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Easter. 4.11.04

stuff has been really busy, but because i love all you guys (awwwww!) i'm updating. be grateful, dammit.

well, first i should talk about the compass rose show. we weren't half bad, despite what you might find if you listen to the recordings i posted on that site. I don't know if anyone is familiar with wind instruments, but they get a lot of spit in them when you play them for extended periods of time, hence "spit valves" on trumpets and the like. well, yeah, nasty. ok. i think the coolest part about the show was that we made everything up the whole time. since there are no lyrics, there's no required order, and we just basically jammed. and with a mic on my sax, i was way too loud.

the red sox hysteria has begun again. and johnny damon's hair is awesome. in the words of curt schilling, "it's not win or lose, it's win or else." i think our own arrogance may bring us down this year, even though it never hurts the yanks. but that's how money works. i've said it before, and I'll say it again: pokey reese is the man. if we win "it" this year, it's because of him.

last monday at scouts we did the iron chef competition. nick hamlin whipped up some crazy teriyaki. but the best part was that ben hurley and i perfected the art of fried oreos. we used olive oil, because it was all they had at scouts, and deep-fried bisquick-battered oreos. then, a dash of cinnamon sugar, and voila: a heart attack on a plate. I highly recommend them.

you know how they say men think about women (or sex) every 3.4 seconds? well, they do. how do they get that statistic? just asking, not implying anything. moving right along....

easter. what a useless holiday these days. who thought up the bunny and the eggs? oh right, the egg represents jesus's love, and the bunny represents the holy ghost. of course. forgive the skeptical unitarian.

so on friday everyone hated me for getting a !%$) on my SAT's. but wendell beat me by 40. let the senior slide begin, i guess.

hey, the sox game is starting in three minutes. for those geniuses (genii?) out there, that means that it's 2:02. and soon i'm going to amherst to stay with melissa (half-sister) and then look at williams. I should really start that research paper that's due tuesday. i'm done. do yourself a favor. <-- this site is amazing.

Tuesday, 3.30.04

yet again, it's been too long. l'voyage de montreal was amazing. I learned that if you mumble a lot and pretend you're hard of hearing, you can pretend you know how to speak french. The band performed in the Montreal Olympic center, but only in the foyer. We had maybe six people who stayed for the whole performance, and four were our chaperones and bus driver. The other two were cool vacationing mexicans. Montreal's pride and joy is pretty much the '67 world exposition (hence the expos) and the '76 olympics. They're just now paying off the debt from those.

but we got to go to the Hard Rock Cafe, which was cool, and just walked around in the snow a lot, and offended locals with our mispronunciation. A good time indeed, despite the tyrannical mr. kwiatek refusing to put on Canadian Bacon to watch on the bus ride. Basically, go anywhere and hang out in a cool hotel, and it would be fun.

This past sunday we (compass rose) jammed for the first time in too long, especially with a concert this saturday. our debut. But no one could remember the right order for any song so we decided to just wing it in some kind of big jam. Should be good stuff. So go. Gloucester Teen Center. Find it, and be there, 6:30 April 3rd.

on wednesday I have to debate at the community center over the USA PATRIOT Act. It's being hosted by a group called the Manchester Bill of Rights Defense. They proposed that the town vote to ask our senators to repeal it. So a bunch of grown up hippies basically. Not that I disagree with them, but anyway, I have to debate the side they all hate, explaining why the USA PATRIOT act is an excellent thing. yay. With some luck I'll survive.

Hey, so the prom is in two months, so naturally everyone is freaking out over who's going with who. I had told myself I'd go alone, but I realize now how pitiful that would be. I'll have to "step it up" and ask someone. wait, but blogs are supposed to be self-deprecating. Oh well.

Just to clarify, didn't the Massachusetts courts say gay marriages had to be legalized within 180 days, but now all they're doing is trying to ban them? I'll never understand this.

And I almost forgot. You know how Spain just had their 3/11 mini 9/11 terror attacks? Well for a few days I was really pissed because they were cancelling the school spanish trip.I'm done. oh, and bush sucks.

Thursday, 3.18.04

Wow. Due to my extreme laziness, there has been no update for (pauses for calculation) 2+ weeks. So, has anything interesting happened? Well, last week (8-12) was pretty pointless. Monday and Tuesday the DECA kids were gone, and since more than half of my grade does it, pretty much nothing happened. At scouts we did this thing where the little kids run down to the church and back, and time it because they're supposed to improve to get the tenderfoot award. But just to be weird, Wokkus gave me this stuffed turtle (stuffed like from a taxidermist), so I ran with the little kids, while carrying a stuffed turtle. They love jokes like that when you pull some old notebook out of the broken turtle.

Well, that was unnecessarily graphic and weird. I'll try to control myself. Monday night my grandma died. But I called her Nana. That was sad, but it was fun being with all my cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. I missed three days of school, and was basically screwed when I got back.

But I forgot something really cool that happened before all that sadness. I went to Wachusett, which surprisingly didn't suck, but I guess that was because I tried snowboarding with my cousins, and it was above 50 degrees the whole time, and it rained. Somehow I still really had fun, and almost learned to snowboard. I think that's the last time I'll get to ski this year. what a below-par year. I shouldn't complain.

BTW, if you find the entry where I talk about going to Amherst, that's when I last saw nana, and she was really happy. I guess it was sort of a surprise (that she died). I don't know how to deal with it, and I'm missing the "funeral" (she was cremated) service.

This very last past weekend I won a debate tournament going undefeated, and get to go to nationals, but you don't want to hear about that. What? You do? Ok then, let me elaborate. just kidding folks. I know how much you care. I do get to go to Salt Lake City during finals though, and spend a week there, even if we don't do too well.

The real excitement, however, is what I'm doing tomorrow morning, and not packing for now. With band we're going to <french accent="heavy,nasal"> Montreal. Hon hon hon!!!! <⁄french> One performance, three days, and all my favorite band peeps. If you don't know me you'll think I'm a ridiculous band geek, which I may be, but seriously. This will be a good time.

Tennis started this week. We had to get up wicked early to play at the MAC to get a "competitive advantage" over other teams. We have a good chance of winning states this year, even if that means I won't play varsity. Meh (he said half-heartedly). Practice today consisted of shoveling snow off the courts and then, while smart kids like me were wearing sneakers and shorts, we ran through the snowy field, did pushups and situps in the snow, and got frostbite. Fun times. But it built a stronger team, and that's what counts, right? Right guys?

I'm even boring myself. Next time I have two exciting weeks I'll try not to smush it all into one post and forget all the funny stuff. To montreal I go.

Tuesday, 3.2.04

A lot of stuff has happened since I last posted. And for anyone who cares, a bunch of new stuff is happening with the elections, etc. Even as i'm writing this, I see that Kerry's winning nearly everything on "Big Tuesday." Too bad, I liked Edwards. But who really cares, it's just the person who will lead our nation for the next four years.

Some conspiracy theorists like myself think that Bush has already caught Osama. Whether or not that's true, I was talking to Yvonne and decided how Bush can get reelected no problem. Saddam "escapes" somehow, and for a few days before the election everyone is afraid to turn out their lights at night. Then, we learn that the night before the election, Saddam took personal revenge on Bush. He snuck into the WhiteHouse and was about to kill the first lady when, out of the blue, Dubya wakes up, sensing something. He opens his eyes to find none other than Saddam hovering over his bed. Instead of calling Secret Service, he whips out a couple of stan-chi/kung-fu moves on Saddam's ass. We wake up that morning to learn that in the ensuing battle, Bush wrestled Saddam to the floor, and the desperate ex-Dictator pulled a sawed-off shotgun out of his pants. They struggle for a bit, Arabic anti-American swears flowing out of Saddam's mouth like water from the whitehouse lawn fountain, as Bush won't let the Secret Service enter. "This isn't revenge. It's punishment," he says. Unfortunately, the trigger is pulled, and Saddam's, well, gonads, are hit.
At the hospital, Saddam is unconscious. The doctors say he can only be saved if he undergoes a sex-change operation, which Dubya authorizes since there's no family around. After recovery, Bush agrees to send him back to Iraq for a fair trial, where he is called a traitor and who knows what else in Arabic.

Call me idealistic, but I might even like Dubya if he managed to fabricate a story like that.

But enough about politics. Let's talk about me. Today was ridiculously warm. 65 degrees. In march. I wore shorts and a t-shirt running and was too hot. OMD!!!

Finally I'm more or less done with Moby (*swears under his breath*) Dick. And although I have a ton of work the next two weeks for English, like reading Huck Finn, they'll be pretty fun. There's the band trip to Montreal, which speaks for itself. And some other stuff.

I should really do some homework, I think. So bye.

ramblings, etc.