The Daily News

1   What a game!  If you're a Niner fan, you probably LOVE the Patriots, although I really couldn't believe that were it not for a great punt, it could have ended disasterously for New England.

2  Bostonians are having a banner year. "Back in the day" (I love how that epithet now fits anything historicial that took place before 1999, all the way back to the cavemen!) the Patriots belonged solely to Boston. Then, later in the day, they switched the team name to New England. The rest, as it were, is history.

3  Speaking of football history, it was good to see Steve Young voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Steve was always a class act, and even we spoiled Joe Montana sorts would love to have Steve out there today. Kudos to Mr. Young!

4   I have to hand it to T.O. 9 catches, 122 yards talks, but then so does three super bowl victories. The Eagles have landed, and once again, as bridesmaids.

5  And yeah, I'm beginning really to like the New England Patriots, but the word "dynasty" is pretty loose. Most of their big wins were decided by un-dynasty spreads, and they didn't even beat the spread yesterday. Ironically, I almost bet on the game, and I NEVER gamble, but I was going to take New England and give the spread. Now I'm glad I didn't!

6  I'll bet a LOT of gamblers really hate T.O. about right now.

7  It was sure fun watching some of the unsportsmanlike Eagle flap that the Patriots kept throwing back in the Eagles' face. Since 1993, I ALWAYS dreamed of baseball Giants' fans beating Atlanta to win the pennant, and then doing the tomahawk chop en masse, only it never really happened. But it was a fun thought. 

8  And today is collaboration schedule!  Yippee!! Even if I have to go to meetings and all, it buys time in the morning. Sometimes I need to pick things up at the store before school, and it's a madhouse trying to get to first period on time. I hate going out shopping at night once I'm home; just something I don't like doing. This always takes pressure off, plus the day seems to sail by.

9  I hope you all have a great day today.

10  See ya soon!

Living proof that I was at the Super Bowl yesterday!

Yeah, way to go Pablo! And no wardrobe malfunctions; just quality stuff! I loved the na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na card sections
and fireworks! You still got it, old man!

The Daily News

1  Well, sometimes I just don't know.

2  Some people just don't get it, and never will. Sometimes seemingly brilliant people just haven't a clue, and probably never will. The mind is a terrible thing to waste, you know? But I salute the clueless anyway. Some things are just fantastically amazing to me. Cluelessness in bright lights. Nothing quite like it. Fantastically amazing.

3  Sometimes, my pledge to be there for everybody no matter what gets interrupted. It wasn't much, but yesterday I felt that someone slapped me in the face.

4  If it's ever happened to you, my advice is this: turn the other cheek.

5  As I've mentioned many times, a pie in the face comes with the job. I guess so does a slap in the face.

6  Thanks for the pie. Oh, and thanks for the slap.

7   Tough day yesterday, but some are just like that.

8   All in all...

9   Did I mention that my mom is okay, and that my cat came home?

10  Oh yeah. And the new toilet works like a champ.

11  The sun's out, bright and glorious.

12  Life's beautiful.

13  So don't trip.

14  Have a beautiful weekend everybody.

15  Peace.

The Daily News

1  Isn't it a fun thing that Stan Lee, the creator of Spiderman, is going to make a new comic book hero based on Ringo Starr? Lee was on the Craig Ferguson Show last night. Who? Haha! He's this guy who is on television in the middle of the night. The guy is awesome, funny, and really entertaining.

2  Yep. You guessed it. I have taken to new bouts of insomnia once again. I worry a lot, and last night laid me flat. First, I gave a really exhausting lesson yesterday. Sometimes as teachers, we put our entire heart into a lesson, and yesterday was one such day. At the end of fifth period, I simply collapsed into my chair, and I'm still exhausted from it.

3  It was nothing really, just a lesson that began with me just going over a short story, and ending with having read materials that had been banned by the same author, Piri Thomas. I then read a plea from him, talking about our first amendment, followed by several very powerful poems, and ending with an e-mail from me to him inviting him to come to our school.

4  It doesn't SOUND like much, but I also brought up the entire protest last week, and how it had been systematically muzzled from up above. That issue has me really bothered. I had attended a class on Tuesday night that encouraged us to take pieces of literature that we teach and to bring them to issues that are relevant to the students. It all felt so right, and yet...

5  Well, don't want to bore you with all of that.

6  It just exhausted me is all. THEN, when I got home, my sister called, stating that she thought my mom had a stroke. It turns out she had just had a fever, and had taken some medication to bring it down. She seemed incoherent and disoriented, and my mom is usually smart as a whip. After a few phone calls, things seemed fine, but yeesh.

7  My cat disappeared like about four days ago, so I had also been worried about that, but he came home last night, around 2 a.m., just as I was finishing writing this.

8  So it takes a worried worried man to sing a worried song...

9  Whew.

Well the first days are the hardest days, don't you worry anymore.
'Cuz when life looks like easy street there is danger at your door...
                                                 --Robert Hunter

10  Thanks, Mr. Hunter. Sometimes, I tellya.

11  Toilet's working great.

12  And the NHS, ASB, and Senior Class combined to raise a grand total of $1357.50 for the Red Cross to aid the victims of the Tsunami. Today I shall be getting a check to Evelyn, who will get it to Yahoo, who hopefully will match the funds. It broke down like this: NHS, $544.50, ASB $484, and Senior Class $329. The Senior Class is continuing its effort with the Tree of Hope in my room, so feel free to add a leaf any time.

13  That's about it. I collapsed on the couch last night around ten, and awoke at 1:15 a.m. to begin writing all of this drivel, so it might be a smart thing for me to get some sleep.

14  Thanks for listening to me grouse this day.

15  Peace, children.

The Daily News

1   How strange. Yesterday, I put my head out the window in my classroom and gave a Pontiff wave, and even announced I was running for Pope. You know, just goofing. I had NO idea the real Pope had been hospitalized. My, oh my.

2  Well, I guess we are praying.

3  Boy, yesterday felt a bunch like Spring was going to come in early this year. Frankly, I'm not quite ready for it yet. I noticed myself in a better mood! Isn't that funny? I'm already hearing birds and all. But I also felt that it's been a long, cold, lonely Winter.

4  Littel darlin', it seems like years since it's been clear...

5  Old Beatles' song. Sorry. I STILL love the Beatles.

6   Maggie popped into my room for around twelve seconds yesterday and gave me a sack of music from musicals, and now I'm beginning to get the bug. There's so much involved in trying to get going on something like that, but I'm getting myself psyched up for it.

7  It's like suddenly we have FANTASTICS, prom, and now, the musical, all going into phase two of planning. There's a Senior Class meeting today at lunch in my room, P-61, and we will be smoking the peace pipe, and getting on our war paint simultaneously.

8  Little darlin', I feel that ice is slowly melting...

9  Little darlin', it seems like years since it's been clear.

10  I had a GREAT visit from the immortal Gordon Smith yesterday. Awesome seeing him! While we were going through all our drama for the past three months, he has been bicycling through France, Spain, Portooogull, and Italy, to name but a few countries. He had been sending me reports, so I have been enjoying hearing stories of 100-mile bicycle journeys ending in many of the charming towns and cities of Europe. I was pretty entertained.

11 Gordon is the guy who came in a few years ago and substituted in the absence of Mr. Ponticelli. He also played lead guitar when we did Songs We've Heard.

12  I heard a bird singing the other morning. Sure sign of Spring. As Emily Dickensen said, "Hope is the thing with feathers."

13  Little darlin', the smiles returning to the faces.

14  There's a lotta Hope these days.

15  Hope.

16  More to come...

The Daily News

1   Okay, so here's what's going on at the H house. I'm having my bathroom re-done by some company, Numbutz Bathroom Re-Do, Inc., I think it is. Or some such thing. So let me preface this all by stating I don't know the FIRST thing about Bathroom Re-Do's, but it would appear that these guys are clearly experts in bathroom re-DON'TS.

2  It's funny, because my toilet, which used to be flush with the floor, is now up around three feet off the ground, like a ride.

3  You can only imagine. It seems to have a little puddle surrounding the base, but I'm sort of afraid of Old Man Numbutz, who looks pretty extreme.

4  For some reason or other, the guy had to cut a hole in my kitchen cabinet, the one that holds all six-thousand pieces of tupperware with the multi-shaped sizes and lids? They are now all over my kitchen, like some renegade art project, and the kitchen is covered in the stuff. Government agents have been sort of hanging out with earphones, and seem to be whispering code words like "might need caulking" and one guy repeatedly says the word flange.

5  It's all quite scary, really.

6  My good ol' rusty shower curtain has been replaced with CLEAR GLASS, which I don't really ever remember having ordered, so I feel like I'm a character in a big screen slasher flick.

7  And suddenly, my good old showerhead, which USED to be at nose level, now hovers threateningly a good hundred feet above me, DARING me to make the wrong move.

8  Yesterday I noticed this hairline crack in one of the tiles, and I was about to tell Old Man Numbutz, but he looked like a VERY irritated and toe-up mastiff, so I thought better of it.

9  The guy was there until 8:30 last night. I don't recall if we are paying him by the hour or by the sneer, but either way, I'm pretty sure this isn't going to be a song.

10  So after homie leaves, I sneaked back to take a gander at the finished product, and the first thing I noticed was that the toilet is like a triple XXX. It is TERRIFYING. Remember when you were a little kid, and thought you might fall into the vortex? This thing brought back visions of those horrifying days, and I stand in fear of severe night terror as I form these words.

11  Since those guys kept hanging around, I went out for pizza. Since I'm usually buying $5.00 pizzas from LC's, I wasn't used to the whole new pizza parlour thing. When did pizza parlours suddenly become so well-lit? When I was a lad, half the fun of going to a pizza parlour was that they were dark and danky, like some crude speak easy from the thirties. Our Straw Hat has tiffany lamps with leaves on them, and it is as bright as Wal-Mart. They have this fat, ugly grey TV that was showing Wheel of Fortune, and Vanna White's dress looked like a carpet. Man, that chick has let herself go. She looks like ME.

12  Anyway, after TRYING to figure out the deal with THAT show for the four-millionth time, I returned home, only to find Old Man Numbutz STILL working on his buttcrack masterpiece.

13  He finally left, and I went in to give it the old test ride. My feet didn't even touch the ground, so I decided at the last moment maybe to wait for the finished product.

17  Peace.