The 7th Notion

Admissions

2009-10-30T01:39:00.001-04:00

This summer, I started writing my '9's differently (starting from the top, doing the loop, then coming straight down the trunk). I still get a little excited every time I write one.

<<< INSERT FARSCAPE BURN HERE >>>

2009-09-02T00:13:00.002-04:00

200, w00t.

Anyways, I want to brag about my geek powers right now. I am, as we speak, gushing to my DM about Wil Wheaton. Also, I'm power-leveling my new Lapras and playing Astro Empires.

Win.

Speaking of AE, I have a Quest: a 7th Notion guild on AE. Go forth, loyal readers (both of you), play it, level, and get back to me. I'm in epsilon galaxy, come hang out.

Oh, and now I'm going to program for a while.

Winnier.

What?! Ghastly Is Evolving!

2009-08-31T22:39:00.002-04:00

I was out shopping tonight, hoping as usual to encounter Levar Burton so that we could prepare a meal together and then run off and be together forever. Because I was hungry, and because buying pre-prepared food makes me feel like a have a wife, I bought some frozen pizza. I picked the Red Baron brand in case other pizzas attacked from the air. I wasn't concerned about an attack by sea because my Troll Destroyers are fully upgraded.

I noticed something unusual. All the pizzas were clearly too large for a single person, and yet it's clearly a product aimed at loner sinkers.

Nevermind, I just wanted to make a Warcraft II joke...

How To Survive A Zombie Attack: First, Survive The Moths

2009-08-22T22:28:00.002-04:00

Something terrible happened to me tonight. I was out buying jumbo packs of condoms, as I often do, but when I returned I a horror awaited me. Clinging to the windows of the door was a huge...giant...vicious...moth.

Seriously, this thing was enormous. A wing span of a least 2 and a half inches, evil mothy powder everywhere. A true beast. Like Godzilla, or Shelob (spawn of Ungoliant), or maybe your mom. 100% terrifying. Also, I hate moths. And by hate, I mean I'm scared of them. Really scared. Like a Jap's afraid of Godzilla.

Anyways, there was clearly no way I could in through that door with such a monster guarding it, so, with my tail firmly between my legs, I circled around to another door.

It was locked.

I tried another, also locked.

So there I was, trapped outside by an unnaturally large moth. I called OSK (even though he was at least 2000 miles away), but to avail. Flapjack was flying solo on this one. I considered waiting until morning, but thought better of it. Instead, I went on a daring commando raid to retrieve a key. After microing my ballistae like a boss, I succeeded and, eventually, made it inside. As far as I know, it's still out there...

Stay Puffed, America

2009-08-20T01:51:00.004-04:00

I'm currently under the impression that, if two people have the same birthday, they feel as if they have something in common and will like each other more.

This is not, by any stretch of the imagination, acceptable.

If two people become aware that they share a birthday, they should slowly turn to face each other, lock eyes, and then fight until one of them proves that their birthday is stronger. It's also encouraged that, on your birthday, you wander around with a baseball bat, gun, light saber, or porcupine, looking for birthday parties to assert your superiority over by viciously attacking people.

"Good, But Now With A Lax Stick" Chapter 1: Fertiliztion

2009-08-09T21:41:00.002-04:00

Coming in November '09.

Rainbow Cake

2009-08-09T20:55:00.002-04:00

Not all that is gold is Tony Danza,
Not all who who wander are chasing after 1-ups,
The old that is Italian does not whither,
Rigatoni is not reached by the frost,
A fire from the ashes shall spring by pressing B,
A light from the shadows shall triple jump,
It's a trap,
The Crownless again will be king.

Prologue

2009-07-24T22:40:00.002-04:00

In the end, Escape from Monkey Island proved too tedious for my medication-free brains. How do I get the life preserver down? Where are the monkeys? Is quitting the game the escape they had in mind? Why did I marry such a bitch? Is she good in bed?

The questions overwhelm me.

Spider Crack

2009-07-24T21:48:00.001-04:00

Chronicles of the Escape of Part II:

BALLSACK!

The Last Chapter

2009-07-24T20:24:00.002-04:00

Escape from Monkey Island: Part 1

The Admiral's quest to find the Fountain of Youth has hit an early snag, namely that old computers are old and CDs get scratched and fuck bitches. Things are looking up though.

In other news, context is dead and MJ killed it.

Letters From The Front: Ambidexterity Among Local Fowl

2009-02-09T21:47:00.002-05:00

A sure sign of the recent economic malaise: the only employment I can now find is a public works project (funded by money from 7th Notion subscription dues) that involved deleting old e-mails. We all know that having to pay for the third digit describing how many pages of old e-mail a person has is a serious strain, and e-mails must be deleted.

Among the unnecessary survivors is a thread about soccer practice entitled "Keanu Reaves? Who would do that?". I cannot for the life of me think of how that title relates at all to the subject matter. Thus, the title of this post has nothing to do with this (the contents), but rather with the Aztec deity Huitzilopochtli.

P.S.-the cost of subscriptions has doubled; please click on the Google Ad (tm) links to your right accordingly*

*just kidding! I'm definitely not breaking my contract and encouraging, in any way, people to click on those links (unless, of course, you find them really interesting and relevant)

Caring

2008-12-01T14:27:00.001-05:00

I was just reading a snippet from the life of John Lennon's father, and felt the need to share this line with you, the world:

"...and kept him on the right side of the homosexual mafia who ran the ships' catering departments."

When You Ain't Gay

2008-11-18T00:34:00.002-05:00

So I noticed this ol' thing was still linked on Hipster Douchebag and felt bad that virtually nothing has been posted here in like, forever. However, I'm in enough hiding that I don't feel safe writing anything and, you know, I have nothing to say.

However, I have work very early tomorrow but my room is full of people playing Worms Armageddon, which really deserves a hyperlink, but I'm hungry and want to go asleep. So fuck you.

Virginity Is For Squares

2008-10-01T08:30:00.001-04:00

I've had this laptop for about, um, 15 months, and never have I seen the clock switch over to a new number (until about ago).

I felt like I had to tell someone.

Symphony Of Madness

2008-09-09T16:57:00.008-04:00

I have a great love of old school arcade games. Give me asteroids, pong, snake, space invaders, and I'll be happy. Actually, pong kinda sucks. Come to think of it, they're all pretty bad, and while I love them despite that, I love (fairly) modern re-makes even more (e.g.). Fuck messy 3D graphics, sophisticated game engines, and plot; just give me a straightforward concept and 3 different commands. Distill everything to extremely simple skills: shoot the rocks, shoot the aliens. Anyone can be hardcore about entertaining games, which is why I respect the gamers of old you stuck with terrible graphics and repetitive gameplay for so many years.

The total lack of explanation is one of the most charming things about these games. Take Space Invaders for instance: no attempt whatsoever is made to explain the premise of the game, you just have to infer it from the title. "'Space Invaders', ok, well I guess those things coming at me are invaders...from space, and I have to shoot them before they get too close or, you know, they'll have invaded". Why is this charming? I like to think that there's actually an elaborate story behind the games, we're just not told about it. Random elements like why different alien ships have different spots in the formation or what the hell the mothership is doing there suddenly become not random, but rational parts of a sophisticated setting that we can only guess at through subtle hints left us by ancient programmers.

Pursuing that thread this summer, I began programming a "sequel" called (cleverly) Earth Invaders: it's payback time. The angle was that, unlike in the original, you controlled an alien vessel attacking Earth. It also differed from the original in that the aliens deployed single, better armed ships that dropped bombs from high altitude instead sending huge suicidal waves towards the surface. The rationale for this new strategy? During the first invasion of Earth (the original game), the aliens had no information about humans and assumed they were like other intelligent, more advanced species they'd encountered. In "traditional" warfare between extraterrestrials, bombs were of no use because of powerful (but short ranged) shields that protected the surface. Instead, attacks would have to fly extremely close to the surface and deploy troops or biological weapons. Since surface defenses employed sophisticated homing missiles, evasive maneuvers were pointless. This same strategy of moving slowly towards the surface was employed against the humans. Needless to say, it failed, largely because of the large population of heroic nerds living on Earth; a weapon the alien interlopers failed to predict.

After the humiliation of this first war, the aliens vowed to return and erase the embarrassment...and the human race along with it. Being aliens, they learned from their mistakes. Instead of sending huge formations at the surface, they opted to send bombers to every major city they could find, where they would pummel the humans from the relative safety of the skies. The outcome? I got sick of working with graphics and intimidated by the prospect of optimizing my shitty code.

This Is Why You're A Lame-Ass-Bitch-Ho

2008-08-28T02:22:00.002-04:00

Someone around here (who must live in suburbia, because that's what 'here' is, and is therefore extremely lame already) named their wireless network "home". First of all, that is an incredibly uncreative name. I hate uncreative name (yeah Rob Thomas, I said it). What a waste, not to mention the future of that poor network that will get made fun of by all the other networks for its fucking stupid name. But that's not the real issue. The issue is this: whatever loser made this network must've been thinking "Well, I'll name this 'home' because I suck and I use it when I'm at home, so I'll know to use this one". The problem? Everyone is at home you dumb shit! Everyone who opens internet connect around here will, if only for an instant, think "Oh, 'home', that must be the one I want since I'm at home".

So yeah, basically I hate you. One day I'll return to this place and hack your stupid network and rename it Lamoland. Plus I'll protect it with a password that looks something like this:

lakefglawhgkbcskvbskdjbfajkwbfk,jwd And I won't write it down. Anywhere.

Prequel

2008-08-25T00:17:00.000-04:00

An Ode To The Good Ol' Days

2008-08-24T23:38:00.002-04:00

Want someone to blame for the recent holiday* in Georgia? Look no further than the following:

That's right. Blood on her hands. Want to piss off Russians? Try having an ex-pat win gold for America. In gymnastics. Silver lining? At least she wasn't a synchronized swimmer. Had little Nastia pulled this shit back in the '80s, the KGB would have put her back in her place:

*The People National We Got Fucked Day, traditionally celebrated by inserting something red, white, and blue up your ass.

Anniversaries

2008-08-01T21:31:00.005-04:00

About a year ago, or was it two...well, if you were to take this period of time and round it off to moths, it'd probably be almost divisible by three. Or four. Anyways, the aforementioned amount of time ago, I wrote about skittles. Now, some time later, I sit here with a brandy glass full of chocolate skittles next to me.

By the way, did you know that, if I google "chocolate skittles", the skittles homepage isn't the first result? Clearly they need a better website.

On a related note, I heard that there's a javascript command called "set googlebot trap", that attracts 'trolling google bots, snaps their necks, and raises them as little zombie google bots which then obey your website and can help it move up on the results page.

This just in: chocolate skittles suck. These things are positively vile. They taste like plastic that's been soaked in chlorine. Honestly, I have never encountered faker chocolate, not even when I took a safari to Coke Presents New Cocoaland. Also, one of the flavors is "vanilla". What the fuck? A vanilla chocolate skittle? Now my head hurts, just like my stomach. These abominations are just the latest in a trend by candy manufacturers (recently merged with, it would seem, shit factories); "let's take this cool product we make, and create an inferior version". Just look at dark chocolate milky ways. Shit for brained dingos.

Fuck, every one of these flavors just tastes like chemicals. It actually takes effort just to see what the fuck they're talking about when they say "this one s'mores, and this one's caramel!". Yeah, and this one is soylent green, courtesy of the people in our company who actually had good ideas.

You know how there's always some douchebag who likes to say "everything that can be invented, has been", and we all turn around and say "lol, owned, we just invented something"? Well, he's right about candy. So instead of simply continuing to make original, tropical, wild berry, smoothie (if they insists), tart'n'tangy and sour, double sour, Xtreme fruit, and carnival skittles, along with both skittles mints and mint skittles, they decided to go ahead and make chocolate ones too. Seriously? But no, like seriously? Why not put the R&D money towards advertising the existence of carnival skittles? Because, really, skittles should not have a big R&D budget (nor should that department's strategy be "exhaustive search").

Moments Of Restraint

2008-07-17T15:41:00.006-04:00

I hate glaciers. Really, honestly, I do. First of all, they clearly should have an 'sh' in them, not this foreign glah-see-ay gibberish. But America-and-freedom-hating spelling habits are only the beginning of their suckiness. They're lazy as hell; all they do is sit there, crushing stuff, preventing cave man expansion, and being cold. They must know they're melting (and have been for kind of a while now) yet they do nothing about it, it's like they're expecting us to solve their problems for them. Well, let me just say this: "we remember the ice age, and it sucked, so look elsewhere for help, buddy". Oh, and I haven't even mentioned how they're hogging a ton of fresh water, and not even drinking it. And we know they've been a menace to their caretakers, the polar bears. Clearly it was stress that made their hair turn white.

But here's the worst part; they absolutely ruin the terrain they leave. How inconsiderate. Seriously, I'm SICK of hills. All I have is a bike and I'm absolutely SICK of biking up your godamned hills! Do you hear me? SICK of it. New England would be a great place to live if you hadn't rolled through here and all these fucking HILLS! Seriously, no matter where I go, there's this huge fucking hill in my way. Would it have killed you to flatten stuff out a little on your way out? Water makes stuff flat and smooth, so what the fuck is your problem? Godamned selfish chunks of ungrateful ice. And you know what? I ride a BIKE! It isn't producing an CO2 to melt you sorry asses and yet you choose to make my life HELL! Fuck you.

Good Thing I Took Three Ranks In 'Jargon'

2008-07-13T22:46:00.003-04:00

The scene is thus: I am Dr. Dominic Monague, a "rouge" anthropologist, thrown out of reputable circles because of my...unconventional theories about demonic influences in history. Desperate to be taken seriously, I descend into the criminal underworld, rob the Louvre, and sell my bounty on the black market for African conflict diamonds. With these, I can pay a rebel faction in the South American country of Guyana to lead me into a jungle to find an ancient, accursed temple that will (hopefully) prove my theories.

Here's the brilliant part: on the boat trip into the jungle there is, among the varied crew (which included a possessed house wife and rebel gun-runner), a reverend. He seems to be a normal enough guy, and soon becomes my closes friend, because everyone else thinks I'm insane. With so many other members of the crew with interesting stories, I assumed he was just there for color. Days later, he springs me from jail. This was highly suspicious, but I shrugged it off as simply a plot device to get me out of a sticky situation. The next session, the reverend (who had been an NPC controlled by the story teller) is replaced by a real person. The new player was a goofy guy more enamored with playing a gunslinger than a priest, so we all assumed he was just messing around when he put all his skill picks into fighting, not theology.

Now the real genius: after much struggle, we've finally made it to the rebel leader, Mad Dog. After securing final passage into the jungle, we quietly enjoy our breakfast as the reverend asks to speak alone with Mad Dog, allegedly about some information he has. Then, out of no where, he shoots the rebel commander, surrounded by guards. My first thought is "what the fuck?! You're going to get us all killed!". True story, we all died, game over.

But here's the kicker.

He was, from the very beginning, a government agent on a mission to kill Mad Dog. None of us, even out of character, saw this coming at all. It was absolutely flawless in its execution. As he packed up his notes and we crossed out health boxes, the storyteller smiled and said "well, that was a good end, don't you think?"

Yes, yes it was. I have never been so happy to have a character eaten alive by dogs, because this was epic. Epic with a "p".

Speech Day

2008-07-12T12:40:00.002-04:00

I don't often tell other people about my dreams, but in this case I feel the world must know.

It was sometime in the near future and the world was under the oppressive rule of a police state, bent on hunting the werewolves that apparently made up a significant portion of the population. In typical police state fashion, they also arrested a bunch of innocent people. Oddly enough, I think the punishment involved being turned into a werewolf. Also, I think prisoners were sent to an idyllic Scottish countryside. This is where I was at first, but somehow we (however "we" were) escaped and ended up in some random city (in this reality cities were just huge airport-like complexes full of frightened people and police). We were getting ice cream because, well, I don't know why. I wanted some bizarre and retarded flavor that involved real pieces of orange and, because I couldn't count money at all, ended up falling in love with the spunky (and slightly disturbed) ice-cream-girl, who told me we were in Zurich (even though she didn't know where that was) and gave me little paper squares with dots on them that suppressed my werewolfness when I ate them. Luckily, we were able to get by the guards and escape into a small lobby. We were trying to get back to Scotland (which now seems like a bad plan since it was full of werewolves) when I woke up.

I really miss her...

(also I never got my ice cream)

You There! In The Red!

2008-07-10T10:26:00.003-04:00

I'm tempted right now to gush about my ever increasing love for John Crichton, but I'm at work and probably shouldn't. Instead, I'm going to leave you with the empty promise of it happening some time in the future. ...and this.

My Hobby:

2008-06-30T21:45:00.001-04:00

Whenever I'm walking around in public, and I pass some stranger, I start talking in accented gibberish so they think it's a foreign language and think to themselves, "wow, I wonder where he's from?"

Acronyms

2008-06-25T09:51:00.000-04:00

Who the fuck put the zero key so close to the 'o' key. That's retarded.

I Wanna Be Your Honey-Bee

2008-06-18T17:44:00.003-04:00

I finally found my dream career! I've been wracking my brain trying to think of some way of turning my one-day computer science degree (knock on wood) into a career, but that damnable organ has not yielded to the torture. Until today. It happened while I was waiting for Jackie at Apple to figure out why I don't have any concaine yet (turns out they hadn't shipped it when they said they'd shipped it. There goes my dream of Apple taking over the world and establish a sleek, largely featureless utopia. It's okay though, because now I have a new dream, you know, the one I was talking about before this aside). I was singing along to Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" when it struck me: I could be a call center DJ! Think about it, all those frustrated customers and tele-thrill seekers listening to the stylings of D-"double J"-V. I would play edgy, offensive music, hold giveaways, and listen to very pissed off callers. People don't mind listening to the radio, so if "on hold" is just like the radio, people wouldn't mind getting their calls not answered. Dynamite, right?

By the way, if any one of you out there work in customer service, I want you to know that, by and large, you guys do a great at what must be a pretty terrible job (at times, anyways). Go you.

So Much For "Fire And Water"

2008-06-13T16:49:00.005-04:00

This is pretty much assured to never happen due to time constraints from my job and current-leading-hobby (programming a re-imagining of the Space Invaders concept), but it really deserves some honest time and effort.

I figure the betting would go round by round, with the pot going to either the last survivor or anyone who could win with their poker hand (assuming their attempt to "call" wasn't thwarted by a spell, creature, or discard of the 5 of clubs). Each player would have a character who would contribute abilities associated with their class (stealing cards or money from the pot, slaying opponents' creatures, etc) and level up by doing various things. All the while, everyone would have a Magic deck going, doing battle with that to kill opposing characters or undermine people's poker hands. At any point a good poker hand (e.g. a flush) could be discarded for major payoffs in other parts of the game, such as level ups or instantaneously untapping mana. The possibilities are endless.

Also, this is really funny.

Temple Of Doom Much?

2008-06-11T13:35:00.002-04:00

My yearning for Civiliztion IV continues. Remember the other night? Well, that monster download that was supposed to give me a demo to tide me over until the real thing arrived got cut off. Horror. I, dismayed, started it again, only to see that, inexplicably, it was going 12 times as fast. In an hour, it was done. But, and I can only imagine this is because someone very important hates me, it didn't work (something about not being able to mount a disk image). Crushed hopes, horror. Today, I checked my package's progress and, true to my wildest hopes, it was estimated to arrive today, not tomorrow! I rushed to the post office, no package slip. Crushed hopes, horror. Again; no, same thing. Thrice I went, longing for my package. Finally, it was there (thanks to a friendly postmaster). Joyful, I jumped on Concord (my faithful steed) and sped back to my dorm.

But here's the thing: I had also ordered a mouse (to get free shipping), which they warned me would ship separately. So when I tore open my package, it was just a mouse, not gamer-crack.

Crushed hopes. Horror.

Points A and B

2008-06-09T16:28:00.004-04:00

You know what doesn't make sense? (pause so that everyone can take a minute for stupid "your mom" and "your face" jokes without missing any key blog plot). Download time predictions. You know when you're trying to download something and you see the little bar that says something like

"tiny fraction of huge file at way too slow KB/sec; slightly longer than your lifetime remaining"

Ok, well, it's something close to that. You know what I mean. Anyways, you know how the shiny progress bar clearly moves forward and the amount you've downloaded clearly increases, and yet somehow, your very advanced computer's prediction of long it will take increases the further along you progress? How does that make sense? When I started this download three hours ago and it was 0% done, you said it would take 9 hours. Now, at 40% done, it apparently will take 11 hours. What the fuck? How does it take longer to download less? Stop playing with my heart, download manager. Also, why is this only going at 6.8 KB/sec?!?!?! Fuck.

But wait, you say! Why, oh beloved author, are you downloading something that would take 9 hours (yeah, it's gone back down to 9, douchebag) you ask. Well, I find myself here with nothing to do and the seed of "I want to play turn based strategy games" planted somewhere deep inside. Recently, this seed has begun to sprout feelers of undeniable desire that have crept into the back of my mind and, now, the front of my mind and my gums. Before long, there was a full blown YOU MUST FUCKING PLAY SID MEIER'S CIVILIZATION IV flower blooming in my mind. I sprung into action and started downloading the demo, but, alas, it apparently will take forever. Desperately needing something to do, I leapt onto my bike and struck out for the nearest Best Buy with the words "the internet is too slow" on my lips.

The bike path was shady, the breeze was pleasant, and before I knew it, there I was. And there it was, Civilization IV, gleaming like a huge pile of heroin in a desert populated by sand-komodo dragons and heroin addicts. But wait! It was for PC. Fuck me and my love of the mac. I looked around desperately, even considered settling for Age of Empires or Caesar IV or, well, Settlers. Woe, if only I had gotten around to putting Windows on my laptop.

But I was undaunted, for it seemed like just the kind of quest I was looking for...a quest for Civilization! Full of optimism (and, it would seem, total ignorance of the 95 degree weather), I jumped on my bike and set out for the next town where, rumor had it, there was a store that might carry it. I arrived, still kind of fairly optimistic, looked around, asked around, but was thwarted by fate. I realized that I was, after all this effort, still without my gaming fix and had to bike another 8 miles in the sweltering heat.

That pretty much brings us to now, with me, still dehydrated, sitting in front of a fan wishing that the internet would speed up so I can play the Civilization demo. I bowed to delayed satisfaction and ordered it online, so in about 5 business days I will finally have my fix. I imagine that sometime around 1 o'clock this morning the shakes will set it...

Oonfarastero?

2008-06-08T19:33:00.003-04:00

As you all should know, our livelihoods and, indeed, our very lives are constantly being threatened by the possibility of zombies appearing. Any day, any day (or, more likely, night) it could happen; you're minding your own business when suddenly your friends, family, and neighbors are all zombies, trying to eat your brains. There's rarely any warning, so our only defense is unrelenting preparedness and a healthy stockpile of shotguns.

Here's my latest tip on how to best prevent or mitigate the destructiveness of zombies; facilitate easy identification. Too often, zombies are confused for normal (well, not normal but at least living) people. I think only nonbelievers do this, but unfortunately there's a lot of them. Anyways, we need to make sure that every zombie if IDed as a flesh-eating undead abomination ASAP. The solution: mutilate the recently dead.

As soon as someone if declared dead, they should be made to look unmistakably dead. That way, if they ever rise to terrorize (and eat) the living, and are seen staggering down a street, everyone will immediately realize they're zombies and, naturally, behead them with a shotgun.

Do your part, hide your chainsaw.

Check it.

Like Mario Mushrooms, It Hapened On The Internets

2008-06-06T13:36:00.003-04:00

(The following names have not changed to protect identities.)

AaronBurr117: :P
CatherineDeBoures: d:
AaronBurr: lol
CatherineDeBoures: [-o-]
AaronBurr: lol, we're doing buttholes now AaronBurr: (o)
justifiably_vertical: no you N0ob, it's a tie fighter
CatherineDeBoures: yes!
CatherineDeBoures: (_!_)
justifiably_vertical: cylon fighter?
CatherineDeBoures: no, butthole

P.s. (/\) Cylon fighter or rebel alliance?

Because The World Should Know Too

2008-05-24T20:11:00.003-04:00

Meanwhile, I've been playing way too much Rouge Squadron...

Long Awaited Humor, Courtesy Of Someone Else

2008-05-22T15:06:00.003-04:00

Apparently, if I want to follow the career I plan to (geek), I'm pretty much required to read xkcd, so I did. I must say, I was disappointed by his emo drivel, at least until I found pretty much the best Matrix reference ever. Also, I respect his healthy wariness of velociraptors.

This "Munroe" character managed to get pretty much all my heart-strings, from the criminally untapped combination of Bond and physics to one of my favorite hobbies. He also conceived of a way to scare of a girl while simultaneously convincing me, through his clever OCD-themed humor, to replace and exceed any sex lost by scaring off said girl.

By the way, NP completely-gotcha bitch.

Next Big Thing

2008-05-19T13:05:00.002-04:00

Remember the last big thing (it was me)? Well, here's the next one:

Febreze noseplugs. They're a little thing that clips (painlessly) to the bottom of your nose and emits a subtle (unless smelled from point blank) Febreze scent. No longer will we have to spray everything in our homes with chemicals, just ourselves! Just think about how efficient it would be. One wearing one noseplug would be the equivalent to emptying an entire bottle throughout your house. Even better, you could use it outside your house. Is your friend a slob? Just wear a noseplug whenever you go over. Does nature stink? Don't worry, Febreze is here for you. Coming soon: Febreze body wash. Let your own Febreze-inspired stench simply overwhelm all other scents you encounter.

Will You Still Need Me? Will You Still Outrun Me?

2008-04-30T23:38:00.003-04:00

There's a guy who lives down the hall (and a flight of stairs) from me who can run a 4:13 mile. I try to tell people how fast that is, but they don't get it. He's kind of a god to me for it. I mean, I used to stare up at really fast runners with sparkling little freshman eyes, thinking "I could never do that". Those guys look up at this guy and think the same thing. Guys like him made me believe that you needed to be born with a huge heart and killer lungs and calves of steel to be someone's hero. Turns out I was wrong, you just have to be totally, utterly indefatigable.

Looking through race results for a local 5k the other day, I saw something that caught my eye.

68 52:14 Bruce Kurtz 72 266th consecutive race

Last place, 52:14 for a 5k (about 16:50 miles). But the guy was apparently 72 and still running, which would be impressive if not overshadowed by the 266 consecutive part. On Tuesday, I had honor of actually meeting this guy, first grumbling about people taking his parking spot, then while warming up.

I jogged up to this old dude hobbling through the woods while I was warming up. Remembering the old results, I asked if he was that guy who'd run those hundreds of races. He replied proudly with a litany of consecutive races, here, elsewhere, running, biking, triathlons. There were races of ungodly distances (well, anything that involves swimming seems ungodly to me) that he'd been doing for longer than I'd been alive. He'd didn't really have to tell me though, you could see it in the way he talked and ran. He didn't really run, it was more of a hustling, hobbling walk. But he did it without shame. Despite the fact that I'd finish in a third of the time, I felt intimidated and humbled listening to his stories of 2-hour swim workouts (without stopping).

Here I was, 19, fit and healthy, yet hardly able to get myself motivated enough to run while this 72 year old man with an impressive list of health problems was still running 3 races a week, every week. I think I'll die still wishing I was him.

He knew his race pace (evidently the same as his warm-up pace) off the top of his head: "17 minute miles, I couldn't care less". I really care about times and trophies and arm candy that digs runners, but this guy couldn't care less. Perspective much? He said "I go by people and say 'I'm 72' and they go 'What?!'". What indeed. He didn't go by me, but as I jogged off all I could say was "what?!". That line went through my head every time I picked off another racer. "I'm 19 and I'm so alive. Say 'what?'."

I was about to ask how he did it when he told me. I don't know if he sensed my question before I asked it or was just eager for someone to listen. "My wife went through five hospitals and died in my arms". Want to know how you get tough? Cradle your dying wife. I bet that makes a 5k seem a little less painful. "I don't want to die like that. I'm 72, I have an enlarged prostate, I've had five biopsies; no cancer...it's the active cells that keep me alive. You hear about people dying swimming, biking, running. I want that to be me". I was pretty much speechless-I'm still speechless. All I could do was shake my head and say "amen", as if I could understand. As we parted ways, I found myself hoping, for his sake, that he wouldn't make it back.

He said he didn't bike down near where I live anymore (an hour by car) because if anything happened, he'd have no one to call. Yeah. Next time you think you have a problem, think about that and say "What?!"

Jell-O On The Radio

2008-04-21T15:45:00.004-04:00

Actually, that's not true. There's nothing on the radio because we've been invaded by EVIL KILLER RATTLESNAKES!!!

They started with the children (which was fine, and easy given their low dex values), but now they've moved on to communications and, presumably, cars. I'm sure it's just a matter of time before they evolve to eat the internet and spit H5N1. Then we'd be fucked. The worst part is that humanity's second greatest defender (I'm busy), Indiana Jones, is afraid of snakes. And very old.

Things don't look good...

Who Says This Isn't Like Real Life?

2008-04-17T00:38:00.009-04:00

Here are some highlights from my fledgling RPG (think Dungeons and Dragons) campaign:

Vertigo: The protagonists were trying to defend an important religious figure inside a chapel. One of his would-be assassins was firing at him with a musket from a balcony across the room. One of players sprinted up a flight of stairs to attack him, and, upon reaching the sniper (who at this point had drawn a sword), tackled him off the balcony onto the stone floor below instead of using his own sword. I rolled to see what part of their bodies would take the fall; the player's character landed harmlessly (well, comparatively) on his chest while his opponent fell squarely on his head, rendering him unconscious (and probably paralyzed).

Biblical Study: One of the heroes, a prostitute, tried to use her finely honed skills to seduce or distract male NPCs (non-player characters) at every turn. Her would-be clients included a man who was, in fact, not in his room, a guard who turned out to be dead, and a man (eventually found outside his room) who fled upon seeing her.

Hazard Pay: This group of adventurers found themselves captured in an underground prison. They managed to escape after pretending to suffocate one of their companions, thereby starting one of the worst days for guards ever. The gaoler was gang tackled while trying to save the helpless PC and held in a leg-lock for about 10 minutes while another character threatened to cut his toes off. Another, moments after discovering that the man he thought was a fellow guard was, in truth, an escaped prisoner, was stabbed through the eye and killed instantly before he even had the chance to act. One of the guards protecting the exit was shot -at point blank- in the knee, then stabbed in the same place moments later. While on his knees, dizzy with pain, two of the heroes took advantage of him and simultaneously ran him through with brutal coup-de-graces. Meanwhile, his companion was gashed in the arm, more or less severing his bicep from the bone. In a heroic act, he attempted to punch his opponent (who happened to be an expert swordsman) and had his hand cut off in the process. He was left, delirious with pain and bleeding to death.

Did Anyone Pack a Compass?: This underground dungeon included a sizable map full of subtle clues as to who was in charge and what they were planning. There was a fellow prisoner who was supposed to introduce more clues in addition to an interesting moral dilemma. All of this went undiscovered by the players who bee-lined it to the exit, stopping by one storage room and the mess hall along the way. Critical plot details? Down the drain. Hours of prep? Down the drain. But I'm not bitter, even though everyone else I've ever played with will not rest until they've explored every room. So much for the Mario mentality...

Best And The Brightest

2008-04-10T15:00:00.003-04:00

I'm convinced that Denmark must have the world's most bad-ass criminals. Here's one of them: Lenny the Arsonist.

Lenny is presumably a lifetime criminal and all-round heartless pyromaniac. As far as I can tell, he's the only criminal in CiTY and yet the government has amassed an army of law enforcement and fire-fighting officers. The CiTY police force currently has four officers, a helicopter (currently in the shop for repairs because it "inexplicably" lost pieces), an ATV, a huge mobile command center, some kind of extremely complex radar system, and a draw bridge. Oh, and don't forget the 5 firefighters, fire engine, and huge barge (plus another engine and 2 men from the next town over) to put out any fires Lenny might start. 11 to 1?! What the fuck?

Journey To Cloud Mountain

2008-04-10T01:16:00.002-04:00

New resolution: I must from now on stay awake for my entire birthday. Anything less than 24 hours of conscientiousness seems like a crime. Here's why:

Balloons. Somehow, they never get old. There are presently enough balloons around my door to make the entire hallway smell like latex. My sympathies to Atreyu who (allegedly) had to blow them all up herself (photographic evidence suggests otherwise).

Chicks who dig geeks. Apparently google and sharpies are all it takes to create the illusion that slutty, attractive girls love geeks, dungeon masters, and cinnamon toast crunch. As my soon-to-be-wife (on account of her cleverness and aversion to clothing) noted, "I've been looking for love in Alderaan places".

I'd like to take a moment to think about that phrase. First off, it's a solid pun ("Alderaan", "all the wrong", ah ha ha ha, get it?). Second, it features a Star Wars reference, which means it can't lose. Here's the coup de grace; Alderaan is the wrong place to look for love because it blew up! But wait, there's more*! If you're Hon Solo, it is the right place! Oh my GOD**, there's so many layers of meaning! It's like an onion***!

Fuck the evil empire. I heard a story about someone with a rebel alliance tattoo. That's awesome. Potentially unrelated to the birthday thing, but still awesome.

Traveling in style. I got carried to a neighboring building, up two flights of stairs, and into a fairly crowded room, all to an impressive rendition of "Joy to the World". No one knows why, but it happened. My interpretation? I'm kind of a big deal.

Note to self (and all the kids out there): peer pressure is wrong. Peer pressure will make you gag on frosting. Not okay. Smoking though, try that. The world will always need people with lighters so keep it up.

*Princess Bride reference, check it.
**Coming next semester, Tuesdays and Thursdays.
***An onion reference.

'06? '08? Fuck I'm Confused...But Either Way It's Expired

2008-03-31T16:30:00.002-04:00

I'm stuck in the awkward position of wanting to write, but not wanting to be creative, so I'm just going to tell an old story I meant to write up a while ago. Enjoy.

The night started out perfectly normal with me getting that old fuck-I-haven't-gone-running-today-yet-and-now-I-have-to-do-it-in-the-dark feeling. Little did I know that familiar feeling would soon be replaced by something much darker...I jumped out the door to do a nice out-and-back down Rt. 116, a staple late-night route. But little did I know that tonight that route would hold an unexpected obstacle...The first half of the run went well, and after slapping a landmark I turned around, filled with optimism and enjoying the sweet spring (ok, February) air. Little did I know that the air would soon-ah, fuck it.

About a mile down the road I caught a whiff of skunk. Now, if you think driving by a dead skunk is bad, you don't know nothing. When you're running, you're moving way slower and typically sucking air like there's no tomorrow. You get lungful after lungful of skunk until you've finally trudged out of ground zero.

And this was no ordinary skunk. No, sir. It must have been some kind of über-skunk, a really killer the King Koopa of skunks, the big smelly cheese of skunks. It didn't help that he'd been killed within the last 10 minutes.

My kingdom for some diffusion.

It soon became clear that I was running into the very heart of the stench. Every step, well, at least every other step brought a new wave of nausea and disgust. Just as I was being convinced that I was about to puke all over someone's mailbox, I looked to my right and lo! There he was, tail blowing lazily in the wind. I closed my eyes, held my breath, and made a break for fresher air. Thankfully, the wind was with me and soon the stench receded. I was at peace again, free of the horrible smell.

At least that's what I thought...

I got back to my dorm and paused to stretch for a moment. Then...what's that smell? Fuck. I could hear Kahn's voice in my head, "With my last breath I stab at thee!": to my horror, my shirt still smelled like skunk. Apparently, my lungs weren't the only thing saturated by his evil essence.

I sprung into action. Every piece of clothing I had was thrown into the washing machine, two pints of Febreeze was poured into my shoes, and I scrubbed off the outermost 18 layers of my skin. Thinking that was sufficient, I started to relax. But no! My beloved Ironman watch also reeked. I thought its 30 lap memory would protect it, but I was wrong. Within seconds (it's hard to say exactly, since I was unwilling to use my stopwatch) I was back in the bathroom, bathing my watch in soap until I could smell nylon boiling. I wiped my hands and smiled. Surely I had finally defeated the vile creature and could go back to living a normal life.

But in this moment of victory I reached for my room key, which I keep in my shoelaces while running. The stench hit me again, fouler than ever before in the splendor of its final revenge. My key smelled. My KEY!! It's made of metal, how does metal possibly acquire some strong an odor just by passing through a cloud of it?! NOOOOO!!!

I've been locked in my room ever since. You never know when he might come back! I hope help comes soon...I suspect Tommy the Sock is a traitor and the Febreeze is starting to run out...

Wafer-Wearer

2008-03-29T14:27:00.002-04:00

It has recently come to my attention that this this blog has recently come to the attention of many of the people I live with. If you're ever taken by the idea of mentioning it (especially in a negative way) on a regular basis, this is all I have to say to you:

So there and good day.

School's Important, I Swear

2008-03-23T13:02:00.002-04:00

I think the makers of Trojan brand condoms skipped a key day of history class because has got to be the stupidest name for a condom brand. Let's think about Trojans for a moment: 1) they lost the war. It's the only thing any of us are aware of Troy doing, and they lost. 2) They lost because of a girl (Helen of Troy, right?). I personally don't like the idea of condoms that don't fare well in conflicts involving women. And, worst of all, we have the Trojan Horse! Think about it. The horse was used to sneak unwanted dudes into an unsuspecting city. Just think about that Trojan Horse full of little spermies eager to ransack something. BAD!

Girl: "Oh, look, a Trojan. He must mean well. I know because I got a C+ in history."
Spermies: "Hooray! The trick is working, she thinks the Trojan is harmless because it looks safe. Now we can ransack her city."

This is not good. Trojan: bad marketing scheme. Good thing the women haven't caught on yet, otherwise you'd start making a lot of guys very unhappy.

Girl: "Honey, I'm not sure about this...something makes me suspect that condom of ransack-related trickery."
Dude: "Wait, did you just call me "honey"? What the fuck?!"
Spermies: "NOOO! We art thwarted!"

I Think He's Onto Something

2008-03-22T22:57:00.006-04:00

Patrick's right, why haven't I posted in so long? No excuse. Absolutely no excuse. Oh, wait, never mind. Now I remember; I got someone pregnant. Also here there is no excuse. Let me be the first (ok, second) to say "my bad, I'm sorry". Needless to say, I've been pretty busy. I know, I know, wrong priorities. I'll get them straight, I promise, it's just that Julie is a bit hormonal and, how you say, pissed? I'm sure it'll blow over though, any day now. So, devoted reader, hang in there just a little longer.

Last Stand Of The Banana Man

2008-03-13T12:04:00.002-04:00

Midterm Sanity:

Always answer your phone "sup, homeslizzle" if you don't recognize the phone number (this applies at all times, not just near midterms).

Call your lab grader "homes" in a lab report. Also, tell him you hate him to his face (because you do) because he's being mean, or because he doesn't appreciate you writing stuff like "uncertainty is a lie!" or "oscilloscopes are made by the government!" on the chalkboard.

Highlight the word "sketchy" in your anthropology book, totally without context. A month later, when you're skimming the highlighted parts, you will laugh. Laughing is important. Without laughing, education would win.

Use Elvish and Hobbit words in your anthropology notes because they really do help you remember concepts. Be sure to share these words with anyone you're studying with. Score major dork points. Later, these points can be redeemed for bemused eye-rolling on the part of non-dorks.

Um...smell the roses?

Ok, you caught me, this is all just a shameless excuse to use the word "homeslizzle". But I actually did highlight "sketchy" in a book and laugh hysterically when I found it last night. I might be able to write something real about homeslizzles, homeslices, homedawgs, or just regular homes, but I'm on the wrong side of a lot of caffeine.

571.265.1693. If I don't say "homeslizzle", yell at me.

Where Are The Chi-Squares?

2008-03-04T21:42:00.001-05:00

Good Omens

2008-03-04T17:39:00.002-05:00

8.5 weeks until the HEF SmartRun.
25 weeks until Newtown.
40 weeks until Manchester.

So I'm looking to get back to competing at the 5k, probably not so well at first, but who have to start somewhere. The first big race of the Comeback Kid's 2008 tour is coming up: May 4th. I only have the wink of an eye (about eight and a half weeks) to get myself is respectable, hopefully sub-20 shape. Today was a nice 5.5+ miler through the rain. My shoes were heavy and I was cold, but I managed a pace that I assume (the distance is a total ballpark) was a little below 8's. But who cares.

It was raining, so naturally my shirt was soaking wet. Or at least that's what I assumed when I looked down at my soaking wet shirt. But when I got back to my dorm, people kept saying "You must've been going really fast". It turns out that the back of my shirt was almost completely dry while the front was sopping wet, a function of running into the rain. I guess the difference was enough to convince everyone I must've been tearing shit up out there.

Go me.

(Also, I desperately needed an excuse to write something here).

Fucker Stole My Name

2008-02-26T14:17:00.004-05:00

I feel like I should say something, but there's nothing to say (unless you want to hear about Women and Family in Rural Taiwan) and I should be studying for a physics exam right now. There is something to look forward to though...

Chapter Two: Flames Of The East

Coming of the Byzantine

First, however, I need to write and run Chapter One ("Order Of Ascension", so something like that). See, I started a little RPG group that will be playing a swashbuckling campaign that I'm in the process of writing. Taking on the time commitment of writing and running it may not have been a good idea, but I did it anyways in the hope that it would take me one step closer to my dream of founding a gaming company. I said our first meeting would be this Saturday, and although I need to have very little prepared for it (we're not even rolling up characters), I've hardly started making the setting, barely thought about the mechanics I'm making/adapting for it, and have only the faintest outline of a plot. I also have that exam, a book to finish, and a lab report looming in the distance.

If only magic was real so I could cast "time stop"...

Cold Weld My Heart

2008-02-22T12:12:00.002-05:00

Check this out:

I just got a valentine from my high school. How sick is that? I feel so privileged to be on the mailing list of an alumni department that cares enough about me to send a card and candy. That's true love.

If that sounds sarcastic to you, you're wrong. As tacky as it may be, it is a nice gesture and reminded me that I still need to be philanthropic this year. I mean, the $1 I'm going to give them is just going to candy for me anyways, but I'm pretty sure it's the thought that counts.

Thought Experiment

2008-02-21T15:54:00.002-05:00

(Random aside: this is post #150...go me.)

For a while now I've been intending to explore the world of AIs through computer programming. I wanted to write some script that simulated people would follow and, assuming I wrote it right, prosper in their simulated environment. Lately, I've been interested in finding some very "general" way to do this, instead of writing a script that applies very specifically to the world I'd created.

I hadn't really gotten around to fleshing out this idea too much, until I found myself bored to death in philosophy today. My brilliant (like I said, "go me!"), if staggeringly complex idea, was to right a script that would right the script for people. This means that the programmer (me) wouldn't know anything about the world itself, only the very basic mechanics of it. They (I) would, in essence, program a programmer that would then learn about the world from the automatons in it and have to direct them from this information.

Thinking about it, I realized this went beyond Fun With Algorithms, it was about learning itself. Sweet. However, my first attempts at coming up with a framework for this programmed programmer made me realize it will have to be horrendously complex. If only I had tons if time (i.e. no homework) so I could do this...

Fuck The Z-Grip: The Saga Continues

2008-02-18T13:59:00.002-05:00

This past August, I made a grave mistake. Standing in a Staples aisle, I thought to myself "our Civilization has surely advanced to the point where we can't screw up mechanical pencils. I mean, we put a man on the moon, so of course we can make perfectly good mechanical pencils, right?" Thus foolishly mistaken, I grabbed the first bunch of pencils I saw. Given my propensity for losing writing utensils, I grabbed a lot (though, mysteriously, not a lot of pens, which I have since run out of several times).

This was the beginning of the Hell that was Z-Grip mechanical pencils.

They are ugly. Really, very, quite ugly. The eraser is the same thing as the clicky-make-more-lead-come-out thing, so every time you erase something, you end up with a dangerously long piece of lead. If you use an eraser too much, you'll never get it out and therefore never be able to load more lead into the pencil. They suck.

But that's just the beginning.

They jam incessantly. At times, it is impossible to get any workable lead out of them, even though there is clearly a piece 4 millimeters from the opening. In this event, you must disassemble the pencil and use a writing utensil that doesn't fail at life to poke out the tiny piece of lead that's jammed into the tip. This happens a lot because these pencil are psychotic lead serial killers. I don't know how it works, but somehow they manage to hack up pieces of lead internally. It's not that you break your tip off a lot while writing, it gets broken off inside the pencil. This means your pencil is constantly coughing up tiny pieces of lead, all too small to actually use. They go into the loader in one long piece, so some part of the clicky-make-more-lead-come-out system must butcher this stuff. So not only do you use only a fraction of your lead for actual writing, but you spend 50% of your time using the defective clicker to get more lead out instead of taking harried notes on FileNotFoundExceptions like you need to.

Why do I still use them? Well, most of my money goes towards laundry, LEGOs, and Bawls, so I can't justify buying new pencils when I still have some barely-workable ones. I've done everything I can to get rid of them; snapping a couple in frustration, lending them as often as I can, but they won't go away. I loose black pens at a rate of 1 per 6.8 days, and these stupid pencils at a rate of 1 per 43.2 days.

THAT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!

Looking For That Silver Lining

2008-02-18T01:12:00.003-05:00

School is making me a racist. Last semester, it was the Japanese and their absurdly difficult language that wrecked my life. Now, it's the Aborigines. One goddamned book about them has been haunting me for a week, hanging over any moment I spend relaxing. It's too dry to read for any great length of time, and it's being aided by nefarious physics problem sets that eat up ungodly lengths of time (and also refuse to die because I can never figure them out).

I'm looking for a silver lining. Friday night it was messing around in GTA, last night it was going to the dining hall for a second time just to get a triple chocolate sunday. Tonight, well, tonight was mostly filled with Aborigines and resignation about them (which mainly involved staring at a book or the wall). There was a brief period of joy as I rebuilt a LEGO helicopter I bought last week, but it was ruined when the build-your-own-LEGO-set software turned out to suck.

Then, about to go to bed, I happened by my new Facebook picture, and it reminded me of better time (a.k.a. Tuesday).
The details of this endeavor are, unfortunately, unsuited for this blog. They are too shrouded in obscure references and inside jokes to make much sense (ordinarily, this wouldn't stop me, but I don't think these will amuse me enough to make it worth it). It involves a box of Kleenex, a pile of very cheap peeps, and lots of permanent marker (hence the mask). If my creative genius is, well, genius, the results of this labor are presently adorning someone's wall (not the Facebook kind).

If someone bothers me, I'll write the whole story and put up some more pictures (for those of you who are my Facebook friends, you can see them in my "Milwaukee Roadtrip" album).

Meditations On Venereal Diseases

2008-02-14T14:09:00.002-05:00

I'd like to think that I can sum up my Valentine's Day with the events of physics class: I came in late and, upon discovering a left-handed desk, sat in it.

I'm not sure it's quite fitting, but wouldn't it be cool if it was?

Let's Just Say It's A Good Thing I Had An Extra Pair Of Socks

2008-02-13T12:35:00.002-05:00

The title is a true story. There's too much toe-freezing slush and it makes me angry. Also, I'm drowning in work and that makes me angry. I'm sure it makes you angry too because its prevented me from blogging. Take your complaints to the study of Anthropology, not me.

Presently, however, I'm sitting in a computer lab waiting for a class to start and wishing I had a dry pair of shoes. I'm also hoping that my lab TA won't mind me not wearing my very wet pair of shoes. Anyways, I have about 10 minutes to write stuff here, only I have nothing to write about. Unless you want to hear about Ohm's law or the Mardu Aborigines, I don't have much to offer.

Hopefully, free time and something of interest will come up in the next few days, and you can all sup on the goodness of my blog again.

I Am King Of The Muppets

2008-02-07T22:41:00.000-05:00

I feel like this page looks to bland, so here's a picture.

Dissolving the Leukocytes Of My Soul

2008-02-07T22:23:00.000-05:00

Things that are epic:

The Star Wars Saga.

The fact that I spelled "leukocytes" correctly on the first try. It's worth noting that I misspelled "correctly" on the first try (twice).

24 bottles of Bawls, currently sitting under my bed. The day they arrived was joyous indeed, and nerve wracking as I carried a very heavy, rapidly disintegrating box of glass bottles to my dorm through the rain. The most epic part if that 4 of us ordered these boxes (enough to earn our dealer a bar of caffeine soap), meaning that 96 bottles of bawls entered this dorm in the span of a few days.

Pole vaulting over a pit of sharks. Also, pole vaulting over Graboids.

A friend of mine was recently asked to describe the two best moments of his life. The first was the day of his SATs, when he listened to only "I'm a True American" by Hulk Hogan from the moment he woke up until the test. The second was more recent when he woke up at 1:55 and decided to make lunch (which closes at 2). He made it, although only barely. I remember seeing him walking into the dining hall, arms held triumphantly over his head, saying "I'm making lunch!".

A world in which this could be considered "substantial".

The Latest From The Seventh Census

2008-02-07T22:15:00.000-05:00

Get it? I think it's pretty clever.

Anyways, I'm procrastinating on the posts I meant to write but have since forgotten, so instead I'll use siteMeter for inspiration.

First, I'd like to thank all you loyal readers (all 12 per day of you) for sticking around and giving me the sense that readership here is picking up. January came in at a record high for visits (ok, so I've only been tracking it for 4 months...)! Hooray 7th Notion!

I also enjoyed the tidbit where it told me that the average visits is 54 seconds. Nice. I encourage you all to leave the 'Notion open in a tab somewhere so I can pretend that everyone who stops by here reads through my archives.

Now I'll try to write something a little more substantial because Goobers is getting me down.

Rule #4

2008-02-04T00:06:00.000-05:00

Leave your boyfriends out of your blogs! I'm looking at you nerddd and random blog I found on Puntabulous. I get it, you found the Final Five and I wasn't one of them. Ronald Moore doing it was bad enough, but I don't need it in my blogosphere. Yeah, yeah, I'm happy that you're happy, but we're done with that. Tack has no place on the internet, just porn, fansites, 'Copter, and the 7th Notion.

But I'm not bitter.

I don't, definitely don't, remember the time the Nerddd shot down my marriage proposal. MP totally stole my hit-on-girls-via-blog-comments tactic.

But seriously, no bitterness. You know why? 'Cuz Saltines are very tasty and I have some. Mmmmm.

:P

Craze

2008-01-26T11:47:00.000-05:00

Embarrassing personal fact: the sexiest thing I've ever heard is "'Fartlek' is Swedish for 'speed play'".

Also, the term "lactate threshold" is a pretty big turn on.

I've Had A Shoefull of Bailey's And I'm Drunk As A Bitch

2008-01-20T10:35:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine recently commented that "two thirds of college is sex, and the other third is alcohol". While I'm sure she was kidding, I questioned the wisdom of such an education, and set out on an investigation (no one is awake early Sunday morning, so I have to find ways to amuse myself). Google showed me this article, which sheds some interesting light on the issue. Equipped with this knowledge, I feel that men can know beg for sex with the "but otherwise I'll die" approach. Here's the highlights:

"By having sex three or more times a week, men reduced their risk of heart attack or stroke by half."

"Some urologists believe they see a relationship between infrequency of ejaculation and cancer of the prostate."

So there. And, for the record, there's benefits for both sides. Stress relief, exercise, improved sense of smell, pain relief, and (my favorite) better teeth. Seriously, check that one out.

Sex Me Like A Breakfast Burrito: An Ode To The Early Morning

2008-01-19T07:26:00.000-05:00

The legend started about a week ago one night, long after the dining hall was closed, when I was very hungry and striking out on an epic 1:30 highway run. "I'm hungry", I said. "Very Hungry. And I want pancakes." Pancakes, you see, are my favorite breakfast here on the tundra. Somehow they're served only once or twice a week, which makes them quite an event (keep in mind that I only make breakfast a few times a week, so the two events coinciding is fairly rare). I was hungry enough that only a great breakfast could truly sate me. Nothing would stand in my way. Nothing. Not even crazy dudes with chainsaws, endless highways, or Olympic caliber sprinting zombies. I told my running partner again and again, "I'm really looking forward to those pancakes, and nothing will stop me." Well, yeah, you get it.

Anyways, I braved the early morning wake-up call and made it to breakfast. I had a huge stack of pancakes, enough to actually make me a little sick of pancakes. Naturally, I went back to sleep immediately afterwards, my only reason for being up having been fulfilled. When I awoke that afternoon, I was informed that, since it was a weekend, they served pancakes at lunch too...until 1pm.

I have no regrets.

Several days later (which, I suppose, was also several days ago) I decided (for reasons I can't for the life of me remember) to stay up until about 9:30 in the morning. I don't remember anything about that night, but I remember walking to breakfast with the same guy I'd been running with earlier. He asked if I'd been up all night and I said "Yes, and guess what's for breakfast."

Pancakes.

I decided to stay up tonight too, truly just for shits and giggles (and because I've been falling asleep at disturbingly predictable times lately). I looked at the menu for breakfast this morning so I'd know what I had to look forward to and to my surprise I saw pancakes.

Certainly, this is a sign.

Consternation For The Sake Of Blogging

2008-01-18T16:52:00.000-05:00

Why do we put dollar signs in front of numbers? It doesn't make any sense. Dollars are a unit, right? Well, every other unit goes after numbers, so what's the deal dollar sign? Think you're special? No. The coulomb goes after numbers, what makes you better than the coulomb? Is it because you're rich? Douchebag.

Or is it because you're dyslexic and when people say "30 dollars" you here "dollars 30" and jump in front of the number? You know what? I don't even care. You suck.

Keep Me In Frame Goddamnit!

2008-01-17T01:06:00.000-05:00

Life is like a fruit-roll up: only kids really enjoy it. Life is like 4am charades: you get kinda sick of it by the second deck. Life is like a movie: it's full of events happening sequentially. Life is like the Techno Viking. Life is not like a dignity contest. Thank god.

On a related note, I will probably have "I want it that way" (by the Backstreet Boys) stuck in my head for several days. Somehow, a few of us here on The Tundra decided it would be fun to do a boy band song for karaoke. Rehearsal started tonight. Lessons learned: the second verse (my solo) should be converted to a rap. It's best for everyone. Oh, and N'Sync makes terrible music videos.

Luckily, there is in fact no dignity contest. There's a karaoke contest, but we've decided no to win it. This is for the best, I'm sure. The turn-boy-band-songs-into-raps contest however, looks to be a wrap (get it?!).

Other news from the Tundra: I need a name for my game-making...organization to go with my 1000+ line sci-fi game. It needs to look badass in the format "(insert title that doesn't suck like my working one): a(n) NAME HERE production. Suggestions are appreciated.

We also need Go-go dancers. No experience required. Bring your own snake.

Adventures In Sensitivity

2008-01-03T00:29:00.000-05:00

Some dialog for all you avid fans out there (I'm looking at you freshman)...

See, I was exploring a particularly scenic galaxy that erupted from the bloated stomach of an adolescent star when I came across a shiny gold chest. I went through great trials (dodging ghosts, being eaten by giant eels, fighting handicapped crabs, etc) to get this chest open so I was pretty excited. I figured it was probably a star of either the power, sling, or jump nature. The most disappointing thing would be a load of coins or polyhedrons, right?

Instead, it was a goomba. A goomba?!

Mario: "A goomba? Fuck."

Goomba: "Oh...um...hi. I, uh, found this power star."

Mario: "Oh. Did you? Um...cool. That's, uh, pretty cool."

Goomba: "Boy, this is awkward."

Mario: "Yeah..."

...

"Can I have it?"

Goomba: "What?"

Mario: "The star...can I have it?"

Goomba: "But it's my star..."

Mario: "Yeah but I'm kind of collecting them. See, I have to rescue this princess..."

Goomba: "But I found it."

Mario: "Yeah, but everyone else is just giving them to me..."

Goomba: "Well did you kill all their relatives too?"

Mario: "Did you really just go there?"

Goomba: "Well why shouldn't I? Just because your a celebrity doesn't mean you can get away with all that."

Mario "Oh fuck this."

At this point I jumped on him, he popped, and I got the star. Basically, everyone won.

This Was Your Father's Lightsaber

2008-01-01T22:39:00.000-05:00

I think the time has come for me to give a big shout-out to Darth Vader for giving me one of my favorite lines ever: "I ind your lack of faith disturbing". Actually, this is a really inappropriate time to do it, but it seemed like the least awkward way to start this post. Yeah, the least.

Here is OSK trying to escape Lord Vader. Despite his awesome lines, he's actually not that personable. On the particular forest moon, there's no moon, just a figure eight of water inhabited by trill seeking penguins and their manta ray slaves. The 'Klingon managed to befriend them and borrow a manta. In this shot, he is about to start an attempt at making it across the entire not-a-moon in less than a minute and a half. Vader is presumably behind him, instructing his escorts to destroy OSK's fellow rebel while "[he] takes care of this one". Vader, however, will be denied his catch as Old School' plummets to his death off the side of the not-a-moon. Again, and again...

Just Because

2008-01-01T21:45:00.001-05:00

Some people would say it's rude that I haven't written here in a while (relative to normal live blogging rates), but I disagree. I think it's rude that the rest of the world has posted for me.

I also think it's rude that Major Burrows kicked my ass in the way he did. So much for Super Major Burrows Galaxy.

Requium For A SpEd

2007-12-31T07:55:00.000-05:00

I have about 80g of caffeine in my system right now. I've been sitting in the same small room with the same people playing the same game for nearly 12 hours now. None of that is really getting to me. The menus, however, are threatening to drive me mad.

I swear the Japanese think we're retarded. Every circuit that fires in the Wii, we're told about. Do you want to save? Are you sure you want to save? Game saving...Game has been saved successfully. Do you want to quit? Are you sure you want to quit?

STOP IT!!! I get it! I don't need to confirm every huge button I push. Stop keeping me so goddamned informed. I'm so sick of going through the same stupid menus time after time after time. I suppose I could just stop playing...

Fuck you. I just want the menus to leave me alone. I swear I'm going to lie down in bed this morning and the Wii that's growing like a tumor in my brain is going to ask "Are you sure you want to go to sleep?" All I'll say is,

AUGHHHHHHH!!!

When Adressing The 4th Wall, Always Use The Proper Terms Of Respect

2007-12-31T03:03:00.000-05:00

Namely "dude". I really wish I'd brought the cable that connects my camera to this computer. If only I'd thought to, you'd all be enjoying my brilliant Mario-related photography. Screenshots, OSK shots, my feet, OSK... Here's a mystery: why is there no snow in the penguin paradise? Are they all sick of snow? And why do they surf (on manta rays for that matter)? I don't get it at all. I mean, I can handle the weird gravity everywhere as realistic within the framework of the game, but Mario penguins have always been around snow. Hm...

In My Backswing?!

2007-12-31T00:59:00.000-05:00

A word: don't reset or turn power off while saving. When I take over the world, not only will we have selective breeding programs, but all Mario games will allow you to play as Luigi, Toad, and other bit characters like Timba, Wiggler, and bee soldiers from Honeyhive Galaxy. Wait...that's sic. Super Wiggler Galaxy. Awesome. Ingenius. Gripping. Zany. Encouraging. Basic (in the Bronstead-Lowry sense). Sci-Fi.

>Mohawk

2007-12-30T22:43:00.000-05:00

I'm Mario and I'm a Night Elf Priestess. I roam this galaxy on my luma/panther defeating evil Space Goombas and using Starfall on pretty much everything. AllYourBuriedCoinsAreBelongToUs. AllYourSpaceGoombasAreBelongToUs. AllYourPiranhaFlowersAreBelongToUs. AllYouGuyInTheSandWeDidn'tFigureOutAreBelongToUs. * I'm Old School Klingon and I'm a chuckster... Get it? *This obviously isn't a chuckster, I just liked the picture

Mario Is A Street Fighting Man (!)

2007-12-30T21:39:00.000-05:00

I have my caffeine, I have my guarana, I have my star chips, and I'm fucking ready to go. The long awaited waste-of-a-week-of-my-life is here in the form of Super Mario Galaxy. 120 stars (Grand Stars? Um...ok), 7 (ish) days, and three crazy kooks. This blog might turn into an outlet for my insanity. Imagine it as the literary equivalent of Harvey the giant rabbit. Go ahead, read into that. The opening music selection is Rage Against The Machine. Fittingly enough, the first star is saved from an evil machine. Prophet much? I feel like Ender Wiggin, trying to adapt to curved surfaces and weird gravity. My head already hurts. Fuck yeah. There are pretty colors everywhere, polygon bombs. I think I'm finally home.

Drool

2007-12-27T14:51:00.001-05:00

I want them soooo much...

Happy yet Oldschool?

Campaign Season

2007-12-27T14:03:00.000-05:00

There a couple new candidates in my life running for the vaunted position of "Best And Only Trusted friend" (BOAT).

Meet Swirls. His name isn't "really" Swirls, but I forgot the awesome one someone else came up with. Now I just call him Swirls. There is absolutely nothing swirly about him, which is probably how he got that name. That or it has something to do with the fight-to-the-death coming of age ritual his people practice. Anyways, Swirls is a stress ball (with hair) that me parents sent me to help get through exams. He chilled around the table where I did most of my studying and occasionally got squeezed by cruel passerbys. I also took him to my exams and he would sit in front of me smiling encouragingly. It really helped as I got wrecked by a couple of them. Now that exams are over, I think he's still in my jacket pocket. Either that or he's in my room back at school. Swirls definitely won the BOAT contest for a while, but I think he's starting to slip in the polls.

The other candidate is Icarus. Icarus is a computer program that will hopefully one day attain some measure of (artificial) intelligence. I've run into some problems early on, so currently he doesn't work at all, but that's ok. I'll work through it and hopefully Icarus will be able to understand human input well enough to do math for them. First step; make him say "hello". Icarus was born of a conversation about AIs that came up shortly before I left school. I was already looking for a programming project for this January, and making an AI (albeit a dumb one) seemed perfect. Icarus and I are going to get very close over the next month or two as I nurse him into meager intellect. Oh, and he's going to quiz me on Elvish.

Candles

2007-12-27T13:54:00.000-05:00

I think my most-used-in-real-life quote from the LR movies is Gollum's "don't follow the lights!" You may be wondering how that could possibly come up in normal conversation, and no, it doesn't. I find a way.

Today, however, I found myself actually following lights. I was trying (mostly in vain) to get a wireless router to work, but I know nothing about routers so I was basing everything off of which lights were flashing and what color they were. There are a lot of lights in this setup (as we all know, pieces of technology recharge by leaving a little light on), and they are capable of all sorts of amazing, spectacular things. It was like a mini fireworks display, except it sucked because nothing would work.

As it turns out, the wires had just gotten rearranged, and it was a simple matter of unplugging and replugging things. That's what I get for listening to the lights.

(BFTSOB)

I Don't Feel Like A Pirate At ALL

2007-12-18T23:45:00.000-05:00

Yurg...finals week. So much work, so much stress. The only thing I can bring myself to do (other than calculus) is shoot zombies in Resident Evil 4. Hence no blogging. I would promise to do some soon but it's not likely.

Fuck, me.

Not So Funny When It's Real, Huh?

2007-12-12T01:14:00.001-05:00

I've always claimed to be a "borderline insomniac", meaning I have trouble falling asleep and often spend upwards of an hour lying in bed waiting to fall asleep. Now, all of a sudden, I think I'm becoming a real insomniac (or at least a slightly more legitimate one). Right now, it's 1:15 in the morning and I have to be up by, say, 9:30. I haven't been able to wake up at all lately, so really I should be in bed right now trying to ensure that I actually get up for calculus tomorrow. But I'm not. I'm sitting out here writing this.

I don't want to go to sleep. In fact, it's one the last things I want to do right now. The very thought of going into my room and turning the lights off disgusts me. Maybe it's because I haven't been able to fall asleep within an hour of going to bed lately, maybe it's 'cuz I'm not tired. Maybe it's all the adrenaline in my system, or because I slept in a ton this morning. So yeah, there's a lot of reasons to explain this other than insomnia, but this is really starting to feel like a trend. I think it's the stress of this past week that's driving me to be awake, even though I want to badly for each day to end. Maybe I know that tomorrow will suck, and that every tomorrow for a while has sucked, and I want to delay it as long as possible.

Whatever the reason, I want to find something, anything to do all night and just rely on the caffeine I can't afford to carry me through tomorrow. It's easy to justify, after all, I don't have anything particularly important to do tomorrow. Then again, I feel like I haven't been able to think straight for two weeks which is making it very hard to do any work or pull myself out of the paralysis of this stress-cycle. I don't think I can ride a sleepless binge through the nine days until finals are over, but do I ever want to.

What I really need is a program to write so I have something to do. I have no assignments for computer science left, but maybe I can cook up an idea for Fruit Stand or Hobbit Village...

Wait. What am I saying? Did I just decide to stay up all night? This is a terrible idea. I need to get to class tomorrow at 11, preferably with time beforehand to finish my problem set and eat breakfast. Maybe, by some miracle, I'll muster the willpower to wake up tired and caffinate enough to make it through. What the hell...the alternative is making me queasy, so I might as well go for it.

Wish me luck...tomorrow.

Banging The Geek Gavel

2007-12-07T15:06:00.000-05:00

Ok, time to put an end to this debate on Elvish. Before I begin, I'll admit that I'm looking this up too. However, all my sources are from my hard disk, meaning I've already downloaded them, and I know most of the concepts I'm going to mention, just not the specifics. Aka I win.

Here's the argument: Koops thinks "Tolo dan nan galad" is correct, while Juicy contends that "Tolo dan na ngalad" is correct.

The key here is that "calad" (light) is undergoing mutation to either "galad" or "ngalad". I have no doubt that mutation does occur, but the question is what kind of mutation it is and if "na" should become "nan". ("nan" on its own means grassland, so the "nan" in Dr_K's claim must be a form of "na").

Ambiguity is added by the following example: "Aniral toled na gar nin?". The phrase "na gar" is analogous to our debate (a preposition causing mutation in a noun starting with "c"). As you can see, "car" becomes "gar", not "ngar", but "na" does not acquire an "-n".

To answer this we must looked to the phenomenon of "mixed mutation". When a preposition (such as "na" is followed by an article (in this case "i", meaning the [light]) "-n" or "-in" can be added to the preposition in place of the article. Hence "nan". In the above example, "Aniral toled na gar nin?", there is no such article to cause this transformation because it is 'my house', not 'the house'.

This all points towards Koops being correct. The kicker is mutation. In nasal mutation, "g-" becomes "ng-", but that only occurs with plurals, which "galad" isn't. In truth, this is soft mutation (also called lenition) making "c-" go to "g-" because "galad" is the direct object of the sentence. This means the "n" in Juicy's "ngalad cannot be accounted for by mutation."

Not all is lost for Juicy though. I can't find reference of it, but from what I know about Sindarin, there's probably some exception about "nan g-" being written "na ng-" by certain people. One such person probably wrote the example that Juicy found, causing this confusion. Basically, neither of you are right. I give you both As for effort, especially Koops for his follow-up research.

Thanks to Thorsten Renk for the grammar.

Shun The Nonbeliever

2007-12-07T11:07:00.000-05:00

Somehow, no one has managed to dress up in a stormtrooper costume and simultaneously do something funny. I know, I've been through youtube and there are no funny stormtrooper videos. How can this be? For one, there are a lot of people who have these costumes, so you'd think at least one of them would have a good sense of humor (wrong). Two, they're dressed as stormtroopers! How can that not be funny?! What a bunch of flunkies. And why hasn't the rebellion come up with a good derogatory nickname for stormtroopers?

I did find this gem, funny no doubt because the only stormtroopers in it are real ones.

Oh, and speaking of nonbelievers, no one has made a good sequel to Charlie the Unicorn, but that shouldn't surprise anyone.

I'm A Feel-Good Kind Of Hobbit

2007-12-05T18:31:00.000-05:00

I'm not feeling very original today, but I do feel like posting, so here's a little something I wrote for creative writing last year. The prompt was to use the word "goodbye", but I didn't care about school at that point so I just wrote this. 'tis a silly thing.

Ode to East Farthing

A very wise hobbit once said,
(one who many roads had tread);
“The Road Goes Ever On”,
and put it in a little song,
so when we turn to say goodbye,
no tear should glisten in our eye,
for every door that cruel fate closes
a secret gate we find by bed of roses,
and we joyfully take the hidden paths
that no one (we know) ever has,
you know, the ones that run
West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

A dollar to anyone who can name the reference.

The Dearly Departed

2007-12-04T05:36:00.000-05:00

The night is nearing its end. Who knows what the morning will hold. All I know is that I feel so much better, so zen, too tired to cared. I've done a remarkable amount of homework which hopefully will go a long way towards alleviating some stress. Fortunately, my beloved dorm mates did not let me go through it alone. Now, let us bow our heads and remember those who aren't still with us now.

The Teddy Bears, part of a comp sci lab, submitted.
Three, wisely gone to bed, but their presence here was appreciated while it lasted.
One, suffered a serious blow to the head earlier today. Now he's sleeping on the floor upstairs. Concussed and dead? Maybe.
One, wandered into the cold to "do homework"...we can't find her.

One still remains, a poor soul doomed to write a psych lab for eternity and go to 9am class. It's almost 6am now.

It has been good. This room has become a special kind of place, a gentle cage. My whole existence feels contained within it, but I'm not claustrophobic. I love it here. I love the awakeness. I know that when next I wake, this feeling will be gone and I don't want that. I want to stay up forever. But even now I have nothing to do. Sleep is calling, beckoning as the only thing left but I do not want to go towards it.

Away, away. Until the dawn shatters this beautiful dream and brings me back down to reality, to tomorrow. But for now, I am content and peaceful. And for that, I'm thankful.

Ok, Go...To Sleep

2007-12-04T02:52:00.000-05:00

So here's the situation; for a number of reasons I decided to stay up all night. The plan was to do homework, mostly comp sci, all night to get it out of the way. It's now about 3am. I'm most of the way through my first lab (due Thursday) but don't feel confident in my ability to check it well or do the "If you want to get an A on this assignment" part, so its been set aside for now. I still have another lab (due Monday) and calculus problem set (also due Thursday) still on the table. However, my motivation and ability to focus (or even read) are slipping. I've already exhausted the blogosphere and RK, leaving basically sleep (no), youtube (not a good idea, but gaining appeal), or doing this. Obviously, the latter won out. For now.

There's a problem though. I have a few ideas of nice, long, hopefully quality posts to write, but I don't want to fuck any of them up by writing them at 3am. And yet, 3am (and on) can be a goldmine of out-of-it humor. Oh, wait. Dr. K told me to write about empathy and telepathy or some such. Sweet.

Case 1: Empathy. The Star Trek: (half) Betazoids. In the world of Star Trek, someone who has some Betazoid heritage (Deanna Troi) have the ability to detect other people's emotions. So if you were in a room (or, like, thousands of miles away apparently) she could tell what you were feeling (unless you had a very disciplined mind or some manner of psychic defense). Very hand skill.

Here's the IRL bit. Someone (I think the Japanese) built this robot with creepy face-pieces (think Mr. Potato head). When you talk to it, a combination of voice-recognition software and other trippy programming stuff makes it react with appropriate facial expressions depending on your word choice and tone. Basically, it's a robot that can detect how you feel.

You're probably thinking, "well, I can tell how people feel based on that. What's the big deal?" You're right. Not a big deal. But think about this: looking at a brain scan of you, someone could tell how you were feeling. Someone, or something! So if a robot were reading your brain, it could tell how you were feeling. So, when everyone gets replaced by robots, your brain-chip will wirelessly broadcast brain scans and all the robots will know how you are feeling. Like Betazoids.

Betazoids are robots. You can tell because they never got the eyes right.

You know, like in "Westworld", except eyes instead of hands...

You know will also be cool about the brain-chips? Companies will pay to have subliminal messages about their products sent directly into your brain. The alien overlords that own you will sell your brain to advertisers. How cool is that?

According to Wikipedia (I know, a sin), "telepathy" is the communication of ideas or emotions through some means other than the classic five senses. Um...I have two words for you: brain chips.

Dr K's paper? Done. As for me, I need more Monster so maybe I'll do homework. And no, I didn't edit or proofread this post because my eyes hurt. Deal with it.

I Assume I Have Some Explaining To Do

2007-12-02T17:26:00.001-05:00

Haven't posted...shut up I know...

My head feels really funny...

I Am Slain!

2007-11-28T21:02:00.000-05:00

Turns out my assassin career was doomed to be short lived. I was taken out yesterday afternoon, an embarrassing eight and a half hours after the game had begun. She was so fast...so sneaky. I am spared some degree of shame by the fact that my assassin is amongst the best in the game and has amassed an impressive number of kills in the first couple days of competition. People are around me are being killed...some run down in the open, another killed in his own radio booth, even one assassinated in the middle of high tea.

I guess it was fun while it lasted...sigh...

The Names Can Never Be Unspoken

2007-11-27T14:08:00.000-05:00

As of 1:04AM this morning, the chase has begun. The names were given and things are in motion. The great battle of our time has begun and cannot be undone.

They are coming for you.

Every year, one of the charity groups on campus hosts "assassins", a campus-wide game of wits. The goal is to "kill" your randomly chosen target (chosen from the people who signed up) while avoiding your own killer. When you kill someone, you get their target and the game continues until only one person is left. Our weapon is stickers that we have to put on our targets in order to kill them. We are saved from complete insanity (and starvation) by safe zones (your own room, bathrooms, dining hall, class, etc). It's going to be epic.

I was pumped when I signed up before break, but then realized I shouldn't take it too seriously given all the work I have. Then I thought about it. And it started.

Now I'm hooked.

I won't be leaving my room for some time now, not until I go exercise (I figure I'm invincible while running) and dinner. I can't be to careful; I already narrowly avoided an attempt on my life. I've outsmarted her once, but next time she will no doubt be more cunning.

Tonight, I go on the hunt.

The Great Blunt Of The Galaxy

2007-11-26T19:05:00.001-05:00

Social conservatives beware, I'm going to talk about marijuana again, specifically about doing it with Gene Roddenberry, who made my hallowed "Top 10 People I'd Like To Smoke Pot With" list.

So why Gene Roddenberry? Well, the obvious answer is that he created Star Trek; the awesome TV series that I adore. I imagine that if I were talk to him normally, the conversation would consist of me gushing about history and techno-jargon while he looked very disappointed and told me I was missing the point. Not so fun. So why not have a discussion while we both believe, really believe, that Vulcans are out there and we'll be seeing them sometime in April, 2063.

A type-2 phaser? free, the Federation doesn't use currency.
Two kilos of dilithium? free, the Federation doesn't use currency.
A Nebula class starship? free, the Federation doesn't use currency.
Watching Gene Roddenberry run around a room, flapping his arms, yelling "I'm the Great Bird of the Galaxy!", and occasionally making phaser noises wit his mouth? Priceless.

Tri...um...color?

2007-11-25T21:18:00.000-05:00

I <3 symmetry.

Is There Any Way We Can Call This A Moral Victory? (The Legend Of Zelda: Windwaker episode 2)

2007-11-25T21:12:00.000-05:00

Ok, no. Our quest was abandoned. But keep heart, one day we will live-blog something fairly interesting...or nothing. Whatever.

In case you were wondering, I haven't blogged recently because I've been traveling away from the internet. It found me again. I'm back.

Cell Shading? (The Legend of Zelda: Windwaker episode 1)

2007-11-24T20:03:00.000-05:00

Here begins the account of young Link, an elf boy certainly destined for greatness...

"My little sister Aryll woke me up this morning. I must've drunk too much because I was sleeping on a random tower in my clothes. Anyways, it's my birthday which means my Grandmother made me wear this silly green clothes, you know, the ones the legends spoke of. They are certainly not my color and they're itchy. At least it's only for one day, right?"

Because we have no life, OSK and I are going to try to beat a good deal of a Zelda game tonight and post each time the other is playing. This means lots of crappy posts in a short time, maybe will a stupid journaly thing too. Enjoy.

What Kind Of Lame Gaurdian Angel Is That?

2007-11-11T19:53:00.000-05:00

So I was just staring at my laptop trying to think of something to post because I haven't recently, and failed. It's a common occurrence. Then, I was suddenly taken by the urge to visit an old blog that I abandoned a while ago because of inactivity. First, I went to the wrong site, which featured a post called "Ground Control to Major Tom". Dr. Koopon can attest to how I love saying that whenever I have some manner of head set or radio. Kind of a coincidence, right? Then I went to the correct site, the first post of which was about cinnamon toast crunch, my current-all-time favorite cereal (that recently made a clutch return to the dining hall...I don't know how much longer I could have lasted on golden grahams). Apparently "I am a dork" themed blogs know what I'm thinking.

What does that have to do with guardian angels? I guess when I started writing this last night I saw this as a gift from the blog gods because it gave me something to write about (as if something was watching over my blog). I usually can't remember why I titled drafts the way I did when I come back to them. Oh well, it's a byproduct of the magic (along with birth defects).

Can you believe textEdit doesn't think "themed" is a word? Am I crazy to think it is?

bftsob.

5:00 When?

2007-11-09T20:39:00.000-05:00

So last night (um...I think) I watched all the Lord of the Rings movies. Back to back to back, extended cuts. Then I had classes. I was awake for 29 hours straight before finally going to sleep at 2:00 this (um...I think) afternoon. I really have no idea what time it is. Like, times don't make sense at all. My roommate woke me up at 5:00, I asked him what time it was. When he told me "5:00", I said "5:00 when?"

I had to ask if it was Friday night, and it was a miracle I got it right. I mean, I think I got it right. Thank god I set important alarms when I was still more lucid.

I Feel Like A Salmon Fighting Up The Mainstream Only To Be Eaten By Grizzly Bears

2007-11-07T21:48:00.000-05:00

Take a look at this picture for a sec...

Does that look like a Star Fleet insignia to anyone else?
Star Trek? Country music awards? What the fuck?

Midnight Tokers

2007-11-06T17:44:00.000-05:00

My dormmates and I having a running joke (actually, we have a lot, very few of which are funny...or smart); "the list". We each have this imaginary list of all the guys we would...well, you get it. If you complement another man, you can pretty much count on being asked "is he on your list?". Here's another list: Top 10 people (alive or dead) I'd like to smoke pot with.

Albert Einstein
Richard Feynman
Gene Roddenberry
JRR Tolkien
Otto Von Bismark (imagine how weird he'd be when chill)
Jesus Christ
John Lennon
Steven Hawking
The Dalai Lama
Dustin Pedroia

Why grass? Why not just chat? Well, I don't think any of these people would want to just sit and chat with me, plus I'd love to see what they're like when toasted. I mean, imagine Albert Einstein trying to explain special relativity whilst high. "And, like, time is relative man..."

A How-To Guide To Clean Living

2007-11-06T11:54:00.000-05:00

If you ever fill your nalgene with a sugary drink like, let's say, powerade (which apparently causes osteoporosis, "Refuel, Replenish, Resize"), be sure to rinse it out very, very carefully. Bacteria love sugar, especially if it's smeared over the sides of a nalgene. On the plus side, I have a brand new, very striking, purple water bottle (purple is my school's color, okay? So shut up). Bacteria also love stagnant water.

Speaking of stagnant (hooray, ridiculous segway here), let's talk about my right brain. Due to bad planning and general dumbness, I ended up taking no humanities courses this semester. Shame on me and my liberal arts. I didn't realize this was a problem until I found myself doing math while everyone else was reading about really fascinating stuff. I could feel them getting smarter (and becoming better people, right Liberal Arts?) while I was learning partial derivatives and "for" loops. Things will change; I have a philosophy and religion course lined up for next semester. On side note, I'm also switching to the "El Miguel" system of scheduling (no classes before 10AM, I highly recommend it).

Course selection isn't the only place I've been negligent. My allegedly constructive free time has been going towards sports, java programs (i.e. Fruit Stand, Hobbit Village), and digital surgery more than writing or drawing. I love creative writing and sketching, yet somehow this blog has been my only creative outlet in the past six months. Maybe I'll finally get around to that "message machine" script with OSK...

(BFTSOB)

"No, It's More Like 'AAURG!'"

2007-11-04T18:38:00.000-05:00

I just ate my first gumdrop in a week or so. It's been a long time since I kept any in my room, but I got a couple bags yesterday. OSK and Koops know what gumdrops mean. They're a symbol of our times together; Star Trek marathons, Mobil runs, Diddy Kong, etc. They're also delicious, which is why they're here.

But they bring up an issue. What am I doing this summer? It's a long way off, I know, but I have a terrible habit of never planning for anything, and then not doing it. So I might as well start not planning now. The central question about this summer is whether or not to go home. My older brother warned me that, after the unparalleled freedom of college life, this is a bad idea. I'm inclined to agree, plus, I want to do something interesting instead of just bumming around home. But where else am I going to go? Staying here is an option (though not an altogether appealing one), but it would require me getting a job as a tour guide (ick) or researcher, which is unlikely given my incredibly limited experience. The other option is getting an apartment or something wherever I can find work (in a lab, as a raft guide, whatever). But this plan is full of problems too. Who am I going to live with (having no friends around would blow)? How am I finding this job? Am I ready to be living on my own?

Meanwhile, the plan of staying at home does have some perks. Little City Pizza. Star Trek marathons. Epic video game undertakings. XC training camp (for myself and others). Not having to pay rent or for all my food.

Fuck. My head hurts...

I Also Cry For You, Writer's Block

2007-11-04T18:00:00.000-05:00

Yeah, posts have been few and far between lately. Work has piled up and I've only just started to get my shit together, so hopefully thing will pick up again soon. The fact that I just deleted two drafts doesn't help. One was a silly bit on how much I love cold New England winters and hot chocolate, but it would have been really uninteresting to read so it had to go. The other was pretty much just a title, "Love Letters From The Gallows", which I love, but doesn't have a decent enough post to justify putting it up, despite its awesomeness.

To be honest, I probably could do something with hot chocolate, and I have something I could write about daylight savings, I'm just a little too lazy right now.

I Cry For You, First Amendment

2007-10-31T19:47:00.000-04:00

Sorry about the recent drought, work has been piling up lately. Actually, I ought to be doing calculus or drilling new Japanese vocab right now, but I'm not. Hopefully my stress will drive me to do more crazy shit on weekends, and in turn have more to blog about.

The scene for the latest such scene was this: several college students, some Sox fans, others not, sitting in a dorm room watching the last inning or two of the World Series. It's Sunday night, but after a fairly sedate weekend they are itching for some fun. One of the students is from Paris where, apparently, they have violent riots fairly regularly. He's been showing me videos of these riots all night. I find the whole notion very exciting. As the game winds down and we realize how lame a celebration of a World Series title this will be, someone mentions the nearby University of Massachusetts.

If you're not familiar with the great state of MA, let me tell you that they take their Red Sox very, very seriously. I think it's the most intense American fanship there is. So when the Sox win the Series, things get pretty crazy here, especially at a place with 30,000 college aged kids. Riots were guaranteed and we were in.

As the last pitch was thrown and Fenway celebrated we downed many Bawls* and commenced much yelling. We ran through the dorm waking people up, heckling Yankees' fans, and generally carrying on in a noisy and bawlsed up fashion. At this point in the night, the buses were no longer running, so our little gaggle (six people, including a couple foreigners with no knowledge of baseball) hiked the mile or so to UMass. Along the way (which was longer than it should have been as we got a little lost) we cheered at every pedestrian and car we saw and savored the victory spirit of MA after a Red Sox victory.

Just when things began to look hopeless, we reached the fabled "South West" and came around a corner to see a horde of people (estimated to be around a thousand) cheering and jumping around. Basically it was the promised land.

We waded into the crowd, despite the warnings of our cautious Parisian guide. Just as we neared the center of the crowd, people started bolting. Forgetting how non-hardcore Americans are, I assumed there were tear gas grenades raining down and people being brought down by indiscriminately wielded night sticks. When I regained my senses and turned around for a glimpse I discovered it was actually just four police officers on horses. Disapointing, yes, but they were still in full riot gear and on horseback. Plus, a line of riot cops were walking behind them with body armor, night sticks, and guns. From this point forward I must have used the word "legit" about a thousand times. It was fitting though, given that this was a "legitimate" riot with real riot cops. They would even beat their clubs on their armor as they advanced on you. Talk about ridiculously awesome.

At this point it's probably clear that celebrating the Sox victory was not my primary goal there. It might have been dumb, it might have been irresponsible, but I went to battle with The Man. I think most people have a revolutionary spark in them that's dissatisfied with the government (or any government) and feels the need to fight the power every once in a while. And what side would I rather be with than Red Sox Nation? Not to mention I couldn't ask for a better "Man" to fight than an excessive show of police force?

It was really excessive. The UMass crowd ran off without any kind of fight, which was very disapointing. And the rally was pretty peaceful to begin with. There was really no call to chase us all off. Nor was there any reason to leave officers walking around once everyone had already dispersed threatening to arrest us for just walking around. Goddamned Po-Po been pushing me down...

I have to say that there were two highlights to the night. The first was when my Parisian friend grabbed me by the arm while covering his face and said "run! gas!". There's still contention as to what kind of gas it was (and if there was any, the cops said they didn't fire any munitions, which is a blatant lie), but it doesn't matter. I can still say we got tear gassed without it being an unreasonable exaggeration. In fact, forget this whole paragraph.

I got tear gassed. Fuck yeah.

The other (better) moment occurred as the crowd was being pushed back between some buildings. A line of cops would advance and everyone would fall back (no one had the balls to get closer than 20 yards). Once they'd advanced a little, they'd stop and just stand there being intimidating. Whenever this happened, one of us would start chanting "Let's go Red Sox!", and naturally the whole crowd would join in. Being the passionate fans we are, this amounted to quite a ruckus. Apparently the police thought it was to much of a ruckus, and they'd come after us again whenever we started. Here's how the paper described it (yeah, we made the paper).

"Many who resisted officers reciprocated each push from the police with "Go Red Sox" as if they were engaged in a battle between good and evil. The chant seemingly doubled as a rallying call. Each time the crowd was pushed backwards, students could be heard chanting profanity to officers. However, they were a minority."

The few, the proud...

*Bawls energy drinks contain a lot of caffeine. We use the term "bawlsed up" to describe being this highly caffeinated, and trust me, you get pretty crazy.

Muskrat Love

2007-10-20T21:01:00.000-04:00

Check this out, it basically made my life this weekend (other than the ALCS and winning the homecoming football game):

Ok, so it's another joke that you only find funny if you've played DnD, but basically John Kovalic owns my life. Oh, and I love Dungeons and Dragons. I was going to spend my Saturday night working on my new campaign ("The Great Desert"...just working title, I'll come up with something more epic soon), but I got sidetracked by super-intense pool battles and performing ninja surgery until 3am.

I don't think I can make you, even those of you who've played DnD, understand the sublime, child-like excitement that comes from having a new campaign to work on. I'm absolutely giddy. Unfortunately, I'm also very busy with school, soccer, work, and everything else I do in my free time (this, a Star Trek RPG, and, of course, ninja surgery).

It's Like His Poetry Was Inside My Head, Eating My Brains

2007-10-19T14:37:00.000-04:00

For all of you who feel like not taking a math course has left a void in your life, or, like me, stayed up until 4am watching youtube videos and then couldn't understand anything in math class, here's a little something for you.

Let "japanese quiz" equal really hard because I'm bad at learning languages and the Japanese are beasts at everything, especially speaking a language that's hard to learn.
Let "my focus" equal "an issue" because I stayed up until 4am.
Let my caffeine tolerance equal "low", because I've hardly had any since getting here.
Now, let equal "cherry bawls", the integral of which is tons of caffeine.

I owe the and the timing of this to Mike-sensei, master of bawls who told me I'd get the best focus-enhancing effect if I drunk the right before my quiz. So here's the scenario: I've just sat down with my quiz. Next to me is a can, 1/4 full at this point. Coursing through my veins are large quantities of various stimulants. Fast forward to ten minutes later. I'm twitching in like five different ways and trying to write at a rate of about 6 and a half characters per second while my brain moves at about one 9th of a character per second. It's very frantic. Fast forward another 20 minutes: I'm flipping out. But at least I'm awake...very awake. Another 20 minutes later, I'm done with the quiz (and the ), and I'm walking to my comp sci lab. Someone yells behind me and it echoes weirdly. To me, in my bawlsed out state of mind, this is really trippy. I turn my head to see who yelled and make eye contact with a giant statue of Robert Frost. Fucking scary. This is how I felt. That was the worst of it, though the first bit of computer science featured me burning through a ton of twitchy energy through moving my rolly chair around while trying to write code until I finally came off the high. My classmates probably now think I'm either insane or irrationaly ADD.

So here's the equation you can take from all this; tired me + japanese quiz + right before that quiz + nightmarish statue of Robert Frost = AHHHHHH!!!!

I am never doing drugs.

Always Something New To Drool Over

2007-10-18T12:08:00.000-04:00

Enough said...almost. I just came upon another tidbit of news about Star Trek XI today. Now, I will get excited about any news, even the tiniest piece, about the new movie, but that's only because I, as a trekkie, am required to. And yes, I will go to the first showing, in uniform, but I still think J.J. Abrams will ruin Star Trek. What a wanker.

Anyways, this is old news to the rest of the world (well...), but in July Abrams announced who would be playing Spock: some "Zachary Quinto" character. I'm not sure if I trust the guy, especially with being Spock, but Nimoy himself was there to give his blessing, so I'll let him go for now...

Zachry Quinto looking less than Vulcan

Leornard Nimoy excercising his right to abuse the "Live Long And Prosper" thing

BOOOOOO!!!!

I probably Should've Done This On Post 14.2857

2007-10-18T12:07:00.001-04:00

Well its finally happened, post number 100. The big one-oh...oh. To celebrate, I'm going to look back on the history of this little blog...

In The Beginning: In the beginning there was the word, and the word was "Sammy".

The Pre-Historic: The ultimate origin of the 7th Notion can probably be traced back to the "Thought Of The Day", which I imagine only Dr. Koopon remembers. TOTD dates back to five or six years ago when I was in middle school. The name says it all, TOTD was a daily (well, allegedly) e-mail to a few people that contained some random thought, usually a joke (and not necessarily a good one). It went through a few stretches of fairly regular production, separated by long droughts (remind you of anything?).

The Mezo-Pre-Historic: My first actual contact with the blogging world came (and this is no surprise) about a year and a half ago. Everything relevant to my life always happened a year and a half ago. It's spooky. Anyways, this first tentative step came in the form of me being bored over summer vacation. Compelled by my hidden desire to blog, I would 'trol the internet for blogs that I liked. Blogger was kind enough to provide me a "random blog" button that led me through a never ending maze of blogs. I could only understand about half of them (there's apparently a lot of spanish and chinese speaking blogger), and only stop to read maybe 1 of 10. It was diverting, but bore no fruit (i.e. blogs I ever returned to) until, one fateful day, I stumbled upon Revenge of the Nerddd. Despite the pink background and Yankees allegiance, I was captivated. It's funny to think that half of the blogs I read today resulted in this totally random result.

The (actual) Beginning: Shortly afterwards, the 7th Notion was born on June 5th, 2006. The first month or two were less than pretty. The content was uninteresting, badly written, and often angsty. Spelling and grammatical errors abounded, and capital letters were few and far between. You'd be hard pressed to find writing that I am ore ashamed of. But, like the first two seasons of TNG*, it had to start somewhere.

The Spawn: My entry into the blogosphere inspired a few of my friends to start blogs of their own (it's true, I'm a trend setter). There were four at the beginning, and they met with varying degrees of success (and quality). Dr. Koopon's won't even get hyperlinked. I think he posted like four times before giving up. Stick to live journal kid. OSK made one that limped along for a few months before slipping into the coma we see it in now. It's still on my sidebar because I still check it, partly because I love his prose, but mostly because I love the name Breakfast With Friends. The blog's actual name is "Peace, Love, and Star Trek", but I like the other one way better so I keep using it. You're probably more familiar with Mango Flavored Addiction because its author is a writer at heart and she posts (fairly) regularly. She also like putting really unrelated things in my comments like travel plans we're making. Grr. The final spawn, Gavrich's Tim's Varied Musings can't be found to your right because it fails the awesome title test. Also, I disagree with virtually everything he believes in, often vehemently, and with out his personal charm to make it more palatable, his writing makes me nauseous. I might also be a little bitter about how much crap he gives me about spelling.

The Dark Ages: After its humble (aka crappy) beginning, the 7th Notion improved steadily over time but fell on hard times when I went back to school. Posts grew more and more sporadic, shifting between terrible droughts and spurts of activity. If you dig through the archives you'd be a loser. Also, you'd find stretches of posts that all begin with an apology about not posting recently. When this past summer rolled around and I had free time again, things still didn't turn up. In fact, they got worse. To be honest, I'm surprised any of you still read this after so many months of no activity.

The Present: That brings us to now, the present. Obviously (I hope), the quality of writing here has improved. It gets spell checked now, and even edited sometimes. I use apostrophes in conjunction, but not exclamation points. I refuse to ever use exclamation points outside of interjections. No sentence (not in caps) is that exciting. Stephen Hawking, if you read this, I loose respect for you every time you put one in A Brief History Of Time. Grr. Also obvious is that I most more now. For some reason, getting to college has compelled me to post a lot, who knew.

Well, that's it...the 100th post. I feel like I should leave you with something very 7th Notion...y, but even after 100 posts I don't even know what that would be. So, uh, elen sila lumenn omentielvo.

*Star Trek: The Next Generation. If you didn't know that, you might want to leave.

Joining The Ass Parade

2007-10-15T23:05:00.000-04:00

That's not what it sounds like. Actually, "parade" is referring to another kind entirely (a band wagon, to be precise), but the word "parade" made me think "ha, remember the ass parade?", which I did, and here we are. But speaking of ass parades, I was sexiled (being evicted from one's dorm room so one's roommate can have a 'friend' over) again last weekend and ended up in the dorm I often do when sexiled. Ok, by often I mean twice, but both times I've been there to sleep on someone's floor, loads of people from that very same floor are in the same predicament as me (luckily, we haven't been forced to fight over floor space yet). I'm convinced that this dorm has an eery ability to get ass, and therefore has a very respectable refugee per capita rate. I wouldn't be surprised to see tents thrown up in their common room or choppers dropping off water and pillows for the sexiled natives.

The parade I meant to talk about is the 'I'm in college and therefore are going to be constantly excited about the next awesome concert' parade. Everyone does it because everyone seems to have an uncanny read of the indie music scene. Everyone here knows about loads of obscure bands I've never heard of, and I feel very left out. But now it's time to strike back! If fate smiles on me, I'll be heading to two Dispatch remnants, State Radio and Braddigan to kick off my Thanksgiving break. Plans to do this just came to my attention tonight, and six tracks into Year Of The Crow, I'm already giddy with excitement.

Good thing that ass thing came up, otherwise this would've been a pretty lame post.