A Panda walks into a café, orders and devours a sandwich, draws a gun. fires off a couple rounds, and then waddles off. "Why?" asks the bewildered waiter. "I'm a panda. Look it up." When the waiter checks out "Panda" in a reference, he reads: "Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

Well, maybe blogger has been toying with me for a week or so and I haven’t been able to get anything up. Feh.

Woo! Party! Gradstravaganza officially ended around 3:00 AM Sunday when I got home from dropping my most car-less guests off. Good times pretty much all the way through. Lots of hanging around and chatting, some videogames, some banjo musicality/hilarity from my friend Al, and at the end we just sort of gave up and watched Die Another Day on my new-and-improved super-cable. I also proved my superiority to All present in the field of playing Time Splitters 2 silently (Super-cable interfered with the GameCube set-up. I had to rearrange a whole mess o’ wires Monday to finally get everything booming in fabulous sim-surround sound). I think it was Alex who proved his superiority at darts, although I proved it is possible to do fairly well at darts throwing underhand. Shotgun dart technique, however, has never worked for anyone. There were also some… interesting… interludes provided by my little cousins, one of whom like to sniff people. Thanks to all who came. Best wishes to those who couldn’t make it for whatever reason.

Among the more interesting gifts was Raw Power by Iggy and the Stooges (from Maciej). Which does hold up to the claim “It’s like being kicked in the face by rock and roll.” Powerful stuff. I’m fond of this quote from Iggy in the album insert: “Why isn’t this guage in the red with all the other ones?”. Despite the loudness, it’s not particularly “noisy”, so to speak; It’s just good, loud, powerful music. My favorites right now are “Search and Destroy” and “I Need Sombody”.

Other notably different gifts were d-skins, which are spiffy CD-protecting plastic covers that can be read through, from Alex. Now I can leave even more CD’s lying around without worrying about scratches. There was also an idea-notebook from Al, which was lovingly handcrafted from duct tape and used paper. Odd as it sounds, it’s cool, and probably the most durable notebook I’ve ever owned.

Oh, and let’s see. More dancing Tuesday. I am now moderately competent at the Charleston, although there are some tricky bits at the end of class.

I spent Wednesday geeking out old-school with my friends from… my old school, including the aforementioned Al, Alternate Alex, and Joe. In one day, we went from small-time smuggling to big-time drug-dealing… er, in the course of a game of the Star Wars RPG, of course. I shall refrain from telling you about this in-depth unless there is a surprising demand fro such things.

Oh, and the picture below Alex’s post is really self-explanatory. Ah, the wonders of the internet.

Again, the blog has lied dormant for some time. I can't believe Pat didn't post on the results of his party, so i'll mention it here. It was good times with special appearences made by Columbian Drug Lord Carney, Rascist Ozga, a Classy Polish Man, the 'Fro, Al "the pal" Schorsch and his magical banjo, M. Sullivan Sweeny, Sarah "I like Wine Cheese" Campillo, and many others. Of course, let's not forget that the whole thing was run by Public Assassin Paul Lange and his Accordian Groupies.

There were darts, cousins, James Bond, and mythical waffles....so you know it was great.

In other news...I have my last surgery scheduled for July 6th. wOOt! All this hospital nonsense will finally be done away with. So everyone send be groovy hippy vibes that day so I'll be out of the hell hole known as UofC faster. (no offense to anyone who will be attending UofC...I'm sure it's an excellent college)

Go Cubs!

So yesterday, I got a thumbs-up from a nun for letting her cross Harlem. I figure that’s the best blessing I’m going to get for a while. So I’ve got extra holiness points to burn, or something, especially if I let the Pope back out of his driveway. I wonder if the pope has a driveway for the pope-mobile. Maybe it’s more of a “Blessed Carport of Saint Augustine” sort of thing. Someday I will search Google for “Vatican garages”, but not now. I’m doing important blog-work.

Also I have seen two movies in the past two days. Bubba-Hotep was a little bit odd, but pretty funny. I give it 7 thumbs up. Mmm… Elvis and Black Jack Kennedy vs. a mummy. Now, let’s get decadent. And speaking of decadent, the other movie I’ve seen was The Secretary, which was stranger than Bubba-Hotep, if you’ll believe that. Girl who cuts herself recovers and finds true love through BDSM, thanks to her work as a secretary for creepy lawyer, who finds true love and accepts his BDSM-ness through her. This accomplished through much spanking and meaningful glancing, culminating in tied-to-a-tree-sex. And stuff. Yeah. It was a little disturbing, although it did pull together in the end to be a moderately functional movie. An interesting look at the BDSM phenomenon, and thankfully very much non-porn (It was recommended by a very suspect individual, Kate’s ex-roommate). Nevertheless, no movie I’ve seen has ever made sex look more depressing.

So I don’t know where to go from that. Peace out.

Summer just flies by, doesn’t it, folks? No need to worry yet, though; there’s still a lot of time to go. And fun to be had, especially at, say, someone’s graduation party.

June 19th
3:00 PM-whatever
Lange residence.

Email: Gondolin60@hotmail.com/ AIM: Gondolin60 for questions, details, you need help finding my house, RSVPing, etc.

Now, true to my word, anyone who has read this should consider themselves invited. Some of you will receive paper invitations around midweek based on the possibility that you aren’t regularly reading this blog (for shame!) or I especially want you to show up. But seriously, come one, come all.

Well, it’s been a lazy week, but I’ve been doing stuff sporadically. I went to dance class with Kate on Tuesday. I am now moderately capable of doing a basic Charleston. While I wouldn’t say I’ve been possessed by a fever for the dance, it was pretty fun. So over the next few weeks, I’ll be ready for all kinds of crazy old-school dancing. And should a rave break out, I can flail with the best of them. So I’m a multiple threat. No party can faze me! Well, actually, I can think of quite a few that would. I have no idea what to do at an upper-class British tea party… or a witch-burning. Come to think of it, stumbling unexpectedly into a wild lesbian orgy would probably be awkward in practice.

I admit the previous line may have crossed a line. Obviously, it didn’t cross itself, but it no doubt crossed some other, bounds-of-good-taste-related line.

The point is, Doctor Zoidberg is clearly the funniest Jewish crustacean ever. No, wait, actually, the point was that dancing was fun, and accompanied by a lot of walking around downtown (and buying emergency socks). There were also delicious cookies.

And today launched the official launch of my job hunt, on account of I need to avoid selling CutCo knives, because, well, none of us really want me walking around with a briefcase full of knives, right?

And so, this post shall come to a close, because if there was anything else I wanted to mention, I’ve forgotten about it. But you, gentle reader, don’t forget about that party, and/or hooking me up with any other parties as maybe transpiring.

Well, I haven't posted on the blog for some time now, so I feel an update is in order. Graduation was uneventful, but the summer will rock. I mean, just look at the snazzy new blog design! Napes' party rocked the preverbial socks. I danced so much I was sor the next day. Thankfully Joe O'Conner's party was a little more subdued, although there was some hot badminton action involved...so kudos to the 'Fro.

Now for summer fun. Kate keeps trying to culture Pat and I, which is nice, but we'd rather just frag each other to death in some sort of video game war...but either way...

Birthday was nice...people gave me a lot of stuff for college (Grinnell shirts, etc.) Kate and Pat gifted me with the 2-cd "Three Dog Night Story" All the Three Dog Night I'll ever need. (seriously, nobody give me any more!) Tutes hooked me up with Let It Bleed, an excellent choice from someone whose taste in music can range from delightful to questionable.

But now, in honor of the summer and me being 18 (cigarettes and porn! WOOT!) I'll give our faithful readers a present. Just check this out:

http://www.amiten.com/Punya/cartoons/dodo.mpeg

I guarantee you'll laugh and watch it at least three times. Enjoy.

Yes, yes, the background is bright yellow now. It's summer time. Gotta snazz the place up. Because we here at Albatross Hour are working round the clock to give you the best blog-viewing experience possible. No, really. Fine, the clock we work around is a stopwatch. It only goes up to about 15 minutes.

Also, happy birthday to our very own Herr Hosentrager!

Remember, people: General Absolution outranks Corporal Punishment.

Ahh. 2:00 AM. Riding a little too much caffeine, watching anime, listening to new Beatles CDs, writing poetry, thinking deep thoughts.

Summertime, how I missed you.

There have been parties.
There will be dancing.

And always with a-doings a-transpiring, provided I can track people down.

which reminds me, my party is on the 19th. Chances are that if you're reading this you're invited. But I've yet to hash out all the details, so stay tuned.

And I am going to write a little cool something-something when I get around to it, hopefully the day before yesterday, but that fell through.

Least-of-my-worries poll: Which of these Beatles tunes should I use as a wake up track?
A. "Good Morning, Good Morning"
B. "Here Comes the Sun"
C. "I'm Only Sleeping"

Vote Early, Vote Often, people.