If I may quote the disembodied head of the late Richard Milhouse Nixon (by way of Futurama):
"The loot. The loot. The loot is on fire."

Well, the very last bit is untrue. The loot is very nice. But I'll get to that in a bit.

I have been repeatedly and emphatically informed that nothing is more attractive than a boy who bakes. No doubt I shall now be forced to beat the womenfolk (except the one) off with a stick, as I participated in a veritable orgy of baking on Christmas Eve at the Anzinger residence. What a lot of cookies. Tasty, tasty, cookies... My particular innovation was placing round red sprinkles in the nose area of reindeer shaped cutouts. It was brilliant, terribly brilliant. Also on Christmas Eve, I received some excellent CD's with which to begin my CD collection, these being Weezer and Revolver, from Kate.

Now the main body of presentry also has some real gems. The Pythons Autobiography is so far fantastic stuff. If you are unfamiliar with the works of Monty Python, I am afraid I must pity you. Also under the tree were the extended editions of both The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. I'll have to abduct Larsen and educate him on the background of the film he has so derided recently. Or something.

Also, The Complete Far Side is an unspeakably heavy two-volume set. I can only assume it contains Far Side comics, which would make it fantastic.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Mmm... shopping. Went on a bit of a double date with the Girl, which is to say we brought along Peter and Eric. No, they're not gay that I know of; they don't even dress particularly well. But there was shopping, and low, low prices at Rolling Stone. Transportation issues prevented me from visiting hospitalized Alex. Hang in there, you crazy bastard.

Now, back to rebutting Larsen:
Fruity? It's an EPIC, man. If you're looking for a fruity epic, go watch Spartacus. Frankly, the movie is going to be even better once it weighs in at four hours or so. Extended Edition is going to tie the story together a little more and add an extra helping of sweet, sweet carnage. The ending isn't as clean as it could be, but a little denouement never hurt anybody. Seriously, if you haven't seen the first two movies, you're not in a particularly good position to review it. It's called a trilogy for a reason.

Closing thought:
Kate: "You aren't one of those boys who tries to get his girlfriend to watch Lord of the Rings, are you?"
Me:"Er... um... not anymore."

To continue my tradition of posting the results of the latest scholastic bowl ventures, back on Saturday we went to Von Steuben for a tournament, and were fairly successful. 5-0 in the morning, but we lost a close game to Rufus King in the afternoon elimination. A little too slow and a little too unlucky, as we got some atrocious bonuses, such as "What are the four major tournaments of the Professional Bowler's Association of America?" Anyway, it was a good day overall.

Return of the King is damn good. "A pretty fruity movie" indeed, Larsen. Hmph. It's got action, it's got drama, it's got a little bit of comedy. 3.5 hours, and you could tell that movie wanted to be longer, but it was still great stuff. And the battles were just stunning, although I did miss the climactic one due to lack of stamina on my part. Anyway, It was seen with the aforementioned D&D group on Sunday, and a good time was had by all.

Also, Kate is back for the next six weeks. I am elated, euphoric, ecstatic, and several other words for "happy" that don't begin with 'e'.

And then there are apps. The good news is no one else seems to wqant quite as much essay as Stanford. The bad news is I still have apps to do. Blergh.

Despite that little setback, merry Christmas to all.

Yay! Lack of school! This pleases me greatly. of course, I'm going to be doing college apps during the break, but it's still an improvement in free time. Fortunately, an excellent use of my free time is about to become available.

You know, a lot of people have already seen Return of the King and they seem to figure that since I haven't seen it yet, that gives them more geek points than me. But they are neglecting one crucial, crucial point: I am going to see it with my Dungeons & Dragons group... So there. To beat me now, you're going to have to go in costume, and frankly, I don't think you people have the cojones for that. Or the conejos, for that matter.

Congratulations to all y'all Kairos leaders, especially Maciej and Kohout. I would pay to watch Group Maciej. Not that I trhink Kohout won't be a great leader; I just don't think he's as prone to wacky hijinx. Prove me wrong, Kohout, prove me wrong. Then tell me all about it.

Course, where some have succeeded, others have failed. No leadership for me (or Siby or Kiefer or etc.). Maybe next time. Ah well. The upside is I don't have to do the whole massive workload thing.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

So, Kairos application is in too now. I'm just a regular bundle of getting-applications-done now. Before Kate gets too hopeful that I've abandoned my procrastinating ways, I must admit they changed the due date from Friday to today, but in my defense I did not learn this until yesterday.

The Physics test turned out to be a fascinating exercise in reasonable assumptions. I feel like I did the problems correctly, but I my knowledge is not so sure that I am convince that I did not in fact do them in an entirely incorrect way. Even the sentences I write about it are confusing morasses of multiple uses of nested verbs.

Also, as an odd coincidence, Kate's birthday and the release of Return of the King fall on the same day. Happy Birthday, Kate!

Done. With. Stanford. Booyah! Not a day too soon, as it were. Now I suppose I should get to work on the others shortly.

So, in case anyone noticed, I wasn't in school yesterday, because I was sick. The sinus infection seems to have built a new outpost in the stomach region, so I didn't want to throw up on all you good people. But I'm pretty much ok now.

Oh. Interesting occurrence today. The official duration of my Kairos was extended to this morning. Alas, nothing more can be revealed here.

On that note, Good luck to all the Kairos leader applicants, especially Siby and Maciej, cause they've tried already and they would be awesome leaders. Of course, a lot of people would be awesome leaders, but these two especially. It would so rock to have a D3 group at Kairos. Of course, I've got to do the leader application in a bit too.

Let's see... I've also put up a link to Fenwick's favorite faux Frenchman, Tom Larsen (Larçon), the Ragin' Cajun. He's got a guitar, I hear.

No radio today, because I had homework to catch up on, andAlexx is still out. We may have an opportunity to get a slot at a less ungodly hour; I'll keep folks up to date. I've got one heck of a rant waitin' for the return from hiatus.

Apps, apps, apps, appity app app apps. Yep. I know most of you people are done with them, 'cause you got that "planning ahead" thing going. But I gots me some essays to do so I can trun them in online before zero hour. Stanford due Monday. Then I get to breathe a little and do MIT and U of C for the 1st. Nothing says Christmas like essays, but I can proabably get them done before then.

Ah well, just have to keep riding those warm, fuzzy Kairos feelings.

Yeah, good luck to Maciej and Mr. to-the-Ohout on their first scho-bowl coaching expedition.

Alex is still out, unfortunately. He is much missed by me and others. For example, Siby asked me to say this:
"Yeah alex, siby just wanted me to tell ya this: 'alex, we all know you're a wizard, so work your magic and come back soon!'"

So do that.

One more thing: There's a new link up in the madness section, sent by my good friend Al. It is quite delirious. Check out the shoes.

JOY~! as Maciej would say. I'm back from great Kairos. It was awesome. Like, really, really awesome. Seeing as I can't divulge the super secrets of Kairos, I just have some words of wisdom. Kairos is about people, and people are great. Or close enough. It's kinda about whatever you want it to be about, except maybe dinosaurs or flying fish or Jello. Well, now I'm thinkiing it could be about those things, especially Jello.

It was really a "shocking" experience "four" me.

The folowing people deserve mention (yell at me if you think I'm giving away too much, but I'm going to be pretty vague):

--
Blake, of course, super rector.
Jo Nathan Walters and Tricia Tardella, awesome leaders in a great group.
Katie Napes, for being another great leader and just being awesome in general.
Kevin Altier, Scho-bizzle MVP and great guy.
The above two addressed as a unit, two great tastes that go great together. Or something like that.
Gotta mention Sean Harmon. We bonded. I'm tempted to say there was urine involved, and there was, but saying that does give a terrifying cast to the experience.
Countless others, but I can't mention everybody. The whole group was great.

Maciej and Siby, for keeping the joy alive and spreading the (incredibly vague) goodness.
--
How many times did I just use "awesome"? At least four. I never say awesome. I think I stole that word from Katie.

Okay, as long as I'm spreading love, I have to mention someone who wasn't anywhere near Kairos but was in my thoughts all the time.
WARNING! Skip the following paragraph if you can't stand this sort of thing:


-------------
I'm in love with the most wonderful girl ever. A really thoughful, smart, beautiful, and super-cool girl named Kate( Anzinger, just so Kevin doesn't think I'm trying to steal his girl or anything).Er, anyway... I love you, Kate my dear.
-------------


Okay, that's probably the last time I'll something that much towards Kate on the blog. I blame Kairos. That's one of the great parts of Kairos. Whatever it is, you get to use it as an excuse to be cheerful and emotional and huggy for a month or so. There's people gettin' hugged tomorrow.

But it doesn't look like I'll be able to hug Alex tomorrow. My co-host and friend here, I have just heard today, is now in the hospital. He seemed to be in really bad shape before I left for Kairos, but I didn't think it was that bad. Get well soon, Alex. Good luck. You have to make it to January Kairos and stuff.

LOVE, HOPE, JOY~!
-Jerome

Yep. Goin' to Kairos in an hour. Packed. I am oddly non-excited. Of course, I have no idea what to expect. So there you have it. It's a real good group though; It should be a lot of fun.

Note to self: When doing a radio show, make sure that once it starts recording, it stays recording. I did a really good show today, at least as best as can be had without Alex. Unfortunately, it wasn't recorded, so I just talked to myslef for 20 minutes about Russian elections and the South African Wooly-Breasted Walrus.

You heard me. South African Wooly-Breasted Walrus. It was that good. But that's part of the rant, so I'll read it next time.

A Kairos I will go, then.

Best quote of the day courtesy of my German professor,

" You give Oberlin people numbers and its like they're on drugs. "


The ironic twist is not lost on me as one of the two majors that I'm strongly considering pursueing, Biochemistry, requires 2.5 semesters worth of Calculus. alas.

And in tribute to the time honored concept of randomness: whenever I hear the Clash song "Spanish songs in Andulucia" I try to sing along in Spanish, but the syllable cadence gets out of whack and I can't keep up. I wonder if there is a recording of it in Spanish. I wonder if anyone else has tried this or if it can be done.

Sorry for the long delay folks, but I've been busy with influxes of homework and Scho bowl and math team and last but not least working on college apps.

But here I am, ready to provide more fabulous amusement for the good people of cyberspace (and probably Fenwick). And to speak to the success of our movement, I've spotted a member of the Fenwick faculty rating teachers. I would check for what they are, but I'm trapped in study hall and RateYouTeachers has been blocked (for students).

Also, yesterday myself and the good Kevin Altier made our amateur acting auditioning premiere. We weren't that bad, but we won't be the main attraction of the film club movie. For that you'll need to go to Joe "Fro Joe" O'Connor, master thespian. Damn, thespian is a funny word. But Joe's performances were brilliant.

Okay, so, just to continue my trend of posting Scho bowl results, Varsity is now 4-1 on the season. The loss was an unbearably close game vs. Marist. I blame Southern poets. And in a broader sense, the Arts, my oldest and most deadliest foe. The double superlative is used for emphasis.

And also, Alex is alive yet. Really. And it wasn't a piano.

Well, that's about it for the moment. Kairos is fast approaching, and remains perfectly shrouded in mystery. I can only assume it will be buckets of fun.

Alright, brief study hall entry. It's only fair I put up a link to the Toner blog, as he seems good enough to make my list of cool people. I mean, he's a suspicious character and all, but he seems like a nice enough guy. I suppose I ought to listen to his show at some point.

Anyway, back to the chemistry lab. Mmm, magnesium oxide.