And now here we are! Ta-da! The Dano 250th Entry Celebration! What follows is a selection of my favorite musings located within my little Diaryville in Diaryland. I know some (two) of you have been waiting a long time for this one, and the guilt washed over me to the point that I'm staying up well past 2 a.m. to move on with my life.

So here you go, some highlights from my previous 250 posts, listed in chronological order from when they were written, beginning long before I actually signed up for my diary. You'll see I'm particularly enamored of July 14, 1999. I hope you're all at least mildly impressed.

- Dano

Feb. 27, 1998
And it only takes a curious soul with an ounce of Kerouacian beatness to take an exit in search of that perfect apple pie. Out here among tree-flashing shadows of Massachusetts afternoon, somewhere between Lowell and Frisco, Kerouac continues On The Road, still searching for America.

March 12, 1998
The orange ball of fire that is our warmth and our light disappears into the sea -- I'm watching the world turn from this fourth floor Mexican balcony. Below those with ground seats applaud the day's end, though I have another few seconds.

March 17, 1999
"No vomitting on the train, please. No vomitting." He actually did just say that tonight -- this morning, as we St. Patrick's Day partiers head home to suburbia.

June 24, 1999
As soon as the sun comes up and the temples and spires of Colorado formations take on new shapes with light and shadow, the tour buses are loaded and off again, heading to the next destination for another quick-stop, fast-food visit to the next � though this time figurative � tourist abyss.

Bryan and I linger, snapping off frames and putting away rolls while we still have a shred of solitude before the crowds return. A middle-aged couple comes down the steps behind us.

�Oh man,� the woman says in her Texas drawl.

�This is awesome,� her husband replies, and I picture a human version of Hank Hill. �I tell you what.�

Feb. 25, 2000
At the archives, you walk in, stand in line, shuffle past what they tell you are the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and Bill of Rights encased in green ectoplasm, and you have to take their word for it because you can barely make out what's in those cases beneath all the goo. ... If the Smithsonian is the nation's attic, the archives is the nation's filing cabinet. I wanted to ask someone if I could see JFK's brain. "Oh, right, you lost it," I'd say.

The opening "act" was two guys on guitars. A guy and a Beck look-alike he got to play backup, which involved guitar, mouth organ, and a few other various intstruments. It begged the question, if you're the backup musician in a two-man "band," do you brag about that to pick up chicks? And does it work?

July 14, 2000

After lunch, we walked through life. An exhibit on Earth�s origins took us from the very beginnings of cell life on the planet up to some point in time where we got bored and went off elsewhere. First, we saw the hazy orange sky of post-creation, with a poisonous atmosphere and green oceans. As things cooled down, the ocean and sky turned blue and cells developed, making conditions better on the planet. Then, as the recorded woman�s voice put it, �someone invents sex.� Actually she said something along the lines of, �until someone invents sex ...� but I missed the rest because I was wondering how that might have happened. (GUY: �Hey now! That�s never happened before! Now what does it do?� GIRL: �Maybe it goes in here.�) Someone apparently figured it out, because in the next room was a doorway marked �SEX.� There was no door, only a curtain. Maybe beads would�ve been more appropriate. I expected neon lights with �25 cents� and �XXX� to surround it. Unfortunately, we could not find out what was in there � or what went on in there � because the area had been cordoned off with yellow caution tape. Maybe it was the scene of a sex crime. We�ll have to find out how sex was invented another time.

We were also shocked to learn in a display entitled �What makes animals different from plants or fungi?� that, and this is a direct quotation (I have pictures to prove it), �Animals don�t make they own food ...� Yo, yo, but they do kick it wit dey homies in da crib, foo. They need copy editors at the museum.

�Dating Tips For Rocks� did not include �Be yourself� or �Compliment her on her shoes.� I don�t know how rocks get by; must have good pickup lines. (�Hey! Down here! I�m shiny!�)

The video guy was at the reception as well, and I wondered if this would be a Bunim-Murray �Real World� wedding, if we�d all have to go into the confessional to talk about how we were getting along with our tablemates or vote someone from the wedding party during the reception. Neither happened, but it would�ve been amusing to pull the camera aside and recount that story about when Barb and I were really drunk one night ... Or that one dream I had about Mike ...

July 15, 2000
About 10:30, with half an hour to go, the band called the bride and all the single women out to the dance floor for the bouquet toss, the seventh event in the Wedding Decathlon (following the Church Escape, Smile Endurance Challenge, Receiving Line, First Dance, Table Slalom and Cake Cutting, and preceding the Garter Hunt, Threshold Crossing and � ahem � Closing Ceremonies. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge.) Barb threw the flowers backwards over her head, and some woman caught them. I wasn�t paying much attention. But I joined the throng for the garter toss, with no intention of trying for it but interested in watching the process. I stood behind, if I remember correctly, Barb�s older brother Tom. The woman in the band � we�ll call her Debbie because that might have been her name � claimed, �I�ve never seen so many good looking single guys in one place!� But I bet she says that to all the drunk hordes of garter receivers.

July 16, 2000
I can no longer leave Chicago without a heavy heart trying to slow my exodus as I attempt to flee on the congested interstates. I feel the city pulling me back, trying to keep me there another night or day or hour. It�s not so much the Sears Tower, the Hancock Center, Navy Pier or Wrigley Field. It�s not Adler Planetarium or Meigs Field or Lake Shore Drive. It�s more Northbrook and Arlington Heights, Plainfield and Rolling Meadows. The Chicagoland suburbs have a hold on me despite the seemingly misnamed municipalities (Arlington Heights is decidedly flat; Rolling Meadows had cars cruising along what may have once been rolling fields now paved over). It�s the people there, my friends who�ve made the northern Illinois lakeside metropolis their home after college. The day after Mike�s and Barb�s wedding had me feeling sad and low, dragging my feet to get out of town, not wanting the party to be over, but at the same time wanting to fly eastward and let the highway put distance between me and the city, making the fresh memories of the last two days more distant.

Aug. 6, 2000
Off the turnpike, we get lost on our way to the campsite. After crossing over a somewhat vicious mountain, we pull over to figure out what we did wrong. Joel figures, "We interpreted 'Cross over 40' as 'Turn onto 40 and cross over the mountain.'"

Sept. 18, 2000
"Are you for the Braves?" the woman asked me. What? You crazy? Not if they were the worst team in any sport in America, with a roster filled with gorgeous young models who all wanted to date me, not even then would I root for them.

Nov. 14, 2000
The next morning, while flipping through the television, I came to MTV and saw that the man who desperately did not want us to talk to him was Marilyn Manson. Sure, like two guys who look like they're on a break from the J. Crew catalog would pester Marilyn Manson in a Toronto mall.

Nov. 15, 2000
I should've been happier for my barber, who, I feel like I should point out, is missing half of his right pinky finger. I find that amusing -- a barber missing half a finger. Or is it his left? I'm always looking at him in the mirror.

Nov. 23, 2000
Friends can come in so many different forms, from so many different places, that we sometimes do not recognize them as friends.

Dec. 2, 2000
I was so frustrated, I stamped my feet on the porch and whined as if I were 8. Nothing worked. I removed each of the 15 bulbs near where I had switched those last two, and replaced each one after checking the metal tips. Nothing. I jiggled them, fondled them, caressed them, told them they looked pretty, that they weren't fat, but nothing I did got them to light up again.

Dec. 7, 2000
It's snowing harder in Detroit than South Bend when we land. I check the monitors inside and see that the 5:05 flight has left (pretty much on time), so my last chance is the 6:50 flight. No problem, except that Detroit Metropolitan Airport is one of the circles of hell. Actually, it contains several of them, and none of them are connected.

Feb. 17, 2001
I think I need to take a more proactive role in dating. I've been content lately � more than content, even happy � with just letting things happen, not actively trying to pick up people in bars and parties. It's been fine for the most part, but it basically means I'm looking to fall into a date, accidentally. Like I'll trip and end up in a chair across the table from a beautiful woman. Or I'll make a wrong turn and end up on the pier just before the Love Boat sails.

March 10, 2001
In Tampa, a plane with half its occupants young spring breakers exits into a terminal filled with gray-haired retirees in shorts and black socks pulled up to the knees or pastel colored outfits, all awaiting offspring, grandchildren and other snowbird friends. They stand in a warm, humid, musty terminal smelling of old carpet and ointments. It�s like walking into my grandfather�s house in South River 15 years ago.

Apr. 24, 2001
After dinner and several beers, I watched "Down To You" and became a little saddened because I was reminded that I'm not dating Julia Stiles.

May 16, 2001
Where I was once a one-name mediocre pop star of the Diaryland universe, I've now allowed a friend to see backstage and she knows me well, outside the diary pages. Where before there were a select three who knew my name and one who's seen a picture, there now exists an outside agent capable of revealing further secrets, a sexy Fem-bot capable of stealing my cybermojo and revealing the real Dano who sits behind the facade of fascinating writer and journalist living life well along the fabulous New Jersey Shore.

May 16, 2001
To notice the soft skin on a woman's arm while she's trying to score on you (not with you) is a bad sign.

May 17, 2001
While on hold, I use the handy pen and post-it pad provided to write down it�s a bad sign when an airline promotes the ease and convenience of its rebooking hotline.

May 23, 2001
Knott, where I first got drunk, dizzy drunk, wobbly-walk-home drunk, nearly-hooking-up-with-random-girl drunk (thwarted by her passing out on the couch after telling me she wanted to kiss me).

June 5, 2001
With a loss, it's just insult to injury, kind of like that bug that smacks on your windshield right in your line of sight and when you go to wash it off, it smears in a perfect arc to the left.

June 9, 2001
But it doesn't mean I wasn't ready to hurl my computer out the window after the MTV site caused Netscape to "perform an illegal operation" and be shut down.

It's just that there was absolutely no chance of it hitting one of my bosses on the way down.

June 10, 2001
And as the guests arrived for the party, we hugged and kissed and helloed and talked and laughed and drank and teased and smiled and nodded and frowned and felt thankful for close family and dear friends and graduations and sublime June afternoons.