i was sent this link by christina and it was posted by another friend on his xanga. almost immediately i thought someone had to have edited in the school name! i googled and googled, but couldn’t find the original strip. so i started asking friends. sunya sent me an article describing the idea for the original strip
tis truly nerdy when people go to such extraordinary lengths to… show off their nerdiness?
American Cities That Best Fit You: |
| 65% Denver |
| 60% San Francisco |
| 55% Austin |
| 55% Honolulu |
| 55% New York City |
how did DC, the city i’ve lived my entire life in (minus 4 years of college), not even crack the list?! NYC?! I can’t even see myself there.
A call about a possible weapon at a middle school prompted police to put armed officers on rooftops, close nearby streets and lock down the school. All over a giant burrito.
Someone called authorities Thursday after seeing a boy carrying something long and wrapped into Marshall Junior High.
The drama ended two hours later when the suspicious item was identified as a 30-inch burrito filled with steak, guacamole, lettuce, salsa and jalapenos and wrapped inside tin foil and a white T-shirt.
“I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry,” school Principal Diana Russell said.
State police, Clovis police and the Curry County Sheriff’s Department arrived at the school shortly after 8:30 a.m. They searched the premises and determined there was no immediate danger.
In the meantime, more than 30 parents, alerted by a radio report, descended on the school. Visibly shaken, they gathered around in a semi-circle, straining their necks, awaiting news.
“There needs to be security before the kids walk through the door,” said Heather Black, whose son attends the school.
After the lockdown was lifted but before the burrito was identified as the culprit, parents pulled 75 students out of school, Russell said.
Russell said the mystery was solved after she brought everyone in the school together in the auditorium to explain what was going on.
“The kid was sitting there as I’m describing this (report of a student with a suspicious package) and he’s thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh, they’re talking about my burrito.’”
Afterward, eighth-grader Michael Morrissey approached her.
“He said, ‘I think I’m the person they saw,’” Russell said.
The burrito was part of Morrissey’s extra-credit assignment to create commercial advertising for a product.
“We had to make up a product and it could have been anything. I made up a restaurant that specialized in oddly large burritos,” Morrissey said.
After students heard the description of what police were looking for, he and his friends began to make the connection. He then took the burrito to the office.
“The police saw it and everyone just started laughing. It was a laughter of relief,” Morrissey said.
“Oh, and I have a new nickname now. It’s Burrito Boy.”
By Hanna Rosin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 29, 2005; C01
It’s clobberin’ time! How else to explain yesterday’s midday appearance, down in the Pentagon basement, of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld (normal human strength, no known superpowers), wedged between Spider-Man and Captain America, trying his best to melt that icy glare of his into a boy-am-I-glad-you-guys-showed-up kind of smirk?
Either Marvel Comics is really hard up for readers and needs an ultra-dynamic, Pentagon-heavy publicity gimmick to boost its sales, or Rumsfeld is finally ready to admit that only a superhero can extricate us from Iraq.
The official explanation for this partnership (The Titanic Three? The Terrific Trio?) is this: Marvel Comics has created a custom “Support Our Troops” comic book starring the New Avengers and the Fantastic Four for “America Supports You,” a Defense Department campaign. One million copies will be distributed to service members in the United States and overseas. But as any friend of the Avengers can tell you, the official explanation sometimes can’t be trusted.
From the military’s perspective the benefits of the collaboration are obvious. According to a Marvel executive, soldiers in Iraq have written letters to Marvel complaining they can’t get enough comic books. It makes a certain sense: If you are a soldier in Sadr City it must be soothing to dream that Spider-Man will swing down from a nearby rooftop and ensnare your unseen attackers in his web.
Or that you yourself are endowed with some superpowers. How useful would it be to gulp down some of that Super-Soldier serum that makes Captain America a master of hand-to-hand combat, able to lift 800 pounds and duck at the speed of lightning? Or to be able to stretch yourself into a thin-walled square like Mr. Fantastic does, should the Green Zone fail you?
From the Avengers’ point of view the partnership is a little more tricky. Marvel plot lines tend to unfold in a real-ish world; the superheroes live in New York and work with various government agencies to combat threats. The U.S. government welcomes the Avengers’ help, but only in a grudging sort of way. They were trusted enough to gain access to official U.S. military computer networks. But then in a later story arc the Senate held a series of hearings to determine whether they were a threat to national security. As far as the feds are concerned, a superhero sometimes can’t be trusted either.
At one time the G-man assigned to oversee the Avengers was a humorless arrogant prig who was always lecturing them; at another, it was an affable functionary with a high tolerance for extralegal activities. Who, if either of these, better resembles Rumsfeld we leave for readers to judge.
Marvel has created custom comic books before for various causes, anti-smoking or anti-bullying. But this latest one is anti-didactic. “Pure escapism,” says Robert Sabouni, a Marvel executive. “A touch of home,” said Allison Barber, deputy assistant secretary of defense. The story opens with some soldiers who stumble on a UFO-looking ship and call for help. Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic, the two scientist-superheroes, show up. They pry open the ship to find hostile aliens inside, and then KOOM! THWIP! etc.
Yesterday’s news conference unveiling the comic book had less of the KOOM! thrill and more of the Santa Claus-comes-to-the-mall feel. Hundreds of Pentagon employees brought their children down to the commercial mini-mall in the basement to “Meet the Superheroes,” as the event was billed. Rumsfeld, after urging the young crowd to be “quiet, very quiet, very quiet,” introduced the superheroes and said he hoped “we all remember what this is about: supporting our troops.”
A man dressed in a Spider-Man costume gamely squatted and did that web-squirt thing with his hands dozens of times to pose for photographs, while the Captain America look-alike flexed his muscles and kept his expression deadly earnest. At some point Rumsfeld too did a little muscle flex for the cameras, only he couldn’t keep a straight face.
Sam Burns from Arlington came with his aunt as a special surprise for his 13th birthday. He posed with both superheroes for photos in his white Oxford shirt and a tie. He used to read comic books but now he prefers novels such as “The Archer’s Tale,” about an English soldier in the mid-1300s who fights the French to avenge his father’s death. His less literate friends prefer video games.
“None of my friends really read comics anymore,” he says.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
from: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/28/AR2005042801995.html
this past weekend, i went to my cousin jenny’s wedding 
this was my first wedding since approximately 6th grade. and i guess perhaps due to age (what 12 year old really understands what’s going on during a wedding? i certainly didn’t) and perhaps because i actually knew this cousin (i’m not really close to my other cousins 
because of the huge age difference), i actually thought it was beautiful and almost … sniff sniff… cried. (not to say my other cousins’ weddings weren’t beautiful either… i was probably just too distracted by i dunno… what was going to be for dinner at the reception? why is the sky blue? etc etc)
yupyup, it was so cute seeing the two of them together, so happy and in love 
. they’ve been together for 8..9.. 10? years is it? (many jokes cracked about them finally getting married. i only met ed once before the wedding, but i guess through all the stories i heard and just seeing how happy the two of them were, awwwwwwww waiting to get some pictures that i can post
it was also great seeing most of my girl cousins (on my mom’s side) all together for a rare occassion. my cousin chantal- whose real name i discovered, following the trend of my cousins’ changing their identity on me, is not (badly pinyin-ed) xiang-ge but actually xiang-hua and who has changed her english name from melody to chantal- and my grandparents even came in from taiwan! it was great hanging out with them for even the short amount of time we were able to… haha, we were going to have a sleepover the night before the wedding, but jenny’s mom nixed the idea. (or more, said we could have it, but that jenny wouldn’t be able to join us 
haha, probably better that we didn’t do that)
so congrats to jenny and ed! may you (translated from chinese) “live together until the hair is white” and “hurry up and have kids” 
jie- the clock is ticking… you have 2 months! i’m waiting… jk
on another side note: luckily jenny and ed married before i took over the world… b/c they definitely blow the IQ cap of married couples that i’d put in effect as my first order of business. hey, my kids have got to be able to compete in the real world!
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/25/tv.turnoff.week.ap/index.html
i’m shocked anyone would think up such a week! Who invented this week?! Where is TV-Turnon Week!?
Worst yet is that invention, TV-B-Gone? What happens if someone is trying to catch up on important, breaking news (… or 
catching up on the latest developing plot twist in the TV show they follow) and someone zaps the TV they’re watching with TV-B-Gone?! That’s just terrible!!
This is terrible… what is our society coming to? 
Monday, April 25, 2005 Posted: 1:50 PM EDT (1750 GMT)
(CNN) — Customs agents protecting the U.S. border with Mexico found and destroyed more than 800 pounds of bologna hidden under clothes in a man’s suitcases, the Department of Homeland Security said Monday.
The man planned to sell the food at a local swap meet, but agents caught him April 4 when his bus en route to Albuquerque, New Mexico, reached a checkpoint north of Las Cruces, New Mexico, the department said in a written statement.
During routine inspection of the baggage, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents found more than 80 large rolls of the smoked meat — totaling 845 pounds — in one man’s set of suitcases, the statement said.
Customs Commissioner Robert Bonner called the discovery a sign of successful efforts to “coordinate inspection and enforcement on everything from illegal drugs and illegal aliens to prohibited agricultural products.”
It was unclear what happened to the suspect, who officials did not identify.
He stood to make a hefty profit, the statement said. “The processed bologna rolls, which cost about $7 or $8 in Mexico, can bring three or four times that price in the United States,” the statement read. “…USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) has approved a few Mexican processing plants to export bologna to the United States; however this particular product contained no indication of its origin.”
The statement also suggested the seizure could have averted potential medical problems. “In addition to the danger pork-based bologna could pose from animal diseases such as classical swine fever, CBP (Customs and Border Protection) agriculture specialists say this product is usually transported without refrigeration, which carries still other health risks.”
from: http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/04/25/smuggled.bologna/index.html
|
Your True Birth Month Is December |
  Logical Patriotic Ambitious Not egoistic Loves praise Loves to joke Fun to be with Not pretending Loves attention Short tempered Hates restrictions Loves to socialize Loves to be loved Loyal and generous Impatient and hasty Changing personality Good sense of humor Honest and trustworthy Influential in organizations Takes high pride in oneself Active in games and interactions |
Ambitious?? Influential in organizations?! Active in games and interactions?! (well, maybe games…) Not too accurate, so I tried to get my actual birth month, March…:
| Your True Birth Month Is March |
  Moody Secretive Revengeful Trustworthy Affectionate Loves traveling Loves attention Shy and reserved Musically talented Loves home decor Not easily angered Sensitive to others Loves special things Attractive personality Loves to serve others Loves peace and serenity Observant and assess others Loves to dream and fantasize Appreciative and returns kindness Hasty decisions in choosing partners Naturally honest, generous and sympathetic |
musically talented!? just by that one alone, u know it’s not accurate.
i love how these quizzes basically put every imaginable character trait in each result so that you can at least say the results are somewhat accurate
Some researchers at Purdue University were researching popcorn and why some kernels seem resistent to popping. So apparently there’s a science to popcorn.
The moisture level in the center of the kernel should be 15% in order for it to pop. And… drumroll please…. the latest research in popcorn now shows that the composition of its hull is what determines the success in popping. Leaky hulls prevent the moisture pressure from building up and they don’t have “optimal hull structure” to allow them to explode.
Wow, I never knew there were such thing as “food chemistry” and “Center for Carbohydrate Research”… makes sense I suppose. Someone’s got to figure all these things out. Check out the Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research… pretty cool! I want to research cereal and popcorn!
