Ok, it's been a while, and I do have some stories to tell, but before that...

It's an all new one act play by KL Snow!

I'm titling this one, which I don't always do, but let's call this one, "So what am I eating now?"

KL SNOW is at IMPERIAL GARDEN enjoying...well, maybe not enjoying...partaking in a Chinese buffet. He's seated near the front counter. The phone rings and WAITRESS comes over to answer it. A brief conversation ensues, followed by this moment:

WAITRESS (on phone): No, there's no meat in there, it's just onions and green onions, mixed when brown sauce, and then we mix in the beef.
KL stops chewing for a moment.

I'm pretty sure Ryan will agree with me in calling that a "If it weren't for my horse" moment.

Anyway, back to recent happenings. Finals came and went, nothing tremendously noteworthy occured, we're hoping for passing grades in all 6 classes, at least 2 of which are still in doubt. But it's too close to call. So we're not going to talk about that. I just ate.

Worked through the weekend and then, Monday morning I departed for Wisconsin for Christmas. Someone told me the other day that my drive back to Wisconsin (5-6 hours depending on traffic and my own personal sense of urgency) is too long, and I gave them my standard response:

"This summer I drove 1400 miles to Montana, and back, in the same week. After that, any trip where I leave and get where I'm going in the same day feels short."

I hate it when lines like that come back to bite me in the ass.

It snowed in Wisconsin on Monday. A lot. That really probably shouldn't surprise most of you. Actually, it didn't surprise me a whole lot either. I've been driving in snow for a long time, I'm pretty confident in my ability to do it. I am not nearly as confident, however, in the talents of other asshats who think they can drive in the snow.

CASE 1: Semis have no fear.
As a full time Wisconsin resident, I used to hunt a fair amount, primarily for deer. At the risk of grossing some out, I will give you a base understanding of how the process of removing a dead deer from the woods works.

STEP 1: Shoot deer. Sometimes more than once. If you don't do this right, the rest of the process is much harder.
STEP 2: Find deer, remove guts. Leave gut pile in woods. I'm sure something will eat it...not something I'd ever want to encounter/kiss though.
STEP 3: Find a friend (hopefully), enlist help in dragging dead deer to a vehicle of some form, preferably not a bicycle. Dragging a dead deer will sometimes cause you to leave a trail of blood behind you. It won't draw sharks, don't worry about it.

Anyway, now that you understand the process, here's the point. I used to wonder how other deer could walk through the same place, see a pile of entrails and trail of blood, and not think "this probably isn't a safe place." Semis in the snow operate on the same concept. On I-90, I drove past a semi which was jacknifed, tipped over on its side, and had its trailer bent in half. It's probably the most vehicular carnage I've ever seen in person. Not 30 seconds after driving past this, a semi went shooting past me in the fast lane, driving at least 20 mph faster than I was, in treacherous conditions.
PERSONAL IMPACT: Thankfully none to me, but I'm sure some more asshats held up traffic in other places cause they couldn't understand the concept of ice and how it impacts a several-ton, nonflexible projectile.

CASE 2: Snow distraction
Snow will cause some morons who aren't paying attention to take things which would normally worry them for granted. Like, for example, looking to make sure they won't hit anyone before they change lanes. Here's a step by step of this one:

STEP 1: KL is driving in the outside lane, going a solid 45 mph, only slightly too fast for conditions.
STEP 2: Asshat pulls up alongside KL, decides to change lanes, fails to notice KL is there.
STEP 3: KL swerves and honks horn.
STEP 4: KL catches shoulder of the road on the right side, causing his car to spin into and across traffic to the left side of the road, where it momentarily rights itself.
STEP 5: Thinking all is well, KL attempts to merge back into traffic, only to have the car's momentum catch up with him and spin him back across traffic into the ditch on the far side, where he strikes a cement culvert, which sounds bad, but really was a good thing, cause if he had missed the culvert by 6 inches on either side, he'd have ended up in a pond.
STEP 6: Asshat drives away unharmed.

To make a long story short, I called 911, waited almost 2 hours for a state trooper, and had to spend the night in Tomah, WI waiting for a tow truck to come pull me out, then finish my trip to Wisconsin Rapids in the morning. So, to bring it back full circle:

"After that, any trip where I leave and get where I'm going in the same day feels short."

It was a long trip.

This has been KL Snow.

The Sandwich Saga, Part 2

My ham sandwich, however, would not be a true superbeing if it did not search for enemies, find none, but have its followers find enemies for it anyway.

I've found fried chicken. You see, I ate fried chicken once and got violently ill. I've never really fully recovered. So it must in fact be the chicken that is evil.

Thank you, oh ham sandwich, for protecting me from the temptation of the fried chicken. I know it will be hard, but I also know you'll be there with me, because you're still several legs of evolution away from being able to climb out of my pocket.

The Sandwich Saga, Part 1:

In the absence of a God to handle all my cares, worries and concerns, I've decided to make a ham sandwich. That ham sandwich can be my personal scapegoat:

"It didn't work out because it wasn't the ham sandwich's will."

An empowerment:

"I felt weak, but then I realized the ham sandiwich was with me."

And my comfort:

"The ham sandwich will make it all work out."

It's a very liberating ham sandwich. And I'll go to war with you if you question it.

Ok, my friend Matt over at I Eat Paint (http://www.ieatpaint.com) had a really great idea recently, so without further ado, I'm going to rip it off. Here's what people around the internet are saying about Kyle:

Kyle is one of the forty-two camps north of Seoul authorized
Hardship Duty Pay of $150 per month as of 01 January 2001.

Kyle is now 39 inches tall and weighs 37 pounds.

Kyle is a fighter!

Kyle is fighting his hemorrhoid.

Kyle is 8 now and has grown into a warm and wonderful, sensitive boy.

Kyle is so special that Dennis Eckersley of the Oakland A's came to visit him
in his hospital room at All Childrens Hospital.

Kyle is leaving the position of undersecretary, and Linda
Cabatic is leaving the position of chief counsel.

Kyle is playing a B-movie actor who appears in the film Denham is shooting
on Skull Island.

Kyle is definately an under rated performer.

Kyle is popular and athletic, but he also seems to bear the scars
of his parents’ broken marriage.

And finally...

Mr. Kyle is responsible for leading a talented team of software and hardware engineers.

Yes, I know. But the Mr. was quite unnecessary.

This has been KL Snow.

Ok, quick thought before I go back to blowing a whole Saturday on the new Turtles game:

All new one act play by KL Snow!

KL gets up from playing Turtles and goes over to his computer to talk to Ryan. This message from Ryan awaits him:

"hehehe I found this thing online, it rates how good or evil a website is. Mine's 31% evil and 69% good, yours is 28% evil and 72% good, here's the site, you can actually put a little things that says, "this site is certified 28% EVIL" it's kinda neat... http://homokaasu.org/gematriculator/

The following conversation ensued, between TheEvilKL (KL), and lilrichysspanky (Ryan)

TheEvilKL: So, it would appear, that while my post about W's tremendous free time after the election was premature, but it was also on the side of god, earning me 9975 good points.
LilRichysSpanky: lol
LilRichysSpanky: the thing that earned me some of the most points on my site was "Click the Sunset"
TheEvilKL: Although "Duuuuude, have you ever gotten a goldfish stoned?" was worth 4858 points.
LilRichysSpanky: must be the u's
TheEvilKL: "KL stares blankly" is also a holy phrase.
LilRichysSpanky: hmm
LilRichysSpanky: I was surprised at how good our pages our
TheEvilKL: "Donkey Konga is the worst video game I've ever played" - 4504 evil points.
LilRichysSpanky: indeed
LilRichysSpanky: (Link: http://www.lycos.com)www.lycos.com is 60% evi
LilRichysSpanky: l
TheEvilKL: Sadly, a later line in the same post: "You'd sell your girlfriend for those coins" - 3430 good points.
LilRichysSpanky: did you read about how they determine good from evi?
TheEvilKL: A little
LilRichysSpanky: yeah I skimmed it, just saw that words starting with nouns are good...
TheEvilKL: It's just funny that "Consume shit, then die," would be a holy phrase by that angle, all words starting with consonants.
LilRichysSpanky: along with "Me Hate God"
TheEvilKL: So yeah, I'm not buying this.
TheEvilKL: unless....
LilRichysSpanky: lol, but if your site were overwhelmingly evil you'd put it on there, as would I
TheEvilKL: LOL....and I have a use for it.
TheEvilKL: Georgewbush.com is 53% evil.
LilRichysSpanky: somehow I knew that was coming
TheEvilKL: JohnKerry.com, only 18%. So once again, the Americans have failed to choose the lesser of two evils.

And on that, going back to Turtles.
This has been KL Snow.

Here's a fun new game:

Decide what W should do with the tremendous amounts of time he's going to have on his hands after January.

Here's my best ones so far:
Play Stefano on Days of Our Lives. The role is open.
Become the dumbest Bond Villain EVER.
Generate enough money to permanently fix world hunger. And give it to Haliburton.

Those are the best ones so far. Got anything better?

Ok, I need to be working on a paper right now. I'm seriously way far away from being done with a paper that was already due a while ago.

But I'm writers' blocked, so it's time to write something goofy!

So here it is, the much awaited Series of One Act Plays by KL Snow, The Walmart Collection!

The first few plays all happened today and are funny in a "wow, you're dumb" sort of way. The last one is an incredible tale of stupidity, anger and vengeance, and if I live forever, I could still tell this story every day and love telling it.

Play 1: The Express Lane

KL is cashiering the express lane. IDIOT WOMAN walks up with a full cart of stuff.

KL: You realize this is the 20 items or less express lane, right?
IDIOT WOMAN (with 67 items): Yep.

About 5-10 customers later:

Play 2:

KL is still cashiering. STONERS walk up, carrying a bag of goldfish.
STONER 1: Duuuude, have you ever gotten a goldfish stoned?

Play 3:
KL is still cashiering. AMISH people enter the photo studio. MORONS come up to my register, carrying Halloween costumes.

MORON 1: Hey, check out the Amish woman! I should be an Amish woman for Halloween?
MORON 2: I wonder where she got her costume?
MORON 1 goes and asks her.

Play 4: (Multiple acts):
ACT 1

This one starts almost 2 months ago. KL has been invited to a meeting and is being offered a job by Primerica. KARL offered KL the job, and is standing with KL and 2 other POOR SUCKERS. MAJOR PRICK J.P. is lurking.

KARL: So KL, you go to Drake. What're you studying?
KL: Radio/TV Production
KARL: That's cool. We've got a guy here that used to work in radio. Hey J.P.!
MAJOR PRICK J.P. enters.
Moments pass.
J.P.: Yeah, I used to work in radio. I worked for an all-sports station in Cedar Rapids. During baseball season 2 years ago I got bored, so I asked a baseball player on the air if he'd ever fart in a catcher's face and I got canned.
KL stares blankly.
J.P.: What do you think? Would you do that?
KL takes a deep breath and starts to turn red.
KARL: I think we'd better be going.
KL lets the deep breath out.

Here's what I wanted to say, before Karl stopped me.

You fucking prick. I could take you back to Drake and introduce you to 10 people who would kill to have the job you fucked away, and any one of them would be embarassed to admit they'd met you later. If I had done what you've done, I'd be looking for a new line of work too, cause I'd be embarassed to show my face to a radio person ever again.

Weeks passed. I got hired by the Kerry campaign and turned down the job with Primerica, but kept working at Wal Mart on weekends so I'll still have a job after the campaign. Weeks passed and I wasn't thinking about what J.P. said and falling into rage quite as often. Then, one day:

Act 2:

KL is cashiering, of course. TOTAL PRICK J.P. comes into his line. KL decides to let it go and hope he doesn't get recognized.

J.P. comes to the front of the line. KL quietly bags his groceries. J.P. takes a close look at KL. There's a good sized line of people behind him, within earshot.

J.P.: Heeeeey...I know you! You came to the meeting at Primerica! Why didn't you come back?
KL takes a deep breath, but can't hold it in.
KL: I'd be embarassed to admit to anyone that I work for a prick like you.
J.P. turns pale.

I love that story.

Vengeance concludes, I've gotta go back to work now.
This has been KL Snow.

I think it's a pretty funny day today. So, without introduction, let's get right to it.

Woke up at like 7. Then again at 10 when Laura's alarm went off, then again at 10:40 or so. Laura was gone working out, so I got up, wandered out to my computer, and started working on the paper that was due at 4. Nothing noteworthy there.

In mid-paper, Laura came home and we ordered pizza. We tried that new Domino's Double Melt pizza, cause I really had to try a pizza with creative use of cheese one last time before they run out of places to put the cheese. It really wasn't that good, which really shouldn't have surprised me that much. The first half of this day went that way.

Anyway, finished pizza, finished paper, and it was time for a victory tour. I turned in the paper, went and picked up my paycheck, went comic book shopping (got a new Tales of the TMNT and found a collection of Teen Titans, if anyone cares), and set about to purchase a new video game. Bear in mind, I almost never buy video games new...I wait until people start to call them a classic and then I buy them used, about 9-10 months late. Today, however, I had my heart set on trying out a new concept.

I read Penny Arcade pretty much everyday, which is maybe a little weird coming from me, as it's a comic mainly about newly released games and, as mentioned above, I don't buy new games. After reading Tycho's review of Donkey Konga, however, I decided that was just goofy enough that I needed to try it. The concept is this: Songs play, and you have a pair of bongos in front of you. You drum along to the music with either the left bongo, the right bongo, both, or a clap. I quickly discovered that a clap could be replaced by smacking the side of a drum. The makers of this game are fortunate that this is the only violence in this story.

Donkey Konga is the worst video game I've ever played. It's tremendously simple in nature, which made it quickly enjoyable. You play songs well and get coins, and that was decently motivating, as you can buy alternate sounds for your bongos, extra levels, and mini games with those coins. For a little while, you need those coins. You'd sell your girlfriend for those coins. Or maybe only I would. But anyway.

It gets tedious WAY fast. There's maybe 4-5 songs in the game I liked...two I really liked, Whip It and The Impression That I Get. (It doesn't pay to mention the original bands for those songs here...all the songs are covered. Some of the covers are awful.) After that, you're forced to sift through the crap. There's a challenge mode where it randomly picks songs for you. Regardless of how much music you like, there's absolutely no chance it'll get through 3 songs without picking something out that'll make you wish you hadn't ever turned on your Gamecube. Finally, I played a song called "Diddy's Ditties," some messed up hybrid between Happy Birthday and Row Row Row Your Goddamn Boat. I beat it, on the first try, as a matter of fact I never once lost a level. Then I went and checked my coin balance. I had about half of what I needed to unlock a mini game. I went and checked the next level. It was Bingo. You know Bingo, the song about the dog that needs its name spelled over and over. The minigame wasn't worth chasing anymore. I turned off the Cube.

I think the developers knew the concept would get stale when they made the game. They added different bongos to use, and different bongos make different sounds. I unlocked the old school NES sounds, and the Quiz Show sounds, but when you're bored enough that you're using bongos that sound like Quiz Show buzzers to drum to the eternally long version of On The Road Again, you know you could've spent your $80 better buying fingernail clippers for the homeless.

I bought the game at Target at 3:30. By 5, it was back in the box. After a couple of other stops, at 6 I sold it to Gamers in West Des Moines....well, more truthfully, I traded it for Zelda: Four Swords and a down payment on the new Turtles game that'll come out sometime in the next two weeks. I lost about $25 in the process. I also had a couple of rather funny exchanges at the video game store, so, without further ado, back to back one act plays!

KL carries his HEAP OF CRAP into Gamestop. DUDE is behind the counter. KL drops his boxes on the counter.

KL: How much can you give me for this?
DUDE: Let me check...$27 total.
KL: Really? I just paid $80 for it two hours ago.
DUDE: Yeah, I don't know why our price is so low on this.
KL chuckles.
KL: I know why.

KL carries his HEAP OF CRAP into Gamers, and sets it down on the counter. GAMERS DUDE is behind the counter. OTHER DUDE is shopping.

KL: How much can you give me for this?
GAMERS DUDE: Let me check.
OTHER DUDE: How does that game work? What do you do? Do you just beat on the drums?
KL: Well, yeah, and at first the music is good, but then it starts to suck and before you know it you're trying to unlock minigames by drumming to Row Row Row Your Boat and thinking if anyone else walks into the apartment you'll never ever live it down. You realize your options are to resell it or dig a really deep dark hole it'll never get out of. I live on the second floor. So I had to resell it.
GAMERS DUDE: I can give you $30 for the game and $17 for the controller.
KL: I'll be happy just to have it out of my hands.
OTHER DUDE: Is it really that bad?
KL: I have an aversion to blood. That's the only thing keeping me from chasing down the game's developer with a pickaxe.
KL spots a bowling pin behind the counter.
KL: Can I borrow that?

Not a whole lot of noteworthy material would follow, so we'll wrap it up here.

Venting concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok, got 29 minutes before class, but there hasn't been a blog post in a long time, and most of you who will read this already know why, but in case you don't, here's a quick reason: There are only 24 hours in a day, too few to maintain a job on a presidential campaign, a weekend job, 18 credit hours of school, and addictions to Turtles and Pirates.

Anyway, today's thought.

This is gonna repeat with my AIM away message, but bear with me anyway. Laura got up this morning at 4:30 to go feed the homeless breakfast. Our conversation about it last night went something like this:

LAURA: I've gotta get up early tomorrow.
KL: Why?
LAURA: I'm going to go feed the homeless for the Salvation Army.
KL: How early?
LAURA: Probably around 4:30. I've gotta be there by 5.
KL: Why do they need to eat so early? What else do they have to do?
LAURA: Well, I need to go, cause if I don't, no one will and they won't get fed.

So there's still a blank question in there. Why do they need to eat so early? Do they have a big day planned and want to eat first? It really makes no sense to me. I ate breakfast at 10:30 this morning...if I can do that, certainly the homeless can let their charitable helpers sleep another hour or two and eat at 8:30.

But Laura got up and left this morning (I was shocked too) and I couldn't get back to sleep. After about 15 minutes Pirates beckoned me and I did the zombie walk out to my computer, sat down, and clicked on Pirates. It wouldn't open. I checked my AIM list to see if anyone else was having this problem. My AIM had disconnected too. Matter of fact, all my connections were gone. I'd like to take this opportunity to throw a shout out to Mediacom. Even when I want to do something at the strangest possible time, you found a way to keep me from getting what I wanted out of your "unlimited" service. Cause it's "unlimited" internet. Except when it's down.

Ok, I've got like 4 more minutes before I've gotta go and I haven't tried to be funny yet. So here goes. Here are...for the first time ever in print....jokes that tanked in my public speaking class speech!

1 minute background: The author I was speaking about had just found out his college wrestling program, which had paid his way through college and earned him four varsity letters, had been cut. Now, the awful jokes.

1. David Fleming paid his way through college at Miami of Ohio by wrestling...no, not the kind with the steel chairs and Hulk Hogan, the amateur kind.

2. In this article my author is angry. But he's not angry because he was left off the third season of Celebrity Poker on Bravo, he's angry because his program was cut.

Can you believe no one laughed? Yeah, me too.

Pathetic humor concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok, so I promised before that perhaps I'd be back later with more, and sure enough, here I am. So what's new you ask? C'mon, you know you were gonna ask...ok, well, pretend like you were gonna ask...

Ok, I'm gonna get the darkest thought out of the way so hopefully I can get past it and move on to something funnier. I thought of how I'd commit suicide tonight. I offered (mistake #1) to take Laura out to the new mall here in Des Moines tonight, it's out in Waukee on the border between the urban area that is Des Moines and the bare nothingness that stretches from here to the Omaha area. The new mall is hell. There's one crappy video game store, and a Hot Topic, which exists at both of the other malls in Des Moines. Then there's an Express, an Aeropostale, a Fossil, an Abercrombie, a Buckle and every other goddamn hellhole Laura routinely is drawn to. There's not a Gap, miraculously. But there's absolutely NOTHING I found of even moderate interest and couldn't have found at a mall closer to home.

Anyway, back to the earlier point. If I ever decide it's time to give up and end things, I'm gonna go gather a big pile of clothes at the Buckle. Then I'm gonna get myself a changing room and hang myself in there. I'm gonna leave a note that says "Your goddamn pink tinted lighting made me do it." I'm serious. The pink tinted lighting in the Gap, and Express, and the Buckle depresses me in ways I had previously thought would only be possible if someone died. I still feel out of sorts.

But on to brighter things. If you knew my plans for the new apartment, here's what's different:

I painted one room (the bedroom) instead of 4, and continue to debate Laura to keep the remaining rooms unpainted, mainly cause painting is a pain, and also because everything we paint now has to be painted back before we leave.

We're mostly moved in, had an extended debate over the proper position of my desk, but the move in went mainly without conflict...it's just a lot of work, and we're not quite done yet...we're still looking for a couch and a dresser, Goodwill failed us utterly tonight (wanting $99.99 for an old beat up dresser is absurd) .

I'll leave you with something funny. Laura and I's 8-month anniversary is tomorrow, and there weren't going to be gifts, but Laura and I found a t-shirt I had to have at the mall...it's a baseball-style t-shirt with the long dark sleeves on a white t-shirt, and it says "Have you seen my weiner?" and has a picture of a weiner dog on it. :-) Weiner dogs rock.

Please don't expose me to any more pink lighting.
This has been KL Snow.

Ok, it's been a while, maybe I'll be back for more later, but now it's time for

AN ALL NEW ONE ACT PLAY BY KL SNOW!

KL and LAURA are in their apartment. LAURA is complaining about her closet space. Almost half her closet is occupied by shoes.

LAURA: But I like shoes!
KL: And I like comic books. But the day comic books take up half my closet, a decision will have to be made.
LAURA: But you can't wear comic books.
KL: And you can't read shoes.
LAURA: Touche.

Humor concludes. This has been KL Snow.

OK, this is the last post from Wisconsin for what will probably be a long time. But do I ever have stories to tell...well, anecdotes, really. Here's the first one, an all new One Act Play!

This one takes place on the same set as a previous one act play, with KL at his computer having a conversation with ROBIN (scoobydrlp). The conversation goes as follows:

TheEvilKL: Six days from today Laura and I will be together again...
scoobydrlp: woohoo!
TheEvilKL: I just need to make it six more days...
scoobydrlp: you can do it
scoobydrlp: here, I got a joke for ya that will help you last for 6 more days
scoobydrlp: A bear and a rabbit go into the woods to take a shit.
scoobydrlp: the bear says to the rabbit, "Hey rabbit, do you ever have a problem with shit sticking to your fur?"
TheEvilKL: LOL....where were they before? An IHOP?
scoobydrlp: lol, lemme finish before I respond to any questions
TheEvilKL: lol, k
scoobydrlp: The rather refined rabbit said, "Well no, no I don't."
TheEvilKL: Is this joke gonna end with the bear using the rabbit to wipe his ass?
scoobydrlp: dammit!
scoobydrlp: I said lemme finish!
scoobydrlp: :D
TheEvilKL: Sorry, I'd heard it. :-)
scoobydrlp: hehe
scoobydrlp: I laughed
TheEvilKL: I do think my first question was the more pertinent one though...if a bear and a rabbit went into the woods, where were they coming from?
scoobydrlp: actually, I thought that same thing as I was typing it to send to you
scoobydrlp: I'm thinking they were probably at walmart.
TheEvilKL: Perhaps. But y'know what else?
scoobydrlp: huh?
TheEvilKL: Michigan Mayhem (CBA) - Named Reggie Fox coach, pending league approval.

Anyway, after that conversation I went to work. My last day at work. So, as was to be expected, I goofed around, a lot. Actually, at one point I felt kinda bad, cause I was given a shiny new pin to put on my vest for the good work I did yesterday while I was in mid-prank on someone else. But anyway, to show they loved me, instead of punishing me for being a total goof on my last day, they gave me a job where I could goof around as much as I wanted. That's right, they made me a greeter.

With that intro, here's Today's Other One Act Play!

(WARNING: This One Act has a very large cast.)
KL is guarding the doors at WAL MART. BOB is the other greeter. KEITH is a stockman. BEE is assistant manager. SHOPLIFTER is...well, duh.

SHOPLIFTER pushes a cart, loaded with stuff, past the cashiers and out the door, past BOB.
BOB yells and turns around to follow SHOPLIFTER.
SHOPLIFTER accelerates and runs out into traffic in the parking lot, where his cart is hit and tipped over by a gray SUV.
BOB, KEITH and BEE catch up with SHOPLIFTER as KL watches from a fair distance, still guarding the doors.
BOB and BEE both stop and try to talk SHOPLIFTER into giving up.
KEITH runs in and tackles SHOPLIFTER, actually lifting him out of his shoes.
KL: Wow, that's hardcore.

Humor concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok, here are some more random toys.

PARENTAL

ADVISORY

KL SNOW CONTAINS EXPLICIT LYRICS

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

Kyle Lobner may explode without warning

M EXPLOSIVE

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

Snowbaseball.com Look out for the

m HOLE

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com

UCAUTION

IN THE INTEREST OF SAFETY IT IS ADVISABLE TO KEEP KL SNOW\'S BLOG AWAY FROM FIRE AND FLAMES.

Username:

From Go-Quiz.com


Actually, that's all I've got!

Randomness concludes. This has been KL Snow.

My brain is...


What Color is Your Brain?
brought to you by Quizilla

At work or in school: I like to be with people, sharing with them, inspiring them, and helping them. I work and learn best when I can take into consideration people and the human element. I flourish in an atmosphere of cooperation.
With friends: I always look for perfect love. I am very romantic, and I enjoy doing thoughtful things for others. I am affectionate, supportive and a good listener.
With family: I like to be happy and loving. I am very sensitive to rejection from my family and to family conflicts. I really like to be well thought of and need frequent reassurance. I love intimate talks and warm feelings.

I think this is a pretty fair assessment for me. What color is your brain?

Ok, to start off with, here's a random thought:

If a tree falls on a florist and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound?

Maybe it's only funny to me. Here's a quick rundown of where I've been, as copied and pasted from the story I told someone else on AIM cause I'm too lazy to write it all again:

on Thursday I went fishing with my dad during the day, then drove to Rapids to pick Laura up, and then drove to Des Moines, getting there slightly after midnight.

Friday we slept in a bit, then went apartment hunting, out to lunch in the suburbs, met Ben to get my apartment keys, went to the cell phone office, went back into town and signed the lease on an apartment, rented a storage unit, went out job hunting for Laura, went job hunting for me, had dinner with Tara and rented Amelie.

Saturday we spent almost 7 hours cleaning my apartment and moving out. It took 3 loads with Laura's van to get all my stuff to the storage unit. I also had to mangle the metal frame of my bed to get it out because it wouldn't come apart (most mangling was preceded by the phrase "Hulk angry"), then I cooked dinner at Laura's apartment, we went to Bourne Supremacy with Tara, and got to bed slightly after midnight again.

Sunday we slept in, went out for brunch, went to the mall so Laura could shop for purses and I could practice my "Frankenstein wastes a minute of our time" impression, went to Tara's apartment to give her her birthday present, went back to Laura's apartment, cleaned up and packed, and drove back to Rapids.

Monday (yesterday) morning I had to leave my dad's by 8 so I could be to work by 10, where I worked until 7. So my ass is worn out.

Actually, after the weekend ended, things didn't get tremendously better...I took it easy after work last night but I was sick overnight again, stupid gall bladder insists on giving me pain even though it's not there anymore. I really want to know what's wrong but I'm scared to go find out, surgery once was enough.

Anyway, there's a fun adventure I missed in my telling of the weekend story, so I'll tell it now. Laura and I went to brunch at Granite City on Sunday, and both of us ate way more than we should, so we weren't hungry until late Sunday night. We decided we would order Papa John's when we got to Rapids...this was someplace in southern Minnesota. Then I remembered, we were talking about Rapids here, not Des Moines, so I wondered if Papa John's would still be open. Here's a step-by-step of the remaining process:

I called Ryan. I'm not sure why, I just thought he should know. And if not, I could use him to look it up. Anyway, Ryan was on the other line with Tara. So I told him about my problem, hung up and waited for him to call me back.

A few minutes later, Tara called. She wasn't Ryan, but I recovered from that surprise long enough to get the phone number for Papa John's.

I called the number Tara gave me. It was disconnected.

I called 411 on my cell phone, and got a man who spoke almost no english. I told him Wisconsin Rapids, WI, and gave him Papa John's, and he told me the nearest Papa John's was in Waukesha. Yes, Waukesha. Farther away than Appleton, La Crosse, Stevens Point, Madison, Oshkosh, Fond Du Lac, Wausau, Marshfield, and about 20 other cities I'm certain must have a Papa John's. 161.3 miles, to be exact. I told him thanks for wasting my time.

I had crossed into Wisconsin in this time, and now I decided to just wait until I was in Rapids and resolve it from there. When we got to Rapids I went to papajohns.com to order online, and found Rapids doesn't have a Papa John's anymore, so I couldn't order.

I went to Wal Mart and bought a frozen pizza.

Frustration concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok, greetings and welcome to Appleton, WI, lately there's more blog posts here than anywhere else, it's my blog home away from the blog home that's not really my blog home but it is the place I'm staying since moving out of my blog home in Des Moines.
 
Anyway, nothing tremendously notable has happened recently, so instead of boring you with a day by day look at my boring and repetitive life, I'm going to try to entertain you with a work of short fiction, "The Penny of Doom."
 
The day began like any other. Customers come through, get checked out, customers go away. Sometimes my light is on, sometimes my light is flashing, but there are always customers, ALWAYS. It's Sunday, you see. Customers are on the prowl, customers are lurking, and some customers appear to be shopping for adult diapers, but they're the most dangerous of all, they're looking for a place to crap on the floor, then finishing their day by digging for pennies and making your line stack up to the end of civilization. This particular day, however, there were more sinister forces lurking.
 
You see, most days the saving grace from old people who dig for pennies are the customers behind them. They'd like to finish their shopping on the same day they started, so they frequently dig out their own pennies, slam them on the counter and end the epic search. Not always, however. On this particular day, an elderly woman arrived at the register with the typical elderly woman needs. Twenty seven bottles of vitamins, prescriptions for ailments probably caused by overuse of vitamins, and a giant pack of adult diapers, cause it's hard to control your bladder when you have to take pills with a glass of water 40 times a day.
 
Her total:  $49.03 She stared blankly for a moment. Then, as if remembering for the first tme that money would be involved in this transaction, she put a purse on the counter, the size of a car. After fishing for far too long, a checkbook was captured, and slower than one would think possible, a check was written. I went from cleanshaven to hairy in this time. I checked my watch. It was 3:30. I was supposed to leave at 4. Finally, she wrote me the check, and I thought it was over. Then I looked down at the check. It was for $49.00. "I have the pennies," she said. And then the epic search began. Two pennies quickly surfaced accidentally, as she found them next to the toothbrush and the nose hair trimmer. Then, 15 minutes passed. The purse was empty, and no more pennies had appeared. I looked around, help was not in sight. The customers in line behind the woman, resigned to their fate as potential lifers at Wal Mart, had sat down and opened a box of Pop Tarts, which they were rationing.
 
Some ominous music played, but I thought nothing of it. As quickly as it started, it went away and Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al began to play. I know all the words to it, and songs like it that play on Wal Mart Radio are sometimes the only thing keeping me sane. So I quietly began to sing along, and right as I hit the part where Chevy Chase would have dropped the glass through the table that's not really a table in the video, a woman dressed in black walked up to my register. "I have a penny," she said in a deep voice I didn't expect. "It's at the deep end of the Dark Labrynith of Purse." With that, she picked up her purse, opened it, and quickly covered my head with it. Everything went black for a second...
 
I snapped back awake to hear a "ziiip" sound. I was in a room with one door. I exited, and found a room with a door. I walked past vampires, bogs and mires, wolfmen, garbage men, pedophiles, the smoking man from the X Files, pyromaniacs, nerds and brainiacs, my deepest fears, Norm from Cheers, heroes and fools, power tools, termites, suburbanites, a man claiming to be from cyberspace, seven men with one face, Frankenstein, Sir Ullrich von Liechtenstein, aliens, Romanians, a giant coffee mug, the guy who invented Weatherbug, a guy who looked wimpy, Ren and Stimpy, seven toasters, half-finished roller coasters, a rack of posters, braggers and boasters, pop stars who couldn't sing, 85 year old men wearing bling, a mother bear missing her cub and 727 copies of The Babysitters' Club."

Finally, I got to another empty room. In it was my car. I knew there was a penny in my car. There had to be a penny in my car. I reached into my pocket to find my keys. And I found...a penny.

Story concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok, so it's been a tremendously busy week, and it's not going to get any quieter for a few days. Here's a recent schedule:

Wednesday: Work until 6:30 (actually 6:40 or so, we'll get back to that later. Maybe. We'll see how much I feel like ranting about something I should have seen coming.) Left for Appleton right after work, on like the slowest sports day in history, no professional sports playing AT ALL. So I drove to Appleton, hooked up with Laura a bit before 9:30, closed down a Culvers', went to bed.

Thursday: Got up too late in the morning, Laura had to hurry to go to work so I didn't get to have lunch with her. Went to Power House Comics...pulled on the door, and found it locked. (If you're new to the blog, this isn't a new phenomenon.) Looked down and saw that Power House Comics opens at noon. It wudn't noon yet.

Side note #1: Power House Comics is a really cool place and the guy there is tremendously friendly, as friendly or friendlier than the guy who runs Dragon Fire Comics in West Des Moines. He was knowledgeable and helpful, and when I asked him why his comic book store is only open 4 days a week, and only 7 hours a day, He told me. It's because he's had to pick up a second job. That's sad.

Anyway, Power House Comics was closed so I went to Jimmy John's for lunch (I was sooooo craving a Gargantuan. Seriously. I can still taste it.) Then I went back to Power House Comics, as noon had come and passed. I bought a new comic book and went back to Laura's house, where I set up shop with two comic books, five baseball books and Laura's sister's laptop. I was set up to either research like a crazy man or blow an afternoon like no afternoon has ever been blown before. In the end I did a combination of the two...I got one good baseball article on the site, started work on a second one, and read both comic books, while IM'ing like mad. Then I left to go see Matt.

I still consistently talk to one person from high school, and I talk to as many as a dozen more sporadically. Matt falls into the second category, but the close prozimity of Appleton to his current home in Fond Du Lac drew me to go see him on this day. We played Mario Kart for a long time. His house is nice, he's engaged, he's got a good job. It's kinda scary. I don't have a home in Des Moines, or a job beyond August, and my situation with Laura is good but we're certainly not cemented into place. I've gotta tip my hat to Matt...he didn't go to college but he's making things work. Well, I would have to tip my hat if I were wearing a hat. But I'm not. So I'm tipping a sock. Yes, a sock. Sorry, my clothing options were limited.

I picked Laura up from work Thursday night, she was late getting out and I had to wait a long time. We went to Fazoli's cause I hadn't eaten yet, and we went to see Farenheit 9/11. If half of what Michael Moore says is true, then the concept the movie lays out is goddamn scary. If all of it's true, it's downright horrifying. We got in late from the movie, went to bed shortly thereafter, because...

Today: I had to wake up at 6:45 to be on the road by 7:15 to be at work by 10:15. That 3 hour trip followed by 8 hours of work made for a long day...and I'm not going to rant about why work sucks lately. I'm sick of thinking about it. Tomorrow I work 12-9, Sunday I work 7-4 and then I'm leaving for Appleton again, until I work at 2 on Tuesday. In the meantime, here are some other things going on:

I'm way overdue for an oil change and simply haven't had time to do it. I'm at 5800 miles since my last one. I'm hoping to get it done tomorrow...maybe.

I've been eating a lot of Chinese food lately, first and foremost because it's yummy, but secondly, because lately it's been kinda fun. The good Chinese restaurant here in town is run by a single Chinese family, and their cute daughter is the waitress. I went there for lunch for the first time last week one day, and she didn't really want anything to do with me. But I left a good tip. The second day, she sat down and talked to me for a minute or two, about what I do, etc. (I make this trip on lunch from work, so I'm always alone.) Again, I left a good tip. The third day was Wednesday. She introduced me to her mom. Then her mom and her disappearaed around the corner and had a loud debate in Chinese, while turning around the corner to look at me every few minutes. I'm a bit scared. But I want fried rice really bad. Maybe I'll go tomorrow.

Anyway, that's all from here. Long post concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok, here's a new blog feature, the Pre-emptive obituary.

I have no idea if this will be funny enough for me to write more than one, but I think the current situation merits it.

This is a pre-emptive obituary for: The family of 4 who came through my checkout line today. They bought several bags of jelly beans, circus peanuts, and other assorted cheap candies. I watched these candies go by for a minute, then looked up and said "wow, you must have quite the sweet tooth."

Their response: "No, we're feeding the bears."
Me: "Ummm...ok."
Them: "They're cute and watching them is fun."

I didn't respond to that. I don't like developing attachments to the soon-to-be deceased. It's quite possible they've tried to pet a bear by now, and the bear is flossing its teeth with their intestines. And yes, before you ask, I checked their address when they wrote a check, and yes, they were from Illinois.

Dumbfoundedness concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok. I'm going to make this lead-in short and sweet. I don't do crack cause I have moments like this without the aid of any drug.

And now, an all new One Act Play by KL Snow!

KL is sitting at his computer. He's typing. A large screen shows his activity. He has this conversation with LilRichysSpanky, aka Ryan.

TheEvilKL: New topic for discussion, the possible merits and pitfalls of living in a 2 dimensional world like that of Sonic the Hedgehog.
LilRichysSpanky: hmmm
LilRichysSpanky: let me ponder that
TheEvilKL: Merit: Giving directions would be incredibly easy. "Just keep going right until you get there."
LilRichysSpanky: lol
TheEvilKL: Pitfall: Highway traffic coming from the left would be coming straight at highway traffic coming from the right.
LilRichysSpanky: pitfall: girth can't be used to compensate for lack of length.
TheEvilKL: ummm.....dude...
LilRichysSpanky: lol
LilRichysSpanky: i keed i keed
LilRichysSpanky: i find a hole in your traffic pitfall
LilRichysSpanky: though there is no depth
LilRichysSpanky: the cars would jsut pass through one another
TheEvilKL: I find a hole in your girth pitfall.
LilRichysSpanky: oh really?
TheEvilKL: Yeah. Something could be short in length but still have a big height.
LilRichysSpanky: hmm
LilRichysSpanky: then i don't see any pitfalls
TheEvilKL: But wouldn't it be like living in the median strip of a highway? Anyone trying to go left or right would indefinitely have to pass right by you.
LilRichysSpanky: yeah
TheEvilKL: Tara's having a harder time buying into my 2 dimensional world.
LilRichysSpanky: i like it
TheEvilKL: The lack of ability to hug has her concerned.
TheEvilKL: I told her we'd just have to press up against each other. Naked.
LilRichysSpanky: no
LilRichysSpanky: you couldn't
LilRichysSpanky: unless you were enemies
TheEvilKL: LOL...I thought you might object.
LilRichysSpanky: because otherwise you'd just be parallel with each other
TheEvilKL: So one in a 2 dimensional world would only have sex with one's enemies?
LilRichysSpanky: i guess so
TheEvilKL: That's a pitfall.
LilRichysSpanky: is tails sonic's buddy?
TheEvilKL: Yeah
LilRichysSpanky: yeah.. see
LilRichysSpanky: sonic and tails don't hit each other
LilRichysSpanky: but they both run into dr. robotnik
TheEvilKL: So I'm gonna end up walking into a bar and using pickup lines like "Hey, bitch!" and "Say, have you gained weight?"
LilRichysSpanky: just might work
LilRichysSpanky: although
LilRichysSpanky: then you could get slapped too
TheEvilKL: I might be better at picking up 2 dimensional chicks.
TheEvilKL: It'd have to be like a straight palm thrust...anything to the sides of my face would require 3 dimensions...I'd probably break my nose a lot.
LilRichysSpanky: yeah
LilRichysSpanky: punches to the gut
LilRichysSpanky: groin
TheEvilKL: I'm naking this conversation into a blog entry.
TheEvilKL: It's going to be an all new One Act Play.
LilRichysSpanky: woohoo

Humor concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Greetings from Appleton, WI, and happy day after the 4th of July.

Another blog, and another e-mail from the Bush administration. This one comes from the same address, bushcheney04@georgewbush.com, but this time it's shown as being from "Campaign Manager Ken Mehlman." To negate Ryan's argument about these e-mails not really being from the Bush administration, first google Ken Mehlman, then check out georgewbush.com. Both are legit.

This e-mail comes with the subject "Happy 4th of July from Bush-Cheney '04!" I must give them credit. This time they failed to offend me with the subject line. And on the inside...nothing! That's right. No message whatsoever. I must give them credit. This is the best political spam I've ever gotten from someone I called a Nazi the week before.

Anyway, on to more notable stuff.

I've been off work since June 25, on a leave of absence to recover from surgery. My leave of absence officially ends tomorrow, July 6th. However, no one seems to know exactly how that works. There's some uncertainty as to whether I can work tomorrow, or if I can't work until Wednesday. I called in to work on Thursday, and no one knew when I work again. They told me they'd have an answer Friday. No answer Friday. Today came and I called again, figuring I'd have to go back to work tomorrow. Instead, I called and got this great quote. "Well, we've looked into it, and we're pretty sure you either need to come back into work tomorrow, or you can't work until Wednesday." That made my brain hurt. I've got off until Wednesday to recover from that.

Laura and I went to fireworks in Green Bay last night and destroyed the "Bigger town = better fireworks" theory. They were ok. Not spectacular though. The fireworks in both Wisconsin Rapids and Minocqua have in the past been more impressive. However, to the best of my knowledge neither a boar nor a house was hit by Green Bay's fireworks, so I guess they've got that going for them, which is nice.

I made the most pointless string of errands ever today. First, I did lunch with Laura, admittedly not pointless. However, from there I made the road trip to Power House Comics, walked across the street, pulled on the door, and it stayed closed. Power House Comics is closed on Monday and Tuesday, so if you're making your very own KL Snow pilgrimage and you're travelling to places I've been, visit Power House Comics on a day that's not a Monday or Tuesday.

I went from there to the mall, equally pointless cause I was there on Saturday and Sunday too. I did buy a couple of books, though.

Then I went to Video Gamestar, which may become another important stop on the KL Snow tour. They sell used NES games. After about 10 minutes in the parking lot on the phone with Ryan, I went in and spent way more than I should have on NES games which I'll play during Wednesday's "Back to the Pile" tour, when I'm readjusting to life as a working dude.

Finally, I came back to Laura's house and looked up another comic book store online, Collector's something or other. I went there and almost freaked out. To quote what I said to Ryan, "There's a comic book store on Morrison, or at least there will be until the building finally rots out and falls down....possibly as soon as tomorrow. I'm serious. The floor slants and creaks and groans under your feet, there's no music playing inside, it's like being inside a house abandoned for 30 years...there's comic books scattered everywhere with no rhyme or reason...I found one comic I was looking for and gave up on digging for the other two. It was a treasure hunt with a creepy silent man watching me. He followed me, a few steps behind, and re-straightened racks after I looked at them, even sometimes after I didn't touch them. It was like reading Rain Man's comic book collection." Yeah. It really was that scary.

Anyway, time to go, getting restless.

Long post concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok. I got out of surgery today and everything's ok. Thanks for everyone who's expressed support, maybe I'll talk about that another time. Right now I need to rant before the moment passes.

I got an e-mail today. It was spam, and it was from our president. It was about a video they made about John Kerry, comparing him to the Nazis. They then justified calling John Kerry a Nazi because he and Al Gore (what the fuck does Al Gore have to do with this?) have called the Bush administration Nazis before. Thank you President Bush, you hire speechwriters and content experts to deal with this and the best they could come up with is "He started it." The next time you come up with something this fucking stupid don't even waste my time with it.

There are two groups of people in this world I hate with the fire of a thousand suns. One of them currently runs our government, and one of them sends me spam day after day about generic viagra, making my penis and/or breasts grow, and refinancing my mortgage. It's really rather fitting when they show up in my inbox next to each other.

Here's the e-mail I returned to the gracious folks who felt the need to tell me what the President wanted to waste my time with today.

Why do you continue to ludicrously spam my inbox? I
don't like your candidate. I've compared him to a Nazi
myself. I find your use of mass e-mail sickening and
your policies flat-out disheartening. And Yahoo's
inability to block your crap from filling my inbox
should be criminal.

Please don't bother me anymore. You lost my vote years
ago. Satan could run against you and I'd vote for him.

And I feel like I let them off light cause I'm tired and on pain killers. Maybe the next time I'll hit them harder.

Rant concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Greetings from Appleton, WI, new home away from home of the one and only KL Snow. I'm on my day off from work, but sadly Laura is not, so that's leaving me some time to kill.

But, I do have a story to tell, so without further ado, it's AN ALL NEW ONE ACT PLAY BY KL SNOW! I call this one, "Wow, that was stupid."

KL is in the basement of LAURA'S house watching the 17th inning of a 0-0 baseball game at about 1:45 in the morning. Scott Podsednik doubles, scoring Craig Counsell and giving the Brewers a 1-0 lead. Everyone else is asleep, KL is in the basement by himself.

KL jumps off the couch with his fist raised in the air, smacking his fist and head on the ceiling loudly and simultaneously. Realizing what he just did, KL gets very quiet to see if he hears anyone moving to find the source of the noise. A few moments pass quietly.

KL squeezes his left hand and feels something wrong. He looks down and finds his left middle finger now points way farther to the left than it did before. After a few moments of wiggling, it painfully pops back into the knuckle it came from.

KL: Wow, that was stupid.

In the middle of writing this one act I was called to help Laura's dad move what remains of an old shed in his backyard. The moving itself was nothing notable, working hard to carry things because I want Laura's dad to like me, but then the neighbor from across the street came over to help haul the wood away. We took it to the dump and had one of my favorite "I wish I had a camera" moments of all time. We pulled up to a big dumpster with two legs sticking out of it. Yes, two legs. With pants and shoes on. Apparently someone threw away a mannequin. But it was funny looking from a distance.

That's all for today. I've gotta go clean up before Laura gets home.

Humor concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Wow...it's a tremendously lazy day. I was supposed to stay home today and wait for the phone call to let me know I passed my drug test and I can go start my new job. I got that call at about 9:30 this morning. Since then, I've watched 2 episodes of the West Wing, ate lunch, came back to the computer, chatted online for a little while, moved the couch so I could sit on it and chat online, folded some laundry, moved back to the couch...I feel like such a lazy bum right now.

Laura was in town this weekend, that was awesome. She came up on Friday night and we went out to dinner with Chris and Jess, then we spent the day together on Saturday, introduced her to a lot of the local friends on Saturday night, then spent a pretty quiet day together on Sunday. She left last night and I already really miss her. I hope I'll get to see her again soon.

Laura and I have our 6 month anniversary coming up on June 26...if you have any ideas for things we should do, let me know.

Post concludes. This has been KL Snow

Welcome to KLSnow.blogspot.com. Please have a seat, today's rant about how retarded some people in our midst are is about to begin.

So I got an e-mail today from an Uncle who shall remain nameless for the time being. Here's the text of this e-mail.

DON'T BUY PEPSI IN THE NEW CAN

Pepsi has a new "patriotic" can coming out with pictures of the Empire State Bldg. and the Pledge of Allegiance on them. However, Pepsi left out two little words on the pledge, "Under God". Pepsi said they did not want to offend anyone. If this is true, then we don't want to offend anyone at the Pepsi corporate office. So if we don't buy any Pepsi product, they will not be offended when they don't receive our money that has the words "In God We Trust" on it.

People shouldn't send me e-mails like this. They inspire me to break things. There are times and there are places where bringing God into play is acceptable. This is not one of them. But apparently, someone "under the guidance of God," or perhaps someone who works for Coke, has felt the need to tell you which soft drink God favors. So if you want to stay in the good graces of God, crack open a Coke, or a bottle of wine, or a vial of heroin, just not a Pepsi.

Furthermore, I couldn't care less what's printed on my soft drink can. My can of Pepsi could say "We at Pepsi hope you have a stroke and die before finishing this can so we'll have half a can of Pepsi left to drink when we come ransack your house.", as long as it says "Pepsi" somewhere in there so I know what's in the can. I don't need my soft drink companies to be religious, moral, or patriotic. I need them to make soft drinks that taste good and don't make me vomit. And if you're going to stop consuming Pepsi because it doesn't say "Under God" on it, then I'd like you to stop consuming all things. Including oxygen, which for years has had the utter disrespect to refuse to acknowledge the existence of God.

Wow...it's been exactly a week since that last post, and a hell of a lot has happened. But this is a Blog event for me, the following is the first writing that will ever appear on both my blog and Snowbaseball.com, So I guess the title "stuff I don't put at Snowbaseball.com" is no longer accurate. Perhaps I'll fix that. Perhaps.

Anyway, here's the full Montana story:

Friday, May 21: The day started with a lot of tears, Laura and I parted ways in Des Moines, and to say this made me really sad would be a tremendous understatement. At this point I started counting the days to August 28, when I would be home again to see Laura. Probably should've seen that as a bad omen. Once I got on the road and composed myself I drove for a long time because I didn't want to stop to think about the events of the day...I drove from Des Moines to Sheridan, Wyoming, ate at a good Chinese restaurant, called Laura (briefly) and went to bed.

Day 2: Up early and on the road to make the short second leg of the trip to Missoula. Got to Missoula around 2 in the afternoon, the first day didn't hurt all that much. Moved into the new place, actually was pretty optimistic about it. I met Dan and Lorie for the first time this day, Dan was at home when I got there and the first thing he told me was "Welcome home." I'm going to write a section later where I talk about all the nice things I have to say about all the people I met in Montana, but I'll say this now, I didn't make it in Montana for very longer, but the kindness Dan and Lorie showed me made me want to stay way longer than I would have stayed on my own. Stayed in the hotel with my mom on this night, figured I'd sleep in my bed in Montana enough this summer.

Day 3: Woke up relatively early, did the last setup things in the new place, did laundry with my mom, went to dinner (the Montana Club was excellent and is a definite must-stop in Missoula, btw) and went to see Van Helsing with my mom...said goodbye to her for the summer this night, cried a fair amount. The last person I knew from home was leaving and for the first time I started to feel completely alone in Montana. Dan and Lorie were very cool about it and tried to cheer me up, but really I just wanted to see familiar faces. I called Laura but it was too late, she had already given up on me for the night and gone to bed. So I went online and talked to Tara. Here's the first absolutely glowing reference I have to give out in this story. In every tough phase of my life, the person who's been able to reason with me has always been a female friend who can somewhat relate to how I feel. As I tell story after story, it's usually someone different every time, but in this case it was Tara. Virtually every time I needed someone to talk to this week, Tara's been the one who's come through for me. She was the first one to agree with my decision to come home, and of everyone (except Laura) I've seen since I've gotten home, she's the person I've been able to keep in touch with the most. I'm assuming at some point in the future you'll read this, Tara, and when you do, know that I know that you know that I owe you big for all the support you gave me this week.

Day 4 (Monday, May 24): Woke up early for my first day of work, showered and the like, was ready for work at 8:15 (I had to work at 9) and got bored. For those of you who talked to me during this week, you know boredom was public enemy #1 and created the only situations I couldn't recover from. Being bored made me think about home, all the things I could (and would) be doing if I was home, and all the things I was missing out on. After 15-20 minutes of moping I went to work and for the first time in a few days the excitement I showed wasn't fake. I met everyone in the office right away Monday morning, and I think I got a pretty good impression of the people I was working with right away. I'll talk more about people I worked with later on, but here I've got to mention the first person who went out of his way immediately to introduce himself to me, Tom "Tugboat" Carter. Tug held my job last summer, and did a good enough job that he was allowed to remain on the staff as Community Relations Director this season. The immediate interest Tug showed in meeting me made me feel important and definitely gave me the right impression right away. I worked all morning folding letters for a future mass mailing, and went to lunch with Brett, the other intern, who was nice enough to cancel his lunch plans to take me for a walk around downtown and show me some of the sights. After lunch we came back to work and I went back to folding, and I made it until 4 or so before I finally got bored.
That's when I started to see the problem. I didn't get out of work until after 6, and by the time I did I absolutely wanted to scream. I went home and called my mom, and told her I didn't think I was going to make it. I agreed to press on, and then called Laura, who finally managed to calm me back down a bit. After I talked to Laura, I went back into my room, laid down on my bed and drifted off to sleep. At about 6:30. I woke up briefly and met a friend of Dan's later that evening, but I remember nothing about the conversation...for all intensive purposes I was still asleep.

Day 5 (My 21st birthday): Lorie invited me this morning to go out with Dan and some of their friends that evening to celebrate my birthday, and I accepted. I went to work, had a staff meeting, looked at photos for the team website, and spent most of the afternoon stuffing envelopes again. Finished the day off with a tour of what will be the new ballpark (if it ever gets done) and went home to call the family and Laura...had some nice conversation there, got off the phone and decided another nap was in order until Dan and Lorie got home. I slept like a baby for another couple of hours, and got up and had a good time with Dan and Lorie and their friends. Credit where credit's due here for Dan and Lorie...they saw me struggling and they pulled out all the stops to make me feel better. After partying for a little while I went back to my makeshift desk to receive birthday greetings from those who had waited up for me (most notably Tara) and went to bed.

Day 6 (The breakdown): I had a really hard time sleeping Tuesday night and woke up feeling out of sorts on Wednesday. I went in to work but after a few hours I was really disoriented and just completely not myself. Someone at work who had seen me struggling suggested that my grogginess could have been mono, since I had been so sleepy the last few days. At this point my groggy mind began to worry, earning me a team-forced trip to the doctor. Spent the late morning and early afternoon there, underwent some blood tests (and most of you know how much I love needles) and was found negative for mono, but positive for something. Yes, that's right. By looking at my white blood cell count, which was high, the doctor decided I had contracted something, but decided not to further investigate. He recommended I rest the remainder of the day, but said I could go back to work if I had to. I decided to go back to work. I worked for an hour or so before deciding nevermind, I could not actually make it, and I was sent home, where surprise! I got bored. I napped for a few hours, and then I got up and did some hardcore thinking. I realized that the concept of potentially having mono had actually gotten me excited, because if I had mono I'd have to come home. I realized all I'd been doing all day was trying to find an excuse to get out of Montana and back to my life. After some more thought, for the first time the possibility of giving up and coming home entered into my mind. I didn't want to find out what would happen in the next 93 days, if my brain was already trying to derail itself after four. I talked to Dan and Lorie to work out a deal to possibly leave, and I called my mom. Neither were happy with my decision, but I was able to explain my side to both. Finally, I called Laura. We talked for almost an hour about my decision, how disappointed she was in it, and how she thought it was the wrong move, but eventually I got her support as well. I went to bed Wednesday night having told myself it was the last time I would sleep in Montana.

Day 7 (The ending): I woke up early Thursday morning, couldn't sleep again. I hadn't been able to reach my dad since making my decision, so I tried to call him again at several places, but ended up leaving him an e-mail and a phone message. I packed some things before work this morning, then went in to talk to Assistant GM Chris Hale about what I wanted to do. After I talked to him for a few minutes, then talked to GM Matt Ellis, we reached an agreement for me to leave. I said some quick goodbyes to people around the office, went back and loaded up my car, and left Missoula for the last time at 11 am Mountain time. I drove all the way through Montana and North Dakota that first day. My dad found out about my decision and called me while I was in a cell phone dead zone in Montana, so I was able to talk to him briefly and let him know what was going on. I spent the night in Fargo, North Dakota and drove the rest of the way back the next morning, stopping briefly for dinner and to unload some things in Rapids before I moved on to Appleton, meeting Laura after work. Laura and I spent the weekend together and I think her and I are back on good terms. I'm still upset about the way things turned out but all in all I'm happy to be back home and I think I learned something about my own limitations in Montana. I learned that some things are more important than any baseball career I may have, and I will not neglect those things again.

Storytime concludes. Promise next time post will be made on a lighter note.
This has been KL Snow.

Ok, so here's the first post from Montana, and it comes on my twenty-first birthday...it's really not a very exciting moment.

But let's talk about Montana. I really need to get it off my chest.

Ok, so if you thought Missoula, Montana was really really far away from Des Moines, guess what? You're absolutely right it is. I drove 12 hours on Friday. And on Saturday, I still had like 6 more hours to go. Wyoming and South Dakota are the definition of NOTHING.

So I get here, and if you live in Missoula and you don't have a gambling problem, welcome to the minority. There's a casino on every streetcorner here, and if you don't want to walk that far, there's one in the middle of every block too. It's goddamn scary. Chris Hale told me today that if you have a liquor license in Montana, you get a license to have a casino too.

Y'know what? I'm sick of this rant. Maybe I'll come back to it later.

This has been one lonely, depressed KL Snow.

Today I'd like to cover a serious topic. I know it's not something I usually do, but it's a problem I see every day, and a problem that cannot go on as it has for so long.

One in every 54.6 Americans is from Wisconsin. It's a growing problem. Since 1990, 471906 new people have been diagnosed as Wisconsinites, many of them at birth. Marquette County alone, for example, has experienced a 28.5% increase in the number of Wisconsinites present since 1990. All in all, only one county has experienced success in the reduction of Wisconsinites, Milwaukee County, which saw two percent of its citizens leave between 1990 and 2000.

Even Florence County, which in 1990 only held 5088 cases, saw a 10.8 percent increase in the decade.

Wisconsin Residency: It's a growing problem.

Ok. nothing else today, but here are TWO NEW ONE ACT PLAYS BY KL SNOW!

Play 1: Puppy Farming:

It's KL's early birthday party. He's sitting on a couch cuddled with LAURA on his right and TARA on his left. On a footstool in front of him is a large mug of Ninja Turtle. That's right. KL's got two girls cuddling with him AND he has alcohol. Elsewhere in the room are WILL, SARA, JANEVA, ELIZABETH, BEN and LAURA. KL's memory of this scene is a little fuzzy...he was drinkin just a bit.

(someone says something about a puppy farm)
KL: I want a puppy farm!
TARA: No, puppy farms are bad!
SOMEONE ELSE: You'd eat them!
KL: (slurred a little bit) I'd be nice to them and I wouldn't eat any of them.

Play 2: The Secret Ingredient

KL and LAURA are on the way back to the apartment from the Coffee Merchant. LAURA is holding KL's Chai while he drives.

LAURA takes a sip of chai.
LAURA: Why is this chai so good?
KL: I think it's made with the souls of unborn children.
LAURA almost drops the chai.
KL: Yeah, that's a one act.

Humor concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok, this second post is mainly for my own purposes, but here's a cool hat with the Osprey logo on it. :-) https://www.missoulaosprey.com/images/shop/big2.gif

Ok, it's been a while, it's finals week, so i'm a little busy, but I've got lots of news, so here goes:

First of all, I've got a job! (Which means I really should stop randomly shouting "They took our jorbs!" But...but...but it's so much fun! Thank you South Park for once again giving me a catch phrase people will have to strangle me to get me to stop using.) As of monday at about 12:30 or so I'm officially the new Group Sales Intern of the Missoula Osprey of the Pioneer League. Yes, that's right, I'm spending the summer in Bumblefu...I mean Missoula, Montana. So if you're looking for a KL Snow fix to call your very own before May 24, 2004 (my first day in Missoula), here's a tenative schedule.

Friday: The KL Snow's Early 21st Birthday/End of school bash at the apartment. Current ideas for themes are "Bring your own meat grilling," and "let's sit and watch every episode of the live-action Batman series." We'll probably do the first one and only a little of the second one, but it's really my going away party in Des Moines, so I want to see as many people as possible.

Sunday or so: Leave for Minocqua to make my farewell voyage through the Northwoods. Most of this time is unscheduled and therefore open for requests.

Next Thursday or so: Leave Minocqua for the last time of the summer, which will be really weird seeing as it will be May. Head to Wisconsin Rapids for some general revelry before Montana.

Next Saturday: Party with mom's side of the family
Next Sunday (tenatively): Party with dad's side of the family
Next Monday: Return to Des Moines, where I will camp out until the 21st or 22nd, at which point I leave for Missoula.

August 28: Depart Missoula, Destination Des Moines.
August 30: Arrive Des Moines, start school a week late.

So yeah. I'm gonna be gone a really long time and if you wanna see me before I wander off into Big Sky country (which I'm pretty sure is only called that because there's NOTHING else), give me a call or IM me or something.

So I did something fun today. I had a final at 7:30 this morning, and have another at 9:30 this morning, and that makes my mood...less than pretty. So this morning I got in my car and the CD player wouldn't work. So I turned on sports talk radio...normally it's ESPN but in the morning it's two local...gentlemen. This morning they spent 20 minutes during my drive in arguing about a completely baseline baseball argument that was settled by a rule change in the 50's. I listened to it for about 15 minutes and then decided enough was enough...I called in and took them from pillar to post, bashing their heads against everything I found on the way. It probably wasn't the nicest thing to do, and i'm sure they don't like KL Snow very much anymore, but it was so much fun. It's a handy wake-up technique if ever there was one. Sorry, Marty and whoever the other guy is, you just happened to be stupid in the middle of my drive.

But I've got a final at 9:30 and i haven't studied one bit yet. So I'm out.

Mini-celebration concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok, it's been a while, so without further ado, here is...

A NEW ONE ACT PLAY BY KL SNOW!

KL and LAURA are in the car, KL is driving. Heavy rain is falling. They pull up to an intersection and stop at a red light. LAURA looks out the window.

LAURA: What're you looking at? Yeah, that's right, you'd better look away.
KL (puzzled, looks over): What're you talking to?
LAURA points at a robin that was staring at her.

AND NOW: ACT TWO!

Approximately three seconds later, LAURA'S mood has completely swung.

LAURA (in "oh look at that cute thing" voice): Look at the poor thing, it's all cold and stuff.
(The light turns green and KL continues to drive, dumbfounded.)
LAURA: What?
KL: I still can't believe you were talking trash to a bird.

Maybe you had to be there.

Anyway, let's see what else is new...

First off, the big news. I interviewed on Monday for a job with the Missoula Osprey of the Pioneer League (Rookie). It was most certainly a cause for celebration. I interviewed well and so now i'm carrying my cell phone everywhere waiting for a call back. Don't even think about calling to freak me out...I'll hurt you. But there's gonna be a massive party if I get this job. And if I have to spend the summer in Missoula, Montana, 1400 miles away from home, at least some of you Bloggamaniacs have gotta come visit me.

Beyond that, not a lot is new. I'm tired today, I think I'm going to go hunt down and consume some caffeine before my Econ test. Perhaps I'll blog atcha later when I'm supposed to be working on Philosophy.

Ramble concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok, I'm back from Florida, and I've got lots and lots of stuff for you. Before I left I promised lots of people a live diary from Florida, and I kept it up for a couple of days before I stopped having time to just sit down and write. Here are the first couple entries.

Entry 1:
7:30 PM Monday, Departing Chicago

It'll take less than two hours to reach Orlando. That blows my mind. It takes me more time to sit through my Modern Philosophy class. Maybe if we took Prof. Knepper on a plane, let him lecture and we landed in a new city when it was over, I'd go to class more often.

I let Laura read that first paragraph, figuring it'd be good for a laugh. I ended up having to read it to her, she can't decode my handwriting. I guess now I can write whatever I want. Seriously, though, it's great to have Laura along on this trip. I hadn't been on an airplane since I was 12, and without her dragging me through the airport I may not have made it to my plane today. Without Laura's contant encouragement a few months ago this trip probably never would have gotten planned and probably just would've stayed as one of those things I always talk about doing. And on top of all that, without Laura today I probably would have gone to jail.

You see, today didn't have history's greatest start. We decided to leave early for the airport, and somehow our timing was just perfect so that when a guy in a truck decided to make a left turn despite the fact that he couldn't see if anyone was coming, I was right there to hit him. It was a minor fender bender (literally, here's a picture of the damage http://www.snowbaseball.com/graphics/Car1.jpg behind the headlight) but before I thought to call the police, the guy had driven off. The first thing Laura did at the accident scene was to grab me as I was getting out of the car and pull me back in to make sure I wasn't going to kill the guy...and that was the first time I realized killing him wasn't such an exceptional idea.

But it evened out, cause she got to laugh at me when I wasn't smart enough to empty my pockets at airport security and ended up getting wanded.

Here's an airplane thing I'll never understand. I've been on two planes today, and on both, the captain has told us it was ok to take off our seat belts and move around, but if we wished to stay in our seats we needed to keep our seat belts on "in case we experience some unexpected turbulence along the way." So basically, what he's saying is "We may experience turbulence rough enough to throw you out of your seat, but if you're not in your seat, you're screwed and we're just gonna let you flop around. Feel free to get up, though."

It hasn't happened yet, but the point where I forgot something critically important will almost certainly come. At that point I'll probably want a list of things I did remember, to point back to. Let's make that list now.

Tickets to 4 baseball games
Excedrin (Hurricurbstompers, actually)
PEZ
my glasses
two pairs of sunglasses
one baseball book
two Dragonalnce books
clothes
driving directions to our rental car, and all four baseball parks

I'll add an entry as soon as my obvious oversight presents itself. But for now, it's back to my reading.

On a last note before I close the book, my car needs a flight attendant. If someone came up to me and gave
me Dew every so often in my car, I could drive forever.

And on another last note, I miss video games.

Tuesday, 10:25 am, Daytona Beach

Today's continuing theme: "We're in Florida." And that's going to sound really dumb unless you realize it's been a really long time since I've been on vacation, so I need to periodically remind myself. Every moment is special to me. So is every hot chick that walks by. Not counting Laura, we're at 2.

Right now I'm watching a pigeon dig in the sand. I think it's lost. (3)

The water isn't very warm. Laura and I got ankle deep before we decided that was enough (4) ocean for today. It's windy too (5), the seas are really rolling. (6)(7) It's just a little too cold to sit half naked. Not that that's stopping most people, just me and the hot chicks off to our left.

Some asshole just fed the seagulls behind us. Now they're everywhere. And the sun went away. Two cute girls sat near us but it was too cold to get naked. Not fair. I guess they still count, though. (8)(9)

I guess now would be a good time to look back on last night. Going back to Irene's house was no big adventure . . . baggage claim, pick up and the drive back all went reasonably well (10). Irene's house presented a dilemma, though. You see, there's a bit of a culture difference between Laura and I and Irene, who is older and retired. (11)(12) On a side note, I asked Laura if we could take 11 and 12 home with us, she declined.

Getting back to the previous subject, though, Irene drives slow. She drives a realtively small car and has a large dog that rides along everywhere. Ok, another side note: Going to the beach implies you will see certain things. One of those things is not a lemonade truck that drives between you and the water.

I'm going to finish my thought on Irene now, I promise. Laura and I hadn't even considered that Irene wouldn't know we usually sleep together. We got to Irene's house and found two twin beds in our room. And Irene's house is quiet as a tomb at night. (13)(14)(15) I'll leave you those problems to digest on your own.

I mentioned before that the ocean was cold. What I did not mention was that my feet got stuck in the sand and broke the flip flops I had been using as shower shoes since day one of college. It produced an early quote of the week contender: "I have felt the pull of the ocean. It broke my flip flops."

Sadly, that's the last non-baseball related journal entry I had time to make this week, but I'll run you through a quick "Greatest Hits" of the rest of the week now and link you to my pictures.

Tuesday we drove back from Daytona to Orlando, ate lunch at the biggest TGI Friday's I've ever seen and spent $110 to get into Universal Studios. I was a little skeptical about the ability of any amusement park to be worth $55 per person for 5 hours, but I'm not disappointed. Laura and I had this picture http://www.snowbaseball.com/graphics/Universal.jpg taken of us in front of the park.

Getting into the park was a funny story. You see, we were hoping to get a deal on tickets, so we stopped at one of the discount ticket places that appear everywhere in Orlando and got tickets. Anyway, the tickets had Laura's name on them. So when we got to the gates of the park, a solid 15-20 minute walk from where we parked, they asked for ID from Laura, who had left everything but her cash in the car. So Laura said no, she didn't have any ID. So the woman behind the counter asked if she had anything with her name on it, and again Laura said no. So the woman hid Laura's name on our ticket and asked me "What's her name?" When I responded correctly she let us in and prompted the other quote of the week candidate from Laura, "You're my thing with my name on it!"

We proceeded on to Nickelodeon Studios, which I guess actually was a disappointment. You see, there's a chance at Nickelodeon Studios to go sit in a TV studio and play games and stuff, but while we were there nothing was actually being taped. There was also the giant slime fountain you see on TV, but that was about it. Nothing was going on outside, and aside from the shows being put on you couldn't actually go inside. The Ren and Stimpy restroom sign, though, provided an excellent photo op. http://www.snowbaseball.com/graphics/KLRenandStimpy.jpg

On our first pass by the line to get into Shrek was too long, but we got this picture taken with him. http://www.snowbaseball.com/graphics/Shrek.jpg On a side note, Shrek put his arm around Laura and tried to push me away until he saw Laura start to glare at me, not knowing it was Shrek's fault, then he let me in.

We saw the Twister thingy...not really a ride, just kind of a demonstration of what happens in a tornado...waited a long time in line to watch a plastic cow fly by and see a gas tank start on fire...it was ok, but they over-hyped it. The whole show was only about a minute long.

When we came out of Twister, Beetlejuice was dancing in the street, by the firehouse from Ghostbusters. I'm still not sure how to react to that. Next was Jaws, and that was cool. I mean, it's a little cheesy, the shark is obviously fake, but you actually get to ride in a boat and stuff.

We waited a long time in line to get on Back to the Future, but it was well worth it, it was my favorite ride of the day. You actually ride in an eight person Delorean and chase the stolen Delorean around, and you crash into stuff and the car tilts all over the place, it's a good time. Here's me and Laura outside with the Delorean. http://www.snowbaseball.com/graphics/Delorean.jpg

On the way to E.T. we saw a banner with a weiner dog on it, and of course I had to have a picture. http://www.snowbaseball.com/graphics/WeinerDog.jpg

E.T. was cool, you ride bicycles through a big tunnel following ET back to his home planet so his healing touch can save it. A little cheesy but fun. I'm enjoying the rides where you get to ride on things. I think that's why I didn't like Twister. I just stood there and watched things.

Men In Black was a close second behind Back to the Future for best ride, you get to drive around and shoot at aliens. In the end you get a score and they show you your picture with everyone you rode with. I considered getting a copy of the picture, cause everyone in it looked goofy except for me, but decided against it, so sorry, no pic for you here.

At this point we had seen everything we wanted except for Shrek, so we decided to get in line and wait it out. Universal does one thing I really like and one I don't. First, every ride/show/whatever has a wait time listed outside. So when you get in line, you know about how long it's going to take. That's nice, cause we waited until the lines got shorter for a couple of things we wanted to see.

Here's what I don't like. Universal sells Express Passes for its rides. So if you have whiny kids or an inability to wait in line like the rest of us or feel that spending $55 to get into the park wasn't enough, you can buy Express passes and automatically go to the front of the line. But when the line for Shrek is 75 minutes long and I see the same people use Express passes to butt in line 3 times, it starts to bug me.

Anyway, we waited and I grumbled at people who snuck in front of us and finally got to see Shrek, which was pretty good. Not quite worth a 75 minute wait. but maybe a 45-60 minute wait. It was all done in 3D, and I didn't realize it when we sat down, but the chairs were set up to do things like bounce up and down, spray you with water when Donkey sneezes, and shoot cold air by your feet to make it feel like spiders are on the floor. Good times.

All in all Universal was good. They do a very good job of not just making it a park full of rides. There's cool stuff in between rides too. Like I mentioned before, when I was done trying to figure out why Beetlejuice was dancing in the streets, I noticed he was next to the house from Ghostbusters. Little things like that are cool.

That's about all my notes from Universal...we went out for dinner Tuesday night and spent all day Wednesday and Thursday at baseball parks (notes on that will appear at Snowbaseball.com sometime in the next few days).

Friday morning was rough...we had a 6:15 am flight out of Orlando, so we got up at 4:35 (3:35 Central time) to go to the airport...there was no Dew on the plane but that was the biggest issue. Aside from the fact that I was kinda tired and grumpy all day yesterday and got drunk on top of it last night. But there's my trip to Orlando. And like I said, the baseball part will be up on Snowbaseball sometime soon.

Way long post concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok, it's blog time once again, and this time for humor once again I turn to my notes from Prof. Strentz's J-Law Class, which should tell you a little something about how much I'm actually learning in class. Today, however we were thrown a nice little tidbit that isn't quite worthy of a one-act play, but absolutely worthy of a quote.

STRENTZ: The reason the chapter on obscenity is short is because it either has to be short, or quite long.
KL casts a puzzled glance to WILL, who gestures for KL to calm down.

The reason I had to be calmed at this moment is actually quite unrelated, but is the reason why among the other doodlings in today's notes, Death (w/ scythe), a kitana and a blunt morning star appear. Story time:

So this morning I'm on the highway and I hit a construction zone. We've all been there before. Two lanes go down to one, so you sit in the non-closing lane and wait for traffic to move in front of you so you can go listen to Prof. Strentz and draw things and play dots and write down stupid things. Well, at least we can all relate to the first half.

Anyway, this morning as I was sitting at the spot where two lanes go down to one a man driving a van decided he needed to be first in line, got out of the lane, drove into the closing lane and tried to cut into line at full speed. And I decided I wouldn't get out of his way, cause being an asshole makes me want you to be gone faster, but it certainly doesn't make me sympathetic to your position. So, while they had the nose of their van stuck into my lane, I simply drove around them and tried to supress my laughter while the man driving the van and the woman in the passenger seat screamed things I couldn't hear in angry faces. The person behind me let them in and they tailgated me all the way down the highway and followed me to my parking place on Cottage Grove.

I was already running late so before they got out of the van I grabbed my backpack and started walking towards school. At this point I saw a rock go over my left shoulder. And I took out my cell phone and asked if they'd like to know who the police thought was at fault. The guy got back into his van and sped off before I could read his license plate. But I'll know him if I see him again. Oh yes. And next time the day will be mine.

So yeah, that made me a little angry. I had some shaky hands for a little while in class...the Death I drew shows it.

Aside from that, things are good. And I'm going to go back to playing Pirates now.

Subsiding rage concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ok, I don't have an awful lot of time but it's been a long time since I've updated and my creative stream overflowed today, causing all the sewage to flow away and good things to come out of it for once.

The soundtrack for today's blog is available in just about any computer lab in America. It's a printer hum. If you need lyrics, here they are:

Bsssssshhhhhwhiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrr.....shshshshshsh.....whIIIIIiiiirrr....

Those of you who read my AIM profile are no doubt familiar with my One Act Plays. I've decided to start keeping them here instead because A) I can send anyone to read them here and B) I'll be able to save the old ones instead of deleting them when I write the new one. Maybe someday I'll use the old ones to write "KL Snow's Book O' One Act Plays" or something.

However, I should warn ye, I been playin a lot o' Puzzle Pirates lately, so if I slip into pirate tone, be not alarmed, I say. In fact, go play some Puzzle Pirates yeself at puzzlepirates.com. I'm still undefeated in battle. I got up early this morning just to play, if that tells ye anything about how good it be.

Anyway, on to the new One Act play:

KL sits bored in class, playing dots with EMERIC while PROF. STRENTZ lectures. WILL is strangely absent, his seat is empty and GIRL WE DON'T KNOW is in the next seat down. PROF. STRENTZ calls on KL for information KL possibly should have known but obviously lacks.

STRENTZ: I emailed you about it, don't you check your email?
KL: My Drake mail?
STRENTZ: Uh-huh.
KL: No.
STRENTZ: Oh. I'll send your grade there too. It'll be a surprise.

And, for the first time ever in a KL Snow one act play, it's...
ACT TWO!

KL and EMERIC are still playing dots. EMERIC has recently announced his campaign for student body president. KL tallies the score.

KL: Me, 16, you, 33.
KL shakes hands with EMERIC.
KL: You've got my vote.

I really think dots is the best way to choose your elected officials who don't have the capability to send you to war.

Finally, today's most recent idea is a new board game titled, "The Game is A Foot." The board would be, you guessed it, a large foot, with five paths running from a start point near the ankle to toenails. Each player starts on a different toenail, and the race is on back towards the ankle. Once players reach the ankle, they receive a toenail clipper. They then have to take the clipper to a toenail without having it stolen away by another player. After using the clipper on a toenail, the player will again go back to the ankle and receive another clipper. All the while they must avoid spaces saying things like, "Blister: Lose a turn" and aim for spaces like "Buy new shoes: Roll again." I think it has potential. One could even say the idea has legs.

And with that bad pun, I'm off.

Humor concludes. This has been KL Snow.

Ah, life...

Life offers us lots of decisions and no way to know if we're making the right one until the day to make said decision is long past and we're either celebrating our successes or, more often, lamenting our failures. Case in point:

Someone, somewhere somehow, convinced John Leguizamo (I probably butchered the spelling, sorry) to play Luigi in the movie version of Super Mario Bros, a classic that I consider the single biggest name in video game history but an absolutely awful movie. John obviously had some other option to pursue when this movie presented itself to him, but he decided no, he'd rather play the part of an apprentice plumber who falls in love with a girl who hatched from an egg and was a descendent of reptiles.

And, of course, the very same movie features Dennis Hopper as the dreadful King Koopa, who really shows no signs of being a reptile, except of course for his blonde hair, which he keeps neatly bound in cornrows. This world has really done a poor job of exploring the possibility of turning its enemies into a fungus.

Moral of the story: Even successful people make really bad decisions. I'd say that's about it. I'm going to bed now.

Randomness concludes. This has been KL Snow.