out of cardboard.

I've had some bad luck with women so I decided the other day, maybe I'd have better luck with men: I'll try being a homosexual for a while and see how that works. So I sat around and I tried and tried to be interested in dudes; then I realized that sexual orientation isn't a conscious choice.

According to a February 15th article from the Anchorage Daily News, Petroleum Engineers just out of college make on average $75,000 a year plus a $20,000 signing bonus. So apparently, Petroleum Engineering is the NBA, NFL, and possibly Major League Baseball of the Engineering world, proving that I chose the wrong field. In Civil Engineering my highest aspiration is to have a sewage pump station named after me.

System of a Down released a video for the song "Lonely Day," with the refrain of "the most loneliest day of my life." Coincidentally, that is the most stupidest song lyric I've ever heard.

What's with sportscasters who say things like, "There's a two point differential between the Lakers and the Supersonics"? Look Al Michaels, you just subtracted two numbers: that is a difference. I bet even most fifth graders can tell you that adding two numbers gives a sum and subtracting two numbers gives a difference. Way to try to sound like a pompous jerk who uses needlessly complicated words to make himself look smart.

Who is that lone guy who screams "IN THE HOLE!" after every shot by Tiger Woods?

I tried to convince my roommate that we should have a suggestion box and hold Room 510 meetings, sort of like family meetings, but for some reason he didn't think that would work very well.

Winco Foods has two different house brands: Flavorite for food items and Home Best for non food items, which I guess makes sense because c'mon, Flavorite light bulbs?

Physics must be a great field to work in because physicists can add constants to everything. Math didn't work out? Add a constant. "Yeah, I wrote up this equation and it didn't work, so I multiplied everything by this arbritary number with these arbritary units." "Here, have a Nobel Prize!"

How is it that with all the new aviation technology they still can't engineer a microphone that doesn't make every single male voice sound the same? If I'm to judge from the pilot's voice over the intercom I've actually had the same pilot on every commercial flight of my life. The weirdest was when a male flight attendent said over the intercom, "Uh, folks, I was wondering if anybody has change for a 20 dollar bill?" I thought it was the pilot! I was envisioning in my head, "yeah, I lost a bet with the copilot that we'd have enough fuel to land safely."

In the Washington State University fight song everybody spells out, W-A-S-H-I-N-G-T-O-N S-T-A-T-E C-O-U-G-S. What is this, a fight song or a spelling bee? Could you use that in a sentence? And why do they spell out Washington State, but abbreviate Cougars to Cougs?

There were flyers in the Buchanan Engineering building advertising an American Society of Women Engineers meeting to design and build gingerbread houses. Gingerbread? Aren't they supposed to be combating stereotypes? "Where are the women engineers?" "In the kitchen, where the belong."

I think everything would run smoother if my roommate and I had the power to ground each other.

During regular conversation in my day I find that I get into way too many awkward situations. I wish I had a list of discussion topics like the hosts of late night talk shows so if the conversation started to lag I could look at my notepad and ask something hilarious and somehow relevant like, "So I hear you were on an Aer Lingus jet on April Fool's Day and they replaced the flight attendents with leprechauns. Why don't you tell me about that."

Would it be wrong to try and build a giant electromagnet in my room to scramble my RA's electronics?

Well September is over, so it's time to wake up Billy Joe.

I really like going to the gym but am somewhat intimidated by the beautiful people there. I wish there were two separate gyms: a beautiful people gym and an ugly people gym. I'd feel right at home in the ugly gym and would probably go there almost every day.

The highest honor for an author of a book would have to be their book being banned. Just imagine the kind of seriously intense writing you would have to lay down so that when people read it they say, "Whoa shit, I can't let anybody else read this." Not only do they dislike the book, they dislike it so much that they view other people reading it as a threat. My new goal in life is to write a book that gets banned.

I was watching VH1 the other day and saw something peculiar. Apparently their new slogan is, "VH1: losers talking about celebrities."

Why do people own cats? If you lived with a person who behaved as a cat you would hate that person. Imagine living with somebody who lays around all day sleeping, is only nice to you when they want something, and the rest of the time seems too aloof to associate with the person who is providing for them. (feel free to insert your own joke here about living with a teenager.)

We've been doing more ethics problems in Civil Engineering to make sure none of us become evil engineers. You know, the kind who would widen US Highway 95 in such a way to condemn as many houses as possible--plan the route farmhouse to farmhouse from Coeur d'Alene to Boise.

Ryan Franklin of the Seattle Mariners baseball team was recently suspended for steroid use. His record this year was six wins and eleven losses: apparently they busted him for not taking enough steroids.

Lots of punk rock bands take famous easy-listening, or wuss, songs and make punk rock versions of them. Why not the other way around? I think I'm going to start taking famous punk rock songs and making easy-listening-wuss versions of them.

Ever hear of this text-messaging stuff? It's on phones and computers and is destroying grammar and spelling as we know it. People actually type things like, "Your dumb." "Your dumb," huh. My dumb?

Is there ever a Post Office Box one? How would you get that? "Yeah, I showed up really early the morning they were giving those out."

I enjoy olive oil as much as the next person, but the Greeks went a little crazy with it. Sure it's good for cooking, but good for slathering yourself with before wrestling a naked man?

News stories always personify hurricanes. Not only do hurricanes get human names, but the newspapers use the names to make ridiculous headlines like, "Dennis Pummels Cuba. 10 Dead." "Dennis Slams Gulf Coast. Millions of Dollars in damages reported." Geez, this Dennis sounds like quite an unbalanced fellow. I'd be inclined to stay away from him.

Letters to the editor provide a great service to the community. Every morning normal people who read the paper are reminded of their precious sanity by observing a forum for crazy people.

I wish I had a tee shirt that said "Good Times" on the front and "Great Oldies" on the back. Then I could refer to it as my "Good Times and Great Oldies" shirt.

How come audiences for comedians clap so much? If you watch any late night talk show you'll notice that the host can hardly say anything during the monologue without being applauded. Look you dolts, I tuned in to hear some jokes, not a cheerleading section. If I wanted to hear people mindlessly clapping and "WOOOO!"ing at whatever crap comes their way I'd go to a junior high music concert.

It's summer job time again and this is a recurring theme that I have trouble with, so once again it's time to consider prospecting for gold. But then I was thinking, suppose I actually found gold, what would I do with it? These aren't exactly the days where an 18 year old can plop a gold nugget down on the counter at the Palmer Bar and order a round of whiskey.

A Clint Eastwood movie was on TV the other day. For 90 minutes all he did was squint at people.

I've been trying to think of the coolest thing to have done to my body after I die. So far my favorite is to be stuffed taxidermy style in a threatening pose. That way, if I get married, an angry, stuffed Michael in the living room will keep her faithful to me after death. Coming in a close second would be to have my body put on a wooden boat, lit on fire, and pushed out to sea Viking style.

Possibly the worst part of the Wallace Complex is that each suite has a bathroom which does not have a fan. Aside from the obvious smell problems, it also creates the problem of a lack of white noise. I don't want people to hear what I'm doing in the bathroom and I don't want to hear what other people do in there; I can't think of much that disrupts studying more than hearing a loud fart and a splash coming from the bathroom.

More on the Scion--the cube shaped model is called the XB. They should have called it the l^3 so the name of the car would also conveniently model the interior cargo space.

UI gives out propaganda bookmarks about how academically minded the average student is, but some of the previous ones just don't make sense. One says, "4 out of 5 UI students attend class regularly" and another says, "UI students attend class 90% of the time." So wait, 80% of the students go to class 90% of the time? What?

Just when you thought Honda made a mistake with their cube shaped Element, Toyota apparently decided they couldn't risk being out-uglied and made the Scion, which is pretty much an Element with the curves and style taken away (which is amazing because there wasn't much to begin with). So sure, the Scion's cubical shape is space efficient, but if all you wanted was space efficiency then why not have a spherical car? It wouldn't be too much more ridiculous.

The dining center at UI is all right when they stick with normal dishes that everybody has heard of, like say chicken fried steak and mixed vegetables, but for some reason they feel the need to make up their own bizarre dishes. The other week they served "Turkey Copenhagen with Copenhagen sauce." Turkey Copenhagen? What the hell is that? And they followed that up by serving "Chicken Andrea" the next day. I'm pretty sure they have two wheels that they spin every night: one with different meats and the other with random words. Looks like tonight will be... beef... stockholm. All right, just cook up some beef and throw the leftovers from yesterday on it.

I wish there was an emoticon for "crestfallen." I'd use it all the time.

This morning I tried to draw two opposing faces, but it ended up looking like a vase.

Some people set their clocks fast so they'll show up early for everything. I like that idea in principle, but it's kind of backwards: I set my watch slow so I show up late for everything.

If I ever start a business I'll call it the Umbrella Corporation and refer to the company headquarters as "The Hive."

Think about this--anybody reading this who will be alive 15 years from now will live during the 20s. We can only hope these ones are "roaring" like the last time around.

Today while waiting for my food at a restaurant the following order numbers were called: 100, 194, 50, and 61 in that order. How are they getting these numbers? My suspicion is that they have a random number generator in the cash register.

University of Idaho's slogan is "From here you can go anywhere." What's great about that slogan is that it implies you'll want to leave Idaho.

For some reason I think it would be hilarious to buy a pipe, a robe, and a bottle of fine wine; then commission a painting done of myself and hang it on the wall.

It would be nice if real life was more like an episode of Seinfeld. Whenever you got in a really awkward situation everything would freeze and "Executive Producer Larry David" would appear.

My highest career aspiration is to be a stay-at-home dad. I'll take care of the kids and house while the wife earns all the money.

In suicide prevention propaganda, they often tell people that suicide is a "permanent solution to a temporary problem." Am I the only one who thinks they need to rephrase that? I mean, when they say it like that, suicide sounds great. You mean there's one permanent solution to fix all my temporary problems? That sounds great, sign me up!

Wouldn't it be great to be a riot policeman? Just imagine, you'd have a face shield, a gun that shoots rubber bullets or bean bags, a club, and probably other nasty stuff to crack hippy skull all day.

My wisdom teeth get pulled on Monday. I figure since I'll be drugged up all week I should get some lava lamps and listen to a bunch of Pink Floyd and Bob Marley.

I may have a perfect .000 batting average with girls, but when I'm in my 30s women my age will all "feel their clocks ticking" and start looking for a steady meal ticket to impregnate them.

The dorm building I live in would be a lot cooler if they replaced one of the elevators with a fireman's pole.

While writing essays for my classes I like to play a little game: the only rule is that I have to write several sentences in the paper that are as long as I can make them. I've gotten quite good at dropping the occasional 70 worder, but in my greatest moment I wrote a 106 word sentence in an essay for history. Now I know how James Fenimore Cooper and Nathaniel Hawthorne felt.

I had the idea that I should spread the rumor that there's a midnight fog strangler who lurks by the bike path, then at midnight on foggy nights lurk by the bike path.

The other day I was at Wal Mart to buy some clothing made by Indonesian slave children, but when I went to check out the cashier was white and clearly born in America, so I asked to talk to her manager and demanded that the cashier be an immigrant so I can get the full Wal Mart experience. True story.

I don't have a fear of heights: I have a fear of potential energy.

I was thinking that when I get mad at people from now on, I should take my belt off and start beating them with it. Then they get the one-two punch of getting beaten with a belt and seeing me without pants on.

At 11:30 last night I went to Jack in the Box and ate a couple burgers, then went back and went straight to bed. I hoped that would give me some crazy nightmares, but it didn't.

I'm always the first person to get done with tests in my classes. The way I see it, if I test fast and accurate, then my teachers will think I'm a genius, and if I test fast and get all the questions wrong, then at least I'm not wasting everyone's time by being stupid AND slow.

The national anthem of the USA should be changed to "We Are the Champions" by Queen. What epitomizes the American spirit better than, "No time for losers cause we are the champions of the world." Hell, we should even print that on our money instead of "In God we Trust."

Instant Messenger is a very efficient way of wasting time.

It would be awesome if Ranger Smith from "Yogi Bear" traded places with Agent Smith from "The Matrix." But not quite as awesome as a car with an ejection seat.

I wrote an essay for my Core class but it wasn't long enough, so I padded it out with some stuff about overthrowing the government.

At Jack in the Box the other day, one of the guys I was with ordered a milkshake, and when he went up to get it the girl behind the counter asked, "You wanna spoon?" And all he did was take some plastic silverware from her.

I firmly believe that I have a soul mate, but I also firmly believe that I will never meet her.

The idea of going crazy used to scare me, but then I realized that if I went crazy and was in a rock band, I could write some sweet music. Because we all know that crazy people make kick-ass artists. Clearly I'm not going anywhere if I stay sane.

A Perfect Circle is Tool lite. They're the margarine to Tool's butter. They should start calling themselves, "I Can't Believe It's Not Tool!"

Slipknot sold out. What self-respecting death metal band would go on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno?

Goggles are the only safety gear that is mandatory at all times in the chem lab. I think it's so if you become horribly disfigured in a massive acid accident, you'll still be able to see how hideous you've become.

In my Contemporary American Experience class today we had a discussion of what makes America different. And the next person who I hear say "melting pot" is going to get my foot up their ass.

It would be fun to go to a construction site with a white hard hat (the bosses hat) and start giving orders and firing people.

The newspaper here had a book report of Moby Dick by a third grader. He described the book as "exciting" and "full of action." Wow. I wish I'd read the version that he read.

To get with the current style I started wearing my baseball hat sideways. It doesn't keep the sun out of my eyes but it's worth it for how much cooler it makes me look.

The new concourse at the Anchorage airport is massive. They built it complete with moving sidewalks, 12 new gates, and a mausoleum for Ted in the basement.

The hit counter on this website follows the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. If I never measure it, it is completely accurate. Once I start measuring it, it becomes inaccurate. These last two jokes are what I call one percenters--that means one percent of the people who read the site will get the jokes. So if 20 people read the jokes, than 0.2 of you will laugh. Specifically those of you who are Biochemistry majors familiar with Alaskan politics.

Snowboarding is the only Olympic sport where the drugs the athletes are tested for are not performance enhancing.

This site has become so popular that Michael Logsdon doesn't even write it anymore. He hired a team of four ghostwriters led by John Updike and retired to Whistler.

Listening to the band Staind is a lot like going to McDonalds: it's fine once every couple months but it will probably give you diarrhea.

Tennis would be much more exciting if they had pitching machines firing baseballs randomly at both sides, so the players had to hit the tennis ball while trying to avoid getting clocked with a 90 mph fastball.

I was thinking that a good prank to play on someone at college would be to burn a dead moose in their dorm room, but then I realized you could really just leave the dead moose there without burning it and the effect would be about the same.

The other thing I've learned from UPS ads is that everyone has a Doppleganger in another country with a similar but ethnically different name. Ex. Frank becomes Franco. Be on the lookout for a guy named Miguel with an in-your-face website. The top of his page probably says, "Failure to Comply will result in seizure of first born child."

At political conventions the crowd often starts chanting U-S-A! U-S-A! I think it would be funnier if they got one of those bullshit chants going.

Speaking of crowd chants, in sports people chant DEE-fense. In politics, we have a Secretary of Deh-fense. Why not a secretary of DEE-fense? And for that matter, why not a Secretary of Offense?

This is quite possibly the most brilliant idea I've ever had: selling a mystery box on ebay.

I've always wondered if you sealed a house completely, then started pumping air out, would the house eventually implode?

There are actually people who cheat at race walks; they enter a race walk, then run to win. You know you've given up in life when you cheat at a race walk. What kind of person is so pathetic that the only way he can win is by cheating against people who aren't even competing?

When I get old, I want to sit on a porch in a rocking chair holding a shotgun and waving at passing motorists.

I wonder if I can really piss off the other people on my flight Tuesday by bursting out into an unusually loud rendition of "Leaving on a Jet Plane."

University of Idaho has a list of items that are banned from the dorms. It looked pretty standard--no guns, knives, fireworks, gasoline, etc... But at the end of the list was numchucks. Numchucks? Is that really a problem? Am I going to have to contend with Kung-Fu masters this fall?

The Butterfly is the most worthless swimming stroke ever. Imagine a scenario where a guy falls out of a boat. "Help! Help! I'm drowning, but wait, I know the butterfly stroke. I'll swim to the shore a half mile away... pant pant pant... Oh geez, pant, my arms are tired, pant, I need to take a break... bloop bloop bloop." So much for that guy.

The new Coca-Cola ads start with an announcer saying something dumb like: you can't predict the future. Then it follows with some other dumb stuff like that and then the announcer says: you can't choose your parents. Then the words "until now" flash on the screen. So if I understood the ad correctly, Coca-Cola will let me choose some new parents. Well, I'm happy with the parents I have, but it's a nice gesture.

I'll admit, I don't play many video games, so when I was playing Halo on XBOX the other day I was surprised to see in a loading menu that there is a penalty for comitting suicide. So what does that mean, if I press the wrong button my character gets horribly depressed and takes a whole bottle of aspirin?

While watching golf on TV (I know, I'm worthless) one of the commentators said something to the effect of, "A lot of reporters are afraid to ask Tiger tough questions about his swing because they're afraid he might get mad." Afraid he might get mad? Who do they think he is, Tiger Woods or the Incredible Hulk?

UPS ads use the catch phrase, "What can Brown do for You?" That's probably a bad idea because of the connotations of "brown." Most people associate brown with poop, and it has been proven that associating your business with poop is never a good idea. I think I'll go with FedEx.

I looked in the phonebook under the last name McDonald, and the first names were: Bret, Giles & Jeanette, Joe &Caroline, Joe & Mary, John & Gail, Marc, Norm & Laura, and R. R McDonald? The only reasonable explanation is that the guy's name is Ronald McDonald and he doesn't want prank calls. "Yeah, is this Ronald McDonald? I'd like a quarter pounder with cheese, hahaha!"

According to the Trends column in the Anchorage Daily News, golf fashion is "in." In fact, according to the article, golf fashion is becoming bigger than golf. Wait a minute, that sounds backwards--do we really want to take the fashion and lose the golf? That seems backwards somehow.

I saw an ad on TV that Anchorage lawyer Greg Grebe has expanded his practice to include all his duck friends--Mike Mallard, Larry Loon, Harry Harlequin, Ted Teal, and Woody Wigeon.

I find the Atkins diet fascinating. It is astonishing that people will, in a quest to appear healthy, make themselves unhealthy. The same goes for tanning booths.

Who came up with the idea for Scooby Doo? Why would anyone think to make a cartoon about a barely coherent talking dog? I can understand a talking dog or a regular dog, but what's this about a dog who can speak in hard to understand fragments? Ruh Roh Shaggy.

Most digital watches are too confusing because they have too many buttons. I think the ultimate digital watch would only have one button, and you could do anything you wanted just by pushing that button enough times.

One thing I noticed while studying Vietnam in history class is the remarkable similarities between the Diem regime and Jimmy Kimmel Live. Both men put family members in positions of power.

It seems to me that when a man passes the age of 15, he can expect to get a shirt for his birthday every year. So if my Grandpa is 83 then that means he should have at least 68 birthday shirts somewhere.

I think they should end the show "Friends" by killing all the characters. Just have a meteor hit the coffee shop and it's done. There would be complete closure and no chance for any spin-offs.

Since I'm going off to college soon, I decided that I'll need a laptop. Then I realized that with a fast laptop I would probably be tempted to waste all my time playing video games. What I really should take to college is a typewriter. Then I'd be cool.

There used to be ads for Britain and Pentlarge Law Firm on TV here. "We help injured Alaskans" was their slogan, but now the ads are just for Pentlarge. What happened to Britain? Anyway, now that Pentlarge is by himself he should call Bill Azar to form a team of attorneys the likes of which have never been seen.

The guys that made "The Matrix" are pretty smart. They don't need to worry about people complaining that children are imitating the violence in the movie. Mainly because the violence in the movie is so outrageous it's not easily reproduceable. "Okay, you take a swing at me and I'll leap twenty feet in the air and do a backflip onto the balcony, at which point you stick this sword in a Cadillac Escalade as it drives by, rupturing the fuel line, then shoot it until it explodes."

Former president Lyndon B. Johnson was often called LBJ. That sounds like a sandwich to me: some kind of combination between a PBJ and a BLT. Lettuce, Bacon, and Jelly.

The Microsoft Word grammar checker is worthless. I typed this sentence, "That statement was contested by Pat Buchanan, and rightly so." and it told me that it was a fragment. (The other problem with the sentence being that I was agreeing with Pat Buchanan.) So for fun I typed, "People although say he not then still yet drive vehement." The grammar checker had no problems with that sentence. Huh?

Studying the history of the U.S. and Mexico, one can't help but notice how much more politically stable America is. My theory is that it's because in America, when someone kills the president, that person does not become the next president.

The television show "24" supposedly has 24 one hour episodes to simulate one day in the life of some counter-terrorism guy. The gimmick is that one minute in the show corresponds to one minute in the life of this counter-terrorism guy. The question is: shouldn't he go to the bathroom sometime during the season? Obviously the guy can't go 24 hours straight without a pee break.

There's a lot of summer jobs in the tourism industry here in Alaska. I considered trying to get a job with Princess tours, but then realized I'd have to wear a shirt that says "Princess."

I meet all the requirements for a merit diploma at my high school, except community service. They want 120 to 240 hours of community service. Hey, I didn't wreck an oil tanker; I'm just a high school student.

A review of the movie Miracle said, "Kurt Russel delivers the performance of his career." I thought the performance of his career was in "Big Trouble In Little China."

John Kerry walks into a bar and the bartender says, "Why the long face?"

I was eating a strawberry cheesecake flavored yogurt this morning when I came to the painful realization that I was eating cheese flavored yogurt.

How come Yogi Bear wears a tie and hat, but no pants? At least Smoky the Bear has the decency to wear pants and a hat. But Smoky doesn't wear a shirt. Sheesh, what a grouch.

When I was eating my bowl of Bran Flakes this morning I had a genius idea; I added raisins. I call my creation: Raisin Bran. This idea just might take off.

The newest Star Trek offshoot is called Enterprise, and I believe it merged with Enterprise rental car company. Their slogan is: Star Trek: Enterprise - We'll Pick You Up.

Some people say it takes less muscles to smile than to frown. What a bunch of crap. Hardly anyone ever goes for an all out frown, where their lips form an upside down U shape. You look like an idiot if you do that. I'd rather stare blankly off into space than smile.

In English class we read an essay about what's wrong with the school system. Apparently the problem is that students become "receptacles" for information instead of learning critical thinking. I got some news for you, most classes shouldn't have critical thinking. I've already suffered through the train wreck of math with critical thinking. The focus for a math class should be to show your dumb ass up to class everyday and maybe if you pay attention you'll learn something.

A video camera, tripod, and nice clothes are all access passes to do anything. Nobody questions what you're doing if you have someone with a video camera and tripod and you're both dressed nice. You could probably get away with murder in a public place that way. People walking by would just think, "Wow, that looks awfully realistic."

At the local Kwik-E-Mart I saw that they're selling Incredible Hulk valentines. Is that really the best way to show a person that you love him or her? With a large, green, angry monster?

If I've learned anything from filling out college and scholarship applications, it's that if an activity isn't sponsored, you aren't actually doing anything. I write this website during my own free time because I enjoy doing it, therefore it doesn't matter and is completely worthless.

My van is falling apart, but luckily, so many things have stopped working that the problems offset each other. For example, the power lock doesn't work on the side door, but the only way to open the side door is by reefing on it for ten seconds, so I don't need to lock it anyway.

People love badmouthing their penmanship and math skills. They'll take any excuse to say, "I have horrible handwriting," or "I'm not very good at math." But there are some things they never talk bad about. It's rare to hear someone say, "I'm a racist," "I'm a homophobe," or "I don't have a sense of humor." As in, "I don't think your website is funny because I don't have a sense of humor."

I have a theory about how to determine how good an animal's meat will taste: the cuter the tastier.

The Nashville school district stopped posting honor roll lists because parents were afraid if their kids didn't make honor roll they would be made fun of. Is that how it works in Nashville? I would think the parents of honor roll students would be more afraid of their kids being made fun of. What's this world coming to when C students need to be protected so they won't be mercilessly teased by nerds.

When I first heard that John Edwards was running for president, I thought they were talking about the guy from the show "Crossing Over."

Shock rocker Marilyn Manson combined the names of Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson to make a creepy sounding name. I think it would be funnier if he had chosen the name Charles Monroe.

There's an ad for the drug Paxil with a huge list of side effects including constipation and diarrhea. I'm not sure how that works but it sounds painful.

In my hotmail account I have the option of blocking further emails from certain senders, so I tried to block the hotmail staff. It didn't work.

Whenever I feel like a snack I have a bowl of bran flakes. People underestimate the importance of a daily bowel movement. It's like clockwork, about six hours after I eat a bowl I head to the bathroom.

Last summer we had a crab boil, where we boiled live crabs in a big pot of water. Crabs are really the only animal you can do that with. People are so shallow, it's okay to chuck an animal that looks like an alien into boiling water, but everybody would be outraged if you had a puppy boil. Boil live puppies and eat them, that would be gross.

Whenever I feel down all I have to do is turn on the TV and wait for a ConocoPhilips ad. Those ads are more upbeat than anything else on television. There's music in the background and the lyrics are "right here right now, there is no other place I'd rather be." Then they have shots of people smiling, a guy standing on top of a mountain, some kids chasing a pony across a field. Strangely, they only mention that they're an oil corporation in a quick soundbite at the end.

I saw a PBS special about the storm of the century that hit the East Coast in the early 90s. The weather forecasters were really pleased with themselves because they correctly forecasted it. My question is: if it was the storm of the century how hard could it have been to see it coming?

I was doing some Christmas shopping yesterday and stopped at a bookstore. While at the bookstore I realized that bookstores are some of the safest and friendliest places in the world. If the world ends during my lifetime, I hope I'm in a bookstore when it happens.

McDonalds has some distressing new advertisements out. They say that "mcnuggets are now made with white meat." At first I was concerned with the use of the word now, what were they making them with before? Then I was even more horrified when I realized that the word chicken does not appear anywhere in there. What are they making mcnuggets out of?

Marilyn Vos Savant is listed as highest IQ in the world record book, so shouldn't she have something better to do than write a column for Parade magazine?

Where did the silent k in the English language come from? This has been bothering me for some time now. If I was learning English and someone told me there was a letter that either makes a hard kuh sound or is silent I'd think they were joking.

Suicidal people could have so much fun. Think about it, if you were about to kill yourself, you could do whatever you wanted to do and say whatever you wanted to say. Except suicidal people usually are too busy moping about how no one cares about them to recognize this enormous potential for fun.

I'm a pretty big fan of late night talk shows, but Jay Leno has gotten kind of repetitive. Every night he makes a joke about Bill Clinton, O.J. Simpson, and Kevin Eubanks. I think he has a checklist; Bill Clinton womanizer, check. O.J. guilty, check. Kevin Eubanks smokes pot, check. Thank you and good night!

Sometimes when I'm driving I play a little game, I try to see how long I can keep my eyes closed. I usually only make it about five seconds before I get scared enough to open them.

I found myself in an interesting situation this morning. I walked into the men's bathroom and there were four urinals. There was a guy at the urinal on the far left, another guy at the urinal on the far right, and two empty urinals in the middle. I was forced to choose which guy to urinate next to. That's not a good way to start your morning.

I'm sure that the cartoonist who writes "9 Chickweed Lane" is ugly and was picked on in high school for being a nerd.

There will always be hope for our country as long as more people watch "Monday Night Football" than "Friends." Update: Last week 4.7 million more people watched "Friends" than "Monday Night Football." I think I'm going to move to Canada.

I wish I could get creative control over the next Harry Potter Movies. Harry is too much of a wimp, he does a lot of yelling but doesn't back it up. If I was in charge his name would be Headbutting Harry. The movie would just be him headbutting people. "Mr. Potter you need to go to cla-" BAM! "Harry, you really shouldn't be headbu-" BAM! "Avada Kedav-" BAM! I'd watch it.

When Headbutting Harry got boring I'd change his name to Sucker Punch Potter. I think it's obvious what he would do with that.

Why are there handicapped parking spaces at the Lazy Mountain Trailhead? If a handicapped person is going to climb 3,000 vertical feet up a mountain why not ten extra feet in a flat parking lot?

Why is FOX News ultra conservative but their regular programming is mostly rude cartoons, shows about dysfunctional families and minorities, and cheesy dating shows?

And what about UPN, where two hours of sitcoms starring exclusively black people is followed by Star Trek Voyager.

I got Windows ME on my computer; big mistake. I can only hope if robots with artificial intelligence ever take over earth I'll have a Windows ME disk handy. Upload that baby and their systems would crash in minutes.

Not a lot of viruses target ME. I guess the virus-makers figure if someone is running ME and their computer crashes it's just business as usual.

furious@furiousm.com