You Know You're Addicted To Death Note When...

You Know You're Addicted To Death Note When:



1. You have all the scanslations saved to your computer and have read them several times, yet you still buy the manga anyways.
2. You spend hours on the internet looking at Death Note pictures, information, and fan-sites.
3. You create a fan-site.
4. When you accidentally read a spoiler, you get the urge to go kill little fluffy animals.
5. When L died, you became so depressed that you wouldn't read Death Note for 5 weeks, wouldn't eat or sleep, and probably cried like a baby until you were dehydrated.
6. You have started to sit like L.
7. You have started to only eat sweets and fruit.
8. You sometimes leave apples lying around the house, hoping that they will disappear.
9. You created a new imaginary pet and it's a Shinigami.
10. You made/bought a notebook that looks like the Death Note, have every single rule copied into the first pages, and actually write names down in it.
11. You have decided to name your first child "L". Or Light. Or maybe Mello.
12. If someone doesn't like Death Note or doesn't understand it, you will argue with them for hours until they see it from your point-of-view.
13. You have several Death Note plushies, a couple of pillows, the manga, the episodes (so far), the movies, and even Death Note underwear.
14. You have talked about Death Note so much that when you say something about Raito, your family knows who you mean.
15. You would actually give up your left arm to bring L or Raito (depending on who you liked better) back to life.
16. You get a new dog and name it Ryuk or Rem.
17. You have had dreams about Death Note.
18. You are failing school, you got fired from your part-time job at McDonald's, and your girlfriend/boyfriend dumped you, but as long as you have Death Note, you are as happy as can be.
19. You read Death Note doujinshi's in your spare time.
20. At random times you stare wildly at the empty air above people's heads and scream, "No, Shinigami God of Death, don't write down my name!" and then run away.
21. If someone you know has a heart attack, you vow to find the Kira who did it.
22. You start to call one of your siblings "Watari."
23. You pretend to have Shinigami eyes and tell people how long they will live. (You tell your enemies that they only have a week left, of course.)
24. You now lick donuts several times before you eat them. And chocolate bars too.
25. You know all the main characters' real names, ages, heights, weights, birthdays, dates of death, and etc.
26. Someone says that Ryuk looks like the demented clown from "It" and you punch them in the face.
27. That same person calls Mello 'a little Dutch girl' and you punch them again.
28. You have put make-up under your eyes to try and make them look like L's. (Hopefully you did this in secret and didn't go out in public.)
29. You never wear shoes anymore.
30. You have started using a fake name and hide your face.
31. You hate Misa because Light kissed her and they moved in together.
32. You went as Near for Halloween and nobody knew who you were, they thought you were just trick-or-treating in your pajamas.
33. You have pages and pages full of Death Note fan-art and fan-fictions.
34. If someone calls Raito "Light", you get angry.
OR
If someone calls Light "Raito," you get angry. (Depending on which name you prefer to use.)
35. Your friends don't hang out with you anymore because they are sick of hearing about how insane, yet hot, Light is.
36. You know who Matt is and love him.
37. You have dirty daydreams about what might have happened when Light and L were handcuffed together.
38. When you watched the Death Note movie, you kept standing up and screaming, "THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN IN THE MANGA!"
39. You found all your childhood toys and play with them again.
40. You have a smutty Death Note wallpaper on your computer screen and sometimes you just sit and stare at it.
41. You write about Death Note or a Death Note character for a school assignment, even if that wasn't the topic.
42. You now put percentages into most of your sentences.
(Example: "Honey, would you like tuna casserole for dinner tonight?)
"I am 83.4% sure that I would not like tuna casserole for dinner.")
43. You and your friends go to a convention and cosplay as the main characters. A couple of you even make-out so the fans can take pictures.
44. You have actually written a letter to Tsugumi Ohba (the original Death Note author) to complain about how she killed all the characters off.
45. You put "L" on your Christmas Wish-List.
46. You put "Raito" on your To-Do List.
47. You learned Japanese just so you don't have to wait for the rest of the English-version manga volumes to come out.
48. You want to be a murderer when you grow up.
49. You want to be called by the first letter of your name. (Example: If your name is Tracie, you tell people to call you, "T".)
50. You think that Matsuda is just the cutest, silly thing ever.
51. You quote Death Note in day-to-day conversations.
(Example: "I'm hungry.)
"Do you know that Shinigami only eat apples?"
"….what are you talking about?")
52. You already knew that you were obsessed with Death Note without even having to read all this, but it gave you a good laugh anyways.
53. You make a deathnote and wonder where your shinigami is.
54. You get made at the people who write Death Note doujinshi's because "they're not real fans"
55. You make Deathnotes obbsessively...(I have made six...so far)
56. You love, and yet hate Raito/Light oh-so-much.
53/57. You got a Death Note and actually wrote a name down.
54/58. You did the above and hoped it would work (and was really disappointed when it didn't)
55/59. You see news reports about murders/rapes/obvious corruption/etc. and just wish-wish-wish Kira/a Death Note could really exist (especially in those reports where not only is it bad, there will be no measures taken to make it any better)
(My friends) You know you've been watching too much death note when:

You laugh malevolently everytime you open a bag of potato chips.
You eat potato chips in the most dramatic way possible.
You are the most dramatic note-taker in class.
You ask for a full name when you meet someone new.
You ask to see a government issued ID to confirm their identity.
After seeing the ID, you scream, "I'VE WON!"
You start sitting like a monkey and develop bad posture.
You don't sleep anymore.
You refuse to eat anything that isn't more than 90% sugar.
You believe that you will be the god of a new world.
There is a 10 percent chance you are Kira.
You are JUSTICE!

You Know You've Been In Band Too Long When...

• You start sleeping with your instrument.
• You have to take out your dentures to play.
• You can identify yourself in a band picture.
• Your career is baby-sitting the director’s kids.
• The sole of your band shoe falls off during a parade.
• The director starts to sing well.
• You consider your drill charts a fashion accessory.
• You can eat Chinese food with your drumsticks.
• Someone hands you a piece of paper and the first thing you do with it is roll it up and put it in your pocket.
• The choice is not regular or diet, but woodwind or brass.
• You shake your head and your lips follow three seconds later.
• You know everyone else’s part.
• Dinner conversation is focused around new music or drill charts.
• You start listening to band music all day.
• Being mauled by a drum is a normal part of life.
• The saxes sound like they’re improving.
• The flutes are in tune.
• You can play up to tempo on YOUR instrument.
• You walk with a roll step.
• People worry when they see you without your instrument.
• You start using band jokes on people outside the band.
• Your instrument begins to grow hair.
• "Armed guard" means a girl with a pole instead of a man with a gun.
• The worst four-letter word you can think of is B-A-N-D.
• You know how many ceiling tiles there are from waiting for the trumpets to learn their parts.
• You know how many sound panels there are from waiting for the drummers to GET their parts.
• You pivot on every corner.
• The band goes on a road trip and no buses break down.
• Someone says "block" and you immediately drop whatever you are doing and go running off somewhere.
• You beg the director for extra early morning rehearsals.
• You can dress in 15 seconds.
• Back marching no longer reminds you of ballet.
• Instead of political campaigns or soap operas, you follow section intrigue.
• You can sing your part to a show more than three years old.
• You start criticizing the bands on televised parades.
• The flutes are in tune.
• You wear your uniform to any concert even though you are not in it.
• Your band shoes no longer hurt.
• You try to teach your three-month-old sister to play the flute.
• You feel homicidal towards a rookie who says, "Oh, goodie! Another parade!"
• You name your kids Mark and Time.
• Your teachers excuse your mistakes with, "It’s all right, the poor thing’s in band."
• The band is in step.
• Drummers respect percussionists.
• You call your wife/husband to say you’ll be late because of band practice.
• Marking time is your favorite form of exercise.
• Your instrument/hat/uniform has a name and personality all its own.
• Anything on this list makes sense.
• Cold hot dogs, warm Coke and stale popcorn are gourmet meals.
• You consider being a band director.
• The flutes are in tune.
• You are going around a corner with a group of friends and you think, “Don’t swing out!”
• Numbers past 8 don’t matter.
• You hope the football team loses so you won’t have to go to the playoffs.
• Duct tape is an essential part of your instrument/uniform.
• You can make brown shoes look white.
• A line that’s supposed to be straight is straight. (rather than beautifully curved)
• You can sleep through drumline sectionals.
• You have a neckstrap/drum harness tan line. (And don’t consider it strange.)
• Letters past G don’t matter.
• The sideline and the band are in tune.
• There’s a straight diagonal anywhere on the field.
• You subconsciously start practicing fingerings on a pencil.
• You consider moving into the band room.
• You roll-step to avoid spilling food.
• You sing drum cadences while walking to class.
• Everyone but you knows what happened on your date.
• All your friends make band jokes.
• Slides no longer make your back ache.
• You come home from rehearsal and your mother/roommate says, “You look familiar.”
• Your pants fall off and you keep going like nothing happened.
• Everyone wants to kill the other football team... and you want to kill the other band.
• You accidentally call the director “Dad”.
• You show up fifteen minutes early for everything.
• You hear music and you start marking time.
• You actually CAN sight-read.
• You walk behind someone and are in step with them.
• A bus seat is as comfortable as your bed.
• You’ve dated every member of the opposite sex in the band.
• You’ve had a trombone-related head injury.
• Your buses are named. (ie “Command Central, Drum Bus, Tuba Bus, Shako Bus, Rude Bus, Library Bus, Tweetle Bus, G Bus...)
• The drumline can read music.
• The worst torture implements you can think of are trumpets and piccolos.
• There’s a stand in the bandroom that ISN’T broken.
• You regard tuba players as a separate species.
• You point out key changes and dynamics on the radio.
• People ask you about your social life and you say, “You mean my flute/trumpet/tuba/drum/etc.?”
• You can guide off reflections in your bell.
• You think your plume is alive. (“The chicken is attacking me! AAAAHHH!!!”)
• You’ve ever been able to hear a soloist.
• You can count by eight as easily as by ten.
• You can remember your music in the middle of an exam, but can’t remember what class you’re in.
• The trumpets make it through a show without ad-libbing.
• The sideline and the band agree on the tempo.
• You actually have all of pregame memorized.
• Reeds taste good.
• You start coming up with new words to fight songs, both your own and other people’s.
• The buses leave on time.
• The pit gets their equipment on the field or put away in less than half an hour.
• The director’s jokes are funny.
• Trombones realize there’s more to dynamics than ON and OFF.
• The buses get home on time.
• You give a drummer four steps of clearance even when he’s not carrying his drum.
• You start adding stuff to this list.

You Know You Watch Too Much Anime When...

(Found on Issendai's Lair)

You Know You Watch Too Much Anime When:

..you can speak intelligently in Japanese about spirits, demons, war, death, tournaments, magic, and profoundly soppy love affairs, but the prospect of buying a movie ticket leaves you tongue-tied.

..."hai," "baka," and "hentai" come to your lips so easily that sometimes you have difficulty remembering what the English words are.

...none of your friends study Japanese, but thanks to you, they all have 50-word vocabularies.

...and if they used them in front of their moms, they'd get their mouths washed out with soap.

...you go native, to the point of buying Japanese rice in 20-pound bags and clearing all of the furniture out of your living room so you can sit on the floor.

...it's 3 am, and you and your best friend are on the brink of a fistfight over whether Ranma-chan or Ranma-kun is cuter.

...you have a Ranma outfit.

...and so does your significant other.

...you're keeping an eye on your little sister for signs of slacking off during school, making eyes at the school's only bishonen, and disappearing suspiciously often for "slumber parties," because if she becomes a magic girl, you want in on the action.

...your friends stage an intervention.

...but only because they want your tapes.

...some poor ex-mugger still hears the words "LEKKA SHINEN!" in his nightmares.

...you never bothered getting your new apartment hooked up to cable, and even Babylon 5 is a take-it-or-leave-it thing... but anyone who gets in the way of your mission to get the next Slayers volume is dead.

...only, if you'd written the last sentence, you would have worded it, ``Anyone who gets in my way isNakago.''

...you've contemplated growing your hair long so that you can put it up in dumplings.

...and you're a guy.

...you feel like less of a woman because you can't put away 5,000 calories in one sitting.

...you're despondent because your chances to become an anime heroine are completely shot--you can cook.

...you refer to 21 as "over the hill," and get more depressed the closer that day comes; you're not ready to join the forces of evil, dammit!

...it's not a bad hair day, it's a Zelgadis hair day.

...your parents draw you aside and ask you whether you're a Satanist, since all of those symbols you practice drawing in your notebooks look awfully suspicious to them.

...your kids think that cartoons are supposed to have writing at the bottom.

...you squeal at the sight of your favourite character.

Lol I watch too much anime.

You Know You're From Arizona When...

You Know You're From Arizona When:

You’ve signed so many petitions to recall governors you can’t remember the name of the incumbent.

You notice your car overheating before you drive it.

You no longer associate bridges or rivers with water.

You know a swamp cooler is not a happy hour drink.

You can hear the weather forecast of 115 degrees without flinching.

You can be in the snow, then drive for an hour…and it will be over 100 degrees.

You discover, in July it only takes two fingers to drive your car, because your steering wheel is so hot.

You can make sun tea instantly.

You run your AC in the middle of winter so you can use your fireplace.

The best parking is determined by shade…..not distance.

You realize that “Valley Fever” isn’t a disco dance.

Hotter water comes from the cold water tap than the hot one.

It’s noon in July, kids are on summer vacation and yet all the streets are totally empty of both cars and people.

You actually burn your hand opening the car door.

Sunscreen is sold year round, kept right at the checkout counter.

You put on fresh sunscreen just to go check the mail box.

Some fools will market mini-misters for joggers and some other fools will actually buy them. Worse…..some fools actually try to jog.

You know hot air balloons can’t rise because the air temperature is hotter than the air inside the balloon.

No one would dream of putting vinyl inside a car.

You see two trees fighting over a dog.

You can say “Hohokam” and people don’t think you’re laughing funny

You see more irrigation water on the street than there is in the Salt River

You have to go to a fake beach for some fake waves

You can pronounce”Saguaro”, “Tempe”, “San Xavier”, “Canyon de Chelly”, “Mogollon Rim”, and “Cholla”

You can understand the reason for a town named “Why”

You can fry an egg on the hood of a car IN THE MORNING!

You hear people say “but it’s a DRY heat!”

You buy salsa by the gallon.

Your Christmas decorations include sand and paper bags.

You think a red light is merely a suggestion.

All of your out-of-state friends start to visit after October but clear out come the end of April.

You think someone driving wearing oven mitts is clever.

Most of the restaurants in town have the first name “El” or “Los.”

You think 60 tons of crushed red rock makes a beautiful yard.

Your house is made of stucco and has a red clay tile roof.

Vehicles with open windows have the right-of-way in the summer.

Most homes have more firearms than people.

Kids will ask, “What’s a mosquito?”

People who have black cars or black upholstery in their car are automatically assumed to be from out of-state or nuts.

You know better than to get into a car with leather seats if you’re wearing shorts.

If you haven’t worked for Motorola at some time, you must be a newcomer.

You can finish a Big Gulp in 10 minutes and go back for seconds.

You take rain dances seriously. 

When a rainy day puts you in a good mood.

When you drive two miles around a parking lot looking for a shady place - even in the dead of winter. 

You feed your chickens ice cubes to keep them from laying hard-boiled eggs. 

You "hug" a cactus only once in your lifetime. 

When you have to look up "mass transit" in the dictionary.

A hundred ten in the shade is sorta hot, but you don't have to shovel it off your driveway.

You accidentally burn the eggs you were cooking on the sidewalk.

Petrified doesn't mean scared.

You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.

A parade for the Phoenix Suns is held at 12:00 noon in June and 500,000 people turn out in 110 degree weather.

You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from Arizona.

Lol, I am definitely from Arizona XD

Animal Death Update

All animal death news stories have been moved to my other blog,

www.wwphenomenon.blogspot.com

Thanks!

It's Raining Dead Birds! End of the World? Some Think So.

Thousands of birds, including these red-winged blackbirds,
recently dropped dead out of the sky. No one is sure of
what exactly caused these mysterious deaths as of yet.

This photo, taken on January 3, 2011 by the
Maryland Department of the Environment,
shows dead fish at Northwest Creek in Stevensville,
Maryland. 

This New Year's Eve, 5,000 European starlings, red-winged blackbirds, and common grackles dropped dead out of the sky in Beebe, Arkansas. 450 dead blackbirds littered a highway in Louisiana near Baton Rouge. Just before midnight on Tuesday, an estimated 100 jackdaw birds were found dead in Falkoping, Sweden. As well as this, about 2 million fish were discovered dead in Maryland, in Chesapeake Bay. Authorities from Brazil report that several tons of what was mostly sardines also turned up dead around the Paranagua port area. There are no proven theories about what is happening to these birds and fish as of right now. Some believe that the mass death of these animals are signs of an upcoming apocalypse. 

The fish deaths are most likely completely unrelated to the bird deaths. Spot fish (the type of fish shown in the image to the right) are quite susceptible to the cold, and it was recorded that mass fish deaths like this occurred in Maryland in 1976 and 1980. The explanation for the mass death of the birds, however, is not as easy to come up with.

The species of dead birds found varied from brown-headed cowbirds, red-winged blackbirds, robins, starlings, and grackles. These species often flock together in the wintertime.

The birds apparently began dropping out of the sky in Arkansas around 11 pm. They were landing everywhere. Many Arkansas residents were traumatized, frightened, and disturbed by the event.

Christy Stephens told the New York Times, ""One of [the birds] almost hit my best friend in the head. We went inside after that."

Biologists found no evidence of toxins or poison gas on the birds, so that theory was pretty much ruled out. Another theory is that fireworks startled the birds, causing them to become so stressed out that they died. Although this is a possibility, 5,000 dead birds is a very large number. It is considered quite unusual for all of them to have died.

Some people are saying that the fireworks theory is just a cover-up story created by the government to conceal the real cause of death--government testing of a new weapon or some sort of device.

Several dead bird samples showed signs of blunt-force trauma. Ornithologist Karen Rowe said to CNN, "The birds obviously hit something very hard and had hemorrhages."

This has led other people to believe that the birds had flown into a UFO, and therefore UFOs were the cause. 

Many people have theorized that the birds could have flown into a storm and been pelted by hail or struck by lightning. However, this theory is very unlikely to be true due to the fact that there was no storm going on in that area at the time the birds began dying.

I will continue to update you on this story. If you want more information, however, click on the following link:

http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2011/0103/Search-for-clues-is-on-after-birds-fall-from-sky-in-Arkansas

Article Written By:

Ratt Kazamata

~Ratt

End of Winter Break Tomorrow

Well. Today is my last day of Winter Break. Too bad. I find it weird, though.
I love school, and I love learning. I love studying and enhancing my knowledge. I love all my teachers (except for Ms. Lightbulb, whom everyone wants to be pushed down the stairs). I don't even mind the homework. I can't stand almost all of my fellow students (most are complete shallow idiots who like to pick on people who are different than them), but I've always disliked them for as long as I can remember. However, I'm not really looking forward to going back to school.

Which is rather odd, considering I spent most of my Winter Break researching things because I hate not learning things. Hm. Well, in any case, I hope you all had a fun break (if you are about to start school again), and for those of you who will still be on break, I hope you have a good time.

New Year's Resolutions, Anybody?

Happy New Year, everybody! :D Hope everyone started the new year off right! What are all you peoples' resolutions for 2011? I want to hear them! These are mine:

~Be braver, and never not do something just because of fear of failure.

~Try more new things.

~Be a better person.

~Gain more knowledge.

I have more, but I'm going to keep those ones to myself. What are yours?!

Stranded and Snowed In Up North! 1-01-2011

Four days ago, I went to my friend Allie’s house for a sleepover. Nothing special—just a sleepover. When I got there, we began to talk, and her family invited me to go up to their cabin in Payson for a night (excluding Allie’s father, who had to stay home due to work, I think). I agreed.

DAY ONE OF THE CABIN [the day we got there]:

The next morning (I had stayed up all night lol), we hopped into the car and drove to my house to pick up some warm clothes for me to wear up there. My parents were fine with this. And so Allie, her older sister Marissa, their mother, and I drove off.

Their cabin was located about 10 miles outside of Payson, and to get there, you had to drive up a mountainside deep into the forest. It was snowing, and there was already about 3 inches of it on the ground. When we got into the cabin, we quickly discovered that there was no running water.

“There should be a metal pole shaped like a T outside,” Allie’s mother said to Allie and I. “Go out and find it. When you find it, go to the hole in the ground in our yard, stick it in, and twist. That should turn on the water.”

At that, Allie and I went out in the snow. We located said metal pole, but we couldn’t locate said hole in the ground. So we walked across the street to the neighbor’s house to ask for help.

The neighbor was an old man named Bob. In order to get to the front door of Bob’s cabin, Allie and I had to walk up the stairs and go onto their second-story balcony. We knocked on the glass door, and a large black poodle (along with two other dogs) greeted us with barks.

Bob and an old lady (who I assume to be his wife) came to the door. “Excuse me sir,” I started politely, “we don’t know how to start the water for our house. Would you please help us?”

“There should be a metal pole,” he began.

“Yes,” Allie quickly interrupted, “we have that.”

“But we don’t know WHERE to stick it in,” I continued.

“Oh, well there should be a hole in the ground, at the side of your yard. There should be a little knob in the shape of a minus sign. Stick the pole on that and twist,” he explained.

“Alright, thank you,” Allie said with a smile.

“Anything else I can help you with?”

“No, we’re good,” I told him. He closed the door.

I didn’t think that the man had really been of much help, but Allie said, “I think I know what he is talking about.”

Back at our own cabin, Allie found the hole. We placed the pole in it and twisted. Marissa and their mother stayed in the house. Allie and I would twist the pole (it actually took a considerable amount of force), and Marissa and their mother would call out to us, informing us whether or not the water had turned on yet.

We were doing this for about 15 minutes (with no luck) before they decided to ask another neighbor.

The neighbor who came to assist us was a big muscular man with grey hair and a moustache (he looked like someone off of Sons of Anarchy). He somehow got the water to work.

The next issue was the gas fireplace. Allie’s mother couldn’t figure out how to turn it on. I have a gas fireplace at my house, so I told her how to do it.

“You just have to take a lighter, put it in the fire, and turn the knob,” I told her.

“It’s a gas fireplace,” she argued, “you don’t need a lighter for it.”

I shrugged. She asked the man to teach us how to turn on the fireplace. And you know what? He did EXACLTY what I had told her to do. He lit the lighter in the fireplace and turned the knob.

“I TOLD you!” I exclaimed. She just gave me a guilty look and shrugged.

After that, the man left. We discovered that we had no electricity in the kitchen. Luckily, we had gas stoves.

Allie, Marissa, and I then went out and played in the snow. We were gone for about 1 ½ hours. We had had lots of fun throwing snowballs at each other, knocking snow off trees onto our heads, and rolling down hills. We were completely covered in snow by the time we got back.

The three of us had been anticipating a nice, warm shower. I was the snowiest, so I got in the shower first. It didn’t take me long to discover that the “warm” water wasn’t actually “warm.” The water range extremes were like this:

Super super super cold (if you turned on the cold water), and cold (if you turned on the hot water).

In the end, we all decided it would be better to just sit by the fire.

We watched The Day After Tomorrow and Pride and Prejudice. We had ramen and pasta for dinner.

It snowed all night.

DAY TWO OF THE CABIN [the day we were supposed to leave]:

The next day (the day we were supposed to leave), the car was completely buried under snow and the roads weren’t paved. The snow was almost up to my waist.

We all were waiting for the road paver dude to come and pave the roads so that we could potentially leave. In the meantime, we decided to go open the shed that contained the shovels, so that we could shovel a path for the car to get out of the driveway. There were two sheds outside. Both were locked with a padlock.

“Where are the keys?” I asked Allie’s mother.

“Marissa should have them,” she replied.

The three of us went over to Marissa and asked for the keys. However, Marissa only had one key.

“That’s weird; I had both of them,” Marissa said.

We decided to attempt to open one of the sheds with the key we had. We all trudged outside and went around back. We went to one of the two sheds. We weren’t really sure which shed had the shovels in them, so we just tried the biggest shed first. Allie and I tried to slide the lowest latch open (there were two metal latches, and the lowest one didn’t have a padlock on it), but it was, to our dismay, frozen solid.

I dashed back into the house and got two plastic cups filled with warmish water (Allie’s mother had somewhat fixed the warm water to be a bit warmer than cold). I went back to the shed and poured it over both latches.

They unfroze, and the key worked on the padlock. However, the hinges were also frozen. Allie’s mother told us to give up, because the shovels weren’t even in that shed, anyway. She told us that we weren’t gonna be able to get out of there that day.

Allie went inside and started to make bacon for her and Marissa. Allie is not a good cook. She is such a bad cook, in fact, that she somehow managed to burn the bacon to a crisp. The fire alarm went off 3 times during this process. We each took turns waving a towel in front of the smoke detector to prevent it from going off (which, as I already said, failed). I made a joke about the poor visibility levels in the house due to the smoke.

For lunch, I ate 2 packages of ramen noodles. After the smoke detector was triggered for the third time, we all finally decided to keep the door open and the fan on, despite it being around 15 degrees Fahrenheit outside. It was so cold out that when we opened the door, my almost finished bowl of ramen, which had long since cooled, had steam coming off of it. Needless to say, Allie didn’t cook for the remainder of the “one-step-up-from-camping” trip.

Around 3:30 in the afternoon, I looked out the window and saw a man driving a huge yellow CAT snowplow down the road.

“Sam!” Allie’s mother cried. “Quick! Throw on your snow boots and run after him! Ask him if the roads have been paved to Payson!”

“Alright,” I said. I put on my jacket and boots and ran out the door. I couldn’t run very fast, cuz the snow was almost up to my waist (as I said earlier). However, I finally managed to get on to the newly paved road (on the road, the snow was only about 3 ½ inches deep).

I ran up to the big CAT truck and shouted, “Excuse me, SIR!” After a few tries, I finally got his attention. He opened the door.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Are the roads paved all the way to Payson?” I shouted over the noise of the truck.

“You want to know if the roads are clear to Payson?” he clarified.

“Yes,” I replied, “I assume so.”

The man took out his radio thing and asked if the roads were cleared. After a few moments, the man looked back at me and said, “I don’t know. They aren’t sure.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, and ran back to the cabin. It was a bit of a struggle to walk across the snowy driveway.

When I got back inside, Allie’s mother asked, “What did he say?”

“They don’t know,” I answered.

“We’re stuck here another night,” she concluded. We all groaned.

The phone rang. Allie’s mother picked it up. She listened for a second before saying, “Arizona Republic Newspaper? I don’t know why you have this number. We are out in the middle of nowhere. There’s no delivery where we are. Just take this number off your lists.” She listened for another few seconds before saying, “yes, we’re great.”

“We’re not great!” Allie exclaimed, “we’re stranded!”

For the next little while, we started talking about backup plans for getting out if Plan A (finding the key to the shed, shoveling the driveway, unburying the car, driving away in the morning) failed. The most favoured backup plan was Plan B.

Plan B required Allie to climb up onto the roof of the cabin. She was then to leap off said roof, and land in such a way that would hopefully cause her to break a couple (if not several) bones. After her “suicide attempt” (or at least, that’s what we would call it), 911 would be dialed, and all four of us would be flown out of Payson and to the Phoenix Hospital via helicopter. However, favoured as it was, we all hoped it would not come to that.

Our first and main priority was to be reunited with our whole families (remember, I wasn’t the only one without family members. Allie’s father and two dogs were still back in Phoenix) by New Years Eve. None of us wanted to still be in the cabin on January 1, 2011. Also keep in mind that we had no cell phone service or internet connection.

For dinner, I had two bowls of [cooked] ramen without the soup/broth part (Allie’s family makes ramen differently than the instructions. Their way involves pouring out the water and just putting the seasoning on top of the noodles. It actually didn’t taste too bad). By this time, I was incredibly sick of ramen.

After dark, Marissa finally found the other key to the shed. She had accidentally left it in a bathroom drawer, or something similar. We then had our minds set on getting away from the cabin by morning.

DAY THREE OF THE CABIN [the day we weren’t even supposed to still be there]: {New Year’s Eve}

We all got up rather early in the morning (about 7 or so). Allie and I had the task of retrieving some shovels from the shed. We went to the smaller shed and discovered that it, too, was frozen. We unfroze it with warm water.

I went into the cluttered shed. I saw 3 shovels. There might have been more than that in there, but I didn’t pay any attention. I first took a large, heavy garden shovel and passed it to Allie. I then grabbed a lightweight, blue plastic snow shovel and passed that to Allie as well. The wooden handle of the third shovel looked to be very splintery, so I dared not take it.

The two of us went around to the front yard and started to shovel a path for the car (which was still buried under snow) to get through to the road. We both took turns with the lightweight snow shovel. I had managed to sprain my hand, so I was always glad when it was my turn to use the snow shovel.

Meanwhile, while we were shoveling, Marissa and Allie’s mother were working on getting all the snow off the car and unburying the tires.

This entire shoveling and unburying process took about 2 hours. When we were finally finished, Allie’s mother got in the car and turned it on. She stepped on the gas. Allie and I were behind the car, pushing it out of the driveway. Marissa was on the road directing the car. It almost got stuck a few times, but finally we were out of the driveway and onto the paved road. It only took about 2 hours to make it back to Phoenix.

There was still snow on the car by the time we got home.

Well, that’s the whole story. Comment!