Spending Your Entire Life In a White Van

          Logan I stayed over at Matt's tonight, and we had a grand evening. First, we held a critique of Matt's sophomore Honors English children's story, The Ice Wanderer. Anyone who suffered through that class will recall the absolutely batty lady who taught it and complicated everything at least threefold. I did enjoy the ambient lighting (white Christmas lights all over!), soothing music and pre-class "grounding" sessions. (Example: "Close your eyes. You are sitting by a river, and a raft floats up and stops near you. You get on the raft..." These were actually very relaxing.) Anyway, Matt's story was a thousand times better articulated and illustrated, if a bit more lacking in humor and sophisticated ebony pencil sketches. The three of us lampooned the frighteningly inaccurately drawn characters, portrayed in marker, while being confused by the plot and reimagining key scenes. I also found out that a mutual acquaintance is currently designing ties for Kanye West, which is pretty cool.
          The main event of the evening turned out to be a rousing game of Life. At the start of the game, I was a college-educated artist making $70,000, Matt a college-educated cop (the most annoying game breaker in Life) making $100,000, and Logan an educated accountant pulling in $90,000. During the course of the game, that $100K salary card traded hands more often than a hooker at a New Year's party. Quickly, we settled into roles; I, the philanthropic yet pimping artist; Matt, the corrupt police lieutenant and reckless driver; and Logan, the banker and general money man. We also made sure to houserule everything. At one point I held five or six stocks out of ten before Logan found a rule stating that I could only own one. Spinning a 10 not only meant that you were caught speeding, arrested and forced to pay Matt $5K for some reason, your careless behavior resulted in a crash and the death of a person in the vehicle. For Matt, this resulted in five marriages: 3 dead, 1 fashioned into a computer, and 1 extant (Logan's daughter, apparently some sort of slave.) For me, it resulted in four live-in girlfriends, all in one trailer; after some heated debate, we decided that their identities were [redacted], [redacted], [redacted] and [redacted]. Hookers were also involved in some capacity at one point, we argued over who was the most soulless, and rewarded ourselves with money from the bank. Post-game, my brothers fell asleep to Waking Life, whereupon I finished watching it and knocked myself out with classical music.
          Quotes of the day:
"Scott Pilgrim is played by a mentally impaired baby seal, I mean Michael Cera." - Matt
"Does it smell like farts?" - Logan
"We're friends, right Matt? We go way back. And I forgive you for everything, now that I make more money than you." - me
"I will sell you my daughter, now at a ripe age, for $10,000... Every other turn." - Logan
"She was my Communion partner. We've been bonded by the Holy Ghost." - Logan
...
Kate D: "Ooh, are they hot?"
Donna: "They're XY chromosome."
...
Logan: "What the fuck is he wearing?"
Matt: "He's a surfer."
Logan and I: "...in the winter?!"
...
Logan: "You lost your wife, and your husband is computer."
Matt: "It's funny how life works sometimes."