Heat

Not too original of a post, considering it's summer, but seriously, it is absolutely SWELTERING outside.

And people wonder why I don't go out more...Well, it's because it's BLISTERING.

There is no reason that anyone should enjoy being outside when it is so incredibly SCORCHING, the best place to be in such a situation is a soft couch in front of the fan and above an air conditioning vent, like the one I have been resolutely boring a hole in all summer.

So, my recommendation in this stuffy, feverish, blazing, burning of a day like this one is to stay inside, and sit as still as possible....to not cause yourself any unnecessary sweating. Good luck.

I Hate Tower Defense Games

Yep, I HATE them. I never play them. EVER.

(Lie)

Well, I do find tower defense games a bit tedious and boring, but for some reason, I've gone back to LOVING Bloons Tower Defense. WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?! Well, the fifth one did recently come out, and it's very good. But upgrades take forever, and what's wrong with a nice platformer or RPG?

The problem is, those USED to be good. Games like Rebuild., Fancy Pants, Achievement unlocked....Basically, games I would play more than once. And my favorite game designers don't come out with games regularly anymore; Borne has been working on FP3 for years, and jmtb02 hasn't come out with a major, long game since Elephant Quest.

I was rather disappointed in JayisGames' best of 2011. Some games that won were purely low quality and frankly, rather boring.

Hopefully, 2012 holds better prospects for browser based games.

My gutter smells like syrup!

My blog is resurrected! How fares you all?

I wanted to make a note about how wonderful sticky notes are. You see, not only do the conveniently stick to many things, they are also deceptively urgent.

They have a certain degree of urgency in that they aren't sticky like tape. Sticky notes will fall off quickly if you don't attend to them quickly, so you are always reminded of the note as you worry about it falling off. Therefore, you are more motivated to get the task done, take of the sticky, and safely dispose of it without worrying about losing it and forgetting this vitally important task.



I love sticky notes.

Rooting for the Bad Guys

What, I ask of you, is wrong with rooting for the bad guys? Or rather, not necessarily the bad, but the cynical, the self-centered, and the ones who know what they want and how they are going to get it.
Frankly, I feel that those are the most interesting people of all. They rarely tend to have the same sappy ideals of the protagonist, of love, hope, and all things warm and fuzzy. Instead, these are the radicals, the philosophers, and the ones who make the first move.
I see nothing deplorable in that. Really, what is the difference between Buzz Lightyear and Hitler? Hitler was a brilliant leader. He managed not only to get others to believe what he wanted, but he even got them to act upon those beliefs. Buzz Lightyear was an equally charismatic leader, and ideologically, what really is the difference in the personalities of these two?
We glorify the nice people because their actions tend to benefit society more. Ok, fine, I'll give them that, but at least let me sympathize with the bad guy who is hated by all others and will not be getting the happy ending.
When was the last time you attempted to imagine the glorious history behind these characters in fiction? I will give you my answer: today. In Julius Caesar, I
These guys are the wittiest, the smartest, and most courageous of all, because they chose to cross that line between glory and infamy. That's why I love them.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Good Die First

Here is a statistically inaccurate, opinionated, and stereotypical statement. Firstly, we have to consider what is the definition of "good" in this quote. How do you judge a person to whether they are "good" or "bad", since we all do bad things and think bad thoughts at some/many points in time? Is a "good" person one who has done more "good" deeds, that is to say, one who has helped others more, or resisted more temptation? If so, where do you draw the line between "good" and "bad"?
Now, statiscally, who actually counted the order in which good and bad people died? I want to see a pie chart or a line graph or soemthing, please.
The stereotype is in the worldview idea that because bad people are tougher, stronger, and sometimes smarter than good people. But how often is true? Because the smartest bad guys aren't the flashy ones like the Joker in Batman. Their the ones who's crimes can't be discovered. The very fact that we know what our biggest criminals look like and what they've done shows that our biggest crimminals aren't as great as they seem, they can just hide really well. However, considering the size of this world, there's plenty of places to hide. The other stereotype is that good people are naive and softhearted, and therefore they'd die first easy. But let's also consider what God has in store for those who believe in His son's sacrifice, those who are also often considered 'goody-goodies'. Let's also consider what will happen to those who don't. So who's really dying?

Time is Money

Ok, so who was the idiot who said time was money? Because I'd like to have a nice chat with him. Or her. Or it. Time was never money. I suppose you can say money was time, but that's hardly an accurate metaphor either.
I mean, it's not like there's a person you can go to and say "Hey, I'd like to buy back that hour when I did my homework that day and redo it, because I got a 20% on that assignment..." You can only pay for the time you spend with another, and that's only for some occupations. Sure, time wasted is costly, but the cost goes beyond monetary value, because you're never gonna get that time back. A single millisecond could be crucial.
If a nuclear bomb was miscalculated by a second, it might go into the sea instead of on land, if it were to attack an island. A split second movement could make a bullet go into a nonvital part of someone's body. But it's not like, if you miss that second, you can just by it back with say, $50.
It would be very nice if you could buy back time, but it would also kinda suck because no one will ever learn from their mistakes. Also, criminals can never get caught, because all they'd have to do is buy back some time. For time to be a tradeable thing would probably be one of the most dangerous things in the world, because you can right all your mistakes, but not everyone will have good motives for doing so. So there's some food for thought for you.