Ho Ho Ho!
Today is Christmas Eve, and you know what that means - the biggest holiday of the year is right around the corner: Boxing Day!

But before Boxing Day can happen, we’ll have Christmas. Today I finished my Christmas shopping with almost an hour before the stores closed, because I don’t believe in waiting till the last minute. Also today, my brother came up from Olympia, and we all just went out to dinner at Marie Callendars (sp?), followed by looking at Christmas lights, and then the ceremonial Opening of the First Gift. Our family opens one present on Christmas Eve, which is a tradition from back in the day when we little kids just couldn’t wait until Christmas Day. My first present was from my sister: “Hey! It’s Pee Guy!” This is just as it sounds - a little man with a silly hat that has a plastic string of pee going from his crotch to the ground. What could be better?

Tomorrow morning I’m singing at church in the morning, and then the ceremonial Opening of the Rest of the Presents, and then we’ll have a delicious Christmas Dinner, followed by going to Edmonds to spend the evening with the Woltz family. Hooray!

Hope everyone reading this has a very merry Christmas, and a happy Boxing Day, and a wonderful Festivus (for the rest of us), and Kwanzaa, and New Years. Ho Ho Ho!

These past two days, I’ve been enjoying my 21-iosity by spending some time at PJ Pockets Casino. It all began yesterday… I went to the DMV so that I could exchange my vertical drivers license (which is the Official ID for Those Under 21) for a horizontal drivers license (the Official ID for those in the Cool Kids Club - only open to those over 21). So I went in, got a number, and then started to wait.

But then - UH OH! I see the sign that says ‘cash or check only’ and since I do not have either of those options to pay for my new license, my head becomes explosive with anxiety and stress, because I know that if I walk up to the desk without cash or check, I would know that the woman standing there would rip off her human mask and devour me in one an a half bites, and that would spoil my afternoon. So I ran across the parking lot to the Key Bank, and walked into the drive-through, because I’m kooky like that.

Crazy thing about that - this bank looked like it was busy and hopping, so I hurried across the lanes full of cars to get to the empty lane for drive-up banking, and got a twenty dollar bill, because that was the only option. So I took my money out of the machine after grimacing about the two dollar fee they put on there, and was waiting for a prime opportunity to cross in front of all these cars in line in the other lanes, when I realized: there are no other people at this bank! Indeed, it looked like a complete ghost town over there at the key bank… a ghost town filled with empty cars. I’m sure that if I had looked into the windows closer I would have seen skelatons and all sorts of frightful sights, so I didn’t. And besides, I had a dragon woman waiting for me at the DMV.

So I ran back to the DMV and walked in the door just in time to hear my number being called over the speaker. So I walked over, and took the verbal quiz to determine if I’m physically able to drive, and then came the trouble: she noted on my license that I have a C marked on it, which is DMV code for “wears glasses.” So she asked me where mine are, and I in a very sly and crafty way said “they’re… out back.” and pointed toward the parking lot. And she said that she couldn’t give me another license without passing the eye test, and I can’t do that without my glasses, according to my old drivers license. I could see her about to peel off her human mask to devour me, but then I said ‘wait! do not reveal your dragon form! I shall attempt to defeat your eye test in an Epic Battle, without the assistance of my glasses!” because of course my glasses were not out back at all. So I put my eyes in the little black box where they had to read letters and name colors and tell whether a dot is inside of a box or not, and check dis out: they won with flying colors. They beat those letters and colors and dots like a pro, and not only did I get to get my license, but they took off the C from there, which is DMV code for ‘he’s got super eyes like a cat.’
So I got my picture taken (which didn’t turn out very well, to follow the DMV rules), and then here I was with my Cool Kid Club ID, and ten dollars in my pocket (because the other ten went to the Dragon Woman), and what was there to do? I’ll tell you: spend that $10 at PJ Pockets Casino.

This casino is right across the street from the DMV, and so I just drove over, and walked in. Inside the casino, it was dark and smokey, and completely lacking any loud sounds or bright lights. It was rather disappointing, actually - there wasn’t even any Sinatra playing over the speakers. But I walked around a little while, until I was stopped by the Giant Gorilla Bouncer, who was actually skinny, and shorter than me, which is saying something. So he asked for my ID, and I handed him my Brand New ID, and he said he couldn’t take it, because it was made of paper instead of Official Plastic (because they gave me a paper ID until the real one comes in the mail.) He was about to start a fight with me, but luckily I had my old drivers license in my pocket, so I gave that to him, and he allowed me to stay.

So I set myself down at the blackjack table with my $10, and exchanged it for two $5 chips. After a rough start as I had to learn the Offical Way to Play Blackjack (instead of saying ‘hit me,’ you tap the table. Instead of saying ’stop’ you wave your hand. Etc.), I stretched my BlackJack Genius Powers to win a whopping $50! Woop!

To shorten a story which I will re-lengthen at another time, today I went back twice: the first time I took my winnings from yesterday and used my skills to make another $115. But then the second time they sent out a Cooler and a guy to break my legs and they used mind rays to defeat my skills and I lost all the money that I had won. So now I am broke again, but I learned a Life Lesson About Blackjack: don’t lose so much! Feel free to use that tip the next time you go to the casinos.

More Casino Story Later!

Well folks, after the most ridiculously stressful week in my college life, I am now home for Winter Break. Ya know, the thing about this finals time wasn’t so much that there was so much work to do. In fact, if you look at all the things that I had to do for finals (almost all the work was final projects rather than actual Final Tests), the work load was rather light. What made it difficult was that rather than having everything due over a week… everything was due over two days. And three fifths of it was due on Monday rather than Tuesday. Oy, I say.
But now I am home! And finally have time now to relax and sleep more than four hours a night. Woop! And what have I done so far? I’ve become thoroughly addicted to The Princess Bride (the book). More addictive than Hairy Potter? I think so. And this book took even longer for me to actually read than H.P. Sarah Estill told me to read it a few years ago… it just took me a while to get to my “As You Wish.”
So here I am back home. I’ll be here for a little less than a month. Call me up, folks.

life couldn’t possibly be any better, along comes the greatest invention in the history of the universe:
the Kung Fu Space Pirates of the Oberon Galaxy Super-Fancy Ultra-Deluxe Edition, *with illustrations*!
Check dis out:

And a better view of the cover:

And inside the book there are even more illustrations than what are shown on the cover - all done in black and what like that because the school printer/copiers are black and white, and that way they would look the way they were originally designed. How about that for clever thinking. And here’s the best part - even with all these new additions (illustrations, table of contents, ‘about the author’) it still costs only $10! Wadda Deal!

… as if you weren’t already convinced

From the Tickle IQ Test:
Congratulations, Nathaniel!
Your IQ score is 135

This number is based on a scientific formula that compares how many questions you answered correctly on the Classic IQ Test relative to others.

Your Intellectual Type is Visual Mathematician. This means you are gifted at spotting patterns — both in pictures and in numbers. These talents combined with your overall high intelligence make you good at understanding the big picture, which is why people trust your instincts and turn to you for direction — especially in the workplace.

And then from Ask Yahoo:
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the standard psychiatric reference, lists scores of 110 to 120 as “bright normal,” 120 to 130 as “superior,” and 130 and above as “very superior.” One could reasonably equate “bright normal” with “smart,” and “very superior” with “genius.”

Of course, there was another site that says that ‘genius’ doesn’t start until 140… but according to me, those people don’t know what they’re talking about. And since I am a genius, that means I’m right.

… In other news, if you’d like to read about another genius, named Captain McGregor, leader of the Kung Fu Space Pirates of the Oberon Galaxy, you should buy this wonderful book, written by Nathaniel Jones, who is widely acknowledged to be the leading Genius writing about Kung Fu Space Pirates in the world today. Here is a picture of the Genius Author with the first copy of his first Genius Novel:

See how fancy it is with the spiral binding there, and a fancy plastic cover? And it can be yours for only $10! Makes a great Christmas present for the Kung Fu Space Pirate Lover on your list!