Halloween!

Mm, sugar.

Susan sent that to me yesterday, and I colored it even though I didn't have time to ;P. Here's the dialogue that goes with it (also from Susan):

"And what are YOU supposed to be?" demanded Mike,
eyeing Nick's costume with evident suspicion.

"Someone from what you guys call the Victorian
period," said Nick, regarding Mike's uniform with
a similar expression. "Please tell me you don't
have gun."

"Can't find a good-looking one in the store,"
grumbled Mike. He prodded the large, black felt
creation that Nick was holding. It sported a rakish,
if somewhat chewed-looking feather. "What's
this?"

"A hat," said Nick, a little hurt that Mike
couldn't recognize his favorite part of this
costume. "Like the ones they had back then, you
know?"

A pained expression crossed Mike's face, took a
detour, and settled somewhere on his forehead.
"You're not going to wear that, are you?"

"I am." Said Nick very firmly. "And you like it,
deep down inside. You know you do."

Mike crossed his arms and leaned back to see if they
were talking about the same thing. Nick, following
Mike's line of sight, held up his hat and gave Mike
a questioning look.

Apparently they were.

"Riiiiiiiight."

Nick's a musketeer, is what he is. *GRIN*

And here's something I doodled a while back. >.> It's Snape in the Pilsburry Dough Boy costume. Don't ask. I don't know.

Happy Halloween! =)

My baby is a princess.
I made the costume myself and took as many photos as I could in the 15 minutes she put up with it. I ended up taking most of them under the dining room table. =P

since the story's being poster here, lets have the pictures too :D

Halloween post coming later, but for now Susan's awesome picture of Nick and Mike which she let me color :D Yay, coloring stuff is always fun.


Yeah yeah, so Mike looks hotter, but Nick is totally the cute one. *hug*

(bigger and cleaner looking version of pic :here .)

o_O

I got an email from one of my professors (I emailed with a question first), and his signature includes the following:

"When Marriage is Outlawed,
Only Outlaws will have Inlaws."

I don't know why but it weirded me out for a minute. So random and irrelevant (considering he's an astronomy PhD).

It seems like a political view at first, but it's just a silly word play. x) Now I think he's cool. Well, he was the more fun professor out of the 4 that teach that one course to start with (it's a year-long course so we have a few profs).

November- "Isn't there always?"

“Isn’t there always?” retorted Mike. Something struck the street light nearby and it fell over with a clang, barely missing them. “Great, he’s aim’s improving—run faster people!”

It was a sensible order and it would’ve been better had they any way of carrying it out. Another lightning bolt struck a nearby convertible. Its lights went on and its alarms went off and the general racket, coupled with undiluted fear, was making Mike feeling positively murderous and so when Zach gave a strangled gasp and froze, causing Mike to skid to an abrupt halt, he was somewhere at his worst. “Dammit Zach! KEEP RUNNING!”

“Orange. Furry. Lots of teeth,” said Zach.

“Guys!” Nick shouted from somewhere up front.

“Zach,” Mike marched back to his friend, then jumped back when something that was orange, furry, and had a great deal of teeth lunched itself at him from behind Zach. “ARG! GE’ITOFF!”

The orange thing had attached itself to the front of Mike’s sweater like a horribly bloated piece of orange lint and refused to budge. When Zach approached it with a tentative hand it snarled, uncurled its head, and bared a set of impressive fangs at him, and Zach snatched his hand away with a reflex that might’ve impressed Mike had there not been a lightning bolt waiting (in more sense than one) to strike them down.

“Good grief,” said Zach.

“It’s not doing anything.” Mike moved tentatively, the orange bundle of fur stayed where it was like it’d grown there. “Alright, let’s move it.”

“Are you okay?”

“Let’s see, I’m trying to prevent myself from being killed and there’s a weird thing attached to the front of my sweater,” Mike decided to go for a generous helping of sarcasm. It made him feel better, sort of. Only not really. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Just a thought,” muttered Zach, as they caught up with Nick. The feat was made a great deal more possible by the fact that Nick was still carrying the girl.

In college, crazy things were known to happen on Friday nights, however, Mike felt that they had just stepped the limit. Okay, not so much stepped over the limit as zoomed over it at eighty-something miles per hour to land with the splat at the bottom of the cliff. Fine, they hadn’t gotten to the ‘splat’ part yet, and Mike would like to stay as far from that part as possible, namely by maintaining a reasonable run-for-your-life sprint.

They went down one boulevard, rounded the corner when the road stopped and sped down another street. It was late, the lights were on, the streets were empty though they could hear the tantalizing sound of TVs and dinner taking place inside houses. It sounded absurdly normal before a low rumble of thunder cut off the sounds.

Something clattered out of the many folds of whatever the girl was wearing and landed with a crack on the cement. Zach ran past it, stopped for a moment, and was about to turn back when the lightning promptly electrocuted whatever that thing was. Or had been, at this stage.

“Okay, maybe not,” said Zach under his breath.

“Hurry up!” hollered Mike, who was secretly condemning many things in his head, from meteorologists to the stale package of popcorn.

Two blocks later they realized that the lightning had stopped. They kept going another block because being frightened and adrenalin-filled, stopping and waiting didn’t appeared to be a viable option the first time round. By the forth block they realized that the sky had cleared and Mike eloquently cursed fate for all that it had put him through before leading his somewhat paranoid friends back to his great aunt’s house, where they’d originally planned to spent the weekend.

Plans, by general consensus, seldom worked out the way they were supposed to.

[edit: okay, in grand total, this is the forth time I've written this part...isn't that pathetic? On the whole though, I've decided to just write this story for the sake of writing this story. Makes it easier. Am going to stick with original depiction of Zach (also will be feeling oddly guilty if see the guy who looked like Zach in the DC again), freckles and all. Am going to develope the story without over-thinking it. Have decided over-thinking is the worst crime you can possibly commit to an existing story plot. Will stop.]

HAPPY HALLOWEEN SOON TO COME

Dear Diary,

I was afeared that you have been sadly neglected for weeks and weeks hence but I see that, much to all of our relief (I'm sure), that you have, in fact, still devout followers who, even if they don't post every day, read regularly. In fact, the more recent posts suggests that you may one day again rejoin the living. May I offer my sincerely congratuations, your presence have been sorely missed.

Meanwhile, Lucy, you might try starting on the LUNATICS Bible on your own or with Anna or whoever else wants to join. I'll drop in later?

This's the original text...

Genesis 1
The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2 Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

This is somewhere along the lines of Anna's idea...

The Beginning
1. In the beginning Blog created bread with crust.
2. Now the crust was dry and tasteless, nothing was over the surface of the wholewheat, and the spirit of Blog was hovering over the slice.
3. And blog said, "Let there be peanut butter," and there was peanut butter.


Then something about jelly on day two and fuzzy socks on day three.
Amuse yourselves, by all means.

Dear diary,

..Is it just me or I update here too much?

Anyway. So we were driving to school (er, college) today and I kept seeing HP 4 posters EVERYWHERE. On billboards, on bus stations, on buses themselves.

And then, we were driving through Hollywood, and there was a building the two entire sides of which were HP 4 posters. *stare*

Too bad the posters are kind of ugly most of the time. Otherwise, very cool.

Oh, on an unrelated note, my psych book, while talking about babies referred to them either as "a baby" or "it". Oh man, that amused me. So 'it' is like official and accepted in reference to babies?

it was Newton, he's to blame!

"As a student, frustrated by the limitations of conventional mathematics, he invented an entirely new form, the calculus, but then told no one about it for twenty-seven years."
-pg. 46 (A Short History of Nearly Everything) <-- my favorite textbook (maybe b/c it's not even a textbook)

Psh, but couldn't keep his mouth shut long enough (i.e. forever), could he? ;P

Heh, anyway, I think I always knew he was the one but the knowledge was somehow forgotten amidst the test-induced violent tendencies expressed in daydreams of strangling the inventor of calculus.

Back to hw.

bwahaha

Makani is too awesome for words. And she keeps getting more awesome. Dooood.
STRINGS

November- There was't a warning.

There wasn’t a warning. There should’ve been. Instead there was one science fiction movie with horribly over-done special effects, a package of slightly stale popcorn, and a five-minute stroll in the streets before the confrontation of The Girl lying facedown on the street in front of them, unconscious and bleeding.

Many things are known to induce panic in humans, blood being somewhat near the top of the list. There were blood in this current situation, and there were a rather lot of it.

Mike did what any logical, thinking person would do under the given circumstances: he checked that the girl was real, that he was real, that everything else about this situation was real, then calmed freaked out.

“Mon Dieu! Que diable—” Besides him, Nick was doing the slightly less eloquent and more children-friendly version of the same thing, albeit in French.

“Hell,” said Zach quite simply, looking faintly sick.

“Okay, let’s be calm. I’m calm. I’m calm. Are you calm?” Mike looked at Nick.

“MOI?!” Nick stared at him like he just said something crazy, or stupid, or stupidly crazy, which wasn’t far from truth, and waved a hand in front of Mike’s face. “Bonjour?”

“Maybe not.” Mike paced two slightly erratic circles around the inert figure on the ground. “Give me some help here, Zach!”

“You mean hysteria isn’t an option?” Zach took a deep breath and cautiously edged closer to the girl.

“You’re suppose to be the calm and objective one, is she alive? Is she going to stay alive? What the hell is going on?” Mike demanded, tracing another lopsided circle with his path and nearly tripping over Zach, who was kneeling beside the girl and generally getting himself in the way.

“Can’t help you with the last question,” said Zach, who looked somewhat dazed. “But she’s alive and, uh, I think she’ll stay alive. She…doesn’t seem to be injured seriously at all.”

“Oh. Well, that’s just fine then,” said Mike. “Nick, get a grip and start talking in English. Do we call the ambulance?”

Nick stared at him then slowly shook his head.

“Why?” asked Zach, in what he obviously thought was a very reasonable tone of voice. A split second later lightning struck not three feet away from where they were standing, and a swiftly gathering storm let them know that they would expect more just like it, except perhaps with better aim. “Okay the sky was clear a few moments ago, I am awake, clear-headed and freaked out and there’re lightning bolts about to strike us.”

“Well that’s just great,” Mike grunted as he picked up the girl. “My God she’s heavier than she looks. Nick, a little help here?” Another lightning bolt struck, much closer this time and frying an unhappy newspaper stand nearby. “NICK?”

Zach was frantically searching the sky above him. “Let’s get out of here let’s get out of here let’s get out of here—”

“We’re taking her along?” asked Nick, wide-eyed and with a heavy accent.

“What does it LOOK like I’m doing?” Yelled Mike, exasperated. Or as close to yelling as someone who was strained with a heavy burden could go. Without another word Nick took the girl from Mike. “Let’s go, Zach,” called Mike.

“It’s ten o’ clock, on a Friday night, and there’re things I don’t understand trying to kill us,” said Zach, giving the sky a last worried frown before running after his friends. “Is there something I’m missing?”

[I'm giving a heads-start on November, seeing how I'll be doing NaNoWriMo. Happy? =p ]

October- "Bye!"

“Bye!” said Nick, who was already establishing his cheerfulness level for the day.

Zach opened the door, made a vague hand motion that might, if one was very generous, be called a wave, and left. Mike and Nick stared at the closed door for a moment, not because it did something strange, but because it didn’t do anything strange and remained unlocked as it was suppose to do under this sort of circumstances.

There were many mysteries in the world, and the number was still climbing with a certainty and skill that could put a mountain goat to shame.

“Where did she go?” Nick finally asked, as he climbed to his feet and checked the time. It was around six thirty, much earlier than he would’ve normally gotten out of bed.

“Hell if I know,” said Mike, looking at his watch in turn. “Who is she?”

Nick sighed. “Hell if I know.”

[end of October. whee]

. . .

Hey, look you guys, apparently Death Eaters ran out of funds and are using PAINTED CONSTRUCTION CONES for their hats.

WTF.

psych book

"Our catchphrases, hem lengths, ceremonies, foods, traditions, vices, and fads (think Harry Potter) all spread by one person copying another." (pg. 333)

Harry Potter is not a fad :(

October- "Wait."

“Wait. What?” Mike was instantly awake. He glanced at the empty bed, squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them and stared at the bed. The hallucination didn’t disappear which meant, more or less, that this was real. “How?”

“Door?” Suggested Nick, rubbing his eyes and yawning.

“Locked still…this is the sort of door that you’ll need a key to relock from the outside, right?” Zach yawned too, because yawning was among one of the most contagious things in the world, after bad jokes and really weird fashion trends.

“Yeah,” yawned Mike. “Window’s fine? And stop yawning, whoever started it.”

“Window locked,” confirmed Zach, stifling another yawn. “And that would be you and I can’t stop it so I’ll just wander back to my room and sleep before I fall flat on my face, ‘k?”

“What, you’re not gonna stay?” asked Nick, throwing the pillow back where it was suppose to be, before it attacked him.

“I doubt sleeping’ll help with the falling, but keep trying, Zach,” said Mike at the same time, trying to get his hair seated in an orderly fashion and failing.

“If the girl’s well enough to decide to sneak out on her own, and that’s what I’m assuming happened, then there’s no point in me staying around. Not to mention,” Zach struggled with another yawn, lost the fight, and yawned enormously. “An’ I’m pretty much useless until I get more sleep anyway. And thanks,” he added over his shoulder for Mike’s benefit as he trudged out the door.

“Of course,” said Mike, stretching and wincing as half of the muscles in his back declared war against the other half. “See ya.”

October- Zach

Zach was able to, within an error range of five minutes, make himself wake up on a desired time provided he thought about it the day before. This morning as he opened his eyes to groggily check his clock, and was momentarily taken aback to find that the clock wasn’t where it was suppose to be. For a moment he sat very still and thought about the fact that he was sitting on the floor with a cramp in his neck muscles. Then the memories of the previous da—few hours— returned and Zach looked around to see Nick sprawled on his roommate’s bed and Mike slumped over across the desk, both still fast asleep. It was then that he glanced over his shoulder and, ignoring the pain in his neck, checked on the patient.

Except there was the slight problem of there not being a patient.

At that moment tiny electrical signals zoomed down the axons, met somewhere in Zach’s head, and had a minor explosion. He glanced at the door, which appeared to be locked, then at the window, which was the sliding sort, covered with a screen on the side that opens and therefore not the sort that admitted the passage of humans without releasing a substantial amount of noise. For the heck of it Zach also checked under the bed and checked the ceiling, even though he knew with a sinking certainty that the girl was gone.

Except he hadn’t a clue HOW she managed to leave.

“MIKE!” yelled Zach, grabbing the pillow from the now-unoccupied bed and throwing it at Mike because his legs, having been endowed with a less accurate sense of the circadian rhythm than he, were still asleep. He missed Mike and the pillow hit Nick instead.

“What?” Mike groaned, then yawned. His hair looked like it was giving a standing ovation for something, possibly (if it had inherited any characteristics at all from its owner) Zach’s aim.

“Mmrph?” Managed Nick, peering at them with a pair of very bleary blue eyes.

“Jail break,” said Zach with a dry laugh. “The mystery patient’s gone.”

October - And sometimes

And sometimes shortly thereafter, everyone in the room was asleep, some of them quite unaware of the fact (which was a frequently occurring and perfectly normal phenomenon). Of course, that was when things began to happen, simply because there was no one to watch them happen (which was also a frequently occurring and natural phenomenon).

Quite a few people, in the hours thereafter, may be interested to know that the tree that had fallen over earlier had righted and repaired itself so that it looked as anatomically correct and innocent as it was possible for any mere trees to look.

Or if that had failed to engage their interest, there was also the fact that a while later a large group of furry orange things scurried into the room, all over everything and sometimes THROUGH things, clustered for a moment around the sleeping girl before finally disappearing as mysteriously as they appeared.

And not many people from around that particular region at that particular point in time noticed how everything moved, purposefully and accurately, to the position and appearance that they had occupied exactly twenty-four hours ago.

Then there was something else the three guys who were currently unconscious in the room would no doubt be gratified to see, had they been awake at the time:

The girl, who had stayed in a comatose-like state for the past few hours, twitched, then groaned softly and opened a very unfocused eye.

But that was not all.

A second later the girl opened BOTH of eyes, her eyes focused, and she sat bolt upright with a disoriented expression and a word of exclamation that would’ve amused Mike exceedingly and make Zach wince, had they heard it.

She looked up, looked down, then stared all around her like someone who wasn’t too familiar with the existence of three-dimensional space, jabbed reflectively at the bed she was on, before inspecting the room again, pale eyes seeming to take in things, despite of the fact that it was still pitch dark. After a moment she sighed and stood up—and nearly tripped over Zach, who was slumped against the bed, fast asleep. She looked momentarily taken aback, as if she didn’t expect to see him, then wandered around the room again and seemed to notice the other two for the first time. She frowned, then scowled, and then, in a carefully muted sound, conveyed all the disgust of a girl who’d found something unpleasant stuck to the bottom of her shoe. The moment after that she walked straight into the wall with the speed of someone who didn’t expect to be suddenly and painfully stopped by a very much solid barrier.

“DAMNATIONS!” She howled, then howled again because, having yet to adjust to the concept of solid things, she had kicked the wall and was now regretting it dearly.

Mike, Nick, and Zach remained oblivious through it all.

Another inventory of the room revealed the door to her, but, after pressing her ear against it for a moment, she decided against it. She found the window, and the lock and frames seemed to come apart underneath her hands. Moments later she was gone, the bed was empty, and the window was reassembling itself with the small metallic chatter of a housemaid who felt like she hadn’t been fully appreciated.

Everyone slept on.

* * *

[There are strange things afoot, my dear Watson, and we must becareful to twist the hypothesis to fit the facts, and not the otherway around.
Cheers.]

October- "You know"

“You know, I’ve had a dream the other day…”

“Mm.”

“…and now I can’t remember what it was about …”

“Oh, I’ve had lots of those before.”

“Your sarcasm gives off radiation levels worthy of a nuclear warning sign. Anyway, I can’t stop thinking about it because I’m getting the nagging feeling that it’s important…”

“I go through life with a nagging feeling that something’s important.”

“So that’s what’s up with your unusually sunny disposition.”

“Who’s sarcastic now?”

“Mf. Like to like. You’ve been nagged for 18 years?”

“Yeah, go figure, doesn’t it?”

“In your case, sure.”

“Hey!”

Zach smiled to himself even though there was really nothing funny about the current topic especially since, according to a survey data he’d found in psychology text, most people get the sense that they were “missing something” at least part of the time. Given that the sample was accurate and reliable, which was always a formidable question in psychology (and which was also a point that Zach would loath to bring up in front of Mike), that would mean that either most people were suffering some sort of mild anxiety disorder or that there were really major things out there that no one was picking up that everyone instinctively felt they should be picking up. Which was always a possibility.

Mike, in the mean time, was getting bored because there was, after all, only so much you could do by yourself when you were stuck in the middle of a power outage, in the middle of the night, and most of them involved a bit of banging about. Since half of the room was unconscious and 75% of it was quiet, he amused himself by counting in powers of two and seeing how far he could go, lost interest when he noticed a pattern that rendered the whole exercise lacking-in-challenge, before trying to see if he could calculate the endless decimal places of pi by doing infinite sums series.

another questin answered

Your Hair Should Be Blue

Wild, brilliant, and out of control. You're a risk taker with an eye to the future.

What's Your Funky Inner Hair Color?

October- Zach sighed

Zach sighed very quietly.

“Why do people think they like truth so much?” He asked no one in particular.

Since No-One-In-Particular was conspicuously absent and Mike was the only other conscious being in the room, he was the one who answered. “Because it’s the truth.”

“Uh-huh,” said Zach skeptically. “Does it even exist?”

“Well theoretically it does.”

“…only in theory.”

“But it’s there.”

“And so people are just in love with this idea?”

“Basically, yeah. I mean it’s not like it’s the first time or anything.”

“It’s just an IDEA. How do people know what the real thing’s like? …how do they know if they’ll LIKE the real…oh…that’s right…they don’t.”

“Yep, good thing the real deal never showed up.”

“So we can keep living with our ideas about other ideas?”

“Of course, people just LOVE their illusions, haven’t you noticed?”

“And this is a good thing…how?”

“It’s not really a ‘good’ thing. It’s just what happens.”

“Ah, right. Well we get happy people. Sort of.”

“Only not.”

“Right.”

Both boys sighed. With Nick out of the conversation, there was nearly an inevitable turn to the gloomier subjects. Neither Mike nor Zach knew if this could be blamed on a subconscious agreement, a certain character deficit, or the fact that they both deviated from the normal sleeping schedule by two hours, in opposite directions. Or perhaps it was the fact that at some levels, both of them felt that Nick was the more sheltered one, despite of the fact that Zach was the one with a stable British upbringing and an only child. The fact remains that neither ever formally broached their more cynical views with their French friend, though language (under the guidance and occasional threats of Mike) was no longer a problem.

Or maybe it was just the fact that Nick liked origami animals and his friends were freaked out by it, which was a possible, though somewhat improbable explanation.

[better much?]

the simple truth

I have the same category/description as Lucy, percentage-wise:
69 % Nerd, 21% Geek, 60% Dork

So it turns out that I'm actually not a geek. Huh.

we can finally find out the TRUTH

The Nerd/Geek/Dork test.

Tri-Lamb Material
52 % Nerd, 39% Geek, 60% Dork

For The Record:
A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd and Dork, earning you the coveted title of: Tri-Lamb Material. The classic, "80's" nerd, you are what most people think of when they think "nerd," largely due to 80's movies like Revenge of the Nerds and TV shows like Head of the Class. You're exceptionally bright and smart, and partly because of that have never quite fit in with your peers or social groups. Perhaps you're realized, or will someday, that it is possible to retain all of the things that you like about being brilliant and still make peace with the social cliques around you. Or maybe you won't--it's really not necessary. As the brothers of Lambda Lambda Lambda discovered, you're fine just the way you are and can take pride in that. I mean, who wants to be like Ogre, right!?

Congratulations!

heeeeeeeee

Voices in the distance could be heard saying.. "OMGWTF she is heading this way! TO THE BOMB SHELTER!"

October- Mike

Mike was wide awake. Aside from the fact that he nev er slept much, the unusual events that night, followed by a discussion, had given him something to think about Up until this point in his life he'd drifted along within the boundaries. Granted he was the one to walk on the lines, putting a foot (and occasionally an arm) across, but he had never jumped across th eline with a coup de grace [need those accents] and a declaration. College...college was another start to see where he was going, when he'll there there, and whether getting off or lawsuit was an option if he didn't like the ride [reference to a song from LUNATICS CD]. If he was a professional lemming Mike would prefer knowing if parachutes were included in the job benefits, and if the world was going to hell he'd inquire about a seasonal pass so he could take a tour and judge for himself what was coming.

Zach was wide awake. He had a case of mild insomnia and the circumstances showed all likelihood of him remaining awake until well past dawn. Another crude medical check told him that their mystery patient's temperature was down to around normal now, though she was still unconscious, and the sudden appearance of society as a topic of discussion once again made him wonder just where everything--and that included the world and everything in it--was going. Technically--and Zach was always careful about technicalities [is this an actual word?] --this wasn't his problem since in all chances and logic he'd be long gone before anything, much less everything, went anywhere. But that was a fast slide toward apathetic cynicism [sp?], so Zach put on proverbial breaks and pondered why the tree crashed outside.

Nick was starting to doze off. He was tired and now that things seemed to have calmed down a bit (the intensity of banging-about in the hallways appeared to have decreased somewhat), he was beginning to feel the effects of what had ended as a stressful day for him. Soon his breathing pattern alerted his friends to just how tired he was.

[I suddenly find myself wondering whether or not Nick snores.]

Things happen

I got my psychology book just before I wrote the post in my blog (check the time of post for that if you want to) and I have just started reading the first chapter.

Less than a minute ago I came across this statement and now I'm laughing at it and sharing it with you guys:

"If uncertainty makes you uncomfortable and you insist on statements that are definitely right or wrong, I suggest you consider a career in mathematics, not psychology." (p.4, INTRODUCTION TO PSYCHOLOGY 7th ed, by James W. Kalat)

This is right after the post I wrote this morning...what are the odds...?

Now someone find me a relevant quote from economy.

October- "So"

"So, that did you guys do today," cut in Zach. There was a short pause. "Anyone?"

Nick tried to visualize a list of his accomplishments for the day. "Classes, internet, did some economy homework..." he ticked off the tasks.

"Good job," said Zach, who felt morally obliged to encourage positive behavior, or, in this case, anything that didn't involve prolonged period of procrastination.

"Yeah," remarked Nick. "I found that the marginal cost of doing my homework, in this case, actually increased my marginal utility right afterwards!"

A short silent greeted his words. It waved and then tripped off blithely to its other appointments elsewhere.

"Nick, just so you know, that was very geeky," Mike finally said.

"This is coming from a math major," said Zach, who agreed with Mike but felt like he should be technically fair.

"Yeah Mike, why'd you become a math major?" asked Nick, who put up with math only so long that he could manage his econ courses.

"I've...told you...before..." Mike answered with the studied impaitence which was partially helped by the fact that the true idea of patience never made it to his personality (there was limited vacancies at the time).

"Sorry, but 'it sounded like a good idea at the time' isn't good enough," said Zach with a heavy over-tone of reasonableness that he knew, and that Mike knew he knew, that Mike couldn't stand.

"Especially since you're STILL a math major," added Nick with the suggestion that this was a serious case of eccentricities.

"Most people don't change their majors once a month," retorted Mike. "Not everyone's as indecisive as you are."

"Touche" [someone teach me how to do accents here] Nick said good naturedly, "So, why are you still a math major?"

"You're not going to let it go, are you?" Mike asked without much hope.

"No," said Zach, quite cheerfully. He added, "and we're not going anywhere any time soon, either."

There was a heavy sigh of expasperation followed tye the particular sound of forehead against a wooden surface. "Truth."

"What?"

"We're still talking about you and math, right?"

"No, Zach, I just decided to randomly say a word for the hell of it."

"Sarcasm doesn't become of you, Mike."

"Not much do."

"I agree."

"Who asked you?"

"I'm just--"

"--truth?"

"What's the closest thing we have to truth?"

"...The stuff we get from books?"

"No kidding."

"No...no. The closest thing is what the most number of people agree on, what the society decides."

"Point! And we see how well THAT ususally turns out."

"It isn't THAT bad, Mike. I mean, look at what we have..."

"No, really, Nick, YOU look at what we have: Spanish inquisition, Reign of Terror, apartheid [someone will kill me one day for misspelling and horrible grammar soon, probably Kate]...I mean, no offense about the Reign of Terror thing.

"Mike, you are a math major and not a geek."

"Right. My bad. And Zach, stop laughing."

"I'm not laughing!"

"You were. And you're going to!"

"But I'm not."

"But you're going to."

"But I'm n--"

"So you hated society and decided to take math?"

"No, I just don't give a damn about anything more arbitrary than solid numbers."

"But aren't variables 'arbitrary'? I mean, that's why they're called variables, right? They vary? Especially in stuff like implicit differentiation?"

"No, I know that, but--"

"And you know math's a human thing, right? Humanity? Society? Ants don't do math--at least not that I know of, and--"

"--ZACH."

"I'll be shutting up now."

[YOu know, as odd as it may seem, I actually found that I missed writing stuff out on paper. Seems to be sort of soothing...in a masochistic kind of way. Wait. Is that...? Can something be masochistically soothing? Er. Oxymoron.]

omgroflmaololololroflomgomglol
I'm totally hooked on lame jokes now!!

okayokayokay.
Why was the tomato blushing??
Because he saw the salad dressing!!!

Sorry, I couldn't help it.
And that concludes the first post I've made in months.




I miss you guys. =(

October- There was a moment

There was a moment of silence during which Zach gritted his teeth.

"No, of course not. It's, uh, against the rules to have pets other than fishes in the dorms," said Nick in what he obviously thought was a tone of convinced duty. "You must've brushed against the blanket."

Zach refrained from pointing out that the standard blankets in the average household, as a rule, are not around the size of a basketball and do not run. It was dark, it was sometime between two and three AM in what Zach generally called 'the unholy hours of morning', and they were tired. Besides, he decided that he wouldn't put it past Nick to have small, scurrying blankets. Weird things tend to evolve in any environment that Nick occupied.

"Hear that, Zach?" Mike tried for some weary humor that turned out more weary than humorous. "You just met your first running fish."

"SOMETHING's fishy here," muttered Zach as he started collecting the cans again. "Are we done here and if not, can we managed to get done before anything else weird happens?"

Of course, he wasn’t thinking about the list that they’ve made before and connecting it with the idea that a great deal of weird things had already happened to them, and were evening happening at that very moment.

"What're you going to do now if we are?" Nick had just made the mistake of enjoying the rather bad pun that Zach had made about fish and was currently sensing what he imagined to be Mike's glares when in fact, Mike was not glaring at him. He was scowling.

"Let's be logical," said Zach. Mike and Nick both groaned. Zach ignored them.

"Be logical," he persisted stubbornly, "It's..." he peered at his watch, "two-something in the morning, the lights are out along with the electricity, a tree just crashed outside for no reason in particular, so leaving right now might be a bit hazardous."

Nick picked this moment to go for sentimentality, unaware that it was something that should definitely stay five yards away from logic at all times. "Aww, it's really because you guys don't want to leave me, right?"

There was a snort coming presumably Mike that managed to eloquently convey the idea that, between Nick and the nighttime hazards, there wasn't much to pick from. Yep, no doubt about it, it was definitely Mike.
___________________________
I'm going back to doing my first draft in longhand, what fun. Happy the start of school year to you too.