I checked at Damn Yankees. Apparently, Alex is alive. Whoopeeee. "Shoeless Joe" is stuck in my head.

I had a dream that Alex was run down by a car and died. Afterwards, we'd (meaning the juniors) would be at school and doing school stuff and we'd see things that reminded us of Alex, and places he'd been, and things he'd never finished. It would make us happy at first to remember him, and sad because then we'd have to remember that he wasn't there and he wouldn't be coming back. And also, I was wondering where he was, since he was dead and if there was an afterlife, and that made me sad too because I knew that he'd probably be really excited at having found out the answer to the Life, the Universe, and Everything, and wanting to tell us, and it sounded so much like Alex. And I said, "Did you hear about Alex?" to people and Jen said, "Yeah" and I told Andrew said that it wasn't so painful to understand what happened to him, but more that someone could intentionally do something like that. And then Nick S said something modern and nonsensical.

I'm glad you're alive, Alex.

Waking up crying is so much worse than waking up screaming- when I was little, I'd just have nightmares of monsters in the basement. I don't know why my dreams have to grow up as I do.

Nick is nasty and cynical. I want to smack him very hard. I know he's been having a hard time. So I feel guilty about wanting to smack him very hard. And I want to smack him very hard for inadvertantly making me feel guilty for wanting to smack him very hard. And I feel guilty about that too.

The Angry Lesbian and Orson Scott Card. Tell me, do people take classes to purposefully misinterpret what someone else says, each and every time??? This lady.. okay, OSC says something like, "Anti-rape laws are so much more strictly enforced now than they were 25 years ago." And the interviewer lady decides that Orson Scott Card is a mad serial Nazi rapist. Hello!

You know what's better than sex? Reading Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow simultaneously. OH yeah!

I can understand why John Ashcroft was concerned about having his picture taken in front of the statue of Justice. Her bronze bosom is rather distracting, so I can see the Attorney General's motivation for keeping it covered with a $8000 drape. After all, whenever I see John Ashcroft, I think, "God, what a giant boob!"

I feel the need to write this because most of my blog is me ranting about stuff, not what actually goes on in my life. It's such a shitty excuse for a diary in that respect- I won't be able to read this over several years later and remember things that happened, because I never write about them.

Quote of Yesterday:
(while writing thank you letters to the mentally ill patients who talked to us at Springfield Hospital)
Alex Dudley: Dear Walter... thank you for talking to us.. we had a crazy time..

I think I did go insane. Springfield Hospital was as boring as mud. I was (unsensitively, probably) hoping/expecting that it'd be like at Bellavue, with loony people yelling, "I HATE THIS PLACE. THE MEDICINES DON'T WORK. I'VE BEEN HERE FOR SEVEN YEARS. I HATE THIS PLACE." but it was a nice, happy place. With really boring staff members making presentations. Though the guy who talked to us, Walter, was really cool once you got past the fact that he had a hard time talking because his meds got his tongue swollen. Now that I think of it, he wasn't really as funny as we all remember him (having gotten our group to break out into spontaneous laughter), it's just that he was really cheerful and animated, and the mood spread. And when asked about the opportunities for patients to have relationships, a staff member said that they didn't officially condone relationships but some patients would go out on the hospital grounds for "bush therapy." That brought the house down. But it's not as funny when I tell it. Nothing ever is.

Springfield looked/felt like an elementary school. It was the horrid yellow bricks. Rob had suspected it used to be a college, but it wasn't- it was always a mental institution. I still wouldn't like to live there. It was, however, unlike RM for the last two days, completely air conditioned.

The bus ride was real good. It was fun talking to Rob but Nick was cranky and antisocial on the (airconditioned charter) bus the whole time, and just slept. The scenery was marvellously pretty (I suppose anything's pretty in spring), even though Rob observed that landscapes like that were a dime a dozen in Maryland. I don't think that's a bad thing.

But we got back by seventh period and I ended up going to math anyways even though I just could've skipped, and I didn't have my homework or my AP problem done because I hadn't expected to be going to seventh. See, see, it's not irresponsible like when you don't do your homework because it might snow the next day. On the sheet, it said that we were excused from seventh, so I'd thought the night before that I wouldn't have to go to math and didn't do my homework. And I didn't get to feel morally superior to the people who did skip either, because the only reason I didn't skip was because I thought other people would go, and give me away. Oh, and Mr. Willard said I couldn't retake the physics heat test at all because I already used up two Mulligans last quarter, and I think I'm getting a C. So I was real cranky. Heat does that to me.

But I did good on today's math test. Wazzah. Thus ends my boring, boring blog entry. I'm beginning to see why I don't talk about my life much.

Shall say that most irritating line, because it fits.. "Hot enough for ya??" I should have brought that water shpritzer to school.

Finished Time After Time. Better than I could write, but one of the worst books I've read in a while. Someone needs to learn how to plot.
Am now reading Ender's Shadow. Makes me feel a bit dumb and depressed, but fortunately it's not One of Those Weeks (Days, Months, Years, insert one of those times), so it won't make me UberDepresssed. This book needs a catharsis though. You can't be angsty all the time. I wonder if Orson Scott Card is chronically depressed. It occurs to me that I'm probably of below average intelligence, since there seems to be a difference between being intelligent and being educated, and I'm the latter. Took a look at IQ tests and ilk in Psych, and they basically seem to be a tests of basic spatial and verbal skills, which seems more like education than actual intelligence... having a solid grasp of situations even while being in the midst of them, being able to know people and know where they stand, using information objectively and analytically, knowing what course of action to take and how to go through with it, and how people/things are likely to respond to it. Aka, Ender. I'm pretty clueless. I'm glad I'm dumb though- I imagine being smart sucks. But if Scott Adams is to be believed, imagining being smart is pretty pointless too, because it's impossible.. like being a bug on a 2D plane trying to imagine the third dimension. Hell.

Bloody hell. Came in to school at 6:25 in the morning to retake the physics test (cuz I'm going on the psych field trip and won't be here at lunch) but Mr. Willard forgot, and was displeased with me dropping in on his room at like, the Crack Of Dawn (tm). So I'm taking it tomorrow at lunch, but still got saddled with hanging out randomly at school for 45+ minutes. Spent it sitting next to the elevator on the third floor watching people come in. I can sympathize with guards on night watch now. Honestly, it'd probably be less boring to just fall asleep. I spent some time making profiles of people.. 'blonde white girl, hair in pony tail, pink tube-top, khaki pants.' A note about descriptions. You really can't see people's eye color from far away. You just can't. I don't see why people consider eye color so integral in descriptions of people, since it's basically worthless.

The ship drawing tutorial. Step 1. "Get a good book on elementary perspective which can be understood." DOH! -_-

It's sort of funny. It's like a "Shakespeare for Dummies" thing or something. Shakespeare for Dummies... Step 1. Learn to read.

I found this particularly amusing, though probably no one else will.

Text based Pong
3D Pong

You Know You're From the DC Metro Area When..."

You say you're from DC, but you actually live in VA or MD but are too embarrassed to say it.
Coke is always called coke. It's not soda or pop, or even soda pop. As in "Hey do you want a coke?" "Yes, what do you have?" "Sprite, root beer, Coke..."
You always got pissed when Fauquier County got out for snow, and you didn't.
"I got stuck behind a motorcade" is a common excuse for being late .
You have a few friends who don't know what their parents do...It's Top Secret government work.
We don't have southern accents, IT'S NOT THE SOUTH!!!!!
You consider Costco to be fun (and now you know that there's alot to choose from)
We get out of school for government closings
You never actually call "the Metro" a subway.
* you have eaten at Cali T, Cal Tor, or C T, but have no idea what California Tortilla is.

(Though I disagree... MONUMENTS ROCK!!!! HA! [to a certain extent].)
You know what's funner than Costco? Taking tours of DC and then acting superior because you know everything.

Finished Wyrd Sisters. Will have to start something else. It will either be Ender's Shadow or the sequel to Time and Again, since Nick is reading it. I started, but never finished, because it was rather boring. I bought it several years ago because it was on sale at the dollar store. And apparently he doesn't go back in time to kill Bismarck.. he goes back in time to kill Kaiser Wilhelm. Sorry, folks.

Rob and Nick and I have decided to sack some monastaries. Personally, I think sacking a brothel would have a much better payoff.

Nick S looks like Harry Potter with his new haircut. Not a new observation, since I made it on Monday, but I felt I'd note it on this blog.

This is a hilarious Onion article. The thing is that it's so true.

Ever since watching Moulin Rouge, I've been walking around singing, "THE HILLS ARE ALLLIIIIIVEEEE.." Well, it's not like Ewan McGregor (say it with a Scoottish accent! Say it! "Ewan MicGregah!") can sing. He sort of shouts-sings. He shings. "THE HILLS ARE ALLIIIIVEEEEEEEEE....!"

Stole two brand spanking new LotR bookmarks. Er. Acquired. With permission. But according to Ayn Rand, since I didn't pay for them, I stoles them.

The previous Magellan quote was on a t-shirt for sale at The Darwin Awards. I want it. But I seem to want everything.

Mr. Thomas: And on Friday, we're going to be doing maps of Africa, so bring your colored pencils..
Me: Colored pencils... *snicker*..

God, you know History class is going rancid when you have to make yourself laugh. And it wasn't even a good joke either. Just to give you an idea of how boring history is, our last quarter was spent covering "Europe from 1831-1877" or something. Jeebus.

"The wretching of the soul." -Me

Wow, that sounded quite angsty. But you do know what I mean.

"The Church says the Earth is Flat, but I know that it is Round. For I have seen the Shadow on the Moon, and have more Faith in a Shadow than in the Church." -Magellan.

Just read the article in Newsweek about the 18 year old Palestinian girl who suicide-bombed and killed a 17 year old Israeli girl. I want to wretch. But not physically.. I wish there were a word for it... I guess it's the wretching of the soul..

I don't understand, because they both had futures... the girl who killed herself was engaged to be married this summer, and was going to go into a journalism college.. and the girl who was killed had just found a new appreciation for her heritage over the summer after years of hating living in Israel... I don't know.

I need to write down inspiration when I get it. I need an Emergency Writer's Notepad next to me when I can't on the word processor. Otherwise, things die. I hate the Midnight Muse.. she shouldn't inspire me so late at night when I should be sleeping. I'm pretty sure I can writer, but it seems I can only write well when I want to write- otherwise I suck. That's not very surprising, is it?

Finished reading The Green Rider. Nobody's read it, so nobody cares, but I feel a compulsive need to blog every book I've finished for some reason (I finished the Josephine one a while ago). I don't know why I picked it up, actually.. I felt this compulsive urge to read it, despite the campy cover art. It was good, but I think I'll make fun of it anyways. Especially since the first half is like..(as someone summarized the FotR movie..) "I'm running through the woods!!! I'm running through the woods!!!!" Actually, no. It was like... "I'm running through the woods! I'm running through the woods! ... I'm having tea with a dead guy!... I'm running through the woods!.. Deus ex Machina! ... I'm running through the woods!... I fall asleep in the bath! .... I'm running through the woods! ... Some guy tries to rape me!.. I'm run-" Okay, you get it.

Zifei's art is too good. He must die.

Wow. Apparently I walked 2.4 miles for a sandwich. Good sandwich though. I didn't know it was that far. Well, it's really not that far, but it just looks like an intimidating number. Also, it's sort of annoying to walk for 20 minutes and get a sandwich and then walk straight back without getting a chance to sit down due to violin lessons. The great thing about Togo's is that they don't mind if I pay them all in quarters. Oh well. This is my lunch. Ahhhhhh. It's also one of my favorite sandwiches ever.



I wonder if I should make this my AIM icon.

(You know you're putting your life online when you put a picture of your lunch on your blog. Next thing you know, I'll be blogging about my toiletries.)

And that was the highlight of my day.

Murphy's Law of Fantasy Book Monarchies: Whenever a king is sick/dying, you can count on there being no heirs, or too many of them. Usually, among these heirs, one of them will be an evil asshole, and one of them will be bluff and kind-hearted. Like clockwork, you can count on the second guy being shafted and thrown into a dungeon of some sort. Or exiled. But not killed. Because if he were, that'd be the end of the book.

I like to live in my little Klein bottle.


Imagine a cylinder, stretched up'l and out'l.


Push in the bottom to link with the throttle.


You need 4 dimensions to bring this about'l.


A home that's ingenious, clever, and crafty.


I find it delightful, but a little bit drafty.

Quote of the Day: "Wir müssen wissen. Wir werden wissen."

Has anyone noticed the Dorkiness Effect? In Star Trek, or in any other franchise traditionally considered to be dorky, any person considered to be hip by the people and the standards of that universe, are ten times dorkier when judged by Earth standards. This is the same principle that makes perfectly fashionable young women look dorky when they attend comic book and science fiction conventions in costume. For example, Princess Leia is considered to be blindingly hot by guys on the Star Wars universe. But if someone were to walk down the street looking like that, you'd be like, "oH.. my.. gawd! Lose the dress and the cinnabons, girlfriend!" Also, Star Trek and ilk aren't dorky just because their fans are dorks, because even when you take perfectly normal Beautiful People With Social Lives and make them fans or star them in the franchise, the franchise doesn't become any less dorky. In other words, the nature of Dungeons and Dragons makes it dorky, even if nondorks play it. (I think this dorkiness phenomenom is often due to the fact that the dorks who are creators of these dorky enterprises try to write "cool" people by making them stunningly beautiful, but their dorky personalities still come out when they say things like, "Phasers energize!" or "That is quite a broadsword, is it not, young elf?")

Was bored out of my mind today, saw my DVD of "The Princess Bride." It kicks ass, but I'm wondering how Inigo Montoya can be hit in the gut by a thrown dagger and not feel any aftereffects like ten minutes later. Sort of like how in the Tomb Raider movie Mansfield Powell could have been hit in the chest with a thrown knife and suddenly feel no aftereffects five minutes later? And it's not like, being grazed or anything either. It's like, someone throws a dagger at one of these guys, it buries itself into said body part, said person gasps in pain and shock and bleeds and staggers and pulls the knife out and perfectly normal stuff, then the person they're fighting comes up to him to finish him off, and whee, renewed strength! Powell fights until Lara Croft kills him, so you could say it was a last burst of stength instead of a full recovery, but he fights like nothing happened to him! No grimace of pain or ragged gasping for breath or nothin'. The recovery is slightly more realistic for Inigo, where he's struggling to keep from keeling over but can still use his arm, and manages to parry Count Rugen enough to keep from being impaled (but still takes minor injuries), and then manages to get to his feet and kill the Count in a fit of anger, but it's rather unrealistic that he stays strong afterwards. I was honestly expecting him to collapse and die from his wounds immediately after that, knowing he'd completed his life goal. Not run upstairs and jump out a window and ride off into the night with the other heroic people on four white horses. I mean, is being impaled by a knife not as serious as it sounds?

If it wasn't that serious a wound and just a bluff, that was a damn good bluff.

Easter is boring, so I'll have to talk about yesterday.

Yesterday was a good food day. Food was basically the highlight of my day. I had.. um.. Breakfast/lunch at the IHOP close to RM. It was tasty. I wouldn't call it brunch, because that implies a snack between breakfast and lunch. That was my breakfast and lunch.

Bought a dress for my sister's wedding, and I guess for junior prom too by default even though I have no one to go with, since it seems a shame to buy like a $160 dress for just one occasion. It's real purty, but too big in the chest. Who'da thought? Still, I'm happy. I'll have to postpone cutting my hair though, since I don't want to do anything weird with my hair so close to my sister's wedding that I can't fix it beforehand.

Talked to my mom about my problems. Suckage. Problems seem to magnify when you talk about them.

Dinner at the Olive Garden, where I got to meet all my brother-in-law-to-be's relatives. I didn't know I had another sister. Geez. I'm so out of it. (Apparently she's my half-sister's half-sister so really not my actual sister... Maggie and I share a dad, but not a mom. Jessie and Maggie share a mom. So me and Jessie aren't related by blood at all.) Her boyfriend is cool though. (Selfishly) I hope they get married so I can hang out with him more. DAN DA MAN!

Went to midnight Easter mass to see Maggie baptized (to Margaret, named after the saint) at the Glorious Korean Catholic Martyrs Church or something. Many paintings in the hallways of Glorious Korean Catholic Martyrs being Martyred in various painful ways. Joy. I hate the word martyr now since Osama uses it so much.. Blah. First time attending a Catholic mass, unless you count watching midnight Christmas Mass by the Pope last year on tv... Lots of dunking faces into water, dudes in white robes, women in lacy veils and chimas, eating wafers, lighting candles, swinging censors, praying on padded knee cushions, asking for donations via baskets sent through the pews on poles, chanting and singing hymns in Korean, maybe some Latin. Some carrying around in a procession of what looked to be Jesus Onna Cross (I'd say stick but that'd be blasphemous). For two hours. I amused myself by calculating powers of two.. I got up to 8192 and then stopped. It's not very far, but my math sucks. My dad had attempted before Mass to swordfight with the unlit candles before my oldest sister acted properly horrified. Dan was lucky because my brother-in-law-to-be, Dongwoo, was sitting next to him and had a prayer book or something in both English and Korean so he could at least follow along. And he does know what's goin' on, being a disillusioned Irish Catholic. Blah. It was interesting, sort of though, and uplifting, sort of, and on the whole very boring. I used to be inspired by this sort of stuff at one time or another, but not anymore. Understood some works. "Isa-ray-el", "Egyptai", "Hosana" (should mean something, don't know though), "Deus." Familial comments on how my oldest sister married a Buddhist, and Maggie is marrying a Catholic, so what about me?? (Atheist, I'm thinking.)

Some good quotage all around.

"If you can't have fun at church, where can you?" -Dan
"Well, Muslims read the Koran in Arabic, and the original Christian Bible was in Aladdin.. er.. Latin.." -My mom

My keyboard works now. Enough of that 733t nonsense.

I've been thinking that, if you think about it, you could say that my fish drowned, since they weren't able to breathe underwater without the air filters. We buried my koi in the front yard after they started to smell. It's not like you can flush these things down the toilet like regular goldfish. Oh, this was Friday night. Not just now. That'd be gross.

I not typ3ing in 733t voluntalily. |\/|y k3yboal|) is not woiking. Wh3n I typ3 coitain l3tt3ls, it |)o3s co|\/||\/|an|)s lik3, iph I typ3 '|\/|', it will |\/|ini|\/|iz3.

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What a bizarre two days of spring break. Yesterday, I wake up to find winged ants swarming out of a vent into the kitchen. It's not that odd- it happened last year too, but I wish my dad had gotten out the bug spray earlier. Spent like two hours with a vacuum cleaner sucking ants into bags, and no, that is not a sexual euphemism. Reminds me of Luigi's Mansion, that game where he sucks ghosts into a vacuum cleaner, only this is the ghetto version, "Angie's House." We need the Orkin man. I'm glad I'm not insect-phobic, cuz that would've been a nightmare.

Walked to the Bauer Drive shopping center with Shpachee, went to the Chinese restaurant there, where everyone working there apparently knows me. It's very disturbing. My Dad's friend works there now, apparently. They didn't give us sweet and sour soup, but they charged it anyways, I suspect. I didn't say anything. Shpachee's parents freaked when my mom dropped her off back at her house, and she was like "Oh my god, do you have winged ants in your clothes??" Jeebus, it was like we were dogs with fleas or something. These are the same people who have "Anthrax Letter Opening Gloves."

Last night, apparently, the power went out in one room downstairs, and as a result, the air filters (those things in fishtanks which create little bubbles for the fish to breathe through their gills) were rendered unoperational (dumb Trekkie language, but I can't think of a better term for it, since they didn't technically break). The giant koi in those two tanks all died, except for that one tiny one which always gets beat up, which was put into the working tanks.

Swarms of ants, dead fish.. is this some sort of plague upon my house or something?

Yes! I always wanted to be called a "vermin invested midden heap"! Wow, I feel so loved.

Nothing quite like a nice long session of Dance Revolution. You know what would be the ultimate in coolness? The Lord of the Dance Revolution. The game, not the movie. You can have like.. Gandalf in jamming to songs like, Afronova, and Hey Nick Not So Quick. And Frodo breakdancing to Hey Mr. Wonderful. And Peter Jackson crowd surfing to Boom Boom Dollar.

So that's what they're called!

Been drawing boobies for Nick B, for the French Rev issue of Skank. Hope he likes them.

Been trying to translate oral dialogue on the spot from Chinese to English, to challenge myself. Been a lot easier than giving a running translation from English to Chinese. Shows what my better language is.

SFX 87: Hey, Azzie! What's your favorite dinosaur?
Azoriel: Hm... Before the whole Jurassic Park thing, it was Dienonychus (sp?). However, everybody's been into raptor-type dinosaurs since then, so I'm not sure anymore.
SFX 87: Heh. You do know that the JP raptors are totally unlike real raptors.
SFX 87: Real raptors were like, three feet tall.
SFX 87: the JP raptors I think were modeled off of deinonychus, but it probably would have been annoying to have actors running around yelling, "MY GOD! DEINONYCHUS!" You know how actors are.
Azoriel: *nods* They were only 6' long and ate protoceratops eggs.
Azoriel: *nods* I figured that as well... (Raptors are still pretty tiny though.)
SFX 87: evil but tiny
Azoriel: I would have chosen that Utahraptor dinosaur first (but I think those weren't discovered until after the book was written).
SFX 87: You're making this complicated, man! What's your favorite dinosaur????

Quote of the day.

"I drank what?"
-Socrates.

I should write on the democracy wall. I didn't know it was a real wall until a few days ago.

Happy St. Paddy's Day. "For Better of For Worse" Sunday comic strip was mildly offensive to me for some reason. I'm sure the Irish were perfectly happy without Christianity.

Watched Jurassic Park III. Am now on a dinosaur kick. Found notebook where I wrote a really retarded play about dinosaurs when I was in fifth grade. Alex Dudley is in it.

Want to download an mp3 of one of the songs on the Jurassic Park soundtrack. Don't know song title, and it has no lyrics, so I won't be able to find it. Not the theme song by John Williams. Am now walking around carrying a stegosaurus. Don't know why.

I must recommend a Chinese restaurant. New China Kitchen, formerly House of Chinese Chicken. Yay.

Spachee at UM always has a more exciting life. She had helicopters converge on her school when the police thought people would riot after Duke lost/won (I dunno, I don't keep up with college football) and they flashed a spotlight on her. And they had police run through in riot gear with shields and everything. Plus she went to a gay bar and got groped a hot guy. You'd think there wouldn't be groping guys at a gay bar. But she got hit on by lesbians too, so that balances things out.

Okay. So maybe that's not that great, but compare that to my life. I mean, you'd think my helicopter story would top her weekend update just this once but nooo. Oh well.

SATs. Rock. I answered all the math questions. They do give us too little time for them though. I did them in reverse order, from hardest to easiest, despite the proctor explicitly telling us to start with number 1. Screw that. I didn't know you couldn't do that before she said so, and when I brought it up during SAT prep classes the teacher didn't say anything, and it's common sense that you can start with any question when you normally do tests anyways. The point of doing harder questions first is that when I start with the easy ones first, when I get to the hard ones I panic and can't think straight, even if I have enough time, which I usually don't.

Sharon and Renwa and Harry were there at WJ. Sharon said Harry was there, but I couldn't find him. Either that or I saw him and couldn't recognize him. Entirely possible.

Note: Damn. A suture is stuff a surgeon uses to stich up a wound. Dammit.

Played text based laser tag on the Two Towers Event. Was the funnest thing in the whole world. People who think games are stupid because they don't have pretty graphics are really shallow. It's not like having a wonderfully 3D rendered dragon or balrog is going to make it any more real. I can understand people who don't like text based games because many times they don't require any skill.. 'kill elf. You scatch elf. Elf hits you hard. You massacre elf with decimating force. Elf attempts to disarm you.'... etc etc. But laser tag rocked.

Of course, I'd take real laser tag any day.

Happy belated Pi Day and Ides of March.

I noticed that despite the unusualness of it all, nobody blogged about the medical helicopter, the ambulance, and the two firetrucks that converged on our school on Friday. Strange what people think are worth noting. I thought it was pretty cool- first time I've seen a helicopter that close. Helicopters really don't look like they belong in the air. Planes do. They're graceful. They have wings. They take off and they land in gradiants. But helicopters are like these humongous bulbous heavy things that just hang in the air.

It was really shocking when the helo first came, cuz we originally saw it fly over, and someone was like, "yeah, the helo's here to hunt you down!" and then the chopper turns around and starts heading directly towards our field. And yeah, dust did fly up off of the ground when the helo landed, and it was windy, and the blades went really fast so that you couldn't se them distinctly. Movie stuff. The emergency personel looked really relaxed though.. you'd think they'd look more like they were trying to save someone. I found Sims and we went to watch everything, and I saw them strap someone down inside the helicopter, and some people load on what Sims said were oxygen tanks. THEN the pilot started hustling and he vaulted into the front seat. Sims (she says helicopters fly over her house and land close to it all the time) said you could tell they were going to lift off because the blades were spinning faster, but I just noticed that the whirring sound was getting higher, and it was getting windier.

I wonder where Alex was at the time.. cuz he'd be with the frisbee people on the field. Except with a giant helicopter.

Quote of the day:

"It's been swell. But the swelling's gone down."

Possibly a good answer for when people ask you about your relationship, or your experience in the IB or something.

I now have a chunk of cooled molten metal that I've scraped off the stove. Cool. I'm gonna show it off in physics as an example of calorimetry.

In my rush upstairs to extinguish flaming kitchenware, I bumrushed the stairs' railing and now this spot on my pelvis hurts like dickens.

In the spirit of Nick quoting profound things in italics.

Faster! Harder!!! -Some generic porn film.

Bah, had to run upstairs to extinguish some flaming kitchenware. See, Nick only sets his shirt on fire. Well, it wasn't flaming, per se. By the time I got upstairs, the kitchen was filling with smoke, and when I took the pot off the stove, there was this lump of molten metal on the coil. SO. You can sort of figure stuff is burning. And apparently there's now a ragged charred hole in the bottom of the pot. Strange, it wasn't there before. But the sticky rice I was cooking is still tasty, if you scrape the black crust off the bottom. HOO-ah.

"Small Gods" was really good. Go Terry Pratchett. I was sort of afraid that a book without the Ankh-Morpork Watch would be stupid, like "Color of Magic", but it was great. The philosophical in-jokes rocked. Shadow puppets in the Allegory of the Cave!

I swear to God. No more Discworld, or fantasy for that matter, until I finish all these books I've bought and never bothered to read. First up.. "Tales of Passion, Tales of Woe"... What a stupid title. It's about the ... adventures.. of Josephine Bonaparte.. I have no idea what it's about, actually. Josephine, presumably. But the cover is pretty, which is why I bought it. I'm stupid. Then it's Ceasar's Legions.. all 160 pages of diagrams with pantless, well-muscled Roman men. Hmm, that won't seem so bad, but the text though..this book being in the same series as the Hoplite Warrior book, with the author who can't spell "waggon" right. Hooah. Then I have to read "Girl With the Pearl Earring," historical fiction based on that Vermeer painting. Christy said it was good.. but she doesn't read books usually. Ever. This either means she has really bad standards, or that it's a great book to be enable to get her to actually read.

This new Morpheus upgrade is so bad. I'm mad at the Morpheus people for making me upgrade.

Quote of yesterday:

"I used to watch my uncle slaughter pigs. It was horrible and sickening, just sickening."
*mournful pause*
"But the bacon was fresh!"

-Mr. Thomas

Dear God, John Ashcroft is singing. The Homeless Man With A Blog In San Francisco compares him to Nero. Yes, I know it's awfully dehumanizing to call a person 'The Homeless Man With A Blog' but that's what we all call him anyways.

Yay. Now I can sing "The Caissons Go Rolling Along" knowing that I do not sing in ignorance. Though in this case, they're talking about the artillery. Rolling floating structures wouldn't make sense. I garauntee you all know this song, though maybe not by name.

We need to be more patriotic. Not because you necessarily love your country, but because it's fun. WOOO! CHEERING! Flag waving! Firecrackers! Star spangled bikinis! You don't necessarily have to believe in something to enjoy it- I sing hymns because singing's fun, not because I'm Christian. Also, seriously though. Give blood or something. Say something nice to a cop. (Who isn't busy beating up black people, anyways.)

cais·son Pronunciation Key (kason, -sn)
n.
1. A watertight structure within which construction work is carried on under water.
2. See camel.
3. A large box open at the top and one side, designed to fit against the side of a ship and used to repair damaged hulls under water.
4. A floating structure used to close off the entrance to a dock or canal lock.

5.
a A horse-drawn vehicle, usually two-wheeled, used to carry artillery ammunition and coffins at military funerals.
b A large box used to hold ammunition.

Thank you, dictionary.com.

This is more about locks than I never needed to know. But this still doesn't tell me when they were invented. It's really cool to learn about how they have to calculate water loss and stuff like that. I'd been wondering about it since I was a little kid, but no one ever answered my question. Pumps! Faaannntastic!

You know, I wasn't looking for Discworld porn before, but I am now, because everyone's so curious. I need to prove to Alex that there *is* straight Discworld porn. I know for a fact there's lesbian Discworld porn. Child protection laws be damned.

I'm curious about many things. Like, why couldn't they come up with good shocks for stagecoaches? (springs are hard to manufacture) When were canal locks invented? Who was that artist in the Zimbardo video who draws paintings of Italian towns from memory? It's a good thing Andrew knows so much stuff so I can ask him, because he has all the answers. Like about giant mosquitos in Sweden. I should call him "Know Everything Boy." Takes too long to say though. I know a lot of shit too, but only in specialized quantities, like with ancient Greek culture or pre-industrial textiles. Sometimes though, Andrew doesn't have all the answers. To questions like, "Is it possible to knit a scarf out of an afro?"

You know though, any time a fanfic writer comes up with an excuse for one character to give the other a bath or "clean your wounds" or whatnot, that's probably a good symbol that this is going to be gay discworld porn.

YE GODS, WHY????? Auggghghhh..arggargharghargh!!!!

People need to have the decency to at least *warn* that it's gay Discworld porn up in the title or something... jeebus, just insert a little thingy that says "slash" or "yaoi" or "shounen-ai" or whatever weird term floats your boat.

my mind's eye!!! ow! ow!!!!
Anyways. It was well written though. You know what's a good line?

"(On Dunmanifestin', Blind Io, hearing his name more often than was usual, popped out to have a brief congradulatory word with his devout worshipper- He reappeared in a moment, red-faced and cursing.)"

Hello! Taliban! It's pretty funny.

SFX 87: Emmy's blogs are profound
SFX 87: s'not fair
SFX 87: i wanna be profound
IHateIB: Once in a while they are
SFX 87: but no one comments on them, so they must not be.
IHateIB: Right; she must have no friends.
SFX 87: some properties are inherent in objects- like, the apple is red, it's round. Some are objective, like.. if people perceive something to be profound, it is, if people perceive it to be inane, it is.
SFX 87: if no one perceives anything, my blog must not exist.
SFX 87: well, in terms of depth
SFX 87: the words are there.
IHateIB: You mean, subjective?
SFX 87: hushyourface.
SFX 87: The English language is my beeyatch
SFX 87: I've had too much SAT prep for people to be telling me what the English language is and isn't.
IHateIB: I think that profundity is fairly objective
SFX 87: "Ameliorate" my arse.
SFX 87: how?
IHateIB: It's derived from the human experience
SFX 87: ass
SFX 87: dammit
SFX 87: um...
SFX 87: okay
IHateIB: Or something like that that sounds less English classy
SFX 87: but what if I experience a styrofoam tray?
IHateIB: Well, that's unimportant.
IHateIB: OK, I see your argument.
IHateIB: Yeah, I don't really know why we see some things as profound and others not.
IHateIB: Maybe 'cause Emi relates little events to big statements in a way that doesn't seem corny and silly, she's profound.
SFX 87: well my argument is that something can't be profound if no one sees it as profound.. I guess an apple can still be red if everyone's blind, but it can't be tasty if no one has.. um.. taste buds.
SFX 87: right
IHateIB: Well, it's past 10:50
IHateIB: I'm really going to bed
SFX 87: nighty
SFX 87: FREAK
IHateIB: nightitynights
IHateIB signed off at 11:04:57 PM.

SFX 87: hmm. Just noticed. I'm commenting on your comment on Nick B's blog. One would think it'd be easier to just say it.
IHateIB: Just say that he's effeminate?
IHateIB: But it's not true.,
IHateIB: He's like afeminate and amasculine
IHateIB: He's like a sexless robot.
SFX 87: he's a monk, but not really
IHateIB: A truly sexless robot, not the ones that are masculine by defaul
IHateIB: t
SFX 87: he's like... a teddy bear
SFX 87: who are we talking about?
IHateIB: Shema
SFX 87: what?
SFX 87: I was talking about nkc
SFX 87: nkb
IHateIB: ok
IHateIB: I was discussing ss
IHateIB: heh
SFX 87: You could describe nkb as a sexless robot too
SFX 87: it's a bit worrying. He doesn't get this whole.. sex thing..
IHateIB: yeah, an affection robot
SFX 87: He's like the most asexual guy I know who talks about sex.
SFX 87: yeah
SFX 87: I mean, I don't know if Andrew and David and Rob are asexual, but they don't talk about being asexual as much, knowwhatimean?
SFX 87: change "as much" to "ever"
IHateIB: zah
SFX 87: is that a yes or a no?
IHateIB: You sort of ignore it until you think about it
SFX 87: Rob at least has been making really bad dirty jokes lately
IHateIB: a yes
SFX 87: mnkay
IHateIB: awww! That's adorable!
SFX 87: it'is creepy!
IHateIB: He's like finally getting to the social level of 3rd grade!
IHateIB: He's a big boy now!
IHateIB: (I'm really not this condescending)

You know what, it's not that the shorter my posts are the more comments I get, it's that there are more little tags at the end that say "Comment." So it's not that my blogs are shorter, it's just that it's like there are more of them to comment on.

So they're selling Jenna Jameson action figures now, eh?

"Soul Music" is really good. It makes me wanna Get Up And Dance, as the song goes. WHAUM WHAUM WHAUM!!!!!! Boom-bambam-boom BOOM! Music with rocks in it! Just to prove Malex wrong, if you want to look for a book that can express the emotion of music in text form, there we go. HELLOOOOO, ANKH-MORPORK!!!!! TERRY PRATCHETT, SIGN MY BOOOOBSSS!!!! hmm. I don't think he'd appreciate that. Could I get people to pay me to not ask them to sign my boobs? Sort of like how Ranwa has a shirt that says "give me a dollar and I'll go away"? Maybe I could send PTerry and photo of, say, Jenna Jameson's boobage and have him sign that.

Susan's a better character now. I was sorta scared she'd be like.. a teenage Dagny Taggart. Characters are sorta weak.. , no, not really, I just don't like them as much as the Watch. damn good music though. Expecting my Vetinari-poo to be thrown in mosh pit anytime now. Know it won't happen, because he's The Patrician. But I so want to see him with his hair down. Pratchett makes a Far Side reference. I'm happy.

Do You Like Muffins??

Andrew has been counting the number of times I use the word like in an unwarranted fashion in TOK. He's counted 15. I didn't stop to ask whether it was 15 in one rant or 15 during the whole class period. I didn't know it was physically possible to misuse like 15 times in the space of time it takes to spew a paragraph of stuff. Well, orally. If you grabbed the word bubble of my rant out of the air and pasted it onto a piece of paper, it'd be a paragraph, damn you. A really long paragraph.

In accord with Alex's instructions, my blog entries are shorter and more user-friendly. Unlike his last few.

I would just like to make a little note that if Kristin T is better than me playing Medea, I'll have to send her a flaming golden robe.

Vortex asks a good question.

VortexMR: i wounder when it was that spelling became an exstreamly well accepted form of quick mental assasment

Alex has been being too damn smart lately. Just read his blog. You couldn't understand it without several decades of schooling. God knows I don't understand it. Well, I understand all the little words individually, but I just don't understand why anyone would care to put them all together. Personally, I think he's doing it for Lesley. It's like, where normal people flirt, they philosophize. ICKYPOO! But it's better than Nick B... better than his Allieshrine. But for entertainment value, I'd take Nick's Angst over Alex's Mind any day.

Which lead me to the quote of the day (I can have more than one, damn you)
VortexMR: well anyone who says antithesis when trying to sound smart should be shot

Potato on a string! "The Truth" is a good book. Sam Vimes should meet up with Han Solo. I want to see them in a Bastarding Contest. Not.. um.. creating bastards.. but seeing who's the greater bastard. I suspect it's Vimes.. he's a drunkard *and* a "bad cop". That should count for something. Besides, Solo married a princess (if you're into the cheap Star Wars paperbacks anyways), and Vimes only gets a Wagnerian duchess.

"Millenium hand and shrimp! Bugrit!"

Sam Vimes isn't that good in "The Truth." It's because William is outbastarding him.

Quote of the Day: "ELVES STOLE MY HUSBAND!!!"

Also, despite what Andrew says, I seriously doubt ANYONE, Discworld or not, would be stupid enough to saddle 600 pounds of coinage to a horse. ("It's only 600 or so pounds," says Andrew). It's all right for story purposes, but practically, if you were going to frame someone for a crime, and the perpetrator were supposedly an old rich lame man (Aw, my po' Vetinari-poo!!!), you don't put 600 pounds of coinage on a getaway-horse. I mean, there are probably larger coin denominations in Ankh-Morpork than the 1 dollar coin, so that 700 thousand dollars doesn't weigh a third of a ton.

I'm a Wind Spirit


Whatever. I like windy days a lot though. I generally don't like all this Celtic fae fantasy crud... but Jen has a spirit, so I have to have a spirit too. Nick had quite a spirit in Greece. HOO-ah!

What the Hell??? Oh. Turn your speakers up.

Go fry an egg. MATE! heh. Silly Brits. You know what is an utterly lame word? "Lifemate." In fantasy/sci-fi. For God's sake, if it's your husband or your wife, SAY so! If you're not married, it's boyfriend/girlfriend/partner/lover/mistress/paramour/concubine/fiance/significant other/"my gal"... LIFEMATE??? unless you're some sort of monkey, that term is such a piece of turd.

Have you noticed? The shorter my blogs, the more comments I get.

Pigeon-guided missles!!!!

Madam Johnson makes an effort to enunciate everything. Which gets annoying after a while. Andrew, at least, doesn't appear to make an effort- he just enunciates naturally.

Read Maskerade, another Discworld book. It makes me have silly dreams of opera and theater. Playing Medea is fun, because she's homicidal. I'm proud of myself, for my acting, anyways, because that's about as good as I get. Haha. Shutup. DEATH!

Rob's house was cool. Sort of nostalgic thinking about our shitty science project. Oh, Nick, I still have my chem poem, apparently. Rob's cats are cool, which is strange because I thought I didn't like cats, but still felt strangely compelled to coo at them.

The Onion's Aquarius Horoscope.
Gustav Holst will appear to you in a dream and refuse to leave until you agree that John Williams has been ripping him off for years.
Reminds me of Nick's Blog.

What *is* the Junior Olympics? Do you have torches and rings and crap? And lucrative advertising deals?

Been reading through all of Ranwa's archives, since Jen makes me feel guilty with her cumulative blog entries for not checking up on Ranway. Not that much to go through, actually. She seems to be enjoying physics a lot. Physics is fun. I spent the period dressing Ken in a housewife dress with apron, and pink speedos, and then trying to bounce the fuzzy dice on a spring into the trash can. Also. During pysch me and Nick (shut up grammar police) talked to Ms. Lansell, who didn't seem to take notice that we weren't doing any work. Maybe she was bored. But it's weird to be conversing with a teacher as an equal- with Mr. Thomas it's mostly banter. Jessica from Math says that the AP Euro class is going on a field trip to play paintball to "demonstrate Napoleonic warfare." LUCKY BASTIDS! grrrrrrr. He really SHOULD do a Conflict Studies class. I'd pay tuition to take it. Well, like, $20 as a "lab fee." But if he has 20 people in the class that'd be like $4000 more for him, which is sadly, like.. 1/8 of his yearly salary. Oh. In TOK (research day) while I was unguiltily doing my problem set (yes! I got problem 33!) I heard Tamar saying my Quote of the Day...

"I want to lose 50 pounds!" "Oh my god, you'd be dead!"

Hmm, today's blogging has a lot of Tamar in it. Weird.

POP! *holds up a notecard that reads "Flinch!"*

Are you SURE you're not being psychologically conditioned?
POP!
.....
FLINCH! C'MON! JUST DO IT!

Speaking of Tamar, in TOK on Wednesday I think, when Madam Johnson forced her to speak without using the word "like", she was rendered speechless. I gave Alex the same challenge on the bus and he found it incredibly difficult.

Which Chess Piece Are You?

Mm, they're right about me being soppy. Sexy, no. The thing about this quiz is that the choices aren't the ones I'd choose. I suspect that's why Nick's results are totally off. Also, I have a fairly different personality online from offline (though I'm NOT a schitzo like Rob says I am), which is why those personality tests we do in psych piss me off.

*start Psychodynamic Introspection here* I have a better sense of self esteem online, so I say less stupid things online because I don't feel afraid of expressing serious opinions. This also makes me seperate both of my personalities quite fiercely- I don't want people online knowing about my offline life because they might think less of me knowing that I'm a Dorky Chinese Fat Girl With Glasses. I don't like people offline (not that much, but more like my mom or something) looking into my online life because they might shoot down my actual opinions, which gets my mom to complain that I always hide what I'm doing online from her, and she asks me why, and I really don't know because honestly I'm not doing anything *wrong*. This disjointed behavior is reinforced negatively by the fact that whenever I express a serious opinion on my blog nobody comments, and also whenever I tell my mom what I'm doing, she says it's a waste of time. It's reinforced positively because Nick B laughs at me, encouraging me to be outgoing and funny in real life and Forumers have encouraged me to be rational online, saying things like I've "never lost an argument", I'm the only sane person there, and that I'm a good person to have a discussion with. My theory is supported by the fact that when I call people from the Forum, where I basically do philosophical debates all the time, my behavior drastically changes with the offline contact to be more ditzy.(/end psychodynamic introspection)

I don't know what this blog is. It's sort of an extension of my offline life since all you people who read this know me anyways, except it's in text so I can talk more and all I want without people asking me to enunciate, and without me saying something inane every 30 seconds like "MOO!" because I'm talking faster than I'm thinking, like Tamar.

Finally talked to Janis for the first time in a long while. Well, if you don't include the time when I talked to her for like five seconds and then she had to leave for dance. I've been finding it a bit hard to find things to talk about, amazingly. But she did come up with an answer to our conundrum, so I have to tell Nick HA!

SFX 87: We're coming up with a list of unlikely jobs for people. Do you think Andrew would be more unlikely to be a born again Christian in ten years or a new age hippie?
LittleForestElf: hmmm...let me think about that...
SFX 87: it boggles the mind.
LittleForestElf: both are extremely unlikely, however I think he's most unlikely to become a new age hippie because not only does it go against his lack of emotions, it also goes against all his economic and social tendencies. Being a born again christian he could still keep the same economic and social agenda

I feel a bit sloppy not having blogged for like two days, sort of like I haven't taken a bath or something. It's 1 in the morning, so I shouldn't really be blogging. I should be sleeping. This is sort of my cumulative blogging orgy, so I'm going to be saying a lot of unrelated things.

What would it be like if people played the Russian and Canadian anthemns simultaneously? Elayna Russiansomethingname looked really nervous on the podium..

I like the Olympics. Even if Malex says they're stupid. Shortrack speed skating is amusing. Saw four people in a five man race fall and smack the padded walls. The guy who was dead last won, by dint of not falling. But Apolo Ohno got silver by sliding across the finish line. Ice dancing is retarded. More retarded than curling. At least curling is amusing. Andrew explained the purpose of the brooms. Clearing.. um.. ice dust. Right.

I swear, SAT prep classes get worse every week. I feel like I'm getting stupider by osmosis. They like to say that the SAT only tests your ability at taking tests, but it's not true and I'm going to smack the next person who says that. The girl who reads really slow asks, "Why can't they just make us write an essay- it'd be a better measurement of your reasoning skills!" which is true but the SATs aren't a measurement of your reasoning skills, they're a measurement of your ability to use the English language, and if you suck at it, don't whine.

Archaeology dig was cool. Not as cold and Mr. Hines didn't drive as fast and erratically as people would like to complain. I got to play around in the dirt. We found.. pottery shards. Interior glazed redware. And glass. Woo. Our test pits were too off to the side, and we hit bedrock really shallow, so not really a good session, but whatever, it's my first dig and the sky was really blue and the clouds were fluffy, so I'm happy. Emi wasn't having fun and couldn't get cheered up. Sadness. Andrew really does have veins of ice.. he ended up generously donated his vest and jacket to Amy since he was getting hot while the rest of us were freezing. Freak. I have a photo of him in a retarded looking purple headband, so it makes up for things. On my stupid disposable, with the pictures of the Conspiracy of 14th February, so those should get developed real quick.

Lots of Harrison Ford movies on tonight. He was semi-hot when he was younger. Lost Ark on. I can't stand watching Indiana Jones movies in their entirety. I got nightmares from watching some guy's skin and muscles melt off his face like wax from some Indy movie when I was 8, and I'm still traumatized. Cuz other kids in school were bragging about the violent movies they could watch, so I sort of figured that I could too. I'm actually on level with movie queasiness but for some reason I feel like I'm a violence-wuss. I'm 16 and I can handle PG-13 movies but not R. Like The Cube. Nasty movie. But I'm the only one who had to leave the room. I need to desensitize myself to violence more- I'm already desensitized to sex and blasphemy.

Reading other blogs. Apparently someone had a party. I never got invited. I think this sort of thing is by unwritten mutual agreement, because if I got invited I'd have nothing to do, and people don't really need me there anyways, so it's all good. Still. It's weird how the Bivalves are friends with all my friends but I'm not really friends with the Bivalves.

What is it with online comics having such sloppy inking jobs? I've seen two comics by SCAD students- I'm beginning to think that that style is particular to that college, but it's not really a style, it's more like "I'm sloppy with pens." Especially when you're drawing in black and white and your readers can't see what's going on if you try to cram too much in. I personally think that the cleaner your inking lines are, the better, but Alex disagrees.

Never have lunch with my family. My oldest sister is married to a Cambodian and my younger (but still older than me) sister is engaged to a Korean, so it ends up that whenever my family gets together we all have to speak English even though none of us except for me speaks it fluently. And my dad had to bring in his friend for the family lunch, which is totally retarded because he's not even a family member and he doesn't speak English so there's really not many ways in which he can socialize. I mean, my family speaks Cantonese anyways, but whatever. Planning on meeting up with my.. um.. in-laws-to-be on March 30 so my dad can meet up with my sister's fiancee's mom on the day of my sister's baptism which will be odd since she (mom-in-law) speaks no English or Chinese.

Mr. Thomas joked that I was shallow for my comment on Lord Nelson. I don't think I'm shallow for preferring that my men have most of their bodily parts intact, but maybe that's just me. I think people who dislike Nick S for his weirdness are more shallow, (which has nothing to do with Mr. Thomas). How is he weird? I don't get it- he seems pretty normal to me.

Oh, Quote of Five Days Ago: "She was a kind and loving mother figure, but she was sort of... sadistic.." - Willard talking about his old physics teacher, who put a rat inside a vacuum pump.

Wow aren't I being bitchy tonight?

You know what's a cool country? NORWAY. woo. Norway. Just SAY it. norWEEGian! norWEEJin. Okay. I wanna move to Norway cuz it has .. feeeyordds.

You better comment. This is such a long blog.

Heart of Gold, Body of Criminal Body Parts. Oh. So the title's already taken. Nice webcomic though.