Today is all about hockey.  I can’t stop thinking about hockey to the point that Sally can’t stand to be around me anymore because I’m like, “And then I ran into Matt Lamanna and hockey I chased him hockey for about three hockey blocks before hockey he started crying hockey hockey hockey.”

I can’t argue with her that I’m being obsessive.

There are so many things being said today by Penguins fans as we pump ourselves up.  Things like:

Psst. Councilman Peduto? THEY’RE going to take THEIR stuff over THERE.  Okay? Okay.

And so many pictures being emailed around as we attempt to express visually that which we feel way deep down but can’t find words adequate enough.  Things like:

Those pictures were actually created by AIP staff member Sunil Ketty

But despite what we say and despite what we create, it all … always … comes down to math.

Mojo > No Mojo

Iceburgh > Stinky dead eight-legged cephalopod

Everything on Earth > Marian Hossa

Me > Everything on Earth

Penguins > Red Wings

Rawr.

First, we are going to walk Norm through some deep breathing exercises so he doesn’t lose control and force me to tranq him.

That’s right, I am holding the tranq gun and Norm is the one about to stomp things.

[in]

[out]

Okay, we’re ready. Wait, no he’s not. He’s growling. Let’s start over.

[in]

[grrrrrrr]

NORM! Control yourself.  I have a lot of juice loaded into this gun.

[out]

[in]

[out]

Okay, so Norm is a little perturbed. (At his behest, I’m currently holding a tranq gun to Norm, so you clearly understand that “perturbed” is putting it mildly, right?)

The Three Rivers Arts Festival comes to town this weekend and featured is a group called the Black Keys. They are a duo and one of the humans, a guy named Patrick, said some not very nice things about AIP.

I’m going to whisper it for you, so Norm doesn’t hear it again. 

He referred to it as “pseudo” because he couldn’t understand why he was getting such great grades. And he also said –

Okay, that’s all I got.  Norm just destroyed the newspaper. I’ve never seen him like this. But on the bright side, I’m HOLDING THE TRANQ GUN! I’ve never felt such a rush of power. Now I understand why Norm gets that little mwah-hahaha going right before he shoots me.

Listen, me being a fantastic, fearful, fearsome, formidable, and all around butt-chomping awesome dinosaur, you don’t believe for one portion of one iota of one percentage of one millisecond that I would ever be associated with a school if it wasn’t top notch and something to be more than proud of, do you?

This Patrick guy, he’s very confused.

Now, as for the Post-Gazette reporter, Mr. Scott Mervis, I’m a little angry at him for including that portion of the interview in the article in the first place. It accomplished nothing but making Patrick look dumb, making AIP have to defend its stellar reputation, and making me get a map and realize that the Post-Gazette building is just right down the block. I mean, I’m looking down the Boulevard and look right there.  It’s just right there.

Norm seems to be calming down a bit now. He’s doing his deep breathing while burning the newspaper in the trash can.

Hey, I wonder what this button on the tranq gun does if you —

Oh, I am in so much trouble.

Sleep well, Norm.

Hey, you guys, if you see Scott Mervis exit the P-G building, look left, look right, open his eyes in stark terror, scream “Oh, My God! A DINOSAUR!” and then take off sprinting toward the Point with a handsome, fearsome T-Rex hot on his heels waving a stolen tranq gun.  Well, I don’t know anything about that.

Rawr.

You know that site that has the cute little snack foods?  You know the one with the words over the snacks? You know, the snacks with the horrible grammar and even worse spelling? You know, the one with the noms? Yeah, THAT site.  They’re having a contest to coincide with the release of Will Ferrell’s new movie Land of the Lost. See:

Eek! Wook at the wittle kitty.

The point of the contest is that humans are supposed to take pictures of their noms (that’s what I call cats. They’re not tasty and in fact they’re quite beef-jerkyish, but still, very nom-able) doing their best rawr.

Since noms can’t really rawr any more than fish can rawr, I asked Norm to show them what a RAWR really is:

Doesn’t that look better? No one will ever run screaming from a nom, but EVERYONE runs screaming from these mandibles of death.

You should watch the trailer for this movie if only so you can see what happens at 1:50.

Yesssss.

Rumor on campus is that an AIP grad worked on this film. I’m going to get to work on getting to the bottom of that, just as soon as I finish these noms.

I think you know what I mean.

Yesssss.

Rawr.

Norm told me I had mail and I assumed he meant e-mail, but in reality, I had mail. You know, MAIL MAIL. Postal service mail. Letter carrier mail. Pony express mail.

Mmmm, ponies. Wait. Where was I? Right, MAIL!

A fan of mine drew this little cartoon for me:

I have some things to say:

1. This is a true to life representation of the adulation and adoration I receive from the AIP students on a daily basis.

2.  In this cartoon “rawr” clearly means “I love you.”

3.  Please notice the [redacted]-eating grin on Wrangler Norm’s face as he aims his Tranq Gun of Doom at me. This is a true to life representation of Norm’s ridiculously jittery trigger finger. I can’t rip one tiny limb off of anything without him giddily gunning for me. One of these days I’m going to steal it, shoot him in the butt and when he comes to muttering about unicorns, YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IT!

4.  Norm wishes he was that tall.

5.  It is a tough job being the bomb diggity, but my God, someone has got to do it.

Know who else is the bomb diggity? Whoever drew this for me.

Rawr.

1.  Oh, Penguins.

Grrrrr.

2. Oh, FSN and The Great Outage of 2009 During Which Pens Fans All Over Pittsburgh Came Close To Descending On FSN Headquarters While Moaning BRAINS. BRAIIIIIIINS.

Hisssssss.

3.  In comments to my post about the students being do-gooders this week, two people commented wanting to remind you students to complete your FAFSAs because you only have until next week to do it and if you don’t do it, you can kiss your financial aid money goodbye.

Then I imagine it will be like that Geico commercial where everywhere you turn there will be a pile of cash with eyeballs on it and someone will say to you, “Oh, that? That’s just the money you could have had if you had BOTHERED TO FILL OUT THE FAFSA!”

Do it, because I told you to. Because I care about you. Because I will bite you if you don’t.

See what you did? You made me resort to violence.  I abhor violence.

What?

4.  My marathon training is really going great with me running 26 miles in an hour yesterday. I would have gotten a better time if I didn’t swing by the Carnegie Museum to … uh …

Never mind.  I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING, NORM!

5. Why Calvin should be in charge of everything forever and ever.

I accept.

6.  If the giant T-Rex skeleton at the Carnegie crumbles to the ground this weekend, I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Rawr.

1.  Why am I not wearing any Penguins gear?  We are halfway through the first round of playoffs and I’m standing here COMPLETELY and UTTERLY NAKED!

If this were football season, I’d at least have a dead raven or a mangled cardinal or a begging bengal in my mouth by now.

2.  Norm won’t let me tweet on twitter, but he told me that Oprah recently joined twitter.

Oprah is on twitter?!

What could she possibly have to tweet about?

Oprah Made a gazillion dollars today.

Oprah Spent a billion dollars this afternoon.

Oprah Made a trillion bamillion eleventy google dollars this hour

Oprah Living my best life.

Oprah Spent a billion dollars

Oprah Living my best life with the rainbow of fruit flavors of my chi.

I mean, really.  Some people don’t need to be on twitter.

3.  Is Barney on twitter?

I don’t want to know.

4. One of AIP’s own was profiled in the Tribune Review.  He is Barron Whited, the director of counseling.  I bet he’s the guy Norm runs to when I make him cry.

5.  Ignoring the grossly minuscule size of the arms, here’s a really wonderful t-shirt you can get from Snorg.

Rawr doesn’t really mean “I love you.”  SOMETIMES it means “I love you” and sometimes it means “I’m going to eat you.”

It’s all in the inflection.

Also, that girl is cute.

Don’t tell Sally!!

6.  Chasing a wild turkey the other day, I ran 10 miles in three minutes.  This is stellar time, so I’ve decided to run in the Pittsburgh marathon.  Which means I REALLY need to find those shoes or the person that stole the shoes. In the meantime, I’m running barefoot.  Hopefully I won’t get injured because it would be just like Norm to take me to “Dr.” Matt Lamanna for treatment, and the next thing you know I’m a poorly assembled statue of rickety bones placed in his museum for the kids to look at.

Rawr! (guess which one I mean)