As I spend this last day of being twenty-four staring down, with bleary eyes, the prospect of turning a quarter century old at midnight tonight, I'm finding solace in a few comforting things. Large, earthenware pots full of homemade wines, whole cigarette packs lit ablaze and smoked like pan flutes, and you, dear commenters, who make me chuckle. Yes, it may be an aged and weary chuckle that ominously shakes my frail, weathered body, but it's chuckling nonetheless. And for that I am grateful. I am especially grateful to six of you, who will be awarded with that most prestigious award, a Commie, after the jump. I remember when I won my first, lo those many months ago. Ah, to be young again.

  • From Bell County in We Assure You the Whites Have No Secrets:
    "Some colleagues and I had to do an enormous amount of uncompensated brickwork for Rakim Allah's second house in order to convince him that's what it meant when he heard we were freemasons. But that's our rosy cross to bear!" [Hamilton's pick]
  • From Moff in Radar Dropping Editors:
    "It's like this Wendy's in Fargo when I was growing up: It closed and then another restaurant moved in. And then a year later, that restaurant went out of business, and another moved in. And that happened over and over again, and finally it became a Wendy's again. I think it still is.
  • It's like that, except if the Wendy's had just kept reopening as a Wendy's, over and over again." [Pareene's pick]
  • From lawyergay in OK Fine: Gossip Girl Boys May Actually Like Girls:
    "OMG coming out stories? Immediate, puzzled hugs from my old-school liberal parents, followed by a furious activist phase (PFLAG, rage at Pat Buchanan, etc.) that somehow became not really caring that none of the mainstream Democratic candidates for president have ever openly supported gay marriage. A few months ago, I noticed copies of both Cat Fancy and Dog Fancy lying around their house. It seemed like some kind of turning point, but I'm not sure into what."
  • From Pope John Peeps II in Love Still Hurts Even When Not Blogged:
    "Que serblah serblah."
  • From BeRightBack in Love Still Hurts Even When Not Blogged:
    "This is like when this kid in my class who I always liked but who was too popular for me to ever approach directly disappeared for a weekend and everyone thought he was dead, even holding a little memorial assembly in the gym with crying and sombre crepe paper and sad cheerleaders, and then the following week I looked up from my desk just as he sauntered into homeroom to be greeted by the dumbfounded stares of Mr. McDonaldson and my classmates and me, a sly grin on his face and only the faintest smell of gravedirt emanating from his otherwise immaculate cuticles. "Your fly is open," he said to Mr. McDonaldson and sure enough, it was true. We tittered uneasily and Mr. McDonaldson zipped up, and then turned in his resignation the next day." Which was a response to your Party Pick...
  • From Conbon:
    "This is just like when I had a girlfriend at the end of 5th grade but then summer came and I was 11 so I didn't have a car or anything, so I couldn't just drive to her house or take her on dates; and anyways we both went to camp so no phones. I didn't see her until the beginning of 6th grade and was then told by one of her friends that we had broken up. Blogs are the new 6th grade friends of your ex-girlfriend."

Congratulations everyone! Wish me luck as I totter off into my dotage.