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I got an iPod.

This secures my spot among the hip, right? Because I've always been dying to be hip. Hip is one of those things that I have always wanted to be. And now, thanks to my parents, I am.

Right?

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go load it up with obscure songs that no one else has ever heard of. Because music is only good if no one else has ever heard of it.

Peace.
-Hip Todd

The Lord of the Rings

I'm much happier about how amazing it was than I am upset that it's all over. And no number of great words uttered about its amazingness can sum up how great I felt while walking out of the theater earlier today. I am speaking, of course, of all three movies and have decided it would be unfair of me to claim a favorite among them. Even though each is a distinctly different film. What a cop out.

It is, however, worth a mention that, near the end of the third film, to which I went at 7:30 today and saw with my family, I felt a twinge of considerable significance (This isn't a spoiler because the films are based on material extant for almost fifty years): As Frodo, Pippin, Sam and Merry all returned to the Shire, I realized, once more, how great it is to be home. I've missed all this.

Shut up. I relate to movies. Leave me alone. Dick.

Peace.
-Todd

Because of a bizarre twist, where I happened to be thinking the same thing as someone across the country, I have ditched my first-draft "I'm going home" blog, in which I mentioned all the things to which, upon return, I was looking forward. These included putting away my clothes, rather than wearing them out of a suitcase or backpack; reading both the City Pages and The Rake cover to cover; and going to movies, museums, concerts and -- though rare -- parties.

I had also planned on comparing, in a second paragraph, my current endearment toward my hometown to those cruel, lamentable years of 1996 to 1999 during which I held nothing but utmost contempt for the Twin Cities and, more specifically, Saint Paul. Living elsewhere, though, now seems, to me, impossible.

A quick check of the time at which this first-draft was written would confirm, to most, the theft of Anna's excellent summation of what it means for someone from Saint Paul to be going home. I can honestly say, though, that this was not the case. As I said before, it was merely a bizarre coincidence. Luckily, I spared myself a flood of nasty comments and e-mails from my friends, and a possible expulsion from Weblog-U (I'm a dork. But what if there was a Weblog-U? That would be weird.).

Anyhow, I am excited, and happy, to be coming home.

Peace.
-Todd

This kid from across the hall just dropped a pan-size Pizza Hut box on my desk in front of me. "Can you do me a favor? Watch this box and make sure a snake doesn't come out of it. Thanks a lot. I'll be right back."

The power went out last night while I was watching Rich Girls at Norris with Noah, Beth and Sera. Immediately, I thought of the poor souls in the midst of working on final papers and take-home tests. "That sucks," I thought. Noah and I told jokes to pass the time, but that got stale, and I only know something like five jokes, so we went upstairs to see what Joe and Chris were up to. They were up to what I thought they were up to. We hung out there until the power came on.

And that's the story of how the power went out while I was watching Rich Girls at Norris with Noah, Beth and Sera on a Tuesday night.

Peace.
-Todd

"And now the former dictator of Iraq will face the justice he denied to millions."

Neat.

Peace.
-Todd

A Dream.

I'm in Grinnell, on campus, doing work, when all of a sudden, my friend from Dibble Hall, who doesn't drop acid, gave me a call inquiring as to LSD's effect on something I can't remember. I tell him not to worry, and, as soon as I hang up the phone, I am back home again. I reach into my pocket for the keys (which is funny, because I don't have a car), walk outside, and there she is, The Silver Bullet. She's back! I hop in and go for a cruise, blasting The Rolling Stones, windows down, the summer wind blowing on my face. For some reason, all at once, I am in the passenger seat. No one is driving the car! I begin to veer off of the Frontage road that connects Cleveland Avenue to Pierce Butler Route. I steer myself onto a side road, headed about forty, forty-five miles an hour, and now I'm dodging gasoline pumps. This is, like, a forest, a slalom of pumps. And I'm kicking some ass, because, well, it's a dream. But I can't reach the break pedal and, somehow, the gas pedal's stuck down and I'm gaining velocity. No sooner do I hit ninety than I crash into a pump. Everything stops. I jump out of the car and run. I get to a phone, start dialing, turn to look at the car, and bear witness to the coolest explosion of all time! Then Keegan and Emily are there laughing at me and my parents show up to take me home. My dad hits a patch of ice, because it has since transformed to winter, skids over two sets of tire-damage spikes and comes to a halt.

In the middle of a big ass car-crusher. The walls pop up on all four sides and turn the '96 Caravan-plus-family-of-four into a neat, little cube. I jump out, because I can, and turn around, expecting despair, but am instead greeted with another kickass explosion. When the dust settles, there's the Incredible fucking Hulk, and he's pissed, just yelling his ass off at no one in particular.

I decide that absolutely nothing can make this dream cooler, so I wake up to describe it to Charlie.

It was nuts.

Peace.
-Todd

My Tutorial professor always expands on whatever I've said whenever I give an oral presentation. Is she clarifying my muddled thoughts or simply providing more to a presentation already full of meaningful insight? Is this good or bad?

Yesterday, in the radio station, while chatting with Alison, up came the subject of french camp, to which she went for something like five years, the second-to-last of which I joined her. We discussed memories and skits and sports and food and stuff and, most importantly, people. She brought up a familiar name: Amelia, Alison said, lives in Ames, roughly an hour from Grinnell. It hit me all at once. "She goes here!" I exclaimed. "She goes to Grinnell!" Mass amounts of mind-blowing ensued.

And, yeah, okay. I guess it's not that weird that we happened to run into each other at school. She only lives one-plus hours away. I only live four. Not that strange. But it dawned on me, after e-mailing Amelia, that the very same summer I went to french camp, I also went to New York. There, I recalled running into a familiar friend. I wasn't sure. Was that Amelia, too? I quickly sent another e-mail. A phone call, received not ten minutes later, confirmed that that, too, was, in fact, Amelia. And she had pictures of, and e-mails from, other Waubunites.

I never expected to run into any of those people once. Not that it wasn't a welcome surprise, -- Amelia is one of the coolest, nicest people I've ever met, and I think I recall having had a crush on her at camp. -- I just didn't do a very good job of keeping in touch with those people -- those great people -- after I left. I figured, two weeks. Neat. That's that.

I remember thinking what an odd coincidence it was that Joe, when I finally started talking to him in English 10 IB, had been at Waubun only a week before me. I didn't think it could get any weirder than that.

Peace.
-Todd

I've decided that I want to become disgustingly rich. This will happen at least one, if not all, of the following ways:

Become a famous person. Famous people have everything. Or at least that is how it would appear according to VH1's The Fabulous Life. Of course, they would just as soon have me don blinged-out jewelry and own people to do everything for me but take a dump. Though, i'm not quite sure famous people do that. This book would have me believe otherwise.

Invent something people can't live without. Things are America's livelihood. Why else would I be so intent on becoming affluent? I like stuff. I want stuff. I need stuff. Quality of life is contingent on not only how many things one owns, but also on how cool and name-brand those things are. Let's face it. I can't get into fashion, which seems to be one of the hotter markets these days -- people need faded jeans and shoes that make them taller while simultaneously slimming down their fat ankles. But even if I knew how to make somewhat desirable apparel, no one would buy it. Generally, to hawk ultra-trendy, ultra-chic, ultra-expensive clothing, one needs a name befitting the industry. So either I ditch a 'D' and toss a grave accent on top of the 'I,' or I continue searching in another field. And the Razor scooters and Tickle-Me-Elmos of this world, as well as their knock-offs, have already had their time.

or

Rob a bank.

Actually, forget it. All I want is enough to own a sweet place and a kick-ass record collection.

And a vintage car.

And art on the walls.

And a bomb shelter for when the Reds attack.

And an iPod.

Peace.
-Tod Pìtman

Noah, Sam, Paul, Monique and I got lost in what might have been Marshalltown last night. We were ghost hunting.

After reading up on some local stories on this website, we decided to head to Nevada, in search of the old Story County Home, an abandoned insane asylum. This place showed some real promise, so we headed out early, thinking we could talk to some of the colorful townspeople and find out from them the exact whereabouts of what was sure to be a frighteningly good time.

We tried the Citgo, just off of highway 30. No luck. Same at McDonald's. We finally found someone in town who all but drove us right to the site, which, as it turns out, is now owned by the county and is home to a highly-surveilled training site for recruits to the Sherriff's office, and a '93 Pontiac Grand Am, which didn't look too ominous. Needless to say, we didn't stick around too long. Our first hunt was a bust.

On the way back, we decided to check out Marshalltown, where, in the late 1960's, a fifth grader was killed. Apparently, his spirit haunts the Quarry forest. Now, we didn't know if this actually happened in Marshalltown, or in Quarry itself, a neighboring hamlet only one mile away. This led to us driving down an unmarked, backwoods country road and finding what was most likely not the forest, but a forest, somewhere between the two towns and wandering aimlessly for about thirty minutes. Then we couldn't find the highway. We were lost, but none of us really cared, so we just kept driving what Noah's car was telling us was southeast. I guess it was, because we got back. Lord knows where we would have ended up, had it not been for Noah's Pathfinder's built-in compass.

It was fun, but in that really, really lame way, where you don't know if you're having fun or if you're just not bored yet.

Peace.
-Todd

Did anybody watch CNN today?

Oh. Never mind.

I met Howard Dean today. You know, like, for real met. Well, actually all I did was shake his hand. He thanked me for coming and was promptly ushered along in the direction of a video camera. They say we were on CNN.

[Note: At this point during the writing of this weblog, I left to go work on an assignment at the ARH, then got food, came back, watched too much television, got embroiled in a fierce snowball fight, returned, watched Charlie pretend to know how to swing dance, while simultaneously and not coincidentally being entertained moreso than I can ever recall, laughing for what must have been a solid fifteen minutes straight, at which point I finally grabbed my camcorder only to find that the batteries were out, then finally returned to my room to find that I had started a blog four hours ago. "What the hell?" I said. "Oh. Right."]

Anyway, I'm not sure if we were on CNN or if somebody lied to me. Regardless, Howard Dean has a great handshake. This led me to think about one of the maybe five King Of The Hill episodes I've ever seen, in which Hank doubts his choice to vote for a presidential candidate on account of his limp handshake and how, had I shaken Kerry's hand when he came to Grinnell three weeks ago, I may have entertained the notion of deciding for whom I shall caucus in January based solely on whose handshake I deemed superior. They really shouldn't let people like me vote.

But they do.

God bless America.

Peace.
-Todd

I'm back in Grinnell.

It never really crossed my mind to write anything while home, so some of you may not have been aware that I was even home in the first place. I guess, somehow, blogging has become something I do down here and not up there.

The course of my break is probably better summed up by Anna, Joe and Geoff, than by me, as so much of mine was a blur, but I'm sure there are bits and pieces that I can lend to the stew.

I recall driving through the bulk of a relatively large snow storm, letting off the accelerator for a change and peering through large, falling flakes. We got in around eight-something. I went to Chipotle with The Boy, who is now only slightly shorter than me and can, after only thirteen years, officially beat me up. I will soon refrain from using the term 'little brother.'

Thanksgiving was fantastic. I ate the customary 'too much' and headed to the Phrathaüs. Partied. Slept. I woke up on Sunday, packed up most of my CDs -- which I am presently importing to iTunes -- and hightailed it back to Grinnell.

I also acquainted myself with Al Franken's book Lies.... Needless to say, having read only the first three chapters, I really hate Ann Coulter now.

And really like Al Franken.

Peace.
-Todd