You can smell it in the air. You can walk around campus and see it happening. From the gunmetal gray skies to the bitter winds that are blowing, all the evidence points to one thing: winter is coming.

It’s about damn time.

I can’t wait till the snow starts to fly, which, if you believe the Old Farmer’s Almanac, will happen in late November. I can’t wait till the world is wrapped in a big cold white blanket, the wind tries to rip the skin off your face and the sun hides for 18 hours a day. I love the winter, because it is the one time of year that the rest of New England is as cold as my soul. The winter is dark and depressing, and that suits me just fine.

Winter, which is still officially 53 days away, has so many ancillary benefits. For one thing, with staircases and many sidewalks covered with snow, the only acceptable mode of transportation is walking, cutting down on the number of bikers, skateboarders and Rollerbladers that one has to dodge on a daily basis.

With everything encased in ice, the skateboarders are seriously taking their life in their hands, cutting down on the pathetic displays one sees outside the Fine Arts Center and the Student Union. Seriously, has anyone seen one actually pull off one of those 180 degree olly olly oxen free with proof of purchase flip things those kids are always trying to do? I’m rooting for the day that one catches a patch of black ice and gets what they deserve.

With temperatures dropping like the stock market and wind chill factors in negative numbers, all the damn dirty hippies [see 4/19/01 column] can’t walk around barefoot, thus curtailing the spread of their hippie germs. Also, with everyone’s sinuses congested from the millions of colds running around, no one will be able to smell their dirty hippie stench. See, everyone wins with winter.

Speaking of hippies, we should exile them north, like the Reds did in Siberia. All of them dirty hippies should be rounded up in certain areas. We can build settlements, or “camps” if you will, in hostile areas that no normal person would want to live in. In a sense, we will “concentrate” the damn dirty hippies in these “camps.”

I’m just kidding folks. Obviously, I’m not seriously advocating the registration of damn dirty hippies, nor am I saying that the government should take an active role in removing this dangerous and subversive element from our population. Concentration camps full of hippies are not a good idea. Think of the stench.

And I’m not a fan of winter because of winter sports. The only good sport is hockey anyway, and we can play that all year round. Skiing and snowboarding hold no appeal for me. Strapping a plank or planks to my boots and flinging myself down a mountain entices me as much as a two day round table discussion featuring Andy Rooney on the subject of feminine hygiene products in the 17th century.

Besides, all the best winter sports activities aren’t really considered sports.

I like watching cars slalom across the yellow line as they dodge patches of ice. I like watching the neighborhood kids knock themselves unconscious with rock centered snowballs. My idea of a great winter spectator event? Head on down to the exit of the orthopedic wing at Cooley-Dickinson and watch the cane and crutch battalion forge their way across icy sidewalks, slushy parking lots, and random barrages of hail.

And why isn’t D.C. tray sledding considered a sport? It’s at least as cool as the luge and much more dangerous than bobsledding. It should be called bob-luge. It’s great fun, and especially interesting to watch the results at the bottom of the hill- the broken, battered bodies, moaning their way toward the shiny blue remnants of their once gallant sled-steeds.

Bob-luge should definitely be an Olympic sport. Which reminds me, the Olympics are this winter. Why do they even have Winter Olympics? Go back in time, and show some Greek guy a tape of curling and tell him that it’s an Olympic sport and you’ll be on the first boat to Sparta, my friend.

The winter is long, dark, and depressing; kind of like a Kafka novel, only you don’t quite feel so confused at the end of a blizzard. Although you still have dreams of waking up as a cockroach. Oh, right, like I’m the only one.

Yep, I can’t wait for winter. The long, dark nights, the piercing cold, the bone chilling winds, all of it to me means a paradise. A winter wonderland, if you will. Snowmen standing watch throughout the neighborhood, some of them armed with the latest in home security hardware. Anyone who thinks that Frosty’s just a cute little winter sculpture would be dead wrong, emphasis on dead. My snowman’s loaded out with twin Stingers and a Hellfire rocket pod. Anything to keep those damn kids off my lawn. I’ll shovel my own driveway, you pint-sized racketeers.

Alright, its time for my medication.