Parking at B.U. is like a good ol’ fashioned, pocket-emptying, wallet-draining night in Vegas, especially when there’s a Red Sox game at 7:00 and your class starts at 6:00.

People really need to wear a sign that says, “yes, I am heading to my car to LEAVE!” This goes for anywhere there are many parking spaces, with very few open ones, with lots of people walking around and between them. It’s like a huge, double roulette table — the inside spins one way while the outside spins the opposite way. Your car is going around and around the streets, desperately looking for an open space, waiting for that ball to drop into a space right in front of you. You know if you’re just a centimeter ahead of a car that’s about to leave, the car immediately behind you already has its blinker on. In my book that’s called “double-zeroes” — there’s no way in hell you’d have called that number right.

There are a few lots around the campus that commuters can use, should your odds at the street parking bring you down. These lots however are for the “high rollers”. The odds on these lots change with the rising and sinking with the tides, or more appropriately, depending on who’s in Fenway that night.

Students at B.U. who choose to pay the hundreds of dollars for a parking pass may use these lots “freely”, at any time (I believe). If you opt not to go that route, and you’re lucky enough that Fenway Park remains dark that night, it costs about $8. If the Red Sox are playing that night, the price shoots up to $25. And should Bruce Springsteen be playing that night, and I’m not making this up, it’s $45!

I’ll be sticking to the roulette table of life known as the back streets of Boston University, as my patience certainly pays off in the end. Last week, after a full hour-and-a-half of trying my luck, I finally hit paydirt. Although it’s well known in casino gambling that craps pays the best odds, I’ll stick with what’s working for me now. I think the craps table is really the T, anyway.

So you think there’s a contest out there for everybody? You may be right. I think those pictures are no match for blackbeard, attached to the previous entry here. I swear some of them must have to walk through a doorway sideways.

My God, shaving’s a chore enough on its own, and these guys chose to make an artform of it? What’s next, the World Fingernail Championships?

Aye maties, this be Talk Like a Pirate Day, it be. Swab them decks, blow ye hornpipe, shiver me timbers and all that nonsense, and do it smartly, ye scurvy dogs ye! This be all the time I be havin’ to sketch on me blog, so ye best be likin’ what I have ter offer ye now, or I be lookin’ ta loppin’ off ye noggin’ next chance I gets. YAAAARRRR!

I’ve just revised my list of “Professions I Will Never Follow” (as seen previously here):

• Rotten Sardine Taste Detector
• Russian Cartographer
• Peep-Show Janitor
• New York Restaurant Owner
• FLATUS ODOR JUDGE
• Anything else on previous link…

In last Sunday’s Parade Magazine’s “Ask Marilyn” column, here’s a Q&A she had with a reader:

My girlfriend says that alcoholic drinks are drugs because of their intoxicating effect. But by that reasoning, any number of substances can be classified as drugs — for example, hobby glue, which is sometimes sniffed to cause intoxication. I say that alcoholic drinks are food. My argument is that they contain calories. What’s the verdict, Marilyn?

The purpose of drinking alcohol is for its intoxicating effect (even if you have no intention of drinking to excess). Virtually no one drinks it as food. So I consider alcohol a drug. But the use of hobby glue is for adhesive applications. Relatively few people use it as a drug. So I call hobby glue an adhesive. Did you know that glue has calories? With your argument, you’d be stuck calling glue a food!

What a dipshit. Both of them. Usually I don’t want to waste my time reading her article, much less reply to her, but here I go:

Marilyn –

In your September 7 column in “Parade Magazine”, you replied to a reader’s question concerning alcohol not being a food. I was most taken aback by your comments, “virtually no one drinks [alcohol] as a food” and, “the purpose of drinking alcohol is for its intoxicating effect.” I’m not saying wine is a “food” per se, but as an appreciator of fine wines, I must abherently disagree with your statement.

I cannot be the only person who would find it hard to believe that every person who pairs wines with foods is setting out to appreciate the intoxicating effects of the wines. While it’s certainly true that drinking a significant amount of wine will cause an intoxicating effect, it’s most certainly not the sole cause for drinking it. Many (I dare say “most”) chefs who recommend wine pairings with dishes are most interested in making sure the wines complement the meal in taste, not intoxicating effect. Should I be lead to believe that “Food and Wine Magazine” decided to pair those two items together to mean, “Food and something to give you a buzz?”

I can only imagine that, due to the limitations you have on articles in “Parade”, you were not able to be clearer in your meaning. Perhaps you meant that alcohol is not drunk as a food in that a person does not normally drink it to gain a day’s nutrients (i.e., One wouldn’t typically see a person drink a glass of beer as a snack).

OK, so I embellished with the beer as a snack statement. Who doesn’t do that?!

I happened upon a headline today on Yahoo! News that reads:

No U.S. Casualties in Iraq for 7 Days

Talk about a knock-on-wood statement. I’m not sure whether to feel happy about that fact or saddened that such a headline is meant to be good news. Probably both. It’s like the feeling one would get from a headline reading, “No Terrorist Bombings for Two Weeks.”