BINKY!

Apparently it is an "official" word for the happiest state a bunny can be in and is also used as a verb. As in "it binkied".


The happiest rabbit expression is commonly called a "binky." It's impossible to mistake for anything else, and the first time you see one you will probably wonder if the poor thing is having a convulsion. When a rabbit binkies, it jumps into the air and twists its head and body in opposite directions (sometimes twice) before falling back to the ground. This can be done while standing in one place, or while running, which is really weird looking, and is sometimes

You can do a head flick too, by quickly dropping your head sideways and then back up, with a bit of a twist. If you have long hair that gets flung, your rabbit is even more sure to get the message. Some happy rabbits will head flick back at you to show that they share your happiness. It's always nice to answer a head flick in kind. If you want to go for the full binky, your rabbit will understand if you jump up a little in one place while doing a head flick. I recommend you don't try to twist your body in mid-air like a rabbit will, especially if there is any furniture around, you have a history of back problems, or are over 45 years old. Trust me on this one.

Yipee! 245K movie

The full text (and much more) is here . Site shown by Kate.

SPEAKING OF KATE: we have decided to, from now on, greet each other by binkying :D So I thought we might as well incorporate that into the general Lunatics lifestyle.

p.s. AIM convo:

Silly Rain Girl (20:57:57): The happiest rabbit expression is commonly called a "binky."
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:02): Binky!!!!
armenianluna (20:58:10): hahaha nice
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:22): sheppard
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:24): 's hair
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:27): is a happy bunny
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:30): *squee*
armenianluna (20:58:43): and sheppard gets to groom it
armenianluna (20:58:47): *falls over laughing*
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:50): lol
Silly Rain Girl (20:58:56): the licking would be hard though
armenianluna (20:59:09): and getting your hair to groom you in return
armenianluna (20:59:22): lol can you just imagine hair requesting to be licked?
armenianluna (20:59:27): someone should draw that

ok this made me snort

"Anything scientists say about the superstring theory begins to sound worryingly like the sort of thoughts that would make you edge away if conveyed to you by a stranger on a park bench."

And then, later, this made me snort again:

"But even when all these [WIMPs and MACHOs] are added in, 2/3 of the universe is still missing from the balance sheet. For the moment we might very well call them DUNNOS (for Dark Unknown Nonreflective Nondetectable Objects Somewhere)."

[short history of nearly everything]

*goes back to hw*

Ditto

Three photos, one confiscated item, and a cookie [as promised]



Captions: [I'm sorry, it's pencil, it smears, and this all occured between cognitive psychology and fatalism in modern America so handwriting wasn't really my greatest concern.]

I. Mike's hair is stagin a protest while he sleeps.
II. It's discovered, much to the digust of his friends, that Nick not so much eats fries with ketchup as ketchup with fries. [Thought you'd enjoy this, Lucy.]
III. Mike learning to be mistrustful of his friend, Mssr. Lucille's backpack.

Bottom left with added/changed caption: Side picture: Exhibit A as extracted from the bottom of the said backpack. Despite of Mike's assertions, the gum had, in fact, only fossilized and not developed its own class of metabolising organisms.

Bottom right: arrow with the label "Lucy's cookie"; it's chocolate chip, not raisin.

[I've decided that cramming all the drawings on one page is a good idea for something that I'll inevitably *cough* scan. Am willing to cleaned up draft if someone else is willing to dedicate their time to de-line this one. Happy Saturday.]

*UPDATES*

Yaaay, I got

and .

The first one, ironically, was the only required science text I had managed to find in a library. But it was so nice I got the illustrated version (=.

November- Mike's

Mike’s great aunt’s house was very, very big and very, very empty and at the moment Zach reasoned that that was most definitely good because he didn’t think Mike’d have a way to explain their current state, much less the unconscious girl bleeding in Nick’s arms, to a very inquisitive and overly friendly relative.

There was a physical check up much like the first one with results similar to the first one. There was Zach calmly analyzing the contents of his stomach as he extracted a piece of wire from the girl’s shoulder. There was Mike’s sweater which was carefully discarded outside of the second story window that was Very High Up. There was Mike who diligently bandaged away and who, possibly out of concern for the girl’s health, kept Nick away from attempting to help with a combination of snide remarks, insults, and little orders such as “stop-hovering-over-my-shoulder-you-idiot-I’m-trying-to-work-here.”

There was Nick, offering to make everyone feel better by rummaging through the fridge and eventually pouring everyone generous amounts of soda and offering cookies. There was Zach, sitting on the bathroom floor feeling nauseated and Mike finally badgering out of him that the reason he was not a pre-med was because he couldn’t stand the sight of blood. There was Mike, sitting through the first shift until well past mid-night and Zach sitting through the second shift until dawn, because they really would like some answers about an event that felt like a bad sci-fi episode.

Finally, there was the girl, who woke up and started crying because she was SOLID, causing the thermometer in Zach’s hand to explode and Nick significant amounts of panic until Zach managed to convince him that he was bleeding a lot less than it looked like he was bleeding by invoking a lot of words such as “capillaries” and “epidermal cells” until Nick got sick of the lecture.

After that the problems escalated somewhat when they found out that the girl refused to tell them anything at all and had, to all appearances and assumptions, no relatives or guardians or place to live.

Zach reminded Mike that neither blinding anger nor torture was the way to go, especially since the first was hardly ever constructive, being blinding, and the second was ruled out by the eighth amendment. Nick reminded them that it was very early and they should both get a break and that was the stage when the girl fell back asleep.

The trio retreated into a guest room to contemplate the infinite mysteries of the world. Mike suggested that they start with aleph-null and continue upward.

[I was going to make a joke about the classes of infinity except I remembered that I don't remember anything about it. This week involved too much writing. I swear, it can't be healthy.]

Amen

...and which lesser Harry Potter character are you?

If I change three choices I get Dean Thomas. *grin*

[lets keep the blog alive :]

Look! An HP quiz! OMG how exciting, we've never seen something like this before!!11!!eleven!!

But this one is sort of different ;P. It only uses minor characters.

Well, go. *pushes towards the link*

...and which lesser Harry Potter character are you?

Aww I'm artsy and nice. This quiz is like MAGIC.

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.

October- "okay"

"Okay," said Zach, "positions?"

"I'm at the foot of the bed, against the wall," answered Nick.

"Head of bed, wardrobe," said Mike.

"Keep talking Mike, I'm coming over. Marco!" said Zach. "This is a really lousy time to play that game, isn't it?"

"Oh yeah," said Mike wryly. "Polo!"

"Eh?" said Nick.

"Marco?" said Zach. "It's a kiddie game, sort of like hide and seek," he explained to Nick.

"Except not," added Mike. "Stop walking, Zach, before you walk into ME."

"Will do," said Zach, before walking into the bed right next to Mike. He found the girl's head, then the thermometer, and tried to read it in the dim yet very green light of his watch. "I can really do with some light here...."

"Actually..." said Nick, and opened his laptop. In the sudden pale light Mike and Zach stared at him, looking slightly annoyed and, in this case, blue from the light of his desktop background.

"You had this all along," said Mike. "And we had to move the furniture around in the dark?"

"At least I remembered," mumbled Nick a little guiltily. His laptop was emitting beeping sounds, as if it was agreeing, except that wasn't it because a moment later the laptop turned itself off.

"Nick, did you rememember to recharge the batteries?" asked Zach mildly.

"Uh, no?" said Nick. "Mike, stop glaring at me."

"How do you even know I'm glaring at you? You can't even see me!" yelled Mike.

"Well I can FEEL you glaring," answered Nick.

"Can you FEEL how much I want to punch you right now," asked Mike.

"I'm getting a pretty good estimate," muttered Zach, carefully edging away from where he saw Mike last.

"Shut up," sighed Mike.

"Yessir," agreed Mike cheerfully. "Guess what, though?"

"What?" asked Mike and Nick at the same time.

"You're suppose to guess," said Zach, mischieviously.

"Just tell it already!" growled Mike.

"Fine. Her temperature's done to a hundred. I saw it before Nick's computer sputtered out." There was no mistakening for the good cheer in his voice. "I'm going to move out the cans now, the towels should be cold enough and we don't want her to get any frostbites."

"Right. You do that," said Mike. He leaned back agains the wardrobe and crossed his arms. "So, Nick, what's up?" He asked over the faint sounds of clinking aluminum cans.

"Not much," answered Nick. He was just about to say how thing'd calmed down a bit when there came a thunderous crashing sound outside.

"What was that?" yelped Zach.

Nick, being the closest to the window, peered out. Not that there was much that he could see, since all the lights outside were out too, but there definitely seemed to be something wrong with the shadows outside. Or rather, there seemed to be a certain shadow missing. "I think a tree just tipped over."

"From what?" demanded Mike. The rest of his words were cut off by the sound of soda cans crashing to the floor. It was pure luck that Nick's soda cans held and the soda stayed where they were suppose to stay.

"Zach?" asked Nick.

"Do either you or your roommate have a pet hidden away somewhere in the room?" asked Zach with a strained calmness. "Something just brushed against me, and it was moving pretty fast too.

October- "There was something"

There was something slightly problematic about the current situation, and it was a problem that was experienced, not long ago, by Mike and Zach that mainly involved moving around in a pitch black room where the furnitures had had a mass migration. In otherwords, you were not suppose to move around because you couldn't do so safely. However, Mike was seldom concerned about safety and therefore was the first one to try to get somewhere.

"Ow," said Mike, after some banging and thudding. The other two stayed right where they were and listened to the chaos that was occuring right outside, involving many students in various illegal stages of alcohol intoxication who were somewhat confused to find themselves in the dark. More than usual, that was.

"Let's move the furnitures back," volunteered Nick.

"Might be hard, since we can't see anything," commented Zach.

"Eh, we can probably do it," said Mike, much to Zach's dismay. "Nick, get to the other end of the bed, we'll drag it back to the original spot."

"I can drag the other stuff out of the way," said Zach, somewhat reluctantly. "Where's everyone right now?"

"Roommate's bed, against the right wall," said Nick.

"Next to the wardrobe, somewhere near the door," said Mike.

"I'm on a chair that's next to the bed, there's a box to the right of my chair that's wedged between the chair leg and Nick's roommate's bed," said Zach, giving the box a gentle kick.

"There's a suitcase that's to my right of the wardrobe that's stuck between there and the bed," reported Mike, feeling around.

"So we all know where we need to be?" asked Zach.

"No." said Mike, "Let's go."

Anyone who has ever moved into a college dormitory would know what state of utter confusion that usually reigns. It was like that, except done in dark, sometimes after midnight, with one unconscious girl on a bed that Mike and Nick were trying to move. The furnitures, for one, did not appreciate all the hubbub and being dragged around willy-nilly. The boys didn't appreciate the furnitures very much because when they don't have to drag the rather heavy bits of the room around, they kept banging into them, and it hurt.

"Remind me why I'm doing this again?" Huffed Mike as they hauled the bed in what could presumably be called the left of the room. Then yelped when Zach banged into his shin with the suitcase that he was dragging.

"Sorry," muttered Zach.

"Because you are my friend and you like me?" Suggested Nick, panting and heaving the other end of the bed.

"Don't bet on it," grumbled Mike, dragging the bed the last few inches into position. A thud came from across the room, annoucing Zach's arrival there.

October- "Water"

[Don't mind if I do....]

"Water?" Suggested Nick, holding up a bottle of water after rummaging in the fridge.

"Are you nuts?" said Mike before Zach had even a chance to open his mouth. "Do you KNOW how EASY it is for someone to choke to death when they're subconscious?"

"Alright alright," muttered Nick, returning the water to the dark lairs of the fridge where it had came from. "Yeesh."

Mike leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. "What other options are there?" He asked Zach.

"None," was the reassuring reply. Zach went through the contents of the tin box again. "The only things I know that're done in this case are to take pills or injections, and since I don't have the equipments and, even if I do, I know how to give the injections...."

"So is she screwed then?" asked Mike bluntly.

Zach winced. "No," he said, "not yet. Hey Nick, do you have any canned beverages?"

"Grape soda?" Nick glanced at him, puzzled. "Are you thirsty?"

"No, we're going to make-do with ice packs," Zach tossed the towel from the girl's head to Mike. "Go and rinse that, please. How many cans do you have?" He asked Nick as Mike went out again, grumbling.

"Almost two six packs."

"Why..." Zach eyed Nick, "Nevermind. Get, uh, the other towels and wrap one around each can." He accepted the first can from Nick and placed it next to the girl's torso. "We need to get her temperature down somehow 'cause one of the most dangerous thing about high fevers is that they can damage the nerve tissue..."

"Okay," said Nick, handing Zach another wrapped can. "Just so you know, I don't have any more towels. Will paper towels do?" He asked when Zach gave an aggreivated sigh.

"Yes! Wrap two or three layers. That's good," added Zach, when Nick handed him the next towel-bound can. Mike returned and they reapplied the towel, adding to the task of moving the cold-cans every few minutes to avoid giving their unknown patient a frostbite. Then Zach decided to call time again; five minute count down for the thermometer.

"Is this actually going to work?" asked Mike, skeptical on top of his worries.

"It should..." murmured Zach. "We're not doing anything for the actual thing that made her sick you know, just lowering her temperature. Speaking of which, I haven't seen anything else that's wrong with her, so why's she unconscious?"

"Exhaustion," said Nick, plopping down on his roommate's bed.

"I wonder if it could be psychological," mused Zach.

"Or both," said Mike dryly, looking at his watch. "Time!"

"A hundred an--" began Zach, before all the lights went off.

"NICK!" hollered Mike.

"I didn't do ANYTHING!" Nick wailed back.

"It's not just here," said Zach, "listen to the wracket outside." They could clearly hear the screams and shouts from outside the room.

"Yeah, even I don't have the power to do that," said Nick.

"You never know," retorted Mike. "Zach, what's the temperature?"

"And two," said Zach, finishing his original sentence.

"Oh wow, it worked," said Mike with relieved surprise.

Nick cheered somewhere in the dark.

October- A few moments

A few moments after Nick and Zach was administering the wet-towel Mike also returned. He thrusted the tin-box at Zach. "Is this it?"

"Yep, thanks," Zach found the thermometer inside the box. "Someone with a watch call out when five minute's passed, please."

"Isn't three minutes enough?" asked Mike, shoving things out of his way with his foot. "It's a good thing your roommate's not here," he told Nick. "He'd freak out if he saw this."

"Yeah, thank God he went home already," agreed Nick.

"We want to be accurate," answered Zach, who was looking through the tin box. "Does someone who look like human react to human medication? I mean, what're the chances...? And do we have to worry about allergic reactions?"

Both Mike and Nick gave him a weird look.

"Okay, point taken," muttered Zach. "Maybe we won't even need to give her medicine, which is probably a very good thing because...time? Anyone?"

"Two minutes and four seconds," said Mike.

"Two minutes and eleven seconds," said Nick.

"Your watch sucks," Mike informed Nick, who scowled at him.

"We'll call two minutes and eight seconds, plus or minus four seconds," said Zach dryly. "Thank God none of us're going into nuclear physics."

"Actually," said Mike slowly, "That'd be sort of cool..."

"You get to blow up stuff," said Nick helpfully, when Zach just looked at him.

"Please, Nick, don't give him ideas."

"Too late!" declared Mike, grinning evily. Zach groaned.

"You're the one who brought it up in the first place," pointed out Nick very reasonably.

"Don't remind me," muttered Zach, then, "Nick, have you checked to see if she had any other injuries? Internal bleeding, concussion..." He added, upon Nick's blank look.

"And how am I suppose to check those?" asked Nick.

"Fair point." Conceded Zach, "there's no way you could've gotten her blood pressure, we might check for concussion though...do you have a flashlight?"

"Lamp?" volunteered Nick, holding up his desk lamp, power cord trailing.

"Er. We can try, I guess," said Zach dubiously. He opened one of the girl's eye. "Shine the light in her eye please. Okay, now the other one...." They watched her pupils shrink. "I THINK that means she's okay in her head then...." He squinted at Nick. "Do mind turning the light off now."

"Of course," Nick turned the lamp off and sat it back down, then walked over and sat on his roommate's bed and regarded the now blanket-covered girl with some apprehension.

"Time?" asked Zach after a moment of silence.

"Twenty-eight seconds left," called out Mike, with a 'so-there' look at Nick. Nick rewarded him with an exaggerated frown. Zach looked at the ceiling with a beseeching 'why-me' expression.

"Happy Halloween," said Zach, a moment later. He was still looking at the ceiling.

"Happy Halloween," echoed Nick, remembering and smiling at everyone and everything in general.

"Yeah, you too," mumbled Mike. "Time!" He called, and took out the thermometer. He looked at it, scowled, and handed it to Zach.

"What is it?" asked Nick, his smile quickly disappearing.

"Her temperature is at a hundred and six," said Zach quietly. "Now let's worry about how we can get pills down the throat of someone who's unconscious. Suggestions, anyone?"

October-Nick

Nick nudged a box and some furniturs aside with his foot as he took an expedition to the inside of the small refrigerator that he and his roommate shared. "Um...ice cream?"

"No, you keep that," said Zach. "Towels?"

"Yes, I use towels," answered Nick, wading his way back over his backpack and a pile of books.

"We better wet one and put it on her head," Zach tried checking the girl's temperature again. "I don't know exactly how high her fever is, but we've got to try to keep her temperature down from being too high, manually."

"Okay," Nick clambered over the foot of the bed to reach the closet. "Towels, towels, towel...."

"Some sort of large container for water'd be good too," suggested Zach. "So we don't have to go back out every time we need to rinse something."

"They're still partying out there?" Nick made a face as he threw a towel at Zach. "Something to hold water...er...I have a mug...?"

"Anything in the fridge we can use?" asked Zach.

"Not unless you count the fridge itself, which is heavy," said Nick doubtfully.

"Fine, we'll make do then," Zach carefully picked his way to the door with the towel, and paused. "And Nick?"

"Yeah?"

"You're sure about the no hospital thing?"

Nick looked nervous again. "Y-yes."

"Okay," Zach looked at him, then at the girl again. "For goodness's sake find the poor girl a blanket, will you? She HAS a fever you know." He quickly opened the door, slipped out, and shut it again behind him.

Nick grumbled to himself as he went blanket hunting among his many stray boxes, but he was also smiling because he knew that in a few moments Zach would be back, and then Mike, and that he was not going to go through with his decision alone. Then he nearly howled because he banged his funny bone against the leg of the wayward chair.

October- "Let me check"

"Let me check to see if I heard it right," said Zach heavily. He dropped the thin wrist that he'd been holding...that seemed solid enough...and gingerly prodded the bed, which seemed reasonbly (and expectably) solid too. "You found an unconscious girl in front of your door, you carried her inside, put her on the bed, she fell THROUGH the bed, and you had to move the bed and everything around it to get to her after she had fallen THROUGH the bed?"

"Are you drunk?" demanded Mike, trying to peer into Nick's face, but Nick wouldn't let him.

"I am NOT drunk, nor have I been drinkin!" declared Nick.

"Here's a question then," Mike crossed his arms. "How come she is lying on the bed right now, just like a regular human being? Zach--what are you doing?" He added, because Zach as feeling his forehead.

"Double-checking," muttered Zach, who had the other hand on the girl's forehead.

"Right, anyway," continued Mike. He eyed the girl suspiciously, "She IS human, isn't she?"

"I don't KNOW!" wailed Nick, "she looks like one!?"

"Ah," Zach stopped on checking whether the girl had swollen nymph nodes and looked up. "That's the problem. See, if you had an apple that looked and tasted like an apple, then it's okay. If you had an apple that neither looked nor tasted like an apple, then that's sort of okay too. But when you have an apple that looks like an apple but tastes like something else, then there's a problem. Never mind," he mumbled in response to the expressions he was receiving.

"That makes sense," remarked Mike. "Sort of."

"Er," said Nick.

"Three percent?" inquired Zach, meaning how much sense he was making.

"I'd give it five," said Mike.

"Thanks," Zach sighed and looked at his two friends. "Alright, ASSUMING that she is human and ASSUMING that her body is behaving like human bodies do--"

"You don't have to use 'assuming' so many times," said Nick.

"But we're making a lot of assumptions," protested Zach.

"Cut it out," said Mike.

"Fine," said Zach. "IF her body is human--"

Mike groaned.

"Then she is unconscious and has a fever," continued Zach, ignoring Mike. "And IF her body respondes to med the way humans do..."

"No hospitals," said Nick.

"Right," said Zach, who looked pale and worried. He fished out his keys and tossed it to Mike. "You know where my room is, right?"

"Of course not," retorted Mike sarcastically, "I've only been there a few hundred times."

"Great," said Zach, "Second desk drawer, there's a tin-box. You can double check if you want, but it should be a med-kit...mother forced me to bring one...." He explained. "We're helping, aren't we?" he added.

" 'Course," said Mike, and was out the door, closing it carefully behind him.

"Oookay," said Zach, sighing for the third time in the past five minutes. He looked at the girl, then at Nick. "Don't suppose you have an ice-pack?"
_______________________________________
I spilt the water that I was drinking on myself when I saw yesterday's comment.
I wonder if writers generally suffer from attacks of conscience?
Joking...joking.
I KNOW some do.

October-"Because"

"Because," explained Nick, "I needed the room."

"...for?" prompted Zach, painfully hauling himself to his feet.

"To move," said Nick wretchedly, "there wouldn't be enough room otherwise!"

"To move WHAT?" asked Mike, feeling around in the dark for the lamp.

"The bed--" said Nick.

"And WHY do you need to move the bed?" sighed Zach, the same time that Mike found the lamp and turned it on.

The room was a mess, to put it mildly, or at least Nick's side of the room was. All his things formed sorts of loose tidal drift around the bed, and the bed was near the middle of the room, angled as if it might decide to charge out of the room at a moment's notice.

And there was a girl in the bed. And she appeared to be unconscious.

Now, it's been observed that teens in general frequently say one thing when they meant another. The specific causes of this remains unknown, however, it is hypothesized that the response is a subconscious way of dealing with things when the said things fall outside of the expected parameters. Of course it's not particularly effective, but better something than nothing at all is the philosophy of the time.

"Um," said Zach, who, propped against the back of chair, was the closest to the bed. Translated, he probably meant something along the lines of "I really don't want to know what had happened, but I'm probaby going to have to know, and I would really like you to tell me what will happen, Nick."

"Meh," said Mike, who was next to the lamp. What he really meant to say was something like "Someone please tell me what the hell is going on and what the hell we're going to do about it."

"Er," said Nick, who really meant "Okay now you guys'd seen this, I need some help, please?"

Mike and Zach looked at each other, then at the girl, then at Nick.

"It really isn't what you think--" began Nick, sounding even more wretchedly desperate. Or was that desperately wretched?

"Oh good," commented Mike sarcastically, "You mean you didn't get her drunk and in trouble?"

"NO!" Nick glared at Mike, evidently insulted that Mike would even consider such a thing, joking or no. "I found her just outside my door," he continued nervously, "unconscious."

"And you carried her inside?" said Zach, who was checking that the pale-faced girl was indeed still breathing. "How very gallant of you, d'Artagnan. Couldn't you have called the ambulance?" He looked worried. "Have you called the ambulence yet?"

"No, and I'm not going to." Said Nick with shaky resolution.

"Why not?" exclaimed Mike, "And why on earth is your room like this?"

"I can't!" said Nick, who was looking very agitated, "Look, there's a problem--"

"Let's hear it," said Mike, with Zach somewhere in the background, taking the girl's pulse.

"When I first carried her in and put her on the bed," said a distressed Nick in a rush, "she fell through the bed and I had to move the bed and everything underneath it to get to her."

Zach's head snapped up. He and Mike stared at Nick, who looked back at them pleadingly.

"She fell," repeated Zach stupidly.

"THROUGH the bed?" said Mike incredulously.

October- Irving Hall

Irving Hall was one of the few unusual dorms on campus where it had student rooms on the first floor instead of the usual lobby-like reception and study areas that many other places featured. Aside from its unusual presence, however, the first floor there, where Nicolas Lucille lived, was appallingly normal. Mike and Zach passed by a few small open-roomed parties on their way in and Zach nearly got knocked over by a milling group of half-drunken students who were less concerned about the legal age for alcohol than he. However, the corner where Nick was was very quiet, meaning that either most of the people there had already departed for home (since Halloween fell upon a Friday this year), or they were getting drunk somewhere else.

Mike stopped in front of Nick's door, raised his hand, and looked at Zach, who shrugged. Mike shrugged in response and gave the door a sharp rap that was very characteristic of Mike.

"Who is it?" called Nick. Or, in this case, " 'hoo eez et?"

"Me," snapped Mike, worries making him rather more sarcastic than he would normally be under the given circumstances. "Unless you've invited some other people to your mid-night no-explanation party that I don't know about?"

"Would that be me?" asked Zach. "Open up, Nick!" he said hastily, when Mike just gave him that LOOK of his.

Very, very slowly and cautiously the door opened a crack and Nick peered out into the hallway with a sort of meticulous paranoia that was thoroughly worthy of any spy movie that was worth its salt (and all the ones that weren't), but that was thoroughly out of place in the appallingly normal student dorm hallway.

Mike was no where near as cautious. He pushed his way in past Nick. "Geez we're not serial killers."

"The only thing I've killed today is my bio worksheet and a week's worth of humor," agreed Zach, slipping in behind him.

Nick gave a nervous laugh and shut the door again. The room immediately went to the particular pitch of darkness that could only result from securely drawn curtains, no light, and a general feel of subdued panic that hovered in the air.

"Can't you turn on the light?" complained Mike, taking a step in where he remembered the floor lamp to be and immediately tripped over something that definitely shouldn't be there. Zach, without thinking, took a step in the direction of Mike's voice, stumbled over something else, and fell with a startled squawk and a crash. Nick flung out his hand and caught Mike's arm with the consequence that Mike, swung around by the force of his own inertia, fell against the wall with a thud.

"Watch out," said Nick, apologetically.

"Urgh," said Mike. "Thanks for the warning."

"Why's your chair and suitcase in the middle of the room, Nick?" Came Zach's faint, disembodied voice from somewhere near the center of the room.
_________________________________
lol Glad you are aware of the fact that you are not a French guy, Lucy. Very glad. I recall something about an issue with gender confusion in calc, but ethnicity confusion...is that a new twist...?

Chill. The story's just begun.

October- "Hello?"

"Hello?" said Mike into his cell phone. He wondered why Nick was calling him at this hour. This was when he'd supposed Nick generally went to bed.

"Mike?" said Nick, confirming that it was indeed he who was at the other end of the phone. His accent was thick like it always was when he was nervous. Or uncertain. Or both. "Can you come over? Soon?"

Mike frowned. "Soon as in...?"

"Er. Now?" suggested Nick hopefully.

"What's up?" asked Mike, getting out of his slouch. His mind did likewise and realized that there must be something wrong.

"Um, well, it's, er, you see..."

Mike was seriously getting a little worried. "...Nick...?"

"Uh, it's hard to explain over the phone...can you just come over? Quickly? 'k thanks!" He hung up.

Mike stared at his cellphone which, of course, did not display any useful information about the going-ons on the other end of the line.

"Huh," said Mike, who grabbed his keys and went out the door, much to the annoyance of his roommate. His eclectic nighttime schedule could sometimes drive a person nuts, and turn a previously-established nutcase into an accomplice.

Reaching Nick's dorm meant going across about a quarter of the campus, crossing the quad and the library area. Halfway there Mike spotted someone familiar. "Hey Zach!"

Zach stopped and looked around. He had thrown on an oversized jacket that made him look even scrawnier. He was also ruffled and bleary-eyed. "I'm guessing Nick called you too?" He asked without much curiousity, and yawned.

"Have you been SLEEPING already?" inquired Mike, "It's not even midnight yet! Nevermind," he hurriedly added. "Forgot for a moment who I was talking to."

"Right," said Zach. "I sleep two hours before midnight and you consider sleeping two hours after midnight so let's not argue, 'k?" He sighed and rubbed his face. "Don't suppose you know why Nick called?"

"Nope," confirmed Mike. "He wouldn't talk about it over the phone."

"He doesn't seem to be the sort to get into trouble at a party, even if it's Holloween. And if it's really some sort of major crises he probably would've called nine-one-one already." Said Zach.

"He sounded okay...just nervous," said Mike.

They looked at each other.

"Okay," said Zach as they entered the building...the night guard was already familiar with them. "I guess we'll see."

"That we will," agreed Mike.

October- Aside

Aside from these thoughts, however, time was passing-if you will excuse of the world-perfectly normally. Near the end of October Mike and Nick dragged Zach away from his studies on his birthday to take him out to dinner and try to get him drunk, which was a bit difficult since Zach refused to touch a single drop of alcohol.

"Aw, com'on," coaxed Mike over the slices of cake that Zach had ordered. "You're legally an adult now, right?"

"Alcohol, twenty-one," said Zach, stubbornly refusing to touch the glass in front of him.

"Aren't you overreacting?" pointed out Nick. "It's not even HALF a glass. Just a taste?"

Zach crossed his arms and looked obstinate. He was rather good at it.

"Fine," said Nick, giving up on the occasion. He brightened. "Why don't we sing 'happy birthday?'" He said to Mike.

Zach's stared up at them, hazel eyes full of horror. However, before he could get out a single syllable Nick had already launched into the song, slightly off-tune in his enthusiasm and with a distinctive French accent. After a moment Mike joined in, looking, in Zach's opinion, inappropriately cheerful. By the end of the song most of the people in the restaurant were staring at them and Zach, blushing furiously, was seriously consider bolting out the room.

"Thoroughly humiliated yet?" asked Mike among the scattered applause that received the end of their musical efforts.

Zach, who had been staring resolutely at his napkin during most of the serenade, glanced up at him. "More like mortified," he said, with a weak grin. "Can we leave now?"

His two older friends grinned at each other. There was nothing embarrassed about their expression.

"Of course," said Nick.

"It's your birthday," said Mike.

It might be noted for the records that the manager, who had watched the entire performance, was inspired as to later hire live performances in the restaurant. But that was how it went in this strange world.

The restaurant became quite popular. It later opened up another branch somewhere else, and then another branch. Soon there were people accusing it over taking over world markets.

This is an example of how one thing could lead to another and how utterly useless it is for us to try to predict all the possible consequences of each event. At least, while we're still within these dimensions. Another example would be Nick, as he walked back to the dorms one night. Had he gone five minutes earlier or five seconds later he would have doubtlessly never suspected a thing but, because he was where he was at when he was, a long sequence of events was changed.

Of course, like all linear-time-bound, bipedal life forms, Nicolas had no idea at the time.
_________________________________________
In honour of all the LUNATICS strange singing-in-public moments *salutes*.

October- Once

Once a person has started to look for something, that person may see it all the time and, consequently, over a period of time, can be considered to be experts at finding that something. Experts, if you will.

From the quite accidental breach into the subjects of strangeness around them, Mike, Zach, and Nick had become professional-leveled weirdness detectors. The only reason why they haven't gotten nominations yet was because sometimes their readings get a little bit off from the amount of weirdness caused by themselves which could, upon occasions, be quite a distraction.

Mike, after being introduced to the idea of Catch-22 by Zach, had discovered much paradoxical logic around him. He had, in fact, concluded that the world was going to hell but since many people from various countries had already predicted this (some of them under the influence of chemicals of a questionable nature) he was unable to seriously further his theory. Also, the fact that he consider being commended by his math professor a Truly Strange Ordeal prevented the others from taking him too seriously. Nevertheless, it was possible for Mike to deduce that the world was guided by laws that worked like a leaky steam-boiler in a thermonuclear reaction.

In other words: it doesn't.

Zach, being true to his major, noted the strange things people did and were doing, such as loving and hating others because of something people see in themselves, people blocking other people out and then complaining about being alone or people, after a successful life, deciding that they'd rather move to Switzerland and herd goats. He felt rather sorry for the goats.

Nick just concluded the world was nutsy and enjoyed it, his cheery reasoning being that the world'd be a horribly boring place if everything were perfectly normal.
___________________________
Let come what may. Be prepared to wave 'bye-bye' to normality! (I think this'll turn out to be fantasy fiction, by the way.)

September- "Do you"

"Do you WANT to be punched?" demanded Mike, brownish hair standing on end as he waved a fist at Nick. Translated, the threat meant something along the lines of 'I-really-hate-what-you-just-did-so-cut-it-out-will-ya', except much more eloquently and forcefully.

"How come you're always threatening to punch ME," inquired Nick as he exaggeratedly dodged the fist that Mike was waving in front of his face. "Why don't you punch Zach?"

At this Mike paused, Nick straightened, and both turned to look at Zach, who quirked an eyebrow and shrugged. He usually preferred to watch explosions like these from a safe distance, though granted that safe distance was severely hampered by the fact that the furthered he could go in any direction at the moment was about one and a half feet.

"Dunno," confessed Mike, turning to Nick again. "You're more fun to punch..." he ignored Nick's indignant sputtering. "Besides, I might accidentally break his bones...."

Zach decided that the prudent thing to do at the moment was to sit still and keep his mouth shut.

"Well fine!" said Nick, drawing himself up to his full height, which was taller than either Mike or Zach, and glared down his long nose at Mike. "Be that way!"

"I am," said Mike with a grin, promptly returning to his succinct and reckless self.

"Not much options there," said Zach under his breath as he continued his reading. "Forecast said it'll be hot today. Think we can trust it?" he said aloud.

"What's the forecast for yesterday?" asked Nick.

Zach checked. "The same."

"Then," said Mike. "No. Did you SEE the weather last night? I mean...what was THAT?"

"It's called rain," said Nick, and received a glare for his answer.

"I KNOW it's rain, Nick," said Mike, rolling his eyes.

"At least we aren't the only ones stuck with the odd weather," said Zach. "Though, of course that's not exactly reassuring...just think about all the things that'd happened already...terrorists, minor wars, earth quakes, tsunami...."

"Yeah," agreed Mike. "What's with that?"

"...droughts, floods, though in different areas, of course," continued Zach. "wild fires, at least no reported volcano eruptions...yet..."

"Okay," said Mike, "Now you're just making me depressed."

"Let's talk about something happy!" said Nick brightly, at a level of brightness that was over Mike's sunglass-ed tolerance. He got another glare.

"Oh...oh!" said Mike, who's memory was been brought on by the previous morbid thoughts. "Zach, have you ever heard of this theory about the end of the world?"

"Which one?" said Zach dryly, without attempting to be funny.

"Ha. Ha." said Mike. "Right. Any of the main ones. I mean according to the terms, the world going crazy means the world's going to end soon."

"Mike," said Zach skeptically. "The world's been going crazy for years."

"It's bound to happen soon," argued Mike.

"It hasn't happened yet," countered Zach.

"You guys are so cheerful," said Nick, who had spent enough time now to catch along some of the sarcasm.

"He started it," said Mike, pointing to Zach.

"Go me," said Zach, more dryly still.

And that was how the traits of insanity of the world in general was first brought up. In less than three days it became a sort of a joke in which they picked out and made a note of everything strange around them:

The distance of the planets this year with regards to earth, which everyone in the field of astronomy had been goggling over. A perfectly healthy tree which had fallen over for no particular reason and smashed a car to smithereens. Sudden formation of a small tornado in a decidedly not-tornado-land area. Things exploding. Things falling. Things showing up in strange places for on strange reasons and driving everyone around them bonkers. And also the fact that there were people being nice to Mike which, he claimed, was both strange AND scary, which Nick had argued against. Zach, after thoughtfully watching them argue for a moment, inquired whether or not he should add their name to the list of strange things.

"Sure," said Mike.

Thus, their names were added to the list, right below the 456,751,342th cat who had fallen out of a tree that week and the discovery of live cockroaches in a tomb that had been supposedly sealed from the outside world for the past few centuries.
__________________________________________
End of September's chapter...we'll see how goes from here.

September--"Good morning"

"Good morning," said Nick from the doorway.

"Morning," replied Zach, looking up again, and stared. "Oh. My."

Nick, now moustache-less, blushed.

"Well," said Zach, trying to recover his wits. "At least we now for sure that you're the same age as us and not an assassin." He couldn't stop staring though.

"Hey, be nice, Zach," said Mike with a somewhat evil grin. "Monsieur Lucille looks very pretty."

Nick muttered something in French that Zach didn't understand and Mike pretended he didn't understand, but translation wasn't required. "I did what I said I would do," he said stiffly after a moment of pause.

"Good for you," said Mike, after another moment of pause.

"Congrats," said Zach, after still another pause.

All the pauses could be added up, condensed, and summed into one word: awkward. Which was usually the case when you betted your friend to do something, didn't think they would do it, but they ended up doing it. It produced something between an odd sense of jubilation and a nagging sense of guilt.

"Well ANYWAY," said Mike, slouching in his chair.

Zach glanced at him. "Tired? Bored?" he suggested, paused. "Both?"

"Stop that!" snapped Mike, who was developing an increasing awareness to when his friend started to psychoanalyze him. "You knew I was going to say 'both'."

Zach tried for a blank expression. Mike looked even grouchier.

"Aww, we're just going to have to force Mikey to take a nap then, won't we?" said Nick, who had recovered in the mean time and was at his teeth-grinding cheeriest. He ruffled Mike's hair.

Zach stared at the two of them for a moment before scooting away as far as he could, given the dimensions of the dorm room (i.e. ES & EC--Extra Small & Extra Cramped).
____________________________________________
Here's my result for the quiz:

Take the quiz: "How Random Are You?"

You are Normal :(
I'm sorry (pats you on the back) but you are normal ;.; No more magical pork for you I guess....

Normality's overrated? =p

BWAHAHAHAHA

Take the quiz: "How Random Are You?"

My results:

Yer not Random! Yer Crazy!
The fact that you aren't in a Mental Institution is a threat to society... COOL! I LIKE YOU!

September- "Hey Zach"

"Hey Zach, not going home this weekend?" asked Mike as he poked his head into Zach's room next morning.

"If I were I wouldn't be sitting here right now," Zach pointed out dryly, looking up from his laptop. When he was going to leave for the weekend he always left early-and that was early by HIS definition. "Roommate's gone though."

"Okay, cool," said Mike, and promptly took advantages of the absence of the roommate, namely by hogging up the empty space. "What're you eating?"

"Huh? Oh yogurt," said Zach, looking up from the screen the second time. "Would you like some?" he offered.

Mike eyed it suspiciously. "What kind is it?"

"Strawberry, with real strawberries," said Zach as Mike accepted the yogurt and tried to dump some into his mouth. "It's also sugar-free." He added as a clump of yogurt finally detached itself.

Mike gagged and nearly choked. "Sugar-free!" He swallowed with an expression of disgust before glaring at the 'all-natural' labeled yogurt, then down at his friend. "You actually EAT this stuff?" he asked incredulously.

Zach lifted an amused eyebrow. "What else do you propose I do with it?"

"Throw it in the trash?" suggested Mike, handing the yogurt back as if the plastic cup might suddenly develop fangs, turn rabid, and bite him.

"That would be a waste of food," said Zach primly, accepting the yogurt back. "You knew I eat healthy, right?"

"Yeah but...sugar-free?!" He stared at Zach as if his friend had been eating poison (which, in Mike's opinion, Zach had) and had somehow miraculously survived. "You WEIRDO!"

"Very good, Sherlock Holmes," said Zach, glancing back at the screen again. "Did you hear the chem building's exploded last night?"

"It did?" said Mike. "Oh awesome."

"Not the entire building," said Zach hastily, "just an accident in one of the labs."

"Oh," said Mike, sounding disappointed. He tried to summon an expression of appropriate sympathy when Zach just looked at him and failed impressively.

This was one of those moments which Nick and Zach usually used to prove the existence of Mike's violent tendencies or, as Mike called them, the usual American guy thing...which he was allowed to get away with since Zach was raised in the UK and Nick in France.

"Try to be more subtle about your sadistic tendencies, will you?" murmured Zach.

"Subtle?" Mike lifted both of his eyebrows. "Me?"

"Right," muttered Zach, "forgot who I was talking to."
_________________________
And I'm happy to report no explosions so far in Kate and Christine's cooking class. ;-)
Nick's moustache is going to have to go. I ABSOLUTELY can't draw it.

September-- Mike

Mike lugged his backpack into his room and took out the laptop. There was nothing good on television so he had decided to try his luck in cyberspace instead. He went and checked his email first and found one from Zach from that morning, which read as follows:


Hey Mikey, (Mike growled when he saw this, but kept reading)


Here's a link to a database of old essays. I know reading isn't exactly your favorite hobby, but read the one called "The Necessity of Atheism" anyway. Nice follow-up on our previous discussion. Nick asked me to send you this link to a joke-site he found, which I'm going to include against my better judgement. Have fun.

-Zach



There was another short email from Nick:


I've asked Zach to send you this link but don't know if he did or not. If not, here it is.

Nicolas


A grudging smile spread itself across his face. Someone ought to consider listing "friend" as a hobby, or even better: a full time occupation. It took enough time...and people get paid too. Sort of. Well, not the usual sorts of payment, anyhow.

He twitched when he heard something rattle against the window. It was rain.

Nutty weather, he thought, since it seldom rained in September in California.



"This weather's crazy!" exclaimed Zach as heavy drops suddenly started pelting them. "There, this way!"

"I take it it doesn't normally rain here in September?" panted Nick as he followed Zach under the eaves of a nearby building.

"No it doesn't," replied Zach. They stood and watched the rain for a few minutes.

I wonder if this is part of global warming, thought Nick. Weird weather.

The weather's getting crazier every year, thought Zach. Then again, the world seems to be getting crazier every year, so that doesn't seem to be much of standard.

The sudden rain stopped as quickly as it came. In less than five minutes the sky turned perfectly clear and the Milky Way would've been visible to them if they weren't surrounded by electric lights.

What promised to be a dark and stormy night changed into a sky full of (if unseen) stars.

"Huh," said Zach, as they set their way home again. Crazier and crazier, he thought.

"Is it usually like that here?" asked Nick, who was wondering if he should consider bringing an umbrella with him at all times.

"No," answered Zach, staring up into the sky with some bemusement. He nearly walked into a pole and realized that he had much better kept his eyes on were he was going.

The dark and stormy night canceled its appointment and slouched away to another place, where there was no appointment, but had higher priorities anyway. Perfectly dark and stormy nights were getting quite rare, so their presence were much sought after by villains everywhere, a few humans who just enjoyed getting bashed around in the element for the hell of it, and some Others that no one knew about for reasons that would be completely irrational if explained.

Asylums, after all, were hardly places to be rational in.