When I was in fourth grade, we had this really cool teacher's assistant, who would sometimes substitute teach for our real teacher.  Her name was Mrs. Bytwerk, and she spoke fluent German, which I thought was really cool.  Anyways, we were writing some type of essay and she glanced over my shoulder to read mine and noticed that I spelled the phrase "a lot" as one word, "alot".  She told me that it was two words and I didn't believe her, so she got out a dictionary and showed me that the word "alot" wasn't in the dictionary.  I told her that that didn't prove anything because maybe Webster thought that alot was such a simple word that he didn't see any reason to include it in his dictionary.

I think of that story every time I write "a lot".

I sometimes wonder, "Didn't I have a pretty sound argument?"  The burden of proof was on her, and her proof left some wiggle room, or so I thought at the time.

I'm outtie for Christmas.  I have all next week off from school and work.  Pretty darn exciting if do say so myself.

My Christmas present to all my friends who read my LJ is this.  Because I know that all of you love to think so hard that you start questioning the nature of reality.  Well enjoy.  Oh, and here's something a bit lighter if you need something to cleanse your philisophical palete afterwards.

Merry Chrstmas y'alls.