Greetings,

The Committee met last night in a closed session, and after a great deal of heated debate, discussion that nearly ended in thrown chairs, and a heartbreakingly eloquent speech that brought all but the most hard-hearted representative to tears, it was decided, and, I should say that it is my divine pleasure to be the one to share this news with you all, as I was saying, it was decided with a near unanimous result that today will indeed be...MAPtastic.

Now, without some kind of a key, or legend, it is difficult to translate "MAPtastic" to the U.S. Customary System. It's not a 1-to-1 correlation, but basically it breaks down like this: maptastic, without capitals, is somewhere between good and great. MAPtastic, where only the MAP portion of the word is capitalized is approximately 14% better. MAPfreakinTASTIC is somewhere around "mindblowingly, unbelievably, and altogether shockingly neat-o".

Hopefully this scale will aid you all in the coming days.

Now, for today's task:

A MAP like test question to get you all started:

"A train, traveling 40 mph, leaves Toad Suck, AR at 8:45 am. There are 258 passengers on board, all of whom are talking on their cell phones to their friends who just happen to all be on a train leaving Spasticsville, KS. If the second train is traveling at exactly one and a half times the rate of speed of the first train, and there is no wind to speak of, who in the heck came up with the names Toad Suck and Spasticsville? I mean, seriously? Toad Suck? Please provide evidence to support you answer."

Have a MAPtastic day, ladies and gentlemen. I'm going to Satan's Kingdom, VT after a short stop over in Hot Coffee, MS.

Tommy 'the shocked by how many strange city names there are that are NOT appropriate for school e-mail Decider' Estlund