Friday, May 18, 2007

I Won't Be Ignored

I spent chemistry class today surfing YouTube for videos about blowing stuff up with fairly common chemicals. What I found were a host of videos of home-made bomb instructions (not serious ones, but fairly legit), apparently all made by white suburban guys between 16 and 22. Hm. Oh, and they were all set to Linkin Park and System of a Down music. Screamo mexican terrorists (one video had all its instructions in spanish, so we can only assume). I'm not sure which is more disturbing; the obviously large demo out there making these or the fact that now I really want to...

Check it out for yourself.

Thursday, May 17, 2007

I Just Got My Liscence In The Mail

Well, it's official: I'm a whore. I've turned this blog into a shameless enterprise to make money and I'm already .3% of the way there (to where exactly I'm not sure, they wouldn't tell me how much I'll make). You can see the evidence of my prostitution (do not quote this out of context anyone) right below the vaunted "Hall of Fame" where is says "Ads by Google". That's right, I signed up to host silly google ads because, frankly, I need the money (even if is a mere pittance) and it makes me feel important. I got off lucky though, it's not nearly as glaring as I'd expected and blends in quite well, so I don't have to be too ashamed of this. I just hope I don't get arrested for tax fraud if I don't end up paying taxes on what little I make...

Since the above doesn't really constitute a ligitimate post, I bring you this (another sign of whore-like activities): condoms. See, if you go to prep school as I do, you run into a lot of used condoms (in case you thought we were sheltered compared to public school kids, at least they do drugs and have sex off-campus). The problem with people who are popular enough to get any is they're not too bright and apparently can't think of any classy way to dispose of condoms. So you find them lying around behind the old, seedy gym and by the track (three words: high jump pit). I can understand no one wanting to go through the hassle of carrying them to a trash can or anything, but what I don't understand is some of the places they get. Sure, the high jump pit is secluded and comfortable, but how does your prophylactic end up in the middle a field, 30 yards away from it? We even get them in the middle of fields, no where near anything padded. Is that what happens when the high jump pit is occupied? You go out in the middle of a field? Dirty.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Acid Rain

I love Senior Spring. You knew school could be so relaxing? Turns out all we ahd to do was stop working...There's really only one guy who still cares about grades or scores or anything: the Man. The Man won't let it go, so the Man keeps making us take silly standardized tests. It won't be for too long though, last week I sent off a scantron(r) with "SEND HELP" bubbled in.

What I'm trying to say is that we all still have to sit for AP exams even though the scores don't matter, which not only gets us out of all our classes for the day, but also affords us the oppurtunity to put some pretty ridiculous responses. Here's some from the chemistry exam I took earlier today:

Calcium carbonate plus aqueous sulfuric acid yields: [insert my incorrectly completed reaction here]
Explain why granite (aka calcium carbonate) statues degrade outdoors:
"Tiny metieroite collisions" (the correct answer was acid rain)

Silver ions are an oxidizing agent, Iron (II) ions are a reducing agent. Solutions of the two are added together, what is the product?
"Sunshine!!!"

A solution of Iron (II) is titrated with permanganate. Explain why the color changes when the end point is met.
"Color is carried by a variety of subatomic particles called 'clown bosons'. When iron (II) is oxidized, purple clown bosons are produced that annihilate with the invisible blue clown bosons on hydronium. Therefore there is no color change until the blue bosons are depleted, at which point the purple ones start reacting with the atmosphere, producing a massive, catastophic chain reaction."

What happens when too much permanganate titrant is added?
"A starving kid in Africa doesn't have enough titrant"

Explain how the pressure ration of PO2/PO3 changes as the reaction takes place.
"No, trixs are for kids!"

How would that ratio change is a catalyst were added?
"Ibid"

Monday, May 14, 2007

I Don't Even Know What A "Reciprocity" Is

I've been lucky enough in the past couple days to feel fairly good about myself (it's my nature to not do this, I maintain that it's justified). Yesterday was a rare Sunday that I actually spent doing contructive, which is, of course, gratifying. I never do anything on Sundays (because I'm lazy), and recently I havn't done anything at all because the Man is still making me go to school even though I've long since stopped caring.

Today I got to feel all intellectual, despite not attending any classes and potentially spelling "intellectual" wrong. See, I had some time to kill in the early evening and another creative writing assignment hanging over my head, so I decided to scoot down to a local park and get in touch with my muse. The sky was blue (well, violet technicaly speaking, but whatever) and the woods were exceedingly green and springy (go figure), both conditions ideal for my muse. Intoxication might be another one, but I havn't tried it yet. Check back with me shortly after -but not too shortly after- graduation. Anyways, I turned my radio on and lay on the hood of my car with Stephen Dunn's "Riffs and Reciporcities", a book of prose pairs, for inspiration. (I could write a whole post on the connection between different parts of my car -and I don't mean the carborator- and self esteem, but I won't).

At some point the bugs starting...irking me and I'd finished the poem I wanted to get done, so I left and drove around aimlessly for a while wondering if the radio is has ESP and finds songs that match the stuff I'm thinking about in weird ways. When I finaly got out, it shocked me. My car, bless its soul, has taken to giving me a nasty static shock every time I close the door for reasons I can't understand. I don't think it does this to anyone else, nor do I think I'm wearing particularly static-inducing pants (who would even make those?). Because I talk to inanimate things when I'm in weird moods (I blame my muse), this exchange followed:

Me: "Ow, fuck! Why always with the shocking?"
(At this point I get shocked again as I close the trunk)
Me: "Fuck! Why do you keep doing this?"
(silence)
Me: "Seriously, I don't abuse you. I like you. Why do you have to keep doing that? Ow!" (there was really no reason to say this considering I managed to walk across the parking lot without hurting myself, apparently I was reliving the ordeal)
(no response from the car)
Me: "Fucker" (apparently I was also quite mad)