That explained that

I saw a fake mustache lying on the ground yesterday. I found that odd.

I recently saw a bumper sticker that said “My child received the Monthly Attendance Award at X Elementary” which got me to thinking. So, your kid had perfect attendance for a month? What is that, four and a half weeks, maybe 23 days? Is not missing school for 23 days really impressive enough that someone not only makes a bumper sticker to celebrate the occasion but someone else actually puts that bumper sticker on their car?

I think everyone has one song on their Ipod that they immediately skip if it comes up on shuffle when they are listening to it with another person, pretending to not like the song because they are embarrassed, but will bust out singing it if they are alone. For me, that song is “Foolish Games” by Jewel. OK, I also have one or two Michelle Branch songs. And an Ashanti song. And a couple of Avril Lavigne songs. Alright, fine, I think everyone has five or six or fifteen songs on their Ipod that they immediately skip . . . .

I went wine tasting a couple of weeks ago and this past weekend I drank a bottle of wine I had bought on the trip. I was pretty disappointed, actually, because I had remembered at the time I tasted this wine it had been delicious. Then I realized that at the time I tasted it originally, we were on our fifth winery of the day and I had been drinking for a solid seven hours. That explained that.

Don't do a journal! Do moot court!

I'm on an "honors" journal here at USC . I say "honors" because I don't feel honored at all to be one of among 160 students out of my class of 210 who are in an honors program, especially since it is definitely the least prestigious of the three programs.

So my buddy Luke is on the journal with me, and both of us have been recently slaving over our "note," a 35 page minimum, well researched, footnoted, supposedly publishable quality paper. (Although there is no way either of us has any shot of getting published. Basically both of our topics are just stuff we like (mine is baseball and his is football) but really both our essential legal argument are pretty crappy. I'm trying to argue Congress should pass a law to break up the Yankees and he's arguing that DirectTV Sunday Ticket should be free or something. There is no real legal argument to back either of us up. We're going to have to work for at least 100 hours on it, so you might as well do something you don't mind, screw the difference between a 3.0 and 3.8, I got a job!)

Anyway, it's customary in a note to include information about the author in the first footnote . Usually it's the author's education or history of teaching positions or something, or maybe they thank someone. Luke sent me what he wrote, and what still remains when on his paper since I saw it last, less than 24 hours before the first draft was due. I'm just hoping he doesn't forget to change it before he turns it in:

"Luke Edwards is a leading staff writer for the Southern California Interdisciplinary Journal. He would like to thank his mother for always giving him the strength and motivation to pursue his dreams and also for passing him the genes that gave him really big balls. This paper will discuss nothing substantive whatsoever and Luke may or may not be expelled as a result of the massive and blatant plagiarism contained therein."

Carrots and Beer

Last week we planned on having a Super Bowl party, but my roommate and I got into a bit of a disagreement about what kind of food to get. He wanted to order pizzas, but I wanted to BBQ because it was cheaper and I told him I hated asking guests for money. He looked at me and said, “Don’t worry, I’ll collect it. It’s right up my alley. I’m Jewish and Asian."

A self proclaimed diehard Bears fan vowed last week that if his football team lost the Super Bowl, he would change his name to Peyton Manning. Two days after Chicago lost the big game, he actually made good on his promise and filed the necessary papers in a local superior court.

It blows my mind that the little café at my school sells Rock Star for $3.25. Not because that price is so expensive, but because of the fact that less than 30 feet from the café there is a vending machine that sells Rock Star for $2.00. And they have both been selling the energy drinks for over a year. Simply blows my mind.

It also blows my mind that 2Pac just came out with a new song. Seriously? Didn’t he die, like, 15 years ago?

I came home the other night and was really in the mood for some nachos and a beer. But, being it a Tuesday night, I decided I did not need to subject myself to the sort of fare I would eat when I am three sheets to the wind at a baseball game. So I compromised and ended up drinking a beer and eating carrots. I gotta admit, that was a pretty weird combo.

My diet, in numbers

95: Percentage of things I prepare that are either a sandwich, out of a box, or are made in the microwave.

10-12: estimated number of half empty bottles of Cholula hot sauce stolen from the local Baja Fresh my roommates and I have gone through since August.

60: Percentage of things I eat for dinner that have the word "Helper" or "-aroni" in their title.

3: Number of fruits and veggies I eat in any given week: bananas, apples, and carrots. But I do eat just about every one of them everyday.

100: Percentage of meat that I eat I cook by stovetop, BBQ, or my George Foreman. Seriously, I have no clue how to cook meat any other way. I mean, I'm sure I could figure out how to turn the oven on, but I can't say I know how to do it, because I've never used the oven in this house.

0: My idea of how big a tablespoon is. Honestly, I have no idea. Whenever an aforementioned "Helper" requires 3 tablespoons of butter, I just grab a decent sized gob of the spreadable stuff with a regular spoon.

5,000: Number of dollars I would invest in pepperoni pizza Lean Pockets if I had it. Delicious, with only 7 grams of fat, 11% of your daily allowance of fiber, convenient to eat on the go, and ready in two and a half minutes, this little treat gets five stars.

Worth passing on...

My buddy Joe, a 3L at Villanova, sent me this recently and I thought it was worth sharing:

In class a few weeks back we were discussing this relatively recent homicide trial in which a guy was being tried for the murder of his wife. While there was a good amount of evidence -- mostly circumstantial -- indicating his guilt, the guy had a pretty decent case, and successfully rebutted most of the state's case. And then the state introduced this evidence: a week before his wife's death, the husband, on his personal laptop, ran the following search on Google -- "how to kill someone and get away with it." Hmmm. That's no good. The dude was given life without parole. Sucks for him...