Mystery #155 - Endings

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe Mystery #155 - Endings They say that every ending is a beginning, that as doors close they also open. They say that looking back is wonderful, so long as you can remember to look forward a bit, too. And, of course, they say I told you so, because of course they did. Part of me wonders why we need the ending, though. Can we not possibly just have a new beginning without the ending? A whole hallway of open doors as far as the eye can see? I know that's a stupid question. Well, not a stupid question, but just one not worth asking because the solution would involve time travel, which I myself am morally opposed to because of certain religious convictions ("Thou shalt not time travel" - Leviticus 87:43). It's really just a question asked so that it's there. We all know the endings are important, that when a plant overgrows its pot it must be taken out in favor of a bigger one. No loss, no new pot, no more room, and eventually no more growth. Instead I just stand here from my little rhetorical vantage and survey the scene. It befuddles me that the routine of my life, all of you, are leaving me. Liz Meyers jokes will no longer be universally understood (sorry Liz, you know it's out of love), my AP family won't be in all of my classes next year after all, Aubrey and Melissa will no longer make muffin pilgrimages along the music hallway, and speaking of music... well, let's just say there are too many things to say to speak of music. Basically I think I'm trying to say goodbye. Like the rest of life's little mysteries, this is just one more I have to accept. Good luck to some of you, good bye to others, and to all of you let me say it has been an incredible pleasure. Here's hoping this next pot will be worth the one we're giving up. Something tells me it will be.

Mystery #170 - The Hair Club for Men

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe Mystery #170 - The Hair Club for Men Call me old fashioned, but when I start a club I like to call it something that really explains its purpose. Say, for instance, the Armadillo Club. I would name a club the Armadillo Club if it were a club for armadillos, people from Armadillo, or maybe even people who really enjoy/admire the armadillo. The Hair Club for Men, however, fails to fit into this logic. Here they've started a club named after something that all of it's members do not have. That's like the KKK starting a chapter of the ebony club. For all you out there who aren't dedicated infomercial fans, the Hair Club for Men is a treatment program for balding guys, where by some secret mixture of voodoo, spray paint, paste, and hair clippings, they manage to repopulate your barren horizon. They're the ones with the stupid commercials late at night with set after set of before-and-after shots. I mean, for all intensive purposes, the only time you would HAVE hair is after you are no longer a member of the "club", which makes absolutely no sense to me. At the very least, if they're going to call themselves a club they need to hold some more club-like activities. Maybe a bake sale or a car wash every now and then. I'm not asking much here, people.

Mystery #171 - Testing Etiquette

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe Mystery #171 - Testing Etiquette I could go on for hours about bubble sheets, no-talking rules, and test booklets. However, my investigation into the mysterious has led me instead to the conundrum of the #2 pencil. So I get the pen vs. pencil argument. I mean, I make lots of mistakes, so the whole eraser thing comes in really handy. No, my question is instead about the number. Why number 2? I know it signifies something about graphite consistency and darkness, but why a two? Depending on who came first, the scantron guys or the pencil guys, SOMEONE obviously made a bad call. #2's obviously have a corner on the market, why not make THEM Mystery #1's? Or, on the other hand, why not calibrate the machines to read Mystery #1 pencil marks? The two thing just seems silly. We won't even go into the whole "#2 vs HB" discussion, my blood pressure just can't take it.

Mystery #172 - Capitalization?

Joey Presents: Great Mysteries of the Universe Mystery #172 - Capitalization? I like the word llama. It's intruiguing, offbeat, edgy. It appeals to me. However, I find a certain issue with llama at the beginning of a sentence. I mean, do we capitalize the first "l" but leave the second to fend for itself, as grammar rules would have it? That just creates this funky, off-kilter look that doesn't sit well with me. Capitalizing both doesn't work either, as that gives me the audible thought of some guy screaming "LLLLL! ama" which in itself says a lot about my thought process. No, I think the only reasonable explaination is to leave both l's lower-case. I don't think llamas are small animals, but if we could somehow figure out how to swing that one, we'd have a rule and some pretty cool justification for it, too. Just one more thing to make it harder on foreigners learning the English language.