It was the summer after my junior year of college. I had been kicked out of the dorms. The lease on my first apartment didn’t start until August, so I moved in with a friend for a couple months.

When it came time to move out, we waited until the last day to pack up all the junk we had.

Finally, around four in the morning, we got to relax. As we sat around drinking cheap vodka, smoking cheap cigars, watching porn and wishing we had a bucket of fried chicken, we had some strange conversations.

Because my friend was older, he felt it incumbent upon himself to offer advice on life. None of it made much sense, and it didn’t help that he also tried to convince me that one of our mutual friends had once killed a man.

The only piece of advice I still remember is to find a good enemy. I never took it seriously. As fortune would have it, I didn’t have to, because the Daily Kent Stater found one for me and put us on point/counterpoint duty.

This is great!

After meeting with my opponent a couple times, we planned a wide array of issues to cover (no more waiting until the last minute just to pick a topic). Some have been argued for years, some for decades A– one issue is just barely over the horizon. Some of this semester’s columns are partially written in my head, and I anticipate gracing the Forum page with some genuine works of art.

I almost made a New Year’s resolution to be less vitriolic, but I can’t help it. I am the love-child of Anne Coulter and Vince McMahon.

I also must engage in some shameless self-promotion.

My friend has asked me to do a ten-minute segment on his new show, Chewing the Fat, on Black Squirrel Radio, Sundays from noon to 2 p.m. BSR is on cable channels two and four if you live on campus. Off campus, it’s probably on one of those public access channels you often forget even exists.

That’s right, ladies. After touching yourselves to my mug-shot for two semesters, you finally get to hear my voice.

Within 20 years, no one will remember Howard Stern. Let the new King of All Media arise!

Because I’m in grad school, most of you ankle-biting undergrads probably think I’m old. Maybe I am; I do have a few gray hairs. But I am proud to be old.

I have experience. I have wisdom. I have a beard.

However, the most important thing of all is that it’s 2006. I will be 25 years old this year. I am finally old enough to be elected to the United States House of Representatives.

Don Norvell is a physics graduate assistant and a columnist for the Daily Kent Stater. Contact him at [email protected].