I cuddle with Becky’s kitten, Toby — and use her teddy bear, Brain, as a pillow — on a recent evening. Click here for more photos of me, Becky, and Toby hanging out in Becky’s apartment.

Our resident Rally Monkeys — Beck Jr., left, and Samson, right — watch Game 1 of the World Series on Oct. 19. Their diligence did not pay off in this game (the Giants won, 4-3), but the Angels would eventually win the Series in seven games, much to the monkeys’ delight.

A segment of the old Deans Halls crowd — Mike Wiser, me, Julie Payne, David Kreutz, and Megan Wygant — pose for a picture at Honors House in the wee hours of Oct. 20. Dave, my freshman-year roommate who now attends the University of Washington, returned to USC that weekend for the first time since transferring for the USC-Washington football game. (USC won, 41-21.) For more photos of that weekend and Dave’s visit, click here. To read my thoughts about the game, click here.

Dozens of container ships and cargo vessels idle offshore of the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach on Oct. 8 because of the labor dispute that led to a 10-day lockout of longshoremen up and down the West Coast. This photo was actually taken just a few hours after a federal court, at President Bush’s request, ordered everybody back to work. Click here for more photos of the idled ships.

Above: a photo of me at 12:04 AM, four minutes after I turned 21 — in the eyes of society, that is. In my own eyes, I won’t turn 21 until 6:22 AM Pacific time (9:22 AM Eastern time), my “birth hour.”

Meanwhile, in website news, “My world” logged only 43 hits yesterday — the first time since last Wednesday that it received less than 50 hits in a day. Even so, I got some interesting web searches, including one rather angry-sounding Google query for “rally monkey hate die.”

An uptick of traffic is likely today, since I will be sending out a mass e-mail to my friends and relatives encouraging them to visit the site and vote in the dolly election for president and vice president of Adollya.

UPDATE, 1:00 PM: Well, now I’m 21 no matter how you figure it. I missed the “big moment” at 6:22 AM, though. I had set my alarm for 6:21 AM, planning to wake up for one minute (as I did last year), videotape myself turning 21, and then go right back to sleep. But the alarm didn’t wake me up, and I peacefully crossed the threshold of another year while sleeping.

Then, when my “real” alarm went off at 7:40 AM, I gave myself a birthday present of sleep: I refused to get up, and skipped both my 8:30 AM and my 10:00 AM classes. (If either of my professors happens to read this… uh… I’m just kidding. I wasn’t feeling well. Cough, cough.)

If you’re wondering whether I’ve “partied” yet, the answer is no. But talk to me after 8:00 PM. :)

54 hits and counting today… and Potsy has jumped out to a huge lead, with 27 votes (64%). Beck is a distant second with 7 votes, Mr. Bun is third with 5, and incumbent Oliver is dead last with 3 votes.