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So it's Halloween. Which is cool. I'm fin'ta be Michael Jackson (c. 1982) and these (Todd points to a pair of red jeans hanging over a chair.) are the tightest pants in the history of the world. And my jacket (Todd holds up a red jacket with a large, black 'V' across the front.)? My jacket is deck as ef. As soon as I gheri-curl my hair and spray it black, I'm going to be the real deal. I'll look like I walked right off the set of the greatest music video ever.

I told you I'd get a million libs of candy.

Peace.
-Todd

There's something incredibly satisfying about, while driving down rural, two-lane highways between three and four in the morning, as your eyelids take on additional tonnage and your yawn mirrors that of the pitch black maw approaching on the horizon, passing -- the entire time -- only one other car. It's like the other driver is your best friend in the world, even if they don't know it, and only until their tail lights disappear in the rear view.

Honestly? I think I could drive late at night forever.

Peace.
-Todd

Finally, I have seen Kill Bill.

I liked it. It is a good movie.

But, "if you are even the slightest bit squeamish, do not see this movie," is what should be flashed across the screen in five-foot-tall letters after the final preview ends and before the opening titles begin, because, while this is a good movie with fantastic fight scenes and a stellar soundtrack, it is entirely too bloody.

But it's good.

Gone is Tarantino's trenchant dialogue, which, once upon a time, gave even Uma Thurman's bland performance the smallest glimmer of life. Framed not by that hideous black wig, but this time by golden tresses, Thurman spews, like so much of her opponents' blood (That's clever.), unfortunate one-liners, citing a popular sugary cereal mascot of the Genus Oryctolagus (Read: Rabbit). But let's face it (How's that working out for you?), after seeing the previews (What?), I wasn't there for the acting (Being clever.).

Thurman's character (We don't know her name. Both times it is uttered, early in the movie, it is bleeped.) is a caucasian American versed moreso than anyone else in the film in the ways of slicing the hell out of people with her Samurai sword (How was she trained? We don't know. Perhaps that, along with other nagging questions [such as "What is Tarantino's deal with peoples' feet?" and "How the fuck did she survive a gunshot wound to the head?"], will be answered in Volume II.). That the movie is a walking, talking anachronism, however, doesn't bother me. What bothers me, aside from the gallons upon gallons of fake blood, is that no sooner was one character's arm removed (Removed is such the wrong word, but I want to use "lopping" really, really soon.), my own started tingling. Either that's really good filmmaking, or I'm in the midst of a myocardial infarction as we speak.

Tarantino defies you to label this movie. I, however futile it may be, am going to give it a shot: This is a movie about lopping (See?) off limbs, and the amount of blood that results in so doing.

And there is, as I mentioned before, plenty of said blood.

Peace.
-Todd

I'm home.

And for an entire week this time!

Last night I got to see Joe again for the first time since baseball was still watch-able (Yankees-Marlins? Please. Who cares?). Standing in the middle of the intersection of 10th & Park, dodging paintballs spit from semi-automatics in the dangerous hands of townies, I waited for him. Eric and Charlie, just as eager to see this gangly gypsy once again, joined me in rushing toward Big Red as it lumbered down the road. Joe leapt out and joined us in going nuts. Then we partied. Then we slept. Then we woke up. Then we waited for Charlie to get ready to leave. Then Charlie wanted to take a shower. Then he needed to pack up all his shit. So we kept waiting, for quite some time, then, at long last, left.

So, I'm home.

Peace.
-Todd

Today wasn't so spectacular (yet). Yesterday was, though. Well, not so much all of yesterday, but parts of it. The last part, at least. Kind of. It wasn't actually so much spectacular as it was really, really fun.

I did sleep through my Major Asian Religions class, but that's neither here nor there. We were watching a video, and I was up until something like 3:00 the night before writing an extra credit paper to make up for all the points I lost, or never actually obtained, on that quiz that kicked my non-Hinduism-knowing ass. That, however, is unimportant.

After classes ended for me at 11:00, I returned to my room for extended periods of napping.

I was awoken at 5:00 by the other members of my Tutorial group. Apparently, we had arranged to meet at that time to work on a presentation for today (Who knew?). What I realized, about five minutes later, was that I a/ was in another dorm b/ was in another room c/ was wearing shoes and d/ had somehow managed to gather all of the information I needed to study. I have no idea how any of these happened, but they did.

Then a bunch of other crap happened.

At about midnight, though, for no real reason other than to quell boredom (Remember, I had already napped for about six hours, and was not tired.), I started throwing curveballs down the hall with the wiffle ball I had found near Younker. This rapidly became a game of hallway wiffleball, complete with poster-rube bats and lots (LOTS) of noise and giggling. It only lasted about ten or fifteen minutes, which was the amount of time we (Me, Sam, Charlie, and Noahandjoshfromacrossthehall) gave ourselves before we a/ were told by some assmuncher to stop or b/ broke something, but it made yesterday entirely bloggable. I think.

Oh! And I found a Chee-to that looked like a person. I swear to God I'm not crazy. Click the picture at right.

Peace.
-Todd

Last night -- whoooo, last night -- was the second of ten-ten. For those of you that don't know, ten-ten is an evening's worth of drunken confusion and, consequently, mass amounts of fun. Starting at the northmost part of north campus and moving, gradually and perpetually, toward the southernmost part of south campus, it is one of the largest parties on campus at Grinnell all year. Culminating in a campus-wide shot at the Forum (the campus center) at midnight, few people make it any farther south. Among those who did, however, was my father!

I, unfortunately, was not in a position to have seen this spectacle; taking care of a friend who had passed out at the campus-wide shot, I was stuck at Younker while my dad tottered his way down to Gardner. There, he partied. I went back to my dorm around one, watched some Swingers, then succumbed to clutches of sleep, but not before Josh returned and informed me of my father's adventure.

Waking this morning, still in disbelief, dad verified my intransigent catechism. Un-effing-believable! How did he...? What was he...? How did he...? Wow.

Is this what it's come to? Getting out-partied by my dad on a weekend? Yikes.

I also saw Intolerable Cruelty yesterday. It is great. See it.

Peace.
-Todd

I had a paper due on Wednesday at 5:00 in the afternoon. That was all well and good until I realized that Wednesday, is, in fact, not Friday, and that that deadline, at the time was, in fact, less than two hours away.

I think, for a four page paper churned out between the hours of three and five pee-em, it turned out pretty well.

Charlie covered for my (extended) radio show, taking the aforementioned two-hour time slot, while I typed what may or may not be a coherent juxtaposition of Kuo Hsi's painting Early Spring Landscape to Hsieh Ling-Yûn's poem "On My Way From South Mountain..." For the first hour of the show, I filled dead air (one of the CD players is broken and is yet to have been replaced) with German beer garden music (Sides seven and eight: Oktoberfest). For the last hour of the show, I used an old Disney sound effects record: "Many people keep birds as pets. Not you. You are terrified of the feathered creatures, with their pointed beaks and sharp, clutching talons." It was fantastic. Next week I'm doing a show on Oasis (Shut up, Jacob... and everyone else.): Some Might Say.

It's late.

Peace.
-Todd

I woke up this morning to a meeting with my advisor about my first tutorial paper. At it, I was informed that mine got not only the highest grade in the class, but that it was also the only A. Sweet. This college thing is actually going pretty well. Of course, mid-terms are next week.

That was me gloating. This is me marvelling: Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas is a really, really good movie. I set down the aforementioned 'pleasure reading,' so I'm still not sure how great the book is, although I'm sure its greatness is bountiful. Proliferate. Abundant. Good.

Peace.
-Todd

Today was a weird one. So far. At what turns out to have been 7:30, Charlie said, "Todd, get up! It's 8:05! You're late for class (Or something like that)!" I responded, most likely, with a grunt of some sort, then ran to Steiner hall (I had lent Joshfromacrossthehall my bike lock key for the weekend home and he still had it). Like that scene from Vanilla Sky, in which David Aames (Tom Cruise) drives through downtown Manhattan (is there any other kind of Manhattan?), I was surprised to see absolutely no one milling about campus, headed to classes. Except Tom Cruise was in a Ferrari. And I was on foot, out of breath, red in the face, with a cramp in my side. I arrived at the class, and no one was there. I half expected a voice in my head to start repeating, "Open your eyes. Open your eyes." But it didn't. I looked at the clock. As I mentioned before, it was something like 7:35, because Charlie woke me up thirty minutes before my alarm was scheduled to. I sat there and read some Confucian analects before everyone else showed up to Religions.

The comatose haze through which I experienced most of the day disappeared at 11:59, when I realized (Oh shit!) I had yet to hand in my exercises for French. I stormed into Joshandnoahfromacrossthehall's room, and found my bike key. Two minutes later, out of breath, red in the face, with a cramp in my side, I arrived at the door of my professor's office. He had already left, so, as a long shot, I slid my assignment under his door. He must have received it, because, about an hour later, when I arrived with the second portion of my assignment, which, in my rush out the door, I had forgotten in my room, along with my keys (except for the one for my bike), effectively locking myself out of my room until 1:00-ish (Charlie, as it turns out, had left for lunch in my absence, leaving a note on the door that I had failed to notice), which is why I couldn't bring him the second part of my assignment until then (and I did try getting in through the window -- it didn't work), he accepted it with a smile, taking pity on my out of breath, red in the face soul with a cramp in its side.

I also didn't realize until my second class, French, that my voice had gone entirely. I spent most of it clearing my throat making really nasty, unattractive throat-clearing noises, all the while trying to be subtle about it. It's back now, though, but I'm not sure for how long.

I got a Homer Hanky in the mail today from my dad, more Dean stuff from my grandma, and the Wunderlich screenplay from The Geoff. I'm halfway through it. It's really funny.

Peace.
-Todd

I'm home.

Charlie and I left Grinnell yesterday around five, arriving something like four hours later in St. Paul. It feels really good to be here. I'm really excited to see people again. Tom, Cale & William last night. I'm not sure who tonight. We'll see. We head back late tomorrow.

Jacob, who has been bored in this town of late, summed it up when I called him last night:

Me:	Hey. I'm home!
Him:	Why?

For the playoffs. The Twins lost today. I effing hate the Yankees. They're still in it though. All they have to do is match last year's feat and beat the other guys tomorrow and on Monday on their home turf. It will not be easy.

Okay, so... I'm going to go find out who's doing what and where they're doing it.

Peace.
-Todd

Noahfromacrossthehall asked me to do six degrees of separation from Kurt Cobain to Trey Anastasio today on my radio show. I did:

Kurt Cobain, front man for Nirvana (Polly), married Courtney Love, who led Hole (Malibu) and was also in Man On The Moon, a movie about Andy Kaufman starring Jim Carrey. It is also the title of a song by R.E.M. (Man On The Moon), who -- in 1999 -- toured with Wilco (Jesus, etc.), headliners at Farm Aid '98 with Phish (Sample In A Jar), whose lead singer, as we all know, is Trey Anastasio (Cayman Review).

E-mail me one for next week.

Peace.
-Todd