Notice to Employees #2

Note: The following is a personal email I received. I republish it here with very few edits:

Hope you and the family is in enjoying the vacation. Everything is going well. We have the Wednesday screening in morning. I have coordinated with everybody involved. Ch, Personnel Operations is having a division Mtg at 1500 tomorrow, just wants to be updated and what's been happening. I was going to have Kay update the slides that you briefed a week or so ago. RM SGM called yesterday wanting to talk to you about adding new initiatives to their finance briefing for the Course. Will not cause any work on our part. He wants finance to come over twice for about 5 minutes each to make sure they're making progress on completing their vouchers on DTS/Virtual before the class ends to make sure they get everything they're entitled. I told him that we are having the computer divisions have our NIPR lines go hot, so they can down load the documents we need from them for the course. He says that a finance software program needs to be added before they access they're finance system back at their unit(AF). Do you want me to try to coordinate with the computer people? It may push what you're trying to do back if they try to get this software added. How do you want me to proceed? I will check with the computer and see if they have the program first and see if they do have it will it push our work order back. If it would not I will go ahead and have them add the finance software the RM is talking about. SOP is good to go. Security wanted a few things added and it was accomplished. The question is who do you want to sign it in your absence (The Director) or (Ch, Personnel Operations) or someone else? The other section of security is handling the back ground check form. She told me she will probably have the forms back by Thursday. We have forms on everybody that's authorized by you. Those people that's the background check is being done on, we can just create an access roster, which is the only missing piece. The NCOIC will walk everybody through the procedures once we get everything back signed and approved. At this time no major emails have came up in your inbox. Enjoy your vacation.

Summer: Part 1

After several grueling months of the stressful partying, socializing, and procrastination that we college students call school, it is always a welcome relief to enter the period of non-stressful, non-illicit partying, socializing, and procrastination that we call summer. The primary difference between school and summer is that in the summer, no excuses are necessary. However, there are several other differences as well, which is why this post is the first in a series. Each part will describe one difference. Sort of like a compare/contrast essay, but without the compare.

Perhaps the least pleasant difference between school and summer is living at home. In school, pizza crusts are meant to be on the floor. If you didn't have any pizza crusts on the floor, your roommate would eye you warily, like a deer who has just realized that your antlers are fake and you have a gun under your coat. Unlike the deer, however, he wouldn't run. He would simply supply the pizza crusts from his own generous stock.

At home, things are a bit different. The first time you leave pizza crusts on the floor, you wake up to find that they have mysteriously disappeared. The second time, you wake up to find that your mom's hand is slapping your face and pointing to a trash bag intended for your use. The third time, you wake to find the same thing. And so on.

This experience causes many college students to be wary of their moms. After all, what sort of mess might she take a disliking to next? But beware of such attitudes—moms are actually a very valuable part of life. They love you, they are always there for you, and they usually do your laundry. At least one day of the week every summer, you may wake up to find that your floor is visible. This is because at some point in the night (say, 10:00 AM), your mom has cleared all the dirty laundry out and washed it for you. You can reward her with a smile and a kiss, which is a bargain compared to the laundromat.

Apart from moms, though, home has its drawbacks. For one thing, night time starts at an ungodly hour there—usually only a little while after sundown. For another, you are expected to do chores and keep clean. Somehow, your family isn't as understanding as your professors are. Try saying something like, "Hey, I was up till three in the morning last night getting ready to mow the lawn because I totally put it off till the last minute. Do you just have a copy of last year's lawnmow that I can tweak?" and chances are, you'll get a kick in the pants instead of the pity you deserve.

But what can you say? The goods, the bads, the ups, the downs—those are what summers are made of. Procrastination and laziness are the

[We apologize that the author could not be contacted to finish this post. It is believed that he is asleep at this time.]

Spring Break

Funny Class Notes is on Spring Break. We are lounging by the beach, drinking our drinks with umbrellas and doing all the things we always wanted to do but never did because we had other things we had to do. Check back in for more content on April 13th. Until then, happy Easter!

A Long Drive

There are drives and there are drives. More specifically, there are short drives and long drives. Webster defines them thus:

Short Drive n. short•drive [ple⸍ zhər] An interesting, profitable trip, usually made in an awesome motor vehicle, for the purposes of leisure, necessity, or vanity.

Examples: “I really need to take a short drive to a burger place.” “I just might make the short drive to class today.” “I was only on a short drive—it must be Mom who used up all the gas.”

Long Drive n. long•drive [payn⸍] An excruciatingly tedious trip down a boring interstate in the middle of a barren American desert, in vain pursuit of some elusive goal such as a vacation or conference. People who take long drives often die of heat, bladder expansion, or an overload of junk food and portable movies, although the leader of a long drive, called the driver, frequently survives.

Examples: “When is our long drive going to be finished?” “Why did we even decide to go on this long drive?” “Wow, you really meant a long drive.” You think you took a long drive?” “This is nothing like the long drives we took in my day, son.” “You should hear about the lovely long drive we took last summer.” (The last example demonstrates a curious fact about long drives: they are very enjoyable when the driving is more memory than reality.)

The latter definition appears almost calculated to arouse curiosity. Why do drivers survive more frequently than passengers? The answer is in a third entry, which I generously plagiarize here for your benefit:

Driver ⁴ n. driv•er [ov⸍ərlord] A skilled but overindulged participant in a long drive (see entry). He/she bears responsibility for the safe navigation of the vehicle, but in return has command of the air conditioner, volume and subject matter of the radio, and the size of the interval between rest stops. Passengers (see entry) generally display a deep respect for the driver, in order to conceal their jealousy and boredom.

Examples: “Don’t ask me when we’re going to be there; ask the driver.”

Of course, such definitions cannot really communicate the full meaning of the words. To actually know a thing, you have to experience it in its unveiled, unstinted reality. Or, you have to hear about it from a person who has experienced that reality. With that in mind, I offer for your information a concise, four-part exposition of the average long drive.

1. The Beginning
A long drive is a real drive, the sort of drive that makes all other drives seem cheap and trifling, and so it must begin early in the morning, when the sun is just rising, the birds are beginning to come out, and the highway is empty of traffic. That is the ideal, anyway. A real long drive usually begins when the sun is up enough to wake would-be pilgrims from their sleep and send them frantically scurrying to the car with a neck ache, ruffled hair, and no coffee, to push for hours through early rush-hour traffic. The lucky passengers wearily try to find a tolerable position for their pillows so they can snatch another hour of sleep and the driver slaps himself to stay awake, counting down minutes until the end of his shift.

2. The Middle
The long drive continues when someone finds that there is no ice in the ice chest, and the travelers descend upon a gas station to buy some. There is generally no ice at the station, but they stretch their legs and use the restroom before driving to another. After a few more stops, the ice is found, and it is time for lunch. Lunch is then eaten in the car to save time. Crumbs litter the seats, and every time a passenger sits down, they roll around beneath him. If there are small children on the long drive, they get hungry between meals and eat snacks, populating the seats with yet another batch of crumbs.

Near the front of the car, meanwhile, there is a debate over the radio. The small children want to listen to their favorite CD for the twenty-ninth time. The driver wants to listen to something energetic and fascinating to alleviate his tedious task. And the other passengers want some peace and quiet for a few minutes. The small children always win battles of this kind.

3. The Interlude
With meal, snacks, and music all tended to, the long drive enters its most peaceful stage. The passengers doze in their seats, the small children gaze listlessly out of the window at the passing prairie (or city), and the driver relaxes at eighty or so miles per hour. The sun shines down on the asphalt, spotting the road with an occasional mirage. The driver relaxes a bit too much, and jolts up as his tires hit the grating on the side of the highway, which was been placed there to vibrate him back to his senses. He shoves his shoulders back and peels his eyes, but soon they glaze over again. Another jolt. One of the passengers gets worried and has all of them, especially the small children, chip in to help the driver stay awake. They succeed. The peaceful stage is over.

4. The End
It is followed by the stressful stage. Night is approaching, a destination must be reached, and everyone is for some mysterious reason crossing their legs. The sun sets fast, and little orange lights appear all over the city, forming words: No Vacancy. The driver and the head passenger (see entry) wrangle over a map, trying to figure out how far the next city is and which way they should go anyway, all without raising their voices so the passenger calling ahead for reservations and prices can hear the receptionist’s voice. The small children are restless and would like to cry, so they are kept busy crunching on snacks that raise the crumb population on the seats as if there were an illegal immigrant problem. Semi-trucks whiz by, making the car sway, the passengers gasp, and the driver stops arguing to look at the road ahead for a few minutes. When he does, an open hotel is finally found at an exorbitant price, and everyone prays it has free wi-fi, clean sheets, and a free breakfast to help start the next day of the long drive.

A Six Year Old on Skates

Not every derelict college student has a six-year-old brother. Some do, but those cases are rare, and generally limited to the older brother variety of the derelict species. I am, as befits my variegated and diversely endowed existence, a member of that particular strain.

A six-year-old brother is an uplifting if tedious addition to just about any activity imaginable, particularly in the summertime when classes are out and teachers have relinquished their tyrannical but protective custody over the student's mind. Actually, the custody is never relinquished at all. It is turned over to the brother. This transfer of authority became especially clear to me on a particular day last month, as I watched the brother wobble out onto an ice-skating rink. He was doing a good job, I thought, watching him coast a few feet at a time. He showed excellent coordination for the very brother who had an attention deficit so extreme that he couldn't hold a violin under his chin without forgetting it was there and dropping it to the floor for my mother's special enjoyment, and who was always up at six in the morning, eager to conduct a frenzied chat that would frazzle all impatient nerves.

In fact, he was skating so well that I concluded that there couldn't be much to the feat. If the six-year-old brother could do it, anyone probably could. In fact, if the six-year-old brother could do it I probably could. So I rented a pair of skates.

It wasn't as if I expected to be a virtuoso. I had never worn skates before, and I knew attaining a graceful air would take a bit of practice. So I sat for a while at the edge of the ice, watching the advanced skaters waltz and frisk along the shimmering surface. I observed how one foot would gracefully fall in front of the other as they rounded turns. I noticed how they stepped into their allotted trajectories with forward momentum, not backwards thrust. I even noticed the deft little flicks of the blades that sped the skaters along backwards whenever they wished to speak to their partners behind them without stopping. Now, I just needed to implement my new knowledge.

Soon I felt confident enough to try on the size-fourteen behemoths that had been silently handed to me by a dubious-faced youth behind the counter. I removed my shoes (vulgar things they now seemed!) and began with the laces to ascend a Matterhorn of holes and hooks that seemingly stretched up to heaven, or at least to my knees. Who wouldn't feel a bit overconfident after completing a task like that?

They don't tell you this until you've already burned the bridges, but outside of their intended environs, skates are very awkward things to walk in. They're generally leather and universally rigid, allowing no ankle movement at all, which presents many difficulties to the skater. First, there is the necessity of either goose-stepping or brass-band-marching across the floor before reaching the ice. This is not pleasant in the presence of ruddy-faced gliders and ecstatic waltzers who were apparently born in skates (talk about a painful pregnancy!). Second, balance on the ice can be achieved only by an uncomfortable standing squat, or by bending over backwards and falling on one's tail bone. I am a proponent of the former option, but only in theory.

My brother was finishing his lesson as I stepped onto the glassy circle, but I was glad he still had a few minutes left of watching his teacher instead of me. I grasped the wall for my life, and took one step, one thrust, one stumble at a time. I had wondered why that little boy's legs seemed a bit shaky. Now I understood. But I was determined, and I gradually let go of the wall and began to learn to skate. "It's just like roller-skating," I told myself, which felt like encouragement at the time because I had forgotten how bad I was at roller-skating. I took a few steps, threw my weight forward, and fell on my tailbone. The six-year-old brother came gliding up beside me. "Take little steps," he said, his cherubic face denying my planned retort. I got up, and he showed me how to spread my feet apart: "This is how you stop."

He glowed with energy. "You're doing really good for your first time. When everyone is done, a truck comes out and puts snow all over the ice to make it smooth. Did you know what Nick and I do? We watch the water come out of those little gates. Are you going around again?" Indeed I was. I worked around the rink a few more times until I started to get the hang of it. Once again the brother glided along side of me, slowing down so he wouldn't pass me by. "Put your hands out like you're holding a table," he said. I did, but it didn't help. He sped off.

It was then that I resolved in my heart of hearts to skate faster than he did. His legs were not even half the length of mine, and I put mine to work. I skated doggedly for half an hour. Epic theme songs welled in my head, interrupted only every thirty seconds or so when my brother meandered out in front of me and I had to slow down so he could tell me about the crackers we had waiting for us when we got done, or the teenage Olympic candidates who would come to practice later, or his teacher or his sister or his cousin or his toys.

At the end of the half hour I felt like I was getting pretty regular. My brother was in front of me again, but this time instead of slowing down to talk I stepped around him and started off as fast as I could. He came up beside me, gazed at my feet in his hyper way, and gave me a tip. "Take little steps and glide," he said and demonstrated, shooting far ahead of me. I stopped, panting. "How did you do that?" I asked. He showed me: "Like this." I tried to do it. I could not.

Then, with heavy spirits, I knew that I had to leave the rink. I was defeated, and my pride lay on the field as wounded as my tailbone. But as I turned toward the door, so did everyone else. The open session was over, and the truck was coming to smooth the ice for those Olympic candidates. I was saved by the bell.

Back behind the wheel...

Boy it feels good to be back. This is my first post since the hijacker frenzied around our little baby, made child's play of our template and generally was cantankerous.

While the hijacker was in control of FCN, I got to know what it's like to be one of the faithful few. I didn't know what a post would be until it came out. When it did arrive, I'd be disappointed.

Throughout the hijacker's brief but notorious tenure, I rose early for my morning FCN fix, only to discover that our hijacker kept a different schedule than I and posted much later whilst I was in class. So my mornings, all four of them, were much more dour.

Every day held a scary moment, a few terrorizing seconds as my browser connected with the blogger servers and made its request. As the information was exchanged between my local terminal and the Big Kahuna central, I found myself holding my breath, even when my lungs had already expired their last oxygen (Big Kahuna central can take a while to respond). So any reports you hear about an FCN author fainting yesterday had nothing to do with the hijacker and everything to do with forgetting to breathe.

I know this is the second reflective post on the nefarious activity of one hijacker - and believe me, that fact weighs so heavily on my conscience that I will find a way to introduce new content into this tome - but it's worth delving into the issue once again to discourage any copycats. Acts of senseless terrorism invariably engender mindless duplication. School, Olympics and mall shootings have all been tried, but idiots keep on doing them anyway, thinking their take on mass killing is unique. So taking over a FCN, a crime so similar in magnitude to senseless murder that we dare not dwell for too long on the link (we've young readers, folks), is likely to encourage further attempts.

Like our elected leaders, FCN had to change its policy to reflect the open animosity and, let's be frank, actionable hostility toward friendly humor blogging. That's right, ladies and gentleman (not a typo), from this day forward FCN will make like a Danish newspaper and negotiate with terrorists. The next time someone offers to guest blog (with an implied "or else), we will be much more inclined to say yes. When an anonymous heckler sends us a letter with a copy of a picture we would rather you all not see, we will write a check before calling the authorities.

Heck, if you get me in an armbar I'll do pretty much anything. But I'd like to see you try.

OK, so that new content I promised earlier. Touching fingers to keyboard again reminded me of my first experience driving a tractor on an April morning some years ago. I couldn't have been much older than Dakota Fanning when I slid behind the wheel of our family's powerful Kubota and listened attentively as my father taught me the basics of driving. That's right: I learned to drive a tractor before I learned to drive a car. Maybe that's why I drive at such safe speeds.

The rumble of the diesel engine erased all my father's warnings about maneuverability and safety, but didn't keep me from having a riot on my first tour of agrarian authority. At least for the first twenty minutes. See, the thrill of controlling a cumbersome and slow craft over rough terrain turns from exciting to dull faster than molten iron in a bucket of cold water. What started as a novelty soon became a chore.

The great thing about working on a small farm is that the boring work comes by rarely and passes quickly and a simple mind like mine can easily forget the monotony of driving given a few months of memory fermentation.

To tie the analogy back to FCN, in a couple weeks I forgot what it is like to be up at 5:30 AM sitting in front of a blank post, knowing that work and school will soon call and not having anything to write about. I am back behind the wheel and feeling as energetic about today's post as I am about the breakfast I am about to eat (you would be too if you saw these peanut butter coated waffles in which I am about to indulge).

Oh, yeah, and I'll be on the tractor again this month; I'm looking forward to it.

FCN's Golden Age has ended!

The hijacker relinquished full control of FCN back to us yesterday, much to our dismay. We got down on our knees and begged him/her to stay. "Please don't go," we said. We said it just like that. We used those very words. Alas, they were to no effect. He/she insisted on leaving, so we're back, and we have to come up with content again.

Rats.

We know there were some pretty harsh things said about the hijacker. He/she was accused of being unoriginal, pandering, and dull. We would come out and say this was hogwash, but we don't want to disagree with a reader publicly. So we'll say that, while this may be true, there are other angles from which to approach the situation that may lead to seeing the facts in a different light.

We think - no, we declare - that the hijacker's short tenure represented FCN's Golden Age. With a legacy of intellectually stimulating and entertaining posts on a range of relevant topics, this hijacker is leaving not in shame, but to rest on his/her laurels, satisfied with a week well run.

So now we have to plod on alone, as we've been doing for a year or two, depending on how you measure it. We don't even know what we'll do for you guys tomorrow. Maybe we'll sing a song. We'll see.

People like the hijacker, who presumably has a personal blog elsewhere, are the reason FCN is still more than 78 million years away from global domination. We don't mind the wait. We're in very good company.

Spring Break

It's that time of year again. Students the country over are taking a week off of school to get into untold mischief and generally blow off enough steam to survive the second half of the semester. The smart kids lose a little of their shine and the party animals completely lose it. Teachers, parents and bartenders look the other way as thousands of students perform the timeless rituals associated with this charming break.

Whoever said idle hands are the devils workshop has obviously been to Cancun in mid-March.

As admitted derelicts, we refuse to be left out of the frivolity. And we need an excuse to take a week off. So for the next few days, we will be doing things that will eventually be published here for your titillation. Call it research. If we survive the ordeal, we will post again on Monday, March 17. Until then, don't tell our moms what we're up to.

/Hiatus

We resolved not to come back until January, but we just couldn't do it. The voice of public opinion was too loud.

So, as of this moment, FCN is back in business and stronger than ever, and we're back to the usual daily routine of tacky jokes gently sprinkled amongst tacky autobiographies and tacky social critiques. We've got a great lineup of posts for January, including New Year's Resolutions, new interviews, a few fascinating essays, and Desperate Student's last episode in Zimbabwe.

In other news, the Holidays are just about over, and frankly, we can't wait to get back to the classic gray scheme. So we're pulling the plug on red and green right now. The Holidays are over. FCN is posting again. Deal with that.

There have been complaints about the shortness of our December posts. In fact, there were some pretty vocal protests (complete with rotten tomatoes stuffed into C's bed - pretty funny stuff if you ask anyone but him). So it just doesn't seem right to cut this post short now, even if we have temporarily run out of things to say.

So, instead of giving you new content (that comes tomorrow), we're going to start a nostalgia-fest by reviewing all the FCN slogans we used since some undisclosed date when we started keeping track of them. Hopefully they'll give you the same little tingles of happy memory they did us. Read on, and don't forget to come back tomorrow. We've got a really sweet post planned. At least that's what our moms tell us.

FCN slogans of the past few months:

Stop Snickering.
Second link to the right and straight on till morning. Or you can just MapQuest us.
EXTREMELY subtle.
Based on a true story.
Stop. Think. FCN.
Life Tip: Don't do anything that'll get mentioned in the Life Tips.
Eternal Fusarium
100% Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.
Flippant College Nerds.
Class is a four letter word.
Semantic Frivolity.
Taking your mom out for a steak dinner and never calling her back since 1821.
Cunning cultural commentary cleverly crafted as classic comedy.
Hypocriteful.
Wearing white after Labor Day since 1821.
A straight player in a world where Panera Bread has soups and salads, Burger King serves chicken sandwiches and Subway makes a fajita wrap that belongs at Taco Bell.
Putting the "blague" in blog.
So you're French. Do you celebrate Ramadan?
"Much study is a weariness of the flesh." ~Ecclesiastes 12:12
Where it's always Summer!
Fox Uniform November November Yankee Charlie Lima Alpha Sierra Sierra November Oscar Tango Echo Sierra
Everything that ever happened to us. And a few things that haven't.
Serious comedy.
"Why can't you guys just push backspace like everyone else?"
TGIFCN: Thank God It's Funny Class Notes
The comfort of three blades; the precision of one.
Not even a pretty face.
Getting caught with our hands in the cookie jar since 1821.

We wear sunglasses not to look cool, but to hide the fact that we aren't very bright.
If written by gods, FCN would be Cathenotheistic
Laughing 'till we loose our fillings. Or is it "Luce" our fillings?
Plurium Stupidium.
Conceived in 1821 via parthenogenesis.
We refuse to be offended when our readers are.
If your brains were on the stove, FCN stirs the soup.
Official Website of the Declaw Osiris campaign.
Fearfully Cowering Ne'er-do-wells.
Home of the Half-Eaten Gingerbread House.
Putting the empty milk carton back in the fridge since 1821.
Normative vernacular parlance for the vulgar masses.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas Without Us.

It’s December, the month of the year when school finals give way to Christmas vacation and a healthy dose of celebration. It is also a month when the average American will gain 15 pounds.

Do something for me? Run to the mirror and look at yourself. This is you at your current weight. Pretty good, no? I mean, we could all stand to fix a few aesthetic flaws, but you don’t look half bad. Now imagine what you will look like with an additional fifteen pounds hanging from the places pounds hang. Not all droopy like old people weight, but solid, firm and very there. That is what you will look like at the end of December.

A fun exercise this Christmas season is to walk down the street mentally adding weight to different people. Where would it go? How would the person try to cover it up? And know that if you are thinking it about others, others are thinking it about you.

We wouldn’t worry too much about all that weight. Come New Year, you will make a resolution to lose it all and you will have much of it worked off by the 23rd of January when you fail your resolution and go on a calorie binge that regains almost all of what you lost. Over the next few months, good lifestyle decisions bring you back to 90% of your former svelteness. That additional 10% will never be lost. Consider it a Christmas present. It will hang around and send out invitations until friends join it and an adipose party is on at your midriff. But that will take many years of Christmas seasons, so we wouldn’t worry about it too much.

Those of you who don’t plan on gaining weight should feel doubly guilty. 15 pounds is the average and if you add nothing, someone else will have to put on 30 pounds. Averages can be so brutal.

Anyway, while you all are gaining weight, we here at FCN will be...gaining weight. We will also be on vacation. That’s right, over the next four weeks, all the way until December 31^st, the FCN staff will be enjoying Christmas, recharging and doing everything other than posting FCN.

Don’t get us wrong. This isn’t a soul-searching, mid-life crisis, too much wampum kind of vacation. We aren’t taking time off to work on our yoga and eat yogurt in our Volvos (or should we say Priuses?) We won’t come back with a bunch of adopted refugee kids or melanoma inducing tans. We aren’t taking an extended, Vanessa Milanoesque voyage that ends only when the next one starts.

What we will do is leave FCN undisturbed for four weeks, punctuated only by whatever happens to seep out. And since our mental filters aren't very strong, you can pretty much count on something getting posted over the next month. But we're not committing to any regular content.

The FCN that greets you on the New Year is the same one that is leaving you now, plus 27 days and approximately 45 pounds. So go, eat your food and be merry. And come back when we do. Please?

Losing The 'F' In 'FCN'

As some of you may have surmised from the not-so-subtle reference in the latest episode of Desperate Student, one of the three authors of Funny Class Notes is leaving for a period of weeks to partake in a summer project. The departing author has requested that the exact nature of his behavior be kept in the dark from you, the faithful few. I know, have a Kleenex. We can, however, tell you that he will be in no way productive. That much is assured de facto.

With the temporary loss of one of our three authors, FCN is now a triangle with two sides; a tri-union without one of the parties. We have gone from Lithium to Helium. Boy that was nerdy. We're the two stooges, Peter, Paul and nobody, or Nickelback without the bass player.

As long as it's just the two of us, we don't see a need to have a three letter acronym to describe this blog. “FCN” implies three people, and corresponds to the letters we have tattooed on our rear ends. The author who is leaving is taking with him the “F” on his rump with him (he couldn't very well leave it behind), leaving the C (my tush) and N here for your entertainment. So from now until he returns (the other writer not, you know, Him), this blog will be known simply by the acronym “CN.”

According to Acronym Finder, an excellent webpage that helped us determine that FCN actually stands for Funny Class Notes, “CN” means The People's Republic of China, Connecticut, Consultant, Cyanide, Communications Network, Cranial Nerve, Chloroacetophenone, Congenital Nystagmus, Common Name, Corporate Network, Canadian National, Cellular Number, Cherokee Nation and, our personal favorite, Chuck Norris. What the Acronym Finder hasn't found, however, is that CN really stands for Class Notes, which is what we will continue to write no matter what (with a few obvious exceptions like acid rain and a sticky female incident, but you get the picture).

What this means to you, or at least those who are spending their summers at more pedestrian pursuits, is that you need to take some counter measures to ensure that CN doesn't lose one third of its brilliance. In order to stay on the cutting corner of cultural commentary and comedy, we need you guys to send in any Class Notes you've been holding back. If you had a weird incident at the dentist's office a few weeks back and want to vent a little toothy frustration, send us your tome. If you twisted your littlest toe in a way that was so painful that you actually started laughing while the nurse fidgeted with it, write it down and tell us about it, as Chris says. If you were in Zimbabwe recently and had a noteworthy adventure there, you know what to do. Just email your material to us at FunnyClassNotes@gmail.com.

As for us, we'll put together a week of classics starting maybe next week or the week after that, or the week after that one, using the suggestions you came up with while we were all on vacation. We'll also be adding a little water to the soup, cutting posts shorter, making the graphics grainier and the page load more slowly so that we can make what content we do have go further.

Further, we aren't telling you which one of us is leaving. Our posts will retain their anonymous quality that destroys your ability to specify names in your hatemail or otherwise target a specific CN author. I know, we can be pretty devious.

So that's the plan for the next few weeks. If you have a problem with it, leave a nasty comment that the departing author will read when he returns or email us and we'll give you his personal email address so you can spam him to pieces.

Have a great get away, bro!

/Vacation

Well, we're back.

And four days earlier than we promised, too. We had to rush to give Em her lifeline; hey, she was dieing. It's OK. We're back now.

It's been a great vacation. Although, Em didn't like it so much. Wait, was that email off the record, too?

If you assumed by looking at the picture on our “going on vacation post” that we were visiting a touristy island with a palm tree and blue waters and recharging our batteries with all the amenities of the modern vacation, you were wrong. You know what they say about assumptions. We didn't go to Zimbabwe. That's where we thought we were going, but our flight was redirected to Belton, Texas, which is directly between Mexico and the nearest stoplight.

Actually, we drove. Cody is now officially really, really bad at following directions.

After over 4,000 miles of driving, lots of heavy breakfast on Route 66 diners and a serious case of the back seat flabs (if you don't already know, please don't ask), the FCN team is reassembled in sublime center of the sunny central valley of California.

Belton was the site of the NCFCA 2007 National Tournament. To select Belton, the league inputted the names of every city in the United States into an excel macro and randomly chose one. We showed up on the first day of the tournament wearing FCN shirts, but we got nothing but cruel remarks (and some genuinely snide remarks), so we didn't go back for the rest of the week. Our artistic souls can't handle that kind of negativity.

For those of you who didn't know from the details description above, Belton is about 40 miles from Crawford. That's right, it's right smack dab in the middle of Bush country. A casual conversation with an acquaintance brought this fact to the fore of our collective consciousness (not that we believe in the collective consciousness) and we ended up driving out to see W's digs. This is yet another example of how dangerous casual conversations can be.

As we approached Bush's house, we saw large orange traffic signs on either side of the road with imposing warnings like:

NO STOPPING

NO SLOWING

NO STARING

NO SPEEDING

NO SMOKING

NO DRIVE-BY-SHOOTING

Large cameras made no attempt to hide the fact that we were being surveyed. A drone airplane was, no doubt, overhead, and and I could barely make out the outlines of the automatic weapons hidden in the brush. As we got nearer, we saw the broken bodies of tourists who had not heeded the warnings littering the side of the road.

The actual house wasn't that impressive – it was apparently built during a down turn in the oil economy – but the helicopter hanger, communication antennae and black armored Humvees were something else. We didn't get close enough to entice anything FCN worthy, but our imagination ran wild with possibilities.

As our car was just inching its way past the driveway, the door to the house opened and Laura Bush emerged, waiving her hands for me to stop the car. We pointed sheepishly to the “keep driving” sign and remembered the swollen carcasses. We were torn between the desire to stop and see the First Lady and the desire to survive. Life is full of hard choices.

As if reading our minds, a male voice announced over the loudspeaker that the driver of the FCNMobile had “special dispensation” to disobey the rules. We decided to play along.

A uniformed security guard acted as a valet, swiftly navigating my car into the shade of the hanger. Another guard scanned us with a sci-fi device that looked like it belonged in Mission Impossible, not Texas. A third man conducted an invasive tap down search that was more painful than productive. We didn't have guns, but now, in retrospect, we don't think that he cared.

Mrs. Bush was a charming and very hospitable woman. She fixed a pot of Earl Grey while explaining that her husband was on his way home from the G8 Summit and that she regretted we wouldn't get a chance to meet him. We, in turn, struggled to maintain our end of the conversation. We tried to listen, but it seemed she wanted us to talk. It's a shame we didn't have a tape recorder, so we could relate the conversation back to you all verbatim, but alas and alack! our feeble memory will have to do...

Laura (she insisted we be on a first name basis): So I read on your blog you were coming out to my neck of the woods and I would be remiss if I didn't invite you in for some refreshments.

FCN: That's very kind of you, Laura, we were...wait, you read FCN?

Laura: Ever since Cindy Sheehan stopped jamming our Internet. You guys are some serious losers.

And we can't remember what was said after that, but the conversation lasted about a half-hour.

There are, of course, many more tales from our vacation left to be told. We spent a night on an Indian Reservation, ate at a real Mexican meal in El Peso and had a televised argument in the Texas statehouse – ok, so maybe it wasn't televised. We made a few friends and lost a couple (and by a couple, we mean quite a few, and by quite a few, I mean we would now be hiring bodyguards if they didn't come free). All in all, it was a great vacation, but boy is it good to be back. The next few posts may have some oblique references to the past few week's activity, but generally speaking, FCN is back and back to normal.

We had extensive discussions about the future of FCN, which were lubricated by quarts and quarts of lukewarm sweet tea. We discussed almost every topic conceivable, but about the only thing we could really agree on was that we need to do more of these vacation thingies.

Thanks to all of you who commented on the last post and who took the time to return to FCN today after our absence and Cody's request that you not do so. We were flattered by the high number of comments, which exceeded that of the previous 200 FCN posts put together. We hereby pat ourselves on the back, and promise that we will take your nominations into consideration as we craft our classics collection.

As a post script, our survey results revealed that most of you used the downtime from FCN to get married. Masoltov. Why weren't we invited to the reception?

It's good to be back. Look out, Daily Kos. Here we come.

Yipeeeeee!

I am out of breath and sweating like a ten-year old during recess. My heart is thundering like the pistons of a sports car and I have a few residual shakes from some caffeine induced late night studying. But I can still shout and sing and type and do everything to tell the world how happy I am that my last final of my last class of my last semester at community college is COMPLETE!

Nary a few minutes ago, I waltzed (1-2-3, 1-2-3) out of class, the warmth of my professor’s handshake still impressed on my palm. It isn’t that far behind me, but I’ve already scrubbed my memory clean of everything I learned this semester. Descartes, Hume and Guano (or was it Guanillo?) can go back to being their dead, aspirated selves. Nutrition class’ subtle condemnation of my eating habits is free to return to obscurity. My soils book will return to, well, the dirt from whence it came.

A half opened packaged of dehydrated Ramen noodles reminds me of my hunger – I read once that fasting can help retain facts, and was in the 15^th hour of self deprivation – but only briefly. My emotional state will not let me dwell on my empty stomach for long. My feelings can only be described as giddy; summer vacation is upon us; if you listen closely you can almost hear it hailing – or is that the ceiling fan?

I won’t know my grades for another few days, but right now I really don’t care. I’d go on a date with Phil Spector, that’s how reckless I am. I’d open my eyes in chlorinated water and wait for my contacts to float out. I’d snort Tabasco sauce and put ground pepper on the little thing that hangs down in the back of my mouth. And that’s just the first week of summer.

I promised a friend that I would run around the house three times in my underwear if I get an “A” in my difficult philosophy class. Well, it looks like that seemingly far fetched prediction may come to fruition and I’m a man of my word. If you plan on coming near my place in the next week, also plan on averting your eyes.

Whatever else happens this summer, school classes are not in the cards. I am taking a not-so-well deserved but heavily anticipated three month break from homework, study groups and tests. But that doesn’t mean FCN content will be stopped, or even siphoned. If anything, some time outside the classroom may provide even more fodder for humor and satire. I (and all of FCN, for that matter) will be taking a brief vacation within the next month – nothing too long, just some time away to recharge – but more about that later.

Right now I am going to enjoy the depth of life without responsibility. It’s great to know that I may get up tomorrow morning at a godly hour or I may – with the same consequences – sleep in. My pillow will become my new best friend, sorry Jeremy.

The emotional high is beginning to rub off and the old stressful concern about my grades is seeping in again. That means it's time to go eat and satisfy the hunger that is now threatening to make me look European. I’ll see you guys after the gorge.

Oh, I’m so happy!

Pelosi's Apology

I don't know what dark hole you've been living in, but if you've missed the latest Nancy Pelosi news you need to get out and experience more of the life that is quickly passing you by. Here's a brief synopsis while your eyes adjust to the light:

Nancy decided that Syria, a rogue nation and state sponsor of terror, would make a nice Spring Break vacation spot. She heard the sands retain the heat well and planned a small excursion with some members of her congressional entourage. She threw in a visit with Syrian President Bashar Assad, which the tour guide said was a “charming man with a quaint mustache.”

After the meeting, which lasted three hours, Nancy emerged and, heavily guarded by her security troop, announced that, in her highly educated expert opinion, Syria is “ready to engage in negotiations for peace with Israel.” She then donned a bullet-proof flak jacket, hopped into her reinforced limousine and flew home on a military jet that made anti-SAM maneuvers until it reached Saudi airspace.

When she got back to DC, Nancy was not congratulated for her bravery (being the only woman without a headscarf in a Muslim country takes guts) nor was her impromptu diplomacy and eye opening admission from Assad heralded as a victory. Rather she was a villain; she was undermining America's efforts in the Middle East. She was a bad guy.

Though it pains us to say so, we here at FCN are forced to agree with the general assessment and are jumping on the "Nancy bad” bandwagon. We just think that as long as she had a private three hour interview with a known mass murderer and state sponsor of terrorism, she should have poisoned his drink or bugged his bedroom or something!

Although Nancy has yet to make any public expression of regret for not making her trip to Syria earlier more productive, FCN was able to discover that the esteemed Speaker will issue an apology in the near future. We were also able to procure, through somewhat devious and completely unethical means, an early draft of the apology. Apparently it is intended as a statement to be delivered before a joint session of Congress when the lawmakers come back to DC after Easter. We republish it here to kill the suspense:

Ladies and Gentlemen of this esteemed body,

I come before this body to personally express, again, my sincere regret about the encounter with General Assad of Syria. I appreciate my colleagues who are standing with me, who love this institution and who love this country. There should not have been any contact in this incident. I have always been against terrorism, and will be voting for H. Res. 756, a bill to prohibit unauthorized politicians from making diplomatic vacations, to express my disappointment and frustration with the ineffectiveness of this body at changing global attitudes. I only wanted to be a shining light of diplomacy in a world made dark by head scarves, but I failed even in that. I am sorry that this misunderstanding happened at all and I regret its escalation. And I apologize. And I'm sorry. And I won't do it again, even if 756 doesn't pass.

This will obviously be a heart-warming and attitude-changing apology. Having delivered it, we expect Nancy to return to our good graces.