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Last Update: 06.12.06

The circles of Hell aren't really circular, they're shaped like Kansas

I recently had the misfortune of having to drive all the way through Kansas—the long direction. This took about 7 hours and 20% of my soul. Kansas is really just about the most worthless state you can imagine. At least some of the other desolate states have character to them...Kansas has about as much character as Terry Schiavo.

For one thing, the state is pretty much completely flat. You can drive up the first hill in Colorado, put your car in neutral, and coast all the way through Kansas. Okay, that's not entirely true—that would require that Kansas be frictionless. A frictionless Kansas isn't really a bad idea, though, because then it would be impossible to stop there.

Although the official story is that Kansas is the home state of Bob Dole, I think that's sort of the reverse of the truth. I think that Bob Dole has existed since the dawn of time, and he created Kansas. He designed it to be a theme park, where the theme is "Bob Dole." They've got approximately equivalent levels of excitement. In related news, Kansas got some publicity a few years ago for some dinosaur fossils that were found there, but the news died pretty quickly when people found out that they were just the buried corpses of saurians that pissed off Bob Dole back in the day.

I can really only think of one good use for Kansas: transcendental meditation. For you hippie Buddhist types looking to clear your mind completely, try taking a drive through Kansas. You won't be feeling very enlightened by the end of it, because I'm pretty sure enlightenment never happens in Kansas, but at least your mind will be nice and blank.

There's an old saying, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink." Well you can lead a horse to Kansas, and HE WILL KILL HIMSELF.