¡Lo cogí!

I finally got a job! I've been looking since the beginning of the summer. It's at Cragun's, as a dishwasher. Okay, so it's only a trial employment, but still. I have to trim my beard for this job, so I'd better keep it! Oh, well--at least I don't have to shave it off completely, and I've already gotten rid of my red spiked hair.

And afterwards, I saw a sign there saying "no through traffic." I was so excited to see decent, competent spelling that I almost went through it, not realising what it actually meant. Whoever decided it was alright to use "thru" should be shot. In my opinion, it's like having a sign that says "STOPZORZ LOL ;)!!1!~~" One of my dreams in life is to make a fast food place with a drive through.

At any rate, it'll be nice to have some cash flowing in, assuming I can stop myself from spending it on Transformers.

A common misconception about Minnesota...

...Is that it's always too cold. In fact, it is often too hot. We've skipped good weather entirely, going strait from the one to the other. And now it's raining--thunderstorms. They last about ten minutes, and ten later there is another. It's nearing ninety. It always irritates me to hear people saying "oh, I'd love to live in Florida--What great temperature: hundred degree days! Wouldn't that be heaven!" No, it would be hell. Have fun sweating to death!
I'm doing this to test out a new blog: tomensnaben.blog.com. Yes, against my better judgement, I got a new blog. I'm not transferring my back entries, though. I just need to post until no-one cares what the earlier posts are.

Stan Winston?

Man, everyone is dying. True, Stan Winston isn't seemingly immortal like Steve Irwin, but he is at least as godlike. Who'll be next? I dare not even think it.&

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Earlier today, I was struck by several tonnes of sheer awesome.

     My niece, whom I haven't seen in years, and her two children whom I haven't even met, are coming up here this August, along with my other niece and my sister, whom I haven't seen in the same amount of time. I don't think this news could possibly be any better.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Graduation

    Well, I've finally graduated from high school. I don't think that it will really, fully hit me until I'm not there in the spring.
    When I got the gown, I thought that I would feel grand when trying it on. In reality, I felt fairly silly. You can definitely tell that this outfit was thought up in the Renaissance: no other time period would think of a mage's robe with a hat topped with a square.
    The actual graduation was fun. As is tradition--at least here--people snuck in beach balls and tossed them around during speeches. But one student this year had something a little more interesting: an inflatable phallus. When it flew up out of the crowd, the speaker finally said something. Unfortunately for her, that something was "You should just hold on to your balls."
    Afterwards was GradBlast, a bizarre event put on by a third party--I think. Basically, you go around playing carnival games to win funny money, with which you then gamble, and then exchange for raffle tickets for very dorm-oriented prizes (I, for example, won a "3-in-1 sandwich maker," which is really a sort of generic George Foreman grill). By the end of the night, the dealers stop caring (if they ever did), inflation runs rampant, the funny economy collapses, and they run out of tickets with you still holding BHS$50,000. Of course, the games and prizes are the fun part, and the main attraction, so no-one but the economics students notices.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Let's get the Flock out of here.

I'm going to try and bring all of these web logs back. You see, I've lately been daunted by the idea of keeping all of my sites updated. On top of that, I haven't had the Internet at my house, and Netscape just kicked me off of itself, because it's apparently going to be discontinued.
But those seem to have righted each other. You see, Netscape pushed me on to some bizarre third-party thing called "Flock." I was less than thrilled at first, because it called itself "the social web browser," so I was worried that it would do something stupid, like allow others to use my account or something (I'm still a little worried). But, it has its own built-in blog poster, which I'm trying now. If this works, I'll be able to post to Xanga, Blogger, LiveJournal, and two new ones: Blogsome and WordPress (maybe I should stop getting random accounts) at once. That leaves only Yahoo 360°, MySpace, Gather, and Gaia Online to copy and paste to (that is, after transferring my back entries, which I may not do with these new ones.
Also, I got an account at a site called "Schola," so you don't have to worry about any more Latin entries. Spanish, I don't know about. I need a way to keep these separate, but don't know what it should be.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Loading... Please wait.

[this is a translation of my previous post]
Tomorrow [Saturday, 17th November] is my birthday! I'll be eighteen or older, and, legally, that makes me an adult. I don't have many plans. I won a pizza from the Power Loon (a radio station, for those of you who aren't from around here), and i'm going to a Frida Kahlo exibit, but I don't know what else. But, at eighteen, I can play the lottery, buy cigarettes and porn, and probably do things that I actually would...
In other news, my school said yesterday that we don't have to go to there today. The reason: we have to sleep after a game last night. They need to sort out their priorities. School is first: if you want to go to a game, know ahead of time that you must go to school. If you can't do both, choose school. It's not that dificult. Generally, my classes had somewhere around ten people, and we just watched movies in two (out of four in the high school--the college doesn't care about the game, as it should be). But my physics teacher said that he recieved two instructions: 1) don't give test today, and 2) although many aren't here today, it's business as usual. Er, which one? Because lots of people give tests on Fridays...
Also, I noticed something when I read my Hasbro catalogue. They will often try to sell an old toy with a new deco as a new one. But I now know that they don't only do that with toys: their November catalogue is their October catalogue with a new cover. What diligent workers you are, Hasbro...

Cargando… esperad, por favor.

¡Mañana es mi cumpleaños! Tendré dieciocho o más, y según la ley, tener tantos años es ser adulto. No tengo muchos planes. Gané una pizza del Power Loon (una emisora, para vosotros quienes no sois de aquí), e iré a una exhibición de Frida Kahlo, pero no sé de que más. Pero, con dieciocho años, puedo jugar a la lotería, comprar cigarrillos y pornografía, y probablemente hacer algunas cosas que yo actualmente haría...
En otros anuncios, mi escuela dijo ayer que no hay que ir allí hoy. La razón: tenemos que dormir después de un partido anoche. Tienen que arreglar sus prioridades. La escuela es primera: si queréis ir a un partido, sabed antes que hay que ir a la escuela. Si no podéis ir a los dos, escoged la escuela. No es tan difícil. Generalmente, mis clases tuvo acerca de diez personas, y sólo vimos películas en dos (de cuatro en el colegio—a la universidad no le importa el partido, como debe ser). Pero mi maestro de la física dijo que recibió dos instrucciones: 1) no dé exámenes hoy, y 2) hoy, aunque muchos no serán aquí, haga lo normal. Eh, ¿cuál quiere Vd.? Porque muchos dan exámenes los viernes.
También, noté algo cuándo leí mi catálogo de Hasbro. Muchas veces, tratan de vender un juguete viejo con colores nuevos como un nuevo. Pero ya sé que no sólo lo hacen con los juguetes: su catálogo de noviembre es su catálogo de octubre con una portada nueva. Ah, que trabajadores son Vds., Hasbro…

Hmm...

Perhaps I'm seeing similarities where none exist.

Referendum signs

Well, we started with this:

My English teacher wants to hang it on the wall for prosperity.
Then they fixed it...Kind of...

The pro-referendum signs are spelled correctly, albeit a bit vague:

Think a little

[This is a translation of my previous post]

Thursday, November 01, 2007

Six hours ago I left a meeting for seniors at the high school. There some guy told us that--in short--if we threw money at his company, he'd give us a bunch of useless stuff that we'll throw away right after we graduate. And it seems like lots of morons do as he says, because he threw money at us. "Hey, you know what I just said? Great, here's fifty bucks." Unfortunately, he didn't throw any at me. Maybe he knew that I'm cynical and was going to laugh at the meeting. But, they had everything: booklets for photos, graduation announcements in case we're too lazy to make our own--which probably wouldn't look any worse--and everything you can think of with the words "Seniors 2008" on it. I was almost surprised that they didn't have tampons.
In better--but less humorous--news, this afternoon there was a bad movie day at the library. We had tonnes of movies, of all varieties--black and white, 怪獣映画 (kaijū eiga, or Japanese monster movies), and the cheapest of the cheap; but we only saw two.

The first was The Valley of Gwangi. What could be better for a bad movie day than one about cowboys and dinosaurs? But some folks were talking during the dialogue, because it was a bunch of boring clichés. But in the end they learned how to watch bad movies: you mock the dialogue, not only the special effects. But everyone laughed at the final scene: the dinosaur follows the cowboys into a huge church in Mexico--because, of course, he wants to eat the people in the church, rather than those at his feet--and after a fight, they burn him to death. In the street, people watch, happy that the monster is dead--it's very touching, if you forget about their church. They don't care that their centuries old church is burning down, and in the desert, that fire isn't going to remain there forever, and--wait, a stone church is burning down? Eh, who cares?
Afterwards, since that was so wretched, we watched Night of the Living Dead, since that was well written. But, that was it. So I checked out Rodan.

Pensad un poco.

Hace seis horas salí de una reunión de los estudiantes del 12º grado. Allí había un hombre que nos dijo que—por corto—si lanzaríamos dinero a su compañía, nos daría muchas cosas que no valen nada y se pondrán en la basura inmediatamente después de graduarnos. Y me parece que muchos tontos hagan lo que dicen, porque nos lanzó dinero. –Eh, ¿sabes lo que acabo de decir? Bien, aquí están cincuenta dólares—. Desafortunadamente, no lo lanzó a mí. Posiblemente sabía que soy cínico e iba a reírme sobre esa reunión. Pero, tenía todo: libritos para fotos, anuncios sobre la graduación si somos demasiado holgazanes hacer nuestros propios—que probablemente no se verían peores—y todo en que podéis pensar con las palabras «Seniors 2008» en él. Casi me sorprendí que no tuvieran tampones.
De anuncios más buenos—pero menos graciosos—esta tarde hubo un día de películas malas en la biblioteca. Tuvimos muchas películas, de todos tipos—blancas y negras, 怪獣映画 (kaijū eiga, o películas japoneses sobre monstruos), y baratísimas; pero sólo vimos dos.
La primera fue The Valley of Gwangi (no sé si hay una versión española oficial, pero se traduce a «La valle de Gwangi»). ¿Qué sería mejor para un día de películas malas que una sobre vaqueros y dinosaurios? Pero algunos hablaron durante el diálogo, porque era clichés aburridos. Pero al final aprendieron cómo ver películas malas: os burláis del diálogo, no sólo de los efectos especiales. Pero todos se rieron sobre la última escena: el dinosaurio sigue los vaqueros en una gran iglesia en México—porque, por supuesto, quiere comer la gente en la iglesia, y no la cerca de sus pies—y después de una pelea, lo matan en un fuego. En la calle, la gente ven, felices de que el monstruo está muerto—es muy emocionante, si olvidéis su iglesia. No les importan que su iglesia de siglos de edad está destruyéndose en un fuego, y en un desierto, el fuego no va a quitarse allí para siempre, y—esperad, ¿una iglesia de piedra se destruye en un fuego? Eh, no es importante.
Después, porque fue tan mala, vimos La noche de los muertos vivientes, porque fue escrito bien. Pero, estos fueron todos. Por eso, obtuve Rodan de la biblioteca.

If you were brain dead, would you want to be kept alive by a ventilator? Why or why not?

(Note to readers: Xanga offers a "featured question." This is one.
Whoever wrote this question doesn't know what they're talking about. "Brain dead" means that your brain is no longer functioning, an can't be restarted. If a brain dead person is on a ventilator, it mean that they're trying to keep their organs fresh for harvesting. Now, if I were in a coma, I would want to be kept alive, in case I recover. I always think that living is better than not living, and if you say "well, before that equipment was invented I would have died anyway," then I'd better never see you getting a vaccination, or going to the hospital for any reason, or wearing protective gear when doing something, or drinking sanitary water, et cetera. But no-one, save for this question writer, is saying that brain dead people are alive, because you are your brain--the body just lets you interact with the world.
I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

Translations

Alright, I've procrastinated long enough: here is the translation of my previous two entries:

Saturday, 13 October, 2007: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore Generally, I write my blogs like I obtained them: I start in Xanga, and then copy and paste it into Yahoo 360º, MySpace, Gather, Blog City, Blogger, and finally Gaia Online, but now I'm starting with Gather because I'm in school, and the others are blocked.
I'm in school because yesterday I worked until midnight on my homework for history class. I had to write an essay about the first kings of Buddhism, Christianity, and IslÄ?m. I had a month in which to do it, but only started it last night, after book club.
Sorry I can't say more. Tomorrow? I don't usually write in Spanish when it isn't necessary, but... Monday, 15 October, 2007

More?

Well, it isn't tomorrow, but I wasn't sure of what I was going to write for you. And this raises a good question: do I have Spanish-speaking readers, and do they want to read more from me? I have comments on these entries, but do they come back to read more? If you want, I can write more, but I don't think that I could--or would want to--translate it all. I already am not going to translate it into Latin any more.

¿Más?

Pues, no es mañana, pero no estaba seguro de que iba a escribiros en español. Y este hace una buena pregunta: ¿Tengo lectores en español, y quieren leer más de mí? Tengo comentarios sobre esto, pero, ¿Devuelven a leer más? Si quieren, puedo escribir más, pero creo que no podría—o no querría—traducir todos. Ahora no voy a traducirlos a latín nada más.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua.

Por lo general, escribo en mis blogs como los obtuve: escribo en Xanga, y lo después copio y pego en Yahoo 360º, MySpace, Gather, Blog City, Blogger, y finalmente Gaia Online, pero ahora empiezo con Gather porque estoy en la escuela, y se bloquean los otros.
Estoy en la escuela porque ayer trabajé hasta medianoche por mi tarea de la clase de historia. Tuve que escribir un ensayo sobre los primeros reyes de Budismo, Cristiandad, e Islam. Tuve un mes para hacerlo, pero sólo lo hice anoche, después del club de los libros.
Siento que no puedo deciros más. ¿Mañana? No generalmente escribo en español cuando no es necesario, pero…

Once again...

[This is a translation of my previous two posts]
Bats love the library. Right now, there are twenty-three in the entryway, sleeping. Last year, there were usually one or two, but now they've called their friends. I like these bats: they don't do anything, and they're tiny. But, I can't touch them, because I think that they would attack me.
And something interesting: in Japan, there's a toy made by Takara-Tomy for collectors named "MP-04 Megatron." It's a Transformer, and transforms into a very realistic gun. And, in Australia, in order to get one, one must:

Have a criminal background check
Give a good reason for purchasing it
Prove that they are a member of a collectors' club, and
Lock it up when it is not in use

In fewer words, they don't realise that it's a toy. But the Australians are lucky: here, in the "land of the free," you can't have one at all.

Temporeque altro...

[Hoc latine redditus blogis prioris est]
Vespertiliones bibliothecam amant magnopere. Nunc, sunt viginti et tres in porta, dormientes. Anno priore, catholice erant unus duove, sed iam amicos advocaverunt. Eos vespertiliones amo: nihil faciunt, et minimi sunt. Sed eos tangere non possum, quod me appugnare credo.
Resque interestans: in Iapone, est crepundia a Takara-Tomy facta quæ nominatur "MP-04 Megatron" collectoribus. Transformer est, et convertatur pistola qui vera videatur magnopere. Ac in Australia, ut eum acquires, necesse est:

sceptrum permittere historiam eum probatur
causam bonam dare
demonstrare qui membrum organizationem collectorium sit
eoque non usante, eum obfirmare

Minis verbis, nesciunt qui crepundia est. Sed Australiani felices sunt: hic, in "terra liberorum," haud eum habere potes.

Y otra vez...

A los murciélagos les encantan la biblioteca. Ahora, hay veintitrés en la entrada, durmiendo. El año pasado, generalmente había uno o dos, pero ya han llamado a sus amigos. Me gusta estos murcielaguitos: no hacen nada, y son chiquitines. Pero no puedo tocarlos, porque creo que me atacarían.

Y algo interesante: en Japón, hay un juguete hecho por Takara-Tomy a nombre de “MP-04 Megatron” para coleccionadores. Es un Transformer, y se transforma en una pistola que se ve muy real. Y, en Australia, para obtenerlo, alguien tiene que:

Permitir a la policía chequear su historia

Dar una razón buena para obtenerlo

Demostrar que es miembro de un club de coleccionadores, y

Cerrarlo con llave cuando no está usándolo.

En menos palabras, no saben que es un juguete. Pero los australianos son de buena suerte: aquí, en la “tierra de los libres,” no puedo tenerlo nada.

Dear diary...

[This is a translation of my previous two posts]
We just learned in my Spanish class that we have to write a diary entry every other Friday (a two-weekery?) in order to practise our informal writing. And when they say "diary," I hear "blog." Thus you, my readers, get to partake of my homework. Don't everybody celebrate at once...
For this assignment, our teacher stated that we should write something around sixty words. This is ridiculous! I have already written seventy words [or at least I had in Spanish], and I haven't said anything! Well, I do often write things with more than five hundred words in this blog (I think). So, I'm going to ignore this rule in the future, when I have more to talk about.

O ephemeris...

[Hoc latine redditus blogis prioris est]
Classe mea linguæ hispanicæ, nobis necesse esse rem scribere in ephemere tertio quoque die veneris ut scriptum fortuitum didcimus recenter. Quandoque "ephemeris" dicitur, "blogem" audio ego. Ut vos, o lectores mi, operem scholarem meum gustetis. Non omnes simul celebretis...
Huic operi, magistra nos aliquem cercum sexaginta verba scribere debere dicit. Hoc ridiculum est! Iam septagintam verba scripsi, ac nullum dixi! Multis temporibus res verbarum quingenti magisve hoc bloge scripsi (aut scripsi credo). Ut reglam prætermittam in futuro, quando est magis de quo loqui possum.

Querido diario...

En mi clase de español, acabamos de aprender que hay que escribir algo en un diario cada segundo viernes (un duosemanio?) para practicar nuestra escritura informal. Y, cuando se dice «diario», yo oigo «blog». Entonces vosotros, mis leedores, podéis compartir en mi tarea escolar. No todos celebréis en una vez…

Para esta tarea, la maestra dice que debamos escribir algo acerca de sesenta palabras. ¡Este es ridículo! Ya he escrito setenta palabras, ¡y no dije nada! Pues, muchas veces escribo cosas de más que quinientos palabras en este blog (o, creo que escribo). Entonces, voy a ignorar esta regla en el futuro, cuando tengo más en que puedo hablar.

Goodbye, Lucia and Maus

On Sunday, both my rat, Lucia, and my mouse, Maus, died. First, after noticing that Maus hadn't been rustling around the past day or so, I went in to investigate. There was not movement in her cage when I searched for her, so I dug through this lump I saw. Sure enough, there was Maus, full of rigor mortis and already starting to smell. So, I buried her. Then, I went to take a shower. Before my shower, Lucia was abnormally tired. After it, she had moved, and died. Her feet were purple, she was cold to the touch, her tongue was inflated to the point that her teeth didn't even touch, and there was blood at the end of her urethra. I buried her near Maus.

All your blog are belong to us.

Here's an odd thing: Xanga has finally added full Unicode support! But, it depends upon your language settings. So, for us multi-language bloggers, it's back to square one.
In other news, apparently, Gather automatically creates an RSS feed for its users. So, if anyone actually wants to get up-to-the-minute updates on my blogging, or publish my blog on, say, their Yahoo 360° page--hey, it does stand for Real Simple Syndication, after all--you now have the tools to do so.
Now, as for the first week of school: my actual finalised schedule is:

1) Physics (Gilbertson, A226)
2)AP Stats (Pelkey, A204)
3)AP Spanish (Qualley, South Campus)
4)Open
5)World History (CLC) Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (open other days)
6)AP Lit (Hewitt, A162)

Or, the same as I already told you. They're fairly interesting.
In other news, we had our this year's first meeting of the Library teen advisory board: The High Council of Younger Elders. And we are sorely in need of members--especially ones that won't graduate in the next year or two. I don't think that we have gotten any new members since its creation two years ago. It meets the first Thursday of every month at the Brainerd Public Library at 4:00PM. We plan activities, such as game days and rocket making. You can join at a meeting, or send a message to any of their pages, or e-mail them at HCYE.brd@gmail.com. Anyone 11-19 is welcome, even if they aren't permanent residents of Brainerd--i.e. foreign exchange students.
Also, I went to a football game with my friend Jamp. And apparently, football is in fact very boring. Neither of us had ever actually been to a football game before, and so at least I thought that it would be most of the team--with a few benched players--running around after discussing their strategy at, say, quartertime. So we were both surprised to see that about an eighth of both teams actually played, and that was about seventy per cent huddling. Home ended up winning, 30 to 7--all of the last score was done in the fourth quarter--which means that there wasn't even the interest of wondering who was going to win, because the other team sucked so much--or maybe our team just has no life and practises 24/7.
So, my AP Spanish teacher said that we should live in Spanish. I already have my cell phone in Spanish, and I'm not going to completely switch my blog language, but perhaps a single entry? I don't want to re-live my Dog Latin--which is roughly the Latin equivalent of Spanglish--entry--perhaps a new Latin one is also an order--but I think that I could pull it off.

Procrastinate now.

I think I may have a semi-finalised schedule, now that my late PSEO paperwork is done:

First hour: Physics
Second hour: AP Statistics (Pelkey)
Third hour: AP Spanish (Qualley)
(A lunch)
1:00-1:50PM Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays: World History Pre-1500 (PSEO)
Sixth hour: AP English Language (Devine)

Speaking of which, today was my first day of CLC studentship. It wasn't that different from a normal high school course: introductions, "why are we doing this?" &c; but I have a feeling it will get to be more APish as time progresses. They already have us writing a paragraph on one person--from before 1500--with whom we would like to dine--and what we would ask them. So, I need to find an interesting, sociable historical figure who wasn't known for poisoning. Any suggestion?

In other news, I saw my dad a couple of days ago. Suffice to say we haven't seen him for over a year--maybe two, we were with Mark at the time--by our own choice. So, it was a happy, albeit awkward event. He was looking as hippie-ish as ever, sporting a pair of braids--he said that everyone tells him he looks like Willie Nelson--a long, three pointed beard, and a headband. He said that he now can't work--due to his rheumatoid arthritis--and he's making too little to live in the US--but maybe in Mexico... Of course, I don't think that he could live off of the US government's disability pay in a foreign country.

Sukorambure Powa!

Well, I got my blog transferred to another site. This one's called "Gaia Online." It's really neat: it's sort of an online community where you can get a house and car and play mini-games like "fishing" while talking with your neighbours. You also get to make your own little chibi avatar for it. I really like how mine turned out. You but clothes for it with a sort of currency called "gold"--which I suppose makes it not currency, but actual money--which you earn for nearly everything. I think I'll improve my house next. Now I just need to set up and transfer my past entries to that Live Journal page I got.
Ivan's been having bladder control issues as of late. He's been pissing on the floor after only an hour inside--sometimes even less. I hope he doesn't have a bladder infection.
In other news, I'm almost done downloading トランスフォーマー Zンーン(Transformers: Zone) (I'm not sure how "Znnn" spells "Zone," or why they used a Latin "Z.". That was the last G1 (original storyline) cartoon, cancelled after the first episode. In it, from what I'm told, they take nine of the coolest Destrons (Decepticons) from the previous series and kill all but one of them in a matter of minutes. But, Dai Atlas looks cool. The sad thing is that I can't find a subtitled version: It's either a shitty fan dub or the original Japanese. This is the Japanese one (hopefully it will make sense without understanding the dialogue).

And so on...

We had a monster of a hailstorm today. What was shocking was not so much its intensity, but its speed. The clouds overtook us in about twenty minutes, the rain came in a visible sheet, and progressed from rain to pea-sized hail to half-dollar-sized hail in a couple of minutes. After a few more minutes, it was gone. Now it looks like a green Autumn outside, with a coating of hail mixed in. I'd noticed that the clouds were moving very quickly, but I never expected such a storm.
In other news, in that Pepsi "Transform your Summer" promotion, I won two sets of DVDs. There are only two problems: first, they're the same set; and second, I didn't enter for them. I entered for the Pepsi Optimus Prime, which had fewer people vying for it. Their good DVDs--School of Rock, Orange County, The Italian Job, Sahara, and Tomb Raider--but I really wanted that Pepsi Convoy. So, I'm selling the other set. It's unopened, and I'll even throw in the congratulation notice so that you can act like you won it. Big Bad Toy Store is offering Pepsi Prime for about $60 (including shipping), so it would be nice if I got at least that for these (and $10.20 for an good, unopened DVD isn't that bad, is it?).

Everything is finite in the end.

We have power! Somehow I've neglected to blog it, but we've had it for just over a week. Although it did go out for a few hours last night, but that seemed to affect the whole neighbourhood. Oh, the things I'd missed...
In other news, we gave Coco away. That means that we're down to the three dogs we're going to keep: Ivan, Bear, and Pepper Anne. And they have been moved from the kennel--which has been disassembled--to the house (for reasons which I will discuss later). We're keeping them in the kitchen so that they don't eat anything in the rest of the house (or do anything else, as they aren't fully house broken) and at night we take them into our rooms. This is kind of annoying because, even though he goes right to sleep (he loves the soft bed), Ivan gets up much sooner than I do, and seems to think that the best way to get me up is to scratch my face. Oh, well, at least he's not a cat.
So, on to why their inside. You see, one day they broke loose from their kennel and went into the neighbour's yard, supposedly wrecking her flower bed. I haven't seen the damage, so perhaps they went to some hidden, out of the way part, bypassing the obvious front. But, at any rate, she was pissed and our dogs were moved inside.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007: Overhaul

Well, I'm sick of my sites' themes. Time to revamp it all. It's too dark and obsessed with Atheism. And my profile just plain sounds immature. So, I'll be redoing it all, one site at a time. And the reason I haven't been blogging is that I haven't been getting more than, say, and hour of computer time a week (we moved out of mum's boyfriend's house, but the power's still out. His kids are scum).

And in case you enjoyed my old stuff, here it is:

Profile: "Excluding what is written elsewhere, I am rather critical and analytical. My dislikes are Christianity (though not Christians in general), intolerance, war, pop music, cover tracks, Jack T. Chick, Disney, deathbed conversion stories, fundamentalism, evangelists, bad remakes/movies from novels, unoriginality, anti-first amendment folks, anti-second amendment folks, pretty much anti-rights folks, Texas, idiots, profiles that mention "God/Jesus" under interests, american bastards, religious groups who masquerade as secular ones, people who don't know what "atheist" means but think they do, when people try to bless me after I sneeze, sexism, when people think that Catholics aren't Christian for some reason, hypocrisy, and more to come..."

Tagline: "Warning: this site contains some content deemed inappropriate for Christians"

Get down with the sickness.

Now, I've always despised chain messages and those who create them, but this one's just sick:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Repost as-"WHO DID YOU LIKE FIRST!
who did u like first?

don't stop reading you will regret it!
girl meets a boy on a messenger


crazy1 86: hey baby!!!


h0tNsPiCy91: who is this???


crazy1 86: ur secret admirer!!!!!


h0tNsPiCy91: oh really.... quit lyin! who is this???


crazy1 86: i loved u the first time a stared in your eyes...


crazy1 86: i think about u everyday... you are my dream come true.

"
crazy1 86: we met once! i dont think u remember tho.


crazy1 86: i cut myself because the pain takes away my feelings of u.


crazy1 86: u will see me sometime tonight....


h0tNsPiCy91: ..WHO IS THIS!?!?!?


crazy1 86:dont worry.... ill take very good care of you...


crazy1 86 had signed off.

The girl was so scared she locked all her doors and windows. She made sure her room was secured. She wasn't sure if it was a joke or for real. She didn't know when he was going to come. The girl was so frightened she decided to sleep with her little sister. The girl dozed off quickly.

Then she heard a knock on the window. The girl slowly walked to the window. It started knocking louder. The girl looked through the windows and saw nothing... just some of the tree branches. The girl went back to bed with her sister. The bed was wet and had a pretty horrid smell. Maybe her sister wet the bed... the girl checked and found blood everywhere. The girl panicked. She didn't know what to do. She ran and hid in the closet in case the killer was there for her. While looking through the cracks of the closet the girl saw a shadow. It was dark, so she couldn't figure out who it was. She started to get more frightened. The shadow crept closer to the closet. The girl closed her eyes as if it was a dream. Then suddenly he opened the closet door and pulled her out.

Her parents found her dead the next morning. She was completely skinned and hanging in her sister's closet. The younger sister was also found skinned and dead.

PART 2...

Two years after the Smith sisters deaths, the parents had a baby boy. The girl's room became a guest room and the little sister's room where the murder took place became the baby's room. The baby grew up to be a successful kid.

One night he was on the computer and received an instant message.


h0tNsPiCy91: Hey lil bro!!!


2seXay4u: Who the eff is this?


h0tNsPiCy91: It's your big sis.


2seXay4u: I never had a sister. I'm an only child.


2seXay4u: This is some kinda joke, huh?


h0tNsPiCy91: Mom and dad never told you?


h0tNsPiCy91: I died 15 years ago with your other older sister.


h0tNsPiCy91: We were murdered in your room which was once my little sister's room. She was killed in bed when I was sleeping. I was killed in the closet and skinned to death.


2seXay4u: Quit lying. I never had a sister. If I did my parents would have told me. Whatever. Your stupid.


h0tNsPiCy91: You don't believe me? Well if you wanna look in your closet floor.


h0tNsPiCy91: I carved my name and the time and date I was being murdered. Then I carved my little sister's name.


h0tNsPiCy91: If you don't believe me little brother check the internet. Google on '' Smith sisters murdered anonymously ''.


h0tNsPiCy91: I gtg little brother. I love you and mom and dad soo much. I can't believe they kept us a secret from you.




The boy checked the closet. He saw the carvings. Was it true? He surfed the internet and information was there about the anonymous murder in the house. The next morning the boy went downstairs. It was so quiet. Maybe his parents were sleeping. Hours later the boy found his parents in their closet skinned and hanged. Then he found more carvings on the ground. They said ''I TOLD YOU I WASN'T LYING LITTLE BROTHER, I LOVED MOM AND DAD.... BUT THEY KEPT ME A SECRET. I CAN'T BELIEVE IT. WELL I'M FREE FROM THIS COLD WORLD, I WON'T HURT YOU LIKE I HURT THEM. I LOVE YOU!"

- LISA SMITH

This is a death chain letter. If you don't repost this in the next hour, the parents will kill you at night. They will kill you!

DON'T BELIEVE ME? LOOK IT UP IN GOOGLE!

Repost as-"who did you like first?"

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mum joked that she'd have to add that to her "to do" list. I just hope that this doesn't cause a new fad in chain mail. I've been though a few: first "they will donate a few cents to my sick child for every time this is passed on. IF YOU DON'T PASS THIS ON YOU HAVE NO HEART!!!!", then troop prayer wheels (three things I disagree with in one!), then "(IM company) is ending its free service. If you pass this on, your account won't be deleted," and now just quizzes that promise a few years of bad whatever they're about. But I can't imagine daily death threats.

Why not?

After a bumpy start, our new homestay is now just fine. You see, for the first few days we were tormented by mum's boyfriend's son, who would have the TV or conversations at full--or possibly higher--volume blaring until at least midnight, allowing us in the next room only a few hours of sleep. That, compounded with some other things, made our stay a living Hell. But now, after we had a discussion, it is quite alright.
I now take my dog, Ivan, for daily walk lasting multiple hours. We have given away five of our original nine liveborn pups, leaving one, Coco, to give away--I often walk her as well. We will keep three: my Ivan, my brother's Pepper, and mum's Bear. All of these pups are living in a kennel in this house, along with their dog, Max.
In sad news, Blog City is ending its free service. At the end of the year, my account will be locked. That was one of my favourite blogs! Oh, well.

Thursday, May 31, 2007: Perfect.

Well, mum hasn't payed the electric bill. for the moment, we're staying at her boyfriend's house. She spends when she is depressed--and she's never been good at finances. So the pups are at home, and we're going to put them in a kennel here, once we get it cleaned out.

But, on the bright side, school is out. I've gotten a Spanish four book to study. Come autumn, I'll be ready for AP.

Tuesday, May 22, 2007

School is winding down. I've had no homework as of late, the water is warming, and my classes are having me study for finals to which I already know all of the answers. And, furthermore, they are advertising graduation services. One pervasive one is a baccalaureate. A Christian prayer service for graduation. The annoying part is that along with simple posters, it has been in the morning update, and was a major announcement today over the intercom. And not in the secular language you would expect from a government institute--well, not expect, but rather what should be. At any rate, it was a large announcement about how this "reasserts the importance of the Lord." Now, I think that this shouldn't even be held at the school--let the student's churches take care of their religion, you know? But this is ridiculous.
But off of that dismal subject. An interesting anecdote from lunch: one of the people from my table was interviewing people for the German class paper. He asked the non-German-speaking members of our table questions in German, to which we responded in English. The funniest answers got in the paper. I had some interesting ones: Question:[I have lost my spirit. Where is it?] Answer: "I myself prefer chicken." Question:[What would you do if there were no air?] Answer: "Last Tuesday." I ended up understanding one completely, and another almost. For the most part, though, I couldn't understand them, no matter how many times I had him repeat it.

May 12, 2007: There is no vice so simple but assumes some mark of virtue on his outward parts.

Well, AP is over--for this year, at least. And, as of 11:40 this morning, I can discuss the Lit essays. But not the multiple choice. Never the multiple choice. And not the Euro essays until tomorrow, 4:05.
At any rate, they were okay. One regarded a very funny poem about a history teacher who changed events to protect his students' innocence:

The History Teacher

Trying to protect his students' innocence
he told them the Ice Age was really just
the Chilly Age, a period of a million years
when everyone had to wear sweaters.

And the Stone Age became the Gravel Age,
named after the long driveways of the time.

The Spanish Inquisition was nothing more
than an outbreak of questions such as
"How far is it from here to Madrid?"
"What do you call the matador's hat?"

The War of the Roses took place in a garden,
and the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom
on Japan.

The children would leave his classroom
for the playground to torment the weak
and the smart,
mussing up their hair and breaking their glasses,

while he gathered up his notes and walked home
past flower beds and white picket fences,
wondering if they would believe that soldiers
in the Boer War told long, rambling stories
designed to make the enemy nod off.

Nice, eh? I couldn't agree more.
At any rate, one of my latest obsessions is a game on Seibertron.com called "Heavy Metal War." It's sort of a mission based quasi-MMORPG, in which you create a team of Transformers and have them battle others, in area battles or specific missions. Nearly no graphics, but very fun.
Now I must go on to my other blogs, which have been neglected even worse than this one.

Saturday, April 28, 2007: Well, well, well.

Opening night went pretty well. We had more people than seats, and they did laugh. Of course, they missed half of the best jokes, but that's their problem, not ours. Afterwards, we got flowers from the tech crew--I'm not sure why.
In other news, I caught a mouse! Not just any mouse, though: this mouse has been living in my room for a couple of weeks, and I have been trying to catch it for nearly as long. Although I didn't catch it per se: it more so caught itself. Alow me to explain: While I was in bed, I heard some rustling in the corner of my room, which worried me, as it was between my Transformers and my National Geographics, both of which I wanted not to be damaged. So, I got a chip canister which I had ready for the moment, and went over to the rustling, only to find out that the mouse had fallen into Lucia's old habitat and couldn't get out! I was overjoyed. Now I have to figure out what to do with it. I think that I'll end up keeping it, but I'm not sure. However, I definitely won't let it go: that would defeat the purpose of me catching it.
And now for another one of my sporadic English lessons: Lesson Nine: Pronunciation of the Letter "a" before the letter "g." This, like "borrow," I believe is a local problem, but one which must be addressed. You see, here people will, quite regularly and intentionally, make the letter "a" long before "g." Therefore you get "baig," "faig," "draigon," et cetera, to the point at which you either burst out laughing or roll your eyes as soon as they start talking. Honestly, Brainerd, there is nothing special about "a" being preceded by "g," and acting like there is sound about as bad as pronouncing "r" as "w."

Entry for March 18, 2007

Sadly, Lucy suffered a uteral infection. When the vet cut gave her an emergency hysterectomy, half of her uterus was dead. And afterwords, the rest of her went with it. Not only does that mean the loss of a great dog, but now we must take care of her week-old puppies. They must be bottle fed and made to excrete using warm water in a cotton ball. But, we won't let them die, too.

Entry for March 11, 2007

Well, I've found the camera, and am now finally doing a photo post.
Our dog, Lucy, had her pups! Twelve of them, though three were stillborn.
Ain't they cute?
I also got my World's Smallest Transformers. I was a bit disapointed, though: I thought that they came in randomly packaged boxes of six each, and got four. Apperantly, though, they came in randomly packaged boxes of one each, and I got two Thrusts.

Saturday, February 24, 2007: I return.

I really need to start this thing back up. I think it's a problem of focus: I'm certainly on the Internet enough, I just don't feel like blogging while I'm on it. But my longing is enough when I'm not on to warrant actually doing it.
Well, for starters, our dog is pregnant. At first, we thought that she was just not eating her treats because she's weird. Then, over night--literally--she plumped up, and we figured out that that was morning sickness. We figure that it was this husky that has been hanging around here. We don't know when the pups will come, but I'd like to see the black lab/huskies.
In other news, on a suggestion I have joined the spring play. It's a comedy called "You Can't Take it with You," and sounded pretty good during the script reading--even for my three lines. Well, first time in theatre, what did you expect?
I've also decided to restart my Transformer collection. I had, to this point, thirty-five from my childhood--in various conditions and states of completion. I am now getting the Beast Wars tenth anniversary figures--fitting, since Beast Wars was where my collection started. I have Dinobot and Rattrap so far--a fitting pair--and they're pretty good. They each come with a DVD and a piece of Transmutate--I can't believe that they made a show accurate version of her before G1 Arcee--which were larger than I expected the whole figure to be. Sadly, they had no movement, and connected to her with non-ball joints--to sum up, it's a simple, barely possible display piece. I was really hoping they would combine to form a fully-articulated toy. Later, I'll get the world's smallest line. That should arrive on the twenty-seventh. I believe they're roughly the size of capsule toys.
I need to divide my time more evenly. I'm meaning to read a couple of books and start a comic, but I end up just playing games--when I'm not doing my homework, that is.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

This is awesome: my Spanish teacher just offered to let me skip two years! This way, I get to go strait to AP Spanish from Spanish II. Of course, I'll have to learn all of the information, but my ability to learn quickly and self-teach were two major reasons for her offering. So exciting! I mean, I'm already bored stiff in that class--after all, we are still on chapter two, and really haven't done much to speak of (all review and vocabulay). It's a nice language, and the teacher is neat, if a bit eccentric, but during the endless review all I think is "man, I'd like to actually learn something!" That or "¿Jey? Es hay, ¿no? ¿Somos en el primer semestre de español uno? But, all of that may change!
In other news, I have been having bad luck with library books as of late. First, I wanted to get The Anarchist Cookbook, after reading Mr. W----'s copy's instructions for making plastic explosive from bleach. After all, who wouldn't want to know such things? Then I found out that not only is it reference, but also damaged! Damned anarchists. Then, I ordered a copy from Pine River, which said it was "availiable." And by "available," of course, they meant "reference." Then, upon W----'s suggestion, I ordered Œdipus Rex. Now, with a name like that it must be in Latin, Right? So now I'm sitting here with a Greek and English Ωιδιπους Τυραννος (Oidipous Tyrannos). Sure, it's still good reading, but I don't get to strengthen my Latin--which I'm going to need, seeing as I just opened up an account for my Latin blog.

Well, it's another birthday. This year it's seventeen. And I must say I had a wonderful time. Where to begin...
I got to start off the day alone, meaning I didn't have to wait for anyone to wake up before I left. This was about the best thing that happened to me all day. For shortly afterwards, I got a call from my mother stating that not only did I have to bring her shoes to her, but that my birthday party was to be held there. Where is "there?" Why, it's the house of my mother's boyfriend, a man whom I have known for roughly one week. Now, I consider my birthday to be a very special and familial event. Not enough to where he couldn't be invited, but certainly it shouldn't be held in a stranger's house. I said so, though not quite so eloquently, and she was adamant that I go and hold my party there. I'll get into that in more detail later.
Then after getting locked out of Spanish before school and listening to an anti-flippant speech--I, personally, have always been a great admirer of the form--I got to write a DBQ. Now, for those of you who don't remember, that is where you are handed a series of documents on a particular topic and must write and essay about them. Only this year there's a twist: you must draw all of your conclusions from the documents--for they choose something obscure, this time the extent to which women were encouraged to be educated between the 16th and 18 centuries. Last year's question in AP US History (I'm in AP European History this year) was on the changing role of women from the Colonial period to the Civil War, including the Mothers of the Republic and the Cult of Domesticity; which led to an interesting pair of quotes, though the second, in my opinion, didn't get enough credit: first, the good ol' Puritan-basher and nudism causer from the quote compendium, whom I sould give and alias, even though I already used her real name on my comment on the Xanga version of that post: "I don't like women anymore!" Followed by the course's instructor: "I thought that that was a genetic predisposition, and you didn't get a choice in it." Regardless of this, it was a miserable essay as I failed to prepare, and only ended up writing half of it by the time class finished.
Then in English 'twas a similar tale, though I ended up handing in nothing. And on to lunch, where they had Polish sausage on main line. So, of course, I had to take it. And with the main line trays being so small, I walked away from lunch hungry.
On the plus side, after getting my name on the local radio, though I didn't win--and I did last year, and so it makes sense--I had two people who heard the announcement wish me a happy birthday. Would that their wishes had been fulfilled...
So, after an all-right next few hours, I went to my mum's work in order to tell her that I wouldn't be at her boyfriend's place for my birthday, as it would be completely inapropriate. And she was going far to quickly with this one, which she promised she wouldn't. She insisted, as my sister was coming, and I begrudgingly accepted and left. Maybe on the way home I should have unbuckled and crashed: I mum's grieving is anthing like her love, she'd be over it in a fortnight. Anyway, at home I got a call saying that she would call it off if that's what I wanted. Yes, of course. If I don't want to hold my birthday celebration in the house of someone whom it would be a streach to call an acquaintance, someone who's name it takes me ten minutes to remember, someone whom I could not pick out of a croud, then I must want no party at all. So finally after some time she called back saying that her boyfriend was willing to take the party to me if that's what I want, but no-one else could make it to my house because this was all planned out already, and couldn't be changed. Great, so she organised a party in a strange house with people I don't know for my last birthday before eighteen, and didn't consider me in the equation untill it was too late to change it. She sounded somewhat teary, but like they say, sometimes you have to let them cry it out...
So I said, "okay, I'll have a meal--a nice, polite meal--there, and then we can have the cake and present-opening here." For my sister's sake, I let some cake be eaten there. So what happens? What should be and hour, hour-and-a-half ends up being three hours, during which, in more of mum's wonderful logic, they placed a candle atop the cake and sang "happy birthday." Then we went home and mum's boyfriend talked to me endlessly about unrelated things--I'm not trying to be your father, that kind of thing.
So, though it didn't turn out that way: Felicem diem natalem.

Sick... can't think. Oh, Xanga has tags... that's interesting. Volo dormire... This is what a normal person's blog entry looks like , isn't it? Too bad I had to miss Cervantes... Who was playing him? My tonsils hurt. I hope I don't have to get them out... I like having them. I might be psychosomatically worsening my illness' affect on my mind. What's Norwegian like? I heard it was like drunken German. Xanga adds a lot of spaces. My linguophilia is getting out of hand--I'm downloading a Chinese Bible. Know any free programs to read other things? The bible one is pretty good, but I don't want to read the same thing all the time.

Challenge: what language did I translate this into and out of using an internet translator:

The sick one… cannot think. The OH, Xanga has modifications… that it is interesting. To sleep of Flight… That is the entrance of the blog of ché normal person is similar, is not? Equally Badly I have had sig.na Cervantes… Who was playing it? My tonsils have damaged. I hope that it does not have to obtain it outside… I appreciate to have it. I could psychosomatic get worse my diseases I interest on my mind. Which thing is Norwegian as? They are felt to me that it was like German drunken. Xanga adds to the spaces a lot. Mine linguophilia it is to exit of the hand--I am transferring a Bible from the system centers them towards the satellites Chinese. To know all the free programs in order to read other things? The Bible one is good graceful, but I do not wish to read to the same thing all the time.

Got it in the mail. Any critique would seem to be over-doing it at this point...

A week or two ago: tempus vomit

Steve…Irwin…dead? How the fuck did this happen. I mean, I know how it happened, but how could it happen? The man who taught us to poke deadly creatures with sticks… The man who taught us that it’s okay to wave infants in front of crocodiles… The invincible Steve Irwin. It’s a sign of the Apocalypse, I tell you.
Now all we’re left with Jeff Corwen. True, he’s the coolest wannabe ever…but he’s just that—a wannabe. But, maybe his career will skyrocket, now that he’s at the top…or maybe people who have never heard of him
Well, in lighter news, I heard “Stairway to Heaven” backwards. You see, that’s one of the few songs that actually have something to say. I was told it was a verse-long Satanic anthem, but when I reversed it all that I heard was an emphatic “Satan” twice and a shaky “666.” How boring. But, there is still hope: I recorded it off of the radio using a cheap microphone and the default sound recorder. I’m hoping to hear Queen’s “Another one bites the dust,” which is supposed to say “it’s fun to smoke marijuana.” And then there’s supposedly a Weird Al song that says “Satan eats cheese whiz.” No “Paul is dead,” but oh well.
Now that we’ve lost the sombreness, it’s time for that English lesson I promised: the use of profanity. Now, swear words are a very important thing in a language: they give teens a reason to learn foreign words, spark censorship debates, and everyone recognises them. I mean, what’s the most unchanging word in the Romance languages? Merda. Even in Romania, where a mater is a mama and a caballus a cal, merda is still merda. And even a French mère atop her cheval will concede that it’s merde. Why do I bring this up? Because our profanities are collapsing. Now, sure, certain words can be used as interjections, and colloquial expressions like “this shit is great” are perfectly fine—after all, swearing is largely colloquial. However, even profanities have their own, separate meanings and associated phrases. I have heard—I shit you not—“what the balls?” Are we really that pathetic? Admittedly, this is an extreme example—but we are rushing to the edge of a precipice. If this trend isn’t fixed, in a couple of generations we will hear, in common speech, “kiss my fuck.” If that were to happen, I think I would be too embarrassed to admit that I could speak English.

Blogs: Which is the best?

The reason that I haven’t updated in quite some is that I’ve been transferring my blog onto Gather. In light of this, I think I’ll start my blogs back up with a quick review of the sites that they’re on—more in-depth reviews may come later.

XANGA
Age Limit: Thirteen to join, eighteen to view entries rated highly.
Layout options: A few colour changes, background music. The real good thing is that you can add your own codes.
Profile: In-depth
Time coding: Automatic.
Titles: Ninety characters
And does it tell you when you’ve exceeded this limit: Of course not.
Ratings: Enforced—you select what you are comfortable viewing, as long as it’s not older than you are. Unfortunately, It’s very vague and American (e.g. if it’s inappropriate for a thirteen-year-old, it’s inappropriate for a seventeen-year-old), and others can rate your entry.
Groups: “Blogrings” (interests) and “Metros” (hometowns)
These are for: Finding similar blogs.
Limit: 6
Tags: None
Separate sections for: Reviews, events, memories (can be uploaded by others).
Foreign characters: Become ?’s in the blog (though not in the reviews). (“Æ” and “œ” are okay)
Comments: E-mailed to you. Happen every once-in-a-while.
Price: Free, but pushes for paying constantly. Many features are confined to Premium.
Pictures: For free, it’s something like two. Premium gets more, and Premium Plus gets infinite (though they can only upload a certain amount a month). Anyway, they’re only for display.

The first site my blog was on! As such, it has always held a special place in my heart. There are some problems. For example, I have never gotten a reply when I’ve e-mailed for help. And then there are “E-Props.” These are supposedly a way to tell someone you like their entry, however they are illogically defaulted to two—the highest rating available. This means that even if you have comments like this {link to “vile bigotry and hatred” comment}, you get two. And then there’s the Xanga Block. It’s not a problem, it’s just strange. It’s an option that lets you restrict viewing of your Xanga site to people logged in to Xanga. Everyone praised it as a wonderful addition, but I don’t see the point.
All in all, I give it four stars, along with one brown dwarf (almost a star—think Jupiter) for the prospect of premium.


YAHOO 360°
Age Limit: Must be eighteen.
Layout options: Pre-made themes.
Profile: Somewhat full.
Time coding: None—by default the date is your entries title.
Titles: One hundred characters
And does it tell you when you’ve exceeded this limit: Yes, after submission.
Ratings: None.
Groups: “Yahoo Groups”
These are for: Sending out newsletters and e-mailing 2000 people at once.
Limit: As many as you can handle.
Tags: None
Separate sections for: Reviews, RSS, Calendar.
Foreign characters: Accepted.
Comments: Supposedly e-mailed to you. Never gotten one, though my page has been viewed hundreds of times
Price: Free
Pictures: A few. For display.

Us too! Yahoo gets into blog world. What’s nice is that you only need one account for all of the Yahoo services. So, if you have their e-mail and listen to LaunchCast, why not get a blog? The interesting thing is, Yahoo groups are for, as I said, mass e-mails. So, even though they’re listed on your blog, they really have nothing to do with it. These are interesting, but you can get to where you’re getting five hundred e-mails a day. Really, I only go there when I have to (i.e. when I update).
I give this site one star, for effort.


MYSPACE
Age Limit: Must be thirteen to join, eighteen to do anything.
Layout options: Colour changes, background music.
Profile: Pervasive.
Time coding: Date and time can be changed. There is about a six year window on the past and a three year one on the future.
Titles: One hundred characters
And does it tell you when you’ve exceeded this limit: Yes, after submission.
Ratings: None.
Groups: “Groups” (How original)
These are for: Discussing topics on a message board and uploading photos.
Limit: As many as you can claim to be interested in (for the sake of spamming, of course).
Tags: None
Separate sections for: Videos, Friends, News, Calendar, Groups, Pictures (Blogging is really a small part of it).
Foreign characters: Disappear on the blog and become gibberish on the groups.
Comments: “Hey baby. Even though you don’t have a picture, I think you’re cute. Pay for an account at this site and you can see me naked: nonexistent.geocities.com/”.
Price: Free.
Pictures: No limit that I know of. Can be commented on.

MySpace is evil. It is an over-hyped, overly-pop-culture, ad-saturated, nauseating site where the pages randomly stop loading more often than not. The only reason I go there—aside from updating—is because one of the groups I belong to actually has something interesting to say.
I give this site two stars, one of which has collapsed into a soul-sucking black hole.


BLOGGER
Age Limit: None that I know of.
Layout options: Colour changes, pre-loaded themes.
Profile: Alright.
Time coding: Automatic.
Titles: No limit that I know of.
And does it tell you when you’ve exceeded this limit: …
Ratings: None.
Groups: None.
These are for: …
Limit: …
Tags: None
Separate sections for: Nothing—it’s only a blog.
Foreign characters: accepted.
Comments: E-mailed to you. Haven’t gotten any.
Price: Free.
Pictures: None.

A pure blog! No extra bells and whistles to sell it to the public. As such, it requires minimal advertising. It also shows what blogs have been updated recently on the homepage, allowing you to see many strange and interesting blogs. And you can have multiple ones per account, if you’re into that kind of thing.
I give it three, since it’s a good site, despite its lack of features.


BLOG-CITY
Age Limit: None that I know of.
Layout options: A disturbing amount. Really, customising can consume you.
Profile: Pretty detailed.
Time coding: Automatic.
Titles: No limit that I know of.
And does it tell you when you’ve exceeded this limit: …
Ratings: None.
Groups: None.
These are for: …
Limit: …
Tags: It saves your previous tags—allowing you to pull them up with a click—and lists your most used ones on the side of your page. There is also a feature that allows you to see recent blog entries with those tags.
Separate sections for: Management, Tags.
Foreign characters: Accepted.
Comments: Listed on management page, but when you click on them, it says that you have none.
Price: Free.
Pictures: One. For display.

Well, it’s another site…
Two and a half stars.


GATHER
Age Limit: None that I know of.
Layout options: None that I know of.
Profile: A few categories.
Time coding: Automatic.
Titles: No limit that I know of.
And does it tell you when you’ve exceeded this limit: …
Ratings: Five “adult” categories—language, nudity, violence, explicit sexual activity, and “other”—which you have to check if your article contains that. This is displayed in small red text at the top of your article.
Groups: “Groups” again
These are for: Publishing articles to select audiences.
Limit: None, and you only publish articles to the groups you want.
Tags: You enter them at the bottom of the entry, and then in another window it suggests other tags that are often used with those tags. Also, they are used on everything. In fact, that’s how you look for things.
Separate sections for: Groups, Friends, Tags, Recently published.
Foreign characters: Turned into long lines of gibberish.
Comments: E-mailed to you. Happen frequently.
Price: Free.
Pictures: More or less a form of entry—comments, tags, the works.

Xanga may still be my favourite, but Gather has to be the best. The interesting thing is that it isn’t really a blog. You post your articles into a sort of communal bulletin, where people view everyone’s at once. This always makes me feel like I have to change the title for Gather, so that it actually reflects the article. After all, I don’t want false advertising…
I give this site the full five bright, life supporting stars.


Well, there you have it. My report on the blogging community: an interesting collection of whiners, extremist nutjobs, and, worse still, both.
Seeing as this entry should really be geared toward all audiences, my English lesson—“the use of profanity”—will have to wait.

Thursday, June 29, 2006: Pædicabo ego vos, et irrumabo.

Well, once again the government are debating burning of the flag. You see, some in this country see the flag as a holy icon, something worthy of such deification, and allegiance pledging (under God, of course). And as such, they are saying “you can’t burn the Flag. If you let people do that, they won’t respect It, and people worldwide will hate us.” Of course, flag burners already don’t respect it, and people already hate us, but that’s beyond the point… Oh well, at least you don’t have to spend time thinking of a way to protest.

But, that’s not all of the news. They’re also debating allowing race to be considered when deciding if someone’s a terrorist. Hopefully I didn’t disturb the neighbours, yelling at the radio.

In light of these events, I’m open for country-shopping suggestions.

4//: Itchy. Tasty.

Well, as I said last entry, schola perficit. By now schola perfecerat, so in honour of scholæ perficientis, I have decided to do a compendium of humorous quotes that I have heard in ISD-181 in my five years here.

“Vegetarians can eat chicken as long as it’s organic.”

[In reference to the Puritans’ belief of “The Elect” doing well] “How could they believe that when the Bible says that the only way you can be saved is to give up everything you own?” [I’m not entirely certain of the wording of that one]

[In reference to the student quoted above] “Actually, she’s a lot better than she used to be.”

[In reference to her again] “If she gets valedictorian, I’ll walk across the stage naked.”

“In Hebrew there are five words for love. [Lists the four Greek words for ‘love’]”

[In reference to Jesus Dress-up] “You know, this could be considered sacrilegious.”

“Don’t go out with people. You know, you get emotionally involved, and then you just break up at the end, and then you’re crushed…
I have a friend who says ‘Well, I’m not going to get married, because you just pay for the wedding and then you have to pay for the divorce.’ Well, then, just don’t get divorced.” [Not sure I about that one, either]

[When hearing about pre-4000 BCE Egypt] “But the world is only 6000 years old. It says so in the Bible.”

“…the three major world religions: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. I guess Hinduism and Buddhism are getting up there, but for now we’ll call these the big ones.”

[In response to the question “When is Easter?”] “It’s whenever the Church says it is.”

[In response to “Who was Buddha?] “The god of Buddhism.”

“Voy al restaurante porque estoy hombre.”

[In response to the above quote] “You go to the restaurant because you’re temporarily a man?”

“He’s my friend. [Pets partially disemboweled pig fetus]”

[Dialogue] “[Half sarcastically] The correct pronunciation isn’t /a:nt/, it’s /ænt/.”
“Actually, it’s /a:nt/, look in the dictionary.”
“Actually, it’s either. They’re called dialects.”

[After hearing what evolution actually is] “Oh, so you can’t be looking at a monkey in a zoo and POOF it’s a human?”

“…one nation, under God, indivisible…”

[In reference to The Da Vinci Code] “It’s got Tom Hanks, and he trumps the Catholic faith any day.”

[While looking at a Latin dictionary] “This is the best book ever!”

[After being informed that religious harassment is a crime] “So? Being a nark is stupid. I mean, not as bad as being and Atheist, but still…”

[From the same person, after no mention of skill] “Because I’m better than you.”

[About the above quoted person] “…he said ‘it was probably my mom’s dick rubbing against you.’ I swear, that’s the best come-back I’ve ever heard that kid make!”

“Isn’t it true that classical music makes you grow lots of new paths in your brain, while rock actually kills off existing ones?”

[After giving an example of German] “I said that she likes to give head but isn’t any good at it.”

[After hearing about the Law of Conservation of Mass] “Then how did God create the Universe?”

[In response to “Why eat only plants?”] “Because it’s more natural.”

“Time flies. Or, as they say in the Marines, ‘tempus fugit.’ They don’t say ‘when you’re having fun’ in the Marines.”

“I’m aganotistic. I believe in a higher power, but I don’t think it’s God or Jesus or whatever.”

“I see all the horror movies that come out, even that really stupid one, Dawn of the Dead. Or no, not that, Land of the Dead. Yeah, that was the one. I mean, zombies aren’t that smart.”

[After hearing that Atheists have no religious obligations] “Oh, because my pastor told us about some Atheists going to church on Saturday.”

[After hearing the Latin meanings of “penis” and “vagina”] “Hey, you should ask Mrs. [name forgotten] if you can put your tail in her sheath.”

“It was just like Lade spaketh and knowledge did flow forth.”

There are a few quotes that I think were said, but I’m not entirely certain.

“Tengo bored.”

“Holland is the capital of the Netherlands.”

Ah, Brainerd. Any additional quotes would be highly appreciated. Until then, these will be my memories of school over the summer, if I ever care to think about it. Perhaps in my next two years before graduation I will hear more audible delights.

Quid Freemasons putavunt National Treasure?

Salve! Ut Latinum—sed non multum—mox scio, scribere legentem blogis Latine desidero. Ne Latinum meum ostentare possim—ut non mulum ostentetur—sed ut Latine scribam. Monitis ut Latino meo est merda, hic est:

Primus, meæ scholæ maledicam. Schola docere mihi Hispanola contatur. “Contatur” dico quod in uno mense scio multior Latinum quam Hispaniolam—ut nonum mensem dicebam. Certe, Hispaniola mihi venit facilior, sed in Latina loqui res iucundiores possum.

Illo faciente, mox ire ad rem aliam volo: blogem meam. Vel loqui “bloges meas omnes” debeo, ut quinctos teneo. Et hoc, tenebunt quadragesimos tres legentes. Sed erat bonum tenere quadragesimos duo... Bloges meæ sunt in Xanga, Myspace, Yahoo 360°, Blogspot, atque Blog-City. Dificilis est illæ hic facere. Sed, bloges amo meæ.

Schola perficit. Anni libros tenet populus. Unum non teneo. Et unum recentem et unum de MCMXXII vidi. Unus de MCMXXII melior. Unus de MCMXXIV fuit optimus. Nunc libri anni sunt merdosi—multæ mentulæ picturas ponent in libros et vendunt eos $LX. In MCMXXII atque MCMXXIV tenebant vaticinationes scholæ, fabulas scholæ, ceteraque. Væ, o tempora! Ut in libro anni legit, ‘caveat emptor libri anni.’

Nescio si hæc longitudo solitus est, quod lego hoc in pagina. Sed, puto tempus est ei perficere. Valete!

Monday, May 08, 2006: Είναι όλα Ελληνικά για μένα!--Eínai óla Ellēniká gia ména!

I have an idea for a study. I am a compulsive language learner. If I am puzzled by something foreign, I try to understand it. I am currently spread thin over four languages. I am using four different methods and have four different success rates. I will try and find which method works best. Currently, from best to worst, they are: Latin-independent study with a set program, Spanish-school class, Old English-independent study with no set course, Frisian-listening to internet radio in that language. The results so far are as follows:

I have been at Latina for a few weeks, and know a lot of grammar and have somewhat of a vocabulary—or at least too much to try and write down. I like that I can set my own schedule and learn at my own pace, but it’s easy to forget to do it for a while.

Español I have been at since the beginning of the school year, however it is so slow. It would be great to talk to others with it, if they picked up languages quickly. But they don’t, except for exchange students, who I am never partnered up with. But, it does have a wealth of information, if they ever get around to it.

I have tried Énglisc since sometime last year, and have the grammar down fairly well—it’s like Latin, but simpler. As for vocabulary…Er, let’s not talk about that. But, there’s always the time for more.

The last language is the reason that this article is so simple—it’s hard to concentrate on blogging with Frysk blaring in your ear. I’m starting to understand it a bit more, but don’t ask me to speak it. It’s supposed to be 80% similar to English, but that remaining 20% is more than you’d think.

An English lesson would be highly appropriate, but I need these last six minutes to post this on my blogs, and this Frisian radio is polluting my mind.

Friday, May 05, 2006: Is it correct to say "this individual..." in reference to a conformist?

Well, that AP test genuinely and royally sucked. Actually, it wasn’t that bad. It kind of sucked at the beginning, however. I was sick with an odd mix of nerves and under-cooked and under-washed old turkey that fell in disgusting water. Don’t ask me why I ate it. But in about ten or twenty minutes it was over, and I hadn’t missed anything.
Which brings me to the rules and ceremony of the Advanced Placement test: we started with a slow creep toward the main section—filling out the sacred name form. Our charismatic leader, the proctor, slowly led us through the process, giving us exact instructions and wasting a ridiculous amount of time. We were to do exactly what she said when she said it and not an instant sooner. Not to mention our gag rule—to reference the subject. The test, you see, consists of three parts: a multiple choice section of eighty questions, a document-based question (DBQ), and two free response questions. According to the AP gods, we may never speak of the multiple choice questions with anyone. The free response questions mayn’t be discussed until our history teacher gives them back to us, forty-eight hours after the test—which by my watch is on Sunday. The DBQ, to the best of my knowledge, is fair game. I, however, have not the time to mention it—save that it sucked—and will commence that task later.

Thursday, May 04, 2006: ΛTΛLNTIS, THE ISLΛND, what’s with all of the lambdas? When will people realise how moronic that looks?

Well, it is now upon us. AP US History test day. That would be part of the reason that I haven't posted in so long. Actually, that's a lie. It's because of the trouble I had posting the review of Όρνιθες. But, at any rate, here I am, about to take a four hour test on my least favourite subject. I feel decently confident, but still, it's rather unnerving.

Especially the essays. Now, I can write a mean essay, but there is the problem of time constraint and legibility. First of all, time. I take a while to write. A long while. I used to have to hand in half-essays on test days. This would be partially due to the second problem: my handwriting. No one likes my script: it confuses, it drives people to the edge, it makes them want to shoot themselves, and it may even have caused some minor wars. It is looping, full of flourishes, and all-in-all 1800’s-ish. Sans neatness. It runs together, it flies wild, it dances across the page—and I mean that in the worst possible way. So, if they can read it, I get it done on time, and I don’t get an essay on labour unions, I should be set.

But, enough about that. There are more important things than AP. I think… All right, I can’t think of anything at the moment, but I’m working on it…

Thursday, April 06, 2006: Why can I never remember the titles I think up?

You wouldn't believe the kind of people I have to put up with at my school. Listen to what happened in my Pre-AP (supposedly the more intelligent ones) English class: yesterday we had a discussion on the book The Sun Also Rises. Due to all of the people who left this country in it, we started by going into our pre-assigned groups and making a list of ten reasons we would or will leave the country. We came up with things like "if there were extreme prejudice against a group to which I belonged" (of course, I was referring to Atheists) and "if Jeb Bush were elected President." Then we had a discussion. Our group was asked, and we went with the prejudice one. Then our teacher casually changed what question he had asked, insisting that he had asked what would make great numbers of people leave, as opposed to just us, being what he had actually asked. So, we went with our first one: if the draft were re-instated. Apparently, we were the first ones to come up with it all day, even though we were the second-to-last class. So, the teacher read a quote from a congressman about his draft plan. He said that the everyone between the ages of 18 and 26 would be eligible--all classes, males and females. At "and females," the class went into uproar. I shit you not, they were ecstatic about how horrible the new draft would be if it included females. There arguments were fairly houmourous, though. They said "well, then you'd kill off an entire generation, instead of leaving the females" and "well, men are the stronger, tougher ones, so they should go and leave the women behind." And before I get a bunch of misandrists saying how horrible and typical those guys are, please note that no males argued against that idea. We had a bunch of women--in school and wearing pants--saying about how all of the seventeenth century misogynist ideas are, in their opinion, correct! I retorted: "What? So now that sexism is taken out of the equation, it's suddenly a horrible thing?" To which they responded with more sexist and misogynist talk, followed by discussion amongst themselves.

And this isn't the first case of bigotry in that class. Many were talking about how horrible Atheists are some time ago. They never discussed reasons for it, merely the idea. But, I don't remember enough about that incident to comment on it sufficiently.

At any rate, time for today's English lesson: number VII--mathematical operations. Fill in the blank: to order someone to do the following operation: 9+7, you tell them to _____ nine and seven. If you said "plus," then this is for you. "Plus," "minus," and "times" aren't mathematical operations--they are symbols. One times one is one, but if you multiply one and one, you get two. No exceptions. Good bye for now.

Monday, March 16, 2006: Since I always accidently use it, I switched to British English. Tell me if it looks too odd.

Well, I decided to write a blog entry at home on Microsoft Word, since over spring break I can’t reach a computer with internet access. Alright, so I just came back from the library, but that time was taken up with checking e-mails, comments, and updates on sites. Also with Anglo-Saxon—Old English for those of you who don’t think that that’s Shakespeare—lessons. I’m thinking of translating my blog once I get proficient enough, but I’ll probably become disillusioned with it soon after starting.


At any rate, to news: First, let’s talk about that checking of updates. Evidently, the library’s new content filter blocks Normal Bob Smith dot com as adult content! Why on earth would they do that? I mean, it’s just a humour site. But, then I went to their web site. Evidently, it includes “crude and tasteless” material. How do they define that? Well, it may include things insulting religion, if I know society. So, if they ever contact me, I’ll have to see if they block sites such as Chick Publications for the same reason, since it applies just as much to Christian sites as it does to Atheist ones—or at least it should. I wouldn’t want to do that, though. Some people would want to go to those. Of course, that isn’t the worst of their overdone censorship. The other ones I remember are:


Pornography/recreational nudity:

… [This] includes naturism, streaking, and other activities which include nudity/see-through clothing.


Bathing suits/underwear/lingerie

Sites which have pictures of models in bathing suits, lingerie, and other highly revealing attire.


Alternative lifestyles:

Non-pornographic sites with information about gay, lesbian, and bisexual lifestyles and activities.


News and information:

Sites with news topics and information. This is useful for business computers and other situations where time-wasting is undesired.


Games:

Sites which have games. This includes strategy, puzzle, and other single player, non-betting games.


Personal sites:

Sites such as Geocities, Xanga, and Angelfire, which offer free personal web pages.


Search sites:

Sites which search a catalog or part of the internet.


Translators:

Sites that offer electronic translation services.


Web-based e-mail

Sites which offer free web-based e-mail.


Religion:

Any site which advocates worship of a Supreme Being as the Creator of the Universe.


That last one really caught me off guard. You wouldn’t expect any company to offer a filter which blocks all information on monotheism, and even less to claim to block all religion. Luckily, you pick which ones you want, and according to the local teen librarian—who is against all internet filters—they only took pornography and adult content.


Anyways, next I would like to talk about the dumbing down of everyone. Let’s start with baby’s first words. Now, I like to imagine a time when people would actually try to have their infants say “mother” and “father,” but judging by how different the word “dad” is from “father,” that was quite some time ago. Still, I’d like to imagine some tenth-century peasant looking at his offspring and telling him to “cweð fæder.” At first he just looks at him and spits a little, but then his developing synapses begin to fire. “Ffdǽdderrr!” “Ná, Ná.” says the father: “Fæder. Cweð fæder.” “Dæder!” “Fæder, mín cild, fæder.” At any rate, this goes on for some time, and then he gets quite angry, seeing as his ass—the animal, you moron—just died, and yells “FÆDER! HIT IS FÆDER!” Then the infant starts crying. Being a caring fæder, he tries to calm his infant, saying “Sc, sc. Hit is dæder. Hit is dæder. Scscsc.” He gets the child to stop crying, but somehow forgets to tell his wife about their infant’s new word.


So the cild is raised with the word dæder as part of his vocabulary, and when his son is an infant he teaches him the word thinking nothing of it. This spreads over the years, until in 1066 England is invaded by the French. Now, the French didn’t like how the English spelled things, so they had them not write Englisc at all, and if they had to, not to use the letters þ, ð, or æ, along with no accent marks. That, along with the virtual silence of –er in French—and thus Anglo-French—resulted in the familiar word “dad.”


This was more or less stable for about nine centuries, with people even starting to talk about “dad,” a word they never would have admitted to back when it was “dæder”—which would explain why the dictionary doesn’t give a strait answer on the origins of word “dad.” The original dialogue was even imitated by a mother, who begrudgingly let her child think that she was a “mom,” as opposed to a mother.


But then came the gender wars. During those, the mother and father fought to see whether their children would say “mom” or “dad” first. Then came the worst assault on the English language yet—mama and dada. Judging by these atrocities, all we need is a kick up in gender wars or another dead ass, and parents will start counting “d-d-d-d” as a word.


Well, I can’t think of an English lesson for today. Perhaps you should be proud of yourself. But heed my warning: teach any children you might have in the future the words “father” and “mother.” Perhaps we can curtail this; just like that tenth-century peasant did with fæder. Farewell and have a good life.

Tuesday, March 07, 2006

Well, I was meaning to write a lengthy entry on Friday, but the server crashed. Then I had too many other activities yesterday and the day prior.

But, at any rate, I would like to discuss what began yesterday. Yesterday was the beginning of Lent, which normally wouldn't affect an atheist such as myself--in fact I hadn't even heard of it until a few years ago--were it not for the fact that our schools bend over backwards to accommodate it. You see, during Lent Catholics can't eat any meat that isn't fish on Fridays for some reason.They also have to give up something important to them for its duration--I'm not sure how long that is. I'd like to see one give up religion, but that's just me. Anyway, in elementary and middle school we only had one lunch line, which on Fridays during Lent had some fish meal which they never served at any other time in the year. Note that they didn't give kosher food during the rest of the year, and they sometime served beef, and they probably didn't follow the dietary constraints of many other religions that I don't know of.

At any rate, then I went to Forestview for a semester, due to remodelling in my old school--Mississippi. They had four lines: a main line, a grill, a pizza line, and a salad bar. Now, they allowed bag lunches in the previous schools, so it doesn't make any sense for them to change their meals specifically for Catholics anyway, but with a salad bar surely they wouldn't, would they? Yes, they would. All of these lines had odd, land-dwelling meat-less dishes which weren't served at any other time in the year. They weren't even being sneaky about it.

And so we come to Senior High. Now they finally have the courage to offer some alternatives. Yet they still have those odd dishes. Not the infamous veggie burger, or just saying to eat from the salad bar or bring your own lunch like Orthodox Jews, Hindus, Muslims, et cetera.

At any rate, time for English lesson number six--I fucked up on numbering that last one. "Gots" is not a word. Say "has" or "has got," you fucking moron. Is it really that hard to move the "s" to the noun?

Tuesday, February 28, 2006: Instant newsfead-Bush refuses to set timeline for return of movie rentals.

Can't remember what I was going to say, but it was important. So, without furthur adeux, here's English lesson the third: scissors. "Scissors" is a plural word. There is no such thing as "a scissors," though I have heard people refer to them as such. The item which is used is, in fact, a pair of scissors. I have yet to figure out what a scissor is, however I am leaning towards the handle and blade combination which hinges on the other one in one of these cutting devices.

Thursday, February 23, 2006: My hovercraft is full of eels.

A warning for all of you who go to Brainerd Senior High: do not try the "veggie burger." Today I attempted tackling this item for, though I am an avid carnivore, I wished for a change from my typical spicy chicken or cheeseburger. It was most certainly a mistake. I informed everyone of my expirement, and they saw my finding on my face as soon as I bit into it. I decided to see if I could eat the rest, and the flavor was unlike anything I had ever tasted before. About halfway through, when I was starting to get used to it, I decided to take off the bun and see what I could identify in it. Try to imagine the flavor of this: I saw onions, red peppers, mushrooms, and what I'm fairly certain were carrots, placed in a base which I couldn't identify if my life depended on it. Now, the others at my table were speaking their concerns already, but now their volume rose greatly. But, I got a combined total of $1.28 out of it, so it wasn't quite all bad. Other than that nothing that interesting happened today.

But, now time for English lesson number four: the word lend. This time it's not a word that people use where they shouldn't. This one they don't use at all. At least around here. They honestly think that it is proper to say that they will borrow something to someone. Now, just like the "jift" thing with Celtic, I shall apply similar grammar to another sentance for this: "if you don't return that, I'll have to give it from you by force." It's just as proper and sounds just as intelligent.

Wednesday, February 22, 2006: A Proverb is the Chisel for the marble of the foolish Mind.

Hello my wonderful readers. Today I think I'll talk about vending machines. I was walking around the school on Monday (the library was closed for President's day, however the school didn't give a shit about that any more than they did on Martin Luther King Jr. day) with my friend Mr. W---- and one of his friends, Mr. W------, who I shall call "Zack" for no apparent reason. So, the three of us were talking about hacking with Liz(who was wondering about the school as well), when Zack got a call on his cell phone. Whilst talking, he began pushing random buttons, the machine displaying the names and prices of various products. After the fourth button, however, it said "sales data." We got this figured out after a while, and though we can't do anything other than display things, it's still rather fun and quite addictive.

So, here's the process: first, the kind of machine. It's the V540 by Vendco. These look identical to another Vendco machine, so check the little side plate thingy. They have 12 large buttons with images of the products on them, arranged in three rows of four with a divider in the middle which contains the display area. Know what I'm talking about? Alright, now what you do is press the first, then third, then second, then fourth button in the first row. After words, the first row is cycle through options, the second select, and the third is back. Your options are "sales data," "diagnostic," and "return." Under sales data, you can cycle through statistics for the different selections.

And now for English lesson number three: the word "stealer." This is not an independant, functioning word. You can not be a "stealer," only a thief. You may be a scene stealer, or something like that, however you should rather use the verb with and adjective, i.e. scene stealing basterd.

Friday, February 17, 2006: Insanity is fun!

I bring you salutations and news: February 28th is "Spay Day USA." The ads for it go something like this:

Spay or neuter your children-

It helps them live longer lives

They will have fewer behavioral problems

Orphanages and families spend thousands of dollars on unwanted children

Do it for love-

Unaltered children are more likely to run off

An unaltered female can theoretically produce 9 children in a single gestation

An unaltered male can theoretically produce 78840 offspring in a single year

Or maybe it was pets. I don't know, it makes about as much sense either way. And I love how they use the word "unaltered." I usually use "intact" for unsterilised and or uncircumcised (don't get me started on that...).

But at any rate, any salutation is incmplete without a little bit of abuse. So it's time for English lesson number two! Today's lesson: the word "Celtic." Say this word aloud. How did you pronounce that initial "C"? If you pronounced it like the c in "crop," then find one of those elementary school star stickers and put it on your tongue. If you pronounced it like the "c" in "cinema," punch yourself in the teeth. Then point out this article to whoever you heard that pronunciation from. If you pronounced it like the "C" in Cnidaria, then I don't know what to do with you. It always amazes me that people say they got a "Seltic" cross, yet they don't say that they got it as a "jift." But, that's just my personal irritance. Good bye for now.

Thursday, February 16, 2006: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

I've figured it out. Xanga's spell check is plotting against public honesty and intelligence. I have already spoken of its aversion to swearing and the word "nigger," but that's not the least of its problems. Listen to what it gives as alternates: for "nigger"-snigger, sniggers, nagger, jigger, niggard... for "fuck"-fu ck, fu... get the point? Not only does it not recognize swearing, it does recognize moronic little things people use to get around swear blockers.

In light of such events, I think it's time for an English lesson. Yes, it's a bit unorthodox for a blog, but I'm really sick of people who have lived in an English-speaking nation their entire life not being able to speak the language properly and not even noticing what idiots they're making of themselves.

All right, lesson one: typing words. If you are typing on an instant message program and must reply quickly because your friend may die within the hour, then abbreviations are fine. If your friend is fine, then they are quite a nuisance. If you are talking to me, I will expect you to be beyond that, and may respond to you saying "ic" with "Sorry, I don't speak much Anglo-Saxon. Why did you blurt out 'I'?" But now for the important part: if you are doing a formal writing (and I use the term liberally) such as an e-mail, a blog entry, or anything that will appear on the Internet, they are completely unacceptable. Completely. I am far less likely to take an e-mail, blog entry response, et cetera, seriously if it uses such things (lol included).

Well, I'm out of time. Join me again tomorrow for lesson two!