Category: life

To Cough, or to Sneeze.

That is the question.

I have spent the last three days in utter misery, with some kind of viral agent coursing through my veins. I cough so much that I can now no longer play Ninja Gaiden Black, because it excites me too much; I start coughing too much and subsequently can’t concentrate. The only time I’m not coughing is when I’m eating, and that’s right now. To think I’m missing Ski Club and Robotics for this.

I fear my return to school, with the piles of work I’ll surely have to do. More importantly is the ferocious and possibly hurtful words I will receive from teachers, concerning being absent for three days. You can take this to mean I will not be there tomorrow.

A few various things you should all know, via a bulleted list:

  • Robotics seasons started Monday, meaning I have to be there from 5-9 every weekday, and 9-5 on Saturdays. I will probably not go home in between the time school ends and Robotics begins. Wohoo for 13 hours in that blasted school.
  • I traded in Spartan for Mario Kart: Double Dash and Ninja Gaiden Black. The former is not as good as either of its predecessors, with the multiplayer being especially disappointing. The latter is absolutely amazing, and much more than I had hoped for. That’s all I’ll say about these for now.
  • I discovered these “Reese’s Pieces Peanut Butter Candies” that are basically Reese’s in M&M form. Highly delicious, although I haven’t really been able to enjoy them due to my non-stop sneezing and coughing.
  • I finished Season 4 of the Sopranos. I have also realized that absolutely none of you have even watched this show, ever, so I’ve decided to stop mentioning this fact.
  • Apparantly sleep inertia induces a state that is worse than being drunk. Sleep inertia, for those who don’t know, is the feeling you have in the morning, that most people rid themselves of with coffee or hot showers.

If this thing doesn’t get any better tomorrow, I’m seeing the doctor on Saturday. Ugh.

An Inexorable Anxiety of the Heart

I’ve had the feeling again.

The feeling where my heart sags and beats irregularly, where I can think of nothing but gloom and doom. It spews this angst, this attitude that eats humor and joy for lunch, and occasionally brunch. I’ve spent all of today complaining to my dad about how much I hate school and generally saying anything I can that will distance myself from my inability to be responsible for my work. Whether anything I said is true is unquestionably irrelevant. Joe Wilson and Judith Pastel’s shortcomings as leaders of my educational system are not an excuse for my failures.

Tonight, I did my generic, meaningless plea to God. Something about me, a little more about my selfish needs, what I need, what I want, what must happen to me, complete with a delicious topping of insecerity and laziness. I knew I was wasting my breath, and I knew exactly what I needed to do. So I spent three hours not doing it. And I felt miserable for the whole three hours.

Once I finally got around to opening up my Bible, I read the last two chapters of Ecclesiastes. As I run across verse 8 through 10, I finally get the entire point of Ecclesiastes.

“However many years a man may live, let him enjoy them all. But let him remember the days of darkness, for they will be many. Everything to come is meaningless. Be happy, young man, while you are young, and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth. Follow the ways of your heart and whatever your eyes see, but know that for all these things God will bring you to judgment. So then, banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless.”

Meaningless. Life. Meaningless. Not pointless. Not worthless. Meaningless. This exact thing has been bugging me for two weeks straight. When I say bugging me, I really mean to say it’s been controlling my actions and thought processes to a very unhealthy level. I had this circular train of thought going. I was confused over the whole concept of enjoyment and despair. If I eat something and enjoy it now, it’s not making me happy later, so what’s the point? Every enjoyable thing is temporary; games don’t last forever, jokes stop being funny, movies get old. This is a basic fact that everyone knows but very few understand. These very few are what we call “content”. I understood this. But I wasn’t getting the “point” of enjoying anything at all because it’s so temporary. That’s where the answer comes in. They’re meaningless. They don’t provide meaning to my life. They don’t give it meat. They don’t give me any joy whatsoever. No material thing can do that (not even an HDTV). I’ve been relying on them for some kind of mental support so much these days.

I’ve got more on my mind, but some of it I can’t say. Or won’t, anyways. Good night, yon readers.

/cry

Is this a new fad, or something?

You suck.

All of you.

[edit]

It IS. I left my phone at Daniel’s the other day. I get it back? It tells me “pwnt n00b” when I turn it on. You are all sick, sick people. To quote another, you should be downtown, up at the local asylum.

[/edit]

An Excuse to Eliminate Evidence

I truly do hope you all had a merry Christmas. I am enjoying mine with a plate full of steak (cooked by yours truly). I have some crappy Christmas music going from a random stream on Winamp. Christmas spirit is abound.

This Christmas was far less magical than it usually is. I remember last year, with everyone going “I don’t have that Christmas spirit anymore.”, and me going “Woo, Christmas is teh woot!”. This year, I suppose, that feeling has struck me. Perhaps it’s been the abysmal school year thus far, or the fact that we had school on the 23rd (a sure-fire way to suck the Christmas spirit out of the world).

Anyways, a list. A bulleted list. Or perhaps a numbered list?

  1. Gummi Bears, Nerds Rope (i love this stuff), Pez, and Good & Plentys (Stocking)
  2. Wallet (rents)
  3. Ski Goggles (rents)
  4. The Onion “Fanfare for the Area Man” Day-by-Day Calender (Jonathan)
  5. Headphones (previous described, Jonathan)
  6. Cell Phone (rents)
  7. Far Cry: Instincts (Jonathan)
  8. Call of Duty 2 (rents)
  9. Spartan: Total Warrior (technically this and CoD2 were purchased by me, with money I received, but this is a minute detail)
  10. Skis (rents)

This post has actually be about half-done, sitting as a draft for about 4 days, but I figured I should post, to maintain these some form of contact with the readership until school starts again. I’ll rave about Call of Duty 2 and Far Cry: Instincts later, and complain about Spartan: Total Warrior too. I hope you all had a good Christmas.

[edit]

Thought this was a really cool quote, albeit random:

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.
– GK Chesterton

[/edit]

Yo! Banana Boy

I was gonna write something more than a paragraph, but I have to start the Physics soon to finish before midnight, and I want to get some F.E.A.R. in. Shut it.

I got home today and JonAthan (he’s back!) was downstairs with Brian. I wanted to play F.E.A.R., but the hockey would disturb my focus, so I pulled out the headphones, but when I handed them to JonAthan, he rebroke them (i glued the ears back to the frame, they’re so bootleg), and my already very tired mood was kind of sent further down. After giving him a “…” look, I went upstairs to find the superglue. I come back down, and Brian is doing his absolute best to break the headphones in more pieces, and was mostly succesful in doing so. I start glaring at him, but JonAthan starts prodding me with a wrapped present.

I now have a brand new pair of Altec Lansing (read: not Sony) headphones, very sturdy, with a mic (although at the moment I can’t get it to talk at any reasonable noise level). That kind of brought my day around. I have had an otherwise not good day.

Where should I work? I haven’t checked with Ian yet, ’cause I’m not sure I want a desk job (even if it’s better pay) after being in school for 6 or 7 hours. I mean, if nothing else comes around, I’ll go for it, but I was really up on the idea of being a busboy for Joe’s. Any ideas?

EDIT: I hear the school delay got approved. Hooray! Too bad I’ll only experience a year of it.

EDIT: Snap, today’s getting better. Pennsylvania judge owns ID!

Estuans Interius

I have never been more scared to play a game, ever. F.E.A.R. is just so scary. I’m not one for horror movies or games, ever. In fact, I really don’t like them (mostly because I don’t discount the existence of the unholy supernatural), not that I can’t sit through one without crying, but really. It probably stems from me picking up a copy of Resident Evil 2 my brother had brought home, and subsequently having nightmares for two weeks straight. I was seven years old, give me a break. It’s also why I won’t ordain my gamecube with a copy of Resident Evil 4.

[geek]

Like I was saying, F.E.A.R. is just insane. It’s scarier than Doom 3, but then again, Doom 3 wasn’t scary after an hour of playing it. I withstand the sheer fright that is this game because it’s just really fun and really cool. The gameplay is really good, it’s so satisfying, well balanced, plenty challenging, it’s just awesome. The literal pools of blood, exploding corpses, intermittent flashes of dead people and such are really scary, but the incredibly well done AI is so worth it. The AI, man. They run around you, they know the map, they hide behind stuff, they roll, they jump, they ambush, just so well designed. Wort.

Anyways. As some of you know, I discovered Ruby on Rails the other day, and got all excited by their demos, thinking I could easily start running this here blog completely on my server without using WordPress. I spent three hours ripping my hair out trying to just figure out what the documentation wanted from me, then realizing it was five years out of date, and nothing they told me to do would work. Beyond that, I learned that Ruby is really not a good language anyways – it doesn’t do anything that Perl or PHP can’t easily do alone. I was displeased. I’m trying to learn another language in addition to Java – C++ is the obvious first choice, but I don’t want to run it through Cygwin, and the Eclipse plugin is finnicky, but we’ll see. I’m thinking Perl or Python would be good to learn, but it’s not real important.

[/geek]

That snow day was indeed a blessing. I used it well, I think. Ben, Zach, and I went downtown (with some intermittent snowball fights, and falling down stairs) to go present shopping with money I didn’t have, which was fun in its own right. That wasn’t before playing a rousing game of Rise of Nations in which I reasserted my authority over Paul (after a shameful loss). This also wasn’t after an interesting birthday party at Paul house, which there are pictures for.

In important news, the Patriot Act got owned! I am pleased about this. Something I’ve kind of noticed, is that the media spins everything into party politics. The loss of the Patriot Act is somehow a loss for Republicans. I don’t get it. It means people didn’t like it, and that the majority has won, nothing else. Then again, I don’t care about politics enough to sit down and try and reason through why there’s always been two parties in our political system, and I’m not getting a degree in Political Science to find out. At least the act got shot down.

Precipitation

I really, really, really, really, really want a snow day tomorrow. Like, man. Prospects are good – the weather seems to be quite right. But I don’t want to get my hopes up. Judith Pastel is a nasty woman.

The kind of woman that goes home to an unheated and unfurnished mansion at night. The kind that eats a bowl of gruel, and then sleeps on the cold floor. The kind that opens the closet to a dozen sets of the same black and white suit, with half a dozen pairs of the same black shoes, and a matching jacket and gloves for those days where the snow is colder than her icy heart. The kind that, on Thanksgiving, doesn’t eat turkey, but eats tofurkey, with unsalted, unbuttered, lumpy mashed potatoes. Judith Pastel never went to school, she never grew up. Her mother died in labor from expelling a full grown woman, and her father just said “omg” and promptly joined the local Communist party, never to be seen again. Truly, this woman can bring a tear to the eye of even the most stout hearted. The only man known to withstand the horror that is this woman? Jack Thompson.

*rolls d20 for snow day*

Bagel-Man, DXII

I completely lied about doing that monitor. In a timely manner, anyways. I lack the motivation to do it now, but I do have the motivation to go play Rise of Nations. Feel unloved.

So, things of importance! Martial arts. I believe I’ve decided on Judo and Taekwondo, which will result in 6 hours of training a week (2 on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday), which I look forward to starting in February. I hadn’t really considered it before, but I got thinking about it yesterday, and it seems to be quite a good idea. I may take Kendo (true swordmanship, not to ever be conufsed with the pansy art of fencing) over the summer, to add to the mix. This hasn’t been set in stone, but I’m really liking this idea, it’ll give me something to do, you know, that’s productive and healthy. I’ve had way too much free time, and I need to crack down on that to keep focus. I’m hoping to be pretty busy next semester, with Ski Club going on at the same time.

And then, just to mix things up ever more, I’m going to Joe’s tomorrow to pick up an application as a busboy (the dudes that clean tables). Supposedly the dude is pretty laid back, doesn’t overwork his employees. Minimum wage, plus a percentage on tips, results in a little less than fifty bucks a night. If I do that two nights a week (Friday and Saturday, maybe take a day out of Judo occasionally), that keeps a reasonable amount of cash around so that I don’t have to mooch off of people all the time. Maybe even pay people the money that I owe them. Ah, the dreams. If that doesn’t work out, I’ll check with Ian to see if anything is possible. The possibilities, though…

[edit: i was too late, it appears. time to check with Ian! if that doesn’t work out, i’ll figure something up.]

I could pay for things…

like haircuts.

Hey, speaking of haircuts, I just happened to get one of those today. I’m actually displeased with it. The woman was practically scraping my head raw, and cut it far shorter than I told her to. The result? Really short hair. It’ll grow to the desired length in like a week or two, but for now, it is not so great. It doesn’t look bad, necessarilly, just not good. Bad enough for Jen to bark at it, anyways. And yes, the sticky is back.

I’ll Get You, Sho.

PSAT Scores:

  • Critical Reading: 62
    • 89% higher than all juniors
    • SAT range of 560-710
  • Math: 59
    • 78% higher than all juniors
    • SAT range of 520-690
  • Writing Skills: 60
    • 82% higher than all juniors
    • SAT range of 480 to 670
  • Overall: 86%

I’m pretty happy, but my mom immediately felt the need to shoot me down. Recently, she’s started working for the Ithaca College admissions department, and she promptly informed me that those scores aren’t enough to get into Ithaca College. Not only do I not want to go to Ithaca College (i have several times informed her of this), but I’m going to TC3, where the SAT becomes null and void. I’m taking it because it’s fun, it’s a cool way to gague where I’m at. I think I did pretty well.

The Math portion I am disadvantaged as I’m not at the level needed to take the SAT (probably ended up in 4 or 5 questions wrong total), and I screwed up the Writing Skills by getting that last 7 or the last 9 questions wrong, due to being really rushed. I should have omitted them, but I think I did well anyways.

And courtesy of Daniel, I shall direct you to one of the funnier sites I’ve visited in my time, but a creepily accurate charge against Christendom in America. Meet Landover Baptist Church.

Finally, apparantly I’ve been tagged.

  1. I’ve been listening to the techno track from the next-gen party for many hours. In fact, it’s looped over 550 times now. So good.
  2. I’ve got five pairs of old glasses sitting in the droor (edit: i’ve been informed this is actually “drawer”?) next to me. That’s over $1500 of glass and metal, not including the cost of visits to the opthomologist.
  3. I have no yearbooks. None. Nada.
  4. I used to know disgustingly large amounts of geography. I would, for fun, go through this computer encyclopedia where you could click on a country on the map, and it would give you lots of information, play the national anthem, and other things. In fact, I placed second in a geography bee in third grade.
  5. I owned, or have owned, approximately $2,409.49 in video games. That’s around 53 games. That’s not all of them, either.

I don’t really want to tag anyone, but I guess I’ll tag Paul. Woo.

And now, to start this CS project.

You Are SO Not Invited.

I’m surprised that up to this point, not a single person has noted the lack of explanation of the asterisk lying in wait in the header. Once upon a time, before what I dub the “Great Harddrive Failure of 2005” and the resulting “Dark Age of the Internet”, I had utilized this asterisk to note something of extreme importance. The issue here is that I have absolutely no idea what I had noted. I had originally planned to make a footer (the things that go below everything, thus why they are called footers, unless you’re a CommuNazi). Nonetheless, I am nauseated and disgusted by your skills of examination. So much so that both my eyes are filled with angst, also known as blood.

So, I woke up this morning to my eyes telling me “we hate you”. The meaning of this I didn’t understand until I started experiencing exponentially increasing aches in the area of my head, and by third period, I had been informed that both of my eyes were completely bloodshot. After confirming this fact via a quick run to the mirror, I took my first visit to the nurse’s office of the year, and slept rather peacefully for thirty minutes until my dad got me. The ride home was rather painful as the sun was out, and light to my head was the equivelant of mating in the manner of moose and rams (that is, to repeatedly bash your head against a hard object…not…the other things rams do…). After decorating the house a bit (i now have my silly mini tree in my room, it emits about 25 or 30W of happy), I again went to sleep, but not before playing a rousing game of Age of Empires II, which I’m sure most of you are familiar with. For those of you who aren’t, skip this next part.

[geek]

It’s amazing how poorly memory serves to accurately define a staple of my youth. The game is ridiculously easy – I remember finding the computer insanely hard to beat even on the moderate setting, but using the Goths (whose special unit is the Huskarl, that has like 15 piercing armor, costs like nothing, and can be created in less than 3 seconds) I’ve managed to completely own without even a question of my authority. I generally just create my entire army of 100 in less than two minutes, and sweep the entire map in one or two runs. Before I have the resources for the massive recruitment, I create only enough to defend my base as well as my ally’s. Whether this strategy would work in a real game, I don’t know.

I now have the yearning to play Starcraft again – if I get any minor amounts of money this Christmas, I’ll be certain to get the combo. It’s probably down to ten bucks these days.

[/geek]

Various things (no bulleted list here, i’m afraid):

My parents somehow miraculously got me signed up for Ski Club, past the deadline. This is a highly good thing, as such a proliforous amount of people were going this year (as opposed to last year), missing out on the fun would just be no good.

I’ve finally, after like three months, gotten back in touch with a few of the people from camp. Christina and I have sent a few back and forth, and I got in touch with Zach, although I have still left the entirity of Ohio behind. With time, I’ll get there, but for now, I’m a bum.

Things of humor (sorry, no bulleted list again):

If you check out Colette’s Xanga, you’ll see a post concerncing some silly face recognition software that compares your face (hur, hur) to that of a bunch of celebrities. I am proof that this thing is entirely broken. Just look. (grumble)

Two or three posts ago, I gave a little plug for Facebook, encouraging people to sign up. So, they did. I friended these people. And you know what happens? A pentagram, apparantly. My network of friends is one step away from symbolizing the devil. Ryan is the only thing stopping this. Insert fear here.

And finally, let’s have some good times. The next gen is here, and everybody is celebrating. If you don’t get that, I suggest you go watch four hours of press conferences from E3. Like me! I’ve been listening to the song from that thing for at least an hour now, it’s so good.

Now, because cliches are in, I am creating a new status: the conventions of standard English in the titles. As long as cliches are in, there will be a conventions status monitor, which I will create for your pleasure tomorrow. Images shall be included! As soon as cliches are out, however, the status of the conventions will be neither in, nor out. As you can see, the conventions are obviously in (read: capitalization, grammar, punctuation). Dance Katuragi, DANCE!

Or Else!

To start us off, let’s have some humor. Speaking of a crowd of post-grad students visiting the tenant upstairs:

lemonadeyeti: go upstairs and throw bibles at them
salandarin: we’ve got at least ten in the house, i figure i can kill at least one, perhaps mame another
lemonadeyeti: maybe extra big bibles
salandarin: those are reserved for special times
salandarin: like for if jack thompson ever came over
lemonadeyeti: no, bad idea
lemonadeyeti: he absorbs bibles through his skin
lemonadeyeti: that’s how he gets nutrition
salandarin: hmm, along with a diet of american patriotism, it is a volatile combination
lemonadeyeti: and jesus
salandarin: perhaps a sony executive?
lemonadeyeti: same thing
salandarin: no, they just beat up children in the alley
salandarin: saying something like “the power of capitalism compels you!”
lemonadeyeti: like jesus
salandarin: i will not dignify this analogy with affirmation or rejection
lemonadeyeti: i have pictures
salandarin: sony executives do not speak in slang
salandarin: they speak in lawyer
lemonadeyeti: like jesus
lemonadeyeti: i asked 8 ball
lemonadeyeti: “Is Jesus a Sony executive?”
lemonadeyeti: “Without a doubt.”
lemonadeyeti: i am the winner

If you didn’t understand that, I suggest reading up on the Wikipedia and Uncyclopedia articles for Sony and Jack Thompson. Journalism at its best.

I think we can move on from what I dub the “Comment Wars”. I feel it was becoming so cliche, that it was hitting infinity, which is also a negative number, meaning it was both cliche and not cliche at the same time. This paradox is unacceptable, and not cliche.

And yes, I wrote the vast majority of that article on Jack Thompson. There was an article there before, but I just assimilated a large portion of it and rewrote every section, most from the ground up. It was fun – I think I’ll write articles like that more often. I felt it was funny, not hilarious, but amusing by some standard. I’m sure Gwen won’t agree, but Gwen was born in Outer Mongolia, I really doubt she’s prepared to discuss this topic thoroughly.

As Paul would say “continue padding”, and/or the lack thereof (note clever use of title – that’s cliche).

There’s a fight breaking out!

I love my complete inconsistency with capitalization in the titles. I can never decide when to capitalize and when not to. Woe.

I devote my time tonight to the abomination that has become Two Chains and a Beagle. Ladies and gentlemen, if ever there were a detriment to the cause, this would be it. Containing blatant obscenities where certain females flock to boost their meaningless rank, TC&B has sunk to a low that only Sony could match. Accepting over a hundred mostly useless and meaningless remarks from the mass, and yet taking no action? This is unacceptable!

Readers, I urge you to petition for a removal of the root of the problem. How you go about doing this I care not, but as tempting as it may be to rally my readers to buff my ego in the form of comments, I shall not sink to that low. I already unabashedly advertise myself and mock those inferior to me, I need not sink to a level that the free market demands. This may be capitalism at work, but I am no socialist!

Truly, any believer in a fair internet economy will support this campaign. If you don’t, then you may be a shameless groupie for a malevolent conglomoration. I challenge you, the reader, to fight tyranny in its most apparant form. Unite!

[edit]

Oh, and sorry I couldn’t fit you in there Zach. I considered putting you under “socialist” or “malevolent conglomeration”, but those weren’t insulting enough. I have to deprecate equally, you know.

[/edit]

Lawyerizing

This calls for an entirely separate post. I’ve often wondered how Uwe Boll puts food on the table, but now there’s an answer.

Read this.

Here’s what I’m gathering from what comments on the article. It’s a huge financial fiasco, that Hollywood pulls on almost every movie, through Germany. Basically, investors turn a huge profit by investing in doomed ventures (Uwe Boll’s movies). How does this work?

Say you’re a rich dude, and your net income (profit) is 10 million dollars per year. According to German law, you are taxed on that 10 million, not the rest of your income. You may make 50 million, but if 40 million of that is losses, you are only taxed for 10 million. So, you put this extra 10 million into a movie like Alone in the Dark.

Now say you’re the company producing this piece of crap. You now have 10 million dollars invested into your movie. If you’re doing the movie 100% legitimately, this basically means that at the end of the process, you’ll give the investors a certain percentage of their investment back, based on how much money the movie makes. But if you’re Hollywood, you aren’t doing this legitimately. What do you do? You set up a tax shelter in Germany, where German investors give you money, before your movie has even begun. The advantage of this is that the investors can put their money into something completely tax-deductable, meaning instead of taking 15% hits in income taxes, they will take 5%, which ends up being in the millions as far as how much is saved.

There are dozens of other spins to add to the ball here, such as filming in several locations throughout the world to utilize other tax flaws, selling distribution rights, and all that jazz. However, the end product is a huge profit for every party involved. Take Tomb Raider. Ever hear that the budget for that piece of crap was $90 million? Did you know that the actual money required to make the movie was somewhere between $7-9 million? This, my friends, is why Peter Jackson feels compelled to sue New Line Cinema, for this very process of ‘cooking the books’. Brought to you by your friendly neighborhood team of lawyers.

I can’t sleep.

Shameless? Perhaps.

I have recently been accused of shamelessely whoring myself for the chance of increasing the traffic this site sees. My response? You are 100%, absolutely, positively, without a doubt, correct.

With this fact established, I must move on. Right now, as I have told several of my colleagues, my body feels like nausea. My muscles refuse to cooperate. My head feels like a small child has just discovered the piano and has decided to attempt to play the Tocatta in D Minor with no formal training. My stomache? Let’s not go there. Long story short, I didn’t go to school today, with this being possibly the first day that I actually had a reason beyond hating school to stay home. I hadn’t eaten all day, until I just now ate 4 pieces of pizza, and yet I can estimate no measurable difference in feeling as far as my stomache is concerned.

As far as school is concerned, I face a crossroads of some level of importance. I have three options for physics. I can stay in AP Physics, which will require a bulleted list to explain the advantages and disadvantages.

  • A fairly large amount of work is required.
  • Will require about twice as much work as I’m doing now to hopefully ensure an acceptable grade.
  • Lots of friends in the class, but…
  • …she just changed the seating arrangement to adjust for people that have left the class, separating all of us. Since most of the class is spent listening to her lectures, this basically reduces the fun factor by a lot.

Or, I can move to Honors Physics.

  • Will require minor amounts of work.
  • Will require minor amounts of explaining to the guidance counselor and teacher.
  • Will probably not have many (if any) friends in the class.
  • Will probably require a major schedule change.
  • Will have a better teacher.

Or, I can move to Conceptual Physics.

  • Will require no work at all.
  • Will not require a schedule change.
  • Will require large amounts of explaining to the guidance counselor and teacher.
  • Will have friends in the class.
  • Will be a LOT of fun (or so I’m told).
  • Will have a better teacher.

What do you guys think? I’m willing to keep giving AP a chance, but basically whether I want to stay in or not is determined by the results of this next test. If I could go back, I would certainly do conceptual or normal honors, but having made the bad choice of AP, I have to either live with that or do something about it. Bleh.

[edit]

I encourage you all to go get a Facebook. Akin to MySpace, but far better, and a little more personal. An invitation is required, so let me know if you need one.

[/edit]

[edit^2]

I just noticed there’s a link I can just supply you with to invite you.

Go here.

[/edit]

Slightly Belated

Thanksgiving calls for a bulleted list. So, I know what to be thankful for now.

  • brothers
  • conviction
  • friends that care
  • friends that don’t care
  • my necklace
  • 270 degree spins in the car
  • the Killers
  • Gamespot
  • Google custom pages
  • Slashdot
  • Chili’s quesa
  • my mom’s lasagna
  • Battlefield 2
  • your mom
  • last night, with your mom
  • predictable your mom jokes
  • predictable nights with your mom
  • christmas lists!
  • obligatory God/Jesus references in Thanksgiving lists
  • revolutions in thought
  • bash.org

Things are better. I’m not sure if I should explain, but things are better.

Blurf

This Thanksgiving, I am unusually unthankful. I have plenty of things to be thankful for, but these seem very insignificant compared to the problem I am faced with right now.

That problem, I believe, is me.

I called Mr. semi-famous old guy twice yesterday. The first time, to say that I would be an hour late (mostly due to me not getting up soon enough). He hung up on me while I was talking. The second time, to say that I needed to cancel. I was told, in response, that this was goodbye, that I was completely unreliable.

My initial response was denial. I felt that the circumstances for which I could not work for him were out of my control, and that he had no right to disrespect me like that. Upon examining the situation, however, I realized he was right. The reason I had to cancel was so that I could rake leaves with my dad, which he had rather firmly insisted I do in exchange for staying home Monday. When it got dark before I got to it on Monday, and spent all of Tuesday at that Robotics LAN, it had to be Wednesday. While the timing for that was mostly out of my control, the whole reason I had to rake the leaves was because I stayed home. I stayed home because I failed to finish my work in a timely manner.

I’ve replayed the exact conversation in my head at least a few dozen times. It’s wrenching me. I feel like I should send an email apologizing, but I’m not sure he would even want that. I have never been this utterly lost and incapacitated. I was caught off guard.

I don’t get caught off guard. That’s not what I do. But that’s what the past three months have been for me, situations and people and challenges that are catching me off guard. Perhaps it’s because of the summer. Having a job that was generally fun, productive, AND pertained to what my aspirations for a career are, feeling like I was learning something every day, never feeling felt constricted or bored, it put me in my comfort zone, to say the least.

I’m really not sure what to be thankful for, these days.

The Oreo Complex

The previous run of generally silly and incoherent posts has been for a reason. Partially out of a desire to appease you folk, while still putting forth as little effort as possible. Writing real posts like these is more laborsome than it might seem, however necessary it may be. Especially when you honestly don’t know what day it is, and you can’t remember your best friend’s phone number.

Life, on the whole, is not great. For the past week, I have had some kind of ADHD syndrome, I can’t concentrate at all. The past two nights have been of the worst kind. I would find something to do or talk about that takes a long time (usually very important, but still not a good time to do), leading me to distract myself until the midnight to 1:00 AM hours, at which point I realized I had a three-page memoir to write, the full documentation for my CS program left to do, two tests to study for, math homework, and at least six pages of physics problems to do. After getting next to nothing done Sunday night, despite being up till 6:00 AM, I stayed home, and repeated this process again, but this time giving in at 4:30 after merely finishing the memoir, and nothing else.

By the time I passed out at 4:30, I was thinking, “Lord, I’m toast, do something!”. To my delirious surprise, I was greeted with a series of miracles that I didn’t actually expect. One of the problems with staying home Monday was that I also missed a day in my second-period engineering class, in which we were reverse-engineering parts. I was at the point where I was modeling it in CAD, but due to some really complex features, I was getting nowhere. Mr. Briegle had actually sat down and finished the entire part for me. I walk into Physics class, dreading this cumulative test we were about to have (which, by every report I’ve heard, is by far the hardest test ever made). I hadn’t done the homework the night before, so there was absolutely no way I could win this one. I did the ‘concerned student’ thing and asked her what I had missed the day before, and before I knew it, she was letting me skip the test to study, and I could take it Monday. She wasn’t particularly pleased in doing so, and if I don’t manage to make her very happy, I don’t know what will happen. I was, however, greeted with an unexpected setback in CS. My grace days for the overdue project were used up – I did not know she counted weekends, so I figured I could hand it in Monday as well. Turns out, if I don’t drive the printed project over to her house, handing it in on Monday will fetch me a negative 30 point late bonus. My dad will be entirely unpleased with doing this, and he is not happy as is.

Despite this minor miracles, I feel very much on edge, especially with a lot of teachers and such. My work ethic has crashed. My report card came back with a 2.67 GPA (the lowest I’ve ever had), and although there was nothing below a C, everything hovered in the plain B range. I don’t know what it’s going to take to put the desire back in making consistent quality work, but I’ve gotta get it back somehow. School incites nothing more than sadness at the disapproval of the teachers I respect, instead of a desire to go and do well (technically “to go and do well” should be “learn”, but high school isn’t very “learning” filled). I generally just feel off balance, like I haven’t had nearly enough sleep.

In conclusion, I would really love to get an Xbox 360, enough so that I may attempt to get a real job. Speaking of which, I sent in my resignation to Mr. Semi-famous old guy, but he wasn’t very responsive about it. I’ll work for him once again tomorrow, and that should be about it. As for other work, I’m not entirely sure what to do. I’ve checked with Ian (Sho’s dad, the engineer, for those who don’t recall) a number of weeks ago when I was killing myself with work, at which point he suggested I wait until my schedule was free to plan on anything. If I can ever get these grades on track, working like 4-8 hours a week over there would be great. We’ll see in the next few weeks.

For now, I should sleep. I’ve heard that being awake for 21 hours makes one mildly intoxicated, and with a little less than 2 and a half hours of sleep, that should make me well nigh drunk, comparitively. I sure hope Thanksgiving dinner is good.

I shouldn’t be doing this.

I had this crazy dream last night.

At first sitting in my old car (the blue Mazda MPV, a van of generic proportions), my dad and I got out and entered the nearby grocery store (i believe it was a Jitney Jungle, a Tops-like southern chain), which for some reason, had its front doors closed. This was soon resolved by a burley set of men carrying a battering ram (a big log, in this case), bashing the automatic sliding doors, which somehow caused them to open (correctly, no less).

Upon entering the grocery store, everything seemed to be in order. All the lights were on, everything was perfectly maintained, but all the staff were gone. And yet, for some reason, everyone just went about their business shopping. I, of course, being the brilliant being that I am, realized the perfect opportunity to loot the store for cookies and bacon (this was a very vivid dream), and quickly sprinted about the store looking for these two items. My first attempt at looting cookies from the store yielded the largest cracker in existence. No, really. I grabbed a cracker that was three feet in diameter, mistaking it for a cookie. Unable to find my favorite “Chips Ahoy!” brand cookies (this store was like Aldis, it only carried the crappy third-party stuff), I figured the next best thing was bacon. After digging through layers of vegetables (this store also had an amazing selection of vegetables, which many customers told me during my search for cookies and bacon), I was rewarded by a plain white box of “Willard” brand bacon, which I tossed into my dad’s shopping cart.

This whole time, my dad had been perusing a single wall of frozen items, and was not as enthusiastic about looting the store as I was. Knowing the staff would return soon and catch me looting (although at this point there was no proof of that), I sprinted about the store to find it was actually ridiculously small, and that it only had one entire wall of crackers, two isles of frozen items (mostly vegetables and spatulas), and a few big bins of cauliflower. In my desperate need to steal something from this store, I grabbed three boxes of crackers, and started to push towards the door when a single cashier came from the back room. Figuring we could still run, I pushed forward, but my dad stopped and informed me that I would have to repay the debt by sweeping the sidewalk.

I don’t remember what happened after that, but that was one weird dream.

These still aren’t old.

In what has been a shamelessely silly run of posts, I continue the tradition, and hopefully end it now.

You are ‘programming in QBASIC’. This programming
language (of which the acronym stands for
‘Quick Beginners’ All-purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code’), which is so primitive that
it cannot easily be used for any purpose
involving the Internet nor even sound, was
current more than a decade ago.

You are independent, in a good way. When something
which you need cannot be found, you make it
yourself. In writing and in talking with
people, you value clarity and precision; your
friends may not realize how important that is.
When necessary, you are prepared to be a
mediator in conflicts between your friends.
You are very rational, and you think of things
in terms of logic and common sense.
Unfortunately, your emotionally unstable
friends may be put off by your devotion to
logic; they may even accuse you of pedantry and
insensitivity. Your problem is that
programming in QBASIC has been obsolete for a
long time.

What obsolete skill are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

The Sad, Sad Clown

I don’t normally post so often, but the hilarity of this situation will be lost if I don’t act soon. I worked for Mr. semi-famous old guy today, and I’ve been pushed to the brink. I shall try to detail the events as humorously as possible.

Today, after school, I was “chilling” amongst the 40 degree rain with my “homeez” before I checked with Mr. semi-famous old guy to make sure I wasn’t skipping work. Understand, I didn’t really expect to be doing yardwork in 40-degree rain, I almost didn’t call because of my confidence that he would not be needing my work today. Nevertheless, I toddle into the nurse’s office. At the time, it had stopped raining only five minutes before.

Apply a very, very thick Russian accent to everything, and picture a stout man that is 4 feet tall, and the humor begins to take shape.

Me: “Hello Eugene, I’m checking up to see if you still want me to work today. It got awfully cold and rainy outside today.”
Mr. semi-famous old guy: “It stop raining. Let me see.”
(i wait approximately 1 minute, with only the noise of many things crashing on the other side of the phone)
Mr. semi-famous old guy: “No, it’s fine. Come!”
Me: “Uh…alright…it’s kind of wet, but, I’ll be there in a bit. Thanks.”
(the phone clicks off without him saying goodbye)

I make my way on up to his house, which is about ten minutes away. Upon arrival, he sees my attire of shorts and a fleece jacket, and a new dialogue ensues.

Mr. semi-famous old guy: This is not proper attire. You need pants and coat!
Me: It’s fine, I’m not that cold, let’s just get to work.
Mr. semi-famous old guy: I don’t want you catch cold!
Me: No, really, it’s fine.

At this point he gave me the directions for planting the tulips around, but glaring problem stood in the path of doing this. He wanted me to plant at least a dozen tulips in a garden I’d already thoroughly planted in. There was practically no room left.

Me: I’m not sure there’s going to be room in here. If I dig, I may hit the bulbs I’ve previously planted.
Mr. semi-famous old guy: What bulbs? I don’t remember this.
Me: It was a few weeks ago, I don’t remember the names. I planted them all over, though.
Mr. semi-famous old guy: Uh..throw out these annual greens and plant next to them.

When he shuffles off, I’m a little worried. This now leaves an entirely barren patch of garden, filled with three kinds of bulb-type annuals. That’s gonna be one screwed up garden come next year. As he comes back out, he’s carrying a beige trenchcoat.

Mr. semi-famous old guy: Put it on, if you will.
Me: Really, I’m fine! I’m only here for another fifty minutes, I’ll be perfectly okay!
Mr. semi-famous old guy: Please, I don’t want to you catch cold!
Me: I’m certainly not cold, especially my upper body. I have a jacket on.
Mr. semi-famous old guy: Wear it, I don’t want you catch cold!

Not wanting to give the guy a heart attack, I figured I would appease him. How cumbersome could a trenchcoat-jacket be? I begrudgingly put it on.

Mr. semi-famous old guy: You should zip it up.
Me: …
Mr. semi-famous old guy: Do you need help?
Me: No, it’s fine, I can zip it up myself.

As I start to break ground (it’s now been 10 minutes since I got there), the first ground I hit contains an old bulb. After discussing the significance of this for at least five minutes, he does not relent and I keep going. He wanted me to stick the tulip right on top of the old bulb. Maybe he should stick to math, and not gardening. He shuffles away again and I manage not to hit any more old bulbs, thanks to the clear space provided by the now shredded Begonias and furry green things. He comes back out, this time carrying jeans. These are not just any jeans. These are jeans with a waist size of 50. My waist is a 30.

Mr. semi-famous old guy: Be a good boy and obey me just this once, and put these on.
(i give him a blank stare)
Mr. semi-famous old guy: Please! Put it on!
Me: We’re wasting time. Just let me work.
Mr. semi-famous old guy: You’ll catch cold!
Me: I’m not gonna catch a cold in the forty minutes I have left.
Mr. semi-famous old guy: Please put it on.

Wanting to ensure that I get payed, I obliged him. Overestimating the width, I didn’t take my shoes off before attempting the feat of putting these gargantuan pants on. They got stuck at the very bottom, and I spent three minutes doing the one-legged dance attempting to pull my shoes out of the jeans, while not getting my socks wet, and then getting the jeans on over my shorts. At this point, I must have looked like some kind of clown. I have waist size 50 jeans on, a bullet-proof trenchcoat, and massive gardening gloves on. As expected, they immediately began to fall off, and I did the “no-belt waddle” to prevent them from just falling to my ankles.

Mr. semi-famous old guy: Ah, you need a belt.
Me: Naw, really? Please, just let me get to work.
Mr. semi-famous old guy: You waste time trying to keep them on!
Me: We’re wasting time now! I only have thirty-five minutes left!

Mr. semi-famous old guy mumbled and shuffled back inside, and I managed to work for another ten minutes without interruption. This time, he held a striped belt.

Mr. semi-famous old guy: You need this.
(at this point, i was mildly afraid he would start beating me with it)
Me: No. I don’t. Just let me work! We only have a little time left!
Mr. semi-famous old guy: Please, put it on.

He put the belt on a nearby chair and shuffled away yet again. I was able to work in mild peace for the next twenty minutes, until my dad showed up, and that was that. I’ll probably write him an email tonight, with one of two options for him. Either I quit, or he pays me two (maybe three) more dollars an hour.

I feel kind of bad giving that kind of option to an old guy well-versed in a field I’ll eventually need to be heavily acquainted with, but that was just ridiculous. I mean, really.

EDIT: Since people seem to not be noticing the link to the wikipedia article (wiki is slow today), the guy is a semi-famous mathematician, he’s 80+ years old.

Also, I hold in my hands a check for seven dollars. Clowns get payed more per hour than that, right?

As a wise woman once said…

“These are like therapy.”

Obligatory Bash.org quotes! Seperated into geek and non-geek, and more offensive ones are just linked.

Warmaster_Horus: But some of the stuff you can do with mayo is good
NiTessine: Yes. Like assassinations.
Mithran: You assassinate people with mayo?
NiTessine: Nobody ever suspects mayo.

Sefy89: God my mom wont stop yelling
Dested: wat did u do this time?
Sefy89: i called her lazy and told her to get up and do some work
Dested: …doesnt your mom have a broken leg?
Sefy89: thus the noise

McKhaos: this guy asks me
McKhaos: how many people work in your company ?
McKhaos: my answer
McKhaos: about a third

Chronic Munchies: imagine if anne frank had a BLOG instead of a DIARY
Chronic Munchies: currently listening to: nazis pounding on the door
GenAmonX2K: Current Mood: concentrating

donchongo: i wonder what possesed some one to invent play-doh and silly putty
Wildfire: poop dries out to fast
donchongo: that really put a screeching halt to my thought process

* Porter is now known as PorterWITHGIRLFRIENDWHOISHOT
Strayed: he shot his girlfriend?

testman: i asked my girlfriend to come home to watch the last samurai
testman: and she answered “i’d like to, but i didn’t see the first ones”

hahacornut: I need visual aids for my presentation tomorrow
Narcissus: go to visual africa

[geek]

* Mapionetka then wonders what the hell he is going to do with his 32mb mem stick
ginji: stick it where the sun doesn’t shine Mapionetka ?
Mapionetka: in my computer room?

DmncAtrny: I will write on a huge cement block “BY ACCEPTING THIS BRICK THROUGH YOUR WINDOW, YOU ACCEPT IT AS IS AND AGREE TO MY DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS WELL AS DISCLAIMERS OF ALL LIABILITY, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL, THAT MAY ARISE FROM THE INSTALLATION OF THIS BRICK INTO YOUR BUILDING.”
DmncAtrny: And then hurl it through the window of a Sony officer
DmncAtrny: and run like hell

tdo: i was helping my tech teacher out a few days in july or so
tdo: and i got some calls
tdo: from potential customers
tdo: and one of them was this little boy who couldn’t have been more than six or seven
tdo: and he was almost in TEARS
tdo: “everything i type is in caps what do i do my moms goinng to kill me”

[/geek]

http://bash.org/?577458

http://bash.org/?576018

http://bash.org/?575362

http://bash.org/?572066

These never get old.

You scored as Maximus. After his family was murdered by the evil emperor Commodus, the great Roman general Maximus went into hiding to avoid Commodus’s assassins. He became a gladiator, hoping to dominate the colosseum in order to one day get the chance of killing Commodus. Maximus is valiant, courageous, and dedicated. He wants nothing more than the chance to avenge his family, but his temper often gets the better of him.

Maximus
75%
Neo, the “One”
67%
Indiana Jones
54%
Batman, the Dark Knight
54%
The Terminator
50%
The Amazing Spider-Man
46%
William Wallace
46%
Captain Jack Sparrow
38%
El Zorro
29%
James Bond, Agent 007
29%
Lara Croft
21%

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

For the Irony

No, really. It’s irony this time. No dead squirrels, no metal, it’s 100% irony that I present to you tonight.

As per the standard of recent days, I sit staring off into space yet again during Physics class. Ms. Lynn is talking about something, I don’t remember what, probably something to do with work and power. My ears perk up as she says, “So, I graded your tests.”. My heart sinks, I slouch on my stool, and stare at the featureless bench, minus the writing “YOUR MOM”, authored by yours truly. She makes her way around the class handing out the tests. Lo and behold, even with 14 points of curve, I still take a 64. Ben manages to get a glance at my test before I shove it in with my numerous notes that I’ve taken throughout the course of the class. He gives me a woeful look and pats my shoulder. It means a lot.

I take a swift look at Matt’s test. Identical to Ben’s, he receives an 88 (after 4 points of curve). I look through the test for a few seconds, understand everything I did wrong, and try to look like I’m doing something productive with the nauseating paper, littered with red ink. I realize I’m tearing up, so I start taking longer breaths. It’s not working. I stare at the computer sitting next to me. There’s nothing interesting about it. I desperately look for something to focus on besides the damned test. I sniff, and to my dismay it’s audible. I glance at the clock just as the bell rings for our 5 minute break.

I follow the normal routine and sit with Ben and Matt as they talk to Julia and Ana. Karel strolls over in his merry gait, and asks how I did on the test. I couldn’t laugh about it this time. Hell, I couldn’t even speak. I managed to whisper that I got a 50. He says it’s just a test. I knew. I know. It doesn’t make it hurt less. As my self-control is just about to break and a drop rolls out of my eye, I pretend to scratch my eyes, and pretty briskly walk out of the room, unfortunately not as stealthily as I had hoped, attracting the concerned inquiry of Matt. I jog to the bathroom down the hall. It’s empty, thank heavens, and I give myself 5 seconds before going back into class. I sit back at my bench with a minute of our break still left, and attempt to look like I’m doing something. Within another minute, I’ve got my grin back on and manage to stay that way for the rest of the day.

Fast forward, I’m at Acoustifest. I wasn’t there for the music. Chasing after a girl I couldn’t even figure out how to talk to, that’s what I was there for. After an hour of bad music and general nothing, I finally get the chance to talk. Nothing comes out. I see Sho and go jump on her lap, and we talk for a while, and things are jovial for the few minutes I’m with her. I stroll back over to the girl, and I get nervous, I can’t figure out what to say. Way to go.

She says we need to talk. I’m nice, she was confused, we should be friends. I agreed. I sit with Sho again for a couple minutes. Lacking the desire to do anything, I walk out of the Lost Dog, and run the 2 miles (1.4 discounting the slope, equivelant to around 1.75, round it off) in 10 minutes. I open the door to my room to find that nobody has bothered to let Jen out of my room, and there are 200 tootsie rolls on the floor, my headphones have been shredded, my bed covers have been removed, and a present has been left for me near the opposite door.

I clean it all up, and when all is said and done, I’m nauseated. I want to sleep, and it’s only 11:00. I find things to fill my head with for another 5 hours. I talk to Daniel. It helps. I talk to Amy. It helps. The excessive talking makes my head feel empty, so I sit down and play a game for a few hours. Still restless, I watch a few episodes of Arrested Development. Still not wanting to sleep, I manage to put in a few hours before Jonathan appears around 6 AM to watch some movie. I get a few more restless hours and lose the will to rest around 11 AM.

I was disinclined from writing any of this for the sake of not appearing emo. But honestly, expressing emotion is not emo. Whining is. Complaining, ungratefulness, ignorance, that’s emo. There’s a time and a place for everything.

Two (2) things should be clear here. If I see any comments apologizing for this, any comments remotely suggesting pity, I will delete them. I did not write this to receive your pity. I do not want your pity. Do not give it to me. Secondly, because I know someone will mention the fact that there were two (2) objectionable words in here, I should mention that there are times in which I can find no other word fitting to express the given emotion. I rarely swear, so as not to deprive the severity of the word for when the situation calls for it. I will not mention this again in future posts; remember it.

God’s given me exactly what I need. I’ve got good friends who are looking out for me – given what’s going on (and there is more than what you read here), that’s exactly what I need.

Your mother dresses you funny.

Owned.

[EDIT: Friends, family, colleagues and associates. This vandalism will not be stood for. It will not be tolerated. Further insubordination by the fans of “And the Lack Thereof*” will be subject to retaliation. What the nature of this will be is not yet known. It should be stated that further security measures are being taken to prevent this vandalism. Have a moderately good day.]

[THIRD EDIT: It should also be noted that Tim, no matter how much he rues it so, will forever remain vulnerable to this vandalism.]

[FOURTH EDIT: It should also be noted that I stood by and watched this instance of vandalism.]