6.17.04/03:41  geneva-on-the-lake, ohio                

It's not really a pretty town.  Upon closer inspection, it's a whole community made entirely out of ticky-tacky.  We'd go there every year when I was a little kid and I freakin' loved it.  Seeing it now, in it's run-down former glory, you'd think I wouldn't like it any more.  But that is not the case.

I'm sad we only got to stay for two days.  Next summer I want to stay for a whole week.  And maybe go during peak season instead of pre-summer.  Regardless, I spent the whole time defending my title as champion of air hockey and family scrabble.

And I'm happy I'm getting to spend some quality time with my sister.  She is so much cooler than I could ever hope to or want to ever be.  She's definitely taken over as head soul-crusher in our family, despite me and dad's best efforts.  Disappointing.

Tomorrow, (later today) me and Chubbs are going to the oak land to visit.  If you're in the area between 11 and 2 and want to hang out with us, ring the cell.  On some site-related news (yeah, we still do that), there is currently not a dirty haiku contest in progress.  There might be one before I leave for Japan, though.

If you'd like to submit some early entries for consideration, the e-mail is jbaugher@peachycomics.com.  I'm working on new songs and stories and all those good things and you should check back every eleven minutes until some come up, starting...now.  No, wait.  I mean NOW.  Right this second.  Go.

6.13.04/16:03  you and me and the devil makes three    

Hi there.  Nice to meet you.  Have you seen our excellent selection of prawns?  Perhaps you would like to try some?  Oh well.  Guess I will just have to keep them all to myself.  Raku.

[11/20] [language warning]

There's your sample.  In case you wanted one.  Even if you didn't.  Total, there are something like 45 pages so far, trying to get around 200 before I leave, but we'll see how that goes.

Tonight I'm hanging out with Chubbs.  Yay.  She's good times.  Don't mess with my sister, man.  That's how little boys wind up dead, killed by me.

6.11.04/01:36  jet fuel and bebop                      

My dad once told me that you can drop a lit cigarette into a bucket of jet fuel and it won't set it off.  I guess it takes more heat than that to get the stuff going.  Sometimes that's how I think of myself, powerful like jet fuel, but lacking that spark to set the chemical reaction in motion. 

I had this weird dream this morning.  Two men were in a convertible and they kept driving by my house every few minutes and spraying bullets at us.  I remember thinking to myself, 'This is MY dream, I don't have to take this nonsense from them.'

I stood outside and waited until they drove by again, and this time I ripped the driver out of the car by his neck.  After trouncing him, I went back for his comrade, snapping his back in two.  The last thing I remember thinking before I woke up was that if I could harness my dream potential in the waking world, I could do anything.  And maybe there is a way.

At least in my dreams, I can tell when I'm dreaming.  Sometimes in the real world I'm not too sure what's real and what isn't.

It's a dream when I'm spending time with you, one that I find myself waking up from with every trip home.  One that I want to keep with me even when I'm waking up, in the afterglow of our cashed time.  I want to grasp and keep your essence.

6.9.04/23:00  t-shirt design ideas                     

Yeah, I don't know very much about t-shirt designing.

But the design on the right was one I saw someone wearing in a dream, and I liked it too much to just forget about it.  The design below this is some kanji that translates loosely as, "wolf in sheep's skin".  Also fitting, I think.

6.7.04/22:57  thank you in seven languages             

thank you          you're welcome               english

arigatoo           doo itashimashite            japanese

gracias            de nada                      spanish

gratze             prego                        italian

asante             karibu                       swahili

merci              je vous en prie              french

danke              bitte schon                  german

This is just something I did while I was bored at work the other day.  Please forgive any intentionally ignored umlauts and whatnot.  I'm not going for perfect accuracy.

Freaking umlauts.

Jesse called me at 2am yesterday wanting to go to West Virginia to this store of ill-repute to buy some evil toy.  Of course I tagged along, how can I refuse an offer like that?

This is Meredith.  Or Melanie.  Or something.  I forget.  People always want to know why you're taking random pictures of them.  It's kind of irritating to be getting asked so many questions...

We went into the random diner and some old hillbilly guy looked at us and was like, "You guys are in a band, ain'tcha?"

Of course.  We're famous.

I mean, Jesse is.  I'm not.

6.6.04/18:18  hang up the hat for a minute             

I'm tired.  Like kuttakuta tired.  I think I need a few days off.  From you, from this, from the bad nightmares, from the constant worries about piles of yen.

I just want some time where I don't care about the new Harry Potter movie or which senile ex-presidents have been dying for the last ten years. 

I'm plagued by this voice telling me everything is going to be okay.

And I just want that voice to shut the hell up.  Who wants to live in a world where good always trumps evil and the heroes ride off in the sunset and the prince and the princess get to make puppies?  That world sucks.  Everybody's seen that world.

So I think there may not be any updates for a few days.  I'm just not feeling very up to it right now.

6.4.04/00:05  sofa king brilliant                      

I got my computer to work again!  Want to know my secret technique?  I clicked on this thing that took my computer back in time to a time when it actually worked.  It was freaking sweet.  Now there can be pictures again!

Like check out this shot of Jean in scary mode from the top of my steps all decked out in her work hat that she wears to work so people can ask her if she's a member of the Red Hat Society and she can say that she isn't.

And I think this picture right here just says it all.  I mean, my eyes are so evil and red, just like in real life.  Duct tape has so many uses.  Like in my old car, I patched together a good deal of the engine with the stuff and it ran tight as a drum.  Sofa king brilliant.

And here's Jesse in his sweet-ass tie.  I mean, it's just so...sweet-ass.  He told me not to take a picture of him, but I think deep down he wanted me to.  Or probably deep down he just hates me more.  Actually, it's not very deep down when he says, "I hate you."  But I know he doesn't mean it.  He's just excited that I brought him CD's while he was stuck in Sunoco hell.  Wouldn't you be?

6.3.04/02:51  scrambled eggs are how i feel            

I know that doesn't make much sense.  I guess I should explain.  The first and most important thing I have to tell you is outlined in the opening paragraph of this e-mail below:

From:   Misako Hashimoto <xxxxx@kansaigaidai.ac.jp>

To:     jbaugher@rocketmail.com , xxxx@pitt.edu

Dear exchange student from the University of
Pittsburgh:

We are happy to inform you that you have been
admitted to the Asian Studies Program at Kansai
Gaidai for the fall semester of 2004. All the faculty
and staff members of the Asian Studies Program
join me in extending you a warm welcome. 

[...]
 

Yeah, so I'm really going to Japan!  I'm mounds of excited about that, and it's a great thought to know that I can spread my own special brand of mischief to an isolated and delightful culture.  Mwahahahaha. The other e-mail address is my friend Aubrey who is going too.  We were the only two out of all the Pitt students to get accepted, which makes me happy but I feel a bad for my friends who didn't get in.

[formula] rhyming poem

That's a poem I wrote because I'm feeling creative.  The thing that drives me to be creative is to get my heart stomped on and then quartered by rabid wolves.  If you've never tried it, it's fun times.

On a more serious note, I went to Traffic Court today to fight this ticket that I got for parking in a spot you're not supposed to park in between 4 and 6pm.  The judge said he'd reduce it from 45 to 15 dollars, so I guess that's better than nothing.

After I got home and took a nap, I took a shower.  I was singing in the bathroom, and when I came out there was a JEAN sprawled out in my hallway in my supposedly empty house.  I used to have bejesus in me but she scared it all out.

I shrieked like a little girl.

And yesterday, I burned my left pointer, middle finger, and thumb on a hot pan.  But I didn't shriek then, I just cursed.  Instead of swelling up like they should've the skin just died and turned into calluses.  Probably because I fell asleep clutching a can of cold ginger ale.

I really wanted to show you pictures today, but MS Paint is broken and I don't know how to fix it yet.  It's the only program I know how to use for extracting pictures easily from my camera.  Sumimasen, moosiwake arimasen.

6.1.04/00:27  reasons why i don't drink very often     

The most obvious one is because I'm skinny and I have kind of a low tolerance for alcohol sometimes.  Especially when I stop counting, and especially when I don't know how much wine is too much wine.  I think it's something like five or six glasses, but I really don't know.

[land of you] mp3 file <lyrics>

Of course it's a new month now, so May is in the archives.  It's rabbit rabbit day again, but I'm experimenting with not doing that to see what it does to my overall state of luckiness.  Last month I didn't say it and I'd say I was reasonably lucky, however you gauge something like that, I don't really know...

I have so many pictures to explain, so many important things to tell you about.  I guess I should just start at the beginning and follow that to the end, it's usually the best way to go about it, eh?  This first one is Aubrey getting a cigarette and me sorting through music for something not punk music.

Yeah, there's Yangu-san and Cica-san sipping some healthy non-alcoholic water.  Heh heh heh.  Water.  If you wait until tomorrow, I will tell you something very exciting, show you pictures I took to fight a parking ticket, and one of me drunk and duct-taped.  Benri.