...blogger, blogger, blogger, mushroom! mushroom!

Oh, Scott. Magnanimity never was your strong suit.

I was very happy, last Thursday, when I discovered a pair of used chemistry books for sale at Follett's Orange Bookstore.
During my first semester of college, back when I still thought I was going to go pre-med, I took Chemistry 106. The required books for the class consisted of a textbook, a large workbook, and three other small items--I think one was a CD. They all came shrink-wrapped together. At the end of the semester, I resold these books back to the SU Bookstore. Actually, I sold only the textbook and workbook--for $15 and $2 respectively--because the bookstore wouldn't buy back the other three (even though all of them had originally been purchased together as one item). Why did I sell them back, even for such a paltry sum? What can I say... I was a freshman, and I thought that reselling ones books at the semester's end was simply what was done. One month later, I regretted it, and have regretted it ever since.
So what did I find, last Thursday, but two of the same books I had sold five years ago. I couldn't tell if they were the very same ones I had used, though they may well have been, considering they looked as if they'd hardly been used (Reasons Why I Reconsidered Going to Medical School). And what did the pair of them cost? Five dollars. Five dollars! I bought them on the spot, and have added them to my collection of Books to Which I Will Refer Twice Every Decade.

Another, completely unrelated, story: Dave and I, from time to time, enter into an arrangement whereby I will call a local pizza shop or Chinese restaurant and order food for him and me to be delivered, and then he pays for it. As far as I'm concerned, the worst part of this arrangement is dealing with Dave, but I get free food. I don't know what his motivation is. Last weekend, Dave decided that we should have pizza. I was up for that. So I thought to call Johnny's Pizza, down the street at Drumlins. But Dave says that he wants to make the call. Why? I ask him. "Because you don't know how to argue, and I can." Argue what? I wonder aloud, but I get no answer. He makes the call.
"Hey, this is Dave Holaway, down here at 927 Thus'n'such. You guys hooked me up with a pie a while back. It was [looking at paper where I had written down the toppings to be ordered] half everything including anchovies, and half...
[pause]
What, no anchovies? [speaking to the air] Honey, uh, not this place? [to the phone] No, she's looking at me like I'm an idiot. Guess I'm not getting any tonight. [laughs] Okay, so that's half everything, no anchovies, and half pepperoni and mushrooms. Now, you can put some extra on there, right? You know what I'm saying? If it costs two-three dollars more. Put a little extra on there.... Holaway. Can you believe it, an Irish man married to an Italian woman.... Half an hour? Okay."
He gets off the phone and says, "See how I talked myself out of that one?" And I'm thinking, Yeah, if you hadn't talked yourself into it in the first place....
So a half an hour comes and goes. Dave is pacing a hole in the living room floor, he's so hungry. I guess he thought the guy had said it would be forty-five minutes, cos he waits until it's been almost an hour before he tells me to call them back. So I do. "I'm calling from 927 Thus'n'such Drive. We ordered a pizza from you fifty-five minutes ago, and we're wondering what's happened to it." The guy on the phone asks someone else, then comes back and says, "We don't have any orders for that address. Are you sure you called this store?" I said, "Johnny's. Down by Peter's. Yeah, we used the same number both times." At this point, Dave wants to do the talking, and I'm just curious enough to see what he's gonna do to let him do it. So he gets on and starts talking--I don't know what he's talking. He's like, "Yo, what's up? What's goin' on?" but hokier than you can imagine. So he continues bantering on in this manner, 'cept he's pissed that the pizza's so late. I guess what happened was that he hadn't made it clear that he wanted the pizza delivered, so it was still at the parlour waiting to be picked up. When he gets off the phone, he says something about his "Italian accent." I'm thinking, That was an Italian accent?

Joe, you just can't win: Currently your banner ad reads
Support Same-Sex Marriage
Lapel pins, jewelry & stickers that
promote gay pride & civil rights
as well as
Iraq- Winning the Peace
Read John Kerry's Plan The Right Choice
for President
Mine are almost invariably about blogs and website design and hosting, with the occasional reference to Japan. And recently "golf lessons" has appeared on Scott's banner ad, along with the inexplicable "Wedding Anniversary Gifts."

The Vacuum Cleaner Game
Darth Vader: Man of Prayer

Goodnight everybody!