I've gotta shout out to angry-looking yet amiable black dudes. I met one today at the train station, and he blew my mind. There was this guy who reminded me of an extra from a Nelly video hanging out and waving hi and saying good morning to each and every old lady waiting for the train there. It was amazing. There were no elderly freakouts, no pepper sprayings, no rape horns going off. It inspired me to greet whatever old people came near me; I figured that if a thuggish, growling black dude could be nice to the old folks without incident, then so could a timorous 5'5" white kid with glasses and a math textbook. I wished this one old man a good morning, and he grunted back. I'm very proud of me.

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And now my verbal smackdown for all the people this past month who've told me this: "hey sorry i haven't gotten back to you since summertime, i've been real swamped at work." No no no. Nobody's that overwhelmed at the office. Hell, if the president can take time out of mismanaging the war in Iraq to fall off a Segway, then you can take a few minutes out of the past nine months to open up Outlook and reply to my email. Hell, I'll even make your busy, busy life easier by providing this handy-dandy link that automatically sends me a message and informs me of your continued existence, because I'm the sort of good friend who appreciates knowing that you're not dead.

People, you're now officially on notice. Four or five more years of this bull, and you run a good chance of getting taken off the Christmas card list.