Everyone needs a hobby.

Mine is screaming "motherfuck!" at the office, and, in cases when I can tie my inconsolable annoyance to a fixed culprit: "you motherfucker!" This usually happens while watching Mike "Sorry, Guys, I'm Just Not That Good At Baseball" Myers relieve for the Sox.

Another hobby I've developed is sending lists to mcsweeneys.net and having them rejected. I'm reasonably sure blogger won't reject them, however.

Ways I Could Have Prevented The Severe Beating I Received From Blake Sewell on February 11th, 1994.

If I had had the presence of mind to go straight for the junk.

If instead of cold, pervasive emptiness presiding over the universe there was a just and loving God.

If instead of being a severely overweight nine-year-old boy I had been a velociraptor.

If instead of being an emotionally disturbed thirteen-year-old, Blake had been a large bag of Cooler Ranch Doritos.

If the book I had checked out from the library and attempted to read under the PlaySet during recess had been literally any book besides Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret.

- and -

Games I Would Have Been Taught Had Jewel Been My Babysitter

A game played by taking ones coat off and standing outside in the rain. First to come inside loses.

Being fashionably sensitive while simultaneously being too cool to care. Scores awarded on a ten point scale midway through demonstration and immediately afterward, then averaged.

Standing in doorways, commenting on the weather and the only on the weather. Accuracy is the key to success at this game.

Folk-singing. Nobody wins when this game is played.

Mistaking certain people for other people, people who give a damn, people more like ourselves. The point of this curiously named game is to comfort Jewel.