Get in on the John

Hmm... How did this go again?... Oh yeah, you type in this little white box and the words show up on the screen and then you press the publish post button and the world can read about your brilliant life and then souless computers deposit spam disguised as comments! I remember now! Hehehe.

Yes, it has been a while since I've done this. Apparently the whole month of October passed by without any post at all here on my blog! I will not lie to you about why I didn't post, sadly I was actually infected with a strange and rare disease whose symptoms include being unable to gaze upon a computer screen without very severe ocular trauma. Yes, many times after a frantic search of the hospital the orderlies would find me in front of a computer screen trying to type through the agonizing pain, blood gushing from my eyes, and as they pried the keyboard from my hands and began to drag me away I would protest at the top of my lungs: "No! I must post on my blog!!" my arm outstretched and reaching desperately for the computer. Sadly my search for the cure took me even further from technology as it could only be found in the form of a rare species of tree frog which exclusively inhabits a skyscraper-sized mango tree which grows on top of a mountain on a remote tropical island, and is fiercely guarded by the local native tribe of head hunters, for whom it is the source of their strange and mystical powers which allow them to keep severed heads and their bodies alive long after they have been separated. Indeed it was a daunting task to retrieve that cure, but the lamentable thought of the faithful readers of my blog languishing without a fresh post drove me onwards, long after the natives made the area under my chin a little airier by getting rid of my body from the neck down. Eventually I was able to direct my body to rescue my head from it's honored place on the chief's throne ( for it was judged by all to be by far the prettiest they had ever seen ) and was pleasantly surprised to discover that searching the massive mountain-top mango tree for the medically meaningful frog was magically made much more easier by my newfound ability to place my head upon a stick and use it as a sort of periscope to look around. Thinking my adventures about over as I walked back down the mountain with one arm holding the cure to my maddening affliction and the other cradling my equally precious noggin, I was quite horrified to find that the natives were out in mass and that strangely enough they seemed to hunt their prey by bludgeoning them with activated computer monitors. Incredibly I managed to escape by stuffing my head under my shirt, therefore shielding my eyes from the harmful sight of the monitors, and blindly running down the mountain side, which seemed quite disastrous at first because I kept on running into trees and angry natives ( receiving a fair number of monitor blows ), but I was saved by accidentally running off the nearest cliff and plunging several hundred feet to the water below. I awoke a lifetime later on the shores of the mainland, glad to be alive, and happy that my head was still in the company of my body ( thank goodness it was stuffed inside my shirt ), but never the less devastated that I had lost the tree frog to the swirling dark sea while I was unconscious. I took consolation in the fact that the local doctors were able to reattach my head to my body, just like new, but could not wipe from my mind the grievous image of a blog reader weeping in deep sorrow because there was no new post on my blog. I swore to myself that I would somehow wipe those tears from that sad face no matter how hard I had to try. And so it was that safe and sound back at my dorm room, while attempting to amuse myself by watching paint dry, ( what else was I supposed to do without my computer? ) I was immensely pleased to hear the knock of the UPS man at my door, and I signed for the package containing one immensely rare tree frog that I had bought for a hefty sum off of eBay ( apparently the head hunters used those monitors for more than bludgeoning things ). And so, to make a long story just a little longer, one month later now, my sight is finally cured. And now I can post on my blog. Rejoice! Oh, and before you ask me how I bought something off of eBay with my aversion to monitors, I think you should be informed that eBay also comes in eBrayill© version for the visionless. Yep. Just thought you should know. Anyway, so that is why I haven't posted for such a long time.

Or maybe I've just been too lazy.
You choose. Personally, I like the first excuse better. Whatever the cause, I am back now, and I have made this massively sized animated gif ( it might take a while to load and start moving, if ever ) to atone for my lack of blogging. Watch in awe and wonder!

[EDIT] Alrighty, the picture never did start to move, I guess blogger just don't do that sort of thing. And so instead of the crappy animation that took me 3 hours to make, I will show you some frames of what it would have looked like.


I leave it up to you to imagine how that would have looked repeating over and over and over again.

[END EDIT]

If that ever started moving, you have seen that I will be tortured for all eternity in the fires of my blog by being constantly badly animated. A horrible, yet sorely deserved fate indeed.

Let's see, other than unbelievable misadventures, what has happened to me in the last month... have you ever noticed that unbelievable and incredible are basically just the same word spelled differently? I mean, literally they both mean "Something You Can't Believe". Not that my story wasn't true. No way. Would I make up something so crazy? Heh. Yeah. That's right. There is no way I would make all that up. Yeah.

Well, um, I just experienced Halloween for the first time since forever. You see, oddly enough, Halloween isn't a very popular holiday amongst the god-fearing missionary community, and besides, there wasn't much good candy to be found anyways. You see, unlike my mother who believes thatHalloweenn is an evil holiday based on ashamefullfascinationn with the occult and macabre which should be banished to the hell fires from whence it sprung, Halloween was always ( back when we lived in the states and still celebrated it ) the candy holiday for me. Buckets full of candy and trying to either scare the pants off of people, or trying to find a way to get your own pants scared off. In other words, an all around good time. As a plus you got to dress up in something that on other days would have earned you a one way ticket to a padded cell. Fake blood, fangs, hair gel, baby powder and a faux-velvet lined cape would normally have people crossing to the other side of the street to avoid you, but onHalloweenn it is the norm. What an interesting day. I decided that this year I was going to do something forHalloweenn. And somehow that meant going to my grandparents house to hang out with my family. Just now Irealizedd that hanging out with my family wasn't the smartest plan if I wanted to celebrate Halloween, I mean, they don't even like it at all. Hmm. Well, it was fun anyways. During the chilly bike ride over to my grandparents house, I was all excited that I would be able to see kids running from house to house exchanging threats of mischief for candy dressed as popular cartoon characters, expecting the streets to be swarming with them. However, as I rode through the neighborhoods I saw nary a tricker treater, and feared that perchance my memories of the holiday were distorted, or rather that the holiday had died when my own family stopped celebrating it. And so it was with great relief that when I sped down my grandparents' street I narrowly avoided running over a little darth vader and his bag full of sugar-coated dark sided treasure with my bike. Yes, they were everywhere, just like I remembered. My enthusiasm renewed, I hurried up onto my grandparents' porch, rang the doorbell, pulled my sweater over my face, crouched down and waited for my grandpa to answer the door. Upon reflection, it was probably pretty inconsiderate of me to make grandpa laboriously get up from his chair and go all the
way to the door, but you know what they say about hindsight. Or at least I hope you do. Because I have no idea. Anyway, he opens the door and I go "Twiker Tweat!" and grandpa laughs and tells me that apparently it's "Trick" this time and secretly thinks of ways to kill me for my blatant disregard of his difficulty with getting in and out of chairs. Again, this is all in hindsight. I am overly giddy at the prospect of candy at the time, and I manage to remain oblivious to his agonized groans as he sits back down. I ask if I might hand out candy to the costumed door-to-door extorters ( maybe not actually a word, I checked ) and grandpa stoped making plans to kill me and happily accepted my offer. And so, when the doorbell rings I am already eagerly waiting in front of the door, bowl full of candy at the ready. I perhaps too eagerly swing the door open and greet the miniature pirate and football player in front of me, excitedly bouncing on my feet as I awaited those magic words.
"Twicker Tweat!"
Aww. I reach into the bowl full of candy and two thoughts come to mind simultaneously. The first is that the candy in the bowl includes chocolate eyeballs, and the second is to wonder what the candy giving protocol is. I mean, do I let them pick their own candy, or do I grabhandfuls out of the bowl and put it in their bags? And how much? I didn't want to be cheap, so I decided to let them pick their own and bent down and offered them the bowl. I was surprized and slightly disappointed that they each chose only one single candy eyeball from the bowl. This moderation hardly went along with how I remembered the spirit of the holiday went. However, as I closed the door my faith in the Halloween spirit was renewed as one of the little kids shouted out to the other Trick-or-Treaters "Hey guys! This house has eyeballs!!" I shared a chuckle with my grandparents, and soon the doorbell rang again. This time the child was dressed up as a cow ( or a dalmation or something ) in what were probably on less costume-demanding days his pajamas. This child was too young say the magic words, but his mother understood that if you wanted to be given candy, you had to say them. And so she did, and I did, this time preserving the holiday spirit by grabbing a double handfull of candy and dropping it into his bag. By this time the novelty of costumes and candy had worn off and I decided it was time for me to visit my family where they usually resided in mygrandparents's basement. As I was going down the stairs the doorbell rang again, and I was able to hear my grandma shout to her husband that he had better get the door because his grandson was going downstairs. Grandpa's plans for my painful death began once more. Down stairs I was unsurprized to find my family doing what they normally do, apparently unaware that tonight was candy day. I hung out as late as I could ( I did have class the next day ) trying in vain to get my family to let me watch the horror movies onTV. Horror movies are another thing my family isn't too big on. That and videogames where your main pastime is running over pedestrians to get to a drug deal on time while driving a car you just stole from an old lady because it was the one nearest you when you were given the job. Go figure. Sometimes I just don't understand them. So at around 11pm I said my goodbyes and went upstairs past my grandpa who looked me straight in the eye and told me that he had had to run back and forth handing out candy for hours after I bailed on him. It was at this moment that my previously mentioned hindsight kicked in and I realized my offense. In an effort to make this well between us I responded: "Ok, well I guess I'll see you, then. Bye!" Indeed I am a skilled communicator. And so I got on my bike and discovered that in the Fall here, there is a difference from 7 pm night temperature and 11pm night temperature. I ended up slowing my bike to almost a walking paced crawl in an effort to reduce the bite of the wind on my face, and by the time I made it back to my dorm was never the less unable to feel my fingers, or rather my fingers couldn't feel anything, because I mean, can you ever really feel your fingers? Unless you touch them of course. Nevermind. It is too late for thinking, now is the time for important decisions!

Speaking of terrible segues, I have just discovered a special stop light on a busy street next to the campus. I found it when I was forced to bike over to burger king because they don't do dinner here on Sundays. You see, this stop light isn't at an intersection, but in the middle of this street. There is no place for the cars to turn, so it seems that the stop light was created for the sole purpose of letting pedestrians cross the street. What makes it special is that the moment you press the cross walk button, the lights turn from green to yellow to red in about as much time as it takes to read those words. Ah yes, there is something pleasing about watching tidal waves of traffic screech to a halt with the press of a button and forced to wait as you saunter across the road. Something very appealing indeed. In fact, I decided I had dropped something in burger king and had to go back just to experience halting barrages of cars with a flick of my hand, just like neo does to bullets in the matrix reloaded. I wonder if you can entrap the sea of cars permanently by pushing the button over and over again. hehe. haha. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! Drivers beware! For your days of freedom are numbered! And it's not a big number! No, I'd say it is definitely less than ten, even! Although perhaps more than two! Be afraid! Be marginally afraid!

Well, my wellspring of ideas has been drained for now, hopefully that animation works, and hopefully I see you all back here in less than a month! Until then, thanks for checking back here when I kept on not being here, and thanks to everyone who kept pestering me to post, without you guys you wouldn't be reading this. Take that as you will. Adios! And... goodnight!