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Yes, These Are Real Haikus From 5th Graders

You know when you see those "letters from kids" or "poems from prison" and you wonder... are those really children (or convicts) writing those? Well, you can be 100% certain these really are haikus written by actual 5th graders.

How can you know? Because I'm copying them off the homework they turned in to my wife who teaches them. I'll clean up the grammar and spelling, but will leave the humor un-cut.

First, let's start with a few after my own heart.

I have a monkey
That drives a Lamborghini
And takes people's money

I have a pet snake
It eats a lot of rat food
He eats the food cold

Dragons are awesome
Blows fire and kills people
Likable and nice

Food is a favorite topic, of course.

I love chocolate
Its like joy in my mouth
It is also brown

I like to eat food
My favorite food is cheese sliced pizza
It is hot and warm

Here's two from the same girl, who chose to (mostly) rhyme her haiku!

Balloon floats so slow
The balloon floats in the sky
Balloon floats so high

Balloon up you go
Balloon you will never grow
Balloon do not go

And if you'd like to know why our society is crumbling, I submit this one. Remember: 5th grade. That's, like, ten years old.

I saw Kill Bill 2
Kill Bill 2 was so awesome
My dad gave me it

How about something a little sweeter to cleanse the palate?

That shirt is as blue
As the sky on a good day
Feeling soft as you

Smiling is happy
Smiling is good and nice too
Happy to be here

How do you know when your student might have some bi-polar tendancies?

I don't know how to
I don't like haiku one bit
I don't like haiku

I don't know how to
I like haiku a lot so
I don't know how to

And, of course, the surreal and disturbing is always fun.

The human didn't think anymore
She was nice and very friendly
And was in a hospital

I think we've all learned some valuable lessons. Like why use 7 syllables for the middle line when you can use 10? And it's amusing to say you don't know how to do something when you are, in fact, doing it. Actually, they're probably more clever than I'm giving them credit for.

Overall, kudos to you, actual 5th grade poets. You've already written better poems than I ever have!

Radio Dalliance

The radio in my car worked two weeks ago. For one week.

When I got my Caddy from Laura's grandfather, the antenna was down and didn't go up. Which was fine, because I use an iTrip (a radio transmitter) with my iPod.

Basically, poor radio reception = a better iTrip.

Well, when the body shop fixed my trunk from my fender (non)bender, they somehow got the antenna to go up. Which you'd think would be a good thing. Except then I get radio stations, and my iTrip suddenly became useless.

No matter which frequency I tried my iTrip on, I would get enough static that it would stress me out after 10 minutes or so.

This led me to start scanning through the radio offerings of Orlando. Through which I stumbled upon 91.5 WPRK, the college radio station out of Rollins College ("The best in basement radio"). The music was great, and the DJs were fairly unprofessional. It immediately transported me back to my college radio station days at KBBK.

Here are some highlights.

• The first morning I listened, the playlist included everything from Damian Jurado and Patty Griffin to Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. And a clip from Anchorman.
• Their "Top 91.5 Songs" list ranges from Led Zepplin to Morrissey to Death Cab For Cutie to Tupac to Meat Loaf.
• The next day at lunch (coming out of Etta James's "At Last"), the DJ announced that she was "playing through your chakras", picking music to enhance the "energy" in your "force centers". She talked about this for TEN MINUTES.
• The morning after that, it was a hip hop show on the drive in.
• When I got in my car after lunch that day, they were playing Elvis Costello. When I got out ten minutes later, they were spinning "Express Yourself" by N.W.A.
• Last Friday night, after three songs, I remarked, "Oh, it must be the jazz-r&b-rock show."
• Yesterday, they played "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" in the middle of a regular set.

Needless to say, I have been highly entertained.

I got my antenna to go down, and my iTrip started working again. Then, like a turgid Old Faithful, the antenna shot back up again. But the iTrip seems to be playing nice, for now. So I can listen to my Kevin & Bean podcasts and my new favorite radio station.

And yes, you can listen online.

Apple Shout Out

Went to register the new popcorn maker last night. Now, these registration cards (which thankfully had an online option instead) are really just marketing surveys. They just want to know who their customers are so they can make more stuff that you'll buy. Which I'm fine with.

But I always find it interesting to see what kind of information they value. Question #25 jumped out at me. It covers everything from speaking Spanish to your household pet preference. And it specifically calls out if you are a Mac owner (a box I proudly checked, of course).

And this is for Cuisinart, a company that makes cooking gadgets and cookware. Not sure what sort of cross-tabulation makes this question useful.