We went with Princess Cruises, which did, in fact, make us feel like princesses. My camera is dying a slow death, so I don’t have a lot of pictures — and the ones I do have are pretty terrible — but I’ve posted what I’ve got. It’s not like a cruise ship is particularly photogenic. Sure, it’s beautiful, but all you really need to do is close your eyes and picture a blend of water and opulence. That’s really all there is to it.

We left out of San Diego, CA on the Dawn Princess and cruised down to the Mexican Riveria, with stops in Cabo San Lucas, Mazatlan and Puerto Vallarta. Here’s a quick summary.

Day One

Erin and I need to wake up at 4 a.m. to catch our 7:15 flight out of Pearson. Erin sleeps, but I stay up all night playing Wii games. At customs, Erin is detained for over a half hour, likely because she has a Masters degree and is thus a threat to the American way of life. Things look dicey as she sits forever in the waiting room, but she’s cleared in time for us to make the gate.

The rest of the flight is uneventful as I take several Gravol and pass out in my seat. At San Diego airport, Erin’s luggage does not show up. She has terrible airport luck. Miraculously, her bag does come in with the next flight. One day in, we’ve already dodged two bullets.

Getting on the cruiseship is quick and easy, even though we are clearly clueless and don’t even have our boarding passes. The ship looks like this. We wander about and drink beers, still kind of baffled by this whole thing. The ship leaves port, we eat dinner, and head to bed early, exhausted.

Day Two

In the light of morning — and the blazing heat — we sit pool side but have no sun screen and end up with wicked sunburn. It’s still nice, though. I read a book for the first time in months. Then another. Then another. That’s really all I wanted.

It’s formal night on the ship, which we really haven’t prepared for, so we get some free room service and eat on our bed in our room. Our room is small and, without a window, seems to exist outside of time. But it’s cleaned twice a day and is comfortable, so I can hardly complain.

Afterwards we hit the bar and watch elderly people dance to the classics, which is truly one of life’s great joys.

Day Three

Ship docks in Cabo San Lucas, and we take a little boat to the beach to hang out for a little while. Mexico is striking in the shift from tourist-focused industry to abject poverty, but that’s kind of to be expected, I suppose. It was a really nice day, even if we did get harassed by so many people selling trinkets on the beach that eventually we just went back to the ship and sat by the pool some more.

Later in the afternoon we discover that the ship does afternoon trivia, which we actually win on our first attempt. Unfortunately we don’t really quite understand the rules and fail to claim our prize. We played every day after and, even when we joined forces with other cruisers, never managed to win again. Devastating.

At night we get a nice dinner in the dining room then go see Kevin Jordan do stand-up in the lounge. It’s way funnier than I expected.

Day Four

The ship hits Mazatlan, where we decide to go on a relativity cheap trolley tour. I took a zillion pictures of our tour guide and the things we saw, mostly because this was the one day when my camera actually worked reliably. There is also a crazy sequence where the tour guide, upon seeing a fish market, jumped off the bus and showed us lots of live sea creatures.

In the end, the tour is actually an elaborate ruse to get us inside a diamond store. Feeling betrayed, Erin and I meet up with a nice lady traveling with her wheelchair-bound mother and grab a cab back to the ship. I use the five dollars I was going to tip the guy as cab fare. This is my unique brand of Mexican justice.

Back on the ship, we do more poolside things, then lose at trivia, then go see another comedy act in the lounge. Only this one is a comedian-slash-magician, a mix that has only made me laugh once. The show’s terrible, so Erin and I leave early and get another good dinner and hit the bar for a while. The ship network is showing Transformers, which I’ve never seen, so I watch that until I fall asleep.

Day Five

Puerto Vallarta looks a lot like San Diego. It’s very urban. The ship even docks right across the street from a Wal-Mart. We walk around a bit and then go inside said Wal-Mart to buy the highest SPF sun screen we can get. Mexican Wal-mart is just like Canadian Wal-Mart except that nine-year-olds work the tills. Also: Spanish.

Back on board, we see Comedian Jim McDonald in the lounge. He’s good. We also lose at trivia, drink lots of Rum & Coke and then, once it gets dark, experience FIESTA NIGHT on the deck of the ship. Jimmy Buffet is played. Drinks light up. Men young and old whip their shirts off and dance together as some sort of sick, perverted contest. It’s great.

Day Six

Back at sea, there’s nothing to do except read, relax and lose at trivia twice. Erin is sleepy after fiesta night so I’m left alone for a few hours, in which I wander about the ship. On the deck near the front, I get to see three gray whales swin by. It’s neat.

It’s formal night again, so we eat in the Pizzeria. The entertainment is a ventriloquist who is actually kind of good, for a ventriloquist. There is definitely a limit to how funny ventriloquism can be, and this guy had clearly reached it. We make it back to the room and (shamefully) watch Enchanted in its entirety before going to bed.

Day Seven

Last day, and at sea again. It’s getting cold as we approach California, so we spend a lot of our time indoors, drinking and reading in the atrium area. The entertainment at night is a talent show, wherein an elderly man gets up and recites The Cremation of Sam McGee, complete with actions and lighting effects. It’s the best. Erin stands up and cheers “Whoo!” when it is over.

We enjoy a last-night dinner in the ship’s steak house, where we both have some pretty fantastic steaks and a bottle of wine (that I order as “your cheapest red”).

Day Eight

Making the long flight home is exhausting, especially as a bunch of snow fell on Toronto when we were gone. I manage to get my car stuck in the laneway behind our house at 1 a.m. and then swear a lot. Erin does a good job of pretending everything is cool. We go to bed with the car still stuck. I dig it out the next day.

Even with that, though, the trip was a lot of fun. I probably wouldn’t want to go on a cruise for all my vacations like some people do, as it’s a bit low-key and there’s not a lot in the way of culture, but for what I was looking for with this trip, it felt pretty perfect.

Rest of the Pictures.

I sort of did this in order. First, we have the outside of the house. It’s an attached townhouse, apparently built circa 1880. Though that window on the right is in fact ours — you can tell because there’s an action figure of a character from the television series Reboot on the window sill — the door in the photograph actually belongs to our upstairs neighbours. Our front entrance is through the basement, giving the whole thing a bit of a cavelike feel.

From the front door, you have the option of either turning left or pausing to look at yourself in a full-length mirror. You can also hang your coat up in a handy closet, though that is not pictured.

From there, you enter our living room which is quite spacious and has room for two couches and my awesome TV which is normally not quite so blurry. At the back of the living room, still on the lower level, is our bathroom, which is unspectacular. Behind it, there’s an even more unspectacular laundry/storage/furnace room, but I did not photograph that as it is kind of creepy.

Going upstairs, we come across our dining room/second living area. In it, there’s one of my favourite features of the apartment, a big hole overlooking the downstairs level. It may not seem like an overly useful thing to have in an apartment, but big holes are great for transporting furniture and, also, yelling at people without having to walk down stairs first.

To the immediate right of the hole is our guest room & office which is currently more of a “storage area.” Once we get a desk, this room will start to take shape. As is, it’s been a handy place to put stuff we have no other room for currently. Continue past the kitchen and we get to our bedroom. I really should have opened the blinds before I took this picture. Here’s a nicer angle.

Out the back door we have a nice back porch where we can barbecue and, also, look at my car in its parking space.

And that’s the tour. There will now be a short opportunity for Q&A.

This was my first visit to London and so I took a tons of pictures. All the standards are here: The Eye, Big Ben, The Rosetta Stone, Tower Bridge, Japanese Bananas, and a whole bunch of statues.

Erin, Rory and I stayed with Kristine, in an awesome apartment with the shower in the hallway. While she was a bit high on pain medication during our various travels, in no way can that be seen as a negative. If anything, it only served to enhance things. In this picture she is pointing at historical buildings, as if to say “Look, history!” It is one of the most iconic Kristine pictures I have.

The set is here.

Still to come: Photos of my new place in Toronto.

Some highlights:

• Oscar Wilde’s long and brilliant career is commemorated by perhaps the gayest statue ever in Merrion Square
• I generally suck at the whole taking-a-picture-of-myself thing, but I think I did a pretty good job with this one. Not shown: the sixteen other attempts which made me look terrible
• During the Dublinia exhibit at the Church of Ireland, Erin and I learned many things. First: Some history. Second: What Irish doctors wear. Third: More history (the black death). Well worth the 12 euros it cost us to get in.
• The sandcastles outside Dublin Castle were perhaps poorly located, but they were also really really cool.
• The Millennium Spike, located just over the river in Dublin, serves no obvious purpose. I liked it because it makes for a sort of nice phallic brotherhood with the City of Toronto, which I now call home.
• The Guiness Storehouse Tour was pretty cool, if only for the neat 360-degree sky lounge at the top. Still, though, when it comes to brewery tours, Keith’s is king.

Up next: London, England.

The highlight is undoubtedly Erin’s reaction to seeing the lobby of Trump Tower. It’s what happens when shock meets disgust.

The rest of the pictures are in the photography section.

I also have pictures for you today. These are, in fact, the last set of pictures from King’s College, completing a series that began four years ago with this series of photos. And geez have we all come a long way or what? I am very proud of all of us. We went from the vulgar and distasteful practice of crotch shots to become oh so very distinguished and intrepid. And far less blurry.

The following document my favourite Mike’s birthday party, some grad stuff and I even included some stills from the grad video. Well, from the beginning of the grad video. I was planning on capturing a lot more but watching the thing is just unbearably boring. Seriously, I’m not sure how we all sat still for that speech on Global Warming: it’s unbearable. It’s the kind of boring that makes me want to believe in spontaneous human combustion.

But these pictures are not boring at all! So click! And view!

The Highlights

• Like I said last week, our graduation was held in a church. A very pretty and old church. I’d bet it has some sort of historical significance. But, as I sat there, trying not to think about bursting into flames, I decided that this was a very inefficient church. There was a lot of wasted space. Look at how high that ceiling is! You could fit like another three storeys in there no problem. People could live up there or something. The best part about this is, watching the grad video, I can clearly pick out when I was thinking about the space, because I keep looking at the ceiling with a big scowl on my face.
• But that’s all very irrelevant! Because here come the graduates! Except you can’t see them because there are so many goddamned parents with cameras! Look at them! I know exactly how Princess Di felt!
• Some parents, when their kid was about to accept their degree, rushed right up to the stage and snapped a close-up pic. My dad, on the other hand, just sort of hung back and hoped for the best. This, apparently, was the best. I’ll always remember graduation day as the day my eyeballs imploded and became tiny glittering stars.
• And then it was over. I’m not sure what I was trying to indicate in this picture, except smugness. It was a very smug moment for me. Sort of a “I didn’t go to class for all of March and I still got a gold tube!” thing. There’s more of that to come.
• See: Smug. But then things got sweet. Look at us, being friends. Look at me, all left out, not having a sister.
• Later, we went out with our parents to the Five Fisherman where, in what was my last week in Halifax, I found out I like seafood. It was like a cruel joke. And, also, we are all very tired in this picture.
• These pictures are hideously out of order! But I like this one because the newspaper caption for it would be, like, “From left to right, David Elliott, looking surprised, Matt Elliott and Kristine Kozicki, happy, and Nicole Kozicki (sort of lurking).”
• And suddenly we’re back in time at Mike’s birthday! This happened several weeks before graduation. Or maybe just a week before. I don’t remember. But we barbecued!. Don’t tell our landlord!
• The lighting in these pictures is really bad, giving everything a sinister, cheap porn kind of vibe, not that I’d know anything about cheap porn. There are still some gems in the set, however, like this one, illustrating the long-standing moral that nobody wants their picture taken when eating a hot dog. It’s like, seriously, they’re eating a hot dog, leave them the fuck alone.
• This one, however, is the gem of gems.
• Danielle is magic, and nowhere was her magic more evident than on Mike’s birthday. She put together a ridiculous bowling and barbecue and dodgeball extravaganza that began with balloons and ended with trivial pursuit and white russians. She puts other girlfriends to shame, having raised the bar so high.
• I say all of that, by the way, to discourage any conclusions you might develop from this sad picture. And also this one, where Mike looks like he is about to cry.
• Here, I practice my graduation shrug. It is by far my best move.
• And then we go back to Grad, with some video stills! Here is the procession! Here is me looking smug (again!) and Katie looking unfortunately short! Short people got the raw deal in the procession, as indicated by the small part of Caroline’s head visible in this picture!
• More walking! Here’s Kristine looking like a deer! That’s a compliment! Here’s Erin looking pixelated! That’s also a compliment! And here’s a taciturn Bryan, who quickly turns happy, much to Rory’s chagrin!
• Lastly, I’ll close with The Graduation Shrug, which I talked about in detail here. I really didn’t plan on actually doing it, nor did I think I actually had done it, until Rory pointed it out to me after the ceremony. But there it is, on video: I take the degree, pause for a moment, and shrug. I’ll be such a terrible role model for my children.

And that’s it: here’s all I have. And now I keep getting e-mails from spammers telling me about the time they got a new TV that was so awesome it was like some sort of wonderful dream, so I’ll sign off from this message quickly without any sanctimonious sappiness. I’ll just say this: there will be more pictures, from Halifax and other places, of the same people, doing the same things. This isn’t really over; it’s just changing.

I hope you liked my pictures.

Matt

Plus, you know, I can’t think of any more jokes to tell about them.

Still, though, my camera occasionally finds it way out of the house on nights like those, and pictures are taken. Most of the below were not taken by me. And, really, they are not very spectacular. However, over the course of reviewing these 80-some pictures, I was kind of taken by the level of sheer camaraderie that just steams through the screen. You can feel it, can’t you? The people in these pictures are friends. Like, really ridiculously good friends. And four years ago — for some of us less than that — we didn’t even know each other.

So, what the hell, one more digital roll of us: drinking, laughing, posing ridiculously, dressed up like bag ladies, being great pals.

The Highlights

• As said, most of these pictures were not taken by me. Kristine and Natalie — who lives in the apartment below us and may spell her name entirely differently from the way I have here — took my camera when I was busy talking to other people. Their first course of action was to take pictures of themselves in various states of emotion. Here’s Natalie being uncomfortable; here’s Kristine being sinister; and here’s Kristine being serious and Natalie being a deer. What range!
• They didn’t stop there! Here’s Kristine playfully resting her face on Natalie’s cheekbone. And here’s Natalie again, showing us that, almost a decade-and-a-half later, that scene from Home Alone is still funny.
• I, meanwhile, just looked really good. Seriously, I’m not one to brag about my personal appearance generally but damn, I had everything going for me that night. I should have hit on more people.
• This was actually St. Patrick’s Day. I probably don’t need to mention that, as clearly you can see people wearing green and looking absurdly drunk which are two of the three telltale signs of St. Patrick’s Day. The other being, of course, the ridicule and shunning of homosexuals.
• I actually don’t even know if that’s true, the homosexual thing. I just made it up because I like to court controversy. If you are feeling anger about that — or anything — right now, this picture of Angus should cheer you right up.
• Kristine, once again emoting: this time as a young child, who just got away with something really bad. Something that either shocked or bored Bryan.
• These are my favourite kinds of photos
• These are my least favourite kind of photos. As near as I can tell through all that blur, Kristine has been possessed by a demon. A demon who is trying to do that “here is the church; here is the steeple thing” with her hands. A demon who is trying and failing, while Rory looks on, bemused.
• Can someone help me figure out which way is up in this one? It kind of looks like she is being suspended from a bridge over a placid river, but that can’t be right. There’s no river in the bar. So maybe that blue thing is a gym mat? In either case, she seems both dry and with her equilibrium in this picture.
• I asked Kristine the emoter to write captions for some of the pictures in this set, as she had the camera most of the night and I know very few people in the pictures she took. Unfortunately, she neglected to write jokes for them, leaving me to the task. Let’s see what I can do:
  • This is Ben Stewart and a girl Kristine describes as ‘dubious’. I hope she never reads this site but, if she does, I hope she takes me on my word that dubious is just another synonym for ‘delightful’. Ben Stewart has both a doppleganger and a love for science. He is probably a better waver than you would think from looking at this picture.
  • This is Kate McKegan, who has been in pictures on this site before. I’d look for them and link to them but I’d much rather point out that you can see deep inside her mouth. With surprising clarity too. Also, Kristine pointed out that Kate is not actually part-mummy in this photo, but rather “she broke her collar bone at a ruby game in Truro–it is all better now, but it juts.” I can only assume that the ruby game in question was Bejeweled.
  • Kristine does not know who this is and neither do I. The same goes for this picture. And this one! But that’s okay because you’re probably not even reading this anymore since I just reintroduced you to Bejeweled.
  • This is Tim Butters who was apparently recently featured on the front page of the King’s Website. I wish I could be featured on the front page of the University website. Maybe if I, too, had a hat.
  • Lastly, we have this picture, of which Kristine had very little to say. I’m not sure why, though. It’s not often you see such lackadaisical boogeying down. It’s a kind of phenomenon.
• Some of these just caption themselves, don’t they? Like: “Kristine teaches Rory to feel the groove” and “Sweater Cops.” Some, however, are more difficult.
• Rory just insulted Mark’s manhood.
• But soon all is forgiven!
• In the end, it was Rock Superstar Peter Gorman who once again encapsulated the spirit of the night. Standing at a bar, wearing an awesome green T-shirt, he sort of half-shrugs, and looks not unhappy to be there.
• There’s some more photos included, too, that go beyond the whole bar scene. Mike and Danielle’s domestic life is captured quite extensively. You might assume from these pictures that they spend all of their time preparing and consuming food in our kitchen, but that’s only because there are no pictures of them in the living room, watching TV.
• Some of the pictures here are utterly bizarre. Others just seem entirely unnecessary. But, really, what makes this set is this picture, of Kristine dressed a bit like a bag lady and a bit like a gypsy, pretending — and convincingly so — that there is an alien bursting from her chest. This is followed up by a series of photos, each conveying a certain emotion. There’s regret, reluctance and humiliation..
• The rest of the pictures are of Mike, in various stages of de-bearding. I recommend you skip them and just view the awesome animation I posted below!
• A gem at the end: I have a yo-yo. Look at that trick. I call it the up-and-down. I rarely pull it off incorrectly.

The whole series can be accessed by starting here.

Enjoy them!

Matt

Click below!

There will be actual writing tomorrow! Maybe those pictures! We will see!

The following people have been totally awesome and posted Photojournals in honour of this day that I made up:

• Caroline Gaston — friends only because she’s exclusive like that.
• Brad Young — ditto!
• Jill — who I don’t know but would probably sing to!
• Matt Elliott — who cannot believe just how big tuna are!

That’s it so far but it is possibly better than expected! Keep updating, you suckers, and comment here if you did it and are unknown to me.

My own photojournal follows if you click the link below!

This makes me sad. I recognized that my life was not the most thrilling or action-packed in the world, but I was convinced that a day like International Photojournal Day would certainly pack a punch! I’m not one to dabble in the supernatural, but I think it’s fair to say that I was utterly convinced that International Photojournal Day was not just a crazy idea I had once but rather a cosmic force so endless and eternal that it would bless us all with the light of a (metaphorically) earth-shattering day. I was so shocked this morning when I looked outside and did not see God’s Holy Host milling about in front of my house, bumping into each other and grumbling about their goddamn lack of free will. I expected to dance out the door this morning, my feet light like Crisco Lite, my muscles pumping with the energy of an energy drink, my smile as bright as ultrabrite headlights. I thought I might even sing.

But I did not sing. I grumbled out of bed before noon feeling like I had been hit with several tranquilizer darts. It felt like a hangover but I never even got to drink. I felt cheated and abused and maybe a little like I had amnesia.¹ So I’m sick and I’ve been sick all week. I don’t know why it happened but apparently it’s going around. Since I am just so much the social butterfly these days I am bound to get any sickness that is ‘going around’.² It is my curse.

My Photojournal, then, is not an awesome achievement. It does not even feature sea animals, as the last one did. The best it has going for it is a drawing of some pets. I only hope that I can salvage this sorry crop of photos with some witty commentary and some footnotes, which I enjoy because I imagine they make the article really really annoying to read.

March 16, 2006 Photojournal

On this day I had a big list of things to do. This is, of course, all relative, because most of my days consist of sitting around reading random bits of paper I find. You probably think that’s hyperbole if you don’t know me. But, trust me, I discovered the secret to a de-stressed fourth year of university and, if you rub me the right way, I will share it with you.³ In any case, I had the following things to do on this day, the day of Photojournal: get my grad photos taken, study for an Anthropology quiz, write an Anthropology quiz. And, friends, if you read on, you’ll find I accomplished all those exciting tasks and MORE.

1 p.m.

I know I said I woke up before noon, but I have no photographic proof. I thought it would be a good idea to wake up around 10 and thus give myself a few minutes to study for Anthropology in between my morning routine of lounging about and desperately trying to find reasons not to get out of bed. Unfortunately, on this morning my lounging and reasoning was so fierce that there was just no room for anthropology. I left at 1, 30 minutes before my appointment, and saw these kids playing hockey on my street. My first thought was very angry: those kids should be in SCHOOL. Then I realized I was about to skip my American Revolution class and felt ashamed of my anger. It’s probably March Break or something for them anyway.

2 p.m.

I got my grad photos taken at a studio downtown. I understand most everyone else had them done at the university itself, but I like to demand a higher echelon of quality when it comes to my promotional image. I also forgot to sign up for the in-school photo sessions. So things really worked out for me there. Calnen Photography was pretty weird, as nearly everything in the gallery was made of wood. I know that generally lots of things are made of wood but it was really evident in there. All I could think was wood wood wood wood when I walked in. It was like sixth grade health class all over again.

I usually hate getting my photo taken because it might help the police track me down if I ever were to pull a bank heist, but this Calnen guy was pretty good. He was all “Stop pursing your lips so much” and I was like “I do not know what else to do with them!”⁴ but then he talked about the ward room and beer and I loosened up and posed in a hat.⁵

3 p.m.

So after the photos I really should have studied Anthropology. Let me tell you about this Anthropology class: I need another credit to graduate. I decided to be extremely lame and take something ridiculously easy. This is how I ended up in Intro to Anthropology. My university degree essentially hinges on a class where it took four powerpoint slides for the professor to explain the idea of slavery in North America.

So I tend not to worry about it too much. Like today, I didn’t worry! After my pictures, I decided to walk further downtown, because it was a pretty nice day and also I wanted some more outdoor shots. I fully expected to take a nice picture of the ocean but then I saw this sign by the Maritime museum and felt like it needed elaboration. Click the image to see it bigger. First off, none of these animals look at all happy to be at sea. That monkey is clutching the goddamn mast like it was his mother’s finger, that cat has apparently been stabbed in the eye and those two mice are fucking in the bow of the boat.⁶ Sending your pets off to sea is a really bad idea to begin with but if you NEED to do it at least do it smart.

4 p.m.

It is time for my quiz. Thankfully the professor waits until the end of class to do quizzes so I reviewed all the powerpoint presentations in that time. I also watched the girl in front of me browse facebook for a good solid hour. Apparently there are a lot of pictures of blonde girls kissing each other on facebook. I was not aware. Thankfully my quick-studying and seeing all those faux-lesbians prepared me well-enough for the quiz, and I was able to, I think, ace it. I was pretty sure I got the one about slavery right, anyway.

5 p.m.

This is a stupid picture. I wanted to pick up a new Dalhousie Gazette after the test, but the box was empty. So in my rage I took a picture of the empty box. I’m not sure exactly what that note taped to the front of the box says. I’d zoom in but it’s probably all like “Dear sucker: Hah, now you won’t have a paper to idly flip through once and then throw into the big pile of similar newspapers in your room. Sincerely, some jerks.”

6 – 7 p.m.

Here’s where things really went off the rails. I was SURE I took a picture at 6 p.m. It was a really nice picture of something outside the library. Some people, I think. I didn’t know them but, still, they were photogenic. But it was not on my camera when I got home. Thus I do not know what happened at 6 p.m.⁷ I did, however, eventually end up on the fourth floor of the library with Erin and Kristine, who were there to do work. I was there for no reason at all, and was actually kind of bored for a while. Thankfully Bryan reminded me of the HeroMachine Hero Generator. So I spent a good half-hour generating colourful muscle men. This is an extremely cool and heterosexual thing to do.

8 p.m.

Erin and I go to the gradhouse bar every Thursday because we are closer to alcoholics than all of our other friends. While there on this day we sat near the pool table and listened as a guy and a girl had their “first date”. It was really funny, particularly when he asked her what her favourite movie about dancing was.⁸ When the time for a picture came, I opted to take a Picture of a Pitcher because I thought it was a funny concept. It was less funny, however, in execution.

9 p.m.

I am fudging the time on this one because I totally lost track of time while engaged in a really good conversation with Christina’s mom. We swapped journalism stories like I imagine Steinbeck and Hemingway did, once, assuming they ever met and, you know, did not hate each other. When I left Erin and Christina’s it did not look at all like it was snowing but the camera caught and illuminated every flake. Kinda pretty. Also cold.

10 p.m.

When I came home Mike and Danielle were wearing crowns. They made them from pipe cleaners, in a fit of inspiration derived from that America’s Greatest Inventor show. Crowns like these will truly revolutionize the world of monarchs and royals. I bet you could jog in a crown like this. It’s that sturdy and versatile — not big and bulky like older models. Later Mike made a scepter, also from pipe cleaners. Danielle was trying to make a feather boa, but god bored, and instead stole Mike’s scepter. But I think their kingdom will be all right.

11 p.m.

We watched the new episode of The Office at 10:30, which was amazing and perhaps the best ever (100 kids for 100 friends!), and then I went back to my room, which is very messy. I thought about cleaning it, but weighed that option against not cleaning it. Not cleaning won out, and here it is.

12 a.m.

For my last shot, I thought I’d post an update of my plant. In short: it is clearly not a plant. I think this was not actually intended to be a real plant but instead was meant to have spring snakes inside, that would jump out at the person who opened the can, thus ‘pranking’ them. But it was defective so there are no spring snakes. Only dirt. I really do not want to think that I am a bad father, so I have decided instead to embrace outlandish reasoning. On the brightside, however, the Megamen have found a new plant to worship — a very tiny cactus — which is growing up to be big and strong, albeit at a very very slow pace.

Self-Portrait

Taking a picture of yourself is hard. I should have got someone else to do it. I took a few shots but all of them looked too myspace-attention-whore for me to post without embarrassment. But when I hit the “Enhance” button in iPhoto this picture of me turned all yellow-backgrounded which kind of made it look artistic and if there is one thing I appreciate it’s totally stumbling into something resembling art. It kind of looks like I am looking down on someone in some sort of box and being like “Sorry, buddy, I have to keep you in this box.” I do not regret at all that I am putting this person in a box. I am feeling rather smug about it, apparently. I hope the person is a jerk.

And that’s it for this Photojournal. Scroll down the front page to view my first Photojournal, the one with animals. It’s less full of excuses!

Matt

¹ Is it possible to feel like you have amnesia? I do. If you asked me what I did for the entire year of, say, 1997, I could not tell you a single thing. I could have been a secret agent and then had my mind wiped.

² The key to health is solitude, my friends. Solitude and magnet therapy. Look it up.

³ Hint: it involves not falling in with those jerks who’ll tell you you should write a thesis. And also very strategic picking of courses. And also the healing power of magnets.

⁴ Other things I could do with my lips: pucker, pout. You can only do things that start with p with your lips.

⁵Mom, I ALMOST put the cost of these on your VISA. But I didn’t. Please remember this when you decide which of your three sons you love and cherish most of all.

⁶ I think that’s supposed to be a giraffe in the stern but I could be wrong. This is also bullshit as giraffes are probably the worst possible animal to have working the rudder. They have HOOVES.

⁷ I could have been a secret agent during this hour.

⁸ Her: “I dunno, what do you like?” Him: “Oh, Footlose.” Her: “I don’t know that one.” Him: “Yes you do.” Her: “Oh, that popular one.” Him: “I also like Dirty Dancing.” Her: “Me too.”