MacGyverology

A Degree in MacGyverology:

Description: A bachelor's degree in MacGyverology will enable you to be proficient in ways of problem solving and mission accomplishing. You will be able to maintain a vagueness about your personal life, while still developing connects and contacts throughout the country. Each graduating student will be required to have frosted hair and to dress no nicer than one would for a funeral for an unknown relative.

Courses
• LA150 Home Economics
• SC125 Intro to Physics: Cause and Effect
• SC300 Advanced Physics
• SC100 Basic Chemical Reactions
• SC450 Advanced Chemistry
• PH100 Logic
• RE230 Advanced Morality
• PE200 Physical Education: Hockey
• JLA400 Study Abroad: South America

Portfolio Requirements:
• Each student must also be a contributing member of the Boy Scouts, and reach Eagle status before graduation. Merit badges should include: fire starting, impromptu tent-building, helping inner city youth in the woods, and determining if campers are ex-cons.
• Each student must also be a starting member of the school's collegiate hockey team, and express leadership abilities both on and off the ice.
• Witty recollections of activities shared with a grandparent, or humorous observations about everyday life may be included in your final reflection paper.
• Each student is required to complete a final thesis project involving fire ants. He or she will also be required to take a final test, which may involve getting out of a predicament.

After Graduation:
• Each student will, with the help of the Career Development Center, contact various government organizations. These organizations may or may not include the Phoenix Foundation, the Pentagon, the CIA, or think tanks to be named in a later season.
• Each student will be asked to develop a mysterious and catchy last name that he or she will go by at all times. The student will all but forget their first name, until it is revealed at a much later date by accident.

This new program will empower each student by teaching them critical problem solving skills to help various clubs, think tanks, and organizations achieve national and global success. Each student will leave this university with a newfound knowledge in chemistry, physics, and putting shit together to stop villainous goons.

Leatherface makes a mean dessert

I will contribute to this boundless Frowniemania by telling you that the new kids' menu at Kings doubles as a frownie mask. It has elastic and eyeholes. Its about 10"x6". It is very cute until you put it on and you look like leatherface.

In related news, Max and Erma's has introduced Pie-ous, the self-righteous pastry.

Name Them One by One

As I am sure everybody is well aware, Thursday is Thanksgiving. It is this time of year when we are encouraged to take stock of our lives and give thanks for those blessings we have received. Unless of course you’re not American. If you’re, say, Canadian, this is the time of year where it starts to get really, unbelievably frickin cold. Yes, we Americans humble ourselves by giving thanks once a year. It is just one more reason we are SO much better than the rest of the world which is too lazy for such things. Yes, Mexico, I’m looking at you.

I’ve already started my list of blessings received. It was slow going at first, as my faithful readers may have guessed. It would seem that I do not have much to be thankful for. I hate my job. I’m too poor to properly heat my apartment. I’m underachieving, lonely, and desperate. My car is in dire need of a good working over if I want it to pass inspection by the end of the month. It needs brake work, a windshield wiper, and every time I look at my tires they practically scream at me: “Hey, James, remember when we had tread.” To which I respond: “Shut Up Tires! I’m balding too. You don’t hear me bitching about it.” At which point my neighbors call their children in and shut their doors on the ‘crazy guy who yells at tires’. I am also unpopular in my neighborhood, not to mention with the ladies. Last time I bought a girl a drink at the bar, she asked for it to go.

So, yeah, my life isn’t all roses, sunshine, and dance-a-thons, but that doesn’t mean I have nothing to be thankful for. I have a lot to be thankful for. I have my health (here’s the part where I inform you that I work out. I assure you I do work out. If you where here with me right now, I’d insist you feel my bicep. Rest assured knowing it is rock hard. You’ll just have to take my word for it. These guns are so impressive Democrats in congress think they should be banned.) I have my mental health. I have what’s left of my emotional health. I have some friends, some of whom might not actually stab me in the back to help themselves. I just earned ten cents in free gas a gallon at Giant Eagle. So, really, once I reflect on it, my life’s actually quite sweet. Here’s just a short list of the things I am extremely thankful for.

- I’ve never been to a Turkish prison.

And then there’s...other stuff…which I can’t really remember… right now.

Okay. Okay. Never being in a Turkish prison is the only thing for which I’m extremely thankful. Actually, it may be the only thing I’m thankful for at all. I mean I’m not in that good of health. I’m so poor I hardly eat. I’m so thin and pale I look like a cancer patient. Don’t even get me started on my mental and emotional health. That’s it. I can’t think of anything else right now to be thankful for except never being in a Turkish prison. But, I happen to think never being in a Turkish prison is a pretty damn good thing to be thankful for. I’m sure everyone who has ever been in a Turkish prison wish they had never been there. Do you have any idea what goes on in those Turkish prisons? Neither do I exactly, but I have a fairly good idea that I wouldn’t like it at all. So, that’s it. When my family gathers around our Thanksgiving table and we each take turns listing the things we are thankful for, mixed in amongst all the thanks for new jobs, new relationships, and good luck, the only thing I’ll have is that I’m thankful for never being in a Turkish prison.

I just hope Uncle Kenny isn’t there. That would be really uncomfortable.

Shalom
James

Alert

My current Holiday Season Annoyance Level is at pink.

Holiday annoyance chart.
pink = happy
teal = somewhat happy
mauve = tolerable
eggshell = somewhat annoyed
lilac = annoyed
sienna = beginning to hate tinsel
goldenrod = thinking about stealing Santa's hat
azure = Grinch/Scrooge
coffee = If I hear Jingle Bells one more Goddamned time....
Red = Christmas is officially canceled

To repeat, my current Holiday Season Annoyance Level stands at pink.

shalom
James

Live Free or Die, the New Hampshire Way

While walking through the school parking lot the other evening, I noticed a license plate that I immediately filed in my "ridiculous" category. (It's important to note that the category itself isn't ridiculous, however the items referred to within are.) It wasn't the letters and numbers on the license plate that caught my eye, rather it was the state slogan. It was a New Hampshire plate that read "Live Free or Die."

Apparently, this state motto has been around since 1809 and was first written by General John Stark, who was one of the great generals from the Revolutionary War. The motto, however, wasn't applied to the state until 1945, just as WWII was coming to an end. To me, every state needs to have a great slogan. "Virginia is for Lovers" is probably the best I had heard. Pennylvania's kind of sucks ("The State of Independence"? How much more boring can we get!?) But New Hampshire... now that's a hardcore slogan. I'd venture to say that slogan might even be "extreme!" Maybe even "X-treme!" It has that sort of "Puff Daddy is making me vote" vibe to it.

I think they can take things a step further. Get even more extreme with their state slogan:
• New Hampshire, as hard as a sock full of nickels.
• New Hampshire, we curb stomped Vermont.
• New Hampshire, tying one off.
• New Hampshire, our state is blue but our blood is red.
• New Hampshire, live free or we'll kill you.
• New Hampshire, no fat chicks.
• New Hampshire, we suffocated Old Hampshire with a plastic grocery bag.
• New Hampshire, home of the shiv.
• New Hampshire, Santa and the Easter Bunny aren't real.
• New Hampshizzle.
• Clap on, clap off, New Hampshire.