I will write about a very important and remarkable character in my life. His passing on to a Better Place can hopefully bring him happier times than what he went through on this cold, loveless planet. Earth, and Nick's room especially, is no place for rats, and in Hector's dying I sincerely hope he has found peace. Joe, Jeremy and I first met Hector at the beginning of his journey on this rock, he was part of a biology project. Hector performed well in the simple tasks that were his charge, chasing after the food like greyhounds chase after those metal rabbit things. Biology class ended, and with it Hector's home, formerly the Lake Region High School biology room, was evicted of rats. So, Hector and his cage-mate, Puck, moved in with Nick. Hector remained happy, though, rejuvenated by My visits and kept company by Puck. When I was last at Nick's house I played with Hector a bit more than usual, perhaps sensing this would be our final goodbye. As per usual his little rat claws scratched up my hands, but he seemed to recognize me. Now Hector is gone. Go in peace, little rat, and may large cedar chip fields, cheese mountains and full water bottles await you.

I think Matt is the fattest man to ever walk this humble planet. When he steps the ground trembles, light bends when it passes by him and buildings collapse in his wake. He carves a path of destruction not seen since the days of Godzilla, King Kong and Teddy Roosevelt. His tremendous girth makes it impossible to seat him on airplanes, and passing him in the corridors at school is a joke. Mankind has yet to create a truck that does not mock his stature and groan under his immense weight. Perhaps archaeologists of the future will some day find his station-wagon sized coffin and envision a giant man around which we primitives built a tribal religion, worshipping and fearing his incredible mass. Only we will know the ultimate truth and horror that is Matt's waistband.

PIG OF DESTINY

I ran into the PIG OF DESTINY earlier today while I was in Wal*Mart, purchasing a fifty cent can of Coca-Cola. I walked by the little arm-drop game and first noticed the PIG OF DESTINY. He was perched calmly at the edge of The Pit where the arm drops the prize you may or may not win. After retrieving my Coke I walked back to The Machine to contemplate how I was going to play this game out. He was standing on all fours and looking with his eerie pig eyes out towards the world beyond the glass, hoping for some divine intervention that would remove him from the cramped quarters that were so packed with helpless stuffed animals the ground to him was a myth, something whispered and dreamt about. I had my strategy, I was going to drop the arm on top of him, and I felt around for some change. OH NO! Not enough, I had forty-six cents and the game was fifty. Luckily, I think fast, and I quickly pulled a dollar bill out of my wallet, not wanting the PIG OF DESTINY to suffer anymore hardships. I inserted the dollar and the arm moved to the middle of the cage, I carefully maneuvered the three slender fingers so the 'palm' was directly over the PIG OF DESTINY's head. Breathing deeply I pressed the drop button, it felt like I was releasing the atomic bomb. Down, down the arm dropped, then it clamped shut and climbed up, up. But there was no prize in his silvery hand! I gasped and then noticed the pig wasn't there anymore. I looked around and saw he hadn't gotten loose, then I looked in the hole, and there he was, looking as smug as a stuffed animal can. It seems the arm had knocked him off his perch. So, I grabbed the pig that was so obviously destined to be mine and wasted the other fifty cents, I just blindly dropped the arm, not caring about the results which were negative. What did it matter, the PIG OF DESTINY was mine.

Ah, Luis Bunuel, what can't he do? Luis Bunuel, for those of you not in the know, was a spanish surrealist director. Thats right, surrealism in movies. He worked with Salvador Dalí on his first two movies, Un Chien Andalou and L'Age d'Or. While yes, those are both French titles the movies are redolent with the Spanish influences of their Spanish creators. The essence of the more bizarre images, such as those of an eye being slit with a razor or a man wiping his mouth completely off his face is that the mind can not rationalize such images, but the eyes can not lie, so the brain has to expand, evolve and maybe explode to compensate for the images. The object of surrealism is to make obvious the doings of the sub-conscious, to create an upheaval in society that stops people from being fake and living like Ivan Ilyich. Surrealism is a catalyst for societal evolution.

I recently listened to Beck, four of his albums. And you know what? Not too shabby. I remember I used to like him a lot, I thought he was the man, then that faded, and until recently had forgotten that he is pretty cool. I feel that his worst album was Mutations, well, of the ones I listened to. The four I learned were Odelay, Mellow Gold, Loser and Mutations. Loser has but five tracks, Loser (no shit!), Corvette Bummer, Alcohol, Soul Sucking Jerk and Fume. I am pleased and refreshed by his music. As I was glancing through the credits on the liner notes I noticed that he wrote the music and performed almost all of the instruments. One talented man with an unfortunate last name. Anyway, I just remember that there is a destination just a little up the road from the habitations of the towns we know. A place we saw the lights turned low, the jigsaw jazz and the get fresh flow. Bottles and cans just clap your hands just clap your hands...

I recently ventured to a concert, sponsored by Jägermeister, and had a nice time, except for the end. I started out having no idea what the plan was, so I called my friend, Jeremy, around 2:40, and I just missed him. So, I left for my other friend's house. I would have called but I have no clue what his phone number might be. Off I drove, for an hour, and when I arrived his sister told me that Jeremy had just picked him up. "Rats!" said I, "More aimless driving." And I left. Another hour or so passed and I was in line waiting for the doors to open. After maybe an hour, I saw Jeremy and Company drive by. I joined up with them and we had a merry time waiting in line and inside. The show was started by two midgets hawking their booze. It was good. Then Tree performed, more midgets, Forty Below Summer performed, more midgets, Ill Niño performed, more midgets, Coal Chamber performed. Coal Chamber was awesome. And Rayna is hot. More midgets. The midgets complained about the cold and got loaded. Every time we saw them they were more and more drunk. It was quite funny. Midget is not only a funny word, but a funny concept. Then Drowning Pool performed. Crap, crap, crap. The lead singer said "chickenscratch." What the hell? Anyway, some people, who I agreed with, gave comments like "You suck!", "Coal Chamber is better!" and "Drowning Pool sucks cock!" I was amused and pleased. Drowning Pool was not. The lead singer was a whiny little bitch boy. He was chubby, which, to me, is an indication that he didn't have to actually work to get his money. I got dizzy and had to fall over and almost passed out during the show, which I think is directly the fault of Drowning Pool. Anyway, I had Denny's after, so everything turned out OK in the end. Oh yeah, I don't remember most of the ride home because I was exhausted.

As you no doubt know, Burger King has a new sandwich in the 'double meat patty with special sauce' category, putting it in direct competition with the Big Mac. This newcomer is know as 'The King Supreme.' I have tried the King Supreme and I must say it is a tasty sandwich. The special sauce seems to me to be a mix of Frech dressing and mayonaisse, and there is nothing terribly addictive about it, but it is a good sandwich all around. A large amount of the attraction is, I think, the packaging. The Big Mac, unlike the majority of McDonald's sandwiches, comes in a box. This seperates it and puts it on a higher level. The King Supreme, however, comes in a plain papery wrapping, like a sandwich should. This is a sandwich for the hoi polloi. It screams out to the commom man 'Eat me! I'm not too good for you! I don't need my own special wrapping!' The Burger King in Windham also has better fries than the McDonald's. When you combine these facts it makes the choice for a fast food restaurant easy, Wendy's.

I received mail from RIT informing me that I earned the Presidential Scholarship. Go me, woo.

I was watching the picture box the other day, as I do now and again, I saw an advert for mustard. Normally I am a fan of mustard, I think it is the King of Condiments. This ad, however, disturbed me. It portrayed mustard as something of an aphrodysiac. Couple of all ages were enjoying the mustard and then enjoying each other. My first thought was 'mustard is not something I connote with romance.' Usually I think of it as a pleasant topping to my hamburgers, hot dogs and large, warm pretzels. My second thought was 'If its an aphrodysiac, maybe that is why i like it so much.'

I got into RIT. Go me. woo.

The car companies should buy major stock in gas companies. Then the prices of cars could be-theoretically-dropped. The companies would get the same amount, maybe more, for the vehicles. I think it might also put a little more balance into the gas prices, sure they would go up, but Americans have the lowest gas prices anyway. While in NZ i saw it was several American dollars to the liter. Oh well, people never learn. I should just stop thinking. Although, usually when i think it isn't anything useful like this, it is usually something violent and humorous.

Goddamn math! I wish it weren't so useful and important. Although, at the level at which I am it probably won't be useful to me anyway. The only think I can think of using it is the purpose of joking. Like *loge to the Batman. The whole statement is ludicrous, and I bet hardly any reader understands it. Oh well. I don't plan to enter a field with any math higher than algebra one. The whole cycle is foolish.

Humans think they are such a big screaming deal with their computers and light bulbs and ice cream sandwiches, but really, they aren't. They are so insecure that most of the time that dogs can't even sit on the furniture. So what? A little hair gets on the chair, I would prefer dog hair to the massive amounts of skin that is shed there when a human sits down. The only thing that separates humans from animals is the level of visible filth they care about.

Back in the bad old days when the internet was a new and exciting research tool we had a comfortable chair. It was large and wooden, and the cushion sagged the perfect amount when two pillows were fitted on top. One of the pillows was green, the other red. The arm rests were the perfect length from each other and one could put a lap board across them and type quite easily, if one were so inclined. One could even slouch! Slouching, these new chairs defy slouching. They laugh in the face of slouchers. "Ha!" they say, "try slouching in me, try it! That's right, your ass winds up hanging out and you balance uncomfortable on your spine while the back rest groans threateningly! HAHAHA!" That is exactly what they say. Then the chair suffered from use and became old, so we switched to a variety of inferior replacements. The last one the back actually broke off, so the ass part is a foot rest in my room, sometimes I still actually sit in it, when I use my playstation, for instance, but it is a foot rest. Now, I am sitting in a dispicable wooden chair. The back rest is uncomfortable, there are no arm rests, the weaving on the ass part leaves imprints on my ass, even through jeans. Oh, I wish I could have that original chair, then, maybe, just maybe, I could be truly happy.

A lot of the appeal of pretzels is the salt. I am a pretzel addict, and currently there is a bag of open pretzels to my right. I am not, however, eating very many of these knots of dough because they remain unsalted. They taste like old, stale bread crust. I have nothing wrong with bread crust, but I like the actual bread much more than the crust. These pretzels have no incentive, my sodium level sinks slowly down like a wooly mammoth in a tar pit. And my taste buds remain uncaptured by something tangy and starchy. I am left with just the starch. Soon, I will have to resort to salt licks from the days of when we owned guinea pigs. All because of these unsalted pretzels.