Matt is proud to announce the birth of 1999 Chevrolet Prizm.  Prizm has his father’s headlights and power locks, his father’s automatic transmission, parking brake, glove compartment, and rear-window defroster, and also his father’s air conditioning and AM/FM stereo.  A mutant gene resulted in power windows and a CD player.  The mother declined to identify herself or her contributions, but may have had something to do with Prizm’s 62,000-mile odometer reading.

After a month’s hard labor on Matt’s part, the birth attendants decided to extract Prizm surgically through the checking account.  Fortunately, there were no complications, except for a continued checking-account discharge . . .

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This morning, I’m waiting for my advisor to send me my PhD preliminary exam questions, and as I wait, I thought I’d show

a) 4 ways how taking the preliminary exams is like having sex for the first time:

1. There’s a divide between people who’ve gone through with it and those who haven’t. All the advice that the experienced can give you is to “close your eyes and barrel your way through it.”
2. Before, your entire identity can be summed up as someone hasn’t gone through it. On the other side of the fence, people say it’s now just . . .

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I often take the #17 bus home from work. It goes down Nicollet, turns right on 24th at the McDonald’s, and over to Hennepin. I don’t know what kind of SuperSized drinks they serve at the McDonald’s on the corner, but this Tuesday made the third time an Extrememly Drunk Guy got on the bus from that particular spot.

There’s no guesswork here — All three, I’m talking weaving down the aisle, shouting, stinking of gin, etc. The 5:30 in the afternoon kind of drunk.

Last time, a Really Drunk Guy sat down between me and another guy, put his . . .

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Come up with a caption for this picture I took while driving around Minneapolis:

Today, September 19, is Talk Like a Pirate Day! This will make some people very happy. Arrr. If you go with it, this could bring you pleasant distraction for at least 3 minutes. To help you facilitate that, try the Pirate Translator. I just plugged in that last sentence and got “Aye, t’ help you facilitate that, try the Pirate Translator. Gar.” but I’m disappointed because pirates don’t say “facilitate.” Oh well. See what results you get.

Ahoy and walk the plank.