Contrary to the Blog Title...

...the appalcart blows! Let me tell you why:

1) To the contrary of other blogs which I may have posted, awarding unmerited glory and accolade to the invention of the AppalCART, I neglected to research one detail: there is no appalcart that takes me to and from campus. I'm a graduate student who is trying to use his car as little as possible. While I was scouring my area for appalcart stops, I found several on the opposite side of the street, about a half mile down from my apartment. Honest to God check this out:


This sign is outside of my apartment. Let's count here 1,2,3,4,5 different Routes which you could take to get you anywhere in Boone. While normally the following logic doesn't apply, in this case the number of roadways directly corresponds to the number of lanes which I have to cross to get across the street TO the appalcart stand!! 5 lanes! And we're not talking about 5 lanes of traffic like you see in Grove City, PA...this is a serious 5 lanes of constant traffic. The appalcart INSISTS that if I want a ride within her balmy bowels, I must take my life in my hands in order to meet her. If I'm going to take my life in my hands, I'm at least going to do it with something fun like a quarter keg of Beast, some Legos(tm), a couple of pistols, and a mechanical wheel that spins around on a dias throwing knives out its sides.

Oh,, there's another serious flaw with the appalcart: YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOREVER TO GET ON!!! Look at this poor girl: one look at the discouragement on her face, at the black garb of mourn which she has draped over her drooping shoulders, at the bag of circus peanuts that she's eating fist after fist of and you know exactly what happened to her...the APPALCART LEFT HER!! If the appalcart will leave this poor girl behind, then you can bet that, sure as shootin', it's going to leave you behind too...regardless of whether you're trying to write a blog about how cool it is.


So to all blog readers out there I do offer an apology. I haven't been able to get onto the appalcart yet, but it's totally not my fault. I hope that you will all be patient with me. In the meantime, I'm going to go write a paper on this bad boy! See ya at the appalcart stop ya jerks-I'll be the one with the peanuts.

You sunk my battleship, er hairpiece!

"Hahahahahaha, ohhhh hahahahahahah" was the quote from Carly that I got yesterday when we saw one of the most spectacular automobile disasters! The juxtaposition of the potentially deadly with the deadly comical was such an odd thing to witness, that I figured I would have to tell someone about it!

So Carly and I are coming home from church yesterday, right(heads up, here is my first digression)? The pastor of the church we went to, God bless him, wasn't the most effectively articulate pastor. He was great at confusing words to articulate erroneous, nay heretical statements at the congregation (And let us remember that Jesus loved us, forgave us, and died for us not to bring glory unto himself, but he did it rather for himself...uh...). That priceless gem wasn't the result of a nervous bumbling or loss of time and place...the dude had the statement written on a notecard which he was reading! Another of my favorite word enigmas was (during prayer) And God...we pray for the violence...we pray for the fear. PERIOD!! THAT'S IT! We pray for violence and we pray for fear! It's not often that I lose my composure in church, but I seriously started laughing right in the middle of the prayer! We pray for violence and fear! Chrisitians are struggling enough in the public eye, the last thing we need to be known for is openly praying for violence and fear to be on our side. The kicker was that the sermon was suppoesd to be an exegetical lesson from the 4th chapter of Ephesians, with emphasis (are you ready for this?) on how beneficial or hurtful our words can be to others. Hahahaha, I don't care who you are, that's funny.

Ok so Carly and I walk out of church with our sides splitting. We hop in the car to make the .25 mile trip back to my house. Somewhere in that quarter mile stretch we observe one of the more hilarious events that you could ever possibly observe in a car. We were coming close to a red light at the intersection of King and Hardin streets. Two cars up from us, a gentleman in a whiteish Nissan somethingorother comes to a stop. BAD MOVE!!! The dumb coed right in front of us apparently doesn't see the pair of blake lights right in front of her, or the red light dangling above he 2 blake lights. CRASH!! This chick slams into the back of this dude. Before you start calling me heartless and insensitive for thinking this is funny, you have to check this out:

The girl slams into the dude. CRASH! Carly and I are watching this holding our breath, just hoping that everyone is alright. I'm looking at the guy in Nissan from his rearview, and I see his head whip back and his hat fall off. He then proceeds to whip his head back and forth inside the car, looking up and down and all around. His arms are flailing and it looks like he's vomiting ot the most profane utterances that humans can utter. This goes on for about 20 seconds, and whereas the girl has stepped out of her car, dude-man in the Nissan is still flailing. I'm thinking this is the most pissed off I've ever seen someone! He hasn't even gotten out of the car yet because he's too busy cursing this girl out and flailing his arms! But as soon as he steps out of the car, I realize why he's taken to long to collect himself and step out of the car.

Somewhere in the collision, this guy's head had jerked back and his hat had fallen off. At least I thought it was his hat. Once he finally appeared outside the vehicle, it was clear and the dude's hairpiece had fallen off!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! He stepped out of the car, face as red as a beet, with his toupee halfway on his head. He kept trying to pat it down in front of this girl and look somewhat jovial. He kept on tucking pieces of hair behind his ears oblivious to the fact that you could clearly see the back of his head wasn't covered by hair. All that flailing around was to try to find his hair piece hahahahahahahahahaha!!! It took me a little while to actually absorb what was happening: Carly and I were witnessing comedic gold! This is the stuff that sitcoms are made out of! This is the stuff that comedians get paid way too much to crack jokes about! This was so funny, and it happened right in front of the both of us.

Anyway the dude never got is hair on straight, he looked like he was wearing a twice immolated beaver pellet, and everyone at the intersection of Hardin and King knew that this guy was a bonafide turd-burgler. Carly and I had a good chuckle about it all the way home, and then we ate some turkey sandwiches. The moral of today's story?

DON'T BE A DOUCHE-AY, STOP WEARING A TOUPEE!!!

I'm out!

"I'm throwing orannges in an apple cart, and the ties that bind are tearing me apart!"*

Alright people,

Let me first welcome you to Boone, North Carolina! Boone is a booming (not booning) metropolis of about 12-14,000 people sans college kids. Boone is a unique and intriguing place for many very good reasons**:

1) Daniel Boone founded Boone, North Carolina. Rumour has it that Dan was walking through the Blue Ridge Mountains one day about 150 years ago. As he was walking, he ran afoul of a bear taller than the tallest pine tree, and with the girth of a dozen oxen. The bear roared at Daniel Boone. Unfortunately for the bear, he (or she-I didn't get that part of the story) didn't know that Daniel Boone held the most prestigious title of 'hella-tough'- a phrase coined by early settlers of the Western North Carolina Mountains. So this bear roars, and before it can even finish its roar Daniel Boone lets for the most blood curtling, soul eviscerating yalp that not only knocks the bear over, but also causes it to cry. Seriously, it cried real tears! After composing himself (or herself) the bear mumbled 'Roary roar roar'. Any guesses as to what that means in bear language? That's right, he said: 'Daniel, this land I acquiesce to you heceforth unto eternity'. That's exactly how Daniel Boone founded Boone, NC I bet my life on it.

2) Boone is the county seat of Boone county
3) I just made that last point up
4) Boone is the home to Appalachian State University, home of the 2005 Division 2-A football champions...the Mountaineers. It's a sprawling campus that is home to about 13-15,000 young academicians, depending on who you ask.
5) Boone is where I now live, because I'm one of those 13-15,000 academicians. I'm starting my graduate studies in a couple of weeks and could not be more excited about it.
6) Boone is home to the APPALCART!!!!

For those of you who cannnot wrap your mind around the concept of the APPALcart, please reference this website . It's full of other wisdom and insights as well.

As you all know by now, I will serve as your liason between calamity and humour, tragedy and comedy, drunk and sober! I'm going to be plopping myself right down on the APPALcart and cataloguiing for you, the faithful blogging reader, exactly what goes on in the APPALcart. I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but I'm really excited to get riding on the APPALcart. Up to this point, I've located the closest APPALcart stop to my house, and am plotting out which route will maximize my exposure to social diaster and melee. Before I get officially rolling on the 'cart, however, I do want to lay down some ground rules that we can both abide by:

I hope that the tales I tell will be somewhat humorous and intriguing; if they aren't, I'm not going to claim any responsibility. I try to depict life as comedy. If it turns out that life isn't being funny, I can't help that. I'm not going to lie here, there are probably going to be times where I don't blog for a few days/weeks. As I mentioned before, I'm actually going to be doing school work down here...a lot of it. I'll try to post as often as possible. Most of all, I want your feedback. If you like the way things are going, let me know. If you hate me, that's fine too, so long as you tell me about it. I'm basically a glutton for glory, good or bad. So let those comments fly, and I'll see YOU, on the APPALcart!

*kudos to you if you know who sings this

** the kids in the library next to me are plotting a way to effectively utilize their white magic spirit card against their Yu-Gi-Oh enemmies...HAHA!!

Tales from the Appalcart...

...is coming sooner than you could ever imagine (just think about it)!