Me: Hey! How was your break?

You: Oh. It was great.

Me: Where did you spend it?

You: Well, I spent the first two weeks with my family in St. and then went to Boca to visit my grandparents. I flew to the _ islands with my two best friends from _ Prep for New Year’s, before coming back to the states for the ski trip to Canada. How was your break?

Me: You’re fat.

And thus I commence my ramblings, ’06 style:

Dear Holiday Candle Giver,

The winter holiday season is everyone’s favorite time of the year: presents, drunken hookups sans emotional attachment, sober hookups avec metal devices, more presents, and, certainly not in succession, menorahs. But, as we say in Kazakhstan, every rose has its thorns. The following analogy, taken from last year’s Mensa exam, reflects my sentiments exactly:

A straight man : hearing the male actor grunt in porn :: Me : receiving a candle as a gift.

Yes. It is true. Even holiday presents can go wrong, so wrong that Maury might air an episode on it. I mean, unless they are being used to conceal herbal ‘aromas’ in your on-campus bedroom, candles, in laymen’s terms, suck. In fact, the gifted candle sucks so much that everyone hates them, thus transcending the divide between the Catholics and the infidels, and we all know the last thing this world needs is any unity. Even an Old Navy gift card (I hear) is more useful than a candle, because at least it can be used to cut lines … of butter cue nervous twitch and sweaty palms. Nothing kills the excitement of jumping out of bed, slipping across the hardwood floor (freshly mopped by Rosario for the third time that hour), and opening gifts under your pagan idol of choice more than the abominable waxen beast.

In such severe cases, it’s best to think of solutions — solutions that don’t involve genocide. How about we all agree to only give candles in ten year cycles? This will allow the receiver enough time to use all of his/her candles until next season, and this will allow the giver enough time to salvage what remains of his/her self worth for giving a candle. Or we could also make candles a new form of currency. Whatever your solution may be, it’s time we unite and take a stand against candles — before it’s too late.

Dear Yale’s 50 Most Beautiful, Part Un:

Before anything goes down, I have one thing to say: this shit is bananas. Yeah.

You heard me. I was robbed, I was zinged, I was served. I was violated in every past tense monosyllabic verb/onomatopoetic sound when I was shorted a nomination.

Then again, now that I think about it, it is Yale’s most beautiful people, which is kind of like picking the cutest puppy from a litter. “How so?” you ask. “Is it because all puppies are cute?”

No. It’s because, in the end, they’re all dogs.

You can sit there and tell me that I’m just bitter, but I’m not. I’m not bitter at all. I just didn’t realize that Yale University was located in

Immaturityville. Besides, even if Rumpus called my cell (615-414-7948) later tonight, after 4:30 since I have Friday lab, and said “Hey Joe! It’s Rumpus. We’re really sorry we forgot to inform you of your nomination for 50 BP” — or if they propositioned me at the third to the left stall in the WLH bathroom around, say, midnight (I can do later, if you must) — I would wholeheartedly say, “No.”

Besides, it’s not like Rumpus has ever paid me, my predictably trite topic matter, juvenile writing style, and grammatical errors any attention anyway. It’s not like I eagerly scan through Rumpus Rumpus every month to see if my name is in bold. It’s not like I don’t wish to be called “a poor man’s Quincy Carroll” or a “Judge Ito with a pituitary disorder.”

Geez, Rumpus. Have some self-respect, will you? And to this year’s BPs, don’t think I’m done with you yet. “Dear Yale’s 50 Most Beautiful People: Part Duex” is in the works — being beautiful will never hurt so good.

Joe Aphinyanaphongs gave his editor a candle as consolation for his absence in Rumpus’ 50 most — what a saucy bitch.