Got up fairly early to work on a sandwich board for the Twit-of-the-Year Run. I cut things out of magazines and pasted them on and wrote on the posters in blue and black ink.

[Note: I recently found this sandwich board at my father's place. It turns out that one of the pictures I selected to represent a "typical Penn Stater" was of Gwyneth Paltrow, who must have been doing some modeling at the time. Poor Gwyneth has a 16-ton weight hanging precariously over her head.]

              

Andy [Wilson, my brother] showed up when I was partially finished. I was already dressed up for the competition, as Berlin St. Croix. At first, I was going to wear black pants, but it didn't look as much like her. So I wore the black shirt, black turtleneck, black shoes and black socks. And I fluffed my hair up as much as I could.

[Note: Berlin St. Croix, who prefers to be known as Black Death, is Gother than you. She was created for a skit I wrote on The Rubber Chicken Comedy Closet, about a poetry edition of Star Search. She has some traits in common with my earlier alter ego, Ecila Nosliw (oh, what a give away!) who appears in some early issues of Completely Different. She currently has some work upcoming in the literary magazine Dark Gothic.]

We went down a little early to help L.J. ["Trotsky" Sparvero] set things up. Kzin [Jon Kilgannon] came by and helped move the bed out onto the lawn.

[Note: For the second time, we used L.J.'s bed, since his room was conveniently located on the first floor, at the end of the west wing of Atherton Hall, which was right next to the HUB Lawn, site of the event.]

L.J. and some other people put the lines out, and we sent out a party to obtain a table for the fresh fruit.

When more people showed up, we were trying to get some spectators by sending some people around with signs to accost them.

Just a little late, we got started. Eric [Schr9ager] couldn't be there to act as play-by-play commentator, so we got Rob Lindsay to do it. Andy, Damon and Rob were the judges. L.J. had prepared some rules [for the judges], which are as follows:

1. NO POOFTERS!

2. THE OBJECT OF THE COMPETITION IS NOT TO FINISH THE RACE IN THE SHORTEST TIME, BUT TO BE THE MOST SILLY.

3. NO POOFTERS!

4. EACH COMPETITOR IS JUDGED ON A "5-POINT MUST" SCALE OF 5 (BEST), 3 (AVERAGE) TO 1 (WORST). THIS MEANS THAT THE PERSON WHO DID THE BEST IN AN EVENT GETS 5 POINTS, A GOOD SHOWING IS WORTH 3 POINTS, WHILE A POOR RESULT IS ONLY 1 POINT. DO NOT MARK DOWN A "2" OR A "4."

5. NO POOFTERS!

6. THERE IS NO RULE SIX.

7. NO POOFTERS!

8. WHENEVER A JUDGE DECIDES THAT A COMPETITOR HAS WON AN EVENT (DID SOMETHING SO SILLY THAT IT TOPS ALL THE OTHERS), THEN HE BLOWS A WHISTLE, HONKS A HORN, OR MAKES SOME VERBAL SIGNAL THAT THE EVENT IS OVER. THE CONTESTANTS NOW (AND ONLY NOW) GO TO THE NEXT EVENT.

9. NO POOFTERS!

10. WINNER HAS THE HIGHEST SCORE.

11. NO POOFTERS!

12. SINCE THERE ARE SIX EVENTS, DIVIDE THE TOTAL SCORE BY THREE TO GET POINT RATING (I.E. 9.3, 4.5, 0.7).

13. NO POOFTERS!

14. GOOD LUCK!

[Note: These instructions were a bit... er, regimental, but at least they didn't involve mooning or armored battalions. I stretched the truth earlier; we did allow Trotsky to write the instructions more than once. I deliberately sacrificed the truth for comic effect, and I will now hit my head on the keyboard until forgiven ... ajlksdasljda;djsoaiupasodh paposduiapoiuasdfhaghpoiagjhiaohpgpuhagdapshdahgpahg.... ]