Packages

It was 7 minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs. Shears's house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running on its side, the way dogs run when they think they are chasing a cat in a dream. But the dog was not running or asleep. The dog was dead. There was a garden fork sticking out of the dog. The points of the fork must have gone all the way though the dog and into the ground because the fork had not fallen over. I decided that the dog was probably killed with the fork because I could not see any other wounds in the dog and I do not think you would stick a garden fork into a dog after it had died for some other reason, like cancer, for example, or a road accident. But I could not be certain about this.

10:05 AM.

I think I've finally figured out my alarm clock -- which is a good thing. You see, I changed alarm clocks when I moved to college. This new clock has the ALARM indicator light and the AM light switched from my old one. So, where I look to see if the alarm is set, it's like, "GREEN LIGHT" and, it really just means AM. I'm not sure who designed this evil clock, but I'm sure it's made by the same people who are responsible for Hurricane Frances.

Maybe I won't miss another class, like I did this morning, again.

That was the second time I've done that.

Rachel offered to give me Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning wake-up calls. I might just take her up on that offer. But, then I'd have to change her cell phone ring from the SIGNS noise to something a little more ... YEAH, I'M AWAKE! You know? The SIGNS noise is like, "teek eek teek eek teek eek." Even the old espeonague, "do do dalada DAAA NAAA, da na nanala DAAA NAAAA!" wouldn't save me. I'll have to run through a few different rings later.

I did go to bed quite late last night, but that doesn't matter. The alarm clock wasn't set, and even if I had gone to bed at ten o'clock last night, I wouldn't have been up anytime around eight. I'm lucky I woke up when I did! I'm not sure how that worked out, either. No alarm, no Rachel wake-up phone calls, no random noise from the common room parties -- just me waking up, ready to go. I wish every day was like that. I probably needed the few extra hours sleeping, anyway. And Math? Well, I can always catch up on that later. I'm sure it wasn't that big of a deal today, anyway.

But, I did indeed make it to my second class of the day -- English. I was assigned a lot of homework in that class even before the Arbor Day weekend, but the professor was kind enough to grant everyone passage into Mexico and a free trip the the Fiji Islands (he also told us that the homework will all be due Friday). I'm thinking I'll be doing a lot of homework this weekend.

And when I say "doing homework this weekend," I really mean, "writing journal entires and failing all my classes."

After getting back from English, I went on the computer, checked my mail, said hello to my entering-without-other-friends roommate, Kurt Douglas, and departed to the world outside. Instead asking where places are around the area, I typically just go out and find everything. Because of the intricacies of a big city like Orlando (strip malls, complexes, etc.) it's pretty easy to find everything I need. Let me pull up the official area map of the University of Central Florida:

As you can see, this is the official area map of the University of Central Florida. It's broken down into three main sections: OCEAN MIST, GRASSY KNOLLS, and BLOOD DRIVE. The gray sections represent things that are not important, i.e., car washes, banks, doctor's offices, etc. Here is a more in-depth breakdown of the official map, and everything that's located on those roads. Basically, if you travel on these roads, they will eventually lead you to these places:

OCEAN MIST

1. Regal Cinemas
2. Barnes & Noble
3. Target
4. Best Buy
5. Old Navy
6. Friday's (the restaurant, and yes, I'm calling it FRIDAY'S)

GRASSY KNOLLS

1. Wal-Mart
2. Post Office
   

BLOOD DRIVE

1. Firehouse Subs
2. Palm Coast (i.e., death, old people, and Bob Evan's)
   

As you can probably assume, I spend much of my time at OCEAN MIST. But, that's not to say that the other two roads are without great use. Target is a great store, but for some reason, I can't seem to stay out of Wal-Mart. The main reason for that is that I'm not used to stores not staying open for 24 hours a day except for severe weather conditions. So, Wal-Mart is my home for many late nights, as it was back in Palm Coast. Speaking of Palm Coast, I can't live without BLOOD DRIVE (much like the many people), because that's my ticket home (and other people's ticket to life).

Wanna see my package?

So, I had to find the post office today. All I had with me was the official area map. Now, I don't want to offend any UCF designers who may be viewing my journal, but I didn't really get much out of the official area map. I know, I know...it might look really detailed and handy, but it doesn't really tell you much. For example, I looked at the map and noticed that there is a giant "P" right next to Columbus (road, lane, drive, I'm not sure). Now, how am I supposed to know that "P" means "Post Office"? At any rate, I spent a HUGE AMOUNT of my time today searching for the post office. After about fifteen grueling minutes of searching, there it was --


For those of you who don't know, my Sony® DVD burner retired late Friday evening. Yes, the same DVD burner that I got with Judy at BestBuy. I'm not sure what the problem was, but, lucky for me, I called the tech support hotline and they were very nice about the whole thing. They walked me though a bunch of troubleshooting procedures.

NeoTechSupport: Yeah, so, dude, you're gonna wanna download the firmware update. Yeah, basically, it just updates the chip on the drive itself.
Me_Me_Me: So, I can download that from your web-site?
NeoTechSupport: What?
Me_Me_Me: ...the...update? I can download that from...
NeoTechSupport: Oh, yeah, yeah, firmware. Firmware. Yeah, you can get that right off our main site.
NeoTechSupport crunches on a potato chip.
Me_Me_Me: Right. So, this update usually works, right?
NeoTechSupport: It's...uhh, usually one of a few problems. It's either outdated firmware drivers or incorrect cables, or...haha...sometimes the drive just dies. Haha. But this will probably work.

"Huge sunglasses are a must nowadays," Judy says. "The trend is becoming more and more popular, and we all have Bianca to thank for that."

"Huge sunglasses are a must nowadays," Judy says. "The trend is becoming more and more popular, and we all have Bianca to thank for that."

It didn't work.

So, the man told me that if I mailed him the drive, he'd have it either repaired or he'd get me a brand new one. Hello? That's awesome. Why did I just spend two hours on the phone with you, SIIIRRRRRR? So, I mailed the drive away to the Sony Service Center at 123 Main Street in Manning, Iowa. Hopefully, we'll be getting that back soon. Seeing how my life went last night, and all my good luck with LEMONADE, I didn't take a chance on the package. I mailed it priority with full insurance for $300 worth of damage or loss. It only cost $5 for insurance. So, the total package cost was $11.45. Not bad.

Afterwards, I headed to Steak & Shake -- spotting it out of the cornea of my eye -- because I had a hankerin' for some Frisco Melt. Yeah, you know what I mean, Palm Coasters.

Then, I shot on over to Barnes & Nobel Booksellers, and bought a few things. One book that I purchased, entitled the curious incident of the dog in the night-time (yes, without CAPS) is amazingly interesting. Now, for those playing the home game, I don't read novels. I don't read novels. I don't read novels. I don't think I have to say it a fourth time, but I don't read novels. Let's break down all the books in my entire life (novels) that I've read:

Alas, Babylon
Frankenstein
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

And I truly believe that's it. Yeah, it sad. They're all school-required readings. But, I get fifty-thousand bonus points for reading Alas, Babylon because it's a summer reading novel. Ha ha, take that, USA!

So, I am in the process of finishing The Wedding. The new book that I'm reading, as I said earlier, the curious incident of the dog in the night-time, is a book written by an obvious British writer. With such great words and phrases as, "Wellington," "...this little bugger," and "Sir Charles," how could you be in America? Maybe that's why I find the writing style interesting. I think it's a genius book, and I've only read prime numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, and 31.

Interesting, isn't it?

The opening passage in this journal entry was from this wonderful book, as is this one:

I find people confusing.

This is for two main reasons.

The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using any words.

The second main reason is that people often talk using metaphors. These are examples of metaphors:

I laughed my socks off.
He was the apple of her eye.
They had a skeleton in the cupboard.
We had a real pig of a day.
The dog was stone dead.

The word metaphor means carrying something from one place to another. This comes from Greek [translations] "from one place to another," and "to carry." And it is when you describe something by using a word for something that it isn't. This means that the word metaphor is a metaphor.

I think it should be called a lie because a big is not like a day and people do not have skeletons in their cupboards. And when I try and make a picture of the phrase in my head it just confuses me because imagining an apple in someone's eye doesn't have anything to do with liking someone a lot and it makes you forget what the person was talking about.

I really like this book. It's told from the perspective of a fifteen-year-old mathematical genius who can't understand social interactions and human emotions. It's brilliant! I'll do a more in-depth review at some later time.

That's a lie.
To hear the salesman in action, feel free to download this clip.

Just when I thought that things were going normal out there in the common room, a man walks in -- and let me just make sure you all are paying attention. Nothing is happening. I'm sitting on the phone, talking to Rachel, and a man walks into my common room with a briefcase and a large bag that looks like it's home to a rifle. He whips a tripod out of the rifle case (so what? it looked like a rifle case -- you know what I'm talking about, one of those camouflage-style "i sit outside at the crappy cafeteria tables and hunt animals on the weekends" bags, but it was all black). He begins to set up some sort of convention-style displays in the common room, greets the EVIL, and then proceeds to talk very loudly and salesman-like. He started talking, and Kurt Douglas felt he had to pull the door almost all the way closed.

Nazis.

Dorm_Direct_Salesman: Hello, I'll only take up a minute of your time.

He was in there for about...two hours or so. It wasn't too long after he started talking that Kurt Douglas closed the door entirely. Darn it. But, that didn't stop me from recording a bit of the conversation.

I'm thinking it has something to do with one of those pyramid selling schemes online through some web-site. That's all I know at this time. Kurt Douglas missed a handful of calls. His cell phone must have rung four or five times. Can I just tell you that he has the most annoying cell phone ring ever conceived? I mean, espionage must be pretty insane to some people...but NO ONE would have his ring.
Care to listen to my roommates cell phone ring?

I worked on my homework for awhile tonight. Rachel helped me with some preliminary math problems, and then Alex finished them off for me. I hate math. I'm horrible at it. I love my friends, though. They always bring a smile to my face.

I basically just talked to people on my computer all night. I really do like talking online, despite what I often say about hating AIM conversations. I think I hate them when I'm trying to work on something. Perhaps I should put an away message up more often. I mean, that seems to be the popular thing to do nowadays. In fact, I signed on today wanting to talk with someone and was greeted with a very interesting phenomenon:

AIM screen names have been blurred to protect the innocent.

This is called the, "everyone who owns AIM and is online has an away message up, even if they are really there." With such classics as:

Those were some totally original away messages that I found lingering online earlier today, but I'm didn't want to include the profiles, screen names, or real names of anyone. I want to respect everyone's right to privacy.

Nowadays, your computer has to die before you sign offline.

My suite-mates friend, Joe, walked in awhile ago and offered me a DRINK. Now, at first I was going to ask him for a Coca-Cola, but I thought that would be silly. I knew what he meant when he said "DRINK." I think we all know. What kind of stupid college freshmen would I be to ask for a Cola-Cola?

Me_Me_Me: I'll have a Pepsi, please.