A Very Recentist List of One English Ed Grad Student's Fears (but not mine, certainly).

Level 1
- Being late for class
- Teaching the day after a Boston team bites it against an NYC team.
- Running out of Clif Bars
- Houston Street bicyclists

Level 2
- Forgetting to set the alarm
- Showing up to class unprepared
- Crossing the street the day after the Yankees win the World Series
- Not having a devastatingly witty response for Nigerian email scammers

Level 3
- Not being able to shake the feeling that I forgot to set the alarm
- The Lincoln Tunnel
- Taking the Ashmont Red Line instead of the Braintree Red Line, only to wake up and find out it was all a dream... as I miss the late night 1 train at 116th Street.
- Being called a phony as I teach The Catcher in the Rye

Level 4
- Being called a phony as I teach The Very Hungry Caterpillar
- Being placed at a Staten Island student teaching site
- Nigerian email scammers riding bicycles on Houston Street
- Whales

Level 5
- Men's rooms in Brooklyn
- The subway level of the Port Authority Bus Terminal
- The G train
- Dying alone

Level 6
- Having to drive through Connecticut even one more time.

Make Way For Victorious Avengers!

We did it!

Photo courtesy of MyFoxBoston

Pack is back! Mere hours after last night's post--threatening a pretty serious beatdown for the perpetrator who swiped the seventh of eight ducklings--the cowardly quacknapper abandoned his loot on a nearby street corner and fled in terror. This allowed a couple intrepid young adults to find Pack unharmed and return him to Parks & Recreation this morning.

If that guy knew what was good for him, he is most likely hiding out in the Yukon Territory, and it's all thanks to Internet Tough Guys like you and me, flexing our cybermuscles and talking smack from behind a screen. Of course, this isn't the first victory for my blog community. Longtime Dan Fans will recall February's incident where we publically called out the Globe on a pressing human dignity issue... and the pictures in question were removed within hours. It just goes to show what a few well placed words from a slightly below-average-height blogger can do.

Well done readers. Crack open an adult beverage and take the rest of the week off.

Make Way For Jerkbag Loserfaces

Today's Globe is reporting a crime so heinous, so sickening, just talking about it nauseates me.

Some ignoramus douchebag numbnuts has committed a grave injustice by looking childhood nostalgia in the face and slapping it.

Someone stole one of the ducklings in Boston Public Garden.

I didn't really read the article because I was too busy going through a Rocky-style training montage, preparing physically and mentally to administer some hard justice to this snot-nosed, pimple-breathed punk. How dare you desecrate one of the finest pieces of public art in Boston? How dare you spit on the internationally famous incarnation of one of the world's most beloved pieces of children's literature? How dare you repeat a wicked lame theft that has already occured four other times?

I mean this isn't even original. If you have to do something, there are totally other sculptures to prank. Put a French beret on George Washington. Put a Lakers jersey on Red Auerbach. Turn one of the seal tanks at the New England Aquarium into a pool of Jell-O. But you leave the ducks the hell alone, you butt nugget.

This is Nancy Schon. She sculpted each one of those ducks individually, and her work has brought joy to children, parents, and even the occassional illustration afficionado since 1987. Guess what? As soon as I'm done, she's gonna kick your ass too.

I hope you get viciously attacked by a group of twenty ravenous, hungry, and runny-nosed preschoolers, you poor excuse of a human. You make me sick. Go die in a fire. No one will miss you.