02/17/2004 - 2:07 a.m. | which might explain why Japanese women are seemingly all constipated

All right, I'm horribly behind, so let's go. Friday was my happy day off 'cause I didn't have to cross the guard, I certainly wasn't going to another lame review session, and no phonetics lab yet (probably). So I slept and sat about. Turns out my video card comes with some really good editing software (actually the very same I was thinking of buying on my own), so I spent copious amounts of time editing down a sequence from "Lilo & Stitch" where a computer virus throws up. I just sort of consider it all part of my training.

Funny how episodic some friendships are. Some exist only where there's time, and since I have that in spades, you'd think I'd be set. It's not one-sided, though. And, has apparently become my new favorite thing, I keep mention how I don't really have any acting ability.

Dank, Brytne, Kyle, and I went to see The Triplets of Belleville at the art theatre. It was such a cute movie... Well, parts. Some parts were creepy and disturbing, like I assume all French cartoons would be, but it was bizarre and awesome, and the main song is so catchy that I still hum it off-handedly. We hit Late Nite after, and then Dank and I sunk into our usual evening of GaS. It makes me pretty happy that Marc Summers has an OCD about messes and stuff, and yet he works on "Super Sloppy Double Dare." Once again, I really wish I had the ability to travel back in time and take over the body of old Nick game show contestants. I'd run up to him after the big, gross obstacle course and give him a hug. And rub his face.

When I am rich, I will devote my money to a few certain things. 1) You know in the "Double Dare" obstacle course, the room with of all the little styrofoam flakes flying around? Yeah, I want a big room like that. I'd just sit in there and try to watch TV 2) Pneumatic tubes. If you made one big enough, can you transport people? Only one way to find out. 3) Hire actors to constantly portray Mayan temple guards and randomly sic them on people.

Valentine's Day was spent as expected: 8 hours of "Lizzie McGuire." I don't even like the damn show - don't think Lizzie's hot, hate the little brother pretty much - but again, the strange compulsion. I finally got out of the house to work. Luckily not with the girl whose parents died, although the guy I did work with was pretty boring and made conversation just about as awkward. After weighing all possible options (including a gymnastics party??? with Elliott), I read and went to bed. Not in a party mood right now; don't know what to get out of them.

As I mentioned before, I kind of sucked at planning out this weekend. Turns out my parents were visiting on Sunday, and I had both work and a biopsych test to study for. They arrived late (which still makes me all sorts of paranoid), and I had to leave shortly therafter to work. The IMPE dating service continues; Allison Walker was all right, I guess, but she seemed busy and disinterested in talking, so I played with the Silly Putty Mom got me and tried not to hum too loudly. And the three hours just dragged. We went out for Italian afterward, and although the waiter was sort of an ass, the food was good. Fried risotto balls are so much better than I would have imagined, and the raspberry sorbet was killer.

We came back here to drink wine and play Monopoly. It was Mom and I versus Dad because Mom feels he is excessively cruel and figured we should team up against him. We still lost. Being consistently bad at games is just a little bit depressing, which is why I guess I avoid them so often. We took a walk and hung out for a while, and around 10, I started studying. This went on 'til 2 with very little pause, except to get some gross generic Twizzlers to fuel my mind.

Up at 8 today (wasting my other day off) to study some more. Turns out it still wasn't quite enough; apparently there is more "biology" on these tests than one might think. At least the girl next to me smelled nice. Sometimes that's all you've got.

Met with my parents for Thai at the Y and then proceeded back here for some sort of desperate fabric search. And to take pictures of me dressed up as crossing guard dork. Along the way, they made it a point to note any girl that checked me out as we walked. I proposed that they were more than likely just confused about why this guy was walking with two old people on a Monday afternoon. It's not as though I'm incapable of noticing; the one supervisor at IMPE this weekend was totally trying. I'm just... so not interested right now. She had nice pants, but that's not much to found a relationship off of, now is it? One can't even begin to understand my reasons. Perhaps I'm saving myself for Jesus or - God willing - Amanda Bynes.

After my parents left (sucks that today was my long day 'cause they could've stuck around longer), it was off to lab to try and drown some rats. OK, not quite. We're doing this test to see how rats' spatial reasoning is affected by alcohol. The rats are dumped into a kiddie swimming pool filled with opaque water and have to try and find the location of a platform just under the surface of the water. Our job today was to train the rats to learn the initial task. We were assigned various tasks, and I quickly scooped up (heh!) the position of poop remover. See, apparently when you first put the rats in the water, their inital response is, "Better empty my bowels entirely!" So I used a stick to get the little poops out. Strangely enough, no one else seemed to want the job, and I was making some prime poo jokes with hardly any reaction at all. That's because the class is filled with boring, timid people. That's right, I'm talking to you, Ugly Owen Wilson (perhaps you think this is redundant, but you haven't seen this guy). You gotta love when you bust out your super loud donkey laugh while everyone else sits quietly, too cool for school. Most of them didn't even handle the rats; they left that to the TA, who just happens to be severely allergic to rat dander and gets big welts where they touch him. Nice, guys. I thought the rats were pretty cute, though. One kept climbing on the platform and trying to leap out, failing miserably each time. I really wish I could see what they act like when they're drunk, furthering adding to my position that I think I need a pet.

Kyle, Brytne, Spritz, and I went to - of all places (again) - McDonald's. I was initially reluctant, but they just brought out the Shamrock Shakes, and I've never had one, so the time was ripe. They were... bizarre. I swear they took the two green things they had lying around (mint ice cream and lime sherbet) and mixed them together. Strangely, not all that bad.

When I got home, I wrote up my personal statement for my College of Communications application. No longer a free floater! My life has meaning! Well, sort of. Here is a joke I wrote today: How is a suicidal person like a guy with a small penis? They're both not long for this world. HUH?! HUH?! I slept for a couple hours.

Yousaf finally got me to watch Windtalkers, which of course required the initial 8 stops beforehand. We went to Schnucks to get candy and whatever. You know that Pepsi promotion where 1 in 3 bottles wins a free song off of iTunes? Yeah, well, Will had mentioned to me earlier today that you're actually able to peek under the bottle to see if you have a winner. So, guess who's gonna be a Pepsi drinker for a little while? These will be the first entirely legal songs I will have ever had on a computer! I feel like such an upstanding citizen.

The movie was all right, better once Dank came out and I had someone to yell with. Nic Cage is pretty crazy, and the Native American guy totally looked like Stifler so that I wanted to keep making him say lines from American Pie, except I do not know any lines from American Pie, so so much for that. The best part of the movie was the blatant stock footage used in the battleship scene. Christ, John Woo, spring for some CGI or something. Hilarious.

OK, all caught up. Now only 4 hours until it's me and housewife standing about awkwardly. One can hardly wait, can't one? One one one.