Wow...

So, I haven't quite looked at the date of my last post, but I think I'd rather not anyway. I'd like to wish everyone a happy Christmas and whatnot... etc. Not much to report, really. Sorry. Erm....Oh! If you've ever tried to log in somewhere (such as Powerschool, as I've found out) and gotten the password wrong, sometimes it will say something like "this incident has been reported." Who has it been reported to, I wonder?

Rollover/Punchline: "He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he's copied on /var/spool/mail/root, so be good for goodness' sake"

HAH! Geek joke.

Trivia Question

Give the type of art done by Roy Lichtenstein, Richard Hamilton, and Larry Rivers.
Hint: It sounds like a popular breakfast food.

Who was the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?
Hint: .....The last name sounds like a bird.

What is the average velocity of an unladen European swallow?
Hint: It's not African

I will probably forget to give the answers the next time I post, so here are the answers:

1. Pop Art
2. John Jay
3. 11 metres per second or 24 miles per hour.

Knees

It was mentioned by a friend of mine just how weird knees are. And I know it's been months since I last breathed on this page, and I am indeed ashamed. So, I thought I'd do a special on how weird knees are.
It was first brought to my attention during a debate tourney where we discovered a few girls who were trying way to hard to look good, wearing short skirts and too much makeup. Typical debate attire dictates that skirts must be longer than the knees. I think I have discovered why.
The reason is simple: because knees are weird and NOBODY wants to see them. They are rather like your elbows, both of which have to have excess skin because it would be just enough when the respective body part is bent. So, when it is straight, there is this odd little wrinkle or bulge.
However, this is far more prominent in knee. Since the skin is a lot thicker, it is weirder looking, so instead of being just slightly wrinkly as the elbow, it just looks unnatural and rather creepy looking. And it is for this reason that I hate looking at knees.
And with that, I sign off. Have a nice day!

School

A few points that I noticed from my first day of school:

1. I was under the apparently incorrect impression that it was against federal law to assign any homework beyond signing contracts (which I will address in 2). However, in both my math and chemistry class, I actually had homework. Albeit, I don't need to turn it in until 3 days later, but my point is, can I sue them?

2. a. I understand the point behind contracts. But what if we don't want to sign it? For example, I got about five from Newspaper. One of them was an agreement to sell a ridiculous number of ads. That, I don't want to sign at all. Do I have a choice? I wonder what will happen if I don't.

b. Some contracts that are given are rather pointless. I understand the necessity of such a thing for classes such as Graphic Design and Newspaper where one may be utilizing expensive equipment, and the contract provides a solid force for replacement money if it breaks. However, why do we need a contract for a class like Spanish? We don't use anything expensive besides the textbooks, which are school property and the school will make you replace them anyway if lost. The contract is mostly saying that we agree to behave, which, if we don't, the teachers have every right to punish us anyway. It will not cause a legal dispute if there wasn't a contract. Are teachers like that trying to make their class seem important?

3. People have been saying that freshmen are everywhere, but frankly, I haven't noticed that many. I don't make it a habit to memorise the face of every upperclassmen in the school, but I can't be that unobservant. Also, I could have sworn I was not that small last year.

4. This is not new to this school year. In fact, I noticed this a long time ago in my school. There are a lot of short blond kids here. It's not like they all look the same, their faces are actually very different, but that does not make up for the fact that they are all short, blonde, and male. It's actually rather creepy when I put it that way, but I assure you it's the truth.

Oh dear.....

I'll admit it, I used to play Farmville. I tried Mafia Wars for a few days. I even sit down for a nice game of hold 'em every once in a while. But this, and I think you will agree, is rather ridiculous.Perhaps you hope, as I do, that this faked or photo shopped or something, and it probably is. But if, however astronomical the odds, this is authentic, then I've just discovered I live in world much more messed up than I thought it was.

However, none can deny that these Facebook games are extremely popular, (apparently) very addictive, and an excellent way for companies to earn money. Which is why Google has quietly invested $100-200 million in Zynga games in preparation for Google games.
So hurrah! For Google! And an excellent investment! Actually, TechCrunch (the source that reported this) believes it's a move to break Facebook media dominance by grabbing the behemoth behind it. Google Me is the supposed upcoming assassin of Facebook, and this act of foul play pretty much shows how serious they are, namely, by hitting the farms.

A Timeline of Computers Past

A history of all the computers I/my family has owned. Quite a melancholy post, this is.
Compaq Presario

My very first computer. I threw him away a long time ago. But I loved him very much, even though my parents hogged him all the time and all I ever did was play games anyway.

Gateway SoloMy first laptop. I still have it, though of course it's a lot crappier than the picture, since it's wrapped in tape and whatnot. It runs XP, though veeerrrryyyy slowly, seeing as it was made for 2000. It is well in its years and serves as decoration to lighten the gloomy mood in my basement.

Dell LatitudeThis is still a very good laptop, but I don't have him anymore. He would be very fast at T5800, but my father works with large statistical files that take up way to much disk space, consequently slowing performance. Plus, he never bothered to get antivirus on it. Lazy bum.

Dell Inspiron
I am typing on him this very moment! How it refreshes me so. Of course, it's already slowing after a year of use and it carries the classic power cord issue and has gone through only Vista but I shan't complain, imagine if I were still using the Gateway (which, miraculously, still runs Internet, though very slowly)!

+ 1

Adding to my list of things to do before I die: visit the children's hospital in Australia. Gotta love those Aussies.

Nothing to Say

Unfortunately, I literally have nothing to say. Anyone want to say something for me?

Hello?



Is anyone out there?



Please?



Tell me someone's listening!



Even when I don't have something to say, tell me someone's LISTENING!!!!!!!!

If the broom flies...

If the broom flies, ride it.

Looking at this quote, anyone can see its proverbial meaning. This is something that your mind automatically interprets, immediately ignoring the possible practical value and instead moving on to a way one can apply it in their daily life. Because of this, when you do discover a flying broom someday, this quote will be far from your mind and you may even walk away from the opportunity to ride it.
However, the possible practical value is undeniable. When one finds a flying broom, they will be so taken by amazement that their mind may be muddled, and unable to form logical thoughts. Thus, they may end up choosing to do the wrong thing with it, such as running away screaming as opposed to riding off into the sunset. So this quotation is clearly applicable as short and simple reminder, an infallible piece of advice in the event of such an encounter and logic fails to prevail.

There are, of course, several dangers to riding this broom. For example, it may take you to a place of danger, or it may simply buck you off, the way the cursed broom in Harry Potter did. This broom can kill you, and that will certainly be a factor in your course of action if you did not have this advice. But truth be told, you will most certainly regret not trying that broom out. So what if you die from trying to ride this magical broom? How many people get to ride a broom before they die? The odds of such an occurrence is astronomical, and such a chance cannot be passed up or you shall surely go mad with the deep, abiding hatred at yourself for not testing it out. Die on the broom, and die in peace.

Also, who knows if this ride will be fatal or not? Surely you don't. Of course you don't, you have never ridden a broom. So you may not die. You may become the master of the broom, and now you have a nifty form of transportation, as well an excellent brusher of floors.

Also, careful not to sit on Dumblydore's face. He won't like that.

Flowers

I have always wondered: what is the appeal of flowers? Sure, they are very pretty. And some of them smell good. But why are flowers so popular in society? We seem to have flowers for every occasion, and even the color of the rose itself means something different. I, frankly, do not find flowers so special. In fact, to me, they are rather boring, they serve no practical purpose and die very quickly. I'd rather plant a tree that will last decades as opposed to some flowers that wither shortly after they bloom. Of course, it's rather hard to carry an entire tree to a date. So why aren't we breeding more little trees, like the ones that the Japanese are so fond of? I'm fond of them too, and I think they are much prettier than flowers.

Now, how awesome would it be if someone gave you one of these for Valentine's Day?

Creativity!

     We've all heard it before, those dreaded words in elementary school. "Be creative." "Use your imagination." I absolutely hated it when teachers say that, for I feel like I haven't a creative bone in my body. I preferred having them tell me what to draw for that big art thing, and what to make for that big science project, instead of being set loose in the middle of the ocean with some wires, some plastic, an engine, and a saw and being told to make an airplane. That's why today, I want to investigate these horrid words, and see if maybe there is some truth behind them, despite having the word "creative" pretty much ruining my early years of school.
     I believe the teachers do deserve some merit for making us exercise the art of thinking beyond our tight little self-induced cages. Why? Because that's one of many things that set us humans apart from animals. We create, and we build, and we utilize. Animals are very limited in their musings, and some more intelligent ones can maybe utilize, but only we can truly create. Somebody created this computer that I'm typing on right now, and somebody created this couch I'm sitting on. Somebody was shunned for saying the earth was probably not in the center of the universe. Why?
     I believe this may be because we have time to sit down and think. Most animals spend much of their time looking for food and just surviving and little to none on contemplating the universe. So one of the first problems that we used our wrinkly little brains to do is take care of the bare necessities. Instead of running around looking for food, we started growing it ourselves. Because we're lazy. Instead of sleeping under a rock or building a dam, we found some nice little pre-made homes in caves. Because we're lazy. So laziness makes us think of ways to satisfy that need to do less work.
      I didn't really know where I was going with this post. But I think I just proved that laziness can be a good thing. Chew on that, everyone.

Rain. The Buckety Kind

The sky is angry. Black and rumbling, what else could it be? if weather had emotion, it would be angry right now. I believe the earth is very capable of taking care of itself despite us pumping poisons into its air, but the only problem is, does it have us human in its recovery plan? I don't like to go all hippie, "let's-save-the-world" on anyone, but you can't expect a powerful entity like nature not to fight back when we make it angry. The movie "The Happening" is one of the best examples of this. It wasn't a bio terrorist attack, it was the plants. Perhaps is won't be as drastic or dramatic as that. Or perhaps it'll be far more dramatic. But slow or quick, I believe our biggest threat is not Iran's nukes or Korea, I think it's the plants. And their mother.

When all else fails....

....Hug a tree, and scream. I cannot stress the amazing practicality of the advice in the title line and the previous sentence. It's really not as ridiculous as it sounds, for the following reasons I'm about to present. But first, some background.
I have held this advice dear in my heart for some time now, it was first given to me during my days in Arkansas by a wonderful friend. But never have I completely understood the depth and truth embedded in this beautiful proverb until now, and I am so lucky to have come across it. And this is why.
I shall pry apart the proverb piece by piece.
1. When all else fails-
To understand this line, you must take careful note of the word "all". This means in a moment of true desperation, when you have already done everything including: had a cup of tea, started a fight between 2 other people, yourself excluded, killed someone, cried, sang a song, ate a turnip, and completed several other actions often overlooked that are also in the category of "all". I will describe the importance of the above actions in another post.
2. Hug a tree-
If you have never hugged a tree, you should. It's cold, hard, and rather uncomfortable. And that's why it's so important you hug a tree, and not a person, or even a Baldrick. Hugging anything besides a tree will lull you into a false sense of security that will become your own demise. The tree will bring forth the true seriousness of your situation: a problem that even a cup of tea cannot remedy.
3. And scream.-
This combined with the previous is the most important part of this advice. You see, after you have hugged that tree, you'll have all these crappy, self-pitying feelings that had been welled up in the dark recesses of your heart and mind that have been brutally yanked to the top of your throat. At this point, you'll begin to get these suicidal thoughts, and I MUST stress the importance of keeping yourself alive until you get the chance to scream. The Scream, you see, allows you to release all your troubles. This isn't any scream, this is The Scream of a desperate man who has just hugged a cold, hard tree that cares about you far less than you care about it.
4. The effect- This final note is about the warmth of the effect. You get this amazing feeling of peace and pleasant helplessness--the knowledge that there's nothing you can do at all, so may God deal with you like the piece of refuse that you are. And this acceptance is the absolute hardest to achieve.
This, dear friend, is the true meaning behind the brilliant proverb: When all else fails, hug a tree, and scream.

Questions

Why must I be pressured into writing things on this blog when I have nothing to say? Why must I post for the only 2 people who read this blog? Is it because I'm a good friend? Or is it just because I want to look back in the archives several years later and wonder if it was really me who wrote these things? I just don't know anymore.

Opinions

An opinion is something that many people have. Asking people about their own opinions is a very good way of making friends. However, telling people about your own opinions may not work nearly as well.
But I can't say telling opinions is always bad. Sometimes, you may find that their opinion is the same as yours, and you can have a heated rant together about exactly how right your opinion is. Unfortunately, if their opinion is not the same, one of you may end up dying. So to prevent that person from being you, I suggest you study martial arts or take a self defense class or something.
Politicians are especially good at telling their opinions. If anyone has watched the House debate on health care, you may have noticed plenty of truly random opinions that have little to do with the actual topic. However, I must comment on the together-ness of the Republicans. All for one, and whatnot. But I would suggest that they get more followers if they want to win.
Freedom is an illusion. Your opinion is rarely valued, and sure, you are allowed to voice whatever opinions you have, but you always need to be careful what you say in case you die in the process. While there may be 10 who think the same way you do, there's probably 100 more who want to kill you for thinking that way. So while you are at liberty to say what you like, you're really not, if you value your right eye.
As I look about at the odd things I typed, there's one key theme I want you to get. My opinion.

Why

"Why" is the question they just don't want you to ask. Just ask any of the Arians. On second thought, don't. Because they're LYING to you.
For those of you who have no idea what I'm going on about, please refer to Jon Stewart's interpretation of "conservative libertarian". But that's not what I wanted to talk about today. As I am typing this post, I still have no idea what I plan on talking about. Why? Well, if I knew, I would be talking about it, not rambling about why I'm not talking about it. But that's beside the point. I must find a good topic to discuss before I end up spending this entire post talking about my lack of one. You wouldn't enjoy that would you?
Normally, I would have something to say on something I feel particularly strongly about. I'm a very opinionated person, if you were not formerly aware of this. It's a rare event when I don't have something to rant about.
But I'll tell you now, I don't like it. Right now, I have this uneasy feeling like something's amiss because I don't have an opinion to convince you of. It's a sad moment when one is at loss for an opinion.

Music

Do you know what love is, what it's like, or how much it sucks? Music thinks it does. Today's popular music tends to revolve around love and the lack of it. I am willing to bet money that one of the most commonly used words in song lyrics (excluding articles and conjunctions) would have to be love. But there's a point where love gets over-defined. Seriously, can't you think of other things to write about? There are plenty of deep and poetic topics that would make great songs. WRITE ABOUT THEM. One of my favorite artists by the name of Relient K has made my favorites list because of their originality. Some of the things they've written about: vinyl, horses, planes, God, music itself. Excellent choices.
Then of course, we cannot deny the awesomeness of classical music or instrumentals. In a way, that's the best kind of music, because it's open for interpretation by everyone. Oh yes, contemporary music often may have double meanings--or, get this--TRIPLE meanings. But classical music...it's whatever you want it to be. If you're some shallow swoony chick, perhaps you LIKE to interpret everything as a reference to love. If that's the case, go ahead. But I'm gonna go ahead a say that this song is about the phases of life. See what I mean? Classical music is timeless. Who can deny the serenity in Grieg, or lovely simplicity of Rachmaninoff? Ahhh, and who can forget Wagner? You can't say any of these composers are out-of-date, because what do you have to base the time range of it? That's it: NOTHING! Want a song about love? PICK ONE. Any one. It's all in your head: interpret it as love if you want. Want a song about war? Listen to that same song. I'm sure you can pick some war related theme from it. Pick a subject, any subject. Just TRY to pick one that doesn't fit a classical song. I DARE YOU.

The Best Shape

Consider your favorite shape. Visualize it. Fill your mind with only the awesomeness of that shape. Keep it there. Good. Now I'm gonna blow it up in your face because whatever shape that was, it was NOT the best shape. The best shape in the world is the CIRCLE. Weren't thinking of that were you? You were thinking of a square or a triangle or dodecagon, but nobody ever thinks about the circle. Noooo the circle is round, it doesn't belong. It doesn't have corners.
But look around you. Forget the furniture. Look at the objects, like pens, or lamps, buttons, or bottles. They're CIRCULAR. And then look outside. The sun. The moon. The leaves. They're at least round.
We need show more appreciation for circles. We think the wheel is a primitive idea, but have we come up with anything better for our cars? The wheel was one of our first brilliant ideas as cavemen, and we're still using it. It's not primitive. It's timeless.
Who ever came up with the heart being a symbol of love? Out of all things. I heard a quote somewhere, not sure where, but it goes like this:
"If you really love someone, put their name in a circle instead of a heart, because a heart can break, but a circle goes on forever."
Notice it said CIRCLE. Not square, not rectangle, but CIRCLE. Triangles get way too much credit just because they have an entire section of math about them. But circles, they're just as important. They have their own symbol that applies only to circular things. Pi. Remember in elementary school when you had Pi Day and you'd get pie and not have to learn? Thank the circle.
Cirlcles. Remember the circle. It's underappreciated, while its contributions to our world are endless. Forget those other shapes. Give the circle some love.

Idealism

Maybe we've always been living in this stupid idealistic society where actions are defined by thoughts instead of logic. But recently, idealism is kind of making me mad
It started in my first forensics tournament. I didn't do very well, probably because it was my first time and I didn't know what to expect, but that's not the point. The point is, in finals, I chose to watch orations because that was the event that I did worst in. Turns out, most of the speeches were about abstract ideas that were conveyed through the use of sentimentality and tear jerkers. For example, one of the best oraters was primarily using the story of a friend of her's that died of cancer to make you prioritize the people around you more. She made one of the judges CRY.
Now, that's all good and well in a mere competition like this, but when people start using idealism to govern themselves, that's where the problems come. Because the thing about idealism is, when you want to rise, you rise FAST. But the thing is, the fall is inevitable. Idealists rise ridiculously high in a short amount of time, but they fall hard. They didn't build a strong foundation. They rose through the manipulation of people's hearts, not their minds.
Now, as with any beliefs or ideas, you're bound to insult people. A lot of people will get offended, and eventually, you'll find some idealist with the guts and the ability to challenge your post. Then, down you go, and very possibly infamously. Take Tiger Woods for an example. He seemed like a perfect man, and the news loved him. But when a few incriminating details arise, everyone drops him like a hot potato. But if you think about that bad things he's done, can't you think of people you know who've done similar or worse? But Tiger fell, and he fell hard, because he rose ridiculously high.
My oration was about bacteria and why we should stop killing them. It was primarily written with logic, because no one's going to cry over some single celled organisms that they've been told will kill them. Logic acts slowly. Once you've gotten someone's attention, you've got to use an extensive amount of facts, research and data to support your views. But by doing so, you build yourself a strong foundation, that won't be as hard to take out. Then, when a worthy opponent challenges your claim, they've got have better infomation. Better data. Better proof. And if they do, well, then you deserve to step down. And what's more, you can do it like a man.
I'm not saying that logic is the only way to go. Idealism is effective, I admit. But to govern ourselves only upon the ideas of men, that's a different story. In reality, men as a whole don't really have a set of ethics. You'll always find something contradicting the other. If you're going to follow what society says, you'll never get anywhere. Society says EVERYTHING.
Back to what I was saying about Tiger Woods. A California newspaper had two rather interesting articles one day. One was about about Tiger Woods. This guy was brutal, he used every non vulgar adjective he could think of. But then, in a different article, we find a story about people who are paying $1000 to learn only how to pick up women. Contradiction?
But logic can also prove a problem. If you use only logic, we'll eventually lose our own humanity. We'll become robots, never acting upon love, or virtue, or ambition, or desire. Logic doesn't corrupt like idealism, but it erases.
Neither idealism nor logic can be particularly productive without the other. But we tend to tip to one or the other, and right now, that seems to be idealism. My suggestion is that we tip the scales the other way, so we don't lose our humanity or our minds.

Out With the Old!

Well, since it's almost Chinese New Year, I've changed the url to prone2dementia.blogspot.com! Woot! (Actually, I changed it because it seemed that no one could remember the previous url) But this time, it'll actually be permanent.
Speaking of Chinese New Year, it's this Sunday. On Valentine's Day! I remember back in the day in elementary school where Valentine's Day was a day that everyone looked forward to. Everyone would bring in these cute little cards that were folded up and taped shut with a little red heart sticker, and everyone would look forward to giving them out and getting tons of cards and stuffing our faces with candy and not having to learn. But then, the traditions dwindled....the older we got, the more "romantic" Valentine's Day HAD to be, and you couldn't just give cute little cards to your friends of the opposite gender without them getting the wrong idea. I wish we could go back to those days because I REALLY like chocolate. I like reading the cards too, but the chocolate was AMAZING. Chocolate's always amazing, but when people give you chocolate, it's....well, ok, so there's really not much difference. I just like chocolate.
Let's see....what else is up? Hmmmm....I wrote a poem about metal ties for English. I'll have to post it sometime.