The Zook

I dedicate this post to the Upright Citizen's Brigade Theatre, where I've spent each of the past six nights. The UCBt is a comedy establishment in Chelsea, founded by four comedians and featuring a variety of cheap improv and sketch shows seven days a week. I've become addicted to the improv comedy scene at UCB, and am currently enrolled in a level 2 class. The theatre has a ton of house teams, but the "highlight" of the week is a Sunday night show called ASSSSCAT, where some of the more famous improvisers get together and dazzle with their skill.

Regular performers include Amy Poehler, Seth Myers, and Horatio Sanz from SNL, Jack McBrere, John Lutts, and others from NBC's 'Thirty Rock,' and a hodgepodge of the theatre's best house improvisers. The show sells out every week, and oftentimes a line stretches down 26th street all the way to eighth avenue beforehand. Without fail, people are turned away when the UCBt (located below a grocery store) fills to capacity.

Within this star-packed scene, one performer stands out. Not for his comedic capacity, which is great indeed, nor for his dedication, which is truly nonpareil. No, this improviser is infamous for the shroud of mystery surrounding his activity. His name is Jason Mantzoukas, and rumors swirl regarding the behind-the-scenes power he wields at the UCB. The true extent can't be known, as he operates mostly in the shadows, but legends abound regarding his ruthless, ambitious, and brilliant rise to prominence in the New York comedy scene. Some are even convinced that he's parlayed his success into international control, delving into geo-political realms in order to create a favorable environment for his cronies.

Discovering the boundary between truth and fiction can be difficult, as very few will publicly speak out against "The Zook." It's widely believed that he rewards loyalty and is swift to punish betrayal, a fact which seems confirmed by the relative silence from both friends and erstwhile enemies. In order to give a full picture of The Zook, I will first list only the known facts. Following that, I'll enumerate the widely accepted but heretofore unproven truths, and will finally introduce some of the more conspiratorial rumors.


THE FACTS

*Goes by "The Zook"

*When fans shout "The Zook!", "Zook!", or "Hey Zook!" as he's walking past, he will stop and salute.

*Hates to be called "The Zookie."

*Once got into a fight with an audience member who called him "Zookie" during a scene. Immediately broke character, darted into the audience, cracked the fan's ribs with three kicks, and canceled the show. After, as audience members congregated outside, came out and performed an impromptu solo set. Observers called it the funniest human performance they'd seen. Later that evening, the audience member with the broken ribs died under mysterious circumstances at the hospital.

*Claims to be primarily influenced not by other comics, but by Italian writers, most notably Dante and Machiavelli.

*Is known to stalk the ASSSSCAT line before shows, stare into the eyes of spectators, and bar those he dislikes from attending.

*Has a euphemistically-named "cheering section" at every show, which consists of muscular, Polish-speaking males who sit silently with their arms crossed in the back row. Preliminary identity checks reveal that most have criminal records.

*Refuses to play a woman in an improv scene, calling it "degrading."

*Known for introducing remote control racecars into scenes whenever possible.

*Wears a white rose on his lapel.

*Due to a longstanding rivalry, will not improvise on the same stage as Rob Riggle.

*Was asked to perform a private show for President Clinton in '96, but refused on the grounds that Vice President Al Gore too closely resembled a childhood enemy.

*Was linked romantically with Katherine Harris around the time of the '00 Florida recount.

*Claims to be a scratch golfer who averages .64 aces per 18 holes.

*Is close friends with political pundit George Stephanopolous.

*Went on an improvisational tour of the Russian countryside, but quit after three shows, calling the collective population "mongoloid philistines." Was wanted for assault in that country before long-time fan Vladimir Putin granted clemency.

*Studies film of old 'American Gladiators' joust competitions.



UNCONFIRMED BUT ACCEPTED TRUTHS

*Owns a majority share of the Nestea Corporation.

*Poisoned the water bottle of improv performer John Lutts after Lutts inadvertently cast him as Cleopatra in a scene. The water went unconsumed for three days, when Lutts found it in his bag and poured it into his thirsty labrador's dish. The dog died on the spot, and a veterinary autopsy revealed trace amounts of cyanide in the canine's stomach. Lutts and The Zook later made amends and wrote a one-act play which ultimately failed, but was a primary influence for novelist Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner."

*Authored an anonymous piece for The Village Voice advocating tire-burning as an olympic sport. The article was advertised as satire against the IOC, but had been written in absolute sincerity. As punishment for not understanding the purpose of his work, The Zook threw a burning tire through a first floor window at the newspaper's downtown office. Attached to the tire was a gold medal. The ensuing panic caused over $4,000 in damage. Afterward, the Zook bought the charred tire back from e-bay, and hurled it through the window again, this time with a note that read, "This isn't over."

*Rubs himself in iris flowers in lieu of bathing.

*Has an uncanny memory for faces, and will make mental notes of those who don't laugh during a show, hoping to find them alone in the city.

*Follows unappreciative audience members home after shows.

*Won't perform monologues due to fear that FBI agents attend his shows seeking evidence of past discretions.

*Hired pro-life phone operators to verbally assault the owners of rival New York improv organizations The Magnet and The Pit.

*Is banned from teaching classes at UCB because of an incident where he maimed a forty year-old female student for not establishing a relationship with her scene partner.

*Donates sizeable sums once yearly to the Irish Republican Army.

*Was the brains behind a failed UCB-wide coup directed against the founding members. When the plot failed, he curried favor with the elites by naming his co-conspirators.


RUMORS AND SPECULATION

*Has committed over three hundred acts of violence, including several murders, in and around the UCB.

*Won the lottery as a child and sent every penny to various oil companies.

*Offered his legal services to Ken Lay, and killed him when he refused.

*Has fathered sixty-seven children, including Dakota Fanning.

*Can erase PC hard drives by sneezing.

*Briefly made English the official language of Spain.

*Raped CBS sports commentator Craig Sager.

*Raced the full length of the Nile against a school of red-tailed Catfish, finishing fourth.

*Translated the Rosetta Stone, became angry at the message, and is currently plotting to destroy it.

*Started as an improv comedian in Missouri, where he performed several private shows for the KKK.

*Illegitimate great-grandson of Charles Guiteau, the man who assassinated President Garfield.

*Foiled plans for a land bridge between Alaska and the former Soviet Union.

*Has a button at home which, if pressed, will activate a series of hidden gates and release wild, hungry ocelots into the UCB theatre.

*Can re-enact every Popeye cartoon from memory, but will not say Bluto's lines.

*Runs with the bulls in Pamplona for the sole purpose of committing savage violence and blaming it on the animals.

*Writes haikus for neo-Nazis.

*Wrote Paul Giamatti's Pinot Noir monologue for the movie "Sideways."

*Actively pursues the extinction of pandas.

Blogs are awesome

Here are some actual facts about our world.


1. Laissez-Faire Construction Speeding

One of our country's most frustrating road obstacles are construction zones on federal highways. They delay traffic during peak hours, and force drivers to brake unnecessarily when the interstate is otherwise vacated. Menacing orange signs speak of lower speed and doubled fines, but what most vehicle operators don't understand is that these are hollow threats.

Why? Because there's a loophole. As many already know, traffic violations are administered exclusively by either local or state police. There's no such thing as a "federal" traffic cop.
However, since the Road Creation & Repair Act (1919), all construction on national highways falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Transportation, which is, quite obviously, a federal institution. What does this mean? It means that town, county, or state traffic cops cannot stop you for speeding in a federal highway construction zone! It's out of their domain, and would carry the same penalty as arresting someone out of state. Violators can, and do, lose their badge.

Have you ever noticed that truck drivers never seem to obey the "lower speed limits" in these zones? It's because the big-rig community knows the loophole, and aren't falling for the ominous warnings. So next time you pass a construction zone on a federal highway (note: this does NOT apply on local roads), hit the gas pedal and give the workers the middle finger. There is simply no good reason to slow down when the builders are out.


2. Old-Timey Prostitution

You probably don't need to be told that, with the exception of certain counties in Nevada, prostitution is illegal in America. This is a commonly accepted truism, and yet, because of an unlikely congressional response to high suicide rates after the stock market crash of 1929, the act of sex for money cannot be prosecuted in office buildings whose date of construction precedes October of that year.

Here's how it went down: on October 19, 1929, also known as "Black Tuesday," the American stock market experienced an unprecedented recession. A flurry of selling prompted an atmosphere of panic, and those with large stock ownership sold out, which led to minor investors following suit. Before the day was over, prices had bottomed, and many had lost their life savings. Banks foreclosed, jobs were lost, and the manifold tragedies ushered in the Great Depression, which lasted until American involvement in World War 2.

But more importantly for our purposes, many investors and brokers who lost their fortune on that fateful day saw fit to take their own lives. In the days following Black Tuesday, it was common to see these men hurl themselves from the upper floors of their woebegone institutions. The American public demanded a response to what became an epidemic, and congress convened the following week.

Countless ideas were bandied about the House in the ensuing days, one of which was that gray, monotonous office conditions depressed the American working public and cultivated an aura favorable to suicide. In an effort to appear active, the House passed over four hundred items of legislation in five days, setting a record that would stand until the infamous "Laws for Claws" debacle of 1976. Sadly, most measures proved ineffectual. Yet in the midst of this flurry, motion 4164D had a lasting impact; designed to increase employee morale, it mandated an enlivening of businesses with multi-hued walls, increased flora, and, thanks to renegade congressman Charles "Lucky Chuck" Abernethy (D-NC, served 1922-1935), "permissible acts of leisure." The motion was passed unanimously, and signed into law by President Herbert Hoover on Christmas Day of 1929.

What Abernethy knew, and others did not, is that this specific phrase, thanks to an obscure 1834 Senate clause, referred to prostitution. Six months later, when the repercussions became clear, Speaker of the House Nicholas Longworth (R-OH) called a special session to repeal the law. But to Republican dismay, Abernethy's longstanding influence enabled him to successfully attach a rider grandfathering all office buildings currently built. The ploy became known as "Chuck's Pork," referring to the 'pork barrel' nomenclature commonly used to describe such riders. However, because of the subject matter, the term 'pork' gradually became a slang term synonymous with intercourse.

The legislation was not publicized, and was rarely utilized by any corporation. But in the past fifteen years, old, vacant office buildings in American cities have been commonly used as brothels. "Chuck's Pork" has become protection for pimps, who operate with impunity in all edifices constructed before Black Tuesday.


3. Heroic Coke?

Heroin Diacetylmorphine, or "heroin," is an opioid drug known for producing a euphoric high in users. Freebase Cocaine, or "crack," is a coca-based stimulant drug used commonly in poor areas of urban America. Both substances are illegal, but what the government doesn't want you to know is, they may save your life.

In simple terms, the combination of insositol and mannitol sugars in crack, when alone, contribute to high energy levels, heightened consciousness, and an overall increase in brain activity. Meanwhile, synthesized diacetyl, derived from morphine, lends heroin its more serene effects. When the two are paired by simultaneous use, they form a protein bond on the rotational axis, and the joint compound (scientifically unnamed, but known in research circles as "Waldsterben," the German word for "Forest Death" - derivation unknown) is the world's most effective disease killer.

In laboratory studies undertaken at the University of California, Berkley in 2001, Waldsterben proved adept at destroying all forms of virus and bacteria in some of the larger animal species. It also demonstrated a nascent ability to destroy carcinogens. Yet under the guise of stem cell ban, the Executive branch outlawed further research and shut down the Berkley labs, essentially ending all investigation into the drug's cancer-curing potential.

The cease-and-desist order was prompted by the FDA, whose commitment to stemming the tide of illegal substances into US territory was judged as more important than developing a possible eradicator of all human illness. Unfortunately, the Waldsterben compound, somewhat mysteriously, can only be formed when the two drugs are combined, and thus legal methods of further research are impossible. However, recent reports from the scientific underground seem to indicate that explorations continue in experimental medical regions of Michigan's upper peninsula.



DUSTIN UPDATED: it's about TV!!!! http://magomra.blogspot.com

DUSTIN FACT:

He thinks the Genghis-Khan-era Mongols were "amoral swine, but militarily irreproachable."

The first Kate?

I thought maybe I'd tell my first date story. First, some preliminaries. I got to see my college friend Kate for the first time since graduation yesterday, and that was a big treat. We hit an improv comedy show and she spent the night on my couch before driving to New Hampshire today. Here are some of the highlights from our time together: *I got to hear numerous Kate Stories. Kate Stories are a breed of true tales so outrageous and exciting that you immediately suspect that the narrator is full of shit. I always enjoy crazy people, and for the longest time I liked Kate's company because I could count on hearing about some wild adventure or other, and was pretty sure she was functionally insane. It was nice to sit back, put my legs up, suggest a word or phrase, and just wait for the fireworks. At a certain point, I considered her a genius for the unreal ability to concoct incredibly detailed accounts on the spot. I'm not sure when exactly I realized that she wasn't a pathological liar, but it slowly dawned that she was on the level, and probably had the most fascinating life of anybody I've ever known. I have a habit of calling her when I'm drunk, and I always love asking about her life, because it's common to hear responses like: "I'm thinking of about going to Hawaii and doing some work with dolphins." "I drove to Virginia to take a basket weaving course." "I'm trying to get to South Africa, but my contact is having a ton of issues with the Visa." By the way, I'm not fabricating any of these details to be funny. They're all actual true tidbits. Talking to her is kind of like reading a Calvino novel, in the sense that she's pretty mysterious, and it'd be impossible to ever pinpoint her exact location. The only sure thing is that you'll be surprised. The best part of her stories, though, is the delivery. The insane details are always mentioned in offhand responses, as in: Me: Do you feel like pancakes? Her: I used to love pancakes, until I ate them almost every day when I took a year off after high school to work at a ranch in Texas. Now I'm kind of sick of pancakes. We took a walk around my neighborhood when she arrived yesterday, and I asked about her upcoming interview in California. Turns out, she might be making good money doing child care, and have her mornings off so she can concentrate on horse-riding. This would replace her current job, which entails video-conferencing with a west coast doctor who is trying to establish a new paradigm for re-growing clearcut forests. Anyway, one of my main life goals is to go on a road trip with Kate, because she might be the only person who gets into more fucked up situations and meets more strange people than me. She's the kind of person who visits LA and finds herself in a party where fruit is served off the naked body of an actual human female model, or who travels with a friend wearing only a wet towel because they've decided to skinny dip in every lake in Northern Maine, or who has an 80-year old friend who was threatened with a gun in his shower by his second wife, and who has a standing offer to let her live in his rent-controlled, 70 dollar per month West Village apartment. When I mentioned an idea I'd had about taking a road trip from the US to the southern tip of South America, it shouldn't have surprised me that she knew a guy who'd made the jaunt with his wife in the 70s. More highlights... *Because I took all my clothes to the laundry earlier, I was out of gym shorts and slept in the natural state. At about 5am, I had to use the toilet, so I was presented with a conundrum. The bathroom door is kitty (not catty) corner to my bedroom door, so the dash is quick. Normally, I wouldn't bother with clothing, but as I mentioned, Kate was on my couch. So I could either risk her being awake and seeing my naked body dart between doors (something people usually pay good money for), or I could dig up some kind of easy clothing to slip on. After some deliberation, I chose the latter, and proceeded to turn on my light, drop several clothes from the shelf, make a ton of noise, and settle on a noisy pair of windpants, which were literally the only available item of bottom-half clothing that weren't made of denim or khaki. The overall sound impression was of a clumsy 15 year-old being attacked by a super-villain made of paper. I held out hope that she hadn't woken up, but the first question she asked this morning was why I'd donned a poncho in the middle of the night. *She urged me several times to call into work and tell them I had testicle cancer so we could hang out. According to her, you have two testicle cancer days every year, one for each testicle. I was skeptical, but I checked company policy today, and she's absolutely right. Unfortunately, you have to provide subsequent visual proof of a lost testicle in order to qualify. I'm still deciding if it's worth the trouble. Anybody know where I can get a testicle? I've got a bootleg copy of 'Norbit' if anyone's interested in a trade. *She violently insisted that I see the movie "Night at the Museum" starring Ben Stiller. When I told her I would unequivocally never see that movie, she accused me of being out of touch and demanded that I name the last movie I'd seen in the theater. My answer was "The Lives of Others," a subtitled German language film which seemed to prove her point. However, I read this morning that it won the Oscar for best foreign movie, which reduces its overall obscurity. Now who's out of touch, Kate? Pardonnez-moi if I maintain a certain artistic cordon sanitaire, precluding the intake of cinema's more fatuous pilules. And really, isn't the content of such farces déjà entendu, at best, and chiefly déclassé? If I felt a yen for coarse burlesque, I'd procure footage of Gypsy Rose Lee in Stage Door Canteen. QED, I believe. *Before the show, I made her eat a Bob Marley burrito from Burritoville, which is objectively the best food item you can find in all of New York City and the whole world. *I experienced the beginning of two possible Kate Stories, the first coming in a Starbucks when she flashed a winning smile at the "Barista," who proceeded to flirt and try to strike up a conversation before we left. The second came when a crazy person approached us on the subway, and Kate made the crucial New York mistake of answering his questions without being brief and rude. We found out his dad was a biologist, and he chastised Kate for not asking her own geologist father (degree only) about what kind of light blue stone sat in the bezel of her ring. This is about 800% more detail than you ever want to go into with a subway nut, but the best part was when our stop came, and I eagerly said "this is us!" Kate looked at me, puzzled, and said "Is it? Are you sure?" I was sure, having lived in the neighborhood for over a year, but her question created the unmistakable impression that I was lying about our stop in order to avoid further conversation with the crazy guy. Which, needless to say, is the exact wrong idea to convey. Luckily, we didn't die. *I got to watch a video of her mother impersonating a gorilla. So overall, a great time, and guess what story I'm not going to tell? The story of my first date! Instead, this blog will be my tribute to Kate. In fact, the title of this blog was originally "The first date?", but now I'm changing it to "The first Kate?", because that's fucking hilarious. It would also be a good crossword clue, if only we'd ever had a first lady named Kate. Alas, America comes up short again. I think I fucked up the comma use in that sentence with all the quotes and question marks. If anyone knows the proper form, please let me know. Dustin Fact of the Day: He once ran a half mile in snowpants. It was only moderately successful. Blog post-script: I jinxed the shit out of my g-mail spam filter with the last entry. It turned from an efficient monster into a porous milquetoast border guard, reminiscent of the Roman Empire when they stopped giving a shit about the Visigoths.

Resilient spam

My gmail spam filter is an efficient motherfucker. It blocks almost every piece of junk sent my way. However, when one slips through the cracks, I get a strange feeling of affection. I picture it dodging the various obstacles, concocting new stories at every blockade, and, against all odds, bursting into the regular inbox.

It's sort of like if you were a British anti-espionage agent in World War II. They basically caught every German spy that tried to parachute or row into the country, and turned them against the Nazis. The spy net was so comprehensive that they were able to use the sources to deliver misinformation about the D-Day landing, which turned the tide of the war. So imagine the war's over, you've won, and you find out that among all the success, one German actually managed to evade all the sensors, integrate into the culture, and deliver information back via radio. Considering the long odds, it'd be pretty remarkable, right? You couldn't help but admire this one guy's luck and ability.

Nevertheless, he is a traitor, and must be tried and hung for his war crimes. And so it goes with you, "Dental Department," and your offer of Crest Whitening Strips. You'll be marked as spam, and later deleted entirely with the rest of your less successful brethren. But you'll always have your brief moment of glory, a daring achievement nobody will ever forget. Kudos and goodbye.



Dustin Update:

He updated his blog twice since the last time I posted. Music and television, par for the course. Apparently the new show "The Winner" sucks, and the Arcade Fire is good.

I just had a terrible thought. What if my synopses keep people from reading Dustin's blog? That would be counter-productive indeed.

http://magomra.blogspot.com

Dustin fact of the day:

He once gargled saltwater for thirty-three straight hours, setting the world record. However, by the time the next edition was printed by Guinness, he'd been outpaced by someone from China.

Fuck Nabokov

There's a girl with an obnoxious voice who continually asks for cups. I think she either hovers in the pantry or has some sort of surveillance camera which notifies her the moment the last is taken. As for the voice itself, picture a high, grating whine with a baby girl's inflection. Bludgeoning fantasies often take hold at each new request, and today I considered that it might be good for me. Not because I believe that acting on anger somehow cures the problem- on the contrary, it's more likely to become an addiction- but because if I actually saw this person sprawled out and hurt, it might cue up some heretofore absentee sympathetic reaction. I might start to see her as human, instead of a cup monitoring whimper machine.


DUSTIN UPDATE:

He still hasn't updated since January 21st. Visit magomra.blogspot.com and tell him to stop hoarding.

Dustin fact of the day:

On average, he eats 17 eggs per week. He claims it gives him 'chicken charm,' a term continually referenced but never explained.

First Date

The story of my first date is wildly uncomfortable, so brace yourselves.

The first awkward detail I can think to introduce is the fact that I was 17, an age where most American males have probably had sex, or at the very least seen a female naked on something other than a computer or television screen. Not me. My romantic history from middle school to date 1 reads like a Jane Austen novel, in the sense that there a lot of emotions and nothing really interesting ever happens. From date 1 onward, it reads like a comedy of errors.

In sixth grade I had my first official girlfriend. Her name was Shelly, and she was two years older. Shelly and I engaged in many awkward phone conversations where the average silence to speaking ratio was 10:1. Luckily, we never communicated in person. Sometimes her outgoing friend Valerie would deliver a message like "Shelly thinks you're cute," and on Valentine's Day I bought her a greeting card. It took me about two hours to pick the right one, and the stress involved almost put me over the edge. After long deliberation inside Newberry's, I chose a blank with just hearts. Inside, I wrote "Happy Valentine's Day, Love, Me." The interesting part there is that I felt enough intimacy with her to write a cutesy "me," something I'd probably learned from reading holiday cards between my mom and step-dad.

In the winter, before classes started, the middle school opened up the auditorium on very cold days. Ten years ago in Saranac Lake, that was pretty much every day. On the fourteenth, I had the card in hand, and was shaking from nerves at the prospect of handing it over. I briefly considered using Valerie as a messenger, but finally gathered the courage to take it over myself. I hitched up my backpack and started side-stepping through the rows of orange seats. Her friends spotted me immediately and began giggling. By the time I reached the gaggle, they were stifling, and my face had actually gone beyond a blush into something scientists call "The Bloodrose Effect." Shelly, who was even more painfully shy than myself, accepted the card and my mumbled "Happy Valentine's Day" without looking up. After the transaction, I ran away, and I think later that month our 'relationship' ended, though it's hard to be sure since we never spoke. Perhaps I detected a slightly colder half-stare when we passed in the hallway.

This raises an interesting point. For some reason, starting in sixth grade, the girls I date tend to be very shy. While I'm not necessarily a bashful person, my pervasive social awkwardness should not be paired with anything but absolute charm in a female counterpart. This might explain why why my relationships to date haven't fared well; the common bond seems to be an overriding unease with the idea of human interaction.

Wow, I didn't even come close to talking about my first date. I promise to broach that subject next week.







DUSTIN: He still has not updated his blog (http://magomra.blogspot.com) since January 21st, which is two weeks ago. You can go read back entries to pass the time, but please leave him a gentle reminder in the comments section that he's being a negligent dick.

Dustin fact of the day: Dustin and I annoy the shit out of everyone in the world by constantly referencing people from high school. When I say "referencing," I just mean "saying their name in the middle of other people's conversations based on a loose association from a word we probably misheard." The gimmick stopped being funny to everyone else about four months ago, when it first started. It's especially unamusing to people who didn't go to our high school. But unlike Courtney Miller when she's holding a beaker of acid, we're not gonna drop it.

The Greg Dowden Affair

I've been through many strange incidents, some of which make me feel as though a cosmic power delights in playing absurd pranks while I writhe. The following story contains the most bizarre moment of my young life, stemming from a few odd coincidences which aligned and culminated at my friend Brandon's house in late 2000.

We were in the middle of our senior year, enjoying Christmas break by playing Mario tennis at his house. An old friend of ours named Craig Bowden, who'd moved to Indianapolis sometime in middle school, had returned for a visit and was staying with Brandon. While they played, I thumbed through his yearbook, which for whatever reason he'd brought along. It was your typical layout, with horizontal rows of 5 black-and-white portrait photos. The names were on a sidebar at the edge of the page. I thumbed through, idly looking for attractive girls, when I came across someone whose resemblance to Craig was so uncanny that it blew my mind. I showed Brandon, who turned from the match long enough to remark on the similarity. Capitalizing on my ability to make horrible jokes, I said "what's his name, Greg Dowden?" Craig Bowden himself made no comment, apparently unamused by my rhyming jab.

Then I looked to the side of the page, and this is where the story gets fucking strange. The kid's name, no shit, was Greg Dowden.

Digest that, if you will. Not only did Craig Bowden have an unbelievably accurate look-alike in his same school, which is slightly odd but not overly remarkable. Not only did this person have both a first and last name which rhymed with his double, which is pretty amazingly odd and hilarious.

Nope, I'd actually nailed the dude's name with an accidental, obnoxious joke. Craig hadn't reacted because he assumed I knew. I hadn't.

When Brandon saw the name, he started laughing hysterically. I just leaned back against the couch and stared out the window, fully expecting the world I knew to crumble like a curtain, revealing a massive laboratory with giant giggling scientists.





DUSTIN HAS A BLOG:

http://magomra.blogspot.com

In his latest entry, he talked about television or something. Each time I update, I will update you on Dustin's blog progress, even if he has not updated himself. Such is my commitment. Dustin is a big tough person from my high school. One day, I will post a youtube clip of him scoring a touch down.

Today's Dustin fact: He has a friend named Alex who I call "The Sun King."