Speaking Nihuanese

Photo

Sun, 24 Feb 2013 02:10:54 -0500

Los Angelenos Cannot Handle the Cold. Period.

Mon, 16 May 2011 12:56:00 -0400

I will never understand how my friend Vivian Wong can justify wearing a “parka” in 70-ish degree weather.

Last March, fresh from a wonderful experience with graduate examinations over in Connecticut, I decided to take a mini-vacation to warm-as-holy-fucking-hell California. The weather in New York was far less than accommodating: freezing-holy-shit-rain and wtf-god-why-do-you-hate-us-all-wind.

Upon landing in Los Angeles, I am greeted by the most fantastically amazing weather in the world. We’re talking wow-I-can-run-around-naked weather. I felt an urge to jump into the ocean and start high-fiving dolphins and other creatures that I erroneously attribute to warm, tropical-esque climates.

Lo and behold, I am greeted by Vivian and her fur-lined coat. The first thing she says to me after our traditional greeting (something along the lines of “HOLYOMGWTFHELLO”) is “why aren’t you wearing a jacket?”.

This is the most striking thing that I noticed about Southern Californians: They are (mostly) wussies when it comes down to experiencing minor bouts of climate-related discomfort. Most days I was in Los Angeles, it was warm, bright, and sunny. You could die from monotony seeing that weather every single day. As a result, stories about weather for Los Angelenos can achieve almost legendary status.

This is especially true among my Californian friends living on the east coast. Let me present, for example, how east-coasters and west-coasters both interpret a simple tale: driving out in the snow to buy food.

EAST COASTER TALKING TO FELLOW EAST COASTER: I was about to go to the supermarket when I saw snow through my window. Only a tiny bit was sticking to the road (it was maybe only a quarter of an inch), so that was a relief. I had my ice scraper in the trunk, so I cleaned the snow off the car pretty quickly. Then I went out and bought milk. Overall, not too bad.

LOS ANGELENO LIVING ON THE EAST COAST WRITING TO FRIENDS AT HOME: I was about to leave the house today when I saw SNOW outside my window. The first thing I’m thinking is “am I going to die”. I look outside: there’s a quarter inch of this slippery-icy-cold-death shit on the ground. Cleaning snow off your car is one of the worst things ever: It’s cold, wet, and it’s just terrible. I tried to brush it off with my hand, but I went numb after only a minute or so!

I was shivering during the whole drive because we LA-ers only buy light parkas and see no need for heavy coats in a region where it snows.

I kept feeling my car slip and slide in the snow. I was terrified. The snow kept falling - I felt like I would be buried in this cold shit. When I got to the supermarket, I ran in and bought my milk. It was cold. I was really unhappy.

Lo and behold, upon seeing Vivian’s parka in the parking lot of LAX, I could not stop making fun of her. During the 40 minute drive back to her house in Pasadena, I kept making obscure references to Christmas carols and winter sports in an attempt to make her feel increasingly uncomfortable about how “chilly” it was outside. That night, I slept like a rock star.

A few days later, while visiting a friend out in the desert, an earthquake struck Pasadena. Upon hearing Vivian’s account upon my return, I suffered from a several-days-long fit of paranoia about the ground shaking uncontrollably underneath me. I would stay awake at night so as to be completely ready to bolt out the door during a quake. Vivian had a field day.

For all their fuss about minor changes in the weather, LA-ers are amazingly resilient when faced with the prospect that their city will be leveled by a gigantic earthquake one day. I remember my friend Nicole shrugging off a question about the “big one”, simply responding with “Yeah, it’ll probably happen”. When a big quake hits, Californians seem to go about their business as if nothing happened. An East-Coaster, on the other hand, will be traumatized for life.

Despite my fear of earthquakes, I will keep pointing and laughing at Los Angelenos and their inadequacy to handle cold weather. I’ll just pray that those same people don’t see how big a pussy I am when the tables have turned.

Confessions of a Cheesy Snack Addict

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 03:39:00 -0500

I remember that as a young thirteen-or-so-year-old, I dreamt that a box full of Cheez Doodles had fallen from the sky. It had landed, very conveniently, near a comfortable chair and a television (I don’t remember what was on, but I’ll just pretend like there was a Star Trek marathon on and be done with it.).

“Wow” I thought to myself. “This is the greatest day of my life.”

Then, like all dreams, it ended just as I was about to dig in. I sat there in bed contemplating what I had seen. Then I thought to myself: How amazing would it be if I could have an unlimited supply of Cheez Doodles that would appear at my command? Of course, it would be impossible under the current circumstances: Mom would say no. Boo.

In high school, my economics teacher, the great John Masiello, once told us that college killed macaroni and cheese for him. Apparently, his lack of culinary prowess resulted in a gooey, cheesy dinner every single day. After eating this for a year or so, he promised he would never eat macaroni and cheese again. Of course, none of us believed him at the time. We were foolish. We were so young and foolish.

My freshman year, I remembered my age-old dream - the lifetime supply of Cheez Doodles. It was there at my fingertips; realizing that underclassmen were fools, my college granted us 400 dollars worth of credit to waste on junk food in the nearby convenience store. My roommate, Craig, and I promptly ran down and purchased 20 dollars worth of Cheez Doodles.

The following morning, I woke up with my fingers crusted in cheese dust while surrounded by five or so bags of the cheesy ambrosia. I had survived a dinner of the gods: I ate five bags of Cheez Doodles and mom couldn’t say no. It was a dream come true. The next day, I decided to eat only Cheez Doodles all day. Orange fingerprints dotted my keyboard and cheese dust covered the ground like snowfall. Life was so good. It was then that I realized that I had become a Cheez Doodle junkie.

Eventually, Cheez Doodles weren’t enough to satiate my daily fix. My body craved more; by 11PM, my body would shake uncontrollably from withdrawal. With Craig by my side, I began to clear out the convenience store’s supply of Hot Fries and Munchos. Our “24” marathons became lost in a cheesy yellow haze. Soon enough, my life turned upside down. My girlfriend couldn’t stand my cheesy breath anymore. My friends started to drift away from me. It was me (and maybe Craig) and my snack foods.

Of course, the events in the last two paragraphs are wildly exaggerated.

Still, I remember one day, I started to snack on a bag of Cheez Doodles and then stopped suddenly. Something was different. I had overdone it. Because of my first couple months of college, I could never eat another Cheez Doodle ever again.

Over the course of my undergraduate career, various foods and drinks followed the path of the Cheez Doodle. Among them were chicken tenders, canned soup, beef ravioli, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, Nestea, hamburgers, General Tso’s chicken and even microwave popcorn. By my senior year, I had effectively stopped eating most everything I had loved as a high schooler. A sad state of affairs indeed.

The same has happened to some of my fellow graduate students. At almost every event, the university throws a wealth of beer and wine in our direction; they even gave us our own bar. Our dining hall also serves us alcohol on a fairly regular basis; it’s every underage drinker’s dream. Still, most of the graduate students remained ambivalent to the presence of booze. The university had effectively killed alcohol for them. I was shocked.

Reeling from this discovery, I ran over to a convenience store and purchased a bag of Cheez Doodles. After returning to my room, I put it on a chair opposite my desk and stared for awhile. It was a showdown, much like you’d find in a traditional spaghetti western. I had to prove something. I had to give my fellow graduate students hope that they would find love in alcohol again.

And so I opened that bag and I scarfed that shit down. Ten minutes later, I had finished the entire bag. I sat there bathing in nirvana; the love for Cheez Doodles had returned. It had taken four years, but it had finally come back.

Then something popped into my mind that had never occurred to me as an undergrad.

“James, if you keep eating this shit, you’re going to get fat.”

And I swore off Cheez Doodles once again.

Oh no.

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 04:31:00 -0500

Every now and then we feel an urge to whistle. Whether in the shower, inside an elevator, in a library, or at an important academic talk, humankind’s need to whistle transcends silly etiquette. When you have a song trapped in your head, you must whistle the shit out of it.

Since the summer, I’ve had a song stuck in my head. Actually, let me rephrase that: I had a random 5 second loop (you’d usually hear it at the beginning of the song) trapped inside my noggin and I couldn’t identify it. Now take that bit and imagine me whistling it over and over again while writing my papers in the library. I had to admit that these were the single most addicting rhythms I had heard in awhile, though I couldn’t remember when I had heard them.

So this went on for the entire semester. I’d grab some food whistling “dunnn dunn dunn dunn dun dundadun” over and over again. Then the same when I was checking out my books. Then once again when I was in the shower. Eventually, I couldn’t take it anymore - I had to figure out what that damn song was.

My first idea was to check out a “tap-the-song-and-identify-it” website, which forced me to tap out the rhythm of the song in the library (which made me look like a genuine moron). My top results were:

1. O Christmas Tree

2. It Had To Be You - Henry Connick, Jr.

3. I Get a Kick Out of You - Ethel Merman

Though my instincts told me that none of these had the poppy-vibe that I’d expect with the song trapped in my head, I checked them one-by-one. No luck.

Reeling from defeat, I did what any sensible man in my situation would do. You see, everyone has that Emergency Plan B when it comes to things like this. This was a life-or-death situation - if I didn’t figure out what the song was, my head would probably explode. And then somebody would have to clean that shit up.

My Emergency Plan B was to ask the woman who swipes our cards in the dining hall what the damn song was.

So, walking in for dinner, I handed her my card and asked her the poignant question.

Me: Do you know what this song is? It goes “dunnn dunn dunn dunn dun dundadun”.

Card Lady: Eh? Can you do that again?

Me: “dunnn dunn dunn dunn dun dundadun”.

She had me do this for a couple minutes, almost as if she was enjoying it. Since it was a catchy tune, I subconciously began to bob my head while moving my hand up and down in midair. I looked like a fool.

Then she answered: That’s that one Justin Timberlake song - the Lovestoned one.

My reaction was a mix of shock and horror. No amount of Cheez-Doodles-and-sushi binge eating could save me from the realization that I had betrayed my raised-in-the-streets origins by whistling Justin Timberlake for the past three months. Nobody at home would take me seriously anymore. I imagined myself on a tv talk show with my future kids, apologizing for all the mistakes I had done as a graduate student: This was mistake Numero Uno.

I was forced to turn to my Emergency Plan C. Download the song, listen to it as much as possible, get sick of it, and purge it from my brain forever.

So I spent three weeks listening to that song at full blast, risking my hearing in the process. Along the way, I got the swine flu, ate a whole turkey, became a kung fu master, and single-handedly won the War on Terror. After week three, I couldn’t take it anymore. I was sick of Justin Timberlake and his lovestoned escapades. Finally, I was done with that damn song.

Two days later, I got a new song to whistle in the library. Only it’s impossible to properly whistle, so it just sounds crazy stupid. The only way to transliterate it is as “dundada dundada dundada dundada” going up and down etc etc.

It’s “My Love” by … Justin Timberlake.

Fuck.

The Temptation of Law School

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 23:15:56 -0400

It’s tough to reconcile the thought that I’m giving up a successful career for that of an academic. Everyday, I see the law students piling into Stirling Law; it’s almost like it’s happening in slow motion. I stand on the sidelines watching these future success stories walking to class. Thinking about it now, each one of them will make almost three times (or more) than me in their careers as lawyers, and it’s hard for me to swallow that.

Every week, I go through something that I’ve been calling “the fear”. I sit in my room working, when suddenly the thought comes to mind: What if being an academic is a mistake? What if I went to law school instead - could I have a guarantee of a well-paying job and provide for my family? Could stay in New Jersey and live where I want to live, nd not necessarily where I need to?

There are a lot of disadvantages to being an academic. First, the pay is lousy for a PhD graduate - you’re comfortably middle class, but you’re not rich. Second, you have no freedom to choose where to live - university vacancies appear all around the country, so I could be anywhere from Maine to California for the rest of my life. Third, there is no guarantee that I can find a job. I could very well be unemployed for the rest of my life.

That’s why law school’s been shooting around in my mind lately. I want more control over my life, and I want to be paid more. But I love what I’m doing now, and I want to do it forever.

What to do?

The Motherfucking Asian Bus

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:53:00 -0400

There’s a phenomenon here at Yale which I term the “Motherfucking Asian Bus” (MAB). Imagine, for example, that you’re having a great day - you aced your tests, you had a great meal, and now you’re sitting down in the library and enjoying a book. Life is perfect, so it seems.

Then, out of nowhere, someone takes a picture of you from about a foot away without asking. You look up, and you discover a herd of Asians talking on their cell phones and taking pictures of everything.The best thing is that you can’t fight it - any questions thrown their way will be met with a mass freeze and a wave of blank looks from the crowd. This is mostly hilarious, because many of them are staring at you in mid-pose (My personal fav - grabbing a book from the shelves and cogently staring at it).

You see, the Irving Music Library is one of the best spots to read on campus - but it’s also a breeding ground for MAB groups. It’s like having an event with free food; within the first five minutes, at least fifty Asians have walked in, stolen all of your food, then ninja-vanished out of the room. At roughly ten minute intervals, an army of Asians will run into the Music Library, take pictures, then clear the fuck out. And you’re sitting there in silence wondering how they got away with raping your face with flash photography.

It reminds me of a movie I once saw in high school. The first twenty minutes of the movie (which we were not allowed to see) consisted of a violent rape. The remaining ten minutes (which we were allowed to see) consisted of the girl laying on her back with her eyes wide open.

That’s roughly how we all look after being raped by the Motherfucking Asian Bus. Except we know that in ten minutes, we’ll have to go through it all over again.

Not cool, fellow Asians. Not cool.

(via fuckyeahspace)

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:02:02 -0400

(via fuckyeahspace)

A Guide to Americans, courtesy of the Office of International Student Services

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:53:00 -0400

Here are some excerpts from information packets that have been sent out to international students studying at Yale:

1) One thing that Americans are not comfortable with in conversation is silence. Research has shown that Americans are uncomfortable with silences longer than three seconds, whereas other cultures may take up to seven seconds or more to respond. Even after asking a question, if there is a prolonged silence, an American will normally begin talking again without waiting for a response. The three second rule does not apply when the participants of the conversation are involved in a non-verbal activity together, such as working on a lab experiment, playing sports, or doing household chores.

2) Even if they don’t know you, in the U.S. people often say, “Hi, how are you?” or “How are you doing?” and then do not wait for a response. This is a polite phrase, not really a question. You can respond by saying “Hi”, or “Fine, thanks.” You may also hear an American say, “Drop by anytime” or “Let’s get together soon.” These are friendly expressions, but they may not be meant literally. While they may be sincere, people are busy and do not always follow through on the invitation.

3) Possible stereotypes in the U.S. might be that all Chinese are polite and good at math, or all Italians are emotional.

4) As part of the warmth of the culture Americans will often speak in an exaggerated way. Enthusiasm can sometimes rise to the level of being unbelievable, “Great to see you! You look fabulous. Let’s have lunch soon!” (Wanning 42) The American is not being insincere in this common style of expression. The meaning of this is probably something like “It is pleasant to see you and have this exchange on the street and it would be pleasant to see you again.”

5) Americans praise those who take initiative and do what they want. If you want to put on your jogging shoes and run non-stop across the country from South Carolina to California and back, that’s great!

Found at: http://www.yale.edu/oiss/living/culture/americans/index.html

Farewell New Jersey!

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 00:54:00 -0400

Oh New Jersey, how I shall miss you!

Smallworld is now the greatest board game ever.

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 12:58:00 -0400

Some of you might already know this: I am a board game fanatic.

Video games are great too, but they just cannot beat the refined awesome of a good board game. You don’t need “dynamic shadows” and “high density particle effects” to enjoy it. Instead, all you need is a group of ignorant, and potentially boneheaded, people who don’t get the message from your description that playing said game would be a bad idea.

This new game is called Smallworld.

I won’t even tell you how to play the damn game. Instead, let me tell you about the profound effects that this game had upon my life.

After playing about an hour of Smallworld, I decided to drive home with Craig and his brother Scott in tow. While en route, women everywhere started pummeling the sides of the car. At first I thought they were trying to kill us, but it turns out it was quite the opposite! Women found us irresistable because of our awesome choice in board games and were trying to rip us out of the car!

Craig was the first unfortunate victim. They got him by his beautiful golden hair and started making out with him nonstop on the sidewalk. We think he died of asphixiation. Seeing this, Scott tried to jump out of the car and run to Craig. I then realized that Scott wasn’t trying to save his brother, he was trying to enjoy the same fate as him. As Scott disappeared into a cloud of estrogen-fueled lovemaking, I quickly drove away and swore that next time, we wouldn’t underestimate the powers of such a game as Smallworld.

Of course, I could be lying in the hopes that people, having believed my story, would start playing this game.

But seriously. Find and play Smallworld.

[note: it appears that women are immune to this type of marketing.]

A Crushing Burden

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:14:00 -0400

[Apologies for the lack of an entertaining post.]

I’m not the kind of person who can handle mountains of compliments or praise. I wasn’t raised that way. It makes me cringe. I don’t want to hear about my accomplishments or non-accomplishments. I just want to feel okay with who I am and what I’m doing - mostly, I want to be left alone.

I’ve had this strange thought in my head that I wanted to move out and start over. Meet new people and recreate my whole persona. I want people to forget that I ever got into the school that I did, and I *really* want people to stop advertising what I’m doing with my life. I want people to meet me, discover that I’m just an average joe, and then move on.

I’ve been known to brag, but who hasn’t? If something good happens, you rush to tell someone. The difference between myself and most others is that, regardless of the conditions, I feel guilty about it later. I’ve spent an entire semester and summer telling people that I’m moving to New Haven for graduate school without clarification. I apologize if I sounded like I was trying to drill my successes into your heads, but I feel like word got around and it got too far. The fact is, I wanted to make sure as few people as possible knew - but everyone told everyone. I hate that.

Once everyone found out where I was going, I felt terrible about it. The mere mention of the school sounds pretentious. I never asked for their trademark elitism and traditional scumbaggery. I just wanted to go to a good school. I have a dream of being a professor; I thought that this would do it for me.

I haven’t been truly proud of myself for years; you can ask my closest friends. Just because I’m going to a school called Yale doesn’t make me the same as all the rest of them. I’ve fought all my life to stay away from that kind of self-absorbed thinking. I don’t feel any better, nor more accomplished, for going there. The fact is, I don’t think I deserve any of this.

I feel like people hate me for where I’m headed to. I think people hate me because they’re sure that I’m enjoying it.

Well, the fact is that I feel guilty as hell. It’s a huge burden to carry on your back. I feel like a lot of friends dropped off my radar because of it. I can name several right off the top of my head.

This has been bothering me for awhile, believe me. I’ve lost plenty of sleep over it. I’m fighting to be seen as normal again. I don’t think I’m winning.

But you can’t win all of your battles.

Victory Road - or Road of Lost Innocence?

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:39:00 -0400

In exactly ten days, I’ll be sitting in my dorm room at the Hall of Graduate Studies in the heart of Yale University. I’m not sure how I’ll be feeling once I’m all moved in - maybe exhausted? Perhaps overjoyed? Perchance petrified? (Bonus points for use of “perchance” and alliteration!)

The only certainty is that, starting on the 20th, I can flaunt my false sense of elitism by doing things that ordinary James was never able to do. For one, I might take up smoking cigars and eating caviar. I’ll play games like squash (how the hell do you play squash anyway?) and start yachting in the Long Island Sound. I’ll stitch little blue Y’s into all of my clothing and wait for someone to ask what it stands for. Then I’ll simply take the cigar out of my mouth for a moment, look at the Y, and then simply snort, “Oh that? Why that stands for Yale. You may have heard of it,”

I REALLY hope that doesn’t happen.

If there’s one thing I’ve noticed, it’s that it’s hard for me to think of myself as one of them. It’s a huge burden, realizing that you’re going to go to a school that is famous and yadda yadda yadda - I felt it when I got accepted, and I feel it ten times stronger now. I should be excited, but I’m more nervous about the experience.

I recognize that the above profile is, in many ways, what many people see a typical Yale student as being. A hyped-up elitist scumbag. At least that’s how I’ve seen it.

So I’ll make you a deal. I’ll go off to school and study. Then I’ll come home and teach you how to play squash, how’s that?

My Dad and Snakes on a Plane

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 02:41:00 -0400

Note: Facebook comments are disabled from the blog because of a couple random issues - names and avatars won’t show up. I contacted Disqus to work out the issue, but for now, stick with the tried-and-true regular method for now, folks.

—

With movies, the true gems are overwhelmed by a mountain of crap. The directors who make these kinds of films are usually ignorant of why their movies blew the big one. Of course, after discovering that they were completely serious about making a good film, our own minds are blown in turn.

Then there are movies that intentionally suck. Snakes on a Plane is one of those movies. I believe hearing somewhere that Samuel L. Jackson (has anybody every said his name without the “L.” in the middle?) refused to stay on the film if it was renamed. The novelty factor of this film alone should determine that this movie shouldn’t be ‘good’.

Little did I realize that my own dad, having rented this movie last night, would walk up to me and tell me how he thought it was a “great film”. It made perfect sense to him why there was a crateful of deadly snakes on an airplane. The only thing that seemed to bug him was the diverse representation of various snake species; it would make more sense, apparently, if the “snakes on the plane” were made up of only one or two varieties instead.

I remember once showing my dad “O Brother Where Art Thou”, one of my favorite films of all time, and seeing him grumble upon its ending.

“The film doesn’t make sense,” he said to me. “what kind of a man would kill someone with the Christian cross?”

Apparently, he’s never read the Bible.

Artist: The DecemberistsSong: Won’t Want For Love...

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 02:38:00 -0400

Artist: The Decemberists
Song: Won’t Want For Love (Margaret in The Taiga)
Album: The Hazards of Love

God bless the Decemberists and their hyper-literate lyrical masterpieces.

Enjoy!

Fudgie the Whale is Man's Gift to God

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:33:00 -0400

Note: Now you can subscribe through either e-mail or RSS feed. Check out the links on the right hand side under the description.

I’ve been craving a Fudgie the Whale for about a week now. I’ve always wondered - if you have a choice of any cake in the world, why would NOT choose an ice cream cake? If you think about it, you can make almost any other cake into an ice cream cake. Just choose a better mix of flavor.

I was, however, appalled to discover that there were those whom did not know of Fudgie the Whale. In fact, there may be a couple readers out there who also remain ignorant of Fudgie, and by extension joy itself.

Now, I’m what you might call a “history man”. As in I do history. No, not sexually.

So, let’s talk a bit about Fudgie the whale.

A couple billion years ago, God created the earth. Then he thought about it a moment and smacked himself. He had forgotten to create a fudge-and-nut-topped whale-shaped ice cream cake that could fulfill the dreams and wishes of millions of children everywhere.

Before he could rectify his mistake, mankind itself would have to advance sufficiently to produce and store Fudgie the Whales for later consumption. By the 20th century, a mix of refrigeration technologies and assembly line food production techniques ushered in the age of Fudgie. Tom Carvel, the founder of the Carvel Ice Cream Company, bestowed this heavenly gift to mankind and there was much rejoicing.

Ever since the introduction of the whale-shaped ice cream cake, the human race has not experienced war, famine, or hardship. Now, tell me - is THAT a coincidence?

So, shame on all of you who have never experienced a Fudgie the Whale.

In other news, Yale made a huge mistake admitting me into their program.

Oh, what is in a name?

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 01:26:00 -0400

FIRST POST EVER! :D

Many people may realize that I am not a pet person, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know a thing or two about owning an animal. Every now and then, my girlfriend Marybeth enlightens me with her daily exploits regarding pet care. In speaking with her, I recognized several profound differences between her pets and my own.

1) Her pets are typically nice and charming.

2) Her pets live longer than mine.

Now, there is a good reason for this. Marybeth owns a clusterfuck of dogs and cats; I have been blessed by mere hamsters and fish. Dogs and cats, whereas dangerous at times, are nowhere near as vicious as hamsters and fish.

Still, there is the odd question of why most of my pets, whereas feeble in lifespan, have been famous for their thirst for combat and lack of respect for other living things (and possibly life itself). The secret lies in the kick-face awesome names that I’ve given my pets.

Compare:

Marybeth’s pet names:

Benji (dog, living)
Charlie (dog, living),
Mittens (cat, living),
etc etc

James’s pet names:

Olaf the Destroyer I (hamster, murdered by Spartacus III)
Spartacus I (hamster, murdered by Olaf the Destroyer I)
Spartacus II (hamster, murdered by Olaf the Destroyer I)
Spartacus III (hamster, death by self-strangulation [he ate a plastic, yet ferocious, dinosaur])
Olaf the Destroyer II (fish, cause of death unknown)

The key here is that my history of pet-owning has been both epic and memorable. Marybeth’s pets are merely cute and cuddly. To give an example of why my pets rock so much, imagine that in the future, a massive war between man and newly-sentient machines were to wipe out all life, both organic and technological, on earth. If aliens were to land on earth a decade later, they would be simutaneously impressed and horrified by our heroic sacrifice. You could say my room inspires similar feelings among those that know the tragic, yet awesome tale of my tiny minions.

Now, if anyone questions the authenticity of my declaration of terrificness, let me give a real life example. One day, my friend Matt Cannella received a pair of fish from his girlfriend. His girlfriend named one fish Tina. I then came over and named the other one Olaf the Destroyer (II). A month later, Olaf flipped out and disemboweled Tina. He then proceeded to eat her remains. And he didn’t even give a shit.

I will take an Olaf the Destroyer over a Tina any day.