let's stumble towards success and pack some snacks for little breaks

I was going to upload images today of the awesome logic puzzles Mike made me for my birthday, but then he did it instead, so now I don't have to. If you like that sort of thing, check 'em out. They're fantastic, especially considering the constraints and that they're the first two logic puzzles he's ever written.

A hearty welcome to the world, linaelyn's brand-new nephew and bookishfellow's brand-new son. :D

I tried to write a birthday parody of "Girl from Ipanema" for hahathor, but my songwriting skills apparently fall short of that task. So I'll just say happy birthday, Jenny! Best of luck for a low-stress and satisfying year!

Happy birthday, Harry. I'm glad the book was released a week after my seventeenth birthday instead of a week before; I finally caught up to you in age, right at the very end.

I suppose it's really over now, isn't it?

Amidst the flurry of researching and writing a five-page single-spaced honors project in 24 hours, I seem to have missed juvernaz's birthday. So happy belated birthday to her- sorry, babe! I still love you! And the sacrifice of birthday wishes accomplished one thing: I got an A on that project, which means an A for the semester in honors seminar. :P

Happy birthday, rpipuzzleguy! I hope the rest of the year to come is as entertaining for you as its first few hours were :P

Church is like a soap opera. This 15-year-old chick is engaged to the guy whose dad is paying for her heart surgery; Ann is in love with some dude she met online; Colin's heart is as black as his Old Navy flip-flops (or something like that) because he doesn't have a boyfriend and he's apparently doomed to be alone for the rest of his life; Chris chopped his beard off and everyone agrees that he looks like a cross between Riffraff and a hobbit; some random guy showed up in a penguin cult shirt and told us all how futile it is to vote... and then the preteens and some World War II veterans came in for a heart-to-heart in the high school room. Yes, I said church.

I talked to Calvin today for the first time in months. He still misses Anytown to an insane degree. He's miserable in his aunt's house but can't move out because he has no money and can't get a job because there's nowhere to work within walking distance of his house besides a McDonald's, which has already rejected his application. Also, his cousin was murdered by her boyfriend a month ago. The poor kid started crying while we were talking. I promised to find a way to spend some time with him soon, but I feel bad, because there's nothing I can do to help him.

Mom, Link and I went to Powell Gardens today for a tour of the new quilt gardens. It was mostly botanical talk I didn't understand, but I did get to taste a jujube- it was, as the Director of Horticulture described, like an apple dipped in honey. We left shortly after Link ran headlong into a glass door, but it was nice to spend an afternoon with Mom.

Kitchens should not smell like brake fluid.

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear otherwise_nyc
Happy birthday to yooooouuuuuuu!

I hope that the sucky things get better and the good things stay good, because you are a fantastic person and you deserve to be treated well by life.

(You wanted things to make you smile? Maybe this will help: every time I see the "I have a cat" dude, I'm horribly tempted to start singing the Meow Mix jingle at him. Sometimes I've hummed it under my breath, but I don't think he's noticed yet.)

Happy birthday, kat_nano!
Also happy day-after-birthday, androidlovesong! (But I talked to her on IM yesterday, so she knows I didn't forget.)

Today was Clubs & Orgs Day. Sharai and I got to showcase the beautiful trifolds we spent all day making on Friday. Just for the heck of it, I'm going to start writing down the amount of time we spend together, because it's insane. Today clocks in at six and a half hours. That includes a trip to Target, where I obtained suitable clothing for karate. The teacher decreed that we have to wear black or dark blue exercise pants, a white shirt with no writing or other colors on it, and tennis shoes.

Puns abound in the names for the clubs I'm starting this semester. I made a Yahoo! group for Novel Challenge (the banned books club), the first meeting of which occurs tomorrow afternoon. Tomorrow I will also check in with Richard, a Spectrum newbie who expressed interest in the Penn (the literary magazine), and submit my organization proposal for that. If I finish the constitution for the juggling club during work tomorrow morning, I'll submit that too. Mom pointed out a great name for the juggling club, too: I told her I wanted something catchy, and she suggested "Something Catchy." Catch... y. I thought it was funny.

Dan came over and started talking on his cell phone to his new girlfriend. I commandeered the phone (nautical term) and told her about the Clothes Hanger Impalement, the Spaghetti Inadequacy, the Incident Involving Collision With An Embarrassing Amount Of Living Room Furniture In A Small Period Of Time, and the Valentine's Day Thing. She didn't seem too fazed. I hope she sticks with him for a while; I like this one.

I don't have a juggling icon. This must be remedied, and soon.

This arrived in the mail today from Grandma and Grandpa: a Canon PowerShot S2 IS.



I am so excited about this that upper-case letters and exclamation points will not do me justice.

Today on the Plaza I spotted a vehicle that appeared to be, for lack of a better term, a stretch motorcycle. There were somewhere between five and ten people sitting on it in a line. The back had two wheels; I'm not sure about the front, but I think it only had one. Apart from the two wheels in the back and the unusual length, it looked exactly like a motorcycle.

Does anyone know what this thing is? Mom suggested renting one for my sixteenth birthday, an idea of which I heartily approve, but I can't find it on Google. Help?