Category: life

Gasp!

Revamped schedule:

1. Precalc AB – McMahon
2. a) PE / free b) free
3. AP Geography – Powers
4. a) Government – Augustine b) Eng 12 Semester – Pickins
5. a) Health – Parker b) Eng 12 Semester – Pickins
6. a) Economics – Strippel b) PE / free

Oh, look at that. No 7th and 8th period! The wonder of it all.

Course analysis!

1. Precalc AB – McMahon

Good teacher, possibly interesting course material, but McMahon doesn’t like me. He’s got that instinct for slackers, and he’s caught my scent (doing 1/4 homework assignments is a big tip), and he’s being a pain about it. He’s the kind of teacher that stops class to note the fact that you are late, and regardless of whose fault it is, will blame you and threaten you in order to remedy the problem. It doesn’t help being first period, because as some of you may recall, I had 48 absences and some obscene amount of tardies in my first period class last year.

3. AP Geography – Powers

So far, this has been a little worse than expected. The students in the class suck – they talk more than they did in USH, and it’s an AP class, so, what gives? It would probably be more fun if Powers didn’t have to spend so much time doing managerial stuff, providing more time for the good class discussion he fostered in USH last year, as well as more of his fun stories. The course material is pretty excessively easy – it’s basically common knowledge with formal names tacked on. Ideally it will improve, but I’m not dropping it.

4. Participation in Government – Augustine

Sucks. Teacher sucks, students suck, course material sucks. She’s like Brofenbrenner, but slightly less inane. Students are jockular or dumb-tastic, and the course material is designed to cater to that.

5. Health – Parker

Sucks. I honestly could teach this class – that’s how lame it is. But you knew that.

6. Economics – Strippel

Really great. The teacher knows exactly how to foster good discussion, and guides it effectively to explain the material. It’s the kind of class where you want to do the homework so that you can participate, and she’s the kind of teacher that you actually want respect from. Interesting course material, too.

I dropped AP Stats, along with Graphic Tech and Fractals & Chaos. AP Stats wasn’t bad, the teacher was good, the class was okay, and the course material was sub-meh, but the biggest motivation to dropping was that it was 8th period. I’ve been laying the law down – if I’m doubting anything at this point, down it goes. I’m not going through a repeat of last year. That was a nightmare.

Life’s generally progressing well. The mode of things has been to go to school, come home, play SK, sleep, maybe do some homework, and that’s that. I’ve been pretty reclusive – I’ve found myself listening to music as often as possible in school and preferring to walk home alone so that I can continue to listen to music. I’ve gotten obnoxious with the listening to music while people talk to me, too. I’m not sure what it is, really.

You have played 521 hour(s) so far.

Sense of Smell

I think America takes the nose for granted. I’m thinking about this because my sense of smell is entirely shot. I’ve not moved out of this chair (with the one exception being to go to Chinese Buffet) in well nigh two weeks, and I’ve finally started understanding why Coke tastes better after a good run. Consistent exposure to diverse environments activates the nose! And, as we all know, smelling is more than half of our ability to taste. Technically I pulled that number out of my butt, but it’s a healthy percentage.

Regardless, it’s been a good summer. I’ve not done much of anything, and that’s what I wanted. I think I’m ready to take on school, although I’m not exactly please about its arrival. I’ve decided to dump AP Stats for Health, leaving a fairly healthy schedule, in my opinion. I’m really looking forward to AP Lang, although I’ve yet to do the prerequisite work. That’s what these last seven days are for.

WTB ‘Free Periods’ PST

1. H-Precalc AB – McMahon
2a. PE
2b. Fractals & Chaos – Drix
3. AP-Geography – Powers
4a. Government – Augustine
5b. Graphic Tech – Cowell
6a. Economics – Strippel
6b. PE
7. AP Lang – Anderson
8. AP Stats – Kalman

Subject to removal: Graphic Tech and AP Stats. I was expecting Krywe for Graphic Tech, not the new guy. And Stats, because I’m not a huge fan of stats, and I may be lazy enough as is.

Subject to change: 1st period math. That is not working for me at all. Oy.

My free periods, as you may have noticed, are off-kilter. I get one, every other day, for the first semester 2nd period, and for the second semester 6th period. I get the 2nd semester of 4th period of, and finally the 1st semester of 5th period off. It’s basically two, but more retarded than normal.

The Chaos Regime

As I continue to swim through my seas of self-doubt to try and figure out what exactly I want to do with my life, I consistently find myself in love with the internet. I can’t make a living out of loving the internet, though, and this is what concerns me.

I’m not as naturally brilliant as I’m used to convincing myself that I am. A 1930 on the SAT, a 4 on my APCS exam, and a 2.7 GPA this year just aren’t validating my continually waning superiority complex, although this is most certainly not the case when it comes to Halo. So, the reality here is, what do I do? The world isn’t gonna keep giving me credit for my stunning good looks and liquid-smooth voice. Teh possibilities, they are teh endless.

A prime element confounding this is the confusion of my natural preferences and tendencies with my bad habits and moods. For example: do I just not like working under other people, or am I really freakin’ lazy? Or both? I’m certainly at least somewhat lazy. But the pattern has been that when I’m working for my own benefit, and not my superior’s, I work faster and with greater quality. At least, I think. I’m not speaking on solid terms here.

The concept of running my own business doesn’t sound bad. In this way, I wish I were more artistic, as there are generally a lot of avenues for the artistic ones among us when it comes to self-management. I’m not entirely forgetting my love for writing here, but I don’t think I’m an author at heart. Journalism is still an option, of course, (even Photojournalism, as my mother suggested), but I have it on the sidelines for the moment. I could see myself running a little computer repair shop, really. It’d be a nice mix of interaction with people as well as doing something that I enjoy. A few months ago, I did make a big ‘revelation’ about how I thought I was wrong about my love for computers, and I’m not sure I was entirely wrong. However, I would be foolish to abandom them entirely (career-wise), especially considering I have been enjoying my work with Christopher at GNS.

I don’t expect to find concrete answers any time soon, but sorting things out through these posts has been quite productive overall, however moody it may make me seem. Patience in all things.

Jenn ate two pairs of my headphones (both were pairs I use for running, the earbud kind) this week, so I’m biking over to Best Buy tomorrow to get another pair, using the money Mom and Dad left for food (which I haven’t used yet, I’m getting pretty hungry). Being home alone is fun.

[edit]

Just curious, how many of y’all were aware that North Korea fired 5 non-nuclear warheads at the US and Japan? I hadn’t heard about this until two days ago. WW3 ftw? Especially considering how nobody likes eachother down there in the first place, I see bad things happening.

[/edit]

You’ll Disagree

No, really, you will.

BOONDOCK SAINTS SUCKED!

AHH!

Rantzor! Why does everyone think this movie is good? Even people with good taste in movies have fallen prey to this load of crap! I’m not alone in my feelings here; my brothers are with me on this. It’s insane. The straw that broke the matephorical camel’s back was Paul and Karen. Technically two straws. Shut that face of yours.

On track here. I could go on and on about how disgustingly self-righteous and vaguely blasphemous the movie was. It’s like X3, though; the movie sucks, but it appeals directly to 90% of the movie-watching populations, and that’s all that matters. It has the goods – violence, Irish accents (or in X3’s case, Hugh Jackman), and pseudo-reflective quotes involving God and guns. Heck, the movie has a freakin 20% on Rotten Tomatoes, this SAYS something! That’s not stopping them from making a sequel, though.

Life continues on in its general stride. I managed to get to Judo for the first time in two months, and I feel so utterly hardcore. No, really. I ran a mile (okay, maybe 3/4..) with my gi in tow (in a backpack, not wearing it) to Barton Hall, did that Judo thang, ran home, ate, ran another three miles, and here we are. Can you tell I feel like showing off? HAH! I can’t tell whether it’s the running I enjoy, or the running to techno. I’d do it more often if it weren’t for that, you know, muscle damage thing, being human and all. I feel great as is, though, I think I’m gonna try and do this a few times a day. It’s not as if I’ve got better things to be doing.

I suppose the only other piece of news is that my house will be entirely empty by Friday. Hayden, Ana, Jonathan, Mom, and Dad are all gonna be gone. Hayden and Ana back to El Paso, Jonathan to California, and Mom and Dad to….honestly, I’ve not a clue. I’ve never really been home alone for several (I believe I’m alone for three full days) days in a row before (never more than 2 full days), and I’m excited. No, I’m not holding a sexy party (queue Stewie clip), it’s just the thought of going out and buying my own food, and then cooking it, and then nobody else will eat it but me, and it’ll be up to me to stick it in the fridge. And when I wake up the next morning none will be gone, because no one else will be there to eat it. Ahem.

Hope you’re all enjoying teh summar. I sure am.

Stage One: Complete

The attic has completed its first stage of awesome. I’ve attempted to capture the results.

The main area of attraction:
DSCF2191

DSCF2193

I’m planning on putting a quilt over the window to keep bugs out and provide ever greater privacy. It’s the same thing that’s on the opposite window, seen momentarily. Note the fridge in the bottom left (barely visible).

The stuff:
DSCF2195

The fridge is off the screen to the left. On the left is the subwoofer, then I’ve got about ~800 CDs of music in those booklets. To the right I’ve got all my N64 and SNES games. The baskets contain the various game systems and peripherals. To the right of the TV you can see my MP3 player and the jack – I’ve set it up so you can put whatever audio device with a headphone output up to the system, although it only outputs to 3.1 speakers. I also brought up my brother’s collection of DVDs (after taking the picture), so there’s a decent selection of movies up there as well. This is where bigger TVs are needed.

Oh, and that big black thing is a VCR. You wouldn’t believe how many people asked what that was.

The other side:
DSCF2197

That’s where I need more rugs/carpeting.

DSCF2199

The stairwell:
DSCF2200

I switched out the single rung of colored lights with white lights, as well as the hanging lights. This works a lot better – those lights are good for (a) finding the lightswitch when the lights are off and (b) finding/navigating the stairs when the lights are off, so it’s better to go with the more simplistic colored ones. But, fear not, the colored lights are not out of the picture.

The whole room:
DSCF2203

The roof:
DSCF2202

I would have preferred the disco ball over the blacklight, but the disco ball decided that it no longer wants to provide its disco-tastic light anymore, which may or may not be fixable. All of these lights and the fridge came from Ben, and a few new posters came from Zach (most notably the Ocarina of Time poster, visible in the first picture). So, basically all we need now is more posters, more TVs, more rugs, and then it’s truly where I want it to be. I’m gonna see if I can get my old computer up there (Christopher has it right now, I don’t think he’s using it), and then hopefully I’ll be able to connect to our wireless network, or drag this 50ft ethernet cable from the house to the attic to get connectivity. That would be beyond hot.

My hopes are high.

Super Duper Attic Time

So, the attic is fixed again, after my brothers and father ripped it apart (I still haven’t received any kind of apology). The stereo system works (with surround, although the source must be designated for 5.1 to work fully), and I got it hooked up to any gaming system I have up there (currently I have my Xbox, PS1, N64, and SNES up there).

Basically, we need stuff. We (Benjamin, Emma, Daniel and Kylie, and later Paul and Ben) pulled a ton of empty boxes out and made lots of space throughout the garage, and now we need to fill that space. Let me list what we have now (bulleted list!!1).

  • One TV (25″)
  • One Xbox, One PS1, One N64, One SNES, One VCR
  • One stereo system (4.1)
  • One good couch, one bad couch, one recliner
  • One coffee table
  • One Ping Pong Table, One Foosball table
  • Various assortment of various signs + posters
  • One small disco ball
  • One blacklight
  • One very old vacuum cleaner
  • One very old microwave

What we NEED is a pretty hefty list.

  • TVs, preferably large (>= 27″)
  • Fridges (small fridges only)
  • Games + game systems (not necessarily current – Sega varieties, original Nintendo, Atari are all fine)
  • Furniture (Bookshelves are of high value, but tables are also quite wonderful, as well as couches and chairs – MUST be fluffy/comfy)
  • Posters (movie posters, anything interesting/amusing that’s clean – e.g. not pron)
  • Colorful/flashy things (Christmas lights are great, but lava lamps, anything that doesn’t make noise and isn’t annoying)

Those are the basics we need to make it go from really makeshift to an actual worthwhile place to spend many hours of time. As is, it’s nice, but it’s not comfortable enough to spend hours upon hours in. Part of this is mere cleanliness – I still need to add some bugproofing measures, and clean it up some more, but that’s not a lot. The walls are mostly barren and the corners are filled with boxes and fiberglass.

If we ever get all of the aforementioned stuff, there’s still more to do to improve things. I highly doubt any of the following will happen, but it’s nice to think about them.

  • Floor-to-floor carpeting. I don’t know how we’d do this, but the wood in there is not nice. We’ve got rugs, but rugs are only good to an extent.
  • Pool table. Pool is infinitely superior to Foosball and Pingpong.
  • Paint the walls. Drywall is the ugly.
  • Cable TV and/or Internet connectivity. Need I say more?

If you think of more stuff that is WITHIN REASON, please do let me know. A lot of this is gonna have to come from garage sales, most certainly always second-hand. If you buy something for this, I’m not gonna reimburse you. If you bring me something, remember that this is intended for use by multiple people, and accidents happen. Nothing’s gonna get stolen (the last robbery in my neighborhood was like 20 years ago), and as I improve the attic, it’s gonna get more well established (and therefore safer). DON’T just show up at my house with large crap. Tell me first. Organization ftw.

Anyways, if none of you feel like doing anything, that’s fine. I’m just throwing this out there. We’ll see what happens.

Because I Feel Like It

I’m on the verge of finishing this school year, and by that, of course, I mean my English portfolio.

I hate writing reflections. I do them occasionally here, except they’re on things that matter. I honestly could not care less about which piece of writing I think is best, and I hate having to go through the process of explaining that I learned absolutely nothing this year. It’s a complicated explanation, one that requires a complex series of sub-explanations to ensure that I’m not insulting the teacher, but still getting the point across that I’ve done less in the past two years than I did my in my freshman year, which was a freaking semester course.

The results are almost in: I’m guaranteed at least one F this quarter (in English – I never handed in that paper I was always talking about). I don’t even want to care, I just want to move on. I just hope they don’t pull me out of AP Lang (I got in, btw) because of this. The test for that was way fun.

Unrelated: I’ve been running a lot recently, generally about 2 or 3 miles a night. It’s a lot of fun running with music, but it’s starting to hurt because my shoes are so bad (they’re like two years old, at least). I’ve got the money for new clothes and whatnot (and man do I need them), I just have to get to the store. Salvation Army FTW!

Facts, Generically

I’m going to make a pseudo-prediction of my SAT scores, based on how well I think I did. I’m really hoping I did as well as I think I did, because that test was long. Really, really long.

Reading: 725-760
Writing: 735-775
Math: 625-650
Essay: 9

I only omitted three or four questions, all of those being math. I managed to fully finish each section, so I didn’t have to omit any on account of not having enough time. The essay wasn’t as hard as I expected it to be, but it came out a lot more disorganized than I wanted it to be – I had the right ideas, but it lacked drive/purpose. We’ll see how much they care in the two minutes they grade the thing. Scores come out June 26, so I’ve got a while to wait. I sent scores to CMU, RPI, and IC. Honestly, I don’t know if I want to go to any of those – CMU is probably out of my grade range, RPI might be cool, and IC has the benefit of being free (parental employee benefits ftw), but I don’t want to stay in Ithaca. Basically I just sent them out because it’s something you’re supposed to do, I guess.

I added some new pictures that I took on Saturday, some of which I like, but they’re generally the same as the others. I handed in this set of pictures for my travel project, along with a reflection on the pictures and the general focus of them. I felt okay about it, although she didn’t seem super happy about having to download each one of them at a time (apparantly she’d not seen a .rar before, which I should have accounted for). Oh well.

Other stuff – I finished Kare Kano and Fruits Basket, and started on Fushugi Yuugi. Both Kare Kano and Fruits Basket were good, and Fushugi Yuugi seems alright. Ranma’s still downloading, along with season 5 of 24, which will be followed by the episodes of Lost that I haven’t seen (about half of season 2).

And now, a shower.

The Otaku Alliance

I bring you a dual-media post, containing both a podcast as well as a post! This is Paul-style, with music and even a rip-off of his introduction! I tried to add some crazy effects to the introduction, but all I could do was make it echo, or change the pitch. Neither were what I wanted. Anyways, I had to chop this one up a lot, so there are some obvious changes in tone and inflection occasionally. Not intended (except for in the beginning).

#6 – “X3 Sucked”

Muzak – “Answers” by Vigilante, “The Price is Right Techno Remix” by a guy on YTMND.

As noted within the podcast, #5 was fully produced, but came out with large technical issues. If you’re so inclined, you can listen to it, but it’s pretty messed up. I reused some (a lot) of the content from #5 for #6, so that will make it even less interesting. I actually liked #5 a lot more than #6, but you can’t reproduce this stuff at will. Anyways, I can see you’re all desperate to procastinate, so, here you go.

#5 – “Super Deciding Banana Antics”

Anyways. I suppose I enjoyed my weekend – I have something of a tan from all the mowing. Speaking of which, I now have 6 customers, resulting in 80 bucks for every round of mowing I do. Not bad, although with all this mowing I’m gonna have to pay for the blade sharpening and the gas (I haven’t had to before). Non-taxable, though. I’m still gonna apply at Greenstar, since I don’t want to rely on such a varied resource for my income. It’s nice having money again, though. Nothing makes me feel more out of place than having people pay for me. It’s also nice to be able to get people presents on their birthdays.

Speaking of which, I went and saw X3 with Christopher on Saturday, as a pseudo-birthday present for him. I’m assuming most of you now realize that the title for Podcast #6 was a complete lie – I just wanted to proudly state that it sucked hard. Way, way hard. They completely overused Wolverine/Hugh Jackman, and gave him the worst dialogue heard in a movie since Star Wars (“It’s a trap!”). Motivational speeches, TWO references to the title of the movie, and one-liners abound, attached to one of the most disorganized and improbable plots I’ve seen in a while, with mediocre production qualities (did they really need a 1/3 scale model of the golden gate bridge?), and total abandonment of the X-Men canon (Jean never killed any essential characters), combined for a truly terrible move. Christopher and I laughed about it the whole way home.

Soon after, Paul and Karen rescued me from certain doom, and we went to see Thank You For Smoking, which was still quite good the second time. Afterwards we realized that no Chinese places were open at 11:30 PM, so we went to Wegman’s. Now, I was way confused – I thought we were actually looking for food, but we ended up in the candy section, and somehow, I ended up with 1.5 lbs of gummy bears and 3 boxes of Pocky (note this for later). Likewise, Paul was assailed by dozens of feet of licorice, and we managed to escape with our lives, and even a little money.

In all honesty, though, I was confused as to why we were strolling the empty deli section, as well as to why Karen was buying some of the nastiest salmon I’ve ever tasted, until I realized that I was actually buying my dinner. I remained confused when we just sat down and ate it in the car – perhaps I’m just silly, but the car seemed awfully lacking in convenience and an atmosphere conducive to eating. But hey, I shouldn’t be complaining.

In other news, I think I’m turning into an otaku or japanophile or something. I’ve started searching for more anime, and I’m patiently waiting as 6 more download (ever so slowly). I’ve been thinking about taking up learning Japanese, too – I don’t know exactly where I could learn around here, but I think it’d be totally sweet. I don’t want to turn into Steven Segal or something, but Japan in general just fascinates me. Four large alphabets sounds somewhat scary, though. Although, I suppose I already know the romaji, so it’s more like three. Except, you know, the kanji has like 2000 characters worth knowing.

I also found the the ultimate get-rich-quick scheme that I developed while mowing today.

  1. Wait for a controversial or “anti-Christian” film, book, or song/album to come out. The target must be fairly popular.
  2. Write a book addressing this piece of media. The title must include the name of the said media. In this book, “prove” that the media’s focus is wrong. Place images from the said media onto the cover of the book.
  3. ?????
  4. Profit!

Seriously, there’s like half a dozen or more books on Amazon focused on “debunking” The Da Vinci code. It’s insanity. Who cares? Is boycotting or disproving the movie doing anything for the cause of Christ? Why not take the 30 bucks you spent buying that book, and give it to someone who actually needs it? These authors are literally living off of the laziness of those who are unwilling to go research this stuff on their own. You don’t need super awesome laser technology with your lollornets and roflcology, you need common sense.

The movie apparantly sucks anyways.

Freakin’ Lasers!

Since I actually do need to go do that paper that I didn’t do two nights ago, I will again keep this short. I did another podcast, and this time I didn’t actually get the whole thing in one take, so I had to splice it together a little bit. I wasn’t actually able to notice the breaks, so I don’t think it will end up being a problem. It’s getting a lot easier to do these as I learn the program, though.

Podcast 4 (4:30) – “Snakes on a Comic Book”

Yes, I’m giving these titles now. I think it enhances the experience. Oh, and here’s the picture I was referencing.

This is not a Brothel

I’ve been increasingly frustrated lately over the fact that if I write something that I actually, truly care about, it is guaranteed that at least one, and probably two people will say they didn’t read it and/or don’t care. I don’t understand this – if you don’t care, then I don’t care to hear about how you don’t care. Seriously. It’s just obnoxious and, in the end, really just angering when people tell me they don’t care, when I never asked them to in the first place. Yes, I like it a lot when people read what I write, and it like it even more when people respond and discuss what I write. I know I can’t get you to be interested in everything that I am, but at least let me try?

A good example here would be if I wrote about the fundamental differences in the combat engine and character development between Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy IX, and what Square-Enix has to do to maintain the proper formula in the future without abandoning the basic idea of the TBC RPG. I can predict the following: Paul would probably respond by saying the FF7 sucked, but then continue to comment on what I wrote. An acceptable response. Someone else would say he stopped reading after the first paragraph. Someone else would say he never played FF7, and someone else would say he hated FF7 and/or FF9, with nothing else to add to the conversation. Someone else would say I have no life, and she would be right. And Ryan would probably leave some gem of wit, unrelated to the topic, and yet hilarious. Also acceptable.

I can handle getting fewer than ten comments on any given post, but if you look at each of those comments, not many actually stimulated true discussion of any kind. The actual number of comments lies somewhere between zero and two. I look at blog posts much the same way I look at books. Say you read the first chapter of a book, and you don’t like it. Do you proceed to write the author about the fact that you didn’t read his/her book because the first chapter sucked? Or do you write the author about how you didn’t read the book because it wasn’t about a topic you were interested in? Probably not.

Now, you might write the author after reading the whole book to disagree, or to critique the content or writing, or something. You might even go talk about the book with your peers, discussing its finer points or debating whether or not it sucked. Bottom line, you don’t actually talk about the book unless you actually have something to say. That’s what I’m asking for here.

That said, I’ve been considering a number of things. How about podcasts? Podcasts, as in, me, talking about something for 5 minutes, and then sharing it for you to hear. I thought this would be a fun thing to do, but, I won’t bother if everyone says no. Podcasts are fairly easy to do, so it’s not a question of effort. My bandwidth is large enough to support this, especially considering that the mp3s would be, at most, 3 or 4 MB.

I’ve also been considering starting a totally separate blog to talk about games and whatnot. Honestly, I’d love nothing more than to talk about games all the time to you, but as said before, I can’t get you to care. Alternatively, I could just post anyways and you could not read them. That, however, seems like it degrades the overall quality of the content here, mixes things up too much.

Finally, I will revamp the design eventually. I’m getting way bored of the current look, and you can be assured that things will change. It might happen soon, it might not. I’ve technically got a lot of work to do to catch up from being sick, but then again, I’ve stopped caring about school again. It’s all up in the air.

And I promise, I will post about Oblivion. Just not yet.

Of Cinematic Proportions

So, a weird thing happened to me today. I woke up miserable and coughing out the wazoo, and the chloraseptic (spray that numbs the throat) stopped working, so I resigned to chugging a whole bottle of Gatorade (and by chuigging, I mean sipping on continuously). Every time I swallowed, the resident sharp pain in the back of my throat moved down a few inches, until it was pinned down to my stomach, where it then converted itself into one of the worst cases of gas I’ve ever had. I’d like to think that I actually had a small alien living in my throat. One that just happened to have a weakness towards Gatorade (quick, I’m thinking of a movie!). Which would make for a very thrilling story to tell.

I won’t be in school tomorrow, but hopefully Tuesday I will.

For Honour

I’ve got a fever, of 103.0, and the only prescription is more cowbell!

Including but not limited to Tylenol and Benadryl.

With what first seemed to be an allergic reaction to the pollen count of today and yesterday, the inexplicable feeling of being sunburned all over, and yet being very cold, this massive fever, and
having sore joints, it is quite possible that I am not allergic. We shall find out in a matter of days.

This comes at a bad time, too.

On second thought, I don’t think I can keep writing. I’m kind of getting really fuzzy every few seconds. Sorry.

[edit]

So, it’s not allergies. It’s most likely some virus, but the symptoms keep changing. I’ve started throwing up the Robitussin, so I have to spray this stuff to numb the back of my throat so I can eat frozen stuff. The fever’s gone, along with the headaches and dizziness, but the codeine the doctor gave me isn’t working, and I can’t eat or drink without the numbing stuff because it hurts too much to swallow. I haven’t really gotten any sleep for the past two nights, first because of the fever, and now because of the dehydration and coughing. I keep waking up with really bad chills. I also can’t talk (literally).

This is not fun.

[/edit]

Cliche, Sir

Finalized schedule for next year:

1. AP Human Geography
2. AP Statistics
3. AP Lang
4. Precalculus AB
5a. Graphic Tech / 5b. Fractals & Chaos
6a. Government / 6b. Economics
7a. PE / 7b. FreePeriod
8. Free Period

I’m taking health over the summer (5 weeks FTW!).

Controlled Explosions

Sticking with the two-word titles, I’ve some interesting things to report. Apparantly wireless keyboards are, in fact, inferior. I’m typing on a different keyboard at the moment, so, any errors are obviously not my fault.

I hadn’t really noticed before, but when the gang came over (we dress in blue shirts and white khakis! we’re white! we make potato guns!), Nolan played some Stepmania. For those of you that do not know, Stepmania is akin to Guitar Hero or DDR, but on a keyboard, on a computer (any OS). I know all of you know what those are, so basically it’s just hitting arrows in time to music. The songs on SM are infinitely harder (and cooler) than anything you’ll find in DDR or Guitar Hero. To get an idea of how fast we’re talking, Nolan played songs at around 150-300 BPM (beats per minute). That’s not keystrokes, that’s beats. The notes come in time with the beats, so you’ll end up with anything between 1-20 keystrokes per second. I haven’t gotten near that good yet, so I hadn’t noticed that there was a cap to how many keys I could be pressing at any given second. When the game wasn’t keeping up with Nolan’s playing, we switched the keyboard out for a crappy corded one, and voila, things return to normal. While I was aware that wireless peripherals were indeed inferior in speed and precision, I had no idea that it was to such an extent.

I went to the farmer’s market for the first time on Saturday, and I think it’s enough to say that it wasn’t bad. If I had money, I’d have bought a loaf of cinnamon bread or something, but no, I had no such thing. Mowing has officially started, so, that shouldn’t be such a problem. Now I just need a job – I’m hoping Christopher will have room for two people. One can hope, right?

Fine Science

As I sat reviewing for the upcoming Computer Science exam (so far 10 questions have contained iterative loops in which you just have to add things up, it’s silly), I realized that I should go find out random facts about the Power Rangers to quip during the day tomorrow. Jumping to Wikipedia, I expected a half-written article with some helpful references. NO.

THAT IS NOT WHAT I FOUND.

Look at it. That’s the parent article. I challenge you to look at the articles for each season. All of them are complete articles, detailed and organized. Even worse, there’s information about the upcoming PowerMorphiCon (for those that don’t know, Cons are conventions for specific things). Never have I been so fatally put off by what people do in their spare time. Society has reached a new low. Rape of Nanjing? Tianenmen Square? (the choosing of two Chinese incidents is pretty much the result of a loss for good catastrophes) They haven’t got a THING on this, my friends.

Even still, I found it interesting that half of the show was adapted from the Japanese show Super Sentai(literally, super group or super task force, specifically used for air squadrons in WWII). It explained why it seemed so weird. Most hilariously, though, was the formula that Wikipedia gives for each episode. Never have I seen such a thing given for a TV show, making it that much funnier. For those too lazy to go check, I shall leave it here for you to awe upon.

  1. Rangers are seen in everyday life with a dispute to resolve.
  2. Rangers are attacked by an evil foe’s minions/footsoldiers.
  3. Rangers fight minions/footsoldiers.
  4. Rangers morph.
  5. Rangers defeat minions/footsoldiers.
  6. Optional: Evil enemy revives minion and makes minion grow to gigantic proportions, followed by Rangers summoning giant machines known as Zords and/or their combined form, the Megazord.
  7. Optional: Rangers find that their current powers are insufficient to defeat monster and discover a new power, such as a Battlizer armor for the Red Ranger, a sixth Ranger, or a new Megazord.
  8. Optional: Rangers fight and defeat said giant minion.
  9. Rangers are shown back in everyday life, having learned a life lesson which solves the earlier dispute.

FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SANE AND HOLY, who would watch enough episodes to know this? No self-respecting human being should know this beyond the age of ten. Not a single one.