Good lord! I have found the Book Of Awesomeness! It is written by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith and puts a delightful spin on an age old romance. For fear of getting carried away with my summary and completely spoiling the book, I will just say this: it will be quite the challenge to find a classic, zombie, romance of such high caliber.

Geez, its been a while! I haven't posted anything since... September! EGADS! Anyway, I have story for all y'all. I hope it is suitably amusing.

It was a completely normal day in a completely normal week, and I had to used the restroom. So I strode in to the seldom-actually-used-for-the-toilets girls bathroom at my school, opened a stall, and saw IT. It being, of course, a ridiculous amount of gang graffiti scrawled on the tiles in pen. But those gangsta girls, ever intelligent, had misspelled "South Side". Yeah. They had spelled it "Soth Side". When I finally stopped laughing, I was struck by the rampant stupidity of misspelled graffiti. So I pulled out my trusty Sharpie, uncapped it with a flourish, and proceeded to correct the vile injustice of spelling. After putting a tiny U with an arrow pointing to the appropriate place, I wrote above the whole mess "You can't spell you're own gang name? Thats just sad" and signed it "The Grammar Nazi". I then put an F- and circled it violently in black ink. Now, I'm a little bit worried about getting jumped by "Soth Sider's" but... It was worth it.

My friends and I were bored a few days ago and we decided that we should all be named after a deadly toxin. Most of you are probably going "What?" or something to that affect, but we were really bored. My name is Arsenic (oops. typo. Mine's Arsenic, my friend's is Cyanide). Anyway, it gave me an idea! I will post a list of the worlds deadliest toxins in order. Ok not really in order but they are all still in the top ten!

1)Botulinum:
Even the name scares me. I remember an old story I heard when I was a kid about someone getting infected by botulism from an old can of tuna. I haven't eaten canned tuna since. Experts say that botulinum is THE most deadly poison known to man. When contracted, the nervous system completely shuts down and you die in excruciating pain.

2)Anthrax:
Touching Anthrax to your skin can infect you. However, the scariest and most deadly form of Anthrax is inhaled. Once inhaled, you experience cold or flu-like symptoms that don't go away for several days. This is followed by complete respiratory collapse.

3)Ricin:
This toxin is made from the castor bean. Twice as deadly as cobra venom, two-tenths of a milligram is a lethal dose. At one point, the U.S. Army considered using ricin as a chemical weapon. In 1978, the Bulgarian secret police secretly followed a well-known dissident and radical author and shot him in the leg with a pellet containing the deadly poison ricin. The weapon they used to fire the pellet was a modified umbrella.

4)Sarin:
Sarin is an extremely deadly nerve gas. Initial symptoms are a runny nose and tightness in the chest. Breathing soon becomes constricted and nausea sets in. Next, you lose control of all your bodily functions and quickly become comatose. At that point, your body convulses and spasms while you suffocate. Scary, huh? This deadly poison was put on the UN's Weapon's of Mass Destruction list in 1993.

5)Cyanide:
Considered the "movie star" of deadly poisons due to its prevalence in crime fiction and movies, this very deadly poison (and effective plot device) is produced from certain bacteria, fungus, and plants. Exposure by inhalation or ingestion leads to seizures, cardiac arrest, and ultimately death.

6)Strychnine:
This creepy poison is a common pesticide and one of the bitterest substances known to man. Minutes after exposure, the head and neck muscles begin to spasm. The spasms soon spread to every muscle in the body-and don't stop. Death occurs through total exhaustion of the body from the intense convulsions or from asphyxiation. Stay away from this one.

7)Amatoxin:
A deadly poison extracted from certain types of mushrooms, amatoxin attacks your helpless liver and kidneys. This last for a few days. You then fall into a coma from which you never wake up.

8) Poison Hemlock:
This poisonous plant is lower on the scale of deadly poisons than others on this list, but it is included for its historical value. Hemlock was used in Ancient Greece to put prisoners to death. The most famous victim of the poison was Socrates, the father of Western philosophy. The operating chemical in Hemlock is coniine, a neurotoxin whose symptoms include paralysis. Supposedly, Socrates' eyes stayed open as his life slipped from him.

Well, that is my deadly poison list. I hope that you never come into contact with any of these lethal substances. But if you do, call 911 immediately (if you are able to) or scream at the top of your lungs for help.

I was reading a celebrity worst dressed list this morning when I happened to come across the word "septuagenarian". I still can't pronounce it, but it gave me a marvelous idea. I will post a list of strange words and I challenge you, my beloved readers, to find their definitions. But be forewarned, I will plant some awesome but non-existent words to throw you a curve.

1. Septuagenarian
2. Parabola
3. Pecuniary
4. Xenophobe
5. Yeoman
6. Nomenclature
7. Moiety
8. Pwagmatasquamsetport
9. Nihilism
10. Ziggurat
11. Quasar
12. Chikalawamflabble
13. Quotidian
14. Soliloquy

Now, go enlarge your vocabulary!

How many people out of one hundred have an agile enough mind to count cards in the game of blackjack? About two. I recently watched an intriguing movie about the art of counting cards called "21". The object of the game of blackjack is simply to beat the dealer and we all know that casino games are rigged, so actually winning only happens once in a blue moon, to speak figuratively. However there is an alternative to pure luck. Counting cards. And people are making a killing from it. Counting cards is legal, but casino proprietors do not look to kindly upon it because it causes them to actually lose money (OH, the audacity!!). And now, no matter how crude and undignified it sounds, I urge you all to take up card counting and liberated a hefty sum from the casinos (Only if you are at the legal age).

P.S. In answer to the comment on this post, I have no idea how to learn I just think you all should. Sorry!

I was reading my eternally useful "Daring Book For Girls" by Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz when I came across a section dedicated to Lady Pirates. These ever indestructible ladies struck a blow for women's rights long before that movement began and showed us girls what we can do!!! Some of the more famous lady pirates are Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Ching Shih, and Rachal Wall. Often these women turned against their male counterparts and, though I do not support violence and bloodshed, really put them in their place!!!

While camping at Lake Osooyoos over Memorial Day weekend my friend Kirsten and I noticed some golf balls on the bottom of a tributary out of the lake. Kirsten, by far the more adventurous one, decided to dive for them and I appointed myself her spotter. She plunged into the frigid water over and over (we got 18 golf balls) and while I was spotting I noticed a sinister looking man plant an equally sinister looking box underneath the railing that I was leaning on. It was painted the same parks and recreation green as the railing and I, being the more imaginative one, immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was a bomb or dead-drop, a communication device used mostly by undercover spies. I raced back to the campsite to get my dad while Kirsten watched the box to make sure no one came back to retrieve it. I returned to the scene with my dad and we finally conclude that, since the box wasn't ticking, it wasn't a bomb. We pondered it for a while and finally my dad cautiously slid it off the underside of the railing. The box was attached with an extremely strong magnet and had a small door that slid off on the bottom. My dad carefully pulled it open. Was it a bomb? No. A dead-drop? No. A secret recording system? No. It was a geocache!!! Geocaching is a popular hobby among hikers and nature enthusiasts where a box is place somewhere secret and the coordinates are retrieved online. For more info go to www.geocaching.com.