| Repressed | May 6, 2002 10:49:19 PM | What a repressing Monday. If one phrase could sum up how I'm feeling it'd be "a hamster in a hamster wheel." It seems everyone is expecting something from me but not giving anything back. I feel like I'm being pressed upon by stupid laws and rules. I feel helpless, and there's nothing I can do to stop it! Grr!
Hooray! In a complete turn of events it seems that someone is fighting against these stupid bills in Congress. Yay! The more I think about it, it seems the new bills in Congress are pretty unpassable. It requires way too much of an overhaul of everything tech, which would be a headache and cost billions.
Ocean's 11 comes out on DVD tomorrow! Help me stay away from any store, because if I see it I will definitly try to buy it. It's just an awesome movie that when you're finished you'll want to watch it over and over again. | |
| New post from PM3 | May 5, 2002 11:35:33 PM | Yes, that's right. I'm making this new post with Jonathan Grimes' new program, PostMaker3. Right now I'm using a pre-release version to test out how things go. As you may notice the post date now includes the time of post. Also the archives are in work but I'll get that up tomorrow. Those are about the only cosmetic changes, everything else is underneath. 8)
The ebay addiction is growing. Ever more I find myself browsing it's vast sections looking for deals. I found an awesome deal and took it. Someone was selling 10 pairs of Zildjian 5B Drumsticks. The kind I love, only on the expensive side, $12/pair at the store. Well this guy has 10 pairs and I bought them for... no, not $120, but an amazing $22.76! Amazing! I've saved myself a buck or two. | |
| Riding the Bus | May 4, 2002 | Today was the first day I rode the LATS—Lawton Area Transport System. It's the new bus system they've put in to serve our bustling town. David and I were running about with nothing to do when we thought, "hey! let's check out the new buses!" So we ran to the bus stop and waited a bit, then the wonderful white and red bus came and picked us up. The first month will be free, so people can see the buses and understand how it all works. We found the buses to be very nice, and good smelling. There are 21 seats and 15 straps that you can hold while standing. Together I bet you could cram 36 people onto one bus. The ride to the station was quite peaceful, we were the only ones on the bus. At the station we got off and walked only one block to the mall. There we chilled for a while before catching the bus back. The ride back was more cramped. All the seats were taken except one. What made things worse was that 4 kids sitting by us were being loud and yelling things and such. David thought up an idea for a song...something with how a bus ride was peaceful, until the noisy kids got on. I thought it was a neat idea.
Earlier I had stopped by the mall and pre-ordered my copy of GRAND THEFT AUTO 3 FOR THE PC, yeah baby! I can't wait! Only 16 days left! I'll be sure to be there right after school Tuesday when I can get a hold of it. 8) Tis good to be a gamer right now. All the great games are just *right* on the horizon...GTAIII, Doom3, Unreal 2003, Unreal 2, Quake 4, Halo for the PC (I think)...it's a good day indeed.
Also comming up is the end of school. And with the end of school comes the ending of projects! This means of course the Dreaded Insect Collection. We don't really need "x" number of insects, just a certain number of points. You get points for correctly classifying the insects you catch. If you figure it up you will probably need about 35-40 insects to get a good number of "points" going. Right now I have about 20, and it's due in a week! I've picked up a new strategy though, turn on the back porch light and in 15 minutes go outside to see what's there. I'm pretty sure I caught half of the insects I need tonight. 
Did I say the buses smelled good? | |
| Ah! Failure! | May 2, 2002 | I got up extremely early this morning and went down and took my driving test. I thought I did pretty good, only messed up once as far as I could tell (accidently sped in a school zone (only by 3 mph though!)) but then when it was over I found out I made a  55! Failure! The guy nailed me for every little thing! Good thing is I can take it again in a week, and I know the route and what all happens (very easy) so there should be no surprises. I heard that I got the evil mean guy that "doesn't pass anyone on their first time." Alas! That's just how it goes, I spose. Fate always works against you. I'll be ready next week though.
Tomorrow I'm going to see Spiderman with a few friends; I hope it's good. I've heard it's good. I hope it's good. It will be good. Then there is Star Wars in only a few short days! I heard it's supposed to be good, although it has Nsync in it. Then a few days after that, and it's Grand Theft Auto 3 for the PC! Hooray! Then only a few days after that, school gets out!! Yippee! It looks like a packed month.
Today the band recieved a nice addition, I bought some hi-hat cymbals off of ebay. And yeah! They rock! A perfect "chik" is emitted every time. I can feel us slowly getting better and better. Only bad side is we still haven't decided on a name yet... | |
| How to stop school shootings | April 30, 2002 | I've got the answer to stop school shootings. People have tried to place the blame on the media, the videpo games, music, movies, parents, and everybody else. I've found the only one thing that is common in all school shootings — school. Right! If you take the school out of school shootings there wouldn't be a problem! Even the very name implies school's part in it. If one things of school shootings, then someone must have been angry towards the school to actually shoot at it. It all makes sense!
Ebay is evil! I start watching it night and day...seeing if there are any more good deals online. It seems to be taking up a good portion of my day. Somebody needs to release the patch... | |
| More Bullies and School Stuff | April 27, 2002 | Man, it's just been so busy lately I haven't been able to post. But now it's the weekend and I think I'll fit this in before I got to bed.
We're talking about the ever-present bully again in class. I just sit back and try to think things over, how and why did we get to this? The entire system is flawed from the beginning. People think the US is all about everyone being equal. NO! We are not equal, we all have the same oppertunity to be the best we can be. There is no way we can all be equal, we are all different in form, knowledge, etc. So let's see...I'm envisioning some little kid with maybe a slight disorder gets bullied at school. He tells his parents, and they get everybody involved. They claim that bullying makes people unequal. People seek government compensation for their weaknesses. They want the Government to do something about, pass a law, whatever. So they go and do just that, and we get stuck having to listen to bullying seminars. And then, we're throwing out ideas on how we could prevent bullying. I believe bullying cannot be stopped. Someone suggested we should have cameras set up (something our school just recently did). Well if you think about, some forms of bullying are pretty much untraceable unless you are standing RIGHT there listening to the conversation. You see some guy #1 go up to guy #2 and then see guy #2 give guy #1 some money. Where they just making a friendly exchange? Guy #2 owed guy #1 some money? Or did guy #1 bully guy #2 into giving him some money? The possibilities. Next someone suggested uniforms, on account of bullies will bully people on account of being different. So using that logic, why not just make everybody the same? Same clothes just isn't enough; they'll find another way to make fun of you. So let's design a school where everyone wears the same clothes, walks the same, talks the same, maintains a C average, brings the same amount of money to school everyday, plays the same sports after school and everything else. I don't think it'll work. I think it just goes back to how everyone is different, and really we will never be able to get along. Let's send everyone to their own isolated island so they'll never have to interact with anyone every again.
Another thing that came up was Student Council. It really got me thinking about just how useful our student council is. Our SC is pretty limited on what it can do. Anything we decide, it must go through the "Administration" to be approved or not. Think of it is a road. You need to get from your house to Wal-Mart. Well there is the shortest way, then you take a few roads out and go around, making it a bit longer, but it is different than the shorter one. You will end up at the same place — Wal-Mart. So the analogy is that all decisions will be made by the "Administration", they will just let us in on it to give us a false sense of being "involved." You're still gonna end up with the same product, the Administration making all the decisions, but we're dooped into thinking we have a part in it.
Now, these are just some thoughts I've had on the subject and I'm not suggestion a revolt or anything like that. It's just my ideas and thoughts, and I like to get them out here. Maybe one day someone will look at this and propose a solution to what we need to do. Maybe I'm kind of like Karl Marx, comming up with an idea then other people take it and put it into action. Let's just not start a revolution over it. 
If you go by tollbooths you can ask for free maps!! Get them while they last!!
I've cleaned up my room a bit today. You've heard it before and you're going to hear it again: I think my surroundings affect my mood. Today was an overcast day (the best!!) and it just kinda put me in a weird mood. I couldn't figure it out until tonight I looked around and found my room in a mess. The fact is I've been so busy with school and all (alas, but at least tennis is over!) that I have not had the chance to clean it up. So I spent a few minutes and straightened things out. Ah, much better.
Drums! A lot has been going on in the band lately. We haven't really played much, but the day that we did (yesterda) didn't end up too well. We were in a "funk" - you just can't play music for the life of you. So we decided to try again later, and maybe we shall be out of the "funk." Anyways, we've been talking about new equipment and stuff, mainly the drums, which are not of the best quality right now. The only thing is that drums are EXPENSIVE and money is somewhat tight right now. In fact, I'm not sure if I'll have the lawn that I've been mowing for the past two years, it seems maybe someone moved in or something...More on that later. Anyways, money is not very plentiful so it'd prolly be a "buy small pieces over the course of 2 or 3 years" and have it all built by then. It's pretty exciting stuff. I've been checking out ebay and have found several good buys. I would really like to check out the music store and pawn shops in town to see what they have, but I have no ride. 
Speaking of ride, I can feel myself getting closer to Driving. Today Jonathan was of great assistance today, he taught me how to parallel park. Now really it's not too much needed anymore, but I felt I should know it. I didn't do too bad really, I just couldn't drive his Standard Geo. Man! Those things are hard to control and drive and everything. It took me a while to get the hang of it. I did manage to park it though. I heard they are talking about taking || parking off the requirements for driving. Lawton has around 3 || parking spots, Oklahoma only has a few, and it's not too hot with the nation, either. As far as I know it only currently counts as 1% of you test (so if you do everything perfectly instead of || parking you get a 99%, like anyone needed to know that).
Does the % go in front of the number or behind?! %1? 1%? I don't know!!!
I think this is the longest post ever. Sorry I missed a few days, but I think I can safetly say I made it up!!  | |
| The Prom Night | April 20, 2002 | | Tonight was the big freshman prom night. Yeah, we're weird to have a freshman prom but Lawton schools are just weird. All in all, I had a good time, although my wallet is still hurting. Not to mention the rush to buy some nice dress clothes at the last minute (hehe, we bought them this morning). We were pretty lucky to find them. Anyways, we ate with two other people at Outback and then went to one guy's house to play a quick game of scrabble before the dance. At the dance it was pretty cool. The decorations weren't drop dead amazing but were pretty good none-the-less. I forgot I ate lunch there everyday. Then afterwards we went bowling, and stopped by Dunkin Doughnuts on the way back. Twas a pretty good evening. | |
| The Tennis Round | April 19, 2002 | | A short update before I hit the sack. Went to the tennis tournament as an alternate, and got to play some really good people in the number 2 singles spot. My allergies bothered me, the sun was in my eyes, and the went always blew my serves out, so needless to say I didn't fare too well. But all in all I had a great time with the buds. The weather was absolutely perfect today, a nice overcast with showers. Plus, my hackey sack has been to a lot of places. It's been with me on vacation and to camps, out of state into the Rocky Mountains and other places. It's been with me to almost every tennis tournament. Today someone kicked it on the roof, but I didn't loose hope. I got someone to get it down, thank goodness. So I thank you, hacky sack, for your loyal following. | |
| Oreos 'n Milk | April 18, 2002 | What a great combination! I reccomend everybody go to the store and get some oreos to dip in their milk!
I just found out that tennis will be over next week! I couldn't believe it! I was thinking we had like 2 or 3 more weeks for some reason. I guess time flies when your having fun. Anyways, it'll be great to not have the afternoon's tied up, and being able to "jam" with the band more. I feel as if a great burden were lifted from my shoulders...
I site I found tonight is the site for the upcoming movie "Insomnia". It looks like a good movie, and in my opinion, the website rocks! I love the simple design, using only 2 main hues. Things kept very simple, with nice curves to add. Impressive. | |
| More Examples of Politically Correctness | April 16, 2002 | And then there were none, by Agatha Christie, is the book we're reading in English. Now, this book was written back in the 1930's, and language was a lot different back then. So there are a few phrases that are "blocked out" in our books. All because this could offend someone and shouldn't be said and all that. Do we try to do this in real life sometimes? Things that hurt, or dark spots in our past we just try to wipe away? I think our mistakes are there so we can learn from them and try not to repeat it. Maybe the book example wasn't the best metaphor, but it's what got me thinking. Think!
The band rocks. We finished our first song, called "Still a Tree." I think I said this the other day, but I'll say it again because it's just so good! Anyways, I have a dilema on my hands, on the subject of a complete drum set. Right now I'm using Eric's little bro's set, which sounds like complete crap. If we want to get someplace, I'll need some new drums, especially cymbals. The only problem is drums are expen$ive. Today they were around $499-$599, which is no easy amount to come by. Buying a drum set would mean saving all money for a good while, then some. It won't be easy having to buy gas and insurance, too. Plus even if I did buy it, I'd have to leave it in Eric's garage, which would make me cry at night because I'd be so far from my baby. :'( Right now, doesn't look too good, maybe I'll invest $150 into some better cymbals. Ebay, here I come! | |
| Eating Lucky Charms | April 14, 2002 | Hope everybody got their taxes in! If not, you have about 40 minutes before the 15th! Muhahaha.
More has been accomplished on the Western Hills website. I've basically just converted everything thats currently on there into the new "format." Now all I will do over the next couple weeks is just slowly add in new content.
Nothing much else to say really, hope everybody has a good week! | |
| Momento + WH | April 14, 2002 | Today I saw Momento. Interesting movie, really makes you think. Thank goodness someone told me it starts off at the end and works its way backwards, or I would have been lost. Good movie, I thought. Although I need to watch it again. 
This afternoon I finally started working on the new Western Hills website. I was originally supposed to do only the youth page, but I got promoted to just redo the entire thing. So, this afternoon I has some free time and started messing around with the pictures I took last week. Tomorrow I'll be taking some more pictures, to see what I can do. I thought of a few ideas, like having each "logo" image at the top a different background (text and "hands" logo stay the same) for each section of the site visited. Like the main page has a picture of the church building, our youth page has the youth group, things like that. I'll let you know when everything goes live.
Two Towers, I rented from the library. Can't wait to start on it.
That's all for now, remember tax day is upon us, so hurry! | |
| More Anti-RIAA Stuff | April 11, 2002 | I was browsing around the Winamp forums, where I found an interesting post about the RIAA and it's tactics. Basically it goes as follows, with some of my comments put in: The RIAA has some other motives for shutting down file-sharing applications and stuff. Overall it's because they're loosing money. In one way, it's because the people are actually not buying the music CD's (although this is arguable). The other is a bit more deep. Think about new artists and how they get new medium out into the world. The internet poses as a big threat to the recording industry. In the past new artists had to spend lots of money and time going through recording labels and agents and all that. They can get their music out to the ENTIRE WORLD all by themselves without the aid of a big label. This could hurt the RIAA because they are not in control any more. This is what I plan to do with "our" band, just start up an easy website with some music you can download. We're not really out to make millions of dollars, it's just something we're doing for fun. We could actually see if this will work... if a small band can indepently distribute it's own music without the aid of the RIAA. The original link to the thread is here, but be warned there is some slight profanity. I don't really like linking to stuff like that, but this guy can say it much better than me.
Today was the BIG day I used my elite sewing skillz and sewed up my hackey sack! It's like brand new! I can't wait to go to school tomorrow and hacky away. | |
| Is it Tax Day? | April 10, 2002 | It seems that something happens during April that makes everybody's life go awry. I've been so busy and stressed out with school and tennis that I've rarely had the time to update. sorry guys. I've been doing the Animal Farm project that has been taking up my time. Tennis is a love/hate relationship. During practice I hate it to death and wish I were any place but there, but once I've gotten away from it and cooled down, I have the urge to go back out and play a quick game. I think it's because tennis is right after school, and I'd rather be at home relaxing instead of in the heat/wind trying to play tennis. Oh well, season is almost over, I think.
"I seek Government compensation for my weaknesses." | |
| 3 reinstalls in 3 days! | April 7, 2002 | Can you beleive it?! Today I found out that my CD burning software was not compatible with XP. Unfortunatly it came a bit late. So that's right! I had to reformat again! Oh well...3rd time is a charm!
I've been playing around with the winXP themes lately. It's really interesting to have a new look. Before I was against it, but I've found some neat-o themes that just rock. Oh yeah.
It's project time in English again. This time the subject is the book Animal Farm, a really good book in my opinion. It has an interesting underlying theme, how power is harmful to the user. It's like a hot potato almost, except it's in the form of candy, so you want to get ahold of it. Anyways, one of the mediums we can use is a website, of which I am doing. Check it our here. I just hope I get it finished in time... | |
| The New Post | April 6, 2002 | I know I know, it's been a few days but I've been busy! It's not every weekend that you reinstall and Operating System twice! I decided earlier this week that my install of Win2k was dying, so I set the date for Friday. Friday night I reinstalled, got everything back up that night and Saturday. Well now it's Saturday night and I'm kinda browsing around and I find some awesome Windows XP themes! So I get the urge to try XP out for th 4th time and see if I actually like it. Originally I didn't beacuse it was so different from WinME. But then I got used to 2000, which is like the median between the two. Now XP seems easy enough, I like it. The themes are awesome. It provides a whole new look whenever you want to.
Bungie, the guys that made the infamous Halo, are comming out with a new game. It is called PIMPS AT SEA. Just take a look at a snip from this interview in the back of this month's PC Gamer:
PCG: How will you distinguish Pimps at Sea from the competition in the crowded pimpin' genre?
Bungie: For starters, our pimps are AT SEA. Name one other pimp sim that even alludes to the existance of the ocean. Can't do it. Any pimp sim lets you cut your enemies, but only in Pimps at Sea can you make them walk the plank into shark-infested waters. Any pimp sim will let you pack heat, but how many of them let you fire cannons?
'Nuff said.
| |
| Lawsuits are the root of all evil | April 3, 2002 | This is my opinion on lawsuits and sueing and all that. It is the root of all evil! Individuals and companies go to all sorts of extents to make sure they are covered in case of a lawsuit. They put all sorts of labels on their products, such as an iron: "Do not attempt to iron clothes while they are on the body." Although this could save some time, no one is actually going to do that. No wait, I take that back. Someone DID try to iron their clothes while they were wearing them, then cried about it saying theres not any warnings on the product to worn people of it. Now the rest of the world knows not to iron clothes while wearing them. I was talking with a few buds today, and the point was brought up that probably 90% of the rules we have to deal with at school are NOT ment for our safety. They are there so the school can avoid being sued. If only people would stop trying to blame other people and just take the blame maturely. Like guns/school shooting and all that business. The crazed lady needs to stop sueing the video game companies for "corrupting my son's mind" and realize that the blame lies in everyone. We're all at fault for ignoring our kids, making violet video games and movies, and the like. Another example: Another crazy mom is sueing Sony because her son commited suicide from "playing Everquest." She wants labels put on the box that say this game is addictive and may cause death. Stop blaming other people, lady! The fault lies in your son, who is not right in the head to begin with. Chris Rock (I think) says, "Ain't nobody can be crazy anymore." (Copyright Chris Rock 2002. I sure hope I don't get sued for saying that on my website.)
If you're upset with your school, just stop sending them money. Just say, "Well I guess I should vote against putting more money into the school system!" We're the ones that give them their money. We shouldn't have to suffer from unjust rules and regulations. Fight! Rebell! But in a non-harmful manner. Remember Ghandi.
We're reading Animal Farm in English. What a good book! | |
| No! April Fools! | April 2, 2002 | Crap! It seems I have missed a few days. Well that's what happens when you get busy and stuff. Boo.
Let's see, I finally got Mafia! on DVD Saturday. What a funny movie! I recommend it to anyone who likes to laugh non-stop for 87 minutes. Good times, good times.
Grr. Tennis, thy not talkest of it. Horrible thing.
The "Band" is sounding pretty good now. Lately we have been taping ourselves and playing it back, listening and critiqueing it. Then today we actually started our first "song." This "song" so far has an intro and verse1. Soon we will add the rest, and it will be our claim to fame. My thoughts on the subject is to open a website, and offer our music freely. Be Anti-RIAA. Anti-copyright. Anti-legal crap. "Hey, we're not greedy, cheap whiney heads so you can download our music, burn it, trade with friends, whatever!" If people would actually want to pay us, then fine, we can open a PayPal account and they can make donations. w00t w00t. Oh yes, we'd also have to spend a few bucks to buy a domain name (for our l33t website!) and some blank audio cassettes...remember those? I was thinking we could use CD's but uh...we can't really do that yet. What's the problem people?! We have CD burners and stuff, we need to integrate that into a tiny recorder that we can use. Oh well. Tapes are cheap.
Today Mark gave me some stuff so I updated the Mark and Lance website. So check it out! I kind of redid the calendar also. I was just using a plain image as a calendar, but that's really difficult to update! So I'm moving to something much more easier on my part. Tennis is making me crazy! | |
| Ouvhies my sunburn | March 27, 2002 | Just for the record I'm typing this without my glasses so beware of spelling errors! I can't see!!
Anyways, Tennis is again getting on my nerves. I like tennis the gane, but tennis the practice is horrible! I always dread it at the end of EVERY day. And it wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't EVERY day! Goodness! Boo! We don't like tennis!!
Oh yes, the title. Sunburns are bad! They hurt and make you all red...but the good thing is that if you are embarrased no one will know. Like today in 3rd hour I was sitting down, the only thing was I forgot to pull the chair out. So I ended up falling on the floor hehe. A good laugh, but at least I wasn't beet red. Well I was, but I had an EXCUSE! I could blame it on the sunburn! | |
| The Tennis Round | March 26, 2002 | Today was the first tournament for tennis. I didn't do all that well, but I did have a good time and do not think I should quit tennis. My doubles partner and I placed 7th place. We lost two games and won one. All in all we had a good time. I even busted out the hackey sack which was a good hit yet again with everybody. We played "Peg," a game where you kick the ball three times and after that you can grab the ball and throw it at someone. If you hit them, they must stand against the wall and everyone playing pegs them with the hackey sack (standing several feet away of course). If you throw the ball at someone and they catch it, then you're the one that must be pegged. It was a fun game, even though I got pegged about seven times.
Here is my tennis tactic that I promise yesterday that I would post today. Note this is the condensed version. Basically we always loose so I'm going to lower myself on the ranks to play lower people. Now that I'm thinking about this, this is a really stupid tactic. It's pretty unethical and things. I will try harder to get a higher ranking.
Oh, if you've noticed I've done some site maintence. The width of the actuall news postings is a bit smaller, because I'm sure people don't like scrolling to read stuff. Also I can type less and it looks like more . Another thing is that I have split the archive into two pages. Jonathan helped me figure out the problem was that my archive was so massive it was preventing PM2 to post correctly. All is fixed now. | |
| Simply Transparent 7 -- Released!! | March 25, 2002 | Yes that's right. You're all around favorite desktop-enhancement utility has been upgraded to versions seven-point-oh. It's the latest and greatest. New and improved (an oxymoron, if it's new, then there is nothing before it, but if it is improved, then something had to come before it for it to be improved upon)! Go check out JonathanGrimes.com for more information.
A little more on the issue of the SSSSSSSCA and all that: Money is a terrible thing. It's what is all behind this, the legislature won't listen to us. Going around the forums, it seems like for every one person that says "Write your legislature! It will help!" there are two people saying "It doesn't matter if you write, email, or call. The only thing they'll listen to is the sound of the greenback." I'm still going to try writing though, I don't want to say I didn't at least try. But now we must excersize our power of the Consumer, and just say no to buying all this crap from the media industry. I for one have stopped buying CD's after the RIAA/Napster deally. For one, they have applied new measures to CD's to make them "safe" and unreadable on a PC. Well I'm certainly not going to buy it if I don't even own a device that's capable of playing it! What's more is that these unplayable CD's are mixed in with playable ones and no marking is on them stating that they are "protected." That's just bad marketing schemes. The other thing is that if they would have just looked and seen that sales were rising 8% because of Napster, maybe they'd be a bit better off. Who complains about more revenue?! It's ridiculous. Instead they went against it and made many new enemies in the process. Of course now sales are down, what does that have to say? I beleive that the almighty Consumer is getting smarter. We're not dumb. We won't buy trash. Consumers now have a way to sample before they buy, see if an album is actually worth the $15 that's going to be plunked down on the table. This way we can find those "dud" albums, ones with only one or two good songs, but the rest are crap. RIAA is just upset because now they're going up against people that are smarter and better armed, and won't buy stuff that they don't deem buyable. Now they're trying to throw computers into the mix, and it's not a good mix.
Tomorrow marks the first tennis tournament for me. I hope my new strategy works. But alas! Time is out tonight and I'll have to explain it tomorrow. Wish me luck! | |
| This is Unreal! | March 24, 2002 | I've spent the last hour reading up on the whole DMCA/SSSCA/CBDTPA issues. Never heard of it? Then head here for a good overview. I would post all my opinions on it, but the fact is that there is just so much overwhelming emotions here that it's going to take a while to filter them out. In a few days I should have it all figured out. But one thing is for sure, once you know about it you HAVE to contact your representative in Congress and let them know your stance on it. We're a democracy, I don't see where these ideas could have come from. Already the DMCA was passed because we were quiet and said nothing. This time it will not be the same. Protest, anyone?
Anyways, this weekend I went to the (illegal in the futre) computer show. That place is tempting! All those good computer deals...money in pocket just itching to be spent. But, I held back. I can wait until next month. But still tempting! "A penny saved is a penny earned." Yes.
I hope everybody that has to go back to school tomorrow can readjust after Spring Break. I slept in until 12:30 everday...getting up at 7:00 is gonna come pretty close to killing me! | |
| I shall miss my lime sheets | March 21, 2002 | It occured to me today that if I upgrade my Sleeping Device to a futon, I will lose my precious lime-colored sheets. I've come to known my lime colored sheets and they are very dear to me. Whenever I have a bad day I know that my lime-colored sheets are right there, and they will never fail me. I cannot buy new ones; memories are not replaced so easily.
Ramen (sp?) noodles are the best. When I go to college and start living on my own, I will be one ramen eating person. I'll save mucho moolah by eating only ramen, and never anything else. My tastebuds will never grow tired of the taste of ramen. It is the magical food.
My room is growing more and more trashed out by the day. I've added a few touches, such as adding to the amount of spare papers on the floor, and even so far as to place a skewed magazine off of the DVD rack. At this rate I will have a very "adolescent" room. | |
| Ouch and Penny! | March 21, 2002 | Ouch because it's been a week since I last updated! Crap! Well it's not my fault entirely, I did write a post on Saturday or so, but it got lost. Alas.
Penny because I had an interesting thought yesterday. You know the saying that says if you see a penny and its on tails, you don't pick it up because it's bad luck? Well the people that say that come in behind you and pick up that penny! I know it's true. Another thing, if it was a $20 bill on tails (do bills have tails?), would you still let it be?
Let's see...it's spring break and I'm enjoying every minute of it. I've been getting a lot of stuff done, too! I'm proud of myself. I've delved a bit deeper into C++, played around with the Western Hills youth group site (I don't really care for what I have up now, trying to redo it), and jammed with the band. I must say, our small garage band has been sounding pretty good lately. We're trying to back off from the "hard rock" type stuff and moved to the softer, more melodic tunes. I think in a few weeks we might try recording something. If we want to get music around, I think the best way is via MP3. You don't have to deal with greedy record companies and trying to stay "popular" or whatever. Just put out some music, and it'll get around.
Customize.org has some of the best wallpapers I've seen in a while. They're all user-submitted, too. I'm not sure if I've linked here before, but I will now just because.
The past few days I've been going through a lot of my old stuff, trying to organize it for a garage sale. I really need to clear up some space cause I'm looking into buying a full-size futon. I'm still wrestling the idea in my mind though, because even though having a couch would be nice, it'd take up more space in my infinitesimal room and I'd have to move all my furniture around and get rid of a few things.
Computer show in 2 days. | |
| The "Eventful" Day | March 13, 2002 | David said it best, my day was "eventful." Even though I skipped tennis practice a multitude of things went on that just plain rocks.
Well let's see, I skipped tennis practice and went to Eric's house at 2:30 to "jam" with the band a bit. We're getting a bit better me thinks. But anyways, around 3:10 I left and went home. Got home at 3:45, a rest, then called David to come pick me up. Alert! This isn't my friend David from school, it is David from church. He picked up me up at 4:30, and we went to his house so I could fix his computer. A simple windows reinstall was all that was needed. After that we headed off to church where I had a good time. At church I caught up with Brian (hehe, the clash of names), and he had an extra case that he wanted taken off his hands. So I took it from him, and now I have an extra case laying around. Only problem is it's form-factor is obsolete now, but hey who cares. Then after church we went to Wal-Mart (again!) but this time I decided to skip out and walk across the street to Hastings. There I looked over DVD's and couldn't find either Mafia! or Holy Grail. I asked a nice lady there, and she helped me out. They didn't have it, but they could easily order it and it'd get here in 5-10 business days. So yay, I'll have Mafia on my DVD rack in a few days. Speaking of DVD racks, while I was at Hastings I found a great deal on DVD racks, one I couldn't pass up. A 14-capacity rack, for only $6.99. But wait! Buy it now and get one free! So that's 28 DVD's for the price of one.
But before that, my day was not so swell. It was one of those days where you just clash with everyone, everybody you run into you seem to conflict with. But I've found that the best way to deal with it is to just get away from it, think about something else. Several times today people pissed me off and the only thing I could do was just walk away and try not to think about it. Yay that is my thoughtful thought for the day/week/month/whenever.
Check out the Clock. I have no idea why something like this would go around in a foward. I mean seriously, it's cool and all, but do we really need it clogging our inboxes? | |
| DVD's and beyond | March 13, 2002 | Dang...I'm getting a bit behind. So catching up, here's what's going on:
Got the DVD-ROM yesterday. After much frustration over software decoders (grr!), I've got things sorted out and figured that DVD isn't really so bad. At first I didn't like because the decoder wasn't really seeming to decode correctly and the image quality did not look so good. But with a little tweakage, they look better and can still look more better with more tweakage (?). So far I have The Abyss and Spaceballs. I really wanted either Mafia! or Monty Python and the Holy Grail but Wal-Mart didn't have those in stock (come to think of it I've never seen Mafia! in Wal-Mart). But I was sad and had to settle for Spaceballs. A good movie still. I also have Unbreakable, which is an AWESOME movie. I'm borrowing it from a friend. So far they all look nice, but best when watching from a longer distance. About 7-8' from my 19" monitor is the sweet spot I spose. When you're sitting right next to it, you can notice the pixelation and effects. I didn't like that. But now I'm more open minded.
Here's your reminder to back up your data. Right now I'm burning My Documents to a CD-RW, mainly because I rebooted and Windows ran chkdsk for some odd reason :S. But also, tomorrow I'll be going to a person's house to help them reinstall Windows and install some more RAM (I think). They had to backup their data, of course. And ya know, it's really hard backing up stuff on infintesimal floppies instead of CD-R's or RW's.
Crapola! My parents found out about me writing about stuff on my site. I knew it'd only be a matter of time before they knew. Now the reply "just ok" will not work for the question, "how was your day?". Now they know me who I am. Sort of.
Rule for Today is: no popcorn at lunch. I found this out the hard way. I was especially careful to not drop it on the carpet, though.
I found out in art that my trash poster that I did for an anti-trash poster contest won 2nd place in my county. Wow. That's pretty sweetness (?). What I did was a simply equation. This can prove that math solves all problems (hehehe). I drew some trash + a trash can = an Oklahoma with a big grin. Then I wrote on it "Make Oklahoma Happy!". Twas great. | |
| Star Wars Episode II Trailer | March 11, 2002 | Everybody! Go to Apple.com and watch the 4th trailer. The other ones were good, but this one just absolutely gets me pumped! I'm ready for May 16th!
And don't forget a month before that is April 16th, and we all know what that means! Yes! It's the day after tax day! Just kidding...It's the day when Grand Theft Auto III comes to the PC. A glorious day indeed. If you get PC Gamer magazine, then check out this month's Eyewitness section. They have a small blurb about GTAIII. Yes.
And the month before April 16th is March 16th! And on March 16th is the week after All-Region! Hehe.
Tomorrow I should receive my DVD-ROM. It will be the first-ever device that utilizes DVD technology to bless the Schettler home. Yes, we are kind of behind but hey, we'll get it eventually. We half-way keep up with the Joneses. Stupid tennis practice keeping me away from getting home and opening my precious brown box that contains my precious DVD player! >
Also I've been notified of the fact that my SimGuild page has a few layout problems. Tonight I got them fixed, no worries. Mad props to LANCE! w00t w00t! Looking at my website makes we want to do a redesign...alas. Now that I have some time I might just work on it, if I wasn't doing other stuff like tennis and the WH Youth site. Oh well. Hey, if you take a look at the WH youth site, lemme know what you think of it. I think it's kinda okay  but it looks like "why youth" somtimes. Oh well, in due time. *cough* you never know *cough* ???
Another thing, I've been clearing out some old junk. I didn't think of this until just now, but it's getting spring and I'm doing spring cleaning. Must be something in the water, as my good cuz says. I'm thinkin', with the addition of the DVD player in my room, I'll want something a bit more comfortable than just a computer chair and bed (especially if friends come over). So throw out the bed, and put in a futon 8). Only problem is that the futon is a little bit larger and my room is extremely tiny. So, I'll have to move some stuff around and throw stuff out. And man, I have lots of old stuff. A pack rat I must be. Curses! Curses! | |
| All-Region is Over | March 10, 2002 | I know I said I'd be extremely happy when All-Region is over, beacuse then I wouldn't have anything going on and would have the time to just sit around doing nothing. Well the truth is I'm eating my words because I'm kinda sad. It was really great this year. Music wise I thought we did horrible (but everybody says this I believe) but everything else-wise it was a blast. I had a really great time hanging with friends (da homies) in the hotel and also going to get stuff to eat. I met a few new people, too. All of this will account into memories that I'll save forever. Now I kind of have a better understanding of those sayings like "you only live once" and "you're only a kid once" because they're saying these memories and experiences that you've had are extremely important and should be cherished.
Last night I had a really weird dream. I dreamed that in the middle of the night I got sick at the stomach and rushed to the sink and threw up. Shortly after that I awoke to find myself leaning over the sink puking my guts out. I was baffled and it too a while to piece it all together. I figured it was the chicken I ate that day for lunch (it was kind of pinkish looking :S) that had made me sick. In the middle of the night I slept-walked to the sink. Finally I woke up after barfing a bit. At least I think it was the chicken that made me sick. It could have been like the Matrix, where your mind thinks it and believes it's real, so as far as it is concerned, it is real. So the body acts accordingly. I'm glad my body has some sort of "auto-get-up-and-hurl" function instead of just puking all over myself while sleeping. One thing though is that dreams/sleeping is weird. We need to learn more about it.
Today I had originally planned to have some friends over after we got back from All-Region and watch some DVD's on my brand-spankin' new DVD player. Unfortunately, it didn't arrive! Stupid thing! It's UPS's fault. For some reason it was shipped to Kansas instead of Oklahoma, but it's okay, I can live with it. "Patience is a virtue." So I will wait until Monday, then I will have superior DVD-action! Yay! I'm so excited. | |
| All-Region: Tomorrow | March 7, 2002 | | I'm about to get off for the night, decided I should make an update. Yesterday I got a haircut, hooray! Now I'm getting ready for the long and grueling affair of All-Region, in which I will be gone until Saturday. Saturday I will get home, open the box and claim my DVD player. It should be here tomorrow, yet I'll be gone. So Saturday, I'll have some friends over and we'll watch some DVD's and stuff. It'll be ultra-keen. 8) | |
| Taking it easy... | March 4, 2002 | Ah, time to relax. Science fair is over, everything is over, it's all easy sailing. The most I have going on is tennis practice nearly everyday () but it's not that bad. Other then that I made a diagram of my room, with furniture and everything in proportion. I'm trying to figure out a way I can move my furniture around and fit a futon in here. I'd really like a couch to watch movies on my new DVD. 8) Oh, that reminds me... (alas it's been a while since I updated!)
Oh yes, the science fair. It seems I haven't updated on that recently. Well to my surprise I found that my project won 1st place in the 9th grade botany category, but also 1st place in the 9th grade "Best of Show" category!! Yay! They were even nice enough to include prize money. So with some extra cash, I bought a DVD-ROM for me comp. At last, jumping on the DVD bandwagon. I also put aside enough for 2 DVD's, one action and one comedy. For the action movie I believe I'll pick up The Abyss and for comedy, it's a tie between Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Mafia!. Both hilarious movies indeed. | |
| Word today, Science fair tomorrow | March 1, 2002 | Well let's see. Today in the mail I recieved Word 2002 that I bought from ebay. I installed it then realized, it's another one of M$'s ploys to get more money! You have to activate this product and blah blah blah. It's stupid. I thought there was a good rant here and also a good explanation of WPA and why it's stupid here. So now I'm kind of looking at getting rid of this copy of Word, and going for the although slightly older but WPA-less Office 2000 suite. Anybody want a copy of Word 2002 (unactivated!) for $65? Send me an EMAIL. Thanks.
I'm starting to become addicted to ebay, I think. I just kind of sit around and browse what's selling, bookmark a few things, becoming a master. I can feel it in my blood.
Tomorrow is the science fair. Right now I don't have to worry about anything! Hooray! Complete lack of stress here, folks! Well almost. Tomorrow I have to get up and go down at 7:30 to make "final preparations" then an extremely long judging process takes place. Good thing I have my "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings" book. I'll also be thinking about all the games I can now play, since all projects are over. This feeling is great! Ever since the 2nd week in January, I've been having something going on every single weekend. It has just been one long hectic time with no breaks. I can feel that comming to an end soon. Everybody look ahead, because you NEVER KNOW, and look towards those times of rest and relaxation! | |
| Almost over | February 28, 2002 | | Today is the last full day for the science fair, really. I've got nearly everything ready, I printed out all the pages that will need to go on my display board, all I have to do is cut and paste them. And then I'll choose some pictures that I can paste onto the middle. And then it will be over, and I can rest. Alas. | |
| The End is Near | February 26, 2002 | I can feel the end of the Science Project nearing. Tonight I finished my report, and dang! it's 2117 words long!! I think there is a limit...surely I passed it. Now it seems surreal that there could be a time where I'm not pressed to do something, I can actually relax. Ah, how we should long for those times.
Sadly, my funny pants week did not go through. Something about when I woke up this morning. In the morning, everything is different. I'm all cranky and stuff. It takes time to get going, you know? Oh well. Now I feel like wearing different pants tomorrow.
I did an update on markandlance today. | |
| Today's word is "Individualist" | February 25, 2002 | It was also windy and we didn't have tennis practice.
Here's the rip straight from an email:
today I brought my shorts to school, because I'd need them for tennis practice. well before I went to lunch I decided to grab them...might make a good something-to-goof-around-with thing, ya know? so then eric and I were waiting in the long line, with me holding my shorts. I got board so I took off my belt, looped it through the front belt loops of the shorts, then tied it to myself. needless to say it didn't take too long for people to notice I had this pair of shorts that were just there in the front hehe. so then I go through the line and there's a teacher lady there and she was all athoritive and stuff..."have you talked to mrs monts about that?" and "you need to take off your pants". So I said I'd talk to mrs. monts about it and blah blah, so I got my lunch and ate. well lunch was over and I had to get to class so I didn't get to talk to mrs monts how sad, I didn't even see her really. So I just went to band, and along the way I got compliments like "nice pants" and "I like your pants!". so I got to band and mrs allen was in one of her moods (contest wednesday, you know) so she was like "I dont know this joking around! you need to take off that belt!" so I go to band, and throughout the rest of the day. twas kewl now, did you notice something peculiar? THE SCHOOL IS PERVERTED. yes it is. the teachers say things like "take off your pants" and "take off that belt!", while the students are well mannered and compliment my style, saying things like "nice pants" and "I like your pants!"
See the kind of stuff we have to deal with?! It's pitiful! Anyways, I declare this week "different pants week". Everyday I'm going to wear some pants that are different. Tomorrow I have some camo pants I can wear, and then Wednesday is band contest day, so I can wear my uniform pants that day. Thursday I'll wear some church slacks or something, and Friday, I just won't wear any pants, I guess.
Reading the Lord of the Rings now sucks. It's extremely hard to get out of your mind what you saw in the movie, you know. It's almost as if I'm not actually reading the book, but just kind of following a script, and playing back the movie in my mind. I wish I could have that sense of relation, like I was associated, to the characters made up in my mind. But I don't have that, I have something what somebody else wants me to see.
Everyone be happy, the Hectic Times™ are comming to a close soon. Friday evening, I'll have nothing to do but relax (almost). Friday afternoon, I'll set up my project at the school, then come home and wait until tomorrow, where I'll get up, be there to have it judged and then go home. Then after that...is All-Region next week, but it doesn't really matter . Yes...I can feel the free time already almost.
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| It's a new week | February 24, 2002 | Today I went to a youth rally with my cousin's church. It's weird going to someplace where people don't clap or anything. It was kind of scary. I hope the people that come to our Sunday Night Live (hey, I wonder if they need a website?) will clap and stuff.
The Science Project is nearing completion. All I have to do is construct my display board and write my report.
I really hope MS Word 2002 that I won in an auction gets here soon. The old version of MS Works that I have is barely cutting it. I need something new. I need power. I need...new.
I wonder... You know about our little cell phone business (if not, read the last post). So now I'm thinking...you have your phone in your house, but you can split the wires and add however many phones you want. The phone company doesn't mind because it's all the same phone number. I wonder if it's the same on cellular phones? Because we have two phones that have the same phone number. If you call that number, they'll both ring. This really limits the usability of it, if you have two people carrying around phones with the same number, like if you tried to call them, it'd be difficult because one person would pick up, and what if it was the wrong person? You'd have to call again, and what if the person #2 didn't pick up the phone? Exactly. You'd have to work out some sort of system where, if the phone rings once, I leave it alone. But if it rings again in a certain amount of time, then I'll pick it up. The good side would be is that you have a phone, and if you're in a jam you can use it to call someone. I need to go by the phone place and ask them about this. | |
| Mini-Odyssey | February 23, 2002 | Having read the Odyssey (actually only short portions of it...stupid class), I'm thinking back to other forms of entertainment, of ways to tell a story. Lately I've just been reading long books such as The Hobbit and The Odyssey, of course. This Saturday morning the cartoons were on and I thought about how they fit a story of characters, complications, climax and resolution all into about half an hour. Actually it'd be more like 20 minutes due to commercials. This is our mini-epic, we have just about zero character-development, just some quick problem that must be solved in a very short amount of time. Are we lazy? I don't know. Some shows are like continual episodes, it shows are large story in little chunks. Others are just plain episodes, you can cut and paste them in any sequence and it'd still make sense. Just a thought I had today.
This morning was Solo/Ensamble. My duet made a 2. That's what we thought were going to make. Funny, I played parts I was having difficulty with flawlessly, but ones that I knew front and backwards I messed up on. Oh well, that's just how things go.
Since the contest started at 7:30 and got out around 9:30, I got to see the morning for the first time in a long time. When you think about it, if your routine becames so systematic that you're only ourside at certain portions of the day, you're bound to miss something. This morning I saw the morning, felt the freshness of the air. Everything seems weird too, the light comming from the wrong direction. I kind of miss it now. Today also marks the first day of the year that I've worn shorts.
Cell phones are just an item of status. Our family upgraded it's plan, and now we have an extra (deactivated) phone. I don't want to see anything thrown away so I asked for it. Now I have my own cell phone. You can't call anybody on it, but hey! I have a phone. I am cool. I can keep several phone numbers in the address book and play "Snake" whenever I want to. I am cool.
Oh yes, everyone needs to download the song: Rob D - Clubbed to Death (Kurayamino Mix). You will listen to this over and over and over and still not be able to get enough of it. Hopefully this will soon be on the EDB (Eric-David-Brian) Band's repertoire. | |
| It's a race for the plants | February 20, 2002 | The plants are really growing in the soil now. Yay.
I think I should just say this, but YOU NEVER KNOW.
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| Rat Race and Tennis | February 19, 2002 | Two things happened to me today and they can both be applied to my new motto -- "You never know".
Thing Number One: Was our first tennis practice today. I had thought about just not doing it this year, since things didn't look so well when we went to the meeting. But I wanted to check it out before I did something I might regret, and I did that today. This year won't be better than last year, in fact it'll be a lot worse. But it's not as bad as I thought it could be, but then again our main coach wasn't here today, and we had somebody else. so it could still go for the worse. BUT YOU NEVER KNOW!
Thing Number Two: I saw Rat Race today. I wasn't going to watch it, it looked stupid and like it was going to be a bad movie (as far as language, sex, stuff like that goes). But a quick look at a review online looked like it'd be my kind of movie, and my mom and sister watched it today and said it wasn't that bad. So after missing the first 20 minutes of it, I went and watched it. It wasn't a bad movie. SO YOU NEVER KNOW. | |
| eBay | February 18, 2002 | Today I had my first venture trading on eBay. What a rush. I feel this close-knit sense of community while I'm online, trading my valuables. Actually I just bought Microsoft Word 2002. I was trying to do my Science Paper in an OLD version of Microsoft Works, it came out with windows 95, that's how old it is. I'm surprised it even runs on Windows 2000. It's bad too, doesn't keep things formatted correctly, not much you can do with it really. Plus it's just OLD. I can't stand it. But now I'll have the latest and greatest. I've never been so excited over a word processor.
Also today I saw the movie The Count of Monte Cristo with our church youth group. It was a good movie, although it seemed pretty drawn out. But it did have a good moral to it though. I was thinking about that today, do we even get the morals that are in movies today, or do we just go to see them as a social event or just purely for entertainment? For me it was just to go see it for entertainment, and to be able to say, "yeah, I saw it." But now I'm turning over a new leaf. I'm going to pay attention to movies and just suck the moral right out of it. For The Count of Monte Cristo it had to do with something about how your friends should be loyal to you. Friends are important. This reminds me of my essay over Benvolio that I did just a few weeks ago.
Tennis will start tomorrow. I'm not really ready, but to me it seems like tennis will not be a great thing this year. It'll just be something that I'll go to and that's that. Mainly it's because the coaches look mean and that they don't know how to have fun (last year I was known for my extreme goofing off). Also there is the extreme unfair distrobution of tennis courts. 15 guys will be sharing ONE tennis court. I'll make sure to bring my homework so I can finish it at tennis practice. But you never know (this should be my saying), it could be different and I might be eating my words here soon. I'm not just going to quit, I should try it out and all that good stuff. | |
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