What's wrong with this picture?

It's a little hard to make out, but that's Starbursts sitting on Kaleb's plate. He left them sitting there like he was just peeling off shrimp tails.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is how short on food we are. Instead of chips (like normal people) we are eating Starbursts with our grilled turkey sandwiches (or veggie burgers, if you have the enormously good luck of being me).

I am probably being immature, but . . .

The stock market makes me laugh. 

The Dow Jones over the last few days:

Friday: -200 pts. 

Monday: +400 pts. 

Tuesday: -275 pts.

So far today (by 11:30 AM EST): -297 pts. 

Can anybody give me a reason not to laugh at this? I'm kind of looking for one because nobody seems to be laughing. But honestly. 

I am amazed

This is awesome. Sheer, total awesomeness. I want you to read the next sentence with care and an open mind.

Today, off the coast of Africa, Somalian pirates hijacked a Ukranian freighter loaded with weapons.

You can't make this stuff up. This is like something out of a bad Tom Clancy novel. God has such a sense of humor. Here is the New York Times write-up on this. I think it's hysterical because the plain, old fashioned piratical talk is just put out there like it's Obama or Palin speaking.

Okay but first of all:

"Ukrainian freighter loaded with tanks, artillery, grenade launchers and ammunition"

What the heck? Ukrainians? Really? This is way too good to be true.

Also: 

Mr. Sugule spoke on everything from what the pirates wanted (“just money”) to why they were doing this (“to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters”) to what they had to eat on board (rice, meat, bread, spaghetti, “you know, normal human-being food”).

"Just money," and "normal human-being food" - I laughed so hard it hurt.

And best of all, then the New York Times asked why they stopped it. This is the funniest thing I've heard in a month of Mondays.  

"'We just saw a big ship,' the pirates’ spokesman, Sugule Ali, said in a telephone interview. 'So we stopped it.'"

First of all - oh my freaking gosh, that's amazing. Second of all - spokesman? Seriously? Can you imagine that conversation: "Can I talk to your spokesman?" "Um, yes, let me get him for you . . ." Whispers to friends with a hand over the receiver - "We have a spokesman? I don't know either but this American is asking for him!" 

First Week of NSA

I would like to apologize to my loyal readership for leaving you all in the dark as to how my first week of NSA classes is gone. I can only imagine all the heartache and soul-searching I have subjected you to. I intend to set this straight right now.

I'll start with the academic side first. . . Classes started on Wednesday August 20 but as every NSAer knows, the pain (and fun) begins before classes even start. At the end of convocation all the Professor chaps in their cool robes come up and tell their students what they want them to do for their first class. My class had to prepare for a small Latin vocabulary quiz (DOWN WITH BUSH, I've got political Turrets), read 190 pgs. of "How to Read a Book" (for Thursday), and finish C.S. Lewis' introduction to "On the Incarnation", and the first five books of St. Augustine's "Confessions." This was light compared to what the uppaclassmen [sic] had to do. They like had to answer the question "What is the meaning of life?" with an answer that doesn't involve a number, solve all the issues behind world debt, and cure cancer and AIDS (as long as they're curing cancer they might as well cure AIDS).

Anyway, my point is WE HAD IT EASY!!!

Anyway, I did all that with the help of my compadres who stayed late up into the night with me comforting me that it would "be alright."

Speaking of compadres, I still haven't spoken of any of the wonderful people I have come into contact with in this, my first week of NSA. I can't name them all but let me just tell you that they are wonderful. All the homework does not seem as daunting when I am around people with such good attitudes.

God Bless Us Every One.

and this my friends, is a dead muskrat:

P.S. my apologies to Charles Dickens; that last part just slipped out on its own