One if by land, Two if by C++

Some Pictures

2007-08-25T11:56:00.000-07:00

Some of the pictures I snapped on my long cross-country flight when I wasn't busy.

Cockpit
In Manchester, Vermont, I think
Random
Looking Down
Random again
A ski area
Again
Vermont
Vermont again
And again
TacAir FBO at Bradford International, Windsor Locks
quabbin reservoir
Again
Once more

Dude, yeah.

2007-01-27T11:31:00.000-08:00

We are so West Coast. That's where my rediscovered self is. That's where I belong.

2006-11-29T18:12:00.000-08:00

I totally wrote a whole post the other day while at school, but Internet Explorer decided to eat it up. School is cool, but I'm ready for winter break. Now. Not Exams. Oh well, so it goes. The Music man production extends my day by a number of hours, and keeps me busy, and is an absolute joy to play in.

Halloween

2006-11-01T10:44:00.000-08:00

Was talking with a fellow employee at work the other week. I was trying to get moving so that I wouldn't be late for certain things that I had planned later in the day. This guy who I was talking to happens to be on work leave from prison. He gets to leave at 7am and work until 2pm. I believe that I heard he is doing some semi-hard time, closing up a sentence of about 5 years. He also happens to be very very ghetto. He also lived in Roxburry before taking up his current residence in the Billrica House of Correction. He said that on Halloween, back in his town, people would put on masks, go trick-or-treating, then hold the people up for their money. He said that I ought to watch out, because "Dracut is kind of a ghetto town, isn't it?".

I don't usually put much weight on the things this person tells me, but, for some unknown reason, I paid a little more attention to this particular conversation. This guy doesn't have much credentials, but he is probably an authority on this subject.

2006-10-17T16:19:00.000-07:00

This totaly put the cap on a good day.

Mozart's piano concerto in C

Heck, this one too. I love it.

Take it to the limit.

2006-10-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

Heh heh heh. Engineers. We're such nerds:

and, one of my favorites:

:-O

2006-10-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

Traveling Trout! Flying Fishpaste! Holy Carp! I just realized that today is my last day being a not-adult. Tomorrow I can be tried as an adult in a court of law. How very odd.

Perfectionism

2006-09-25T07:37:00.000-07:00

Between the line of work that I am in and the atmosphere of the towns that the work is located in, I think that I can make a few classifications of perfectionism. I thought that this was rather interesting, myself.

Perfectionism in people can be classified in three groups:

Perfectionist #1: The true perfectionist.
The type who labors for endless hours upon end to achieve the exactness of his desires. The one who will be driven insane until he reaches the utmost in absoluteness. This is what I refer to as the "Ship in a Bottle" people. Perfectionist #1 is the only type of personality that would every spend the immense amount of time trying to put a ship in a bottle. Once in there, you can be assured that it is going to be exactly as he likes.

Perfectionist #2: The rich perfectionist.
The type who, either through years of working from the ground up, inheriting an immense sum of money, or growing up in the wealthy environment, achieve the perfection of their dreams through the throwing around of money. In actual fact, these people are often lazy and, left to fend for themselves, would never be able to live the life that they do by means of their will to work for it. Thus, they end up going to the lake in their boat so that the landscapers can fix up their lawn and garden. The objects of their affection are usually their lawn, their car(s), their "artwork" in the house, and their pets. These people are whom I refer to as the "Chives, re-arrange that planter. The coloring is slightly asymmetric in this light" people.

Perfectionist #3: The Engineer.
The type who spend hours mathematically defining their situation, then build 5 different scale models to show their correctness. These are the people whom I refer to as the "This is absolutely 100% perfect within + or - .001 inches. How can I make it better?" perfectionists.

Of music and movies.

2006-09-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been thinking of some great music moments in movie history, and how it has influenced us.

One of the greatest is 2001: A space Odyssey. Most memorably because of it's use of Strauss and the apes in front of the monolith, but also because it makes use of music in an incredible way throughout the entire movie.

Star-Wars is one of the most wide spread, I would say. Absolutely anyone can look up, imagine the giant golden letters, "Star-Wars", and sing the theme music in all its glory. That is aside from its many distinct themes and moods that are strewn masterfully throughout the movie.

The scene in Apocalypse Now where the air-cav flys into a hot landing zone blaring Ride of the Valkyries. No, the soundtrack wasn't blaring the music, the helicopters were. That's the best part.

More recently, V for Vendetta for its use of the 1812 Overture. Yes, it was so very typical and predictable, but it was so brilliantly executed and I couldn't imagine a better use for it.

I hesitate to call it music and part of the soundtrack, but Psycho introduced an incredable incidental sound for moments of suprise and terror.

I think Jaws also falls in this boat, although it qualifies as an actual soundtrack. People seem to remember it as a sound effect, though.

Mission Impossible and James Bond ought to be lumped together for the greatest mood music of its genre. Anytime anyone thinks of espionage or sneaking around with a gun, they automatically begins singing this soundtrack, if only in their head.

These are what I could think of off the top of my head. I'm curious to know what I might be missing.

Effects of Stress (and lack of sleep)

2006-09-12T06:52:00.000-07:00

This morning at class the professor had playing on the projecter a series of cartoons of a rabbit with various reactions to stress. Anger, cold sweat, dialated pupels, weird dreams, all were represented. When the picture of the rabbit having a wacked out dream popped up, it made me remember the dream that I had last night that I would have forgotten otherwise.

Amongst many other highlights of the dream, the presiding theme was that, after being on the road with a number of people on a beautiful sunny spring day, we pulled the car over to what appeard to be a house. Rather, it was one of those house-type buildings that were made into a business. Somehow I knew that it was a barber shop, and I went inside with the intention of getting my hair cut. I sat down in the chair with the sheet around my neck and they began cutting. I say they, because there were three barbers present. They were each working on my head. They worked in harmony and did an expediant and an excellant job. Halfway through the job, I realized that my three barbers were gay. I was getting my hair cut by three gay barbers. I don't know how I knew. Maybe it was their pink aprons. It didn't make much difference to me. I was so preoccupied with this thought that I failed to tell the three not to cut the hair on the back of my head, as I was growing it out for a mullet. When they finished I looked into the mirror and, to my suprise, I learned that not only did my hair look incredible, but they didn't even touch the hair on the back of my head. They were perfect! My hair was perfect! I was so eccstatic that I vowed that if I was ever to get my hair done, it would always be with the three gay barbers.

If this is stress, I think I like it.

A weakness of sorts

2006-08-31T05:51:00.000-07:00

There is a destructive cycle within my psyche that runs endlessly and contributes to the general chaos surrounding me.

There are two separate values which are both linked in an unstable direct relation system, the first of which is my inability to throw things away. Let me state differently: the inability to throw away anything that can still function in some useful capacity. In other words, I cannot stand the fact that I may be disposing of a still effective tool of any sort. It makes me feel like a rich pig. It makes me feel like I'm contributing to the degradation of society. It makes me feel like I am non-resourceful to go about with the idea of, Eh, I'll just buy another one. This problem is especially pronounced when it comes to clothing. The fact that A: it costs a lot of money, B: they can be used outside of their normal sense (e.g. as rags, patches, etc.) and C: I feel like a dirt bag throwing clothing away when I know that there are people who would fight over what I intend to toss out.

This brings to light my second infirmity: I hate clothes. They are absurd manifestations of modern upper class societal motivational factors, almost all of which deviate towards impracticality and ornamentation, as history proves. I'd just as much rather wear a toga as anything else. Just so long as I put it on in the morning and change it out the next day. In other words, I don't find pre-ripped jeans fashionable, nor do I find them practical, nor do I care.

The net result of all of this is that I end up with a gigantic stack of clothing in my closet, some of which were given to me and some of which are just running themselves down. And still, I end up looking the same as I always do. They sit there taking up a ton of space and driving me nuts, but I am powerless to do anything about it.

Unite for Pluto!

2006-08-26T06:41:00.000-07:00

If you have been paying any attention at all to recent galactic politics, you would have heard the stunning news that Pluto has been kicked out of the solar system. And why? Because of nothing but cold hard scientific facts and the pressures of subjective galactic social acceptability standards that dictate that Pluto is just a rock with a moon. Just a rock with a moon without an atmosphere.

And what of bald midgets? Are they not people also? Are we to segrogate them into separate groups and give them numerical names for cataloging purposes? Do we endlessly debate the "humanness" of these individuals? Nay! For the answer is obvious to all.

Maybe Pluto is small, maybe it is cold and maybe it does lack an atmosphere, but is it so hard to keep Pluto as a planet for posterity's sake? After all, it has been one since the 1930s. It must be remembered, though, that nostalgia is not the problem. It is the underlying power that is the problem. First Pluto as a planet. What next? The tooth fairy? We are living in troubled times, my friends, and troubled times call for desperate measures.

Read about and follow the epic campaign for pluto here.

2006-08-24T05:40:00.000-07:00

Recently I had occasion to bring a flat tire to a garage for work. There happens to be a sunoco gas station and garage in relative proximity to the office, so that is where he gets all his work done. After all of the preaching against stereotyping and broad generalizations of people, you cannot change the fact that this station is run solely by Indians, all of whom are probably related to each other.

I often swap vehicles for oil changes there, but I never really have to talk to them for anything other than to let them know my intentions. He inspected the flat tire, filled it up, twirled it around and around, got some water and poured it on the loud spot. He pulled out a colored pencil and marked a line and said, "Ohhh, see, the rim is cracked", then with a most somber and sorrowful disposition said, "So sorry the bad new". I stifled a laugh.

Eh, yeah they have broken English, and they treat their employees funny and they forget prepositions, but they get the job done and are nice. It is a far cry from the American garage that I had to take a tire to one time. The tire had suffered a blowout on the highway, and when the guy at the garage examined it he smartly informed me that, "D***, this rim is f****** hammered!". They got the job done too, but somehow it wasn't the same as the Indian place.

What news from Sweden?

2006-08-15T06:45:00.000-07:00

Sweden always seems like it has something interesting going on in the cultural or political department. This manifests itself even more so with news that I am only now getting a hold of.

It seems that the secret supressed dreams of every person alive are coming true in the Swedish political realm since January first of this year when the Pirate Party was founded. It is the largest organized political party outside of parlament. No, they are not a bunch of peg legged, eye patched buckaneers running for office unfortunately, but they aim to get into parlament for the only three goals on their agenda: shared culture, free knowledge, and protected privacy (Which basically means that you can't have your house taken away for downloading the latest boy-band pre-teen girl hit album). And they have a cool pirate flag logo too.

Quoted from Wikipedia,
"The May 31, 2006 Swedish police raid of the facility hosting The Pirate Bay (and Piratbyrån, along with over 200 other independent site owners, hosted at the same facility) meant a breakthrough for the party in the public eye. From before the raid the party was steadily growing with some ten new members every day, but the aforementioned raid by the police led to more than 500 new members by the end of the day, with a membership count of 2680. The next day had another 930 people register membership, for a total of 3611 members."

Love you, Jimi

2006-08-13T06:52:00.000-07:00

Was driving the other day and saw a bumper sticker on the bumper of a car. It said, "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace" -Jimi Hendrix. I laughed and laughed and laughed. The windows were rolled down too.

First off, that notion has been pretty much false for all of world history. Second, who quotes Jimi in a non musical context? He can play the guitar pretty flippin' well. That's about it. Third, I was under the notion that quoting someone who is in a constant state of "high" is bad form. Or maybe it's just me.

Of current events

2006-08-10T06:59:00.000-07:00

I am a patriot. I love America. It is a great and wonderful country that I would gladly stand and fight for. The ideals that the forefathers put forward were an efficient and beautiful series of baselines designed only for the good of its citizens. I therefore don't mean to imply that I would undermine it or its leaders in any way. Not that any of the following would be true, but were someone intending it to be, it would be possible.

Though I cannot help but observe that, were I intending to undermine an advanced capitalist nation in order to proceed to a communist order, I would be exceptionally proud of myself for coming up with a plan consisting of the series of events that follow. The mishmash of events that have occurred in the past fifteen years can be wrapped up, if one wishes to have the final goal in mind, into four stages.

Firstly, excepting small skirmishes, the United States had a ten year period of quite since the first Gulf War. In this time, people have had a long opportunity to settle down and be lulled into a sense of peace and security. Between the absolute military supremacy over any other force in the world and the vast seas in the middle, seeing the US as an untouchable entity is a very easy thing to do.

Secondly, some of the absolute worst things that any single person could imagine happening to our homeland become reality. The targets, being of such a high profile, not only affect the local population, but affects millions upon millions, across the entire country, within and without its borders. Each person, in some way shape or form, is affected on a local and personal level. This act shakes the confidence that was had with the security of their nation, reducing each individual to a state of feeling small, insignificant and helpless in regards to the threat.

Thirdly, the executors of this heinous crime are claimed to be of a terrorist organization which happens to already absolutely hate America. This organization would not deny responsibility because A: it is the excuse that they are looking for to fight; B: it is to their advantage that they would be able to claim "bragging rights" of such a sophisticated and coordinated attack on a foreign and common enemy; C: were they to deny affiliation with the attack, who would believe them? They are terrorists after all...

Fourthly, the government maintains and escalates the public's feeling of being targeted and of helplessness by means of continued thwarting of "plots" and arrests of terrorists and continual military contact with the "enemy", thereby making the public realize how much they "need" the government and how much they are helpless without it and how overwhelming the whole problem is. Thus, as dependence grows, liberties vanish in the continued struggle to keep its public "safe" from the impending threat.

Not that I am claiming that any of this is happening. Surely this situation can come about from good intentions, but it is also very capable of coming out of bad intentions. No absolute reform takes place over night. With the robust and redundant systems of the US government, it would take many many years to reform without violence, but unfortunately it is the trend with this system to continue in that direction. It has happened many many times in the past, so what makes it impossible to happen now? People in general are no smarter than they were five hundred years ago. Molecules and the contents of tree bark do not dictate who rules a country. Thus, I don't propose for people to be skeptical or suspicious, but rather to be watchful and conscious of the world.

Farewell Castro

2006-08-08T13:48:00.000-07:00

Due to our friend Castro's illness and, most probable, death (no dictator in his right mind would let news of their death spread around the country the moment it happens, or disappearfrom public view for more than a week. That's just the way it works), I decided that it is time to swap out the picture of young Castro with Lenin. Seeing as I just finished Lenin's biography, I figured that this was appropriate. Yes he was a bald dictator, but you wouldn't tell him that or you would end up a headless working class carcase.

2006-08-04T14:30:00.000-07:00

There are many different types of personalities that people of this world possess. Certainly it is impossible to boil them down into two distinct categories, but to some extent it is possible, for it is true that not everybody is a leader. Some people feel that they must take the helm, even if they are not in the least bit qualified for the position, and some people are content to be driven wherever their leader listeth. There is also a wide range of intensity that each will pursue their desire, from absolute passiveness to being utterly relentless in their pursuit of their personalities desire. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this diverse range of people, for without leaders, people would be in a state of confusion and disharmony, and without followers nothing would ever get accomplished.

In the 2004 elections, out a two-hundred million voting eligible population, some eighty million people (and some change) decided that they were so indifferent that they did not need to vote. Thus, by the numbers, only 60% of the population seems to care enough about the representation of the masses to the governing class that they get up and vote. That also means that about 40% of the population's greatest concern is when happy hour begins (which they probably cannot remember on a day to day basis). The not so small 40% minority of the country could care less if they were ruled by a dictator. In fact, they may welcome the regime since less prime time tv slots would be taken up by election ads.

If they don't care about broader affairs, what do they care about? As seems consistent with history, so long as they have food, water, beer and a place to sleep, and in this modern society, a tv, they seem to get along well enough to be content.

Every country has a need to possess a certain resource within its borders to sell or export to others in order to be a profitable country. Whether it is the various tea exports of Sri Lanka, the oils of the middle eastern countries, the coffee of Columbia, the cheap products of China or the sunny beaches of Honolulu, a country needs to be able to, to some extent, hold other countries hostage to their affordable and economic exports. A country can only be profitable if it can tap into the world market.

I began envisioning a country where all of society is government centric. That is to say, all production, all work, all efforts go into achieving the final goal that the government has put into place. This country, having no natural resources or agricultural resources of its own, would be driven with the primary purpose and function of furthering the understanding and the depths of knowledge of the sciences and arts. And like China with production, would sell this product at cheaper prices than would be economically viable in any other setting.

While people would be free to come and go as they please, the conditions of remaining in that country would be to either become an educated researcher in the system or to become a working class person who works with the inevitable logistical difficulties in maintaining facilities for millions of people. While the intellectuals and scholars enjoy forging a new pathway for mankind, the remaining are content to carve a pathway for themselves and do what work is allotted to them. Failure to meet minimum requirements for the lowest positions or dereliction of duty would result in the voiding their citizenship. In much the same way a business would handle its employees, so would this country handle its citizens.

While workers are fully compensated for their work, the government provides the stores and food markets and such. In this way a citizen has full independent choice of purchase and also has options abroad in other countries, while also maintaining the strict logistic discipline required to focus energies and manpower on research.

Thinking a little more on this subject, it reminded me very much of Japan. Lacking in natural resources and excelling in the technical sector. They got the right idea, but not the right follow through. How interesting it would be to have a country full of thinkers.

Across the country in 10 days

2006-07-31T10:51:00.000-07:00

Got home from Washington after a long and full red-eye flight home. The quality of sleep that I got on that flight ensured that I was to be wiped out for the whole next day.
It was so very exciting to see a friend get married. I don't think that there is anything else quite like it. It as also a horrifying prospect that someone only a few years older than me is being married off. Heck, that could be me. I predict that the trend of my peers getting married off will carry on for a few, maybe five or ten, years, and then my peers will start dying.

Washington was a cool state. Literally and figuratively. The temperatures lying around 65-70 degrees, it made for quite a shock coming from New England. Humidity hovered around 20% for an added bonus. We also caught a break with the weather, with the first few days being blue skys without a cloud to hinder them. The rest of the week proceeded without a hint of rain. Everybody told us not to take the weather as a sample of the whole year's weather, but that is what I saw and I don't want to see Washington any other way. Saw Mt.Rainier and stared at it. It is hard to miss. It stands about 12k feet high and you can see it from pretty much every corner of the state. It is a genuine bonafide snow-capped pointy mountain. Not like these land-pimples that we have around here.
Washington and Seattle possessed a certain atmosphere about it that is not found in Boston or New York or New England in general. A calm cool driving environment prevailed on the streets. Nowhere was a car horn to be found. People generally adhered to the speed limits. In the city, people seemed to be eager to let you cut in front of them when you realize that you are in the wrong lane. The only fingers that I saw were the ones tightly wrapped in a group around the steering wheel. The only birds to be flipped were the biological ones. Unlike southern drivers, these western drivers don't have a "slow" about them, but rather, have a "whatever, dude" about them. This makes for a swift and relaxing ride.
How I envy their driving. At the same time, I feel sorry for them...

Washington State is also the home of the famed and renowned Archie McPhee store. Having been remained of that fact by Heidi, we demanded a visit. What divine luck it was that we were there on the day that they decided to have a parking lot sale. Fill a giant bag full of merchandise in the lot for $3.50. Two bags for $5. The trunk of your car for $15. I could feel a tear welling up in my eye, for long have I dreamed of visiting this store, let alone be a part of a massive lot sale. It was here that I got my Bach Action Figure. I am not sure if I want to take him out of the box or not. He has a certain allure both ways. In any case, I think that I will print out the provided online instructions on how to fold out of paper a clavichord for my Bach Action Figure.

JC, Me and Mark, each of whom are cool people. (Note the farmers tan)

2006-07-19T13:15:00.000-07:00

Hurray for Washington, Hurray!! Bill Gates Country, Hurray! Home of thousands of unique brands of soda, Hurray! Land of coffee shops, home of the Archie McPhee store, Hurray! Chilling out for Heidi's wedding, Hurray!

Hurray!

Be back in, what, five days? Hurray!

Lesson on life #4927

2006-07-04T04:45:00.000-07:00

And that, boys and girls, is the reason why you don't use a soldering iron in front of the mouse, go downstairs to eat dinner, and go straight to use the computer without looking around.

ouch.

2006-07-02T06:26:00.000-07:00

'drew has finally stepped into the digital age. After spending hours in a dark garage all alone, and raking leaves all day long, and saving all his money, he decided that it would be worth it to spend some of that money on himself for once. He is now the proud owner of a Sansa e250 mp3 player (that also plays videos and pictures and records voice and FM radio). And I got it all for even cheaper than what you can begin to think about getting an Ipod for. People often talk about (old person voice) "the value of a dollar". They say to me, "What are you doing this summer? Oh, your working!?" (like I haven't been for the past two-three years), "That's good. It'll teach you to save money".
I have a firm grasp on the value of the dollar, thank you very much. That Sansa cost me sixteen hours of taxed labour. Sixteen hours of scrubbing beer stains out of the floor, of wiping melted candy off of just about everything, of weeding gardens, of transplanting trees across the yard and then moving them back to where they were the next day, of displacing twenty cubic feet of sand and dirt from the ground, of breathing paint fumes in ill ventilated areas, of assembling chinese made furniture.

I know precisely how much I paid for my new toy, and I am going to enjoy every last bit of it until it drops dead and bursts into flames.

2006-06-20T13:18:00.000-07:00

Completed political indoctrination 101..., I mean, college orientation, this week. You know, I don't care whether you are extreme liberal, extreme conservative, or anywhere in between. I don't want to hear it (unless you are a hard core pacifist. Then I'd slap you and walk away). I've heard too many bologna hot air fish carp stories from each polar extreme. None of them want to talk or to logically reason it out. They just want to gas off.

Check out my sweet rug. It almost makes me feel dignified and respectable. It's also very soft and squishy in between my toes. Next step: A large leather armchair with bison horn arm rests, resting in front of a large stone fire place that has a 14 point buck trophy hanging over it.

2006-06-09T10:57:00.000-07:00

Had an interesting day.

Woke up. My alarm didn't wake me up for some reason, so I slept in about half an hour later than I was planning to. It was dark and raining out. It wasn't pouring or anything, so it was just a miserable drizzle. I shower eat and leave. Got behind the absolute slowest truck on earth. Drove at 15 miles per hour (very literally) for half of the ride to the office. Boss waits to until I get there to tell me that he wants me to paint. Thus, I run the risk of turning my as of yet unpainted work clothes into painting work clothes, and I have to scrounge for an old brush in the back of my truck. Having painted the necessary areas, I find that I have become the office maid and must clean the office, wash the floors, vacuum, etc. I help him revamp his private office room. He removes a still good looking (and soft) throw rug from the floor in order to put a new one in. He didn't like the color of the "old" one. He rolled up the old one and unfurled the new one. I said that if he wasn't keeping the old one, I'd take it for my room. He said fine. After finishing everything there, I remember hearing that a vehicle in the other garage needed to be done. I inquire and find it to be true. I drive over in the rain, and enter the garage and climb into the bus. Whatever type of party or trip or gathering it was, it involved fruit. A large plastic container full of fruit. Fruit juice. Fruit cups. Everything was sticky. Their shoes were muddy too, which means that I had to scrub the carpets. Someone had also decided to put their face on the window. In the back I find two boxes, each a quarter filled with munchkins. The fruit seems fresh and the munchkins are soft. They cannot be more than a day old, if that. I don't risk my luck with the fruit, but take the donuts. I take a can of Sprite and the pack of Dentyne Ice out of my car. I sit down in the back of the bus with the overhead lights on, but at the same time, not very much light manifests itself due to the absence of light in the garage. Some music played softly through the speakers. I sat down at one of the tables in the back and ate some munchkins and sipped on my Sprite. Then I chewed on a piece of gum. Then I thought of how sad it was that I was sitting alone in the dark in the back of a bus, almost enjoying myself. Finished up, cleaned up, locked up, and went into my car. Turned the key. The lights went dim and the engine turned over twice. Turned the key again and the engine didn't turn over at all. Straightened out the wheel of the car, opened the door, aimed down the slight hill grade and away from the fence. Got behind and started pushing. Twenty feet later I ran into the drivers seat, popped the clutch. Let off a small primeval "Yeah!" to assert my accomplishment of starting a car under my own manpower, and went on my way being careful not to stall in intersections. Headed off to Dennis' to attend to an imperative job request. There not being a hill in his area, I parked as far back and as straight as possible. Having cleaned his basement, he requested that I dig to find the septic tank cover. A 5 foot long, 2.5 foot wide, 3 foot deep trench of saturated sand and water later, nothing was found (Come to find out today, I came within six inches off the end of the trench from the tank. I doubled the size of that trench this morning). Leaving, I set up my car to go, keys in the ignition, parking brake off. Checked for traffic off his driveway. Pushed. Jumped in, threw it into gear, dropped the clutch. Carp, forgot to turn the ignition to "on". Got in front of the car with my legs now out in the road and reversed the rolling of the car. Much heaving later, I jumped in, turned the ignition, started the car. The whole car thing was very much amusing, and not frustrating in the least, surprisingly. Rather, I was much more turned off by the painting deal. Riding home, I thought that all I needed was something humorously bad to happen to me on the way home in order to round off my day. I smashed the steering wheel and yelled "Crap!". I left my rug at the office.

2006-05-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

My senior NYO orchestra concert.

As much as I hate to say it:

2006-05-25T16:00:00.000-07:00

Somehow, playing the violin with The Violin Hickey doesn't sound like a much better compromise.
Still, I'd like to remain optomistic: Maybe the one is on the level, or very tolerant.

2006-05-22T20:08:00.000-07:00

A funny tune, a queer look, a bag of Kix, a dozen donuts, a bad joke, a bald guy, hoards of short kids, a silly face, an article of clothing, some well placed horrid notes, some beautifully placed right notes, faces across the way, Christmas music, a peculiar person, mutual confusion, mutual coherency, broken equipment, a long day, close groups, cramming, Applebees, Duncan Donuts, "refreshments", a group of four, a group of eight, a group of eleven, a group of thirty three, a great gathering

Moments and Memories too quickly gone.

Greek class is Over

2006-05-20T12:26:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I finished two years of Koine Greek. Hundreds of vocab words, dozens of different forms, and numerous irregularities. Two years of, every Friday, sitting in a room with other people. It started with ten others, if I remember correctly. As they got married off, or wimped out (whichever was the case), the number of people was slowly whittled down to five core contenders.

Strangely, in a very odd way, it feels as if I don't know anything more than what I went in with. I don't feel very different. Maybe that is the way it is suppose to work -the information is so ingrained in me that I don't have to think about it. Just know it. There were days when there was so much information in my head that I literally couldn't keep it straight.

I can't say that I got the best grades in the world. I can't say that I couldn't have put more work into it. I don't know whether I bombed the final project or not, but I can safely say this: Whether or not I got a passing grade, I survived the Greek class of '06.

I need help

2006-05-15T05:31:00.000-07:00

I think I have a drinking problem. You all will probably have to set up an intervention.

I've dumped water onto my mouth and down my shirt at least three times this week. It usually happens when I get cocky and underestimate the amount of liquid in the container. I get close to the end of my drink and say Bottoms Up! It's all downhill from there.

They say that the biggest step towards getting rid of a problem is first admitting that you have one...

Price gouging

2006-05-07T20:51:00.000-07:00

I payed $4.55 for a towel. Like, the kind that you use to wipe up water. Most often, water on your body after you take a shower. This is coming from the guy who is reluctant to spend the extra forty cents to "Biggie Size it!!!11!" (Wudju-liketo Biggisize dat? Canada, many years ago).

So I decided to do some "preventative maintenance" on Saturday, and clean up one of the vehicles at the limo place. They are required to be done every time they go out on a job. Since it had rained the few days prior when it had been out, it was necessary. Though it was not slated to leave, I thought it best to finish it before it was obligated to to go out. This was, indeed, the same Saturday that we went to Purgatory and back. As you might be able to imagine, going to purgatory was a taxing experience, and I was rather wiped out energy wise for the day.

Rolling up to the office to get the keys for the (not in the same area) garage, I got distracted by my boss who had just flown down to Florida in order to pick up his new toy, which he had won the auction for just recently. The Oldsmobile 442 was the exact make, model, and color that he had wanted since he was a kid. He's got the dollars for it alright. He lowered the roof, popped the hood, and began showing me the 455cc V8 and the all leather interior. The car was a light blue color with only a few minor dings in the body that could probably be tapped out. It had brand new tires on it, and the floor looked like it was very very soft.

After he finished showing off his new toy, I went inside to get the keys. There I found out that there was a new employee. So I had to meet the new weekend dispatcher.

All of this conspired against me to slyly slip my mind into forgetting to pick up a stack of towels to bring to the other garage for hand drying the cars. Thus, when I got there and after I washed the whole vehicle down, I realized that I only had one rather small towel that I left there from the last time for just such an occasion.

It was an early closing night due to there not being much business that day. I ran back to the office hoping that it would still be open. It was closed and locked up. I headed back towards the garage where there is a Sears Essentials nearby. I dread going in there. It reminds me of a ghetto Walmart. I was lost and disoriented for a minute, trying to find the towel section. I've never had occasion to locate and browse the towel section before. Who does? Who shops for towels? For all I knew, they just "existed" in houses. Never the less, I ran into the store, found the towel section and looked for a plain simple towel.

Who would have thought that there are so many choices? There were huge towels, medium towels, super fuzzy shaggy towels, colory towels. When I think of towel, I don't think of variety. I think of, just, a "towel". Even worse, the cheapest was $4.55. I ran around looking for a cheaper towel. There was none. Trying to hurry up, I grabbed the closest one.

I always feel like an idiot going through the checkout at Walmart or Sears, because all I ever buy is a single item and a bag of Doritos. This time was no different, except that I saw that I was wearing filthy stained clothes and was holding a lime green towel. And I didn't even have the Doritos.

How on earth can a towel cost that much? The material costs absolutely cannot be that high, and they are undoubtedly hand sewn in India, so that isn't a factor. They weigh next to nothing - cheap transport. Someone is making a bundle, here. Price gouging in the towel market. I would like to know where my money is headed.

*EDIT* - I forgot to mention that the towel didn't even work. What? A towel can't work? What the heck? Yeah, it doesn't work. The stupid thing is made up of some synthetic plastic-feeling stuff, so it doesn't even really pick up water. It just pushes it around and makes it look different. Absolutely ridiculous.

*Disclaimer: I do indeed believe that Purgatory exists, but I only believe in the terrestrial version :-)

Han shoots first!

2006-05-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

This September: The original unaltered Trilogy, as was seen in 1977.

Original. Unaltered. Trilogy.

My worldwide popularity

2006-05-03T06:19:00.000-07:00

As you probably know, I have a hit counter on my blog so that I can watch where random hits on my blog come from.

When a user navigates through the web and links to a site, the user connects to that site's server, thus letting the server know his IP (simply, a unique internet identification for each computer). The user also transfers something called a "referral", which is the URL of the website from which the user linked from.

Since my blog is not linked from any static websites or from any blogs other than the families, the only outside hits that I generally get are those from search engines. Being diverse and having the wide spectrum topic coverage that it does, I get a number of interesting hits on a day to day basis. The kind of hits where I really wonder what on earth the person was thinking at the time.

Not surprisingly, the majority of the hits are dominated by Ramen Noodle searches. Of the most recent searches is this one from yahoo, this google. These are two among many variations.

Since the word "C++" is in my title, but the blog has nothing to do with it, I get lots of hits pertaining to C++. Primarily, I get a number of hits related to something about a wait function. I don't know what or why, but lots of people seem to think that it is important.

I also periodically get hits pertaining to Half-Life 2, usually linking to either one of the pictures in this ancient post.

Of the more interesting recent hits, I have one directly to my work on Pile Theory. A hit from someone in the local area (based on their IP) that was searching for a certain music director, of whom I have referenced here before. Hits from people in search of information on musicals that I have performed in and reflected upon here.

The strangest hit must be this one: I was browsing IPs when I found one that I wasn't familiar with. Running a search, I found out that it was from
IP: 155.178.***.***;
ISP: Federal Aviation Administration.

Hmm, maybe I have some critical opinions on here that they are just itching to get a hold of. Maybe they are in search of elite computer simulator pilots. Maybe they need an expert's opinion on manatee face-kicking. I looked up the URL referral.

It turns out that it was a google search using the terms, "paluza power". Hurray FAA! Way for the government to work for us, keeping us safe from midair aircraft collisions! What's even worse is that the link to my site is on the bottom of the second page, implying that this user was looking pretty hard for whatever he wanted to know.

2006-04-29T04:59:00.000-07:00

It is incredible what a sincere gift, or greeting, or small conversation, or gift of music, or small showing of thoughtfulness, or even a hello can do when you are feeling a bit low.

2006-04-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

Link

Of nutrition

2006-04-16T16:28:00.000-07:00

I, Andrew Anganes, am not a nutritionist, neither am I a manitologist (The study of manatees) but that is another subject. Being one who eats food, though, I feel that I know something about the subject.

What I want to address today is the subject of extreme dieting habits. This, and their effects on the human body. More specifically, their effects on my human body.

As many of you know, I had the opportunity to dedicate a week of my life to playing music for a bunch of middle schoolers. During this week was a time of unrest in my nutrition cycle. The schedule for my playing was on Sunday from 1:00-5:00, then Monday through Saturday, 3:30-6:30. Consider also that Sunday dictates church in the morning, then a rush to get to practice. Please take into account that it is about a 30 minute drive to or from the practice area. More, if there happens to be heavy traffic.

A basic analysis would immediatly see that on the first Sunday I wouldn't have time for lunch, and that dinner would come late. This was the kick and shock into the week's daily cycle. The result of this first day was basically hunger through until I got home, then a big dinner. The big dinner then carried over until breakfast the next morning. Normally I eat a rather substantial breakfast, so anything diminished is usually a somewhat bad sign.

Having done some schoolwork and warmed up on my violin, I would then proceed to run out the door, always being late. This would be preceded by a lunch at home. Lunches are never really a big meal for me or anyone in our house. I don't like lunch. It doesn't feel like it seats well in the daily pattern for some reason. So lunch is usually a not-huge holdover meal.

The result of this is that I would find myself a bit hungry driving from place to place and at the intermission times of the shows. This led me to do things such as buy Doritos, donuts, chocolate chips and some soda for the road. And, being hungry, I would eat to my fill (Like the old dieting technique always says, "Don't stuff yourself, only eat until satisfied". In my case, satisfied means full). Of course, the conclusion of this would be that I would eat less dinner, and have more Doritos in my stomach than real food. At least, the Doritos seemed more filling than I would have thought for the volume that I actually consumed. This pattern continued for the rest of the week until the last Saturday, where we went to Applebees during the interim period between afternoon and evening shows. At Applebees, I ate the chicken parmesan dish, which was served with a whole side of chicken.

This all doesn't seem so extreme, but the reason why I bring it to attention is because I lost 8 pounds during this week. Losing 8 pounds in a week is exactly the slogan that you see on all of those cheap looking late night T.V. commercials with people with big arms and in bathing suits, and I did it without even trying. And eating the way that I have always dreamed of eating as a child.

There are a number of of lingering peripheral factors that may be contributers, of which I can think of, that need to be addressed. First off, it should be noted that I probably got even less exercise than I usually do, which is saying a lot. That is, unless "sitting at attention" and operating a violin could somehow provided just enough continuous physical exertion to promote weight loss. Second, it must also be conversely considered that fat weighs less than muscle. So if, somehow, I managed to lose enough muscle mass to significantly contribute to that magic number 8, that scares me a bit. Thirdly, I tend to get stressed by a certain amount when playing new music or when playing with new people. That combined with the already very warm hall adds to the sweat and water loss factor. Sweating off the pounds, one might say. This would also lead into the loss of muscle mass.

In this case, it would seem that eating "healthy" and exercise are not the answers to losing weight. Rather, it appears that eating food with absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever to the point of gluttony, and drinking water, are all that is required. Filling the stomach with food that is useless except for it's taste will keep out desires to eat other foods that would gladly remain in the body. And the sugar content seems plentiful enough to provide the necessary energy for the day's requirements.

This must be the miracle diet: Eat Doritos, drink Coke, Two donuts a week. Repeat.

Till we meet again

2006-04-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

While I am 100% for the coming of warm weather, it also means that I lose a near and dear friend of whom I've become very fond of since meeting only a few months ago. Hanging up my leather jacket for the year, I felt a separation commence. Mainly, the separation of the only slight bit of coolness that I possess. That, my friends, is why today is such a sad day. And it will remain that way until the temperature dips below the level that my pocket-T cannot provide enough thermal protection for me.

Yet, at the very least, I have a very small glimmer of self-satisfaction (which could be classified as cool?) when stopped at an intersection with the windows down, wearing my usual loadout, and a huge choral solo from Handel's Messiah playing through my speakers, and watching the facial responses of people pulling up beside me. I think that this is a true cool which others are only imitators of.

Stupidity revisited

2006-04-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

I would like you all to participate in a little excercise with me. I found this quite interesting and uplifting.

If you would all please fire up a new browser or tab, and lock and load Google. Then, with or without the quotes (or both, for your own personal edification) and before reading any farther down, please google "Harmful stupidity" and "Harmless stupidity".

If Google is the all-high knowledge indexing bank of the world that it claims to be, then one might deduce from the results that show up in the first two slots (depending if one used quotes or not to narrow your search) that I, Andrew, am the top expert in the subject of Harmful and Harmless Stupidity. A pioneering thinker in a field that does not yet exist.

I have finally reached the point where I am best at something.

How ironic

2006-04-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

It seems that when rotten things happen, they are custom tailored to fit what would be the most inopportune misfortune for that recipient.

I heard a story the other night about a certain conductor. Apparently, he was already somewhat physically challenged. This man went up onto stage to conduct an orchestra through a performance. By some means or other he managed to fall off the stage during the performance. Of all the potential outcomes, he ended up breaking his clavicle, thereby rendering him unable to conduct for a good long time. Not his leg. Not a rib bone. Not a good smack on the head. His collar bone.

Another story I came in possession of a while back was that of another conductor. It seems that for some reason or another he had a staff on stage. Possibly for walking purposes. When the orchestra repeatedly refused to play in time he took hold of his staff and began slamming out the beats with the tip of the staff on the wooden stage. It so happened that one of those beats landed on his foot, and shattered it. In short order he contracted gangrene and died. All because he had to deal with lousy musicians.

These are two that I remember off the top of my head. I don't think that it is a coincidence that they are both related to music. If you have an interesting ironic and twisted tale, please voice it.

The season of LoVe

2006-04-06T06:23:00.000-07:00

I think that I finally realize that it is actually Spring, and not Winter anymore, much to my enthusiasm.

I think that I figured it out Monday night. The way I see it, either we actually learned how to play our music, or Dr.P caught teh Spring Fevah!! In any case, our days are longer, sun is warmer, and everything is all around more tolerable. Hurray for Spring.

My 101st

2006-04-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

Time cruises by fast, and the longer I've been around the faster it seems to fly. A sort of direct proportion relationship which is conspiring to rush me to my death. In the case of my blog, I barely noticed the amount of time that I have occupied this tiny niche in the world wide web. Thus it came as a surprise to me to notice that this exact write up will constitute my 101st post. The breaking of the barrier, so to speak. The coming of age. The line which separates the boys from the men. The snatching of the pebble from the master's hand. The programming of a server without Windows TCP protocol API support. The beginning of a new era.
Yes, it has taken since August 24th, 2004 (One year, seven months, ten days) to reach this milestone, and it has been a rather long and tedious journey, but I would like to think that what has been achieved was not through fluff, cotton balls, cut corners, or vain repetition, but rather through flesh, blood, sweat and the unwavering will of a pirate.
This blog did not start out in the conventional manner that most do. That is, it wasn't for the purpose of venting all my deep dark black frustrations and hatred of everyone to people, nor was it for setting up what we are going to wear on Friday night so that we will all match. If you know anything, you know that I am too lame to go out on a Friday night, save for AWANA and random paloozas. Not that I am complaining (all that much). I wasn't at first intending to publicize this blog, since what I really wanted to do was use it as a digital notebook of sorts. Rather than writing out by hand notes on different software that I was working on and mathematics that I had worked out, I thought it might be a whole lot easier to detail it by digital means, seeing as I am a much faster typer than I ever was with a pen. Part of the reason I went this route was also attributed to a force I call "Peer Pressure". Hence, once I procured a domain, word got around rather quickly. Therefore, it no longer remained a notebook, and it required me to put up interesting carp to appease the masses.
When I say interesting, that means that I try not to bore you with the mundane of my life, since it is, well, mundane. Unfortunately, those things end up here all to often anyways. Whether or not it shows, I at least try to throw a twist on things in order to give a new perspective and shed a new light on matters. An exercise of the brain, so to speak. Often it is not a matter of whether a thing is actually true or not, instead if one can reason it true in the theoretical, then one has just stretched his mind muscle. Has taken one more step into the abstract. Has had one more unique idea that makes their universe *that* much deeper. I dare say, it is possibly an art form in a non-tangible medium which can only exist in our heads. Which I would go on to say, does any art form exist outside of our heads? What of a story? Words on a page? Yes. But what do those words mean outside of our heads? They are ink on a page. But I digress...
A few paragraphs back I mentioned how I did not start this blog to voice my "hatred of everyone", or any other stereotypical teenybopper activities. That is not to say that I do not complain about things. Actually, that is probably one of the most accurate descriptions of my blog. Pretty much every post that is written has some roots in something that drives me up the wall. And, while I would never stand to your face and voice to you every little thing that drives me nuts about people (I'm too nice of a person to put you through that*wink*), you choose to read my post, and thus you get what you pay for. This way we both win: I get to complain and you get to read my wonderful insights on peoples neurotic behavior. And when all is said and done, I think that it is much more colorful and entertaining to find out who a person is by first defining what they are not, or rather, finding out what a person likes by what they do not. It makes for a long and roundabout, yet entertaining, journey.
At this point, I would like to clarify something. The fact is, I do indeed hate people. In fact, I hate all people. I hate all people equally, therefore I am not racist and I do not stereotype people. Now as for friends, though little I may have, I guess that I still hate them. But they realize that I hate them, and they hate me right back as best they can. Thus the long palooza nights of flinging smart remarks back and forth. In fact, I think that I know who my friends are by how much I hate them, because I feel more comfortable making fun of my friends than I do of others. Hmm. I think that I really need to work out this paradigm about friends. That may be the cause of my lack thereof. Or it may be that the hatred is actually a hatred of talking (which happens to be necessary in a friendship). This hatred is due to the fact that I don't happen to be very articular in the real world, as many can plainly see. Thus, again, this blog holds some purpose in allowing me to coherently coordinate some thoughts. I don't know if I can say the same about my grammar, but that is a different topic.
Hating everyone has it's upside in that I can laugh at everyone because everyone is strange in their own right. This is one of the positives about being normal: I have the ability to laugh at everyone else's eccentricities. While this provides for almost endless daily laughs, it is also a very lonely spot at the top of the pyramid. The endless hoards of "unaware" people, who seem to seek me out just because I do not blow them off, can be tiring. This also ties into finding good friends, because truly normal people are hard enough to come by, let alone to frequent them for the purpose of laughing at non-normals.

Since I could continue on to write a whole book as to what this blog is and isn't, I decided that I would mark a few of the high points. Create a condensed highlighted index of the Encyclopedia Drewtannica, so to speak. So, here is a short list of some of the things that my blog and I have been through over the past year and a half.

Extraordinary Accomplishments:
As of tody, I have decided that I need to upgrade from shaving once a week to twice a week.

Accomplishments:
Taught myself to play the guitar to an acceptable level during this period.
Learned to dance really badly in an incredible hat. Fall, 2004.
Learned the ancient Greek language (I am only one trimester away from completion). Sep. 20, 2005.
Authored my own Hallmark card. I was very proud of this one (Front, Back). Nov 06, 2005
I survived Drives Ed. with braincells to spare. April 14 + 28, 2005; Sept 08, 2005
Murdered many innocent stick figures (Much more at the link). June 25, 2005
Twenty consecutive games of Rook. Summer, 2005
Renting out of Cassie's room. Summer, 2005
Created a ghetto shoebox computer for mathematically crunching proteins. Spring, 2005

Extraordinary Events:
Incredible once in a lifetime photo shot of SJ. Nov 07, 2004.
Had my life dream realized when I went to the dollar store, Aldens, that incredible day. Jul. 31 2005
Assisted in marrying off the first Blake by means of my violin skills and my fruit cutting skills. (Including the only actual proof that I was ever there. This pic looks strangly similar) Nov. 24, 2005.
Survived the Demented Cartoon (just barely). Jan. 20, 2005
Met Elmo in the flesh (Willets need "Camera Operation 101"). Boston Trip Dec. 2005.
Watched all three LOTR extended edition movies back to back starting at 10:00PM and ending at 9:00AM. No sleeping. Jan. 2006.
Got the closest thing that I will ever have to a girl friend. Brewing a relationship from 05-06

Notable Events:
Thanksgiving Reloaded. Nov. 24, 2004.
Went to Boston once, make that twice. Dec. 13, 2004
Began playing in an incredible orchestra with some incredible people. Having the time of my life there. This required me to dress up. May 18, 2005
Had a first drink of alcohol *erm hmm*, yep. Sure I did. Fall, 2005
Participated in Beauty and the Beast the musical. Arguably the most fun musical experience I have ever had. Mar. 20, 2006
Also participated in Seussical the Musical, and The Wiz.

Notable Sights:
Bub's concession stand where Homestarrunner is shot live for internet viewing. Only in the south. Summer Wilds trip, 2005.
A southerner's visual guide to walking the dog. Summer Wilds trip, 2005. Arguable one of the best collection of events to unfold in a summer I have ever had.

Visited the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Nova Scotia. Left are mark on the guest book. I commented in Greek, saying "Rock On!". SJ commented, saying "Alex is da man!". Samantha remained peculiarly silent. Canada Missions Trip; Summer, 2005
Canadian Sunsets, and Windows XP. Canada missions Trip; Summer, 2005

Studies:
The study of the word Panda, and it's derivatives. May 03, 2005
A complete study on Ramen Noodles. Jan 28, 2005
Disproof of Santa Dec. 23, 2005
Invented a whole system for a perfect utopia. Nov. 11, 2005
Pile Theory. Mar. 20, 2006

Special New Friends:
A new addition to the family, Werky. Sep 05, 2005
Made three new fans in Canada (Apparently Pumpkin head is a name of affection?). Summer of 2005
MosquitoLlama, Canada trip; Summer of 2005

Some statistics:
Since a hit counter was initiated in Sep 14, 2005, there have been 8,386 total hits.
These are the top three countries:
88.77% of which were from .com (US) domains. (5,643 total hits).
2.18% of which come from .de (German) domains (74 total hits).
1.85% of which come from .ca (Canadian) domains (70 total hits).

Other noteable countries include:
Brazil, Poland, Australia, Romania, Turkey, Hungary, Taiwan, Japan, New Zealand, Colombia, Pakistan, Thailand, and the Ukraine, among others.

69.97% of viewers use Firefox
27.38% of viewers use MSIE6
0.60% of viewers use Safari

97.02% of viewers use either Windows2000, or Win XP.
1.31% of viewers use Windows 98
1.00% of viewers use MacOS
0.38% of viewers use Linux

Of hits resulting from search engines:
77.53% of hits belong to Google with 422 total hits.
16.67% of hits belong to MSN search with 75 total hits.
5.05% of hits belong to Yahoo search with 28 total hits.

My top three referrers are:
1 - http://fetafilter.blogspot.com
2 - http://alamefantaco.blogspot.com/
3 - http://images.google.com/

A toast to one-hundred more. Thanks for listening.

Leaked news from project X.

2006-04-01T08:54:00.000-08:00

Consider yourselves privileged to have seen this, even if you do not yet know what it is. If you do know, then this is your sign that we need to get cracking on the plans. SJ is going to be back from school soon, which means that we get to use her camera and assistance all summer. I think I am going to put another coat of paint on the main attraction in the next few days. In time, we will own this town and the internet.

A pile is forever.

2006-03-30T18:13:00.000-08:00

I have been finding an underlying pattern lately that connects much what I do in every day life. Normally I would try and suppress this pattern on the basis that I try to keep my mind exercised and my routine dynamic (so much for that). This should be no different. I would attempt to delete any dull repetition from my life, except that I believe that this pattern is the foundation of the universe.
I often see this pattern manifest itself at at my place of work. I often end up doing many forms of work, much of it in the form of manual labor. Since most of what I get involved with happens to be outdoors, I get to see nature first hand for hours upon end. A hot spot for natural patterns and systems to show themselves.
In the case of raking leaves, which is a reoccurring theme in my "area of expertise", my job is to take thousands of individual entities and collect them into on massive pile of unique objects. In this instance, the mass of individual entities forms a sort of unique entity of it's own. Then, I often part up this large pile into many smaller piles which I place into large paper bags. I then collect these bags into a large group on the side of the road. This unique entity unto itself, in turn, gets collected and placed into a garbage truck full with hundreds of other bags, each of which had a few thousand leaves in it.
What I am getting at here is what I refer to as Pile Theory. The theory that everything ends up as a pile, and that everything is as it is because it is a pile, and that in the end, everything will end up as one gigantic pile.
Basically, the entire universe is constructed of many billions of tiny particles (atoms) that just want to naturally pile up on each other. So much so that eventually this whole universe as we know it will become as ten different colored play-dohs smashed into one: A big puke-color-biased mass.
Take, for instance, human beings themselves. Under almost no circumstances are they ever found totally alone from one another. In an overwhelming majority of the cases people will begin by piling together into small congregations known as villages. Then, provided they survive starvation and weather and pirates, they go on to become towns. Soon the towns become large enough to support sub-piles, such as bingo clubs, skateboarders, and vegans. With time these towns grow to be huge piles of up to millions of individual entities known. These as cities. Cities also have a number of sub-piles which support them, much like the aforementioned leaf collection bags which would be balanced against each other in one large pile so as to prevent them from spilling their contents onto the road.
What is sound, but piles of air piling onto your eardrums then a lack of piles on your eardrum thousands of times a second?

While the natural tendency for matter is to "pile up", so to speak, there is a small percentage of matter in any given sample that wishes to refuse the piling. From preliminary research, it seems to be somewhere in the rounded vicinity of 2%. This is the percentage of matter that will refuse the desire to pile. Take, for example the dirt on the floor. A person first piles it from all around the room into one central location. Then that person attempts to pile it into a dust pan. That person, on the first pass, succeeds in getting most of the dirt into the pan, but notices a line of remaining dirt on the floor. The person realign the dustpan and makes another pass. While much of the dirt is collected, there again remains a line, although smaller this time. This process repeats many times until the amount of dirt remaining on the floor is negligible, or reaches an "acceptable" level. This pattern could be traced back to the initial piling of the dirt into the middle of the floor, with individual pieces being left behind from the broom's bristles.
This concept explains phenomena from abstract creative thought to virus mutations. It also explains why the heck it is so hard to clean one's room, even after all the major obstructions and furniture are moved out.

In conclusion, piles are the essence of this universe, whether you like it or not. As I am typing, my fingers are piling onto the keys of my keyboard, which is making electrical charges pile up on a central platter pile inside my hard drive, which is, itself, a pile of electrical components. So roll over String Theory, because Pile Theory is in full swing.

Now I need to go to work and pile leaves up for the rest of the day.

From the Drewberry Life Factbook

2006-03-28T05:17:00.000-08:00

Drew's helpful advice on life

tip #586: "Smile, nod, walk away. Repeat"

Psychedelia dia Doritos

2006-03-26T10:06:00.000-08:00

I go through phases where I will remember some aspects of many different dreams that I had the night before. Unless these dreams are causing me to wake up in the night and give me a crummy sleep pattern, I usually enjoy them. I invite the often insightful illusions coursing through my mind. Other times, I go through phases which can be upwards of a week where I do not remember a single thing or have any impressions from my dreams of the night before.

One thing that I hear many people complaining of is that of getting bad dreams from an active stomach. This status is achieved by eating food right before bed. This is one affliction that I don't believe I have ever been bothered with. It was on Friday night that I think I experienced what so many have spoken of.

Heidi was here, and we all decided that we hadn't had snacks for way too long. Thus, we went out to Walmahts and 1x bag of Black Pepper Doritos, 1x bag of Salt + Vinegar chips, 1x box of Donettes, 2x liters of sohda, Coca Cola style. We went home and proceeded unload on the food. I was already rather satisfied in eating for the day and could have gone without, but I am not one who can pass up Doritos. I ate a lot more that I even supposed I was able to.

When the night wound down, I went to bed (duh). The whole night was filled with psychodelic visions of places and things, some of which are real and some are not. Lots of things flashing in and out. The Grand Canyon. A trailer park. A field of llamas. North Carolina. The eifle tower. The dark side of the moon (?).

Most distinctly, I remember myself and what seemed like hundreds of other people getting onto a bus. All of them were people that I either know or have known. A number of people who I haven't seen for years, lots of people who I have never actually seen a picture of, family, friends, people who I see every week, all piling onto this bus. It wasn't a school bus, but was more of a touring type bus. By the magic of dreams, we turned a cross country trip from what should have been a week into an instant. Then we were inside a concert hall with everyone onstage and a laser light show. I don't know what was playing, but everything was going crazy.

I was also in a car during the darker half of the twilght hour. I was driving ultra fast down the road and was avoiding the dozens of broken down cars and stray dogs that were in the middle of the road. When I saw the cops pulling out from the side of the road with their bar lights on, I yanked a right turn up a hill that sent my flying in the air about ten feet high. I took pleasure in the looks and comments of awe at my sweet moves. I lost the police.

When I eventually woke up after what seemed to be a week's worth of activity, I was hungry.

Psychological colors.

2006-03-20T05:30:00.000-08:00

I generally try to keep the monochromatic details of my life out of here and just try to provide you with information on why things people do are stupid. At the moment, I had a good week and I feel like writing about it. I will try to make it interesting by giving it my standard blog "view on things" treatment. No guarantees, though.

People are so very interesting. While often I cannot stand talking to them, I almost always get a kick out of watching them. That's what I love about being normal: I can enjoy everyone else's abnormalities (If you wish to argue this point about me, you are only asserting it).
People of the middle school age seem to be both the most malleable and the most dynamic. While they can be easily told what to do and what to think, if you let them go off and do their own thing they show an array of personality color and dynamics that you do not see in most adults, since they are not afraid to let it out. That is what annoys me about the high school age. Coolness either in silence or in loud obnoxiousness.
Two of the middle schoolers walk up to the music director, Bryant. Give me your pin, they say. One takes it and pins it onto his shirt, then paces around on stage saying, "I AM Bryant Clark! You will listen to me. Sing, Sing now! Sing loud! I AM Bryant Clark, and you shall obey me!". I don't think he got his pin back.
Two others, one dressed up in fake leathers, sideburns and a ponytail as Gaston, and the other a short guy with a bald wig (?) and a stuffed pot belly as Maurice. It looked like a comedy routine. They were walking back in forth on stage in front of the pit telling jokes and making fun of each other for our entertainment prior to the doors opening for the show. Someone asked if they shouldn't be in the other room with the cast getting ready. "Oh!", and they both went off in different directions. Someone else yelled, "Other Way!". They both did a 180 and smacked right into each other. It was better than anything they did on stage that night. The only part that was missing was the "feet running in place" sound effect, and the "car crash" sound effect from the cartoons. If I could have recorded it, it would be on the internet right now.
One rather small little guy was hanging around Bryant. He was talking to him about Ray Charles. Apparently he is a huge fan and has his Ipod filled up with Ray. He walked about the pit, attempting to identify and make conversation about each instrument. When he came around to me he, with confidence, announced that I played the viola . I took advantage of his malleable brain and instructed him to drop that word from his vocabulary. I think I made an effective presentation.

Another thing about middle schoolers is that they got bored easily. This worked to my advantage a number of times, since more than one of them wanted to try out my violin, since they were self proclaimed "experts" in the area. I would start to talk about what the definition of expert is, and how they have never heard an expert until they have listened to a szering recording, and how the greatest loss of modern society is it's lack of the arts and it's substitution for which is a poorly compiled series of repetitive chords attached to an unimaginative beat. After about ten seconds their eyes would glaze over and they would find something else to do. Surprisingly enough, this tactic workers very effectively on people of all ages, adults included, but that is another blog topic all together. (This reminds me of the time at AWANA that I silenced a 10x10 room with 15 excited little kids by explaining to them that the reason why they had to be quiet was because of the tax drain that it was causing on society and how it would deplete social security in an exponential manner due to the influx of massive corporation and lower retirement ages which, in turn, was contributing to the heat-death of this universe. I never before heard such silence from that group in my life)

We (the pit) went to Applebees during the three hour hiatus between Saturday afternoon and evening shows. We got to hear, "Tails from Band Practice" for a greater part of the time. Us orchestra people, who were, for the most part, on one end of the table and outnumbered, didn't know quite how to relate. Band is a very different culture, which I don't know that I will ever be able to comprehend. Again, this is a blog topic all in it's own. On a positive side for them, it does sound like they have a good time being able to march around and do peppy songs and stuff. I take solace in the fact that my instrument doesn't have a spit valve. That alone is enough for me.

Getting back from Applebees, we had about an hour left. I needed to warm up again, having been out in the cool air and not playing for a few hours. I was fooling around with a couple songs, and finally settled on one piece. Having played through half of it, one of the sound technicians came over and asked if he may have a chance at it. I was happy to let him, and he took the violin with his rather hammy hands. He proceeded to play out of tune, but with an obvious knowledge of the instrument. He played very stiffly, gripping so hard that I was on the verge of being nervous. When he stopped, I asked how long he had played for. "Until I was 14", he said. I asked why he didn't continue on. "Well, I was getting beaten up every single day at the bus station in Boston on the way to school...". Good reason.

Making music in a small group like this is great. You can almost get to know a person's personality through their style of playing. Everyone is heard, and everyone has an important role. Even more enjoyable is getting to know faces that I might only see once a year, once every two months, and even every week. Rather than the standard dry tacky and dull, "Hi. How are you?", holding an actual conversation. It makes for a good time. As much of a hassle as it is, I wish I could do it every month.

2006-03-14T08:10:00.000-08:00

You know that it is going to be a long week when you keep thinking that it is Wednesday, when in fact it is still Monday.

I hate (small) dogs

2006-03-05T18:16:00.000-08:00

I went for a walk a while ago. It was a longish walk. A nice day, too. I was glad to be able to stretch my legs. While walking on a certain road, I heard the universal irritating rapid fire sound of a tiny dog screaming and barking of a yard about one-hundred feet or so away. Ahh, I thought, the first catch of the day. This would put the icing on the already delectable cake of the day. punt!, or so I was hoping to do. These stupid dogs think they can really take on an entity that is thirty times its own body mass. And they only bark and yip in such an annoying manner because their stupid liberal owners are too "tolerant" and "understanding" and "animals are people too" to yank on the leash and tell them to shut up (you can tell it's bad when their kids act the same way...). Then they dress them up in little sweatshirts so that they can bark at you even when it is snowing out (whoops, drove the snowblower a little too close to the doghouse that last run...) Anyways, the retardog was barking for at least a minute now. Then it burst out and started charging toward me. I was smiling. Then, from the yard that the dog ran from, a door of the house opened, and a young boy of around eight or nine came out. *napoleon sigh*, I can't send this kid's dog into orbit while he is watching. So I kept on walking down the road towards the house that the dog came from, which I hadn't yet passed. The incessant barking continued. Somewhere from inside the house I could hear multiple times, "Get the dog!! Billy, get the dog!!" (for the sake of anonymity, actual names have been ommited). The dog got about five feet away in front of me and maintained that distance while I kept walking towards it. He ran towards me and I lifted my foot up and put the sole of my size 12 in front of its face. It freaked out and ran backwards in a few circles. It ran behind me, and I am convinced that it was aiming for my butt, but I kept it a good few feet away. I was getting miffed because it was annoying me, and I couldn't kick it because the kid was still standing on the doorstep. Around that time, the sizable mother came out the front door and started yelling to the dog to "Get over here!". After trying that a few times, she actually walked out to get the dog. She picked up the demon midget, which still had not stopped barking. She apologized a couple times.

Then, she apologized one final time and said, "I'm sorry, he really loves to make friends, just in the wrong way".

Happy Birthday

Social Engineer Santa

2005-12-23T15:31:00.000-08:00

As a child, I thought that anyone who believed in Santa Clause was either putting on a big show, or was very very stupid. I was never quite sure which it was, though I could make good guesses about it with certain people. Unfortunately, I found out that most of the cases involved the people being very very stupid. This was verified by the fact that our visit would be followed by an angry phone call to our parents.

I don't specifically recall being told that Santa was not real, but I never had trouble validating my convictions that Santa was indeed a fictional being. It always seemed so black and white and elemental that I didn't understand where the confusion came in. I always went through a step by step breakdown of facts, and proceeded to shatter their small and narrow thought zone with brutal stingingly cold truth.

First of all, there is no such thing as "magic". "Magic" is supposedly the force that cannot be seen, heard, smelled, or touched except by the effects of it, in much the same was as energy as we know it exists. It also cannot be handled by any being which is not "magic" itself. And magic is the basis of all that Santa operates on, therefore everything from here on is automatically disproven by default, but we shall continue.

Second, there are no such beings as "elves". Midgets, yes. Little people, yes. Dwarves, yes. Elves, no. "Elves" thrive on magic, and, as was just stated, magic does not exist. Also pointy shoes, pointy hats, and green outfits hardly seem appropriate attire for the North Pole climate.

Third, reindeer cannot fly. I doubt that they could even if magic was real. They just aren't built for it, what with the antlers and hooves and all. They scream of aerodynamic inefficiency.

Fourth, the trip around the earth to every house. This is always the main point cited, but I will review anyway without getting into any major details. The laws of physics as developed by Einstein states that an object may approach, but not breach, the speed of light. Due to inertia, Santa obviously cannot be traveling at the speed of light the entire trip, plus the fact that he must actually stop at houses. He must accelerate to speed and decelerate to a stop for each house, which no doubt takes time. Do this for every house, and time adds up.

Which led me to my fifth argument, The stop. According to geometry, it is impossible to fit your typical fat man down a typical chimney. This is assuming that you have a chimney, which is not nearly the case these days. Indeed, it would be difficult to fit a skinny man down a chimney. Then you have the gift factor. They need to fit down the chimney along with a fat guy somehow. And this is to say nothing of getting back up onto the roof.

Sixth, why would a guy who pleads complete anonymity dress in red and put bells all over his transportation?

Seventh, why is the world not covered in reindeer turds on Christmas morning? Considering the amount of energy in the form of food that they must consume in order to fly at the speed of light, you would think that waste energy would be everywhere.

Thus we begin the psychological reasoning.

Eighth, What sort of sickness possesses a man to work every day, all day, no vacations, no exceptions, and still remain jolly all year long? A sane man would most certainly not act in such manner.

Ninth, what sort of social engineering mastermind pervert can convince millions of little children to write letters to him? Even worse, what kind of sick person actually sneaks into their house at night and eats their cookies and milk?
Two words: Mentally Disturbed.

Tenth, how could one man single handedly overthrow a race of little people, force them into oppressive slave labor under the guise supreme magical being, move them all to the North pole with huge infrastructure and logistical support, and keep the whole operation a secret to the public, yet at the same time, remain a huge public icon? (I know, it sounds a bit like Clinton, but not really. Gore was the magical one, having created the internet and all. Therefore, there is a major discrepancy)

After going through most of this with other children, they usually turned pale. I think that what I learned from that is that people enjoy being stupid. They don't want to know the truth. They would rather dwell in their own little fuzzy world of theirs. I guess being stupid is easier than being smart. It is also simpler. But I don't want to get into a discussion with myself here. It is Christmas Eve's Eve, after all.

I hope I made at least one little kid cry this Christmas. If not, I'll have to hold a mock execution of elmo in front of the daycare center up the street tomorrow.

Monday Bloody Monday

2005-12-19T11:14:00.000-08:00

Today is Monday. A part of my usual Monday routine is to finish up school, maybe use the computer for a while, then practice my Violin for a good long time, then head out to NYO orchestra rehearsal. Since we had our winter concert last week, there is no rehearsal tonight. Since it is also the Christmas and New Years season, we will not have any rehearsals until January. I already feel like my week is empty and void, since I don't have to kill myself practicing all week long, at least compared to the past two/three weeks practicing amount. I miss my buddies already. I need someone to laugh at. I need someone to cry over hard music with. I need someone to make sour faces from sour notes at.

Who would have thought that I would miss sitting straight up for over an hour and getting yelled at for playing wrong?

The perfect Christmas?

2005-12-14T17:59:00.000-08:00

James asked a trivial question tonight that went as follows: "What are your usual Christmas traditions, and what would be your ideal Christmas tradition?". Most people stated what their typical yearly Christmas eve and Christmas day was like, and the things that they do, and most decided to keep it (relatively) the same, as I did also. The thought that there could possibly be something better was a new one. I knew that other people did different things, but better? I don't think so. So it got me thinking about what the all-time greatest Christmas morning/day would be. I came up with this.

After falling asleep in your bed on Christmas Eve, you would wake up with the roar of four giant turbofan engines and air blowing by at 180mph in the back of a C-130 with the rear ramp open to the air and a guy in a helmet yelling at the top of his lungs "GO GO GO!!!". You jump up, run for the ramp, and dive out head first. You spread out your arms and legs and fly with your webbed aero suit. Then flaming meteors start flying down all over the place, and you dodge them while falling at 350mph. You crash into a whale and manatee show at seaworld and make the whales explode, coating the 10,000 onlookers with whale entrails. The whole crowd and an army of environmentalists chase after you with pitchforks and sticks. You jump into a monster truck and drive through the city over everyone's cars with the mad horde in pursuit. Then one of the meteors smashes a building down right in front of you. You drive on top of it and yell a massive battle cry through the giant megaphone strapped to the top of your truck. Then a giant tanker ship crashes on the shore and spills 50,000 tons of oil all over the city. Someone's cell phone rings. The whole city goes up in monster sized flames. Then some guy's 10,000 square foot weed nursery goes up in flames and everyone gets high. The whole world is shifting rainbow colors. You join a horde of pirates who are ransacking the city, and run around, spitting in little kids faces. Suddenly, a giant earthquake happens and a huge pit emerges in the middle of the city. A giant superdome rises up from the middle with Elvis, The Beatles, Queen, U2, Five Iron Frenzy, Jimi Hendrix, and Mozart on the stage, all rocking out with a huge fog machine and a giant laser show with lasers so powerful that they cut the moon in half. Then Russia goes totally communist and shoots nuclear weapons all over the city. Everything has an eery glow to it, even without the weed. Suddenly, Santa comes flying through the laser show on a supercharged sleigh and rocks an insane guitar solo on stage. Then he shoots presents out to the whole crowd with a huge gift cannon.

Merry Christmas.

EDIT: Of course, since Santa is indeed not real, that makes this whole thing totaly ridiculous.

Christmas

2005-12-09T20:30:00.000-08:00

Since it is legitimately Christmas season, I am finally writing this post. I have been waiting a long time to be able to re-focus attention to Christmasy junk. I just love this season. There are so many things that go along with Christmas that you don't get any other time of the year.

Believe it or not, even though I have had it in a very prominent position on a highly trafficked area on my harddrive, I have had the self control of not playing it until now. I actually waited a whole year before playing it so that I would appreciate it more. You must first savor this. Great great music, there. Amazing stuff. Suburb visuals. Now, some more classic music. Just when you think things can't possibly become any better, they do (thanks to me).

I live for that. When I grow up, I want to have a job just like him.

Yes, my room is decorated to the brink with ocular stimulation strand technology. I'm loving it (No, that isn't Burger King. That is McDonalds).

Of Monitors

2005-12-07T14:17:00.000-08:00

I have great sympathy and respect for my monitor. It is a very passive part of the computer experience. In an ideal situation, you never need to touch your monitor. It just sits there, sending light out to you. All day long, relaying information seventy times per second without break. And even when the computer is idle, most likely the screen saver will come on. Thus, rather than shutting it down and giving it a break, it plays a bunch of bad pictures that someone took of flowers, or lame sunsets, or someone's "aw3s0me 1ng4m3 scr33nz". So, even if it is a really masculine 21 incher, or a sleek new 17in LCD, if it happens to get stuck with some girly girl it has to suffer the indignity of displaying these things. And unlike harddrives, they have to openly show them to everyone. They cannot hide within the case.

Even worse still is the fact that they have no choice in the information they display. It could be showing good news for you, or bad news for you. And we, as spontaneous impulse-driven idiots, tend to take out our rage on the bringer of news. The metaphorical messenger.
Us humans would hate to inflict sudden strong impulse force on the case, because we know all of the expensive and fragile parts that are on the inside. Especially since we paid for them. And our "messenger" is still right in front of our face delivering the bad news. Unfortunately (fortunately?) for them, 21 in monitors are built very sturdily (I think I just invented a word).

I have dealt many blows to my monitor. Usually a right straight to the center of the glass. I've delivered a few hammer fists to the top and a couple left hooks to the side, but most are limited to the front, since that seems to be the place most likely *not* to break. It isn't that I hate, or begin to hate, the monitor or the computer itself. It is just a very convenient place to vent frustration.

I've felt some serious pain in my knuckles a couple times after doing that. At those times, it almost seems as if that 70 lb monitor is laughing at me, rocking back and forth and such. This is when I get the impulse to throw the monitor and/or the computer itself out the second story window. I will tell you that this has not happened yet. Although I have replaced my 21in with two 17in monitors, making it much easier to pick up and heave, so I will keep you posted.

It is for this exact reason that I keep a stash of old 1.5Gb harddrives that no longer work. I have come *very* (read with extreme emphasis) close to having to make use of. The plan is to take a Hdd, retrieve a sledge hammer, place said hdd in the middle of the road, put them both together (literally).

Monitors: The unsung heroes of the workplace, homeplace, bathroom, and of the world. I tip my hat to you.

2005-12-05T20:06:00.000-08:00

The Wiz marathon is over. A week filled to the brink with practices.

It makes me wish that I knew how to play the guitar, bass guitar, piano, trumpet, drums, and (skillfully) the violin.

Hot off the shower

2005-11-30T06:46:00.000-08:00

Ironically enough, since Stephen and I were just talking about it last night, I was the subject of a spontaneous idea in the shower this morning. No, the amazing part isn't the fact that I got an idea.

I was thinking about how Cassie said that she doesn't drink soda(pop, coke) anymore because it makes her feel fat. Then I thought about overly large people and how they order three big macs and one super sized diet pepsi. I thought that this was a stupid practice. Then I thought about how there are McDonalds everywhere. In fact, there is a McDonald's everywhere there is any significant amount of population. So then I thought, what need is there for government mind-reading satellites and disguised postal worker moles, which each have a possibility of being caught, if the government could work in perfect secrecy in the basement of every single McDonalds?

Every McDonalds is conveniently placed in the center of any major populated area, and it is a major pit stop for most Americans on their way to or from work every day. Plus the fact that McDonalds serves food. And, as every one knows, mind controlling/poison/otherwise tampered with food is a huge discussion subject of the skeptical minds.

And not only McDonalds. There is more.

Did you realize that there is a multi billion dollar arms race being dealt out right beneath our noses? It is true. Tell me, if you see a McDs, what else do you expect to see? A Burger King, and a Wendy's, of course. These are suspected of being spawned by rival nations. China and Russia are chief suspects.

There are also a few smaller ones of note, a few of them being Taco bell, Sonic, Dunkin Donuts, and the like. Of these, the government is mostly sure of their origin (Guinea-Bissau, Andorra, and Palau respectively), they have been deemed not able to cause any serious damage and are not direct threats. Although, you can see how an establishment such as Chick-fil-A, located primarily in the south (Mexicans) can cause serious damage by sneaking in peanut products. I never liked Mexicans....

Therefore, since satallites are no longer the major threat, the use of tinfoil beanies no longer guarantees safety to its user (in fact, it never has. I suspect that this "remedy" to mind-reading signals was proposed by none other then The Man himself). A new safety measure is needed immediately.

So in closing, next time you are chewing at your Big-Mac, check for transmitters before you bite.

On computer games

2005-11-26T22:18:00.000-08:00

I don't play computer games quite nearly as much as I have in prior years. If I get a good single player game, I will play it through and all, but that is usually a one time thing for that period of time. Plus the fact that I don't buy many of them, unless they are big name ones. Examples being Farcry, the Myst series, MS Flight Sims, the Halflife saga, to name a few. I like to get maximum play out of my money, hence online games are a good path for that. Half-LIfe: Counter-Strike being a major one (Battlefield 1942 and it's [free] mods were a big one for a while, but I need to upgrade to BF2).

While the gameplay is still a major issue of whether I will play the game or not, it seems to have taken second place in my decision factor. And this is partially due to my simple philosophy about games, of which I am subject to. It states that the game, though its graphics and gameplay are vitally important, has a primary function of a realistic chat room. It provides a way to chat in a realistic environment, which is described by the game developers. I liken it to having a conversation over a game of cards with two other friends.

I have derived some of my greatest pleasure from spending hours and nights playing together online with a few of my gaming buddies. After you begin talking and playing, it no longer manifests itself as a blocky environment. It isn't you sitting in a chair and looking at a screen. You don't see the other people models as representations of people hundreds/thousands of miles (ore even 5 feet) away. You are there in the game. So are your friends. And you play and talk. Talk and play. Play jokes on each other. Have deep conversations (as odd and labored as it may sound). Even dance to music.

Writing this down, I feel like an absolute uber nerd. And nerd I may be, but I find this one of the most fascinating mediums to communicate in. In this one particular case, Counter-Strike, everyone looks relatively the same. There is no race, color, accent, size, weight, or hair to bias anybody. Everyone is on the level, and it provides a perfect base to work up from.

You would probably never realize the power of this ..... virtual projection of ones self into a gathering place unless you have experienced it for yourself. It is amazing to be laughing and having a good time with someone who is not right next to you, then sign off and look at the clock only to notice that 2 hours have passed by without even noticing it. In this, I have developed some of the best friends that I have. I couldn't imagine life without a stress relieving world that I dive into, and have my friends there ready to hang out and have a good time.

And if you still have problems with that, I could just go to the bar and have a couple cold ones...

The Don-Lydia Wedding Reloaded

2005-11-23T18:57:00.000-08:00

Stephen came by with a bunch of pictures of Don and Lydia's wedding on a CD. Flipping through, we came to the section where the reception was beginning. As we were looking at them progressively, I remembered where we had been standing at the time that everyone was streaming into the hall while pictures were being snapped. I wondered if we had mistakenly been dropped into one of them. Then we came across this picture. A very nice picture. Then I looked closer. It was almost eerie how well of a shot this would have been, had it been of higher quality. Granted, Cassie's mouth is half obscured by that wishing well thing in the middle of the building(?), but there wasn't much there in the first place anyway... We appear just over Don's right shoulder as he was waltzing in with Lydia. The whole party is there, from left to right: Sarah H's cooking friend, Sarah H (herself), Stephany H, Mike H, Cassie, 'Drew(berry), Sarah M.
I took the liberty of enhancing the photo a bit with my mediocre/lame photoshop skills.

Ok, so maybe I am the only one who thought that it was cool. Probably because it reminded me of how much fun that whole deal was (when weren't afraid we were going to miss the wedding, not have a cake, not have the food, not have the supplies, etc...). Ahh, good times, good memories.

Speaking of, that was also the time that a certain *someone* took a swig of a certain Coca Cola... But that is an entry for another day.

Hotlinks

2005-11-19T04:57:00.000-08:00

Here's some links to hold you over while I am writing something else.

Here we go, rapid fire:

Stereograms on the internet, still AND motion pictures. They hurt your eyes enough as it is, let alone with the monitor refresh rate. Another page with stereograms.

The remote control human. I can do this without a controller. It just takes a minute for me to get inside their head, in a manner of speaking.

A bad day for some fruit. I really don't know why, but I find this very very disturbing, and it turns my stomach inside out. I am still trying to figure it out.

The definitive source for Whale Exploding. What else are you suppose to do with a dead whale that has beached itself? Have a barbeque?

"Play!": A compilation of some of the best game orchestral compositions all in one performance. With a full sized symphony orchestra!

What is your party affiliation? Are you a raging conservative, an uber commie? Or, do you walk a fine line between opposing factions? Find out here. This is probably biased by some major degree, somehow. But this is the internet. You aren't suppose to believe anything that you read on here, anyway.

The Daily Dancer. All he lives for every single day after waking up is to pick a song, set up some sweet moves, then record himself dancing to it. The guy is brilliant. Who ever said that dancing was evil?

Nuclear Tests. See tons of explosions.

The Minas Tirith Project. An endevour to model all of Minas Tirith into a 3d simulation that would allow you to walk about and observe everything.

Here is an account of a car accident as described by a man who appears to have been leaving a voice message on a friends cell phone at the time of impact. Thanks Sven, John, for the tip.

Revelation (not the book)

2005-11-18T10:20:00.000-08:00

I ate bagel pizzas today. More specifically, I ate english muffin pizzas. Technicalities aside, I was struck with a phenomenal property of one of the ingredients. I was astounded that it had been in front of my face for all of these years, yet has failed to manifest itself.

I examined my (english muffin) pizza in order to see if it was overly hot. There was no steam rising out of it, so it appeared to be cool. I to a manly sized bite, and started breathing hard with my mouth open to try to air cool the pizza and keep it from burning the roof of my mouth and my tongue any more than it already was. Once the immediate crisis was over, I began wondering what caused my error in judgment. I put the *pizza down, and lifted up the thick and thorough cheese covering. Lo and behold, steam came flying out from the sauce. This *pizza was not cool at all! It was, in fact, superheated.

I put two and two together to make a simple arithmetic problem. Then I thought, cheese has incredible thermal resistant properties! It wasn't the cheese that was hot, it was the sauce!

Imagine, mozzarella insulation for your house. No thermal loss. Cheddar quilts. No more chilly nights. Not LL Bean jackets, LL Bluecheese. And you can eat it during the summer so that you can change styles every year, if you wish.

All this from an *pizza. And Pizza, I have tremendous respect for...

*english muffin

The People's Whatever of Drewtopia.

2005-11-11T09:25:00.000-08:00

I think that this world as a whole is approaching the aspect of "government" from the wrong direction. Therefore, after I become supreme ruler of the world and rename it Drewtopia, I will spawn this mini-nation as an experiment.

First of all, every country in the world has one thing in common: They can all make rules, also known as laws. Of course, these laws are suppose to be for the good of all people. The the only result of the ability to make laws is that more laws will be made. And then there will be more laws. And then there will be even more laws. Eventually you end up with a big fat government that contradicts itself. It especially ticks me off when people are allowed to legally be stupid. There should be a law against stupid, but there isn't. Instead, there is a law to prevent you from kicking manatees. Who cares about lame fat manatees? I'd eat them every day for breakfast, then burn their fat for car fuel the rest of the day, but there is a law against it.

My country will only have few laws that do not change. No laws can be added. No laws can be subtracted. There will be no governing office, or seat of power. No senators, no congressmen, no mayors, no judges, no police, no selectmen. All rulings will be executed through comities. More about this in a minute.

The physical land will be divided up into equal sizes, and the number of divisions of land will depend on the size of the land mass. Where the United States of America resides, 30-40 would appear to be sufficient. People are free to go wherever they want, congregate where ever they want, travel where ever they want, live where ever they want. People also have the freedom to live however they want.

Nothing is considered a crime, unless someone calls you on it. A person can call you on anything that they want, so long as they have a testimony to back it up. If you are called for doing something, you must appear in front of a committee. The committee consists of X number of people who are randomly selected from each district of Drewtopia to serve for a day or a week or a month (There are certain numbers that will need to be worked out, but hey, it's Drewtopia). Testifying before this committee are the accuser and you. If the committee rules your case in a majority thumbs down (literally. No animal sounds. Yea and Nay should have never existed. Thumbs up or thumbs down is the only available measure), then you have to face the ruling of the committee which can be either of the following: To jump in a vat of honey followed by rolling in a pool of feathers, to eat a rotten bag of mini muffins, to suffer a barrage of insults by means of the variants of Panda, to talk to a lawyer for half an hour, make a featured on TLC's "A Makeover Story", or to otherwise take action to rectify the thumbs-down deed.

And that is pretty much the gist of my utopia. Basically, it puts total freedom and safeguards against crime, together in one easy to digest bundle. Please note that, in this environment, stupidity is considered a crime. Take, for instance, shooting off giant fireworks at 2am while being 3 months too late for the 4th of July, or lighting a can of gasoline to watch it burn, or saying "Watch this! ...", or getting drunk, or picking a fight with me. All are pretty stupid things to do, yet stupid people do them anyway. In this case, The People would decide that the action done was, indeed, stupid. The humiliation of the punishment decided on would further discourage any further proliferation of the action.

Likewise, if it is ruled that nobody really cares if we kick manatees in the face, and that people would rather be able to kick manatees in the face, and that only a few short people with high voices would care not to kick manatees in the face, then The People have spoken, and so be it.

Cards.

2005-11-06T21:12:00.000-08:00

Ok, here we go. Think along the lines of a typical Christmas card, or a birthday card, or a sorry for your loss card. This is the front of the card (read first).

And this is the back of the card.

In a couple days, Hallmark will be all over this blog trying to pay me royalties.

***

Well, when I thought of it last night at midnight I was laughing my guts out. Of course, the midnight part might have something to do with it.

Insensitive clods!

2005-11-01T06:24:00.000-08:00

Oh, you people are pathetic. All ten of you. I finally make a happy post that isn't complaining about something or someone AND that features Turkey, and I get totally dissed.

Except for Heidi. You are the awesomest, but you already knew that.

No one even left one of those lame "Heh heh, nice one. I-really-think-that-this-is-a-stupid-post-on-your-part,-but-I'll-stoop-down-
lower-than-my-ever-so-lofty-self-to-humor-you-by-making-a-comment"

I'm glad none of you are my friends. Gosh.

Turkey Sez...

2005-10-30T17:04:00.000-08:00

Happy Harvest Everybody! Enjoy the delicate limbo of the colored leaves and the dipping mercury and the lack of snow while it lasts!

Oh, and I will try not to write any more posts when it is late, I am tired, and very very ticked off. At least not this week... :)

No comment.

2005-10-28T18:54:00.000-07:00

Reading what many people write about religion really gets on my nerves. Especially the fact that whenever they say "religion", you know that they are referring to Christianity, and that when they begin to talk about it, it becomes a common bash fest. Being tolerant of religion is "in" these days, and is only right after all, but bring up Christians and it is a street fight no holds barred.

They worship their non-religion religion relentlessly. They call us stupid for following what a "man" has said many years ago. They say we are ignorant and incapable of seeing the big picture and of free independent thought. They say we are brainwashed. They say that they are so smart, since they listen to what other smart people have to say.

I want to ask you something. Supposing that there is a God, what in this universe would ever make you think that you would be able to understand him and reduce him to a number. How can you even think that you could get the slightest notion of his being when you are constantly creating new devices to see across this universe. Constantly creating new devices to see smaller parts of the simplest form of matter. You can't see anywhere CLOSE to what lies ahead. What lies further. What lies deeper. Can a flea have any concept of human life? It senses heat, and it feels the blood that it eats. The creature only has the shallowest concept of our life as humans. It is a simple being. And WE, the all mighty humans cannot create anything as simple, yet complex, as a single celled self sustaining organism.

Greater is the knowledge of how much you do not know, whenever you study to achieve greater knowledge. Anyone with any true intelligence and wisdom would tell you that. You stupid idiots with all of your fact gathering and logic proving nonsense. What does all the knowledge in the world do for you when you are up against the God of the universe.

2005-10-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

Music is Evil class 101. Professor in Music, Mr.S, keeps taking quotes and references from Jessie Jackson and Mick Jagger. Personally, I don't take a word that comes out of their mouthes as having any value whatsoever, whether it has to do with music or it has to do with how *insert exploitive* President Bush is. It is all trash.

He is also taking quotes from secular sociologists on the basis that the secular sociologists are not biased toward the Christian view that all music is evil except for the Living Hymns, the Praises book, anything written by Ron Hamilton, and the latest Patch the Pirate^tm CD. While that makes excellent sense up to a point, in my experience most college professors, let alone sociology professors, are rather wacked to begin with. So I don't like taking quotes from people that I have never heard from and who are referred to without name as "a proponent professor at X college". And they usually tend to be biased toward something, even if it might not have religious connotations

I am trying to be objective. I really am, but it is hard to do so when your only choices are (good) Christian worship music, and rock. Christian Worship music being what was described above in the sarcasm block. Rock being everything else (yes, everything else).

I have a feeling that this is all going to wrap (ha, I almost said rap [which is not actually music, by the way]) around the fact that, after money, The Beat is the root of all evil.

This beat is so evil due to the fact that it makes us want to tap our foot. Yes, this is true. A sense of beat is a gift from God, I would say. Without it, we would have no sense of music. We wouldn't have poetry, we wouldn't have songs, we wouldn't have the whole book of Psalms. All music, as we see it now, would appear to be just another random set of dots splattered all over the paper. Patterns are necessary for us to live. We wouldn't have mathematics without patterns, we wouldn't have any concept of years seasons months days or moments without patterns. A beat is just another form of a pattern set in the medium of music.

This form of pattern is one of the most natural ingrained functions of our brain. It is really very incredible. Something as complicated as defining a beat and a rythem and an off-beat and an asyncopated rythem is very complicated when put down on paper or when trying to get a computer to do it, yet it comes naturally to us.

So, I am sorry to say, in every single holy hymn we sing there is a beat. I don't know where they get off on saying that there is none, because it is there. It is very easy to see, and it is very proponent. In fact, at certain points in certain songs where a more accelerated or emphatic point is being driven towards, I hear the pianist specifically emphasizing the beats in order to push forward. Scandalous. If they really wished for there not to be a beat, we could have everyone hold whole notes, all of the same pitch tone and volume, tied over for the whole song. But, even then, a beat would be apparent because of the fact that everyone started at one time and ended a set amount of counts later. Oh the tangled web we weave! My cursed inner foot tapping self needs to be cleansed!

And, for the record, I am not saying that every song needs to have a pounding drum beat and a driving bass. In fact, it makes me nuts a lot of times. It is a sign of not being very creative.

Celeb Photos

2005-10-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

And this next picture here is from when James Bond came to town.... Oh. Wait. Ho ho, I always get confused with this picture here. The guy in this picture is DEFINITELY way smoother than any seventy year old Bond character could ever be.

I bet James Bond couldn't play a violin like I did that night. Thats right, like in my premiere movie "Diminished Scale another day", or in the follow up blockbusters, "License to Jam", or "The Man with the Golden Fiddle".

caffeine is not a drug. It is a way of life.

2005-10-20T09:40:00.000-07:00

I think I hit the sweet spot. It was on Sunday. Sunday morning to be exact.

A little context is required. The Friday and Saturday nights before that Sunday involved me staying up until 2am and 1am respectively. Normally this isn't such a big deal since I generally get my eight hours of sleep regardless of when I actually go to sleep. On Saturday I arose after seven hours of sleep. Sleeping in until after nine usually brings an uneasiness that will wake me up, unless I am exhausted for some reason or another. On Sunday I had to be up for church, so there was no question about it and I got about 6 hours of sleep.

At this point I am about 3 hours behind. Normally I find that this window allows me to function, albeit at a slightly slower pace and possibly with a little fatigue and, sometimes, electric joy in the form of outbursts of laughing at stupid jokes. In any case, I had some coffee before church. The normal dose of a single cup filled as high as can be filled.

The whole church service I could feel my heart pumping in my ears at 100+ BPM and I felt like doing laps around the church a couple times and I felt like shouting out a couple of my opinions during Music Ed 101.

This is a documented effect with me. When I am short on sleep yet high on caffeine, I tend to cruise in this state of low mental activity and high energy output. But, it has never happened to me before to this extent. I thought that my heart was going to explode from beating so fast, and I was sure that someone was going to accuse me of Parkinson's disease from all my jittering.

I am not quite sure about how to explain this. There are only a couple of options, in my opinion. First, I think Mom had started mixing the decaf with the regular in larger and larger proportions every day, then decided to drop the bomb on Sunday. Second, I was drugged. Third, my body decided that it didn't have a tolerance to caffeine anymore. Fourth, everyone is in on a big joke on me and is laughing at this post right now.

EDIT: Mark, before you even consider typing it: No. I was not listening to "All Jacked Up" that day. And no, I don't want a copy of it.

To Question a Mockingbird

2005-10-11T19:48:00.000-07:00

For Sunday morning service, Pastor W. has been conducting a study on Revelation. It always amazes me that God decided to put Revelation in the Bible, because, while it reveals so much, it is so hard to understand. That is, if we are even suppose to understand the parts that are troubling in the first place. Therefore, much of it is often put up to speculation and opinions. Obviously, there is a reason for the book to be there. I am not implying that it is there by mistake, or that it is misprinted. Merely that it is a little much for our feeble minds to comprehend.

A few weeks ago, we reached the sixth chapter in which the seven seals are being opened to bring wrath upon the earth. The first seal reveals a white horse with a rider carrying a bow who "went out conquering and to conquer".

First of all, my local disclaimer: "I do not claim to be a 12 year Bible scholar and the opinions disclosed here represent only my own. (And I personally do not have a flowing working knowledge of the book of Revelation)". And, to add to that, please read my global disclaimer which is declared above.

When Pastor W. got to this line, he began to make his commentary. The gist of it went as such: Though the man is riding to conquer the world, the "weapon" which he uses to propel his victory is a silent yet deadly one, since the text only states that he has a bow. It does not explicitly state that he has any arrows.

When listening to that, I felt like getting up to ask him what line of thought drove him into thinking this. Not in a hostile way, but in an informative and a healthy debate sort of way. My line of thinking was that if I pointed a gun at your head, you would not say "Aha! You did not say that you put ammunition in the gun! Therefore, it is not loaded!". It seems rather obvious that if I am using a gun (or a bow) to conquer a convince store (or a nation), then it is safe to assume that I have ammunition (arrows) to use.

What seems to me odd with the line of thought that was being taught is that much is being read into the verse. I would be much more comfortable accepting what actually is in the Bible, rather than assuming what isn't there.

If this were the case, then this would *not* be the antichrist, seeing as (from what I understand, mind you) the antichrist actually does come in a silent and subtle manner. What the verse is speaking of, then, is some sort of nation that is exercising force on the world.

While I thought that this notion was interesting and all, it was rather forcibly pushed into the back of my mind by my reasoning that he is doing this for a living and isn't trying to con anyone, so I took it as it came. The next Friday of the same week was my Greek class. A classmate was getting chewed out for inserting a heresy into her translation based on an assumption of the meaning of a Greek word as compared to the meaning of an English word. The Dean proceeded to speak about how one cannot take "the easy way out" by taking what one has heard from others second hand as "law". Your conclusions need to have a foundation which can be derived by yourself from base facts and truths. He then proceeded to talk about how he was caught off guard by the same thing that I was the previous Sunday. Apparently, he had always taken it to be as it was explained and just didn't think to question it. He said that even though his MacArthur study Bible had the same stance as Pastor W., it didn't really back it up.

The point of all this isn't to change your beliefs on eschatology (although, for some of you, it might help). I was just thinking about how much we are sheep to other prominent people. Questioning things isn't a display of disbelief. Rather, it is a show of strong interest in the subject matter and leads to greater understanding. This world wouldn't be so dumb if people wouldn't take as law what a few "smart" people tell them. This nation in particular (read, Stupid Media! Stupid Media! Stupid Media!).

I guess I would have to do a word study on the usages of weapons and bows and such in order to obtain a greater understanding of what I am speaking of. That is a project for another day.

Television makes me homicidal

2005-10-08T19:27:00.000-07:00

Present day sitcoms are lame, I've hated "reality" TV since it first started catching on, liberal media is worthless for receiving any real genuine fact based information, history shows are all old news, The X-Files series is completed, Even Stevens is no longer on Nickelodeon (the final step towards their demise ever since the original cast of All That was phased out), Mr.Rogers died, the people on Fear Factor are not really in danger of losing their lives, and people like Drew Carey have their own shows.

As far as I am concerned, the only real reason to watch TV right now in this day and age is to watch M*A*S*H, which is on every night at 11:00PM to 1:00AM in the morning except Sunday on the Hallmark Channel (Let me say that this is also the ONLY reason to be watching the Hallmark Channel).
Everyone in that show is just so entirely crazy in their own unique way that it makes them so very normal. This show definitely deserves to be on more channels than the Hallmark channel. That is most certainly a disgrace. It displays the lowered standards of society's entertainment. You just don't get the same spread of actors, personalities, storyline, drama, and humor anymore.

So someday when I am old and I have a high pitched frail voice, I can be the person that says "And when I was young, there use to be a bag of garbanzo beans worth of channels, and all that was playing was a dag flabbin' new reality show that was lame as a pig on a spit in the heat of July. Yep, the only show worth kicking the can for was MASH. And now, kids got no respect!"

Schoolwork at a snail's pace

2005-10-03T06:19:00.000-07:00

While under the influence of major concentration in order to complete my homework that needs to be done, I sometimes glance around the room in an attempt to look at something other than the school book so as not to burn my eyes and brain out. As I am concentrating, I often find myself looking over the left side of my desk down onto a project computer that I am building for someone. The keyboard sits atop the case. Whenever I spot it, my whole line of concentration and my whole thought process all get dumped for the one reflexive question that jumps to mind: Why on earth did they put a snail hot key on this keyboard?

After a moment of thought on the matter, I read the caption to see that it is actually referring to a webcam. And then I think about this awesome post on data transfer that I wrote a while back. Then I realize that I just wasted 5 minutes on a keyboard.

It is just too bad that it doesn't look like a llama or anything. That would be cool.

Of English grammar and common trends.

2005-09-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

The ancient greek language is so totally awesome. It just rocks.

Not because it sounds sophisticated for me to say that I know it, not because some lame lazy butt philosopher who sat around while they thought up ideas spoke it, not (totally) because Greeks are the awesomest people on the planet, not because The Odyssey was written by a guy named after a character on The Simpsons. Nay I say, for although these are all valid and sufficient reasons, they striketh not the prime reason on the nose.

It is because English stinks. It has to be the most bloated and uncoordinated language on this planet. Everything about it is filled with exceptions, ambiguities, misuses of terms, awkward spellings, and forms that don't make any sense. If I had a nickel for every stupid idiom and phrase and group of words that don't make any sense together but are used anyway, I would have a butt load of nickels.

English has had hundreds of years to skew, corrupt, and wreak havoc on itself. Centuries upon centuries of stupid people to contort something logical into something short handed, regional centric, and context oriented. Years and years of immigrants misusing pronouns and slaying standards. People mashing many good words into one generic "catch all" word that has no specifics to it at all. No uniqueness. No definitiveness. You need tons of context in order to have any idea of what I am saying.

When I say, "bow", you have now idea of what I am talking about. It could be a noun, or a verb, or maybe even an adjective, or essentially anything you want it to be, if you are so inclined. Talk about ambiguous.

I could say, "DUDE!, that dude is totally a dude, eh dude?"

"Dude" in that sentence was used as a reflexive exclamatory remark (on the same level as the "Ouch!"), a noun, a pronoun, and an adjective. There were nine words in that sentence, and four of them were the word "dude". Case in point.

Unfortunately the above sentence, or variants thereof, are a frequently manifested sentences in common English.

I feel bad for all those little Indian and Chinese kids who have to learn English so that they can work their phone tech support jobs for major companies based in the United States.

Greek is superior also in the area of word order. Yes, there are some standard placements for certain constructions, but, for the most part, things can be placed where ever you want to place them for reasons of emphasis. It allows, what I like to call, "Yoda talk".
You think something is important? Put it at the beginning of the sentence! Simple as that! And effective too! And, not only that, but it sounds really cool! Something that, if you do it in English, gets you strange looks and automatically pegs you as a Starwars freak, whether or not you actually are.

Or

maybe I am approaching this from the wrong direction. I am a fair guy, and I give everything its fair chance, until I decide that it is stupid and deserves to die a slow and painful death.

Maybe the "dude" movement has something going for it: a whole language that is so developed and so sophisticated in its makeup that any possible thought or meaning can be expressed by one single word and its accompanying inflection. "Dude".

eg. "Dude dude, dude dude dude dude dude, dude dude dude".

Translation, "Pardon me sir, but I believe that your presupposition is falsified by the morphosyntactical use of the minor premise of the enthymeme that you chose to employ"

Of course, this is hard to understand over the internet without proper inflection being made to the statement. But, if this usage of the language would abound in the public, a common knowledge of inflection would occur so that one would be able to read it over the internet.

***********************************************************************************

A bit of my Greek homework. There should not be too many heresies in there. I don't think that I had many in the first place, and whatever was left, I corrected out this morning (pen in blue). I enjoyed doing this passage.

1 John 5:1-6 and the flip side,
1 John 5:7-12.

Note:
I don't claim to be a grammer expert, as is evidance by my above writing. Don't look at me though. It is the stupid English language that forbids me from any professional attempt at writing mastery.

On guns.

2005-09-28T13:25:00.000-07:00

This is one of the best websites, in my opinion, commited to answering questions concerning gun control and the like.

Since I know all yall are my buddies, I think I know which selection you would click on in the opening page. Just for kicks, click on the "wrong" answer for an interesting survey that has lots of deflating questions to burn libs with.

It also has tons of little picture things with catchy phrases that would make good avatars or signatures.

Some of the Hi-Res versions of the little pictures.

In a world where everyone was just like me:

2005-09-23T10:59:00.000-07:00

Jeans, pocket Ts, and mullets would be an acceptible form of formal dress. And computer girl friends would be a reasonable alternative to the real thing.

And everyone would rock, because they would be just like me.

In a recent survey, 391,437 people secretely wished that they could wear a mullet around in public.

2005-09-20T08:10:00.000-07:00

"Hey, Andrew. You fix computers right? Here, build us a website. Thanks."

Hey, PW, You're a pastor, right? Here is a hammer, construct a church building from the ground up for me, would ya? Thanks.

Old dogs can't learn new tricks.

2005-09-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

But they can roll over and die.

What is it with these old computer systems and OSes still being alive and thriving? They are a pain to use, they are inefficient, and they make old computer sounds. They have more dust caked on their insides than there is makeup on a bus load of Hillary Duff teeni-bopper wannabies. They are filled to the hilt with 2.5Gb 2400RPM Harddrives and quad speed CD drives, so that when I need to format a drive and reinstall the OS, it takes an extra hour longer. Just to tick me off.

Those stupid floppy disks. I hate floppy disks. They are so wretchedly slow. It takes forty-five seconds to fill a 1.44Mb floppy with information. And the darn things go corrupt. I have a stack of about thirty of them, just in case I need to interface with an old crummy computer. I think about 4 of them still work. And that is if I prop the drive into just right position with the full moon shining on it through the window.

And, what is the deal with Windows 95 still being used? I can understand Windows 98, possibly. I can see that. But, 1995 was 10 years ago. The Internet was a baby, by public masses standards. Companies were fighting towards the 600MHz CPU mark. Memory was bought in sticks of 64Mb. Not to mention the fact that Windows 95 STINKS. It is barely an upgrade from Win3.1.
Steve Balmer offers sacrifices daily in order that people would lose their '95 CDs. Microsoft ninjas are dispatched every night to swipe them out of homes. And STILL it manages to survive. And get sent to me for repair.

I don't mind helping people out with their computers. Just like I wouldn't mind if someone helped me fix my car, or repair my plumbing. I don't do what they do, so I wouldn't know how to repair it. But I am working with antiques here. I should be regarded in the same ranks as those people who restore Egyptian mummies to their original looking condition. This is tedious work that requires hours of dedicated and focused concentration. A single slip up could result in losing a subject. It is no longer a science to revive these ancient boxes. It is a dying art.

Hey, I like the retro look of the old computers. I like the old style Windows interface (No Fisher Price style Windows XP for me). I dig the look of the old horizontal cases that you could place your monitor on. I like my DOS command line than any of the aforementioned. But that is all I like about it: The look. NOT the functionality. To make it clear, Windows 95 no longer HAS any functionality. When it takes 5 minutes to download your startup webpage over a dialup connection on a Pentium (1) 133MHz system, it is time to upgrade.

At the moment, I have on the list a Win95 box with a virus. I didn't even know that they still had viruses that could infect Win95.

And now, fireworks are going off in the next door neighbors yard, and it is 1:00AM. Oh well. Maybe I will get rich off of it someday, or something. I should start a museum....

P.S. And now my blog is getting a 404 error, and telling me to wait 10 minutes to publish my blog for "maintenance". sigh.

Since we are talking about food...

2005-09-16T11:34:00.000-07:00

mmm Hmm, so that is how they make seedless watermelons.

Food for Thought (ha. ha. Bad pun)

2005-09-15T17:44:00.000-07:00

You ever wonder what the lyrics to "Bye Bye Miss American Pie" mean, if anything?

I wanted to hear the song a few times in a row the other day, for no apparent reason, then realized how much I didn't understand them. And I don't like not understanding things.

So, here you go. Expand your knowledge.

The end of Ages

2005-09-13T11:13:00.000-07:00

Yea, verily, after many long years it has been completed. I think that it was in 1997 that the world of Myst was placed before me on our 486 computer. And now in 2005, having completed Myst before, I have ventured through the sequel to Myst, Riven, and finished it. After many stints of gathering information and failing miserably, I sat down and connected the dots in order to unravel the hidden trails of betrayal and to wrap up the tail ends that both Myst and Riven had looming over them.

I feel all tingly inside.

Yet, I could not help but feel empty inside, also. Like a large thing on my ToDo list was removed. Since it wrapped up so nicely and mysteriously, it felt like the end of it all. Then I remembered that I had to also finish Myst III: Exile, Myst IV: Revelation, URU: Ages Beyond Myst, Uru expansions: To D'ni and The Path of the Shell, and Myst V: End of Ages, which is to come out on September 25(?) and wrap up the whole series.

At the current rate, I should be done with them all in 24 years. My mind is a little stronger than it was when I was ten, so I am hoping that it will not taking that long.

But, wahoo, that felt good. After spending 3 days puzzling over a gigantic waffle iron and the multi-colored raisins that you have to put in to make the perfect waffle, It felt good to finally bake that waffle and use the excess steam to power the linking books and get out of there.

I was sparked to complete my journey by the sad news that Cyan was closing due to financial reasons. People just aren't into adventure games anymore. They would rather play one of the hundreds of no name FPSes on the shelves of Walmart. Stupid n00bs playing their games. Pandas.
And thus, the ending of an age. I doubt that a rival to the Myst series, with all of its diversity and the elegance and simpleness, will come to be in the near future, if ever. Especially with the current trends of low tolerance for actual art and passion for games.

"And now I am at rest, understanding that in books, and ages, and life, the ending can never truely be written."

Drivers Ed: The Final Chapter

2005-09-08T18:24:00.000-07:00

Drivers Ed is done with, completely. Period. No more. I finished my last road lesson on Wednesday. Admittedly, I was taking a long time, but still, it is done now. All I have to do is wait for my identity to get processed by The Man, and then go for my road test.

While the first two road lessons were a bit of a bore, they were not that bad, and were also informative. I mean, for the first lesson, the guy had me pull into a lot near the U Mass campus so that he could run in and talk to his adviser for a few minutes. He is majoring in Bass Guitar. He has a band and goes on sporadic tours. Go Jo ;). All I had to do was listen to some beats for 10 minutes on 106.3, Frank FM, then cruise around Lowell. Can't complain about that.
Plus, driving in a Ford Focus is a lot different than driving our Jeep Grand Cherokee that is as old as I am, to the month. The steering is nice and tight. You don't have to swing the wheel 10" to either side before it turns. And it feels like a light car, as oppose to the Jeep, that behemoth of a vehicle. Unfortunately, we no longer own the jeep, as it was sold for $100 to an enthusiast of the Jeep hobby. May you rest in peace. I hardly knew thee.

The last two lessons were interesting because I had the owner of the driving school as my instructor. He use to play in a wedding band, renovate houses, went to school for chemical engineering and computer science, and was a sales rep for a big time software company. You could defiantly see how he became such a good sales rep. He was grand and loud, deep low voice, always trying to be entertaining, and explained everything in a really long drawn out way, while talking really fast. And he liked to talk the whole time, which was good.
He took a smoke break when we made a drop off, and then had me pull into an ice cream stand so that he could have another smoke. Then he said, "I'll tell ya what, you can pick up whatever you want if you'll go over there and get me a chocolate frappuccino. As long as you don't get any in the car".
Free chocolate ice cream is the best tasting kind.
After passing another car from the driving school in which his brother was instructing in, he had me pull over. He took another smoke break while having a chat with his brother.
I found him very interesting, and he was a very nice guy. Anyone who offers me free chocolate ice cream is good in my book.

Oh, and since he owned the company and was a driver also, he decided to purchase an '05 red Mustang to use for instructing and to have the students drive around in.

Yeah, that felt good.

Probably the only time that I will ever drive one of those ever again, too. You get stares from all of the older adults on their front lawns, "A Mustang! Where were you guys 20 years ago!". Everyone, including the parents, drivers, students and onlookers get a kick out of it. It was definitely fun to drive.

The newest family addition

2005-09-05T07:23:00.000-07:00

While, generally, I would never even think of setting foot inside a craft store, Mark had an art assignment that he had to start work on and had to pick up some supplies. I was a bit in need of a washroom at that point, so while Markus was picking out his 18x24 50% recycled material medium weight drawing paper and pencile sharpener, I was pacing around a bit. It was in my wanderings that I came about this wonderful creature for an amazing bargain of only $3.99. I liberated him, of course.

Mark used his exceptional naming skills to come up with a name for him. "Hmm, name the wicker turkey,,,,,,Werkey!". And thus, his name is Werkey.

Please make Werkey feel welcome. He is the first of his kind in this house, not being paper or plastic or digital.

Epilogue:
We went to Gamestop and Guitar Center (plus CompUSA Midnight Madness the night before [in which I got a wireless-B internal PCI adapter for $5 ATR {After the rebate}]) in order to cleanse myself for being in an arts & crafts store.

As an aside....

2005-09-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

It looks like Massachusetts has done something right, for once.

There is nothing like a good ol' Teaparty like ceremony involving chucking the Big Man, along with his oppression, into the ocean. That's New England pride right there.

"The switch to open formats such as these was needed to ensure that the state could guarantee that citizens could open and read electronic documents in the future

*cough* And so that we don't have to pay a fortune to Micro$oft for licensing fees *cough*

They are gone

2005-08-31T18:39:00.000-07:00

Yep, it's true. On Friday I lost my 4 little nuggets of wisdom. Some people claimed that I had absolutely no wisdom in me prior to that, but they were wrong. Until Friday. Then they were right. Of course, they might have been right all along, but that is subject to debate.

They yanked them out at 9:00AM Friday morning while under some heavy anesthesia, which resulted in me for, rest of the day, being in a constant sleepy euphoric state with intermittent severe anguish and numbness of most everything and anything in and around my mouth area. Although, I must say, I have never had such a complete and restful sleep in my life. I really like those sedatives. They bring on some real psychedelic dreams, too.

It wasn't until the third day that I started getting the headaches and the mouth pains and feeling the cuts everywhere. Until then, I thought it was going to be a breeze. But it was not to be so much as I imagined.

I am thoroughly disappointed, though. For one, I forgot to request my teeth back. As a result, I have nothing to show you. Second, I took a few pictures of my set of choppers by sticking a camera down my mouth, but I cannot remember what I did with the pictures on my computer. And I really don't feel like sticking the camera back inside my mouth again. I thought a few pictures would be a nice touch on here.

If they turn up, I'll be sure to post them.

Note:

2005-08-29T21:00:00.000-07:00

Due to the recent surge of computer generated ads appearing on my blog, I am setting my comment system so that anyone who wishes to comment will need to do a word verification step in order to ensure that they are human. This should stop all ads from appearing. We shall see how this works. Just an FYI.

That is all.

Frog Baseball

2005-08-27T06:18:00.000-07:00

Do not--I repeat: NOT, click on this link. It kills more brain cells than it generates. I was lured into it by the title, and curiosity was so intensely strong that I could not manage with all the strength of my body and mind to yank my tiny small index finger away from the mouse button, despite the numerous warnings given to me.

EDIT: While on the subject of useless links, I figured I would throw this one up too. While also somewhat useless, I believe that it makes an informative statement on the status of computer programmers.

EDIT (again): Still on the subject of useless links, I thought that this one was cool. The Unbreakable Umbrella. While I could think of 10 interesting usages for an unbreakable right now, it's main reason of existence is to be used for self defense. The man seen is a wrestling and judo world champion who (I think) developed it. There are some interesting videos of it in action on the site.

"Our Unbreakable Umbrella has no unusual parts, no more metal than an average umbrella, it does not arouse suspicion, can be carried legally everywhere where any weapons are prohibited, unlike a walking stick it does not cause strange looks if carried by an able-bodied person, and it does protect from rain."

2005-08-25T06:35:00.000-07:00

Tuesday Night: 3.5 hours of nonstop back to back movies with constant snackage of Gummy worms, Mike and Ikes, Junior Mints, Nerds and Vanilla Coke that lasted until 1:30 AM.

Wednesday Night: Prayer Meeting that happened to include Brownies, Doritos and bite-sized pretzel stumps.

Thursday morning: A giant lump of Nerd peppered Gummy Worms with shards of Doritos stuck on the edges that is sitting in my lower intestine.

I guess this is my form of a hangover from a party. I think that I would rather be throwing up and having headaches.

For every rule, there is an exception.

2005-08-19T06:20:00.000-07:00

Now THIS is the kind of turkey hunting that I can deal with.

Ouch. Kelvin has never climbed so high in his life.

Not that I am ungrateful....

2005-08-04T06:17:00.000-07:00

Because I am not. I really like what I got, but I couldn't help but to note the comparison: While at Barnes and Noble, Cassie decides to get me a gift in advance of my birthday. She buys me an Asimov book I was eying for $14.00 and uses a $10 gift certificate that she obtained (for free).

And, for her birthday, I bought her a brand spankin' new windshield for her car.

Forget it Cass, now the windshield is running as your Christmas present too.

(by the way, thanks for the book. It has all the good stories in it :D)

Urgent Update:

2005-07-31T18:44:00.000-07:00

All I can think about for saying this is

Yeah baby!!

Not quite as huge as I would prefer them, but I'll cut them some slack, seeing as they were only $1.05.

Of the last few weeks.

2005-07-30T07:54:00.000-07:00

The Wilds.

It is amazing how many games of the card game Bluff can be played when you have absolutely nothing else to do. Dan, Zach, Ryan, occasionally Nicholas, and I played that game all the way up and all the way down. It is a great game, until you can figure out if they are bluffing just by looking at their face. Then you know that you have played for too long.
After playing for 2 hours or 20 games (whichever came first) and being totally burnt out, Rory would wake up from the front seat and say "Anyone want to play Bluff?". Thus led to more consecutive games.

Dan was quite the wacko. I'm glad that I got to get to know him on the way down. Spending many hours in the car is the best way to learn to love someone, or hate them. Dan makes the cut ;).

Camp itself was great. Nick and I were in a cabin along with seven other people, two of whom were CITers. One of them had a striking resemblance to Billy from "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest", hair and all, which at first really freaked me out. The two loudest ones in there happened to be really sort of, erm, stupid. Not surprisingly, they stuck together. It was great to listen to them ramble on and attempt to one up people.
A few of them styled Axe, the body spray. It stinks, by the way. And they didn't just USE it. They sprayed it on for ten seconds at a time, then came back three minutes later and did it again. It really really stunk in there. I think that that stuff itself can give you brain damage, not counting the aerosol in there. Hence the two "ignorant" people mentioned above. The amount used seemed to be inversely proportional to their brain cell count.

Apparently, the week that we were there (the 3rd week) was the first time that they had gotten rain in the manner that we did. The weather was on a perfect schedule. The day would start out very hot in the morning. It would progress to get hotter and much muggier. Then, in the afternoon it would be torrential rain for about 20 minutes and the temperature would drop by 10-20 degrees. And from there the cycle would repeat. It actually wasn't too bad. I enjoyed the change in pace and everything. It made for good cooling off.

The messages were great. They had a way of being very revealing and getting the point across well. I thought that they were very good and very effectively executed. I was very thankful to be able to go and hear them. They did a number on me.

I think that it is worth mentioning that our team WON. Yes, we did. And we also got a perfect memory verse score. Mmm, yes. That we did.

The return trip was crazy. Zach and I decided that no one was going to sleep on the way back, in order to ensure a crazy cool car party. Not that the way down was dull, but it had its low and quiet points. We wanted to ensure that that didn't happen again. And it didn't. We bounced from southerner bashing to French fry debates in a matter of mere seconds. It was amazing. That was one great trip. What was even better was the fact that some people fell asleep, and that we had a video camera on hand. Among the victims were Chris, Dan, and Zach. Since I was unable to acquire Icy Hot or shaving cream, we were limited to tooth paste and lip gloss. We made the very best of it none the less.
I am very proud to say that I myself never fell asleep on the watch. I feigned sleep well and fooled Rory into trying to steal my hat. That worked well until Dan leaned in close and whispered in my ear, "Hey Drew, I love you". It was all over after that.

We also had very much fun with the camcorder. Between hourly reports, coverage of passing clown cars, sleeping/drooling people, odd road signs, and home made commercials, we brought the house down.
(Speaking of clown cars, we were witness of a car which was absolutely 100% filled with garbage up to the ceiling, windows, and all 4 of the seats. There was only a little breathing room in the drivers seat where the driver had to sit and hold the garbage back while driving. I'm surprised that an apple core didn't get stuck under the brake pedal or something.

We also made a couple of friends on the road. Waving to other people is a good way to make friends. Lots of stories there.

All in all, it was a great trip in order to get to know everyone better. I loved it.

The Nova Scotia Trip.

This was a great trip also. The ride up was good in getting everyone up to speed on everyone else, but it soon degraded to card games and strange conversation.
After staying in Belfast for the first night, we proceeded to Canada. Thankfully, we did not have to deal with border patrol. They waved us through and we continued. There were no cop cars or highway police the whole way up. We could have cruised at 90 mph the whole time if we wanted, and not have been seen the whole time. That is what the 15% tax on everything is paying for.

The view wasn't all that interesting while we were driving up. Once in a while, when we drove up on top of a hill, we would be able to see miles of trees to our left and right. That was about it until we actually got to Nova Scotia. That is where every time you took a picture it looked like a post card. Especially the sunsets. They just couldn't have been any better.
The first full day that we were there was Sunday. That evening we went out to a beach just for the heck of it. It was a rock beach. Most of them are. We stayed to watch the sunset, which was brilliant.
That beach is also home of the amazing and famous Rusty Bulldozer. Man, so many good times were spent there. There were broken glass bottles all over inside of it. There were a bunch of rocks made up into a fire pit where there were other things lying around such as tubes of modeling cement and small glass cylinders. Good times, good times. They must have had such a good time that the hours just, disappeared (literally). But, the Rusty Bulldozer was most definitely the highlight of the beach.
When we came back to the beach a few days later, we decided to build a causeway into the "lake" thing that was fed by the ocean. After 25 minutes of hurling giant rocks, we made it about 2 feet in. Not too bad.

On Monday we started VBSes, which went surprisingly smoothly for being a first day. Even the first day went really well. The first day we had 12 kids (I believe it was). All of the kids that we had were very attentive also, which was somewhat amazing.
The same morning, Mrs.Moody went to the store to buy things for VBS, and she had met someone at the store who had inquired of her if she was having a party. When she explained the reason for the food, the lady became interested in VBS. So, she came with her two kids. The kids AND the mother participated in everything and had a good time. The mother was very helpful for the purpose of crowd control and help in the art stuff. We are praying for a follow up so that she might go to the Moody's church.

The next day, there were 16, which I myself did not expect. And things seemed to get smoother every day that we worked, too.

All in all, we had 20 people enrolled, and a maximum of 19 at a club at one time. That was far more than I ever expected to come out. I was thinking 15 at most, if we were lucky. And all of the kids, save for the two 4-year olds there, paid much attention and were very good with participating.

On Thursday we finished the last morning VBS, then had a half-hour closing program in the evening, which the parents, grandparents, or anyone who wanted to come was invited. We had some parents come out who were not there all week, which was great to see. I also got to preform my amazing rope trick. And, after doing it 40 times and it becoming routine, was exciting to see that people were amazed by it (It helped that I didn't screw it up in any way, which was a good possibility).

Friday was free, so we decided that we would watch the 3 Moody kids, who seem to like us a whole lot, so that the parents could go out to eat for the night and not get interrupted 20 times in a sentence.

The ride home was insane in that we decided that card games were the only way to go. We played 20 rounds of Rook for four hours straight. 1600 points to 1300 points. That, plus the time before that that we played SkipBo and Bluff.
After driving for quite a lot of hours, we arrived at the Maine border. After passing customs with a smile and a nod from the nice border guard person, the Dean leaned back and said, "Who wants to go straight home?". That would involve 4 more hours of travel, but HEY! Why not. So, we did. And it felt good to sleep in my bed.

As an aside note Canada has the greatest store chain in the world known as Dollarama. Everything there is 1 Canadian dollar (that is, if it is not listed as 2/$1), and the stuff is pretty cool. Most of it is rather cheap, but at least you know exactly what you are buying. You are buying a $1 piece of cool junk. I really wish that they had them in the states, because I'd drop tons of money in there.

So, that is it for now. A general overview of everything. Much more happened in between the cracks, but I am getting tired of writing. Possibly more to come in the future. Pictures will be coming along soon.

I apologize for the crummy grammer and stuff. I am not proofreading this right now.

2005-07-15T06:36:00.000-07:00

I was going to write something a few days ago, but then I didn't. I have been wanting to write something on here, but I haven't had the time or motivation to do so over the past few days. So far, it seems like I have been gone from the house/normal life for more days than I have been attending. Especially with Markus|Heidi|Stephen being over and everything, there is always something going on, or somewhere that we are going. That isn't a bad thing, just a busy thing.

I am going to be leaving today (Friday) for Nova Scotia which will be an eleven day trip. After that, I get to start our home church's VBS for a few days, then go to a wedding, then attend the Pre-Teen Camping Trip which the teens, including me, will be running.
Fun Fun Fun. I am not bored this summer, which is way better than being busy.

Maybe when I get back I will elaborate more on The Wilds and other stuff. Peace out.

-_-

2005-06-25T17:12:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I haven't posted in somewhere around a month. So bite me.

I don't really have an excuse as for WHY I have not posted here in a while. I did have some ideas for engaging topics, yet I did not post them. I think it all comes down to me being lazy. In any case, I told myself that I would put something up here before I left for the Wilds.

School is out, and with it our minds. Along with every thing else that I was doing, I actually completed a full year of Ancient Greek without totally flunking out much to my (and others) surprise. And, I actually feel like I learned something. Unfortuantely, it did not come without a cost. Greek itself took a rather large toll on my mental abilities and brain structures, which resulted in me breaking down at random times and taking out my hostile intentions on innocent stick figures.

The first few ones were sort of an, "wow, it would be interesting if:" scenarios, and they appear a little straggly. Some of the later ones had a little more thought invested in them. Just remember, these drawings were described on paper in a very small corner, and were therefore somewhat sketchy in their appearance. I cleaned them up and amended them as little as possible digitally so as to maintain their integrity while also creating maximum observer satisfaction in quality. So, appreciate them for what they are.

Upon seeing them, Sven made a brilliant suggestion of calling them, appropriately, Drewberry Icons. I think the name sums it up sufficiently.

And Please, please, enjoy

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And, on a slightly different note, but worthy none the less: From Back of the Bulletin Bordom comes, The 1337 Sno' Llama

update:

2005-05-28T12:46:00.000-07:00

Late nights and early mornings makes 'drew a wired boy. And I think I like it.

In other news, I finally put exactly three links into the sidebar of my blog. I have been putting off doing this since I had first got the blog for the soul reason of the answer that I immediately got when I first put them up: "Hey, how come I'm not in your link bar!!!". Therefore, I shall now explain my reasoning for the 3 links that I put there so that I may be harassed no more.

I have put threeeee links up there, and the number of the links is threee. No more. No less. Thou shalt not count two links, lest thou shalt continue on to count to three. Five is right out.....

The first link up there is a like to SvenLabs. Sven has a neat-O blog, and he is a good buddy. Even though he is a rather new blogger, he already has a rather large fan base, I would say. But even so, in order to grow and popularize, this link should plug him into the Greek (geek?) net, especially with the addition of the next link on my list.

The second link on my list is a link to buddy Markus (who I might add, is NOT a panda). Along with being very tolerant of my HTML inquisitions and requests, his blog contains a link to just about every other blog in the universe. Therefore, my blog can be connected to the world in a somewhat roundabout way without being cluttered with links.
Therefore, he is a good choice.

And, of course, I have to have a third link. Two links looks small and goofy. Four links looks cluttered and has the appearance that I could add more, which I do not want to do. Since I have already covered all my bases in links #1 and #2, I add a third link that contains absolutely nothing, yet has all the information in the world at the same time. How can you go wrong with it?

Super powers in unlikely places

2005-05-25T06:50:00.000-07:00

This one is going out to Lael.

In the case that you haven't heard, or did not know of Lael, he was our youth director for our church, and is now in the process of moving his housing up to Maine.

Lael knows where it was at. He isn't an imposing figure and doesn't really have a natural "in-authority" look to him. But he always has a grip of what is going on and what is needed to be done. In the same way, he always has a way of being persuasive in a positive way to everyone, and even to people who might be being irrational at the moment.

His organizational skills, especially compared to the people at our church, are unparalleled for the scope of things that go down. He somehow managed to be able to maintain 3 separate teams of people running the Backyard Bible Clubs while only attending one of them the whole time. During the Pre-Teen Camping Trip, he was constantly juggling food shortages, people not at their posts, disputes between people, supplies, fires, and everything imaginable. All while people asked him to micromanage their trivial troubles that arose.
And we managed NOT to (intentionally) leave anyone behind at any point in that trip.

He has a way of being able to explain complicated things in a way that sounds very simple and accurate. I always try to anticipate him and see how he will go about explaining such things, and every single time he seems to find a simpler way to voice it. Yet, odd and funny enough as it is, he also seems to find a way to over complicate simple matters when trying to explain it. eg. Explaining the day to day point scoring system of the Camping trip. I swear that he could have written a full scale rule booklet on the subject (section 13, paragraph 6: "Showdowns" .... you catch my drift).
And the pre-teen camping trip for the year after that: "There is a hurricane on the way that is going to hit us full force tonight in our punny tents. Stay here, or leave for home? Hmmmmm....". Granted this problem involved packing up a full camp 2 days ahead of schedule and getting logistics organized, but that is still Lael.

There is so much that can be said about Lael that I don't quite have the time for right now, and probably will never have. But Lael was, in my opinion, the best thing that could have happened to our church and our youth group. We are all very greatfull for his service.

I'm going to miss Lael, but I'm not sad to see him go. He is in God's will right now, and that is were he is suppose to be. It's all going to be over and done with in a few moments anyway, so what is the big deal, eh?

MuSac

2005-05-18T13:40:00.000-07:00

We had our dress rehearsal the other night (Monday) for my orchestra. No, nobody was dressed up, but we did practice in the hall that we will be preforming in. It is a really nice hall in a high school that has all of the acoustic doodads that make for a nice warm and focused and crisp sound.

I would be the first to say that there were mistakes and problems between myself and others, but playing that night was extremely satisfying for some reason. The hall was nice in that I could easily hear everyone who was playing. I could pick out specific people who were playing specific things and I could hear people easily on the other side of the room. I realized how many people we had that were playing so tightly in unison time wise and tone/pitch wise.
There are six people in our 1st violin section. We are all expected to begin making sound at the precise millisecond and then cut out at the exact same time. We are also expected to maintain tolerances of hundredths of an inch along the string.

Naturally we rarely achieve such tight tolerances between absolute pitches and variable tempos (After all, if we could do it every time we would be getting paid for this), but when it happens, even if it is just for a second, it is so very satisfying to think that we are all in sync for that very moment. To think that the same hands that we use to smash nails through wood can be capable of placing a finger down on exactly the same spot every single time with only a vague positional reference that cannot be "measured" in the absolute sense of the word.

And then we had a whole orchestra behind our section producing colorful tones and beautiful processions and volume changes, it is an amazing feat that I would never have guessed was possible if I ever had to study the mechanics of playing a violin (or any instrument for that matter). The mental audio processing that goes on to separate, time, compare, adjust, and analyze every single sound in the air. The visual processing of separating hundreds of dots and lines and visual cues of the person to your right, to your left, across the room, the conductor, and bows moving up and down. Let alone all physical movements that are necessary.

Being in such a large group, there is some feeling of insignificance: what I give out will add only only a little to the overall total. Yet, if only one person screws up, it echoes around the whole place and can be heard. And, after all is said and done, you still need every single person to give everything they got to make it work. I guess you could call this one sort of a definition of a team. Thinking of this as a team, it occurred to me that playing in an orchestra is much like any other sport such as football, basketball etc. I think that I like the idea of participating in an orchestra as a sport. It makes everything and everybody seem more critical to the overall total. And it defiantly beats the crap out of playing baseball in the rain, or something like that.

I first started playing with these people last year, not knowing any of them save my cousin that was on another violin. We are now making music together in such an awesome way. I can't explain it, but it felt really really good that other night. Hopefully everyone will be back next year. I know that our concert master, Matt, will not be there. He is graduating. That is going to be a blow to us, and I will miss him.

Let Daniel have a crack at this one...

2005-05-10T08:46:00.000-07:00

The other night was a flurry of activity in the dream arena. It was one of those nights where the dreams just kept coming and coming, and they were all linked to the same epic proportion plot. Unfortunitally, the instant I woke up I could not remember any of the plot, even though I knew that it had existed and it had seemed to have been a rather interesting one. Very vividly, though, I remember one specific scene of the unfolding saga. I was standing in the front yard on my way to some other story objective while engaging in conversation with (I am pretty sure it was) Stephen B. At that time, I took a glance toward the other yard and noticed something. I laughed a little and told Stephen to check it out too. He turned around to see the man who was dressed up in a 100% accurate and enthusiastically hairy Chewbacca suit, while mowing the lawn. We gave him a friendly wave and he waved back. We both chuckled a little, then turned to continue on with our business.
Walking away, I thought in passing, "heh heh, guy in chewbacca suit Mowing the LAWN!". Then I started laughing. I laughed so hard that my knees started to buckle, and I fell on the ground. I started rolling around laughing like crazy, and I couldn't stop. Chewbacca was mowing the lawn! Come on! It's hilarious! I think I woke up after that.

That was probably the most that I had ever laughed in my life, and it was only a dream. I feel so dorky.

I forgot to add, this is a two part rant. On another note, I got my wicked awesome combat boots in today. Pure 100% thick leather means that I finally have a pair of shoes that will not admit water at the same rate as a dry saltine cracker in the sahara desert immersed in chicken soup. And for twenty bucks, these shoes will probably last me for a number of years (I can hope). Anything is better than the walmart shoes that I got just prior to the winter onslaught. It has only been 3-4 months and they are almost gone. All for the same 20$.

Now, the walmart boots that I had prior to those were amazing. I would venture to say that they were the best pair of shoes that I ever had. Very water resistant, very durable to work in, were not white (they don't look as dirty all the time, heh), and they fit me like, well, a shoe. Tough as nails, yet comfortable as indian moccasins.

They did wear out, but not until neigh on 12 whole months. And, of course, walmart had to cease selling them by the time I needed another pair. Hence the sequel crappy pair.
Now I have a stylish comfortable AND functional pair of shoes.

Phear my 1337 bootz.

2005-05-06T21:04:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so I play with barbies. Whats it to you? Is there something wrong with being comfortable with my inner manliness and technological ingenuity?

*****. Cute pop culture, or pure evil. You be the judge

2005-05-03T05:11:00.000-07:00

There are a lot of people who are not familiar with the term that I am going to present them here. It is rather unfortunate, seeing as I now have many people stationed across the country whose soul job it is to spread the good news.

But I am trying to put an end to this sub culture, and make it pop culture, so pay attention. The word I am putting forth here has a number of different meanings, all of varying severity. If not used correctly, it could result in calling someone something that you did not intend and it would become a very embarrassing situation. Even destructive to the friendship, depending on the stuffieness of the recipient.

The word that is being referred to here is "Panda". Before you go calling me a panda-hater or a redneck or intolerant (which I am of a lot of things ;) ) or anything like that, keep in mind that this has nothing to do with the species of panda itself (although some may beg to differ, but that is up to them to decide). It is just a way of expressing oneself. It does seem a little awkward the first few times you use it, but just let loose! Soon it becomes second nature, and it just seems to fit when you call someone a panda.

By itself with no modifiers, the usage of the word "panda" is relatively simple. It is a slight insult, most often used in a playful manner.
eg. "Dude, you spilled cottage cheese on your shirt. You're such a panda".
Compared with, "Dude, you spilled cottage cheese on your shirt. You're such an idiot".

Simple enough. Now we introduce the post positive modifier, "ryda". It is not as hard or exotic to say as it may first appear. Think of the word "Rider" and place a heavy New England accent on it and, huzzah! But note, the word must ALWAYS appear in the form of "ryda", and nothing else. This is very important. The usage of this combination has a more forceful feel to it.
eg. "Dude, that panda ryda just cut me off!"
compared with. "Dude, that stupid idiot just cut me off!"

And finally, there is the extreme negative force variation of the word. Only use this one if you wish immanent death, or something similar or worse, upon the subject.

eg. "You killed my father, you butt panda!"
eg. 2. "Get out of my way butt panda or I'll punch your face in"

I will not compare this one to lay terms, since this is intended to be a rated G blog *with some mild violence and mentally damaging humor*.

I must credit the inception and development of this one to Mark. It would not be here without his continual linguistic labors in this area.

There you have it folks. Learn and use. I want to see Judge Judy calling people Pandas by the end of this year. I want to hear Ice Tea (or Ice Cube, whatever his name is these days) calling people butt pandas in his next explosive feature film. I want to see women tearing each others hair out in Opera while bleeping out the expletives Pan**! Pa**a!
At the moment, we currently have operatives spreading the word in Texas, Maine, Ohio, Colorado, Rhode Island (possibly?), Massachusetts, New hampshire, Arkansas, and an extra zealous thrust in Virginia, and there is a remote possibility of one in England (Thats in Europe!). I am working on some strong international operatives too.
If you are spreading the good word also, let me know so that I can add it to my list. Alone we are strong, together we are invincible! (ehem, if you have heard this before, don't tell the publishers. please)

Korn, for a healthy diet

2005-04-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

Drivers Ed, woohoo, so mentally outstretching and thought provoking. Also a great place for social indulgence.

I usually sit on the very right side with nobody sitting on my right. When I am not looking at my flash cards and am not looking at the instructor, I am generally staring at the wall trying to force myself to think a think of value (Oh the thinks you can think....). It was during an extended lull in the instructors talking, and after I had gone through my greek flashcards 10 cumulative times, that I heard the comment coming off from the left side "Look dude, he's got a hickey!". At this point, I usually continue to stare at the wall, but this seemed like it was said in my general direction. I looked over just as he began to say, "Hey man, look, you got a hickey!". It took me a minute to register just what he was talking about. He pointed to the left side of his neck, under the jaw bone.
"That? Thats just my violinist club card".
"Oh, heh, ok".
He turned around.

He's just jealous that I've been online all day chatting with hot babes.

That wasn't even the weirdest part. The other kid that sits just about right behind me that is the Korn addict (read, has the hats, has the T-shirts, has the sweatshirts, wears the pants, and listens to the CDs at earsplitting volumes. He even has the flippin' flap bag thing, and isn't afraid to tell you all about them and weed) leans up and says, "Hey, you play the violin? I wanted to get one of those. How much do they go for?". I mean, what the crap? Where did this come from? Just when I thought the world didn't make any sense, it makes even less sense. Granted, he had the idea that it would be sort of like a guitar, except in the different direction, and he also wants to buy bagpipes (which I am not holding him up in arms for. Recently I have been wanting to get a set of bagpipes too), but still, this is just way way WAY out there.

O - :

2005-04-26T19:03:00.000-07:00

I absolutely cannot believe that I lacked the logic and creativity powers to come up with this one. Yes, it is an astounding and ground breaking development in data transfer protocols and it is many many times faster than current standards, but still, the monkey inside my head is turning over all of the idea drawing boards in frustration.
So only one course of action remains at this point. I gotta get me one of those!

FYI to everyone out there.

2005-04-23T11:49:00.000-07:00

FYI, I have not been driven off the face of the earth due to the forces of macantosh. I am posting from an Internet connection at a LAN party at this moment. Due to circumstances outside of my control involving Comcast, I cannot be online at all. I'm sure people will divulge later when we get our connection back. I do not have time right now. And since the only people who read my blog live at my house, I don't even know why I am posting this.

See you in a few.

What would happen if...

2005-04-18T12:08:00.000-07:00

The earth spun so fast that the centrifugal force canceled out the gravity just enough so that everyone could jump and float in the air for extended periods of time. Then, when you jump too high, the air in the higher atmosphere that isn't spinning as fast would slow you down, and you float back down. Umm, unless it slows you down too much and gravity takes over and smashes you into the ground... loophole.
It was a fun thought.

No, wait. It wouldn't. Because the air in the lower atmosphere would be traviling faster, and should speed you up a little. Enough, you should hope at least.