You know what's amusing? www.azn4life.com. I think the psychedilic music may be a bit overdoing it.

Got The Color of Magic, Maskerade, and Soul Music from the library. I like not being able to drive. I can walk, and it's nice out. Feels like summer. Nothing quite as reliable as my own two feet even though I have a bike and a scooter. Three Discworld books at once may seem a bit overdoing it until you take into account that I can finish those in under a week. In Color of Magic my Vetinari-poo is fat. He must've lost weight over the years.

Finally downloaded "This is How You Remind Me" from Nickelback. That song was really annoying me because I kept hearing it and not knowing its name or the lyrics except for the chorus line.. this is how you remind me.. what I really am..

See which Greek Goddess you are.

Wha? Forest? Me? Mrrph. Em. I'm partial to Athena. But I guess I'm not a lot like her. But Artemis??? Yeah, let's go kill something.

Stupidass ESOL kids. I wish they spoke English- it's fairly annoying when you say something and people stare at you blankly. At least in working in other kid-oriented stuff kids would say stupid things and ask questions and giggle until other adults yelled at them to shut up, or didn't care. I don't mind kids being noisy- it's just annoying when they deny my existance. And, no laser tag. I get the best of both worlds; my parents griping at me about transportation and being Responsible (apparently looking forward to laser tag makes me not concentrate on my community service work and weakens my work ethic) and not going anyways. So basically having them lecture me about a party I didn't go to. Blegh. I was hoping to have an abnormally fun time to balance out an abnormally shitty time today... guess I'll have to tomorrow. Suckage.

My day was pretty crappy. Went off to two elementary schools for community service crud which my mom decided that today would be a good day for, spent six hours with Marie's Mom there yelling at me and kids being stupid. Had to wake up at 7PM today. Better than usual, but still horrible for a free day. The balloon. It says red. Color it red. It's not that hard a concept. Oh, I'm sorry if this isn't the correct way for me to stamp books or taping up posters (amazing- never thought stamping books could be stressful). You'd think there'd only be so many ways to do it. Chairs are too small. Fountains are too small. Storeroom-turned-office that I'm working in is too small. I hate school. I do, however, get the much desired perks of using the staff bathrooms and surfing the net on a teacher's account. Not very perky, considering that I could use my own bathroom and surf the net at home. Popeye's New Orleans jumbalaya is fairly nasty. But biscuits are good. Most lunchtime and commuting conversation with Marie's Mom consisted of "what do you want to major in?" and "what colleges are you thinking about?" and "what are your classmates doing for their services hours?" so it wasn't even like it was something menial to do while chatting pleasantly, like prepping mail or washing crap or cataloguing at Archaeology. Fell asleep coming home. Going back for more community service Wednesday. Spammit. At least tomorrow is my free day. Haven't had a free day since like Yom Kippor, since my mom decided to take off from work all of Thanksgiving, and all of Winter break and then some, and she had off on MLK day. Not that I hate my mom but sometimes I just want a nice, full day when I'm not accountable to anybody and nobody's there to ask me "What are you doing?"

Ow. Alex's party was fun. Many sex jokes. Too much apples to apples. Parents cranky about Lasertag. Don't know what it is. Crankycranky. They think Alex will kill me if he ever tries to drive anywhere and his car will explode into a gaseous ball of flame. Bitched about not knowing where Quince Orchard Shopping Center is. Do now. Rush hour. Don't know when to pick me up. Cranky. Don't know the actual building's name, or the cost. Cranky. Don't know if I can join in late or if it's worth the while, though I can't see why I can't join in if I pay for a vest and gun and be like, 'hey, can I join the dudes in arena 3?'. Must displease gods of laser tag or something. Crankycranky. Going to school tomorrow to do creativity crap. Cranky. Sleep. Cranky cranky, palms hurt, spike. Vetinari is an ugly-ass git in the official art. Cranky. Good bye.

Finished Feet of Clay. Believe I said this already. Disturbing phenomena yesterday. Pratchett describes Carrot being shot through the hand with a crossbow, my left palm starts hurting like hell, only lessens when I dig into it with my fingernails, and after I go to sleep. Felt better this morning, doesn't hurt now. It's a condition with me or something. Describe a piercing injury through the palm in fiction (which happens more often than you think) and my palm hurts. Believe it's called "cognitive--..." uh something or other but it's cuz cognition is closely related to emotion, which can mainfest itself physically or something. Aw whatever. I used to, when I was little, think it was because Jesus didn't want me to forget his crucifiction, which is why I couldn't stand the sight of it and it hurt me. I also have a deathly fear of impalation. Fencing has helped a bit. Only when I stand still when people are doing drills and have to *wait* for people to drive three feet of metal into my chest, that's not very pleasant. I used to think that impaling someone would be rather graceful, sort of like cutting butter, and feel like a quick stab of pain through your body before you die, but now I think it'd be more painful because meat and bone and whatnot has got resistance, and if you're driving this long piece of metal through it, that'd probably require a bit of.. twisting and serating and tearing, even if the actual stabbing would probably be quick. The process is probably quite painful. And you wouldn't die instantly you'd have to wait to bleed to death.

I'm wondering about the nature of Carrot's injuries, depending on what type of crossbow Pratchett was talking about. Eddings seems to describe crossbow bolts as actual metal bolts, which, if something like that hit Carrot in the palm would probably smash all his hand bones and turn it into a bloody pulp. But Pratchett's crossbow bolts seem more like normal arrows. But if that were so then the arrow would probably punch *through* Carrot's hand, ew. And Pratchett doesn't describe him actually pulling the arrow out but next thing you know he's fighting like nothing happened to him, which was very weird in my mind because I imagined Carrot fighting with this bigass arrow still like sticking out of his hand. He doesn't even go for medical attention after the fight. Pratchett must've just forgot about it. Hmm. But the pain in my palm is more like a pricking like someone stuck a compass in it, not like someone smashed my hand with an iron bar, so that must be it. Arrow it is. Damn, hurts again. Knew I shouldn't have started writing about it.

Italian food is overseasoned. But I suppose any food will taste overseasoned to someone used to Chinese Cantonese food.

Meh, haven't had time to blog. Went to Alexandria yesterday and was for some reason awed, despite having been to DC and NYC and Athens and Madrid and Seville and Hong Kong. Highways with skyways crisscrossing over them with a river of cars thunder over and cranes which look really graceful like metal oragami swans and things that gave me an urge to operate heavy machinery. It makes me feel all patriotic. I don't think the Mighty Romans (tm) ever had electric streetlamps, and Charlemagne never got to order a big mac, and the walls of Troy can't beat a flushing toilet. Europe can keep its castles and marble statues; our pride is in the here and now and not what used to be. What I hate about Europe is that it feels like there are the ghosts of too many people there. Everything is if not literally built on the top of something else that was there before, (even the farms and forests) but on the spirit of something there before. That's what makes America different. And the best thing is that all of it is as common as dirt. Maybe some day in a post-apocalyptic world some funny humans will be digging a well and find a gigantic metal frame, and they'll say, "In the Golden Age of the human race, people raised buildings that touched the sky." Actually, this had better not be the Golden Age. Maybe silver or something. Egh. Whatever. This is why I hate blogging the day after I experience something. I should've kept a notepad handy.

No, this is outside Alexandria. Inside Alexandria (downtown) is very odd. It's like someone picked you up and threw you into some colonial .. city.. town.. thing. With cars. And lights. And horses and buggies. It was pleasant though. Just odd. None of the buildings were over 3 stories tall. It looked basically like Annapolis but less ghetto, and my mom said it looked like Georgetown only I've never been there or can't remember it.

Like Ankh-Morpork, but less grubby. Finished Feet of Clay. Annoyed, no Pratchett tomorrow (which I consider to be Monday. Technically it's already Monday, but it's 12:13 am Monday, so I consider it pyschologically still as "Sunday Night.) Must go to library on Tuesday.

Spent all afternoon looking at oil paintings. Oooh, here's a good one! Cleopatra Testing Poisons on Condemned Prisoners.

And reading Guards!Guards! in between loading times. Slow computer. Stoopid. *bap*. My poor Vetinari-poo. This book just makes him a normal, garden variety evil. You know, with black robes and everything. Shame. The good thing about him in Jingo and 5th Elephant was that he was there, but not. You know, like, neutral conniving dude that ran the city but didn't make it clear. But this is an earlier book. It's sort of odd to see all the characters de-evolved, like the literary equivalent of those pictures in textbooks where there's this walking monkey that slowly turns into a walking naked guy, with his dick cleverly concealed by his forward leg. But in reverse.

Oh, and apparently, Vetinari *isn't* married, even though he looks like a bondage freak. Um. Terry Pratchett's words, not mine. "Nothing wrong with whips and needles, in moderation" Good God, is it 4:30 already?

http://www.revolutionsf.com/print.html?id=838.html The Fellowship of the Rings movie novelization. HA!

Woo! 91.3% on my physics exam!!! ROCK!! As opposed to Puffy and Alex, who both got 92's.

Btw, have you ever wondered why they call people "Peers of the Realm"? What're they peers to? I can imagine it now..
"Recently, Prince Harry has been a victim of Peer pressure.."

Alexander the Great: The Anime. Fear. Go to the English site, not the Korean site. On a related note, they've cast Leonardo DiCaprio for the live action big budget movie ALEXANDER. *scream* In all capital letters with the X in a bigger font cuz it looks cool. The anime one isn't actually that disturbing. It's just that it's.. *different*.. and I think it would have been neato if they at least kept some Greek aspects in the visual design, instead of making it all.. X-men-ish. And Leonardo DiCaprio as Alexander is just disturbing.

Poetic justice. "The executioner's working conditions were all but impossible during the Reign of Terror. Blood soaked the scaffold, leaving Sanson and his assistants liable to slip and fall. A pond of blood pooled beneath the scaffold causing a disgusting stench. Rivers of it ran down the cobbled streets. Indeed, in 1792 Charles-Henri saw his own son Gabriel tumble to the ground, sustaining fatal injuries, after skidding in a pool of blood. Afterwards, railings were put up around the scafolds to safeguard executioners."

Hell, even the music is funny. Whee!

Jen's chocolates are yummy. Ghirardelli. If I ate the whole bag, that's be 68% of my day's saturated fat. That's why I only ate like half the bag a few days before. 34%! HA! I have a curse on Morpheus that whenever people upload from me their connection speed slows down to a crawl until everything stops moving.

Discworld music kicks ass. I've downloaded something called "Stick and Bucket Dance". Yeehaw! With a name like that you know it's gots ta be good! And it's happy. Better than the "heavy metal" Lord of the Rings.

Wow, Morpheus has infinite amounts of Discworld crud. ^__^ I think I shall go and cook Discworld pancakes. Yaaayyy! Discworld makes me happy. I know I'm insane, but I really enjoy when I'm obsessed. It always feels like there's something to do or learn, and not in a negative way. It's something I want to do, and there are enough days when I just do whatever without really looking forward to doing anything or just wanting to do anything.

Discworld makes Nick angry. At least when I talk about it. Sad that what makes me happy makes him angry. Could just be his math exam.

The Vision of Escaflowne Choir sounds V. good. Alex had a hard time pronouncing "Escaflowne" (a while back). Can't figure out why for the life of me. Don't think I'll be going to Alex-poo's tomorrow. I'm gamed-out. And too many things I want to do. Like go to the library. And see how Rock Creek Park looks with snow in it.

Vetinari's my bitch.

Sounds like Alex.

"Jingo" has disturbed me. In a good way. Thanks, Nick. No, seriously. I needed that.

Peace on Earth.

My long, semi-philosophical AIM discussion about Pratchett and fictional violence, and responses to it on a message board. I'm Troop. The person with the big "Vetinari for President" graphic.

One man, one vote! My vote! Picture made by CT O'Rourke. Don't sue me. You should be able to see it now, Alex.

Like folksy guitar but more dissonant. And people screaming into the mic.

Wow, heavy metal Lord of the Rings music. But. Blind Guardian isn't that good. Well, people say it's heavy metal. Doesn't sound like heavy metal to me, it sounds like some... I dunno, some folk guitar crud or something.. bleh. I'm glad I didn't spend $20 on a cd.

Which Evil Criminal are You?

Also, if you sign up for something, then *do* it, or take all of five seconds to *unsign* yourself.

The Very Secret Diary of the Fellowship of the Rings has been updated. Pippin. Go pippin. Apparently this Cassie Claire person is the famous Harry Potter fanfic author. Of "Draco Dormiens" fame. Wow, didn't know it was her.

The hell, it's only my psych grade.

I'm taking personal offense at people not coming to the psych experiment. Wankers. I have friends, supposedly, so the least you could do if you're staying after school is drop by for 15 minutes.

As opposed to trying to spend those 15 minutes trying to figure out whether some shards are plastic or ceramics. Wankers. And DON'T say that you're going home and you can't come if you AREN'T going home and you're RIGHT NEXT DOOR for god's sake!

Bah.

Btw, Nick, thanks for the Discworld..

All alone.. without my Terry Pratchett... good thing I have my... calculus...

bah.

Ways to tell that you're in the IB. A contribution to Nick's list. After I smack him in advance for not bringing Discworld tomorrow so I get to sit at the ride-on bus stop all cold and lonely with that weird guy with the creepy eyebrows.

You know you're IB when you're bourgeois and you can spell it.

(not that I can)

neeed... moreeeee.. disssscwwwooorlllld... Whaddya wanna bet Nick is gonna forget "Jingo" tomorrow? I should remind him. Loudly. Wolfgang is kinda cute. In a deranged homicidal werewolf type way. Yes, I finished "Fifth Elephant", which actually has nothing to do with an elephant. Watch me flunk my math test tomorrow too. Too many tests. It's not that I don't care, it's just that it wouldn't surprise me. BTW, yes, frictional coefficient is 2.3. They should have something for books called a "fictional coefficient" represented by the made up Greek letter "Moo", the amount by which disbelief is suspended. If it's 0, the thing slides right down. If it's.. say.. 2.3, disbelief is not only not suspended, it plummets through the center of the earth and out the other side. It's not a measurement of how outlandish a book is, just how well the writer can carry it off. Like, Discworld is fine, despite it hurting my head whenever I think of a world without a horizon. But some novels really push it... "Look! A giant ferret falls out the sky and rips the villain to shreds!" (I swear to God I'm not making this up) ... "Look! My wand has a never-before-mentioned unique quality of creating beams of golden light when the Bad Guy comes!" Fictional coefficient times the mass of the book = the amount of force needed to get me to read the damn thing.

Downloading Lord of the Rings soundtrack stuff from Morpheus. Because I'm too cheap to get the actual soundtrack. Ooh. I love the Evil music.

I ate a bag of carrots. What an accomplishment.

The Geek Chart. And ain't it true?

You know, I'm starting to like my blog as it is, with its fucked up template. It's sort of.. unique... and also, it has the widest display space. I think I'll leave it as it is, so I won't have to be bothered to move my comments. The little that there are. Wow, I'm such a comments bitch.

DISCWORLD! DISCWORLD! Gosh that's fun to say! DISCWORLD!

People are uploading from me on Morpheus. I feel so loved, even if they are cancelling their downloads halfway through.

You know what's sad? Half of the comments on this blog are mine. Also, I know I should be doing work, but I don't care. Or sleeping. whatever.

I'm The Lord of the Rings Character Test!

I like to think that everyone is really a character in my strange fictional world - I don't care if no-one outside it has a clue what I'm on about.

Click here to find out which test you are!

Something that's garaunteed to scare the shit out of you. Honest to God. Just stare at the picture for like a minute. And don't blame me if you get a heart attack and die.

Hey, have you guys been to Bad Candy? It's cool.

Wow, I'm in a fowl mood. Fowl. I'm hungry, cuz I'm blogging at lunch. And Nick is sitting next to me blogging too but not hisv iydxf ah!!! stop! my keyboard! ;bkulaty ahhhH!!!!! his public blog. It's his private "sweet alliealliechu"jb uvuy7 vhycf blog. HAEY!

That was classic.

Why is it that when I ask people "Why?" people think I'm being argumentative? You'd think that if someone said no to an idea because of one aspect to the idea, if you changed that aspect, they'd be all rigiht. If they didn't like the whole idea at all, they should just tell me so so I stop pissing in the wind. Figuratively.

Gondor has no pants! Gondor NEEDS no pants!

Speaking of candy. Gordon Y was talking today about virginal blood. I was stupid enough to ask why virgins bleed. EW EW EW!

But you know what's funny? The Bad Candy site

Nobody pays any attention to my Blog unless I say something funny. That's like real life. I'm not a funny person at all, it's just that people force me to be. I hate being funny. I can be the comic relief while someone else goes off and saves the world and lovers die in each other's arms and Dark Lords corrupt people and people corrupt themselves and wars are fought and lives are lost and lives are gained. So I can sit around on my ass making fart jokes. Suckage.

I ignored him, and Andrew went away. Damn, that was easy.

http://www.angelfire.com/rant/suburbanlegends/license.jpg LooK! I made it myself! Also, Angelfire is being a butt, so I can't link to it or post it on my Blog.

Is Legolas Hot or Not? Poll courtesy me. You're welcome.

I don't think Mario has any actual plumbing skills.

What to do about Andrew "The Bastard"? Not Andrew "The Patterson" though I think that if they met it would be interesting.

Okay, so I'm on the bus with Alex, and Andrew the Bastard (as we've dubbed him) is all like SHUT UP, none of you talk! But we're talking, and we ignore him. (I don't know what sort of crack he's smoking.. he's a group of freshman guys, like three, we're like one junior girl and one junior guy. It's REALLY bad form to harass people who're *older* than you, especially when they're IB people and won't do anything violent to you to make you look tough. Maybe they'll bugger your graphing calculator.) I guess I could fire his ass if he ever worked for a company I run. But that's unsatisfying.

But we just kept talking, and Alex was rolling his eyes and was like, *mumble* why are people so immature. Which obviously wasn't making him go away. It does in tv shows, where if you ignore or stand up to a bully, they go away. Which is the most unhelpful advice I've ever been given. (i mean, if he were the type to go away if people stand up to him, he wouldn't be harassing people two grades older than him) So he was interupting us and was like, "SHUT UP! I told you all to shut up! STOP TALKING." Personally I think it would've been better if Alex had just talked over him instead of acting exasperated, but whatever.

So then Andrew is like, "I want you to slap me" and sticks his cheek like six inches from my face. And I'm like,
"Why?"
And he's like, "Because I want you to." And I'm like,
"Why?"
and then another one of his groupies is like, "You should SO do it!" and I'm like
"Why don't you do it then?"
and he's like, "Because I want to get bitchslapped by a GIRL. Guys don't slap, they punch."
I, like a dumb hick, says, "Why?"
and he says, "Because I like the pain!"

So I spit in his face.

This is where Alex ran off the bus.

he (andrew) spits back on me again, but it wasn't a very good spit wad, because I was planning it so I had more time to prepare and collect.

So anyways, he's like, "Tomorrow, I'm going to spit on you! I'm gonna fill a milk jug! And I'll piss in it, and pour it on your head!" (I doubt he has that much piss or spit. If he does, I'll be amazed) And then he got off at his stop while patting at his unslapped cheek.

The stop IS at his house. I think he does have a death wish, because if I wanted to I could bike over there and egg it.

But I'm not violent or a vandal. I'm thinking of wearing a raincoat/bringing an umbrella tomorrow, or bringing in a milk jug.

I took Alex's Lord of the Rings character test. I'm Sam. I'm flattered.

I am Kong. Strong and passionate, I tend to be misunderstood, sometimes even feared. I don't want to fight, I don't want to cause trouble, all I ask is a little love, and a little peace. If I don't get what I want, I get angry, and throw barrels and flaming oil at whatever's stopping me. What Video Game Character Are You?

http://www.bossmonster.com/e4/cricket/cricket.html This is definitely not cricket. BTW, Alex, I finally got my Christmas present from my sister, Sluggy's sixth book. I'll show you the Ayn Rand storyline.

You know what will be a very difficult drawing study? Nick S in drag. I'm doing it for a "back issue" of Skank Mag, since Nick B has requested more porn. Hmmph, and he doesn't even take the time to laminate them. I don't want him to soil my beautiful covers. (BTW, Life Sucks, their is no Hope in this World, angst angst, the System is drowning me. Etc. Old news.)

It's hard drawing porn. And don't even think of that as a pun. I just can't get poses and skin texture shading right. I guess the first step in learning to draw is learning to see things, instead of drawing what you think you see. And then the next step is drawing things in 3d on a 2d medium, like, learning how to put the basic geometric shapes that constitute every object on paper. Which is where I'm at now. Now I need to learn the subtleties of lighting and texture. I think that's maybe my new goal in life. That and becoming a porn artist.

J. Ro's prediction was correct. Apparently, the Marquis de Sade *did* use tongs. Heated tongs. BUT. Since none of you who read this are in my history class you wouldn't know what I was talking about. Dammity. Aleeeexxxxxx.... get betterrrrr. Yes, history is fun again. It's more Alcibiades type stuff and cones and less 'the grain taxes in 1521' type stuff. Monday! Marie Antoinette's cleavage! Physics is moderately entertaining too. Black holes! I guess it's sort of loserly of me to be talking about school. But really, it's my main... thing. I spend 6 hours a day going there, all my friends are from there, I plan my schedule around it, down to when I eat, I do more homework at night... since I'm getting a free education (you could argue my sanity as the price, but that was Hell Week before winter break, not now), I might as well enjoy it.

I saw 60 minutes about the Lost Boys of Sudan, a bunch of young African men who had their parents killed and were chased out of their homes by the civil war when they were little kids and had to walk through the desert until they got to a refugee camp. Now a lot of them are coming to the States. It makes me wonder what *we* get depressed for. Maybe it's that we figure out that there's more to life than having a safe roof over our heads and three meals a day and a bed. But there's a lot of opportunity here too. We just have to know where to look for it.

I'm happy. I feel I'm getting back into the swing of things again. As opposed to Nick S, who is hitting his "Depressed" phase. Strange. It's going to snow on Sunday! Woo! That makes me happy.

Which Lord of the Rings character are you?

#1: Eowyn (My favorite!) #2: Grima Wormtongue #3: Barliman Butterbur #4: Boromir #5: Denethor #6: Frodo Baggins #7: Gimli #8: Legolas #9: Eomer #10: Samwise Gamgee (Sam) #11: Treebeard (Fangorn) #12: Faramir#13: Peregrin Took (Pippin) #14: Saruman #15: Arwen (this is the BOOK Arwen, not the movie Arwen) #16: Meriadoc Brandybuck (Merry) #17: Lord of the Nazgul (Witch-King of Angmar) #18: Bilbo Baggins #19: Gollum (Smeagol) #20: Sauron #21: Galadriel #22: Theoden #23: Elrond #24: Aragorn (Strider) #25: Gandalf Mithrandir

Well, the results are all over the place.

Poke the Bunny!

Wow, I did exceptionally unwell on the physics retake. I mean, for a retake. And possibly for a test in general. Nick gave me a giant gelt piece. So now i have more in my meagre stash of Christmas goodies. Woo. If I ever get around to it I'm going to write a poem on black holes.

Take the What Should Your New Year's Resolution Be? Quiz

ORC! It's what's for dinner!

Lord of the Rings is a kickass movie. Just for the record. Also. Does ANYONE know what parts of Palmer we're supposed to read? I'm reading the chapter on the French Revolution, which is what I xeroxed because I left my Palmer at school, so I borrowed Alex's temporarily. I shall be immensely pissed if this is not the chapter.

I really hate the way Asian (meaning Chinese because God knows Indonesian or Thai culture can't be conveniently packaged and commercialized) culture is mass marketed. Somewhere along the way, stupid pricks have decided that the pinnacle of Asian culture is tiny bansai trees and zen gardens and ying yangs and misty mountains and mysterious dragons and rice paper screens and trendy characters that you print on shirts or tattoo on your arm without knowing what they mean. You know, PF Chang and Crouching Tiger stuff. (either that, or from the way movies put it, military secrets ) It's not necessarily bad, it's just false. The "Orient" is as about as mystical and exotic as my armpits. The essence of China is being loud and crowded and smelly, haggling for chicken in a bustling marketplace or fighting for the last piece of pork on a platter with four generations of extended family or little kids begging for gifts and attention on New Years from family friends. Chineseness is the most ghetto and commonplace thing in the world if you want to rely on the opinion of billions of people all around the world, not some $50 designer Soothing Fountain especially made for Americans with a lot of money.

If I see a certain someone with her fake Chinese satin jacket eating some fake Chinese eggrolls with some fake "Orange Sauce" talking about how the fake Chinese fighting on the fake Chinese sets in Crouching Tiger was SO COOOOOL...

I am going to toss my fake Chinese non-fortune cookies.

I am not *offended*. Just severely annoyed.

Last day of Kung fu. Woohoo! Good. Now I can actually do some fun excercise, like Dance Revolution.

Morpheus hates me. It won't let me get an account and it keeps cutting me off in the middle of downloads. And it's slow as @#$. Spacie made me download some weird R&B thing that's only 4 minutes long but took 40 minutes to download. Well, at least now I have some semi-hip music on my computer.

I thought the holidays would suck because my mom would be home from work and hence with me 24/7, but it hasn't. It's been nice. Most of all, it's been nice to feel like I totally don't have anything to do. Well, I do, but it doesn't matter right. Now. Ah, the luxury of time.

There, Alex. I blogged.

I must have the lowest proportion of comments per word per blog. I feel crummy. Willard e-mailed my mom saying I failed the physics test. #$%^

People ought to realize that if you don't DO any math, your math scores will suck. Your verbal is high because you read books and newspapers and magazines in your spare time, because you watch plays and perform in plays, and because you practice your English every time you blog or IM a friend. I doubt you do equations for fun or IM your friends with the latest algebraic puzzler, so until you do, don't gripe about how low your math skillz are. You reap what you sow. I suppose a more positive way to put it is that it's not that your math sucks, it's that your Verbal is exceptionally good. I have a very long rant about this. For later, because if I blog anymore tonight, you faithful readers will go blind.

I got a 1450. I got a 1570 on the test in 10th grade, so my mom's been expecting me to get one again. Bitchnagwhinemoangripeangst. Done. Thank you.

Newton kicked ass. Go David. I've been drawing RPG character portraits for people. They're so murderously annoying, I wonder why I do it. I just figured out that on the human face, I have a tendency to draw people's noses too close to their mouths. Damn. Everyone when they're drawing has a fluke of some sort. Some people can't draw hands, some people draw foreheads too small, eyes too wide apart, can't shade, can't draw in perspective, can't draw backgrounds, all their people look the same.. *coughFrankChocough*.. well, there's mine.

Ah, Unofficial Chinese Movie Weekend. If you believe everything in Chinese movies, Japanese people are incredible retards. "Let's shoot at this flaming plane about to crash-land on me with a MACHINE GUN!" Actually, if you believe everything in Chinese movies, Americans are also incredible retards. "LOOK! GUYS! I GOT A TRUCK!" (in the middle of a canyon to a bunch of rebels who're trying to HIDE)

Once Upon A Time in China 3 was good though. Pretty damn good dub. WOO! Wong fei hong! He was the little boy in Iron Monkey (who was actually played by a girl) but grown up. Mad kungfu action. And everybody was... kung fu fiiighting... The Forbidden City in Beijing looks real weird without that large tacky painting of Mao. There were some good movie quotes.

"This is a cultural association, not a kungfu school!" (Master of the Cantonese Cultural Association, about being challenged to a kungfu contest by a rival school of Lion Dancers. They then procede to have some mad kungfu action).

"That's the third time this month. We're used to it." -Random dude about how his town seems to be the center of a bunch of arbitrary kung fu fights, injury, and property destruction.

"What am I, a trained monkey?" -Wong Fei Hong about being filmed for a kung fu movie.

"In Russia, we don't kiss the man's hand." -Russian Villain dude (GOD he was long-winded, like me. "The camera was a gift from me. I reserve the right to take it back. History will give us perspective. I cannot escape my destiny, nor can you yours. For hundreds of years the Han people have resented the rule of the Manchurians, and yet, you accept them like your own today. It gives me cause to think that the Chinese will eventually accept foreign rule. I am sorry but I must kill you, blah blah blah.... steam engine blah blah blah... industrial revolution blah blah blah.." No wonder he never got around to actually killing anyone. He was good-looking though).

"It's unhygenic." -Wong Fei Hong about kissing ladies' hands.

Also. MAD RICKSHAW HIJACKING ACTION!

My Descartes roleplay was quite ghetto. Just the paper towel frill collar was ghetto. Alex and Lianna understood that it wasn't supposed to be a bib, but I don't think anyone else did. And no, I didn't kick Aristotle's ass. What a sucky-ass week. I did cruddy on my calculus test too, and I haven't fetched my PSATs. It isn't on the list of 'worst mornings of my life', but it was still pretty cruddy. I shouldn't really complain about ghetto costumes. *cough tychobrahe cough*.

But I'm happy now. Because I took a long walk around the block (rhyming!), and Christmas is prettiness. I think the pagans just invented a holiday so that they'd have a reason to be happy during the winter. I'm gonna do my shopping afterschool tomorrow. The world sort of looks all nasty and gray at first, which is why I didn't take a walk until I really needed one, but really, it's pretty in an austere Zen garden way, with bare rocks and bare trees rising straight, and the grass turning yellow but some still green and the pastel houses really cheerful with their Christmas lights and poinsettas and ribbons and tacky American flags. It's not as OBVIOUSLY pretty as the plant reproductive organ craziness of spring, or the fertility of summer, or the artistic death motif of fall, but it's pretty in a subtle way.

I think the sun makes me happy- I haven't gotten a lot of sunshine this week. It must be my.. whatever was on the psych test. Circadian cycle. Because I always get happier after taking walks when I'm depressed. The sun was sort of silvery, not gold like I like, but whatever, I'll take what I can get. And sunset was splendoriffic too, because the sky gets less steel grey as the sun sets (around four, unfortunately), and turns into a deep blue, like the type you only see in the summer. And then the edges of the clouds turn pale gold, and part of the sky turns pink. A winter sunset. I'll have to see more of those, even though I like the bright pink/orange of summer or the deep purple sunsets more.

Mother Nature: Everyone's a critic.

Me: Shut your face. (Can you believe it? I'm fucking reviewing Mother Nature, just like a movie or something)

Maybe it's not the sun. Maybe I just like walking, and looking into the distance, and seeing a destination in front of me as I walk. I like.. motion parallax (*everyone in psych groans*). Seriously. I like seeing how the colors revolve around a single point in the distance and stuff. It has to be a place; I can't just walk on a treadmill. In any case, I'm glad to know that it's nearing the winter solstace. It's reassuring to know that the days get longer after that, and that I only have to bear with this darkening world of mine for a little while more.

I'm not putting up my "If I Were A Horrible Affliction" Test results. They're disgusting. I'm gonorrhea. Fucking A. BUT. I will put up this. Go there.

Strawberry: 30/100 Pear: 20/100 Banana: 80/100 Tomato: 10/100 Lemon: 5/100

Take the What Fruit Are You? test by webkin and aaronr!

Hell, the sun sets at 4 now anyways. Goddammit.

You know what, Palmer? You may not be as pretty as Enduring Vision or as softly-bound as Amsco, and you may be really boring and Francophilic and look god-awful in that speckled pink rebound cover of yours, but deep inside, you have a heart of gold. God knows that's why you're so heavy. You're the only book that doesn't insult my intelligence and is mildly interesting. I love you, man. Good night, Palmer.

Damn, it's only the middle of the afternoon.

Actually, if you consider the amount of time I spend involved with history, philosphy, and mathematics, I really spend more time with a bunch of dead people than I do with the living.

You know what I need to do? At the end of senior year, I am going to send a large, lacy thank you card to the guy who wrote Palmer. You know like, "Oh my god, I love you, I'm your greatest fan. You've given me so much quality education in European history, how can I possibly repay you???" The last being a rhetorical statement. I'll just send him crappy chocolates. "I have all your albums, and am ardently looking forward to your newest releases. PS: Can I have your autograph??? It would mean the Ptolemaic world to me. -Yours truly... Mr. Thomas" No. Haha, I'm kidding about the last part, but I'll send the rest of the card. I just hope this Mr. Palmer hasn't kicked the bucket already, or I'll be severely pissed. You know what's sad? I spend more collective time with Palmer than with my online semi-sortof-boyfriend. (Hi, Vass, I know you read this.)

ARISTOTLE, YOU ARE GOING DOOOWWWWNNN! DOOWWWWN, DO YOU HEAR ME??? Me and my friend Copernicus are going to bash in your pathetic little celestial balls and kick your inductive empiricist Greek ass until your prime mover REALLY hurts in the morning!

PS Dammit, I will feel really stupid if Aristotle isn't an empiricist.

I am an Alien Autopsy. My raging belligerant mustard synchronises with spherically verbose participles. I enlist lava by shrinking lenticular disturbances. Loose network steam requires my fortunate lips. What monkeys dispute rearranged plasma? The Utterly Surreal Test

Oh good lord. Translations From Ebonics

AGHHH!!!! richelieu.blogspot.com is still UP!!!! I THOUGHT I DELETED THAT ABOMINATION! In any case, I've lost the ability to edit it from my account. Save meeee...

I was randomly looking up ICQ people. Nick B's ICQ name is Ninja Spud, but his info still says he's 15. Nick S's ICQ name is Random, and it says he's 14. Maybe mentally, buttt....

Andrew P's, David B's, Alex R's, and Michael R's were too common to discern who was who. There were a bunch of Jennifer S's, one of whom possibly could be her, but I'm not sure. I found Bob G's ICQ... Boudicca.

I went to church *again*. For the violin recital rehearsal. I swear to god, one of the guys there was Christine's pastor from Agape. Yeah, Christine dragged me off to a Bible reading session on Thursday. Well not dragged, I sort of volunteered. Anyways, I swear it was him. He was 'speaking in tongues' and healing the sick or exorcising demons or whatever. It was disturbing.

Shpachee went back to UM so I went with her to drop her off. Then her parents drove around the campus so that I could look at it. It was real pretty at sunset, with the sky reflected in the puddles and everything and Christmas stuff up, and colonial buildings and crud. Except for the fact that a bunch of trees were snapped like toothpicks from the tornado, the one that touched down in UM a week after September 11. The wrecked cars are all cleaned up though. Shpachee showed me a section of the stairway in front of Easton Hall, one part of which was made from dark red brick, and the other light red. Apparently, the light red brick is the part of the stairs that collapsed in the tornado, and was rebuilt in light red brick. She and her dad were in the tornado. I was talking to her online like 15 minutes before it happened. Apparently, people started screaming in her dorm, and someone's window got busted, the electricity went out, and everyone started running like hell. They got evactuated to the basement, where there was... a gas leak. So they got evacuated outside.

I can't believe UM has 26,000 students. I mean, RM has 2000 students already, so I can concieve of a college having 26,000, but it's still mind-boggling. The town it's in is called University City for good reason, I guess. And I can't believe UM is so close to Blair and Eastern. Eastern is being renovated. I never want to see that shit school again anyways, nonetheless.

If I were a James Bond villain, I would be Max Zorin. I enjoy horse racing, pretending to be sane, and setting off cataclysmic earthquakes. I am played by Christopher Walken in A View to a Kill. Who would you be? James Bond Villain Personality Test

Yeah RIGHT. That's just crazy. Man. I'm not even hot!

If I were a work of art, I would be Claude Monet's Waterlilies. I am soft and gentle, but very colourful. Although based in reality, I look at the world through a filter of impressions which shape how I see things. Splashes of light help to define my presence and bring an endearing quality. Which work of art would you be? The Art Test

Judging from this and Alex's Art Test, I think these things are only loosely accurate.

Wow. I really f----ed up my template. Joy.

More Musketeerisms.

Take a sip every time..

Milady de Winter looks real skanky. Actually, scratch that; she always looks skanky. Take a sip every time she has way too much eyeliner on.
The movie takes on Communist/AynRandWouldHateThis connotations. ("Let's redistribute this wealth!", "Please have mercy! I was only stealing to feed my starving children!")
Louis the XIII exudes Teenage Angst/ looks Moony-Eyed at Anne of Austria. Drink the cup if she looks Moony-Eyed back.
D'artagnan does/says something really really stupid. ("I wanna be a musketeer!")
A musketeer conveniently has some crazy weaponry on hand. (Swiss army knife, bola, crossbow, pistol, etc.)
Bad Guys get hurt when things fall on them. (Take two sips if that falling object is a musketeer and the victim is one of the Cardinal's guards on horseback. Down the whole cup if the falling object is a chandelier.)
The moviemakers bludgeon the Dante's Inferno Metaphor to death in Richelieu's Flaming Underground Dungeon (tm). (Why is there a flaming lake??? Why is there a black-robed ferryman in that flaming lake??? What possible practical use could that have?)
Richelieu wears armor.
Someone performs a move that would make a modern fencer explode. (Ie, circular motion of the wrist and enemy is disarmed, hacking indiscriminately at people tree cutting style, doing random somersaults, punching people in the middle of a sword fight etc.)
Someone reloads a pistol in 3 seconds flat.
Property damage ensues.
A Bad Guy is actually a Good Guy in disguise.
Someone sheathes his needle thin blade in a needle thin scabbard without even looking, and manages not to stab himself.
A Bad Guy tries to stab a Good Guy with a dagger, but the Good Guy catches the Bad Guy's wrist. They start what looks a lot like arm wrestling.
Bad Guys cannot swim. Which is historically accurate, but still amusing. Dammit. Richelieu doesn't even bubble!

Yet another unofficial movie weeked. I saw Shrek, which was good, and "Three Musketeers", which was bad. I usually like bad movies, but not this one. It was funny because it was so bad though. Here, for your entertainment, is the "Three Musketeers" drinking game!

One sip every time...

D'artagnan is pronounced with a bad American accent.
Cleavage is shown.
Someone is stabbed tastefully off camera.
Richelieu is obviously horny/ uses bad pickup lines on much younger women. ( in a creepy voice, "It's too bad that I am a man of God, but I am a man nonetheless"...). Yes. It really is as disturbing as it sounds.
Richelieu pauses in his sentences to use understatements. (ie, "The loss of your other eye could be... inconvenient", "I'm sure your birthday celebration will be... memorable")
Rochefort snarls gutterally.
These movie makers could be sued for animal cruelty (flogging the horses like crazy, shooting at them with cannon balls, etc)
Bad Guys who have guns (which appear arbitrarily when the plot calls for them) have hella bad aim. (ie, the musketeers are on horseback galloping through a field IN A STRAIGHT LINE, and the castle nearby with cannons can't even hit them! What the @#$)

I'll add more later when I can think of them.

For your entertainment! Crouching Tiger, Hidden Communist Pig-Dogs!!

It would be funny if, in the basement of our school, we had an Underground Cafeteria or something. That served real food in secret to the poor, and you needed a password and everything. And the cafeteria ladies would wear aviator goggles and trenchcoats and randomly yell, "VIVE LE RESISTANCE!"

I'm in school, blogging. I feel like such a rebel. Last night's two Atlas Shrugged blogs didn't come out on the blog page yet, but they're visible on my editting page. So I'll see if they show up later. The Phantom Menace Soundtrack is quite rocking. But now I'll forever affiliate the Star Wars theme song with Halley's Fifth Concerto.

Enlightenment RP's annoy me. Stress. It's funny that I play Role Playing Games all the time, but Role Playing, God forbid. I sort of like acting but I have chronic fears that I can't act. I had a dream that I was playing a part in Hamlet but I was really bad and Nick B was like, "You're the worst actress I've ever seen". And I was like.. noooo. And I forgot all my lines on the night of the performance so I had to use the script, only the script kept morphing in my hands, to Romeo and Juliet, and then to Macbeth if I flipped the book upside down.

HAHAHAHA!!! I FINISHED READING ATLAS SHRUGGED! I AM THE GREATEST! I AM THE GREATEST! WOOOOOO! ALL 1074 PAGES OF IT EXCEPT FOR THAT STUPID SPEECH!!!! WOOO! AND DESPITE THE FACT THAT THE BACK COVER IS HANGING ON TO THE REST OF THE BOOK BY A FEW DUCT TAPE FIBERS!!!

(poor Eddie Willers)

Alex's Party was cool. Puffy can dance. I'm not sure if he can dance *well*, but he can dance. I'm sorry, Malex, for making the windows in your basement fog up. And we'll replace your cushions. Eventually. The day the music died.

Unofficial Movie Weekend continues! Saw Knight's Tale. His Noble Lady was most irritating. It was funny though. Except it actually took some effort to understand the British-ish accents. And seeing Geoffrey Chaucer naked shall traumatize me forever. MORE JOUSTING ACTION! HAHA! Villains rock.

My parents can make such odd comments about the Phantom Menace. Here goes.

"If Queen Amidala is a queen, then where's her husband?"/ "This looks so much like New York. How do they land the ship with the buildings so close together?" (about Coruscant)/ "Why do they have to land at Tatooine?"/ "Why do people live on Tatooine anyways?"/ "What do you mean the Gungans are speaking English?"/ "Oh, so those are robots?" (about the droid army)/ "Why is Qui-Gon in two pieces?" (about Darth Maul)/ "Is he the king of this planet?" (about Jabba the Hutt)/ "You mean this galaxy has two governments?" (about why the Republican guard and the Naboo Royal Guard are different)/ "They sound Japanese." (On reports of accusations of racism because the Nimoidians have Asian accents)/ "This reminds me of 'Journey to the West.' Why does it take American filmmakers 20 years to do what Chinese filmmakers have been doing for a long time?" (about flying people)/ "Why is there a palace? That doesn't fit a high-tech film."/ "It's the Sea Dragon King and his Shrimp Troops" (about Boss Nass and his hanger-ons, a reference to the undersea kingdom in the Chinese epic, 'Journey to the West', but sounds odd in English)/ "Who's that burning?" (about Qui-Gon's funeral altar)/ "Why did the robots all stop moving?"

Yeaaah. My parents are pretty clueless when it comes to sci-fi.

Hmm. Idle thoughts. I have her boss' e-mail.

My mom can be insufferably stupid. She doesn't believe me when I say that trains were invented before cars. This would be.. tolerable.. if she weren't a civil engineer.

My parents have been screwing around with our new DVD player. So it's been the unofficial movie weekend for us. Saw the Fandom Menace again and enjoyed it as much as I did the first time. I was awed and boggled like a liddle kiddy. I noticed/felt different things from when I saw it the first two times, which makes me think that movie reviews are totally arbitrary, depending on your mood when you see the movie. Critics and their pretentious crap piss me off. So it was pretty good for what it was worth, though I woulda changed some things. Like push Jake Lloyd and his stupid midochlorians off a cliff. Anyways. Here are some things you probably didn't notice/know..

The pattern on the ceiling of Anakin's room is the same pattern on Darth Maul's face-
One of the guys sitting in the crowd at the pod racing scene is Warwick Davis, who place Warwick the Ewok in Return of the Jedi.
The pod racing crowd scene was created by blowing multi-colored q-tips with a blow dryer.

And some other stuff you don't care about. Anyhoo.