Just a little more posting

Just a quick post today. I updated That Other Blog again...woo-hoo.

Call backs for Midsummer today. Scary. There were 20 guys trying out. There are maybe 14 guy parts... So for once, there's competition. It's very disconcerting. But yes. Callbacks.

We had a half day today. That's why I'm posting at 2.30.

On the ride home, the bus broke down. What's funny is that it broke down 5 blocks from my house, and nobody was allowed to leave and walk home. It would've taken me two minutes. Sigh. So another bus came and got us. Sad.

'Why We Sing' is stuck in my head. It makes me most growly. Growl. Stupid hippie song. What's sad is that I'm almost starting to like it now. Grrrrrrr.

Yeah.... I'm done.

Posting is fun!

Just some random updates.

Posted on Patrick Is Talented.

Got my short story back in English. Got 5/3. (The best is 6/4. Two different scales. So 5/6 and 3/4. That's 8/10. 80%. Some B or other.)

May actually skip second year japanese. Venus and I are going to get the work and all that stuff from 2nd year, just because we're smartish and feel like doing more work. So, we'll see how that works. This could actually work well, because if I do test out of Japanese 2 (and maybe get credit for it?), I could go straight on to 3, and have time for something else senior year. We'll see how it goes, I guess.

I'm running short on small talk. So, the hurricane. Sigh. I'm still kind of... in disbelief. Or I guess you could call it denial. I just... I don't want to think about it. I guess you could even say I'm scared to think about it too much. Just combined with the emotion of the people around me, and the nonstop coverage on TV, and the fact that my personal life (superficial as it may be) is stressful enough, I'm half afraid I couldn't take it all at once.

I used to live in Memphis. I'd always wanted to go to New Orleans. I'd never been. I've still never been.

Sigh.

I stole this idea

Yeah, I made another blogspot. I'm still using this one. I know, I said that about my xanga, but I'm serious this time. I'm just posting my weird and/or TOTALLY FRIKKIN' AWESOME writings on that one.

http://patrickistalented.blogspot.com

Knock yourself out.

Liveblogging the VMAs

7.37 WFT?!!
Green Day won best rock video? That vid is fucking boring, and the song isn't even that great. Any of those other nominees over green day. Namely, My Chemical Romance, Weezer, etc. Goddamn political angst-ridden teenagers.

7.46
I don't know what the award was, but Alicia Keys deserved to win it.

7.50
Because we haven't heard La Tortura enough.

7.55
*almost wants to see 50's movie*

7.57
commercials are so dumb nowadays.. Fair Enough, Comcast parental controls.. hospice concert...

8.29...
Checking the mtv site to see who's won what while I've been eating... Green Day has won 5 fucking awards.
Grr.
Checked pop video nominees.. Jeez. Stupid pop.

8.40
Grr. I don't like MTV anymore... I need mtv2, maaan. MTV has too much rap and green day. MTV2 has good music.

8.44
Speaking of which... MTV2 award! *glued to tv*
Fall Out Boy. Not my first choice, but not too bad. *shrug* Better them than Akon.

8.56
Comcast is impossible. I just wanna know if I can get MTV2 without a whole other package. Apparently not. Damn.

8.57
Heh.. Missy Elliot sonded like Anna Nicole Smith, but black. Kinda funny, really. Like she's on something.

9.00
Coldplay. Real music. Finally. Why aren't they winning anything?? They deserve it more than Green Day...

9.04
Grrr video of the year nominees. Only good ones are coldplay and green day. And I'm mad at green day. So the only good one is coldplay. See, I wouldn't begrudge Green Day the video of the year award nearly as much, since it's only them and coldplay. But best rock video? No fucking way.

9.22
Hmmm. I wouldn't call myself a musical outcast... but as far as awards and concert dates go... I pretty much am. Damn.

9.30
*gives up on mtv for a while and goes on launch*

9.37
Ok, so I went back to mtv.
Mariah Carey just got done singing... And that was a damn impressive high note. Kinda took me by surprise there, considering she's normally all... alto. But was it just me, or were all her backup dancers grabbing their dicks every 2 seconds?

...Pop culture is so stupid.

Ok. Battery dying. This concludes my liveblogging.

Excuse me while I switch this crap off and put on some Clarsach music. (look it up.)

Strange...

This is weird.

I'm balanced

We went out yesterday to try to find dishes. Ours are chipped and old, so we went to elder beerman's, which was supposed to have Denby dishes, according to the denby website, but the help in the dish section was unbelievably lazy, and we didn't see it ourselves, so we gave up with denby.

Etc etc, rambling about dishes, et al.

We never actually got new dishes. But we're still hoping.

We got home, and my dad took me out to Marsh (yes, yes, ha ha, stupid hoosier) and we bought a bunch of foodstuffs. The way marsh is built, you can only see the outside from the checkout and the first few aisles. We were on the other side of the store from the windows most of the time. We arrived at the checkout, and it turns out it was pouring down rain. It had been nice when we went in. It had been 20 or 30 minutes. Stupid weather.

Anyway, we went home, and I attempted to make oven-fried chicken monterey. Well, I screwed up on the second ingredient, but it got fixed. I was going to make it, but it rapidly became evident that an ameteur cook like me was not going to be able to manage biscuits, potatoes, broccoli, cheese sauce (which wanted to explode) and chicken all at once, so the mother eventually gave up what she was doing and assisted me. But it all came out pretty good (minus the potatoes, they were about 5 minutes overdone and far too soft), and all hot at the same time, and considering that I have never actually made a real meal, I feel successful.

And now it's today. I suppose I've caught up on my sleep, cause I involuntarily woke up at 7.30 and couldn't go back to sleep. So I went outside and took pictures of the fog.

Edinburgh

I was just reading my old posts on here... and I ran across This one. For those of you who remember, it's the one where I described a dream I had, where CNHS was downtown, and downtown looked like van helsing, etc. If you don't remember, just go look and refresh your memory.

Anyway, I realized just now... What was, in my head, downtown Columbus, actually looked somewhat like the dodgier areas of central Edinburgh (scotland, not indiana). Although there were very few doors that sat two feet off the ground, the general look and feel was similar to that of the closes of old town, except flatter and plus snow. For reference, here are a few pictures (photography sites are useless, can't even find decent pictures of closes newer than 100 years old):


Fleshmarket Close


Milne's Court


Some other Close


And a view over Edinburgh for good measure.

But yeah, I'm thinking that dream probably had something to do with Edinburgh and Scotland.

And another thing... remember that strip club I mentioned in the dream? Well, the first close I thought of during the creation of this post was Fleshmarket Close. I did a search, and a certain phrase popped up: "In the dank brothels of fleshmarket close"... Interesting.

Guess who won!

Just a few random updates. First and foremost, the East vs. North game. About half the city turned up. Well, maybe not half, but I think they sold upwards of 3,000 tickets. Respectable. And I can say that those 3000 didn't leave disappointed. Well, except for the people at North. ^_^

Yup, East WON. Second time in two years. Paying you back for that 4-year losing streak.

If any of you go to North... Ha. Ha ha.

Ha.

Anyway. I got a hoodie that says Columbus East on it. A year of going there, and I still didn't have any eastgear. Now I do. Hurrah.

Yeah, the adrenaline and such was pumping after the game... but I was exhausted. The game came down to North, 4th down on the 3-yard-line, game at 24-28 to East. That was stressful. We blocked them, though. Thank God they blocked them. And, as it was last year, about half the stands (packed to capacity, I'll add) climbed the fence onto the field, and rushed the football team. I forgoed this activity this year, because I was tired. But it was pretty damn exciting.

It's good to see East matching North at something. And, apologies to all you East bandies out there.. North's band is better. I hate to admit it, but there's no denying it. But East's color guard stayed in sync, so there is that.

I was going to bring up something else... But I forgot.

Yo Estoy Irritado.

Ok... I am bugged.

Every time I post a long, meaningful, somewhat rambling but mostly profound examination of myself or my situation... Zero comments. Always. Every fucking time.

All the commented posts are short and pointless.

Which brings me to another point. I opened my blog, and saw two comments on my latest post. This was, of course, greeted with pleasure. I never get comments. It's fun.

I opened the comments, and in front of me is a two-page-length piece of spam. Spam. I hate spam. Below that was a comment from Whitney, which I actually appreciated. But I hate spam.

So, I have a new policy here at Patrick's Random Crap.

Spam me and die. I will hunt you down and flame you. Multiple times. On every medium I can find.

That most recent spam comment, I will let slide. Well, I deleted it out of hatred, but I will refrain myself from extracting revenge. But spammers be warned.

Whenever I feel starved for comments, I will join act-all-emo-and-get-lots-of-comments, spearheaded by Joelle and Whitney. This is one of those times. So, consider the following the 'post' post.

----

We got a brita water filter.

I like water...





It sustains life.



I have pizza.





And... Um... Life fills me with despair, I guess.

Just a quickie today

Just a few bits.

Meh... it's quizboom time. There's never much testing the first week, but the second week, every teacher wants to know what they've taught you in the past week. There's quizzes in nearly every class. It's a drag. They're never that hard, though.

Auditions for Midsummer Night's Dream are today through thursday. I was freaking out when my name was called to read Demitrius, but overall, I didn't do too badly. My knees were shaking though, just like last time. I read that part once more, then I read the fairy king dude... Can't be bothered to remember his name. Anyway, considering it's shakespeare and I pretty much didn't butcher it, I'm proud of myself.

My English teacher rocks.

I think I'm learning how to use the graphics machine now.

And that's it.

My God.

I feel so sorry for middle school teachers.

I considered writing one of my signature script-type descriptions of my encounter, but I decided that I could do a better job in standard narrative format. So here we go.

I rode the bus home today. As I always do. I got on before the majority of the middle-schoolers, which has the advantage of settling in before we're off, and the disadvantage of not picking your own seat partner. Normally I can count on some sort of friend-figure to save me from the midgets, but not today. And yet again, I am floored by the maturity level of the American middle-schooler. Particularly, the American middle-school boy. After years of resistance, and "we're not all bad..." I've given in. Young boys are assholes. Young meaning younger than second semester of freshman year.

I suppose I should explain this. My seat-partner for the day was a young middle-schooler boy, I'd guess 7th grade. But he's not who I've got the beef with. My problem is his friend in the seat across from me. In hindsight, he actually looked quite a lot like a chipmunk. This boy (I'm refraining from my normal 'guy.' This was a boy) was sitting there, excitedly relating the days exploits to his friend, sitting next to me. Seems chipmunk-boy had quite a blast. It seems in Life Skills, they have little lights by the computers that they light when they need help. Chip, in his cleverness, turned it on, then as soon as the teacher approached, turned it off. And repeated this several times. When teacher mentioned that he ought to stop that, chip calmly explained that no, of course he didn't want to go to the principal's office.
End of story. Back on the bus.
"It was so funny!"
And then he laughed. It is impossible to do this laugh justice on words. Just think of the most annoying, carefree, insolent, there's-nothing-funnier-in-the-world-than-making-people-want-to-kill-themselves laugh you have ever heard. Add in that it sounds a lot like a chipmunk in orgasm. And then you have this kid's laugh.
New story. Apparently when he's bored, Chip just *giggle* starts insulting people *cracks up* for no reason! It's so funny!
There's that laugh again, folks.
New story. It seems to be a habit of teachers of the young to count down for silence (accompanied all too rarely with a fiesty "If you don't get quiet in the next three seconds, I'm going to whip your asses so hard that you'll be raw till your GRAVE), and chip leaned back in his chair. At one, BLAST OFF, and, if I interpreted it correctly, somehow he simultaneously stood up and flipped his chair out from under him, I can only imagine in the most obnoxious way possible. It was so funny.
And he laughed.
Now imagine up yourself a story where the student in question typed derogatory sentances on his screen and erased them as soon as his teacher walked up. Well, about a half second after teacher sees it.
Now imagine a long, drawn out scene of the teacher desperately trying to extract a confession. To no avail, of course. Our dear chipmunk is so infinately witty, and outsmarted the teacher yet again. And multiple threats of "one more word and ______."

It was so funny.

Of course, I didn't belong to the school system from third to 8th grades, which are the main grades from whence the assholery comes. So, maybe I'm not accustomed to it. But for the love of God, how do they get away with this bullshit? I don't think chip even got a detention. As long as you know to stop after you've been threatened, you can get away with anything.

So, I'm forced to wonder, who's to blame? The only conclusion I've drawn is that it can't be the middle school teacher's fault. These kids are 4 days in to 7th grade, if I guessed right, I can't imagine losing that much maturity in 5 days and a summer. So, that leaves a) elementary school teachers, b) parents, c) themselves, d) the administration, or most importantly, e) their peers.

I'm sure that all five groups have a large amount to do with it. If the teachers had been more disciplinarian, or the administration had let them, this could be avoided. If the parents had instilled actual values, this could be avoided. If the kids weren't blind to their actions, this could be avoided.

If being an ass wasn't cool, this could be avoided.

I'll leave you to ponder.

Kibbles 'n' Bits

Saw War of the Worlds last night, and Red Eye the night before. War of the Worlds was quite good. Red Eye was laughable. And you know in the preview when the guy is made out as some kind of demon, and his eye turns red? That's a farce. He's just got a plot to kill the defense secretary or something stupid like that. You never even find out why.
But War of the Worlds was good.

I was reading the paper this morning, and there was a little blurb mentioning that Evan Bayh might run for president in 2008. Ok, I know, I was set on Condi vs. Hillary, but really, after a bit of research, I might actually consider voting for him. What's weird is that he's a Democrat.
And I am most certainly not a democrat.
But hey, whoever works.

There's not a whole lot going on. I'm catching up on my sleep this weekend, which was much-needed... I did get 6 pictures from Scotland enlarged, framed, and hung. I never realized how little space we have for pictures in this house. This really took my by surprise, but my current favorite is this one:



Closely followed by this one:



And this one:



I think I did a good job, if I do say so myself.

EDIT: I salute you, Blogger people.

I saw the new flag button on the navbar at the top, and out of boredom, I clicked the "what does this mean?" link. I liked what I saw.

Apparently, if you flag a site, and it is deemed 'objectionable' by the blogger king, it isn't removed. It is simply made 'unlisted.' So, it's still accessible. That makes me feel good. I know the first ammendment doesn't apply to things like this, but I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside when a host comes out on the side of free speech. *coughPAYPALcough*

EDIT AGAIN: Hey, anybody want Gmail? I've got 50 invites. Just as long as I know you.

English Was Fun Today

Lol, I know, it looks weird, doesn't it? But really, it was. Yesterday, I was a bit worried about the whole "in class writing" thing... because, reasonably speaking, I NEED MY EDITING. I DO NOT HAVE GOOD FIRST DRAFTS. That said, I actually had fun today. Yes, with in class writing. You guessed it...

It was fiction. Score!

I probably won't get higher than a 4/4 (maybe a 5/3) (those are both 80%), but I had fun this time. I can't get over that. But, yeah... had to write a short story about a person on mars or jupiter. I chose Mars, because it'll be sooner, and it seems more likely, since Mars is actually solid. But, again, I enjoyed it. I'm curious to see my grade...

We also got the list for positions in Flame. I'm gonna be in training for Graphics first week, graphics guy second week, shooter (i go find some footage at an event) third, I get fourth off, and I start training for producer fifth week. Looks good. I can already tell that the more serious classes are going to be a lot more intense this year, but I feel up to it, more mature, etc. So I'm hoping.

Japanese should be interesting. Though we actually do learn a bit, my teacher has no focus. First it's katakana, then it's "ge ba," then before you know it he's talking about plastic boobs and flashing people on balconies. True story. It's all good, though.

Geometry teacher is weird. Spent like 10 minutes rambling on about the 'sixth sense' and drawing an x on a circle on a square. Eventually, all this culminated with two lines of some 70s song: 'Communication is the problem to be answered.' 'Agree to disagree, but disagree for cause.'
What I want to know is why exactly it had to take that long.

Grrr msn.

Heh, go figure. The one time I really, genuinely want to talk to people, nobody's on. Wonderful. So I guess I will amuse myself with blogger until someone gets on or I get too tired to sit up and finally go to bed. Hm.

I was gonna do the 14 things about 14 people... but I got to 3 and then got bored. So I quit. Sad, eh?

I'm too bored for this.

Nostalgia

I remember the days when I used to get comments... Those were good days.
I remember the time when I was a part of a trio. We thought it was unbreakable.. Then I went and broke it. Those were good times.
I remember the ways I used to take to school back in first grade. Those were good ways.
I remember years when I went on campouts regularly. I made a lot of friends on those things. Those were good years.
I remember the campout when it stayed below freezing the whole time, and I didn't have a single long pair of pants. That was a good campout.
I remember the times when I could count on at least two people reading my posts, no matter how long. Those were good times. >_>

Skyscraperblogging

Freedom Tower
Version 1	Version 2	Version 3

Ok. Version one, I like. Version two, I really liked. Sure, it's kind of skeletal, but it's awesome. Version 3.. I've tried to like it. I have. I don't hate it... I just don't like it. It's to obelisky. It's unoriginal. It looks too much like the John Hancock Center. I just don't like it. I'd almost go so far as to say I think it's ugly. *sigh* That's what we get for being obsessed with terrorism.

Fordham Spire

Ah, the Fordham Spire. Now, you all know that I fell in love with Chicago when I went there for 4 days. Well, I approve. Just tall enough to make itself noticed, yet graceful enough not to overpower the other buildings. And yes, it does look like a giant drill bit. But I like it. This is officially my new pet skyscraper project. Screw the Freedom Tower.

Burj Dubai

The Burj Dubai. What can I say. It is a little bit tall for the surrounding buildings, and it does look a little out of place, but I must admit it is a fine piece of architecture. And it is very impressive, I'll give it that. If only it was gonna be here. Why the United Arab Emirates?

And that's my skyscraperblogging.

The backpack of Aaaarrrrrggggghh

Mum bought me a new backpack for school when I was in Scotland. I suppose I really did need one, because mine only had two pockets, and one of the zippers on one was missing the pully thing, and one of the zippers on the other one didn't zip properly, and if I forgot and used that one to close my backpack, it was very prone to suddenly bursting open and spilling the contents in the hallway. But, mom, I'm sorry, but..
I don't like this backpack.

And this isn't just me being picky, and missing my old camo backpack, either. I really don't like it. The zippers are crazy... they are too tight, yet they catch on virtually every part of the backpack when I try to open or close them.

The shoulder straps hurt. Not just because the backpack is overly packed, either. The old backpack hurt a different way. This one's straps are in a bit, very close to the neck, right at the part that hurts at the beginning of a shoulder massage. Problem is, it doesn't get better like a massage. It just keeps hurting. And if I try to push the straps out to the correct position, then the whole strap doesn't rest on my shoulder, cause it's bent outwards. So the strap digs into my shoulder. Which is also not pleasant.

It does have a lot of pockets, though.

Anyway...

One day to go. I'm sort of excited, I guess, because... Well, I just am. I'm ready to see everyone again... it's been a long time. About a month, for the people I saw most recently.

My neck just cracked really big. Very loudly. And just one, resounding CRACK, not like the usual, crickcrickcrickcrick. Freaked me out.

I'm always the only person of our group in my science class. Grrrrrrrrrrrr.

I guess that's it for my random blogging for now. Might do some more later, or you may just have to wait until tomorrow. We'll see.

Patrickblogging

I felt like posting more pictures of me... So, I bring you...

Patrickblogging v2.



Eyebrow. E-Y-E-B-R-O-W. Eyebrow.


Rock on!!


Patience.. growing... thin...


Ooooooh. Computer.


Someone turned the light off. It is dark. I cannot see. This makes me angry. I must look angry in the darkness. Because I am angry.


It is light again. I am still angry. Because someone turned the light on. And I was looking angry at the camera. And now it is light. So I am angry.


Aaah! No squish me!


Oooooo...


...oooooooooo...


...oooohhh... Aaaaah! No squish!


Look at me! I'm houses!


That was fun. Hope you enjoyed it.

...

Bye.

Not as long as it looks

Thank you, Greatfacts.com. Here are some of the more interesting ones, followed by my own afterthoughts.


A Kentucky statute states, "No female shall appear in a bathing suit on any highway within this state unless she is escorted by at least two officers or unless she be armed with a club." Later, an amendment proposed: "The provisions of this statute shall not apply to any female weighing less than sixty pounds nor exceeding 200 pounds; nor shall it apply to female horses."

They have so got that backwards.

Back in 1924, a monkey was convicted in South Bend of the crime of smoking a cigarette and sentenced to pay a 25 dollar fine and the trial costs.

But the real question is, what was a monkey doing in South Bend?

An American urologist bought Napoleon's penis for $40,000.

Apparently, he wanted to show his patients what They could look like after he was done with them.

An etiquette writer of the 1840's advised, "Ladies may wipe their lips on the tablecloth, but not blow their noses on it."

May they simply wipe their noses? What about their eyes? What if they feign wiping their lips, and then move up to the forehead before lowering the tablecloth?

Attila the Hun (invader of Europe; 406-453), Felix Faure (French President; 1841-1899), and Pope Leo VIII (d 963-965) all died while having sex.

Hell of a way to go.

Aztec emperor Montezuma had nephew, Cuitlahac, whose name meant "plenty of excrement."

It would seem Cuitlahac's mommy was unfamiliar with the process of childbirth, and mistakenly assumed... well...

Both Hitler and Napoleon were missing one testicle.

It seems our american urologist got gypped.

Between 1937 and 1945 Heinz produced a version of Alphabetti Spaghetti especially for the German market that consisted solely of little pasta swastikas.

Heinz--catering to the market for 68 years.

Up until the early 20th century, New Jersey and Wisconsin had laws allowing the castration of epileptics.

Yet another reason flashing lights don't pay.

Between April 1st and September 30th it is legal to capture and castrate any horse or donkey that you find roaming around your property.

"It's April now, Ranger, and I'll never catch you on top of my mare again, Goddamn it!"

Bozeman, Montana, has a law that bans all sexual activity between members of the opposite sex in the front yard of a home after sundown if they're nude.

What about in broad daylight?

Brazil is the location of the world's widest road. 160 cars can drive side by side.

Holy shit!
Edit: Turns out it's just 6 lanes each way with 148 lanes worth of median. *Sigh*

Bunny rabbits poop almost every time they hop around in a newly-explored area.

Or maybe they just have short memory spans. There is far too much rabbit poop in the world for that.

Catholic Popes who died during sex: Leo VII (936-9) died of a heart attack, John VII (955-64) was bludgeoned to death by the husband of the woman he was with at the time, John XIII (965-72) was also murdered by a jealous husband, Pope Paul II (1467-71) allegedly died while being sodomized by a page boy.

But as long as John VII sought forgiveness of the lord in his last moments, then he's all right.

Hypnotism is banned by public schools in San Diego.

Because, obviously, you wouldn't want pupils divulging any incriminating school system secrets to those damn LA spies.

Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously. It can kill you.

How might one inject nutmeg?

Non-dairy creamer is flammable.

Coffee and ciggarettes don't mix.

October 1st is the official Coffee Day in Japan.

And I thought Americans were addicted.

No man is allowed to make love to his wife with the smell of garlic, onions, or sardines on his breath in Alexandria, Minnesota. If his wife so requests, law mandates that he must brush his teeth.

He's out of luck if they're out of toothpaste.

On a Canadian two-dollar bill, the American flag is flying over the Parliament Building.

Ha. Ha ha.

Pac-Man, Namco's 1979 arcade game, was originally called "Puck Man". The name was changed when they realized that vandals could easily scratch out part of the letter "P".

Man. I can't even look at the word "Puck" without thinking that. The 70s were a different time...

Paper bags are outlawed in grocery stores in Afghanistan. They believe paper is sacred.

... what?

The first episode of "Joanie Loves Chachi" was the highest rated American program in the history of Korean television. "Chachi" is Korean for "penis."

Turns out Koreans aren't as wholesome as everybody thought.

You may not sell your oragns in Indiana to cover travel expenses.

Damn. There goes that trip to Japan.

You can see stars from the bottom of a well even in day light.

Course, if you're at the bottom of a well, you've not got much else to do than look at the stars. Or drown.

You are more likely to be killed by a champagne cork than by a poisonous spider.

Which is why drinking is a sin!

Women say that the part of a man's body that they admire the most is his buttocks.

Oh, well, I'm screwed then.

When you sneeze, all your bodily functions stop, even your heart.

Interesting.

When the X-ray was discovered, a law in New Jersey was written forbidding the use of "X-ray opera glasses."

Cause you know, if it wasn't explicitly outlawed, everyone would be staring at the Fat Lady's bones.

When the moon is directly over your head, you weigh slightly less.

Can't come up with anything witty here.

When the Black Death swept across England one theory was that cats caused the plague. Thousands were slaughtered. Ironically, those that kept their cats were less affected, because they kept their houses clear of the real culprits, rats.

Cats are cute, rats are ruddy.

When someone commits suicide while jumping off a building, so much adrenaline builds up that you have a heart attack and die before hitting the ground. Thus making this way of commiting suicide basically the easiest.

So, what's the cause of death? Heart Faliure, or hot dog stand guy with umbrella so unfortunately positioned that it passed directly through the heart?

When gentlemen in medieval Japan wished to seal an agreement, they urinated together, crisscrossing their streams of urine.

Yokomura, I gotta piss. I promise I will not sleep with your wife.

When a man was hanged in Mississippi in 1894 the noose came undone and the prisoner fell to the ground. He was set free and and since his innocence was later established he was granted $5000.

Divine rope intervention.

Whale hunting is strictly prohibitted throughout the entire state of Oklahoma.

Give that one a second or two to sink in....

Wedding cake was originally thrown at the bride and groom, instead of eaten by them.

Hmm. I want to have cake thrown at me...

Virginia law forbids bathtubs in the house; tubs must be kept in the yard.

Virginia is just weird. *two thumbs up and commecial-guy-smile* Have fun, Emily!

US gold coins used to say "In Gold We Trust".

But they had to change it under the new "separation of ore and state" laws.

Hmm. That was fun. I didn't even read all of the ones on there, so if you're bored, go check out the rest.

Pointless rambling

I was just browsing through some of my old posts, and I realized that the pointless rants are always the ones that are most fun to read and write, and I haven't written one for a long time. So, without further ado:

Pointlessness.

I do not enjoy using my mother's remote keyboard that she uses with her laptop. Apparently, the keyboard-makers are phasing out the Insert key, and in the new keyboard design that came out sometime, the 6-key island in the middle of the right side, between backspace and the number pad, has been changed to a new, slimmer, two-columns-of-three-keys version. Only problem is, the Delete key is extra tall. Two key-widths, actually. So what key do they get rid of, and only keep on the non-num-lock 0 key on the number pad? Insert, of course. This wouldn't be a big deal, except that I never did like the Control-C/V version of copy/paste. I have always used Ctrl-insert, and shift-insert. Specifically, the insert that is supposed to go over the delete key. And, num lock is always on in this house. So no insert for me. Inevitably, every time I want to copy/paste something, I stare at the keyboard, looking for the insert key. Because I just don't like control-C. I use control-i, control-b, u, f, and occasionally even w. But I feel that control-c/v is an intrusion on the copy/paste property that should belong to control/shift-insert. And control-c is winning. Damn.

I went to a Coldplay concert last night. It was incredible. It was arguably my first 'real' concert, and even though we were standing on the lawn, directly behind a group of very trunk tweenagers who were jumping around and nearly stepped on my sister a number of times, I thoroughly enjoyed it. I couldn't do it justice here, so I just won't. I will have to admit, however, to my dismay, that Clocks sounds better recorded than it does live. The recording speaks to my soul in a way that no other song has ever done. The live version... is just a good song. Just a little bit sad. But still good.

It took us two and a half hours to get home. I think it was about 1am... I don't actually remember. I was very tired. I came in the house, and within two minutes I was in bed going to sleep. Mainly because I had gotten up at 7am. Not voluntarily, I just woke up and was thoroughly not-tired. That and concerts are draining.

I have stopped getting Big Macs. Not conciously... I just haven't been in the mood for them. So now I just get two cheeseburgers. Still pretty good. Though why you can't get tomato on them is beyond me. Stupid mcdonalds.

I went to the orthodontist on thursday. They gave me a new way to put my rubber bands in. A, I'm not good at putting them in or taking them out that way. B, I can only open my mouth half-way now. C, it hurts. Well, mainly when I put them in or take them out. Or touch my teeth when they're in. Stupid things.

Rueva collapsed onto the ground. There was grass. Real, soft grass. She closed her eyes and breathed it in. It smelled wonderful, felt wonderful after the bleak emptiness of the world-that-was-not-a-world.

Without warning, her grass began vibrating heavily. She looked up, and froze in place. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

All around her were towering structures, which looked to be made out of silver, taller than the tallest trees she had ever seen. She was dumbfounded at the number of them, too—in every direction there were rows upon rows of these unnatural things. She searched for some more nature, something as comforting as the grass had first been, but could find only a couple of young trees in the middle of a perfectly crafted brick path, which itself was swarming with people. To her left, there was a road, but it was solid and red, and it was carrying strange-looking wagons that moved by themselves at incredible speeds. She wanted to plunge her face back into the grass, and she did so for a while, but it didn’t help. She knew that world was out there. At last she sat up, and tried to take in her surroundings.

She looked around again. It wasn’t all that bad, really. At least it was clean.

I just felt like posting a bit of my story. I copy/pasted it. Yes, I used Control-Insert. I like it better, dammit.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I'm back. I know I didn't touch the internet since day 5. Bite me. :P I guess I owe everyone an update, though. Went down to England, went to York, Lincoln, and Nottingham... bought like 100 pounds worth of crazy shit... Went back up to scotland, chilled out for a day, then went up to the scottish highlands. It was as awesome as I remembered. We rode the quads (4-wheelers, ATVs) around a lot, and Alan took me out the back on the quad... Prolly took them about a mile or two into the hills. It was really fun, plus I was galavanting across the scottish highlands, so it's not like I would complain if I wanted to. Went to a football match (european football, not american), and our team won... woo hoo! Went back down to the lowlands of scotland, and bought another 60 pounds worth of crazy shit... Then it was over. :(

Plane trip back over was a little strange, and long, but all in all it was ok. I slept for a total of about 2 hours, even though it was about 10 am the whole way. That helped me avoid jet lag, but I got really messed up about the days... it felt like I had left scotland the day before... but it had just been at like 9am glasgow time. whatever.... Managed to keep going until about 9.30 last night. We got home, then I unpacked, we went to red lobster, came home, I sorted through some pictures, took a shower, and went to bed. No computer for me. I may not have had jet lag, but I had gotten up at 4.45 in the morning, and regardless of time zones, that makes me damned tired. Had to get up at 7.10 this morning, but it wasn't too bad. Went to East to get my schedule and books... we were a bit early, though, so I didn't have to wait in a half-hour book line like last time. Schedule:

Olympian Flame
Baker
Chemistry
Cassiddy
Japanese
Lykins
Resource
Concert Choir
Hauan
English 10H
Galbraith (woohoo!)
Geometry
Campbell (eugh. At least I didn't get Vogel.)
Theater Arts
Runge.

Not too bad overall... and I actually get to stay on the same floor for two classes. Though I have to move all the way across the school nearly every time I change classes. Rarr. At least I have a class near my locker. >_>

Anyway, I bought 5 cds in britain.
Kaiser Chiefs--Employment
Athlete--Tourist
James Blunt--Back To Bedlam
Now That's What I Call Music 61 (they started a bit earlier over there. :P)
and a scottish instrumental band, of course. :P

Anyway, that's it for my blogging. Now to finish importing my cds onto itunes, then to MSN.

Oh yeah, I have four or 5 cds worth of pictures. When I can be bothered, I'll put some of the better ones up here.