Let's take an IQ quiz.



When I lose at Magic cards, the other guy starts telling me what mistakes I made and what he did right. This is his way to share his skills and help out kids.

When I win at Magic cards, the other guy starts telling me how close it was and explaining why I was lucky. This is his way to calm down after a humiliating loss.

I think this is what I get for playing Magic cards.

I wonder what will happen, when I get bored of being a Magic-cards fan or a quizbowl fan. Maybe I will have to be a fan of real sports, like hockey or track and field. I already started being a fan of the Billboard charts and what movies gross the most money. But I am such a fan right now of some sports that no one really does after college.

Maybe when I get older I will still follow these things. I can be like the guy they interview in the bleachers who's never missed a game in fifty years. Or like the guy who travels from town to town following the Springsteen tour.

Or maybe I'll be a fan of grown-up things more. I can have my favourite members of parliament and I can get autographs from Guy Giorno and Kevin Lynch downtown. I can tell anyone who will listen how Cornel West is better than Slavoj Zizek, and who actually deserved the Nobel Peace Prize this year. That has to be worth something, I think.

Here are three songs you might like:



The National - The Geese of Beverly Road

The words are so carefree but the lyrics are so wistful. You can't believe it's really happy out there. Like maybe if someone's addicted to drugs and they're only happy because they didn't run out of drugs yet.



Phoenix - 1901

This sounds it sincerely happy. Keyboards are always happy. It says "Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey Hey". This song is a lot like a dog.



Gang Gang Dance - House Jam

This is a song you can dance to. I have probably danced to this song just walking home playing it in my head at some point. It's smooth but it's never slick. It doesn't waste any notes.

JIMMY: This is very exciting, this is Matt Belknap with a sports report. The Half-Assed Sports Report.

MATT: That's right.

JIMMY: Here's Matt Belknap with a half-assed sports report.

MATT: Well Jimmy, you know, the Lakers are in Denver tonight, looking to close out the series, the Western Conference Finals. They're hoping to get their second straight trip to the NBA finals, if they win tonight. They're up 3-2 on the Nuggets thanks to some inspired play by an injured Lamar Odom on Wednesday.

JIMMY: Okay, terrific, so that's basketball. What's going on in baseball?

MATT: Oh, I don't follow baseball.

from Comedy Death Ray Radio

Today there was a girl asking if anyone had bus tickets, so I said no, because I always say no. And then when she asked the next people it got really clear she was freaked out and stranded downtown all alone with no bus tickets.

Q: What did the second-last cereal-eater say to the person who had to finish the box of cereal?

When I see phone numbers written on bathroom stalls, that I am supposed to call for a good time, how many are pranks and how many would actually lead to a good time? I wonder often about this.

A: Eat my dust!

Self portrait because my bus pass photo was ugly
by Brendan

From a packet of trivia answers:

1 I would have gotten
- Ashoka

5 someone else might have gotten first
- Dude Where's My Car
- Borodin
- Call Me Al
- Flowers of Evil
- house of Orange

4 I wouldn't have gotten
- quintessence
- counterpoint
- redistricting
- Caravaggio

4 science so they don't count for me
- garnet
- utraviolet divergence
- dendrochronology
- Robert Hooke

9 I've never heard of
- Raft of the Medusa
- Main Street (Sinclair Lewis)
- Sidonius
- logotherapy
- American Names
- Journey to the West
- Narvaev
- Hermaphroditus
- the Isonzo

The packets in Canada are a lot easier than the packets in the Stanford Packet Archive. But it is still crazy how much stuff I have everything to learn about.

Also I'm trying to think what stuff I can learn about next. Right now it's American history, Roman history, and famous paintings.

Of the six I knew: one was a term paper, two are pop culture, three I basically just know through trivia.