"Asking for Adam" sounds like the name of a romantic comedy or sitcom

Now is the part of the semester when all professors test your dedication to their class by assigning monstrous projects with grotesquely absurd timelines. I am presently resigning myself to crudely chiselled weekend-hours, and must warn whomever reads this tripe that I may be whining some. But I'll try to give it a fresh, young perspective.

Which comfortably allows me to segue into recounting how I just saw some dude around my age smoking a pipe. I think this is an occurrence I've been privy to hear of second-hand before, but not often and never in person. Maybe I'm sheltered, but I suspect they are just rare. The question: When will this catch on like wildfire? Republicans have Sharon Stone on the cover of Cigar Afficianado. I think Pipe Life, the magazine, could hit big if we do this right. And none of that water-pipe bullshit. Just finely crafted classic-style curvy pipes that French people loved featuring in painted advertisements.

But back to my Main Point of Whining: with all these class projects, there are bound to be project partners. I am of a breed that generally marks their territory as the teeth-baring class crank whom is reluctant to take his canister-headphones off for the lecture itself let alone join in the good natured banter exchanged amongst the co-eds (most recently remembered example: a discussion on why it was great that a female student wasn't in class a particular day, as she was "totally menstruating" or some such thing).

My social reluctance in this environment means that if project groups are self-assigned, I'm generally amongst the first to e-mail the professor to play the 'I know nobody' card. Due to straight luck this has happened in two classes absolutely simultaneously this week, which lead to me wandering around a rapidly-emptying lecture hall post-class mumbling what I thought to be the correct name, hoping for some lifeline of recognition. Alas, people generally prefer to answer their real-life name, not that assigned arbitrarily by the street-preacher kid with the funny hat. Better luck tomorrow, I suppose.

And, with this clumsily worded entry, I welcome you to STRESS-A-THON SPRING 2K6.

Behave and you'll be rewarded with a half-eaten vacuum-packet of honey roasted peanuts on some divey barstool while having your ear talked off by an even sorrier case than I.